I'll take that snow day
Jan. 10th, 2025 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessDidn't need it. It didn't snow until 9 pm but I'm not arguing because that all day meeting is usually boring and not helpful.
I didn't know it wasn't going to snow though so when it wasn't this morning I raced to Jackson to the store and to the library because shockingly one of my holds came in within 3 days (that has never happened before) so got that. Entered the fray inside Kroger. Rotissiere chicken for the win (if I lose power I can still eat that which was my goal for all my purchases) Made soup from some of my buys, very good but my dumplings ate my broth. Foolishly went across and ice floe at the Dollar tree so I could get a get well card for my BFF from college who broke her ankle on the ice back home...
Also Rocket did come back like an hour after I posted last night and he stayed in all night. Right now he's in. it started snowing but not much (not yet) and that's okay because a light snow isn't killing my power which is all I worry about. I can deal with snow.
I got a story written today which is good (because all the ones I've been writing I can't share until the community reveals)
Title: Nobody's Sweetheart Now
Summary: Angel was not prepared to deal with an angry Vox and is reminded just how much words can hurt. Vox learns what kind of man Angel used to be before Valentino and is becoming again.
Author Note - This is a stand alone story in The Spider Brothers Overlords canon divergence. You don’t need to read the first story (But please do if you’d like to) It should be clear what happened in that one.
Written forspikesgirl58’s six word challenge. The words were Clarify, Cup, Inch, Duck, Extension, & Raid. Also written for the ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
allbingo public domain bingo prompt of “Nobody's Sweetheart” and for the lyricaltitles duet challenge 2025 using Nobody's Sweetheart by Cab Calloway (Originally by Ishram Jones Brunswick records, 78 single, 1924 but Cab’s version was cleaner to listen to so I linked to that version, also it’s the one Angel would have been more familiar with in the 30s)
You're nobody's sweetheart now,
'Cause nobody wants you, somehow
Angel Dust hadn’t expected to see Vox darkening his door. It had been several months since Valentino had died in the hellfire explosion Angel and Arackniss had engineered with some help from Zestial. Vox was the last thing he needed, already battered from idiocy last night. He really needed to learn when to duck. Angel resisted the urge to rise when Vox pushed past Dreama who had been manning the front desk while working on her latest script. Victory, his actual right hand woman, was off today. Instead of rising to greet him, Angel tilted back in his chair.
“Vox, this is unexpected.”
“Cut the shit, Angel. You and I need to talk. It’s long overdue.”
Angel swallowed back a sigh. If he antagonized Vox, he’d have both Vees up his ass in a bad way. He gestured to the leather chair in front of his desk. Vox dropped into it and cocked his big TV head to the side.
“What happened to your face?”
Touching the bruise, eggplant in color and size, on his cheek, Angel scowled. “Someone tried to raid me yesterday and take my actors by force for some brothel that’s now a smoking hole in the ground.”
“Oh, that was you. Seems you’re really into burning buildings to the ground.”
Angel pulled a cigarette pack from his desk and offered it to Vox who waved him off. “I burned the brothel. I did not burn the Vee tower down.” It was a blatant lie but Vox’s irritated expression suggested he couldn’t tell that it was as much as he wanted to.
“Then clarify for me what happened,” Vox said, sounding more tired than angry at this point.
Angel took a drag on his cigarette. The one thing that had happened now that he was a minor overlord, he had fallen back on his living ways, smoking more than he got high. That was a treat now versus something to erase the horror of his life. He cupped his sore face in one hand, preparing himself to tell the same story he had been floating since the day Vee Tower went up in hellfire with Valentino as the point of ignition.
“I’ve told you this before, Vox. Once I came back from recovering at my brother’s place, Val and I were partying. We made a short movie together and then he wanted me to come up to the penthouse to continue in private. There’s nothing unusual in that.”
Vox’s eyes lidded heavily, thinking on that. How many times had he joined them? Angel lost track of their trysts. Vox never had liked him much but did it to please Val: fucking Angel while Val watched, one of them taking him up the ass while he sucked off the other, both of them up him at once. He had hated that particularly. For that matter, Angel never thought Vox enjoyed any of it either.
“No, he planned that night out. Wanted to know if I had wanted to be part of it,” Vox said softly.
Angel shuddered. What if Vox had said yes? Would he have still encouraged Valentino to open that combustible hellfire someone named Baxter had mixed up for Zestial? Certainly Zestial wouldn’t have complained if Angel had taken out two Vees at once. Chances are he’d have died too and not be sitting where he was, in control of Valentino’s porn empire.
“That’s a hard place to be, Vox,” Angel replied with sympathy that might blow up in his face if the sudden influx of rage across Vox’s screen was anything to go by. “I know you have to be thinking what if I was there? Could I have stopped this? Could I have saved him?” He plowed on regardless. Angel kept his ‘am I not better off without him because he made life so hard for me and Velvette?’ to himself.
Vox dug his nails into the arms of the chair, ruining them under his claws. “You know nothing, you coked up-”
“I know this,” Angel broke in before Vox could finish his insult. “I know you cared about Valentino, more than you want to admit. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been there in the bed with us.”
Vox slapped a hand down on the desk. “Never mention that anyone!”
“Fine.” Angel shrugged. “Ain’t like I was thrilled to be there either. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I liked the things Val forced me to do. You and I were caught up in his switches.”
When Vox said nothing, Angel continued his story even though Vox had heard it all before more than once. “We got a gift that was supposed to have been from Lust. Looked like a bottle of lube but it exploded into hellfire the moment Val opened it to test out how it felt. Don’t need to tell you not all lubes are created equal.” Again Vox said nothing so Angel kept talking. “The whole penthouse went up like it was doused in gasoline. Val was engulfed and…and…”
Angel didn’t need his acting chops for this. It had been harder than he expected to watch Valentino burn. Yes, he deserved it but watching flesh cook like that, hearing the screams, it had been terrible. The screams were still in his nightmares. It took a few heartbeats before Angel realized he’d wrapped himself up in all of his arms. He shook himself free and took a drag. “It was horrible, Vox. I see it in my head at night. I know you think I did it but it wasn’t me.” Technically it was him, Arackniss, and Zestial but Vox had no idea Angel hadn’t acted alone. Okay, he might suspect Angel’s brother.
“You sure as fuck left him there and ran,” Vox grated out.
“You’re right. I did. There was no saving him, Vox. It happened so fast. I panicked and jumped from the balcony. I showed you my own injuries. I’m lucky I didn’t’ die with him.”
“And I’m expected to believe you didn’t set that trap for him.”
“I would have sent something when I was safely at my brother’s if it had been me,” Angel replied, thinking that sounded reasonable. “Val had more enemies than friends and you know that. You also know far better than me that being an overlord always means someone is gunning for you. If nothing else, the Radio Demon likes to collect them like baseball cards.”
Angel could practically see the steam rising off Vox’s head. Electricity arced between his antennae.
“You can add that name to the things I don’t want to hear out of your mouth. You have to have some idea who sent that explosive.”
“Asmodeus. It was from Ozzie’s but why he’d bother, I don’t know.”
“Val’s let him use you as a play toy. You could have asked him to do it for all I know.”
“I suppose that’s true. You could ask him. I’m not sure he’d bother to lie.” Asmodeus liked Angel well enough and truthfully hadn’t liked Valentino because he was, at the heart of it, a rapist and Asmodeus did not condone forced lust.
“You wasted no time in stealing everything that was Val’s.”
Angels own temper flared. “I earned most of it, on my back and brutalized. You didn’t fight me for it, neither did Velvette.”
“I expected you to get your ass handed to you and we could take what was left,” Vox lied. He’d never admit how stricken he’d been after Val died permanently but Angel had seen it.
“You know Henroin and Arackniss and now you know they’re my family. We were all in the mafia, Vox. I know how to grab power and hold it. You probably don’t even remember me when I first met Valentino. I wasn’t Angel Dust yet. Val created that persona for me. I’ve been him a long time but I haven’t forgotten how to brawl, how to shoot who I need to, how to break those who need breaking and how to ally with those who can help me.”
Vox scowled at him. “You turned me and Velvette down.”
Angel held up a finger. “I didn’t think you really meant it and I still don’t. If you wanted the porn industry, you’d have frozen me out. I needed to stand on my own two feet, Vox. You have no need of me and I know it. I don’t want to be your enemy either. I’ve got my small piece of the pie and it’s enough for me. You and I are better as is. I buy my electronics from you and you don’t have daily reminders of the things Valentino asked us to do together. As we are now, he’s mostly not in the room with us, taking up our space.”
Vox’s screen dimmed. “And you think that’s what I want.”
“Exorcising Val was what I need.” Angel hated how true that was. “Look, Vox. I keep doing business with you because, while I know there are others in the same field as you, you’re the best. I know you and how you operate and that counts for something. I’m sorry you’re hurting over Val but I’m not going to be happy if you keep yelling at me and saying I killed him.” He glowered at Vox.
Vox narrowed his eyes. “Because I know you did. I just don’t know how.”
“And if I did? No one in hell is going to care other than you and maybe Velvette, though she might appreciate the daring of it. I did not do this.”
“You learned to lie in the mob and how to keep a poker face,” Vox scoffed. “Better than I credited you for.”
“Maybe I did.” Angel hoped he wouldn’t have to fight Vox here and now.
“You think you have hell on a string now, don’t you, Angel? Guess what, you don’t. You are so used to being everyone’s sweetheart, the slut everyone wanted to fuck,” Vox snarled. “Being an overlord changes that, especially when you’ve killed the hand that fed you. You're nobody's sweetheart now, 'cause nobody wants you, somehow.”
“You gonna croon it to me like Cab Calloway, Voxy?”
Vox blinked. Had he forgotten he and Angel were close in age, had grown up with the same music, the same dance halls, only Vox had gotten to live longer. Angel knew the song Vox was ripping off. “It’s true. They’ll turn on you.”
“Maybe so, Vox, but right now, after everything Valentino did to me, I’m okay with being nobody’s sweetheart. I’m good alone for now. Who knows what the new me will want down the road. All I know is I’m done with being degraded and hurt.”
Vox said nothing, more static whipping between his antennae.
“Get out of my way you bitch. This is half your fault anyhow.” Someone shrieked from the anteroom.
Angel and Vox both looked at the office door.
“Tiffany?” Vox asked wearily, surely having been witness to Titfucker’s tantrums in front of Val.
“Tiffany.” Angel sighed. “Get in here and quit making a fuss.”
She stormed in, slamming the door behind her. Vox’s presence gave her a moment’s pause. Tiffany turned back to Angel, her huge breasts heaving. “You worthless century old blow up doll, I am not doing a porno with Ryon the trash man, no matter how pretty dumbfuck Dreama thinks her script is.”
Angel caught Vox mouthing the words ‘century old blow up doll’ but ignored him. He lit up another cigarette and poured himself some whiskey. “Tiff, the only reason you’re not picking your teeth out of my carpet is Ryon is paying me a shit ton of money to do this and he won’t if it looks like you ran face first into a wall. Quit whining. You’re making forty percent off this.”
Vox raised his eyebrows as Tiffany made a derisive noise.
“I pay better than Val did,” he said to Vox who nodded.
“And you think it’s enough to make me do this?” Tiffany raged. “He smells like hot garbage someone shit in and have you seen his cock? I heard it’s like an inch long.”
“You’re creative on screen. You can manage his short comings. If not, get him an extension. We have plenty of them, longer, wider, corkscrewy, whatever you want.” Angel flapped a hand at her.
“What I want is to not do this. Get someone else.”
“He paid for you specifically and if you keep bitching, Tiff, I’ll drag the extensions modeled off horses and whales out of storage.” Angel only kept them because there were some actors who liked it - he sure as shit hadn’t – and Lucifer knew there was a market.
Tiffany paled. “I’m not doing it.”
With a lazy hand, Angel summoned up his control over her, his chains neon pink, and after it snapped around her neck, he dragged her forward. Tiffany stumbled, going to her knees. “Did I say if it pleases her majesty? I don’t ask much of you, Tiffany. You get first pick of your scripts and partners, which is more than Valentino ever gave you but when someone thumps down this much money, I’m not turning it away. I’ll be sure to sell him on a spa day before hand on my dime. He won’t smell so bad. Can’t do much about his looks but we’ve both had to fuck uglier, now haven’t we?”
He let the chains snap back out of existence and Tiffany toppled backward.
“I hate you.”
“You always have. If you don’t mind, I’m entertaining Vox at the moment. My suggestion is go talk over the scenes nicely with Dreama and then go pick some toys for screen time.” Angel rose to his feet. “Don’t make me get mean, Tiff.”
“Oh, fuck yourself,” she spat but she left just the same.
Vox tracked her departure and glanced back at angel. “I didn’t think you had that in you.”
“I do.” But it didn’t make him happy that he did.
Vox stood as well. “Makes me think you murdered Val all the more.”
Angel smirked. “Not surprised. Are we done here, Vox?”
“For now. Better hope I never learn you did it, Angel.”
He wouldn’t from Zestial or Arackniss. Did Baxter know why Zestial had asked for the explosive? Hopefully he thought Zestial had been behind it alone and was smart enough not to piss off one of the most frightening overlords in hell. Angel simply smiled at Vox and said, “I didn’t.”
Vox snorted and showed himself out. He paused in the doorway. “Century old blow up doll, heh.”
“You should hear what she calls you behind your back.”
Vox glanced back at him. “I can only imagine. Keep what I said in mind, Angel Dust. You’re nobody’s sweetheart now. You don’t have enough juice to take me on.”
Angel didn’t reply. It hurt nothing to let Vox have the last word because he was right. Angel didn’t have the juice to tackle the Vees, not yet. He would only try it if they forced him into it. He could take a live and let live approach. If nothing else, he might start being a little nicer to Alastor, just in case. He loved old music and radio shows after all. It would be a place to start.
He sagged back down into his chair and drank straight from the bottle. He could do without confrontations like that. He’d tell his family about it but no one else. Who knew how much Tiffany and Dreama overheard. The former he could control or tear apart if he needed to and the latter had hitched her wagon to his. She wouldn’t betray him this early into the game.
And had he really brought out the soul contract chains in public? Fuck, he didn’t want to be like Valentino but he had to go this far with Tiffany. It had been him or her and he had won. He needed to keep control of his temper. Angel quit his office and went to his new home, fortress really, with Arackniss’ advice in play. He fed and then cuddled Fat Nuggets after snorting several lines of cocaine trying to forget the encounter with Vox and how far he’d gone with Tiffany. Tomorrow was another day, not that it would necessarily be a brighter one. It was hell after all.
Angel thought about what Vox had said and it hurt. He softly sang, “Well, it all seems wrong somehow, but you're nobody's sweetheart now.”
He cradled Fat Nuggets closer and kissed the top of the pig’s head.
“I’m your sweetheart, aren’t I, Nuggs?”
His pig nuzzled him, licking his chin, and that was answer enough.
Fannish 50's fandom rec time
Healing Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Better Left Unsaid Torchwood
Love's a gamble, and baby I'm all in. Hazbin Hotel wip
the memory of lightning
陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
A Bit Of Fun Torchwood
Singing Like a Bird The Owl House
Friend of Friends Teen Wolf
I didn't know it wasn't going to snow though so when it wasn't this morning I raced to Jackson to the store and to the library because shockingly one of my holds came in within 3 days (that has never happened before) so got that. Entered the fray inside Kroger. Rotissiere chicken for the win (if I lose power I can still eat that which was my goal for all my purchases) Made soup from some of my buys, very good but my dumplings ate my broth. Foolishly went across and ice floe at the Dollar tree so I could get a get well card for my BFF from college who broke her ankle on the ice back home...
Also Rocket did come back like an hour after I posted last night and he stayed in all night. Right now he's in. it started snowing but not much (not yet) and that's okay because a light snow isn't killing my power which is all I worry about. I can deal with snow.
I got a story written today which is good (because all the ones I've been writing I can't share until the community reveals)
Title: Nobody's Sweetheart Now
Summary: Angel was not prepared to deal with an angry Vox and is reminded just how much words can hurt. Vox learns what kind of man Angel used to be before Valentino and is becoming again.
Author Note - This is a stand alone story in The Spider Brothers Overlords canon divergence. You don’t need to read the first story (But please do if you’d like to) It should be clear what happened in that one.
Written for
spikesgirl58’s six word challenge. The words were Clarify, Cup, Inch, Duck, Extension, & Raid. Also written for the allbingo public domain bingo prompt of “Nobody's Sweetheart” and for the lyricaltitles duet challenge 2025 using Nobody's Sweetheart by Cab Calloway (Originally by Ishram Jones Brunswick records, 78 single, 1924 but Cab’s version was cleaner to listen to so I linked to that version, also it’s the one Angel would have been more familiar with in the 30s)You're nobody's sweetheart now,
'Cause nobody wants you, somehow
Angel Dust hadn’t expected to see Vox darkening his door. It had been several months since Valentino had died in the hellfire explosion Angel and Arackniss had engineered with some help from Zestial. Vox was the last thing he needed, already battered from idiocy last night. He really needed to learn when to duck. Angel resisted the urge to rise when Vox pushed past Dreama who had been manning the front desk while working on her latest script. Victory, his actual right hand woman, was off today. Instead of rising to greet him, Angel tilted back in his chair.
“Vox, this is unexpected.”
“Cut the shit, Angel. You and I need to talk. It’s long overdue.”
Angel swallowed back a sigh. If he antagonized Vox, he’d have both Vees up his ass in a bad way. He gestured to the leather chair in front of his desk. Vox dropped into it and cocked his big TV head to the side.
“What happened to your face?”
Touching the bruise, eggplant in color and size, on his cheek, Angel scowled. “Someone tried to raid me yesterday and take my actors by force for some brothel that’s now a smoking hole in the ground.”
“Oh, that was you. Seems you’re really into burning buildings to the ground.”
Angel pulled a cigarette pack from his desk and offered it to Vox who waved him off. “I burned the brothel. I did not burn the Vee tower down.” It was a blatant lie but Vox’s irritated expression suggested he couldn’t tell that it was as much as he wanted to.
“Then clarify for me what happened,” Vox said, sounding more tired than angry at this point.
Angel took a drag on his cigarette. The one thing that had happened now that he was a minor overlord, he had fallen back on his living ways, smoking more than he got high. That was a treat now versus something to erase the horror of his life. He cupped his sore face in one hand, preparing himself to tell the same story he had been floating since the day Vee Tower went up in hellfire with Valentino as the point of ignition.
“I’ve told you this before, Vox. Once I came back from recovering at my brother’s place, Val and I were partying. We made a short movie together and then he wanted me to come up to the penthouse to continue in private. There’s nothing unusual in that.”
Vox’s eyes lidded heavily, thinking on that. How many times had he joined them? Angel lost track of their trysts. Vox never had liked him much but did it to please Val: fucking Angel while Val watched, one of them taking him up the ass while he sucked off the other, both of them up him at once. He had hated that particularly. For that matter, Angel never thought Vox enjoyed any of it either.
“No, he planned that night out. Wanted to know if I had wanted to be part of it,” Vox said softly.
Angel shuddered. What if Vox had said yes? Would he have still encouraged Valentino to open that combustible hellfire someone named Baxter had mixed up for Zestial? Certainly Zestial wouldn’t have complained if Angel had taken out two Vees at once. Chances are he’d have died too and not be sitting where he was, in control of Valentino’s porn empire.
“That’s a hard place to be, Vox,” Angel replied with sympathy that might blow up in his face if the sudden influx of rage across Vox’s screen was anything to go by. “I know you have to be thinking what if I was there? Could I have stopped this? Could I have saved him?” He plowed on regardless. Angel kept his ‘am I not better off without him because he made life so hard for me and Velvette?’ to himself.
Vox dug his nails into the arms of the chair, ruining them under his claws. “You know nothing, you coked up-”
“I know this,” Angel broke in before Vox could finish his insult. “I know you cared about Valentino, more than you want to admit. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been there in the bed with us.”
Vox slapped a hand down on the desk. “Never mention that anyone!”
“Fine.” Angel shrugged. “Ain’t like I was thrilled to be there either. Don’t make the mistake of thinking I liked the things Val forced me to do. You and I were caught up in his switches.”
When Vox said nothing, Angel continued his story even though Vox had heard it all before more than once. “We got a gift that was supposed to have been from Lust. Looked like a bottle of lube but it exploded into hellfire the moment Val opened it to test out how it felt. Don’t need to tell you not all lubes are created equal.” Again Vox said nothing so Angel kept talking. “The whole penthouse went up like it was doused in gasoline. Val was engulfed and…and…”
Angel didn’t need his acting chops for this. It had been harder than he expected to watch Valentino burn. Yes, he deserved it but watching flesh cook like that, hearing the screams, it had been terrible. The screams were still in his nightmares. It took a few heartbeats before Angel realized he’d wrapped himself up in all of his arms. He shook himself free and took a drag. “It was horrible, Vox. I see it in my head at night. I know you think I did it but it wasn’t me.” Technically it was him, Arackniss, and Zestial but Vox had no idea Angel hadn’t acted alone. Okay, he might suspect Angel’s brother.
“You sure as fuck left him there and ran,” Vox grated out.
“You’re right. I did. There was no saving him, Vox. It happened so fast. I panicked and jumped from the balcony. I showed you my own injuries. I’m lucky I didn’t’ die with him.”
“And I’m expected to believe you didn’t set that trap for him.”
“I would have sent something when I was safely at my brother’s if it had been me,” Angel replied, thinking that sounded reasonable. “Val had more enemies than friends and you know that. You also know far better than me that being an overlord always means someone is gunning for you. If nothing else, the Radio Demon likes to collect them like baseball cards.”
Angel could practically see the steam rising off Vox’s head. Electricity arced between his antennae.
“You can add that name to the things I don’t want to hear out of your mouth. You have to have some idea who sent that explosive.”
“Asmodeus. It was from Ozzie’s but why he’d bother, I don’t know.”
“Val’s let him use you as a play toy. You could have asked him to do it for all I know.”
“I suppose that’s true. You could ask him. I’m not sure he’d bother to lie.” Asmodeus liked Angel well enough and truthfully hadn’t liked Valentino because he was, at the heart of it, a rapist and Asmodeus did not condone forced lust.
“You wasted no time in stealing everything that was Val’s.”
Angels own temper flared. “I earned most of it, on my back and brutalized. You didn’t fight me for it, neither did Velvette.”
“I expected you to get your ass handed to you and we could take what was left,” Vox lied. He’d never admit how stricken he’d been after Val died permanently but Angel had seen it.
“You know Henroin and Arackniss and now you know they’re my family. We were all in the mafia, Vox. I know how to grab power and hold it. You probably don’t even remember me when I first met Valentino. I wasn’t Angel Dust yet. Val created that persona for me. I’ve been him a long time but I haven’t forgotten how to brawl, how to shoot who I need to, how to break those who need breaking and how to ally with those who can help me.”
Vox scowled at him. “You turned me and Velvette down.”
Angel held up a finger. “I didn’t think you really meant it and I still don’t. If you wanted the porn industry, you’d have frozen me out. I needed to stand on my own two feet, Vox. You have no need of me and I know it. I don’t want to be your enemy either. I’ve got my small piece of the pie and it’s enough for me. You and I are better as is. I buy my electronics from you and you don’t have daily reminders of the things Valentino asked us to do together. As we are now, he’s mostly not in the room with us, taking up our space.”
Vox’s screen dimmed. “And you think that’s what I want.”
“Exorcising Val was what I need.” Angel hated how true that was. “Look, Vox. I keep doing business with you because, while I know there are others in the same field as you, you’re the best. I know you and how you operate and that counts for something. I’m sorry you’re hurting over Val but I’m not going to be happy if you keep yelling at me and saying I killed him.” He glowered at Vox.
Vox narrowed his eyes. “Because I know you did. I just don’t know how.”
“And if I did? No one in hell is going to care other than you and maybe Velvette, though she might appreciate the daring of it. I did not do this.”
“You learned to lie in the mob and how to keep a poker face,” Vox scoffed. “Better than I credited you for.”
“Maybe I did.” Angel hoped he wouldn’t have to fight Vox here and now.
“You think you have hell on a string now, don’t you, Angel? Guess what, you don’t. You are so used to being everyone’s sweetheart, the slut everyone wanted to fuck,” Vox snarled. “Being an overlord changes that, especially when you’ve killed the hand that fed you. You're nobody's sweetheart now, 'cause nobody wants you, somehow.”
“You gonna croon it to me like Cab Calloway, Voxy?”
Vox blinked. Had he forgotten he and Angel were close in age, had grown up with the same music, the same dance halls, only Vox had gotten to live longer. Angel knew the song Vox was ripping off. “It’s true. They’ll turn on you.”
“Maybe so, Vox, but right now, after everything Valentino did to me, I’m okay with being nobody’s sweetheart. I’m good alone for now. Who knows what the new me will want down the road. All I know is I’m done with being degraded and hurt.”
Vox said nothing, more static whipping between his antennae.
“Get out of my way you bitch. This is half your fault anyhow.” Someone shrieked from the anteroom.
Angel and Vox both looked at the office door.
“Tiffany?” Vox asked wearily, surely having been witness to Titfucker’s tantrums in front of Val.
“Tiffany.” Angel sighed. “Get in here and quit making a fuss.”
She stormed in, slamming the door behind her. Vox’s presence gave her a moment’s pause. Tiffany turned back to Angel, her huge breasts heaving. “You worthless century old blow up doll, I am not doing a porno with Ryon the trash man, no matter how pretty dumbfuck Dreama thinks her script is.”
Angel caught Vox mouthing the words ‘century old blow up doll’ but ignored him. He lit up another cigarette and poured himself some whiskey. “Tiff, the only reason you’re not picking your teeth out of my carpet is Ryon is paying me a shit ton of money to do this and he won’t if it looks like you ran face first into a wall. Quit whining. You’re making forty percent off this.”
Vox raised his eyebrows as Tiffany made a derisive noise.
“I pay better than Val did,” he said to Vox who nodded.
“And you think it’s enough to make me do this?” Tiffany raged. “He smells like hot garbage someone shit in and have you seen his cock? I heard it’s like an inch long.”
“You’re creative on screen. You can manage his short comings. If not, get him an extension. We have plenty of them, longer, wider, corkscrewy, whatever you want.” Angel flapped a hand at her.
“What I want is to not do this. Get someone else.”
“He paid for you specifically and if you keep bitching, Tiff, I’ll drag the extensions modeled off horses and whales out of storage.” Angel only kept them because there were some actors who liked it - he sure as shit hadn’t – and Lucifer knew there was a market.
Tiffany paled. “I’m not doing it.”
With a lazy hand, Angel summoned up his control over her, his chains neon pink, and after it snapped around her neck, he dragged her forward. Tiffany stumbled, going to her knees. “Did I say if it pleases her majesty? I don’t ask much of you, Tiffany. You get first pick of your scripts and partners, which is more than Valentino ever gave you but when someone thumps down this much money, I’m not turning it away. I’ll be sure to sell him on a spa day before hand on my dime. He won’t smell so bad. Can’t do much about his looks but we’ve both had to fuck uglier, now haven’t we?”
He let the chains snap back out of existence and Tiffany toppled backward.
“I hate you.”
“You always have. If you don’t mind, I’m entertaining Vox at the moment. My suggestion is go talk over the scenes nicely with Dreama and then go pick some toys for screen time.” Angel rose to his feet. “Don’t make me get mean, Tiff.”
“Oh, fuck yourself,” she spat but she left just the same.
Vox tracked her departure and glanced back at angel. “I didn’t think you had that in you.”
“I do.” But it didn’t make him happy that he did.
Vox stood as well. “Makes me think you murdered Val all the more.”
Angel smirked. “Not surprised. Are we done here, Vox?”
“For now. Better hope I never learn you did it, Angel.”
He wouldn’t from Zestial or Arackniss. Did Baxter know why Zestial had asked for the explosive? Hopefully he thought Zestial had been behind it alone and was smart enough not to piss off one of the most frightening overlords in hell. Angel simply smiled at Vox and said, “I didn’t.”
Vox snorted and showed himself out. He paused in the doorway. “Century old blow up doll, heh.”
“You should hear what she calls you behind your back.”
Vox glanced back at him. “I can only imagine. Keep what I said in mind, Angel Dust. You’re nobody’s sweetheart now. You don’t have enough juice to take me on.”
Angel didn’t reply. It hurt nothing to let Vox have the last word because he was right. Angel didn’t have the juice to tackle the Vees, not yet. He would only try it if they forced him into it. He could take a live and let live approach. If nothing else, he might start being a little nicer to Alastor, just in case. He loved old music and radio shows after all. It would be a place to start.
He sagged back down into his chair and drank straight from the bottle. He could do without confrontations like that. He’d tell his family about it but no one else. Who knew how much Tiffany and Dreama overheard. The former he could control or tear apart if he needed to and the latter had hitched her wagon to his. She wouldn’t betray him this early into the game.
And had he really brought out the soul contract chains in public? Fuck, he didn’t want to be like Valentino but he had to go this far with Tiffany. It had been him or her and he had won. He needed to keep control of his temper. Angel quit his office and went to his new home, fortress really, with Arackniss’ advice in play. He fed and then cuddled Fat Nuggets after snorting several lines of cocaine trying to forget the encounter with Vox and how far he’d gone with Tiffany. Tomorrow was another day, not that it would necessarily be a brighter one. It was hell after all.
Angel thought about what Vox had said and it hurt. He softly sang, “Well, it all seems wrong somehow, but you're nobody's sweetheart now.”
He cradled Fat Nuggets closer and kissed the top of the pig’s head.
“I’m your sweetheart, aren’t I, Nuggs?”
His pig nuzzled him, licking his chin, and that was answer enough.
Fannish 50's fandom rec time
Healing Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Better Left Unsaid Torchwood
Love's a gamble, and baby I'm all in. Hazbin Hotel wip
the memory of lightning
陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
A Bit Of Fun Torchwood
Singing Like a Bird The Owl House
Friend of Friends Teen Wolf
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Date: 2025-01-11 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-12 01:13 am (UTC)