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“Don’t touch, you’ll fuck it up,” Val snapped, elbowing Alastor away from the collection of potted flowers. Alastor took a step back, putting his hands up in a cheesy gesture of surrender that didn’t match the cold glint in his gaze, and Vox winced.
“I’ll have you know,” Alastor said brightly, “I had quite the green thumb in life!”
“Sure. But you’re all ash now, baby, and it cost me a pretty penny to have these imported up from Sloth, so no touchy.”
“It cost me a pretty penny,” muttered Vox.
Alastor ignored him. He flicked his wrist, turning up his nose. “Oh, please. It’s not like you actually tend to these. They’d all be dead within the week without your little robotic servant.”
Val gasped and pressed a hand to his chest. “Fuck you! They’re my babies!”
“You will not convince me that you are anything but a neglectful parent.”
“Vox! Tell him!”
On the couch, where he had set out to spend a few relaxing few hours watching Val bend down in a miniskirt over and over again—uh, tend to his plants, which were all conveniently at waist height or lower—Vox reluctantly glanced over at his partners, who were hovering over Val’s workbench together and glaring at him in unison. Honestly, he didn’t even know why Alastor was still here. Normally Al preferred to have Vox’s attention all to himself whenever he visited the tower, but today he slithered up from the shadows and immediately became distracted by Val’s newest imports, an expensive collection of drooping pink flowers that Vox had spent way too much fucking money on for the way they kind of looked like shit.
Anyway. Plants were Val’s thing. He was unreasonably cute when he was cooing sweet nothings over the enormous carnivorous traps dotted around his suite, and they were pretty much the only things in existence with immunity from his explosive temper.
Vox sure wished that immunity would extend to the guy who bought the damn things, but whatever. He knew his worth.
“Believe it or not, Val is actually great with plants,” he said, shrugging. “Kitty waters them sometimes during the day if he’s too busy, but the bulk of the work is his own.”
Alastor’s expression seemed to be asking, this is the same man who once shattered every crystal decanter behind the bar in a fit of rage because Angel Dust left his dick pic on seen for fifteen seconds? Vox, too, contemplated this oxymoron on a daily basis.
Val turned his shittiest pleading look on Alastor, who gave him back a slow, uneven blink. “Don’t look so shocked. Am I not allowed to have interests? To have a hobby outside of work, a complex inner life? Ay, it’s like I’m barely a person to you.”
“On the contrary,” Alastor said, “you’re not a person at all! You’re about… hmm, ten feet of anthropomorphic moth.”
“That I am.” Val stooped down to leer at Alastor, getting in his face, and for a tense moment Vox was certain he’d have to scrape his boyfriend’s entrails off the tile in the next five minutes—but in a rare showing of good humor, Val just laughed, rearing back with definitely not enough appreciation for his intact limbs, skin, and inner organs. Alastor huffed, ears flicking irritably. “Ah, I’m always reminded of why Vox likes you.”
“And why is that?”
“You can’t communicate for shit.”
Alastor cocked his head, something crackling unpleasantly in his cervical spine as he did so. His tone was curious, but it carried an undertone of ‘watch your goddamn mouth’ that Vox wasn’t entirely sure Val was picking up on. “Oh?”
“If you want to play in the dirt with me so bad, you could just ask.”
“I do not,” Alastor stressed, “want to play with you, in any context, under any circumstances. I’m just surprised that you’re capable of keeping anything alive besides yourself.”
Val swept himself around the table, wings trailing behind him in a long, elegant cape of crimson and white. He reached down to stroke along the stems of one flower, face softening with pleasure. His smile was warm with mischief. “Are you salty that you can’t garden anymore, baby? Is that it?”
At his sides, Alastor’s hands twitched like he was resisting the urge to ball them into fists. Vox suppressed a smile. Very few people were privy to this information, but it was a sore spot for Alastor that he couldn’t touch any flowers without them immediately withering into ash, and Vox wasn’t surprised that it took Val maybe three seconds to cotton onto it. It was difficult to hunt in the woods the way Alastor preferred when he couldn’t touch anything, for fear of leaving a trail, alerting his prey, and making his meals too easy. And also, Vox suspected, he just liked to garden, never mind all his edgy excuses.
Val also, it seemed, had clearly decided he was done being annoyed about it and was switching into full-on patronizing mode. Historically, this was not a pastime that went well for anyone where Alastor was involved, but those people lacked a crucial advantage that Val possessed—namely, that Vox would be very inconvenienced if Alastor turned Val into mincemeat, so Alastor knew he wouldn’t get away with it scot-free.
Maybe he was being unfair. Alastor didn’t fly off the handle over minor irritants like some people thought. Neither did Val, actually—although what counted as ‘minor’ was deeply subjective with him. See: Angel Dust.
They were big boys, they could handle themselves. Vox looked back down at his phone, though he kept a sliver of his awareness in the security camera overhead, just in case.
“It’s no real loss,” Alastor said, trying for flippant but unable to completely rid his voice of tension. “I’ve taken up far more fulfilling hobbies since my death.”
“Is it only living plants, or is dried stuff fair game?” Val asked distractedly, like Alastor hadn’t said anything.
“I season my food, if that’s what you mean.”
“I mean what I said.”
“... Only live plants.”
“Bueno, let me see…”
Val left the table to peruse a terraced plant stand along the wall, leaving Alastor to stare resentfully at his back as he rifled through the various and sundry potted specimens housed there. Almost all of them were on Vox’s dime, but a small number were survivors or descendants of the plants Valentino had taken with him when he moved into V Tower all those decades ago. Pink bleeding heart flowers that dripped real blood from their pulsing, fleshy ventricles; vivid red cockscomb—purchased for the name alone—that rippled like anemones when touched, and stung just as hard; one plant that trailed long, bulbous orange stems over its pot rim like a fucked up string-of-pearls; hungry blue pitcher plants which had taken Angel Dust’s hand off at the wrist once and permanently endeared themselves to Vox; white doll’s eye berries on rich purple stems; and, of course, a number of phallic references among the flora from Lust, all of which were deeply poisonous. Dozens beyond that decorated Val’s floor of the tower.
It was an impressively well-kept collection for anyone, and impressively insane for Valentino.
When Val finally found what he was looking for, he resurfaced from the plants with a triumphant noise. “Aha! Nothing can kill this guy, I swear to god I forget about him for months and he’s always fine. Here.”
He dropped a pot into Alastor’s hands. Alastor peered down at it, seemingly intrigued despite himself. Visually, there wasn’t much to it—some kind of leafy crimson herb, pink at the tips and darkening to a bruised purple near the stem.
“So you do neglect them,” Alastor said, but he was already reaching for one of the leaves, curiosity overriding his natural instincts to be the biggest asshole imaginable at all times. The second he pinched the leaf between his fingertips, it dissolved into gray ash, speckling the soil. Alastor gave Val a flat look.
Val smirked. “Just watch.”
A long pause. Then slowly, haltingly, the plant shivered and stretched, the spot where the leaf had vanished at Alastor’s touch abruptly sprouting a thin, curled bud of new growth that flexed, unfurled, and settled into place, like nothing had even happened. Alastor blinked. He leaned forward, static whizzing, and experimentally wrapped his entire hand around the plant. His rotting touch rapidly dissolved it until there was nothing but a tiny stump of a stem. A few seconds later—and maybe a bit more passive aggressively than before—the stem wriggled upwards through the ashes, new leaves fanning out and quickly overtaking the height it had been at prior to Alastor, gaining at least three inches before it stopped growing and settled again.
Alastor huffed and squeezed the entire plant again. It regrew, faster and taller. He tried two more times before the regrown plant shot up almost a foot and began to list sideways, pitching out of its pot, at which point Val took it back with a self-indulgent giggle.
“Be careful, much bigger and it’ll start getting hungry,” he said, a statement that made Alastor open his mouth, squint, and close it again. “I’m sure it has some fancy name, but all the hellborn just call it mint, and it overruns everything, you couldn’t kill it if you tried a million times. It’s invasive everywhere it grows.”
“Botanical facts aside, I fail to see what this has to do with anything,” said Alastor.
Val cupped the pot bottom in one hand, crossed his two lower arms, used his free hand to reach over and pluck a trowel from his little garden toolkit that Vox did not think was hysterically adorable, and pointed it at Alastor’s chest, with feeling. “You have two options, ciervo: go sit down with Vox and ogle my ass, or stay over here and play in the fucking dirt like an adult.”
This time, Vox did fail to muffle his snort, but Alastor was too preoccupied with his own befuddlement to notice.
“Why?”
Exasperated, Val set the mint plant down with a dull thunk of terracotta. Alastor’s eyes darted to it covetously, but he didn’t move. “Because having shared custody of that prick over there makes us in-laws or something, I don’t know. And I can be nice. Look at me, trying so hard to be nice, and you’re hurting my feelings.”
As he spoke, he dangled the trowel from one limp wrist like a faggot. It occurred to Vox that this might be Val’s attempt to one-up Alastor in their weird hinge relationship by posing as the more conciliatory partner. Classic. Vox swiped down on his screen, demolishing a row of six gumdrops on Candy Crush. Yes.
“Your feelings,” Alastor said dubiously.
“Yes, my feelings, because unlike some other macho cabrónes in this room, I’m in touch with my inner joy and whimsy.”
“Good lord. Give me the fucking spade.”
Val made a tiny chirrup noise in the back of his throat that he immediately tried to cover up with a cough, antennae shivering upright with surprise. He nudged the mint towards Alastor, then held out the trowel by the blade. Alastor accepted it with a heavy sigh.
And then a miracle happened. They… got along?
Mostly. Honestly, Vox was just taking his victories where he could get them. If no one was bleeding, spitting like a feral cat, or throwing things at his head, that was a certified win. But even for their low standards, they seemed to be having a good time: Valentino lovingly worked his Sloth flowers out of their shipping containers and into new, clean pots, tickling them under their nonexistent chins and cooing at them like one would an infant, while Alastor quietly trimmed his mint plant and marveled over its regenerative abilities.
Occasionally, Val would reach for the trowel and Alastor would hand it to him without looking, each of them captivated by their individual tasks. Other times, Alastor asked careful questions about what Val was doing and why, which Val was always pleased as punch to answer. Vox made sure the cameras were constantly rolling for posterity, because he was ninety percent certain this level of peace would never again be witnessed in V Tower.
“I kept a flower box in my windowsill up top,” Alastor mused eventually, picking soil out of his nails. He’d rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, exposing the black to gray gradient of his hands and arms, but his hair kept falling into his face every time he leaned down, causing him to blow his bangs aside every few minutes. “You could find echinacea anywhere in Appalachia, but it’s something different to grow them yourself.”
“What’s common to others becomes its own special thing, just for you, eh?”
“Precisely.”
“Wasn’t much of a plant guy myself. I had more important shit to do.”
“Being an overlord isn’t important?”
Val wiggled his hand in a seesaw motion. “Being an overlord is easy. Becoming one is fucking hard. You can’t imagine how many gross dicks I had to suck on my way to the top.”
“I think I can make an educated guess,” Alastor said dryly, and Val laughed.
“No, no, estoy jodiendo. It was mostly networking.”
“And your version of networking is…?”
“Eh. Paperwork. Lots of drinks with sleazy CEOS and their even sleazier sidekicks. You’d think after the third shootout that ended with all of them dead and hundreds more souls in my pocket, idiots would stop approaching me with their tongues hanging out of their heads, asking to partner up, but nooo.” Val angled a pair of scissors against the base of a flower and snipped it. “Vox got lucky I was in a good mood when he came to visit me, or else he might’ve ended up the same way.”
“I could’ve taken you,” Vox interjected.
“You do take me so well,” Val allowed, making Alastor choke, “but in a fight, you like to chitchat too much.”
“It’s called banter and it’s fun.”
“It’s bitchy and annoying.”
“Who’s bitchy, Val?”
“My final stance is that you’re both equally awful,” Alastor said. Vox flipped him off.
“It’s really beautiful, how romance can blossom from such compatibility,” Val said dreamily. He held up a pot bursting with flowers and squished it against his cheek like a novel heroine swooning against a rain-pelted window. “Mi amor, aren’t we soulmates?”
“Yeah, sure,” Vox said, distracted by the rush of dopamine to his synthetic prefrontal cortex from his phone chiming tasty! as he hit another streak. Velvette was a genius for inventing this game. He’d wire her a few grand later, to show his appreciation.
“You look ridiculous,” Alastor informed Val, who was now tipping his head forward and trailing his antennae over the flowers for some bizarre reason.
“I’m gorgeous,” Val said. “And they smell better this way.”
“Honestly, you—”
Val thrust the flowers into Alastor’s face, ignoring the way he tried to rear back and avoid them. “Don’t talk shit about my babies. Come on, don’t deer have sensitive noses? It’s nice!”
“I wouldn’t know, because I am a deer on an aesthetic level only—”
“Smell the fucking flowers, I swear to god—”
A shadowy tentacle snaked up from Alastor’s heel, slithered through the air, and curled harshly around Val’s wrist, bending it backwards until he skittered away with a pained yelp, nearly fumbling the flowerpot—but the tentacle caught it, tipping it up into Alastor’s waiting hands, where he took a beleaguered whiff of the flowers.
“Satisfied?” he said, placing the pot back down. Val rubbed his wrist, pouting.
“No. I want you to admit it’s nice.”
“It’s nice.”
“Like you mean it.”
Voice vibrating with static, Alastor grit out, “Valentino.”
Val held all four hands up, because he had a sixth sense for exactly the right moment to avoid pushing someone completely over the edge. It was what made him such a stereotypical brat. “Alright, alright, calm down. Yeesh.” He turned to the other side of the room and called, “Kitty!”
The knockoff Fizzbot flickered to life from where she’d been standing in the corner like furniture, emitting a little mechanical whirr as she zipped over to Val obediently. Alastor blinked at her.
“Peach brandy, three glasses, ice, and a muddler,” Val instructed. “Ugh, almost got my wrist broken. I need a drink.”
Kitty sketched a bow, its jester hat jingling, and scurried away.
“If I wanted your wrist broken, it’d be broken,” Alastor said pleasantly.
“Rude. And uncalled for.”
Val swanned away into the nearby ensuite bathroom to wash his hands, only reappearing when Kitty returned with the tray full of mixing supplies. Alastor, for his part, just shook out his wrists with a spark of green flame, ridding himself of dirt. Val sidled back to the table where Kitty was waiting, scooped up the scissors, and gestured at Alastor’s mint.
“You mind?”
“Knock yourself out.”
But Alastor hovered nearby the whole time, watching Val’s movements closely, and Vox knew he’d already fully adopted the plant in his mind. Val took the scissors to the top fourth of the plant, snipped it, and then began plucking the leaves individually, sectioning them out into three small handfuls. Val crushed the leaves with a light drizzle of syrup against the bottom of their glasses, working the muddler in little twisting motions. Then he poured a bit of peach brandy in each glass, packed them with ice, and stirred until the glass frosted over on the outside.
He topped each one with a sprig of the remaining mint, then straightened up with his hands on his hips, looking very proud of himself. “Every day I outdo myself.”
“You certainly do the most,” Alastor agreed, picking up a glass. He took a small, hesitant sip, before his ears immediately betrayed him by pricking forward with interest. He got ahold of himself a split second later, but the damage was done. Val grinned. “This is… actually delightful. You called it mint, but the colors gave me an impression of spicy, not…”
“Minty?” Vox offered.
Alastor exhaled, defeated. “Yes, minty.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Val purred.
He scooped up the other two glasses and stepped around the table. He made his way over to Vox, depositing it in his outstretched hand, before flopping down to sit beside him, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. Alastor wandered vaguely in their direction like a cat who wanted to be part of the family only when you weren’t looking. He pretended to scrutinize the wallpaper behind the couch, taking too-casual sips of his drink.
“Thank you for my presents, baby,” Val said, settling one hand on Vox’s knee and sliding it upwards.
Vox didn’t look away from his phone, but he did allow himself a muted smile. “Only the best for you, my dear. Excellent cocktail, by the way.”
“Did you know some people make it with straight bourbon? Animals.”
“Nothing wrong with something simpler every once in a while,” Alastor chimed in, tipping his head back and snapping up his mint garnish with a distinct clack of teeth. He leaned down on his elbows against the couch back, dangling his glass from ruby red fingertips. “But yes, the brandy is quite tasty.”
Val preened, forgetting entirely about his budding quest to fondle Vox in a show of gratitude, which was both a relief and a disappointment. “I don’t make my own drinks very much anymore, but maybe I should. Mm, but an overlord bartender… that’s embarrassing.”
“Very,” Alastor agreed.
Vox knew Alastor spent a lot of time behind the bar in that shitty hotel out of pure love for the game, but chose not to call him on it. He was magnanimous like that. Instead, he reached up with his glass and lightly clinked it against Alastor’s, finally turning his phone off and pocketing it as he did so. “How’s Husk doing, by the way?”
“Surly as ever. But he’s conscious at least sixty percent of the time now, so little victories.”
“May that kind of karma never find me,” Val said sagely, holding up his glass. Vox and Alastor gladly toasted him with a gentle clatter of glass and ice. “By the way,” he added, tilting his head to meet Alastor’s lidded gaze, “you can keep that mint, I don’t need it. If you want, I can look into more regenerative species, I’m sure there’s plenty of them.”
Alastor’s ever-present smile, maddening in its neutrality, didn’t waver—but something in his eyes brightened. Still, he demurred, “If it’s no trouble.”
“No, no trouble. No one else around here appreciates my collection.”
“Very well then.”
“Aw,” Vox cooed. “This is so sickeningly domestic.”
Alastor flicked his antennas, making them bob back and forth dizzyingly. “Never insult me like that again.”
“It’s like he doesn’t know us at all,” Val said.
“At least we’ll always have each other.”
“Funny, but I know you gagged just thinking about monogamy.”
“Yes, it’s disgusting,” Alastor agreed instantly, taking a large swig of his drink. “Relationships are for freaks and losers.”
“Okay, fuck you both,” Vox said.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you—”
“Absolutely not—”
Vox broke into high, playful laughter, kicking his feet like a child, and Alastor and Valentino exchanged wearily fond looks. Sickeningly domestic indeed.