Do You Want to Know? - Hazbin Hotel

Chapter 15: Think

"Y'know Val, sometimes I wonder if my afterlife could get any more complicated. And every time I wonder that, another thing happens to make it worse. No matter what I do, there's always something, you know?" Looking over to his partner, it was only then that he realized Valentino had fallen asleep right in the middle of his rambling. "Goddamn it Val..." Vox groaned and rolled his eyes. His nice new eyes on his nice new screen (they looked exactly the same as before, but now the screen was an OLED- a great upgrade and a hell of an advertisement!) that he now had after the encounter with Velvette.

Sometimes, Vox wondered why exactly he and Val let her treat them this way. If Val wondered the same, Vox certainly didn't know. They wouldn't dare voice things like that, not in the tower at least. And it wasn't like they often left.

But then Vox remembers how things were before Velvette. Valentino had a thriving sex work industry going, with Angel as his number one seller. Vox owned a good handful of souls that he put to work creating the technology he designed. The two of them did okay on their own and better together, but they still weren't that impressive. That was until Velvette turned up. She worked her way up to overlord status pretty damn quick, mostly using different manipulation tactics on the more suggestible sinners. Sometimes, she resorted to brute force. Either way, she was certainly an interesting soul. She and Vox had met first, Velvette rather rudely insulting Vox's lack of a modern touch. It wasn't his fault the world had continued to evolve over the past, how long had it been at that point... 50 years or so?

Vox didn't like to swallow his pride, but Velvette always tended to be an exception to that rule. So he asked her for help, questioning anything she knew about more modern technology. Before long, they started spending evenings together at Vox's. Eventually, those evenings included Val. It was obvious from the start; they were both absolutely enamored with her. Every time she spoke, her voice commanded their attention. Every time she bragged about another soul taken from some filthy sinner in the streets, Vox couldn't help but imagine watching her take down the awful people with her bare hands like she described. If it was true. Of course, it was true. Vox eventually saw it with his own eyes, Velvette was a force to be reckoned with.

She was funny. She was coldblooded. She was beautiful. She was hot tempered. She was intelligent. She was violent. But most of all, she was always in control of whatever situation she was in. Vox was terrified of her. He was obsessed with her. He wanted her. And it wasn't long before he had her, the third V to solidify their place among the other overlords. She tied all of their separate projects together, combining Valentino's work with Vox's. She created a version of Val's toxins that could be bottled and sold to sinners that wanted to force a soul to submit to them, and that was a lot of sinners. She spread the information that they wanted Hell to see, and she became their voice on the ever-growing internet. Having been alive during this new part of humanity, she had an advantage that neither Vox nor Valentino could rival. But they didn't need to, because Velvette did it for them.

How did things get so royally fucked up? Vox wondered as he stared at the moth demon sleeping on the couch next to him. Velvette gave them everything they needed. She took what they were and made them better. She provided what they were missing and completed them. Even now, she still did. Vox knew damn well that if Velvette somehow ceased to exist, he would be completely and utterly devastated. And immediately, the lives that they had so carefully crafted over decades would crumble. The three of them needed each other. Throughout the love and the hate and the blood and the tears, Vox knew he would never survive without his two missing pieces. He was a third of a whole, and he would never be whole again if they weren't together.

And that's what Vox thinks every time he wonders why he doesn't fight back. That, and the one and only time he did fight back he regretted for a long time after. He still regretted it. Glancing again at Valentino asleep on the couch, Vox felt like he could still hear the terrible sounds of agony the moth demon had released as Velvette shredded his antenna with a pocket knife made from angelic steel. No, it was so much easier to just accept the consequences of his actions and do as she said.