#shadyteacollabs

[valscigarette]

A Bright Time

Velvette wakes up like she does every day: not very refreshed, tucked into bed, in an expensive hotel on someone else’s dime, with at least three hundred unread notifications. She reaches for her buzzing phone blindly. Despite how easily her doll body bounces back from most things, she can’t seem to kick killer hangovers after a long weekend of partying, and the endless list of names to like her latest selfie blur into squiggles in the dim light through the curtains. Rubbing her eyes with her free hand, she drags herself out of bed.

The second she steps into her slippers, a high-pitched voice calls through the door: “Room service!”

“That better be fucking coffee!” Velvette screams back.

She stumbles over clothes, strewn about in her scramble for an outfit the night before, on her way to the door. If the maids skip her room again this afternoon, she’s going to lose her fucking mind. Do they know who she is? One word to the owner and their replacements will be scraping their remains off the walls.

When she opens the door, the only item on the tray is a cappuccino in a heart-patterned mug. “Almond milk?” she snaps.

“Yes, ma'am,” the attendant assures.

Velvette snatches the coffee and slams the door shut once more. The steam condenses on the cold, smooth vinyl of her face as she lifts it to her lips with the expectation of perfection; Valentino wouldn't tolerate anything less. She never gave him her coffee order, but she assumes it's in the file Vox has on her. He's definitely the one who ordered her room service. For an overlord who swears his schedule is too busy for a lunch date, Vox has an uncanny habit of watching her through her phone camera like his own personal soap opera.

“Thank you, darling,” she says, lifting her phone and posing for it, cappuccino held against her cheek and sheer babydoll nightie leaving little to imagination.

Two notifications pop up simultaneously. First, a wire transfer from Vox, which Velvette cannot wait to spend on bottomless brunch. Second, a text from the television demon, reading Anything for you. Take a couple selfies for Val, he'll love it.

Luckily for Vox, the coffee's good. Three blonde ristretto shots, almond milk as promised, extra-extra hot, and with enough artificial sweetener to make her teeth squeak. Otherwise, she wouldn't bother taking instructions from him. She lets him take charge plenty, more than her previous mutually beneficial arrangements, though Velvette still prefers to have him whining for a scrap of her attention over making demands.

But he's being good, and she's feeling nice, so she opens her front camera to capture a couple salacious selfies for Valentino.

Now there’s an overlord she won’t indulge. It doesn’t matter how many dicks he has or how deep they could rail her, Velvette will be double-dead before she fucks him any way besides bent over a table, crying for her strap. Enough of her models are addicted to his toxin for her to know better.

Taking pictures for him is easy though, playfully lapping at her coffee or lifting the hem of her nightgown. All he needs is a pixel of indecent intent to pounce on. She sends them off with a few taps of her thumb as she resumes slurping her cappuccino. Almost as quickly as Vox, Val replies with a series of inappropriate emojis and an invitation to visit his set later that afternoon. Her boys are so easy.

Not taking a cab cross the city thx, she texts back.

Princesa, please, he answers. She can practically hear his growl. I’ll send the car.

Maybe too easy, but Velvette doesn’t mind. At this rate, she’ll have Vee industries in her back pocket by the next extermination day.

[aflatfacedprick]

Until Morning Is Night

Here is Day 23 of Shady December! Just a sketch today of Alastor and Rosie having Midnight Tea.

[valscigarette]

Frozen Fractals

Back in Valentino’s day, when a piece of technology wasn’t working, smacking it was both a reasonable and often successful response. Box set televisions, like Vox’s original head, were borderline indestructible and could stand up to at least a few stiletto heeled stomps before the screen shattered. They used to build things to last. Part of it, Val thinks, must be the profit margins on an intentionally fragile product that their brainless customers will replace repeatedly, but that wouldn’t explain Vox’s new head.

To his credit, Val did raise his concerns the second Vox stepped onto his set with that thin, plastic-backed LED screen. It’s a radiant display, much crisper than before with brighter colors and sharper teeth, but the slightest pressure of Val’s thumb sends the pixels scattering and Vox’s face shivering. It’s not real glass anymore. Not like it used to be. Nonetheless, it feels more fragile than Vox’s old countenance, and Val warned him the second he noticed. He’s hardly to blame for breaking it when Vox is the one who assured him it was as strong as ever.

Some things don’t change. Old televisions shattered in a plume of microscopic shards and flammable gas, new ones scatter electricity and blocks of broken RGB, but Vox still bleeds black through the damage when it breaks.

And Val didn’t mean to hurt him- this time, anyway. He’s always been rough with Vox, for both of their benefits, but he tries not to fuck up Vox’s head without prior discussion, if only to avoid a city-wide blackout and a lecture from Velvette. It was a genuine accident this time. He says so aloud, despite knowing no one would believe him if they heard.

All he did was slam Vox’s face into the table. He’s done it at least five times this week, mostly because it pisses Vox off. He expected Vox to immediately sit up, a minor crack distorting his scowl, and chew Val out for being an asshole, not go deadly still with his screen flattened to the table. After a few seconds, Val poked him, nudging his head enough to leave a smear of oily blood in its wake.

Val told him this new screen was bullshit. He fucking told him. When Val pulls him up, Vox’s screen is dark save for the bounce of the fluorescent lights against the cracks. The entire lower third of it is mashed inward, broken so completely it appears grey rather than black, with thick cracks reaching all the way to the crooked plastic frame. Dead or unconscious, Vox is definitely down for the count as he bleeds into Val’s trembling hands.

On a rational level, Val knows he didn’t permanently kill Vox. He couldn’t have without angelic weaponry, but he can’t come up with any other explanation. If something was wrong with Vox’s system, the tower would have gone dark, but everything is illuminated save for Vox’s face. For once, Val doesn’t want to fuck him. He just wants to see him.

Val stands and scoops Vox up, uncharacteristically careful not to jostle him as he carries Vox toward his office. If he wakes up, he’d hate for anyone besides Val to have seen him like this, and any spare parts Vox has would definitely be in there. Val’s no mechanic, no doctor, but he’ll try for Vox. They only have each other, after all.

[aflatfacedprick]

Frozen Fractals

Here is the Day 6 of Shady December!!!

Soooo this one is still a work in progress and you will hopefully see a finished version of him sometime in January 🫣

Go check out this fic by @valscigarette for some wonderful angst to go along with this drawing.

[valscigarette]

It Feels Like Home

After the longest fucking day Husk can remember–and he’s had a lot of long days–the last thing he wants to do is serve lukewarm whiskey to a morose Angel Dust. He’s warmed up to the kid, might even admit to liking him, but can't keep it together tonight. His throat still burns with the weight of Alastor’s chain, Charlie ran them all ragged on her adventures, and the cheap shitty booze just isn’t cutting it anymore. He's exhausted. All Husk wants is a good night’s sleep, however unrealistic the prospect.

When Angel knocks at his door with a familiar light rap, Husk groans, “Just serve yourself, it’s not like the bar’s fucking locked.”

Silence.

“You’re still there, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” A beat. “Got something for you.”

Knowing Angel, he could have some top-shelf shit swiped from Valentino as easily as a new flirtation he wants to test drive before his next workday. Husk scrubs a paw down his face as he considers it. Tired or not, he knows Angel wouldn't come all the way up here unless it was important to him, and Husk has a soft spot he'd rather not examine when it comes to that toothy grin and squeaky voice. Anyone else he'd have turned away already and they both know it. With a resigned sigh, Husk gets out of bed to open the door.

“Hiya,” Angel says, lower arms wrapped around his stomach for comfort as he wiggles his upper left hand's fingers in a wave. He looks rough himself despite missing out on the chaos at the hotel; the bags around his eyes are too dark for Husk to be certain they're not bruises, and his salacious doorway lean lends more weight to the wall than usual. “Gonna invite me in?”

“You look like shit,” Husk says.

“Thanks, doll, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

He still moves out of the way for Angel to come in and shuts the door behind him. By the time he turns around, Angel has made himself comfortable on the edge of Husk's duvet, poised back on two hands with a sleek wooden box in his lap. Its pristine, glossy grain and the lack of a gaudy logo mean its contents, whatever they may be, are too expensive for whatever this delicate thing between Husk and Angel is.

“So?” Husk asks, mostly because Angel is staring at him and he won't take the initiative when Angel's the one who showed up at his door uninvited. “What do you have?”

“A present.”

Angel holds out the box like an offering, barely balanced from the tip of his slender fingers.

“Sorry it doesn't have a bow, I uh, didn't have the time, I mean, I tried to but the store-”

Husk takes the gift from him. “I'm not a bow guy, anyway.”

He turns the box over in his hands, looking for an indication of what it might be and finding nothing but smooth wood. With hope it's nothing crazy, he slides the lid open on well-oiled tracks to reveal a gaggle of cigars. Nice cigars. Aromatic and solid, with real leaves as their wrapping, stamped by foil seals more detailed than any Hell company would use- imported. These came from the human world. Husk swallows and looks up at Angel.

“How…?”

“You don't wanna hear the answer, Husky.” Both sets of arms cradle Angel's torso now. “So don't ask.”

Pulling out a single cigar, Husk glances around the room for a lighter- he doesn't smoke unless he can get his hands on the nice shit, and doesn't keep one on hand anymore. Like he expected this, Angel produces a pink zippo, flicks it open to produce a gentle flame, and extends it like the motion is second nature to him. The implication sours in Husk's stomach alongside the idea of what Angel did to get these for him. However rich and smooth the smoke, Cuban, he realizes now that it's lit, he can't enjoy it.

“I ain't worth that.” He sits next to Angel, takes another drag, and offers the cigar to him. Their fingers brush when he takes it. “Whatever it was.”

Smoke from Angel’s shuddery exhale swirls between them, as dark and heady as the tension between them has been for months. They inch closer over griping sessions and small gifts, but this present, nicer than anything Husk has touched since his fall from power, carries them into a deeper connection he can no longer imagine as tenuous as he’d prefer. Friends don’t give each other shit this nice.

Angel passes back the cigar and says, “Are too.”

He doesn’t explain, and this time, Husk doesn’t ask.

[aflatfacedprick]

A Bright Time

Here (finally!) is day 3 of Shady December! Check out @valscigarette fic to go along with it!

[aflatfacedprick]

Gay Apparel

Here is Day 18 of Shady December! I was gonna draw Vox with a few different expressions but this sketch of Val experiencing gay panic won my heart and I hope he wins yours too!!

[valscigarette]

Mine (Ones I Used to Know)

Summary: Vox reminds Val who he belongs to. For Day Twelve of the December Challenge.

Tags: Smut, Bondage, Overstimulation, Degradation, Top!Vox

WC: 1.5k | AO3 | Art by @aflatfacedprick

-

  Restraining a demon with as many limbs as Valentino is a feat, but after decades together, Vox has it down to science. Each of Val’s wrists is completely immobilized by coils of Vox’s cables, his thighs are pinned under Vox’s knees, and his face is mashed into the pillow from Vox’s grip on the back of his neck. He can struggle all he likes; he’s not getting free, and his desperate attempts to escape only provide more friction against Vox’s clothed dick.

“Fucking asshole,” Val complains into the bedding as he makes another attempt to pull his arms free. “You haven’t put out in weeks, and now-”

Vox shuts him up with a smack to the ass that makes his own hand sting. He sneers, “That’s rich coming from you.”

   How dare he complain as if he hasn’t spent days so far up Angel Dust’s ass that Vox considered building a probe to find out if he stores coke in there or something. It’s not fair. He gives Valentino everything. Fucking everything! Vox has wracked his brain trying to determine what that gangly slut has that he doesn’t, but has yet to come up with a single satisfactory answer for why Val keeps dragging a junkie into a dressing room bed instead of returning to theirs.

“With how busy you’ve been, I almost forgot you were married to me, not your cotton-candy whore.”

Val laughs until Vox digs his claws into the sides of his throat and taints the air with the copper tang of his blood. Vox’s filters are fine-tuned to protect him from noxious fumes like pollution or Val’s toxins, but no amount of programming overrides the thrill of smelling freshly spilled blood. As much as he wants to taste it, he needs to make this last. 

“Jealous?” Val pants. 

“Sick of your shit,” Vox corrects. “You promised, you said no more public performances, no more fucking around, I-” He reins himself in. The more upset, the more vulnerable he sounds, the less likely he is to get Val back under control. “I just think you've gotten confused, is all.”

Under him, Val bucks his hips, trying to throw Vox off with the might of a scruffed kitten. “Confused? You’re fucking confused.” His struggles only chafe the tight binding of Vox’s cables. “I told you that I wouldn’t star in any more films-” his long tongue lolls out of his mouth as he inhales like it’s the last breath he’ll ever take, “-which I haven’t. And you should be grateful, Voxxy.”

“Should I?” Vox bites. 

He grabs the central cord down Val’s back and yanks him upright, his torso forced into such a tight arch by the bondage that he trembles to hold the position even with Vox’s support. The funny thing is that Vox has seen this porn: Val trussed up, writhing and helpless, to receive his punishment from an overlord whose face never came on screen. It’s a classic vintage Valentino, and one of Vox’s personal favorites. 

When he reaches around Val’s waist, Vox doesn’t have to grope around for his cock. The excitable appendage seeks him out first and winds itself between his fingers, already sticky with precum like Vox knew it would be. Nothing gets Val going like a fight. And, despite his many irritating protests, he always has the most spectacular orgasms when he loses.

“This,” Vox growls, tightening his hand around Val’s dick, “belongs to me. Not the cameras, not your sluts, not you. Me.”

Val chuckles even as he blurts precum over Vox’s fingers from the possessive spiel. “Very funny, baby. But this cock is under contract; half my bitches signed their souls over for a standing appointment.”

On some level Vox knows that–he’s read all of Val’s contracts–but the reminder glitches his systems badly enough for his screen to blank as electricity sparks from his claws, drawing another glob of fluid from Val. It really is no wonder he wound up doing porn with his afterlife. He’s made for it. 

“Good for them,” Vox sneers, a cheering sound effect bolstering his words, “but you’re mine.”

Another condescending laugh bubbles from Val’s throat until Vox shoves him back down in the blankets and kicks his legs apart once more. While Val will fuck anything that moves, he’s tetchier about who gets to rail him. He’ll swear up and down that it’s because no one compares to the skill of his own prehensile genitalia’s reach, but Vox knows the truth has more to do with how sensitive the pink pussy tucked between Val’s balls and asshole is. Since becoming an overlord, there’s no one he trusts to destroy him like that. Even Vox typically gets relegated to the backdoor.

“Or did you forget?”

“Fuck off.”

Val continues struggling as Vox trails his hand down to press against his dripping pussy. The first press of his thumb into the slit spills slick down to Vox’s wrist and makes Val shudder, his arms flexing against the cables restraining him as if he’ll suddenly be able to break free now, when every attempt so far has been endearing at best. 

“This is mine too,” Vox carries on conversationally. He doesn’t have the caps that would protect Val’s delicate insides from his claws, but he doubts Val is going to complain, especially when Vox doesn’t plan on much prep. He simply pets Val’s pussy, smearing his juices from his hole to the base of his cock and back again. “No one else’s. Right, Val?”

“I’ll kill you,” Val sing-songs.

But his voice wavers, shivering worse than he’ll be after Vox fucks some sense back into him, and the threat dies in the air between them. If Val was serious, he would’ve killed Vox the first time he tied Val down to prove a point. Or the fifth. 

“Good luck with that.”

Vox lets go of Val completely to pull his own dick out and stroke himself a couple of times to coat it with Val’s slick. The aphrodisiacs in it don’t affect his mechanical body like it would most sinners, but the warmth leftover from Val’s body is a potent enough drug to make up the difference when Vox shuffles forward to press the head of his cock against Val’s hole.

Val groans like the sound was forced out of him and shudders. It’s a pitiful showing for a demon that used to make his living off taking the biggest cocks in Hell, but then again, he doesn’t let anyone fuck him like this anymore. No one but Vox. 

“That’s more like it,” he purrs. He can’t move as fast as he’s used to, Val’s too tight around him, but that’s probably for the best. If Vox was able to fuck Val at the pace his instincts demand, then this would be over before the real fun starts. “Want to know how I can tell it’s mine?” 

Before Val can answer, Vox spanks him, which in turn has Val cursing into the pillows and dribbling more precum as he tightens around Vox’s dick. He thrusts the rest of the way in until his hips press into the backs of Val’s thighs. 

“Because I fit perfectly.”

“Has nothing to do with you,” Val whines. “It’s my fucking pussy, of course it’s perfect.”

It’s not that Val’s ass isn’t great, but it doesn’t mold around Vox like a sleeve designed to the contours of his body, and it’s never this wet no matter how much lube Vox uses. More importantly, it doesn’t make Val melt like this. He can play feisty all he wants, and it won’t change the puddle forming beneath him, or how easily Vox can feel Val clenching around him.

“Right.” Vox withdraws halfway just to bottom out again in a single rough thrust, punching a wet moan from Val in the process. “That’s why you save it for me, then?”

If Val planned on replying, his words disappear behind another moan when Vox takes hold of his bindings and uses them to pull Val back onto his cock. The cables help, but Val is too heavy to really use like a fleshlight when he’s gone dead-weight from being fucked in a way he so seldom indulges. 

“Don’t tell me you let Angel Dust fuck you like this.”

“Nnnn,” Val gurgles, probably meaning to say no but unable to manage it when Vox is fucking him with computed efficiency. 

A buzzer sound snarls through Vox’s speakers. “Not really an answer, but great effort!” He smacks Val’s ass again and adds, “Good thing I don’t keep you around for your brains.”

Val keens, seizing up around Vox like a vice as he comes, splattering the sheets with an obscene amount of jizz. He’s always a firehose but milking an orgasm out of him seems to make it worse, to the point that the bed becomes too slippery for Val to hold himself up on his knees and he collapses prone atop the mattress. Vox follows him without allowing a second’s reprieve.

“There you go,” he coos, worming a hand under Val to curl around his oversensitive cock. It spills another wave of cum despite Val’s sobbing. “See? Mine.”

And with Val’s nonexistent refractory period, Vox intends to prove this particular point as many times as it takes.

[aflatfacedprick]

Rum Spiced Cider

Here is Day 13! Only slightly late….

ANYWHO! Go check out @valscigarette fic to go along with today and get some sleep (cause that’s my plan for the next 12 hours)

[aflatfacedprick]

What Have We Done

Here is Day 9 of Shady December! Totally not posted later in the day because I got busy and forgot it existed….

Anyway enjoy this photo of Eve enjoying her first taste of forbidden fruit and go check out @valscigarette fic to go along with today!!

[aflatfacedprick]

Kiss Her Once for Me

Here is Day 10 of Shady December!! You will just have to imagine some cute Christmas designs on their sweaters cause I completely blanked on what to do for them

Check out @valscigarette post for today that goes along with this drawing!

[valscigarette]

Above All This Bustle

Summary: Sir Pentious can't help but feel like something's missing in Heaven. Emily helps.

Tags: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post Season 1

WC: 1k | AO3 | Art by @aflatfacedprick

Sir Pentious’ adjustment to Heaven has been mostly smooth thus far. His initial arrival was somewhat of an affair, having spent the entire first day being questioned by a gigantic angel about things he didn’t remember, but his days since then have been paradise. He has endless time to work on his inventions and his pickup lines alike, an infinite supply of hard candy that never makes him sick, and the softest blankets in all of creation for his nest. By all means, he should be overjoyed from the time he wakes up to the time he falls back asleep, but there’s a constant voice in the back of his head insisting something is missing. 

A little under a month after his arrival, Pentious works up the courage to mention it to one of the angels. The blue girl with long white hair and a perpetual anxious tilt to her eyes–Emily–spends most mornings on the promenade, checking in with Heaven’s residents, giving him an opportunity to ask her about it. 

“Emily!” he hisses from his doorway.

Her head shoots up, swiveling in search for a second before she sees him. “Oh, Sir Pentious!” She glides over with a smile and a flutter of her wings. “It’s so good to see you! Sooo, how are you liking Heaven?” She scans the stoop of his house, cluttered by spare parts and potted plants. “Is the house okay? We can change anything you don’t like.”

She’s so nice. Everyone is, even picturesque souls that set Pentious’ double hearts aflutter, but it doesn’t comfort him like he suspects it should. He has this emptiness in him, undefinable and inescapable, that only deepens each passing day. 

“The house is lovely, my dear,” he assures. Emily visibly sags in relief before he’s done. “I just… well…”

Looking into her big doe eyes, Pentious’ meticulously crafted courage collapses. 

“Nevermind,” he finishes lamely. 

Emily shakes her head. “No, please,” she insists, “you can tell me anything!”

“It- it’s stupid.” He’s in Heaven. If something feels wrong, it must be Sir Pentious and not Heaven itself. “Forget it. I do not wish to trouble you.”

He turns away, but Emily grabs his wrist before he can slither back inside. “You’re not, I promise.”

Sir Pentious is sure she’d release him if asked, but the warmth of her fingers on his scales washes over him like a thousand hugs, and she doesn’t let go when he gives in to her gentle tug. Some of the other angels, Sera especially, intimidate him, but Emily’s presence always sets him at ease. She’s familiar, but in an offset way, like she reminds him of somebody, though he can’t recall who. 

“Okay,” Pentious sighs. “I have this… feeling? I cannot explain it, I simply feel as if I’m,” he pauses, searching for the best words before settling on, “forgetting something. And it was important.”

Tears well up in Emily’s eyes, but she hastily swipes them away before they can fall. “Right, of course. That’s-” she sniffles, “that’s pretty normal, Sir Pentious, don’t worry. I might be able to help, if you want?” Suddenly, she leans in close and drops her voice to a whisper. “You can’t tell anyone, though.”

Pentious nods seriously and draws an x over his heart with a claw. “You have my word, Miss Emily.”

With her hold on his arm, Emily leads Pentious down the promenade to the gigantic golden building he emerged from on his first day, minus all the hustle and bustle of a busy summit. She leads them through empty labyrinthine halls paved by glowing marble until at last, they come upon a gargantuan set of double wooden doors where Pentious can’t help lifting his free hand to the intricate carvings of angels, tracing the curve of one’s head. 

“Okay,” Emily mutters.

She pushes open the door just enough for the two of them to slip into the massive auditorium, and lights the candelabras with a wave of her hand. After dragging Pentious up to the pillar in the center of the stage, she releases him at last, giving him a moment to take in the grand room. The array of seats all aimed down at them are no less nerve-wracking than they had been when he arrived. 

He shudders and looks back at Emily right as she conjures a shimmering bubble.

“I should warn you before I show you this,” she says. 

“Yes?”

“You don’t remember them.” Another choreographed gesture turns the bubble to a swirling portal of red smog and distant city lights. “But I think you might miss your friends.”

Sir Pentious slithers closer as the bubble hones in on a scarlet building emblazoned with the phrase Hazbin Hotel. It nags him with its familiarity. He should remember it, he thinks, but as he continues to watch, the image fades through the walls to reveal a sitting room full of creatures. His eyes land first on a pink-haired cyclops woman tossing a hacky sack from hand to hand. Without hearing her voice, without knowing her name, Pentious can feel that he’s missed her. 

“Who is she?” he asks, reaching toward the bubble.

“Her name is Cherri,” Emily answers softly. She knocks his hand away before he can touch the surface, then rubs his back to comfort him over the denial. “You died saving her life, all of their lives. They miss you too.”

Now Pentious is the one about to cry. He didn’t know he could do that as a snake. “Do they really remember me?”

“Of course they do!”

The bubble’s view swerves to display an oil painting of Sir Pentious himself, a valiant and proud snake in a Napoleonic hat, with an egg-shaped creature in his lap and dozens more around him. Every stroke of paint is magnificently placed, every color is vibrant under the beam of dedicated spotlights, and every inch of the tableau radiates affection. All Pentious can do is sob.

“My-”

His voice catches around a wheeze. Emily hands him a handkerchief and assures him, “It’s okay, let it out.”

“My Egg Bois!” Sir Pentious wails, falling to the floor as the memories begin to flood back. 

[valscigarette]

Fire Slowly Dying

As soon as the lights drop, Fizzarolli leaps into the wings of the stage to thrust the flaming batons at a stagehand, He can’t let go of it fast enough. There are no nerve endings in the smooth ceramic of his hands, but he swears he can feel the fire’s tongue licking his fingers after he lets go.

He should’ve tried harder to explain this to Mammon. Not going on at all would’ve been better than dropping than dropping the baton in the middle of his routine because the smell of smoke in the stagnant green air returns him to memories he’d prefer to forget. Anything is better than freezing. He can barely force his heavy legs further backstage, sure Mammon is going to appear any second and make him regret fucking up such a simple trick.

Fizzarolli makes it to his dressing room, where he’s afforded a couple frantic gasps of air before Mammon appears in a putrid cloud, knocking memorabilia and photos to the floor carelessly as he looms over Fizz. He’s tall enough as is, but filling the room like this, he seems to go on forever until there’s no room for anything else, let alone a shitty clown who flubbed mid-performance.

“Hey, Fizzie,” Mammon growls, poking him in the chest with a greasy gloved finger, “tell me what the fuck happened out there?”

Unable to make his tongue cooperate with his brain, Fizzarolli defaults into a wide smile and presses himself against his dressing room door, held shut by one of Mammon’s hands. There’s no escape. A jittery laugh bubbles up from his throat.

“Isn’t juggling like, your specialty?” Mammon asks.

Fizzarolli manages a nod.

“Yeah, I thought so, ‘cause this is the first time I’ve seen you drop shit.” Mammon pats Fizzarolli roughly between the horns, making him bite his tongue with the force. He swallows a whimper as he stares up at his boss. “Are you losing your touch? I thought you were gonna be a legend, but if you’re fucking up basic routines…”

“No!” Fizzarolli shakes his head violently enough to feel nauseous. “It won’t happen again, sir, I promise. I just, uh, have this thing?” The look on Mammon’s face makes Fizzarolli feel like the gum on the bottom of his shoe. “I’m not so good with fire. Maybe I don’t have to include fire in my acts.”

A small part of him still expects Mammon to understand when things get to be too much. At the end of the day, he swears that Fizz is like a son to him, and he’s done everything to make Fizz a star, so there has to be a part of him that cares even the tiniest amount for Fizzarolli’s well being. Mammon’s a dickhead but he has to give a shit.

“They’re doing cool shit with lights in Lust these days. We could see if-”

Mammon slaps him. Fizz doesn’t process the sting of it until he’s already on the ground, spitting blood and cupping his face as he stares at the stained, ruined suede of Mammon’s jester boots. “Don’t be fucking dense. That’s just performance anxiety. You don’t want to let down your fans, do you?”

Silent, Fizzarolli shakes his head.

“Of course not!” Mammon cackles. “You have to do it, and remember to smile. Where’s my smile, Fizzie?”

He contorts himself to be face to face with Fizzarolli, close enough to smell his rotten breath, and squints, obviously waiting. Surrounded by green and choking on the air, Fizzarolli wonders if he could spontaneously combust under the weight of Mammon’s disappointment and finish what the fire at the circus started. He has no choice. He forces his strained smile into place and Mammon rears back with a laugh.

“There it is! Now clean yourself up, you’ve got a little…” Mammon gestures at Fizzarolli’s face, where his mascara is probably running under his watery eyes. “And I’ll help you practice until you get it right.”

After a final condescending squeeze of Fizzarolli’s cheeks, Mammon vanishes, leaving Fizz crumpled on the floor.

[aflatfacedprick]

Say That I Tried

Here is Day Five of Shady December!!

Drugstore AU! Vox meets Velvette for the first time. If that intrigues you please go check out this fic by @valscigarette !

[aflatfacedprick]

It Feels Like Home

Here is Day Two of Shady December!!

You all have to go check out the Drabble that inspired this by @valscigarette it is so amazing! It can be found -> here <-

Stay tuned for the rest of Shady December and please join in! You can find the full prompt list on @valscigarette page!!

[aflatfacedprick]

Electric Lights On Strings

Happy first day of Shady December everyone!! Please feel free to join in on this prompt challenge and create with us this month! The full challenge post can be found on @valscigarette page.

Here is an adorable pic of Nifty wrapped in Christmas lights to go along with @valscigarette Day One post !