Chapter Text
Verosika, Moxxie and Millie went to the studio the next day. Shortly after arriving, they met up with the crew members who were working that day: Coco, Apple, Milky, Kiki and Ace. Verosika began telling them how the attack happened.
“So I’m fine,” Verosika concluded. “Vortex got banged up pretty good but he’ll be fine in a few days. Coco, I need to talk with you privately. Everyone else, you know what to do.”
Everyone broke apart to go to their assigned tasks while Verosika took Coco aside.
“What is it boss?” Coco asked.
“Yesterday,” Verosika began, “Moxxie and Millie told me that they’re temps but they don’t know for how long. Why is that?”
“Well, the idea was,” Coco started explaining, “that Vortex would be your main bodyguard and while everyone would be looking at you and him, Moxxie and Millie would be able to catch your attackers off guard. They were hired for temporary spots because it hadn’t been proven how necessary they would be.”
“Well, as far as I’m concerned,” Verosika countered, “they’ve proven how necessary they are. If it hadn’t been for Moxxie and Millie blindsiding my would-be assassins by ambushing their ambush, I would probably not even be alive now. And the ones at the salon didn’t get anywhere near me thanks to those two. I want them to be permanent additions to my security detail. Who do I tell that to?”
“Probably Chambers, head of personnel,” Coco answered. “If not him, then he’ll definitely know who has decision-making power to keep them around.”
“Great,” Verosika said. “Double check with Chambers and then tell me who I need to talk to to keep Moxxie and Millie around. I think it’ll have a bigger impact if I speak up for those two myself.”
There was a pause as Verosika considered something.
“If one of the higher up execs,” Verosika continued, “tried to stop Moxxie and Millie from sticking around, would there be any way for you to know about it?”
“I’m sure I could get Chambers,” Coco said, “to let me know if one of them argued against their positions becoming permanent. But why would one of them do that?”
“Can you keep this between the two of us?” Verosika asked and Coco nodded yes. “After the attack yesterday, I started thinking about who wants me dead. I didn’t get anywhere with narrowing it down because there are many possibilities and considering I’m in a position where it’s easy for people to know about me when I don’t know them, there’s probably suspects I don’t know about. The important thing here is that it’s not impossible that one of the execs wants me dead.”
“Quite possible,” Coco agreed. “Things got really nasty at your last contract negotiations. And your death would cause your album and merch sales to temporarily skyrocket: if one of them thinks you’ve become more trouble than your worth, killing you would be easier and more profitable than just dropping you from the label.”
“f*ck. I never considered that thing about the album and merch sales,” Verosika stated in slight panic. She took a deep breath and regained her composure. “Point is, if any of the execs try to argue against Moxxie and Millie sticking around after I feel they’ve proven themselves, they’ll look guilty.”
“Understood,” Coco agreed.
——————
Several hours later, it was now lunchtime. Everyone had gathered in their break room. Moxxie, Millie and Milky all got together at a table.
“So,” Millie began, “you two enjoy yourselves Saturday night?”
“Kind of,” Moxxie answered. “There was a complication while we were reverse mugging.”
“What’s that?“ Kiki asked, her and Ace being within earshot. Moxxie decided to explain the concept to them.
“So I am following behind Milky,” Moxxie continued, “ready to ambush anyone who goes after her. But what happens instead is that two guys shove me into an alley and shake me down for my stuff.”
“That’s the problem with hunting predators,” Milky chimed in. “They’ll try to flip the script on you.”
“Seeing as how you two are okay,” Ace pointed out, “everything must’ve gone all right.”
“Here’s what happened,” Milky began.
(Begin flashback.)
Milky was walking along the sidewalk, hoping that some assholes would try to mug her so that Moxxie could ambush them and they could take their stuff. She heard several very loud gunshots. While hearing gunshots go off in the distance was just part of the general background noise for the urban areas of hell, these were behind her and close enough that she realized that they probably came from Moxxie which if true, meant something had gone very wrong.
She turned around and began running towards where she heard the shots come from. She ran a short distance and looked into an alley. She saw Moxxie with a smoking pistol in his hand and two dead incubi lying on the ground in front of him.
“I’m guessing,” Milky began, “these assholes jumped you and you took care of it.”
“You guess correctly,” Moxxie answered as he put away his gun. “Thanks for rushing over here. While your assistance was not needed, your concern is quite touching.”
“No problem,” Milky replied as she went over to the two dead incubi to loot their stuff. When she got closer to the bodies, she noticed something that didn’t add up.
“Moxxie,” Milky said, “if these guys jumped you, how were you able to shoot them in the back?”
“After they shoved me into this alley,” Moxxie started to explain, “I made a big show of pleading for my life and handing over my wallet, phone, and anything else they might want while concealing my weapons. They were pleased with getting what they considered an easy score so they took what I had to offer and left. As soon as they turned their backs to me, I took out my gun and killed them.” Milky’s only response was an angry glare. “What?”
“I understand that fighting fair is for chumps,” Milky started to counter, “but there’s a difference between me taking advantage of my height to punch at nut level and what you just did. If you and them had been soldiers, killing them like you did would have been a war crime.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m not a soldier,” Moxxie retorted, “so I can’t be held to those standards. How do you know that’s a war crime?”
“Because I grew up in Wrath,” Milky answered. “We practically idealize war, which includes an understanding and appreciation for rules of engagement. Which is how I know that the reason fake surrendering is banned is because if it happens enough, people will start thinking ‘killing this guy will be safer than giving him the benefit of the doubt that he’s legitimately surrendering, so I’ll do that’.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Moxxie countered, “If things had gone as planned, I would’ve shot these guys in the back when they tried to mug you.”
“That’s different. We set the bait but we don’t make them fall into the trap. Fake surrendering so you could catch these guys off guard is just as f*cked up as if they shot you after you surrendered. Why didn’t you pull your gun on them without the fake surrendering part?”
“And counter attack in a way they would’ve seen coming? That didn’t strike me as tactically sound.”
There was a tense silence between the two as she continued to glare at him.
“Keep in mind,” Moxxie resumed, “before I worked for Verosika, I was an assassin: specifically a sniper so rules of engagement for me are along the lines of ‘if the target lives long enough to know I’m trying to kill them, then I’m bad at my job’. Besides…”
Moxxie had an awkward look on his face as he realized he didn’t want to finish what he started to say.
“What is it?” Milky asked, her anger replaced by concern.
“Let’s just say,” Moxxie replied, “that I’ve learned the hard way that confronting your enemies directly is severely overrated.”
Milky took a moment to think of her next response.
“Let’s agree to disagree,” Milky suggested. “It was f*cked up of you to fake surrender so you could catch them off guard but I see how you were pushed into a corner and felt like doing whatever was necessary to get out of it and the result would’ve been the same if they came after me.”
“All right,” Moxxie agreed.
———————
“What are your thoughts on his fake surrender, Millie?” Milky asked.
“Far as Ah’m concerned,” Millie began to answer, “Moxxie’s life is way more important to me than two lowlife assholes so Ah don’t have any problem with him doin’ whatever he had to. So what happened after that?”
“We stayed out for a while, then went back to my place and had sex,” Milky finished. “We only stuck to mouth stuff because that’s all Moxxie wanted to do.”
“Mouth stuff is both our strong suits,” Moxxie said. “Especially with how poorly our parts seem to match up.”
“How poorly are we talking about here?” Ace asked with a wide grin.
“Despite what you might be thinking,” Moxxie began to counter, “my dick is of average size. The issue is that her insides are above averagely spacious.”
“Did you really have to bring that up, Moxxie?” Milky asked with an intense glare.
“Too much?” Moxxie asked sheepishly. “I don’t think you understand how hard it is to tell where the line is with you people.”
“We don’t bother with lines most of the time,” Milky said, “so that’s fair.” Milky then turned to Kiki and Ace as well as Apple and Coco who became interested while she was recounting the events of last Saturday night. “For the record, while Moxxie‘s dick game leaves quite a bit to be desired, his mouth game is top notch.”
“And that is high praise coming from her,” Moxxie chimed in excitedly and then realized he probably shouldn’t have said that. “Sorry about that Milky.”
“Why?” Milky asked.
“Right, no lines most of the time,” Moxxie said to himself.
Verosika was sitting nearby and had been listening to all of this. She was pleased to hear that things between Moxxie, Millie and Milky were starting to deteriorate even faster than she expected.
Sorry Milky, Verosika thought, but getting Moxxie and Millie to go along with my idea of being a throuple is far from simple already and it’ll be even less simple with you in the mix. If everything works out like I want, maybe after Moxxie, Millie and I work out our group dynamic, I’ll bring up the idea of you being our mutual friend with benefits.
“I don’t think I will ever understand,” Coco spoke up, “how you seem like a huge dork a lot of the time but other times you’re a stone cold killer.”
“I’m a complicated person,” Moxxie said.
“Yeah,” Ace joined in. “People can be more than one thing. Do you have any idea how many people have told me I’m the straightest gay guy they’ve ever met?”
“From what I remember,“ Verosika began, “from you bragging about quote ‘all the dudes I’ve pounded’ unquote without me even asking you about it first and how your choice of birthday activity was bowling, I’m guessing it’s a lot.“
“You guess correctly,“ Ace answered and then briefly chuckled to himself. “This reminds me of an argument I had with an ex of mine where I failed to convince him that champagne is a drink, not a color.”
They all had a very brief laugh at that. Sometime later, lunch was over and everyone left the break room. Verosika motioned for Moxxie and Millie to follow her. They stopped when they were away from everyone else.
“Moxxie,“ Verosika began, “when Milky was telling her story and she mentioned the part where you claimed that you’ve learned the hard way that directly confronting your enemies is overrated, were you talking about what happened with your mom?”
“Yes,” Moxxie answered. “Both what happened to her and how I solved my issues with dad by killing him in his sleep because I didn’t make the mistake she did of confronting him directly while being unprepared for what that would require.”
“Did you tell Milky that?”
“No.”
“Why? You didn’t have any problem telling me about your parental issues even though you’d only known me for about a week.”
“Telling you about my past because I thought it would help with your issues relating to opening up and getting close to people is different from bringing it up with Milky to justify my choice of tactics.”
“Right,” Verosika agreed. She hid it well, but she was a little disappointed to hear that this was Moxxie‘s reason. She hoped that not wanting to share the more gruesome aspects of his past with the stout succubus was because of how much more he liked her compared to Milky, which would bode well for her wider plans.
“Moxxie,” Millie spoke up, “Would you say that you hate your mom?”
“It’s complicated,” Moxxie answered. “There’s few things I’d want more than for her to have not been killed but I am kind of resentful of how her cause of death was a 50-50 split between dad killing her and her own poor decision making.”
“Are you saying,” Millie continued, “that your mom brought it on herself?” Millie asked with an angry glare.
“Of course not,” Moxxie replied with great agitation, insulted at what Millie was implying. “But if you,” Moxxie stopped himself as he rubbed his chin in thought, “actually, the example I’m about to use won’t work great with you. Verosika,” Moxxie faced the popstar, “if you try to negotiate with a monster and it’s rebuttal is to eat you, who’s at fault: the monster for doing what came naturally to it or you for overestimating its ability to be reasoned with and not having a Plan B?”
“I would partially be at fault,” Verosika began, “for being so unprepared. At least you know that your mom loved you and would’ve stayed with you if not for being killed. As for my mom, I don’t really know those things.”
“I thought,” Moxxie said, “that you said what you believed what happened with your mom was that she died in some kind of accident or was killed by a client and that’s why you never saw her again.”
“That’s the most likely explanation,” Verosika replied. “But it’s not impossible that she ditched me to be raised by her brother and the reason she hasn’t tried to cash in from me going up in the world with an overdue reunion is because she died before that.”
“Didn’t you say that her bank account was untouched which would be inconsistent with her running out on you?”
“You killed your dad because you were scared that if you ran, he would chase you. Similarly, my mom might have felt that if she ran, people would chase her so It’s not impossible that she left her bank account untouched to make it look like she wasn’t running.”
Verosika had a very uncomfortable look on her face and then took a deep breath.
“I hate even thinking this,” Verosika continued, “but mom leaving me, weather intentionally or not on her part, might have been the best thing to happen to me because it forced my uncle Fred to get involved in ways I don’t think he would have if he thought his only role was to support my mom. To paraphrase a custom mug I got him for his birthday when I was eleven, ‘he’s not my step dad, he’s my dad who stepped up’.”
”You want to hear something really f*cked up?” Moxxie asked. Millie and Verosika nodded yes. “When I was growing up I once wished that before mom died, she and dad had had another kid so that my dad would have someone else to take his sh*t out on so I’d suffer less.”
Moxxie lowered his head in shame as he said this while Millie and Verosika widened their eyes in shock.
”I almost immediately regretted thinking that,” Moxxie continued, “because I realized how messed up it was to wish for that and also because it was likely that if faced with more targets, my dad’s cruelty would have multiplied rather than be divided.”
I have never been so glad, Millie thought, to come from a lovin’ and semi-stable family.
Millie held Moxxie and Verosika‘s hands at the same time.
“There’s nothin’ we can do to change the past,” Millie began, “but we can help each other build a better future.”
Even though Verosika knew that she and Millie had different ideas about what building a better future meant, she felt herself on the verge of tearing up from the wrath girl’s statement of support.
