Verosika had just finished recording. Moxxie had been with her the whole day. They both got into Verosika's car and left. They made a stop on the way to pick up some groceries since Moxxie had volunteered to cook for her.
They made it to Verosika's apartment and Moxxie began cooking. Sometime later, Moxxie had finished making chicken parmesan. He and Verosika sat down at the table.
"This is very good," Verosika said after taking a bite. "And I've eaten at some of the finest restaurants hell has to offer, so that's high praise."
This earned a blush of appreciation from Moxxie. They finished their meal and Moxxie began cleaning up.
"I'll help," Verosika offered. "You earned it with how good that meal was."
They finished cleaning up and Moxxie turned to Verosika
"You said you have trouble opening up to people," Moxxie began.
"It has to do with how my last serious relationship went," Verosika responded and finished with an angry glare. "I gave him my heart and he tossed it into a wood chipper."
"That's unfortunate," Moxxie consoled and began walking to the apartment's living room. "Maybe you'll feel more comfortable opening up if someone opens up to you first. So I'm going to tell you something that I only told Millie a week ago. It has to do with my past."
Moxxie and Verosika sat down in the living room.
"I was born in Wrath," Moxxie continued, "but I was raised in Greed as the son of a mob boss named Crimson. He was a very cruel man: he would belittle me, hit me and my mother and tried to get me into the habit of killing for him when I was only six. My mom did her best to protect me from his worst but he ended up killing her to reassert his authority."
"Even for hell, that's fucked up," Verosika commented in horror.
"Indeed," Moxxie agreed and had an uncomfortable look on his face as he remembered all this. "I suffered under my dad's cruelty untill about three years ago. I started dating one of my dad's low level goons, a shark demon named Chaz. He was crude, brash and just enough of a dick to seem interesting."
Sounds like he and Blitzo were cut from the same cloth, Verosika thought.
"We were only together for a few weeks," Moxxie continued, "when Chaz broke up with me because my dad bribed him, which my dad knew I'd find out about because I was handling the families' books. Now that I've been with Millie and I have some idea what a healthy relationship is supposed to be like, I see now that what I had with Chaz wasn't that great but at the time, I was devastated. Once again, Dad had taken away the only person in my life who cared about me. Something inside me broke. I realized that if I was ever going to be anything close to happy, I needed to be rid of him for good. And so I began plotting to kill my father."
"The first step was patience," Moxxie resumed. "I only had to wait a month before an opportunity presented itself. One of my dad's lieutenants, this guy named Vinny, made a big deal about how pissed off he was that he got passed over for a chance to oversee some turf of his own. Even better, I remembered this story Vinny liked to tell about how tough he was where he smacked around his girlfriend for being mouthy and accidentally killed her."
"And you consider that a good thing?" Verosika asked with a glare.
"Well, it did mean," Moxxie began to answer, "that I wouldn't feel bad about killing him because I needed a fall guy who'd be too dead to contradict the story I was trying to tell, which was good for me."
"Ah," Verosika uttered in understanding.
"So the night after Vinny threw his tantrum," Moxxie resumed once more, "I went over to his place. I told him that I understood where he was coming from and that along with a few other guys he trusted, maybe we could pull a coup on my dad. As soon as Vinny had his back to me, I killed him. I took some of his clothes, which I threw away later, along with a few valuables that I kept for myself to sell the idea that he left town without telling anyone."
"As for the body," Moxxie kept talking, "I dumped it in front of an abandoned building I knew was a camp for homeless hounds. I left a note on the body explaining that if they didn't want to get blamed for the death of a shark demon, they should dispose of the body quickly by consuming it."
Moxxie had a sad and awkward look on his face.
"I've always regretted doing that," Moxxie said. "For all I know, they got caught with the body and were killed because they were blamed for Vinny's death. But I couldn't risk them refusing to help me so instead, I made getting rid of the body their problem. I even justified to myself that they weren't going to be alive much longer given the conditions they lived under so if they died, it was for the noble purpose of helping me escape my father."
Verosika just stared blankly at Moxxie, not sure what to say.
"After that," Moxxie continued, "I went back to my dad's house. I woke up in the middle of the night, snuck into his room and stabbed him to death." Moxxie had an awkward expression as he recalled this. "I will never forget the look on my dad's face as he realized that I was killing him. Because it was the only time in his life he looked like he was proud of me."
"That's almost as fucked up as him killing your mom," Verosika chimed in. "Why would he be glad that you killed him?"
"Because Dad always wanted me to toughen up," Moxxie began to answer, "and I proved that he succeeded."
"Which got him killed," Verosika retorted, "so that was a really hollow victory on his part."
"Yes," Moxxie replied with a smile and a nod. "While I was uncomfortable with how killing my dad kind of validated his parenting choices, it was a very small price to pay to be rid of him for good."
"There were a few things that could've gone wrong with this plan," Verosika began. "What if you didn't get the drop on your dad or this Vinny guy? What if you did kill your dad but you got caught in the act or were otherwise unable to get away with it? Wouldn't it have been easier to just make a run for it?"
"The easy way is rarely also the right way," Moxxie countered. "I was terrified that if I ran, he would chase me and do more horrible-than-usual things to prevent me from trying that again. If things did go wrong, I was going to keep a bunch of guns on me and go down fighting. That way, win or lose, I'd be free of him. And considering mom died because she underestimated what he'd do to retaliate, ensuring he couldn't retaliate at all seemed very necessary."
"Fair enough," Verosika agreed. "So what happened after you killed your dad?"
"I woke up several hours later to 'discover'," Moxxie said that last word with air quotes and a smug grin, "that my father had been murdered in his sleep. I alerted my father's right hand man, a guy Alessio, about this development. I told Alessio how I was worried that since my dad held the family together through fear, it would unravel with him gone."
"If this Alessio guy was your dad's right hand," Verosika asked, "then did't that make him the new head of the family?"
"Not necessarily," Moxxie answered. "It was possible that since Alessio's authority was an extension of my dad's, many in the family would feel that it died when he did. Now combine that with how external threats would smell blood in the water when they learned of my dad's death and how even though I didn't have any authority over who would succeed my dad, that might not stop people from forcing me to name them as his successor if they thought there was a slight chance it might work."
"I shared all these concerns with Alessio," Moxxie continued. "I told him that because of these things, instead of sticking around to collect my fathers inheritance, which knowing him was probably not much to begin with, I would be taking a few valuables from our home and leaving town. Alessio said he understood my concerns and wished me luck."
"They never considered you a suspect?" Verosika asked.
"Nope," Moxxie answered. "After living under my dad's thumb for over twenty years, they would've considered it impossible that I grew a spine out of nowhere and killed him. And due to their generally low opinion of me, they were not surprised that I decided to bolt as soon as it looked like everything was about to go sideways."
"I don't understand one thing, Moxxie," Verosika began. "You liked this Chazz guy enough to kill your dad but you didn't leave with him. What was that about?"
"Oh that," Moxxie said awkwardly, like he was going to talk about something he didn't want to. "So when I decided that I needed to kill my dad, it felt amazing. For the first time in my life, I felt like the future wasn't just going to be more of the past. This caused me to get over my devastated state about Chazz very quickly. I thought about how when Chazz was ordered to break up with me, he didn't offer to try running away with me or even explain that dad threatened him to cause the break up."
"I thought your dad paid him," Verosika pointed out.
"Dad often threatened demons then gave them some money," Moxxie explained. "His way of saying 'hey, no hard feelings'. This wasn't out of generosity: dad knew that if you pushed someone too hard or too often, at some point they'd give in to the urge to push back."
"Like you did," Verosika commented.
"Indeed," Moxxie agreed. "If someone pushed back, he'd have to kill them to set an example and then he'd be out someone who could be reliably coerced into doing as they're told. Even worse, depending on how they pushed back they might inspire others to do the same who might inspire more others. Then he might have to put business as usual on hold to put down an uprising. Compared to that, it's easy write off a few hundred souls here and there as the price of doing business."
"As for Chazz," Moxxie continued, "I started going over our relationship more objectively when I was planning. I remembered how Chazz liked to talk about what he'd do if he ever got into a position of power in the family. He liked being a part of what we called the life. That's probably why he complied with my dad's demands so readily. Anyway, with how I wanted out of the life and Chazz wanted further in, I decided there was no way to reconcile that. So if I was going to give myself a fresh start, it might as well be from Chazz as well."
"I turned to freelance assassination," Moxxie resumed, "as a way of making ends meet because the money from the valuables I took was not gonna last forever. I eventually met Millie and for the first time ever, I was happy with the state of my life. There was a bit of a road bump about eight months ago when the car I took broke down from unrecoverable mechanical problems, but that was a minor issue all things considered."
"Thank you for sharing that story with me Moxxie," Verosika said. "At the very least, it puts my own parental issues in perspective."
Moxxie gave her a look that said he wanted her to continue but was hesitant about pushing the matter.
"My origins are pretty common for Lust," Verosika began. "I was born the daughter of a whore and have no idea who my sperm donor was. My mother raised me alongside her brother, my uncle Fred. At least until I was seven when she went to a party for some clients and never came back."
"She ditched you?" Moxxie asked in shock.
"I don't think so," Verosika answered. "Her bank account was untouched, along with the few possessions she had that were worth any money. That implies that whatever happened to her was not planned on her part. I can see a few ways where she would've died and it wouldn't have been reported: she got roughed up by a client who disposed of her body, she got into some kind of accident without any ID on her. I do know that she will be dead if she tries contacting me for a hand out after all this time," Verosika finished angrily.
"I take it that," Moxxie started, "the lack of contact since you've gone up in the world is another reason why you think she's dead."
"Yes," Verosika answered and then took a deep breath and relaxed. "Honestly, she wasn't all that present in my life even before she disappeared. Case in point: I started calling uncle Fred dad less than a year later because he was the closest thing I've ever had to a parent. We never had much growing up but we had each other. I decided to take a stab at music, worked my ass off and, now here I am."
"Good for you," Moxxie complemented.
The rest of the night passed without incident. Verosika and Moxxie watched a movie on Voxflix and Moxxie took out his guitar (which he brought with him) and played some music for Verosika.
"You're very good," Verosika complemented. "At least with your guitar skills. You leave a lot to be desired as a singer. How would you like to have your guitar work be part of my next album?"
"You really think I'm that good?" Moxxie asked in astonishment.
"Yes," Verosika answered. "And this would be in addition to your job as my security detail sense you're near me anyway for that so this would be quite profitable for you. What do you say?"
"I say yes," Moxxie replied enthusiastically.
Not long afterword, it was time for them to start getting ready for bed. Verosika had changed into an oversized T-shirt and a pair of panties. She went over to Moxxie, who was only wearing a pair of boxer briefs.
"There's one last thing I need to bring up with you," Verosika began awkwardly. "I've been having issues with closeness and attachment. Nothing sexual is going to happen but I would like you to sleep in my bed tonight. While it's going to be a lot less interesting than that would normally entail, I will be spending the night cuddling you like a stuffed animal: so what do you say?"
"Yes, let's do that," Moxxie answered with a wide smile.
"That's what I thought," Verosika replied in smug satisfaction at getting Moxxie to agree to this.
They climbed into bed and got into the position that Verosika had described earlier, with Moxxie's back facing Verosika. Moxxie very much enjoyed having Verosika's arms wrapped around him, and pressing his back into her large breasts, as evidenced by how his boxer briefs felt tighter.
"Verosika," Moxxie began. "I have to go to the bathroom now."
"You're going to jerk off in there aren't you?" Verosika asked.
"Yes," Moxxie admitted without hesitation or shame.
"I'll help you with that," Verosika said as she reached over to her drawer nightstand and took out a small towel she kept there for cleanup purposes. She handed the towel to Moxxie.
"Oh my Satan, you're serious," Moxxie said in surprise.
"Damn it Moxxie," Verosika said. "I was hoping you'd say, 'are you jerking me around' and then I could go, 'not yet I'm not'."
"But you said you didn't want anything sexual to happen tonight."
"Oh please, this is barely sex by Lust ring standards."
Scene removed to avoid running afoul of FF dot Net's policies on sexually explicit content. If interested, check out the AO3 version.
Moxxie started breathing heavily and let out a few tears of joy.
"I love my life," Moxxie said with almost tangible contentment.
"You're very welcome," Verosika replied smugly to Moxxie's appreciation of her skills.
Verosika held him a little tighter and the two of them stayed like that as they drifted off to sleep.