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macabr3-barbi3 · 1 month

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new love, new skin (Vox x OC)

"When Vox falls to Hell in 1958- when he is still Vincent- he meets her; sweet, beautiful, golden Kora, who fixes his busted screen and gives him something he hadn't known he was missing. How long can a good thing last until it falls to pieces?"

(Hi everyone I have an actual OC now that I'm working on a series for! I hope you love her as much as I do and a big thanks to @fraugwinska for helping me plan and develop her character and being her biggest fan so far ❤️If you read my oneshot request 'Heart Reset' this is that same character- that will be left as Reader Insert though and can still be read separately from this series 💕 the series will provide more context to their relationship before the events in that fic)

Tags: First Meetings; First Kiss; Falling In Love; shitty apartments; adding tags as I update so things aren't as spoiled lol; Vox goes by a different name; Fluff and Angst; lots of fluff; Lots of Angst; fast burn lol

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55804729/chapters/141678643

January 1958

There’s a body crouching over him, soft wisps of hair trailing over his bare chest as he squints against the red of the morning.

What was that fucking phrase? Red in the morning, sailors take warning, or some shit along those lines. Sound logic if the aching pain in his skull was anything to go by- he’d have to give Ma a ring, tell him that one of Pop’s shitty old sayings finally made some sense to him. But God, if he wouldn’t kill someone for an aspirin right now. His head ached, some distant pain behind his left eye that throbbed through his entire body, and he lets out a soft moan when he tries to open it and his head splits with the agony of it.

“Hold on,” a quiet voice tells him- the sound is a balm to his fried nerves. “Give me just a minute, I’m trying to find- yes! ” There’s metallic clanging close to his head before its lifted from the ground and placed on something soft- a jacket maybe? What had he been laying on before? “Don’t open your eyes yet,” the voice tells him, and part of him wants to resist- who the hell did they think they were telling him what to do? - but it's overridden by the pulsing pain in his head that says that’s actually probably for the best. He lays there as the person- he thinks it might be a woman- fiddles with something next to him. He opens his mouth to ask her a question-

And the next thing he knows he’s propped up against a wall in some sort of dump, the throbbing behind his eye gone and no longer having to squint to see. The sky is still red, which is weird, but he ignores that in favor of looking at what’s around him. There’s busted glass and plastic nearby, a cracked television lying on its side, a pile of rusted wires and tools and what could be his shirt, maybe. He didn’t remember what he had been wearing when he passed out but it looks to be roughly his size even if it is covered in blood. Then again, maybe that was just a side effect of the weird sky. He tilts his head up to look at it and- fuck, yeah, he’s still a little too dizzy to be doing that. He brings a hand up to his head, to rub at the sockets of his eyes like he usually did, and his fingers bounce uselessly against glass when he hits some kind of glass.

“Shit, you’re awake,” he hears to his left, and he turns to see this woman- at least, he thinks its a woman- approach him, crouch low to the ground like he’s some rabid animal. She… almost looks like a dog, he thinks, like a golden retriever but a little more human in the face besides her nose and the floppy ears that adorn the top of her head. Her arms are covered in a dusting of fur that reminds him of his ma’s dog back home, soft and silky from the looks of it where her limbs stick out from the men’s t-shirt she wears. “Don’t freak out,” she says, eyebrows drawn in a way that implies that she definitely thinks he’s going to freak out.

He watches her sit on her knees next to him and then she’s reaching out to touch him- hands on either side of his face, turning his head left and right. She runs her fingers up the side of his head and it… doesn’t feel like he thinks it should. He makes a noise of protest and she smiles at him, sharp little canines peeking out from the crooked grin. “What’s your name?” She asks him, and it takes a second longer than it should before it comes to him.

“Vincent,” he tells her, “but I don’t- why did I forget it?”

“I’m Kora,” she offers with a hand held out, and he doesn’t look down as she says it, just lets her shake his arm. “Forgetting is normal at first- stuff will start to come back to you.” She goes back to her inspection of his face and head, and he finally has the sense to pull back.

“Where am I?” He finally asks, and her smile falters only slightly as she stands, holds a hand out to him to take to help him up. He braces an arm on the wall and stands without her help, legs trembling a bit until he straightens his stance, head feeling oddly heavy. “What did you do to me?”

She fiddles with her hands before him, and he notices that she has little black claws on the ends of her fingers. “I… really think you should be sitting down, when I tell you,” she says, and when he shakes his head she sighs. “Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you. This,” she says, gesturing around the dump, “is Hell. The Pride Ring, if you want to get technical. As far as what I did- I helped you.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad,” he says with a nervous chuckle. “So I died, huh? Knew it was coming for me, doll, I guess I just didn’t think it would be so soon.” He looks around the area, finally recognizes that the red in the sky was coming from a giant pentagram that stretched beyond his vision- very on brand. “How did I die?”

The woman- Kora, he reminds himself- looks away. “I’m not sure,” she tells him. “I wasn’t with you when you died. I just… happened to be nearby as you fell.”

“As I…” He looks up at the sky, distant blurs coming through the atmosphere like stars, and it hits him like a truck- the searing pain as he hurtled through the sky, flesh burning, body shifting and reshaping before he had struck the ground, the blossoming pain, agonizing crunch when he had landed on his head. His hands fly up at the memory, trying to grip at his hair like he used to when he was stressed and finding a smooth plastic surface with no grip, nothing to hang onto. The thread of his sanity tightens, threatens to snap as he feels around like she had, to the back of his head- a clunky old television , not unlike the one that sat on the ground a few feet from them- and the now smooth surface of his face.

“I… I did the best I could,” Kora says quietly, and he snaps his head to look at her. “I don’t really have a lot of knowledge about electronics but it wasn’t too hard to match the wires up to the new one when I followed those from the old one. I think the wire for your left eye got damaged in the fall though- there’s probably an expert around here somewhere, or there will be one in the next few years if you really want to get the color fixed…” She keeps talking but Vincent has turned away from her, dropped to his knees in front of the old television on the ground- his fucking head mere hours ago, apparently- and uses it to look at his reflection.

And fuck, yeah- he was a television, alright. Just like the one at his ma’s place, thick rimmed frame in that tacky yellowish white. Not even one of the nice ones like he had had at the news station. His eyes are huge and red, one outlined in the same electric blue as his pupils, and when his mouth drops open in disbelief he sees the teeth. Huge, razor sharp, they seem to grow and warp with his mouth as he moves it, testing expressions. He lets his lips hang open and sticks his tongue out, pulls at it with his fingers. It had to be Hell, because no way would something like this be possible anywhere else. How could he have a screen for a face and still have a functional mouth and tongue?

He starts to laugh, low and manic, cutting Kora off in the middle of whatever she had been talking about. He couldn’t even remember how he died, how fucking funny was that? And now he was in Hell, no clue how he got there, basically freshly lobotomized into a new head, and his only companion was a mutt that wouldn’t stop fucking talking to him. She approaches him cautiously, hands held out in front of her like he might bite- fuck, with these teeth, maybe he should. “Get the fuck away from me,” he laughs, and he can feel the thread pull taut, stretch to its limits as he laughs and backs away from her, away from his old head, into the wall.

She drops to her knees in front of him, isn’t put off by his laughing or snarling in her face. “It’ll be okay,” she says, and reaches a hand out to his face. It comes away wet - how the fuck was he crying right now? “I promise, it’s okay. You’ll be fine.” His laughter dissolves into sobbing, and he can’t tell how his head ended up wedged against her shoulder with her arms around him.

It’s a good fit though, and he guesses that counts for something.

With some effort, since his legs didn’t seem to want to work, Kora manages to get him back to her little apartment outside of a place called Imp City. Vincent had tried to help- he really had- but his body felt limp, television head slumped uselessly against her shoulder as she essentially dragged him. He pulls himself together and apologizes to her at least, because his mother raised a goddamn gentleman, and she waves it off. “Already did it once,” she says cheerfully, “I had to drag you to the junkyard when I saw that your head was… you know.” She gestures to it as she helps him settle on the couch, head falling back against the firm cushion. “I saw that your mouth opens- do you want some coffee? Or water? It’s not as good as it is on Earth but hey, it’s something!” She flutters around the kitchen area, the faint smell of ground coffee beans filling the tiny space, and Vincent takes a look around while she burns off some of her apparent nervous energy.

He had seen some shitty apartments before but Jesus - the place was a shithole. It was neat enough, he supposed, Kora’s things put away neatly on the limited shelf space that she had, a soft green blanket draped over the back of the couch that he runs his hands over. But paint peeled off the walls in chipping swatches; strange stains covered the ceiling; there was a gap where the window met the sill, and a warm breeze was drifting through it. He could hear faint yelling from both sides and above them, and it reminded him so much of his first dorm in college that he can’t help but chuckle.

Kora’s head turns to him, one ear quirking up in curiosity. “Sorry,” Vincent says, “just. This place is a dump. No offense,” he adds when her face falls.

She still offers him a smile. “You’re fine; I know it's not great but it’s what I can afford and it was close to my- my friend.” Her eyes go distant for a moment, lost in thought staring at the wall behind him until she shakes her head. “But this is where we are anyway- you don’t have to stay, of course. I just figured you could rest here for a bit before you go on your way. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m okay, I think. I mean, besides-” He waves vaguely at his head as she hands him the cup she holds, taking a deep gulp of the too-hot coffee. It scalds his throat on the way down, which he should probably be more upset about, but he’s mostly just pleased that he has sensation at all. He would have to find some spare time to really inspect his body beyond the head swap and the new sharp tips to his fingers, blue and pointy where they’re wrapped around the mug with some cheesy, upbeat saying on it. His skin is blue as well, a dark navy that continues up his arms. “So what am I gonna owe you for all this?”

Her brows quirk up. “For the coffee? Nothing. I’ll pay you to take it off my hands.” She smiles at him, a little peek of sharp canines as her lips part.

“Nah, for helping me. I’m not dumb, I know nothing comes for free in life- I assume it's the same in the afterlife if that’s what this shit is. I don’t have any money, you know.”

She shakes her head, the gold of her hair glinting in the glow from the shitty light that hangs overhead. “Nothing owed- there’s no debt. I really am just trying to help.”

“Then you’re stupid,” he says bluntly, manners slipping out the gap in the window, and to his amazement she doesn’t take offense- she laughs, loud and bell-like in the small room, the sound occupying all of the space between them.

She swaps cups with him, replacing his empty one with her full one that she had yet to take a sip of. “Maybe I am,” she shrugs, “but you’re reaping the benefits either way, aren’t you?” She pours the last of the coffee into the mug she took from him and settles onto the floor, leaning back against the cabinet under the sink. Better Latte than Never, the ceramic tells him from across the room where its held in her hands, and she smiles up at him from her new position. “The way I see it- you’ll either also be a good person and be thankful that I’m helping you, maybe wash the cups when we’re done as a sign of gratitude; or, you’ll fly off the handle and kill me, in which case I would be back in a couple days anyway and we’d have to do this again.”

He hesitates, surprised when his head lets off a staticky hum. “What if I’m a good person and I’m thankful but I don’t do the dishes?” He takes one had off the cup he still holds- Bean There, Done That, this one says- and waves his fingers at her. “I’m not sure if all of me is electronic in some way. I’m not trying to get electrocuted so soon after… fuck, why can’t I remember how I died?”

The look she gives him feels like pity, makes him want to snarl and show off his new, sharp teeth. “It happens for a lot of people. Your mind kind of has to re-acclimate, process all the new information, the new form. It’ll come to you soon, I’m sure.”

“Do you remember?”

She flinches, the lines of her face deepening a bit as she stares down into her coffee, still untouched. “I do- I wish I didn’t, sometimes, but it’s always there in the back of my mind, you know? Everyone is different though.”

Vincent sighs and moves his hand like he means to brush his hair back, the action purely muscle memory before he remembers that he doesn’t have hair anymore. “Gotcha. I guess I could at least stick around that long, until I remember just to make sure no one is out for my head or anything.” He looks down at himself, remembering now that his chest is bare from where she had apparently taken it off him to use as a pillow in the junkyard. “You wouldn’t happen to have any clothing I could borrow, would you?”

“Oh, of course!” She picks herself up off the ground, sets her still untouched coffee back on the counter and dips through a door in the hallway, emerging with her spoils that she throws to him- a large black t-shirt that simply says fuck in slanting cursive. “I can swing by somewhere later and get you some other things, that might be a little tight on you since you’re bigger than I am.” Kora watches him for a moment, her cheeks flushing a bit before she turns away. “You know what I mean. Broader in the shoulders and all.”

His smile feels strange on his new face, but it's genuine at least. “Gotcha. Thanks, doll.” He chuckles a little at the way that she makes a point of turning around while he put the shirt on, stretching tight but not uncomfortably across his chest despite how oversized it probably was on her. With her turned around he can see the tail that sticks out of a hole in the back of her pants, long and fluffy and the same gold as her hair.

Decently clothed, he indicates that she can turn back around, and she swaps their cups one last time. She pulls a jacket off the back of the door and slips her arms through it, and at his raised eyebrow- or, he figures, the image of a raised eyebrow- she grabs a bag off the floor, full of what appears to be things like newspapers and small packages. “Happy as I was to help you, it did make me late- I was just stepping out for an early morning walk when I noticed you falling, and fixing your screen took a little longer than I thought it would. You’re free to hang out until I come back- or I guess you could rob me blind if you’re that desperate for a couple books, punny coffee mugs and a blanket. That would show me, huh?” Kora’s smile is soft but he can see the vague uncertainty behind it- maybe she did think that’s what he was planning.

Vincent shrugs, leaning back into the couch. “I’ll try to resist the urge,” he says, and her face brightens.

“You can make more coffee if you want,” she says. “And you’re welcome to read anything on the shelves- there’s not much but maybe that will also be a deterrent to stealing them.” She glances at the clock on the wall, indicating a mere nine in the morning. “I’ll have to go right from the hub to Viv’s- its a diner nearby, just a little extra cash,” she explains when he gives her a confused expression. “But I should be home before midnight… if you’re still here.” She finishes her little speech, looking a little embarrassed. “You can also leave though if you want! I’m not gonna like. Hold you hostage or anything.”

The smirk that takes his face over feels natural, finally- a face he used to make that he can make again, the memory of his muscles not betraying him with something that doesn’t feel the same. “I don’t think you could if you tried,” he says, looking her over, and Kora flushes and fumbles with the straps of her bag.

“Drug your ass here from the junkyard, didn’t I? I’m stronger than I look.” She lifts her chin in defiance, the move letting her catch sight of the clock again. “Shit, I really gotta go- maybe see you later, Vincent?” She says it like a question instead of a statement, the tilt of her eyebrows hopeful.

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, “I’ll still be here. I’ll stay.” She flashes him a brilliant smile and ducks out the door, lock clicking into place. Vincent sees her through the window unhooking a bike from a lamppost, throwing her hair up into a ponytail before she catches sight of him through the window. She throws him a wave and she’s off, bike shooting down the street and leaving him behind.

It only takes an hour or so to get bored of lounging on the couch after Kora leaves, and then he’s walking down the short hallway and opening the first door he finds- the bathroom. He strips all the way down, pants and borrowed t-shirt folded neatly on the toilet while he inspects himself in the mirror that hangs off the back of the door.

At least he was still fucking hot, he muses to himself, twisting his torso to get a good look at every inch of himself. Thankfully, everything from his neck down appeared to be normal biology; when he looks a little closer at a deep gouge in his neck he thinks he might be able to see some wires but he doesn’t want to mess with it, risk messing something up so badly that he dies again. His blue skin is covered in blood from the cut, and he rifles through the cabinets to find a washcloth, wiping himself down gently and throwing it in the sink. He continues his inspection- his muscles are still lean and firm like they had been when he was alive. He even had some cool stripes along his ribs and thighs and biceps, scar-like in texture when he touched them. He flexes at himself in the mirror, lets that cocky smile take over his features, and-

Yeah, there he was; even if his face looked a little different now, that was the Vincent that he knew himself as. Confident. Self-assured. Strong. Sexy. He appreciated Kora’s help, he wasn’t ungrateful, but he probably would have been fine on his own. Eventually, anyway.

He examines his back, the stripes extending across the expanse of it before wrapping around the sides. After a solid examination he lets his eyes fall between his legs, satisfied enough with what he sees- he takes himself in hand for just a moment, another minor inspection to make sure everything seems to be in working order, before he pulls his clothing back on and crosses the hall to the other room.

Kora’s room. It smells like coffee and almond, her bed haphazardly made with threadbare sheets of pale yellow and dark blue. There’s a table under the window with what looks like an assortment of junk on it- when he gets closer he can see that it’s… still an assortment of junk, but themed junk. Beads, colorful pieces of paper, scraps of metal and a variety of colored markers and pens. There are little sketches on the papers and what looks to be the start of a piece of jewelry that Vincent picks up to inspect. A little pawprint made of bits of metal, like one might see on a dog collar. He chuckles and slips it into his pocket- he figures if he does end up leaving this would be something to remember the strange woman by, a little token of her kindness to him.

He briefly glances in her closet, a couple dresses and pairs of trousers hanging. Her t-shirts and undergarments occupy the drawers of the dresser, neatly folded along with her pajamas. There’s a photo on her nightstand, Kora and someone that looked like a bat, winged arm slung over her shoulder and a close-lipped smile on her lips.

Was this her friend that she said lived nearby? The reason that she stayed in this shitty place?

He exits the bedroom, closing the door behind himself and coming back to the living area. There are sticky notes everywhere; on the dying plant by the windowsill (fucking water me!!!), on the fridge (low on eggs and milk), on the coffee table (talk to Viv about changing shift). He looks through her kitchen drawers- two sets of silverware, he notices- and moves on to the shelves that line the walls. Duplicates of titles he had seen or heard of on Earth, low budget cookbooks, anatomy and medical texts for both human and non-human beings. He briefly glances through the latter, but can’t seem to find anything about bodies only partially made of mechanic materials just flipping through the pages.

He picks a couple of books off the shelf- the Chronicles of Narnia, the covers say, which might be a little low grade for him but he didn’t have the mental capacity to really focus on anything other than not dying a second time out of boredom.

Vincent is a third of the way through the second book when the lock of the door turns and Kora enters, setting her bag on the floor and slipping off her shoes before she turns and sees him stretched comfortably across the couch. “You’re still here!” She picks up the bag and thrusts it towards him, forcing him to dog-ear the page he was on so he didn’t lose his place to take the offered package. “I brought some leftovers from Viv’s- I didn’t know what you liked so I just got a bit of everything, you go ahead and take what you think you want and I’ll take whatever is left.” She grabs a couple plates out of the cabinet and sets them on the coffee table. “Let me change and swap out the sheets on the bed- you’re taller than I am so you can take the bed-”

He puts a hand up- he was fine accepting help but he drew the line at letting her sleep on the couch. “Wait, hold on Kora-”

She halts in the hallway. “Are you not staying?”

“No! No, I mean- I am staying for now but I don’t want to put you out. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She snorts, a rough, charming noise that echoes in the hallway. “You’re sure about that?”

Vincent shrugs, his smile feeling a little more normal again. “I’ll figure it out. A gentleman would never displace a lady from her bed.” He shoots her a wink, making her blush and scurry into her bedroom. He opens the container she had handed him and takes a deep sniff of the meal, his mouth watering as he forks some of the meat and potatoes and vegetables onto one of the plates. As a courtesy he puts the rest of it on her plate, as close to even as he could get it.

When Kora reemerges her hair is pulled into a loose braid, wearing another oversized t-shirt that hangs to the middle of her thighs. It should be scandalous, for her to have so much skin exposed, but… it suited her, he thought. She looked comfortable, and cute. And really- it was Hell. Who was left to judge her here? Or him for that matter, if he watched the muscles of her legs flex as she crossed the room to sit across the table from him, smiling at the plate he had prepared for her.

She notices the book that he had been reading, fussing for a bit at the folded page where he marked his spot and using a bit of paper on the stand from the restaurant as a makeshift bookmark. They talk a bit about the books, her having read what was out of the series before she died and waiting for the rest of them to trickle their way down from up top. She’s a good conversationalist, he’s surprised to find, and they pass a good bit of time chatting before the weight of some good food in his stomach and the stress of the day hits him like a truck, his yawn making his screen warp and stretch. She notices- of course she does- and is immediately rushing around again, racing to get a pillow, another blanket, did he need the radio on?

“Kora.” She pauses mid stretch onto her tiptoes, already having brought a pillow and another blanket and now reaching for a radio that sits on a higher shelf in the room and switching it on. “You’ve done enough for me today. Thank you, but seriously- I’m fine. Go to sleep.”

She goes flat again, arms crossed and fiddling with the sleeves of her shirt. “You’re right- God, yeah, sorry, I just get- Right. Sorry.” She offers him a smile, pulling her braid over her shoulder and flicking the end of it. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”

He finds himself nodding, even as he’s wondering how loudly the door would squeak if he crept out after she fell asleep. “I’ll be here,” he says. “Good night.”

“Night, Vincent.” She exits the living area, the sink running in the bathroom- brushing her teeth maybe? - before her bedroom door opens and closes.

He watches the clock, giving it an hour before he rises from the couch and approaches her bedroom. The door opens silently, not so much as a creak, and his excuse he had come up with for if she was still awake dies on his lips when he sees that she’s completely out, face slack and sweet in sleep. He closes it behind himself and heads for the front door.

She was a nice woman, and he appreciated her help. But he didn’t need her- he didn’t need anyone taking care of him. He would find his own way like he had on Earth, what little bits he can remember. He would rise on his own without any help. Hell couldn’t be that much different.

He hesitates for a moment before swiping the book he had been reading off her table to take with him. He would probably have to find the rest of the series somewhere, eventually, but he couldn’t just leave something half finished now that he had started it. He gets to the door, even goes as far as unlocking and twisting the knob before he realizes that he doesn’t have any shoes. He was determined to be self-sufficient again but really- there was only so much a man could do with no shoes.

And no money.

And nowhere to live.

He still opens the door and peeks out into the street, the night quiet and the red of the pentagram distantly glowing. Its dark and a little smelly, strange shadows around every corner, fucking eyes on the mailboxes and shit. He turns back to Kora’s apartment; softly lit by light of the radio screen; small but comfortable and homey.

He closes the door and settles back onto the couch, folding his legs up in a way that allowed him to fit somewhat comfortably on the furniture. He pulls the blanket over himself, feeling his screen get dimmer as his mind goes blank. He would make a more solid decision about what to do in the morning, but as of right now he didn’t think Kora would mind him staying a bit longer.

What could be the harm in sticking around another couple of days?

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