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With how quickly everything had changed, Cherri had almost forgotten that the familiar skyline of Pride had been drastically marred. The laser cannon had caused more destruction in seconds than she had managed in decades of blowing shit up, and it was almost eerie to travel through the graveyard of buildings that had once made up her nightly exploration routes.
Some buildings had been spared, the erratic path of the weapon having missed them entirely in Vox’s personal vendetta against Alastor. Some buildings were in the process of being rebuilt, with only the top few floors having been destroyed while the foundation remained intact. There were a few floors of these buildings that had fallen to the ground, toppled and tilted but still recognizable, even habitable by those in desperate need of housing.
Some buildings had been destroyed entirely, wiped from the face of the Ring, never to be seen again.
There was a metaphor in there that she didn’t want to dwell on for too long. Metaphors sucked. Metaphors involved too much thinking and not enough doing.
The feeling of flying through the air was still the same, though, as she leapt from one rooftop to the next, even if the rooftops themselves had moved. She had always been good at adapting, good at dodging, good at finding new paths. She could almost pretend that she was in the midst of a turf war with Sir Pentious, trying to one-up the snake in their constant game. It didn’t matter that a building was missing, she would simply find the next one, or slide down a lamppost, or use an explosion of her own to propel herself up and over a pile of debris.
When she had left the hotel that night, she hadn’t had a specific destination in mind. She had just needed to get out, to get into the crisp night air and tire herself out. There were people at the hotel she didn’t mind, obviously - she wouldn’t have moved in if everybody was insufferable - but she was getting sick of talking about feelings bullshit. Her feelings were complicated, a pit of quicksand she didn’t want to step into when she knew no amount of talking about them would be enough to keep her from being pulled under.
It was much better to blow shit up. Sure, that wasn’t great for getting into Heaven, but neither was biting somebody’s head off for asking for her opinion on goddamn fucking everything when she just wanted to exist for a while.
Once she laid her eye on a familiar building, though, she knew where she had to go. It was brightly lit, and the dumbasses had left scaffolding up that was just begging to be climbed. The damage hadn’t even been too bad, comparatively, but apparently a few broken windows were too unsightly for the Vees to leave alone.
Their mistake, really.
With Vox out of service, the danger was diminished, though not entirely gone. Once she was about halfway up the scaffolding, Cherri pulled out her phone, checking for anything she could find to get an idea of where she might want to start her adventure. Angel’s socials had been entirely taken over by Velvette, judging by the complete lack of fan interaction or unbranded content since he had returned. Even his old posts had been scrubbed, and the fact that that bitch had taken away the spider’s pinned posts about Fat Nuggets ignited yet another fire within her. Like everything else, she pushed that into the mental trunk that she would have to blow up later, forcing herself to focus on what she was looking for.
She grinned as she found exactly that - a livestream about some boring-ass drawing shit, but without Angel. That meant that she had a chance to catch him without fucking Valentino ruining everything again.
A noise from the balcony above her made her freeze, but only for a second. She knew that exhausted sigh, the familiar smell of cigarettes and the perfume used to try to mask the scent as if that didn’t make it even more obvious. She silently swung herself up the last few bars of the scaffolding before landing expertly on the balcony’s railing.
Angel didn’t even turn to look at her, though the way his fingers tightened around the railing made it clear that he knew she was there. He looked awful, Cherri noted. He was too thin again, and the low cut of his dressing gown exposed a dark ring of bruising around his throat. She could see the edge of a black eye even with his head turned, and the way his breath caught on every drag of the cigarette made her suspect that he had a broken rib under the ugly faux fur of the robe that was clearly meant to emulate Valentino’s fuckass coat.
The silence between them was deafening, and Cherri had almost decided to say something when Angel finally flicked the remains of his cigarette off the edge of the balcony, the glowing embers going dark as they fell.
“Go home, Cherri. You can’t be here.” His voice was flat, curt in a way that was likely meant to sound authoritative but merely betrayed his exhaustion. Cherri knew him better than anyone, and she knew he knew that.
“That you sayin’ that, or the cunts in your fuckin’ head?”
“Both. If anybody finds ya here-”
“They won’t-”
“If they do, they’ll kill you an’ make me watch. Or worse.” Angel wrapped his arms tightly around himself, fists clenching around handfuls of fabric. Cherri wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly what ‘worse’ was, and the fact that her best friend couldn’t even trust his own hands anymore made her fucking blood boil.
“Nothing’s gonna happen, Angie,” she sighed, tugging one of his hands away from his side and squeezing it in her own. “The drones are all down since the flat fuckhead took a back seat, and there’s some kinda livestream goin’ on with the other Vees. Nobody’s payin’ attention to an extra bitch on the thirteenth floor balcony.”
Angel was quiet, and for a moment, Cherri wasn’t sure whether she was going to receive a lecture or a hug. Instead, the spider finally turned to look at her, his grip tightening on the hand she held. “Get off the railing, dumbass. If you ain’t gonna fuck off, you might as well get comfy ‘stead’a perchin’ like a gargoyle.”
“At least I’m a hot gargoyle,” she shot back, allowing him to pull her onto the actual platform of the balcony. It was progress. "Affectionately, you look like shit.”
“Affectionately, fuck you.”
She laughed, and an actual smile appeared on Angel’s face. Sure, it was small, and the bruising around his neck and eye made the picture less than ideal, but part of her had wondered if she was going to be able to see that smile again at all.
She needed to stop getting attached to people like this. The thought of there being a ‘last time’ for anything had begun to hurt, and she couldn’t do jack shit about it.
“So, the hotel’s been crazy busy,” she informed casually, as if they had met up for coffee. “Like, full of cunts who actually wanna work on gettin’ up to Heaven. Apparently there’s somethin’ about a little mortal danger that makes fuckers more receptive to gettin’ the fuck outta dodge.”
“Bet Charlie’s lovin’ that,” Angel hummed, posture relaxing as he leaned against the railing. Cherri did the same, looking out over the city with him, committing his view to memory.
“Oh, she is,” Cherri snorted. “She spent all day today trynna get Niffty to stop terrorizin’ the rats so she could go do the actual housekeepin’ shit. I think Vaggi ended up doin’ it anyway, though. Oh, and she finally decided to keep her name, but without the E at the end.”
“Aw, I’m glad she finally figured out her identity crisis.” He laughed softly, but Cherri didn’t miss the wince and small cough when the sound aggravated whatever had happened to his throat. “I swear, I thought she was gonna go with some basic-ass name and just give up.”
“Nah, I think Charlie likes it too much. Pretty sure you get attached to a name once ya scream it out enough durin’ ‘private bedroom pillow fort time,’” she speculated, using air quotes.
“Oh, please tell me that’s somethin’ she’s actually called it,” he begged, only to grin when Cherri nodded with a cackle. “Fuck, you gotta record that shit next time.”
“I can’t record every time the princess says somethin’ funny, I only have, like, five hours’f battery life on my phone,” she pointed out, pulling out the device. She pulled up her photos app and began to scroll through some of the recent ones.
“We got Niff and Baxter havin’ quality roach-band-bonding time,” she narrated, gaze flickering between her screen and the spider’s face. “Then there’s Al and Lucifer, an’ I don’t know what the fuck’s goin’ on with them, but they should really just fuck about it already. Oh, this one’s a letter from Pentious, and yes, he writes like an old man. Then-”
“Stop. Not that one.” Angel turned away, and Cherri could hear the emotion catch in his throat like a dry sob. She quickly looked down at the phone and understood immediately.
The picture was a candid one she’d taken of Husk, and not one she would have picked to show her friend if she had been paying attention. The cat had his head burrowed in his arms where they rested on the bartop, wing and ears drooped back in the near-constant way they had since Angel had left. Bottles surrounded him, all empty, and Fat Nuggets had curled himself against Husk’s arm, both seeking and providing comfort. It wasn’t a pretty picture, but it was the reality.
Angel had left to try not to hurt anyone, but his absence had hurt more than the news of his unwilling betrayal.
“Angie…”
“Just stop,” he ground out through a clenched jaw, hunched over the railing as if making himself smaller would do the same to his feelings. “I ain’t goin’ back, so don’t come at me with that shit, okay?”
“I’m sorry, it was an accident,” she insisted, attempting to put a hand on his back, only for him to flinch away from the touch. “I swear, I only came to see ya, not to try an’ make you do shit.”
“I have to stay here,” he replied quietly, his voice thick.
“I know. I’m not stoppin’ you.”
“Why are you still tryin’, then?” he asked bitterly, shooting her a glare over his shoulder. “What d’ya even want?”
“We’re best mates, Angie,” she reminded him, giving him a light punch to the same shoulder. “That ain’t changin’ for shit, dumbfuck. I was here when ya lived with Val before the hotel, an’ I’m not lettin’ that go just ‘cause things got fucky between then an’ now.”
“I almost killed-”
“No, bitch, Valentino almost killed me,” she corrected sharply. ”You weren’t involved in that decision, an’ I’m pretty sure I’m the one who gets to decide who I’m pissed at for that. ‘Sides, you think you’re the only one’a my friends who’s tried to off me? I’m literally in a long-distance relationship with the fuckin’ snake cunt who tried to blast me with steampunk airship bullshit while I threw bombs at him. This is Hell, Angie. Shit happens.”
“Everything’s different now,” he protested, though he allowed her to wrap her arms around him. “Val’s got me workin’ like all the time now, an’ I can’t trust myself or my thoughts or anything-”
“All the more reason for ya to have a bitch to keep tabs on you,” she argued gently. “We’re ride or die. Shit’s changed, but that ain’t gonna change.”
“... Okay,” he finally relented, tense muscles relaxing. “Don’t do anythin’ stupid, an’ don’t try to make me go back, but I think I can let myself have my best bitch back.”
“Love ya, cunt.”
“Love ya too, Cherri.” They both tensed as they heard voices begin to carry through the hallway that led up to Angel’s room.
“See ya same time next week?”
“You’d better.”
Grinning and giving him a one-eyed wink, Cherri somersaulted off of the balcony’s railing and began to climb down as she heard Valentino’s stupid voice call Angel back inside.
They’d be okay.