Chapter Text
His legs moved automatically. His chest rose and fell, and then he started moving. Without a safety net. For the first time in a year. No hotel. No Husk. At least the drugs would keep him company… right?
His eyes were wet as he walked back into the tower. He didn’t care that his mascara was running so far down his cheeks that the black pooled at the bottom of his chin.
He was walking back into hell. He knew that it meant he would at least have some sort of routine. Fucking. Pain. Manipulation. He knew it all too well from his existence in hell.
Val knew how to control. Knew how to pretty everything up, just enough to get him out of his head. Make sure all of the bullshit in his head was quiet. At least for a moment.
Angel took a deep breath. He was trying, no one could deny that. He wrapped once set of his hands in his own hair. His lower exposed set wrapped around his stomach, hugging himself tightly.
The inside of the tower already reminded him of a techno cage. The blue seemed like a trap. His face screwed up in agony as a realization crossed his face. This was something he knew too well. The haze washing back over his being.
The high…Shit.
By the time he pressed the button for the elevator, it was already happening. His knees buckled in the silence a jagged breath came out as a short exhale. The only reason that he was on his feet was due to the steel that was lifting him to the top of the tower. To the penthouse cage, Husk had tried to save him from what already felt like a lifetime ago.
When the door swung open, Val had been waiting for him on the other side. A dark laugh, as red voids looked at him. Wings commonly used as a robe broken looking currently. Two arms on his hips. The other two crossed across his frame. A hip jutted out. A satisfied smirk on his face. “You chose well amorcito. Always coming home to daddy. You know I won’t ever judge. You know where you belong.”
Angel winces biting his lip and nods before looking up at Val. The moth walked closer to him.“Yes, daddy.” Angel whispers.
Val shakes his head and laughs. Red eyes alight with possibilities. “Go clean yourself up. I’m not sharing the stash with a whore who looks like they are a step away from trying to kill themself. Now smile bitch. Your home after all. You CHOSEthis. You know the gato couldn’t help you. That’s why you left him.”
Angel gave him a broken half-smile. “At least you’re always there for me.” He whispered, the mask started to slip on, old ways becoming more obvious, but only to the trained eye.
“I’ll have lines out for you when you get out of the shower. I want to celebrate my winning this bullshit. Look at how much of a hero I can be.” He pauses and looks at Angel. “And I get to do it while also getting my slut back. Now go shower, I have so many plans Angelito.”
Angel’s retreating footfalls were soft as he went. A sob chokes into a hiccup as he pushes into the room he had shared with Val for so long in his existence in hell.
The red and pink room, wrapped leopard prints on almost every surface. Screamed at him that he should have left. That he should have known not to come back. That this was a prison with better interior design.
He ignored it though, and stepped toward the few things that he had brought with him. Knowing that Val would want him in one of his harness sets. Or the assless shorts that he was so fond of. The pink set with the mesh pockets.
Fresh tears came to his eyes as he saw the notebook. The present that he had been given by Husk last Sinsmas. Would he even have one this year? Would it be like it was the year before, and his evening will be spent in a club entertaining drunk, horny fucks? Probably.
He held the notebook to his chest. All four hands gripping it as if it was his only connection to something real. With the drugs setting in could he even really figure out what was real anymore?
“I’m sorry, Husky. I’m too dangerous.” He whispered and looked back at the door before he picked up a pen and sat down, curling in on himself. He knew he only had a few minutes max.
With a sigh, he resigned himself. Stole a glance at the door and started writing.
“I don’t fear Val in the same way anymore. He’s not the same person that I originally feared. I know what he’s doing.”
It fell onto the page fast and messy, but in some way freeing as everything formed on the page. Everything began pouring into the page like word vomit. Trying to find its place in all of hell.
At least, on the page, he had some freedom. At least it meant that he could move. If only on paper. If only in lettering.
He sighed, looking at the finished piece and snorted. He didn’t have to be told that Val was going to start wondering where in the hell he is, soon enough.
The promise of drugs was the one thing that held him together. He knew when the high washed over him that he could finally disassociate back into the couch. Hide from everyone, even himself. Despite the fact that he was only in a drugged depersonalization. It meant he didn’t have to live with the fact that he had put his hands around Cherri’s throat. That he had been ordered to be a fucking muppet. In more ways than one.
He shook the thought out of his mind and shrugged off his pink fur coat. The last choice he ever got to make was when he signed his soul away, anyway.