Chapter Text
“Cut! That’s a wrap, boys!”
Angel’s never been so happy to hear those words. He breathes out a sigh of relief as his costar steps back, peeling apart their sweat-slicked chests, and a rush of cool air soothes his burning skin. His muscles are screaming, limbs stiff and aching from the stress position he’s been so diligently holding—both sets of arms twisted behind his back and suspended in a steep strappado, cords wrapped in diamond patterns around his torso.
Another breath, and he crumples, allowing his full weight to catch on the ropes crushing him in an oppressive embrace. All he can do now is wait. For the metallic ringing in his ears to subside. For the phosphene clouds in his eyes to dissipate. For sensation to creep back into his extremities, his weakly flexing fingers. Salty beads of perspiration crawl down his body and he shivers despite the heat of the stage lights.
Scissors slip beneath his intricate bindings. A few deft snips and he’s free to inhale deeply, shakily, the knot in his chest slowly untangling as unobstructed air floods his lungs. He chokes it down desperately, almost gags on it. Fire burns in his arms and legs, blood surging through hollow veins no longer cinched and starved under tight restraints. His trembling legs buckle and Angel sinks to the floor.
Shit, he thinks. I couldn’t have held that position for much longer.
An aide places a glass into his hands, slippery with condensation, and he clutches it as tightly as he can with numb fingers. It grounds him, anchors him to something tangible as he eases back to reality. He greedily sucks down the water, and its icy chill burning down to the roots of his teeth hurts better than anything done to him during today’s shoot.
His senses begin to knit themselves back together, slow and agonizing, reuniting him with the fabric of time and space. He registers the low buzz of chatter, recognizes the silhouettes of the cleanup crew fluttering around the set. Above them, a soft green glow on the wall, neon numbers blinking the ungodly hour, and he definitely wouldn’t have lasted another minute, filming having penetrated further into the night than anyone had anticipated. It had turned out to be one of those days where everything seemed completely in sync, scenes unfolding seamlessly, the entire cast and crew in a flow state that would be criminal to interrupt for something as insignificant as overtime.
The empty glass clinks against the tiled floor. Angel stumbles to his feet, eager to shower and wash off the film of sweat, tears, and semen hardening on his skin. Beneath it lingers the kiss of the ropes, angry red marks snaking around his wrists, his chest, his neck, and fuck, he thinks, I must look so awful right now.
His muscles protest with each step, and yet, he sways his hips, calling—demanding—attention to the evidence of his hard work, badges of honor beaten across his body. Tired as Angel is, ugly as he feels, he still manages a glance up at the director’s chair. A brief pause, a wink over his shoulder, a soft toss of his hair, and he steals away.
The studio grows dim in his absence.
Fuck, he looks so beautiful right now, Valentino thinks, seated above them all in throne of the director’s chair, feline eyes raking over the marred and mangled body of his beloved starlet. Overstimulated, overfucked, every one of his senses ruthlessly pushed to the brink, and Angel—Val’s darling, his muse, his masterpiece—took it all so beautifully. Effortlessly, to the untrained eye. But for Val, the real artistry, the real pleasure, lay beneath the veneer of showmanship. It was in the way Angel danced through the liminal, the way he teased along the boundaries of his own limits, persisting through the pain in his desperation to please. A victim of his own hopeless devotion, tonight Angel had pushed himself to the verge of breaking.
Val wants to give him that final shove over the edge.
***
In the sanctuary of his dressing room, Angel collapses on the couch, battered body cradled in clouds of pillows. Fuck the shower. It can wait. Instead, he replays his performance in his head. Basks in the memory of Val’s satisfied grin, validation in the curve of his lips and the flash of his teeth. Twinkling down at Angel from the director’s chair, that look had emboldened him, guided him through his most challenging scene to date. Angel’s brain was as pliant under Val’s gaze as his body was under the stage lights.
He’d done a fucking bang-up job, too. Acted his heart out to bring the fantasy to life. Sat through hour after hour, take after take, never once complaining—even when the brutality of the scene caught up with him, when the limits of his physical body couldn’t keep up with the love of the craft.
And it was all worth it.
Angel and Val are are a powerhouse. They do things no one else is willing or able to even fathom. They don’t simply push boundaries—they rewrite them, create films darker and sexier than anything else on the market. Their love of the craft spills out onto the screen for all of Hell to see.
So pushing a little too far to tonight, taking that extra time to make this latest project absolutely perfect, was worth the exhaustion. Worth feeling like his limbs are about to fall off, his body about to give out. Seeing his own pride reflected in Val’s countenance alone is well beyond worth the residual pain.
With Valentino by his side, Angel can accomplish anything.
The door squeaks on its hinges and it hits him again now, that look, resplendent in the shadowed silhouette standing before the threshold. It stokes a fire in his belly, flames of arousal licking at his insides and growing ever hotter as Val stalks toward him.
“What a show, am I right, babe?” Angel purrs through a sore throat, eagerly awaiting Val’s assent.
“Hm? Oh, yes, well done, my little star.” Val’s voice is distant. Uninterested. That wasn’t the reaction Angel was expecting. Val perches on the arm of the couch and Angel sags into the cushions, stomach plummeting as the high is ripped out from under him. He’d been ready to bask in the glow of Val’s praise, the pet names and sweet nothings with which Val loves to shower him. He didn’t expect to feel so…discarded.
But maybe Val is just as tired as he is. Hours of directing, commanding an entire cast and crew, lights and sound and cameras and cues—it must have been exhausting.
Angel shakes it off and tries again to hook Val’s attention. “Did you see how well I took his cock? And the beating! That was hardcore; I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow!” He stretches long and lean across the couch, showing off the marks throbbing across his body. Val’s moods are fickle, difficult to pin down, especially in that swirling, surreal sphere Angel floats through after a rough shoot or a good fuck, but appealing to their work—to Val’s art, Angel’s body—usually does the trick.
A smile creeps onto Val’s face, and he leans down to press a soft kiss against Angel’s forehead. Finally. “Mm, this film is going to be a money maker for sure. Really outdid myself there. Oh, and the sequel! You’d better be ready for it, Angel baby,” Val practically drools, words curving with the silk of his accent.
Angel freezes. Sequel? After they’ve just wrapped?
BDSM is his favorite thing to shoot, but the weight of those performances takes a serious physical and mental toll.
“Wait, I don’t…” Angel fumbles, mouth dry and heart sinking as Val’s eyes narrow. He swallows thickly and, against his better judgment, continues. “I don’t know, Val. That was really intense. I don’t think I can handle another one so soon. Gotta recharge first, you know?”
“You’ll do it if I tell you you’ll do it,” Val bites out. “But of course,” he adds, voice softening as Angel flinches, “the star needs time to recover. No sense in damaging the merchandise.” He accentuates this with another kiss, and Angel decides to drop the matter for now. His brain is liquid; he can’t cater to Val’s mercurial disposition in this state.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “It’ll be fun.” Later. He can deal with this later.
Val reaches down, fingertips skimming across Angel’s skin to rub soothing circles into his shoulders. Angel wills his body to relax, to accept Val’s affection, savor the tender embrace he’s been craving all day. The only thing that matters is here and now—nothing exists outside the two of them, tangled together in the dressing room, lovers’ embrace bathed in the dim light of hot pink bulbs.
It isn’t long before Val is on top of him, knees sinking into the couch cushions as he cages Angel’s slender frame with his own—broader, stronger, every inch as sexy (maybe even more). He presses hungry, searing kisses across Angel’s face, all along his high cheekbones and down his jawline. Angel moans softly as Val lays claim to his vulnerable throat, tongue flicking over Angel’s pulse, branding him with his intoxicating saliva.
Suggestion seeps through his pores, sickly sweet, and Angel melts in surrender. This is good. Right here, wrapped in the safety of Val’s strong arms, this is where Angel belongs. If Val wants to dote, to love, to spoil, then so be it.
Hungry for the delectable body beneath him, Valentino sinks his teeth into the soft warmth of Angel’s neck. Greedy hands roam over the gentle curve of his chest, his taut stomach, his quivering thighs. A wave of desire surges through Val’s own body every time Angel trembles, every time he releases a pitiful moan or rocks his narrow hips upwards.
And it’s sweet, it’s so sweet, until it’s not.
Val’s wandering hands reach Angel’s soft cock, and Angel stills. The touch is immediately sobering, ripping him from that lustful haze with the cold reminder that his limit has been firmly met. That no matter how good it feels or how convincing Val can be, Angel physically can’t take any more right now. He can’t.
He doesn’t want to.
“Mm, not right now, baby,” he breathes, placing a hand on Val’s arm and gently diverting his advances. “I’m too tired. I’m too sore.”
Undeterred, Val charts a new course, fingertips gliding up Angel’s stomach to grope his chest instead. A soft groan of annoyance vibrates in Angel’s throat. “Just wanna sleep,” he mumbles, batting weakly at Val’s arms.
Val gathers Angel’s delicate hands in his own. He laces their fingers together and stretches their arms above Angel’s head, resting their interlocked hands against the arm of the couch. A sickening warmth blooms in Angel’s stomach.
“Wait, Val, I don’t—”
Val’s tongue pushes inside Angel’s mouth, swallowing his protests. Angel shifts uncomfortably beneath him. He whines into the kiss, and the heat in his stomach grows, curling into a familiar, horrible knot that settles deep in his guts.
NO, he thinks, forcing the unease from his mind. It’s fine. He just didn’t hear me. He turns his head to the side to break the kiss, and Val, ever persistent, focuses his attention elsewhere, kissing and nipping fervently at Angel’s throat instead. Angel doubles down, repeats himself firmly over the sound of Val’s lips and tongue searing against his skin.
“Come on, Val, you saw me out there. I’m all fucked out right now. It’ll be more fun when I can actually fuck you back, yeah?” Lower hands braced against the couch, he strains to push himself up onto his elbows. Fine, it’s going to be fine. But Val’s only response is to bite even harder.
“H-Hey! I said—ah!”
Val presses Angel back down with a firm hand splayed on his chest. “Shh,” he soothes. “You’re thinking about it too much, baby.”
“I’m not—”
“Relax, Angelito,” Val grits through his teeth as Angel’s spine struggles to arch against him. “Just lie back, and I’ll do all the work for you.” He reaches between Angel’s thighs, pawing, forcing Angel’s legs to part when he tries to squeeze his knees shut. Angel’s heart hammers against his ribs.
“Val. I’m not fucking around. This isn’t a scene. We aren’t roleplaying.” Angel rips his hands out from under Val’s and shoves, only for Val to slap them away. Panic bubbles in his chest, rising up into his throat because Val isn’t stopping. “I—I’m serious. I can’t do this right now. We can finish tomorrow, okay?”
The question hangs between them, ignored, sinking in the heavy silence.
Silence, as Val repeatedly knocks aside Angel’s protesting arms. As his erection pushes against Angel’s thigh. He gives nothing, no answer, just tongue and teeth and hands and pressure. And then, the unmistakable screech of a zipper.
“Val, stop!” Angel snaps in his panic.
With that word, everything shifts, the final, damning cue as he pops that last little plosive syllable and the curtain falls—slow cascade, rich velvet smothering him as the final trace of Val’s tenderness dissipates entirely.
“What did you just say to me?” Val’s voice is calm. Too calm. “Because it sounds like you just told me to stop.” The curtain wraps tighter, pinning Angel in place to burn beneath the core of Val’s anger, its entirety concentrated in two red-hot pinpricks emanating from cruel eyes.
Fuck.
Spat back in his face, Angel realizes the gravity of his mistake. He knows of Val’s temper, infamous; has seen it, the dark eroticism writhing beneath the surface violence. He never believed that it would be turned on him. That this side of Val could truly exist, that Val’s mood swings could culminate in this type of raw fury, boiling dangerously beneath the ice of his voice.
The terror of a possibility he isn’t willing to fully acknowledge pounds fervently against Angel’s ribs.
“I-I mean it, okay? I really gave it my all today and I’m telling you I don’t want to do this!” The words are barely past Angel’s lips before his head snaps backwards, protests twisted into a pained yelp as Valentino’s fist connects with his face.
It echoes. Reverberates as the seconds tick by, repeats with every heave of Angel’s chest as he slowly reclaims the air knocked out of him.
“Val, what the fuck?”
A hand flutters to his face to soothe the sting. Angel’s head spins, and even as he objects, even as his cheek throbs from the kiss of Val’s knuckles, he clings to disbelief, because this can’t be happening. Because Angel can take being hit during a shoot, had been taking it all day, but when it’s Val hitting him?
Tears prick in the corners of his eyes. He blinks them back, tries to keep them from falling, tries to keep a scrap of his resolve. This isn’t real, Angel reminds himself. Val would never do this, that’s not what this is, not again. Not Val. Never Val.
“I’m being serious. Get. Off!” He begins to struggle earnestly under Val’s weight, pushing at his sculpted chest, at the hands that continue to devour him. “I said no!”
The force of another slap knocks him back down. Val snatches Angel’s flailing arms, growling as he wrestles them above his head and pins his wrists to the couch. Pressing himself flat against Angel’s chest, he leans in close to whisper harshly in his ear.
“You listen to me very carefully. I don’t ever want to hear that word come out of your mouth again. After everything I’ve done for you, you don’t get to tell me no.” Val shoves a knee between Angel’s legs, forcing his thighs apart, and aligns his hips with the abused hole beneath him, raw and vulnerable and begging to be taken. The head of Val’s cock nudges between Angel’s cheeks. Teases around the tender rim.
No.
“Val, baby, please!” Angel nearly screams. “I don’t—I don’t want this!”
Panic grasps him, guides his movements as he thrashes under Valentino. He gasps and pants, arching his back, twisting and bucking against the wall of hard muscle holding him down. The vice grip around his wrists tightens, tugging at the skin, grinding painfully into his bones. Angel wills himself to sink into the pillows, to slip away as the weight of his helplessness chains him to the reality. He can’t escape. Val is too strong. Too heavy. Val is going to do whatever he wants, take whatever he wants, and there’s nothing Angel can do to stop it.
“Don’t,” Angel whimpers. “Don’t do this, Val, please don’t do this.”
His pleas fall on deaf ears.
Angel sobs as he feels Val’s cock slide in. It burns. He twists his hips desperately—just get this man off of him, get Val out of him, escape the slow, agonizing pressure splitting him apart—and Val’s lower hands lock around his hips to hold him still. Val begins to move, quick, shallow thrusts, working Angel open until he’s able to force himself in to the hilt, bury his entire length deep inside. He stills. Pulls out almost all the way before driving forward, slamming back into Angel and groaning obscenely.
It’s brutal.
Every snap of Val’s hips sends another piece of Angel’s world crashing down around him. Tears of despair, of disappointment and anger and betrayal escape their brittle stronghold and roll freely down his cheeks. How can the man he loves, the man who loves him, be doing this? How did things get so bad, so fast?
“Please,” he echoes, a ghost of a whisper on cracked lips. “Just s-stop….”
Valentino shudders in delight. Trembling, begging, cheeks flushed and streaked with eyeliner—Angel has never looked lovelier. He’s absolutely intoxicating. Val drags his tongue along Angel’s cheek, greedily licking up his tears. Angel cringes. Val grips his chin to hold him in place, sharp nails drawing blood, and he tastes that too, an exotic cocktail of pain and suffering.
Delicious.
Delicious, but worlds shy of satiating.
“Why are you crying, baby?” Val taunts, releasing Angel’s face to gently brush a thumb across his cheek. “Don’t pretend like you aren’t loving every second of this, whore.”
Angel’s tears flow harder. This isn’t playful dirty talk or sexy roleplay. It isn’t the kind of kinky teasing Angel loves. This is cruel, and Val means every word he says. Angel knows it’s futile, but he can’t help but tug weakly against the hands pinning him down.
“N-no, I don’t like this. Please, Val, I’m begging, just lemme go.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. The more he begs, the harder Val thrusts. He’s getting off on this, Angel realizes.
“And why would I do that, hm? Why would I ever let you go? You’re mine.”
He’s not just mad I turned him down.
“You’re my pretty little toy…”
He’s not just in a kinky mood.
“…my fucking property…”
He’s…
“…and I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to you.”
He’s getting off on raping me.
He can see it in Val’s eyes. Hear it in every hitch of his breath. Angel knows his lover’s body better than his own, and he recognizes the waves of ecstasy rippling through Valentino, rising to an unfathomable crest. This is no accident. Val, his Val, is raping him.
The revelation shatters him.
A smile curls on Valentino’s lips—like he can see the gears turning in Angel’s head—and Angel squeezes his eyes shut. If he doesn’t look, he can pretend this isn’t happening. If he can’t see, then it isn’t real, it isn’t Val doing this to him.
Before he can wash away with practiced ease, drift into that thick, milky dream state where none of this is real, Val strikes him once again. “Look at me when I fuck you,” he growls. Angel refuses, scrunching his eyes even tighter. He can’t bear to look at the man inhabiting his boyfriend’s body right now.
Val wraps his secondary hands around Angel’s throat and squeezes.
“Come on, Angel, let me see those pretty eyes,” he coaxes, honeyed voice dripping saccharine from his lips. He pushes his thumbs deeper into Angel’s windpipe. Reluctant eyelids fly open as Angel chokes. His muscles spasm, clenching tight around Val’s cock, and Angel hates the sadistic smile on Val’s face, hates the way Val’s moans vibrate deeper in his throat and signal his arousal.
Val laughs and tightens his grip.
“Please,” Angel rasps. “I c-can’t breathe, V-Val, please…!” He releases his tertiary set of arms and clings to Val’s wrists, scratching and pulling. “I-I’ll be good, just let g-go, please!” His nails dig deep and the hands crushing his throat ease up, shifting to a one handed grip that’s just on the wrong side of comfortable. He coughs and sputters, desperate to suck even the smallest wisp of air into his lungs. Val snatches the opportunity to shove his tongue in Angel’s mouth.
Angel retches, nauseous with the sensation of that thick muscle, warm and slippery against his own. Licking his teeth. Sliding down his throat. Probing, violating. He jerks his head, tries to push the tongue out, and Val growls into his mouth.
“Kiss me back, slut.”
Angel violently shakes his head.
Just get it over with.
“Don’t you love me, Angel?” Val lilts.
I thought you loved me.
“Fucking kiss me back!”
Val’s grip on his throat cinches ever tighter—bearing down on that slender column with both hands, palms resting too hard on his collarbones, bruising, pain stinging down to the marrow—and stubborn as he is, between the hands strangling him and the sweet sedative in Val’s saliva, Angel is forced to surrender. Trembling lips part, and he twines his tongue with Val’s. Lets him ravage his mouth.
Val releases Angel’s throat, and fingers that had just been choking him to unconsciousness tangle in his hair, crushing their lips together. Obscene moans of desperation vibrate along Val’s tongue. He inhales Angel’s scent, the sweetness of his fear, the salt of his sweat. Val kisses Angel with all the fervor and passion of a man starved, a man returned from war, kept waiting so long that deprivation became depravity and he just had to take the first warm body he could get his hands on.
Angel whimpers and whines into Val’s mouth. He wants to puke. Wants to scream. He wishes Val would just hold him down and hurt him. Anything but this. Kissing him in a twisted mockery of lovemaking. Cock thrusting in time with the curl of his tongue, fucking him from both ends. Angel’s struggles slow, energy and willpower worn to the bone. His body grows slack. Head slamming against the armrest with each thrust.
He gives in and lets Val use him as he pleases.
What other choice does he have?
It’s a small mercy when Val finally breaks the kiss, tempered by Angel’s submission. He brushes a thumb over Angel’s throat, gently stroking the indentations he’d pressed into the soft skin. A violent tremor rips through his body and down his cock when he imagines how they’ll look tomorrow morning, a beautiful purple collar in the shape of his hands around Angel’s pale, slender neck.
“See, cariño, isn’t it better when you listen to me? I know what’s best for you,” Val purrs.
“Y-yes, Val,” Angel manages to whisper, pain swelling in his throat with every twitch of his vocal chords. “’M s’ry,” he slurs. He’s not sure what he’s apologizing for, exactly, but he knows it appeases Val. Hopes it will keep him from strangling the air out of his lungs again.
His eyes stay open for Val’s sake but his gaze wanders across the gauzy pink glow of his dressing room. He fixates on his vanity. Looking past the drug paraphernalia and beauty products, he focuses on the trinkets littering the cluttered surface, little tokens of Val’s affection. Wilting flowers, dried rose petals and glittering diamonds, chocolates and sex toys. Skimpy lingerie, leather and lace and oil-spill latex that always gleamed strikingly against his pale skin.
His languid gaze flickers up.
A collage of pictures adorns his mirror. Polaroids of him and Val, smiling, kissing. Fucking. A blurred shot of the two of them wrapped around a pole, gazing into each other’s eyes as they danced. A still from one of their earliest nights together, intricate rope bondage Val had spent hours tying him up in. They hadn’t planned on a photoshoot, but Angel remembers Val rushing to grab his camera, posing him, having to capture the moment on film because Angel was just so beautiful.
Snapshots of a simpler time.
Even the raunchiest polaroids seem innocent, circled around the gruesome scene reflected in the mirror. What happened to the man in the photographs? The one who promised to love Angel, to protect him, to whom Angel had entrusted his very soul?
Where did that Val go?
Angel lets his eyes roll back, staring past Val’s forehead and into the ceiling. An old stage trick to fake eye contact.
“Oh, Angel, you know I can’t resist you, right?” Val grabs a fistful of Angel’s hair and jerks his head sideways, leans in close to his ear. “It’s not my fault, baby,” he breathes. “It’s not my fault you’re so irresistible.” He’s close, now, and his thrusts grow more violent. His hands are everywhere, claws raking down Angel’s body, carving harsh welts across his reddened and bruising skin.
“You just make me feel so good…I can’t help myself around you.”
Val’s words crawl across his skin, and Angel bites down on his lip to muffle his sobs. In the end, it’s those soft cries of utter misery wrenching from Angel’s throat that send Val over the edge. He tears his cock out of that warm, tight hole and kneels over Angel’s face.
“Oh, fuck!” Valentino growls as he finds his release, one hand holding Angel’s head in place, the other pumping his own cock. His seed spills over Angel’s face, stinging his eyes, dripping hot and salty across his lips. Angel twists, tries to turn his head, but Val’s fist in his hair keeps him still, intent on marking his property, painting his face with thick, heavy bursts. It seems to go on forever, feels almost merciful when Val releases him, letting go of Angel’s hair, his own spent cock. He sighs blissfully and leans back to admire his handiwork.
Cum glistens on Angel’s face. It coats his long, thick eyelashes and glazes the dark eyeliner streaked down his cheeks. He’s still crying, albeit silently, chest heaving, lips trembling as he stifles his sobs. Valentino drags a finger through the tacky mixture of makeup, tears, and semen. Swirls it together. He brings his finger to his lips and sucks, enjoying his masterpiece. His eyes shine with morbid gratification.
Angel’s breath hitches as Val’s fingers card through his hair, stroking him gently in a twisted show of affection. He hates the deceitful touch, and he hates himself even more for leaning into it.
“Oh, pobrecito…you had to know this was the only way tonight was going to end, yes?” Val mocks, voice dripping with sugar-coated condescension. “I know you’re not that stupid, Angelcake.”
Angel lies there, catatonic, as Val tucks his cock back into his pants. As he clears the room in a few easy, graceful strides. As he stands in the doorway, unruffled, unfazed, laughing, the sound of sadistic satisfaction deceptively smooth.
“You’re mine. Don’t you ever forget that, Angel.”
Only when Valentino is out of his dressing room and his footsteps have echoed down the hall does Angel allow himself to really cry. He scrambles off the couch, the bed of his violation, and inches back and away, all the while heaving and sobbing. What the fuck, what in the actual, ever-loving fuck? He convulses on the floor, sharp, ugly wails ripping from his chest, ribs aching from the force of it. He wraps his secondary set of arms around his body and begins scratching and clawing at his face with the others. Get it off of me. Just get this off of me get it off of me get him OFF of me!
He can’t be here. In this place, this room, this body. He wishes the black, gnawing pit in his stomach would swallow him up. Devour him whole. Digest him into nothing. Just make it all stop.
In his panic, his body takes over, and he manages to wrangle his single remaining drop of strength to drag himself to the en-suite bathroom. His limbs are heavy and cumbersome, but he forces himself to get up, get into the shower, temperature cranked up as high as it can go.
The water burns, it stings against his scratches and scrapes, but to Angel it’s a merciful deliverance. He scrubs vigorously at his face, splashing product in his eyes and mouth, flakes of his own skin gathering beneath his fingernails. He’s used to taking cumshots to the face, used to leaving set painted in multiple layers from multiple partners, but this is different. Suffocating. Another way for Val to make him feel subjugated even in his absence and Angel just needs it off of him.
Somewhere beneath the shock throbs a dull reminder of the way he used to wash back when he still saw clients. When his job was more dangerous, the people he serviced more volatile, more violent. He would wash himself like he is now, would brush his teeth until his gums bled, scrape his tongue until he puked and his own stomach acid eroded the backs of his teeth. He was supposed to be past that now. No one was was ever supposed to put him in this position again, Val was never supposed to—!
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
But it did.
When the last drop has been cast from his face and sent swirling down the drain, Angel continues downwards. The water is too kind on his body, it’s not enough, so Angel scours his skin raw, desperate to slough off the feeling of filth consuming him. The soap stings in his cuts and rope burns, the abrasive surface of the loofah brings droplets of blood to his reddened skin, and it’s still NOT ENOUGH. He scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs, and he can’t see it anymore, none of the fluids crusted over his body, but that film of scum is still there.
Disgusting.
With a cry of frustration, he sends the loofah clattering to the floor. It doesn’t matter, none of it matters, because even if Angel could manage to make his body clean, he can never cleanse his soul, the layers of dirt and grime that stain him down to his very core.
He curls up into a ball on the slick tile, making himself as small as possible under the steadily cooling spray. Water drips across his face, glazing his blank stare, dark and glassy like a dead fish. He lets it. Keeps his eyes open because every time they close he sees Val, on top of him, hurting him.
Why did this happen? Why now? What was it, exactly, that had set Val off?
It’s a fluke. It has to be. A lapse in judgement. Val isn’t like this. Val just loves Angel too much. Passion had run wild: he was high on the day’s success, the way it was painted across Angel’s body. What Val did, it wasn’t him. It was….
It was terrifying.
It was fucking terrifying and Angel should run, should pick himself up and get the fuck out of here…
But it was once.
After everything they’ve built together, everything Val has done for Angel, how can Angel just throw him away? Val has his shortcomings, but who doesn’t? He’s hot-tempered, quick to anger, likes to dance around limits and boundaries, but he’s so fucking passionate; he’s talented and funny and sexy and Angel would be crazy to think he could find someone without a fatal flaw. Someone that perfect who would also love him. It could be worse.
It could be so much worse.
The water is freezing by the time Angel manages to drag himself from the shower.
He fumbles blindly for a towel, downcast eyes shirking his reflection as the steam clears the mirror. White-knuckled grip on the lip of the sink. Water pooling at his feet. He ends up shrugging on his robe, sheer pink fabric soaked through and clinging like a second skin. It’s fine. It just has to get him from here to his room. To his stash, to sleep, so he can disappear for a while. Deal with this in the morning.
This is what he holds on to as he commences the walk of shame through his dressing room, past the couch he can’t bear to look at, out onto the main set.
The studio is eerily quiet. The crew had done a thorough job clearing away the evidence of the day’s shoot. Devoid of props and actors, of various instruments of pleasure and torture, the set seems empty, almost harmless. Innocent. Anyone who hadn’t been present to bear witness would never guess that just hours ago, Angel had been heavily restrained in the center of the room, manhandled and brutalized and fucked ruthlessly while he screamed—a living, breathing sex toy to be beaten and degraded for the pleasure of others.
Angel shakes his head in disgust at the scene that had once filled him with pride.
He hurries off the set, grateful no one is there to see him, his puffy, bloodshot eyes, his pained limp. Still, he wills his body to fade away, disappear into the darkness. Off-camera, he decides, he’ll never let anyone see how pathetic he truly is. How ashamed. He’ll smother his weakness, hide it behind the veneer of carefully crafted artistry he puts into his films.
He swears to himself: Never let them see you cry.
In his bedroom, door securely locked, he promises, over and over, this will be the last time. As he swallows the last of the pills scattered across the nightstand, Angel vows to never let this happen to him again.
You shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place.
He grinds the heels of his palms against his eyes, like if he pushes hard enough, the swirls of phosphene will snuff out the voice in his head. Burrows beneath the blankets as if curling up in their dark cocoon can also shield him from what he knows deep down to be true.
The thoughts plague him anyway, and why would he expect any different? He couldn’t stop Val, and he can’t stop this. Angel can lie, deny, argue with himself all night, but it won’t change a damn thing.
He wishes he could go back to this morning, wishes he could feel the same high he’d felt on set. How could he have been so stupid? Why did he have to ruin everything? Why couldn’t he have just kept his stupid mouth shut and let Val fuck him?
He’s crying again, sheets soaked and salted in his tears.
Angel hugs his legs to his chest, presses his hands against his mouth to stifle his uncontrollable wails. He sobs through the aching in his heart and his ass, sobs until the pills take hold, until he succumbs to sheer exhaustion and falls asleep to the sounds of his own grief.
***
Morning bleeds scarlet across his bedroom, drilling through his aching skull and screaming behind his eyelids. Angel holds his stiff and aching limbs close to himself, body curled into a shell, spiraled tightly around the inescapable creature of dread that has made its home inside him. It slips and snakes through hollows, squeezes around organs, a parasite infecting his heart and inflaming his chest.
It’s almost enough to distract him from the physical pain. The sharp pangs in his neck. Sting of rope burns around his wrists. Dull throbbing between his legs.
All nothing compared to the memories that come flooding back to him, to what should have just been a nightmare, but Angel knows he could never be so lucky. Hands around his throat, squeezing. Weight pinning him down. Tongue shoved down his throat. Val, breathing heavy on top of him, inside of him—
It’s too much. He’s too aware, painfully aware.
He can’t do this shit sober.
“Fuck me,” Angel mutters, and pain vibrates across his vocal chords. He peels himself off the mattress. Uncurls his body in a long, catlike stretch. His joints protest and pop. Fingers grope around the nightstand, muscle memory guiding him to his stash. Rifling through the top drawer, scraping across lacquered wood and coming back empty. “The fuck?”
He tumbles out of bed and rummages through the other drawers, shuffling papers, raking through trinkets, condoms and loose bullets and vibrators and handcuffs, and finds nothing. None of the pills or powders Val gave him, none of his emergency stash. Fuck.
He ransacks his own room. Frantic and frenzied, shaking out his sheets, digging under the mattress, sweeping makeup off the vanity, because there has to be something. Anything, any drug to dull the agony, to quiet his racing mind and stop the persistent onslaught of memories, because every time he involuntarily recalls last night, every time it floats up, unbidden, into his mind, he feels sick. Nauseous. Disgusted.
Disgusting.
“Fuck, come on, come on, come on!” He rips open the doors to his closet, the hideous mess of velvet and sequins and stilettos, heaps of clothes and corsets and straps and satin that are impossible to navigate. Nothing.
“No, no no no no no, fuck!” Angel screams in frustration, slamming shut the sliding doors of his closet, and hating his crazed reflection in their mirrors. Even worse is the evidence stamped across his body. Quivering back at him as the mirrored doors vibrate in their frames.
Itchy, bloodshot eyes, cradled in the dark crescent moons of his lower lids. Deep purple bruises circling his right eye like a halo. Throbbing in his cheekbone.
The indentations of Val’s fingers are branded into his throat. Striking against his pale skin. Staining it like wine. More bruises bloom across Angel’s body in vivid shades of black and blue and ultraviolet. Coiled around his thin, delicate wrists like handcuffs. They dot his hips, his waist, outline exactly where to grab his body and hold it still.
The problem isn’t even how awful he looks. How ugly. The problem lies in this tangible evidence, this incontrovertible proof, burned all over his body, that makes it impossible for Angel to lie to himself and deny that last night ever happened.
Fuck.
He sinks to his knees with a long, horrible groan, and buries his face in his hands. Tears at his hair. “God fucking damnit where the fuck are they whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck—!”
The door clicks open and Angel nearly jumps out of his skin.
He smells Valentino before he sees him. Sinister tendrils of smoke coil and slither across his bedroom, tickling his nostrils with hints of cherry and cinnamon and didn’t he lock that door?
“Angel,” Val sings, playfully holding the last note of his name.
Angel doesn’t want to look up. To look into the eyes of the man Val had been last night. A ribbon of smoke curls beneath his chin and tilts his face up anyway. He can’t speak, no words arise in his empty head for him to try and fumble out of his desert-dry mouth. Forced to stare mutely at the last and only person he wants to see.
Val is normal. Val has returned to his typical charming self, with his musical speech and beautiful eyes, sauntering towards Angel with his sensual gait. He scoops Angel up like a kitten. Weightless. Helpless. Cradles him in arms so tender with the absence of the force he’d used to hold Angel down last night. His hands, running across Angel’s back, clean, bearing no reside of the fury behind his slaps, the cruelty lacing his every touch.
Val presses his lips against Angel’s, gently licking into the mouth he’d desecrated with his tongue, kissing him with an affection so real it could never have been missing. Angel kisses back, tongue moving on reflex. He feels Val smile against his lips.
“How did you sleep, amorcito?”
A question so normal, so routine; spoken so casually, as if last night had never happened. As if Val had never done all those terrible things to him. As if it were all a dream…
It doesn’t make sense, nothing Val has done since the shoot ended has made any modicum of sense, and what the hell is Angel supposed to do with that?
“I…”
His body takes over where his mind fails, plasters a sultry smile on his face. “Would’ve slept better if you were here, daddy,” he replies coyly. Perform. Play it cool. Play it safe.
Val seems pleased with Angel’s careful response, rewarding him with another quick kiss on the crown of his head as he sets him back on his feet.
Angel wavers, one hand clutching the sleeve of Val’s coat. He should say something. They can’t pretend nothing happened. Pretend things are normal. That last night was any measure of okay. But Val is so hot-headed, burns so bright and so fast and destroys everything in his wake, all at the slightest provocation. Angel can’t ignore what Val did, but if he says something, if he confronts him…what if Val does something even worse?
Fuck it, Angel thinks, and instinctively sinks deeper into the performance. He stretches up on his tiptoes to wrap one pair of arms around Val’s waist, loop the other around his neck. If the Val he fell in love with, the Val he’d mourned all night, is back, Angel would be a fool to ruin it.
“Such a good boy,” Val murmurs. He’s petting him now, whispering compliments in his ear, trailing little kisses along Angel’s neck and collarbones. For a moment, it feels so fucking good that Angel wants more, until desire twists into guilt and he staggers back, looking up at Val with dewy eyes and fluttering lashes.
“Fuck, Angel, you look so cute when you’re sleepy, so…delectable.”
Angel stiffens.
“You look stressed, baby. What’s the matter?” Val’s frowning, his face the portrait of concern. Angel swallows.
“Actually, I, uh…I was looking for my stash and I—can’t seem to find it,” Angel trails off, looking down at his feet. It’s not a lie…so why is he so scared?
“Is that it? Oh, amorcito, you should’ve told me. I can help with that.” Val takes a long drag from his cigarette and blows smoke in Angel’s face. Spirals it in hearts around his head. Angel coughs as it floods his lungs, too strong, stronger than any drug he would’ve found in his room, and damn near instantaneous. His muscles slacken, his mind hazes as his control slips.
Val’s pheromones, whether delivered by smoke or by spit, always did make Angel pliant and amiable. It’s not the numbing effect he wanted, but it’s the one he gets.
Might as well make the best of it.
“You’re so good to me, Val,” Angel sighs, unsure just how much of this is still a performance.
“Of course I am, Angelcake; you know how I love to spoil my things.”
Love.
Angel latches on tight to that word.
He still loves me.
“Speaking of spoiling, how about you take the day off? I already cancelled all your shoots.”
“Really?” Angel almost doesn’t believe it. He can count on one hand the days off he’s had in the last year. Val is obsessed with watching him perform, ever since he first saw Angel dancing, even more so when Angel started working for him in the studio. Ever since the ink dried on their contract and they really started blurring the the lines between boyfriend and boss.
“Why not? You’ve already slept through the morning shoot. No point going in now just to do a half-ass job.”
“Does that mean we can do something together today?” Angel doesn’t try to hide the excitement in his voice as he dares to hope. The only thing better than getting to fuck for a living is getting to fuck around with Val in private. Or in public. Anywhere, really, as long as they can indulge in some spontaneity without a camera scrutinizing every move for a change.
“Oh, Angie,” Val laughs. “Baby, no. I still have to be on set. This place doesn’t run for free. Someone has to make us money. Make sure whoever is taking your place today doesn’t fuck it all up.”
Angel’s smiles drops. “But I thought we could—”
“Oh, don’t give me that.” Val grinds the words through his teeth. “I just gave you the day off, isn’t that what you wanted? How about you try showing me some fucking gratitude?”
The sting of Val’s voice, like the lacerations of a whip, leaves Angel dry-mouthed and mute, lips and jaw moving sluggishly over unvoiced appeals, and the worst part is that Val is right. Angel had asked for a break. Begged for it, even. Last night.
In his dressing room.
Gotta recharge first, you know?
Angel forces a smile. “Thank you, Val.” He runs a fingertip suggestively down Val’s chest for good measure. Feels Val’s body soften under his touch.
“There’s that pretty smile I love to see. I’ll tell you what. How about we go somewhere night tonight? One of those clubs you like so much.”
“Yes, yes, thank you so much!” Angel cries, flinging himself into Val’s arms as relief crashes through him. Never mind that Val’s the one who really likes going to clubs. Angel doesn’t care where they go, as long as it’s classy and he’s too high to tell the difference either way.
“Good boy.” Val ruffles his hair before untangling himself from Angel’s many-armed hug. “Well,” he starts with a dramatic sigh. “Those bitches aren’t going to direct themselves. That shoot won’t go anywhere decent without me.”
Val tilts Angel’s face up, stares deep into his eyes for just long enough to make Angel squirm. He bends down slightly to give him one last kiss, uncharacteristically chaste, before turning gracefully toward the door. Angel hugs himself as he watches Val leave, the absence of Val’s touch making him feel empty and alone before Val even reaches the threshold.
“I’ll see you soon, baby.”