Chapter Text
His dressing room is illuminated with neon pink lights. By the door, on the little coffeetable, sits a photo of Fat Nuggets and Cherri, both smiling affectionately at the camera, because Angel is behind it.
On the wall, sticky taped, kind of falling off, is a poster of the Hazbin Hotel. Charlie and Vaggie are grinning widely, arms up to draw attention to the sign. Alastor smiles slightly more than usual, but his eyes crinkle at the edges, and Angel knows he means it.
Lying on his couch, where he prefers not to look, sits a valentine day’s card. It is pink like his lights, and the type of glittery that sheds everywhere, on his hands and couch cushions. Valentino’s loopy, seductive lettering fills the inside with gushes of praise.
Everyone is smiling. Angel Dust isn’t.
His lips are pressed into a thin line, and he scrubs frustratedly at his fingernails. Barely two nights ago, Cherri painted them black like his bowtie. Now, they are chipping, corners peeling away. One of the nails had been ripped upwards, and the skin underneath is tender and swelling up.
Angel flexes his fingers, nose scrunching in disgust. Someone yells through the door.
He wants to crawl out of his skin and scrub his blood vessels clean. He feels dirty, with the odd taste in his mouth he has come to hate, and he wants to cry. Angel’s body finally betrays how he feels, and he wants to cry.
Someone is knocking on the door. He tugs the pink robe further around his chest, sharp teeth cutting into bottom lips. “Come in,” he squeaks, inhaling through his nose, ignoring the crack in his voice.
“Angel, darling, how are you?” Valentino purrs, leaning against the doorframe. Blocking him in.
His alarm system is overtired, and instead of yelling, feebly whispers to Angel’s ear that he should run. When he doesn’t, it accepts defeat and retreats for the next time.
“As good as ever, Val,” he replies, wiggling an eyebrow, spreading out on his chair a little more. Two hands on his knees, two on his hips. Hair flip, out of his eyes. His posture is like one of a metal pole.
Valentino likes that answer. He grins, sharp teeth, gold cap, and takes another step into the room. A smouldering cigarette dangles carelessly from one hand. Angel smiles to hide his grimace.
His chin is being grabbed. Angel resists out of impulse, extinguishes the reflex to pull away. Instead, he glances up and smirks. “Why are ya askin’?”
Val licks his lips. Angel wants to shudder. He walks himself forward on the chair instead, spreading his legs more, leaning forward. He doesn’t need this.
Not today. Please not today.
Leave me alone.
“Just wondering, babycakes. You know how worried I get over you.”
Angel smiles again. Val tilts his head and continues. “Are you free tonight?”
“I’m always free for you.”
Fuck you.
“Well, the nights still young. Come visit my trailer?”
I’m tired of your shit.
“I’ll be there in five.”
Valentino rips his hands away. A small part of Angel dies. He curses its existence.
“Okay, sweetheart,” he says, blinking slowly, taking another drag of his cigarette, “see you in five.”
He exhales slowly, and the smoke is in Angel’s face, and before he can think, it’s made him lightheaded and lonely.
“Of course,” he says, desperately, waiting for Valentino to close the dressing room door before collapsing into the back of his chair.
With a sigh, Angel Dust plucks his concealer brush from its stand, and begins to cover his forming black eye with shaky hands.
Everyone has kinks. Angel knows this through and through.
Val is the only person he’d ever met to have a pain kink for other people.
Angel stares at the ceiling, watching flecks of light from torches and shitty public transport run past the plaster. In the corner, Val is tugging his signature glasses on, curling his wings back around him like a coat, plucking another cigarette from the oversized box.
Angel hurts. His arms are bleeding, he knows, from the knife play. His cheeks are crusted with tears. Phantom hands trail up and down his body. He doesn’t know where his left shoe is.
“Thanks, pet,” Valentino coos, placing his hat upon his head. Angel doesn’t move. He just keeps watching the ceiling.
Does anyone in Hell even take the public transport?
“I’ll see you first thing tomorrow. The cleaner will close down in…” A pause. Angel blinks sluggishly. His heart is hammering in his ears. He can barely hear Val. “2 hours, 28 minutes.”
The moth doesn’t wait for an answer. He just walks out the door, content to let it slam behind him.
That’s what gets Angel moving. The crack of wood shatters his trance, and he flinches away from the sound before rolling over onto his stomach. It rumbles in protest, and he squeezes his eyes shut, fresh tears brimming behind the eyelids.
His mascara has run. His concealer has been ripped off.
Shaky hands propel shakier legs to standing, and he keeps one pair of arms wrapped around him while he dresses himself with the other. “What’s different?” he whispers into the empty room before tugging his heels back on.
“What was it this time?”
There is no response. He sniffs. The wounds on his arms stretch and pull as he moves, his face stings from new bruises for his collection, his legs burn with exertion with each movement. Outside the door, the studio is quiet.
Angel’s brain is scrambled like an egg. His vision is a faulty lightbulb, flickering out for a few seconds only for him to be wearing more clothing. He doesn’t remember leaving Val’s dressing room, but he does.
The porn studio is deserted, but tomorrow’s equipment is already laid out near the director’s chair. In the centre of the stage, a chair with belts attached where wrists would sit. A table with a blindfold, hammer, chain, ball-collar.
Poor sucker. He got a bondage shoot.
Angel wanders towards the callsheet. His legs wobble as he reaches the noticeboard, and he places one hand on the wall to steady himself as he reads.
Colour drains from his face. His knees buckle. Angel kneels on the ground, eye twitching. His joints groan and creak, screaming for relief, but all his mind snatches on is the call sheet.
<8:00am . Angel Dust - Bondage / Torture : A Prisoner ’ s Heart , Chapter V I I>
It lags like a bad video game.
Bondage / Torture
Bondage / Torture
Bondage / Torture
He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to give up.
His mind shutters off, and Angel disappears.
“Angel? C’mon, buddy.”
Someone flicks the switch. Angel Dust reboots.
His legs are numb, wet, cold. He’s kneeling in a puddle of blood. Both thighs have long, straight scratches across them, fur ripped out in the deeper spots. His fingernails are caked in blood.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t touch him?”
“No, Charls, it’ll freak him out.”
“That’s would you said last time!”
“Because it’s true.”
He’s breathing. Angel is so scared of breathing, but he’s doing it. Each breath hurts, but it reminds him that he’s alive, that he’s online, that his brain might have finally deemed it safe.
His eyes stay trained on the fake wooden floor. He swallows a mouthful of bloody saliva, and raises his voice.
“Time?”
“HOLY SHIT!” Charlie squeals, scrambling away. Startled, Angel’s eyes dart up to see her. She is closer than he guessed, close enough to touch him.
She does- placing a hand on his arm, smiling reassuringly. His gaze flicks to the hand, to the contact, against his will, against everything, and even though he fights to stay present, to use Charlie as a grounding technique, even though she shouldn’t be here, Angel Dust backs away from the front again, and his vision fades.
He knows he resurfaces quicker this time. The hand is gone. Carlie is ranting, maybe crying.
“I didn’t mean to, Vaggie, I just wanted to help! He was so scared, and looked so hurt, and I’ve never seen him like this, and I just wanted to help!”
He swallows again. Someone sneezes. For just a second, his head tilts again, and he’s falling, but Angel yanks himself back to the present when someone else speaks.
“I know, Charls, I know. Just give him a minute, okay?”
Someone else speaks up.
“Again, should we do something about his arms and legs? He’s got some nasty lookin’ bruises too.”
“Yay, pain!”
“This does not seem to be a good pain, Niffty. You forget that. But I fear our arachnid has resurfaced, Charlie.”
Angel breathes in, nausea rolling in the bottom of his gut. His mouth is dry, and he croaks and cracks when he speaks. “Time?”
“Nearly 4,” Vaggie responds instantly. She doesn’t say anything else, and Angel is grateful. He nods slowly. His brain catches, trying to process the time the cleaner usually showed.
“Exactly?”
There is confused silence before Alastor clears his throat. The idea is so foreign to Angel that his gaze is torn away from where Charlie’s hand was, and he looks up to lock eyes with the radio demon. “3:53, my fluffy friend.”
Angel nods again, scrunching his nose as he thinks, tries to do the math. He feels slimy and stuffy, and with the return of his awareness, comes the pain. It makes him hiss, but he continues to think. “7 minutes,” he says, “got to go.”
Alastor nods, perhaps understanding, and Husk steps into view. His brows are crinkled with concern. “Are you okay for help up?”
Angel inhales softly, feels the stir of oxygen in his lungs. He can feel the large knot in his hair. He can feel the pins and needles in his legs and the fire on his arms. His face tingles with still-tender bruises.
Husk is waiting.
“Yes.”
No-one makes a deal out of it- not even Alastor. With careful hands, they lift Angel from his puddle of blood.
His head spins violently, and legs shake. Someone let’s go of his side, and without warning, he’s careening over that way, waiting for the bite of floor, waiting for Val to kick him when he’s down, eyes scrunched preparing preparing preparing-
It never comes.
“Upsie daisy,” Charlie whispers, placing a hand by his aching ribs and gently tipping him upright.
The room bobs and sways like the ocean, and twists like an out-of-control carousel. Angel groans. Someone is breathing close to his ear, and someone else has placed hands on his back, and hips, and he knows they help, but his blood doesn’t, and it roars and rushes in his ears. He stumbles. They walk at a snail’s pace, in a huge clump. He seems to be leaning on Husk the most.
“It’s okay,” the ex-overlord says softly, seeming to understand. Angel is barely walking, just lifting his feet in time with the rest of the hotel’s crew, trying not to stumble.
Angel just whimpers. He can feel his anxiety growing, breath beginning to huff in short bursts. His heart thumps when the hand on his hip adjusts to be lower. He lets his head drop forward to his chest, taking purposeful inhales to keep from toppling over into panic.
“It’s okay,” Husk says again, soft, reassuring, lost under the treading of boots towards the hotel. “You’re safe with us.”
Angel bites his lip and nods slightly. The dirty pathway blurs into two for half a second, and another wave of nausea batters at his overexhausted frame.
When did we leave the studio?
“Is it safer in your head?”
Another tiny nod. Another rock of queasiness.
“You can go back, if you want. If it helps.”
Angel’s eyes flick to Husk’s. They are sincere, and he smiles slightly and nods.
He is tired. His stomach growls. When the person supporting him from behind tightens their grip, he’s reminded too much of Val, and slips comfortably back into black, where it’s safe.
“I do not think that is a good idea.”
“But what triggers it?”
“I do not know. My apologies, Charlie.”
“All good. But what do we do?”
“Wait. That’s what I’m doing.”
Angel is sitting on one of the newest couches in Hazbin’s lobby. It isn’t pink like his dressing room. Instead, it is black, with faux leather, and colourful reddish cushions. He had been surprised when Charlie bought it home.
When did you start thinking the hotel was home?
“He’s back.”
“How do you know?”
“Just do.”
Angel looks up. Thankfully, his nausea isn’t as sharp anymore. Charlie smiles. She runs one hand through her hair. The other holds a wrap of gauze, three quarters finished. Angel looks down. His limbs are covered in white wrapping, blocking the wounds from view and helping them to heal.
“Hey, Dust,” Husk says softly, sitting near him. Not next to him. Just near. Angel’s heart aches with gratitude. “How are you doing?”
With an inhale, Angel opens his mouth. “Okay,” he says shakily, running a hand over the gauze.
Alastor nods, seemingly satisfied, and dissolves into black. Angel purses his lips, eyes flicking between the rest of the room’s occupants. He’s barely processed Alastor’s departure when Niffty bursts into the lobby, cackling, holding a bowl.
“It’s yum-yum pork and pineapple soup!” she says excitedly, handing over a spoon. Angel smiles, taking the warm bowl and balancing it gingerly on his legs. Niffty smiles extra large, fiddling with a fork of her own.
There is silence. Angel takes a dainty spoonful of soup. “It’s delicious,” he says softly, digging the cutlery back into the bowl. It curbs the aggressive edge of his hunger, and gratefully, he reaches for more.
Niffty nods feverishly, running the fork up and down her own arm gently. “Any time,” she says, shaking her little fists around. Angel smiles.
Hunger aided, dizziness subsiding, wounds dressed, Anel’s tired mind finally wants him to rest. Once buzzing with anxiety and pain, his body is now sluggish and clumsy, and he lies back slowly and mashes his head against the pillows.
Husk smiles affectionately, draping the decorative throw over the spider like a blanket as his eyes slip closed.
Once the pornstar is snoring softy, finally relaxed, Husk locks eyes with Vaggie and Charlie. Niffty scurries away with the half-empty bowl of soup and used spoon.
“Is he going to be okay?” Charlie asks, tears brimming in her eyes, “he looked so small when we arrived.”
“It’s a good thing you were worried,” Vaggie said softly, sending a sad look at the sleeping spider, “I wouldn’t have thought to check on him.”
“Something was off when he made me leave that one time,” the demon replied, dropping her voice to a whisper. Weak morning light pokes from the curtains and illuminates the flyaways in her ponytail. “I just wanted to stick my head in and make sure he wasn’t-”
Her voice cracks. Vaggie rubs her girlfriend’s back soothingly. “We’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
Husk cocks his head to one side. “He has a shoot tomorrow. 8am. I checked.”
For just a second, rage forces Charlie’s horns out of hiding before she calmed. “There’s no way he can go to that.”
“Won’t we make it worse by keeping him away?”
“Something was different tonight-“
“So you think this has happened before?”
“Obviously!”
“But he won’t be able to shoot tomorrow, he’s too unwell.”
“Maybe he can decide tomorrow.”
The two girls stop arguing to stare at Husk. Finally, Charlie nods. “Tomorrow,” she says softly, “yes.”
Vaggie mimics her nod. “Let’s talk tomorrow. It’s 5:30.”
Husk nods too- full suit. “Ok. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Charlie says, smiling, already sluggishly clambering for the stairs.
“Night,” Husk calls, watching Angel to see if he stirs. The pornstar doesn’t, only furrows his eyebrows for a second before relaxing again.
The lobby is mostly empty, save for the two souls. Husk knows Angel won’t be in his room tonight- he wouldn’t make it even if he was awake.
Would he want to wake up alone? What if he has a nightmare?
His tired eyes flick between the stairs to his room and the empty armchair besides the spider. He blinks a few times.
I wouldn’t want to be alone.