Chapter Text
“Angel, look at us!”
Someone reaches out for him, and Angel is afraid.
“You know me.”
That's the last thing he hears, before the underworld goes black again.
Whole place smells of stone and metal. Broken wire, gunpowder and blood. Angel’s being led through it by a hand.
“C’mon, Angie. Almost there.”
Suppose he must be almost somewhere, Angel thinks, though he ain’t sure about the where and is really not fucking sure about the some. Feels like he’s almost no-nothing, head swimming off a pier too murky and deep for him to know what’s happened.
Valentino’s gone. Cherri is his best-friend. That much he does know, for all the shit he don’t.
Cherri is bringing him through the chaos, helping him side-step the chunks of Vee Tower that have changed the landscape. There’s a fucktonne of smoke, guess there must be fire.
Angel’s doing a lotta guesswork.
“Okay, wait here. Don’t move, I’m gonna get the others,” Cherri says to him, bringing him up against the loggia at the base of the tower. She positions him like a doll, and Angel lets her ‘cause he also knows how to do that.
Cherri hovers a moment in case he falls over.
“Don’t move,” she says again, and he nods.
He watches her go over to the crowd in the centre of everything, the wreckage of the Vees’ estate. Nobody he recognises. Angel looks around, towards the tower with its windows knocked out like teeth. Somebody’s gonna be looking for him.
Valentino’s gone, Angel remembers again. So… no one’s looking for him. He’s alone.
“Oh gosh, Angel.”
Cherri comes back with someone. New face, pale, another blonde though. She looks at him, big eyes watering.
“It’s me. Charlie,” this one says, imploring and expression cracked open like a nut. “Everything’s gonna be fine, Angel.”
The way these broads are looking at him is making Angel doubt that.
“Husk’s coming,” Charlie tells him, like this means anything. She fidgets with the gold bangle on her slight wrist anxiously, eyes darting to Cherri and back to Angel. “He’ll keep you safe until we figure this out, okay?”
Like he’s in a position to say otherwise. Angel wants to sleep. He wants to find a corner, away from everything and tap his arm, raise the vein. He wants to forget some more, if there’s anything left to.
Cherri and Charlie step aside, talking low. He looks around. Hell’s looking pretty fucked this time, must’ve been a big fucking turf war to turn this level of sod.
Angel feels so fucking weird.
And Valentino’s gone.
“Hey, Legs.”
Another new one. New-ish. Cat demon, short. Wings. Angel’s met this one already, upstairs. He likes this one, he thinks. Upstairs part is blurry, the explosive after has been blurry. This guy’s blurry, too, at his fluffy edges.
“You’re Husk.”
Angel looks at this demon, Husk, and watches the expressive shift of his dark eyes under his eyebrows. The way his whiskers twitch over the sullen shadow above his nose.
“That’s me.” His wings move, dropping behind his back so he shrinks before Angel like the tide receding. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m… pretty cold.”
Angel is cold. He’s barely dressed, but another thing he remembers is that ain’t all too unusual either. Valentino likes it better that way. Liked. Because Valentino is gone.
“Charlie said… she said you’d help,” Angel says, cautious. Shifts from one foot to the other, all four arms crossed. “That you’d keep me safe.”
Those long eyebrows scrunch together, and for a brief second, Angel wonders if he’s gotten it wrong. If he’s fucked it up because of the way Husk’s entire face shifts for a moment into something almost devastating.
And then it’s gone, and Husk just gives him a firm nod.
“Yeah, kid. I’ll keep you safe.”
A paw comes towards Angel then, hesitant just by his arm, claws almost brushing. Angel watches it, then watches Husk’s face again. Those eyes, coal black and deep. Angel finds himself drawn in.
His head hurts.
Back to ‘the hotel’. That’s what everyone is calling it; The Hotel. Big title, blockbuster. Angel has a room, he’s been told, and Husk is bringing him there.
Angel’s been in a sitch like this one many times. Fucked up, sense gone, with a stranger, going to a bedroom he don’t know. Or remember.
Next to him, Husk is silent and steady.
They’re in the elevator now, going up. Valentino’s room, (his room, their room), at the tower, was up, up, up. This elevator doesn’t go all to the top, and when it stops halfway, Angel wobbles.
“I got ya,” Husk says, and he does. Large paw on Angel’s back, claws cool against the peach-skim fur where his jacket don’t cover. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” Angel says, before promptly making bad news on it and his knees buckle.
He hears Husk’s wings, that paper-rustle of feathers, and then he’s being caught. Arm under his knees, paw up his back. Angel falls easy against Husk’s chest.
Maybe he’s got practice at this, he thinks, ‘cause Husk’s all short to Angel’s long but neither of ‘em feel unbalanced.
“Got you,” Husk says again, and Angel believes him because. Well. Proof’s in the knock-knee pudding, ain’t it?
“Do we do this a lot or somethin’?”
Husk huffs as the elevator doors ding! open.
“No.”
Husk carries him down the hallway, and Angel keeps his arms tucked as tight in as he can to keep it as nice as it’s feeling. His ear is pressed to Husk’s chest, and he can hear the heart beating under that tuxedo fur.
Angel’s bedroom door is nudged open with the press of Husk’s shoulder, and he’s placed on the pink bed nice and gentle. He don’t know the place, though he knows the stuff. Recognises his shit on the floor, Fat Nuggets’ bed in the corner.
“I really live here then.”
“Sure do,” Husk replies, and Angel thinks he’s teasing. Husk kneels down in front of him and Angel watches, so curious and sees the way the pink light of his webs bend in Husk’s eyes like a bean.
“And you live here, too.”
“Just down the hall. Call us neighbours.”
“Okay,” Angel says, because he don’t know what else to call them. Husk frowns, mouth a thin line. Angel watches the black of his lips, where the fur thins at the creased edges and he wants to touch it, see how it feels.
Maybe he’s high. Angel’s feeling a little high, everything’s got a bit of that woozy brown-sugar gloss heroin likes to give him. Valentino’s probably slipped him a little something, somewhere, the cunt.
And then Angel remembers.
“Valentino’s gone.”
Husk’s frown deepens. “Yeah. Valentino’s gone.”
“Huh…”
Angel wishes he could remember, tries to and his head protests at once by throwing a hard brick from the great nowhere inside straight at the back of his forehead. He puts a hand to it.
“Fuck. Everythin’ hurts.”
“Lie down, kid,” Husk says, and he helps Angel do it with a gentle push. Husk stays kneeling as Angel goes down. Can’t be good for his knees, Angel’s sure, though he don’t know how. “Cherri’s getting you some proper clothes, she’ll help you out.”
Ange looks down at himself. “I suppose latex underwear ain’t exactly the best for sleeping.”
“I’m sure it has other uses.”
When Angel don’t reply to that, and Husk goes real quiet, Angel looks back at him. Husk’s eyes are narrowed, twitching over Angel’s face like he’s looking for something and Angel gets the distinct impression he’s missing a cue.
Right. I’m a prostitute, Angel remembers, and then winces. It’s work, fuck, that’s what’s happening. Work’s got him twisted.
Typical.
“Am I… doin’ something wrong for ya here?”
Husk blinks, whiskers pricked and Angel wonders if he’s blushing under that fur. They’re pretty close, Angel lying down and Husk leaning on the bed like this. Angel wishes he could see a bit more anyway.
“No, no you ain’t– I just, guess I just expected you to say something. About the uses of latex.”
Dont seem like a sex thing, but appears he is still fucking it up somehow.
“Oh. Sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Angel. Not a goddamn thing.”
“I don’t remember anythin’, seems like a thing to be sorry over.”
“You took a hard knock to the head,” Husk says, before cutting himself off suddenly and he looks away quickly, pointed ears going flat against his head. “If anyone needs to be sorry here, it’s me.”
“Why?”
Another moment of quiet, another moment of Husk looking at Angel like he just can’t put two and fucking two together.
“I’ll tell you later, baby. Just rest now for a bit and Cherri’ll come mind ya.”
He don’t get more than that. Husk stands up and Angel feels a sudden surge of panic that he might be leaving. He reaches out with a hand from his top-set, grabs for Husk’s paw and only gets a finger around the claw of Husk’s thumb but it’s enough to stop him.
“D’ya do that often?”
“Do what?"
“Call me baby.”
Husk’s expression is completely unreadable, and Angel wants to tug at the page corner of it to see some hint of what Husk’s thinking. He wants to know so fucking badly.
“Every day,” Husk answers quietly, and he uses his other paw to gently unhook where Angel’s hanging off him and pushes Angel’s hand back. Angel’s heart flips, sunny-side up and over-easy. Eighty-sex the memory.
“Don’t go. Please.”
“Cherri will–”
“I know she will. She always does. But I still don’t want ya to go.”
For a terrible second, Angel thinks Husk is still gonna leave him. But then Husk gets back down onto the hotel carpet, right at the edge of Angel’s bed. He puts his back to the box, wings down and tips his head to the mattress, so Angel can still his face.
“Sure thing, Angel. I’ll stay.”
Angel lets that hand of his wander again, over Husk’s shoulder. He brushes the tips of his fingers through the fraying fur on the edge of Husk’s cheeks, impossibly soft and greying at the ends.
“You must like me. If ya call me baby.”
“Haven’t kicked you out of my bar yet.”
The fur under Angel’s fingers ripples, makes Husk’s cheeks twitch so his whiskers move. Every little bit of him seems so independent to the last, and Angel finds himself going over each feature like someone runs their hand over the spines of books. Husk gives a small huff.
Maybe Husk’s ticklish. He don’t move though.
“Thank you, Husk.”
Husk tenses. “Don’t have to thank me, Angel. Really.”
“Gonna do it anyway. Not many fuckers would be as nice as you’re being to an Angel Dust who don’t know nothin’, least of to say no. If you were anyone else you’d be in this bed with me.”
Husk’s head tips more, all the way so the back of his skull is proper on the mattress and ears on the sheets. He looks at Angel sideways, eyes so very big and shadow-dark bloom around taxi-cab yellow.
“Don’t, Angel,” Husk says, sounding oh-so serious. Makes Angel giddy, but don’t seem appropriate. “Don’t worry about that kinda shit. Not with me. Told you already, I’ll keep you safe.”
Ain’t that something.
“Okay.” Angel’s hand hovers, not sure where to go. One of Husk’s paws comes up and takes it, holds it firm. “Okay, then.”
“Okay.”
I like this one, Angel thinks. He doesn’t remember much but he does sure as shit remember that his trackmark record for liking guys ain’t very good.
Angel wakes when the hotel mattress moves beneath him. Cherri has sat herself on the edge of it, a mug in each hand.
“Morning, cunt. Coffee?”
He’s not really feeling it. Angel ain’t much of a breakfast guy, usually waking too late and too fucked to fancy it. He don’t even know what time it is right now, and he struggles to sit up against his pillows. His back is still bruised. Still hurts.
Everything hurts. Even the bits he can’t remember.
Angel takes a mug. Pink. “Do I even like coffee?”
“You do today.”
Can’t argue with that, Angel supposes. He takes his sip, and it’s fucking terrible.
“Fuck, where’d you get this? A burst pipe in the piece-of-shit-factory?”
Cherri laughs. “There you go, half-way back to normal already, Angie.”
Angel don’t think so but she sounds so happy about it. His dreams were funky, distorted and distressing. Valentino. Vox. Someone calling his name. His sister’s perfume.
Angel wishes he could remember.
Someone knocks on the door, and both of them look over to see Husk standing in Angel’s doorway. He’s holding a tray in his paws with a rack of toast. And another mug of coffee.
“Is that for me?” Angel asks, already knowing it must be but he wants Husk to tell him. He thinks it would be good to hear it. Husk nods, but he still hesitates at the doorway.
“I can– I can come back. You’ve got coffee sorted.”
“It’s shit coffee,” Angel replies, eager for Husk’s company. “Ya got anything better?”
“I got toast.”
“That’ll do,” Angel says, and he pats the other side of the mattress that don’t have a Cherri on it. Husk enters then, crosses the room and Angel waits for him to get close.
Husk doesn’t join them on the bed though, he just puts the tray down where Angel’d hoped he’d sit. His disappointment is acute, and he puts a hand out from his second-set on the nearest of Husk’s wrists. Husk’s fur is cool to touch, always so cool.
“Wanna split a slice?”
Husk turns his paw, palm up to meet Angel’s. Long, thick fingers and hard claws. One of which goes down the crease of Angel’s hand, onto the flat of his wrist. Presence against Angel’s pulse. Angel clings back, too grabby but fuck it, he can blame it all on the Hangover™ later.
That’s what Cherri called it, when she helped him shower the night before. Like The Hotel™, whatever’s wrong with him has top billing.
And quite the re-run schedule.
“Do me one better. Eat a whole one yourself, kid.”
“How about ya have my crusts?” Angel counter-offers, hearing the edge in his own voice. “Hate the crusts.”
Husk smiles. “I know. You leave them in the kitchen sink, it’s disgusting. All soggy and shit.”
“Well. Won’t have any to leave in the sink if you eat for me.”
“I think you just got outplayed, Husk,” Cherri says, taking a loud slurp of her coffee. Husk rolls his eyes, but he takes up a slice of toast.
Angel watches as he takes a bite of the corner, tearing the crust right along the Plunderbread edge with his sharp teeth, yellow as corn. It sticks out the side of Husk’s mouth like a cigarette. Angel wonders if he smokes.
“‘Ere,” Husk gruffs, mouth full and he hands over the slice of toast to Angel. “Now fucking eat something.”
“Yes, sir!” Angel replies, taking his crustless toast with a smile. Both Cherri and Husk freeze, and then try to pretend they didn’t. Angel don’t buy it. “What?”
Husk looks away first. “Nothing.”
“You just– you just sound like yourself, Angie. That’s all.” Cherri’s eye is entirely focused over Angel’s head, at Husk, and Angel looks between the two. “Anything, like, coming back to you yet?”
Angel tries to think. He looks at Cherri’s chipped nail polish where she holds her mug, across to Husk who’s still standing and chewing real fucking slow on his crust. He ain’t looking at Angel, and Angel don’t like it.
He tries to remember the last time Husk hasn’t looked at him. Tries to remember the last time he and Cherri lived together. Tries to remember anything before yesterday, and—
Bam! The headache. The hot, lance of pain right between his eyes to the back of his skull. And his mouth waters, almost painful from the underside of his teeth, like when biting something too sour. Or too sweet, bubblegum sweet. Valentino sweet.
Somewhere else hurts, inside, and Angel drops his mug
“Fuck!” he says, but Husk’s already moving. Mug put to the floor, towel from his breakfast tray shoved over the coffee splattered on the sheets. “Sorry, I’m sorry. My head, shit.”
“What about it?” Husk asks sharply, abandoning the mess and both his paws come to Angel’s face. His palms are so big, Angel can feel the velvet plush of them from his jaw to his temples.
Those eyes, watching Angel. Reading him, searching him. Looking for someone Angel ain’t finding neither.
“Hurts,” is all Angel can say, and he feels Cherri put a hand to his back, rubbing gently.
“Where?” One of Husk’s paws moves, real careful around the curve of Angel’s skull, claws ghosting over the back of his head. “Here?”
“Everywhere. Shit, it’s like he’s in there.” Angel’s eyes water and he has to close them. Pain, something else. All terrible.
“Angel.” Husk’s paws, both of ‘em, back to his cheeks. Holding the weight of his head. “There’s nobody in there. Just you, we promise. You’re right where you need to be, alright?”
Fear hits him suddenly, a cold water down his back jump and Angel startles. He lashes out, top-set of hands thrust forward to shove Husk off him, second-set hoisting himself backwards so create distance.
“Don’t fuckin’ touch me!” he snaps, scuttling back and back into the corner of the bed, against the wall. “When Val catches ya playing with the merchandise, he’ll blow you sky high. Got it?”
“Angie, stop! It’s okay, just breathe. C’mon, cunt, breathe.”
Cat in front of him takes a step back, paws up. Angel’s chest heaves, panic buzzing like a hit of powder, hands to the wall. He needs to move. No, he just needs to wait, because Valentino wouldn’t leave him with some fucking strangers that ain’t paying. Val will come and get him, like always.
“Breathe, Angie, please.”
“Val’ll kill you, asshole,” Angel says to this fucker in front of him, barely seeing him. Everything’s blurry. His head fucking hurts. “Ya hear me? My boss ain’t to be fucked with, he’s hot shit. So, hands fuckin’ off!”
Cherri crowds against him, her hands scrambling to catch his second-set where they’re twisting knots in the bedsheets. He can smell her shampoo, fruity-tart and familiar. He tries to focus on that. Nothing looks right, he don’t know where he’s at.
“I should go,” the cat says, and he’s already turning.
“Husk, wait! Don’t–”
Cherri calls after him, but the guy don’t wait. Angel watches the feathered end of his tail vanish around the doorway, a flick of red and then gone.
“Okay, Angie. Stay with me, deep breaths.”
Angel’s crying, can’t seem to stop now he’s noticed. The big, heaving sobs he ain’t been doing since childhood.
“Cherri…” She crawls up the bed, wraps both arms around him and grips tight. “What’s happenin’?”
“I got you, Angel,” Cherri says into his hair, kissing him there. “It’s gonna be alright. We’ve been here before. It’ll come back, okay? You just need to breathe with me now.”
He tries, fuck, he really is trying. “Who was that?”
“Husk, Angie. Your friend, you know Husk.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I know. It’s gonna be okay.”
Something comes back, unclear. Trying to remember a dream, really. Val’s penthouse, his hands on Angel’s body. His tongue in his mouth, the taste of his venom and all that fucking smoke. Everyone yelling.
“He… he hit me.”
Cherri kisses him again. “Valentino can’t hurt you anymore, Angie.”
“No.” Angel presses two hands to his eyes, presses against the hurt that’s pulsing behind them. “Husk. Husk hit me.”
Didn’t he? Angel just can’t fucking remember and he wants to scream.
Cherri squeezes him.
“Let’s get this cleaned up, okay? And when you feel better, we can talk.”
Angel looks between the portrait and Cherri. “Really?”
“Fuck off.”
“The snake guy?”
“I said fuck off!” Cherri hits him on the shoulder. “You were all for it, I’ll have you fucking know.”
“Don’t sound like me, sugar-tits.”
They’re sat on a sofa in the hotel’s reception. Charlie said it might help for Angel to see every Tom, Dick and Harry coming and going, hoping to get the old noggin’ jogging down the right track towards remembering something actually fucking useful.
So far, Angel feels he ain’t even bringing up the rear on this lame horse.
“You said he had two dicks.”
“Okay, that does sound like me,” Angel concedes, and Cherri goes ha! triumphantly. He looks at the bizarre portrait of Sir Pentious; if Cherri hadn’t said it were him, Angel’s not sure he’d have guessed it. “So, you’re goin’ steady with Snake-Eddie then?”
“Something like that. Whatever, it’s not a big deal.”
Angel disagrees, and his good humour pales with how frustrating everything has been the last few days.
“Wish I remember seeing it. Sure it was quite a show.”
“It’ll come back,” Cherri says for the hundredth time, with the same unwavering confidence she has since this whole thing started. Angel wishes he felt even a nickel as certain as he ain’t even close to a quarter.
Cherri says this happens sometimes, when he ‘wakes up’. From what, she won’t say though and Angel is getting the distinct impression that whatever she’s not telling him must be not-so-pretty and all shitty. Shouldn’t surprise him. Val gets pretty shitty.
Used to, anyway, as Angel remembers for the other hundredth fucking time that Valentino is gone.
He thought it’d feel different, that Angel would feel different. But clearly it ain’t changed all that much, because Angel keeps forgetting he’s got no one pulling on his chain anymore. Keeps tugging the other end, to see who’ll tug back.
Angel gives a small shake of his head to see if it knocks a helpful screw loose that ain’t just the same fucking fact every time.
“So, does he?”
“Does who what?”
“Have two dicks?”
Cherri blushes instantly, really red, and she splutters. “I– I don’t know! Didn’t get a fucking chance to have a sconce, did I?”
“You sent him to Heaven without even peeking first? Have I taught ya nothing?”
“We were kinda busy,” Cherri says, still blushing. “Not getting murdered and all that shite.”
Across the reception, there’s a bar. And behind the bar, is Husk, who’s doing a very good job at looking busy when there’s nobody to fucking serve. Angel keeps glancing over, trying to think of an excuse to go over.
Cherri notices, and seems to latch onto the change of subject with relief.
“You can just go say hi to him, you know. Promise his meow’s way worse than his bite. Pretty sure the geezer’s got dentures anyway.”
“He’s ignoring me,” Angel points out, which feels fairly true given he ain’t seen much of Husk one way or another in a while except like this. Always a suitable distance, unsuitably without reason.
Angel wants a reason. Might be nothing, but probably more of a something as every time Angel sees Husk, he feels so close to figuring it all out. And then Husk looks away from him, and it melts away.
“Well, you kinda freaked him the fuck out the other night.” Cherri quickly turns back to Angel, giving a soft fist-bump to the arm. “Not that it was your fault or anything, I know it’s… confusing, I guess.”
Angel barely remembers, which seems to be the new shitty normal. It’s like a bad trip, repeating back on him every other moment. One foot in, one foot out, and all six hands tied behind his back. Valentino is gone, Angel knows. But Val don’t always feel gone.
“Think he’s pissed then? Not used to me kicking him outta my bed, or somethin’?”
“No, fuck!” Cherri sounds genuinely thrown that Angel would suggest that. “That’s not what I meant. He just doesn’t like seeing you like this, Angie. It’s rough for him.”
“Think he don’t like seeing me much at all,” Angel replies, and he folds his legs up onto the couch so he can wrap his second-set around them.
“That’s not true. Promise you it’s not.” Cherri bites at a hang-nail, eye tracking between Angel and the bar. “We can go over for a drink together, if you like? I’ll pull his tail if he’s mean to you.”
Angel would like, but something’s stopping him. Maybe it’s that fucking chain, stretching out to nowhere, hooked onto no one. Angel don’t know how much give it’s got. Knows even less if he wants to find out.
“Maybe later,” he says at last, and Cherri’s look of such clear, sincere understanding makes his eyes water. He looks at the floor. “Tell me more about Pentious.”
“You’ll be disappointed. I don’t know anything about his balls either.”
“Then let’s make something up.”
Let’s make something up, Angel thinks again, as Cherri talks and across the room, one ear turned in Angel’s direction, Husk polishes a martini glass.
“It doesn’t usually take this long. Day or two, yeah but it’s been like… what, a week?”
Husk caps his shaker. “I know.”
The ice rattles, real loud in the lounge ‘cause nobody but the two of them are here. People’ve been avoiding it lately, sticking to their rooms. Charlie’s been hiding, Vaggi working. At first, Husk thought they were avoiding Angel, giving him space.
But it’s him, Husk realised quickly. Nobody seems to know what to say to him. Makes him self-conscious, makes him feel like everyone’s peeking his shoulder, spotting his hand.
Husk ought not to complain. Less work, and all that sorry jazz.
Cherri pokes at the cherry in her glass with a toothpick. “You should talk to him, Husk.”
He taps the shaker, dislodging the lid with a hiss.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh, fuck off, he wants you to. He just… doesn’t know why yet.”
Husk takes the glass he’d had on the counter, tips out the ice that were chilling in it.
“And when he does, I’ll be right where he left me,” Husk says, and he strains the drink into the glass. “You saw what happened before. Ain’t fair to the kid, pushing him.”
“Maybe he needs a push,” Cherri says, and she spears her cherry. “Sometimes I really think he’s getting better and then it’ll just, like, fucking go or something.”
Husk knows what she means. He’s seen it happen, in the kitchen at breakfast or the other evening with Charlie going through old notebooks of Angel’s scribbled attempts of therapy inside. Mostly doodles of dicks, from Husk’s own memory, but each time Angel laughs, sounding almost normal, the light just goes out again.
Breaks Husk’s heart every time.
“Those fucking cunts,” Cherri bites, and she stabs her cherry a second time. “Where’d they get off, fucking with his head like that? Wish the building would fall on the fuckers twice.”
“What matters now is he’s back where he belongs.”
What’s left of him, Husk thinks bitterly and then hates himself for it.
“Back and jumping at fucking shadows. When he goes back to normal, he’s gonna be fucking mortified. Especially about that shit with you.”
It’s a hole in the ground, this line of thinking and Husk’s been digging with a bottle cap every night. Just enough to sleep, he tells himself, before he drinks some more and don’t sleep anyway.
“I’m not important enough to be worrying about right now,” Husk says, tapping the shaker so the last drops land into the glass’ bowl.
“Don’t say that, Angie wouldn’t like it.”
Husk ain’t sure he believes that. “He don’t know what he likes right now.”
“Husk, stop.” Husk can’t look at her, so he just watches the blush foam at the top of the drink start settling. “I know it’s hard, believe me I really fucking do. But it’s still Angel in there.”
“Is it?” he asks, quiet because it seems wrong to even ask. But the question’s been haunting him,
It’s that step missed in the dark, phantom feeling when Husk looks for Angel where he usually is and he ain’t there. Even now, Husk looks at the drink he just made. Pink, shimmering, and for no one because Angel ain’t been down to drink it. May never be.
“He’ll get better,” Cherri says, pushing her own glass away, cherry split and uneaten. “He has to.”
‘Cause Angel’s been good at that, Husk thinks fondly and his heart folds like a banknote in the back-pocket of his grief, doing what he has to.
Too late, Angel realises someone’s been speaking to him.
“Uh, what?”
He comes back to himself, back to the present. Been so easy lately, to imagine being anywhere else. Head’s scrambled eggs on toast, heart probably just as muddled. He’s in Brooklyn, then he ain’t. He’s in Hell. He’s in bed with Valentino.
No, he’s in the hotel. And Valentino is gone. Ain’t he?
“Angel?” the girl says, white hand out to touch Angel’s thigh. They’re sat together in a room, and Angel doesn’t know where he is. “It’s Charlie. Do you know where you are?”
“I think I've forgotten.”
Charlie gives him the same wan smile Molly used to. Spooky.
“Yeah. But it’s okay, you’ll remember again, too.”
And again. And again, and again.
Someone’s got their hand around his neck. Pushing down, cutting off where he’s trying to call for help. He throws his hands out, tries to push them off. He grabs a bottle, waves it in their face but he’s being dragged backwards now, away from someone reaching for him. No way forward, no way back.
“You know me.”
Angel wakes with a start, the nightmare lingering through the frightful beat of his heart and he tries to disentangle himself from the bedsheets, which just ends up putting him on the floor in a startled heap, hitting his head.
“Ow, fuck!”
Angel lies there, upside-down really with his legs still stuck in his duvet and is grateful Fat Nuggets ain’t here. Cherri took him after the first few nights, when it became obvious the nightmares weren’t going anywhere and he was just upsetting the little guy.
Nightmares ain’t new down here, Angel knows that. He knows, even if he can’t remember.
He pulls himself free and grabs his robe, slipping it on as he heads out into the hall.
Must be late, the lights ain’t even on. Angel stands in the hallway, looking left and then right. He goes left. Figure-eights it’s as good a guess any, right?
Or left, as the case may be.
Nothing is familiar. Not the carpet, not the doors. He knows he’s been walked down this hall like twenty times already, Cherri showing him the way. He knows that. But he can’t fucking remember.
Angel stops, chest caving with something a little too close for comfort to panic. He hugs himself with his top-set, listens to the way his blood starts rushing in his ears.
Behind him, a door opens and he jumps.
“Angel?”
Husk, it’s Husk, Angel reminds himself as Husk stands at the doorway of a room, back-lit dark from some orange light that glows like a fire.
He knows Husk, he just don’t remember.
“Hey,” Angel whispers, ‘cause it’s nighttime and he’s self-conscious he must’ve been too loud somehow. “Sorry if I woke you.”
Husk’s tail flicks along the floor. “You okay, kid?”
“Sure.” Angel’s lie must be obvious, because Husk’s ears drop. “I was gonna find Cherri but then– uh, realised I don’t actually know where her room is.”
“She ain’t on our floor,” Husk replies, and as he does, Angel suddenly remembers that. “Vaggi says no explosive chemicals below the tenth storey. Easier to rebuild from the top than the bottom.”
“Right.”
Angel takes the opportunity to look at Husk, add to his study. The shifting colours of his wings, the streaks of grey in the hair between his ears. Angel’s so busy looking at the details, he misses the obvious one being that Husk’s only wearing a pair of baggy boxers.
When his eyes hit the line of Husk’s stomach, the concave bend of white fur meeting in a faded grey line that dips beneath the waistband, Angel shivers.
“Angel, are you alright?”
Angel snaps to attention, eyes back where they oughta be. “I… can I come in?”
Not what he’d meant to say, not even close and he’s about to back down, tell Husk he’s sorry for being half-brained on his best day lately– but Husk just steps aside, leaving plenty space for Angel to walk right on in. If he wants to.
Angel really wants to.
“No funny business,” Angel promises as he takes the invitation, crossing two fingers from his second-set. “I swear. Don’t do freebies, bad for business, ya’know.”
“Office hours are closed,” Husk replies blandly, closing the door behind Angel. “No business getting done either way.”
Angel reckons that’s some kind of joke, and he wishes he got it. Wishes Husk would explain.
The orange light is from a lamp, the old Tiffany style his momma liked back in the day. It’s sitting on a drooping vanity that looks to have some pictures stuck to its mirror. All turned the wrong way around, blank backs to the world.
Angel sits on what must be Husk’s bed, which is still made. Seems he’s not the only one who ain’t sleeping tonight. He puts a hand to the fleece blanket thrown over the end of the mattress, fingers into the plush pink fabric and stops, suddenly more awake.
“This is mine,” he says, knowing it to be true and he pulls the fleece up to get a better look.
“Shit, uh. Yeah.” When Angel looks at Husk, his ears are down but his wings are up, almost like he’s tempted to hide behind them. “You left it here. Last time.”
Angel meets Husk’s eye, who to his credit, don’t back down from it. “I’ve slept over before?”
“Yeah. Few times.”
“And… did we–?”
Angel gets a hand out, gesturing between the two of them and then giving a quick jerk-off motion with his wrist.
Husk’s reaction is instant, all his fur bottle-brushing up from the back of his neck down to the feathered-tip of his tail, which twitches anxiously. Would be funny, if Angel weren’t getting the feeling that it really oughtn’t to be.
“No,” Husk says, voice rough as rocks and he clears his throat. “No, nothing like that. You have a hard time sleeping sometimes, is all. And I’m usually up.”
“Nocturnal animal, huh?”
“Something like that.”
Angel lays the fleece on his lap. Between the strands of pink fuzz, he can see small, sharp strands of black fur. He puts his fingertip to one, brushing it down and feels a heaviness draw in, suddenly aware of the weight of his own skull.
It don’t hurt. Not quite. Don’t not hurt neither.
“Guess this must be muscle memory then, showing up at your room like this?”
“Guess so.”
Angel puts the fleece back, hands lingering though because he don’t know where to put them.
“Do you want me to get Cherri for you, kid?”
“You’ll do,” Angel says, and he do think so. Husk’s wings relax some then, as if he were holding his breath. “Seems you got practice sleeping with someone who’s all elbows.”
“Not the worst thing about you,” Husk replies, and his whiskers twitch. Angel’s heart soars, hoping he might smile. Angel thinks it’d be a real win, somehow, to make Husk smile. “Your knees are a much bigger problem. All bones and right in my back, too.”
This feels so easy, Angel thinks. Must be plenty else they got practice in, even if it don’t come to him now.
Husk is watching him real close now, all fractured-gold glimmer in those eyes from his lamp.
“You wanna sleep?”
“Do I usually sleep when I come knocking?”
“Usually.”
“Do you? Even with my bony knees?”
“Even with your bony knees, baby.”
Angel feels good when Husk calls him that, but it ain’t enough. Angel wants to feel whatever he used to, before, when Husk calls him that because it must be even better. It’s gotta be, Angel’s sure.
He shuffles back onto the bed, getting his socked-feet up to the mattress and makes space.
“I’ll keep ‘em low for ya, promise.”
Husk shakes his head. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
It’s a joke, he knows but it don’t really feel like one to Angel anymore. Husk must notice, as he goes tight again, wings a brief flutter against the floor before going still again.
“Do I do that a lot? Make promises I don’t keep?”
Husk looks stricken, just a moment, and then he does that thing where his eyebrows drop and his whiskers go taut, so carefully and frustratingly blank.
“You forget a whole buncha shit, but you don’t forget to keep being hard on yourself?” Husk asks, raspy voice so even. Angel feels very uneven.
“I’m good at being hard, some might call it a talent.”
Husk shakes his head. “Some might, I guess. Give over a bit more, kid, my wings ain’t gonna fit with that.”
Angel does as he’s told and shifts. It’s more awkward than he’d hoped it’d be, adjusting and making sure he ain’t poking nor crushing. Husk lies on his side, both wings out behind his back and draping over the bed to the floor.
“You wake up, you wake me up. Got that?” Husk tells him as Angel lies on his own side, so they’re face to face. “Not leaving you on your own. You wanna stay in the bed, that’s the rule.”
“Oh-ho, he’s got rules?”
“Don’t push me, kid.”
Angel’s tempted to, but he don’t. Husk’s eyes shut, and Angel takes the opportunity like he’s taken everything so far. He wants to touch, knows he’s been in so many situations where he really oughta be touching and more than, but Angel holds himself back.
Just—
“Why you care, Husk?” he asks, barely above that same whisper he gave in the hallway. Husk don’t open his eyes, but his ears flicks. “Why you care what happens to me?”
“You’ll figure it out,” is all Husk says, and Angel feels like crying because it’s all anyone’s been fucking saying to him for days.
He’ll figure it out. It’ll come back. He just has to be patient.
Angel ain’t ever had a patient bone in his body, from elbows to pokey knees, and the question he’s been dodging like puddles on cracked sidewalks tumbles out from him.
“What if I don’t though?”
Husk’s eyes open, so incredibly dark. “Then you don’t. And you wake me up anyway.”
Then, Husk’s nearest wing unfurls up and over, and he lifts an arm. Angel sees the invitation and crawls right in, puts his head back to that chest, back to that heart he heard the first night and feels as Husk’s wing comes down around them both.
Somewhere to hide, somewhere Angel tucks his wrists and feels the weight of that soul he’s gotten back sink into a mattress he ain’t knowing.
“Thanks, Husk.”
Husk don’t reply, but he gives Angel a quick squeeze, and Angel thinks he knows what it means. Even if he can’t remember.
They’re on Angel’s bed, and Cherri’s finally let him have his phone back. And thank fuck for that, because it’s been cold turkey for almost three weeks without it and Angel ain’t good at swallowing that particular sandwich. He’d tried for drugs first, before everyone around him shut that shit down like fucking prohibition.
Turns out, he’s supposedly clean now. So Angel knows even less about himself than he first thought, if it were fucking possible.
Now, they’re scrolling together, through selfies and random screenshots of memes he’s missed, waiting to see if anything’s familiar.
There’s a lot of photos of Husk in here, most taken surreptitiously by the looks. Angel stops on one now, a shot of Husk feeding Fat Nuggets bar nuts.
“Husk and me,” Angel asks, trying real hard not to sound too interested, “Are you sure we don’t… Ya’know, I mean, do we got something going on?”
Cherri blows a raspberry. “Well. What’d Husk tell you?”
“He said no.”
“There you go then.”
“But,” Angel frowns, feels his head start to ache and tries not to let it show. “I don’t think I believe him. Or you, for that matter.”
He don’t mean it to come out as harsh as it does, but he sees Cherri flinch all the same.
“Shit, Angie. I— look, mate. If you were, you never said shit to me about it.”
“Not to you, not nothing at all?”
“Not a fucking peep, swear on my afterlife.”
Angel’s disappointed, not that it makes sense to be. Especially given everything’s been a disappointment so far.
“But…” Cherri scooches closer, big eye down on Angel’s phone. “I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t fucking suspect something.”
Angel locks his phone and thunks! his head back against the wall, right where he’s aching and he winces. Between them, Fat Nuggets snorts softly and puts his chubby chin on Angel’s thigh.
“I mean, I could be talking out my arse here, you know? And shit’s already pretty confusing, I don’t want to make it worse for you,” Cherri says, patting Nuggs between the ears. “But like, you guys were tight. Are tight, shit. Actually used to make me kind of jealous.”
“No one can replace you, gorgeous. Even with my brain hanging outta my dick, I still remember ya.”
“Obviously! I’m fucking irreplaceable!” Cherri replies, giving that exaggerated blink Angel’s come by now to know is her best attempt of a wink. “Still though, it did get to me a little at the beginning. How much you obviously gave a shit about what Husk thought of you. But then…”
He waits, but Cherri doesn’t say any more so Angel pokes; “Then what?”
Cherri pushes the hair out of her face, bites her lip.
“Dunno, just… Husk seemed good for you. Made you better, in a way. It was good, seeing you do better.”
Angel tugs on the sleeves of his sweater. He thought he’d have more clothes here, but seems more than half were for work. And he ain’t got work anymore. He misses it, he thinks. Sometimes. But then again, Angel’s missing so much could be fucking anything tugging the heartstring.
“This really fucking sucks,” he says, because it’s fucking true. “What, Valentino weren’t happy owning my soul he had fucking knock me off the edge of sanity, too?”
“He was a cunt.”
“Yeah, he is.” Pain, brief, but intense and Angel groans. “Was. You’re right. He was. ‘Cause he’s gone.”
“Yeah, Angie. He’s gone.”
Angel looks down at his wrists through his lashes, head too sore now to open his eyes all the way. His littlest ones help keep him from being clueless, but their dreamlike shift makes his fingers blurry.
“I think he took a chunk of me with him when he went.”
He don’t mean to say it aloud, but the way Cherri goes real, real quiet tells Angel he ain’t the only one who’s been thinking it.
At the lounge bar, Angel looks at the glass Husk puts in front of him.
“What’s that?”
“It’s sweet. You’ll like it.”
“Did I like it before?”
Husk don’t answer him, so Angel takes the chance. The drink is sweet, and fuck, he does like it. Pink, almost fizzy like sherbert and a pleasant if astringent bite at the end from vodka.
Husk looks pleased. Makes Angel warm under his fur.
“Okay?” Husk asks, almost smiling. Angel finds he likes making Husk happy lately, but he’s not sure he wants to give over so easy.
There’s gotta be some stake to the game, after all, especially if starting over.
“Look at ya, so fucking smug.”
Husk holds up his paws. “I’m humble pie, kid. Straight from the oven.”
Things have been like this, for a bit. Most days are good, Angel feels. Stuff is starting to stick to the flypaper of his shiny new memory, which is something. It ain’t the same as remembering though.
But Husk is good, his company easy as Sunday morning and a laugh like a stiff drink. Angel would take him like a shot, punch him like the needle, if he could.
Some things must be ingrained down to the soul he just got back, Angel reckons, and finding comfort in a man who keeps turning him down can be tracked through Angel’s life and after it like tree-rings.
“Were you this much of a smooth-talker before?” Angel asks, taking another sup. Husk’s eyes track the movement, before he looks away.
“You would’ve accused me of a lotta shit before. Smooth-talking you was definitely not on the list.”
Interesting. Angel’s undead curious.
“Oh, did I make ya nervous?” Angel teases, and Husk gives him an arch look. “You get all bashful for little ol’ me?”
“That didn’t make the list either,” Husk replies, glancing at Angel and then his drink. “Drink that before it goes warm or you’ll waste my good efforts.”
“Don’t want that,” Angel says, tongue hooking on his gold tooth with old habit. Makes him pause.
Huh, the oddest shit does come back at the weirdest times.
Husk notices. “You good?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry.” He brushes it off quickly, taking another sip of the cocktail and changes the subject. “Ya’know, my sister would love this shit. She used to suck on honeysuckle in the summertime, that’s how bad her sweet-tooth was.”
He laughs through his nose remembering that, but one look at Husk’s face kills it.
Fuck. He’s done something wrong again, Angel can see it. Husk looks at him like a bone broken, mouth opening and then closing without saying a word.
“What? What’d I do?”
“Nothing,” Husk answers, quietly, then adds with more breath; “‘S just, you ain’t ever mentioned her before. Your sister.”
The edges of Angel’s mind go dark. Lights out, a candle snuffed in the quiet of the church and something hollow is open inside of him, cold and sudden.
“Not ever?”
Husk shakes his head. “Not to me.”
“Oh. Well, fuck.”
Angel stirs his drink, watches the foam part the way ice would break on the docks at Gravesend Bay in winter. Molly used to try and skip stones across the surface, both of ‘em competing to see who’d go furthest.
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Night she died,” Angel answers, and the memory calls up to him from that well he’s been side-stepping for almost a century. Guess there are some things that don’t get forgot, even in Hell. “She ain’t down here. I’ve checked, had a lotta time to. That’s gotta be good though, right? That she ain’t here.”
Angel knows he’s pleading, like Husk’s got the answer. Husk just watches him, and Angel’s waiting for something though he can’t say what.
“I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, Angel. How you ain’t lame every day, missing a limb like that,” Husk says, and he’s so– so on the nose that Angel expects it to cut off and spite him.
“I miss her,” Angel admits, swallowing hard. “When I remember her, anyway. When I remember, I miss her.”
“How often you forget her?”
Angel puffs air bitterly. “Better to ask how often I don’t. Even without all of— ”
He gestures uselessly to his own head, hoping Husk catches his meaning.
Reaching across the bar, Husk takes one of Angel’s hands. Those big fingers, palms like saucepans. Angel feels like Husk could close all five claws over him like a secret.
“Well. Now I can remember her, too. For the times you forget.”
Angel clutches back on Husk’s paw, takes one of those thick fingers to clasp onto with three of his own.
“I wish I remembered you, Husk.”
That expression again, so careful and so fucking frustrating because Angel just don’t know what it means when Husk looks at him like that.
“We lose things sometimes, Angel. Nature of the game.”
“Mean game,” Angel says, pushing at the down fur of Husk’s wrist.
“Most of them are.”
Valentino is gone.
He’s gone.
Angel can't remember who he used to be before Valentino.
And Angel… doesn’t know who he is without him.