Chapter Text
“She’s gonna find you eventually.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Angel whisper shouts from under the bar, his lanky body folded upon itself as he tries to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. Charlie has been looking for him all morning, trying to make him join another one of her “therapy sessions”. It was bad enough that he had to join in on all the stupid exercises she came up with daily. Who could blame him if he didn’t want to spend his precious day off laying on a princess’ chaise lounge while she played doctor?
“Husk! Have you seen Angel anywhere?”
The spider freezes, eyes peering up at the cat, silently begging him to not rat him out. Husk sighs and shrugs, Charlie groaning as she rushes up the stairs to check Angel’s room again.
“You’re the best, Whiskers, I ever tell you that?”
“Whatever, get outta here before she doubles back.”
Angel needs no more encouragement, scrambling to his feet and rushing for the door, grinning as he steps outside, relief flooding him.
“Angel.”
His head snaps to the right and his body droops with disappointment as he realizes Vaggie is there, spear at the ready. “Pretty sure you’re meant to be in your therapy session right now, right?”
“Oh, come on toots. It’s my day off!”
“And it’s also your therapy day. So why don’t you just go in and get it over with so we can all move on with our days.”
Angel huffs, stomping back inside, two sets of arms folded tightly over his chest. Vaggie follows him in, glaring at Husk who swiftly turns to pretend to organize some bottles instead of facing her wrath for letting Angel try to escape. “Charlie!” She calls out, her voice echoing in the lobby. “I found him!”
Charlie rushes down the stairs again in an instant, grinning and wrapping Vaggie up in her arms, planting a few kisses all over her face. “Oh, thank you Vaggie! You’re the best!” She lets her girlfriend go, tugging one of Angel’s hands-free so she can lead him. “C’mon Angel, I know you’re not a fan but you need to talk about things! It’ll just be an hour. Let’s go.”
The spider follows reluctantly, the pair making their way up a couple flights of stairs until they reach the room Charlie calls her office. It’s been set up for Charlie’s poor attempt at therapizing, with a sleek red chaise lounge in the middle of the room and a big puffy armchair a few feet away for her to sit in. There’s a desk further in, piled with papers and books, and ‘inspirational’ art litters the walls, telling Angel he can do it, and how sharing your feelings is fun.
Angel flops onto the chaise unceremoniously, watching as Charlie carefully settles herself into the armchair, grabbing a folder, notepad, and pen from the tiny side table next to it and kicking her feet up on a fluffy white pouf. “Well! Looks like last time we talked a little about um…” The princess flips through Angel’s folder, scanning her previous notes. Angel’s sure there isn’t much there, they’ve only done this three or four times and Angel’s never taken it very seriously.
“Fat Nuggets! You told me all about when you first got him, and how you feel caring for him.”
Sort of. He didn’t tell her the exact details, but that was kind of a running theme here.
“Right. Well, as much as I love my little Nugs I don’t think I got enough on him to fill another hour.”
“Of course. Well, Angel, these sessions are for you to talk about anything and everything you want to. I can give you some suggestions if you’d like! Or is there anything that’s happened recently you’d like to share?”
“Dollface, I don’t think you’d wanna hear everything I got in me.”
“Of course I would! That’s the point of this. To help you learn to open up to people, to let others support you.”
Angel huffs at that, brushing his hair out of his face and avoiding Charlie’s gaze when she frowns at him. “Charlie, listen. I know you think you’re doin’ somethin’ here but you don’t got the experience to handle the shit I’m dealin’ with.”
“Angel, I know I can come across as naive, but may I remind you I’ve been around for a lot longer than I look.”
The spider rolls his eyes. “Sure, in the safety of a fuckin’ palace, or in any of the other rings where you’re not surrounded by sinners lookin’ to use and abuse you every waking second.”
Charlie bites her lip, straightening herself up to look more assured. “Give me a chance, Angel. Open up to me and see how you feel. Just talk, stream of consciousness style if you don’t want me to give my input. See how it feels to just let your thoughts out into the ether. I can handle it, I promise.”
Angel sighs, looking at her for a moment before groaning and laying down on the chaise, staring up at the ceiling. He lays there for a few minutes, stewing in the silence. Charlie doesn’t push, flipping through her past notes to keep her busy.
“Ya ever wonder what the rules are for who comes down here?”
Charlie tenses, about to reply, then snaps her mouth shut and leans back. Angel glances over at her, smiles a little when he sees her give him a nod to continue and he looks back up at the ceiling.
“I just wonder sometimes what the limits are. Like, I get murder’s wrong, but, what if it’s in self-defense? Or what if it’s an accident?” He purses his lips, folding his hands over his stomach, fingers tapping together. “Or what if it’s what you were taught?”
He can hear Charlie scribbling something, but he doesn’t look.
“My pa taught me how to kill. The first time I ever killed another person I was 13. I didn’t know anything about him. Just knew he caused trouble, he had to go, and it was as good a time as any to stick a pistol in my hand and teach me how to pull the trigger.” He holds a hand up absentmindedly, staring at the glove covering it. He pulls it off, freeing his fingers and wiggling them up in the air. They’re long and thin, similar enough to his human form to send a shiver of remembrance through him as he mimics shooting a pistol.
“I killed cuz I had to, yanno? Kill or be killed, or at the very least be kicked outta the family with nothing but the shirt on my back. And when you’re 13, the idea of leaving everything you ever knew for some half-understood idea of morality is practically inconceivable.”
More pen scratches. He can vaguely see Charlie’s head popping up and down in his peripheral vision like she’s desperate to write but also to give Angel her full attention at the same time.
“Was it the people I killed for my family? Are they why I ended up here? What other option did I have? Was it predetermined? From the moment I was born into a mafia family, was I doomed to end up in Hell? No, can’t be. Molly’s not here.”
“Who’s Molly?”
Angel snaps his head towards Charlie, watching the princess realize her mistake as she claps both hands over her mouth, expression regretful. Angel sighs, turning away again. He doesn’t want to look at her when he talks about Molly.
“She’s my sister. Twin sister. Older by 6 minutes, would never let me forget it. Ain’t no way she’s still kicking so she’s gotta be in Heaven. No way me or Arackniss wouldn’t have found her if she showed up down here. Arackniss is our older brother, for the record. We don’t talk much.”
Charlie nods even though Angel isn’t looking, and goes back to writing.
“Pa never made her join the killing shit. Said broads shouldn’t get their hands dirty. Wish I’d gotten the same treatment, but I think they were hoping a little blood on my hands might wash the gay away. Speaking of, is that why I’m down here? I know it’s debated whether homosexuality’s actually like, bad in the eyes of whatevah, so it’s on the back burner for me personally. Would be a little funny though. Ooh, you let a guy stick his dick in ya, time to burn for all eternity for it.”
He quiets down, thoughts racing now that he’s started. For a moment he debates filtering the thoughts, watering it down for Charlie, but this is what she was asking for, wasn’t it? His real feelings. It’d been so long since he’d shared them with anyone.
“Was it the drugs? Cuz honestly, I blame that on the family too. Can’t leave shit around teenagers, there’s no way we weren’t gonna try it all. That’s all it fuckin’ took, one stupid decision and then I just couldn’t stop. It was just so good, to be free of having to worry, to not have to think. My mind could go blank and I could just feel actually happy for a little while. And then the high would fade and the come down would be ten times fuckin’ worse. I learned to live with it, hide it, but the moment I moved out it all went downhill. Nobody around means no need to be held accountable, no need for moderation.”
Angel takes a deep breath and pulls his glove back on, wanting the secure feeling it gave him to have his arms covered. A leftover habit from his humanity, from hiding the track marks and scars that no longer existed but the shame of them remained.
“I overdosed the first night I was alone. How stupid is that? The second Molly gets a night to herself, I fuckin’ lose my inhibitions and kick the bucket. And end up here. What’s the moral of the story there?” He hates thinking about that night. It still makes him sick to his stomach, knowing Molly had to be the one to find his body. He hesitates, then pushes forward. “I know Molly found me. We were livin’ together. I wasn’t doin’ well, but I promised her I’d be fine, told her she could go visit Ma for the weekend. Couldn’t even hold on past Saturday night.”
He’s quiet for a while, stuck in his thoughts, eyes shut tight so he can’t see whatever sort of face Charlie’s surely pulling right now. Angel takes another deep breath. “I don’t know what it’s like, to end up in heaven, but I hope she doesn’t remember me. I hope she got sent up there with a fresh slate. She spent too much of her first life worryin’ about me, I don’t want her to waste her second one on me too.”
“I get why we don’t forget when we come down here though. Down here, memories are a punishment all their own.” He smiles slightly, eyes lazily blinking open again. “I guess they can be helpful sometimes too, but. Mostly punishment. Speaking of punishment, ya ever think the entire sinner system down here is kind of backward?”
He chances a glance at Charlie but she’s too busy writing to notice.
“I mean, yeah I guess I was bad in some moral sense of the word to end up down here, but you know who was fucking worse in their first life than me? Any of the overlords! Fuckin Alastor was a serial killer, and he comes down here with enough power to just keep on keeping on? How is this not his own personal heaven? And Val! Don’t even get me started on fucking Valentino. You know he was doing the exact same shit up there too? He told me about it once when he got too drunk and started spilling his guts. He was a pimp up there too, would fucking hook young chicks in at clubs by giving them party drugs and when they got addicted he’d convince them to work for him and he’d “take care of ‘em”. Turned his fucking house into an underground brothel. Killed anyone who tried to rat him out.”
Angel laughs, it’s harsh and cold, his top set of hands reaching up to tangle in his hair. “And what’s his eternal punishment? Power, charm, and the ability to fucking drug people with his saliva? And look what he’s done with it! He’s cornered the entire sinner sex market, makes fucking date rape potions with Velvette to sell on mass. Makes contracts with weak people and exploits them until they self-destruct and he rakes in the cash. How is this what he gets for his eternal suffering? How is that fair?”
He sits up, slumping over himself as his body tenses with every upsetting thought, hands clutching at anything to ground him. “Valentino gets to keep being a rapey manipulative pimp, as punishment for being a rapey manipulative pimp? And what do I get, for being brought up in a morally fucked family and sent on an inescapable path? I get to be the one raped! First fucking thing that happened to me down here. You spawn in naked, did you know that, Charlie?”
His head swivels to look at her and he’s horribly satisfied to see the devastation on her face. Her pen’s finally stopped moving, she can’t seem to look away. Angel grins at her, wild and manic. “Now you’ve seen some a’ my movies. Picture me, naked as a jaybird dropped in the middle of the pentagram. Imagine how that turned out fa’ me. Or don’t, actually, it wasn’t a pretty sight.” He turns away again, her face making his chest ache. He doesn’t want to see it anymore. He doesn’t want to talk anymore, but his mouth keeps going despite him.
“It went on for days. Some big fucking alligator-looking motherfucker took me somewhere, let his buddies take a turn. I only got out by pure luck, stole some shit on the way so I wouldn’t end up in the same damn situation. Ran into some broads who weren’t half-bad, they took me in for a bit and let me get my bearings. Then I found out there were drugs down here, and I mean fuck, who wouldn’t be desperate for a way to escape this place even for a couple hours? So I started making money the only way I could down here, with my body. I’d do awful shit, all fucking day, and get high to forget it all at night.”
“I lived like that for fucking years. Decades. It truly felt like this is what they warned me about in church. You sin, you suffer forever. An endless loop of drugs, the comedown, then having to let these awful people do whatever they want to me so I can get another fix? It was pure torture. And then I met Valentino. And turns out? Shit can get even worse.”
Angel folds into himself again, four arms clutching around his knees as he pulls them up to his chest. It’s not as comfortable as it was when he was human, but it’s better than nothing. “I’ve had to deal with him for 70 years. I’ve been with him longer than fucking Vox, wayyy longer than Velvette. I’ve been at his beck and call for over half a century and what have I got to show for it? Any demon with a cock and a sex drive within 10 feet of me wants to use me like their personal sex puppet. More injuries than I could ever remember even getting. He ripped my arms off once, just to see if they’d grow back. They did, it took fucking forever, hurt like a bitch too. He’s killed me before, a few times actually. I remember the first time, I was so scared. I’d heard people can come back, but when you’ve got someone’s hands wrapped around your throat you start feeling like that’s it. You’re gone for real this time.”
“You’re not, though. What fun would this punishment be if you could actually end it?” He pauses, throat tight. He hides his face in his hands, begging the time to move faster, begging Charlie to just tell him to stop already. She says nothing. He starts talking again. “I’ve tried to. End it. Stupid, I know. If Val can’t kill me for good, why would I be able to? Still. Sometimes it just, I just needed to make it all stop for a while.” His voice cracks and he takes a shaky breath, willing himself to calm down.
Angel sits up straight, wipes at his eyes to stop the budding tears from growing any bigger. He looks over at Charlie, sees the tears streaming down her face. It’s always strange to see someone cry for him. Molly’s done it. Cherri’s done it. Now Charlie joins the list. It doesn’t feel good, but he smiles anyway and swipes at another tear as it falls.
“What did I do that was so evil I deserved this?”
“Angel…”
Her voice is tiny and wavering, Angel can see her struggle to swallow and catch her breath enough to speak more. She’s clutching the notepad to her like a lifeline, pen forgotten on the floor. “Angel, you don’t deserve any of that.”
“Glad you think so.”
She looks as hurt as if Angel slapped her, reeling back, her head making a soft ‘pomf’ as she smacks into the back of the chair in her recoil. He knows she hears the unspoken sentence there, the voiceless confession that he thinks he deserves it all, even if he doesn’t know why. Charlie whimpers, dropping her notes to wipe her eyes, looking at him through blurring tears.
“Angel, I-”
The sound of her phone alarm cuts her off, a high rapid beep to signal an hour gone. Angel stands up immediately, Charlie scrambling to her feet to try and stop him from leaving. She stumbles, and the delay is just enough to let Angel get to the door. His voice carries behind him as he cracks the door just enough to squeeze through and shut tightly behind him.
“Good session, Charlie. Same time next week?”