Chapter Text
Before, nights when Angel avoided the bar were not uncommon. Nights when the scorch of Valentino's wishes remained on Angel's skin in a way it was difficult to shake off with just a gulp of alcohol. Husk had understood it. The necessity to hide, to search for the padding of silence that whispered nothing back, that let you slink into its stillness.
But they're at the other side of the glass now, and Valentino ain't something Angel has to worry about anymore.
It's not as if Husk's been expecting anything, though it rankles. Not even a delayed thanks, or even an acknowledgement in the whole week since the moment at the supply closet.
Angel's come and gone and maybe threw a wave at him, a bit stilted and short, but has entirely ignored him otherwise.
It's Monday and judging by the fact Angel sauntered up to his room half an hour ago without even a hello, this night is shaping up to be the same.
Husk is honest enough to admit there's worry still gnawing at his gut. It's hard to let go of those instincts. To believe Angel could be safe. Could be whole. That the squirreling away could be nothing but just normal exhaustion.
The arms of the clock drag in their tick-tocking slowness until Husk can close up shop within a reasonable limit and not risk Alastor’s displeasure. Climbing up the stairs, Husk tells himself he's only being a good friend. That there's nothing underneath his breastbone pulling and tugging, driving erratic the line of his thoughts. Even though he's barely drunk on the whole weekend, consumed in the anxious burn of Angel gouging time and distance between them.
Maybe Husk had fucked up somehow? He can't see how. Was it the ring? Fuck. Was it?
Had Angel sussed out Husk's absolutely gone on him, ass over head, stupid by the idea of his closeness? His heartbeat drums in a restless rhythm as Husk goes up. What is he going to do? What is he planning to say?
Down the hall, Angel's door awaits him.
The idea of seeing Angel in his room presses on Husk's heart. A place he could've claimed for himself with a little selfishness. If he’d dared, if he would dare to speak up, let everything flow out un-fucking-impeded. And for a second, Husk imagines how it would be to rock up to Angel's room with the decisiveness of knowing he's going back home, to a place that belongs to him more than any other while alive or dead. Just because Angel would be there. He thinks of finality, of long-lived joys. Husk thinks of marriage, and the statement it is, of a life chosen and the commitment that would have lasted longer than his own liver damage before it did him in if they had met topside.
Here, in the pits, Husk thinks marriage has no purpose. A declaration of a love chosen, anathema to this place.
It's a nice dream. A selfish craving. One Husk won't ever fall under, even tired as he is of pretending otherwise. It's a future he can't hold onto, can't plan for, when eternity seems more like a punishment instead of a promise. It's the dangling hope of a twisted place.
It's Hell.
His feet shuffle over the last two feet to Angel's door.
Raising a flexing hand, he fists it to hearten himself for what follows. Then knocks. Three times. Dry, short and sure.
Even if the back of his knees are anything but.
Angel's door swings open, and Husk's hit in the face by the wafting punch of sweet cherries. Angel's perfume.
Again, Husk goes to sink in those eyes. Finds in the ink-blot dark sclera and in the glow of the pupils, the nights and days he's lost. And like every day he feels that small hiccup of a lost breath, the hitch of drowning– death at Angel's hands. Underlined by the distance, the longing, the ache of the things jammed in his throat.
Husk's heart beats to shatter.
Now more than ever, Angel is his own person and Husk's no one to deny him the experience.
“Hey, Huskers.” Angel blinks, but smiles like a million bucks after a beat. Husk knows he must be imagining the strain at the corner of that mouth. “What ya doin’ here, man?”
The dress Angel's wearing ain't the one he came to the hotel in. This one seems pricier, white and tight enough to feel like a statement.
Fix your eyes on me.
And Husk has eyes. Looking at Angel has the rush of his blood pooling under his cheeks. Unwittingly, all the line of his spine turns liquid.
“Hey, you.” The words squeeze out gravel-rough. He's come here with sentences half-formed in his head, but Angel's smile will always bat sideways at his reason. Husk scratches behind an ear to hide his own clumsy mouth. “Just uh, just wondering if there's anything wrong. Been a week since you were at the bar. All good with work?”
The question is blowing his own defenses wide open– off its hinges. It's showing much more than Husk's ever shown. A hand exposed before the round starts.
High-card-value care thrown on the felt.
Angel tilts his head and scoffs. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Yeah, all peachy fucking keen, toots. Cameras ‘ve always loved me and they love me more now. Just been busy with my new acquisition.”
On the last word, Angel's tongue drags along his teeth, rests on the gold tooth. Grin all shine-wet and playful.
Something tight and sour bundles in Husk's belly. “Acquisition?”
“Yeah.” Angel smirks. “Thought about what ya said, and realized, hey, I’m free now, right? Might as well get me a real boyfriend to flaunt and stop weirdos from coming closer. Figured it was easier to make use of one of those fuckers. Just give him a little ass in exchange, nothin’ big.”
The bundle in Husk's belly becomes the gaping suck of an exit wound. It aches all across him, has acid bubbling at the back of his throat threatening to spill out. It's a banked anger that turns bright in a second. Jealousy flares up like a shot in the aftermath, while Husk thinks of Angel debasing himself on a guy who won't treat him right, who’ll use him up until he can put him away wet and ruined. The buzzing of the lights rings in Husk's ears and the room is too hot, scorching– burns Husk's skin beneath the fur.
He's boiling.
“A real– you're dating someone?”
Red, vivid, his brows don't give him the reprieve of pretending he ain't frowning so deep, he's almost snarling. Husk tames it. Eases it even if his body is on edge. Even if his heart is wrecking his breastbone.
Gorgeous in a way that hurts, Angel nods and picks up a clutch bag from the table to the right. “Yeah. Real easy to pick a semi stable date. He's kinda cute– just hope he fucks as good as he kisses.” The words rush out like footsteps and trample all over Husk's heart. He watches Angel pause, then unclip his bag and root around in it, before he produces something in his fist. “Which reminds me. Here. I don't need it anymore. You can sell it for good money or give it to who it was meant for to begin with.”
Palm extended, he offers the velvet box back to Husk. The thrust of the hand is rushed, almost brunt and Husk tastes the twisted deja-vu of the moment like bile. Their fingers slip together, warmth on warmth that electrifies, but Husk's chest compresses painfully when his palm is tucked against velvet.
This wasn't supposed to happen. At least that piece of him should've stayed with Angel, carrying Husk's secrets, silent and eternal. Husk's breath curdles in his throat.
Angel's words catch up to him. “That I should give it to who?”
Nothing makes sense. Not the way Angel's mouth tips down, or how Husk's back with the ring in his pocket.
Angel scoffs, and shuts the door behind him. The vee between his brows scrunches. “C'mon man, it's clear you bought that thinking of someone that ain't me and it just happened to be kinda useful.” The pink of his tongue flicks out in the pause. Angel licks his lips. Eyes now hidden when he looks down to his purse he says, “You should toughen up and– tell them.”
A riot rises in Husk's mind, travels down to his heart. If Husk could only tell him. If he could peel all the frustration and anger off himself, simmering at the idea of someone else pawing at Angel, giving him kisses Husk can't, the touches Husk’s forbidden himself, the love that has no reason to exist but it does.
If he could flick the lid of the box open and offer Angel that wish well-tucked into velvet, materialized into gold.
But Angel's made his own choices and Husk can't battle against them.
He hates it, but he bites through it like ripping marrow of a bone. His breath shudders out of him. “Right. Will think about it. You going somewhere?”
Angel is already shouldering past him. "Yep, the boyfriend has plans. See ya later, Kitty, don't wait up for me.”
He leaves Husk with a waft of perfume. With a hundred messy knots in the belly. His hands fist around the jagged rage he can't carve out of him.
It's already bleeding him out.
—
Liquid courage.
Husk never did get the expression. He’d found several things at the bottom of a bottle, but never courage. The burn of whisky peels his throat open, makes his belly churn. It's hard to stop, though. His fingers curl round the squarish shape of the bottle, loft it, press it to his lips.
A kiss that scorches.
How could he have known Angel was ready to date? Why didn't Husk get the fucking memo? Husk could've told him, could've said something. Could've let Angel know and toughened up waiting for an answer. Show Angel that the piecemeal hope in this fucked up afterlife Husk now harbors hinges on him. Urgent and deep. First friendship. Then love.
Husk futzes around for hours. Watches the lines of the bar get all squiggly from inebriation, then back to normal again. Because that's the thing with Hell, where you can't even find lasting pleasure in sins.
He's downed two bottles of rum when the door flicks open. Quiet. Unassuming.
At some point someone had turned off the lights of the lobby and Husk can barely see the shape of Angel carefully pushing the door closed.
It's close to four in the fucking morning and Husk tries hard not to think about anyone else staying in Angel's closeness until now. Husk hates it. Hates to think about a stranger pawing at Angel's dress. He hates to think of a stranger being granted the trust to smell the line of Angel's throat and get a deep inhale of the scent that's been driving Husk mad for a year.
Undeserving fucking asshole. Husk's gonna–
He rockets up from his stool and sways a little on his feet. He ain't drunk anymore, but he's still hot in the face, and blazing in the marrow. For the first time, alcohol feels like fuel instead of poison.
Husk shuffles across the lobby just when Angel is close to the stairs.
“How was your night?”
Angel turns on his heels, a hand flat on his chest fluff. “Jesus fuck, Husk. You scared me shitless! What ya doin’ here past your bedtime?”
Husk does a quick appraisal. The dress is intact, same as the rouge on Angel's lips, the mussing of his hair not out of the ordinary. The strands don't seem pulled by greedy fingers.
The storm in Husk's blood quietens a little.
“Waiting for you.”
It's the alcohol talking.
The light sconce in the stair wall illuminates Angel golden. Husk can see when Angel's brows rise in an arch, his upper right hand waving away. “Right. So ya can lock the door? Be my guest, I'm outta commission."
His words are clipped, slow with exhaustion. Angel swivels away to climb up the stairs. He has a foot up when Husk tastes the bubbling froth of his own anger. How can Angel expose himself like this? This ain't safe, the stranger at the other side of the door ain't safe.
Why him?
Why not me?
“So you gonna let any chump have ya? Is that it?” Husk hears his own rasped bark. Feels the nicking of his own claws when he fists his hands. Between his ears, his blood thumps like a gallop. “Doesn't even matter Valentino's gone if you keep treating yourself like that.”
It's low, but honest. He sees the firefox glow in Angel's eyes when he turns. The glint of his gold tooth when he snarls.
“Fuck you, you judgmental dickhead.” Angel blazes across the floor, with all the intention of running Husk over. His face is completely twisted in rage. He tips a pointed finger into Husk's chest when he abruptly stops. "You got no right to tell me how to live my fucking life!"
Body an open circuit, Husk's blood sputters when Angel touches him. The air flowing into his lungs ain't enough. He's dizzy with airloss, with his own anger.
"I call it how I see it.” Husk tries to keep himself level, and not storming out the door to find the fucker that can kiss Angel on the daily but doesn't have the manners to accompany him back home. To carve him a path to safety. “You could’ve put a little more thought into who you have by your side if it's gonna be– gonna be a long thing."
Thinking about weeks extending into months has Husk grinding his molars. Makes him want to crush something in his palm. Angel's dating. Choosing someone, and disregarding Husk entirely.
“What?” Angel laughs, long and mean. His hand drops to his side. He crosses his arms across his chest, defensive. “This ain't The Bachelor, sugar. People might crowd me to get in my pants, not to put a ring on my finger. I ain't marrying this fucker. And that's fine, completely fine, I don't need that shit.”
Husk should let it rest. He's toeing a snarled up line that has never been clearly defined. Every word has Husk feeling like he's walking on quicksand.
But he presses, “I'm just sayin’ you should choose someone who deserves ya.”
Angel tilts his head, lovely and clearly amused. “Like who, Babycakes, you?”
It's only teasing, but it manages to hit Husk in the heart, off-center enough to ache and keep him alive. The punch of it rattles off the dust of the fucking truth he's been burying deeper and deeper as the months went by.
Yes, him. Always. Desperately.
"Yeah, like me.” Husk pushes through the mass in his throat, peripherally aware that he's lost his mind. “I'd put a ring on your finger. If you'd let me."
Angel’s huge eyes pop open, a flash of confusion before his mouth breaks in a scoff. "Noah fence? But hard pass, Whiskers. I ain't in the market for a fake ass proposal and hand me down rings.”
How wrong. How positively fucking wrong. Husk pushes closer. The weight of his own yearning kept in the dark unravels at Angel's frown. At the dismissal of his words.
Husk bristles. "But you're in the market for some asshole that treats you like a toy or a trophy? What's he got that you picked him over others?" Like a scabbed wound picked over, Husk feels the burn of it where he's cracking apart. His breath singes. "Over me."
"What the fuck are ya talking about?” Angel's frown turns a scowl. “Did ya hit your head?"
Husk's heart has finally vaulted over his sanity. There's a hundred deflective answers he could give, but he thinks back on the horrible pit of misery of the last few hours. Of the aches dipped in whisky. Surrounded by the quiet cushion of a broken night, Husk knows the fear of talking feels less huge than the terror of remaining silent and seeing Angel come back beat to shit by a lover who had never deserved him.
It's with desperation, and the wild recklessness of a gambler with nothing to lose that he hopes, and feels it drip through his bloodstream.
Husk sighs, barks out, "I'd put a fucking ring on your finger for real, that's what I'm talking about. I'd treat you right, like you deserve to be treated. I never said a damn thing 'cause I didn't wanna force you to choose me. To put ideas in your head."
"Husk, I don't understand,” Angel says, voice strained. Confusion is painted all across his mouth. He finds Husk and gazes at him, blinking with all eight of his eyes.
One thing that Husk has learned in here is that to be vulnerable in this cesspit you must love brutally. And he does. Feels the knock of each heartbeat in the lapse of seconds where he struggles with the air in his throat.
"That ring,” he says, finally. “The ring I gave you. I bought it for you. Last year. There's never been anyone else in my mind.”
His hands are cold. His feet are cold. The race of his heart fever-pitches.
Angel’s four visible arms fall lax at his sides. He gapes, flushed and beautiful. "But you said–”
"I was scared shitless of you not even giving me a chance,” Husk cuts him off. Once started it feels easy to keep going. Like pouring a glass after the first shot and gulping it dry. “Seemed safer to play it like that. Trust me, Angel, if there'd been a chance that you could've said yes, I would've done things differently. I'm still scared. But I can't just let it go, seeing you waste yourself on an asshole that won't ever see how fucking amazing you are.” Husk tsks, air between his teeth. His claws tug at his hair. “Sorry. I shouldn't have said that, shouldn't–"
"I don't have a boyfriend.” Angel blurts it out all mashed together.
Husk hauls in a breath that cools him down to his toes. "Excuse me?"
"I made the whole thing up.” Angel's whole face softens, and his feet carry him closer until Husk can breathe him in. “Went to see Cherri at her apartment and spent the whole evening there. I didn't want you to see me like a fucker who was about to lose it because the man I'm gone for offered me a fucking ring like a joke.”
Husk can't help the way his body relaxes, then jitters when he catches everything Angel's saying, the knowledge too big to make it fit in his ribcage. His throat judders while he swallows convulsively as if the rock jammed there for the last few days were slowly dissolving. It feels impossible, a shift of axis. A truth monumental enough to knock Husk off his feet completely.
He makes a wet noise when he tries to speak, then tries again. “The man you-"
"Yeah, you, asshole,” Angel says with no real bite behind the words.
"Angel." The name escapes Husk's throat in a grate.
Angel’s standing in a touching distance and their gazes catch. Flint. Spark. Fire. Husk doesn't dare yet to lift a palm, to fold it around the lissom curve of Angel's waist, to feel the warmth and taste possibilities in the lush press of his lips.
Husk breathes, the hand at his side dangling lost.
"I don't want anyone else's kisses,” Angel says, and then, he adds, furiously certain, “Don't want anyone else's touches. Not one but yours.”
The kiss when it comes fits in a space between breaths. Husk finally dares, catches Angel's waist and pulls him closer, pushes his own mouth on the damp softness of Angel's. It's a reflex, like breathing, or blinking, or loving Angel in this place where all hopes are lost. But in Husk's palms, Angel's warm with surprise, tiny little noises escaping between their lips when Husk angles him better to coax his mouth open. And when Angel opens for him, Husk feels his heartbeat blooming explosively outward, so loud he knows Angel must feel it where they're flush in heat.
It's gain, it's the climb to a summit, here in this place with so many lows. Husk wraps an arm around Angel's waist, guides the other to thread fingers in his hair. Stopping himself from kissing him is impossible. Husk has one foot in Hell, another one in Nevada, and Angel doesn't kiss like any of the men or women he had ever taken to bed, and that's good because Husk never felt for them what he feels now for Angel. After everything that's been too long left unsaid, it's easy to let them out in the way Husk's thumb rubs circles on Angel's hip, in how Angel has all of his hands sunk into his fur.
Yes and choice and belonging.
When Husk finally pulls back, his belly goes heavy with heat. Angel's mouth is a red shine in the dim of the lobby and Husk can't fucking believe he gets to put hands on him.
Trembling from elbow to fingers, Husk plucks out the small velvet box from where it's been secreted away all evening. “You said I should give it to whoever it was meant for.” He slowly flicks it open and reaches for Angel's hand. It's still a discovery to glide their fingers together and Husk's breath shivers out warm. “A year ago, I picked it for you. Thought it for you. Would ya have it? Would… would ya say yes?”
The raw fear of rejection still writhes at the base of his spine, expected. Husk ain't this lucky, has never been.
But Angel's eyes blow huge, and Husk can see the glaze liquid at the fringe of his lashes. “Holy shit, this is really happening. I ain't hallucinating it.”
His hand is lax in Husk's hold, where Husk has the ring poised to slide it down.
“Angel, would you?”
Angel's nod is ferocious. “Yeah, yes. Fuck, yes.”
By inches, by degrees, Husk starts to accept this ain't some fuzzy mirage about to be swept away, and when the ring is back in the place it belongs – on Angel's finger – he thinks he can finally exhale.
Breathe at last.
“This– You should know I don't wanna own you, and this only means that wherever you are, I'm here for you to return to.” It feels important to say it. Chaining Angel ain't something he's interested in, but in being picked. In the constancy of the choice. “I'm here for you to always come back home to me.”
Angel’s mouth parts and the kiss he presses on Husk is swift and shocking. Before Husk can hold him again, Angel's pulled away.
“But what if I do want you to own me, mmm?” He throws arms around Husk's shoulders, teasing again. The Angel Husk never wants to lose. “What if I wanna buy you one ring that says to everyone you're mine?”
Husk's blood blazes, but he only smiles. Wide, with teeth. “I think that can be arranged.”