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Angel is lying in the dark with the lights off, one arm thrown across his eyes to block out the warm glow leaking in from under the door. The Happy Hotel has its charms, but Angel doesn’t understand why the Princess keeps all the lights on all the time. It’s like she thinks that if she turns them off she’ll never be able to turn them on again. Given how much of a shithole this place is, that might even be true.
Val’s rage has cooled to indifference over the past couple days, which means no work, which means no money, which means no drugs, which means withdrawals. It’s good to have a place to burrow into when Val doesn’t care to look at him, and this place is his, at least in theory. “Just until you check out in Heaven!” the Princess had said. Yeah, right.
Angel doesn’t know what game the Princess is playing, but if he can keep the room for a couple weeks or even a couple months, it’ll all be worth it. Maybe if he’s really lucky, the money the Princess tossed at him when they first met will keep coming. There’s so much bait in this trap that it would be stupider not to stick his hand in, and if he fucks up and the jaws spring closed, so what? Angel doesn’t really have much to lose.
Except maybe his peace and quiet, he thinks when he hears someone pounding on the door. He has a fucking headache— some people just have no manners.
At least it’ll be a distraction. Maybe. This is why he hates sobering up, he thinks too much. He slept better than he had in ages when he finally fell asleep, for once confident Val wouldn’t wake him up with some sort of unpleasant surprise, but now that he’s awake it’s all back; the dull throbbing in his head, the gravel in his elbows, the burning in his eyes.
There’s another round of pounding at the door and Angel hears a voice yelling at him. “You agreed to a daily checkup. Come on out.” It’s the Princess’s little thug, what’s-her-name. Vaggie. Fucking unfortunate.
He remembers that there was a check-up of some sort yesterday, after his first night here, but he was crashing so much harder than he is now, and so that’s pretty much where his memory begins and ends. Something happened. He doesn’t really know what. It’s not so uncommon, when he’s feeling like this.
Angel groans and rolls off the bed. He’s not wearing anything except his boots and panties, but if Vaggie’s into this sort of thing it won’t be anything she has seen before. If she’s not into it— and Angel is pretty sure that she isn’t— he really doesn’t care. Maybe it’ll be good for a laugh.
Ugh. Time to see what this ‘daily checkup’ is all about.
He opens the door and flinches away from the suddenly very bright light, and Vaggie flinches too, though probably because he’s nearly naked. “Fuck, put some clothes. I don’t wanna look at that shit.”
Angel pouts. “C’mon, babycakes, you don’t like what you see?” Vaggie glares at him. “That really hurts me, you know.” He put one dramatic hand over his heart. “Right here.” His voice sounds awful, his throat’s still full of crap.
“No.” Vaggie says. Angel decides that it’s probably too early to fight about this. He turns the light on and goes to grab a robe, and hears Vaggie make a sort of strangled sound in her throat when he goes. Good to know he still looks good even if he feels like shit.
His bathrobe looks cheap and out of place hanging on a gleaming hook on the back of the ensuite bathroom door, made of the sort of heavy dark wood. He’d know what it was called if he had money. No matter how out of place it is, his four arms are easy to fit through the sleeves, and he likes the broken heart pattern on the cloth. He’s pretty sure the overlord who used to make this got into a fight with Velvette and died messily.
Thinking too much and being sober, two shitty tastes that go worse together. He doesn’t sigh when he walks back to the door to talk to Vaggie. Wait, “Where’s the Princess? I thought you two were like, glued together or something.”
“She’s busy this morning. She told me to give you this.” Vaggie roughly shoves a letter into his chest. Someone else, he might think they were trying to cop a feel, but even after just a couple days, Angel can tell she has eyes only for one person. There’s a kind of safety in that, maybe.
“Busy this morning, huh?” he mutters under his breath while he looks at the envelope. Someone else might pause before tearing through the glossy wax seal and thick cream paper, but Angel sure doesn’t. On the inside there's a piece of printer paper with three colors of gel pen and more little smiley faces and hearts than Angel can count on his hands doodled in the margins.
‘Hey Angel! Sorry I can’t be here for your second day, but I had an appointment in Sloth that I really couldn’t reschedule! Please don’t think I’m not dedicated to the Happy Hotel— when I get back I’ll be giving it 200% of my effort every day! I’ll bring you both back a souvenir, and I leave this morning’s check-in to my more-than-capable hotel manager and partner in everything, Vaggie! You're in good hands, I promise! Hugs, Charlie Morningstar, Princess of Hell.’
“So she’s not here?” he asks.
“Didn’t you just read the note?” Vaggie says. She can glare better with one eye than Angel can with eight. It’s kind of impressive. She’s got nothing on Val, of course, but maybe she could, with practice.
“Sure, but there’s nothing in here about when she gets back,” Angel slouches into the doorframe and waves the letter around in one hand. “So for all I know, she could be back already. It’s like, ten, isn’t it?” Angel hasn’t bothered to look at a clock today. “Not exactly early morning.”
Vaggie frowns. “No, she’s not back yet. She’s told me about Sloth, everything takes forever down there. She said she might not get back until after dinner tonight.” So she isn’t going to be here all day. That’s kind of interesting.
“Looks like we’re all alone, baby…” Angel leers and bats his eyes, but he isn’t interested in Vaggie and Vaggie isn’t interested in him.
“Shut up.” He doesn’t even think she’s really listening to what he’s saying. It’s already a reflex now, the same way a leg kicks out when tapped with a hammer. Vaggie already knows what she thinks about him. It’ll make this harder, if he decides to go through with it. He hasn’t decided yet. This is probably the best chance he’s going to get, and he’s not sure he can live with himself if he doesn’t take it. But what’s one more thing he can’t live with?
“Uh-huh,” he says, absent-minded. Vaggie doesn’t really seem to hear him, she’s gotten out a little index card and is staring at it like she’s trying to burn a hole in the paper. The Princess must have given it to her— Angel can see through to the little hearts drawn on the other side of the page.
“I have to run this check in.” She says. “Have you taken any drugs?”
Angel almost laughs. “What, like, in general? Ever?”
“Since you started here, asshole.”
“Unfortunately, no.” Angel lights a cigarette with his two lower arms, using his free hand to shield the flame from the draft. “Unless these count? They better not, this place is miserable enough already.”
Vaggie stops glaring at him for a second to go back to glaring at the note. “It’s not banned, but it is heavily discouraged.”
Angel takes his first drag and smiles. “That’s good. You’d have to pry this from my cold, dead hands.”
“I still just might,” She mutters, and Angel graciously pretends not to hear her. She’s all bark and no bite anyway. “Next question,” she says more loudly, speaking through gritted teeth. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Are you asking these in the order they were written down in?” Angel asks. He’s honestly kind of curious. “I don’t know, anyway. I feel like shit.” He takes a drag off his cigarette and flicks it a few times, watching the ash fall into the dust on the hallway floor.
“Great.” Her sadism isn’t really believable. He thinks that if Vaggie was the kind of person who really enjoyed the suffering of others, she’d be a much happier person. Her mouth twists unhappily as she reads from the card, “Do you feel closer to Heaven than you did yesterday morning?”
“Oh my god, is that the actual question?”
“You have a better one?” Vaggie almost growls at him. After years with Val, it might as well be the purr of a kitten.
Angel takes a drag off his cigarette and looks her in the eye. Fuck it. “I don’t know. Why are you even doing this?” Vaggie looks at him like she thinks he’s stupid. She probably does. “Charlie asked me to. Are you sure you read that letter?”
Angel traces a couple circles in the air with his cigarette. “Not just the check-in.” Obviously. “All this shit. You hate talking to me, you hate trying to find people to recruit to this thing, and you definitely don’t believe in all this ‘Happy Hotel’ bull. C’mon, why’re you really here?”
“I love her.” Angel remembers being that stupid. At least she still believes it. Angel remembers there were some awful years in the middle where he just kept saying ‘I love him’, over and over, but no one believed it, not Val and not him.
He tries and fails not to roll his eyes. “Yeah, I bet you do. But does she love you?”
Vaggie sputters, caught off guard. “What? Of course she does!”
Angel takes another drag off his cigarette and makes sure to keep looking her in the eye. “You don’t sound so sure.” And Vaggie— flinches, hard. A soft spot, on a hard-ass like her? Angel knows how to be an asshole; it’s time to dig in. “Are you under contract yet?”
“No! Charlie isn’t like that!”
Angel laughs in her face behind a mouthful of smoke. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. I said it and every other stupid bitch who came after me said it. And a lot of them were a whole lot smarter and tougher than you were.”
“What, you?” She scoffs.
Angel smiles. He knows that if he had a mirror, he would be reminded of Val. “Nah. A stupid slut like me? I never had a chance. Someone like you might, though. Sure, the Princess decides if you have the money to buy food and if you have a roof over your head, but you’re good at violence. That’s a skill that can take you pretty far here.”
Vaggie looks like she might actually be afraid of him. She definitely hates him. And he hasn’t ever stopped slouching against the door. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” She sounds small.
Hah. “Well, you could’ve fooled me.” She’s hooked now. Angel is sure she’d like to get the fuck away from this conversation, but it’s like a car crash— she can’t look away. He brings it back around to what’s really important here. “You think you’re gonna be her first contract, don’t you? You think you’d like that? Spending the rest of your life begging for whatever scraps of attention she’s willing to give you?”
“I—,” Vaggie starts. “Charlie doesn’t want that for me. I know she doesn’t.”
“Maybe you should hope she does. People like her can’t love things they don’t own.”
“I don’t think they love the things they own, either.” Vaggie says. First intelligent thing she’s said all day.
Angel grins. “Now you’re starting to get it.”
Vaggie just stares at him. Her one eye seems lost. “What’s the point of this? I know you’re an asshole, but…”
Angel grinds out his cigarette on the doorframe, watches the smoke drift, looks at the smudge of ash. He slumps deeper into the doorframe; he feels his smile leave his face. “Look, just don’t become like me. Don’t sign your soul away, get out while you can. You have the skills to make a life here.” Or as close as anyone can get.
Vaggie thinks about it for a while, and Angel sees the moment she makes the wrong choice. “No. Charlie loves me— at least for now… As long as she doesn’t know…” Angel graciously pretends he didn’t hear that. They all have secrets, knowing them mostly brings trouble. He’s not planning on sticking around long enough for it to make any difference to him, anyway.
Angel feels real tired all of a sudden. “Yeah, I bet you think that.” Vaggie doesn’t say anything, she just stands there, awkwardly. Staring at him. She almost seems worried for him, but that can’t be right.
“Do you want to finish the check-in?” Angel asks. He feels lame and out of place.
“No,” Vaggie sighs. “I can’t do it right. Charlie will talk to you tomorrow morning. I have some thinking to do, anyway.” Well, at least she’s not slavishly following orders at the moment. Probably will be right back to it tomorrow. Angel wonders how he would have reacted, if someone had tried to warn him, all the way back in the early days. Probably a whole lot worse than she did. She’s not that bad, not really. She doesn’t deserve to get caught up in whatever scheme the Princess is running.
But he can’t change anything. “Want a cigarette?” He asks. Just so he feels a little better.
“No, I don’t smoke,” Her glare is back. She must be feeling at least a little better. She turns to go. “The rest of the day is yours. Charlie will catch you tomorrow morning.”
“Gee, thanks. I’ll be practicing for tomorrow’s scene in here, if you want to join me, gorgeous?”
If Angel was a different person, Vaggie’s glare would freeze his blood. “Don’t push it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Have a good day, Vagina.”
“Fuck you, Angel.”
Angel lets his mocking laughter chase Vaggie down the hall as he closes the door to his room. He’s just going to try and go back to sleep.