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Husker’s bar was quiet for once.
Husker’s bar was settling into that strange, comforting lull it only ever found long after midnight. The room glowed with warm amber light, clinking glass, and the buzzing neon sign outside that always flickered on the third letter. Husk kept meaning to fix it. He never did.
Not silent — nothing at the Hazbin ever really was — but the hour was thinning, and the noise had simmered down to a low, lazy hum. A few lost souls lingered at nearby tables, drunk on booze or grief or both, but none bothering the tired old cat behind the counter.
Angel Dust, however, was bothering him. As usual.
He was draped over the barstool sideways, legs crossed, chin in two of his hands while the other two lazily curled around his half-finished drink. A picture of restless glamor and emotional chaos. Angel Dust was the only one at the counter besides him now. Not talking. Not preening. Just… existing there. Suspicious in its own way.
He was perched sideways on the barstool, next fluffing his hair with one hand while another drummed an uneven rhythm on the counter. His lower hands cradled his drink — not to sip, really, just to hold, like the warmth anchored him.
Husker was almost starting to enjoy the quiet.
Naturally, Angel ruined it.
“Husky?” Angel asked suddenly, breaking five straight minutes of blessed silence.
Husk didn’t look up. “Mm.”
“You ever think about… weird stuff?”
Husk halted mid-polish. “…Angel, every single time you open with that line, I lose a year off my afterlife.”
Angel snorted. “You ain’t got many left to spare, Gramps.”
Husker just glared. “Spit it out.”
Angel hesitated — and that more than anything made Husk straighten. Angel was many things, but hesitant wasn’t one of them.
“Okay, so…” Angel toyed with his straw, eyes flickering away. “You know how sometimes you have a thought, and it just won’t leave you alone, even if it’s stupid?”
Husk deadpanned. “I run this hotel bar. Surrounded by our friends. Safe to say stupid thoughts are my entire brand.”
“You ever think about weird stuff, Husky?” His voice held that suspicious softness — the one that always meant trouble.
Husk stared at him. “…All the time. Most of it’s about how to remove you from my bar without gettin’ sued by Charlie.”
Angel ignored that. “No, I mean… weird like… self-reflective.”
Husk narrowed his eyes. “Angel, if this ends with you askin’ whether I think blobfish are cute again, I swear to Lucifer—”
“It’s not blobfish this time!” Angel snapped, then paused. “Although blobfish are cute.”
“They’re wet depression incarnate, Angel.”
“Exactly,” Angel sighed dreamily. “Mood.”
Husker rubbed his temples. “Just spit it out, Legs.”
Angel bit the inside of his cheek, suddenly avoiding eye contact. “…Okay. So. Hypothetically.”
“Oh boy.” ‘Here we go.’, Husker thought.
“Do you think… maybe…” Angel wriggled, clearly regretting this already.
Angel inhaled sharply, like he was bracing himself.
“…Do you think I might be… a masochist?”
Husk froze.
The glass in his hand didn’t clatter. He didn’t swear. He just stared at Angel with a flat, exhausted, unimpressed look only someone like Husker could pull off. Not dramatically — more in the “I am too old for this conversation” kind of way. He just stared at Angel, unimpressed, unamused, and entirely done with the universe.
Angel winced. “…Don’t make a face.”
“You asked a stupid question,” Husker said flatly. “That’s the face you get.”
Angel huffed, crossing all four arms. “Well, excuse me for doing a little soul-searching!”
“In Hell?” Husker raised an eyebrow. Almost found with an upturn threatening to break through the side of his mouth at Angel’s weak self defense.
Angel groaned, covering his now even pinker face. “I knew this was stupid.”
“You said it.”
“You’re not helping!”
“I’m not trying.”
Angel tossed a bar peanut at him. Husker batted it away with a wing with ease.
“Look,” Angel said, more frustrated now because embarrassment was creeping into the spider’s system. “I was just thinkin’ — maybe the reason I put up with so much crap for so long is because some part of me… likes it? Or… I dunno. Needs it.”
Husk’s expression softened. Not a lot. Just enough that Angel noticed.
Angel turned away, looking to husker back afterwards almost — dare he say it — embarrassed. “I was just thinkin’… maybe all the crap I put up with, y’know? Val. The studio. The… stuff.”
Husker didn’t bark back immediately. He couldn’t, and he wouldn’t.
He sighed, wiped a glass he’d already cleaned twice, and leaned one elbow on the bar.
“Angel.”
“…Yeah?”
“Angel,” he started carefully, “you’re not a masochist.”
Angel pouted. “How can you know that?”
“Because I’ve lived longer than your last fifty sugar daddies combined,” Husk grumbled. “And I’ve met real masochists. You ain’t one.”
“Maybe I’m a weird one,” Angel muttered.
“No. You’re a dumb one.”
Angel threw his head back with a loud gasp. “Rude!”
“Accurate.” Husker leaned his arm on the bar, his voice dropping low — not serious, but steady in a way Angel rarely heard. “You didn’t stay with Valentino because you liked it, Angel. You stayed because you didn’t think you had a choice.”
Angel’s laugh cracked. Just a little. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s supposed to make you see it for what it is.” Husker’s tail flicked. “Pain doesn’t comfort you. You just got used to expecting it.” Angel quieted.
He hadn’t expected Husk to meet him that honestly. Not tonight. Not ever, really. Husker usually dodged anything that smelled like emotional depth with sarcasm and alcohol.
But tonight, he wasn’t dodging.
“You’re not a masochist.”
Angel looked up with lame hopefulness at that. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“How can you be positive?”
“Because,” Husk said, leveling him with a look that was honest in the way Husk rarely let himself be, “for all the idiots, psychos, and freaks I’ve seen down here — you? You’re not the kind who wants pain. You’re the kind who got dealt a shit hand and played with it way longer than you should’ve because you didn’t think you had another option.”
Angel blinked. Slowly.
The words coming out of Husker's mouth so honestly hit him somewhere he didn’t like to admit he had.
Angel swallowed. “…Then what does that make me?”
Husk sighed and pushed a fresh drink toward him. “Unlucky.”
Angel raised a brow. “Just unlucky?”
“And a loser.”
Angel snorted. “Wow. Thanks.”
“Hey, don’t look at me like that.” Husk jabbed a thumb at his own chest. “Because if you’re a loser, then I’m a bigger one.”
Angel blinked. “You?”
“Who do you think you’re talkin’ to?” Husker motioned to his big ole black ragged coat he usually lends to Angel but instead he was wearing tonight and his always eternally tired looking eyes. “I’m a washed-up ole gambler stuck running a bar in a fuckin’ rehab hotel built on optimism and bad architectural choices. If you were actually a masochist, then by comparison, I’d have to be the king of ‘em.”
Angel laughed — bright and sharp, easing something in the room.
Husker continued and shrugged like it was nothing though. “That doesn’t make you a masochist. It makes you… I dunno. Unlucky.”
Angel gave a weak laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”
Husk’s voice softened — so slightly that Angel nearly missed it. “Maybe a loser, too. But hey, you’re in good company.”
Angel stared.
“…You callin’ yourself a loser, old man?”
“You think me hangin’ around you fuckers every night isn’t loser behavior?” Husk grumbled. “Please. And if you were actually a masochist, then compared to my track record? My history? My life choices?”
He pointed at himself with a dry snort.
“I’d be a bigger masochist by a mile.”
A pause and then:
Angel actually laughed — bright and startled. “Husk, you? A masochist? The grumpiest, crankiest, ‘don’t touch my barstools,’ ‘don’t breathe too loud,’ ‘get away from me with your glitter’ demon ass in Hell?”
Husk shrugged. “Could be.”
“No way.”
“Well neither are you.”
Angel opened his mouth… closed it… squinted at him with something almost warm.
“So what you’re sayin’ is…”
“We’re both losers,” Husk said, throwing a bar rag at him. “Congratulations.”
Angel caught the rag with ease, then grinned — soft, genuine, and terrifyingly earnest.
Angel teased. “You act like getting touched by anything but cheap booze is a crime.”
“Maybe I just have taste,” Husker muttered.
“Oh, so you think I’m not tasteful?”
“Angel, you’re made of fuckin stage glitter and questionable decisions.”
Angel fluttered his lashes. “Admit it. You love it.”
Husker’s ears went pink. “Shut up.”
Angel smirked, but then his expression dipped into something smaller. More sincere.
“…So I’m not broken?”
Husk looked at him fully then — really looked — and Angel had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep steady.
“No,” Husker said quietly, his pupils blown out. “You’re not broken.”
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was warm. Slow. Soft enough that Angel could feel it in his chest.
Husker cleared his throat like the moment physically pained him. “You still annoy the hell outta me, though.”
Angel grinned. “And you still pretend you don’t like the company.”
Husker flicked another rag at him, but not very forcefully. “Loser.”
“Right back atcha.”
Angel leaned forward on the bar, propping his chin on his hands, watching Husker with that dangerous, disarming softness he didn’t show often.
“…If I gotta be a loser,” Angel murmured, “then I guess I don’t mind bein’ one with you.”
Husker’s tail flicked.
His wings rustled.
He absolutely looked away.
“Yeah,” he muttered, voice lower baritone than before. “Could be worse.”
They didn’t say anything else for a while, but they didn’t need to. The bar stayed warm around them, glowing like a small, private sanctuary built out of shared weariness and jokes too tender to fully admit.
Two losers in Hell, finding something in each other neither of them had expected.
“Could be worse,” Angel murmured. “I’ve had worse company.”
Husk looked away again at that, tail flicking in that nervous little tell he pretended he didn’t have.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Me too.”
Angel smiled — soft, slow, devastating.
Husker didn’t look at it.
Couldn’t.
“…You’re still a loser,” Husk added, because the moment was getting dangerously close to feelings.
“Yeah,” Angel said, leaning his head on his arms. “But if I’m a loser with you… I don’t think I mind.”
Husker’s ears flicked.
Angel didn’t push it further. He’d already doubled down in his sincere sentiments he held for his favorite bar tender.
He didn’t need to push it farther. He didn’t want to, he was content.
The warm silence between them said plenty — two idiots in Hell, not masochists after all, just bruised and stubborn and slowly learning they didn’t have to survive everything alone.
And Husker, for once, didn’t try to send or push him away at Angel’s earnest sweet heartfelt declaration because unlike the other passes Angel had made at him in the past.
This one was genuine and Husker cherished the real side of the spider, the one behind the “Angel Dust” mask that Angel by now had long since stopped using with him.