Chapter Text
You know how people randomly decide to rearrange their room at three in the morning after a mental breakdown?
That’s what Angel’s doing! Kind of. Except instead of his room, it’s his entire life and instead of 3am, it’s 7am on a Tuesday and instead of after a mental breakdown it’s after getting the hell beat out of him by Valentino.
Either way, he’s sitting at the desk in his room, writing down the steps to take back his (after)life.
Step One - Get My Soul Back
Arguably, the hardest step. Val isn’t just going to say ‘Oh yes, Angel baby, I’d love to hand over the contract to my top performers soul! Sounds like a fun idea! Here you go!’.
He’d sooner donate to orphanages. Angel thinks glumly.
So, the options are as follows:
A) Kill Valentino
Objectively a bad idea. A common sinner, not to mention a sinner who’s soul is already owned, doesn’t stand a single chance in murdering an overlord. Doesn’t mean Angel doesn’t try.
He poisions Val’s drinks. Val drinks it with a smile on his face. Angel is slightly concerned with how it doesn’t effect him at all.
He tries to stab him. Val gets the idea for new ‘knife play’ movies. Well, fuck.
He tries to seduce him and choke him out. ‘Breathe Me In Feat. Angel Dust out soon!’ FUCK WHY IS EVERYTHING A KINK!
Okay, okay fine. No killing then.
A) Kill Valentino
B) Somehow get the contract back.
Mission impossible time. Was this an excuse to get dressed up like a robber? No. Maybe. Whatever, shut up.
He finds his contract in Val’s desk, his heart soaring like a jet plane. It’s shot down just as easily when he sees ‘Nice try, Angel Cakes.’ on it right before it bursts into flames. Not only was that not the real contract, but he was punished harshly for trying to get out of their deal.
B) Somehow get the contract back.
C) Fulfill his end of the deal.
The thing is, Angel doesn’t even know what his end of the deal was. He was barely conscious, scared out of his mind, and definitely tripping on something when he signed it. He had asked Val to see it a few times after he sobered up from whatever the concoction given to him that day was. He was thoroughly distracted before he could even start to wonder why Val didn’t want him to see it.
He tries again.
“Daddy.” Angel says one day, after working his ass off in the studio. “Can I see my contract?”
“Why, Angel Cakes? So you can take it from me again? Why do you want to leave so bad? Am I not a good enough daddy for you?”
“No, you are! I just.. forgot what my name looks like.” It wasn’t even a lie, which is unfortunate. He has forgotten what his name - his real name - looks like written out. He knows it still, of course. He says it to himself every day in the mirror just to make sure he never forgets it. But he forgot what it looks like when he wrote it out that very last time, not knowing what he was signing away.
“Angel baby, your signature is on every billboard in a mile radius!” Val laughs, like Angel is a child.
“No, my real name.” He should’ve known better. Really, 70 years with Val he should know better than to say that Angel isn’t his ‘real’ name.
The new scars dotting his arms will make sure he doesn’t forget anytime soon.
C) Fulfill his end of the deal.
D) …?
He gets home from the studio five hours later than he was supposed to be home. He left at a normal time but he had to walk around and find something to do while his arms healed from being broken in several different places. He didn’t want to worry the princess.
He gets back into the Hotel and finds it silent and empty. He hurries upstairs to his room before he can think too hard about how much that reminds him of his childhood home and all the times he was left alone by his parents.
Well, fuck. So much for not thinking about it.
He shoulders his way into his room and goes to collapse onto his bed when he spots something red. Fight or flight kicks in when he sees Val’s wings before his logical thinking catches up to him. Valentino has no reason to be in the hotel, there’s no reason he would be here. So why is there something sickeningly similar to his wings on his bed.
He creeps forward, ready to pull out a gun, until he gets to his bed. Sitting there, on top of Valentinos - severed wings holy shit why are Val’s severed wings on my bed - is a paper.
A piece of paper that’s been burned into his memory since the day he signed it seventy years ago.
His name, ‘Anthony’, stares back at him from his bed. He touches it lightly, if only to make sure he’s not losing what little he had left of his mind, and it disintegrates in his hand. The smoky pink chains appear around his neck and Angel doesn’t have time to panic before they disappear like smoke in the wind.
Angel sits down on his floor heavily, Fat Nuggets coming over to nudge at him.
Sitting there, staring at the wings of the man who abused him for years, who made his afterlife miserable, who stripped away everything that used to make Angel a person, who made redemption impossible, the man he used to love - Angel cries.
D) Come home and find Valentino’s wings and your contract on your bed.