Chapter Text
Angel woke up and vomited.
Well. It wasn't entirely correct to say that Angel "woke up". Really, he returned to existence.
Because Angel had died.
Regenerating after double-dying felt awful. He could feel his body slowly trying to rebuild itself, collapsed veins realligning, his body twitching as nerves woke up, pain and nausea hitting in waves.
Angel vomited over the side of the couch he'd been laid on, tears streamed down his face, but whether it was from pain, fear, or just his body's instinct when coming back to life, it was impossible to say.
It was difficult to properly overdose in hell. You werent meant to die here. The body could take a lot of damage before it gave out, and would usually just lose consciousness first. Angel, for all his vices, had only managed it once post-mortem. He'd overdosed on earth, and it was how he died in the first place. It hurt like hell, and he wasn't eager to repeat it, thanks. The one time he'd properly OD'd in hell it was only because some dipshit had slipped him a spiked drink that was more spike than drink and it didn't mix well with the cocktail of drugs he'd had earlier in the night. And really, Angel wasn't sure he'd classify that one as an overdose so much as a poisoning.
But now, this made two.
It wasn't good at the best of times, overdosing. The nausea, the heart palpitations, the seizures. It was awful.
But this time was worse. This time was worse because it was scripted. It was scripted and filmed and Angel had begged Val not to actually make him do this. He could act, he could pretend. That was what he was here for, was to fucking act. But Val owned his soul, and what Val wanted he got. Even if Angel was sick with fear and rage before the cameras were even rolling.
Valentino had gotten worse after Angel started living at the penthouse again.
Not right away, of course. No, he had been delighted to have Angel back. Affectionate, proud, parading Angel around with him to whatever meeting he had to attend, offering drugs and sweet words and sex that actually felt good.
But Valentino had also seen how fucking broken Angel was. And he wanted to push it. To see how much more broken Angel could become, how else he could make Angel his.
It started with the expected. Rougher shoots. Longer shifts. Sex that didn't need to please Angel. That was unsatisfying. That hurt. That went until he begged Val to stop, and then a bit longer. That was all expected. Routine. It hurt, but it wasn't new.
Then there was the worse shit. Withholding drugs from Angel. Putting him through the withdrawals until Angel would say or do whatever Valentino wanted if he would just give him a hit and make the pain stop. Passing Angel around to clients all day instead of just filming. Shifts that went until not even the uppers he took could keep Angel on his feet. Sex that Angel didn't remember because he was too out of it with pain or exhaustion to process. That was all… bad. It happened, but usually that was when Val was pissed about something.
But now it was becoming the new normal. Val loved the power, the thrill of having hells most beloved star broken for him. Maybe it was the ego trip of being the new face of the Vees. Maybe it was a way to take out the lingering anger at Vox and the damage done to the company. Maybe it was a sick way of testing Angel's loyalty after his return.
Whatever it was, it came to a head with what would become Angel's final shoot.
Valentino knew how Angel had died. Once, when he'd thought Val loved him, Angel had talked about it. Cried about it. Cried about how it hurt, how he was alone when it happened, how the last thing he remembered was choking on his own vomit.
Valentino knew exactly what he was doing with this film.
"It's called snuff Angel, you know this, baby. People love watching other people die. They get off on it. And getting them off is your fucking job."
Never mind that Angel had pretended to die plenty of times before and it had been perfectly convincing. Never mind that Val wanted Angel to actually die for a film for the first time via an overdose of all things. Never mind that Angel had begged, pleaded, broken down and cried, not in the privacy of hs dressing room, but in front of everyone on set, for the first time in decades.
Angel didn't own his soul. He couldn't fight back or run. In the studio, he belonged to Val.
So Angel forced himself to take line after line on camera. He couldn't even enjoy the beginning where it felt good, because he knew what was coming and it hurt. It hurt because it brought back bad memories, it hurt because Valentino chose it specifically to torment him, it hurt because he was being humiliated, it hurt because half of hell would be watching it within the week, and it hurt because it fucking hurt.
He didn't even properly act. Even on set, with the cameras rolling, he begged Val not to make him do this. But he had to, so he did. When he eventually fell unconscious, his scene partner continued feeding him a cocktail of drugs at Valentinos direction to make sure Angel actually died. Pills were forced down his throat, needles injected into his veins.
And now Angel was waking up. He didn't know if he'd been regenerating for hours or days, but he didn't care. His fur was matted and clinging to him from sweat, his body convulsing and twitching, tears streaming down his face uncontrollable. His body kept trying to throw up more but there was nothing to throw up. His mouth tasted like stomache bile, and everything hurt.
And Valentino had done it. He had really and truly broken Angel. Angel had shattered. This was different than a rough shoot. This was different from having his body broken. This was targeted. It was cruel. It was humiliating. He could tolerate dying. He'd had to regenerate before, after bar fights gone wrong and clients who'd just gotten him alone in a room to attack him. That was awful. It hurt. But this was different.
Whatever pride, whatever strength he had, it was gone, at least for this moment.
And Angel was too tired to be self-sacrificial anymore.
He wanted to go back. He wanted to be at the hotel. He wanted Cherri and Husk and Fat Nuggets and he wanted his room back and he wanted a shower and— and— and he couldn't care if he was a spy. He couldn't, he couldn't be here anymore. Maybe he couldn't escape the studio, but he needed to be safe even if it was temporary.
Angel still couldn't move. His body was wracked with chills and convulsions, and his limbs wouldn't listen to him. The next few hours or a day or days passed by in a fog of pain. Valentino was there sometimes. Touching, puppeting. Sometimes he wasn't there. It didn't matter.
Eventually, after too long, Angel regained some control of his limbs. It felt a bit like being electrocuted, his brain finally connecting with his body, letting him move his fingers, then his hands, then his arms in shaking jolts.
His hands fumbled around for his phone, eventually finding it pressed between his side and the couch.
It was a clumsy thing trying to open his phone, but he managed eventually.
Hands shaking he managed to press on one of the contacts in his recent missed calls. One of the contacts he should have blocked, should have deleted. Should have gotten rid of so he couldn't return to the hotel and put everyone in danger in a moment of weakness like he was doing right now.
But well. Angel was an addict. He was never able to give up anything for very long. So the contacts remained.
Angel wasn't even sure which one he pressed. Husk or Cherri or Charlie. They'd all called him a million times, and the contacts were all blurring together, but he called, dizzy and desperate and scared, reaching for help like a drowned man for a lifeboat.