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Angel liked to joke about their “summer” hours together at the bar, and Husk liked to pretend she didn’t find it funny.
“From 6-to-9?” she’d say, grinning. “The jokes write themselves.”
“Whatever,” Husk would huff, turning to hide a smile. “I don’t serve drinks until it’s past 5:59 PM, because I respect myself. S’only so long one old bitch can hold the line, proverbially speaking. But you can bet I’ll hold up the line whenever I want.”
The tradition had started because Angel worked night shift during the summer months, “so Valentina’s cheap ass can save on A/C”.
“Doesn’t her girlfriend run the power grid?”
“You give la Voz y su pendijita muy deliciosa more credit for generosity to each other than you should,” Angel shrugs dramatically, rolling her eyes at the mention of the two Vees.
Husk thinks, absently, Where are you from?, not for the first time. Then she moves on.
“Right, of course.”
“But who cares? I get to stay here and drink with you ‘til 9 o’clock, which is loads more fun than chains, whips, and straps.”
“Sure it is,” Husk hums dubiously. “Also, we don’t experience seasons. What fucking summer? What savings?”
“Well, you know how Hell is,” Angel shrugs, Husk nodding in agreement.
“Chock full of sinners still clinging to life,” she says, amused.
“Even though a large part of this place is the whole ‘not on Earth anymore’ thing, and Valentina knows that by now.”
“Gives us our 69, though,” she grins.
“Ridiculous,” she huffs again, but she doesn’t turn around fast enough to hide her smile.
Angel is… touchy. Clingy, even, sometimes. It’s… strange, not that she isn’t okay with it. When she’s low, she might even reciprocate.
Still, the ready contact, there all the time, it was unfamiliar. It brought up old memories, memories from the casino on Earth.
All of them, she was too young to remember clearly.
A big, low-voiced woman singing out Negro spirituals. A smiling man playing the upright bass in a smooth big band number. A dainty-looking woman scrubbing at old tables, nothing dainty about the work.
All of them, laying a hug or kiss or drunken slap on her. They were seared into her mind.
The ones who touched me.
Maybe they were her parents, an aunt or uncle. They’d all passed out of her life by the age of ten, and then there was only her, and the cards, and the drinks when she could get ‘em.
She didn’t know how Angel came to be here, at the rehab lower than rock bottom, but none of it took the will to hold on out of her. Despite every reason she could have to never touch anyone again, that girl was undeniably clingy.
Husk was not, in life, but you change after you drink yourself to death, alone on your 75th birthday. She was drinking to feel warm, so that the cold wouldn’t bite so harshly when she got home.
She used to crave the brush of cool air during hot summers, but when she fell down and died while barhopping, face still appearing all of 45 years old, it didn’t seem serious to any of the party people walking around. Then, there was never a cool breeze again. She woke up here, the air stale and uncomfortably warm, even outside.
Had it been someone else, she would have done the same as those bystanders. She holds resentment for a lot of things, but no particular resentment for natural selection.
But her form… that’s different. She’s certain Hell has particular tortures, because she was, admittedly, delicious in life. Which was fun, because all she had to do was be born and put on a half-decently tailored suit. She had hooded brown eyes, and smooth, dark skin. When she started to get wrinkles, they somehow made her more beautiful. She dressed in men’s formal wear, and undressed with men and women alike.
Dying, believe it or not, made her a lot less horny. When she’d hit 70, she was already a little over the partner thing, and had of course grown rather attached to herself. Then, she had one day of celebration, and found herself here, looking like herself, but on 10. How she’d have been shaped without the childhood malnutrition, maybe.
A sharp-eyed pussycat with a taste for whiskey? Ageless in the face, less flat in the stomach, thick in the hips, winged?! And looking well-fed, like she took better care of herself than she actually did? When she first found a mirror to see her new face, she gasped in horror.
“Oh my god. They made me sexy.”
If she was delicious before, she was sumptuous now.
“Ridiculous,” she’d said. “Nonsense.”
This can’t be…
But she cut the thought off there. She’d been catcalled — pun not intended — from the day she turned 14 to the day she died, never aging enough in the face to pass out of it. She was plenty used to it. Denying reality did nothing for anyone.
Welcome to Hell, she’d thought. I’m a cat monster now.
She liked her wings well enough, now, after damn near a century of living with them. She liked her card-summoning, and her magic. Her life wasn’t even so bad now, stuck in the Hotel. Friends, a counter to stand behind, and something to do to keep her hands busy other than gambling, which she knew had her in too deep even when she felt the itch…
She wasn’t so on with the whole new body, even though it wasn’t really new anymore. She didn’t understand how anyone could be.
They were usually sexy, yeah, and usually came with powers, sure, but she’d read comics, when that became a thing you could do. People were sexy, had powers, and kept their fucking faces all the time.
She doesn’t think about it often, but sometimes…
Sometimes she wants to have her old face. She misses smiling with her only sharp teeth being canines, instead of a mouth that made her look like a predator. She misses vivid color, always seeing through these cat eyes. She misses light shows, and loud music not hurting her ears.
She misses being human, even though it wasn’t always good.
So sure, maybe she died before she ever saw a glimpse of real companionship, a friendship that lasted more than a year. She spent her life alone, which would be fine if she wasn’t such objectively terrible company.
But there’s been a lot to miss, some real good times. She’s just under 150 years old. She’s seen everything short of slavery, up to and including freedmen walking around, babyfaced even when they went hungry for days at a time. She’s seen lynched bodies topside and rabid sinners down here. She’s seen drinking and dealing, and all sorts of properly evil shit. S’no way to get through allat without putting your head down and living. She should be past worrying what there is to miss.
…But she misses herself. Just sometimes.
“…skers? Whiskers?”
She looks up at Angel, and there’s that radiant smile.
“Hey,” she hums.
“Whatcha doing?”
“I’m fine.”
Angel looks at her quizzically, and she’s immediately embarrassed.
“S’not what you asked me— uh…”
“No, it’s fine, you focus on..?”
Husk looks down to see a rag in her hand, draped over some dirty glass. She sighs and sets it down.
“Nothing worth talking about.”
Angel looks at her with an unreadable expression.
“I know you don’t sigh so I’ll ask what’s wrong,” she says softly. “I also know that a good sigh is sometimes enough to move on just fine. Are you fine?”
“…Tired,” she says, trying not to sigh again, but it happens anyway.
“Right.”
Angel rounds the bar counter to sit next to her.
“Sometimes, having someone around makes it better, even if I don’t wanna talk about whatever it is that’s got me down.”
Husk smiles tentatively at her.
“…Thank you, Angel.”
Angel’s face blooms with a pleased flush, however it is that a spider demon can do that. Husk’s glad she was the one to make it happen.
“Aw, of course, hon. No one could stand to see you down when you do such a good job lifting all the rest of us up. S’what friends are for!” she declares.
“Oh, is that what this is,” she teases, and Angel’s blush spreads higher, to her under-eye.
“We’re at least friends,” she grins.
Husk just laughs and pulls out another glass, before getting to work making them both G&Ts.
The whole time she’s at it, Angel’s chattering away in her ear, and she’s right: Husk does feel better now.