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There was only ever exhaustion in Hell, bone weary damnation. Or at least that is what it was like for Angel. The excess and indulgence of his afterlife had long since worn off, leaving behind sour depression and a heaviness deep in his core. It hadn’t been this bad at first. It had been vibrant and full, colorful and wild and freeing. But now, all he wanted was to tear his own heart out, leave it for the crows to peck at, for the rats to rend apart, for someone, anyone to rid of his own tormented existence. There had been a time when the sex, the drugs, the insane rollercoaster of pleasure and pain and euphoria made everyday worth waking up for. There had been a time when he didn’t feel numb to everything he once loved. But that time was long gone and all that was left was a shell of a person in its absence. That’s how he ended up standing in front of a red door, body bruised and sore, mind stretched and strung out. That's how he ended up knocking.
“Angel.” Alastor said in a heavily filtered tone, a loud hum consuming the drawn out L of his name.
“Hi Al.” He whispered, one hand pressed to his side, fingers pressing into the blood seeping from a shallow cut. “Can I come in?”
“Has my refusal ever stopped you?” He raised a red brow, but something behind his smile softened, just a little. Angel just shrugged.
They weren’t lovers. They weren’t even friends. They were a strange set of stars orbiting each other, pulled together by a feeling they neither talked about or acknowledged. They were caught somewhere between two lonely hearts who shared drunken kisses and two devastated souls who pretended they didn’t want to remember.
“I- I want to ask you something. Let me in?” He tried to keep his shaking under control but in truth his body was breaking apart, flesh practically jittering off the bone. Alastor’s bright eyes just narrowed, staring at him intensely.
“Yes.” He said in that stunted, clipped tone as he stepped aside. “Would you care for a libation?”
“Whatcha got?” Angel asked, dragged himself in. This was not the first time he had been at that door, in this room, nor the first time he had been offered a drink. Sometimes when Alastor was feeling obliging and generous, they would reminisce about the past, about being topside. Their lives had overlapped, timelines parallel, separated by a train line and miles. They had talked about everything and nothing, the ways in which life compared and ways it was different. They had been here before, in this position, but this drink, this conversation would be different.
“Whiskey, unless you would prefer something sweet?”
“Whiskey’s fine.” Angel mumbled, peeling his hand away for the gash under his jacket. Blood had soaked through, bleeding along the grain of the fabric like viscera in the water, attracting predators.
“My my. It must be serious if you are accepting something straight, not your usual fruity cocktail.” Alastor sniffed and his smile twitched, just a little. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.” Angel mumbled, hand reaching out for the crystal glass, held on a shadowed hand. Blood smeared into the intricately carved pattern, filling in the lines.
“Is this your employer’s doing? Is this why you are here? Don’t be shy, you can always ask- you are always easy to please with just a snap-”
“I don't want you to heal me.” Angel down the whiskey quick, holding it out for more. It filled itself almost immediately. “I was thinking-maybe-.”
“No.” Alastor stepped closer. The violently human part of Angel’s brain that still remained screamed, alarm bells blaring at the Overlord’s sharp tone and even sharper teeth but he couldn’t bring himself to be afraid.
“I didn’t even tell you what I wanted.” His hands, both sets, laced together behind his back as he rocked, back and forth on his heels.
“You didn’t need to.” Alastor sat, hand gesturing to the plush wingback across from him. Before Angel could sink into the opposing chair, a blare of green stitched his bleeding wound shut and cleaned his jacket of any hint there had been anything wrong to begin with. His body melted into the seat, tired limbs and mind, all just relaxing finally. “I will not kill you.”
“How- you know what. Never mind. I’m tired Al. I’m tired of everything- of me. Val will never release me. I just want to be free. You are the only one I trust to-. Please?”
How had he gotten here?
“Tomorrow. We can talk about this tomorrow.” Alastor said, sipping his whiskey as he stared intensely at Angel. “Tonight, tell me a secret, something no one else knows.”
“Why?”
“I deal in souls, Angel. But secrets work just as well. Offer up something for my time. Besides, what good are they to you anyways?” He crossed one leg over the other, claws tapping the side of the glass in a soft rhythm that Angel vaguely recognized but couldn’t place.
“What kind of secret?”
“Anything. Any little secret you have never told anyone before.” His smile twitched as he studied the spider. The smile etched on his face was hollow blank, but in his eyes something burned, something wild and-
“I killed the first man I’ve ever loved.” Angle blurted out.
“Surely that’s not a secret, darling.” Alastor purred and his smile spread wider.
“His name was Gio. We were friends-maybe more. We got absolutely plastered and handsy which led to some heavy pettin’. He looked at me like I mattered, like I was worth something. He was sweet and kind and that one night was perfect. But a week later- my Pops-he wanted to test me. A Ragni doesn’t have friends. He has people who are useful and people who are not. He told me to put a bullet in his skull and I did. Fuck- I did. No one knew that we-. I think I really sold out that day, or at least sold my heart.”
“The heart is such a fickle thing isn’t it. Rarely does it have the foresight to anticipate when it breaks.” Alastor cocked his head, studying him. “When my mother died I didn’t think I could go on living. Is it the same when you caused their death yourself?”
“That’s a fucked up question.” Angel stared into his empty glass. A long pause passed between them as Al waited for a response. “Yes. Yes-it’s the same.”
“Beautiful.” The Radio Demon leaned in a little more, steepled fingers resting under his chin as something behind those blood red eyes churned. “It clearly hurts you even now.”
“Cut the crap. I told you my secret now-”
“Come back tomorrow.”
“What?” Angel’s body jolted, nearly jumping out of his chair.
“Come back- tomorrow.”
“Smiles. Al. Alastor. Please.” Angel begged. “Don’t do this to me.”
“Come back tomorrow.” Alastor reiterated, that menacing smile masking any other facial expression there could have been. Uneasiness curled up inside Angel’s chest, pressing against his heart.
“Ok-ok. I’ll be here.”
—
Angel returned there after another long, grueling day in front of hot lights and constantly rolling cameras. He was so tired, down to the marrow of his bones. But when that door opened and Alastor greeted him with a crystal glass of dark liquid and a smile, it eased his troubled mind. The end was so close.
“Rough day, my dear?” The Radio Demon asked, claws clinking on the crystal glass. His smile was warm, inviting as tilted his head.
“Oh no, I adore being a brainless blow up doll.” He rolled his eyes, putting on that high pitched, airhead moan that had made him famous. But he dropped it when he saw something twitch in Alastor’s stare “Val- he- he gets in these moods. It’s like sometimes I am this precious thing and then others I’m just a wh- just a thing, an object to be thrown around, ignored till it's time to play with me again.”
“He is a rather distasteful insect isn’t he?” He took a long swig from his whiskey, the burning glare of his eyes boring holes into Angel’s core. “Why did you make a deal with him? You’re clever, under that floozy act you put on. How did he get you?”
“What does it matter if he won’t let me go?”
“Tell me.”
“I came here for one reason, Al, I’d like to-”
“Tell me how it happened. What’s the harm? The tale won’t be of any use once you're gone, will it?”
He paused, staring down at his reflection in his drink.
“I was desperate. My father and I had just cut ties. We couldn’t stand eachother in life, I don’t know why I thought we’d be any different down here. Whatever, I split. But those first few weeks, the money in my pocket was draining fast. I was running out of Johns to crash with and Extermination Day was getting closer. I was working at a strip joint, doesn’t even exist anymore and Val had come by a few times, was real sweet to me, offered me a lot of pretty words and promises.”
“And he offered you what else? Drugs? Stardom? Fame and glory?” Alastor leaned in further, as if he was trying to discern the truth.
“Love. He offered me love.” He whispered. The Radio Demon made a small noise, a strange, strangled noise that reverberated in his throat. “What? You never done something stupid for love?”
“I’d only ever loved one person and what I did for her, I wouldn’t call stupid.” He confessed, soft and low, as if it were a secret.
“She must have been special.” Why did it feel like an arrow to the heart? Why did it feel like a twist of a knife in his gut? Angel downed the rest of his liquor in a fast gulp.
“My mother was the only beautiful thing in my life.”
“Tell me about her.” Angel said wistfully, resisting the urge to get up and sit closer to Alastor, to hear if his heart beat faster when they got close too. “It won’t matter when I’m gone.”
“She was kind and gentle. She treated me like I wasn’t broken. She taught me there could be more to the world than pain and hollowness. My father- he was an angry man and when I was old enough, I made it so he would never hurt her again.”
“You killed your father.”
“I did. And I’d do it again, over and over and over if it meant she didn’t have to feel that pain. I’ve done many things for love and none of them were stupid in my eyes.”
Somehow their conversation went on for hours, the topic of mothers bleeding into so many other things. Angel barely knew his mother, barely knew her as anything more than a giggle and the smell of her perfume. She had been one of those tragic types, burning brightly but too briefly. He told Alastor about remembering her funeral, about standing there in mourning black not knowing if he should cry or climb in with her. In the end, he chose neither.
Perhaps he should have done both.
“Come back tomorrow. I’m too tired tonight.” Alastor said, a hurt look ghost across his eyes, as if the last of their conversation hit too close to home.
“Al-”
“Come back tomorrow.”
— —
Night after night, Angel dragged himself to Alastor’s door. Night after night they would share a drink and somehow The Radio Demon would get him to talk. He spilled every secret, every detail of his life, his death, his wants and fears.
The first time he got high.
The first time he was on stage.
The first (and only) time his father told him he was proud.
The last moments he remembered before-
It was like the miasma of despair was disappearing and it was getting easier to breathe, but only in this room, alone, with Alastor.
Damn his traitorous heart. Damn his fucking feelings because this is what he wanted. Just this. Just him.
Angel sat closer each night. Heat radiated off of Alastor, warming the chill that had settled into his core.
“I would give anything to feel something again.” Angel mumbled, words tinny against the glass. His body sat sprawled across the dark couch, head resting on The Radio Demon’s shoulder. He briefly wondered if anyone had gotten this close to Alastor without the threat of death but the thought was fleeting.
“I’ve been waiting for those words for a long time.” He whispered.
“What?” When had Alastor’s arms wound around him? When had his hand come to rest on his waist?
“It goes against what you’ve been begging for all this time.” They had grown comfortable, comfortable enough that The Radio Demon would lean into his touch rather than shudder away. A moment of silence settled between, not tense but charged. “What if- Angel.”
“What if?” He shifted to meet the blood-red eyes staring down at him. Green light painted the side of Alastor’s face in flashes of lime and chartreuse. Distinct rasp of paper caught Angel’s attention but a sharp, elegant finger traced under his chin, turning his face up. “Al?”
“Anthony. What if I could offer you feeling?”
“...Anthony.” Angel whispered back, their eyes locked. His gaze slid to the piece of paper floating, to his contract, unable to look at the beautiful eyes in front of him. “How did you get that?”
“In the only language that repugnant moth knows. Cold hard cash.”
“You bought me?” Angel reared back away from Alastor’s fingers as they reached for him. He knew that their time spent together was dangerous. He knew that his feelings were going to get hurt, they always did. “Jesus! I am so fucking stupid.”
“No- Angel- Anthony- that’s not-” Alastor studdered, fucking shuddered as he slipped away.
“How much?” Angel felt hot tears sting his eyes. “How much did Val sell my soul for?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Alastor snatched the contract from the air and rolled it up. He was up and following Angel as he darted across the room. “The money doesn’t matter.”
“I’m such an idiot.” He mumbled, knees buckled as he dropped to the floor. Angel squeezed his eyes shut tightly, body shaking with rage and sadness and every other sour emotion. Every touch, every conversation, night after night and time after time he had been wordlessly pleading, silently hoping. He had wished for love but begged for death and what he got was just another chain around his wrist and another master who didn’t give two shits about- “So how do you want me? On my back. On my knees? You paid so you get to choose.”
“I want you to be free.” Alastor said, voice suddenly so close. Angel blinked. Sanguineous eyes bore into him, watching him, studying him like he was a skittish animal, liable to bolt at any moment. It wasn’t far from the truth.
“What’s the catch? What’s the deal?” He asked, words catching in his throat.
“No Catch. No deal. Just- here.” The green glow of Alastor’s magic zapped between them, a dazzling display of power that looked so effortless. The paper crumpled and then ignited into chartreuse flames. It crackled and hissed, smoldering down to a single, burning ember that blazed bright and pink and sweet. “Your soul is your own.”
“What?” Angel gasped, hand to his heart as his soul shimmered so close to him, floating on a breathless wind. “Alastor.”
“You said you sold your soul for love, time and time again. It is only right that you have it back. I humbly offer you feeling and maybe more?”
“You don’t even like me!” Angel couldn’t think of anything worse to say at that moment. His mouth was running and his fucking brain was no longer connected.
“Is that what you think? Truly?” Alastor whispered, claws brushing the mess of white hair from his face. Between them his soul pulsed. In its light, a shifting mirror reflected something more human than he had been in a long time. “That night-”
“That night-”
“I’ve thought of nothing but your lips and your smile and how you felt in my hands.” Clawed fingers cupped his cheeks. Their foreheads pressed together, their shared breaths filling the space between them.
“Don’t wake me up.” Angel mumbled, eyes pinched shut. “God, please don’t.”
“Anthony.” Their lips hovered so close to one another, heat radiating off Alastor as if he was the Sun at the center of Angel’s universe. The spider cracked his eyes open, staring down at the light between them. Alastor pressed that simmering ember of his soul close to his chest, power humming in the thin space between their bodies. A giddiness settled deep in his core, a bright happiness that he hadn’t felt in so fucking long. “If you still want me to fulfill our bargain after all of this. I will. But not before you know the furthest thing from what I feel is indifference.”
“Alastor.” Their eyes met as beautiful warmth bloomed in his chest. Glorious light seeped through his veins, spreading into his very bones as his soul returned home deep in his chest. A small sound escaped out of him. And then he was moving, throwing his arms around Alastor, lips pressing together. The spider practically crawled into his lap, deepening the kiss.
He paused for only a moment, for only a small, tender second just to catch Alastor’s eye. He had to say this now. He had to tell him-
“This isn’t just because you gave me my soul.”
“I know.” Alastor huffed something like a laugh. “You are very easy to read, darling.”
I love you. Their souls seemed to whisper to one another when their lips could.
Their lips met again, soft at first and then deeper. Angel wanted to crawl under Al’s tailored shirt, wanted to touch and taste to see if any of it was different now. Of course it was. But not because of his soul but because of Alastor. He settled for wrapping his arms around The Radio Demon and sinking into their kiss. Angel pushed closer, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, desperate lips to desperate lips, till neither of them could breath. If it were at all possible for Angel to convey the intensity of his feelings through a kiss, it would be this kiss. But if not, he had an afterlife of time to share every secret, every feeling, locked inside his traitorous, overflowing heart.