Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 Melissa Carver lay sprawled on a gravel coated rooftop. The rattle and wheeze of over worked a/c units the symphony to her pain. She was pretty sure she had a  fractured  skull, and clavicle…and probably a rib or two. The fall hadn’t been graceful, the landing less so. 

Her mouth tasted like copper and brimstone, and she swallowed it down only because the thought of turning over to spit it out was more torturous than the ungodly burn of it down her throat. 

   The broken bones itched, starting to heal on their own in the way of all demonic bodies. She stared into the crimson sky, through the void dark lines of the pentagram and at the glowing sphere of heaven. 

   Fuck you. 

She thought with as much disgust and hatred as her abused body could spare in the moment. 

She had led a good life, she honored her parents, she obeyed the law, went to school, stayed chaste, no drugs, no alcohol. 

  Hell, she’d been engaged to a fucking Deacon, their first date had been at a Soup Kitchen for crying out loud! Their honeymoon was going to be in Africa on a Service Mission. 

God, even her death had been tragically selfless. Hit by the bus she’d shoved her future-mother-in-law (may the bitch never darken Hell’s doorstep) out of the way of.

How did any of that land her here?

Again.

“Scales of justice my ass.” She growled, then winced at the pain her own voice caused her damaged skull. 

Maybe she could just lay here until the next extermination. Starvation was hardly an issue, respawn from it wasn’t too bad at least. 

What are the chances Angelic-steel gets her reincarnated again? 

She decided to spend the time it took her bones to mend to ponder that. 

Granted, the turn over rate on reincarnation sucked. She’d taken a spear to the chest to save her husband sometime in the late forties, early fifties (memories were still a little hazy, and time was pretty relative in Hell ) she’d started her second life in the early 2001. 

Had the idiot even survived? 

Did she want to go there again?

He’d actually made Hell bearable after nearly a century of surviving on the fringes by being valuable to the right people and not a threat to the rest. 

Mind reading was a useful and dangerous power to have in Hell. She’d taken it with her on her return trip to Earth(decidedly less dangerous or useful when trying to keep her ass out of Hellfire again). 

Ugh. 

All those opportunities…wasted. 

She rolled to her side, decided the pain was tolerable and got to her feet. A quick glance around from her vantage point had her shooting another baleful glance up the unsympathetic heavens.

“Seriously, fuck you.” 

Fifty something years may have changed the rough façade of Hell but she knew these streets. They’d haunted her nightmares her whole life. This was where she’d died, or at least took an angel blade to the heart. 

The Industrial Revolution London aesthetic she remembered was slapdashedly taken over by 80’s commercialism with splashes of 2010’s growing like toxic fungus. 

She couldn’t imagine her husband letting their territory become…this, which means he was dead or overpowered. 

She probably shouldn’t feel relieved by that…

She did though, maybe it was the lifetime on the straight and narrow, but she wasn’t the same woman who fell in love with the maniacal narcissist on the biggest power trip of his existence. 

   He had to be dead.

She touched her ring finger, twisting the engagement ring Neville Hathaway had put on it four months ago,  convincing herself that was the only weight she felt there (that the bond created in her Hell as Margaux of Anjou hadn’t stayed with her throughout her life as Missy Carver and it wasn’t thrumming in her bones now). 

    Well, getting as far away from here wouldn’t hurt either. 

She took a few steps back from the edge, closed her eyes and searched for that magic of Hell that now flowed in her blood. Her eyes flew open in shock and twisted her body.

    “You have to be kidding me.” She looked at the tail, fluffy and white with a grey strip running from the tip to her tailbone. The coloring was right, the shape was wrong. 

  She felt the ears on her head flick up and the back down close to her skull. Her form had changed. 

Gone were the rodent ears and long flat tail of her flying squirrel form. She looked at her black clawed hands, the color faded into an almost snowy color. 

  She huffed, annoyances continuing to grow. 

She had loved flying, it was one of the few things that had made Hell bearable before…Him.

   She sighed. Well at least she hadn’t launched herself from the building just to break all her bones all over again. She glanced back over the edge of the building. Well maybe a sprain. 

  Fine. Pedestrian it was. 

.oOVOo.

    Hell was different than she remembered. Oh the screams of the damned were still the background noise of any street but the Entertainment District was in shambles. In fact it looked like a bomb had gone off and leveled much of it, giving the Doomsday District a run for curbside appeal. She assumed some sort of turf war had taken place, but no one was talking about it. 

She’d been slipping in and out of bars, casinos, and coffee shops since she’d landed but all anyone was talking about was Heaven and Charlotte Morningstar. 

When she had died (?) Hell’s Princess was still  tucked away in another ring away from Pride and its population problems; now she apparently ran a hotel for redemption? A successful one apparently.

   The Entertainment District had been decimated and everyone was mostly annoyed about the issues it caused their cell and streaming services.

Hell had the internet… because why wouldn’t it? 

She swiped someone’s phone on her second day, the unlucky sinner wouldn’t have use for it anytime soon after the rather brutal savaging they took from a pack of Sharks (Nice to see some unfortunately familiar names). Wiping the phone back to factory settings was as easy as it had been in life. A week of corpse looting and pickpocketing gave her enough to set up in a shoebox of a place on the edge of what still functioned of the Entertainment District. Her neighbor was an…unlicensed pharmacist and her landlord ran high stake poker games every Sunday in the basement. After the first time she took a stray  bullet when the games inevitably turned into a brawl she made herself scarce on “Game Night”. 

  Still, she felt a modicum of safety in her slice of Hell being exactly where her husband would never be.

  She was headed home one  Sunday evening as it bled into Monday, bra stuffed full of cash from a successful stint at a cash only poker game at Madam Hooch’s Disco when the ragged cries and mental anguish of a sinner hit her like a truck. 

She stumbled to halt at the mouth of an alley. 

Don’t.

She told herself as she stared into the darkness.

Don't be soft. 

Don't be an idiot.

She knew the hapless sinner was alone in the alley, that whatever, whoever had happened to them was long gone. 

She stepped into the alley. Her sensible boots cracking used needles and shattered bottles in a symphony of numbness accompanied by the sinner's continued cries and her own metal chastisement. 

She would have walked away before. 

Before a life spent serving the helpless.

Before a life of second chances and lights hidden in dark places.

It took her brain a long moment to process what she was seeing, mostly because she didn’t want it to make sense. She turned away and vomited into a pile of refuse, which was unfortunate because Madam Hooch served really good wontons that evening and excellent whiskey that did not taste great on a second pass through her mouth. 

 She stared down at her own waste because she didn’t want to look at the sinner again. 

Leaving them alive had been the cruelest thing done to them. 

The thin, lanky figure was covered in every conceivable bodily fluid, matting their patchy fur where it hadn’t been cut, burned or ripped out. Four long arms were bent and broken, one cut off at the elbow, fingers broken or missing on the remaining limbs, and their legs had received similar treatment. Scraps of cloth clung useless to one shoulder, the waistband of whatever lower covering they had been wearing was all that was left on their hips. 

Whoever had left the spider-demon here clearly intended to return as they had fastened a bear-trap cuff on their ankle and attached the other end to the dumpster they had left their victim behind. 

Why? 

She stared at the grimy brick, as though it might give her an answer. 

She wanted to believe that this sinner absolutely deserved what had happened to them. 

They were in Hell after all. 

But she couldn’t.

She could tell, by the thoughts that blared from them, they believed they did, and anyone who actually thought they deserved this kind of torture, didn’t. 

She took her Barretta from its back holster and turned back to the sinner and did what the monsters who did this should have done. 

A bullet between the eyes and her head went silent. 

She secured her gun again before prying the sinner’s foot from the clawed cuff. She slung thier body over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and actively did not think about what she was getting all over her favorite jacket and in her hair.  She didn’t worry too much about being gentle, shouldering open the door to her place and dumping the body into her shower stall. She hosed both of them down before stripping off her clothes and using a whole bottle of soap between the two of them. She wrapped the body in two sheets before dragging it back out into her living space and getting herself dressed and hydrated. 

   Depending on the demon, she could have a corpse in her place for up to twenty-four hours. It took that long, max, to regrow brain matter. The rest of the body would start to heal from that point, and then she’d just have an unconscious demon on her floor for however long it took for them to wake up. An unconscious demon who had seriously pissed off someone with a sadistic streak as wide as the Ring.

   She hoped it wasn’t an Overlord. She did not have a deal-base to handle that level of fight. 

.oOVOo. 

   Missy shut her landlord’s, Greg, office door gently when she really wanted to turn around and shout expletives at him. He’d upped her rent for the week on account of the ‘extra body’ she now had and her refusal to ‘share’. Wonderful to learn her landlord was a Cannibal, the sharp teeth hadn’t been a give away on account of his Opossum appearance and everyone was a piece of meat in his head anyways. 

   She rubbed the back of her neck as she stood on the cracked and scorched sidewalk. This week's rent had taken a sizable chuck out of her winnings, and her unconscious roommate would probably be waking up soon as she’d been kept up most of the night by the echoes of his nightmares. Why this sinner was so loud, she hadn’t figured out yet. Most of the time it took proximity and intent for her to pick up more than surface emotions or thoughts. 

Nightmares and dreams usually took a level of exposure and intimacy she didn’t have with anyone in Hell anymore. 

  She had planned on making herself scarce for the next couple days so the sinner could wake up, get oriented and get out without any awkward or potentially dangerous confrontations. Kindness wasn’t expected, and rarely accepted in Hell. But Greg’s awareness of the sinner, even if he didn’t know who they were, made it a bad idea. She’d likely come back to Greg dissecting the lanky spider. 

Next best thing then. 

She spent the last of her cash on a second set of dish’s, all the ingredients she needed to make her Nonno’s Alfredo recipe and her Nanna’s flan. 

She dragged the sinner to the mattress that doubled as her couch and bed after getting them into an oversized shirt. Naked and afraid was a terrible way to wake up and she could only do something about one of those things. 

The shoebox she called home had a single counter, a stove/oven and a half-sized refrigerator with a broken freezer, and as she lived alone there wasn’t a need for a table. Her guest started to twitch and make noises of waking up as she began plating up the fettuccini. 

“FUCK!” the sinner jackknifed up.

“Not until after dessert, pumpkin.” she replied lightly.

    A shocked, wide eyed gaze turned to her.  His eyes darted around the small space before landing back on her and narrowing with suspicion.

“Who the fuck are you?!” he demanded, stumbling to their feet and putting as much space between them as her little place allowed. 

“Missy.” she replied lightly, “Who are you?” 

“Like you don’t fuckin’ know?!” he growled back, four hands clenched in fist. 

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking. You hungry, pumpkin?” 

“What? Why would I….fucking Christ is that Alfredo?” 

She hummed in assent, passing him a plate and fork, “My Nonno’s recipe straight from Sicily." 

“You don’t sound Italian.” he took a bite and gave a moan so orgasmic that Missy felt her cheeks heat up, “Oh my gawd.” 

He slid down to the ground and devoured the plate, “This taste’s just like my ma made it!” 

She grinned, and took a bite of her own plate, leaning against the counter, “Best compliment you can give a girl.” she winked at the wide eyed look she received. 

He all but licked the plate clean, then eyed her own with such desperate longing that she handed it over. 

“Seriously, though.” she said, pulling out two bottles of water from her fridge, and tossing one to the sinner who caught it without ever  looking up from his plate, “I haven't been here long, not really hip with the who's who of Hell.” 

   The sinner polished off the plate and the whole bottle of water before looking at her with consideration. 

“Really? You have no idea who I am?” He set the plate aside, on top of the other one.  

She shook her head, “Nope. Well, other than someone who made someone else very very angry.” 

He scoffed and drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping both sets of arms around his legs. 

“Unda’statement of the mellinia, dollface.” 

She hummed again and waited.  

One hand passed over his face and then through his hair, “Look, it’s probably betta you don’t know, that you neva know. Betta’ I get outta’ here before they come knockin’.” 

“Who is ‘they’?” 

The spider gestured emphatically to the door, “Everyone who knows my face and knows I ain’t protected no more!” 

“Do you want to be?” 

“Do I want to be what?!” the spider jumped to his feet, “Protected? No one is gonna protect me. Ain’t no one on this gadsdamn Ring can protect me from…from…”

Everyone. Myself.  

He collapsed to the ground, sobs shaking his thin frame. 

Why couldn’t they just kill me? Double-death would be betta than this.

Missy winced at the thought, then wondered at it. She should have been double-dead, but she’d been reborn. Was it even possible to erase a soul? 

She knew eternal torment was possible, some demons had the capability to tear a soul from its physical shell and keep it locked in a limbo never to regenerate or respawn. 

She stopped those thoughts before she started thinking about her maybe-husband. 

“You have your soul. You could sell it for protection.” she posited. 

He gave a noise, half snarl, half laugh, ”Never again. I ain’t neva doin’ that again, even if there was someone with the power to protect me. I’m lucky” he spat the word, “I even got outta my deal, I’d rather be double-dead than…than…” 

          “Okay, well, it isn’t really any of my business, but I am really in the dark about your situation, and I still don’t know your name.” 

“It’s fine. Ain’t my name no more. I need a new one.” he gave a small unhinged giggle, “A new face would be better, but I ain’t lettin’ anyone call me that again.” 

He was talking more to himself than her, so she waited. He wasn’t even thinking whatever his name had been, so she was sure he meant what he said. Whatever he was running from, it started with his name.

          “Well,” she gestured to the empty plates, “My Nonno’s name was Anthony.” she offered

 His head jerked up, eyes wide and then laughter (slightly hysterical laughter) shook his whole frame. 

“No shit?”

She rubbed the back of her neck, and glanced at the floor wondering why she kept talking. 

“Yeah, uh, big Catholic family, I  think most of his siblings were named after saints. My mom had like ten aunts and uncles. Family reunions were kinda…big.” 

He gave a short laugh, “Well I guess we got more than a name in common. Your grandaddy was from Italy?” 

“Um, no I don’t think so? Pretty sure he was from New York, you and he have similar accents.” 

“God, this is like somethin’ outta the twilight zone.” the spider shook his head, “You don’t sound like you’re from New York.” 

She shook her head, “No, Montana, circa 2001.” 

“No kiddin’?” he shook his head again. He gave her a once over, “Just how recent are you?” 

“Sixteen days.”  She glanced at the calendar she had taped to her wall. 

“And  you got yourself all set up in this swanky place? I was still sleepin’ on the streets my first month here.” 

She shrugged, “I’m resourceful. Still looking for a steady job, but I’m doin’ okay at the poker tables and relieving the occasional drunk of their loose change.” 

“You’re gonna get your hands blown off doin’ that.” he warned than blinked as if he couldn’t quite believe he cared. 

He eyed her again, gaze lingering  on her ears and tail as he took her in. 

“You got the look of a predator, yet you feel like family. What did you put in that food?” 

Oh.

She felt her tail twitch with the urge to wag. She stifled it by sheer willpower. 

He sounded like Nonno. He recognized the Alfredo. 

She licked her suddenly dry lips and the hundreds of stories her Nonno had told her, stories she had never wanted to believe as she grew older, flooded her mind. Stories of dark family secrets, of mafia dons and the dark streets of New York, of a mother’s love that saved her son from the ‘family’ at the cost of her own life. Nonno’s thoughts were always so loud when he spoke of New York, of the ‘family’.

His nightmares had been loud too.

  It had been hard to believe those thoughts, his stories, when Nonno was such a loving man, a hard worker on his horse ranch, a volunteer EMT and Firefighter for his small town, and despite the vague New Yorker accent that really only ever came out when he was angry or had a few beers, he sounded like every other man in Deer Lodge, Montana. 

      He had been named Anthony Riina (named after his mother’s twin brother) and had changed his name to Renold when they left New York. His uncle had killed his grandfather, and over-dosed a few years later.  

    She stared at the spider-sinner. Trying to figure out the odds of what she thought was possible, being possible. 

“His mother’s name was Molly.” she said, watching the spider’s eyes widen, “She died in 1957 helping him get out of New York, helping him get away from the Riina Syndicate.” 

The spider’s mouth dropped open, moved soundlessly a couple times as if searching for the words, before clicking shut. 

His thoughts screamed at her.

How does she know. How could she possibly know? Val…Charlie…Husk…no none of them know, I ain’t…I ain’t talked about my family to no one. 

              She watched denial close over his face like nonchalance, heard him lock down his train of thought. 

“Wild story, dollface. You ain’t been here very long, so word of advice before I split, don’t go tellin’ people about whos you really are. That kind o’ knowledge can get used against you. A deal-maker especially.” 

His warning came like a slap to the face and ice to her common sense. He was right, family didn’t mean a whole lot in hell, besides the opportunity to be a whole lot of trouble. 

The grin that split his face as he stood up and stretched was a mask for the whirl of emotions he hadn’t locked down. 

“Thanks for the food, see ya around dollface.” 

She wondered if he realized he was only wearing a t-shirt, as her door closed behind him. 

She picked up the plates and took them to her bathroom sink to wash, kicking his empty water bottle across the floor and closer to the bag of trash next to the door on her way. 

And really, she scolded herself, what would it change if he was her great-uncle? 

They were both dead and in Hell.

Chapter Text

    Missy stood in the rubble of the Porn Studio staring at her great-uncle’s face and wondered at the cosmic joke that was her life. Malissa Carver may have died a virgin, saving herself for marriage like the Good Christian™ her parents raised, but Maggie had spent a quarter of her time in Hell hopping into the beds that would keep her safest. Margaux of Anjou had been a successful French courtesan at twelve, an accomplished spy by sixteen and a double agent at her death at twenty five. Her uncle being Hell’s number one Porn Star until the fall of the Media Overlords shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did. 

    “Hey! Move it! I ain’t payin ya to stare at the whores, short stuff!” 

     Missy turned away from the poster and tossed a chunk of concrete and rebar into her wheel barrow. The Entertainment District rebuild had apparently gotten some funding and the place was swarming with anyone willing to make a buck. She gave the squid-demon a mildly envious side eye, payment was earned by weight moved and having eight limbs would have made her a killing. Her husband's powers would also have come in handy, but anyone with that kind of power wasn’t wasting it in construction. Her ability had gotten her this job, skimming it off the thoughts of several patrons at the casino she had “worked” last night. Her place had been burnt down when “Game Night” got inflammatory and she hadn’t found a place yet that didn’t come with lethally intended roommates or prices she refused to pay. 

   Rooftops did not make for comfortable sleeping arrangements, but it did make it harder for the street scum to sneak up on her. 

   That being said, she needed money to stake in a game if she wanted to turn out enough for a new place. She worked until her shoulders ached and her fingers bled and then joined the queue to get her work ticket signed off and her pay. 

   The sky had moved into the deep maroon of evening as she pocketed her pay and left with a large group of workers whose thoughts were mostly on drink, drugs, or hitting a casino. Flood lights came on over the rubble, the construction efforts not stopping just because the sky dimmed. Workers moved in and out of the area with very little by way of order beyond picking up a ticket and wheel barrow from one of the foremen. 

    She stuck to the edges of a group of female demons chatting, debating the best bar to hit until they cleared the demons skulking in the shadows looking for an easy payday then she headed towards Hoppers. It was a dance club but she knew there would be some laid back poker games up in the balconies that might help her double what she just earned. It was a little too close to the Zestial’s territory for her comfort, she may have warmed his bed for a time as Maggie she still had no desire to cross paths with the ancient Overlord as Missy.

     “Yous a hard lady to track down, Doll.” 

Missy stopped, glancing around at the mostly empty street for the lanky spider the voice belonged to. 

   Adorable.

Missy’s ears twitched down in annoyance as his mental coo drifted to her then back up as she pulled them back into obedience. 

    “Up here Doll.” 

Missy shifted her gaze up the side of the building to find her uncle leaning over a wrote iron balcony. He wore a baseball cap that had a bullet whole through the middle of the pentagram stitched into it, an oversized hoodie with an anarchy symbol printed like blood over the chest, only two arms supporting his frame. 

It looked wrong on him, but she knew it was from the fact that he felt wrong in those clothes and now that she had his eyes on him she could feel it too. 

   “Heya Uncle Toni.” she replied facetiously, she wasn’t about to call him the name he’d basically had a crisis over in her apartment, but she didn't know what else to call him and needling him was just in her nature. 

He made a face of disgust at her, “Don’t call me that, makes me feel old.” 

She lifted an eyebrow at him and he flapped his hand, “Shut the fuck up.” 

   She laughed, “Alright, so what should  I call you.” 

He smiled, “I could get used to ‘Toni’; spell it with a little heart over the ‘i’.” 

It was her turn to make a face, he wasn’t a Toni, or an Anthony or anything remotely  close to the name he wore in life. 

   He gave a self-depricating smile in return to her grimace, “Yeah.” He covered his face with a hand, “I can’t believe I’m goin’ through the same crisis as Charlie’s dame. This is fucking stupid” he took a deep breath, squared is shoulders while bracing against the railing before giving her real smile, “The name’s Angel.” 

   She had no idea who Charlie’s gal was, but she did agree with his assessment of his identity crisis. Not that she could really judge, she wasn’t exactly picking up her old identity was she?

    “Well, don’t stand out there like a yuckel, come on up.” he gestured to the metal stairs in the alley when she looked at him blankly. 

Missy blinked, finally taking in her surroundings  and felt a chill slide down her spine. She wasn’t anywhere near Hoppers but deep in the Blackout District. Brick roads, cobbled buildings, gas lamps that whimpered against the gloom. Angel’s place was over a butcher shop, and Missy debated the brilliance of staying in a territory even tangentially linked to Maggie even as she moved up the staircase. She was also sure he was the reason she found herself so far out of her way- family had a strange pull on her abilities.

Angel met her at the door and ushered her in the surprisingly bright and modern interior. 

The ceiling slanted along her left as she entered, the kitchen small but new and fully equipped. Everything was in shades of pink, white or black metal. The living space was lifted from the kitchen area, with plush carpeting and velvet couches. A hot pink fainting couch was close to the twin doors leading out to the balcony Angel had been standing on. Bead and sequin drapes over two doors served as doors to what she could see were bedrooms. 

She felt the comfort oozing from Angel, a sense of safety in the space that was so very personalized. None of it matched the emo-military vibe of his clothes. 

He closed the door behind her, several locks clicking into place before he passed her and headed into the kitchen area. 

    “You thirsty? I got lemonade.” he pulled a pitcher of what was probably fresh squeezed lemons if the whole fruit basket of citrus fruits was a clue out of a refrigerator hidden beneath the counter. 

“Sure.” She slipped onto one of the two stools at the counter while he poured two glasses. 

She took a cautious sip when he slid one of the glasses to her before putting the pitcher away. It was very sweet, and as she set it down she realized it sparkled with pink glitter. 

    “Oh my god. I’m going to be shitting glitter.” 

Angel laughed, “Only the best for family!” 

   She almost choked on her next sip, turning to him suddenly with wide eyes. Hope and dread made for a sickly  clash in her stomach.  She clutched the glass between her hands, as though the condensing chill of it would calm her thoughts, and keep her hands steady.

   “You don’t have to do this.” she said, watching the glitter swirl and wink in the drink, “I know…I know who you are…were, and I pieced together what might have happened that--well anyway. I don’t want anything from you, I’m not expecting anything even if we might have been family uptop.”

   “Well,” Angel took a long pull of his drink, “What if I said I wanted somethin’?” 

She felt dread settle in her stomach, “I’m not exactly flushed with cash, and I don’t have any connections in the city, so I don’t think I’m going to be very useful to you.” 

   Angel scoffed, “Doll, if you know who I am, then you gotta know I ain’t exactly hurting for cash. I may be a cheap fuck now and again, but I do make royalties off my films. I did my own research too while I was lookin’ for ya’s. You gots people curious in the back room poker joints, never bet your shoe laces, never win enough to make anyone come after you. Lady luck just sparing you a glance. Always gone before things get ugly, never at the wrong table. 

   You’d packed your shit and left before your place went up in flames and vanished. No friends, no connections, yet no one eva’ looks at you like an easy mark neither. 

Even half outta my mind from a regen I didn’t feel scared of you. How do you do that?” 

   She gave him a half smile, and wiggled her fingers at him, “Magic!” 

  He gave her a dry glance, “Smart-ass, I got a bullshit radar half the ring wide. Like I get it, we get a little somethin’ extra when our souls get damned. I just wanna know if you are fuckin’ wit peoples heads before I ask ya to stay. I've head enough head-fuckery fo' the rest of eternity-family or no."  

Her ears twitched, her tail gave an imperceptible wag. 

“No,” she said honestly, “I am not messing with peoples heads. I don’t make people feel or think things.”

“But you do somethin’” he insisted, “I can feel ya.” he tapped his head, “It’s warm, just a curl of …you against me.” 

“It’s…that’s because we’re…related.” she said, “It’s stronger, I can’t block it as well. I don’t..well I do use it on purpose, I absolutely cheat at those poker tables, and it’s like my brain can pick up thoughts and feelings and some people are louder than others and family is loudest of all. I use it to keep out of trouble, dodge people who might be looking for trouble.” 

Angel hummed, taking another sip of his drink, "So like the sparkly vampire freak?"

She nodded with a groan for the reference, "Yeah, something like that." 

And suddenly she was blasted with an image of him entangled with a winged cat in a vividly erotic way. 

She gave a yelp, clapping her hands over her ears and squeezing her eyes shut as though either of those things would stop his sudden assault. 

He nearly fell out of his chair laughing at her reaction. 

“That’s the other thing I found out. You ain't been with anybody in the whole three months you’ve been here. Thought maybe you should know it ain’t illegal to sleep in someone else's bed ‘round here, especially when you ain't got one of your own.” 

She shoved him with an affronted gasp/laugh, “It wasn’t illegal up there either! I do not need the mental image of my uncle getting railed, thank you very little!” 

He continued laughing at her very heated face, airplaned ears and bristling tail. 

“I hope you aren’t about to suggest I warm your bed.” she warned, a light growl in her voice.

He hiccupped trying to stop laughing, but her absolute disgust only set him off again. He collapsed against the counter top hand hitting in as if his laughter needed a more physical outlet. She rolled her eyes and prepared to leave. She had great control over her powers and finding safety in someone else's bed wasn’t something she needed this time around. 

His hand wrapped around her wrist lightly, not restraining so much as telling her not to leave. 

He took a loud gasping breath, “Sorry Doll. It’s just…your face.” he gave another hiccup, “No. Fuck no. I got a second bedroom for ya. I ain’t interested in that.” He wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes as he turned to look at her, “Listen. I want a bodyguard and a cook I can trust. Someone I can trust so I can get the fuck outta this deadzone of a district without worrying about…well…ending up chained to a dumpster. I can fight, and I have, hell, fought against the exterminators not too long ago. I just can’t do nothin’ if I’m surprised. After learning your place had burned down I figured you could do with a place. So, you know. a mutually beneficial arrangement. You get room and board, I can stop living on bad television and Demon Dash that may or may not get laced with drugs when someone figures out where I am again.”

         “Bodyguard and personal chef. That’s what you want?” she repeated. 

Angel nodded his head, “Yeah, just that.” 

“For how long?” 

“For as long as it’s mutually beneficial to both of us.” he said, holding out his hand. 

She felt his magic warm the air, felt her own respond as she grasped it.

 A deal, not a soul deal, but a deal none the less. That was the only reason why dread still sat heavy in her stomach, not the way this felt so much like Maggie’s first deal, or the way the green laced through the yellow of her magic, just a little PTSD from her first stint in Hell. 

Angel leaped from his seat, dragging her with him, “Alright! Let me show you your room. You got your own bathroom with a shower! Which you should definitely use ‘cause Doll you smell like blood and cement and look like you ain’t washed in a week. Tomorrow, we go shopping! I need to fix my wardrobe and you’re gonna make me that Alfredo again ‘cause I’ve been jonesing for it for weeks!” 

She shoved the dread down with a laugh. She wasn’t Maggie, Angel wasn’t an Overlord. She just needed to let this be a good thing. 

.oOVOo.

Alastor paused in the slow soul-rending of the snake skinned demon on his floor. Beneath the screams, the copper tang of blood, and the rush of new power he felt something pull. He dropped his victim into the abyssal maw of his shadows, his focus now fully on the pull. No one should have any pull on his magic. His deal was Rosie was broken, his power was unchained and wholly his own. 

It wasn’t the pull of one of his contracted souls, each of those threads hummed steady and secure. So where was it coming from? He found the new thread, a new deal. A deal he had not made. He found the spider on the other end, his noisome-pink essence, one he was all too familiar with after the last year. He knew the spider had settled within his territory over the last month, but he had no personal contact or concern for the blue-film actor. He neither knew nor cared why the spider had left the hotel but now he would have to give his territory a bit of personal oversight. He sent one of his shadow dolls off to the hotel to let Husker know his presence would be required, a nod to his continued employment with the princess only. No reason to get the princess’s attention by dragging his pets away. For now he wanted her attention as far away from him as possible, there was far too much power restructuring he needed to accomplish before clashing with her and her father again.  

Someone had used Alastor’s power to make a deal with the spider and he was going to have to figure out who, how and then deal with the presumptuous miscreant.

Chapter Text

The hollow slurp of a straw punctuated the collapse of a rat-faced demon into the slimy gutters of the Blackout District. Angel leaned over her significantly smaller frame to admire her work. 

  “You’re like, really good at this bodyguard thing, and it’s really fuckin’ gross that creeper was hidin’ out in the sewa’s like that.” He observed as casually as one might the color of the sky. 

  She hummed in acknowledgment,”Okay Pumpkin, up to your tower. I’m going to make sure this guy and his friends have a long time to think about this, and then I need to see a gal about some buttons.”

  Angel snickered, “So many things wrong with that, it’s actually kinda cute.” He gave her a pat on the head that flooded her with so much of his gooey feelings she couldn’t actually be annoyed with him, but tagged him with her tail anyways as he ambled away with an easy laugh. 

    “Don’t forget dinner, Button-man!” He called back to her, as though she could after he’d spent most of their journey back waxing pornographicly about his memory of her Alfredo. 

The urge to purr in contentment at making Angel so happy was a completely new feeling. She hadn’t even been aware the foxes made those kinds of noises but she’d been swallowing it back all day. She knew even less about the nature of fennec foxes, but now being the demonic equivalent of one was proving to be disorienting.

The last twelve hours of shopping with Angel had sparked instincts she hadn’t had as a squirrel- demon, but certainly reignited the survival instincts she had developed. 

  Angel had pulled her out of bed as the sky was starting to bleed daylight, which she forgave him for only because he took her to a pastry shop with the best cappuccino and cornetto she’d tasted in any incarnation. He ditched the emo-militant clothes at their first stop, something like a Clair’s and Victoria’s Secrets had a love child in the 1940s. The bubblegum pink cropped fur coat he found never left his sight the rest of the day without extracting promises of excessive parental care from her. His aesthetic matched his place at least and he felt comfortable in his skin again. She’d emptied a clip into the first jackass that made grab for him, hoping it would send the right message to all the other creeps whose thoughts she started picking up as soon as Angel looked like something between Sabrina Carpenter and Goodfellas (a description he’d practically swooned over). Only, she’d had to shoot the waiter at lunch as well for slipping roofies into their smoothies (she’d shot his crotch because that’s all he was thinking with and she wanted to give him a chance to rethink his choices using the jello between his ears). Their smoothies were remade, free of drugs. No apologies, no screaming crowds at the gun fire, and their shopping excursions continued-- being back in Hell was still a culture shock from life in Christian ValuesTM, Montana. There were less confrontations and cat-calls after that, but she was also open like a live wire after that and Angel never fussed when she suggested a sudden change of streets. 

Angel was a very tactical individual, which not only didn’t surprise her, but was something she found herself more than adaptable to. Her grandfather and father had also been tactile people, little and big gestures of physical affection were almost more common than words. She hadn’t even realized how much she had missed those small touches that said I’m here, in the short time she’d been in Hell and away from her family until today. 

          As they had been walking home and Angel easily draped an arm around her shoulders, her thoughts had drifted to Neville. His ring hung from a chain around her throat, she hadn’t wanted to part with it despite knowing how rare it was for earthly things to manifest with the dead and how much money one could get for such items. Neville had made her want to be a better version of herself, the version he saw and she didn’t want to lose any more of that then Hell would claw from her to survive. 

Then this Putz and his friends had popped out of the shadows and sewers to test her resolve some more. 

    She listened to Angel’s easy gate, the confident click of his brand new “whore” boots against the brick work and a mental hum of contentment until she was sure he made it into his place. She wasn’t worried about anyone getting in. Every inch of the exterior was covered in a fine silk web of Angel’s own magic. Anyone stupid enough to try would still be there when she got back if he didn’t take care of it first. 

  According to Angel, he wasn’t a cannibal but the Butcher shop below certainly appreciated the occasional fresh meat to offer to those who were. Missy didn’t offer up her experience with cannibalism because she was still convinced she could exist in Hell like she’d never lived there before and “Missy” hadn’t been dead long enough to be tempted.

    Missy stared at the rat-demons corpse in consideration. So many ways to get her point across, less without making it a “Try Me Bitch” statement, because this was Hell and “Fuck Around And Find Out” was everyones default mode. 

   Maggie had had a pit for demons who became nuisances and needed re-education on polite behavior.  Missy eyed the sewer grate the rat had launched himself from as she holstered her gun. Her long ashy colored hair went up into a ponytail, and she momentarily mourned her new jacket's impending fate as she made her decision. She bit back a very un-Missy like grin, grabbing the rat’s tail and kicked the grate away. 

    “Alright. Splinter, let’s gather the Turtles for a Come to Jesus lesson on respect.” 

The sewers were as disgusting as she feared, but they were an excellent place to hide bodies you didn’t want found.

.oOVOo.

    Angel tossed his shopping bags on his bed and slipped into his “comfy” clothes (pink yoga pants with “Daddy Issues” in sparkly red letters over his ass and an oversized t-shirt with a stick figure grinding against the P in “Patriarchy”) before returning to his spoils. Particularly, several outfits he’d picked out for his bodyguard/niece while her attention was firmly on crowd control. Her “virgin-assassin” look was going to kill him. If he had to buy one more beige, navy, un-sexy librarian outfit he would quite possibly run screaming naked through the District. He couldn’t imagine what Montana was like, or what the hell she could have done in a state that literally had more cattle than people to wind up in Hell, but clearly fashion was dead there. She was more buttoned up than Alastor and he hadn’t thought that was possible, but he’d be double-dead if he let his family spend eternity in khaki. 

He got that she was more function over form, and he certainly didn’t want her in anything that would distract her enough to get either of them killed, but she couldn’t actually be allergic to color so he would put some dazzle into her wardrobe. The cropped black leather jacket had a bedazzled pink and white spider on the back (yeah fuck it, he was totally putting his stamp on her), matched with a peter-pan collared baby-pink gingham shirt and black high-waisted suspender pants with spiderweb laced cut out down the sides. He thought it was a good step in the right direction, less librarian more sexy-aunt. He’d bought a handful of other shirts, and pants of varying fitness for her as well, but this outfit he was proud of and already had clubbing plans for. He hung it and the bag containing the rest of her new clothes on her door. 

He flipped his radio on, filling his place with gritty-pop, before going to his small, but growing DVD collection. There were a lot of reasons he lived where he did, and the inconvenience of no wifi, or internet access was worth the comfort of being out of reach of VoxTech in his own home. The radio, similar to his time, offered more than just music and news. He was particularly involved with the soap-operaesque radio show that played on Thursdays. He was going to have to find recordings of it, or more likely simply tell Missy all about it so she could enjoy it with him without being completely lost. Alastor wasn’t completely wrong, there was something special about radio shows that visual media didn't offer; Angel just wasn’t going to go complete luddite about it. 

 When he felt the silk-strands on the stairs outside his place vibrate he thought Missy might need something for rodent disposal, she hadn’t been gone long enough to be back from the weapon’s district for her “buttons” and the grocery store. He didn’t think before opening the door, he should have. His heart skipped a beat and sank to his toes at the familiar six foot winged-cat standing there, paw raised to knock and a squirrely look of surprise that probably matched his. 

     “Angel.” 

     “Husk.”

They spoke together, their voices a rough sound of longing,pain and surprise. 

 Angel felt panic spread like fire through him even as the pain of what he had done made his heart ache. Pulling indifference into his face felt like digging into an open wound, he wanted to drag the cat in by his suspenders, bury his face in his fur and remember what it was like to be near him.

He crossed his lower arms, braced one of the tops against the doorframe and gave Husk a look like he was an unwanted salesman at his door.

    “What are ya doin’ here kitty?”

Husk flexed his claws down at his side, giving Angel a look like he’d been slapped before furrowing his eyebrows in anger. 

      “What are you doing here?” 

“Livin’.” He said shortly, his heart shredding with every second staring at the man he had fallen for. 

    “This is Alastor’s territory. Why would you-“

“Kitty, you ain’t gotta worry about me.” 

    “Angel, Alastor was here earlier.” Husk sounded worried, face twisted with the fear that only the Radio Demon really inspired.

Angel refused to be alarmed by this warning. There wasn’t a reason to be on the Radio’s radar, and he lived above a Butcher shop he knew served sinner meat. 

   “Yeah…and?” He said carelessly, “It’s his territory.” 

“Yeah, but he brought me here earlier and wanted me to get somethin’ from you and then just…changed his mind and snapped me back to the hotel. He went full Wendigo before he even reached your steps, he’s interested in something and that’s dangerous for you Angel.” 

   Angel shook his head, “I ain’t got anything Deer Daddy wants, I ain’t got anything any Overlord wants Husk, Val made that clear when he released me. So, I appreciate your concern, but whatever’s got Alastor’s antlers in a twist  got nothin’ to do with me. Maybe try Cassius downstairs, he’s got a fresh batch of meat this morning, maybe Alastor smelled something he liked.”

  Angel took a step back before Husk could say anything more, “Nice seein’ ya Kitty, but I don’t need ya lookin out for me. I’m good on my own.” 

Husk slammed a fist into the door, leaning in close and Angel felt parts of him flutter and pulse. Husk took a deep breath, sneezed and scowled, “You takin’ up with a fox?” 

“Yeah? And?” Angel bristled and sneered to hide the pain slicing through him, Husk had to leave, “I got me a little live-in company, ain’t like it’s a crime.”

Angel watched hurt drain the color from his kitty’s face, then anger flush it all over again.

“Well maybe now that you’re all settled and playin’ house you can come by and get your fuckin’ pig?” he snapped. 

Angel shrugged, “Alright. I’ll swing by tomorrow. We done?” 

“Yeah Angel.” Husk growled, turning away, “We’re done.”  

He closed the door with deliberate calmness. Listened to Husk stomp down the stairs before sliding to the ground and clutching his chest.

It hurt. 

Fuck, it hurt. 

The urge to numb rose like a tide, choking him with grief and shame. He didn’t keep anything heavier than wine in his place. He could text Missy to pick up something strong on her way back, his cellphone was useless.  He liked it that way, he’d picked Radio Demon territory because Vox/Val couldn’t get him here. 

His chest tightened as his breathing grew ragged, as memories threatened to drown him. He crawled shakily across his floor to the kitchen, to the wine cooler next to the refrigerator. 

Wine-drunk wasn’t as good as an absinthe-blackout, but it would stop the shake, dull the ache, help him escape. 

Six bottles, mid-range proofs. 

Good enough.

.oOVOo. 

  Alastor hunched over the console of his new radio tower, built above the wreckage of the Vee’s empire. Valentino and Velvette had bent to his will, buckled under his untethered might and now existed under his contract. He’d acted swiftly, before they had time to regroup, while his powers were still stretching their new freedoms. While their power and influence was as broken as the man who had used them to create his media empire. 

  The Vee’s were no more, and Alastor wasn’t about to let that power vacuum be snatched up by someone else. He didn’t care what the masses chose to consume- let Valentino make his blue films, let Velvette nip and tuck and stitch the Pride Rings vanities. Let the brainless souls of Hell fritter away their afterlife, so long as they remembered to fear the Radio Demon. 

   He would be untouchable, and with the end of the exterminations, he feared not even Heaven’s blade. 

Yet…

He dragged his tongue across his teeth, as if he could find a trace of  what he’d tasted that morning. 

Her.

It was the only thing that made sense, yet made no amount of sense at all. 

Was he going mad? 

Sanity was such an ambiguous concept in Hell, along with morality, innocence, right and wrong. He’d long reveled in the unfettered freedom of being what he was without apology or consequence. 

Madness though? He twisted the realities of the weak and foolish, he tormented the masses— brought madness to those who thought themselves untouchable, he did not suffer its malady.

He could never mistake her taste, not her, not the only woman who he had gladly, joyously, rapturously knelt before—not the woman whose memory could torment him, undo him. She sat like an ache beneath his ribs that never left, a need he could not fulfill, a void in his shadow, a voice in his head. 

She never left.

   Her blood had been in the alley and he’d traced it back to the rubble of the Porn Studios. He’d consider hunting down Valentino; just the thought of her in the hands of that vile moth made him homicidal. 

  But she was dead. 

She had been dead before Valentino ever came to hell, before Valentino had lived. The moth didn’t know anything, couldn’t know anything. 

The number of individuals who knew who she was, who knew who she was to him, was minuscule. It wasn’t zero, and someone wanted him to think she was back, someone wanted him distracted. 

    As if the static didn’t already scream with her memories

   His mind  jumped to the obvious choice, Rosie. Of the demons in hell, she would do it, as viciously beautiful as her name. It wasn’t improbable that the darling, dangerous Overlord retained blood vials, they had had such an odd contract, he had seen the vials exchange hands on hundreds of occasions. 

   He curled his claws into the wood of his desk, the radio screamed with the voices of his victims, broadcasting to the Ring. Below him sinners flinched, even cellphone reception crackling with his rage pushing through every frequency wave.

    If Rosie was behind this, he would burn her little world to the ground.  

   He could have simply shadow-stepped into Cannibal Town, he was familiar with every nook and cranny of his former “owner”’s territory. However, he was well aware of his own pets’ individual quirks and he was counting on Husker overstepping himself and confronting the spider. So when his shadow let him know the bartender had entered Blackout, he tempered his need to obliterate any possible remnants of his wife and instead stepped into his shadow and out into the alley beside his favorite Butcher’s shop. 

   He sneered from the shadows at the display of the two sinners, too weak to simply take what they wanted from each other. 

Too weak to protect what mattered to them.

He slithered into the spider’s home while they bit at each other like scared, wounded hounds. Too distracted trying to keep their hearts guarded to notice the danger around them. 

He slipped through the flat, keen to understand as much as he could before confronting the spider directly. As it had been at the hotel, the spider’s room was a starlit’s quarters, silks and fairy lights, clothes and make-up strewn about. The spider was a hurricane, and his room reflected that. It was the other room that drew his attention. The outfit that hung from the door was too small for the spider, too tame. The room itself was almost militant in its tidiness, sterile in an unlived in kind of way. The rumbled bed sheets however attested to someone having slept there. The room smelled strongly of the spider’s overly sweet perfumes, but he could just detect the subtle musk of a vixen. A single set of laundered clothes on top of a white vanity dresser similar in size to the other outfit, told him the vixen’s presence was new but permanent. The spider did not need a roommate, and as far as Alastor was aware he wasn’t interested in the gentler sex, so who was this vixen and why was she taking up with the spider? 

It was a dangerous thing to do in the current climate. Vox’s use of the spider to promote war had left the blue-film star as a bit of a scapegoat for the masses discontent after the fallout. The moth dropping him like yesterday’s news certainly did not make being connected to the spider a safe place for any sinner. 

  With nothing to point to answers, he now had more questions to put to the spider.

The spider’s sins were many, he was weak and emotional, and a coward. Alastor knew how to use cowards, he knew how to use emotions, but he knew he wouldn’t have to. Angel would do it for him. 

He didn’t have to wait long, as the spindly creature crawled in his misery and attempted to numb it. 

Two bottles in and the spider’s sobs became hiccups, three bottles and he lurched to his feet and began ranting, four and he slumped onto his couch staring into nothing. 

Alastor stepped from the shadows, a smile stretching across his face and pressed his staff against the spider’s sternum before he could attempt to sit up.

“Helloooo, my effeminate friend!” he crowed, showman voice in full effect, “You have been a very busy spider this past month. Tell me about it!”