Too Much of You's Too Much to Swallow
Summary: Angel has a rough morning after work; it's more complicated than it looks. (Hazbin Hotel Omegaverse AU)
Warnings: Val/Angel and all it entails, referenced death, drug use, withdrawal
WC: 2.1k | AO3
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“You smell like shit, you know,” Husk says, placing two glasses on the bar top.
“What happened to hello?” Angel asks. At least Husk pours them both a generous serving, and doesn’t complain about the refill when it’s gone in a single swallow. “Good mornin’ to you too, Husk. Sleep well? Have any wet dreams?” Usually, the cheap liquor burns after the sweet, sedating smoke that surrounds Val as strongly as his sugary scent, but Angel is too exhausted for anything to register past the comfortable warmth in his belly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were insulting me.”
After a loaded beat, Husk tells him, “You have jizz on your sweater.”
Sure enough, when Angel looks down, his black lapel has a shiny, milky stain that gums together his chest fluff as well, though Husk probably couldn’t tell. He must not’ve done as good a job as he thought swallowing. After working all day and night, his coke stash dwindling by the hour, he hadn’t had the energy to shower before pulling on his clothes and stumbling toward the door like a newborn faun. Maybe if he had, Val wouldn’t have stopped him to refresh his claim.
“Wonder how it got there,” Angel deadpans. “Listen, porn critic, I just pulled a double at the studio, and if you’re gonna be an asshole, I’ll take the bottle up to my room.”
One of Husk’s ears flicks as his scent sharpens in acrid frustration. On a better day, Angel would sink his teeth into the reaction, and on a worse one, he’d already be on his way upstairs, but for now, he’s simply too tired to react. It doesn’t matter what Husk thinks of him, anyway. Everybody knows who he is—what he is—so Angel doesn’t see why Husk is mocking him for it again.
“Angel-”
“No, no, it’s fine,” he lies. His second glass is gone in two sips, but Husk doesn’t pour him another. Instead, he looks at Angel with his flat, dark eyes, his mouth thinned to a disapproving line, and his wings bristling to blow his pheromones over the counter. Luxurious bourbon, oak, and molasses have become so familiar that a pavlovian comfort drapes around Angel despite the discomfort of their conversation. “Val’s in a mood, which means I’m havin’ a bad high.” That much is true. “So, if it’s not too much to ask, can I please finish my drink in peace?”
Begrudgingly, Husk refills his glass. “Last one until you’ve had a shower and a nap. You actually reek,” he says.
“Fuck you.”
With a huff of effort, Angel pushes his exhausted body from the barstool and heads to his room with his drink. The glass will find its way back to the bar after the next time Niffty cleans, and he can’t face Husk any longer in his current state. Deep down, he knows the comments are meant as a fucked-up expression of concern, but he’s too tired for it to feel like anything beyond an insult. Obviously, he smells bad to Husk: he’s stained by Valentino.
In the elevator, Angel fishes in his pockets for whatever drugs he has left. Val promised him a re-up on his way to the studio the other day, but never delivered, and Angel wasn’t stupid enough to ask after being left on the floor, dripping snot from his nose and cum from his lips. The contact high of his smoke has been enough but if Angel doesn’t get something serious soon, he’ll be in trouble. The shakes are already starting. He doesn’t have enough coke for a line, but the baggie is still powdery, so he pours a shot of his drink in to dissolve it. Swishing it around in his mouth before he swallows, he feels the moment it hits. No high. Just a few more minutes to find a real stash.
As he stumbles into his room, he finishes his drink and slams it on the dresser hard enough for a crack to shoot up its side. Angel swears under his breath. Maybe Niffty won’t tell on him if he asks nicely. He can’t think about it now, because the top of his dresser is clear and so is the top drawer of his dresser, mindlessly ransacked by his lower set of hands. Sometimes he has pills or weed tucked between his panties but, as he thought, it ran out last week. The bottom drawer is even less likely to have drugs, but Angel still drops to his knees and prays for a baggie surviving in a pocket somewhere.
Fruitless still, he turns to his nightstands, which only produce an empty pack of Val’s laced cigarettes, his suppressants, and a wrinkled, used tab of acid he chews on in case there’s any trace left. He turns his covers and upends his mattress, empties his first aid kit and unloads his makeup bag, combs his carpet and cleans his counters, all for naught.
He plops down on his bed hopelessly, prompting Fat Nugget to crawl into his lap with an excited squeal. Angel remembers, with a tinge of shame, to check to make sure Nugs’ food and water aren’t empty. Charlie keeps an eye on him while Angel’s at the studio, but he still should’ve made sure first thing.
“Do you know if Daddy has any drugs hidin’ in here?” he asks.
Nugs snuffles one of Angel’s hands.
“No, guess not.”
He doesn’t have the cash on hand to buy anything, either. Val has been stingier than usual, ever since the battle with the exorcists didn’t destroy the hotel, leaving Angel scraping by when he’s not at the Vee tower- a prison he’s happy to escape until his next call time.
If Cherri has a stash at the hotel she’ll share, but Angel won’t leave his room until he’s presentable again, which he can’t manage without a pick-me-up. He decides to call her, putting his phone on speaker to free up his hands.
“Angie, you better be dying,” she groans.
“I might die if I don’t get high soon,” Angel replies, only half-joking. “I know it’s early, but I just got home. It was a really long shoot, and Val didn’t give me my shit, and I promise I’ll make it up to ya the second I can! I swear! I just really need somethin’ like, now, so, could I mooch? I only need enough to get through the day.”
Cherri sighs, long-suffering, before saying, “Yeah, what do you want?”
“I ain’t picky,” he answers, blinking back tears of relief. “Whatever you can spare. I gotta clean up from work but I can’t unless-” his voice breaks.
He can’t finish the sentence aloud, but he doesn’t have to for Cherri to promise a hand-delivery and promptly hang up. Running a bath feels less daunting with the promise of drugs on the way to make the studio’s remnants less pungent. His ensuite has a full-sized tub, big enough for him to sprawl out in, and he pours a generous helping of bubble bath alongside the faucet as it fills. The gentle, floral scent will cut through the muck and leave him feeling clean again. As clean as Angel gets, anyway.
The stain Husk pointed out sticks to his fur when he peels off his sweater, but doesn’t pull any out, which he counts as a win. In the process of stripping his socks, Angel finds a few more splotches he’ll need Niffty’s help to remove, and determines the panties are too torn to be worth mending. Val likes destroying Angel’s clothes almost as much as he likes buying him new ones, like a sex doll and a barbie rolled into one.
He leaves them in a puddle on the floor to turn off the tap. Steam, pure water vapor that barely catches the light from the vanity over the sink, swirls above the surface in a gentle invitation he can’t refuse. Angel steps into the tub carefully enough not to slip and sinks down until only his head peaks above the surface.
At that moment, Cherri bursts into his room without knocking. “Hello?”
“Bathroom, toots,” he calls back.
“What kinda high do you want?” She picks her way through the wreckage to his bathroom, toting a plastic bag she probably plucked from the floor. “Are we partying after this? Or are you passing the fuck out?”
“I think I need to sleep for the next fifty years,” Angel admits. “Do you have ketamine?”
Cherri plops down on the toilet seat. “Probably.” Rustling through the bag, she glances up at Angel long enough to catch the twitching of his eye. “You’re a mess. Valentino really left you like this?”
A barked laugh bubbles from his lips. “Oh, ‘cause he’s so compassionate?”
“No.” Her search produces a hand-rolled joint. “This has ketamine, fentanyl, and weed in it?” When Angel nods, she fishes out a lighter, before continuing. “Val’s a piece of shit, but he’s predictable. I thought he liked you better all...”
“Stoned out of my mind?” he fills in. Cherri takes the first drag and holds it in her lungs while Angel has a hit. They exhale at the same time, imperfect grey clouds drifting toward the air vent together. “Yeah, normally. He’s been weird the past couple weeks.” A flutter of ash falls into his bathwater. “Maybe he fought with Vox again. He always gets extra needy when they’re on the outs.” After a couple more hits, Angel’s body feels far away enough for him to grab the soap. “Pass me a washcloth?”
She hands him one from the stack on the counter, and he soaks it in s pool of soap to create a foamy lather. Out of habit, he winks at Cherri before starting to wash, prompting a chortle that expels smoke between her teeth.
“You don’t think he suspects anything?”
Angel takes his next hit while scrubbing his chest fluff. It never feels soft anymore, no matter how often he conditions or oils it, from all the different cumshots he’s filmed in his decades-long career. “I’m only what, two or three days overdue?” He has to be gentle with his legs. His fur hides bruises and scrapes well, but they’re still tender and raw beneath. “And Val’s an idiot. He probably doesn’t keep track of that.”
Eventually, Val will have to realize Angel’s heat hasn’t come. They’re the most profitable days of the year, and the source of Angel’s most critically acclaimed pornos that get framed posters in the halls of Vee tower. If it was just Val, devoting three days to fucking Angel and taking care of him like a real mate, he wouldn’t mind; the johns and the cameras are just too much, and after fighting the exorcists and Adam, secretly taking suppressants doesn’t feel as terrifying as it used to.
“What’s your plan when that backfires?” Cherri asks. She snubs their joint in Angel’s ashtray, then lets her head fall back onto the toilet tank. “I support you, you know that, but this is definitely blowing up in your face.”
“Gee, thanks for your vote of confidence.”
He doesn’t have another plan. Maybe, if he’s lucky, Val will drug him into oblivion so he doesn’t have to feel or remember what will surely be the worst night of his death and a series of record-breaking pornos. That’s usually how it goes, because Val says he’s sexier when he isn’t talking back, but he can feel Val’s ice-cold temper thinning beneath his feet every time he steps into the studio and he’s not sure an escape is guaranteed when he inevitably falls through.
“I just want one thing,” he whispers, “one fucking piece of me that he can’t have.”
She hums, sympathetic and soft. “I know, Angie, but you’re picking a massive fight here. I’m the one who always scrapes you off the pavement after you piss him off, remember?” Her scent sharpens with citrus concern, helping her words remind him of all the mornings coming to on her couch. Coming back hurts worse than dying, but Val has never even threatened him with angelic steel, so Angel permits himself to revel in the relief the pain of revival brings. “With everything going on, I’m just worried about you.”
“Well, I can handle myself,” he reminds, as if he didn’t call her begging for drugs not too long ago, and won’t ask for her help getting out of the tub so he doesn’t fall. The soap and dirt in the water make it slippery, even when he isn’t loose-limbed and battered, and if she helps him, he doesn’t have to look at the color of the water.
“Promise you’ll be careful?”
Angel shuts his eyes and relaxes into the water. “You know me, baby.”
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