Chapter Text
For all that Alastor didn't care to be touched, for all he objected to the vulgar language younger generations tossed about willy-nilly without an iota of decency or self-respect, he was not, as so many assumed, disgusted by sex as a concept.
He simply had no drive to partake himself. He had awaited it patiently in his youth, if not without trepidation, but it had never come. He had felt no stirrings at fifteen, no pressing need at twenty, and when at twenty-five he was still left twiddling his thumbs, so to speak, he had come to the conclusion that whatever it was he was meant to be feeling was not going to arrive.
He had a keen eye for beauty of all kinds, however. He had fooled himself into thinking he understood desire a time or two, with the smooth expanse of a swan-like neck or the pleasing dip and swell of full hips and a narrow waist, sheathed tastefully in shining pearl sateen. The human body could be quite splendid, both outside and in, when such soft skin parted to reveal lovely layers of marbled yellow fat and pink ribbons of gore, sweet and steaming between his paws. But time and bitter experience had shown him that his ardor for all things rich and resplendent was not what the world spoke of, spun around, and immortalized in song.
It did not mean he did not want. It merely meant that he wanted things in a manner incompatible with "normalcy". Ill-suited to understanding, much less reciprocation.
He did not need reciprocation on the hunt. In fact, resistance from his prey was desirable, and the more violent the better. He wanted them to run, to scream, to try every trick their little ape minds could muster to outwit him, and when he overtook them he wanted to witness their desperation to the last. He wanted to bask in the role of the predator, then crack and suck the marrow from the bones of their beauty, to take everything that was lovely out of its putrid, unworthy shell and make it his own.
A lack of consent was part of what gave his hedonistic rampages their charm. As such, he found himself quite at loose ends now that his ravenous and unconventional lust had fixated on a muse whose willingness would be essential to his enjoyment. He was not accustomed to grasping beauty in his claws without sinking them into its splendid flesh.
And Angel Dust was indeed beautiful. A more splendid creature Hell could never provide.
Oh, his attitude was horribly crass, to be sure, and his sense of humor relied far too much on crudity for such a sharp wit, but it was impossible to deny his physical perfection, and the man himself was plainly aware of it. Aware, and adept at showcasing it to its utmost. He gave an impression of effortless allure, but Alastor looked at him through a predator's eyes, and he could see that every sinuous turn of hips and spine, every toss of the head and slow arc of crossed and re-crossed legs was perfectly controlled, calculated to emphasize his assets with delicacy and grace. He was utterly self-possessed in spite of Valentino's ownership, a talent he clearly could not have achieved without years of practice and refinement.
Angel Dust was, in short, a consummate performer, and like was always drawn to like. Alastor was a showman, and art, no matter how garish the medium, was still art. It was the only reason he could comprehend for stalking Angel into the Lust Quarter with the intention of attending one of Valentino's vulgar cabarets.
Not in person, of course. Were he to be spotted, the despicable moth would be sure to gloat, but his shadow's feet came unstitched from his own in the concealment of an adjoining alleyway and slithered into the spaces between the neon lights with a silent peal of laughter, expanding to fill the arboreal gloom of "Paradisco" like an eldritch fog that settled subtle and oppressive on the skin of all inside. The synthetic trash the dancers spun and shimmied to crackled for a fleeting moment, and a wave of unease flickered across the slavering crowd, but the disruption was brief. The real show was about to begin.
The dancers twirling on tables and smaller stages had been hors d'oeuvres, mere appetizers to the main course. The lights dimmed, pink smoke billowing from concealed fog machines on either side of the runway projected from the main stage, and when the curtains parted a neon spiderweb illuminated behind a willowy silhouette, draped along a pole in the center of a tiered dais. Angel's head was downcast, bangs obscuring his face. From a hundred thousand monstrous eyes Alastor saw him take a deep breath, bare chest rising and falling as if to brace himself.
And then his primary eyes opened, piercing the crowd with their magenta glow. His markings illuminated, and his third set of arms unfolded from his slender waist, framing the black outline of his backlit body alongside the lower pair. Angel's thighs parted, and he was suddenly bathed in heliotropic light, surging synthetic tones rippling up from under the bassline, revealing him in all his splendor.
Angel traced a delicate circle with the toe of his thigh-high boot, drawing the audience's attention before pulling it up along with his leg - knee to chest, then extended fully above his head, joined by his other leg in a fan-like kick that spun him around the pole and displayed the garters holding up his stockings, the athletic black spats concealing his groin beneath a hot pink skirt. He held himself aloft with only his upper hands, lower set stretching out to frame the rotation of his hips, briefly revealing the sinuous curve of his spine, so slim and soft the shadows pulsed against the pyrotechnics keeping them from surging out to touch.
Angel turned to face his audience with a cocksure grin, leaning out from his grip on the pole. The hard muscles of his stomach rippled under his fur, lean obliques drawing the eye down to the heart-shaped window in his skirt, disclosing an obscene suggestion of denser pubic fur. Mascara sharply underlined his dichromatic eyes for emphasis, turned up into the stagelights as he strutted a circuit around the dais, and Alastor realized that Angel was singing, as well. I think I deserve some praise for the way that I am, he cried, brash and proud, and dark infrasound rippled under the thudding bass of the music as the shadows crooned their whole-hearted agreement.
Angel kicked one leg high with perfect form then dropped to the floor, ascended, rolling his chest, stomach, pelvis into the pole like curling smoke rising from an extinguished cigarette. His other leg arced up and he leaped into a breathless spin, suspended by the pole gripped between his thighs, one hand above, another below. He threw his head back as he turned, then let go with his hands to throw his arms out over his head, seemingly held up by nothing but the crook of his knee and the hard flex of his plush thighs. His firm white belly bore the entire weight of his upper body as he whirled, around and around, and somewhere beyond that stage blackened claws had slit through Alastor's gloves and carved crumbling scores into the brick against which he leaned, utterly deranged, all eyes and teeth and teeth and teeth.
When he came to a stop Angel's back was briefly turned to his audience. A euphoric smile had taken him as he gave in to the raw exhilaration of his craft, but for a moment, just a moment, his expression fell where no one else could see, and that flicker of a look penetrated even Alastor's own dismally underdeveloped empathy. It was a look of such abject misery that it jarred the senses, cracked clean and revealed Angel's performance for what it was: a carefully-constructed character sullied by consumers that treated it like cheap rah-ree. Not a one of these demons saw or cared to see Angel's talent, his breathtaking athleticism, his passion for the stage. Wasted, wasted on this slime, like a precious gem set in costume jewelry to be worn by plebeians and fools.
And then there was the scent of noxious cherries and bitter almonds, cyanide and schnapps coiling out toward the dancer to wrap around his neck like a second choker, lift his chin and turn his head. Valentino lounged beyond the end of the catwalk with an obsequious hussy on either arm, smiling with all his teeth as if the filed nubs of a household pest could ever compete with the genuine article.
Angel Dust's sweet little fangs had a right to their sharpness when he flashed them in defiance, a webspinner who by all natural laws ought to sink those teeth into Valentino's squirming flesh, to paralyze, liquefy his innards while the insect was still alive, suck him dry and leave him, a papery husk ensnared in silky filaments as strong as iron. Each step illuminated as Angel descended from the dais, advancing on his captor like a sleek, prowling cat, and when he struck his pose and reached out toward the lounge with hooked, beckoning claws, something in Valentino seemed to briefly comprehend that they were meant to capture and kill the likes of him, no matter how prettily they were painted.
Angel turned with a neat twist of one hip and flipped his hair, strutting back toward his rightful place on center stage, and when a greedy, greasy paw reached up out of the unwashed masses to briefly grasp perfection, Angel flexed one of those powerful thighs and kicked the mangy demon clean across the pit, bowling over a salamander and some porcine monstrosity in the bargain.
Angel dropped to the ground, kicked up his leg, spun into a split. That cherry-almond stench twined around his neck and wrists in a vulgar pantomime of chains, as though his position on all sixes was a gesture of submission and not a carnivore's prowl, and the distorted abomination in the alleyway clenched its jaw until black bile ran between its teeth, dripping off the exposed bone of its chin. Neon flared as Alastor expanded his consciousness to fill the club with the incomprehensible entirety of himself, saturated the shadows so deeply that Angel's pale fur luminesced in the unnatural dark. There would be no gleaming heart-shaped glasses or leering silhouettes to cheapen the finale of Angel's set. He would not allow it. The shadows radiated throbbing infrasound so deep it was not heard but felt, pulsating in the marrow and infecting the thumping music with power, raw and utterly primal.
Angel almost seemed to feel it, energy swelling up within him as he raised his upper arms over his head, cupped and pushed up his bust with his lower hands. He transitioned from a split to fall languidly onto his back, draped across the runway where his legs could steal the show, lengthy and limber and so tantalizingly concealed at all times. The scant inches of ivory thighs visible between stockings and skirt called out to be touched with reverent claws, squeezed, followed all the way down the long line of his shins to the flawless en pointe of his toes.
Angel arched his back, caressed his bosom, pushed his fingers through his hair, eyes closed behind the filter Alastor had cast over his reality, and the seething core of the shadows begged him to keep them closed, to ignore the crowd and dance as he had in that dizzy spin upon the pole, uninhibited, as though no one were watching and nothing mattered but his own joy in the deed. Alastor felt as if he was fighting against something just beyond his reach, some pit of acrid rage and pain buried where he couldn't extract it without cracking Angel's ribcage open like butterfly wings and reaching inside.
It persisted through the rest of the performance, but Angel sang, he danced, climbing and twirling and thrusting, dominating the room with his stage presence. It was only when the crowd began to rain sweat-stained wads of bills down on him that Angel's mind broke through the illusion - the need to placate Valentino's greed overtaking his artistic passion, no doubt. The burlesque grew increasingly lewd and overdone, calculated to arouse his audience beyond sense until they emptied their wallets at his feet, and the bitter commercialism of the thing at last forced Alastor to withdraw, lest such an extraordinary performance be sullied before his eyes.
When Angel only returned to the hotel in the pre-dawn hours, smelling of cherries and cortisol, the viciousness that reared up inside of Alastor and burst behind the dials of his eyes was so intense that he had to vacate the premises at once. By blood-red noon the Wrath Sector had been reminded just how wrathful he could be.
The burlesque show had been a revelation, had elevated Angel Dust in his world from an artifact to an artist, and Alastor needed more. He took to stalking the spider across the city when he wasn't checked in at the hotel, observing his daily activities, looking for that spark Valentino had been so foul as to snatch from him. Shadows stalked Angel while he shopped - Coco Chanel, a sympathizer of these so-called "Nazi's," had of course made her product available the moment she was dropped into the Envy Sector on her ass, directly across from a Mr. Hugo Boss. His lovely muse swanned about town draping himself in clothes far more tasteful than Valentino's stylists could ever arrange, swathed in dandy perfumes, and treated himself to a triple-manicure and facial. He spent time with the feisty little cyclops who had been unleashing the most delicious havoc on that simpleton Vox's territory of late, then seemed to consider purchasing a packet of no doubt fentanyl-laced methamphetamine on the subway, before begging off with a quavering laugh and making a bee-line back to the Happy Hotel, reeking of stress and frustration.
It would have been a lovely day, quite well-spent, had Angel elected to stay put once he arrived in his room, but after an hour or so of primping he emerged, a scandalously short black bodycon dress hugging his curves, lush bosom all but spilling out of the neckline. He scribbled his name and destination in the sign-in book - Kinkybootz, Work - then stepped out into the lowering clouds of nightfall. Charlie, sweet, sunny, and smiling, failed to notice that Alastor no longer cast a shadow. Husker evidently did, his tail flicking as he hid his muzzle in a full tumbler of bourbon and tried not to look or be too interested. It was rather funny that, for once, whatever audacious misdeeds the old tom imagined he was plotting were likely far worse that his actual scheme.
He was only looking after their most prized guest, after all.
The rest of the evening was something of a blur, his own vision overlaid by the thousand, thousand ultraviolet impressions the shadows fed back into him, capturing Angel Dust from every possible angle all at once. He had applied golden glitter to his eyelids, long lashes swept up and out with a fine touch of mascara, and while Alastor thought the sheer quantity of blush the spider had used made him look like a painted harlot, that was, he supposed, the name of Angel's game for the evening. And likely the early morning, as well.
Therein lay the problem. He had found the appeal to Angel's exotic dancing, and he had less than no interest in his pornographic picture shows so long as he was not expected to view them, but the first time he watched Angel dip to brace his elbows through the window of a hideous boar demon's car to present an enticing view of his chest, he felt so ill he was required to spin a creative half-truth to mask his distaste from Niffty and Vagatha. When Angel actually entered the vehicle, he made his excuses and left to attend to the accounting in privacy.
It was a travesty. The brute parked in an alley and shoved Angel Dust's head into his groin without preamble, seeming to take great pleasure in choking the spider on his member. Angel took this in remarkable stride, though by the time the beast twisted his grue onto his heaving, corpulent lap and gracelessly shoved himself inside, Angel's eyeliner had begun to run. A single black tentacle slithered up out of the sewer grate beneath the sedan as it rocked, easing under the hood to coil around a tube Alastor was reasonably certain had something to do with the infernal contraption's brakes. It gave him some satisfaction as the boar squealed off down the avenue, leaving Angel to check and fix his makeup in a handheld compact.
But then there was the wolverine that failed to heed Angel's warning to keep his claws sheathed, and the rottweiler adamant in his refusal to use the condom Angel so graciously provided him, the smarmy crocodile with diamond studs in every tooth, the weasel who played at having "forgotten" his wallet when the deed was done - this one he didn't even have to punish himself once Angel turned his back, as the spider's own cleverly-hidden sidearm sufficed to settle the dispute. By the time Alastor trailed Angel and a particularly handsy leopard into a mediocre motel he was quaking with outrage, forced to observe the contrast between Angel's beauty and these animals' ugliness as they carelessly undid all the artful flourishes Angel had made to his appearance in preparation for their "patronage".
Alastor was leaning against Husk's bar the next night, stock-still and grinning maniacally into the middle distance, agonizing over his sudden and overwhelming compulsion to impede by any means what was, realistically, Angel's only source of independent income. Angel Dust, unfortunate creature, was seemingly made to be adored, whether he wanted to be or not. By the crass, the philistine, the utterly unappreciative, by those who hadn't the faintest notion of the true value of beauty in a brutally ugly world.
"So, whose dick do I gotta suck to suck a dick around here?" Alastor's ears shot straight up at the sound of that brassy accent, and his neck cracked audibly to face the doors. Angel had exchanged the black little number for a pink, off-the shoulder dress slit asymmetrically from thigh to hip, candy-striped stockings and white knee-high boots. He looked altogether charming, and he was undoubtedly on his way to be defiled by another dozen dirty hands and other distasteful extremities.
"Angel! So kind of you to join us, my effeminate friend!" He said, perhaps a tad too loudly, given the way his companions startled and whipped around to stare. He made an effort to soften the blow with his sunniest smile, which incidentally took up more than half of his face, and didn't really seem to help all that much. "Would you care to join our little late-night soiree?" Alastor asked, undeterred. "Come, sit, have a nightcap before bed!"
"Uh-huh," Angel replied, cutting Husker a sidelong glance as he slid onto a stool, altogether too far away from Alastor's own. "Sure thing, big boy. Can't stay too long, though - people t'do, places t'be, you know." The spider winked, then seemed to finally register the deserted lounge. "Say, where is everybody? It is Friday, ain't it?"
"Ask Bright-Eyes over there," Husker grunted, seemingly recovered from his recent shock, as his tail no longer looked quite so much like a bottle brush. "You try selling hooch when you get static discharge from licking your fillings and the juke will only play Patience and Prudence on repeat." So saying, he slid an immaculately-crafted Cosmopolitan into place at Angel's topmost right hand, complete with the most delicate twist of lemon zest. Alastor always had been in the habit of collecting souls with a certain artistic touch.
"Thanks, Husky. You know just how I like it." The huskiness of Angel's voice might otherwise have been delightfully punny, but just now Alastor couldn't quite seem to appreciate the humor. Nor was he fond of how quickly Angel was dispensing with his drink - clearly enjoying the craftsmanship, but evidently in too much of a hurry to savor it. When he set the glass down and smacked his glossy lips, seemingly prepared to leave already, Alastor found himself floundering in a moment of unaccountable panic, flipping through a mental rolodex of reasons that the spider simply must stay in tonight.
"Sorry, boys, but I gotta split," Angel said, turning prettily on his stool and making for the door. "Thanks for the pre-game! Don't wait up!"
"Come now, cher, whatever is the hurry?" Alastor blurted out, still entirely unsure of his plan and more than a little cross about it. "Surely your devotees can wait a little longer to circumambulate your charms!" He was getting just a little too bombastic again, he could tell, but he found he simply couldn't help it. Not when his dear Angel was so perilously close to the door. "Why not stay on for a few more hours? Drinks on the house!"
Husk sputtered. "Now hang on a sec-"
"How about it, my dear?" Alastor spoke over his indignant minion, rising from his stool to tap a merry, manic rhythm on the floor with one well-shod toe. "The night is still young, as they say!"
Angel cocked his head back to eye him, floating somewhere between bemusement and, he hoped, some exasperated breed of fondness. "Sorry, Smiles; 'less you changed your mind about that blowie, I gotta go get paid," Angel purred over his freckled shoulder, raking immaculate acrylic nails through his artfully tousled hair and cocking one sleek hip. His gold tooth glinted fiercely in the gas lamplight. "I know I make it look easy, but lookin' this good ain't cheap."
Unnecessarily revealing as Angel's accoutrement might be, he was truly a vision. Such trappings were unworthy of the body whose virtue made even these skimpy rags glitter like finery. Alastor ached, head spinning with all the ways one might see that brazen poise accentuated to its utmost potential.
He cleared his throat with a crackle of static and widened his smile, yellow teeth splitting his face from ear to ear. "Why, what luck! While I must again decline your most, ah, generous offer, Angel Dust, I have indeed changed my mind! About employing your services, that is." Angel's glossy mouth dropped into a soft 'o', brows shooting into the concealment of his bangs. Husk was either choking on his own saliva behind the bar, or else finally coughing up that stubborn hairball he had been struggling with all week. Alastor chuckled. "You needn't look at me like I've eaten a second head, my dear. I'm given to understand you are a man of some variety! I'm certain you've something in your capacious repertoire that I would be willing to pay for!"
Angel blinked. Closed and opened his mouth. Blinked again. "Y-, uh, I mean...shit, you ain't serious, are ya?"
"As a pulmonary embolism!" Alastor clapped his hands together, cueing a raucous laugh track. "I admit to being quite the Machiavellian, but I am not a man given to lie."
Angel snorted. "Pretty sure ya don't get ta have it both ways, Al."
"I must! Words have no power unless they are at least technically true. Magic is delightfully tricky that way."
"Right," Angel replied, drawing out the first syllable, but he had turned fully to face Alastor again. "Uh...look, Smiles, any other day I'd hop on ya dick no questions asked," Angel winced against a sharp screech of feedback. Husker seemed to have abruptly made himself scarce. "But I got a gig lined up with some studio fatcat, real big spender, already booked for the whole weekend. Val will skin my furry ass to line a coat if I welch out, and I don't see you ponying up that much dough for whatever it is you want me for."
"I assure you, mon ange, that price is no object," Alastor purred, summoning a fountain pen and roan deerskin checkbook with a snap of his fingers. He opened the latter with a neat flick of the wrist and pressed the sharp nib of the pen into his tongue, drawing blood. He left all fields blank except for the whimsically sinister loops of his signature, then ripped the check free and offered it to Angel between two fingers. "Whatever beau du jour that insufferable moth has foisted upon you this time, I guarantee he hasn't half the resources I have at my disposal. Choose a sum sufficient to unruffle the cretin's gaudy feather, and have him inform your client that he has been outbid for your time. You will find me in my office when these tawdry formalities have been dispensed with, and we can negotiate terms."
Alastor left Angel Dust slack-mouthed with one arm suspended in mid-air, vantablack check drooping limply in hand. Alastor was the very essence of confidence and poise as the double doors swung wide before his power, coattails flying, wingtip shoes clicking smartly across the lobby floor. Red soles flashed with each step as he ascended the imperial staircase, offering a glimpse of the black cloven hoofprint embossed on the instep of each.
It was only after he reached the second floor that he allowed his ears and tail to bristle, cervical vertebrae snapping wildly into new and interesting configurations.
He hadn't the faintest intention of letting Angel Dust know how uncharacteristically spontaneous that conversation had been, but that left him in a dreadful pickle. Namely, that he had just solicited a sex worker for the first time in his life, and even he couldn't fool himself into believing he would know what to do with Angel once he had him.