Archive of Our Own ^beta

Anthony Angel Dust 

The day Anthony sold half of his soul to Valentino and gave birth to Angel Dust, he was not so much as high on cocaine but rather flying on it as he giggled and kissed the moth demon’s knife-sharp chin all while signing his damned afterlife away with a single flourish of a pink glitter pen. He’s not blaming the drug on his bad decision…well decisions, okay? But it for sure didn’t help him think better.

He has not, however, even seen a speck of crack for his common sense to be obfusticated when on one normal hellish evening he hisses to Husk, “they’re fucking —nasty raw dogging begging on their knees while blaspheming type of fucking—I tell you!”

“This is Hell, everyone is blaspheming.” Their bartender, and Angel’s favorite buddy in the unique clique in Hell called Losers Who Sold Their Souls Away To Psychopatic Maniacs, just rolls his feline eyes at him as he wipes yet another whiskey glass.

“They’re not fucking, they,” Husk clarifies, pointing a furry thumb at where the hotel’s facility manager and their landlady’s dearest father are headbutting over the color of the new couches in the lounge (personally, Angel is in love with the red leather framed with gold His Royal Majesty has chosen but he does see dear old Alastor’s point of it being a little bit too extravagant for what Charlie wants to convey for their happy hotel), “are fighting.”

“Alastor is like, ugh, what do you call those insects?” He continues, squinting at the lip of the glass to see if it still bears Angel Dust lip tint (it does, not that Angel is going to tell him that so easily), “Preying…black something?”

“You mean a black widow? A praying mantis?” Angel Dust asks with a raised brow, “both them fucks before killing their mate, you know that, right?”

A loud screech echoes throughout the hall, the distinct sounds of flapping wings following a few beats after. Then, static chases the sounds to silence. From the corner of Angel’s many eyes, he can see the shapes of black-green shadows moving in an almost seductively sinuous manner. Something is burning with tortured groans beneath those shadows.

“Fine, that was a bad analogy,” Husk groans, “what I mean is that he’d rather kill and eat anyone who makes an overture to him.” 

“Uh huh,” Angel says, leaning over so he can run a fingertip along the middle of Husk’s eyebrows to his stubby nose. He doesn’t know which got him more electrified, the way the fur bristles against his or the fact that Husker just lets him do it with nothing more than a half-hearted grumble.

“And how do you know that, hot stuff? Made your own sexual overtures to our strawberry pimp before?” He leans in closer, making those fake moans he knows the other demon hates as he pinches and pulls on the bit of fur that would be called a beard if Husk were still human, “you’re making me jealous. Why aren’t you making those kinds of offers to me?”

The other demon, unsurprisingly, grabs Angel Dust’s wrist and keeps it still lest it wanders too far down for his liking. 

He however, surprisingly, does not pull his hand away or step back to reclaim his sacrosanct personal space. 

Angel blinks at him—

Well that was new. 

Before he could think about it further though, the lack of movement suddenly made him aware how low he hovered over Husker, how he can almost smell his booze-scented breath, how Husk is eye level to Angel’s chest fluff which he hadn’t bother to rearrange from the slutty impression of cleavages Val tucked them in.

Angel feels heat travel up his face.

“No,” Husk drawls, claws tapping gently on Angel’s skin, “but I’ve known him for decades. Enough time to see his kinks.”

“Which are…?” He prompts, not moving an inch because if Husk is not moving then why should Angel Dust?

“None,” the bartender snorts, “he just likes fucking around with people’s tempers. It doesn’t really help that Our Highness’ feathers are so easy to ruffle.”

As if on cue, the unique staticky laughter of their hotel manager rings out to the beat of Their Highness’ slew of rather prude but creative curses.

Still not breaking away from the almost imperceptible grip Husk probably forgot he still has over Angel’s wrist, Anthony turns back toward Alastor and Lucifer.

Their Royal Evilness, Serpent in the Garden, and Downfall of Humanity, is now pointing a fire-breathing rubber duck at the Radio Demon’s still wide, knife-sharp grin. 

Alastor, meanwhile, looks like he’s having the time of his after life burning the red leather couches behind them.

Their eyes are locked into each other while they close the distance between them, gritted teeth by gritted teeth.

No one gets that close to someone they don’t intend to bone. Angel knows this. It’s Hell’s own miracle that nobody but him seems clued in on this.

However physically impossible, Alastor inches even closer to His Royal Evilness.

Their noses are practically kissing.

“Ehh,” Angel rests his head on a loose fist, some of his hair tickling Husk’s chin which he knows his bartender secretly likes, “I still think they’re fucking.”

Husk er

Despite their resident porn star’s repetitive and quite vehement assertions that the King of Hell and The Radio Demon are fucking and will be caught in flagrante delicto any day now (Angel acting as if being the one who catches them is his afterlife’s most important mission), Husk does not believe it so.

There is however something going on between those two malevolent entities that Husk sure wants nothing to do with.

“What’s happening,” the Princess’ own angel asks, rubbing at her sole working eye as she approaches Husk’s bar.

“They’re fighting over the lounge couches this time,” Angel summarizes, leaning back to flick at the tuft of blonde hair bouncing near her forehead with its ends caught behind her ear.

Husk lets go of the other demon’s wrist to start cleaning his whiskey glass again.

“Ugh,” she replies, propping herself onto one of the stools before burying her head into her hands, “I thought they agreed on the motif last night?”

Angel shrugs two sets of his shoulders, “not at how extravagant we wanted it to be, apparently.”

She groans again, voice muffled by her hands.

Husk scoffs, placing the whiskey glass down to pull out a mug from its warming cabinet, “not to be cliche, but hell’s going to freeze over first before those two truly agree on something.”

Fresh coffee from an electric machine whose existence in the hotel His Highness has won over Husk’s boss in a bitter power flexing battle that lasted for over a week is poured into the mug followed by a cube of sugar, two fingers of whiskey and then topped with fresh cream. All of these ingredients Husk is smart enough not to question how the Royal Highness has smuggled into his bar under Alastor’s watchful, and if not a little bit petty, eye. If he spends more than a moment thinking about it, his brain would come up with scenarios like The Radio Demon actually agreeing to some kind of deal with the monarch of Hell over pantry stocks. 

Husk shivers with just the impulsive thought of it.

He slides the drink over to the angel, ex-angel perhaps, or whatever, what does Husk know about the hierarchy of angels? He's just a barkeep. 

(Remember, kids: if you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget.)

If the sounds the girl makes when she sips the Irish Coffee has Husk smiling proudly of himself, then that’s no one’s business but his own.

“Can you make another one for Charlie,” she says as thanks.

Husk shrugs, but he’s already pulling out another warmed mug and placing it into the machine.

Or at least he tries to.

Tries being the keyword as something small and very yellow flies in from his periphery and crashes into the coffee maker just before he turns it on again.

“Fuck!”  screams Angel, tucking all his limbs in and curling into a ball.

“Fuuuuuuck….” groans their resident ex-angel, now splattered with half the hot coffee supposedly for her beau.

 
“The fuck?” coughs Husk into the small cloud of dust that suddenly manifested at his face.

“My duck!” His Highness cries from where Alastor has him pinned against the high ceiling with his writhing green-tinted shadows. 

Looking back at the machine, there is indeed a duck now crammed into its broken electric body. Husk thinks it’s the same fire-breathing duck Lucifer was threatening Alastor with earlier. He flaps his wings to get rid of the debris still floating around them and takes a second squint at where the collision happened.

It is indeed His Majesty’s duck.

Except the duck is now burnt and its yellow plastic skin has peeled in most areas to reveal its roiling blood-red insides. Husk doesn’t want to think about how the revealed teeth beside the corners of its beak looks a little like the plastic grin Husk regularly sees on Alastor. Its eyes are spasming, irises mutating from something round to something pointy in a way too familiar for him to comprehend fully without losing his mind.

“This is why I said that this,” Alastor, rising up from the shadows near Husk’s feet before proceeding to tap on the broken coffee maker with his microphone, tuts in that patronizing manner Husk knows well, “is a safety hazard. But you just have to get coffee automatically, don't you? Can’t wait for a few minutes for it to drip through the proper filtering process, huh, Your Highness?” 

“You’re the one who caused this!” His Majesty also transports himself inside the bar, multitude of wings flapping agitatedly. Husk tucks his head down to avoid getting slapped by the sharp primaries from His Majesty’s third set of wings, “ You ’re the safety hazard here, you second-rate bellhop!”

“How am I at fault,” Alastor says in an uncharacteristic screech that has the corners of Husk’s lips twitching uncontrollably, “when you’re the one who threw that mockery of a duck at me!”

“I’m just,” Vaggie starts then stops cupping her hand around the lip of what’s left of her irish coffee, “You know what? I’m just gonna share this with Charlie upstairs. Thank you, Husk.”

Angel and Husk watch her march back up her room with the Princess, decidedly determining that the domestic happening at the bar is none of her business. Lucky her.

“I’ve seen horny nymphomaniacs with less sexual tension between them than these two,” Angel Dust whispers, plucking at the whiskey glass Husk had nudged to the side of the bar. He tosses it playfully, winking at Husk all the while.

The groan and eye-roll that Husk gives him back is habitual, rote to almost the point of being untrue. He catches the glass just a beat after one of its peaks, a thrill passing through as he catches it perfectly, knuckles a hairbreadth shy from grazing the fingertips of Angel who tried to catch it before him.

“Spoilsport,” the other demon laughs, leaning forward, “I’ll have to go to work now, tell me if something juicy happens.”

With his lips pursed towards the still bickering Radio Demon and King of Hell, there’s no mistaking what he means by something juicy.

Husk just flaps a hand at him to shoo him away, starts cleaning the whiskey glass again. He doesn’t stare at Angel’s back as he goes.

“A pasta maker? Your royal highness cannot just whimsy in a fully cooked meal? Or perhaps really make an effort with your hands to make your daughter happy—”

“I don’t see you kneading and shaping dough for her when she was—”

It takes him a full quarter of an hour listening to Alastor and Lucifer bicker about hotel appliances before Husker privately admits defeat to the glass he’s been wiping. He would blame Angel’s lipstick being too resistant to hell water but he’s also been just half heartedly dry rubbing at the surface without any real intention of clearing it. 

Fuck it, who cares anyway? He’s just going to dedicate this particular glass to Angel. 

He settles it on the leftmost upper cupboard, waiting for when its owner would ask Husk again for another glass of something to forget his day with.

The sounds of the two most powerful beings, albeit one of them is looking less free at the moment, Husk knows follow him as he creeps out of the lounge. They get louder with each step he takes. Husk shakes his head, grumbling to himself.

Sure, he’s certain nothing sexual is going on between those two. But he also has eyes and it’s obvious that there is something going on between them, and whatever that something is, it will come back and bite everyone except Alastor and Lucifer in the ass. 

Nobody would believe him though and he’d rather not be the bearer of a message people will surely kill the messenger for.

He glances back. There’s something almost playful in the way Alastor’s shadows move against the face of the big boss of hell. And doesn’t Lucifer’s grin look too wide, too satisfied for someone supposedly angry at the Radio Demon for burning yet another ‘advanced’ tech in the hotel? Husk knows what the face of someone who properly hates Alastor looks like from experience. 

Husk shakes his head again, taking the smart route and staying silent as he pads back up his room.