Chapter Text
“Angel, please, don’t….”
“I’m sorry, just… do me a favor… “
“Angel–”
“– and forget you ever knew me.”
“Angie, no!”
“Please– I, I…? Come back…”
“It’s okay, Husk. He'll be back, don’t worry.”
Angel felt even more tears stream down his face as he heard the break in Husk’s voice as he walked away from them. He knew if he looked back, seeing the facial reaction that went along with that broken sound would completely destroy him more than he already was.
He took larger strides to get inside the door that his overlord had walked through before his heart made him turn around. His brain was also fighting against him with the thought of going back to them, but also wanting to keep them safe. He walked inside that door with his breath held as he took the last few steps in as quickly as possible and closed the door behind himself.
He finally felt that painful ball that had formed in his chest completely overtake him as a small shuttering sob slipped out from him.
“Aww, what’s wrong, Amorcito?” A smug tone with that hazy pink smoke surrounded his neck and hit his nostrils as he took an instinctive step backward but only hit the door as he looked up to his overlord looming over him.
“V-Val?! N-nothing!”
Valentino just grinned widely as he grabbed his chin to force him to look up at him, “Finally got tired of living in that run down, dirty hotel with that Princesa and the trash?”
Even more tears fell against his will as he bit his bottom lip. He couldn’t let Val know they were important to him any longer– He couldn’t let them get hurt. However, the thought of what he was about to resolve himself to protect his friends may hurt almost as much as he probably would hurt them overall.
His voice came out small, “Yes, I ain’t going back there no more…”
Valentino just hummed as his smile grew wider, “What was that, baby?”
He steeled himself further, “I… I’m not going back there no more. I… I now know, I’m only happy and feel loved just by you, no one else can give me that.”
The grip on his chin tightened as Valentino locked eyes on him, shifting between them to see if any of that was false in any way. It didn’t matter, Valentino knew that he wasn’t completely honest with him. The little brat wanted to go back to that stupid hotel, but whatever was changing Angel’s thought right now didn’t matter. What mattered to him right now was that his little toy wanted to come home, and for once he didn’t have to coerce him to. Whatever his reason, he was saying he was coming home on his own.
And that’s all Valentino wanted.
He released his grip on him with some force and Angel hit the back of his head against the door he was pressed against.
Valentino just turned around and went to pick up Vox who was facing down on the floor. Once he was picked up, Valentino quickly dusted the front of his face off and Angel could hear Vox trying to say something but was cut off with Valentino yelling at him.
“Shut up, I said I wasn’t talking to you!” He growled out, but then quickly turned to face Angel, “Angel, baby, get the fuck over here and lets go upstairs.”
Angel’s eyes quickly darted between Val and Vox in his hands and was confused to where the rest of him was.
“Uh… what happened to–”
“I didn’t say you could speak, whore! Now get your ass upstairs while I go put Vox in his damn room.”
Angel’s eyes grew small as fear started to bubble up as Valentino continued.
“And you better get your face cleaned up and get ready to make up for all the money you’ve lost me over the last couple of months!”
“Y-yes, Val!” He rushed past him to press the elevator button to open it for him and his overlord. Once he started to walk inside, Valentino just pushed him in harshly. Angel hit one side of the elevator wall as Val stood inside and squinted at the buttons on the front panel.
Vox’s voice came out, “The 18th floor, babe–”
“Don’t you call me that right now! I know where the fuck I’m going!”
“I know, it’s just your glasses are–”
“I can see just fucking fine, Vox!” He aggressively pressed the 16th floor and Angel carefully moved around him to press the 35th floor for where his dressing room was. He didn’t care if Vox made it back to his room, right now his mind was already kicking into survival mode.
As the doors closed with the three inside, in the lobby Ethan, Travis, and Melissa peered out to see if the coast was clear and they quickly walked down the hall across from where the elevator doors were and carefully made their way to avoid the cameras. Ethan knew exactly where to step to avoid being spotted and then they stopped in front of a custodian's closet.
Ethan held the door open for the other two and as soon as they were all inside, he closed it quickly behind himself.
Travis was the first one to freak out, his hands going straight to his head and almost knocking his hat off, “Okay, what the actual fuck!?”
Ethan was about to shush him but Melissa slapped him upside the head, “Travis, shut the fuck up! Someone will hear us.”
“Ow! Fuck–” he quickly schooled his tone into a whisper, “I mean, shit, sorry.”
They both were busy whisper-bickering at each other and stopped when Ethan placed a hand on their shoulders to get their attention.
“Ethan… I can’t believe Val ju-just ripped off Vox’s head from his body like that!?” Melissa’s eyes grew a bit wide.
Travis couldn’t help but laugh a little, “kind of funny though… should we go get his body?”
Ethan shushed them again before continuing, “Yeah… I think we should. You know… just in case? Maybe we just put it in a safe spot in case he needs it? I’m sure if we try and give it to him now, Valentino will just get more upset… It can be reattached later.”
“Yeah, your boss is a fucking TV man– ow!” Melissa elbowed him hard, “Dude, he is though!”
“Oh, don’t you dare ‘dude’ me–”
“Guys!” Ethan whisper-shouted at them to get them to be quiet and they both just crossed their arms and looked away from each other.
He continued, “Let’s just… get the body and put it in Baxter’s lab for now.”
Melissa tilted her head, “I don’t think Baxter will be allowed to come back. Did you not see that he was working with the hotel staff?”
Ethan grimaced. Yeah, he saw that.
“We can worry about that later, let’s just…get it before Valentino or Velvette yell at us for not bringing it in anyway.”
Travis rolled his eyes, “Fineeee, I’ll do it.” His phone dinged right after as he pulled it out to see a long ass paragraph from Valentino as he frowned, scanning the message.
“What?” Melissa leaned in to look and Travis nudged her away.
“Guh, privacy?”
“Pssh, when do you know anything about privacy.”
Travis went back to reading and looked up at them both, “Uh… Valentino just sent out a text blast to all his souls saying he’s currently in charge of V-Tower.”
Ethan’s eyes grew small at that and Melissa squeaked out, “Oh, hellllll nooo! Velvette is gonna let that happen!?”
“Maybe she has her reasons…” Ethan mumbled.
“Yeah,” Travis let out a small chuckle, “probably doesn’t want to deal with Valentino throwing a tantrum– okay, an even longer tantrum with him being mad at Vox right now. So, wait…”
They both look at Ethan as Travis continued, “What does that mean for you? Are you still Vox’s assistant?”
Ethan hummed to himself and went to grasp his invisible collar, which he still felt the heaviness of it before looking back at them, “yeah, I’m guessing? I’ll go check in on Vox once I know Valentino isn’t around.”
Another ding.
Travis shook his phone at them both, “Well, looks like he’s in the studio now and is asking for me to get up there ASAP, so maybe now is your chance.”
“Wait,” Melissa cut them off, “are we not going to talk about how the Princess and her staff, uh, friends? Whatever they are, basically saved all our asses back there?”
“Yeah… that was… wild?” Travis put his phone away and leaned back against the wall in the very small closet.
“We’ll have to discuss this further later, but for now, let’s just see what’s going on with our overlords and meet back up to evaluate the situation?”
Melissa sighed out loudly, “Guh, I don’t want to spy on my boss.”
“You ain’t spying, bitch, ya just letting us know what’s going on.” Travis said exasperatedly.
“I’m not a bitch, and that basically is that.”
“I know it comes off that way, but… Let’s just see what’s going on anyway? I kind of feel bad for Angel Dust…” Ethan whispered the last part out.
Travis snorted, “Don’t feel sorry for that slut.”
Melissa growled at him, “Are you serious? He helped save our asses!”
“He didn’t do shit! He just what? Put his hand on that drunken old cat? Pleeeasseee.” Travis rolled his eyes afterward.
“Travis! There might be something more that we’re missing here, okay?” Melissa grabbed the side of her arm and looked down, “Did you not see the way he was crying?”
Travis’ voice softened a bit but still seemed annoyed, “He’s always crying!”
“Maybe he has a good reason…” She looked up at him with some concern in her eyes, “Just… maybe pay attention to what’s going on more with him and…” she smirked a little, “put it in your report when you spy on your boss back to us.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up.” He gave her a playful shove, “Fine, whatever!”
Another ding. Followed by another five back to back.
Travis quickly pulled his phone out, “Oh shit, I gotta go! Val is now blowing up my phone asking where the fuck I am. I’ll go grab your dumb boss's body and throw it in Baxter’s lab real quick but I gotta go, like, now.”
Ethan just quickly opened the door to let him out, but not before whispering as he passed by, “let’s meet up in Baxter’s lab around midnight and regroup.”
Travis just gave him a thumbs up before rushing off and then he turned to face Melissa as she was about to walk out of the room as she addressed him, “Good luck with your boss,” she smiled just a little before making her way out and down the hall toward Velvette’s studio.
Ethan waited a moment before he also left the closet and closed it quietly behind him and made his way to the elevator. A wire popped out of the side of his head as he had it connect to the elevator’s system to see the previous floors that had been visited.
He saw it went to the 16th and the 35th. He was confused why the 16th was selected when Vox’s office was on the 18th, but he decided to check out the 16th first. He knew that the 35th floor was where Valentino’s studio and Angel’s dressing room was so he didn’t think there was a point to visit those floors. He withdrew his wiring and selected the 16th floor.
The doors shut and gears started to spin as he was quickly and silently taken up to the 16th floor. Once the doors opened, he stepped out and looked around. This floor was mainly used for conference space and storage so he was confused why Valentino would want to visit this floor.
As he stepped further in, he heard a yelp and quickly backed off and looked down.
His boss was laying face down on the floor and he quickly went to pick him up and turn him over.
Vox looked exhausted and his screen buzzed a bit. His eyes adjusted as he sputtered a bit, but he looked happy to see his assistant.
“Ethan! There you are, could you help me get to my office?”
He blinked at him, “Of course, Mr. Vox.”
“Once we’re up there, go ahead and read me today’s agenda so I can try and get some work–”
“With all due respect, Mr. Vox…”
Vox’s one eye turned red, “Don’t interrupt me…” but then it sputtered back to blue, due to him being too tired and missing his body.
“Sorry, sir… It’s just– Mr. Valentino just sent out a mass text to his souls that he is now in charge of V-Tower.”
Vox’s voice dropped and echoed, “Excuse me?”
As soon as he uttered that, Ethan’s phone dinged and he carefully moved his boss’s weight into one hand as he went to pull his phone out. His eyes quickly read the message and then flipped the screen over to face his boss.
“Effective immediately! I’m in charge of the tower, Vox is out of commission, so all his souls will temporarily report to me. Get your asses moving and get to work, bitches!”
Vox’s screen glitched for a moment as he read it and then looked at Ethan, “Take me to Val right now.”
“Yes, sir…” Ethan looked really nervous but he couldn’t go against his overlords command so he put his phone away and held him carefully as he stepped back into the elevator.
He picked the 35th floor and once they arrived, the first thing they both heard when the doors opened was shattering glass hitting the wall.
Valentino was in the middle of a tantrum and yelling at some unfortunate soul of his while Travis stood behind him looking frazzled.
“I don’t care if Angel Dust looks like shit right now! Get his ass cleaned up and lets get filming. Right. NOW!” He grabbed another martini glass from a table and threw it at the person who quickly ducked and it hit the wall behind them.
He growled out, “and someone get me a replacement Kitty! I’m tired of having to wait on you all to make me a god damn drink!”
“Y-yes, sir! Right away, sir!” Someone spoke out as they ran out of the room to do so.
Ethan carefully approached and Vox’s voice boomed out, “Val! What the hell are you doing?”
Valentino was in the middle of picking up someone by the neck as he paused and his gaze quickly turned to look over his shoulder. As soon as that searing look hit Ethan, he couldn’t help but take a step back, even if his overlord was in his hands, he couldn’t help but feel very vulnerable right now.
He threw the owned soul to the floor as he started walking over to Vox and Ethan, “What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. Up. Here. Vox?”
Vox’s voice echoed as one of his eyes glowed red, “I asked, what the hell do you think you’re doing!? You can’t just take over the entire tower. You know that we are a team–”
Valentino just manically laughed, throwing his head back and covering his face with one hand as the other held his stomach, “OH! That’s so funny, babe. Now you call us a team after all that shit you put us through?”
Vox’s screen glitched again and Val continued, “Yes, papi, I’m in charge right now. Vel is letting me have the reins right now, so what I say goes!” He pushed one of his fingers into his face before continuing on, “That means your little assistant,” he paused to point at Ethan and do a little circle motion in his direction, “is under my command right now– I mean, you can’t even move around on your own.”
Vox growled, “I can still move through the wires and screens.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t want me even more mad at you, you will let me do as I want! You have a lot to make up for and right now, I need to get to work to fix all the damage you put us through.”
He flicked at his screen before grinning, “So, how about you just go back to your little office, and Ethan can just put you on your desk so you can pretend to be important and just take a break and let Daddy handle things.”
The room was silent as they watched the two overlords fight, feeling incredibly sorry for Ethan who was so close to the action. Ethan couldn’t help but shake a little bit, he could feel the hostility rolling off of Valentino and he couldn’t help but shift his eyes quickly to Travis who was standing off to the side of Valentino.
Valentino picked up on that and quickly spun to look at Travis, “Bitch, what are you still doing here?! Go get that stupid whore and bring him out here, NOW!”
Travis gulped and quickly turned around to Angel’s dressing room. He would do anything at this point to not be at the brunt of this.
As soon as he rushed into Angel’s room he slammed the door behind himself as he yelled out, “Hurry up, slut, boss is getting even more pissed!”
Angel was just sitting in front of his mirror trying to cover up the bruised eye, while one of his other hands was busy trying to stop any more tears from running down his face.
His voice sounded so small and broken, “Yeah… I’ll be right there.”
It took Travis for a loop as he paused and walked over to him. He usually got a biting remark back from him about not rushing him but as soon as he got up close to him, he could see how tired and drained he looked. He was about to put his hand on his shoulder, but the dressing room door ripped open with Valentino rushing in and growling at them both.
“Travis, what the fuck is taking so long to just check on him!? Angel, hurry the fuck up, you ungreatful whore!”
Angel jumped up and turned around to stand in front of Travis as he started sputtering, “Sorry, Val– it’s not his fault. He was just checking in on me and I was–”
Valentino just slapped him hard against the face, knocking him on the floor and Travis couldn’t help but look surprised at this. Not only for the fact that Angel was covering for him, but also seeing the brunt of Valentino’s anger towards the spider in real time. He had seen the abuse before in the past but Vox telling Valentino to not hit Angel in front of others and in public had spread through the owned souls, so he hadn’t seen it happen in a while…
“I don't need excuses, I need your ass out there!”
“I’m… I’m sorry, I’m almost done. I just– just am having trouble covering up my eye…”
Angel dragged himself up off the floor to see another bruise already forming on his cheek from the slap but before he could fully pull himself up on his feet, Valentino was there grabbing him by the neck and pulling him up. His feet just barely touching the floor and Travis’ eyes widened.
“I just fucking said I don’t need your excuses!” He shot an icy look at Travis while Angel just coughed and struggled against Valentino’s grasp, his legs squirming to find some kind of leverage somewhere.
“Travis! Go tell the other actors and team that we are setting up for a gang-bang scenario!” He turned to lick up Angel’s face as he cried and tried to gasp for air, “It won’t matter if we need to cover up your bruises, we can just start in the middle of you being beaten up.”
Travis paused for a moment and Valentino snapped at him, “TRAVIS!”
“Y-yeah, Val! Right away!” As soon as he spoke, Valentino was throwing Angel down on the floor and Angel was gasping to catch his breath, holding his neck.
“Shit… no, please Val, not that, please…” His voice came out hoarse from his windpipe now starting to swell up and bruise from the grip his overlord had over him.
Valentino kicked him hard and Angel just curled up in on himself, and before Travis could get yelled at again and see what else was about to happen, he quickly left Angel’s dressing room to update everyone. He scanned around for Ethan and Vox but they were no longer there.
He whispered to the other souls and was told that Valentino had pushed them out of his studio.
Angel was already exhausted from being beaten and drugged up earlier in the day, being stuffed in a vomit bag and standing alongside his friends as they thought they would possibly all die together in the end at the hands of Vox’s stupid device that had rigged Lucifer up to it. Not only that, but mentally drained from all of that along with the last bit of his energy going into pushing his best friends away to protect them, just to go into hours and hours of filming.
His body ached. He was pushed into that studio with his mind still feeling the after effects of Val’s toxins and being bruised up to wrapping up the next 10 hours of filming, feeling even more battered and bruised. He couldn’t even stand at this point. Some of the stage hands had to drag him with his feet trailing behind him as they tossed him onto his bed. He winced in pain when his body hit the soft mattress and curled up. His body shook with so much pain, he hadn’t felt this awful in a very long time…
When he finally thought he had a moment to himself, he heard the clicking of heels as Valentino strolled in with Travis following behind him.
“Good job, baby. You did so well today.” Valentino cooed.
Angel quickly pushed himself, trying not to show how much pain he was in on his face or make any noises that would spur his overlord on in delight as he sat up to look at him. He tried to smile and flutter his lashes at him as he purred out, “Of course, Daddy. I wanna make you happy…”
Valentino just puffed smoke in his face and while Angel hated it, the toxins gave his body some relief, but he wasn’t sure if it would be enough after everything he had to go through yesterday and now early morning.
Angel couldn’t help but cough, and the coughing made his ribs hurt as he grimaced and tried to keep the smile up.
“You better work harder than that, Amorcito,” he puffed another stream in his face, “because tomorrow, you’re going to work even harder.” He grinned before chuckling darkly.
He turned to snap at Travis, “Angel isn’t leaving anymore so make sure that he doesn’t leave his room the rest of the night.”
Travis’ eyes widened, “w-wait, does that mean I can’t go home?”
He growled at him, “You can’t fucking leave this tower. You’re on bitch-guard duty for tonight. I’ll make someone else watch him later,” he hummed, “maybe…”
Travis cursed under his breath, he was already late to meet with the others and had kept them up to date with the delays. Now he’d have to give them an update on this too. Hopefully once Val slipped out he could meet up with them. He could just lock Angel in his dressing room for a few minutes, he was sure the addict wouldn’t notice him being gone for a few minutes or so.
“Sure thing, boss…”
“Now, I gotta go and talk to Vel about my new wardrobe on being Daddy in charge, so watch the bitch starting now. Got it?”
“Yup. Can do.”
As soon as Val slammed the door to Angel’s room, he started sniffling and fell over on his bed face first. He pushed his face into his pillow and muttered out, “You can leave, jackass.”
The dark-haired sinner sighed, “Whatever, I’ll be right outside. I’m locking you in, don’t need to spend time with ya anyhow, am I right?”
“Yeah… fucking leave already.” Angel said without any bite and Travis just rolled his eyes as he walked out and locked the door behind himself.
As soon as he was going to walk away he heard a loud sob pour out of Angel from behind the door. He pressed close and could barely hear what he was saying, but he could make out something like ‘Cherri… Husk… sorry, sorry…’
He pulled out his phone and texted Melissa and Ethan about the updated situation. He figured he had like 10 minutes at least before he assumed Angel would try and escape to that damn hotel, but after hearing Angel state earlier that he wouldn’t return, he wasn’t entirely sure. Would he actually try to leave? Did he say that shit to Val earlier just to win him over and lessen the rage from their overlord?
Who knew man?
Ethan replied back stating they could meet in an area on the 35th floor so Travis didn’t have to venture too far away from Angel.
He got the go that they were in the meeting spot, he quickly and very quietly went to that location.
As soon as he put his hand on the door knob to meet with them, the door yanked open and he was pulled inside quickly with the door shutting quietly behind him.
“Dude, what the fuck, Ethan? Scared the shit out of me!”
“Shhh!” The other two sinners raised their fingers to their mouths at him.
They shared information that they overheard or witnessed in the hours leading up to their meeting.
Velvette was too focused on cleaning up her studio from the destruction and making a new wardrobe for Val to really say anything interesting.
Meanwhile, Ethan filled them in on Vox being forced back to his office and had admin access taken away from his computer. He was basically in the dog house with Valentino. Val didn’t want to see him and basically pushed him and Ethan out the door earlier. Ethan was told that he could still be around Vox but the other assistants were off limits to Vox. He ended up just listening to Vox whine about how his plan should have worked and he missed having Alastor as his prisoner. Then wondered where his body was. He didn’t tell his overlord that they had his body in safe keeping in case he tried something and got them in deeper shit with Val.
Travis filled them in on how things went in the studio.
He sighed, “Valentino had a bunch of other actors gang-bang Angel Dust for hours to the point where he just cried and Val seemed to get off on that. You could tell the others were getting uncomfortable but he didn’t shout to cut or anything… Honestly feels like he may just keep that footage for himself. I don't know man, but I don’t see that selling anything.”
“Gross.” Melissa stuck her tongue out.
“And.. I haven’t seen Val hit Angel in awhile, but he really seemed to enjoy hurting him a lot today in front of us. Before we thought it was funny, but now…” he looked down feeling weird, “it was just uncomfortable.”
“What’s he doing now?” Ethan raised a brow at him.
“Val? He went to bed I guess?”
“Not him, I meant Angel Dust.”
“Oh, him.” He let out a long sigh, “Val put me on babysitter duty.”
“What does that mean?” Melissa tilted her head.
“He’s making me guard him all night to make sure he don’t leave back to that damn hotel. I really doubt he will though…”
“Why do you think that?” Ethan asked.
“Well… he hasn’t had any bite to anything he says to me. Usually we bicker, but nothing. He even protected me from Val earlier… It was weird.”
Ethan hummed, “I guess just keep an eye on him for now.”
“Bitch was sobbing when I left, thinking I didn’t hear him. He kept repeating sorry and two peoples names.”
“I wonder if they are important.” Melissa wondered out loud.
“I know he mentioned Cherri, so I’m assuming that’s Cherri Bomb that he goes clubbing with sometimes.” Travis supplied.
“And the other?”
“He said someone named Husk?”
Ethan pulled out his phone to look up that name, but kind of got random pop ups on other irrelevant information.
“Do you think it’s that cat-demon he was holding onto earlier?” Melissa peeked to look at Ethan’s phone.
Ethan hummed out and typed in ‘cat-demon,’ ‘Husk,’ and ‘Hazbin Hotel’ into the search bar.
He got a few hits on that combination. Some photos of a cat-demon with a top hat and moved his phone over to share the view with the other two.
Travis poked the screen, “yeah, that’s definitely the guy from earlier.”
“Wait, what’s this?” Melissa pointed to a further entry and before Ethan could select it himself, she clicked on it and revealed an article about the Gambling Overlord Husker.
They all went silent as she continued to scroll through the article. The guy looked like the cat-demon they saw earlier in the day as well as from the photos of a straggly dressed cat standing behind a bar in the hotel. As they scanned the article one of the other related articles labelled, ‘Gambling Overlord Loses to Radio Demon in Take All Bet.’
“Holy shit–” Travis breathed out.