Chapter Text
Angel had dreamt of this day for longer than he could count. Getting out of Valentino’s sickening grasp was something he hadn’t allowed himself to hope for for a very long time, but here it was, Valentino was finally sick of him, and instead of, y’know, killing him, Valentino decided to squeeze all the remaining profit from Angel Dust before tossing him away.
However, therein lies the problem, Angel wasn’t being freed from his contract, his soul was simply being “relocated” to a different owner. That on its own would have been manageable, the new owner couldn’t be any worse than Valentino after all, it was more the ‘ where’ that was the problem.
“The Lust ring!?” Angel screamed as he was being pushed into a limousine by Valentino, “How? Sinners aren’t allowed outside of Pride,”
“Oh, I just pulled a couple of strings, your new employer is quite powerful,” Valentino answered in that sickly tone, the hint of an evil smirk creeping its way onto his face, “Asmodeus, I’m sure you’ve heard of him,” how could he not have? Valentino was practically obsessed with the sin of lust, how the hell did he manage to sell him over to someone like that? “You won’t be leaving lust for quite some time,” and before Angel could respond the door slammed shut and the car began moving.
For a moment he just sat there processing. Out of all the horrible things he could have imagined Valentino doing, managing to essentially kick him out of Pride had never even crossed his mind, not only should it be impossible, but until a little over 6 months ago, Angel would have no reason to care about such a thing. Sure, he had a few sparse friends like Cherri but he would have jumped at the opportunity to escape Valentino even if it meant losing her in the process, but now? He wouldn’t have been so eager to escape if he knew what he’d lose.
At the thought of his friends Angel scrambled to grab his phone fingers quivering as he held the device. But as he looked into his contacts it was empty, no numbers, no messages, even all the apps were gone, the phone had somehow been wiped clean. He tried to wrack his brain to remember anyone's number but he drew a blank, who remembers people’s phone numbers anyway?!
His cheeks were soaked as droplets of tears landed on the screen, “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go,” he whispered, a quiet plead to no one, as images of the Hotel flashed in his mind “I was making progress,” a breakfast at the hotel with everyone gathered, happy to have him there “I know I made some mistakes,” Husk carrying his passed out body to his room after an awful night “but I was getting better, I promise,” Charlie’s proud smile was the final thing that flashed in his mind, him knowing that he was helping her dreams come true was one of the only things that kept Angel going most days, her belief in him made him truly believe their was a future for him.
But now? All that work her and the rest of the hotel put in? Sir Pentious sacrifice? All for nothing.
Fizz was bouncing back and forth between the dresser and the mirror in a speedy blur, trying on 20 different outfits per minute. His anxiety would have been endearing to the Sin in any other scenario but at the moment it was only distracting.
“Fizz,” Asmodeus’ voice rung through their shared bed chambers but it barely made his partner so much as look his way, “ Fizz ,” even as he put more of his demonic power into his voice, the sound of his boyfriends mechanical bodyparts whissing through the room the not so much as slow. Asmodeus let out a sigh moving to intercept the Imp’s path between dresser and mirror, but instead of stopping as his massive form was blocking the path, Fizz simply weaved around him without even acknowledging his presence. “I know your excited babe, but-”
“Excited?!” the Imp’s head spun 180 degrees as he interrupted Asmoudeus, “I’m terrified! What if I make a bad impression!?” without waiting for an answer Fizz went right back to trying on outfits, getting more and more hagard and stressed with each piece.
The sin let out his second sigh of the day and snatched up his boyfriend by the hem of his current outfit, “Babe,” he begins as he lifts the imp to eye level with him, “If you stress yourself to death you’re not gonna be making any sort of impression on our guest,”
“But it’s Angel Dust for fuck’s sake! A bonifide super pornstar!” Fizz was waving his mechanical arms frantically, clearly going into a panic.
“Fizz, you talk to celebrities all the time, shit you’ve been fucking one of the seven most famous demons in all of hell! What makes this sinner so different?”
“Ozzie~!” the imp’s voice stretched into a high pitched whine “He’s not just some celebrity, he’s the Angel Dust! And you seem to forget that I could barely string a sentence together back when we first met!”
“Oh, I remember~” Asmodeus smirked at his partner, memory flashing back to the day Mammon had come to him asking for special prosthetics to be made for his latest star clown, and the day he had met the love of his life “And call me biased if you must, I for one think you made a great impression,” Fizz buried his blushing face in his arms at the sin’s teasing, “Aw, don’t hide that cute face from me,”
“Uh, sorry to interrupt sirs,” Asmodeus frowned at the interruption glancing over to the assistant that had entered their room without their noticing, giving them a nod to continue, “We were just informed that Angel Dust should arrive within the next ten minutes or so,”
That made Fizz’s panic return as he jumped out of Asmodeus’ grasp and back into the same frenzy of outfits.
Asmodeus let out his third sigh of the day, “...thank you for telling us,” he said to the assistant “Would you be a dear and make sure all the accommodations are in order, I have” he paused as he gestured to his boyfriend “ this to deal with,” the assistant nodded and ran off.
He stared out the window as they moved through Lust. The place is not that much different from Pentagram city, in fact he could probably imagine he’s back in Pride if he was high, really high.
Waking up from an obnoxious car horn had not been ideal, but it would probably be for the best that he doesn’t show up to his new employer looking like absolute shit. After fixing his fur and clothes to the best of his ability he kind of just spaced out for the rest of the ride too exhausted to do more than stare at the crowds of half naked hellborn all engaged in all sorts of debauchery one would expect of the Lust ring.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the limo had stopped at a massive skyscraper. He was honestly not processing what was happening, an imp in surprisingly modest attire told him that Asmodeus was expecting him before leading him into the building as a bunch of other demons got to work grabbing luggage which he doesn’t remember packing. The fog in his mind was slowly lifting as he noticed all the people in the building were staring at him, at the stares he was suddenly getting increasingly nervous. This place was huge, even larger than V tower, with halls that seem like they go on forever. The decor was raunchy, even raunchier than what he was used to from Valentino’s studio.
He turned his gaze away from the decor back to the demons running about who were not so subtly staring at him. He truly did not have the energy to be usual saucy self but if his new boss is anything like Valentino “not having the energy” was not an excuse that was gonna cut it, so summoning the last of his energy he puffed up his chest making sure to arch his back just right. He scanned the crowd until he found a particularly scrawny and nervous looking demon, he waited a second for their eyes to meet where he gave them the sauciest look he could muster and a wink… to which he passed out on the spot.
“Damn, the demons here are really into me, huh?” he stated to the demon leading him.
She chuckled lightly, “You have no idea, you’re practically a deity here in Lust second only to Ozzie himself.”
“A deity, huh? I suppose I could get used to that,” he knew he was popular even outside of Pride, but a deity? That’s a bit much. “And, Ozzie? Is that a nickname for the big man?”
“Sort of, it’s usually what he prefers to be called anyway, his club is called ‘Ozzie’s’ afterall,”
Angel felt a sickeningly familiar feeling, being reminded of how Valentino insisted he call him Val because Angel and him were “just that close” even though everyone called him that. The worst part is that Angel believed him. “Huh, so no bowing before him and calling him ‘your sinfullness’ then?”
The imp chuckled, “Please don’t,” she said in a lighthearted tone with no fear in her voice.
“Then what about Daddy? What would that do for him?” Angel was on the outside making light conversation and joking around, but he was subtly trying to guage what sort of demon Asmodeus was. A horny demon, one could assume, but he didn’t want to risk fucking up and getting the shit kicked out of him, so knowing his boundries and expectations was paramount.
She laughed at the ‘Daddy’ comment, “ Maybe if you get lucky enough to bed him, MAYBE ,” her tone still remained light, as if she was talking about a close friend and not the Prince of Lust himself, “And I’m not sure his boyfriend is ready to share at the moment,” the Imp was talking about Fizzarolli if Angel was not mistaken, the clown who claimed to just be Asmodeus’ fuck buddy but everyone knew that there was something more between them. This was confirmed when, only a couple of months ago, the Prince of Lust revealed to the world his love for the imp. Angel thought it was sweet but Valentino thought it was a betrayal of everything the demon stood for, especially when Asmodeus stopped manufacturing the Fizzie bots. “Though, Ozzie and Fizzarolli are huge fans of your work so maybe you’ve got a chance,”
“Well, one can only hope, though I would hate to break up such a cute couple,” The imp let out another laugh as their conversation lulled to a comfortable silence. Comfortable for the imp, Angel was too busy wrapping his head around what kind of boss Asmodeus is. His guide seems very comfortable and unafraid when talking about him, even when talking about things Angel shouldn’t do, it never seemed like a warning, as if the boss might not like it but the consequences for stepping over those boundaries weren’t dire. And then there was the fact that Asmodeus did not seem like he slept with his employees at all, a change from Valentino’s constant need for gratification which he would take from whoever was closest. By all metrics the demon was a far better boss than Valentino was even on his best days, but there was one thing that kept him from getting his hopes up.
Asmodeus bought him.
Like a toy, Asmodeus exchanged money for a shiny new whore. Angel was different from the imp leading him and all the other employees at this place, they all worked for the demon but Angel belonged to the demon. He had no rights, no ability to leave, no ability to say no. Everyone else here was a person. Angel was a thing to be used.
So as they approached a large, ornate door, Angel refused to let his guard down for a second, refused to hope that this would be better than Valentino and refused to let this fucker lull him into a false sense of security like the moth bastard did.
The imp knocked on the door and Angel took a deep breath and prepared himself for a whole new hell.
“Hope everyones doing alright without me,”
“Oink! Oink!”
Charlie was walking passed the resident quarters when he heard the panicked bleating from Angel Dust’s room.
Fat Nuggets (Angel’s adorable pet hellpig) was usually fairly quiet and well behaved unless he wanted attention, which his owner was always all too happy to give. Charlie would only hear the pig bleat like that when Angel wasn’t around.
Charlie walked over to the door and lightly opened the door, “Angel Dust?” no response. She then opened it enough for Fat Nuggets to squeeze out of the room, and when she took a hesitant peak into the room there was no Angel in sight.
“Oink! Oink! Oink!”
Fat Nuggets was running around her legs in clear distress, “Hey buddy, do you know where Angel Dust is?”
“Oink!”
“Yeah, that’s what I assumed,” she leaned down and picked the pig up, “Any idea where he could be?”
“Oink oink oink!”
“Right, even when he works late he always comes home,” there had been a select few cases where he worked overnight or came back in the morning but he always made sure to text someone so they could feed Fat Nuggets. “Has anyone fed you yet,”
“Oink!”
“Oh no, you must be so hungry,” she entered Angel’s room and took out Fat Nuggets food as she put him down. She was usually the one to feed Fat Nuggets when Angel couldn’t so she always knew where the food was and besides, if he had moved it Fat Nuggets could always tell her. “There you go, I’ll go check with the others if they’ve seen him,”
“Oink…”
“I know me too, but I’m sure he’s fine and he’ll be back with us as soon as possible, right?”