Chapter Text
Angel sighed as he opened the driver's side door of his father's old Cadillac and moved to sit, pulling his long legs in. He warily checked his watch as he closed the door, squinting in the dim light from the one lone street lamp he'd parked under when he came out here to do his business. It was about midnight, and it would take him about 2 and a half hours to get home.
He sighed again, and stuck his hand in his pocket, lifting his hips slightly off the seat as he searched for the car keys and, upon finding them, plopped his ass back down on the seat as he pulled his hand out. He stuck the key into the ignition, and turned it over. Once, twice, and then the engine roared to life, waking up the whole street, probably, if anyone lived in this desolate neighborhood of empty houses. Only one guy lived here. Well, used to live here, but by the time anyone would find his body, it'd be half eaten by the clan of feral cats and rats, and Angel would be long gone.
He threw the car into gear, turned the lights on, and pulled out into the dark street, headed for the highway out of town. He drove past more empty houses, restaurants that had long closed, and one 24 hour diner that he'd stopped to have coffee at hours before while meeting with the person who'd hired him to come out here. There was a cute young man who worked there he'd kept making eyes at, and the man kept giving him free refills. Though the coffee tasted kinda stale and watery, the service was nice, and for a tip Angel sucked him off in the restroom.
He smirked and stopped at a red light, licking his lips as he remembered the details of that little jaunt. He'd never see that guy again but it was one of the better experiences he'd had during one of these trips in a while, and he'd be jacking off to that memory for at least a week.
The light turned green and he stepped on the gas, the engine groaning as he sped off out of town into the night. Nobody was on the road, not a cop in sight, and at this speed he'd be home before anyone realized he'd even been there in the first place.
He turned on the radio to static. Dammit , he was out of range for his usual station. Angel reached for the tuning button and began twisting it, hoping to find anything pleasant enough to drown out the otherwise silent commute home. He passed over faint voices drowned out by static, a music station with the current hits accompanied by a persistent whine that made Angel wince and keep tuning, and more static. He was considering just turning the radio off and driving home in relative silence when a voice faded in from the static. A man's voice, lively and smooth. Angel listened for a bit, turning slowly to bring the man out of the static as much as he could, and then pulling his hand back to rest it on the gear shift, leaning back in his seat.
The radio man seemed to be in the middle of some exciting story, probably fictional, but the way he spoke, so enraptured, had Angel invested with only a couple sentences. It was a murder mystery of sorts, or maybe a fantastical news story about a murder. Whatever it was, he was hooked.
The man finished his story with a hearty laugh and breathed deeply and there was a silence and then a soft thump of a mug being placed on a table. "And that was The Lady's Curse, a story sent to us by one of my listeners, whom I had the pleasure of meeting this past week! Lovely girl, I must tell you. Absolutely brilliant. Sharp and very well spoken. Good luck on your stories, dear, I look forward to reading more of them on this show!
"For those of you just tuning in, welcome! The name is Alastor, and I'll be your host this evening, up until Katie clocks in for her morning report and kicks me out of the booth," Alastor paused to chuckle at his own inside joke. "If you missed the last story, don't fret! You can find that one in next week's newsletter! We print every story submitted to us that I read, and even a few poems and short stories and such that didn't make the cut for the show. Now available to buy at most newspaper stands!”
Angel grunted.
"Coming up next, I invite a published horror writer in to discuss whether or not the various ways their main antagonist kills their victims would actually work in the real world, stay tuned folks!" Alastor concluded, the sound of his voice replaced by smooth jazz, giving Angel time to soak all of that in.
He hummed, wondering how the hell he’d never heard of this station before. Signal probably was only available around this area, and the closer he got to home, the more Alastor’s voice would fade back into the static. Angel shrugged, but he eased up on the gas ever so slightly.
The jazz faded out to staticy silence, and then the man’s voice broke it, soft and perhaps a little bit alluring. “Welcome back listeners,” Alastor purred, “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long. Joining me this early morn is the published horror writer-” The audio cut out abruptly, an annoying whine of two signals mixing briefly erasing the name of the guest. Angel cringed, but the audio went back to normal after a mere second.
“-we’re so happy to have you here, my dear,” continued the radio host, his tone warm.
“Happy to be here, Alastor,” a feminine voice Angel didn’t recognize responded in earnest. “I'm a huge fan of yours, so this is an honor, truly!”
Alastor laughed a little, clearly flustered by the high praise. “Well thank you, I-” and here the audio cut and whined, and Angel groaned, smacking the old radio as if that would help. It seemed to behave, for a while.
“...really quite fascinated by the happenings in your newest book,” he pauses and the flipping of pages can be heard. “It’s rather intriguing. Where on earth did you get the ideas for half of these brutal murders? And can they actually happen?”
“Well, I like to think I took some creative liberties. I read several stories in the papers of various small, but very real murder cases, and used them. I changed the names and locations of course, but yes, many of those did happen. Very often, the method itself was unclear, so I used my imagination. I could have been a detective, you know, but they’re not fond of creative liberties these days.”
“I was just about to say…” Alastor mused. “I think it’s brilliant, all the same. One would think you had personal experience.”
“Oh heavens no!” the guest laughed good-naturedly. “I couldn’t possibly cover up my tracks.”
Alastor chuckled darkly. “My dear, I believe you could. Why, you have the greatest alibi ever conceived! ‘ Why no, officer, I haven’t heard anything of those deaths, I am but a simple writer of stories that are perhaps a little on the darker side, but I am no murderer! ’”
The guest giggled uncontrollably for a good minute, hardly able to get a word out in rebuttal.
While they were giggling, Alastor took a moment to advertise the name of the book, which was actually a collection of short horror stories, and where it was now selling. “Any last words, my dear?” he asked while the author was catching their breath.
“You,” they said in between pants. “Are mad, dear sir. But-”
“Thank you,” Alastor replied. One could hear the grin he was sporting in his voice.
“But I enjoyed my time here all the same.”
Angel was pretty sure the whole exchange left him rock hard. He inhaled deeply, shifting in his seat, deeply aroused. Something about the dark, creepy, but ultimately sexy tone the radio host used during that whole interview got Angel riled up considerably. Forget the waiter at that diner, his fantasies would now be filled with this charming man, and the blonde didn't even know what he looked like.
Alastor bid the author good night and thanked them again for coming in, and there was a moment of silence, broken only by the static, shuffling of papers, a quiet slurp of some liquid and a sigh.
"What a delightful person," the host murmured. His tone was fond, and warm, no longer the creepy one he'd used earlier that got to Angel so much.
"If you would like to be a guest on the show, feel free to contact us at-" and once again, the audio was overpowered by something else, this time more static. Angel clenched his jaw in irritation and flicked his hand to the tuning dial. The timing was impeccable, and annoying as hell.
It was no use. He'd driven out of range, and the signal was gone. He sighed heavily, and went back to looking for a different station. After a while he gave up and turned the radio off, preferring the sound of the engine over static.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
He pulled into a gas station half an hour later. It would be the only one for many miles and though he wasn’t entirely strapped for gas, it was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, he really needed to stretch his legs. He pulled up to a pump, turned the engine off, opened the door and got out, groaning and stretching his limbs. His joints popped as he moved, and his back audibly cracked. He sighed, looking over at the pump, and groaned. It was one of those pay inside to pump places. Who was gonna steal gas from this place in the middle of nowhere?
Angel sighed out of his nose but stuck the pump in anyway. He was still sporting a half chub, but he was not in the mood to try to use that to his advantage here. It didn’t matter who was manning the front desk.
He strode into the store, pulling his wallet out and slapping some money on the counter, making the tired and bored looking young man there start like he’d been shocked. He stared up at Angel with bleary eyes and a blank look on his face. “What pump, sir?” he drawled sleepily.
“Two.”
The kid shuffled off to flip the switch, presumably, and Angel turned to walk around the small convenience store, coming back a few minutes later with some snacks and drinks, and the kid rang him up. Neither made any attempts to make conversation, and the only things the kid said to him was “did you find everything okay” and “do you want a bag for this”.
“No, I thought I’d sprout some extra arms on my way back to my car.” Angel said it sarcastically, tired and very irritated. He just wanted to get home so he could booze up, jack off, and sleep like a dead man until the next gig. But the kid cracked a small smile and put the items in a bag and handed it over. “Enjoy your trip sir, drive safely.”
Angel couldn’t help rolling his eyes as he took the bag and headed back out to his car.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Angel pulled up to his father’s estate at a quarter to 3, parked it in the garage, and sauntered up to the house with his goodies. It was dark and quiet, mostly. Pretty much everyone should be asleep by now, Angel figured, until he walked past one room and his brother’s voice rang out from the darkness.
“Hey fuckface, yer late.”
The blonde made a noise of disgust and shot back, “It took longer than I thought, alright? But the guy’s dead now, I got my pay, and I’m back in one piece. Ain’t that enough?”
A lamp went on and an old armchair turned around, all dramatic like a scene from a movie. In it sat Arackniss, Angel’s older brother and thorn in his side. His hair was black and unkempt, and he had bags under his eyes from too many nights of burning the midnight oil, but such was the requirements of the family business. He was still in his zoot suit, but his tie was hanging around his neck and a few buttons of his shirt were undone. He’d been waiting up for a while.
Angel tossed a wad of cash at him and it smacked his brother in the chest and landed on the floor. Arackniss swore under his breath and leaned forward to grab it. The blonde noted a half full bottle of whiskey and a mostly empty glass on the table next to the chair. His brother had been drinking, mostly out of boredom he reckoned.
“Did Pa tell ya to wait up for me?” he sneered, digging in his bag for his own liquor. He pulled out a can of some kind of cheap beer and popped the tab, taking a long swig.
Arackniss grunted, and Angel watched him knock back the rest of his whiskey. The older one winced. “Not my idea,” he muttered. “Told me he’d shoot me if he heard me upstairs before ya’d gotten back.”
Angel made a face at the can. It wasn’t the best alcohol he’d ever had, but it was the only appealing thing at the time. It’d been his incentive to get home quickly, but it was worth it, he decided, crossing the room past his brother to the kitchen to dump the rest of it down the sink.
“Want th’ rest of this?” Arackniss called after him.
Whiskey wasn’t really his choice of liquor, but he’d take anything to rid his mouth of the taste of that beer. He entered the room again, and found his brother pouring him a third of a glass. Angel took it and knocked it back, shuddering at the taste. That was the warmest welcome he was gonna get around here for the night.
“Help... me up,” Arackniss grunted, limply grabbing in Angel’s general direction. The blonde rolled his eyes and offered his hand. His brother took it and with a groan, got off the chair and stumbled into Angel. He was shorter, only coming up to his younger brother’s chest, but no less lanky.
“Are ya gonna be able to make it up the stairs?” Angel asked.
Arackniss sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine,” he muttered, pushing the other back. He stood there, swaying a moment, before stumbling off in the direction of the stairs. Angel turned off the lamp and followed him.
Turns out his brother did need help getting up the stairs. Typical, but neither of them complained. Angel was too tired and this was something that happened too often anyway. Arackniss shoved him away again once they got to the top and stumbled off down the hall to his room. Angel huffed. “You’re welcome, bastard,” he muttered, stalking past his brother and shoving him into his room, listening with petty satisfaction as Arackniss tripped and fell to the floor, muttering a string of curses so foul it would out-hex a witch.
Angel snickered under his breath. Both men knew better than to cause enough of a ruckus to wake their Pa, who would give them a hell of an ass whooping if they did. Despite them being full grown adults, some things never changed.
As soon as he closed his door he began undressing, pulling clothes off and stepping out of his shoes until he was down to an undershirt and boxers by the time he collapsed onto his bed. He was so beyond tired he didn’t even want to do anything else but sleep. He rolled onto his side and sighed. He was asleep as soon as his eyes were closed.