Work Text:
The city skyline always looked prettiest when its colors were neon drips smeared through imposing, dark lines. When it was just on the other side of inescapable glass, close enough to feel, too far away to touch. Its noise was a psychedelic beat beneath the unheard fizzle of digesting pills and smoldering burn of spiced smoke settling into his throat.
It was beautiful, and when Angel stood against the floor to ceiling window in nothing but a set of pale lavender lingerie and a sheer robe cascading over the gentle curves of his battered body, maybe he felt beautiful too. It didn’t matter what he was beneath the surface: sinner, murderer, addict, whore. As long as he was alone, pretending that the bedroom door was locked, he was just as lovely and imposing as the world staring back at him.
If Angel could wish on the pinpricks of light shining against the deep red sky, if prayers held any worth for the damned, he’d drop onto his knees, plead for the moment to last, offer what little was left of him for just another hour of fantasy before reality tore him apart. But moments like this, they never lasted. They couldn't.
He heard the click of those polished, designer shoes marching down the hall, chiming like funeral bells during Sunday mass. He’d learned to read their tempo long ago. Knew the emotions in every rising crescendo and heavy beat. It didn’t surprise him that Val was angry, lately, Val always was.
It didn't matter anymore, how far back he bent, how deeply he pulled from a well running dry, nothing was ever enough. Somewhere along the way he’d lost the rungs of the ladder Valentino had built him up with, and as he walked on makeshift stilts Angel felt like he’d only been risen high so that Valentino could gloat while he came crashing down.
A door that could only be locked from the outside swung open, crashing against a wall that's been repaired so many times it was a wonder it could be made whole again at all. That silhouette, all sharp lines and sensual curves, lingered for a heartbeat, and Angel hated the way he was drawn to it, how his knees went weak before a casted shadow that didn’t reach him, yet still left him shrouded in darkness.
“Val?” His voice trembled, whispering a name that meant everything to him. A single syllable that defined his deepest affections and reflected his hardest regrets.
There was no response. No sound of his name spoken on crushed velvet saturated with iridescent, crimson smoke. No love or hate intermixed on a cocktail of venomously sweet breath. Just the pounding of hurried strides to the beat of his own heart fracturing his ribs within his chest.
And then, before he could strum a single word across his vocal chords, Valentino’s hand crushed them into a choked, ugly noise. Angel felt his body slam against its reflection, wishing the glass would finally give out, wanting, for just a moment, to fly free before plummeting to something far less violently destructive then what he saw glowing behind those heart shaped glasses.
“Please…please don’t hurt me,” he whispered the words like empty prayers to a God that listened because he loved the sound. But Angel’s God rarely granted requests. He stole from the collection plate that he gladly passed from one greedy hand to the next, painted his temple in melancholy colors and covered the cracked marble in extravagant drapes. “I’ll do anything ya want, just, just don’t-“ He wheezed through narrowed airways.
Valentino chuckled, a sound too dark to be joyful. It resonated with all the sharpness of gilded blades adorned with jewel encrusted handles. Beautiful in how deadly it was. He leaned in closer, a dark deity with a voice as smooth as sin laced silks, and brushed his lips against Angel’s ear. “Oh, baby, you can do better than that. I know you can.”
And maybe he could. If he knew why the man he adored was hurting him this time, maybe he’d know what hymns of apology he was supposed to sing. If he wasn’t being strangled against the window, fingers sliding over glass in a pointless effort to grasp at anything, then he could fall to his knees in blind worship and kiss the heels waiting to stomp down over the heart they kept trampling.
He was never allowed to ask why. Pretty faces didn’t ask questions, they didn’t think.
“Val, baby please.” He gasped around a sob trapped beneath curled fingers. “Please,” His voice cracked with need, a mix of pleading and surrender. “I can't,” Can’t breathe. Can’t understand. Can’t do anything unless you let me.
Valentino’s smirk widened, his lips trailing down to hover just above Angel’s quivering, blue tinted lips. “That’s what I thought,” he murmured, brushing a reverent kiss against Angel’s mouth. The touch was fleeting, teasing, leaving Angel chasing after it just so he could escape.
Sweet, welcomed darkness crept along the edges of his vision, and Angel let his vision tunnel, dove into the murky currents where it didn't matter what happened because he’d be too busy floating in the numb to realize he was drowning at bone crushing depths. The haze shattered with a sharp, desperate gulp of air and the feeling of plush carpet over polished tiles.
Angel pushed himself up on shaking arms, gaze following the taut lines of Valentino’s legs, catching on the light glinting off his belt buckle. The chest he loved to rest his head upon, the heartbeat that often lulled him to sleep. And then, those eyes. Narrowed and dangerous, glowing warmly while making him so fucking cold it ached. The world shifted in slow motion as his oxygen starved brain tried to catch up, and Angel felt the sharp prick of Valentino’s clawed fingers hook beneath his chin, holding his gaze captive, long before he registered that Val had moved at all.
“Why are you already crying?” Valentino murmured, frowning with disappointed amusement. “I haven't even hurt you yet.”
Yet. Yet was an unwanted promise that still managed to pierce through the scar tissue armor that Angel had accumulated over the years. Yet meant that Valentino had already been planning to hurt him, and yeah, Angel knew that, he’d read it in the sound of Valentino’s arrival, it coiled around every rope of muscle, rang like haunted bells on his voice. And there was nothing he could do but let that singular word pierce him deep, already trying to stitch closed the wounds he was waiting to receive.
“I’m sorry, Val,” He managed softly, hands reaching out rather than focusing on holding himself up. His palms slid over the soft fabric of Valentino’s slacks, an open handed prayer for mercy that he wanted even if he didn’t deserve it. Because Valentino wasn’t just everything he’d ever wanted, he was the punishment for all of Angel’s sins.
And Angel was a sinner through and through.
Trembling fingers stretched higher, daring to ghost over the gates of a wretched heaven before curving around Valentino’s thighs. Praise and fear resided in the glow of Angel’s cerise eyes, and he prayed despite himself that maybe tonight he’d find peace in purgatory. And for a single deceptive moment, as Valentino’s thumb brushes over his lower lip in a carnally sacramental blessing, Angel thinks maybe this time it won’t be so bad. Maybe tonight the pain would be a dark bliss shining over him rather than a ruinous rain baptizing him into another state of bruised blasphemy.
“You’re so beautifully pathetic like this,” Valentino continued, tracing clawed fingers over Angel’s jaw. “Aren't you, Angel?”
“Yes, Val.” Angel answered, mechanically complainant. He was beautiful, no matter how polluted he was by the countless hands that beat and used him. He was lovely dripping in diamonds or painted in ugly watercolor bruises. In Valentino’s eyes, he was perfect to a fault, and that's why he needed to be kept in his place. Because it was easy to fool himself, to rely on his body and every devious talent he had to get his way. It was easy to forget how worthless his tarnished soul was when the world treated him like he was priceless.
Valentino never failed to remind him of exactly what he was beneath all the glamor and praise.
It came expected, yet without warning. Long fingers tangled in his hair, golden nails scraping across his scalp. Angel’s head hit the wall with a muted crash that screamed heresy in his ears. Ears that rang with hushed whispers in haunted hymns declaring his sins. Murderer. Addict. Whore . Truths that he wore like a crown of flowering thorns that stung when they were pointed back at him by vindictive hands. Valentino’s voice smeared across the noise, but Angel couldn’t make out the words fast enough to reply before the sting of an open palm swept his own convictions out onto the floor.
Another slap. His thoughts scattered, grave dust on tempest winds. A sharp heel pressed against his chest, pinning all of his love and hate beneath the coffin of his ribs. Every fiber of his being wanted to fight back, to scream, to believe that he didn’t deserve this because he didn’t know what he’d done this time to earn it. But punishment wasn’t linear, not with Val. Maybe Angel hadn’t done anything today, but he’d still done something at one time or another. He was in Hell after all, trapped for eternity in an everlasting reminder of his transgressions. A sinner. Murderer. Addict. Whore.
Blood stained the pearly white enamel of his crooked smile. Poisonous copper water dripped down his throat, trickling through broken sobs that rattled like shattered glass glistening with colorful surfaces and jagged edges. Pain spread, warm and cold all at once from every new bruise blooming beneath the fine white fur of his sinner’s body. And then, tears. Thick, heavy, silent. Unholy drops of gasoline sprinkled over the splintered wood of a funeral pyre that was always a single match away from burning him alive.
And through it all, Angel waited. Waited for temporary absolution from a man who he revered as both his lover and executioner. He waited for his wrongs to be given names, for the mocking jeers or bittersweetly spoken praises. His head pounded so loudly to the violent rhythm of fists and heeled feet that he couldn’t hear the words curling on the smoke that spilled from lips he ached to feel pressed against him.
“I said,” Valentino huffed through heaving breaths, sweat glimmering like melting stars over a lavender sky. “Do you understand?”
Angel didn’t. He hadn’t heard a single word, but he nodded his head carefully to avoid the nauseating rush of movement anyway. “Yes, Val.” He croaked, stringing together Valentino's two favorite words on threads of learned understanding. No matter what the question was, the right answer was always yes.
“Good boy.” Valentino crooned, his voice a saccharine bandage over all of the pain.
Firm hands that had been unforgivably cruel only moments before lifted Angel to his feet with a reverent tenderness that felt like another warning. But Angel followed their lead, locking his legs to keep himself from tumbling back onto the floor. He let Valentino hold him, his ear pressed to the broad chest that always made him feel so cherished in all of the ways no one else had ever allowed him to be.
No one else, not on Earth, not in Hell, loved him as deeply as Valentino did. No one else kissed away the pain with the same adoration or looked at him with the same acceptance for everything he was. Sinner. Murderer. Addict. Whore. Valentino brought out the best and encouraged the worst of every part of him.
“Why do you keep making me do this, amorcito?” Valentino buried his face in Angel's hair, the gentle caresses of his hands shifting into possessive snares.
“I didn’t,” Angel went rigid. “I mean, I,” Too late. All too quickly he was back against the window, a hand cradled around his throat, two more on his hips. “Val, daddy, please,” The last hand clamped hard over his mouth, nails freckling his cheeks with small crimson spots.
“What was that?” Valentino demanded incredulously, turning his head as if he were listening for a reply that Angel couldn’t give. It wasn’t an answer that he wanted though, just the attempt. And Angel tired, fuck did he try. His lips dragged over his teeth, crushed beneath Valentino’s heated palm in an attempt to beg forgiveness through scripted apologies. His hands trembled, fingers stroking Valentino’s wrists rather than grasp at them to break himself free.
It was a precarious dance underneath the red spotlight of Valentino’s glare. One that Angel knew every step to by heart, yet somehow, he kept missing the beat. Blinking back another symphony of tears, he let the sheer robe slide over his arms, pooling at his feet. Praise him . Angel told himself, his lower hands flattening against Valentino’s chest, not to push him away, but to worship. Placate him . His tongue poked through his lips, pressed against Valentino’s palm until it managed to slither across the closed gap between his fingers. A devious, filthy prayer spoken through saliva and soft, hummed sounds.
“Is that all I am to you?” Each of his hands tightened, shaking with the effort to control his rising temper. “After all this time, is that really the only thing you want from me?”
Angel stilled. He didn’t know what Val wanted from him if it wasn’t sex. Pain and pleasure were the only consistent thing in their relationship, interchangeable but never separated. If Val didn’t want to fuck him after beating the ever loving fuck out of him, then Angel didn’t know what he was meant to do right now. Not while pinned to the window with Val’s hand crushed against his mouth.
“I’m not sure if you’re terrible at acting or just too selfish to care.”
That wasn’t fucking fair. Shaking his head against forced silence, the unspoken argument burned against Angel’s cheeks.
“You think anyone else would put up with your shit, baby? I made you.” Honey and vinegar coated every word. “No one loved you before me, and no one will after. I keep you relevant even when you fuck everything up. You owe me everything.”
And there it was. The sermon of condemnation and guilt. Versed truths in tainted scriptures.
Angry as he was, Angel couldn’t deny it. Not just because Val’s fingers were embedded into his cheeks, but because it was a gospel truth spoken from a demon’s self righteous mouth. He let those painful reminders wash over him like boiling holy water, too hot to stand but too familiar to leave. They saturated his fractured soul, soaking into the cracks etched into him by the wrongs he’d committed. Addict. Whore. Lover. Liar.
“Fine.” Valentino broke the silence with a tone that both shattered Angel’s heart and steeled it against what he knew was coming. “If this is all I’m good for, then I’ll give you what you want.”
Angel flinched—not from fear, but recognition. That line was his . Or at least, it was close enough to the one he used when he needed to disguise surrender with acceptance. Those words were a weapon in Valentino’s voice, dangerously corrupted.
The room pitched sideways in a blur of movement and strained ache. Heels scraped across polished tile. Angel’s breath stuttered, a prayer knocked loose from his lungs, as his back hit the bed—body shifting on instinct into a position learned too well. A willing sacrifice spread across an altar of desecration.
And still, despite the way his body ached beneath the pain, he wanted Val to sanctify him. He needed to feel that dark blessing—bone deep and rotting. Valentino’s love was both redemption and flagellation—fleeting grace in a ruined church. It was something holy in all of the worst ways. A love that punished him as much as it proved there was something in him still worth condemning. Something still worth trying to save.
“Say it,” Val breathed—low, poisonous, reverent. “Say you need me.”
Angel’s throat tightened. The words hovered, half-formed and aching. He let them fall, one by one, like a rosary of broken prayers. “I need you.”
Valentino moved over him with predatory grace, lowering himself until his silhouette eclipsed everything else. Until Angel’s entire world narrowed to the curve of his smile and the shine of crimson glass. “Make me believe it, amorcito.” His voice was a velvet collar locked around Angel’s throat, tethering them together by a leash of golden words. He brushed their lips together—soft, almost tender—painting Angel’s mouth with that sweet venom that always made the world hurt a little less.
Angel closed his eyes and let the numb take him. Let it spread until what little he’d been given was stretched too thin to cradle him. Tears streaked his cheeks, and still he whispered, “I need you, Val.” His voice cracked. He trembled, crying harder now, unsure of what more he could offer. What more he could sacrifice. He squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that blotches of light danced behind the lids—holy, blinding things. The throb in his head bellowed like horns of revelation through his ears.
“Then look at me, Angel.”
All the world went silent and still as Angel obeyed.
Through tear-slicked lashes, Angel focused on the red halo gleaming from Valentino’s glasses. And just like that, he became a casualty beneath the limelight—an offering laid bare in a coffin of satin sheets, framed lovely and ruined in the reflection of his lover’s gaze. A dying star burning out for the sake of worship.
“Val, please—” His voice cracked, crumbling into something raw. If he hadn’t been pinned beneath Valentino’s weight, Angel might have collapsed to the floor, bowed low in reverence, begging until his throat gave out. He would have wept at the altar, given anything, been anything—just for a moment of clarity. Just for kindness. Because he still didn’t understand why Valentino had stormed in screaming, why the fists came first, why his offer of sex had been rejected—only to be thrown onto their bed moments later.
He was overwhelmed, aching, confused. He just wanted it to be over.
“You’re so desperate when you beg,” Valentino sneered, snatching his wrists and pulling them toward the corners of the bed. “You always act like the victim.” He pressed his weight down, winding ropes around Angel’s arms, voice sharpening with every twist.
The ropes cinched tight.
“Do you even think about how I feel?” Another length of course rope, frayed and painful, looped around Angel’s lower wrists, holding them over his stomach, palms pressed together in forced prayer. “Or are you too busy sucking your next high off my tongue to care?”
Angel sank into the mattress, spine bowed, upper arms stretched wide in a mockery of crucifixion on their bed of sin. He did think about Valentino. Always. He never stopped. Every breath, every night spent with clients, every bruise he covered with foundation, every hit he took just to smile through the pain—Angel did it for him. For Val.
Because Angel wasn’t just addicted to the high. He was addicted to him—to the praise, the punishment, the fleeting moments when Valentino's love felt like salvation. He had been hopelessly devoted to the man who destroyed him piece by piece, and still, he kept searching for meaning in the wreckage. For proof that he was more than a blind martyr bleeding for love.
Sinner. Addict. Liar. Lover.
Titles he’d earned echoed through Angel’s mind, each one another heavy iron stake driven deep into his flesh, nailing him to the altar of his own undoing. His limbs trembled, not from fear—he’d long since bled that dry—but from the urgency to make this right. To soothe Val’s wrath before it ignited into another round of fire and brimstone rained down over him. Prostrated on their bed, Angel’s voice broke into a litany of desperate prayers—reassurances, apologies, half-formed questions swallowed by sobs. He became a vision of worship twisted into perversion: devotion pouring from trembling limbs and tear-streaked cheeks.
Valentino loomed above him, basking in the spectacle like a deity fed by suffering. His gaze burned—not just with hunger for control—but for reverence. He didn’t want obedience. He wanted worship. He needed it. He needed Angel—needed the whimpering devotion, the sacred ruin of something beautiful broken just for him. Angel was his carnal scripture. His blood-streaked gospel. His secret everything kept close.
“I’m sorry,” Angel whispered, voice unsteady. “I’ll be good. I promise. Just… tell me what you want.” Tell me why. Show me how to atone. Rebirth me in your image .
Valentino paused, silhouetted in red and gold, a shadow cast from stained glass. He drank in Angel’s submission, basking in the low hum of dominance and devotion that pulsed through the room like a heartbeat. This was what he craved—not just obedience, but worship. Not just a partner, but a congregation.
“My little penitent,” he murmured, voice dripping with sacramental affection. Fingertips brushed Angel’s lips, then curled around his throat. “But a whore’s promise isn’t worth much, is it?” He reached for the drawer, lifting the ball gag as though unveiling a holy relic. “Prove to me you deserve my forgiveness.”
Angel’s lips parted willingly, the soft sheen of saliva glistening on them as he gasped for air.
The gag slid in—firm, absolute. Silicone silence swallowed his voice, entombing prayer and protest alike. He choked down the words he would have said, swallowed them whole like communion: bitter, binding, sacred. His voice, his fear, his shame—Valentino took it all. And in that hush, Angel braced for what he knew came next.
All at once, Valentino’s hands were everywhere. Gentle strokes wiping away the tears that Angel couldn’t stop crying. Crushing vices against his narrow hips, subduing every squirm. A single slap—sharp enough to snap his neck sideways, echoed by a phantom choir chanting from the shadows: Murderer. Sinner. Addict. Slut. Claws scraped over his thighs, parting his legs wide. And Angel let them. He welcomed it. Pleading in muffled moans—hymns of desperation for forgiveness he didn’t deserve, but still begged for.
Valentino thrust divine retribution into him with a double-edged mercy that tore screams from Angel’s throat while penitence leaked from the corners of his gagged mouth. Fire licked at the walls of his body, sanctifying the sullied temple of everything he was, everything he’d ever been. And Angel welcomed the burn.
Because Valentino loved the body he condemned. He cherished it, worshiped it, desecrated it. His hands roamed like benediction and blasphemy all at once, kissing bruises into flesh he deemed unworthy, exalting the very thing he broke. And Angel bore it with trembling gratitude, convincing himself this was proof of love. That his suffering wasn’t meaningless if it made Valentino stay.
He didn’t know when he’d started confusing mercy with malice. How he’d let punishment and love coil around each other like twin serpents, hissing psalms in a language only pain could understand.
Maybe it was the way Val’s touch could both ruin and rapture him. Maybe it was how every act of cruelty came wrapped in a whisper of devotion—how his punishments felt like sacred rites, and his praise like absolution. Valentino was both a gracious god and unholy reckoning. A savior whose love was a curse Angel was too lost to refuse.
The perfect punishment for all of his sins.
And he told himself that he was fine with it. That he deserved the way ropes burned brands of ownership into his wrists while he writhed beneath Valentino. He bore the weight of his life, past and present, on arms stretched wide, joints burning as sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat and dampened his tousled hair. Angel moaned a choked, rasping sound around the gag holding his mouth open in muted devotion, aching for breath and aching for him. Willingly hurting because of him.
Valentino’s body rocked above his, a wall of heat and scent—cologne and sweat and sin. His breath came harsh and heavy, breathing iridescent smoke over Angel’s flushed skin. Each exhale was a sermon of lust, each thrust a vow taken at the altar of his ruin. The bed creaked with every movement, a discordant hymn to their rhythm. Angel could feel him—every inch, every bruise, every promise of pleasure paid for in pain—and still, his heart beat with something perilously close to adoration.
Because Valentino had given him everything he thought he wanted. Fame. Glamour. The freedom to indulge in his vices and the illusion of choice. Valentino loved him, openly, completely, in all the ways he wanted to be loved, even when he fought back. Val hurt him, but he always stayed afterwards. No one else did. And that made it so much easier to accept the things he didn’t want, to forgive the violent transgressions and convince himself that he deserved all of it.
Valentino came with a low groan that vibrated through his whole chest. His breath hitched with a small squeak, his hips snapped forward, and he emptied himself into the bruised sanctuary of Angel’s body—an unholy blessing offered on a podium of torn sheets and stifled sobs. A baptism not of water, but of blood and seed.
Angel gasped beneath him, body trembling, chest heaving with the strain of restraint and the ache of his pounding heart. His tongue slid across the ball wedged between his teeth, pushing uselessly to beg Valentino for the mercy of release. His hips rose into Valentino’s grasp, taut and shaking, his erection weeping to the sound of his own voice wordlessly begging. He wanted to cum. Needed to feel the rapture cleanse him of the filth running through his veins.
Selfish. Lover. Addict. Whore .
He sobbed in the absence that followed Valentino’s withdrawal. He felt hollowed out, shattered, fallen from a grace he’d only barely managed to grasp only to have it slip away to the sound of Valentino’s breathy laughter.
For a heartbeat, everything stilled.
Valentino lingered, panting, the crimson glow of his gaze shining down on the wreckage he’d forged from Angel’s body: stretched and spent, tear-streaked and bruised. And for one terrifying moment, he looked at Angel as if he were sacred.
Because he was. Because despite everything, Valentino adored him.
He needed Angel in a way he’d never needed anything else in Hell. Not the fear of his underlings. Not the obedience of his whores. Angel was the only thing that challenged his dominion—made him question the gospel of power and carnal indulgence he’d built his world upon. Angel was temptation given form: soft, defiant, devoted. A holy defector tangled in sin. A sinner who made a god want to fall to his knees.
Angel made him feel like a man again—not a god—but a man trembling on the edge of devotion.
And Valentino hated him for it. Just as much as he loved him for it.
So he hurt him.
He broke him down because it was easier than admitting the truth: that no matter how tightly he pulled Angel’s leash, no matter how deep he sank inside him, Angel still held a god forsaken power over him. He had to wound what he worshiped in secret shame, so the worship wouldn’t consume him.
Valentino cupped Angel’s face, thumb brushing over damp lashes and drool-slick lips, watching his own cum seep from the altar of Angel’s hips with devout satisfaction. He leaned close, forehead to forehead, a mockery of intimacy, of prayer.
“You’re mine,” he whispered, not a declaration, but a confession. “My punishment. My penance. My fucking cross to bear.”
And he kissed the corners of Angel’s mouth—tender, devout, wretched. As if loving Angel was the most unforgivable sin of all. And maybe it was. Maybe loving Angel was his punishment for the man he’d been and the demon he’d become.
Monster. Abuser. Liar. Lover .
The warmth faded from Valentino’s gaze, replaced by something harder, colder—almost lonesome—as he slipped from the bed like a priest abandoning his confession. Valentino left Angel behind, knowing he could manage the remaining ropes on his own with permission. He’d taught him well, after all.
He crossed the room with steps that echoed like fading threats, the click of his heels ringing with the finality of mass. Pressing his elbow to the window, forehead braced against bloodied knuckles, Valentino let his gaze drift over the blur of neon lights drawing him deeper into the empire he’d built—stone by stone, sin by sin.
Behind him, Angel rose on trembling legs and followed—silent, naked, devout. He sank to his knees beside Valentino, folding himself at his feet. Like he had earlier, he thought about how beautiful the city skyline was when it was a blur of vibrant color and looming shadows in tear stained eyes. The Pride ring stretched out before them, but all Angel could think about was how holy they looked together reflected in the glass. Wretched and divine.
Valentino’s fingers slid into Angel’s hair, combing through sweat-matted strands with aching tenderness. But he didn’t look at him. He only sighed, tugging Angel closer until his cheek rested against his thigh. And there, with Hell stretching endlessly before him, Valentino prayed—not to any god, not even to himself—but to the sinner kneeling at his feet.
What he prayed for, he wasn’t sure. Forgiveness, maybe. The kind Angel was always quick to give. For the body Angel let him covet. For the way his tears glittered like offering in the collection plate. For the sound of his anger dissolving into surrender. For staying—even though he couldn’t leave.
Angel murmured something softly against his leg—words lost to longing and repentance—and Valentino’s eyes fluttered shut. He wondered, not for the first time, whether they were each other’s twisted salvation or their eternal punishment. Did it even matter?
All he really knew was that he’d never felt holier than when he was damned by Angel’s presence in his afterlife.