Anthony shivered as the early morning wind whistled between his legs and nicked at his bare arms. Cold as hell. Hot as hell. They both applied - there was never any comfortable weather. You either felt like a frog in a pot slowly coming to a boil or like an arctic tic just bit you in the ass. There were few in-betweens.
The sheer fabric and shortness of his skirt together with his slim jacket did little to cover up his body - his clothes didn't serve what had always been the traditional purpose of clothing (that is, to protect and warm) but rather as decorations for the goods.
For his goods, himself, and them being the same. On this morning, more than others did he feel like a purchased item: some sad, broken condom strewn upon the side of the street.
The wind rippled through his pale fur and stung his eyes. This time of the morning was when Hell was at its most dormant: in the living world at around eight AM, streets were busy with people hopping to and fro, cars honking and general clamor resounding between buildings in preparation for the day. But who the fuck was going to be up at 8 AM in Hell?
At that time, more than any others did this place really seem like the pit for damned souls that it truly was. It was a cold morning without the promise of the sun, the passing of a dead day under a pit.
His throat was still sore from the night's proceedings - he didn't remember any other of Valentino's punishments having been so harsh. Every concave inch of his body felt raw and bleeding, and his skin was almost worming away from him as if it didn't really belong to him anymore.
Although he had been under Valentino's terrible wings for more than a few years, and though he wasn't a prim and proper toy soldier (was anyone here?), he'd never had to face the great ring-handed slap Valentino had dealt with him that night. He pushed it into some rotting corner of his head, of his hollow chest. He didn't have to think about it anymore, and he had paid the debt, all holes slathered over with filler.
Nothing like that would ever happen again - he had a life that felt eternal before him, and though he'd never be wise, perhaps he could avoid ever being so foolish again. In the uncomfortable limbo of the think-of-it-don't-think-of-it dance, his brain was pirouetting around, and something broke him out of limbo.
Between the odd, far-off sounds of bottles breaking against heads and asphalt and the few scattered stragglers milling drunkenly about, there came the shrill, clear screech of a baby's crying. Tony's hair stood on end. Demon babies sounded like a bag of cats being pounded against concrete, like a bunch of nails in a blender, like Skrillex, but this - this was just plain old crying.
He'd heard it a few times when he'd been around babies. Living babies. Breathing, undemonic, nonHell-dwelling babies. And then his inner dialogue clicked on as routine, like an older man turning on the radio to listen to the war or whatever it was that interested older people.
Angel: It's a kid. Just a kid. Go to it. Angel Dust: So what if it's a kid? What am I gonna do with it? Pop it like a canapé? Angel: Go. Angel Dust: You're ridiculous. Go to sleep and get some drugs - that was the plan.
I ain't starting a daycare. Angel: Go. Anthony, who felt the better Angel's presence so remote considering everything that had happened a few hours earlier, was surprised to find his long, aching legs kicking up garbage as they sped toward the sound of the suicidal baby's wailing.
He stopped at a graffitied tunnel that lay crumbling just under what might've once been a railway station. The tunnel was nearly flooded, and Angel's white fur became stained with shit brown.
He groaned and started considering maybe making some masochistic masturbation films - since he liked fucking himself over so much. He kicked up a ball of crap that had tangled itself into his legs and noticed it landed on the source of the crying. "Shit." He sped to the infant, a filthy smear of indescribable substances on its forehead.
It's wide; clearly, human eyes struck Anthony. It'd been so long since he'd seen anything of the sort. In fact, he never thought he'd see such purity ever again. And he certainly didn't count on finding it in a sewer in the shape of an abandoned baby.
Looking around, there clearly wasn't anyone to claim it. He was quite surprised to find the child intact that no creep had taken it home to make tender, sweet-pea-baby soup. Angel knelt beside it and swiped the filth from its forehead. The child bore an odd, lightning-shaped scar. Hm.
Maybe he actually wasn't unscathed. But really - what in the fuck was it doing here? Not just here as in this random tunnel, but here, dead, in Hell. Well, he thought, staring at its rosy cheeks, not really dead.
"Right, you little fucker," he grumbled, scooping the swath of trouble into his arms and tucking him into the folds of his chest. If anyone saw him, he'd say it was a prop for a particularly freaky client.
Who would even think it was odd? No one - and anyway, most demons minded their business unless they were trying to kill you or fuck you. He doubted anyone wanted to kill him right now, and he felt he'd already fucked this whole side of the pentagram tonight. Nothing to worry about.
As he sped through the dilapidated streets, the stupid baby goblin started crying again. Angel cursed and put his thumb in the kid's mouth in a fashion more like a gag than a pacifier. The little turd started sucking on it immediately.
"Boy, does this remind me of something," Angel muttered to himself? His exhaustion and confusion toward the whole situation had neared him to delirium. When he arrived at his apartment, he collapsed. Maybe he'd wake up, and the child would have vanished, just a figment of his overworked imagination and a stressed mind.
He convinced himself of the child's existence as he dozed off on the moth-eaten plush couch, part of him already adopting that parental stance of keeping one eye open in case something happened to their child. He did leave the baby on the syringe-littered floor, though.