Chapter 10: Showing Off Your Creation

"Hey sugartits."

Cherri spun around in her seat, hair almost smacking him in the stomach. "Angie!" She jumped up and hugged him and got a face full of fur for her trouble. "I didn't know if you'd make it, thought those bitches at the hotel might've grounded you again."

"Nope," Angel said, sticking out his chest proudly, "I've been a model resident these past weeks." Then he devolved into cackling, unable to keep up the act for even a minute. He slipped into the chair across the table. "God, could you imagine?"

"Had me scared there for a second," she joked, returning to her seat, too. "Thought you mighta gone soft, you sayin' they let you out on good behavior. Guess your actin's good for somethin' other than porn flicks, huh?"

"Hey! I am the best actor at the studio. I could do movies if I wanted. Val's lucky he's got me contracted or one of the clean places would've snagged me up already."

"Oh, please. I've seen your shit, Angie, nobody's buying it." She pitched her voice up, mocking him. "'Ooh, mista pizza man, I don't got any money for the tip but maybe I can suck yours instead—'"

"Bitch, that is the shittiest New York accent I've ever heard," he said. A waitress stopped by their table. "Get me the iced birthday cake latte, will ya, doll? Extra whip. Thanks. And it ain't my fault the dialogue's corny as hell. I don't write that shit, I'm just readin' lines."

Cherri held her cup up. "Mind bringin' me another mocha with his shit?" At the waitress's nod, she brought her cup back down and took a drink. "But you didn't get in too much trouble, didja? I heard about what happened with the news. Bet the princess was pissed."

He snorted. "I don't think that broad can get pissed. Her girlfriend, though—thought she was gonna run me through with an angel spear. Nearly got me with a throwing knife in the limo. She's been blowin' her fuse at every little thing ever since I joined this fuckin' project."

"She sounds like a real piece of work," she said with a low whistle. "You gotta be dyin' for some action by now. The hell did you do all day? Other than terrorize the staff, obviously."

Angel grinned, flashing his gold tooth. "Oh, you have no idea, toots. But!" He felt around his chest for a moment. Eventually, he produced a bag. "You reminded me. I got a present for ya."

Cherri looked at it suspiciously, but opened it and started digging anyway. "For me? You been stuck at that shitty hotel, how the hell did you—alright, scrunchies, nice, always need those, and—ooh! A new crop top! You know just what I like, Angie." She held it against her chest, checking the size. "Where'd you get it?"

"I made it."

"Like you cut it shorter or—"

"Nope," he said, sticking out his chest with genuine pride this time, "I made it. Sewed it myself. The scrunchies, too."

"Holy shit," she said. "How the hell do you even make scrunchies?"

"Well, I had some extra elastic left over from making—" He stood and did a little twirl, ending with one leg in front of him. "–this skirt!"

She gasped. "Fuck, Angie, I thought you bought that shit! It looks so good!"

"I know, I know."

"Sit back down before your bigass head knocks you over, you conceited son of a bitch."

Laughing, Angel complied. He dragged his chair a little closer. "You like the shirt, though? It ain't too plain?"

"Don't get all insecure on me now, jackass, 'course I like it. Gonna wear it to the club tonight." Cherri elbowed him in the side. "You're comin', right? It's been forever since we got the chance to really party!"

"You know it!" He swung an arm around her shoulders and leaned. It was half a side-hug and half being as asshole about how much height he had on her. "I might've kept myself busy, but fuck I missed this, Cherri."

She leaned, too, and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her elbows on his lower arms. "Missed you too, Angie." She sat up, propping her hands on his knees. "Where the hell did you learn how to sew, anyway?"

His grin returned wider than before. "That's the part you ain't gonna believe," he said. "Alright, take one guess, one wildass fuckin' guess who's been teachin' me. Wildest guess you can think of."

"Shit," she said. "Fuckin', uh—that one dickhead, the—the foot fucker, with the creepy pillow."

"Nope!" He leaned in close. "The goddamn Radio Demon."

"What!"

"Shut up, fuckin' banshee!" Angel said, cackling at her reaction and covering her mouth. "You're gonna get us kicked out, that waitress already hates our fuckin' guts." It would take a lot more than a little yelling to get kicked out of pretty much anywhere in hell, but shouting about the Radio Demon in the middle of the Pentagram couldn't be a great idea. You never knew who was listening.

Seemed like she got the message, because when she batted his hand away and spoke again, it was barely above a whisper. "The hell do you mean, the Radio Demon's teachin' you how to fuckin' sew?"

"Exactly what I said. Apparently he saw the shitshow at the tv station and just had to get in on the action, so now he's sponsorin' this bullshit. Guess he's the hotel's muscle now, too, since Pent-ass swung by lookin' for a fight and Smiles threw him in some kinda portal with his freaky shadow tentacles and—"

"Wait, wait, wait. Wait." Cherri waved her hands at him. Her eye was shut, gathering her thoughts. "Angel, babe, you're gonna need to back the fuck up on that last bit, with the shadow portal and shit, but most importantly…did you just call the Radio Demon fucking Smiles?"

He blinked. "Yes?"

Her mouth moved as if to speak, but mostly she just continued to wave her arms around wordlessly for a moment or so with her eye almost as wide as her head. If he listened close, he thought, he'd probably be able to hear a faint sound like an espresso machine spewing steam. Incredulity? Frustration? Either way, it reminded Angel of Vaggie when she got too pissed for words—usually at him or Smiles—and he could not have his best girl buddy reminding him of that bluenose.

"Don't see the big deal. He's a smiley bastard so I call him Smiles. It's a nickname."

She looked at him for another second, a smile forming, and laughed. Incredulity it was. "Of course, you're fucking him! God, Angie, you should've led with that, I almost pissed myself!"

Angel was never short of comebacks, but no response came to mind. It died before it reached his mouth, or got stuck in that hollow place that had appeared in his chest at her words. His grin fell before he could stick it in place, but he found he didn't care. His eyes dropped on the table. The waitress had brought his latte at some point. The thought of drinking it turned his stomach even more. "We ain't fuckin', actually," he mumbled.

"I didn't mean it like that."

Her smile was gone, too. She put her hand on his arm, but he shook her off. "No, it's fine. I get it."

"Angie—"

"I know," he said, "I get it. Figured I bagged another overlord, made a connection to climb the ladder the only fuckin' way I can…"

"I figured," Cherri interrupted, "that he was your type. I figured you've been thinkin' of him as your fuck buddy so long you forgot he's an overlord, and that's why the nickname wasn't scary as fuck."

He snorted, more at his own stupidity than anything she said. Of course. She's Cherri. "You're half right," he told her. He took a drink of his coffee now that it wasn't nauseating him. "I've been sewin' with Al so long I didn't even think he'd get pissed about the nickname, but I've pissed him off enough that I ain't ever gonna forget he's a goddamn overlord." Angel declined to mention that "so long" was a week.

"You pissed him off? And lived?"

"Ain't that what I do best?"

Her mouth opened, then closed again immediately. He could almost see her thoughts switching tracks from 'slut' to 'asshole' in respect of his most recent minor breakdown. He appreciated it. "Pissin' people off and bailin' out just before they fuckin' kill your ass? Sounds about right."

"But seriously," Angel said, "he's never…never hurt me, or anything. No matter how much of an ass I've been. Threatened a few times, sure, but worst he's done is drag me around, and he wasn't even holdin' my arm tight." He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "I think I'm friends with the Radio Demon, Cherri. That's scarier than the fuckin' nicknames."

"Hey, no overthinkin' and shit." She poked him in the chest. "If he's your friend, you got nothin' to worry about. Probably. But you said he's workin' with the hotel, right? You're, like, the only guest. He can't hurt you."

"But he's been sabotagin' the redemption thing. We've been drinkin' almost every time we sew and I'm supposed to be cuttin' down."

"'Cause you're his friend. Sewing buddy, drinking buddy—it ain't that much of a stretch."

"And the other day he came out of fuckin' nowhere mockin' me 'cause he thought I believed in that bullshit, but first it sounded like he was bringin' up Val and the—and my—y'know? So I got all pissy, but then he backs off and says it was just revenge for pissin' him off before, and I don't even know what's goin' on with this gift bullshit—"

"Breathe, Angie!" She smacked him on the back as if he were choking. He almost felt like he was. "Calm your tits, dude. Look, there's a good chance he's just fuckin' with you, 'cause you know overlords, but as long as you don't make an ass of yourself any more than usual you're probably safe."

"That's comforting."

"It wasn't supposed to be, you bastard, it's supposed to be a warning!" She shoved him hard, nearly knocking him off his chair. "Don't go getting yourself killed. I don't wanna lose my best bitch."

He looped his arm back around her shoulders, but this time pulled her close and rubbed his knuckles on the top of her head. "Aw, babe, you care about me!"

"Not if you don't get the hell off me!"

The fight quickly escalated, and soon the manager actually did come over to kick them out.

If Charlie saw something on the news that night about a coffee shop being blown up, he'd deny any involvement. But if she did put him on probation again, well. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

He wasn't caught and he wasn't put on probation. Some turf war on the other side of town got so big it bumped his and Cherri's stunt off the air completely. Despite that, Angel found himself hanging around the hotel almost as often as he had been. He went to work at the studio, took Nuggets for walks around town, had some fun with Cherri, and spent a night or two dragging in the club, but he was never gone more than a day. He almost always made it to meals, and he never missed his time with Alastor. And Cherri didn't get it.

There weren't a lot of things he couldn't share with his best girl buddy. She knew all the gory details of half the guys he's slept with, and all the ones he didn't get paid for. She heard all his complaints about Val and the studio and refused to listen to all the ways he'd try to excuse them the second the anger melted away into fear. She'd be with him the instant he hit up her hellphone, ready to blow up his problems or join him getting fucked up enough to forget them, no questions asked either way. She knew about his family, about what got him into hell, about the mafia and the bars and the rules and the men whose hands did wander enough to find out just how dangerous a twink in drag could be, but there were a few things he couldn't tell her. How, exactly, he'd found himself in hell was one. Apparently, Alastor was another.

It had hurt enough to keep the dress a secret. She'd caught his slip-up about the gift, because of course she did, and hounded him as much as Charlie. He couldn't bear lying to her or telling her to fuck off, but he sure as hell couldn't actually tell her about it. Did anybody have any idea how hard it was to describe a dress vaguely enough that it didn't sound like a dress, but in enough detail to satisfy a huge fucking gossip? Because he did now, and it was fucking hard.

But what hurt worse? Realizing he couldn't tell her anything about Alastor. She couldn't understand how Angel enjoyed hanging out with hell's deadliest sinner. She couldn't understand that he was afraid, but not of Alastor. Not of getting hurt, not anymore. She couldn't understand what they had, because she wasn't there, because Angel could barely understand it even though he was. She'd think he was suicidal. She'd think it was Val all over again, but Alastor was the opposite of Valentino.

Alastor would threaten Angel, claim to hate him, claim he was one wrong move from being erased, but he never made good on the threats. Alastor did things for him and asked for nothing in return. Al gave him chance after chance, leniency after leniency, and never once gave so much as a warning smack with that microphone pimp cane of his. And Val would never threaten, never with words, because Angel already knew the consequences of disobeying. And Val would tell Angel how much he cared for him when no one else did, but every favor came with the harsh reminder of how much Angel owed, by how much he was owned. Shit, if he said he wanted to dress Valentino up, his good eye would be fucked worse than the bad one, but Smiles took it all in stride.

But he didn't need to be thinking about all that now. Not when he'd been thinking about it off and on all week. Not when every glance in the Radio Demon's direction brought the thoughts back up until he pushed them down so he could concentrate on the benefits of different blends of thread or just how much seam allowance was necessary for a dress shirt. Not when Alastor was standing right in front of him, looking expectantly at the bag that held the finished dress.

"Alright," Angel found himself saying, "so I know I said we'd do a full makeover, but honestly you already have, like, everything I'd do for you."

He tilted his head. His ear gave that little twitch of confusion he usually tried to hide. "Oh?" he said curiously, "And what would you have done?"

"Y'know, eyeshadow, lipstick, but you're already wearing it."

His smile remained puzzled. "I see," he said, neither confirming nor denying the observation.

"And I could do something with your hair, but I think the bob with the undercut is pretty cute the way it is. I mean, I guess I could curl it for somethin' a little more period-appropriate, but—" Alastor laughed. Angel squinted at him. "What's so funny about that, huh?"

"Nothing at all." Angel could still hear the laughter in his voice.

"Don't sound like nothin'."

He shook his head. "I simply never thought anyone would suggest I curl my hair. I've always been advised to do quite the opposite."

"You got curls naturally?"

"No matter." The humor was gone in an instant, replaced with his usual grin. "Please, do continue."

"Right," he said, then immediately blanked. Shit, what was he saying? All he could think of was what Alastor would look like with curls. Were they tight, or more wavy? Did that mean he was a fucking ginger? "Uh, so, I'm not gonna mess with your face and hair and shit, you'd probably hate that anyway, and flat-chested was kind of the look, back when…but, uh. I got some jewelry to go with the dress, it's in the bag. I'd've picked some shoes too, but. You know. I didn't know if they'd fit, so."

Angel held the bag in front of himself lamely. Al reached for it.

"Wait!" Angel said just as Alastor's claws brushed the bag. "One more thing. You can't just snap it on."

He tilted his head again, now less confused and more curiously indignant. His smile brought to mind an overworked cashier silently plotting murder. "Can't I?"

"Well, I mean, I don't really care how you get the dress on," Angel said, "but don't just throw it on out here, y'know? You gotta do a reveal, have a nice red-carpet walk. Feel like a movie star."

"I'd prefer not to, actually. You know I'm not a fan of picture shows."

He crossed his arms. "I demand a runway walk, Smiles."

"Oh, you demand it, do you?" Alastor's eyes flashed, a dangerous edge reaching his voice.

"I demand it," Angel repeated.

The glow disappeared. "Well, in that case!" He plucked the bag delicately from Angel's hands with two claws and turned towards the bathroom. "I'll see you on the red carpet, my dear!"

The door clicked shut and Angel was left with his thoughts again. Rather than continue to obsess over whatever friendship he had with the Radio Demon and what that could possibly mean for him, he chose to use his brain power more productively by shuffling though every combination of curl texture and color he could think of and imagining them all on Alastor's head. He made it from wavy and blonde to raven corkscrew curls when the lights went out. The room was pitch black until a single spotlight shone on the bathroom door. Music began to play, something very Vaudeville but with hints of old burlesque style. A rug—red, of course—rolled out by itself to the couch where Angel sat. Goddamn drama queen. Al would be good at drag.

The bathroom door swung open, revealing nothing but darkness, until Alastor stepped out.

And he was gorgeous.

The dress looked as natural on him as his suit. It fell loosely around him down to his calves, hiding that wasp waist that first started the gears turning in Angel's head, but the silhouette worked. A lack of sleeves rounded his bare shoulders. The drop waist disguised his narrow hips. The long pearl necklace and wrap-skirt detail below a black faux-belt pulled attention exactly as they should. And more than that, as he strolled down the red carpet twirling his cane, he looked so incredibly comfortable. Every trace of awkwardness from the fitting had melted away.

"Work it, Al!" Angel whooped. "God, you walk like such a man, move your fuckin' hips!"

Rather than laugh and joke back, as Angel expected, Alastor paused in his walk. When he continued, the skirt moved with a distinct swing as he stepped with one leg directly ahead of the other. Angel wolf-whistled.

"And spin!"

Again, he complied, turning on one leg to do a second walk. God, the skirt twirled so beautifully. And so did Alastor. His hair fanned out around his face just like the skirt, around that smile…

Angel let Alastor live his runway fantasy a while longer, but his own anticipation was killing him. He stepped onto the red carpet when Al made it back to the end. "You get a good look yet? C'mon, check yourself out!"

With an easy grin, Alastor allowed himself to be led to the mirror, though Angel did more shooing than leading in respect of the five-foot rule. He waved to the mirror with a flourish.

"Ta-da!"

And with no warning at all, that easy smile went stiff. The music cut off with a record scratch. Static took its place, screeching and increasing in volume every second. His eyes weren't glowing, weren't turned into slits like the dials of a radio, but they were locked unblinkingly onto his reflection.

"Smiles?" Angel asked. He resisted the urge to grab Alastor's arm, desperate to help but knowing that would make everything worse. God, what the hell happened? How was he suddenly so uncomfortable when he was enjoying himself just a second before? "Al? What's wrong?"

The seconds ticked on. The static popped and crackled even more. Fuck, Angel never thought it would be this bad. He nearly reached out to grab Alastor's arm anyway, just to get any reaction other than the catatonic staring, but the static clicked suddenly. Unintelligible voices faded in and out like someone was searching for a channel. When words finally made it through, they didn't come from Alastor's mouth, and they weren't in his voice.

"Oh, Al, you look jest like yer mama."

The dress I imagined is somewhere between these two (on Etsy): /listing/616042609/1920s-flapper-dress-in-maroon-with-a

/ie/listing/527411034/red-flapper-dress-with-elbow-length

And! Someone drew fanart! This is exactly what I imagined. If you like Alastor in a dress, give MortemVeniet on Reddit some love! /r/HazbinHotel/comments/f9vra8/from_to_sew_a_skirt_by_another_athena/

Anyway, wonder what all that's about? Guess we'll just need to wait and see. The final chapter will be out this weekend. As always, thanks so much for reading! All comments, critiques, and predictions appreciated.

(Also let me know if there's a better way to do links please? I don't know what I'm doing lol)