a/n: Again, I had this on LJ, so why didn't I put it up here? Sorry I haven't updated in so long. I have another chapter written, but haven't gotten around to typing it yet.
Angel slid his key into the lock on the door, hoping his father hadn't yet changed the locks to be sure he wouldn't get back into the apartment. Thankfully, the key fit. Now, Angel was faced with the task of getting in unnoticed by his mother, who was unemployed and spent most of the day in her room watching TV and sleeping.
Gently, he pushed the door open and started climbing gingerly up the stairs to his room.
Just as her reached the last step, his mother appeared in the doorway of her room.
"What are you doing here, child?" His mom snapped off in Spanish.
"Getting my stuff." The kid murmured, staring down at his shoes, the wall, anywhere to avoid her eyes.
"Your shit is in the basement." The heavyset Hispanic woman hissed. "You go get it, then get the fuck out of here before your father gets home from work, you hear?"
"Fine." Angel muttered, clunking down the stairs and opening the door to the basement. The boy stumbled down the six wooden steps into the dark basement, his mother close on his tail.
"Now take what you need at leave." She commanded as her son stored his clothes in a big, black garbage bag.
"I heard you the first one." Angel grumbled, losing his patience with his mother.
"Don't you talk back to me, young man! I'm your mother!"
Angel dropped the handful of clothes he had on the floor and whipped around to her.
"I don't have a mother." He hissed, grabbing up his bag and running out the door, nearly knocking his mom over in the process and leaving her to stand there, stiff and quiet as a statue.
Mimi Marquez awoke with a start when there was a pounding at her door. Groggily, she stood up from the couch and looked out the peephole to see her friend, Angel.
"Angel!" She cried, ripping the chain out of the door lock and letting him in. "Are you alright?"
"Does it look like I'm alright?" Angel sobbed.
This was true- he looked terrible. His coffee-brown eyes were red and puffy from crying, and his palms had deep marks where he'd been digging his perfectly manicured fingernails into them.
"My god! Sit down, girl!" Mimi said, looking at her friend with concern.
"No…Mimi, I gotta change. I can't talk to you like this." Angel glanced up at the Latina pathetically.
"Yeah, okay. I gotcha. Chill out."
The two walked to Mimi's bedroom, Angel leaning on the other girl's shoulder for support until Mimi left her alone to change by herself.
Angel emerged a few minutes later in a pink faux-angora sweater and paisley pleated miniskirt, complete with black pleather go-go boots and that same tacky blonde wig. The majority of all Angel's 'chick clothes' were bought for her from various Goodwills and dime stores around the city.
"Mimi, could you do my makeup?" she questioned. The other was just about to ask why when she noticed her friend's hands shaking violently.
"Sure, honey. Anything."
"Thanks."
The two girls walked into the bathroom together, where Mimi sat Angel down onto the toilet seat and grabbed her blue eyeliner out of a drawer.
"So tell me what happened, Ang." She said, rubbing the dark substance along Angel's eyelid.
"Oh, God…" Angel shuddered. "They really aren't going to take me back, Meems, I'm alone…they moved all my stuff down to the basement, everything…"
"Bastards!" Mimi cried suddenly, accidentally poking Angel in the eye with a mascara brush.
"Ow!"
"Sorry."
"I just don't know what I'm going to do…" Angel let out a deep sigh like she hadn't breathed in a week.
"Well, I could try to convince my brother that you're Angel's sister, Also named Angel, that got kicked out for getting pregnant or something and needed to stay with us for a while, but even he wouldn't buy that…probably. Or we could just come clean with it."
"Or I could live on the street and-"
"Which I'm not letting you do."
"Fine, fine…I guess I don't really have much of a choice, do I?"
"Nope." Mimi grinned and pulled Angel up by her hands so she could look in the mirror. The drag queen looked ecstatic.
"Thanks, Mimi."
Mimi looked at her friend in a motherly fashion.
"Come on, chica. Let's go shopping." She laughed.
'Shopping', of course, consisted primarily of window-shopping down at 'the strip', a short stretch of salvage stores, fast-food restaurants, and weird random shops owned by people from various places in Eurasia.
'Hair Pagoda' was no exception to these Eurasian stores. The owner was a tiny Russian man that spoke next to no English. Despite that, he sold 'new and old pieces of hair' for 'a competionive prize', and his son (though he had the intelligence quotients of a retarded waffle) worked there every day and was sexy, so there was never a reason not to go.
It was also in this store that Angel finally parted with the blond crap wig.
After finding a different one, a black bob (Angel preferred blonde, but Mimi insisted the black looked more natural), the two friends walked to the counted and sold the wig for two dollars and fifty cents.
It wasn't missed.