It's raining when Angel wakes up, a torrential downpour complete with eerie lightning flashes and booming thunder. Nuggets is passed out in his bed, completely oblivious to the storm raging outside. Angel's a little jealous if he's being honest.
He turns his head to check the time on his phone, frowning when he sees the battery at forty percent. It's plugged into the charger and the cord is still fairly new, so why— Another boom of thunder that shakes the windows, another streak of purple lightning. The fucking storm must have knocked out the power last night.
"Great," Angel grouses. "Just how I wanted to start my day." He kicks the blankets off and gets to his feet, pulling on a pair of shorts and a shirt he'd stolen from Husk before padding downstairs to the kitchen. The smell of hot chocolate is heavenly, drawing him straight to the stove where Alastor is stirring it in a pot.
"Morning, petit chéri," he greets. "Did the storm wake you?"
"Yeah. S'that ready?" Alastor sets the whisk in the sink and pours out two glasses of hot chocolate, topping Angel's with whipped cream and cinnamon. He takes his own glass neat, just like his whisky and coffee. He isn't big on sweets, but he indulges Angel and Husk.
"School's been canceled for the day. They're worried about possible tornados, but—"
"Tornados?! As in the thing that knocked Dorothy into a whole new dimension? I can't deal with flying monkeys, Al. That's not on my 2024 bingo card." Alastor chortles at the panic on Angel's face, sharp teeth biting his thin lower lip. "What's so funny?"
"I highly doubt a tornado is in our immediate future, but it's good to know I can't rely on you in a crisis."
"I'll have you know that I'm great in a crisis," Angel lies.
"Mmhm, I'm sure." He sets the pot in the sink and fills it with warm water before turning to face Angel again. "Try not to wet yourself in my kitchen. I just mopped." Angel squawks, stamping his foot.
"I'm not gonna wet myself, you ass!"
"Language," Alastor sing-songs. "Not in the house, remember? If you'd like to curse, you're more than welcome to step outside." He gestures to the sliding glass door and the rain beyond. Angel's pretty sure a bunch of ghost pirates are gonna murder him if he steps outside.
"Nah, I choose life. I'm not gonna become an extra from The Fog." Alastor's nose scrunches up and Angel adds the cheesy remake to the long list of movies he needs to make Alastor watch. It falls somewhere between Cinderella and Con Air, a mid-tier movie. "So what are we supposed to do all day? There's no power."
"I was going to read."
"That's it? Reading? In the dark?"
"I have a flashlight—"
"No, no, we can do better than a little flashlight. Gimme a sec." He sets his cup down and then he's dashing upstairs, grabbing blankets and pillows and candles. Alastor says nothing, watching on in amusement as Angel works. By the time Husk wakes up an hour later, Angel has transformed the living room into a blanket fort that would make Troy and Abed shit themselves.
"What's up with this," Husk asks.
"Bad weather fort." Angel says this like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "When the weather's bad, ya make a fort."
"Who says?"
"Literally any responsible adult, Husky. Even the irresponsible ones." Angel and Alastor share an eye roll. "And ta think you married this genius."
"Beggars can't be choosers," Alastor shrugs. "There's hot chocolate in the kitchen if you'd like some, Husker. In the meantime, Angel and I have a wager going." Husk raises his thick brows and Alastor's grin is nothing short of bloodthirsty. "He said he could read more books than me in twelve hours."
"And I can! I've taken my meds, so there's no stopping me from finishing at least three!" Husk blinks a couple of times and then turns on his heel to march into the kitchen. "C'mon, Al, it's time to start!" Alastor collapses into the nest of blankets, barely wrinkling his nose when Fat Nuggets curls up beside him.
"We'll use the timer on my phone since yours is almost dead."
"Fine, but no cheating."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"He's a dirty liar," Husk calls from the kitchen.
Angel and Alastor start out on opposite ends of the fort, but slowly grow closer as the various flashlights and candles begin to dim. By the six hour mark, they're shoulder-to-shoulder and sharing a lamp. Husk, curled up across from them, has a small flashlight balanced on a pillow so he and Fat Nuggets can see the embroidery pattern he's been working on for the past week.
"Holy shit," Angel murmurs, halfway through his book. "This guy is such garbage."
"The Dracula man?" Angel nods and Alastor hums. "I read that book when it first came out. Nearly threw it across the room." Husk glances up from his pattern and Angel shows him the cover.
"Oh yeah," he nods. "Dracula's a dick." Angel goes back to his book, unable to bite back the occasional commentary. It's basically Val if he were a vampire. Except Angel's pretty sure he'd be Alexi and Vox would totally be an uber white version of Magdalena.
"That's it," Angel demands, snapping the book shut. "That's how it ends? Is there a sequel or somethin'? I need to make sure these poor idiots are emotionally okay."
"Mm, she wrote another book set in the same universe, but it wasn't about those characters. Think it's supposed to be about Carmilla."
"I don't want new characters, I want these ones."
"We can't always get what we want." Angel reverently places the book aside and grabs up the next one in his little pile. Alastor, the cheeky bastard, has already read two books and Angel refuses to lose to a man with hair that looks like that, 1930s looking jackass.
Angel devours the second book even faster than he had the first, a simple romcom with a maybe-dead-maybe-alive editor and the daughter of a funeral home director. It's sweet and funny and has closure, but he's not giving it more than three stars. Next comes a non-fiction he'd picked up because the title made him laugh. Seriously, who names their book Quackery? It's great, five stars for the title alone.
It's close to supper by the time the lights flicker on, but no one in their little family budges. Angel scoots farther down in their nest, resting his head on Alastor's thighs.
"Is this okay, Al?"
"For now." Alastor is tense, but slowly relaxes, bringing one glove-clad hand down to run his fingers through Angel's hair. He doesn't go anywhere without those gloves, a barrier between him and the world. Husk rises at some point, coming back with a plate full of sandwiches and a few pickle spears. "Eat, dear one."
"'M Reading."
"Food first." Alastor pauses the timer and plucks Quackery out of Angel's hands, carefully marking the place before setting it aside. "Come on, at least one sandwich." Angel grumbles but sits up and snatches one off the plate. It's not until he's had a couple bites that he realizes how hungry he is, devouring one sandwich and then two more after that along with a baggie of chips and three pickles. "Do you have trouble with interoception?"
"W'as that?"
"Listening to your body when it needs something. Food, restroom breaks, that sort of thing."
"Huh…. Yeah, when I'm real interested in somethin'. One time I didn't pee for six hours 'cause I was playing a video game. Vox was so mad, I thought sparks were gonna shoot outta his ears." Angel snickers at the memory, the way Vox had dragged him to the guest bathroom.
"Did he hurt you for that?"
"Nah, he does the same thing. He just wanted me to do better than him." Angel shrugs, popping another chip in his mouth. "He bought me a few books about managing my ADHD, but they were boring. I mostly used 'em to prop up my phone when I was doin' homework and wanted background noise."
"His autism causes some of the same problems."
"How'd you know he has autism?"
"I should know. I was married to him for two years." Angel chokes on the Dorito, Alastor patting his back like he didn't just drop the mother of all bombs.
"What the fuck do you mean you were married to him?"
"Who do you think taught him how to kill? Although I'm much better at it, more refined. Really, who still uses a golf club in this day and age? He's far too old to be swinging that much. And he never even liked to play golf!"
"So you divorced him?"
"Why do you sound so surprised? I have class and he has an ego bigger than the Great Pyramid. He and Susan would make a wonderful pair, don't you think?" Picturing Vox living with that ornery bitch has Angel giggling, falling against Alastor until he can compose himself.
"You're not wrong there, Al."
"I rarely am about these things." Angel shakes his head with a grin, tossing his remaining chips back on the empty plate. "Speaking of important matters, I need to ask what you plan on doing after graduation."
"Nice segue, very subtle."
"You'll need to go to college or a trade school, something to help you get a steady job. No matter what politicians say, the economy is in shambles and I won't have my child's future be unsure. I've thought about starting a bank account for school."
"I already have a college fund."
"Excuse me?"
"Vox started it when they first nabbed me. He said he'd pay for whatever I wanted to study for however long I wanted to study, so long as I major in a field of his choice. He made Velvette be a business major before she could focus on her fashion stuff. I was thinkin' about English lit."
"He started a…. Vox did this? Voluntarily?"
"Yeah, said he didn't want dumb kids. He's not a totally awful person, just mostly awful. Kinda like a can of gasoline in the microwave. It's only dangerous if you don't take it out in time."
"A can of…. Angel, what…. Husk?"
"Don't drag me into that crappy analogy," Husk says. "Nuggets and I are busy trying to make this French knot behave." He's been focused on that single knot for the past hour, pulling a little too hard and dragging the floss through the fabric. Angel could fix it for him, he's a deft hand with a needle and thread, but he thinks he'll let Husk suffer a little longer.
"A can of gasoline…. Sweet Jesus tap-dancing Christ. I'm gonna steal that."
"Consider it a gift," Angel smirks. "How about we take a break from readin' and give our eyes a break? I happen to know that watching spooky movies is the best way to pass a stormy evening."
"Couldn't we just listen to a spooky podcast? I'm rather partial to Welcome to Night Vale."
"No, spooky movie. It's the rules."
"Like blanket forts are a rule?"
"Exactly. It's one of the few things Voxxy and I agree on." Before Alastor can say anything disparaging of Vox's parenting, Angel scrambles out of the fort long enough to grab a couple of DVDs off the shelf by the TV. Alastor may not like the stuff, but Husk seems to collect it and Angel's grateful. He plops back down in their nest, holding up the two choices. "Nightmare on Elm Street 3 or Hell House LLC?"
"Shouldn't we start with the first Nightmare movie?"
"No, this is the best one. Pick."
"Uh?" Alastor cuts his gaze to Husk, who's finally managed the perfect French knot. He holds it up with a broad grin, pointing at it. "It's very nice, my darling. Which movie?" It really is amazing what Husk's managed to accomplish with just a bit of thread. It's a picture of Fat Nuggets in his mud pit.
"Hell House," he answers.
Alastor does just fine with the movie until the clown starts moving on its own, then he scoots closer to Husk. He doesn't even try to be subtle about it, which just makes Angel cackle all the harder. At least until the chick begins sleepwalking and he remembers just how unsettling this movie is. Angel can deal with a lot of tropes, but sleepwalking ain't one of them. Velvette used to sleepwalk and he'd punched her in the throat while on a quest for a glass of water one night.
Angel ends up on Husk's other side, snuggled against him and hiding his face against his chest. To be fair, Angel's only seen this movie once and he'd been preoccupied by Val's hand shoving his face down—
No. He isn't there anymore, Husk and Alastor would never use him like that. They care about him. They…. They care about him. He finds himself melting again as Husk's arm comes around his shoulders, a comforting weight instead of a band. Alastor reaches a hand over Husk's belly, carding gentle fingers through Angel's hair.
"Ya really scared of clowns, huh?"
"Don't make me regret touching you, cher."
It's late morning when Angel wakes, still snuggled in his blanket fort with one man on either side of him. For the first time since he was nine years old, Angel feels completely safe.