Chapter Text
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.
I don't... belong.
The first and last thing I remembered was being wet.
Not the weird kind of wet! Oh gosh, that came out so wrong, uh... no! Whatever you're thinking, just no. Let me tell you, I am a VIRGIN! And I'm happy to stay one, ¡gracias! So, uh, let's move on.
Ahem-- anyways, where was I? Oh yes.
The first thing I remembered.
I was wet. It was like the whole world was made of water. I remember reaching out, scrambling to grab nothing, and I remember bubbles... so many bubbles. It was cold, like gnaw-on-your-bones and spit them out cold.
It was scary.
But then there was a noise. Singing, I thought. And light. And I was sure I was being saved, because my God wouldn’t let me suffocate alone in that bone-crushing cold, would He? He would pull me out, save me from whatever had happened...
"We were lovers." A distorted voice, talking low. Unrecognizable. "He was drunk. I…I didn’t know what to do. He caused this! He's– he's the one that belongs down there, not me!"
"...yawn, yawn, gotcha. We've heard plenty at this point. He's the fucking bad apple or whatever. Let's kick him down in that little shithole with the rest, I don't give a fuck. ‘Sides, when the next Extermination rolls around? He’ll be dead before anybody can remember his fucking name."
I wanted to reach out, to plead for somebody to tell me what was going on, but I didn't have a mouth. Or a voice. Just me. And then…
I was falling.
My head was ringing.
My eyelids fluttered slowly, a groan pulled from my throat. I didn't move. Couldn't. It felt like all the snot had been beaten out of my thin little body.
What the heck had happened to me?
Everything felt so weird, so heavy, so wrong. I shifted, my fingers curling, and hot concrete scraped my fingertips. Like I was on a road. Had I been hit by a car? I felt like I had...
"Huhhhhmm-"
I finally summoned the will to open my eyes. They stung with grit, and scrubbing a hand over them just made it worse. Why was it so bright? So hot?
"What in the world..?"
Throwing my weight to the side, I propped myself up on one arm and lifted my head. And guess what the first thing I saw when my vision cleared was? Red. Every-frickin’-where.
Red sky.
Red air.
Red lights on a cracked street that was basically the only thing that wasn't freaking red.
I shook my head, auburn hair sticking to my face. If someone had told me I was permanently stuck with a pair of crimson-tinted shades glued onto my face, I'd have believed them in that moment. It made my head spin like a top as I looked down each side of the road.
I wasn't at home. In fact, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut…I wasn’t anywhere I knew.
"Crud," I gasped, heart jackknifing against my ribs. "Where am I?"
"The wrong block, kid.”
I jumped about a MILE.
It turned out I wasn't alone on that street. There were... well... other sets of eyes watching me from the fronts of messed-up buildings. And they weren't, uhh, human eyes.
I clapped a hand to my mouth.
"Heh." The guy who spoke, a kind of man-wolf hybrid, gave me a toothy smile. "You get off on the wrong stop, babe? You look lost."
My voice sputtered like a bad engine. His arms, draped over a dilapidated railing, looked thick enough to crush my head. Instinct gripped me and I stood up fast.
“Uh… hola?” I said with a shy wave. “Yeah, w-with all due respect, I... I don't know where I am... a-and, uhhh-"
Oh, boy, there I went again. Panicking like I always do.
I HAD to be dreaming, right? Nowhere else but in a dream would such a creepy situation even be possible, right?! How could I wake up? Could I wake up NOW?!
"Somebody pinch me," I whispered, holding my head in my palms. "S-somebody freaking pinch me…”
A few ugly chuckles drifted from the storefronts. "I'd be willin' to do a lot more than pinch you, baby," some guy hissed, voice thick with something gross. "Might even pay you back for it, too."
Every alarm system my brain had suddenly blared at full volume. I wasn't safe.
"U-um, no thanks-"
But everybody was looking at me like a tasty steak now.
"C'mon, shnookums," another guy called with a low whistle. "You wanna get out of the street, dontcha? A couple of us could... show ya the way if you treat us right~"
I felt the shapes starting to shift... closing in with eyes glinting and teeth bared. And like the brave boy I was, I started having a total meltdown and froze solid instead of running. Real smart, I know! But then, out of a clear red sky--
SCREECH!
--tires murdering the pavement murdered my eardrums.
I winced, hands shooting to my ears as a shiny RED (ooh, more red, lovely!) car pulled up just inches from where I was standing. The doors flew open with a hiss, and a bunch of random creatures spilled out, rushing into the building behind me…muttering worriedly and not bothering to spare me a glance. I stood frozen, witnessing the chaos.
"This is a fucking disaster!" one guy with about a hundred horns poking out of his skull hissed to a dude with a camera. "So lemme get this straight. He up and decided to SKIP OUT on YET ANOTHER show? Last MINUTE?"
"Yeah." The other guy struggled with the merch. "He's been doin' that a lot lately. Suddenly thinks he’s too good for Val or…whatever."
"Fuckin’ CHRIST! Does that little diva KNOW how CRAZY the boss gets when he skips these things?"
"I think that's why he's doing it."
"That bitch– GAH! Look, just ‘cause he's Valentino’s prized dickwarmer or– whatever–don't mean he’s got the right to up and CANCEL like this! Like, who the fuck does he think he is--?!"
Well, in a wonderful stroke of genius, I happened to be standing right in their way like a dumb statue! And what happens when dumb statues meet not-paying-attention camera guys?
Collisions, that’s what.
The pain of the lens ramming my face knocked me back to earth. Then– as if that wasn’t bad enough– I also stumbled and fell hard enough to make my head spin! Just my luck!
"Christ!" I shook my head hard, then lunged for the fallen equipment. "Oh jeez, I-I’m sorry, I didn't mean to-"
Camera guy snatched it back from me with a scowl. "Hey, hands off!” He kicked a cloud of dust toward me like I was a street rat. “Watch where you're GOING, kid! This is expensive shit I got here!"
"Sorry..."
I squinted, suddenly catching a glimpse of color on the side of the lens. A flash of red and blue. A symbol? I tilted my head. "Huh..."
The other guy yanked me to my feet before I could ask what it was.
"Hey, kid!" he barked, snapping his fingers in my face. "Yeah, you with the doe eyes! What's your name?"
Stunned, I struggled to remember. What was my name? "Uh, N-- uhh,” I said, trembling. “Nolan. Nolan del Toro-"
"Nobody fuckin' cares." He gave me a little shove, then grinned as if an idea had hit him. "But hey, while we’re askin’ stupid questions, I got a few more for ya. Can ya sing? Dance? Generally appear in front of a camera without lookin' like a fuckin' clown?"
Uh, what? I blinked a few times. "S-say again, Señor…?"
"GAH, SING! Can you SING, for Chrissakes?"
"Oh!"
I laughed, terrified. This was a freaking nightmare.
"S-si-- I can sing a little, I guess-- I mean, I sang at my sister's quinceanera a few years back, and people told me I was good, so I'm not, like, terrible-"
"Ah, then tonight's YOUR lucky night, bitch!"
I yelped as he threw his giant arm across my shoulders, all but crushing me.
"Look, we're short a performer tonight, so if you're lookin' to make a little extra cash without having to fuck anybody silly, this is your chance!" He started yanking me toward the door of the nearest building, and I literally could do nothing but stumble along. "But between you and me, fuckin’ might just end up bein’ front and center on your roster tonight. ‘Cause the boss man's gonna be watchin' this one CLOSE. And oo-oooh, baby..."
He and the guy with the camera shared a chuckle that sent a chill up my spine.
"...he’s a fuckin’ knockout," he finished. "Had sinners of all shapes and sizes droolin’ over him since he dropped down here, and that’s the short, sweet and sexy of it. He's got everything a boy like you could want. Size. Technique. Vigor. Just gotta catch his attention."
"Which ain't hard, considerin' he goes for anybody with a halfway pretty face nowadays," Camera guy chuckled. "Always lookin’ for new talent. New icons."
His gaze flicked over me, and he bared his teeth in what might've been a pitying smile.
"You've got the face, littles. Really, you do. You just don't got the... what do you call it...?"
"Libido." Horned guy laughed raucously, jostling me. "He don't got the sex appeal– I mean, LOOK at him. All curled in like he wants to fuckin' disappear? Can you imagine him in any one o’ those shoots? Fuck nah. He’d piss himself before anybody could touch him."
Like punctuation, I curled my shoulders in tighter as he poked me in the chest. Hard.
"But that don't put you out of the game, sweetums. Not by a long shot. Sometimes, Valentino... he picks the shy ones out for kicks, he does. Depends on what kinda mood he's in."
I furrowed my brow. Valentino. Was that their boss? And what the heck were they talking about… sex appeal and icons? It all floated in my head like puzzle pieces that just refused to fit. I opened my mouth to ask for more info and-
The two of them shoved me hard into a small, dim area I could only assume was backstage someplace.
I stumbled, hit a prop wall, and sank to the floor. The eyes of a ton of costumed freaks all turned to me. It was like a physical weight being dropped on my chest.
Vaguely I wondered if it was possible to throw up on a completely empty stomach.
"HEY!” Camera guy’s voice made me jump out of my skin as he bellowed for the whole cast to hear. “Everybody look alive! We got ourselves a replacement for the fuckin’ asshole that calls himself Angel Dust.”
Collective groans– a couple of the freaks even started crying. “Angel’s skipping out again?!” one girl complained. “FUCK! This was supposed to be a GOOD night!"
"Oh, well. We can kiss THAT goodbye," a guy said with a dramatic eye roll. "Now Valentino’s gonna throw a fucking fit and people are gonna start dyin’ like LAST time…”
“It better not be me!” Another woman tossed her hair and pouted. “I don’t have the time to be washing blood out of my ‘do tonight!”
"Ahh, shut your asses up.” The camera guy’s voice was grim. “What’s done’s done, and the curtain goes up in five with or without Angel. What’s important is we got a replacement, ‘kay? And he's gonna make the boss real happy.”
Several doubtful looks cast my way. I shrank down with a tiny, terrified wave.
“SO! Let's get our shit together tonight, okay? Or there'll be fucking Heaven to pay! Now everybody to work!"
Heads whipped away from me. The whole backstage area sprang straight into busy mode. The smell of heavy perfume and powder and cigarette smoke filled the air around me as too many people talked too loud and too many feet stomped about like a mini earthquake.
I coughed into my arm, head swimming. “Um, Señor?” I stammered at the horned guy, “do I have to do this…?”
“If you wanna live? Hell yes.” He gave me a smile too full of teeth and a slap on the back. “You’ll be fine, kid. Just go out there and give ‘em a show to remember.”
I wanted to ask how exactly I was supposed to do that when I didn’t even know where I was or who I was going to be performing for or even what my act was supposed to be. But the guy sauntered off, chuckling, and then nobody paid any attention to me. I was just a fly on the wall.
I sank back and chewed violently on my lower lip.
I had about a million questions. First of all, WHERE IN THE WORLD WAS I?! This must've been the weirdest dream of my life, because YIKES! Why was everybody swearing so much? Why the heck were all the costumes so gross? And what was that whole thing about f-fucking people...? Did they mean, like, in a sex way? Eww-w-w. Even letting that thought in my head felt too dirty to comprehend…
"Hey kid," a voice squeaked close beside me. “Uhhh, you got a sec?”
My head shot up. There was a nervous-looking little red guy with stripy horns staring at me, wringing his hands. He was looking my outfit up and down with a twitchy frown.
"Hey. Um, look. I hate to break it to you like this, but, like, you can't go out there wearing that."
My gaze followed his. I was in the same thing I'd been wearing all day– an unzipped gray jacket, jeans, black turtleneck shirt. Maximum coverage, maximum modesty, just the way I've always liked it.
I raised an eyebrow. "Um, what's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"Oh, well, see..." The little guy's gaze darted like it was incapable of settling on any one thing. "You're performing in front of Valentino tonight. Like, THE Valentino? So... so yeah. You can’t cover up like that."
There was that name again.
Valentino.
People kept saying it like it was a heavyweight, and it honestly freaked me out a little. Who was he? What was the big deal?
"What’s up with this Valentino guy?" I asked. "Is he like, some kind of celebrity around here?"
Mini red's eyes went wide. "Wait, you don't know?" His tail twitched erratically. “Buddy, uhh, how new are you, exactly?”
"New? I don't... what does that mean?"
He didn't respond with anything but a slack jaw for a moment. Then he rubbed at his temples in disbelief. "You must've like, just dropped in or some shit," he whispered. "Damn. Valentino's an Overlord. You know, one of the Vees? Those three don't get messed with; they get what they want, like, period. And what Valentino wants-"
His hands shot out and grabbed the edge of my jacket.
"-is a lot less coverage than this."
"HEY!" I yelped, sitting up. “Let go!”
He didn't. In fact, he started yanking. I scrambled to my feet, pushing him away in a panic. “Stop that!”
He ignored me.
Somehow, his claws got hooked into the fabric. I scrabbled to get him off, but he was way smaller than me and refused to let go. My shoulders ached, my hands uselessly pushing at his chest, his face...
CHOMP.
A ton of little teeth sunk into my wrist.
"OW!" I gasped, feeling sick at the sight of my own blood blooming on my skin. "C-crap..."
He took advantage. Suddenly there were legs wrapped around me, his hands pulling at my jacket hood. He was on my back. The little JERK!
“GET OFF!” I cried, throwing my weight forward.
That did it. He went tumbling, landing on the wooden floor with a dull thud. It took me a second to realize he was still holding my jacket.
Crap.
I winced, wiping my wrist off on my shirt. Thank God it was black and wouldn't stain. “Give-- give that back.”
He scuttled to his feet. "Sorry! Sorry, no can do. I'm not about to get shot tonight, no sir. Now, uh-" He looked pointedly at my turtleneck. "-look, you really gotta like– take that shirt off–"
"NO!" I backed off. First my jacket and now my shirt? "Look man, that's weird! I'm not going out there without a-"
He lunged again, a scrabbling blur of red and claws. I squeaked and pushed back, holding him away from me as his arms and legs pinwheeled.
"I'm serious, kid!" he panted. "You go out there without an inch of skin showing and he'll actually skin you alive!"
"Seriously?! That's SICK!"
"That's Valentino."
"Can't I be like, an exception-?"
"NO! No, no, noooo." He trilled loud, like a panicked bird. "You don't bend the rules here! Hell doesn't work like that! The way it works is: there's Overlords like them and then there's trash like us. And trash doesn't-!"
"WHAT?!"
"I SAID, you don't bend the-"
"No, no, the other thing!"
"...uhh, Hell doesn't work like that...?"
I fell completely silent.
My chest went hollow, then hot, then vibrated as my heart started slamming into it. "Hell?"
The word tasted like ashes and poison on my tongue.
Hell. The place where wrongdoers and nonbelievers went to suffer with Lucifer for eternity. The place where the worst went went they died.
I wasn't bad. And I couldn't be dead. Could I? I was pretty sure I'd remember dying, right?
My hands went numb; I dropped Mister Mini Red and he landed with an empty thump. He didn’t go for my shirt this time… just stared up at my face, concerned.
"Buddy," he said quietly, "you didn't know?"
"Know... what?"
I suddenly felt very, very small. Oh, Lord, why couldn't I just fold up right here and disappear, wake up from whatever stupid devil dream this was? It couldn't be true. I had to have heard him wrong.
“You know.” He gave me a sympathetic look. "That you're in-"
"HEY, ANGEL DUST'S REPLACEMENT IS ON IN SIXTY SECONDS! WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?!"
A big hand grabbed the collar of my shirt and started yanking me toward the curtain. “Got ‘im right here.”
My heart leapt into my throat. It was a stagehand conducting my unceremonious kidnapping...one I hadn't seen yet. He deposited me before the closed curtain, his gaze raking over me, and grunted. "What kind of costume is that? Looks like Earth kid shit. You realize who you're gonna be on in front of? Valen-"
"-tino," I finished weakly. "Valentino. Yeah, I... I know."
I knew that too darn well by now.
"I tried to tell him!” Mister mini red popped up behind me, pointing at my shirt wildly. “I told him he couldn't wear that, sir, I TOLD HIM, but he didn't listen!"
The stagehand grimaced, waving a hand at him. "Aw, fuck-- SHOO, damn it! This ain't your show, imp! Get outta here!"
Mister mini red twitched, squeaking “I told him!” one more time before scampering off quick. I stared after him sadly. Sure he was weird, but at least he'd spoken to me.
"Hmph." The stagehand glared at his retreating tail, then turned his disapproving eyes back to me. "Well. No time to change the getup now, I guess. D'ya at least know the song you'll be singing?"
"Ummm..." I racked my brains. “...no?” To be fair, no-one had bothered to brief me.
"Fuckin' Christ." He rolled his eyes, then growled low, "Look, you're doing Locked Out of Heaven by Bruno Mars, okay? Short, sweet classic. Just go out there, look pretty, and maybe you'll make it through the night." He gave my outfit another once-over and winced. "Maybe."
I had no words.
Locked Out of Heaven. I knew the song. It was already old when I first heard it, and it had honestly always made me uncomfortable. But then… seniors at high school didn’t know the definition of boundaries. Or the definition of not blasting obnoxiously loud music. So naturally, I knew every word.
"...I can do that," I said.
And with those words, I made up my mind. I was going to make it through whatever this was. I could handle it. Just had to focus on surviving this performance... and maybe afterwards, I could find out where I was. Ask around. Figure out if I was dreaming or not.
"Good, kid." The stagehand chuckled, adjusted my posture roughly, and backed away. "’Cause you’re on NOW.”
I froze. “Wait, what?”
“Yyyep. Good luck. Oh yeah, and don't get shot. It's fuckin' annoying scrubbing gore off the stage."
My mouth fell open. "Whaddaya mean shot-?"
But the curtain was already lifting.
(Ladies and gentle-demons, welcome to the show.)
