The Reason: chapters seven, eight and nine

Chapter seven: exhaustion

Pool of blood

Against my hell-bound shadow

The shades of different forms he ensnares, entangles, chains

The exhaust of my lifeline like a brutal string, teasing the Thread of Life

By wearing out the story

With dull scissors

My body wears out like a mortal

But he received me as a hell-bent soul

I circle the exhaust

Of that tapped-out smoke

Had I choked

I wish I could die, really die

I'm excited to be this exhausted

It might mean

I will finally break

Break into pieces he no longer can fuck with

But I'm in love with my exhaustion

But really

I'm so fucking in love with

———-???

Angel reads the poem he anxiously penned down, especially at the question at the end. His whole head feels wavy, as if the sea was pounding stronger and stronger currents at his dying brain, dizzy and nauseated. He didn’t know why he feels the sudden change in his heart. At first, it was pure attraction. It was a serious, intense physical magnetic pull. The utter fusion of sex that somehow mixed with deep friendship confused Angel. He wasn’t used to feeling anything for someone he was attracted to. It was a way to avoid being rejected. Its easier to reject yourself first before anyone gets the chance.

Angel keeps remembering with an almost sad nostalgia of all the wonderful things between him and Husk. He can’t help but worry it could be over in a flash.

A part of him wants it to end so there won’t be any real heartache, but his heart is already aching so bad it feels like it was always attached to him, like a tumor.

“Is that a scar or an open wound?” Angel thinks as he pictures Husk. His deep, raspy voice, his dreamy smile that is more like a permanent grimace. Everything. Its perfect.

The dreams of love were always defeated by the nightmares of trauma and enslavement. As he was leaving his ten-hour shift for the day with Val, he reminded himself that he’d be back at it once again tomorrow. He had been hanging out with Husk basically any hour and all hours he wasn’t working for the past few months. It’s been a hell of a while since Angel felt close enough to trust someone with this much of his free time.

When he got to the bartender’s room, he sighed in a happy way.

“So is there any part of you that secretly wants to be redeemed?” Husk asks as they lay down on the bed.

“I've been coming up to your bedroom every night and… joy of joys, holiest of holies… I haven’t committed any salacious actions…” Angel snaps. Husk laughs.

“What a terrible tragedy,” Husk winks at him and they both inhale slowly.

“You know what you feel like?” Angel scoots closer to Husk, making him feel flushed.

“What?”

Angel’s eyes go half-lidded. “Like you’re baking me in a cookie, homemade, lots of butter, and you can smell the aroma of warm, sweet and gooey.”

Husk feels himself go weak in the knees, which was totally fine because whether it was from his older age or the fact that he felt he was falling madly in love with Angel… he was already lying down and not at risk for falling.

“You wanna know how you make me feel?” Husk almost whimpered out in response.

Angel nods, “Yeah.”

“Like an orange tree in spring. The citrus and smell of fresh sapling in the air. The drink of nature in a single person. Beautiful.”

Sex is not in the air but it feels like it.

Their intimate silence hits them as they realize the reason they are so safe right now, and why it feels so safe even after they leave each other... Is because that essence of trust carries over from physical bonds.

The next few days, they talk about something they never believed they had: a future.

“I know I am hard on myself. Especially since I made that dumb decision to sign that contract with Val. Going to hell, I felt that I had no options. No safety or security. Val manipulated me with his sweet talk and passive aggressive bullshit. I was a fool,” Angel explained. “I know you’re right. I really do want to change, but this contract is eating me slowly from the inside out.”

Husk nodded. “I know you don’t want me anywhere near Val. But, I really feel we can beat him at his own game. Worst case scenario, it’ll be me in the grinder,” Husk shrugged.

“I can’t,” Angel said with a ferocity that didn’t match their earlier tone.

“Can’t what?” Husk perked up, concerned.

Angel’s eyes shut tightly. “I can’t let you waste yourself for trash like me.”

“You ain’t trash. You’re perfect. You’re…” Husk bit his tongue, feeling hot all over. Angel gave him a soft, warm smile and those eyes… wow. Husk is melting down inside like cotton candy in summer.

“Husky, I think you’re turning me into a goody-two shoes. I wanna dance and sing on a mountain top and help some orphans when I’m with you. Like we can do practically anything we set our minds to.”

“So, whats your idea of redemption?” Husk asked as he leaned in closer to Angel’s ear. It felt like a vibration as if Husk was purring as their faces touched.

“Not drugging. Keeping outta trouble. Avoiding bad cats,” he winked at Husk as they both chuckled.

Husk nodded. “I am a bad cat.”

Angel laughed heartily, “No you ain’t. You are some silky, sassy cat from the Bronx.”

“The Bronx? Nah, maybe Cincinnati.”

“New Orleans?” Angel offered. Husk laughed.

“I’d take you there for the parades. Mighty wild. I’d like to see you in one of those costumes.”

Angel laid on his side and touched Husk’s nose. “You’d look so cute in a cat costume.”

Husk rolled his eyes. “I never dressed up when I was human.”

“Well, you should’a.”

Husk nodded, looking tired all of a sudden.

There were a few moments of quiet as they laid close together on the bed.

Angel looked at Husk with concentration. “Husk?”

Husk noticed the direct look and felt a lurch of utter joy hit his heart, escaping into his throat, making his voice go hoarse.

“Ye-yeah?”

“I wanna be something good.”

Husk felt the sincerity in his words and took Angel by the hand.

“You are good for feeling so strongly about that.”

Angel felt a large grin come across his face at Husk’s affirmation.

“You wanna know the reason why?”

Husk nodded. “I’ll bite.”

“You. It’s you, Husk.”

Husk was rushed to the sensation of Angel’s arms wrapped around him. It was such a beautifully warm feeling. So toasty and safe. They embraced so long without words.

The reason was real, it felt like a sanctity, a bond.

Angel wouldn’t give up that feeling so easily even as his exhaustion was starting to show. They both let their true tired state be presented to one another in a natural way, the glow of their shared safety further reaching into their core, like a shared piggy bank of love,

Chapter eight: the final decision

“He’s not yours.”

Blood-red eyes pierced through the cameras and the people Val used as products and possessions, eyes that were furious in righteous anger.

“Look, kitty cat, scoop out your shit and leave because you have no right here to tell me what I own or don’t own,” Val taunted as Husk angrily stood his ground, taking a few steps closer to the entitled moth-man.

Husk forced Angel to leave the porn studio as he got a text that drove him off the edge:

Val’s keeps slamming me across the bed, he literally broke of the headboard and started beating me with it because I refused to give more shots of being, ‘gang-raped,’ by a bunch of guys.

Husk was booking it like a crazy man to the studio and found himself face to face with the tall monster that was constantly torturing his best friend.

“He has never been yours.” Husk repeats.

Val scoffs. “Can someone shut this pendejo up? I’m busy and I have a schedule to keep up,” he slaps around an assistant nearby, “And someone go get Angel! NOW!”

“Angel ain’t coming. Ever again,” Husk says confidently, though his insides feel like boiling rubber. “Let's make a wager.”

Val nods sarcastically. “Wager, with you? Alastor’s little bitch. I think not!”

Husk growls but laughs loudly. “No, I ain’t chained to him. I ain’t chained to no one, no one except Angel.”

That last part slips out and Val laughs derisively. Husk feels his neck go hot but he retains his composure by just allowing his hands to shake slightly.

“You fell in love with a porn demon, what a lark!” Val says with an air of confidence but seems rattled. “He’s fucking dudes day and night, don’t think he’ll just be with you. He’s a slut, if I ever knew one.”

“I got my soul. If you win a hand with me, I will freely give you mine. If I win, you give Angel his soul back and his freedom.” It took all of Husk’s willpower not to punch out the skinny freak with those comments, but he wanted to stay on track.

“You must be a fool,” Val chimes in.

“If these circumstances seem so fortuitous for such a quick fella like you, why not take those odds?”

Val lowers his dark glasses slightly. “Deal. Let me get refreshed with one of my favorites and I'll be out within the hour.”

Husk growls under his breath but nods. “In one hour.”

Val nods. “See you soon, mincemeat.”

Husk nods with a sarcastic tip of his hat, leaving the studio. He calls up a crying Angel and decides with a finality that no matter what, he will be leaving with Angel freed.

Even if that final decision costs everything, his soul, his life, his dreams of love with Angel, its everything to Husk to succeed.

Chapter nine: The reckoning

They stay by each other on Husk’s bed, just like they’ve done so easily for the last several weeks, going into months. It’'s a somber mood that pervades their embrace. There’s something ominous that fills the air, a doomed semblance of something resembling a deeper sort of hell. A hell without each other.

“I need to tell ya something.”

Angel hears a desperate tone hit the air as Husk talks softly to him.

Suddenly, they move their bodies flush against each other. It makes Angel blush and whimper. Husk takes his hands to place them around his face, caressing his face gently.

“This hour with you has been an eternity in heaven to me.”

Angel nods, nuzzling their noses together. This declaration from Husk floors Angel into silent awe, as they move so close they almost kiss.

“You are everything to me,” Angel says after they cuddle so close and hold each other with a simpering passion.

Husk smiles sadly.

He takes Angel’s hand to kiss a line on his palm, fingers, wrist. Up his arm, and to his neck, more lines of soft and sweet kisses. Then, his cheek.

The lock eyes and feel their pulse running like a wildfire, crazy and ardent.

“Kiss me, you crazy, cranky, beautiful-”

Angel is surprised by the interruption as Husk leans in and gives him an out-of-control kiss straight on the lips.

It felt furious, full of agony and a fast tongue, reckless and beyond anything Angel ever felt in any intimate touch or feeling. It made Angel feel so deeply wanted, so utterly helpless yet fully saved.

Like a spilled over paint can, the colors of his love spilled out like a roaming rainbow of guts, electric and insanely longing.

Husk kisses him with the intensity of unlocking the most secure prison lock, freeing his once-thought-to-be dead heart: it’s an explosion of long lost memory, fresh earth and warm sun, drinking icy water on a hot day, so utterly perfect.

Husk lays a softer kiss after the first wild one. It makes them both heave a whimpering sigh.

“I’ll do anything in my power to free you,” Husk says, getting up as Angel is still laying down in a soft pose, an afterglow he never experienced before. No sex and he felt so full and satisfied.

“If the reckoning you’re going to give to Val is anything like that kiss you just gave to me, woah!” Angel tilted his head back with a hand rubbing his forehead, pantomiming a blow to the cranium.

They shared a last laugh. Husk waved goodbye. Angel blew him a kiss.

Hell might be wrought with sorrow, but being there with Husk felt like a secret, private heaven.