#asns

Angel sort of hates himself for the little ember of pride behind his ribs at getting Husk to laugh—makes him feel like he’s still chasing the guy’s approval, trying to figure out how best to make himself appealing to his new master in all the ways he used to be appealing to Valentino. The thought that maybe if he could hit whatever button would make Husk’s gaze focus on him instead of the next big gamble, to make him recognize Angel’s value, he wouldn’t be thrown away again.

Look where that got him. A decade of nothing, and now he’s starting from scratch. He’s supernaturally gifted at wasting his life on shitty men.

or: in the eighties, overlord husk swindles valentino for angel dust's soul—not that it really changes anything. a decade later, husk loses everything to the radio demon. angel's still working out his feelings about that.

i am ALWAYS interested in asks about any of my aus, but in particular this one has also been haunting me, anon, so thank you very much for opening this can of worms for me again >:)

ohhh boy. i think alastor's leash, canonically, plays a role in the way he treats husk, as it's both his hard limit wrt the disrespect that husk can get away with and the whole hallway scene just reeks of projection. this is alastor lashing out because husk has, for the first time that we've seen (and i think his first time overall), struck a genuine nerve because he's pissed off and humiliated and wants to make alastor feel even a fraction of that. but crucial to this scene is that husk even KNOWS about this in the first place. i really doubt alastor would've just told him, so he must've found out another way, either by meeting whoever alastor's deal is with or figuring it out somehow (personally i love the idea of alastor bringing husk along to meet whoever it is at their request/order, but that's just me).

so. presuming that husk and angel find out on their own, together. husk is stunned at first but pretty quickly slides back into gruff apathy over it. angel is also startled but he also knows what it's like -- to be such a hotshot when someone else is pulling your strings backstage. he understands even when alastor doesn't want him to. it's almost a cycle of unwanted sympathy: alastor has a little bit of pity for angel, angel has a little bit of pity for husk, husk has a little bit of pity for alastor -- and all of them range from indifferent to deeply resentful about this. but at the end of the day, all three of them have the exact same mindset about soul deals: you damn yourself.

angel tends to victim-blame himself for the situation he's in, taking undue responsibility for the violence that other people inflict on him because at one point, many decades ago, he signed on the dotted line with someone he thought loved him. husk and alastor, on the other hand, know exactly what they did and why they did it, even if they regret it. they don't blame themselves so much as they're realistic about how complicit they've been in their own fuckups. all three of them have to believe they're responsible for their own misery to maintain an illusion of control (+ pride in alastor's case).