Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Angel is born in a city without starlight. At least, not real starlight. The light pollution off of New York’s City’s skyscrapers mingled with the impossible brightness of the consumerist hellscape of the Times Square billboards makes the night sky dull and muted, and on most nights, impossible to see. This means that for Angel, there is no guidance through the difficulties of his colorful and chaotic childhood, no star to point him north and away from the paths that only lead to misery. 

Angel is left to wander blindly through his life, alone and afraid, seeking out anything and anyone who could offer him even a speck of light. What he doesn’t realize until it’s too late is that not all sources of light are there to help; some are there to hurt. Some are there to deceive him and prey upon him, to lead him deeper into the pit instead of up to the surface. 

It’s that very ignorance that leads Angel to Valentino when he’s sixteen-years-old and experiences his first heat. He’s young and gay and curious, and he bends to the whim of the first alpha that gives him attention after he sneaks into a heat-share club with his poorly-made fake ID. Angel should have known better than to trust a stranger that so clearly looked at him with hunger in his eyes and saw someone young and malleable, but Val had money and an apartment and a place where Angel could sleep that wasn’t his two-bedroom shithole of an apartment with his family in Brooklyn.  He should have been smart enough to realize that Val was too good to be true, but something about even just a glimmer of light in all of the darkness was enough to keep Angel wanting more. 

It’s that very same yearning for something bigger, that desperate need to feel wanted, that keeps Angel in Val’s grasp for the remainder of his adolescence. It’s that same reluctance towards facing reality that allows Angel to make the stupid mistake of falling in love with him, of trusting him, of letting him fuck him unprotected that leads him towards the very situation he finds himself in now, at eighteen years old, suffering from a crippling bout of nausea that’s kept him from being able to do his fucking job as a sex worker for the last few days and has cost him hundreds of dollars. 

“Pregnant?” he asks the doctor at the walk-in clinic for the third time in a row. “Look, doc, I can’t be pregnant. Tell me you’re fuckin’ with me.” 

“That would be cruel of me if I were,” the doctor says, frowning. Angel can tell just by smelling her that she’s a beta — that she has no idea what he’s going through right now and never could, even if she wanted to. “We can discuss options—“

“Ain’t no discussion,” Angel says, quickly. “I can’t have a baby. We gotta fix this A-S-A-P.”

Anxiety churns with the nausea in his stomach. He would rather get this done right away, before Val finds out. 

The doctor shifts nervously on her stool. “Do you have any idea who the baby’s sire is?” she asks, and the look she gives Angel makes him want to punch her. She says it like she doubts it, like she knows anything at all about Angel’s life when she doesn’t. It’s not like he’s wearing a sign that says “hey everyone, I’m a fucking slut,” but he is an eighteen-year-old unmated pregnant omega who probably still smells like his last three clients, so he might as well be. 

Who does this broad think she is to pass judgment on Angel’s life? Fuck her. 

“Yeah, I know who he is,” Angel says through gritted teeth. He knows that if he’s pregnant, it has to be Val’s. There aren’t any other alphas he sleeps with when he’s in heat, and there aren’t any other alphas he lets anywhere even close to inside of him without a condom. “But he ain’t a part of this, I don’t need to involve him. It’s my body, my choice or some shit right? Just tell me where I gotta go to get this taken care of.” 

“Unfortunately it isn’t quite that simple,” the doctor says. “There are laws in place that require an alpha’s signature to proceed with a procedure like that, especially since you’re very likely past the eight week window that would have gotten you through the loophole.” 

Eight weeks? He can’t possibly have been pregnant for that long. 

“How do you know how far along I am? All I did was pee in a cup, I could have just gotten pregnant last week—“

“You’re having morning sickness, and you told me your last heat was two months ago,” the doctor says, firmly. “If that’s the case, then we can assume you’re already two months in.” 

Angel is going to be sick. This cannot be happening. 

“I-I just have irregular heats,” Angel says, feeling desperate. He cranes his neck, trying to get a look at the doctor’s charts. Not that he can understand them or anything, but there has to be a mistake. “It’s not that abnormal for me to miss a month, I didn’t think anything of it — are you sure that your test is right?”

The doctor looks sad when she says, “Is there someone you can call? A family member, maybe? I know you said you didn’t want to involve the sire, but this is their decision just as much as it’s yours—“

“Bullshit,” Angel snaps. He’s getting fed up with this crackpot doctor’s blatant fucking sexism. Angel has no one that he can call, no family, and barely any real friends that he can count on. The only person he can even think of talking to about this is Cherri, and she won’t be able to help him any more than he can help himself. If he were to call Val right now… He shudders at the thought alone. He really, really doesn’t want to involve Val in this unless he absolutely has to. “He has nothin’ to do with this. It’s my fucking body, and I don’t wanna be pregnant. I don’t see what the problem is.”

She sighs. “I understand your frustrations, but these are the risks that come along with having unprotected heat sex—” 

“You don’t know shit,” Angel cuts her off. “Real nice bedside manner ya got there, Toots.” Angel has heard enough. He isn’t about to hear a lecture about his sex life from a fucking stranger at a walk-in clinic. He stands up from where he’s sitting and the wax paper crinkles in protest right alongside the doctor, but Angel pays them no mind as he slings his purse over his shoulder and storms out of the office. 

He doesn’t even bother paying his co-pay on the way out. If they want his $20 so badly, they can fucking bill his parents, since that’s the only address they’ll have on file for him.

Angel steps out onto the busy New York streets and feels like everything is tilted at an angle. He can barely walk in a straight line, and he has to lean against the cold brick on a nearby building to stop himself from collapsing as his vision starts to tunnel. How could this be happening? How the fuck has he been pregnant for over eight fucking weeks and not realized it? Angel’s breathing is staggered and he slowly sinks down to a sitting position, his ass coming into contact with the dirty concrete from under his short skirt. Passerbys pay him no mind as they go about their day; New York City hive mind moving on with busy, eventful lives, ignorant towards Angel’s suffering right in front of them. 

He puts his head in his hands. He feels nauseous, he feels like he might literally fucking vomit, and he doesn’t know if it’s the anxiety or the human that’s apparently growing inside of him. He puts a hand on his stomach, amazed at how normal it still feels. It doesn’t feel real. His belly doesn’t feel any different, it doesn’t feel bigger or bloated or alive with anything other than indigestion, but if that fucking doctor was telling the truth then that means that there’s a new life stirring beneath the flat press of his palm on his abdomen. 

He doesn’t feel any different. He doesn’t feel pregnant. He feels tired and a little sick, and he desperately needs a fix or at least a goddamn cigarette, but none of those things are out of the ordinary. 

Angel fishes his pack of cigarettes out of his purse and doesn’t even think twice before lighting it between his teeth. He takes that first pull and the warmth of the smoke sets him at ease. He has a momentary pang of guilt at the realization that he should not be smoking in his condition, but in the same breath, he realizes that he doesn’t fucking care. This baby isn’t going to last much longer inside of him anyway, so why should he feel bad? 

It’s this mindset that carries Angel to Val’s apartment that night, where before he breaks the news he indulges in a needle full of Val’s newest haul of H and lets the alpha fuck him until he’s blissed out and boneless in his bed. The whole thing is pretty easy to forget, honestly, if he tries to. It’s easy to pretend that this morning didn’t happen, that he didn’t hear life-changing news, that he isn’t carrying Val’s baby in his belly at this very moment. But then, because life is never kind, because life never gives Angel a break, Angel is hit with a wave of nausea that has him emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet in Val’s ensuite bathroom while Val watches from the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“What did the doctor say? You were supposed to go today, right?” Val asks, his nose wrinkling in disgust. Angel flushes away the evidence of his shame and stands up on shaking legs. He’s starting to feel a little cold as the H wears off, and when he looks at himself in the mirror he can’t help but think that he looks like the living dead. 

His face is gaunt and thin, and there are gray bags under his baby blue eyes. His freckles are muddy with smudged makeup from days ago, and his hair is askew from the sex he and Val just had. He sighs and forces himself to look away, snatching up his pink toothbrush from Val’s bathroom vanity and squeezing out a generous amount of toothpaste onto it. 

“Yeah, uh,” Angel says, sticking the minty paste into his mouth. The bristles sting his sensitive gums, and when he spits after a few strokes over his pearly whites, there’s blood mingled with the foam that slides down the drain. “They ran a few tests.” 

Val meets Angel’s eyes in the mirror. “And?” 

Angel finishes brushing and rinses off the toothbrush. “I’m pregnant.” 

Behind him, Val laughs. It’s a dry, awful sound, and it makes Angel feel like he might be sick again. 

“Very funny, Amorcito,” Val says, but when Angel’s gaze in the mirror does not waver, his smile slips from his face. “Wait, are you serious?” 

Angel closes his eyes, hands closing around the marble ledge of Val’s sink. “Yeah, she said I got knocked up during my last heat. Guess we shoulda been more careful.” 

Val snorts. “What sorry fuck did you spend your last heat with?” 

Angel opens his eyes and turns around to glare at Val. “ You, dumbass. Who the fuck else would I spend my heats with? The baby’s yours.” 

What happens next happens in slow motion. If they were in a TV show, the music would cut out right about now, just as Val’s expression goes from amused to furious. He crosses the room and grabs Angel by the throat, turning him easily to slam him into the bathroom wall. Angel winces, hands coming up in an attempt to pry Val’s hands off of him, but he isn’t strong enough. 

“Val,” Angel chokes out, begging. This isn’t the first time that Val’s been rough with him, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. 

“Mine? Mine? How fucking dare you say something like that to me?” Val’s brown eyes are burning with rage. “Do you have any idea how much an accusation like that could ruin my life? This is just like you omegas, you sleep around, whore your bodies out, and then when a nice alpha takes you in and gives you a safe place to lay your head you try to trap them! You think I’m not aware of how many alphas you let fuck you, Angel? It’s not my fault you were stupid and got yourself knocked up, but do not try to pin this on me.” 

He loosens his grip just as Angel’s vision is starting to go dark and Angel sucks in a breath before saying, “Val you’re the only one one who I—” 

“Oh, don’t feed me that shit,” Val spits. “You’re a whore , Angel. How stupid and gullible do you think I am?” 

Angel can’t believe this. Val knows that he’s the only person Angel sleeps with when he’s in heat. Val knows that Angel uses protection when he sleeps with his clients. It’s never been a problem before now. 

This baby is Val’s, and Val knows that it is. Angel doesn’t understand why he’s denying it. 

“You think I’m happy about this?” Angel bites back. The fear that usually holds him back from standing up to Val has been replaced by fury. He’s pissed — pissed at himself for letting this happen, pissed at his omega body for betraying him, pissed at Val for being a fucking coward. “I tried to abort the thing on the spot but they said I need an alpha to sign off on it!” 

It hurts to talk around the press of Val’s hand on his throat. Val isn’t applying pressure anymore, but his hand is still there, as if in warning. 

Angel didn’t think he had to spell it out, but since Val isn’t saying anything Angel emphasizes with, “I need you to sign off on it.” 

Val stares at him for a moment while his brain puts the pieces together. Val is handsome, but he definitely isn’t smart. Once he realizes that the only thing that Angel really needs him for in this whole thing is signing off on getting rid of the problem, he’ll get over his anger. Regardless of if the baby is his or not (it is), Val is going to want to put this behind them as soon as humanly possible. After a minute of Val staring at him with narrowed eyes, his hand has loosened enough that Angel is able to pry him off. Angel curses under his breath and darts under Val’s outstretched arm and back over to the vanity to inspect his neck. There are red splotches on his pale skin, ones that will likely turn to bruises in the morning. 

“Fuck, Val, are you serious?” Angel says, turning his head to get a look at the marks from other angles. “I have clients tomorrow, it looks trashy when I have other guys’ fingerprints on my neck, and I’m sure you’re not gonna pay me the tips I’m gonna miss out on because of this, are you?” 

Angel turns on the faucet and grabs a rag from Val’s shelf. He wets it with cold water and starts pressing it to the sensitive skin. “Get me some ice, will ya? It might still be soon enough that I can—” 

“Get out,” Val says, cutting Angel off. Angel freezes, the rag going still in his hand and he glances up at Val in the mirror. 

Val is standing there, only half-facing Angel, glaring at the wall.

“What?” Angel asks, swallowing past the lump in his throat. 

“I want you out, Angel, I want you gone. How dare you ask me to sign off on an abortion for some other alpha’s baby?” Val hisses through gritted teeth. Angel’s seen him angry many times in the past, but never like this. Normally, Val is an explosively angry person. He throws things and he hits and he yells because anger consumes him like a passionate flame that’s all encompassing. But this? This quiet, seething anger? Angel has never seen this before. 

“W-what’re ya talkin’ about, Val? I thought you’d just wanna put this behind us,” Angel turns around to face Val again. He’s starting to feel afraid now, like maybe he should have planned this conversation out a little bit better. “We just made a mistake is all, it’s nothin’ we can’t—” 

“And how many more mistakes are you going to want to ‘put behind us’ , hm? Do you expect me to keep cleaning up your messes for you?” Val straightens up. There’s something dark in his eyes that makes Angel’s heart jump. “And who exactly would be paying for this termination? Would that also be me? Am I just your free fucking birth control now, you think you can just go around fucking whatever alphas you want with no repercussions and then come crying to me to fix it?” 

Angel doesn’t believe this. “Val, this baby is yours—” 

“Bullshit,” Val snaps. His burning hot anger has dulled to something cold now, and he looks at Angel like he’s something disgusting. “You just want it to be mine so I can get you out of this mess. You want an abortion? Go find the alpha that did this to you and make him pay for it. Get the fuck out of my apartment.” 

Val turns and walks out of the bathroom, leaving Angel standing there frozen in place. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening! Angel’s heart feels like it’s lodged in his throat and his vision starts to tunnel and for a terrifying moment, he thinks he’s going to pass out. 

Val can’t throw him out — he has nowhere else to go! Val knows that. Oh god, Angel is going to be fucking sick again. Angel barely manages to stumble over to the toilet before he’s emptying what’s left in his stomach out into the porcelain, fingers gripping the sides. His nostrils burn and his head is spinning but he still manages to hear the sound of Val’s apartment door slamming shut. 

Angel lets out a sigh of relief. If Val is leaving, then it’s likely that he’s going to take a walk to cool off. This is Angel’s fault — he shouldn’t have dropped the news like that. He should have been gentler, he should have considered Val’s feelings. He’ll apologize when Val comes back and he’ll make things right. 

This is something that can easily be fixed. He knows how to handle Val, they’ve been together for three years after all. This is just a little temper tantrum, nothing Angel can’t handle. 

Angel brushes his teeth again, takes a few deep breaths, and calms himself down. He lets himself settle into his delusion that things will be fine and he manages to fall asleep on the couch while he waits for Val to come back so that he can apologize. 

The door opens after a few hours, but the person who enters the apartment isn’t Val. It’s Vox — Val’s “friend” who has never been subtle about his very obvious obsession with Angel’s boyfriend. He has a set of keys (much to Angel’s chagrin) and he lets himself inside and loudly slams the door to shake Angel from his nap. 

“Ah,” Vox says when Angel sits up to look at him in confusion. Val hadn’t said anything about Vox coming over tonight. “So you are still here. Val sent me over to make sure you’re gone by the time he gets home.” 

Angel stares at him. “What?” 

Vox shuts the door and stands there with his arms folded firmly over his chest. His icy blue eyes glare at Angel over the thick rectangular rims of his glasses, and his alpha scent is strong and intimidating. Angel is pretty sure that a beta would be able to pick up on the air of warning radiating off of Vox’s demeanor because the smell is that intense. Angel wrinkles his nose. 

“Look, let’s cut the formalities, okay kid? Val told me what happened, and he wants you out.” Vox shrugs and sighs, like this whole thing is boring to him, like he’s not about to shatter Angel’s entire world into pieces. “It’s honestly about fucking time, if you ask me. Why he let you mooch off of his good graces for as long as he has is beyond me. It was infuriating to sit there and watch you take advantage of him from the sidelines. You getting knocked up by some rando was the best thing that ever happened to him, he just doesn’t see it yet.” 

Angel sits up straighter and shoots a glare of his own right back at the alpha. “It wasn’t some ‘rando,’ asshole, the baby is Val’s and you know it is. He knows it is.” 

Vox scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Wow, you really are a piece of fucking work, you know that?” 

Everything about Vox is cold; his eyes, his tone, his stance. Angel’s always known that Vox isn’t his biggest fan, but he never realized how deep that hatred ran until now. “Are you really that determined to ruin Val’s life? After everything he did for you? He pulled you out of that shithole you were living in and gave you a safe place to stay. He scraped your sorry ass off of the street when you were too strung out to walk. He fucked you through your heats and never once complained about how annoying and needy you were, and this is how you repay him? You try to baby trap him? No fucking way am I going to stand by and watch that happen.” 

Angel can’t believe this. 

“I’m not tryin’ to baby trap anyone, I don’t want to be pregnant! I told Val that I’d get an abortion, I just need an alpha to sign off—” 

“He’s not going to do that, Angel,” Vox interrupts, his voice flat. “You are going to walk out of his life and you’re going to deal with this problem on your own, and you’re never going to contact him again, do you understand?”

Something about the way he says it makes it sound like a threat. Angel’s hands ball into fists at his side. This isn’t fucking fair. Vox could easily sign off on Val’s behalf and fix this whole problem for him, but he won’t. He’s content to let Angel suffer, to force Angel out onto the streets of New York with absolutely nothing if it means protecting Val’s reputation. Vox almost seems giddy to be coming Val’s defense like this. 

“You’re in love with him,” Angel realizes, eyes going wide. As if this situation couldn’t get any shittier, Angel feels his heart sink as everything falls into place. 

Vox must have been waiting for something like this to happen so that he could finally get rid of Angel once and for all. In the nearly three years that Angel and Val have been together, Vox has always been this menacing presence in the background. He and Val have a history that Angel has never cared enough to ask about, but now that he’s really thinking about it, he realizes that Vox has always been obsessed with Val. They’re both alphas, so Angel suspects that the reason why things haven’t ever evolved between them is because both of them know that Val is pretty old fashioned when it comes to alpha and omega dynamics. 

“That’s none of your business,” Vox says, but he’s smirking, like Angel has just figured out a piece to his sick puzzle. 

“You’re in love with him,” Angel repeats, feeling outside of his own body. “And you hate me because he’s in love with me.” 

That seems to trigger something in Vox, because his eyes flash and his jaw visibly tightens, and he takes a threatening step forward towards Angel. 

“Val isn’t in love with you ,” Vox snaps. His alpha fangs are bared dangerously and the scent in the room turns viciously sour. “Val doesn’t give a flying fuck about you. You’re nothing but a toy that has lost its fun, and I’m here to take you out with the rest of the trash. Val could never love you.” 

Angel’s heart feels like it’s trying to suffocate him with how hard it’s beating in his chest. He stares up at Vox and feels — 

Pity? Anger? Hatred? Some combination of the three? 

They’re both victims of Val’s selfish inability to love anything but himself, but Angel is pretty sure that he’s the only one between them who realizes it. His stomach lurches and he knows he’s going to be sick again. He stands up from the couch and moves towards the bathroom but Vox blocks his path. Angel feels dizzy and lightheaded and he glares at Vox, unwilling to try and be patient. 

“Move, Vox, or I’m going to puke on you,” Angel manages, feeling his legs start to shake. 

Vox seems to hear the seriousness in Angel’s tone because he steps aside, letting Angel pass. Angel barely makes it to the bathroom before he’s dry-heaving, tears pricking at his eyes as pregnancy wreaks havoc on his already frail body. He doesn’t need to look to know that Vox has followed him and is watching him, most likely with a smug look on his face. Angel knows that he isn’t going to be able to convince Vox that he should stay here. Val, he probably could have gotten through to, but Vox? Angel might as well be arguing with a wall. 

Angel doesn’t think that there’s any way he’s going to be able to take all of his things in one go, but as packs his belongings into his Victoria’s Secret PINK duffle, he realizes how few possessions he really has. He’s been living with Val since he was sixteen years old, but all he has to show for it are a couple bits of clothing, a toothbrush, and some shoes. The rest of the things — the appliances, the furniture, the fucking glass and silverware — belong to Val. Angel had convinced himself that he and Val had built a home together, but now he realizes that was always just a temporary thing in Val’s life; a decorative vase of flowers that has wilted and needs to be thrown away. 

Vox takes Angel’s keys from him when they’re outside of Val’s Upper East Side apartment and does not even bother with a “goodbye” before he turns and walks down the street towards his place where Angel assumes Val must be, and just like that, Angel is alone. 

Today feels like a nightmare that he can’t wake up from. It doesn’t feel real that just this morning, Angel was waking up next to Val and sucking his dick instead of eating breakfast. It doesn’t feel real that on his way out the door, Val had kissed him goodbye and told him that he loved him before he went to the doctor’s office to be handed a life sentence. Angel wishes he could go back to how things were this morning before he found out that he was pregnant. He wishes he could go back to his last fucking heat and convince himself to take Plan B just in fucking case like he’s done almost every time before now. 

Unplanned pregnancy isn’t something Angel ever thought would happen to him, but now here he is, freshly single with a baby growing inside of him and nowhere to go. 

Angel fishes his phone out of his pocket. Val pays for his plan, so Angel isn’t sure how much longer the phone is going to even function, so he needs to figure out what he’s going to do. He knows that going home to his family in Brooklyn isn’t an option. He hasn’t talked to them in nearly three years and he isn’t about to go back on his promise to himself to never go back just because Val broke up with him. He isn’t going to let them be right about him. Besides, once they find out he’s pregnant they’ll probably throw him out just like Val did. 

So Angel calls the only other person who could possibly take him in: Cherri. 

He met Cherri in high school before they both dropped out — she’s an omega, like him, and they had a lot in common right from the start. They were both queer kids with broken, fucked up families, and a hunger for something more than anything Bay Ridge had to offer them. They would skip school to hang out by the shore with their sneakers buried in the rocky bank and toss pebbles into the tide and talk about everything and anything like time didn’t matter. Cherri’s mom had walked out on her when she was still just a little kid and her dad was a heavy-drinker, so more often than not, Cherri preferred to go anywhere that wasn’t her apartment. Angel was in a similar boat, but instead of divorced parents he had parents that hated each other and a father who sold drugs who also dragged Angel’s older brother into the business with him. Angel’s twin sister was the only member of his family that he even remotely connected with, but in his struggle to stay alive against his family’s abuse and cruelty, he left her behind. 

It occurs to him in this moment that he could , in theory, call his sister. He hasn’t talked to her in a few years, but he doesn’t doubt that she would try to be there for him if she could. She might be living on her own now, god — he hopes she’s living on her own, he hopes beyond anything that she got the fuck out of that awful apartment that his family lives in, but Angel doesn’t know if it’s worth taking the risk of the rest of the family finding out about his situation. 

Which is why Cherri makes the most sense. Cherri dances at a club down in Hell’s Kitchen and lives in an illegal loft in the building with a bunch of the other dancers. It’s sort of a “come and stay as you need” type of situation, but it’s the most stable place Cherri has had since leaving home. It won’t be much, but there will be a mattress for Angel to sleep on and a roof over his head. 

Angel dials her number and it rings twice before she picks up. 

“Angie! How the fuck have you been, I haven’t heard from you in a minute!” 

He wishes he could match her energy, but hearing her voice makes him start crying again  — which, is this going to be a thing now? Is he just going to cry all the time because of these stupid fucking hormones? 

He doesn’t even know where to start, so he decides to just rip the bandaid off as fast as possible and says, “I’m pregnant.” 

Cherri is quiet for a minute, and Angel’s tone must give away the severity of the situation because her voice is low and level when she says, “Are you serious?” 

Angel sobs, moving to lean against the brick of Val’s building while gripping his phone so tightly in his hand that he’s afraid he might break it. He nods, but she can’t see him, so he chokes out, “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ serious.” 

“Oh my god,” Cherri breathes, and Angel hears her shuffle to move to sit down on the other end of the line. “Are you okay? Is — did you tell Val?” 

She doesn’t ask whose baby it is, because she knows it has to be Val’s. Everyone in Angel’s life knows that the only person he has ever heat-shared with is Val, including Val, which is what makes this whole thing so incredibly fucked. 

“Oh, I told him,” Angel says, sniffling as he lets out a bitter laugh.

“What did he say?” Cherri’s tone implies that she already has a pretty good idea of how Val took it. 

“He threw me out,” Angel tells her, and speaking it out loud makes it feel real in a way it hadn’t before. He feels like there’s a hole in his chest where his heart should be. Val broke up with him . 

“He WHAT?” Cherri shouts. Angel can hear how angry she is. If their positions were reversed, he’d be furious too. “You told him you were pregnant and he threw you out?! Aren’t alphas supposed to have like, something in their brains that make them protective when their omegas get pregnant? What the shit?” 

It’s true. Alphas do usually get protective when they’ve successfully knocked up their mate, but Angel and Val aren’t mated. Val was against the idea and Angel never pushed it, because he thought he was taking some kind of stand against sexism, but in retrospect he realizes how much of a sign it should have been that Val was never serious about him to begin with. God, he feels like such an idiot. 

“Not if they think the baby ain’t theirs,” Angel says miserably. 

“Wait, he’s trying to say it isn’t his? Ohhh, Angel, I’m gonna kill that asshole if I see him—” 

“Can I come stay with you at Ozzie’s?” Angel asks, cutting her off. He’s too exhausted to listen to her rant about how much of a piece of shit Val is. He hates the fact that while he knows she’s absolutely right, that Val is a motherfucker who deserves to get his face punched in, the breakup is still too fresh for Angel to be anything other than devastated right now. 

Because at the end of the day, Angel is still in love with the guy who knocked him up and kicked him to the curb like he’s yesterday’s trash, and he fucking hates himself for it. 

Cherri’s voice is a little less harsh when she says, “Yeah, of course you can. I’ve got to check with Oz if you want to stay longer than a few days though. He doesn’t like it when non-dancers use the loft for free real estate.” 

Angel expected that. Oz is the alpha who owns Ozzie’s, the strip club where Cherri works. He likes Angel well enough and has let him dance there when he’s needed extra money, so he’s sure that they can work out some kind of arrangement for him to stay a little longer. 

Angel thanks Cherri and heads downtown where he manages to make it to the club on muscle-memory alone. The events of the day have drained him of all of his energy, and when Cherri lets him in through the back door he all but collapses into her arms. She smells like coconut body spray and baby powder and it’s an instant comfort as he follows her up the utility stairs and into the private loft. 

The space is familiar to him, and Cherri tells him that she convinced one of the dancers to switch beds so that Angel can sleep in the bed beside hers. Angel thinks that this space was probably used for storage or as a studio at one point, but over the last decade and a half it’s been completely transformed into a communal living space. There are mattresses placed on the floor a few feet apart, and mismatched dressers and wardrobes situated by each mattress that have been collected over the years for the dancers to keep their belongings in. Cherri has been staying here for two years, and her 5x7 foot space looks well lived-in. Her dresser is old and the drawers don’t quite fit in their slots anymore, which makes the fixture look worn and broken. She’s covered the faded wood in stickers and sharpie doodles, and the top is decorated with perfume bottles, unopened cup noodles, and a cracked mirror. 

Angel’s mattress has a pillow, a pink fitted sheet and a cream-colored throw blanket on it that Cherri tells him she went out and bought for him at the Target in Times Square, and he’s thankful for her kindness. He has also been allotted a combination dresser and wardrobe, with shelves inside of the closet area and draws along the bottom. It’s painted an awful shade of green that reminds Angel of his Nonna’s house and the drawers have floral contact paper stuck to the bottom. It only takes him a few minutes to unpack all of his things, and he gives Cherri a tight hug and a thankful kiss on the cheek before he heads back into the corridor in search of Oz’s office. 

The last time Angel was here was about a year ago, when one of his highest-paying clients had been busted for selling drugs and Angel had to lay low and seek out new clientele. Ozzie’s is a strip club that functions as a sex club, with private rooms that can be rented out by customers if they’re interested in sleeping with one of the dancers. The customer puts in a request and so long as the dancer consents, anything and everything is fair game in the privacy of the back rooms. While sleeping with clients at Ozzie’s, a portion of the dancer’s earnings go to the club, but Oz is okay with dancers arranging private, outside meetings with regulars if a dancer needs to make a little extra cash on the side. All Oz asks is that his dancers keep themselves professional and clean of STDs. He runs a tight and professional business, and he’s allowed Angel to dance from time to time when he’s needed to find new regular clients. Cherri got lucky when she found this club, and Angel is just as lucky that he’s able to share in the club’s benefits alongside her. 

Angel takes a deep breath and knocks on the door to Oz’s office. Oz calls for him to come in, and Angel lets himself into the cramped but comfortable office. Oz is a stereotypical alpha: tall with big muscles and a scent that takes up the whole room. He’s changed his hair since the last time Angel saw him; he still has it styled in box braids, but now his black hair is mixed with a brilliant shade of cobalt blue. He’s wearing a navy fine-tailored pinstripe suit that compliments the blue braids beautifully, and he meets Angel’s expression with a kind smile. 

“Angel Dust,” Oz says, his voice rising enthusiastically on the vowels. He gestures towards the empty leather chair in front of his desk. “It’s been a while, how you been baby? Have a seat. Talk to me, what brings you back to my club? Thought you and your man were settling down.” 

Angel winces at the mention of Val but takes Oz up on his offer to sit down. It’s only now that Angel realizes how much he’s shaking, and how fucking cold he feels, that he becomes aware of the fact that without Val, Angel’s access to drugs has also been cut off. All the more reason why he needs to talk to Oz about picking up some dancing shifts to earn his keep and earn a few extra bucks so that he doesn’t go into withdrawal. 

“We broke up,” Angel says, choosing to be blunt. Oz prefers people to be straight forward, and Angel doesn’t have the energy to spend on small talk. 

Oz sighs and nods. “Sorry to hear it,” he says, but there’s an air of something else in his tone that makes Angel reply with: 

“Don’t be. He’s a fucking dick.” God he feels like shit. Angel’s leg starts to bounce restlessly. “Good riddance.”

Oz’s expression shifts and he laughs. “Oh thank god, that guy sucked Angel, you can do way better.” 

Angel manages to smile at that. Val does suck. “You don’t even know the half of it,” Angel says, shuddering as the memories of today flash before his eyes again. “We uh, we sorta lived together and now I ain’t got nowhere to stay. Cherri’s got me set up in one of the beds in the loft for right now, but I know you ain’t in the business of givin’ out beds for free.” 

Oz chuckles and leans back in his chair. He steadies Angel with a look, his blue eyes narrowed like he’s trying to figure something out. “You’re right that I don’t give things out for free,” Oz says, his tone casual. “I’ve got no problem with you staying here, but baby, you’re going to have to earn your keep if you want to make it permanent.” He pauses and then his eyes flick down to Angel’s abdomen. “And to be frank, I don’t know how long you’re going to be able to work the club floor with that baby in your belly.” 

Angel tenses. He was really hoping he’d be able to keep that part a secret for a little while longer. 

“How did you know?” Angel asks. 

Oz sighs and leans forward, propping his elbow on his desk and resting his face in his palm. The look he gives Angel isn’t one of pity, but empathy . “You don’t become one of the most powerful alpha/omega strip club owners in New York without knowing your way around different scents. I knew you were knocked up before you even opened the door to this office, the same way I can tell that you’re not exactly thrilled about your… situation. ” 

Angel stares at him, impressed. “You can tell all of that just from my scent?” 

Oz nods. “Lust is the name of my game, baby, and when we’re dealing with lust it’s all about setting up the right mood. There’s nothing hotter than consent, and you tell a lot about someone’s desire based on the way their bodies give off scent. Back before all of this artificial shit hit the market, alphas and omegas used to rely on their scents to read each other, but now it’s a lost art. You wanna know why Ozzie’s is one of the top clubs in this town? It’s because I don’t use that artificial garbage, I don’t pump my club with pheromones from a bottle — I let my dancers use their natural skills to get the job done. Once you understand how your body works, how your scent works, you’ll be able to navigate the world better.” He says everything so confidently, that Angel can’t help but be intrigued by the sentiment.

“Scent is also what I’ve been using this whole conversion to set your mind at ease,” Oz adds, and Angel’s eyes go wide. 

He hadn’t even noticed that his nerves have calmed, but now that Oz brings it up, he realizes that he’s stopped shaking. Angel knows that alphas can manipulate scent to influence omegas’ moods, but he’s never had it happen so seamlessly before. He didn’t even notice that Oz had manipulated his scent until it was pointed out, and Angel can’t help but be extremely impressed. 

“Omegas can do it too,” Oz says with a note of finality. He stands and makes his way over to a cabinet in the corner of his office and takes out a crystal decanter filled with amber liquid and a glass. Angel watches as he pours himself a drink and takes a sip, closing his eyes to savor the taste. “My partner was like you, he didn’t know how to use his scent properly until we started dating and now — well. You’ve seen him perform.” 

Angel has seen Oz’s partner perform. Fizzarolli started going exclusively by his stage name a few years before Angel met him, and he’s managed to make a name for himself among NYC’s drag scene. He’s an omega with talent , who can command a crowd like nothing Angel has ever seen before.

“We can’t all be Fizz,” Angel says, and that manages to pull a smile from Oz. Angel takes advantage of the alpha’s good mood and points to his glass, raising his brows as he asks, “Mind pourin’ me one of those?” 

Oz looks at him skeptically. “You sure you should be drinking in your current position?” 

“I ain’t keepin’ it,” Angel tells him, leaning back in his chair. Oz pulls another glass from his cabinet and pours Angel a shot’s worth of whatever liquor he’s drinking. He comes closer but doesn’t hand it to him, he just holds it slightly out of reach. 

“Valentino agreed to sign off on that?” Oz asks, but Angel can tell by his tone that he already knows the answer. 

“No,” Angel says, reaching for the glass. “Not exactly. But I’m gonna try to find an alpha who will.” 

“That’s not gonna be easy,” Oz tells him, finally relenting and handing the drink over. Angel makes a grateful noise and takes a sip. It’s a spiced bourbon — the good shit. Oz always has the good shit. “Not many alphas are comfortable signing off on that kind of thing.” 

“What about you?” Angel asks, because the thought had crossed his mind already. “Would you do it?” 

Oz sighs and leans against the front of his desk with his drink held close to his lips. 

“I have done it, many times.” Oz takes a sip and then looks away. “But I can’t anymore.”

“Why not?” Angel sounds a little desperate, but he can’t help it. His situation is a little dire, all things considered, and having an alpha in his corner would be a huge help. “Come on, Oz, just this one time for me and I’ll work for free for like, five months if you need me to.” 

“I can’t, Angel.” Oz shakes his head and then sets his drink down on the edge of his desk. With  his newly free hands, he begins to unbutton his shirt, revealing a bond mark on his right pectoral, just above his nipple. Angel’s heart jumps, because the mark is still healing and it feels like something he isn’t supposed to see. It feels like something private. “I’m part of a bonded pair now. The only person whose medical records I can sign off on are my partner’s.” 

“Oh,” Angel says, blinking. Well. Okay. That’s a pretty good reason to say no. “Congratulations.” 

“Sorry, kid.” Oz re-buttons his shirt and picks up his drink again. “Wish there was more that I could do. I can let you work until you get your shit sorted, but you know my policy about keeping drugs out of my club. If you’re gonna work here, you gotta get a lot more than that situation under control.” 

Angel’s leg is still bouncing, because he’s coming down. Oz has been in this business long enough to recognize when someone is as deep into the throes of addiction as Angel currently is. 

“Y-yeah,” Angel says, downing the rest of the drink in an attempt to take the edge off. “I’ll get it under wraps.” 

What Angel really means is: I’ll get better at hiding it.  

“Sounds like we’re got a deal,” Oz sighs. “You can stay in the loft, but you work one weekend shift for free, and don’t bring any mess into my club.” 

Angel thanks him and sees himself out, feeling better than he did before. At the very least, he has a place to sleep and a way to earn some money while he tries to figure out how he’s going to get himself out of this disaster of a situation he’s found himself in. 

*.*.*.*.*

The first few weeks of living at Ozzie’s go by in a flash. Angel picks up some information from one of his clients about an alpha who would sign off for him for a price, and a quick message exchange over a non-trackable app called Signal gets Angel a confirmation and a number. 

$1,500. 

That’s what Angel has to pay if he wants to go through with paying off a stranger to sign for his pregnancy termination. It’s a high number and it makes him doubt his decision because with that kind of money, he could almost afford to put down a deposit on a sublet and start living on his own. It’s a high price to pay for something that still doesn’t feel real, but Angel knows that he doesn’t have much of a choice. He can’t have a fucking baby. There’s no way in hell he’d be able to handle something like that, especially not on his own. 

He doesn’t even allow himself to entertain the idea “could be.” He doesn’t allow himself to imagine a world where Val wanted him to keep it, where they’d try to build a life for themselves, where they’re a big, happy family, nor does he even dream of a reality where he tries out the “single parent” lifestyle. He doesn’t let the picture take form in his mind. That’s the only way to keep his heart safe. 

The nausea gets worse, as does the exhaustion. Then comes the cravings and the hot flashes and the mood swings, and by the time Angel has managed to scrounge up the money he needs, he’s more than happy to fork it over if it means putting an end to his misery. He deposits the money into his account, and doesn’t recognize the red flags when the alpha he’s been talking to asks him to send him the money via money-order. 

It seems like a reasonable request, after all. This alpha is risking his own safety by doing this. He could get into legal trouble if Val decided to claim the baby and press charges for interference. Angel completely understands why someone wouldn’t want money like this to be traced back to them. 

Angel doesn’t even suspect for a minute that the alpha he’s been talking to would ghost him after receiving the money. Which is what makes it all the more devastating when that’s exactly what happens. 

The point of communication between them disappears along with the $1,500 Angel sent, and Angel is right back where he fucking started a few weeks ago. Pregnant. Broke. 

Alone. 

After that, all of the money Angel earns goes towards funding his drug habit. 

Angel’s dependency grows along with his belly, and before he knows it, none of his clothes fit him anymore. It feels like it happens suddenly, like one day he wakes up and his pants won’t close over the swell of his abdomen, but the harsh reality is that Angel just hadn’t noticed his body was changing because he was too high to care. He stands in the communal bathroom in front of the large mirror and looks at himself, unable to grasp the fact that the person he’s looking at is him. 

He looks thinner than he’s ever looked before, aside from the round, protruding shape of his belly and the slight swell of his breasts as they start to change shape. His face is gaunt and his eyes are sunken in, and the skin on his arms clings to his bones like plastic wrap. His belly looks out of place on his sickly physique; alien in a way that makes Angel feel like a stranger in his own body. 

He reaches down and rubs a hand along the stretch of pale skin, watching his reflection as his fingers splay out with plenty more space to fill. He’s never been this big before, and the change in his shape is unsettling. He doesn’t look like himself. 

He gasps and snaps out of the trance when he feels a flutter of movement beneath his hand. He pulls his eyes away from the mirror to stare down at his belly, when the feeling happens again. Angel’s heart jumps to his throat when he realizes that the fluttering is the feeling of his baby moving inside of him and he immediately wrenches his hands away from his belly as if it burned him. 

He’s rescued from his downward spiral into his own thoughts by Cherri entering the bathroom and startling at his appearance, eyes traveling over the round shape of his belly with increasing surprise. It seems that maybe Angel wasn’t the only one to not notice the gradual change in his appearance, because she says: 

“Holy fuck, Angie, you really are pregnant.” 

And that about sums up how he’s feeling. It hasn’t felt real until now. It hasn’t been something that he could see until now. 

“It’s obvious, huh?” Angel asks, turning in the mirror to look at his side profile. He has a dancing shift in a few hours, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to pass off his pregnant belly as just normal weight gain anymore. 

“Uh,” Cherri says, reaching out to touch his belly. “ Yeah. How far along are you? Have you even been to a doctor?” 

Angel looks away from her, feeling guilty. He hasn’t been back to a doctor since he stormed out of the last one’s office three months ago. He has no idea how far along he is, or when his due date is, or anything about the baby at all. If he’s being completely honest, he’s spent the last few months pretending that he isn’t pregnant in hopes that the problem would just disappear. 

But that’s not how this shit works. 

“I was sorta hoping I wouldn’t still be pregnant by this point,” Angel admits. “If I didn’t think about it, it wasn’t real, ya know?” 

Cherri hums in understanding as she rubs her hand against his bump. “Well it’s pretty real now. Oh — holy fuck, Angie, I think I just felt it move!” 

Angel swats her hand away because ugh , he can’t do this right now. 

“Yeah, it does that,” Angel says, attempting to pull his crop-top down over his belly to hide it from view and failing miserably. “I don’t got time for this right now, I really need the money and I can’t fuckin’ afford to take time off. I just ran out of coke this morning and I’m gonna tear my hair out if I don’t get my hands on some more by tonight.” 

Cherri bites her bottom lip. “Are you sure you should still be using? Aren’t drugs like, bad for the baby or some shit?” 

Angel glares at her. “Look, I don’t need your judgment right now, okay? You know what else is ‘bad for the baby’? Me dyin’, which is what’s gonna happen if I can’t earn enough money to keep myself from goin’ through withdrawals.” She frowns but Angel doesn’t back down. “So are you gonna help me or not?” 

Cherri looks like she wants to argue, but she doesn’t. She just sighs and nods and says, “Yeah, I can help you. I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to hide your belly, but we can try. I’ll head down to The Pleasure Chest and see what I can find.” 

“You’re the best,” Angel says, grabbing her face with both hands and kissing her on the forehead. “Now move, I gotta piss like a racehorse.” 

Cherri comes back two hours later with a piece of lingerie that has a sheer veil that trickles down from the bra’s underwire and a pair of high-waisted sparkly underwear. They’re not exactly cute, but Angel thinks they’ll work to cover up his bump for at least another few weeks. He puts it on and at the very least is impressed with the way his chest looks, and he thinks that his clients will like it too. It’s not like the alphas who come to the club care about Angel being knocked up. That’s not what they come here for. If anything, Angel’s current state should be more appealing to them, because they don’t have to worry about getting Angel pregnant. 

It turns out, that’s exactly the case. Well — sort of. The reality of the situation is much, much more unsettling. 

Angel’s attempt to hide his pregnancy only lasts for about a week before everyone else starts to notice. His body changes faster than he can keep up with and he panics, thinking that he’s going to have to find a new job and a new place to live, but to his surprise, clients seem more interested in him once he stops trying to hide it. 

“Hey, baby,” some random, creepy alpha purrs into his ear one night while he’s grinding on their lap. Angel doesn’t think much of it, he assumes it’s just another customer trying to hit on him, when the alpha’s hand snake’s around Angel’s side to cup the swell of his belly. “You got rates for those private back rooms? I’d love to have some alone time with you.” 

Something clicks in Angel’s mind and he remembers that in his current position, he’s fulfilling a rare but extremely popular kink. He’s a pregnant male omega without a bond mark, that is not only available but is also fully willing to be fucked for the right price. 

Things change for him after that. 

Angel starts taking more clients both in the club and privately, and the money he’s making triples virtually overnight. Within two weeks, Angel has more than enough money to pay for a termination (even this late in the game) should he choose to pay off another alpha to sign for him, but he also has enough money to finally afford good drugs. He has a difficult choice to make, but ultimately, to no one’s surprise (not even his own,) he chooses the drugs. 

Being high allows Angel the luxury of escaping from the reality that his changing body means for him. Being high lets Angel pretend that what’s happening to him isn’t real, that he can make this last forever if he wishes for it hard enough. Heroin is the serpent in the garden of Angel’s mind; a slithering, slimy thing that beckons him into false promises of a paradise beyond his wildest dreams. That, paired with his newfound income, is enough to lead Angel into the most destructive downward spiral of a bender he’s ever been on in his eighteen years of living. 

He has brief moments of lucidity during those months that pass by in a blur, moments where he becomes aware that the needle in his arm is hurting the human growing inside of him, but once the drugs kick in he forgets all about feeling guilty and slips back into paradise. Angel stops taking care of himself in favor of getting high, and when Cherri and Oz try to talk to him about their growing concern for his well-being, he curses them out and abandons the club to sleep on the streets of New York so that he doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of his actions. 

He doesn’t have a phone, so Cherri can’t contact him. He’s vaguely aware that she’s probably worried sick about him, but he’s too fucking high to give a shit. He’s miserably pregnant and his addiction has destroyed his sex appeal, and the inability to shower (and the lack of a fucking phone ) prevents Angel from making any more money from his regulars at the club. He turns nineteen in April, and he celebrates by blowing some random guy behind a tree in Central Park for a dime-bag of coke and a twenty-dollar bill. 

He hits rock bottom about two weeks after that.

*.*.*.*.*

Angel gives birth to his baby alone at Mount Sinai hospital, in a room with no windows while his knuckles turn white gripping the sides of his hospital bed. His labor is long and painful and miserable, but when it’s over, he hears his child cry for the first time and everything changes. 

Angel has never been one to believe in fairytales or happily ever after, but when the pain stops and a nurse places his tiny baby on his bare chest and he feels its cries shake through him in sync with his own watery sobs, the world seems to shift on its axis in a way that feels like magic. He started using drugs when he was thirteen-years-old, and nothing, nothing was ever enough to make him want to stop. Angel has wasted so many opportunities on getting high instead, he’s let prospective happiness slip through his fingers in favor of getting a fix to last him through whatever shitty fucking situation he was dealing with at the moment because drugs were how he learned to define love. But now, in this moment, in this shitty hospital room with too much fluorescent lighting and too much noise, Angel thinks that maybe he had been wrong — so wrong about what he thought that love was; because love is this human being that he created, living and breathing on his chest.  

“It’s a girl,” one of the nurses says, and he looks at her to see that she’s crying too as she places a blanket on top of them both. He feels like he can’t breathe and everything in the room feels like it’s amplifying the sounds of his daughter’s cries and all he wants to do is make whatever pain and fear she’s feeling go away. 

With trembling hands, Angel allows himself to touch her. Her skin is soft and wet, slimy from not having been properly cleaned yet, but she’s perfect. At his touch, her cries slow and quiet, and Angel’s heart feels swollen and ready to burst inside of his chest. 

He’s never wanted to get clean before. He’s never felt any reason to want to be better, to want to live better, until now. He can’t explain it. He doesn’t know why things are different now, but they are. All he wants to do is make sure he can be the best version of himself for his daughter. 

“We have to take her for testing, is that okay?” a nurse asks, too soon. Angel looks at her and he feels high off of the endorphins, or maybe he’s still high from the drugs he took before he came here, because her question feels like an impossible ask. He doesn’t want to give his daughter to anyone. He wants to lay here and hold her forever. 

“You’ll give her right back?” Angel asks, touching his daughter’s tiny hand with his finger. 

“As long as she’s healthy,” the nurse replies, and then she’s taking his baby from him and carrying her away. He feels her lack of warmth immediately like a hole in his chest and he starts weeping before he can stop himself. The hormones and the relief of everything (including his exhaustion) hitting him all once is too much, and the tears won’t stop. 

There’s no one with him to comfort him, so one of the nurses hands him a tissue and gives him a reassuring shoulder pat while his daughter is taken into the corner of the room to be weighed and measured. 

That’s when everything goes to shit. 

Angel is still a little bit out of it, so he doesn’t fully comprehend what’s happening, but suddenly the room’s entire mood shifts. The hospital has scent-blockers setup to regulate pheromones, but the sudden change feels like a shift in scent because of how jarring it is. 

The calm that Angel had felt from the staff moments ago is replaced by a sense of urgency. 

One of the nurses turns, and the look on her face makes Angel feel like he’s going to be sick. “Uh, doctor?”

“We need oxygen over here,” another nurse calls out. 

Angel tries to sit up, but his exhaustion and pain hit him hard and he barely has the strength to move. “What’s going on?” Angel asks, choking on his words. “Is she okay?”

The doctor rushes over and Angel can’t see anything that’s happening. They start talking to each other as if Angel isn’t there, and it all happens so fast that he can’t keep up with what they’re saying. He hears bits and pieces, but none of it makes him feel any better. 

“Low birth-weight—” 

“On drugs—” 

“Respiratory distress—” 

“Run a toxicology report—“

Then, there comes a terrifying beeping sound and Angel watches in horror as the crowd around his daughter moves to rush her out of the room. His stomach sinks and he thinks he’s going to be sick. Despite his pain, despite the fact that all of his muscles are screaming at him with every movement, Angel tries to get out of the bed to follow them. 

“Hey! The fuck’re you doin’?! That’s my baby, you can’t take her away—“

A hard hand presses on his shoulder and forces him back down onto the bed, and a nurse says, “Sir we need you to stay calm, okay? The doctors are working to make sure that your baby is healthy.” 

“They took her—” 

“Yes, they need to make sure she gets the care she needs. She’s okay,” the nurse explains. “You should take this time to rest, they’ll have her back with you as soon as possible.” 

Rest? How the fuck is Angel supposed to rest when his whole world was just taken away from him, less than an hour after she was born? 

The rest of the night passes by in a blur. They move him to a different room — one with low, warm lighting and a big window that overlooks the city. The nurse turns the television on and Angel pretends to watch reruns of the CW’s Supernatural while he waits for any news on how his daughter is doing. They bring him food that smells like a high school cafeteria and his stomach growls angrily in hunger, but he has no appetite so he doesn’t eat a single bite of it.

He knows from the way that the nurses are talking in hushed voices just outside of his room that whatever’s happening to his daughter is his fault. Not a single person gives him any updates, but even the way they look at him when they come in to check on him makes Angel very aware of how they feel about him. They look at him with disgust and judgment, and Angel doesn’t tell them not to because it’s what he feels like he deserves. The clock on the wall tells him that it’s been twenty-four hours since he’s had a fix, and he finds that for the first time in his life, the last thing he wants to do right now is get high. The thought of doing drugs makes Angel feel sick and ashamed, and even though he’s already cold and shivering with the early stages of withdrawal, he doesn’t think anyone could convince him to put a needle in his arm. 

It just fucking sucks that it’s too little too late, because his daughter is somewhere else suffering because of his negligence. 

Angel barely manages to get any sleep that night, and the little bit he does manage is riddled with restlessness from the nightmares that plague his mind. He dreams about Val and all of his awful, controlling bullshit that Angel let himself be subject to for far too long. He dreams about his parents and their relentless fighting, and their dirty apartment, and the drugs that always decorated their dining table like fixtures beside a vase of flowers. He dreams of his daughter — he sees her face, her eyes, her mouth, and he reaches out for her but cannot touch her. 

It’s the worst night he’s had in a long, long time. 

*.*.*.*.*

The next day, someone that Angel has never seen before comes to visit him. She knocks on the open door of his hospital room and stands there eagerly, waiting for his invitation before entering. She’s short and bright-eyed, with long blonde hair that’s pulled back into a ponytail. She’s wearing a red pantsuit and holding a leather briefcase in one hand and a clipboard in the other, which from Angel’s experience is never a good sign, but he sighs and waves her in anyway. 

“Hello, Anthony, right?” the woman asks, smiling like she isn’t the devil’s daughter coming to deliver horrible news. 

Angel swallows. “Uh, I actually prefer to go by Angel,” he tells her, not that it really matters. 

She nods, pulls a pen out from her breast-pocket and clicks it before jotting something down on the clipboard. “Goes…by…Angel…” she says, under her breath. “Got it.” She looks up from her clipboard and smiles, and it seems genuine in a way that catches Angel off guard. “My name is Charlie Morningstar, and I work with the Administration for Children’s Services. I’m the case worker that’s been assigned to your situation. It’s nice to meet you.” 

Charlie Morningstar puts her hand out and gives him an expectant look, but Angel doesn’t take it. He just stares at her hand and blinks, before he asks, “I-is she okay? My baby, that is. They won’t let me see her. Is she alright? Is she sick?” 

Charlie’s smile wavers and she curls her fingers into a fist before pulling her hand away. 

“She’ll be okay,” she says, but her tone is less kind than it was a moment ago. “They just need to keep an eye on her.” She grabs one of the chairs that’s usually reserved for visitors (not that Angel has any of those) and sits down beside his bed. “Angel, your baby was born with an opioid dependency. Do you understand the severity of that?” 

Angel feels like he can’t breathe. He did this. He was careless and stupid and he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, and now it’s too late to make it right. Angel deserves to go to prison for what he’s done. 

Angel looks away from the social worker and manages by some miracle to keep himself from bursting into tears. “Are they gonna take her away from me?” Angel asks, and his voice breaks a little around the final syllable. 

He already knows that the answer is yes. There’s no way in Hell that he’s going to be allowed to take her home, not after he came in to deliver her high out of his mind. Not when it was so clear to everyone in the room that he didn’t care about anything or anyone but himself. Sure, he had a come to Jesus moment after he heard his daughter cry for the first time, and yeah, maybe he finally feels like he wants to turn his life around if it means being able to provide a stable life for a human that he played a hand in creating, but why the fuck would anyone believe that? 

He’s sure that he’s not the first drug-addicted omega to come in here and suddenly think that he can do this, when there’s been nothing in his life to prove that. Of course they’re going to take her away. 

“Not necessarily,” Charlie says, and Angel looks up at her in surprise. “It’s a possibility, that’s for sure, I don’t want to undermine how dangerous it is to use drugs during a pregnancy, but I also understand that life is shitty and hard, and sometimes we can’t always help the things we do. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my experience in this line of work it’s that just because someone does something bad, doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person.”

Angel doesn’t know why that’s the thing that finally breaks him, and fuck — maybe it’s still the pregnancy hormones that have yet to leave his system, but before Charlie can say another word Angel bursts into tears. He doesn’t deserve this stranger’s kindness. He doesn’t deserve anyone’s kindness. His baby was born addicted to drugs because he didn’t care enough about her to stop using knowing full-well that he was pregnant. He deserves to die for what he did. 

“But I am a bad person,” Angel says, through sobs. “I did this to her, this is my fault. I knew that this could happen and I didn’t care, I chose drugs over my own fucking child. I — I don’t deserve—” 

“Do you really think that?” Charlie asks, cutting him off. Her interruption surprises him enough that he stops talking and stares at her, mouth hanging open on his unfinished sentence. “Do you really think you’re a bad person who doesn't deserve your baby? Because I’ve seen a fair amount of cases like yours, and I can say with certainty that bad people don’t cry real tears like that when they feel like they’ve made a mistake.” 

Angel blinks, and a few more tears fall down his cheeks. “M-my baby is—” 

“She’s hurting, yes,” Charlie tells him. “But she’s also alive. And she needs you, Angel, and I’m pretty sure that you need her too. It’s my job to help you figure out the best plan to get you both on the right track, but I can’t do that if you think you’re unfit to be a parent. In order to help you, I need you to want my help. Do you think you can do that?” 

Angel doesn’t trust her, but he doesn’t think he has much of a choice but to entertain her request to “help” while he tries to figure out a plan of his own. 

Angel answers her questions as honestly as he can. They’re simple and straightforward – she wants to know basic things like what he does for work and where he’s been living. He tells her that he works as an exotic dancer at Ozzie’s, but leaves out that detail about the sex work he does on the side. He knows that it’s been decriminalized, but he also knows that if he’s in the process of trying to convince ACS to leave his daughter in his care, he shouldn’t disclose that part of his life while on the record. Laws might change, but prejudice doesn’t. He’s already unmarked with an unclaimed child, he doesn’t need another stereotype working against him as a male omega. He also doesn’t want to tell her about the loft at the club that he’s been living in for the last few months. That loft functions as a home for a lot of omegas with nowhere to go, and revealing its existence could very likely result in government interference. It’s not exactly up to code as an official living space, so Angel chooses instead to tell Charlie that he’s been living on the streets. 

It’s not exactly a lie. He has been on the streets for the last few weeks, after all. 

“That might be a problem,” Charlie tells him, scribbling something down on her clipboard. “The hospital won’t release her into your care if you don’t have somewhere safe to live. Do you have any family you can reach out to for a place to stay?” 

Angel’s stomach turns sour. Technically, his parents own their apartment in Bay Ridge, and technically, he legally still lives there. But the thought of his parents having anything to do with the upbringing of his daughter makes him want to die, so he tells her that there is nowhere for him to go. Then, she asks about Val. 

“As far as the baby’s sire is concerned,” Charlie says, and Angel braces himself against the pain that the conversation is bound to stir up inside him. “If we can’t send your baby home with you right now, would she be able to stay with them?” 

Angel can’t look at her, so he looks down at his hands instead. They’re trembling, he realizes, and he tries to swallow the lump in his throat but it won’t go down. “He isn’t—” Angel starts and then stops. He doesn’t know how to phrase this in a way that will keep ACS from seeking him out. Val made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with their baby, and now that she’s here, Angel doesn’t want Val to have anything to do with her either. “He’s dead?” 

It’s a lie, and it comes out sounding like one. He doesn’t mean to phrase it like a question, but he has this awful habit of saying shit before he’s thought about it fully and all it does it make him sound like a fucking idiot. Charlie stops writing and looks up at him with a strange expression. 

“Why are you lying?” she asks, frowning. “If your baby’s sire has a safe place to live, why wouldn’t you just tell me the truth? I’m here to help you, why are you—” 

“Because it ain’t like you understand shit about what I’ve been through,” Angel blurts out, finally letting the uneasiness take over. It comes out harsher than he means for it to, but there’s no point in worrying about that now. “You sit there with your clipboard, writin’ shit down like you know what’s best, but all you’re gonna do is use what I tell you to snitch to your boss and get my kid taken away from me and put with a piece of shit that wants nothin’ to do with her!” Fuck, here come the tears again. “I know you think you’re helping, but you ain’t!” 

Charlie stares at him, stunned, and then she says, “You don’t trust the system.” 

It’s not a question.

“What has the system ever done for me?” Angel asks, his voice breaking around a sob. Ugh, he’s tired of crying so fucking much. He’s ready for these hormones to be out of his body already. “What has the system ever done for any omega, let alone a gay one that ain’t got no place to live?” 

Angel sniffles and wipes his eyes. This broad wants to help him? Angel doesn’t know if he really believes that. No one has ever wanted to help him get better before, aside from Cherri, but she has her own issues to work through first. Growing up in the family that he did, Angel has had a lot of experience with ACS, but none of it has been positive. The system is broken, and it only took one shitty group home for Angel to realize that it was better to lie to the caseworkers about the abuse he was facing at home than to be truthful and risk being taken away. At least his family was a type of fucked up that he knew how to deal with, rather than some new hellscape that he had to learn to navigate. 

Charlie Morningstar might seem like she’s sweet and kind, but Angel knows better than anyone that snakes are excellent at camouflaging themselves. 

“My dad is an omega,” Charlie says, after a beat of silence. Slowly, she places her clipboard facedown in her lap and turns all of her attention to Angel, her eyes are genuine and focused as she looks directly at him. “My mom, an alpha, died when I was just a little kid and he had to raise me all on his own. He came from a rich family, but they didn’t approve of his relationship with my mom so they refused to help him. They cast him aside like he was nothing — forced him into homelessness as some kind of punishment for going against their beliefs. We were poor and ACS got involved when one of my teachers thought I was being neglected, and… It was a mess.” 

She shakes her head at the memory. 

“If it wasn’t for the fact that the caseworker assigned to our case was a fucking saint and worked hard to keep me and my dad together, my life would have turned out very different.” 

Angel blinks at her. “Why are you tellin’ me this?” 

“Because you said that I don’t know anything about your struggle, but you’re wrong,” she says. “My life might be different from yours, but I know how important it can be to take advantage of the systems that are in place to help you.” 

Angel doesn’t know what to say to that. She makes one hell of an argument. 

It’s just hard to trust her when the world has done nothing but beat him down. It’s hard when his entire life has been fraught with disappointment after disappointment.  

“You’re right that the system is broken  — that it’s designed to be difficult to navigate and more often than not, hurts a lot of people.” Charlies pauses, and then she leans in closer, delivering her next blow with force behind her words. “ Unless you have a caseworker who knows what they’re doing and is willing to fight for you. Most caseworkers would see your situation and figure that it’s open and shut: you’re another addict that got pregnant too early and you aren’t ready to be a parent. But I’m not most caseworkers.” There’s a passion in her voice that gives Angel goosebumps. “I can’t prove to you that I’m different with anything other than a promise right now, but I will do everything in my power to help you get better, and to help you navigate this shitty fucking system, but you — you need to trust me. You’re right. I don’t know anything about your struggle, but I’d like to. I can’t do that if you’re going to lie to me.”   

Angel feels like he’s been punched in the face. 

This broad — this random fucking lady — just shows up like his fairy godmother and promises to fix all of his problems? There’s no fuckin’ way that this is real. People don’t… People don’t do shit like this in real life. People like Charlie don’t usually care about people like Angel, because people like Angel usually end up dead in a gutter before they’re twenty-one. 

He has to admit, Charlie has just delivered a convincing as fuck speech. Every bone in Angel’s body, every wrinkle on his brain is screaming at him to believe her. She seems like she’s being genuine. She really, honest-to-god, seems like she wants to help him. 

“What do I gotta do?” Angel asks, pushing down the urge to dismiss her right away. “H-how do I fix this?” 

“I’m going to put my clipboard away, okay? And this time, I need you to tell me everything , from the beginning. The truth,” Charlie says, looking relieved. “Then we can figure out how we want to word it so that the city gives us the tools to help you. I’ll leave out the rest. But I need to know the rest.” 

So, taking a leap of faith, Angel tells her the truth. He tells her about using a fake ID to sneak into a heatshare club when he was sixteen and meeting Val — an alpha who was seven years older than him — and how he lost his virginity and fell in love and ran away from home. He tells her about how Val abused him for years, but that he took it because it was better than being homeless, because Val gave him drugs and a place to sleep and said that he loved him. He tells her about how Val got him pregnant and then denied it, how he threw Angel out without a second thought, how Angel hasn’t heard a word from him in eight fucking months. He tells her about his parents, and the drugs, and the abuse, and how he hasn’t spoken to them in three years and how he can’t change that, even if having a “loving” family on his files will make him look better. He tells her about his addiction, and how it’s always been a part of him. He tells her about how crack and cocaine have been his worst enemies and his best fucking friends simultaneously; how when he thinks about leaving them behind fully, he feels like he’s losing a piece of himself.  He tells her about his more recent struggles with heroin, and how he paid for his drugs with sexwork, and how sometimes he wonders if he’s addicted to sex, too, but he doesn’t know any other way to survive. This is how it’s always been. 

Angel has always felt trapped in a Hell that he can’t escape from. 

But then… Then he tells her about his daughter, and how he feels like she is the answer to everything. He only got thirty minutes with her before she was taken away, but those thirty minutes made everything make sense for the first time in his life. He knows that it sounds cheesy and cliche, and he knows that parenting won’t be easy and that there will be hard times, but he wants to try. He needs to try. He wants to hold her again and apologize for everything, and he wants to promise that he’s going to be better from now on. 

When he looks back up at Charlie from where he’s been staring at his hands, she’s crying. 

“Oh, Angel,” she says, softly. “I’m so sorry that you went through all of that.” She sniffles and then takes a deep breath. “I’m going to help you. I need to make a few calls, and I’m going to have to fudge some of the information, but I’m going to help you. You’re gonna be okay.” 

And then Angel is crying too, because he actually believes her. 

*.*.*.*

Charlie somehow manages to convince the hospital to let Angel see his daughter where she’s being kept in the NICU. She secures a wheelchair for him and accompanies him into the unit where his daughter is being kept in a plastic container with wires attached to her tiny body. The doctor explains to him that she was born with a low birth weight and that she suffered from a seizure, caused by the high level of opioids in her blood. Her condition is stable, but they’re going to monitor her for a little while longer to make sure that she doesn’t have another seizure for the next twenty-four hours. 

“She has neonatal abstinence syndrome,” the doctor explains, not unkindly. “She may have a difficult time gaining weight, and will need to come in for regular check ups for the first few months of her life.” 

“Is she in pain?” Angel asks, eyes on his daughter. He can see the rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps, and tries not to cry. 

“She’s going through withdrawal,” the doctor tells him, simply. “So she’s experiencing many of the symptoms that come along with that. Her body is fighting it, but it isn’t going to be easy for her.” 

Angel wants to break down again, but he doesn’t. He needs to be strong for his baby. He’s gone through withdrawal a few times in his life when Val cut him off for acting out, and it was unbearable. The way his bones ached for a fix, the hot and cold of detoxification… he wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially not a newborn baby. 

“How do we help her?” he asks, feeling helpless. “How can I — what can I do?” 

“Well, there are a few different options, but the best course of action is going to be to get her out of intensive care and back into your arms as quickly as possible,” the doctor replies. The doctor working the NICU is straight-forward and non-judgemental, which Angel really appreciates. He doesn’t know if he’d be able to handle the shame if he were being made to feel bad for the role he played in his daughter’s situation. He already feels bad enough. 

“Are you gonna put her on some kind of… I dunno, baby drugs? To wean her offa the dependency?” It feels like a stupid question, but Angel doesn’t know anything about how any of this works. What do you do with a baby that has an opioid dependency? It’s not like they can just give her heroin. 

…Right? 

“We used to do that,” the doctor explains. “But now we use a method called the eat, sleep, console approach, which emphasizes the importance of physical contact and care between the birth-giver and the infant. We’re going to move you and a private room, and the two of you are going to work on healing together.”

That sounds too good to be true. 

“B-but aren’t I in trouble?” Angel asks. “It’s my fault that she — I’m the one who did drugs and made her sick.” 

Charlie puts her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but before she can say anything, the doctor says, “It isn’t my job to judge people on their choices, it’s my job to save lives and help people live in healthier ways. Babies born with dependency used to need to stay in the NICU for months to recover, but with the eat, sleep, and console approach, significant recovery can happen in as little as five days.” 

Angel could cry. 

“C-can I hold her?” Angel asks. 

“Not yet,” the doctor tells him. “But you can touch her, if you’d like. Sterilize your hands first and then you can reach inside.” 

Angel does as he’s told, eager to feel the softness of his daughter’s skin again. When he reaches his hand inside the plastic container, he presses his finger against her open palm and watches as her hand closes in a fist around him. Her grip is strong for someone so small. 

Angel stares at his daughter and realizes with a pit in his stomach that she bears a striking resemblance to Val. Everything from the shape of her nose to the set of her eyes reminds Angel of the man he used to love, and he swallows past the pain to realize that she is the best thing Val ever gave him. 

“She has pretty hair,” Angel says, looking at the tufts at the top of his daughter’s head. She doesn’t have a lot of it, but the little hair that she does have is a beautiful shade of ginger mixed with brown. 

“She’s our little vixen,” one of the nurses chimes in, coming over to check on his baby’s monitors. “I would kill to have a natural color like that, right ladies?” 

The nurses in the room laugh and turn their attention to the group of them. An older woman in Hello Kitty scrubs comes over to peek at Angel’s daughter through the plastic and says, “Oh, this one’s a fighter alright. Which one of you does she belong to?”  

Timidly, Angel raises his hand. 

“You’re gonna have your hands full with her, baby,” the nurse tells him.

“Mhm, kept us up all night,” agrees another nurse. “Sweetest thing, though.” 

“What did you call her?” Charlie asks, pulling her eyes away from the baby to address one of the nurses. “Vixen?” 

The nurse laughs and waves her hand playfully. “Oh, that’s just a thing we do here when babies haven’t gotten names yet. Her hair makes her look kinda like a fox, and she’s strong and tiny like one too, so that’s what we’ve been callin’ her.” The nurse picks up a clipboard from the side of the baby’s table and turns to Angel. “While we’ve got you here, we can go ahead and put her real name down, though, if you’re ready.” 

The nurse clicks her pen and Angel just stares at her. A name? He hadn’t thought of one. For his entire pregnancy, he hadn’t allowed himself to feel a sense of connection to the baby growing inside of him. She didn’t become real to him until she took her first breath. 

But these nurses — they’ve been tending to her from the moment she was brought to them. They’ve cared for her, and looked after her, and that feels like reason enough for Angel to pick the name: 

“Vixen,” he says, and saying it out loud feels right. “That’s her name.” 

The nurse pauses, pen in hand, and looks around at the others. 

“Oh, no, baby, that’s just a nickname we gave her here, you don’t gotta—” 

“I want to,” Angel tells her. “It suits her.” 

The nurse’s face softens. “You know what? It does. Vixen it is.” 

*.*.*.*.*

The hospital moves Angel into another room the following day, and his daughter joins him in the early part of the afternoon. They bring her in, swaddled in a blanket, sleeping soundly, and Angel feels insanely out of his element. 

It’s crazy to think that just a few days ago, he was sucking dick on the streets for cash, and now he’s sitting in a hospital room with his newborn daughter trying to plan out a path towards recovery. In a blink, everything has changed. 

Charlie told him that it’s very likely Vixxie (the nickname Angel chose for his daughter) will have to go into foster care after their recovery time is up while he goes to rehab and tries to find somewhere safe to live. The fear he felt at those words made him cry again, but Charlie assured him that this was the right path towards a happy ending for everyone involved. It’s just hard for Angel to believe that his life is capable of getting anywhere close to “happy” when his life has been nothing but misfortune for nineteen years. 

Later that day, Angel gets an unexpected visitor. She knocks on his door and stands there, clutching her purse in her hand. 

“H-hey, Tony —- er, sorry, it’s Angel now, right?” His sister shifts uncomfortably in the doorway and does not come in. It’s been three years since he last saw her, and the jump from sixteen to nineteen has changed a lot about her features. She’s a beta, so her body didn’t go through drastic changes the way that Angel’s did, but she is no longer the frail-looking girl he left behind three years ago. She’s a woman now, with his exact same baby-blue eyes and pale skin, and she’s looking at Angel with something on her face he can’t quite place. 

“Molly?” Angel says, swallowing. He grabs at the hospital blanket draped over his legs and pulls it up, just for something to do with his hands. “I uh, I didn’t think I’d — what are you doin’ here?” 

“Hospital called me,” she says with a shrug. “Guess you still have mom’s old number listed for your emergency contact, and she got a new number and gave me her old one so… I guess we both just got lucky that I was the one she gave it to and not Niss. I doubt he would have come.” 

Lucky. What a funny way of phrasing that. 

“You didn’t have to come,” Angel says, looking away. “I’m doin’ just fine on my own, okay? I don’t need you, or Niss, o-or mom , so why don’t you tell them to—“

“I’m not telling them anything,” Molly says quickly, cutting him off. “I didn’t even tell mom that you were in the hospital. Figured you didn’t want them to know. T-the hospital wouldn’t tell me what happened to you on the phone, only that you were admitted and that you were okay, but I wanted to come here and see that you were okay for myself. C-can I uh, come in?” 

Angel turns to stare at her. She’s still hesitating in the doorway, like there’s some invisible barrier keeping her from entering the space without Angel’s consent. She’s always been good at respecting Angel’s boundaries, and honestly, he’s pretty sure that if he asked her to leave right now, that she would without even trying to argue with him. Part of him wants to do that. Part of him knows that he probably should do that. He wants nothing to do with the family that fucked his life up before he ever had a chance, but Molly… Molly has always been different. Maybe it’s the fact that they shared a womb at one point, but Angel has always felt like if there’s anyone in his family who even remotely understands him, it’s her. 

There’s also the fact that Angel is alone right now. He’s alone and scared and he has this incredible fucking thing that he created, sleeping in a plastic bassinet beside him, and all he wants to do is share her with someone else who could love her as much as he does. So, despite his better judgment, Angel decides to take a chance on letting Molly back into his life. 

Charlie said that having a support system during these next steps would be crucial in ensuring that Vixxie’s care and wellbeing is entrusted to him once he’s clean, and since Angel has virtually no one else, Molly feels like a good place to start. He shrugs and says, “Yeah, come in.” 

Molly smiles, relieved, and steps into the room. She heads towards Angel but stops when she makes it past the threshold and spots Vixxie just starting to wake up. Her eyes go wide and she stares at Vixxie for a moment before looking back over at Angel, face pale like she’s just seen a ghost. 

“O-Oh, Tony, is — is that—” 

Angel huffs a laugh and smiles. “Her name is Vixxie,” Angel tells her. “Ya can hold her, if ya want. Ya just gotta wash your hands first, okay?” 

Molly’s hands shoot up to her face to cover her mouth as she starts to bubble into sobs. The sound alone makes Angel start to cry as well, damn hormones wreaking havoc on his tear ducts. He tries to wipe away the tears but they won’t stop coming. He watches as Molly comes closer to Vixxie to get a better look. 

“W-when they called me, I-I figured you were in because of an overdose,” Molly says, wiping her face. “I didn’t think — I never thought that you — oh, Tony, she’s beautiful.” 

She’s right about that. Vixxie is beautiful. She might be the most beautiful baby to ever exist, actually, and Angel is the person that made her. He feels pride swell in his chest. 

“Yeah, turns out I make cute kids,” Angel says, trying and failing to downplay the heavy feeling in the room. “Who woulda guessed?” 

Molly washes her hands and carefully takes Vixxie into her arms. She sits down in the chair at Angel’s side and just stares at her niece, like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. Angel can’t exactly blame her. He’d probably do the same thing in her position. 

“She’s so tiny,” Molly observes, looking back up at Angel. 

Angel shrugs. “She was just shy of five pounds,” he tells her. “It’s my fault. I wasn’t… I didn’t take the best care of myself while I was pregnant. I’m lucky she’s alive, to be honest. Lucky in a lot of ways.” 

Molly looks like she wants to cry again, but she doesn’t. “Why didn’t you call me?” Molly asks. “I would have helped. I would have—” 

“You couldn’t have helped me,” Angel cuts her off. “I didn’t want to be helped, Mol, I wasn’t in a good place. This ain’t your fault, okay? So don’t go beatin’ yourself up about my fuck ups, because I can tell you that I feel shitty enough for the both of us.”

Molly stares at him for a moment, and then she closes her eyes and leans back in the chair with a sigh. In her arms, Vixxie yawns. 

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Molly says softly. “I’m glad you’re both okay.” 

“Me too,” Angel agrees. 

In the quiet of the room, the sound of Fran Drescher’s voice fills the silence as reruns of The Nanny play on the mounted television. It reminds Angel of when he and Molly were children, and they’d snuggle together in their shared bed and watch sitcoms on Nick at Nite, giggling and chatting in whispers as their brother slept on the couch beside them. There’s a tragic sort of nostalgia that comes with growing up in a broken home that sometimes feels like it’s suffocating when Angel thinks about it too hard. 

His childhood was never easy. More often than not, waking up in that apartment was like waking up on a battlefield, and his siblings were just other people that had been dealt the same shitty hand as him, thrown together by nothing more than the sheer coincidence of having been born to the same addict parents. There were times when Angel hated his siblings, because they shared the same blood as his parents, because they were a reminder of chaos and unfairness that came along with being born to two people who never should have had children in the first place. But at the same time, his siblings are the only ones who really know what it was like to be raised in that household. Having been forced together by circumstance, they’re the only people who can relate to the pain that he feels inside. 

They’re the only ones who can relate to that sad, bitter grief that comes with mourning a childhood that was stolen from them. They’re the only ones who know what it feels like to miss something that you’d never in a million years go back to. 

“Do you know who her sire is?” Molly asks after a while, and Angel knew the question was coming. He tries not to let the nature of the question bother him, because he knows that she isn’t trying to shame him. Last she knew, he was a sex worker, and since that’s not a world she has anything to do with, of course she’d think that Vixxie could belong to anyone. 

“Yeah, my ex,” Angel says, rolling his eyes. 

“The guy you left home for?” Molly asks, unaccusing. 

Angel never thought about it that way, but it makes sense that that’s how Molly viewed him leaving. It’s true that he ran away from home and directly into Val’s apartment, but he didn’t leave home for Val. He left home because Val offered him a ticket to freedom and he wasn’t going to pass that up. 

So, Angel nods. 

“Are you guys still…?” 

“No,” Angel says quickly. “No, we uh, we broke up.” He hasn’t really talked about it much, because Cherri didn’t really understand, but Angel thinks Molly might. “The relationship had been doomed for a while I think, but me gettin’ knocked up sorta broke the camel’s back so to speak.” 

Molly looks back down at Vixxie, who is sound asleep in her arms. 

“Okay, Vixxie, cover up your ears because I’m about to say a really bad word,” she says, and then she gives Angel the eyes. “Fuck that asshole, Tony, oh my god.” 

Angel bursts out laughing because her Brooklyn accent is heavier when she swears, and makes him ache for her presence in his life. It makes him miss a family that he never really had in the first place. She’s usually so prim and proper, but when she gets mad she’s just like Angel. God, he missed her so much. 

“I’m fuckin’ serious,” she stresses, “that guy was the worst. The fuck was a man in his twenties doin’ with a sixteen-year-old kid anyway, hah? And then what? He goes and breaks up with you because he can’t take responsibility for his actions? Oh, Tony, you better sue that man for every cent he has in child support I swear to god—” 

“No!” Angel says, eyes going wide. Molly’s mouth snaps shut at his tone, and she looks confused. Angel swallows. “No, I’m uh, I’m not gonna do that. I’m workin’ with ACS and if they find out that Val’s well off financially, they’re gonna take her away from me and put her with him and I — I ain’t gonna let that happen. He didn’t want her before, but that’s because he got it in his head that she wasn’t his.” 

“But she looks just like him,” Molly says. 

“Yeah, I know,” Angel agrees. “But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t even know I had the baby. If he finds out, if he sees her, I can’t guarantee he isn’t gonna try and pull some shit where all of a sudden he cares about her and wants to be a father. He’s kind of a dick like that. So I gotta be careful. I don’t want him involved with her at all.” 

Molly seems to understand, but she still adds, “You sure you don’t wanna try fighting him in court? If we get you a good lawyer—” 

“I can’t afford a good lawyer, Mol,” Angel tells her. “And neither can you, so don’t even try offerin’. This is somethin’ I gotta do on my own, for Vixxie. I don’t need his help. I don’t want that fucker anywhere near me or my daughter.” 

Molly sighs and relents. “Yeah, yeah, I get you. I’m just glad to hear that he’s yesterday’s news. Good fuckin’ riddiance.” 

After that, Angel explains the rest of his situation to his sister. He tells her about Charlie and about rehab, and she tearfully hugs him and tells him how proud she is that he’s taking the steps to better himself. She doesn’t love the idea of Vixxie going into foster care, but she’s living in a dorm for school right now and can’t take Vixxie herself so she agrees that it’s the best option considering their alternatives. It’s going to be hard, but Molly promises to visit more and expresses a genuine interest in being involved in Angel and Vixxie’s life moving forward. 

With his sister in his corner, Angel feels a little more well-equipped to face the long road ahead. 

*.*.*.*.*

Vixxie’s health improves in nearly record time, which is both a blessing and a curse. Angel is relieved at how quickly she’s recovered because it unties the knot in his stomach to know that she’s not in as much pain anymore, but it’s a little bittersweet because the end of Vixxie’s recovery means the start of his. 

Charlie introduces Angel to the foster couple that received Vixxie’s placement: an alpha and omega pair named Josh and Ace. They’re in their mid-twenties, queer, and so insanely sweet that talking to them makes Angel’s teeth ache. Charlie explains that she’s worked with them before, and that they’re wonderful — they understand that the goal of foster care should almost always be focused on the recovery of the birth family and replacement. 

“We’ve taken care of quite a few babies over the last few years,” Josh tells Angel, sitting by his side. Ace nods in agreement, his hand on his partner’s shoulder. They’re a bonded pair with their marks on their throats for the world to see, proudly devoted to one another. 

“It’s always a great feeling when we get to give them back,” Ace adds, “There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing someone’s hard work pay off. We’ll keep her safe for you while you get clean, and we’ll make sure to schedule visits.” 

Meeting them puts Angel’s mind at ease. He had been anxious about the foster system and hesitant to leave his daughter in the care of strangers, but Charlie made good on her promise to make sure Vixxie was cared for while he worked on his recovery. Ace and Josh seem like the perfect fit. 

“The rehab center that I’ve got you placed in is specifically for omegas with children,” Charlie says, beaming with pride at her own work. “They allow visits in the facility, so they can bring her to see you whenever you feel like you might need a pick-me-up!” 

That sounds like a dream, but Angel would never expect Ace and Josh to put that kind of work in for him. He’s a stranger to them, after all, and he’s sure that behind their smiles has to be some kind of internal judgment for his situation. If he had his way, he’d ask them to bring Vixxie by at least once a week so that he could see her while he got clean, but there’s no way he could ask for something like that. 

“We were thinking of bringing her by twice a week,” Josh says, and Angel almost thinks he misheard him. 

“Twice a week?” Angel asks in disbelief. His chest feels tight, but with something other than anxiety for the first time in his life. He thinks that he’s feeling hope. 

“Unless you think three times is better?” Ace interrupts, misreading Angel’s expression. “We can re-work our schedules if you think that three would be better—” 

“No, two is perfect,” Angel assures them, holding back tears. “Two is more than perfect, I-I don’t know what to say. This all feels too good to be true.” 

It feels like an uncharacteristically happy ending to a miserably unhappy story. Angel feels like he’s been transported to another universe, like the life he lived before Vixxie was born was a nightmare and that he’s finally been woken up to the life he was meant to live. It feels like the stars have aligned in such a fantastically cosmic way and Angel almost feels on edge, like he’s just waiting for something to go wrong. 

“Sometimes you’ve just gotta dunk your whole body into the water to get used to the feeling,” Josh tells him. “You took the first step by getting on the ladder, now it’s time to let go and learn to swim.” 

*.*.*.*.*

Before Angel can go to rehab, he needs to stop by Ozzie’s and grab some of his clothing so that he can give Josh and Ace some things that smell like him to keep in Vixxie’s bassinet with her while she sleeps. Scent plays a big role in making sure that babies don’t develop separation anxiety during times like this, so Angel has been asked to donate a few articles that he won’t be needing while Charlie waits for him in her car outside of the club. 

It’s surreal being back. The last time he was here ended with a not-so-pleasant confrontation between him and Cherri where he walked out and ghosted all communication with her. She wanted Angel to get better for the sake of his baby and he didn’t want to face reality. She was looking out for him. She was looking out for Vixxie, but he couldn’t admit that Vixxie was a person that needed to be looked out for yet. Angel had left, high out of his mind and on the verge of overdosing, hell-bent on destroying his life for the sake of escapism.

Angel pushes open the door to the loft and the chatter going on in the room dies almost instantly at his arrival. All eyes turn to him, faces of people he knows, friends of his, surprised to see him here. Surprised to see him alive. 

Angel sighs and steps in, and the crowd of people parts like the Red Sea to allow Cherri to come forward and see for herself that their unexpected guest isn’t a ghost coming to haunt them. She looks angry, her cheeks are red with fury as she marches up to him in heeled boots and slaps him hard across the face. Angel doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t strike back. He just stands there and lets it happen because he knows how worried she must have been these last few weeks. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” Cherri demands. “I thought you were fuckin’ dead , Angie! I couldn’t get ahold of you, all of your clients said they hadn’t heard from you in over a week, do you have any fuckin’ idea how worried I was? I was about to send out a goddamn search party for you!” 

“I’m sorry,” Angel chokes out, but it doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing he could say feels like enough.

Then, Cherri is crying and wrapping her arms around Angel’s middle, and pressing her face into his chest. And he’s crying too, and holding her just as tightly, and whispering apologies into her soft, pink hair. The chatter picks back up, a few of the dancers offer a relieved smile or a pat on the shoulder, and Angel leads Cherri to her bed while she clings to him like she’s afraid he’ll float up to the ceiling if she lets go. 

He’s surprised to see that his bed hasn’t been packed up yet. All of his belongings are exactly as he left them; his bed is unmade and his clothes stick out from crooked drawers. He really figured that Ozzie would have had Angel’s things packed up by now, but given Cherri’s reaction to his return, Angel bets that Oz would have had a hard time getting past her guard-dog-like protectiveness of his stuff. He’s thankful, because it makes the next step a lot easier for him. 

Angel doesn’t have a lot of time. Charlie is waiting for him so that they can drive to Westchester and get him checked into his thirty-day program, but he owes it to Cherri to explain himself. 

“Where — where were you?” Cherri asks, snatching her cracked mirror off of her dresser so that she can fix the mascara that’s started to run down her face. She looks down at Angel’s belly, which has gotten significantly smaller since the last time she saw him, and raises her brows in question. “What happened?” 

Angel tells her everything. He tells her about Vixxie, about Charlie, about Ace and Josh. He tells her about how much everything changed when he heard his daughter cry for the first time, and about how he’s finally on a clear path towards actually fucking healing for the first time in his entire life. 

She’s proud of him, but skeptical, which is exactly how Angel expected her to feel. 

They’ve both seen the damage that the system can do, and they’ve both been let down again and again as queer omegas from broken families. Cherri didn’t expect Angel to want to get clean, and Angel tells her that he didn’t expect to want to either. The world has a funny way of surprising you, Angel thinks, and right now he just needs to trust that getting better is the right thing to do. 

For Vixxie. 

For himself. 

Cherri helps Angel gather up some of his clothes to put in a bag that Charlie will drop off with Ace and Josh later this evening. She scent-checks them and helps him sort through the ones that smell like sour memories, and then she walks him out to the curb. Saying goodbye to her feels like the end of a chapter in his life, but surprisingly, Angel doesn’t cry. 

It’s not because he isn’t sad — he is sad. But for some reason, the hope that’s blossoming in his chest seems to be the stronger emotion for once. It’s warm, and it’s strong, and it’s good and Angel thinks that this time, he’s going to be okay. 

This time, he has something to fight for. 

*.*.*.*.*

Thirty days later, Angel is discharged from rehab. 

He feels like a brand new person, clean of drugs for the first time since he was thirteen. They tell him that healing isn’t linear and that he still has a lot of work to do, but he feels ready to face the world without relying on drugs to get him through the hard days. The visits with his daughter kept him going when things got rough; seeing her face was a reminder of all that was on the line and all that he had to lose. 

Charlie throws Angel a party to celebrate, which feels a bit uncouth for a social worker to do, but Angel doesn’t complain. She told him the day that they met that she isn’t like the others, and she has proven that to be true too many times for Angel to question her methods. He meets Charlie’s girlfriend — a former NYPD officer turned activist — and he gets a glimpse into the life of the woman who saved him and those that she loves. 

Two weeks after that, Charlie tells Angel about her father’s empty basement apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan that’s been collecting dust for the past three years, and offers it to Angel free of charge. Then, she helps him file some paperwork and after making good on her word to keep the process as painless as possible, Vixxie is approved to be returned to his care. 

Angel doesn’t realize how few possessions he has until he’s moving into the small basement apartment of Charlie’s dad’s brownstone. He has exactly one box of things and one small bag of clothes which takes him all of five minutes to unpack onto the old hand-me-down furniture that comes with the apartment. There’s a small table with two mismatched chairs, two bookshelves that come stocked with a menagerie of dust bunnies, three James Paterson novels with grimy covers, and a DVD copy of Twilight that Angel assumes must have belonged to Charlie as a teenager, but can’t be too sure. There is also a moth-bitten old couch that looks like it’s probably from the 80’s based on the turquoise and eggplant zigzag pattern on the surprisingly comfortable fabric, a dresser which Angel only fills the top drawer of, and a queen-sized mattress on a brand-new Ikea frame that Charlie insisted on buying Angel as a recovery present. 

It isn’t much, but it’s the closest thing to home that Angel has had in… fuck, maybe ever. He finishes folding the last of his clothes and exits the small bedroom into the living space where Charlie is waiting for him with one more gift. She’s holding a sleeping Vixxie and is standing beside a small, wooden bassinet that Vaggie is putting a blanket down on. 

“Charlie,” Angel says, feeling frustrated. “I told ya, this is too much. The bed was supposed to be my gift. I was just gonna have her sleep in bed with me until I—”

“And I told you how dangerous that can be with her still being so small,” Charlie interrupts. “And don’t worry, I didn’t buy this. It was in my dad’s storage unit, it’s the one he and my mom bought for me when I was a baby.” 

That makes Angel feel a little bit better. He hates the idea of Charlie spending money on him, of anyone spending money on him. He’s still trying to get to a place where he feels deserving of any of the kindness he’s been awarded, and the constant gifts only make it harder for him to feel like he will ever be able to repay people. But Charlie is right, Vixxie needs a place to sleep. So Angel reluctantly accepts her offer with a tight hug and a watery smile. 

“Thanks, Char,” Angel tells her. “For all of this. For everything. I don’t know where I’d be without you. I don’t know where she’d be without you.” 

Vixxie, as if knowing that Angel is talking about her, coos happily. 

Charlie tells him, “It’s nothing,” but Angel knows that isn’t accurate. Charlie is a god-send. She saved Angel’s life. This place? This small basement apartment on the fucking Upper West Side of Manhattan? It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for him. He will spend the rest of his life trying to make true to his promise to live a better life as a thank you to her for her kindness. 

She and Vaggie leave with a promise to come help him out tomorrow, and Angel and Vixxie are alone together in their apartment for the first time. It’s a surreal feeling, being on his own like this. He keeps feeling like something is going to go wrong, like the door is going to be knocked down and someone is going to tell him that he’s fucked something up somewhere and that he can’t live here. Safety doesn’t feel real. Nothing about this feels real. Angel hasn’t ever felt safe in a place he’s called “home” before, and he doesn’t know how to process the fact that he’s allowed to exist in this space without fear. 

Angel sits down on his bed with Vixxie in his lap and he lets the feelings run their course. He lets himself feel the crushing weight of relief, and he feels himself start to cry. Vixxie is looking up at him with her perfect blue eyes, the ones she inherited from him, and Angel can’t believe that his body — the one that had been used and abused by himself and others for years — created something to beautiful. The tears turn into sobs, and he holds his daughter close to his chest. Her tiny hands reach up towards him, as if trying to wipe away the pain from his face, and Angel huffs a shaky laugh. 

“We’re in this together, okay?” Angel tells his daughter. He wipes the tears from his eyes and places his finger into the vise grip grasp of his baby’s hand. “It’s you and me against the world, got it Toots?” 

Vixxie blinks and then smiles, which makes Angel’s heart melt into a puddle inside of his ribcage. 

“I’m gonna give you the best life. I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure you don’t ever end up like me. Ain’t nobody ever gonna hurt you, not as long as I’m here.” He brings her tiny fist, still wrapped around his finger, to his lips and presses a kiss there. “I promise.” 

FOUR YEARS LATER

The toaster notifies Angel that the chocolate chip Eggo waffles he’s making have finished heating up with a satisfying pop. He finishes shoveling yogurt into his mouth before tossing the bowl into the sink. He’ll wash it later. He grabs the hot waffles from the toaster and places them on his daughter’s favorite butterfly plate, cutting them up before serving them alongside a handful of blueberries. 

“Breakfast is ready, Toots, ya got fifteen minutes before we gotta be out that door,” Angel shouts, setting the plate down at the small two-person table.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Vixxie says, hurrying out of their shared bedroom like a gremlin and climbing onto her chair. Her curls are a mess, but otherwise she seems to have managed to dress herself pretty decently. She’s wearing a denim overall dress with a striped pink-and-white shirt beneath it and blue polka-dot tights. Her socks don’t match, but other than that, she looks great. “I heard you, daddy. Hold your horses.” 

Angel can’t help but smirk at her sass, a trait that he knows she picked up from him. She’s four years old going on fourteen when it comes to her attitude, and Angel dreads the day that he actually has to parent a teenager because he fears she will be too powerful by then. Vixxie picks up her fork and digs into her waffles while Angel makes quick work of moving to stand behind her so that he can attempt to tame her curls. 

He takes a comb and pulls her hair back into two tight pigtails, smoothing out the top part of her head before twisting each pigtail into simple braids. The fox-like color of her hair has remained even as she’s grown from a baby to a child; her brown hair is accented with natural honey-colored and ginger highlights. She doesn’t fuss when he brushes her hair anymore, not the way she did when she was still much smaller, because Angel took the time to figure out the right amount of pressure to apply in order to get the job done without causing her unnecessary pain. He ties two pink ribbons around each hair tie and feels a sense of pride well up in his chest at just how far the two of them have managed to come in the last four years. 

Parenting isn’t easy, and Angel knows that he isn’t a perfect dad, but they started from nothing and now they’re working in sync, getting ready for Vixxie’s first day of school, and that feels like an accomplishment worthy of his pride. Vixxie eats quickly and manages not to make too much of a mess, so Angel only has to spot-clean her cheeks before they’re slipping on her light-up Sketchers and heading out the door. 

Angel has spent most of the summer preparing Vixxie for what preschool would be like. He knows that there will be a bit of an adjustment period, but it’s important for her to get socialized with other children before she starts at public school next September. For the last four years, it’s really just been the two of them. Sure, Charlie, Vaggie, Cherri and Molly have been in the picture and are involved in her life, and he still picks up shifts at Ozzie’s from time to time and the other dancers are always more than happy to look after her in the loft until his shifts are over, but Vixxie hasn’t grown up around many children and Angel desperately wants to change that. It’s going to be hard for both of them to adjust to this new normal, and Angel would be lying if he said that there wasn’t a small part of him that considers calling the whole thing off on the fifteen block walk from their little apartment to the preschool that Charlie helped sign Vixxie up for. 

Vixxie has been Angel’s best friend these last few years. When times were hard and his addiction threatened to overcome him again and itched at his resolve from underneath his skin, all Angel had to do was look at his daughter to remind himself that he could never go back. She’s been his rock, his inspiration, and his greatest source of joy for so long that the thought of any disruption to their routine makes Angel feel like he’s going to be sick. 

But he knows that this is the right choice for both of them. 

Vixxie seems confidently excited for the first eight blocks, but as the school gets closer into view, that confidence starts to crumble right along with her facial expression. Her grip on Angel’s hand tightens and her tiny footsteps slow, and Angel’s heart breaks in half when he kneels down to check on her and finds that her pretty blue eyes have filled with tears. 

“Hey,” Angel says, voice soft as he reaches out to thumb away the tears on her cheeks. “What’s the matter, Toots? Scared for your first day of school?” 

Vixxie sniffles and meets his eyes with a puppy dog pout that makes Angel’s heart melt. She nods. “Yeah,” she says, blinking hard.  

Angel opens his mouth to reply, but someone on the sidewalk clicks their tongue in annoyance and grazes his shoulder with their shin as they shove past where he and Vixxie are stopped. Angel glares up at the bastard, but the stranger doesn’t even notice Angel, too focused on his phone to look back and make sure that he didn’t knock anyone down. 

Maybe stopping in the middle of a crowded New York City sidewalk isn’t the best course of action to deal with his daughter’s minor panic attack. Angel looks around and spots a cafe on the corner and he picks Vixxie up and carries her inside. 

The store is small but cozy; a quaint little bakery with yellow wallpaper that smells like bread and coffee. A bell rings when they enter through the door and someone behind the counter waves in greeting, but Angel pays them no mind. He sets Vixxie down on one of the metal chairs at one of the very few tables in the cafe and grabs a few napkins out of the table’s dispenser, which he uses to wipe the snot from her nose. 

“What’s with the tears, babydoll? I thought you were so excited to go and make some new friends,” Angel says, as gently as he can. 

“Y-yeah but, I’m not gonna get to play with you, ” Vixxie tells him. “M’gonna miss you.” 

Angel lets out a sigh and resists the urge to give into her cuteness. He had a feeling that something like this might happen. Vixxie and Angel are a lot alike, and even though she puts on a tough act most of the time, he knows that deep down she’s a softie just like he is. But because they’re so alike, Angel also knows that she’s strong just like he is. 

So Angel tilts her face so that their eyes are level and he says, “You wanna know a secret?” Vixxie nods. “Daddy’s scared too. I ain’t ever been without you neither, right? We’re both gonna have to get used to this. Grown ups get scared too. While you’re at school, daddy is gonna go look for a new job because the one I got ain’t payin’ enough, and I gotta do it without my good luck charm. I’m scared outta my mind, Vix. But do you think that means I shouldn’t try?” 

Vixxie holds his stare for a moment, considering what he’s saying to her. She swallows and then wipes away her own tears before steadying her breath. “N-no,” she squeaks, voice small and soft. 

“Exactly,” Angel says, nodding in approval. “Because do we give up in this family?” 

“No,” she says, a little more confidently. 

“Right, because if we give up, that makes us—” 

“Bitches?” Vixxie asks, smiling from ear to ear. Angel blinks at her, taken aback by her bold choice in language, but he can’t even be mad at her because he knows that she learned that shit from him. 

He goes to correct her, but he’s interrupted by the sound of laughter from behind him. Angel turns to stare at the source of the noise only to find the employee who waved at them earlier doubled over in laughter. Now that Angel is able to get a good look at him, he realizes that they’ve serendipitously stumbled into a random bakery with the most gorgeous cashier he’s ever laid eyes on. 

The guy’s an alpha, Angel can tell right away by his stature and his scent (a scent he hadn’t noticed until right now, and wow , it peaks his interest in an embarrassing way that he hopes to fucking hell the guy can’t smell), and he’s upsettingly handsome. He’s tall with dark skin and locs that are tied up in a bun, and his sleeves are rolled up revealing muscular arms painted with intricate tattoos. His laugh is deep and pretty, and it manages to stop Angel in his tracks before he can even feign offense at the fact that this stranger is clearly laughing at their conversation. 

“Sorry,” the man says, once he realizes that Angel is looking at him. “I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but I wasn’t expecting a word like that to come out of her mouth and it just—” 

“She’s hilarious,” Angel agrees with a deadpan tone, nodding solemnly. He turns back to his daughter and fixes her with a look. “But she knows better than to talk like that, especially when we’re outside of the apartment, ain’t that right Toots?” 

Vixxie looks between the both of them with wide eyes, and then she says, “Shit, sorry daddy.”

The alpha behind the counter bursts into laughter again and Angel can’t help but laugh along with him. He’s still crouched down on the floor so that he can be eye level with his daughter and he feels silly, laughing with a stranger over his messy parenting decisions. 

“Vix!” Angel says, but there’s no heat behind it. He can’t be angry at her for something she picked up from him. 

“Oh no, I did it again, didn’t I?” She looks at him so earnestly apologetic that Angel can’t help but smile. 

“We’re gonna have to work on that,” Angel mumbles, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Do me a favor and try not to talk like that at daycare, okay?” 

“I don’t wanna go to daycare,” Vixxie says, the tears starting to well up again. “I wanna go home!” 

“Yeah, well, we can’t go home right now,” Angel tries to explain, but a few tears leak from her eyes and fall down her cheeks and his heart breaks again. Fuck, maybe he can’t do this. Maybe this is too soon for them. Maybe he should wait another year. Or five. 

“You know, I used to get nervous about trying new things too,” the cashier says, chiming into their conversation. He’s moved a little closer and is leaning over the counter with his arms folded and resting on top of the display. “You know what helped? Havin’ somethin’ to work towards.” 

Angel is too surprised by the interaction to respond, but the cashier’s interruption seems to have shaken Vixxie from her impending meltdown. She wipes her eyes and says, “What that means?” 

“What’s that mean?” the cashier asks, pretending to be surprised by the question. “Well, let me ask you somethin’ sweetheart, do you like cupcakes?” 

Vixxie nods, tears long forgotten. 

“What if I make you a deal? If you can make it all the way to Friday without any more tears about goin’ to school, I’ll let you pick out any one of the cupcakes in this display case to take home as a treat. How’s that sound?” 

Like magic, Vixxie’s entire mood shifts. She brightens, tears turning to sparkles in her eyes as she hops from the chair and skips over to the display case to press her face to the glass. Sure enough, there’s a rainbow of cupcakes waiting to greet her. There are all sorts of flavors and colored frostings, and each cupcake looks beautifully handcrafted. The bakery also sells breads, macarons, croissants of assorted flavors, and other treats that are sure to catch his daughter’s attention. 

“I can have any cupcake I want?” Vixxie asks, looking up at Angel for reassurance. Angel doesn’t know how to respond, so he just looks at the cashier and raises his brows. 

You did this, Angel says without speaking, Answer her question.  

The cashier laughs and nods, like he heard Angel’s silent command. “Long as you’re not allergic to nothin’, you can have any flavor you want.” 

Vixxie blinks. “What’s allergic?” 

Angel laughs and bends down to look at the cupcakes from her level, squatting at her side. “Aw, you don’t gotta worry about that, Toots, you ain’t allergic to nothin’.” 

“But you need to make it to Friday without any more tears about school, you think you can do that sweetheart?” the cashier asks. “I’m gonna check with your dad and make sure you’re tryin’ to pull one by me.” 

Vixxie nods. 

Angel glances over at her. “Do you know what today is, Toots?” 

“Monday?” Vixxie says, smiling. 

“Very good, today is Monday. Friday ain't until four more days from now, do ya really think you can make it that long without any tears?” Angel smirks at her, because he knows that she doesn’t back down from a challenge. She turns towards him and gives him a look. 

“Yes, daddy,” Vixxie tells him. “I’m tough.” 

Angel snorts. “Well excuse me, Princess. Guess I was fooled by the tears not even three fuckin’ minutes ago.” 

Vixxie gasps, “Language, daddy!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Angel replies, rolling his eyes. He stands up and puts his hand out for her to take. “We should probably get goin’ before this poor cashier starts thinkin’ we’re crazy. You ready to go to school now?” 

Angel meets the cashier’s eyes and mouths thank you to him right as Vixxie nods and takes his hand. 

“See you on Friday!” Vixxie calls out as they head through the door and back onto the street. 

The rest of their commute goes smoothly. Well — at least for Vixxie it does. Angel hadn’t accounted for how hard it would be to say goodbye to her once they actually got to the drop off location, and not even five minutes after he watches her Tangled backpack disappear into the sea of children that are escorted into the building by the teachers, Angel is a sobbing mess. 

He takes a second to sit on a bench near the bus stop at the corner and he cries into his hands, oblivious and uncaring towards the eyes of strangers judging him. He really didn’t think that it would hurt this much. 

His baby! In school! The same baby that had been born too small with a drug dependency that she had to kick before she was old enough to hold her head up is now big enough to learn how to fuckin’ read and that’s a feeling that’s so insanely surreal that Angel doesn’t know how to process it.

He’s been clean for four years, and it still feels like he’s living in a fantasy, in a dream that he could wake up from at any moment. There have been hard days here and there, but nothing has ever gotten as bad as it was before Vixxie was born. Letting her go, even if it’s just for something as simple as daycare, is going to be hard for him. 

On the walk back home, Angel stops once more into the bakery with the kind cashier. Upon a much closer inspection (i.e. actually reading the sign instead of just going in) Angel learns that the bakery is called Sweeten The Pot. He smirks at the cleverness of the name and notes the fan of playing cards in the bakery’s logo, nestled atop a cartoon cupcake. 

Cute. 

The bell rings and the cashier looks up at him and then startles, clearly surprised to see Angel back so soon. 

“Oh,” the cashier says, “Welcome back.” 

“Hey,” Angel replies, casual, like they’re friends. “I wanted to come back in and say thank you for earlier. You didn’t have to do that, but you really helped her calm down, and — uh. Thanks.” 

The cashier smiles, and oh, wow, that’s a gorgeous face. “Oh, it wasn’t a problem. I’m more than happy to help.” 

“I hope you know that she will be holdin’ ya to that promise for a free cupcake,” Angel says, smiling back. “She don’t mess around when it comes to sweets.” 

“Good, cause I don’t mess around when it comes to promises,” the cashier says, suave and easy. “Looks like she wasn’t the only one who had a hard time today. Anything I can get you as a reward for stayin’ strong?” 

It takes Angel a minute to realize what Husk is talking about, but then he realizes that his eye makeup is probably running down his face from when he’d broken down before. God, that’s so embarrassing. 

Angel shrugs. “You guys got iced coffee?” 

“Sure do,” the cashier confirms with a nod. “How do you take it?” 

“Seven sugars and a splash of oat milk,” Angel tells him. 

“Did you say seven sugars?” The cashier stares at him, mouth open. 

“What can I say? I like my coffee like I like my men,” Angel says, leaning against the counter, “sweet and dairy-free.” 

The joke barely even makes sense, but it still somehow manages to pull a laugh from the cashier. Angel watches as his coffee is made, and takes it gratefully, sucking down a sizable sip and moaning around the sweetness. 

“God, that’s good,” Angel says, dramatically. He pulls out his wallet. “Whadda I owe ya?” 

“It’s on me,” the cashier tells him, waving him off. “A reward for stayin’ strong, remember?” 

A reward for staying strong, huh? Well how about that. 

“Angel.” Angel puts out his hand. 

The cashier takes it. “Husk. Nice to meet you.”

“I live nearby, so’s you’ll probably be seein’ a lot more of me,” Angel says, and he’s not trying to flirt. He’s not! He’s really, really not! 

But Husk says, “I look forward to it,” and Angel’s heart skips a beat because if he had been flirting, then Husk would certainly be flirting back in this instance, would he not? 

Not willing to push it farther than that, Angel turns to leave, but before he can get out the door, Husk offers him a free cookie to split with Vixxie after school. Angel takes it, and on the walk back to his apartment he sneaks a bite from his half. 

It’s the best chocolate chip cookie he’s ever had.