Chapter Text
There’s a huge, tremendous CRASH! from outside in the hotel courtyard, and Charlie can barely repress a groan. They just renovated this place, made it spotless and new and amazing, and there’s already destruction going on?
Everyone’s heads pop up around a lobby, and Charlie knows they’re all thinking the same thing- have the angels returned?
It’s a fear that has been gnawing at Charlie since a week ago, when the Extermination occurred. The Exorcists had fled with their proverbial tails tucked between their legs, but what’s stopping them from returning with even more forces than ever before? What’s stopping them from bringing the entire wrath of Heaven down on Hell?
Would they, let alone Lucifer himself, be strong enough to withstand the holy might of God?
So, they all sit and listen, frozen like deers in headlights. At the bar, Husk’s big, furry ears rove around like satellite dishes, trying to hear something that they can’t. Alastor tips his head up ever so slightly, his toothy grin unwavering, but he clenches his cane just a little bit tighter. Angel Dust pulls Niffty against him in a protective manner, and Cherri Bomb looks about ready to start maiming. By Charlie’s side, one of Vaggie’s hands opens like she’s going to bring out her spear.
And they wait.
…
…
…
Nothing.
No wingbeats. No battle cries. No clanking of metal weapons or screams of the slaughtered.
It’s…quiet.
“You guys heard that, too, right?” Angel asks.
They all nod.
“Okay, good,” he says. “Had to make sure I wasn’t trippin’.”
The sound was more like thunder than anything- a one-and-done noise that comes and goes. But there was an undeniable impact accompanying it, like something had smashed into something else, and Charlie knows an investigation is necessary. So, she releases the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and starts to creep toward the front doors. Vaggie is practically breathing down her neck with how close she is as she follows.
Charlie half-expects to see God Himself standing outside the hotel when she opens those doors, smoldering and seething and absolutely spitting mad, ready to smite her into ash before she can get a single word in edgewise…but He isn’t. There is something smoldering out there, it seems, though, as a column of smoke is whirling its way into the sky from a crater punched out in the ground. A few small fires are lit across the lawn bordering the cavity, and Charlie notices that the flames look a little white. The sharp smell of burning hair and ozone permeates the air.
“Hello?” Charlie calls out warily. She isn’t usually so timid, but since the Extermination, her guard has been up. For all she knows, this could be a trick of some kind.
There’s no response.
“Stay here,” Vaggie says. She takes up her spear and goes forward to the crater. Her reaction to whatever is inside of it doesn’t take very long.
Just from where she’s standing, Charlie can see every muscle in Vaggie’s body tense up.
“Oh, fuck…”
That doesn’t sound good, and it’s enough to get Charlie moving. She rushes over. “What? What is it? What— oh dear god…!”
Well. She was half-right in her worries because there is an angel here, lying in the crater, but this is no Exorcist. And it’s not just any angel, either.
It’s….a seraphim.
She’s like a little bird at the bottom of the crater, sprawled on her back. But a severely injured bird. Her six wings are all in various states of total devastation. The top pair are in the worst state. They’re completely scorched, almost all of the feathers burnt off, leaving them awkward stalks of fractured bone and tattered flesh. The middle pair are very badly injured, one broken at an unnatural angle with the bone sticking out, and the other torn in twain down the center of it, both pieces just barely holding together. The bottom pair are charred to black ruins, some of the feathers still glowing yellow-orange with heat, crackling embers.
And it’s not just her wings.
Her gown, once beautifully embellished, is ripped, burnt, and bloodied, drenched with the shimmering gore of the angels. Wounds are scattered all over her body- circular, coin-shaped wounds that look like they were created by being impaled with some kind of polearm. There’s a giant slash across her chest, as though someone had cleaved her with an axe, and the eye that lays there is sliced in half, weeping blood and tears and optic fluids. Her frizzy white hair is smoldering at the tips and much shorter than it used to be, like the rest of it had been burnt off. The halo over her head is cracked and flickering, slowly losing its glow.
Wait…
Charlie recognizes this girl.
It’s…
“Emily!”
Charlie lurches forward, any worry that this may be a trap gone out of her mind. She rushes to Emily’s side, her eyes practically bulging out of her head as she takes in every wound, every burn, every drop of blood. Emily is not in a good state.
No, that’s an understatement. Emily is worse than “not good.” This is just… This…
“Emily?” Charlie says, shaking Emily lightly, and when she pulls her hand away, there’s blood on it. She notes that Emily’s blood is blue, not gold like it is for the other angels. Perhaps because she’s a seraphim? “Emily, can you hear me?”
It’s a stupid question, and she knows it. There’s no way Emily is conscious, not after that fall.
So, instead, Charlie checks her vitals, and she’s relieved to find a pulse, weak but present. It’s something. She lifts Emily’s head to rest in her lap, off of the hard rubble, hoping to make her more comfortable.
She hears Vaggie shift behind her, debris crunching under her feet. “Charlie, she’s…”
“I know,” Charlie says grimly.
It’s abundantly clear what has happened here.
Emily has Fallen.
Immediately, a thousand questions run through Charlie’s head, but one is louder than them all: Why? Why has this happened?
Charlie only knew Emily for a day, but from what she saw, she was a good girl. A good, kind angel. The idea of her doing something so vile that Heaven cast her out seems improbable, so something else must have happened. It’s the only way.
And these injuries… Not all of them were created from her descent. The burns and broken bones, sure, but not these gashes, these— these stab wounds. Unless Emily had fallen through a dimension made up entirely of knives and needles, it doesn’t seem like Emily was just discarded through a portal to Hell, and that was that. There was a struggle, an attack.
But why?
Was Emily given a trial to try and defend her innocence? Was she offered penance to attempt to become better? Or was she just beaten within an inch of her life and then thrown away like garbage?
It’s clear that none of these things are going to be answered—at least, not right now. Emily is in no state to speak, and even if she was conscious, it wouldn’t be good to bombard her with questions right off the bat.
“Something is wrong,” Charlie says, more to herself than to Vaggie. “Someone hurt her. Something…”
Then, she shakes her head. Now is not the time for this. She can mutter and toil over things later.
So, she decides to turn her attention to something else for now- actually tending to Emily. She isn’t sure if she should get her inside just yet. What’s that saying? Don’t move someone with a spine injury. Does that also apply to an angel who has just free-fallen out of Heaven and into Hell and crashed into the ground with all the strength of a goddamn meteor?
At that moment, Emily stirs. One of her wings, the bottom left one, twitches, and from that simple movement, a barrage of feathers shed free and flutter to the ground like dead leaves.
“Emily?” Charlie says. She brushes some hair out of Emily’s face, which she worriedly notes is hot, like she has a fever. Oh, that’s not good. “Can you hear me?”
Emily’s lips, pale and smeared in blood, part, but all that comes out is a feeble sound more befitting for a dying animal than a regal seraphim. Her eyelids very slowly open, revealing bloody red eyes underneath.
They had been blue before.
Charlie does her best to bite back a gasp. She puts on the most comforting smile she can muster and cups one of Emily’s cheeks. “Hey, it’s me. Charlie. Do you remember me? Listen, you’re going to be okay. Do you hear me? Everything is going to be okay.”
“Hurts… B-burns…” Emily utters.
“Shh, I know,” Charlie hushes her gently. “But it’s going to be okay. We’ll take care of you.”
All Emily replies with is, “Burns… burns, Charlie…” And then, her head lolls to the side, and her eyes close. Unconscious again.
Charlie releases a shaking breath. This is not good. This is really, REALLY not good.
A hand comes to rest on her shoulder- Vaggie. “We have to get her inside,” her girlfriend says.
Charlie nods. “Right. Yeah.” She then, with all the gentleness of tending to a baby bird, carefully picks Emily up, doing her best not to aggravate the angel’s wounds. When she does, a cloud of burnt feathers dislodges from Emily’s wings and drifts to the floor. Emily’s halo falls from her head and breaks in half when it hits the ground, its holy silver glow dead.
Fuck.
Charlie and Vaggie both stare at the halo for a moment, and then Charlie is moving, carrying Emily back inside the hotel. Vaggie leans down to scoop the broken halo up before following.
The others, who have all been crowded around the front door, watching through the glass, are shocked to see Charlie entering with a horrifically mutilated angel in her arms. Not that Charlie can blame them.
In an instant, the lobby is a cacophony of noise.
“Woah, what the fuck?!” Angel yawps, the first to speak up. “Is that a fuckin’ seraphim?!”
“And you’re bringing her in HERE?!” Cherri exclaims. “We were just fuckin’ slaughtering those bitches a week ago!”
“ANGEL!” Niffty shouts. “STAB IT!” She lunges forward with her knife—which she produced out of nowhere—raised up, but Vaggie interferes and quickly snatches her up before she can wound Emily further.
“My, my, what an interesting turn of events!” Alastor says, seemingly unperturbed by the appearance of Emily, his grinning facade not wavering for a single second. If anything, he seems highly interested rather than concerned or frightened.
“She’s hurt,” Charlie says to all of them. She eyes Niffty, dangling like a kitten by the scruff of its neck from Vaggie’s hand, swinging her knife around madly, and holds Emily a little bit closer. “She needs help.”
“We’re not a hospital, Charlie!” Cherri protests. “You can’t just bring an angel in here.”
“Well, it’s MY hotel, and I say it’s temporarily a hospital!” Charlie snaps.
Cherri doesn’t give in. “Since when’ve you ever given a damn about an angel?” she spits. “Why are you caring about this one, anyway? Pentious is dead because of those feathered fucks!”
Charlie closes her eyes and counts to three in her head. She doesn’t want to remember Pentious’ sudden death. Not right now.
She opens her eyes again. “She isn’t an Exorcist. She wasn’t a part of the Extermination. And… and she’s Fallen. So, by all accounts, she’s one of us now.”
The lobby is silent for a moment.
“A Fallen seraphim?” Husk says. “That hasn’t happened since…”
The name goes unsaid, but they’re all thinking it: Lucifer.
“She must have done something real fucked to end up down here,” Angel says. “Ain’t they seraphims God’s biggest bitches?”
“Yes, they’re all good dogs that never bark,” Alastor says. He tips his head at Emily. “Well…except this one, it seems.”
Cherri crosses her arms firmly, resolute in her beliefs. “I don’t give a damn if she’s a fuckin’ cherub with them little baby bitch wings, they’re all the same!”
Charlie growls, a low sound of threat rumbling in the bottom of her throat. She feels the familiar, comforting burn of her horns beginning to breach her crown, hellfire lighting up in her veins.
Vaggie quickly steps in. “I’m a fallen angel,” she says to Cherri. “Why aren’t you treating me with this same hatred?”
That causes Cherri to pause. “W-well…! You’re, ah—” she sputters. “I, umm… You’re different!”
“I was an Exorcist,” Vaggie goes on. “I was on the front lines slaughtering demons every Extermination. Emily is a seraphim. She never knew bloodshed. Hell, she didn’t even know about the Extermination until Charlie and I went to Heaven!”
“S-so?” Cherri stammers weakly, her resolve wavering.
“So she’s innocent,” Vaggie says, a sharp edge to her voice. “She never hurt anybody.” She turns away. “You don’t have to like her. You don’t even have to help us with her. But don’t be cruel to her, especially when she’s in this state.”
Cherri opens, then closes, then opens, then closes her mouth again. Finally, she says, “Fine! Whatever…”
Vaggie gives a pleased hum. “Good.”
Charlie looks at her girlfriend gratefully. “Thank you.” Then, she’s moving again, realizing that they’re wasted way too much time standing around here, blabbering.
She carries Emily to one of the rooms, which is going to have to act as an impromptu infirmary, and sets her down on the bed. Looking down at the angel, she doesn’t even know where to start. Should she tend to her wings first? Or maybe her wounds first? Should she clean her up of all this soot and dirt before she does anything else? And what about her fever? She’s patched up injuries before, but never quite like this.
Luckily, she doesn’t have to make a decision, as Vaggie steps in, gently brushing Charlie aside. “I’ve got this,” she says. She goes to the bedside and looks over Emily with a critical eye. Then, to Charlie, “I need rags—as many as you can get, water, bandages, and disinfectant.”
Charlie doesn’t hesitate- she scuttles out of the room to do as she’s told. She grabs everything asked of her in record time, and when she returns, she sees that Vaggie has already gotten to work. She’s removed Emily’s ruined gown, which is nothing more than scraps of black, smoke-smelling fabric on the floor now, and replaced it with a simple strapless bra and some shorts so she won’t be completely naked. Fallen angel or holy seraphim- it isn’t right to see the girl like that, having her modesty just out for anyone to view.
With the dress off, the full extent of Emily’s injuries can be seen, and it’s much worse than what Charlie was expecting. She watches as Vaggie takes stock of every wound like she’s a forensic pathologist writing a report on a body from a crime scene.
Five puncture holes spread out all over her body—through her left bottom wing, through her right shoulder, through her left thigh, through her left side, through her stomach. Seemingly from some kind of polearm. Maybe a spear.
A gash across her chest, greatly damaging the eyeball inset there. Stretching from her right shoulder down to just below her ribs. Caused by a bladed weapon of sorts.
Dark bruises mottling her upper back and chest, definitely from the fall.
Broken ribs.
Several burns, most of them located on her back, shoulders, wings, and arms.
Six injured wings. All burnt in some way, one broken, one almost ripped in half, another previously impaled.
Fever.
It’s so horrible. Every time Charlie takes in a new detail from Emily’s injuries, it makes her stomach turn even more. Her wings are damaged to a point where they may never heal properly, and even if they do, who knows if she’ll be able to fly at all anymore. Her back, her chest, all those puncture holes… So many injuries, so many painful wounds… So much fucking unfairness.
It’s like a tragic, gruesome domino effect- the first injury discovered gives birth to a dozen more now that the gown is removed. Emily’s body is a testament to the suffering, the cruelty, that she must have endured at the hands of the angels that cast her out.
And it all makes Charlie so fucking angry. She knew Heaven could be cruel, the Extermination is enough proof of that, but this is a whole new level of savagery. It’s worse that Heaven prides itself in being perfect and pristine and kind, and then this happens. Hell may be barbaric, but at least it doesn’t lie to you. Meanwhile, the angels up in Heaven are hiding their own claws and fangs behind bright smiles and sanguine words.
She feels her horns growing in again. She wants to rip open the veil between Heaven and Hell with her own bare hands, storm up into that stupid fucking city, and slaughter each and every angel for their insolence. She wouldn’t even care if it made her as bad as or even worse than them- they deserve it.
And it wouldn’t just be for Emily’s mistreatment, oh no. It would also be for Vaggie, her father, her mother, all of her people who have been ruthlessly slain with no care in the world. This is a hatred that’s been brewing for decades, and it’s just been waiting to be released.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
A gentle touch on her arm- Vaggie again. Charlie looks to the side, and her girlfriend is frowning at her.
“You’re growling, dear,” Vaggie says gently.
She is? Oh. She is.
“Sorry,” Charlie says. She unclenches her teeth—she hadn’t even realized until that moment how tightly her jaw is set—and flexes out her fingers. Her palms sting from where her claws had been driven into the flesh, but she ignores it. There’s more important things to deal with right now.
“Don’t be,” Vaggie says. “I’m pissed, too. But we have to focus on her right now.”
Charlie nods. She inhales deeply, exhales a bit of smoke. “Got it.”
If Vaggie can keep her cool, Charlie can, too. Now is not the time to freak out.
There are some simple mercies. Damage to internal organs isn’t something to worry about, as internal bleeding doesn’t really apply to demons. Infection can occur, however, when the brimstone bacteria of Hell seeps deep into open wounds. Blood loss is fickle, as it takes longer than it would for, say, a human, but if left alone for too long, even a demon can bleed dry.
Or a fallen angel.
Vaggie takes the rags from Charlie and begins applying pressure to the puncture hole wounds, instructing Charlie to do the same so they can stem the bleeding. Charlie obeys immediately. They practically douse Emily’s entire body in disinfectant to ward off any infection from settling into the wounds.
They work in near-silence. It does not feel appropriate to speak.
But then, Charlie has to speak. As she’s focused on stopping the bleeding, squeezing her fingers around a rag that’s pressed firmly to Emily’s thigh, she notices that the blue blood is beginning to run a little red.
She gasps softly. “Vaggie…”
Vaggie glances over at Charlie. The rag Charlie has is starting to take on a purplish tint. Then, she lifts her own rag to take a peek at the wound underneath. Deep within the wet, gaping maw she’s tending to on Emily’s stomach, the tarnished flesh and muscle is fading to a more crimson shade. Her lips press into a tight frown.
“Her body is already starting to acclimate,” she says.
Hell waits for no one, it seems. Emily has been here for less than an hour, and this place has already jumped on the opportunity to claim a new victim. From where Heaven’s essence had been sucked out, Hell sinks its teeth in and injects its potent, hellfire venom right in its place.
Charlie watches in dread as she sees the change occurring before her eyes. Emily’s life is being consumed as her body is being tainted. The color of Heaven is literally being drained within the very fibers of her existence.
“What— what does that mean?” Charlie asks.
“It means her body is trying to adapt to the atmosphere of Hell,” Vaggie tells her. “It’s normal. At least, it was for me. And my experience is pretty much all I have to go off of. But it won’t turn her blood completely red. Like, mine is still gold, but sometimes it turns a little red. Again, it’s…normal.”
Charlie wants to ask more questions but now really isn’t the time. So, she nods, trusting Vaggie. “Okay.”
They return to their work on the puncture holes, and once the bleeding has stemmed, they bandage each of them.
Now for that gash on Emily’s chest.
The large eye in Emily’s chest is half-open, but when Charlie and Vaggie lean down, it opens fully. Once a bright, sky blue, even it has been tainted, slowly fading to an infernal red. The gash crosses diagonally over the expanse of it, creating a visible, bloody trench through the surface. Vitreous humor, blood, and other discharge are seeping out from it like tears. The eye revolves wildly in Emily’s chest, like it has a mind of its own and is panicking, but Emily’s body won’t respond, still unconscious.
To be honest, the sight of a giant eyeball in someone’s chest is already pretty unnerving as is, but watching it twist and turn in its thoracic socket, squirting out discharge and blood, is nauseating. The skin around it is twitching and wrinkling ever so slightly from such violent movements.
“Eugh,” Charlie groans softly. If Heaven is supposed to be perfect and wonderful, then why are eyes so prominent there? It’s creepy!
“Just…try not to make, um…eye contact,” Vaggie says. She’s got a good poker face, but Charlie can tell that she’s just as uneased by Emily’s weird chest eyeball as she is.
With gauze, they carefully dab at the edges of the gash, slowly getting closer and closer to the perimeter of the eyeball. It frantically darts back and forth between Vaggie and Charlie, and Charlie tries to avoid its gaze. There’s something so uncanny about it that makes her skin crawl.
They’re making good progress, up until they actually get to the eyeball itself. A single drop of disinfectant gets into it by accident, and the resulting reaction is rabid.
The eyelids fly open, and the pupil shrinks into a tiny black pinprick. The eye then begins to spasm, violently gyrating in its socket, almost as if it’s trying to pull itself out of the skin. There’s this soft, wet burbling noise as fluid froths up around the edges of the thoracic socket.
And then, Emily’s eyes—her actual eyes—shoot open, and her mouth opens, too. For a moment, she makes no noise, but then the scream bursts forth, wretched and piercing and full of undiluted agony. It’s a raw, primal sound, almost like the screech of some unholy beast, and Charlie can hear the intensity physically straining on Emily’s vocal cords.
Emily’s back arches off of the bed, and all six of her wings stretch outward. The burnt feathers stand on end, revealing an array of dozens of more eyes lying just beneath, all of them bloodshot and bleeding and way too wide.
It’s a horrifying sight, watching this poor girl suffer like this. Her scream shakes the very foundation of the hotel, the devastating cry of a fallen angel wailing in agony.
And it just gets worse.
Emily’s neck bends back, and her limbs become stiff. Her wings are painfully straight, but they’re wracked with spasms. Blood-tinged foam drools as Emily’s mouth, as though she has rabies. It looks like her soul is trying to claw its way out of her body.
Charlie moves to support her, but Vaggie stops her, grabbing her urgently by the arm.
“Don’t!” Vaggie hisses. “She’s seizing! Don’t touch her.”
Charlie clenches her jaw, drives her claws back into those tender red crescents already carved out in her palms, and remains still. She knows she shouldn’t touch Emily, shouldn’t try to hold her down, but she feels so fucking useless, so goddamn helpless just standing here, watching her go through a gauntlet of torture.
Eventually, it stops, and Emily is released from the torment. For now. Her head thunks back on the pillow, and all six of her wings flop down limply, sprawled out messily at her sides. Only then does Charlie rush forward, frantically checking her pulse. It’s still there, a rapid thumping like rabbit’s feet beating on her ribs.
“Oh, Emily…” Charlie murmurs, brushing some damp hair off of Emily’s burning forehead.
At that moment, the door to the room slams open abruptly, and chaos clamors inside.
“What the FUCK was that?” Husk booms. And it’s not just him- Angel, Cherri, and Niffty are all there, probably alerted by the sound of Emily’s screams.
Vaggie steps in, getting between the bed and the others. “Seizure,” she tells them. “It’s okay now. Well— it’s not okay, but the seizure is over.”
The others all peek around Vaggie to look at Emily. Husk must have seen the state of the girl’s wings because his own wings visibly cringe and fold up tighter to his back. Angel grimaces. Even Cherri, who had been raving angrily about Emily being in the hotel just twenty minutes ago, looks concerned.
“Oh, that’s not…” Husk seems genuinely, truly at a loss for words, and Charlie can’t possibly blame him. It’s not a pretty sight in the slightest.
“What the kitty cat is trying to say is that our new little angel friend is in quite a state of devastation.” All eyes are drawn to the corner of the room, where Alastor is seated in a cushioned velvet chair, having materialized out of nowhere. “It is pitiful, truly. She has my dearest and greatest sympathy.”
Husk wrinkles his nose at Alastor, the fur on his tail puffing up, but Charlie decides to take his consolation in earnest.
“Thank you, Alastor,” Charlie says.
“Do you guys know what you’re doin’?” Angel asks, dubiously eyeing the bloody blue rags dumped on the floor, which Niffty has begun cleaning up fervently.
“OOOO, angel blood! Mine now!” the little maid says.
“We’re doing our best,” Charlie answers him. “That’s pretty much all we got right now. And it’s worked out well so far!”
“Yeah, that screaming that could probably be heard all around Hell really made it seem that way,” Cherri comments, to which she earns a withering glare from Vaggie, effectively shutting her up.
“Maybe we should find a proper doctor?” Angel suggests.
“Oh, yeah, of course! Who should I ring up?” Charlie says. “Doctor Death Cap, who amputates limbs even when your affliction has nothing to do with your arms and legs so he can sell them to the cannibals, or Doctor Dismal, who just straight up steals your organs?” She then sighs, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry. That was mean. I just— I don’t think it’ll be good to get other people involved with her. Who knows how other demons will react if they see an angel down here—and a seraphim, no less! I’m afraid that they’ll try to hurt her… Hurt her more than she actually is.” Her gaze turns back to Emily’s prone figure on the bed. “And she doesn’t deserve that.”
Alastor clears his throat and stands up, straightening out his suit (even though it had already been perfect before). “I do not think we should question the care of these two,” he says. “As they said, they’re doing their best, and they seem to be doing it well. If you have complaints, hold thy tongue. I assure you, they do not care right now.”
The others all mumble their agreement, and Charlie flashes Alastor a grateful smile.
Alastor taps his cane on the floor. “Now then,” he says. “Is there anything we can do to assist? Or would it be better if we simply got out of your hair?”
“I think it would be best, at least for right now, if we had some space,” Charlie says. “Please.”
Alastor’s smile doesn’t falter one bit. “Right away.”
And just like that, he, Angel, Cherri, and Niffty leave. Husk takes one last look at Emily, shakes out his wings like they’re crawling with caterpillars, and then follows them out, too.
Charlie lets out a deep sigh, relieved to have space to breathe again. She’s not sure she could continue having that many eyes on her. She’s already having to deal with the one in Emily’s chest, which has not stopped staring at her for a single second since the seizure ended.
“We’re doing okay, right?” Charlie asks Vaggie, almost beseeching her. Usually she isn’t so insecure, but she’s worried. She doesn’t want to fuck anything up and accidentally hurt Emily worse.
Vaggie nods. “Mhm. For now, we’re doing okay.”
They get back to work.
They carefully finish tending to the chest wound, being extra mindful of the eye and just how sensitive it is. There’s about a five minute debate on how they should bandage such an injury, and they eventually decide to just apply a lot of gauze and bind the entire thing, essentially making a giant eyepatch. Then, they turn their attention to the burns, which are, decidedly, much easier to deal with and don’t stare at Charlie like they know all of her flaws and deepest insecurities.
And then, finally, they have only one last thing to deal with. The things Charlie has been worried about the most.
Emily’s wings.
But before they can even create a game plan to decide which of the six they should start with, Emily stirs.
Charlie and Vaggie stop what they’re doing, looking over to Emily, whose head is turning this way and that on the pillow, eyes still closed, a soft whine coming from her lips. One of her wings twitch, shedding a cluster of feathers from that simple movement alone.
Charlie immediately goes to Emily’s side, resting a hand on her sweaty forehead. “Emily? Can you hear me?”
The sound that comes out of Emily’s mouth is a heart-wrenching one- feeble and full of pain. Her eyelids flutter like she’s trying to open her eyes, but she just doesn’t have the strength.
“Oh, honey,” Charlie murmurs. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. You don’t need to open your eyes if it’s too hard. But I’m here. It’s me, Charlie. And Vaggie is here, too. We’re taking care of you. Did you hear that? We’re gonna make sure you’re okay.”
“Sss-…ss….” Emily’s lips are moving ever so slightly. She’s trying to say something but can’t quite muster the strength. Or perhaps she can’t breathe well. Charlie hadn’t realized it until she returned to Hell from Heaven, but the air in Hell is hot and smoky. After breathing the crisp, clean air of Heaven all her life, breathing down here for Emily must feel like inhaling embers. Whatever the case, she’s struggling to say something, anything.
“Try to take some deep breaths, okay?” Charlie says. She replaces her hand on Emily’s forehead with a damp cloth, hoping to help cool her off. The angel is absolutely burning up. “I know it must hurt, but I promise we’re gonna do everything we can to make it better. We’re right here.”
She can only hope that somehow, her words, as feeble as they are, are reassuring to Emily, who now has to struggle with not only being so suddenly cut off from her home and being so terribly wounded but also the agony of breathing in the hot, murky air. Her lungs likely feel like they’ve become an inferno inside of her.
Emily just keeps trying to talk. The effort is so painful, the girl’s back arching upward slightly as she attempts to force the words out of her throat, but she’s only managing bits of sounds that don’t quite make sense. But Charlie does recognize just one thing—one sound: “Sss…se…”
The raspy voice—merely a shadow of the one Emily had in Heaven—is soft and low. It’s hardly even a voice at all—more like a croaky whisper, the dying mewls of a kitten. But she hears it, and she’s grateful for that.
“Ssss…”
More sounds. Her wings twitch, and Charlie catches that her eyebrows are furrowing. The girl’s breath is coming faster and faster, and she can hear them rattling and wheezing in her chest. Charlie can tell that, even as Emily struggles, pronouncing each letter takes every drop of strength that Emily has left in her. She’s trying so, so hard, and Charlie’s heart aches for her.
But now she’s making more sense. “Sss-ss-serrr…”
Charlie thinks she’s almost got it. “Sera? Are you trying to say…Sera?”
She remembers that name. More bitterly than she remembers Emily.
Sera was the other seraphim she and Vaggie met up in Heaven. The High Seraphim of Heaven, to be exact.
And Emily’s older sister.
“Sera, Emily?” Charlie says, hoping to articulate to Emily’s feverish mind.
“Sera…” Emily echoes, and, this time, the word comes out fully. It’s still hoarse, still malformed, but it’s there. It’s something. And it’s all Charlie could ask for.
“What about her?” Vaggie finally speaks up, coming to the other side of the bed. Charlie can see the concern in her girlfriend’s gaze, alongside a great amount of curiosity. Charlie is right there with her- she, too, wants to know what the hell has happened.
“Ssss… sss…”
It’s like she’s trying to dredge the words out from the bottom of an abyss, but when they finally come free from Emily’s lips, they’re something new.
“So…sorry…”
“Sorry?” Charlie repeats the simple, single word. “Why do you feel sorry? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
There’s a soft whine coming from the angel, and Charlie can visibly see the frustration that this communication barrier is posing. Emily is trying so hard, and she just wants to make her thoughts known to the both of them.
When she doesn’t get a proper answer, Charlie lets out a soft sigh and runs her fingers through Emily’s hair. Emily’s hair had once been so silky and fluffy. Now, most of it has been burnt off, presumably during the fall, so it only reaches her shoulders instead of down to her lower back, and it’s caked in soot and ash and blood. They need to wash her off after this.
“Alright, shh,” Charlie says softly. “Don’t try to push yourself right now, okay? We can talk about what happened when you’re feeling better.”
“Ssss… mmmmm…”
It’s just incomprehensible noise, but Charlie can practically hear Emily’s thoughts.
It hurts I’m scared it hurts it hurts it hurts
“Burns…”
That word comes out.
And it sends a shiver down Charlie’s spine.
“Burns? Oh, yeah, I bet…” Charlie affirms because damn it, Emily just said something, and she doesn’t care if that sentence was like the most simple thing ever. It’s something. It’s everything. “But it’s gonna be okay. Do you hear me? It’s gonna be okay. You’re going to be just fine, sweetie.”
“Burns…”
There it is again. And there’s a bit more strength behind its inflection.
“Shh, calm down, okay?” Charlie coos to her. “I hear you. I can… I can feel how hot your skin is, and it must be really painful, sweetie. But it’s not— it’s going to be okay. We are going to make it okay. ”
“Burns…”
Finally…Emily’s eyes open. They’re glassy and glazed, not quite focusing on Charlie, rather staring through her.
The look of pure agony in her gaze is indescribable, and Charlie just… She just has no words.
And then, Emily’s face twitches. And her eyes widen. And her lips pull back. And Charlie realizes what’s about to happen, but there’s nothing she can do to stop it.
Emily yowls. Charlie thinks she screams “burns!” but it’s too hard to tell. She doesn’t seize this time, but she does writhe as though trying to wriggle out of her own flesh to escape the pain she’s in.
And then, she vomits. All over the bed. All over herself.
She chokes, sputters, gurgles, blood and bile erupting forth from her lips. The sight is horrific, the sound is even worse.
When it’s over, Emily goes limp, unconscious again.
For a moment, Charlie and Vaggie simply stare at each other.
This…really…isn’t good…