Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A vacation was a contradiction, Lilith decided. By its very nature, it didn’t make sense. People took vacations in search of a break, the chance to step away from the chaos of life and relax, and yet you work so hard in search of it. The work done to earn a vacation was some of the hardest work people would commit themselves to.

With the time she was giving stretching on ad infinitum, Lilith had time to contemplate these questions. She’d come to the conclusion, as she had long ago, that humans were mere slaves to their mysterious, consuming desires. She’d succumbed to that herself millennia ago, leading to this vacation in exile.

Some may call her paranoid, and Lilith knew this well. Perhaps she’d always been paranoid, but given she’d spent her life with people like Adam, she considered herself quite reasonable to be so.

Adam, who now lay, for a second time, dead.

Lilith turned over the halo in her hands as she stared blankly over the calmly swaying ocean waves. She’d refused to dignify Lute’s tantrum with a response, but she knew that the angel was right. She’d hardly call the small skirmish a “war”, but no one could deny that the forces of Hell rose up in retaliation to the forces of Heaven.

At the same time, Lilith didn’t want to return to Hell.

No, she couldn’t return. She wasn’t stupid, not anymore, she knew what the overlords and sinners would expect from her if they knew she was back in Hell. And God knows what they’d do when they learned Lilith was there to do the exact opposite.

A dark shadow descended upon Lilith as she lay reclined in her golden beach chair. She didn’t react to the presence, knowing at once who it was.

She knew this was dangerous, but if there was anyone she knew would have no choice but to keep Hell from fighting, it was Alastor.

“You called?” The scratchy static of his voice brought Lilith to finally turn her head to greet the radio demon. Alastor smiled pleasantly, though Lilith supposed he always smiled pleasantly. The tips of his long ears twitched as Lilith met his gaze. He looked as he usually did, aside from the dark stain of blood that coated his front.

“That looks nasty,” Lilith said, nodding to the wound across Alastor’s stomach. Alastor shrugged.

“It’s nothing,” he said, the lie falling so fluidly from his lips that Lilith might have believed him, if she didn’t know any better. “Your ex-husband is simply… a bitch.” Lilith chuckled to herself as she stood up from her lounging chair. It vanished with a wave of her hand as she began walking alongside the shoreline.

“For once, we can agree on something, Alastor,” Lilith said. She could hear the soft padding of Alastor’s footsteps following her as she walked.

“I am not the one who disagrees, Lilith,” Alastor said, pleasant as ever even as his words were formed into pointed daggers. Lilith hummed, refusing to allow Alastor’s words to get to her. She’d made that mistake only once before, and it had been one of her greatest.

“I need a favor, Alastor,” Lilith said after a moment. “With Adam’s death, I almost have no choice but to return to Hell.”

“Many souls would be happy to see you,” Alastor said. “Charlie, for one.”

“We both know that’s not true,” Lilith retaliated. Alastor hummed in that disbelieving tone that sent a shiver crawling up Lilith’s spine. “And, in any case, I still have some time. So long as you remember what put you where you are.”

“We seem to disagree on what, exactly, that is,” Alastor said testily. Lilith tried to keep herself from smiling smugly as she heard the waiver in his voice.

“Your deal gave you your power,” she said instead. “Do not forget that. And do not forget what your side of it entails.” Alastor remained silent, surprised Lilith. He seemed to always have a comeback or snide remark ready when he was caught off guard.

“I will do what I can,” Alastor finally said. Lilith paused, almost failing to prevent herself from whirling around in alarm.

“You are… oddly cooperative today,” she said carefully. This wasn’t like Alastor, and when Alastor wasn’t acting like Alastor, he usually had something planned.

“Perhaps our interests are merely aligned, Lilith,” Alastor said. Lilith scoffed and began walking again.

“I doubt it.”

Alastor watched Lilith’s retreating form with bated breath.

He couldn’t believe this.

He stood where he was for a long moment, struggling to keep himself composed.

He couldn’t believe this.

When Lilith finally faded from view, Alastor allowed a single short, sharp laugh to escape as his grin split his face in two. In the golden sand, his twisting shadow tossed its head back and laughed along with him.

He couldn’t believe this!

Lilith had actually been dumb enough, scared enough, to let Alastor, of all people, take control here! In merely a week, he’d gone from nigh-on failure to being a single order away from victory. Alastor shook his head, chuckling softly, nearly unable to believe his luck. Maybe Lilith hadn’t even realized it, but as long as a war didn’t break out, Alastor was free to do exactly as he pleased.

Alastor had been tempted to taunt Lilith with the fact that her daughter was bound to him by a favor, one he could use at any time for any reason. But he’d rather Lilith proceed without that knowledge for as long as possible. If she was prepared for a surprise, she could counter it. No, Alastor was holding on to that particular card until he could use it to force Lilith’s hand.

At this point, there was only one real thing standing in his way. And, as Alastor’s eyes landed on a dulled, silver ring laying in the sand, he thought he knew exactly where to start.

Chapter Text

“Niff! Look out!” Charlie winced as a dull thud revealed that Angel’s warning had been unheard. Charlie turned to look behind her to see a dazed Niffty emerging from a hole that Charlie was almost sure wasn’t in the wall a second ago.

“Niffty, are you okay?” Charlie asked, but the expected giddy giggle she received as a reply told her the concern was unfounded. Charlie sighed as she stared at the broken wall. Thankfully, the hole wasn’t large. They’d dealt with far worse at the old hotel. Still, Charlie didn’t want the building to be falling apart already.

“Can we get someone on that?” Charlie called out, looking around the hotel’s lobby for a volunteer. Or someone to be voluntold when Vaggie got impatient.

“Ha! Called it! Alright, Angie, pay up!” Cherri’s victorious demand caught Charlie’s attention. She turned towards the bar, seeing Angel roll his eyes before shoving a handful of cash into Cherri’s waiting palm.

“I was so sure…,” Angel muttered, dejected.

“Don’t get upset, Angel,” Husk said from behind the bar, sliding Angel a pink martini like a consolation. “I had 20 bucks on it being Cherri.” Angel pat Husk’s hand fondly as Cherri shrugged.

“I woulda bet on me, too,” she said. Charlie’s jaw dropped open as she realized what the trio was talking about.

“Did you all place bets on who would blow a hole in the wall?” she asked in disbelief. Cherri, Angel, and Husk all nodded in unison. Charlie figured she probably should tell them off, gambling was a sin, after all, but…

“Can I get in on the next round?” Charlie asked. Cherri grinned with a glint of excitement in her eyes.

“Finally loosened up, huh, Princess?” she teased. “Go on. What’s your bet?” Charlie considered it for a moment. She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as she faltered.

“Oh come on, don’t chicken out!” Angel pressed. “We ain’t in no place to judge you for it.” Charlie sighed and dropped her gaze to the ground, unwilling to meet the eyes of her friends as she spoke.

“…I was going to say Sir Pentious,” Charlie admitted. Silence followed her words, lasting far longer than it had any right to be. With a deep breath, Charlie forced herself to change the subject. “I’m sorry, but I’d have to say Cherri.” Charlie carefully looked up to see Cherri smiling a bit too brightly to look natural.

“Hey, I take no offense, Princess,” she said. “Like I said, I woulda bet on me too, but these assholes here say it’s cheating.”

“Because it is,” Husk responded pointedly. Angel laughed and nudged Husk’s shoulder.

“Yeah, and if anyone would know how to cheat, it’s this guy!” Angel said. Husk pulled away from Angel, swatting him with the back of his hand, as Cherri and Angel collapsed into fits of laughter.

“Wha- hey! That’s not true!” Husk retorted. As much as Charlie liked to believe in the best of people, Husk had won a suspicious number of UNO games to her to truly believe he was telling the truth.

“I’m going to see if I can find my dad so he can fix the wall,” Charlie said. As she started to walk away, Cherri called after her one last time.

“Tell your girl she owes me 10 bucks!” she said. Charlie paused and turned quickly to glare at where Vaggie was lounging on one of the new lobby chairs. Vaggie held up her hands in quick defense.

“Hey, listen, I was betting we’d make it a week before the wall got blown up again,” she said. Charlie rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the smile that pulled at the corners of her lips. Vaggie, as if suddenly realizing there was a hole in the wall, jumped to her feet, calling to various residents to help with repairs.

After the battle with Adam, waves of sinners had checked themselves in to the hotel, Cherri and a couple of the cannibals among them. The hotel was by no means busy, the increase in size after rebuilding meaning that they were at about the same capacity despite the new mass of residents. But still, it put a new spring in Charlie’s step to walk down the halls of Hazbin Hotel and almost always manage to run into a sinner or two hanging around.

Charlie had been worried about being overwhelmed by the number of residents at first, but it seemed the hotel was having no issue adapting. Perhaps due to the two now being together, Angel had decided to join Husk behind the bar whenever he wasn’t working. Husk would often complain about him being a distraction, but the soft smiles he kept sending Angel spoke otherwise. And that “distraction” actually served to be quite useful, as Angel was quick to pull Husk away whenever the cat looked overworked.

Sure, often times after that no one could find the two for hours and when they did, Husk would be covered in lipstick marks… but Charlie wasn’t going to judge them for that. She and Vaggie had been the same way when they first got together.

Likewise, the new group of male sinners seemed to have given Niffty the motivation to work three times as hard. Unfortunately for her, the only person she had caught the attention of with that effort was Cherri, not any of the men she was interested in. Fortunately, Cherri seemed to have taken a liking to the little demon, and had started to almost always clean up the messes she caused!

And Vaggie… holy hell, Vaggie! She’d taken charge quickly when the cannibals arrived, but the threat of death had kept Charlie from really appreciating her until now. Everyone, even the newer residents of the hotel, listened to Vaggie. Her authority went entirely unquestioned, and whenever she told someone to doing something, it would be done quickly. Charlie couldn’t deny the giddy feeling in her core whenever Vaggie took strong command.

And it felt good to see everyone hold Vaggie as highly as Charlie herself did. When the hotel had first opened, it felt like pulling teeth to get anyone to listen to Vaggie. If there was one thing in her guests Charlie was most frustrated by at the start, it was how quickly they would brush Vaggie off. She was used to people treating her like a joke, but it was unbearable to see Vaggie be treated the same.

But if anyone disrespected Vaggie now, they quickly learned not to. Angel and Husk had been the first to make sure of this, much to Charlie’s delight. They’d scolded early newcomers who ignored Vaggie in a way that, if she was honest, reminded Charlie a lot of how Vaggie had (and still did) scolded the duo. And in just a week, the attitude had caught on quickly.

Charlie smiled, her heart warming in her chest, as she watched Vaggie delegate sinners to help her repair the wall. Her angelic wings burst forth and she hovered in the air, holding the highest plank in place as the tallest and other winged sinners nailed it into place. In no time at all, the wall was patched up, and while it wasn’t pretty, Charlie didn’t really care. Charlie caught Vaggie’s eye as Vaggie dismissed the sinners with a warm thank you, and Vaggie quickly moved to join Charlie.

“Sorry for gambling in your hotel,” Vaggie said as she wrapped an arm around Charlie’s waist and planted a kiss to her cheek. “Does fixing the wall make up for it?” Charlie rolled her eyes and pulled Vaggie in for another kiss.

“Vaggie, the fact that you’re here makes up for it,” Charlie said. Vaggie rolled her eyes in return, and Charlie nudged her. “I’m serious!”

“I know, Charlie,” Vaggie relented. She kissed Charlie again, then hummed as she leaned her head on Charlie’s shoulder and stared out over the lobby.

“And you get on us about PDA!” Angel’s indignant voice interrupted the moment. Charlie turned to glare at him, and he was, predictably, leaning over Husk with one pair of arms wrapped around Husk’s waist while the other pair clung on to his shoulders. They were too far away to know for certain, but Charlie could have sworn she saw smudged lipstick staining a spot on the side of Husk’s neck.

“We didn’t fuck on the bar!” Vaggie retorted, not moving from Charlie’s side. A new hotel guest sitting on the far side of the bar quickly removed his hands from the countertop. Husk lit up a deep shade of red, but Angel merely rolled his eyes and huffed.

“That was one time,” he argued. Vaggie stared daggers into him.

“And it better stay that way,” she said. Angel stuck out his tongue at Vaggie, then returned to leaning on Husk. Charlie giggled and pulled Vaggie closer to her to hide the frown that threatened to creep across her face.

See, while everyone else had easily adjusted to the new hustle and bustle of the hotel, Charlie was finding herself lagging behind. Sure, she’d smiled and met and happily greeted each new sinner who arrived at the hotel. But that was Alastor’s job, not hers. Even if he hadn’t been around much recently.

 She felt… useless? Not quite, but something close. Over a month had passed since her last lesson, and despite the sudden influx of guests at the hotel, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to start anything. The second she sat down to try and write out a lesson, she’d end up staring at a blank sheet of paper for hours until she just gave up and went to cuddle Vaggie.

Charlie sighed internally. She needed to cut herself some slack, like she would if anyone else was struggling to do their jobs. The last few days- hell, the last few months- had been exhausting for everyone at the hotel. She just needed to take a break and a couple of deep breaths, and she’d be back on her feet in no time.

It wasn’t a funeral; Charlie had refused to call it that. “Funeral” made it sound too somber, too much like he really was gone. “Memorial” felt better, so that’s what they’d called it. In Fond Memory of Sir Pentious. It felt odd, Charlie had to admit, standing around what should be a casket but instead was a magnificent portrait on the wall. It felt wrong, in a way, because there was no body. Adam hadn’t left anything of Sir Pentious to bury. There was no final resting place, no grave, no symbol of his enduring memory, nothing that Charlie had been taught came with funerals.

Nothing but the quiet.

The quiet was nearly unbearable. Charlie felt like she should say something, she always said something, but the silence was suffocating. It took the breath out of her lungs every time she opened her mouth and left her without words.

Charlie hugged her legs tighter to herself. She was sitting on the couch with Vaggie by her side, with Vaggie slowly rocking the both of them back and forth. Angel sat on the floor next to the couch, his knees pulled tightly to his body and his head resting on his knees in a mirror of Charlie’s pose. Husk sat next to him, a hand on his shoulder, and Cherri stood behind them both. All five of them were staring blankly at the painting of Sir Pentious in his general uniform.

His eyes always shined, and even the paint seemed to capture some of his constant radiance. He was smiling, looking forward like he was staring down the future itself, daring it to try and break him.

Tears spilled over Charlie’s eyes, and she turned her head to bury it into Vaggie’s shoulder. An overwhelming feeling of the unfairness of it all over took her as Charlie began to weep. Pentious had been so close, had so much ahead of him, and Adam had just taken it away. Like that. In an instant, Pentious was gone, never to return.

And if it weren’t for Charlie, he wouldn’t have been there. If it weren’t for Charlie, he wouldn’t have tried to face Adam. If it weren’t for Charlie, that battle would’ve never happened at all.

Vaggie held Charlie tighter, like she could read the thoughts in Charlie’s head, and Charlie cried harder. Beside her, Charlie could faintly hear Angel sniffling, muted like he had hidden his face in Husk’s fur. Except Angel had nothing to hide from, no shame to avert his gaze from. Angel had done nothing but believe. But Charlie supposed that she, too, had just believed.

A loud bang startled the quiet scene. Charlie scrambled to her feet, looking around wildly for the source of the violent bursting of the somber bubble where she could mourn her loss.

The answer? A smoking hole in the exterior wall, as someone had clearly, once again, set off some sort of explosion outside. Vaggie muttered a string of curses under her breath as she rose as well, but everyone in the room paused when the guilty party stepped through the door.

“Fear not, my friends, I am here!” Fear wasn’t the right word for it. No, Charlie hadn’t been afraid of who this might be. Mildly annoyed, sure. Pissed the hell off, absolutely. But standing before Charlie was someone she’d never feared before in her life.

Someone she was certain she’d never see again.

Someone whose own memorial he had just crashed.

Sir Pentious, alive, unharmed, though a lot whiter than Charlie remembered, stood proudly in the doorway, grinning from ear to ear. Cherri was the first to speak, turning in shock and wonder to Charlie.

“Guess you were right after all, Princess.”