Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Modern media is something of a luxury in Hell. 

At least, the stuff that’s modern in the living world is. Films that are being actively produced by the living, apps and social media, video games, even new books are hard to come by in the afterlife. Specifically because: it’s the after life, and those things come from the present life, and as such they aren’t dead yet.

There are loopholes, of course. If someone is buried with their favorite book or film, sometimes it comes with them. This isn’t the greatest thing for newly arrived Sinners, who are more often than not mobbed for whatever small part of Life they happen to take with them. But once that thing has fallen soundly into Hell, it tends to fall into the greater circulation as well. 

But mostly, people just have to wait. Wait until the medium itself is dead, or the author or staff involved have died, and the thing in question is considered soundly dead as well. Only then can it really appear in Hell proper for anyone to have access to. It’s why old things are so commonplace in Hell, and why VoxTek is so incredibly popular: precisely because it isn’t old, long before its time.

Modern media is something of a luxury in Hell, which is why Charlie is very lucky that her father is the King of it, and able to pull strings where others can’t.

It is possible for demons to make their way back into the world of the living, if they’re strong enough. But for most it requires complicated rituals, sigils, sacrifices, and True Names, and it’s usually a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Charlie’s father, on the other hand, is something of an exception to the rule. While he can’t enter Heaven, he figured out how to slither his way back to Earth thousands of years ago, and started making waves with stories ever since.

He can never stay long. Heaven is usually quick to track him down and push him back into Hell, if he makes too much of a ruckus. Most of the stories are also gross exaggerations, from golden fiddles to his footsteps embedded in stone to the curses his presence causes. 

Realistically, Charlie’s father just uses his little backdoors to Earth to get things. Unlike the stories, he’s never after immortal souls or interested in cruel and twisted deals. Mostly he just avoids humans when he can, because it’s a hassle to interact with them at all. He prefers modern, mundane things, like fresh seasonal fruit or pretty new instruments or materials for his latest duck project. 

Or things like modern media, just to make living for thousands of years a little less boring.

So it’s courtesy of Dad that Charlie and the rest of the team are enjoying a weekend movie marathon of something the living folks call ‘superhero movies.’ Apparently it’s been the latest trend for the past twenty years or so in living cinema, although superheroes themselves are much older than that. Angel Dust vaguely remembers them just becoming a thing in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s before he’d died. And Niffty says they’d become even more popular in the fifties. But it seems like they’ve come a long way since either of Charlie’s friends were still amongst the living. 

It’s hard to understand exactly, with the jumble of movies they’d received, and with little way to research it, so they’re mostly going on what they can pick up through osmosis. Charlie thinks they’ve managed to figure out by now that there are two different companies with two different sets of superheroes, and they never interact, and they do things very differently. She’s pretty sure there’s an ongoing story thread going on through all these different movies, but she’s not entirely sure they’re watching them in order, or even separate from each other. 

It’s hard to keep track of them all, but they are just sort of fun to watch even so. There’s lots of special effects and interesting music and so many characters doing wild things. They could use more singing, in her opinion, but maybe superheroes aren’t supposed to break into song as often as people in Hell do.

So it’s been a fun movie marathon overall. Almost everyone is there: Vaggie, Angel Dust, Husk, Niffty, even her father has joined the fun. Everyone but Alastor, essentially, and that’s hardly surprising. He’d been invited, but since he isn’t a fan of movies and superhero comic books started after his time, he’d declined and left the hotel to do…something. Charlie just hopes it’s not eating people. 

(It might still be eating people, in which case she doesn’t want to know).

Their current film is Wonder Woman, and Charlie’s really been enjoying it. She finds Diana to be extremely relatable. First, because she’s a princess, so obviously. But also because she really admires the way Diana addresses the world. The other characters think she’s naive and stupid, but she isn’t; she’s brave and strong, but kind too, and knows how to apply both when they’re needed. Charlie finds that inspiring. She wants to be someone who can protect her people with strength when force is needed, but to show unwavering kindness and compassion when it’s needed, too. 

The plot is a little confusing, and Charlie does need help with it though, mostly because she’s unfamiliar with human history and geography.

“So Themyscira isn’t real,” Charlie asks, as the characters head for England. “But England is.”

“That’s right,” Angel Dust agrees. 

“And the fight on the island wouldn’t have happened, but the Germans attacking, that’s real? And this whole war they’re going into, that’s real too?”

“If it wasn’t, sure as fuck can’t imagine what I fought in,” Husk grumbles, taking a drink from his bottle of booze. 

“You fought in it?” Charlie asks, eyes wide.

“Lucky me, right? Got drafted,” Husk admits. “The Great War was a real piece of work. You’ll probably see some of it if they’re heading to the front lines like they said.”

“We don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to!” Charlie offers.

But Husk just snorts and shakes his head. “Nah. Kinda like the idea of some super-powered Amazon chick beating the shit out of the Germans. Looking forward to that part.”

“Alright.” Charlie considers. “Were Amazons real? And Zeus, and all that?”

“I don’t think they were real like this,” Angel Dust says, gesturing to the screen. “Super powers ain’t a thing topside, Toots. And I guess Zeus and all those other gods ain’t real either, cause…” He gestures around them, and presumably, at Hell in general.

“If they are, they’re real good at hiding, ‘cause I’ve never met’em either,” Dad offers. “And I’ve been around a lot longer than any of you. Hell, I think most of those ‘underworld’ gods in other religions are based off me.” 

“Really?” Vaggie gives him an odd look. “Like Hades and all that?”

“Sure,” Dad says with a shrug. “I mean, c’mon. Spooky deity figure gives important lady some fruit and brings her down to the underground death place and marries her. Familiar, much? And the pomegranate?” He points at his apple-tipped cane, leaning against his chair.

“That’s an apple,” Angel Dust points out.

“Yeah, well, it didn’t start being an apple until about the twelfth century,” Dad says absently, waving a hand. “Before that it was a pomegranate or a fig or sometimes grapes depending on where you came from and what you had on hand to grow. Then you humans started doing weird things with your translations of the bible and decided it was an apple. But I liked apples, so I figured, what the Hell. My image now.”

“I didn’t know that, Dad!” Charlie says brightly. “So you gave mom a pomegranate?”

Dad shakes his head. “Nah. The fruit I actually used doesn’t exist anymore. My siblings destroyed it after the whole Eden fiasco. It was called a ███████ but you probably can’t even hear me say it, because it’s literally been pulled out of existence and space-time.”

In fact Charlie can’t, and her dad’s voice goes kind of funny and distorted when he speaks, and no matter how hard she tries she can’t remember even the sounds. Judging from the expressions of her Sinner friends, they hear even less, to judge by their blank-faced, confused expressions.

“...Anyway,” Dad says hastily, “all that to say I’m pretty sure Zeus is just made up, Char-Char, but it’s kind of a neat story they got going here! It’s sort of nice to see humans being creative in a good way, for a change.”

Charlie agrees.

And the movie is fun! They have a grand old time talking about some things in the human world and most of her Sinner friends are able to answer questions if Charlie’s confused about what’s happening. The Great War, it turns out, really was great; most of the countries on Earth participated in one way or another, and a lot of people had died. Probably because they really didn’t have an Amazonian princess to come save them.

The characters have just arrived at a country called Belgium, and the warfront for this region, when Charlie hears the front doors to the hotel open and close.

She glances over briefly. Alastor is back, staff idly tucked against one arm as he steps past the front doors.

“Welcome back, Alastor!” Charlie greets briefly, turning away from the characters—talking in some sort of depressing-looking trench—to wave to him. “Did you have a good night?”

“Well enough, my dear,” Alastor says. “Rosie sends her greetings.”

“Aww, that’s so nice of her! I say hi back,” Charlie says. She gestures to the screen. “We’re still watching movies. Did you want to join us?”

“It’s kind of you to offer, Charlie, but you know how I feel about picture-shows,” Alastor says. “I think I’ll retire to my room to plan for my next radio broadcast.”

“Alright,” Charlie says, as she turns back to the screen. She’d offered to be polite, but she knows by now that Alastor doesn’t really do movies. At best, if he’s feeling unusually sociable, he’ll read a book in the lounge while the rest of them watch TV. “Have a good night if I don’t see you!”

“Thank you, dear.”

Charlie returns to the plot of the movie. She’s missed some things, but Steve is explaining how there’s nothing they can do at this warfront because of something called No Man’s Land, and how the enemy Germans are across the way pointing machine guns at anyone who tries to fight. He says they can’t save everyone. 

Diana says she’s going to anyway, and Charlie squeals in excitement because she gets that. She really gets that desire to save people even when everyone else in the world tells her it’s hopeless. She believes in Diana and she can’t wait to see how she does manage to save people.

“Fuckin’ lucky she’s got powers,” Husk grumbles, as Diana climbs the ladder and steps out into No Man’s Land. “That’d be fuckin’ suicide for a normal person. She’s asking to get shot.”

And she does get shot. A lot, actually. Except she’s able to deflect them with her neat bracers, which seem to function a lot like angelic steel, and she rushes forward unharmed. More of the Germans start shouting, and leveling guns at her and firing, and she blocks more and more shots as the gunfire grows louder and louder. One of the Germans shoves something into what looks like a stout cannon, and it explodes forward and comes down at Diana with a whistling scream, but she takes out her shield and knocks it aside and it explodes next to her. She keeps charging, and—

—the video sizzles with static, and starts skipping violently.

“What the hell?” Angel Dust scowls. “Is the disc busted?”

“No,” Dad says with a scowl, looking over Charlie’s shoulder. “C’mon, bellhop, don’t be an ass. You’re allowed to not like movies, but let the rest of us have our fun!”

Charlie blinks in confusion, and looks back over her shoulder.

Alastor had paused halfway to the stairs, presumably on his way to his room. He does seem to be the source of the glitching in the video, based on the buzz and hum of static surrounding him. 

But something seems… off about this, compared to his usual effects on video. He isn’t even looking in their direction, to start, so he’s not intentionally mocking the film, and he doesn’t seem to be sabotaging it on purpose. He definitely has enough control not to, as long as he’s not being filmed himself. It’s not the first time he’s walked past them on a movie night, and he’s never messed with their films before. 

Beyond that, he’s standing stiffly, frozen mid-step. His fluffy ears are fully upright and twitching constantly, twisting and turning like they’re searching for noise. His eyes are staring straight ahead at a distant step, his staff held loosely in his hand now, not tucked against his shoulder.

But something still seems off, and Charlie can’t quite place what’s wrong, until—

—his shadow. Alastor’s shadow is twitching at his feet, as though agitated. And it’s frowning. 

Charlie is just about to ask in concern if anyone else has ever seen Alastor’s shadow frown, because it smiles exactly like he does, all the time. 

But then Alastor himself breaks the silence. He’s still staring straight ahead, and his ears are still twitching urgently, the left one cocking towards the film with particular regularity. And then his staff slips from his grip and clatters to the carpet as he raises his right hand, almost dreamlike, clutched around something invisible that he raises to his mouth. 

“Wires cut,” he says, and his voice isn’t under a filter at all, and that makes the shaking in it all that much more obvious. “Communications are down! Germans are advancing—I repeat, enemy troops are advancing— shells fired—requesting emergency orders—”

“What?” Vaggie says.

“Fuck,” Husk snarls. “Turn off the—”

And then things go bad fast, almost too fast for Charlie to understand what the Hell even just happened. 

The movie, while glitching and warped, is still playing. Charlie’s not watching it, but the sounds of gunshots and machine gun fire are growing louder. It seems to agitate Alastor’s ears, which are twitching violently now as he raises his own voice over the noise and screams into his invisible—phone?—about Germans and cut wires and emergency orders. 

Husk and Angel Dust both lunge for the remote in a panic and to try and grab it as Alastor grows more rigid. Another whistling scream of a shell shrieks from the TV speakers, followed by the sounds of an explosion, and—

And Alastor’s eyes meld to black, radio dials burning brilliant, violent red, as his yells for emergency aid turn into monstrous, howling shrieks. 

He throws back his head and staggers as his shadow surges up and over his body, and suddenly he’s growing right there in the lobby. To his partial demonic shape—long-limbed, gangly and slim, with six-foot antlers and tendrils of shadow slithering out of his back. And then past that, taller and taller still, one story, two, hurtling for the ceiling with alarming speed. His hands are large enough to crush a person, his claws taller than Charlie herself, his hooves sharp and solid and already beginning to crack the marble flooring of the lobby. His teeth are glowing yellow and more jagged now, his antlers are at least twelve feet long on either side, and the whipcord tentacles emerging from his back are each big enough to strangle or stab with no issues.

Alastor’s full demonic shape is a true terror to behold, and it’s rare he pulls it out to begin with. Mostly he uses it for displays of power outside the hotel, to chase off would-be looters and gangs. 

The important key word being: outside. Because at two stories tall and with an antler-span to match, Alastor absolutely does not fit in the lobby, and he knows that.

“Alastor!” Charlie yelps. “What are you doi—” 

“Hun, look out!” Vaggie roars, tackling her to the side.

Charlie squeaks as Vaggie hits her hard into the ground and uses their momentum to roll them both away from the parlor. Before Charlie can ask what the fuck is going on and what the heck is Vaggie even doing, she gets her answer in the form of one of Alastor’s massive claws smashing down where they had just been. The entire hotel lobby shudders beneath them at the impact, the television crackles and pops with electricity as the gun and explosion sounds come to an abrupt end. The marble cracks, the couches splinter and shred, and dust and splinters burst into the air. 

And over it all Alastor screams, a sound that is part terrible animal bellow and part shrieking, mindless, ear-bleeding feedback.

Charlie coughs as she staggers to her feet, trying to catch her breath in all the dust. Vaggie thumps her on the back with one hand as she hollers, “Everyone alive?”

“We’re good!” Angel Dust chokes back weakly. “Short King got us, thank fuck for those wings’ve yours, man—”

Charlie can’t really see them in the spreading dust and smoke, but she can see enough to know Alastor had absolutely destroyed the parlor with one savagely-placed claw strike. The walls and marble floor are torn apart, the furniture and TV are nothing more than shattered pieces, and something in the wall is sparking dangerously. She hopes it doesn’t catch on fire.

“What the fuck, bellhop?” Dad yells. Wind howls past Charlie, and a moment later the dust is cleared. Dad retracts his wings from where he’d beat away the dust and dirt in the air, and scowls up at Alastor. “If you had a problem with my decorating just fucking say so, you contrary bastard! I don’t—”

Whatever her father doesn’t is lost as Alastor shrieks again, wordless and furious, and whips out with the other set of claws. 

“Dad!” Charlie howls, terrified. She’d known they didn’t like each other, but she never thought it would come to this. 

Thankfully, while Alastor’s demonic form is deadly, her father is fast. By the time the claws crunch into the lobby floor, sending shards of marble flying and crumpling the lower bannister of the main stairway, her father is already up by the ceiling. His three pairs of wings flap in a practiced rhythm as he hovers in the air. His white clothes are a little dirty from the dust and splinters, and he’s lost his crowned hat, but he looks otherwise unharmed.

“Oh, I had a feeling it might come to this someday,” Dad snarls. 

Demonic Alastor takes a moment to actually locate his opponent again, since he’s mostly focused on dragging his claws back over the marble and breaking more of the tiles. He’s breathing heavily, massive jaws parted, like he’s already exhausted after just two swings. Maybe he is. It hasn’t been long since Extermination day, and he’d gotten hurt quite badly against Adam, and taken even longer to let them know about it. He’s barely recovered, and who knew if he had the energy to maintain this form yet?

But Dad flitting past his eyes with a taunting show of feathers definitely catches his attention. Alastor jerks his head away with a screech that’s half animal bellow, half poorly tuned radio, and swipes at Charlie’s father as he goes past. He misses, because Dad is too fast, and laboriously turns his enormous form to try and keep up with the angel zipping around him.

This becomes a problem when, halfway through turning to try and shield his back from his opponent, his antlers catch on the chandelier.

The chandelier in the new hotel is an enormous, ostentatious thing, because Charlie’s dad went a little overboard on the designs. And also possibly because he’d wanted to rub it in Alastor’s face. It has multiple tiers of wide metal circles with strings of crystals dripping from them, and when the lights are on it’s beautiful, casting shimmering sparkles from each facet of each crystal. 

It also means there’s a lot of hanging parts to catch stray limbs. Which wouldn’t normally be a problem, given it’s hung two stories up in the open lobby. Nobody is supposed to get near it. 

But Alastor’s massive twelve-point antlers catch, first in the strings of crystals and then in one of the wide metal frames. He shakes his head to try and dislodge the irritant hooked to him, but that only loops two more of the tiered metal hoops around his antlers, and the ropes of crystals get tangled around the branching tines. 

Alastor pulls. To Charlie’s surprise, the chandelier goes nowhere. Several of the lights flicker alarmingly, and a few crystals are shaken loose and shatter on the floor. But the chandelier doesn’t come loose from the ceiling, and it doesn’t release Alastor’s antlers.

Alastor shrieks. 

Charlie has to cover her ears, because the sound is deafening. The radio feedback pierces at her ears like daggers, and the animal bugle sounds like a tortured scream. Even covering her ears it hurts, and based on the groans and yelps of pain around her, the others feel the same.

But Alastor isn’t done yet. He keeps shrieking, and while he does, he pulls at the chandelier over and over, and still the stupid thing doesn’t budge. The crystals tangle in his antlers and cast sparkling, blinding light everywhere, and somehow, that only seems to startle Alastor even more. He thrashes his head violently, and lashes out with his claws, shattering and snapping anything—walls, stairs, decor—unfortunate enough to be within reach. 

Worse still, he seems to be trying to free his head so he can turn himself and keep an eye on Charlie’s dad, hovering safely behind him out of reach. The destruction and attacks grow more wild and panicked the more tangled and pinned in place he becomes. One of his enormous sets of claws reaches up to try and paw at the chandelier at the same time that he thrashes his head, and he ends up cutting himself in the face with his own claws, narrowly missing his eye.

It’s wrong. 

It’s absolutely wrong for calm, clever, calculating Alastor to be lashing out haphazardly, and the more Charlie realizes it, the more signs she sees of it. His radio-dial eyes are glazed and blank. His heavy jaws are still parted and panting rapidly, and his chest is heaving with exertion. His ears are twitching rapidly, casting around for sound. And his attacks seem much less like coordinated attacks now that she’s watching, and much more like a panicked animal caught in a trap and flailing about blindly. 

It’s not right. He wouldn’t thrash helplessly like this. He would know he could shrink, or turn to shadow, or even just reach up and carefully untangle himself. In fact, now that Charlie realizes, he’s not even using his powers. The shadow tendrils oozing from his back are twitching and spasming, but don’t seem to be doing anything useful at all. 

Something’s wrong with Alastor.

“Dad, don’t!” Charlie yells, as her father’s horns start to slither from his forehead and he draws back, preparing to dive. “Something’s wrong!”

Alastor doesn’t seem to hear her. But his animal howl, and another panicked twist that sends more crystals raining the floor, seems to agree with her anyway.

Her father pulls back out of his dive, allowing his most demonic tributes to slip away again. “I can see something’s wrong, Char-Char!” he yells back to her. “This stupid busboy is destroying my lobby!”

That’s not what Charlie means at all. But before she can try to say anything further, Husk takes to the air as well from where he and the others had been crouched behind an overturned sofa for meager protection. He flutters awkwardly, as close as he can get to Alastor while staying out of immediate tooth range. 

“Boss!” He roars. “Alastor! The war’s over, Al! Ain’t no Germans attacking! It’s safe!”

But Alastor doesn’t seem to understand. He catches sight of something fluttering in his periphery, massive eyes rolling to his left. Unable to turn his head, lashes out sideways with one enormous set of claws. Charlie swears she hears something that’s half a whine underneath the animal shriek and keen of feedback when he moves.

“Shit!” Husk tries to dodge, but he’s not nearly as fast as Lucifer in the air. Alastor manages to clip one of his wings and he takes a mid-air tumble.

“Husk!” Angel Dust yelps.

Thankfully, Dad is able to swoop in and catch him by one arm, before ducking out again and dragging Husk with him. Alastor claws after the two of them when they get too close, but he stops attacking the moment they’re out of his sight. 

“You know what the Hell is going on with him?” Dad asks, as he drops Husk down next to Charlie. He doesn’t set down himself, keeping all three sets of wings extended and ready for defense or distraction, and keeps one eye on the trapped Alastor at all times.

Husk lets Vaggie and Charlie help him to his feet as he gasps, “Shellshock!”

“He’s surprised?” Charlie asks, confused.

But Husk shakes his head. “Shellshock,” he says again, more insistently now. “It happened to soldiers in the Great War. Being on the front lines did things to people, messed with their heads. They’d get confused, twitchy, go blind and deaf and dumb…people said it was cowardice, but it wasn’t. Some of my friends in the trenches had it and they weren’t fucking cowards.” 

“Sounds like PTSD,” Vaggie says, frowning. 

“Think they changed the name at some point,” Husk admits. “Whatever you wanna call it, he ain’t here right now. Not in his head.”

Charlie glances up at Alastor. 

Their hotelier is still tangled in the chandelier, but his panicked thrashing has calmed slightly now that no one is immediately fluttering around him like a threat. Only ‘slightly,’ in that he’s no longer thrashing about in a blind panic trying to hit Lucifer. Instead, he’s pulling relentlessly at the chandelier itself, tugging and jerking with his head in a manner that’s making his multi-jointed neck crack unpleasantly. There’s blood dribbling from his mouth and nose, and from the cuts on his face where he keeps gashing himself while trying to claw at the offending item trapping him. His enormous hooves skitter and slip on the marble as he tries to brace back against them to leverage his pulls.

He won’t stop screeching, but now that Charlie’s listening, she can’t help but make out how sad the noises sound. Whatever’s happening to Alastor, wherever he is in his head, he’s terrified, if the pained wheezing and keening is anything to go by. He hasn’t said a single real word since shouting about Germans and emergency orders. Just screams, animal bellows, and broken radio noises.

“How did this happen?” Charlie asks, horrified. “He’s never done this before!”

“Musta been the movie, Toots,” Angel Dust says, dashing over to their group while Al’s back is turned to them. His lower set of arms have Niffty wrapped up securely. Their housekeeper looks dazed, and is watching Alastor with her wide, unblinking eye. 

“The movie?”

“The noises were pretty real,” Husk says grimly. “That whistling noise—the shells—that’d set people off sometimes. And I know Al fought in the Great War too.”

Alastor shrieks again, tugging with a frenzied panic at the chandelier. The ceiling overhead is starting to crack, and plaster is beginning to rain down alongside the bits of crystal. 

Charlie covers her mouth in horror. “The movie? Movies can do this to people? Then this is my fault…”

“It’s not your fault, Charlie,” Vaggie says immediately. “It’s nobody’s fault. If it’s PTSD, then sometimes certain things just…hit people the wrong way. Noises or smells, things like that. It can be hard to predict.”

“She’s right,” Angel Dust agrees. “Just bad timing that Smiles walked through right at that minute…”

Another alarming crash as Alastor’s massive hooves thump into the marble and send chips flying. He stomps again, trying to pull away by leveraging the strength of his long, spindly legs. The ceiling groans ominously.

“We can talk about faults later,” Dad says. “How do we stop him from freaking out now? Not for nothing, but he is way too big to be panicking in the lobby!”

“I…I don’t know,” Husk says. “On the front lines they’d take shellshocked troops out, give’em a week at a facility to recover, but we can’t do that here. Tried to tell him it’s over but he didn’t hear me—I don’t think he understands where we are.”

“We need a way for him to calm down,” Vaggie says urgently, ducking as a shard of bannister goes flying overhead. “Make him understand where he is. Something that engages the physical senses, like touch, sound—”

“Radio!” Charlie says. “Music! That’ll get through to him, right?”

“If we can reach one,” Angel dust says. “If he hasn’t buried’em all yet.”

“I can do it!” Niffty squirms in his arms. “I’m little! Little like a roach! He can’t see me to smush me! I’ll turn on the music and save him!”

Charlie bites her lip. Niffty isn’t helpless, but Alastor isn’t himself right now. He’s always been fond of Niffty, and he’d be devastated if he’d accidentally killed her in the middle of some kind of trauma response. Even if he would never admit to it.

The ceiling groans again, and Alastor screeches, and with a horrible crack, he finally wins his tug of war with the chandelier. The piece finally tears free from the ceiling, along with a not insignificant chunk of the ceiling itself, which crashes down on and around Alastor and sends up another wave of dust and plaster.

“Shit!” Dad drops out of the air and hastily grabs at Charlie, dragging her and Vaggie close while mantling his six wings around the whole group of them. The wave of dust rolls past, and Charlie and the others cough and gag, but they’re shielded from the worst of the broken bits of ceiling and shrapnel thanks to a little angelic power.

“Everyone okay?” Vaggie asks.

“Had better days, but we’re alive,” Angel Dust says. “Thanks again, Short King.”

“Uh-huh,” Dad says distractedly, lowering his wings and turning to watch the danger again.

“Oh, Alastor,” Charlie says helplessly, the moment Dad isn’t blocking him anymore.

Alastor isn’t chained in place by chandelier anymore, but that hasn’t helped his distress any. His monstrous form keens in raw panic and scratches frantically at his head and face, trying to free himself from the metal loops and crystal threads still hooked onto and over his antlers. His whole head sags awkwardly to the left from the weight of the light fixture, forcing him to crouch awkwardly like a spider in the middle of the lobby. 

He shakes his head this way and that, smashes it against the destroyed walls and stairwells and screeches loudly, but he isn’t able to free himself from the restraints. His head and shoulders are covered in dust and debris from the ceiling, and his hair and left shoulder are matted in blood, possibly from something hitting him when it fell. The crystals reflect light into his eyes with bright flashes, and that only seems to alarm him further each time he tries to flinch away from them.

If what Husk said is true, Alastor doesn’t understand he’s in the middle of the hotel lobby and that it’s just a chandelier hooked over his antlers. He might think he’s still alive and still human, that he’s in the middle of a war like the one in the movie. Maybe he thinks they’re under attack, or that he’s tangled or trapped in netting, or that he’s being captured. That the pretty flashes of light from the crystals are terrifying flashes of fire from gun muzzles and explosions.

Whatever it is, it’s clearly causing him distress, because he hasn’t stopped screaming or fighting for his life. He’s hurting himself without even realizing it, and he’s putting the rest of them in danger too. 

They can’t let this keep happening. They have to calm him down. 

They have to find a way to get through to him.

Chapter Text

Alastor shrieks in the middle of the lobby, clawing at his face and the chandelier-as-restraints hooked over his antlers, unaware of where or when he is. 

Somehow, some way, Charlie and her friends have got to find a way to change that. No matter how tall or terrifying he is.

“Okay…okay, radio plan. Anyone see one still up?” Charlie asks. “Preferably one that Niffty can reach?” 

Alastor filled the hotel with radios when he was in charge of maintaining the old one. The new one had been mostly her father’s design, but Alastor had seen fit to put unique radio pieces—sometimes more than one—in nearly every room in the building anyway. At the time, it seemed to be just to annoy her father. Now Charlie’s grateful for it.

Sure enough, after a moment of scanning the room, Husk points. “There’s one,” he says, gesturing to a cathedral radio near the entrance to the kitchen that had gone shockingly unscathed.

“One there too!” Angel Dust adds, pointing to the decorative entrance table by the door.

“We’ll try both,” Charlie decides. “Niffty—get the one by the kitchen. Angel Dust, the front door. Dad—can you keep Al distracted? But don’t hurt him, please! He’s not himself and he’s already hurt and scared.” 

If anyone could survive against that monstrosity for long, it was her father.

Her dad grimaces, but his wings fan out again as he leaps into the air. “I’ll try, Char-Char, but if he keeps this up too much longer he’s gonna start bringing the building down on us or get somebody killed. I’m gonna have to hurt him if it comes to that.”

“Just—try to buy us time. Please,” Charlie begs. Her dad nods and zips off towards Alastor. 

Charlie counts out a ten second head start, then gestures to both Niffty and Angel Dust. “Radios! Go!” 

They both nod, and Angel Dust sets Niffty down before bolting for the further radio, his long legs eating up the distance. Niffty has the shorter but more dangerous path, closer to Alastor, but she scurries surprisingly well around piles of destruction and makes herself difficult to spot. 

It also helps that Alastor isn’t looking in the direction of either of them, because he’s focused on Lucifer.

Well. Sort of, anyway. Her dad deliberately flutters in front of Alastor’s enormous, lamp-like eyes and then darts away, fast enough to not get attacked, slow enough to still be tracked. And it certainly does catch Alastor’s attention, because Al’s giant eyes track in Lucifer’s general direction, at least.

But he’s not really seeing Charlie’s dad, and Charlie figures that out the frightening way when her father dives down close again and swoops away. Dad seems to be trying to bait an attack again, but this time in his direction, to keep Alastor occupied. 

But whatever terrible nightmare Alastor’s mind is trapped in doesn’t see an angel, because he screams, an ear-bleeding mix of high-pitched feedback and animal wailing, and flinches away. His enormous hands come up to cover the sides of his head, long, sharp claws digging into his skull. As he ducks his head down Charlie recognizes the motion of somebody trying to cover their ears. Alastor doesn’t remember he doesn’t have human ears anymore, but his claws are doing an unfortunately excellent job of shredding his animal ones. 

The people in the movie did that when one of the bombs—shells?—came down. Her father is glowing like fire as he uses his angelic power to maintain his speed. 

Shit. 

“I’m sorry, Alastor!” Charlie calls to him helplessly, as she and Vaggie and Husk wait uselessly out of clawing range. “Just a little bit more, I’m so sorry, we’re trying to help! It’s okay, everything is going to be okay!”

“Got it, Toots!” Angel Dust yells from the foyer. “Just gotta turn this fuckin’ thing on—”

Charlie risks sparing him a glance. Angel Dust is fiddling with the tuning knobs and volume on the front of the radio with one set of hands, and lifting it to carry it back with the other. But even as he rushes back, he frowns. 

“What the fuck is with this thing? Where’s the music? There’s gotta be a station playing something, why’s it all—”

The radio in his hands shrieks to life, bursting from static to familiar sounds that Charlie had just been listening to in the movie. Gunfire, screams, machine guns, the whistle of those shells, explosions. Only, it’s not the exact same sounds as the specific movie, and the music from the film isn’t playing. This isn’t the film continuing. 

Husk breathes in sharply. “Oh, fuck—” 

“Change the station!” Vaggie yells, rushing forward to meet Angel Dust halfway.

“I’m trying!” Angel Dust yelps back in a panic. And indeed, the tuning knob is being spun back and forth every which way, clicking through half a dozen frequencies. It doesn’t seem to matter. Every single one is playing war.

“No music!” Niffty yells from the door near the kitchen. She’s crawled up onto the shelf unit and is scrabbling wildly at her own radio, clicking through the stations. But that one, too, is only playing the sounds of war, and even as Charlie listens, it gets louder and louder. Too loud for that one little unit to play so far away. 

The one in Angel Dust’s hands is getting louder too. “I don’t understand!” Angel says, frantic. “I just turned the volume off!” 

“He’s doing something,” Husk says, a little breathless now. The war sounds are getting worse—screams of pain, cries for help, gunshots, explosions, the whistle of incoming shells that Charlie is rapidly coming to understand is a precursor to death. After a moment, Husk reaches up to his own ears, folding them down with his claws. “Shit. Shit. This is too real.”

Niffty, with both sense and sheer insanity, hauls up the radio unit she’s manning and hurls it to the ground. It shatters, scattering parts across the floor. Deliberately breaking a radio around Alastor would be a death sentence in nearly any situation, but he doesn’t even notice. 

Neither do the noises. Despite its broken parts, the radio Niffty had smashed continues to shriek with gunfire, shells, and soldiers screaming in pain and begging for their mothers and for mercy.

And as if it’s a signal, every single other thing with a speaker joins in. Charlie yelps as her own phone starts playing the same sounds, her pocket emitting the rapport of gunfire and the shrill whistles of incoming shells. Husk’s, Vaggie’s, and Angel’s phones start to do the same. The P.A. system her father had installed for hotel-wide messages blasts sounds of war, and so do the destroyed speakers of the broken television. 

“What the hell is happening?” Dad calls to them, hovering near Alastor. “Why is my phone making weird noises?”

Charlie doesn’t have the chance to answer. Alastor, monstrous and terrifying and terrif ied, crouched in the middle of the lobby with his hands over his head like he’s expecting to be bombed, starts to keen. It’s an anguished, agonized, high-pitched noise, and the more he screeches, the louder the sounds of war surrounding them grow. Charlie’s in the Hazbin Hotel lobby, but smashed and dusty and broken as it is, it's not hard to imagine she’s hiding in a bombed out building either, and it’s scary. 

And if it’s scary for her she can only imagine how it is for Alastor.

Alastor throws his head back, panting harshly, eyes wide and unseeing. He screams again, a noise that goes on unendingly, he doesn’t seem to need to breathe, and he’s in pain and frightened and trapped and—

—and Charlie realizes she can hear more than just noises now. There’s voices. Conversations. People. 

“—Oh God, Oh God, Oh God—”

“—Please, please!—”

“—Mother—mother it hurts —”

“—Attacking!”

“Why didn’t Command warn us?”

“Lines must have been cut! Communications are down!”

“—Our Father Who Art In Heaven Hallowed Be Thy—”

“—Need to get a message out—”

“Who the Hell’s on the radio?”

“Dead, sir! Sniper!”

“Shit, shit, SHIT!”

“—Will Be Done on Earth as it is in Heaven—”

“We need that message out NOW!”

“No one’s trained—”

“Find me someone who knows even one damned thing about a radio!”

“Sir! I know a thing or two—”

“Go!”

“—Please, please, I don’t want to die like this, I’m not dying here—I have to get back to Mama—”

Charlie isn’t sure if she wants to throw up or sob when she recognizes at least one of those voices in that broken conversation, and understands what she’s hearing. 

It’s a memory. Alastor isn’t in his own head anymore. He’s projected it out with his own powers without even realizing it.

“Fuck me, is he crying?” Angel Dust says, sounding horrified.

Charlie looks up, and—and Angel isn’t wrong. Alastor is still screaming without breath, head still thrown back, but there are tears leaking from his eyes now and trailing through the blood on his face. He’s fighting for his life in his own mind, and outside of it, and Charlie can’t help the sympathetic tears that form in her own eyes at the sight.

“Charlie!” Vaggie says urgently.

Charlie whirls. Husk definitely isn’t looking so great either now. He’s got his ears folded down over his head and his claws clamped over them, trying to block out the noise, but he’s panting harshly and looks a bit dazed. 

“W-worse than the movie,” he stammers. “S’like being there again…I…”

“Angel, get him outside,” Charlie says immediately. “Get away from the noise, it might help—”

“On, it, Toots,” Angel Dust says. He looks shaken, but sets down the useless radio still screaming war sounds and hooks his arms around Husk’s shoulders. “I gotcha, Whiskers, I won’t steer ya wrong,” he promises, as he guides Husk towards the front door as fast as possible. “C’mon, just listen to me instead of the war noises, that’s it—hey, let me tell ya about work yesterday, bet that never came up in the ‘teens—”

Charlie is confident that Angel can take care of Husk from there. There’s nothing they can do with the radios, so she gestures across the room for Niffty to come back as safely as possible, and turns her attention back to Alastor. “What do we do?” she asks Vaggie helplessly. “He can’t hear us—we can’t play him any music because he’s taking over everything that makes sound!”

“I—I don’t know,” Vaggie admits. “I know some things about PTSD—we had training for it in Heaven, but…everything I know is for someone our size. He’s too big and too dangerous, we can’t get close enough to make anything work.” 

Charlie watches her father flutter behind Alastor, trying to stay out of sight while he’s staring at the ceiling and screaming. Alastor is hurting so bad and she doesn’t know what to do. “Forget his size for a minute, what would you do if this was happening and he was just—his normal size?”

“He’s not in his head,” Vaggie says immediately. “Need to bring him back, remind him where he is. He’s not on a warfront, he’s in a hotel in Hell and he’s dead. Talking to him would be the first trick, trying to remind him where he is. Sometimes engaging the senses too—getting him to feel things, smell things, or hear things that wouldn’t be in the middle of a trench might jog him out of it. There’s things you can do to guide them through recognizing it.” She shakes her head. “But he has to hear us to do it, and he has to not kill us. And that last part would be hard enough even if he was his usual size.”

She isn’t wrong. Even if Alastor had a panicked fit in his usual form, even if he couldn’t use his powers effectively, he’s still very dangerous. Restraining him and keeping him from hurting himself long enough to talk him through it would be hard enough. At this size…

“Can your dad do something to help? Restrain him, or knock him out, or something?” Vaggie asks.

Charlie bites her lip. “I don’t think he can do it without really hurting Al,” she admits. “He’s an angel. Even pulling his punches, he’s sort of made to hurt Sinners.”

Vaggie winces. 

Charlie immediately feels sorry. “I didn’t mean it like that! I just—”

“I get it. It’s okay. Talk later, once Al’s not freaking out, okay?” Vaggie pats her on the shoulder, before looking back to Alastor. “There’s got to be some way we can get him to hear us,” she mutters. “He’s only working himself up worse after taking over everything that makes noise—I don’t think he can work his way out of this himself.”

But Alastor is still screeching, head thrown back, tears running over his thin cheeks and down his jagged teeth. And based on the way the radios and speakers and phones are only getting louder and the sounds of war are coming closer, becoming more real by the second—

Charlie’s not sure any amount of screaming, even directly in his ear, would help.

She looks around desperately for something that they could use. Maybe something to distract Alastor, or barring that, something they could use to at least restrain him so he’ll stop clawing at his face. He doesn’t seem to know he’s hurting himself. 

But by now, Alastor has effectively gutted most of the lobby. The staircase is a tattered mess, a few stairs hanging brokenly from the second floor, the rest a pile of rubble. Any furniture, ceiling, floor, anything within Alastor’s range is a shredded, cracked, or crumbled mess. It’s useful for Niffty, sneaking her way back across the wide lobby and broken parlor, but not useful for helping Alastor. The chandelier is too tangled in his antlers to help with restraining his arms, and it’s distressing him too much anyway. There’s nothing left to work with, just piles of scraps and plaster and shattered crystals and—

—red.

Discarded on the floor, half buried under a pile of remnants of the ceiling. It’s more pink than red now by this point, with the plaster dust, but the red metallic shell of Alastor’s staff is unmistakable, abandoned near one of Alastor’s hooves. It’s a miracle he hasn’t stepped on it yet. 

His staff is a microphone. He’d even let her use it before, twice, to rally the troops and make herself heard. And strangely, unlike the other radios and speakers, it doesn’t seem to be screaming war sounds. In fact, it’s been so uncharacteristically silent that Charlie isn’t surprised she’d missed noticing it before now.

“Vaggie! Look!” she says, pointing at the discarded microphone.

Vaggie frowns. “Alastor’s staff?”

“He never just abandons it like that,” Charlie says. “Even when he gets this big normally, he keeps it tucked between his fingers. And it’s not making noise! Maybe I could use that to get him to hear me?”

“Would it even work?” Vaggie asks. “It’s his magic, isn’t it? What if it doesn’t turn on?”

“I won’t know until I try,” Charlie says. “I’m going to go get it.” She bolts forward.

“Charlie, wait!” 

But Charlie doesn’t stop. She runs for the staff, staggering over rubble and slipping on dust and wishing she had different shoes than her heels, but she doesn’t stop. She keeps her eyes focused on the goal—just a few more feet, almost there—

“Charlie! Look out!” 

Charlie looks up, and finds a pair of enormous, lamp-like black-and-red eyes staring right down at her.

They’re not really seeing her. Alastor’s gaze is still distant, and whatever he’s seeing, it isn’t Charlie Morningstar. But he does see the movement, and he clearly tracks it as a threat, because his enormous hand and his terrifyingly long claws raise and start coming down for her.

Despite herself, she screams.

“Charlie!” Dad howls, and in a moment he’s there, between her and Alastor. His wings flare wide, all six of them, and he bursts with a blindingly bright light directly in Alastor’s face.

Alastor screams and reels back, and his ear-bleeding static screech is full of raw terror and pain. The hand coming down for Charlie retracts as he tries to use it to cover his face and head, and narrowly misses gouging his own eyes out with his claws. The force of his frantic recoil and the slippery, pitted marble is enough to send him crashing sideways. 

He takes out a wall as he collapses onto his side, and based on the way his hooves scrabble at the floor, he’s having a hard time trying to find enough purchase to right himself. His arms wrap around his face to shield it, and his eyes blink frantically. They’re smoking a little, and he’s clearly blind to them now in more than one way.

Sinners weren’t meant to look upon angels in their full guise, after all.

“How dare you threaten my little girl,” Dad snarls, and his horns and tail are starting to slip free again as he flares his wings wide once more. He raises his hands as he zips forward again, snarling, a golden light building in his claws like flame—

“Dad, stop!” Charlie yells, and thankfully, he does. “He didn’t know it was me, he wasn’t trying to hurt me! He’s scared, look at him! Listen!”

Dad grits his teeth, but his snarl retreats when he really looks at Alastor. Al’s not attacking, or even trying to get up anymore. He’s curled tight, doing his best to shield his head, claws digging into his fluffy ears. His eyes are wide and unseeing, blinking rapidly, still smoking from even the tiniest exposure to radiant light. His jaws are wide, panting harshly, and there’s a plaintive, keening wail of fear coming from somewhere deep in his throat. All around them, the sounds of war are growing louder, closer, and thunderous explosions had sounded and kept up from almost the moment Dad had blinded him. 

“Shit,” Dad curses, but he falls back, hovering over her. “I’m sorry, Char-Char, I just—I didn’t mean to hurt him, but you—I couldn’t let—”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Charlie says. “Let’s just try to help him, okay?”

“Here,” Vaggie says, appearing at her side. She holds out the staff. “Don’t scare me like that again, you should’ve just asked and I would’ve helped you get it.”

“You pulled that stunt for this thing?” her dad asks, incredulous. “The bellhop’s walking stick?”

“It’s a microphone,” Charlie says. “And I’m hoping he can hear us with this.”

She takes the staff from Vaggie. It’s surprisingly warm and oddly light. There’s a hairline crack under her fingertips that hadn’t been there the last time Alastor let her hold it, and it looks like it must have snapped in half at some point and been painstakingly repaired. 

But she has it. She takes a deep breath, raises it to her mouth, and calls, “Alastor! Alastor, everything is okay! It’s safe!”

But her voice stays distressingly quiet, and doesn’t rise over the noise of war surrounding them, or Alastor’s pained keens and feedback-filled shrieks. 

“No,” Charlie says, holding the staff up to her face in a panic. “No, no, no, no! Please, please, you have to work!” 

She looks at it urgently, running her fingers over the mic, the shell, the base, the handle, searching for some kind of switch or something to turn it on. But there isn’t anything, because of course there isn’t. It’s not a traditional microphone—it’s a part of Alastor’s power, and it turns on when he wants it to.

He isn’t here enough to want it to.

“Please,” she begs, tearing up. She taps the mic in desperation, testing, but there’s no noise from the contact. “Please turn on. Please, I’m trying to help Alastor—I’m trying to help you—I don’t know who I’m talking to but please, I’m just trying to help and this might be the only chance, I need him—you—I need Alastor to hear me!” 

Alastor’s screaming continues. More thunderous explosions sound all around them. It’s so loud now that she can feel the sounds reverberating in her chest, like it’s real. It feels real, and to Alastor it is real, and he doesn’t hear her.

But shockingly, something does.

In her hands, the microphone crackles weakly. A single red eye opens in the base below the mic itself, and its hair-thin pupil rotates to look at her. 

“What in the unholy Hell is that?” Dad asks incredulously. “That thing has a real eye? I thought it was just decoration!”

Both Charlie and the eye ignore him. The eye continues to stare at her, and to Charlie’s cautious relief, it seems to be actually seeing her, not whatever is going on in Alastor’s mind. After a moment, the microphone buzzes, and says with a voice that isn’t quite Alastor’s and sounds faded and broken, like the signal is too far away, “Are you…here to stop the screaming?”

Charlie isn’t sure if this is a trick question or not. Alastor tends to enjoy screaming as a general rule, especially on his broadcasts. For all she knows, this is some sort of bizarre passcode in case Alastor’s staff falls into the wrong hands. 

But Alastor is actively screaming at that moment, and so are the voices of the soldiers in his head through the speakers all around them, and it hurts Charlie’s heart to listen to it. So she says, “Yes! Please, I just need him to hear me, and I’ll make the screaming stop!”

She doesn’t know if the microphone understands. She doesn’t know what this staff is really—is it Alastor? A sentient extension? A tool? She doesn’t even know who or what she’s talking to. 

But after a moment, the eye blinks. And when it opens again, it’s gleaming a brilliant red—the same burning red as Alastor’s own eyes in the distance. The buzz and hum from it increases, and Charlie knows suddenly, with absolute certainty, that it’s going to help.

“Thank you,” she says, and raising it to her mouth, stepping forward, she calls, “Alastor!”

Alastor twitches. His poor ears, torn from his claws and matted with blood, flick up as his name reverberates through the room, magically enhanced.

He can hear her. 

Charlie wants to cry with relief, but Alastor needs her to be strong right now and help him, because he can’t help himself. So she takes a deep breath and keeps walking towards him and says into the microphone, “Alastor, it’s me. It’s Charlie. I’m here, and I’m going to help you. I promise, everything is okay, and everything is safe. You’re not in danger. There’s no danger. Do you understand?”

Charlie watches as Alastor’s ears twitch again, and then again. Slowly, he stops keening, and the arms shielding his head pull away. His hands dig into the cracked marble as he braces himself and turns his head. His dial-eyes are like red spotlights as they sweep over her, past her, unseeing. He’s still blind, both trapped in his own mind and with radiant burns over his eyes. 

But he recognizes her, on some level. He’s looking for her. She can tell.

“It’s all okay, Alastor,” Charlie continues, keeping her voice reassuring and calm. “Everything’s okay. I know you probably can’t see me but you can listen to my voice. Everything is safe, I promise.”

Alastor’s ears twitch, and he seems to figure out approximately where she is based on sound alone. Or maybe he can sense his microphone, Charlie isn’t sure. But his enormous eyes are staring vaguely in her direction now. 

Except he doesn’t seem calmer. He’s still panting harshly, even if he isn’t screaming anymore, huffing rank, rotting-smelling breaths in Charlie’s direction. His whole body is trembling, and his eyes are still glancing away from her general direction, as if keeping an eye on things around her.

Without warning, the dials in his eyes click, the pointers turning as though tuning to a new station. The sounds of war still surround them now, but the noises are rebalanced. The explosions, whistles of incoming shells, gunfire—all of it is still there. But the voices take precedence now, made louder, more obvious.

“Run! Run!” 

“—incoming—RETREAT!” 

“—don’t want to die here—”

“—get out of here—”

“Run if you want to live!” 

Charlie breathes in sharply. Behind her, Vaggie gasps, “Is he—”

Alastor’s claws flash past Charlie with unexpected speed. She feels the wind of them by inches, and stands perfectly still, heart hammering. 

But he’s not attacking her, and Charlie’s confident about that. His claws slam to the ground behind her, over nothing at all, digging savagely into enemies aimed at her that nobody but Alastor can see. He shrieks again, but his wail is accompanied by a dozen memory-screams to run.

Charlie knows the warning to her for what it is.

“Alastor, it’s okay!” Charlie says. “It’s okay, it’s okay—I’m not in danger. We’re not there at all. We’re not in a warzone. There’s no trenches. We’re both safe. We’re at the Hazbin Hotel, and you’re my hotelier, and we’re in the lobby right now. We’re nice and safe. There’s no war. Everything is okay. I promise, everything is okay, and everything is going to be okay.”

Alastor keens, and so do the voices in the radios, warning her to flee, begging to not die. He’s so confused, and it hurts Charlie so bad to see it. She doesn’t understand why he’d think she was there in a human war over a hundred years ago, but she figures it’s like dreams where things that don’t make sense at all make perfect sense when asleep. 

Still, he can hear her. On some level, he knows she’s here with him. And if she can reach him, that’s all she needs. 

She glances back over her shoulder. Vaggie, Niffty and her father are further back, watching intently. Vaggie has both arms around one of her father’s to hold him in place, and her father looks like he desperately wants to intervene. Niffty is wrapped around one of his ankles, doing her best to help. He’d probably been scared to death when Alastor attacked nothing, just now.

Well, he’s not going to be happy, but she has to get closer still. “Don’t attack,” she warns, “and trust me.” 

“ Charlie —”

“I’ve got your dad. Just…just be careful,” Vaggie says, giving her a worried look. Niffty offers a wave and a thumbs up from her place wrapped around her dad’s ankle.

Charlie nods, and turns back to the monstrous form of her hotelier before her.

“Alastor,” she says into his staff, “Everything is okay. I promise, everything is okay. You’re safe. I’m safe. Nobody is being hurt. I promise.” 

She takes slow, cautious steps forward now. She’s already inside his range, because one long, spindly arm is still outstretched past her, but she needs to get closer still. She has to be careful though; he’s blind, and frightened, and still doesn’t understand what’s happening.

She starts with his arm, walking over to it and patting it gently as she talks to him, repeating over and over again that he’s safe. Her touch is minuscule compared to his enormous size, like the touch of an insect, but he still flinches and pulls his arm closer to his side again anyway. Fortunately, his claws miss her.

“That’s okay,” Charlie says. “I forgot, you don’t like people touching you without permission. I’m sorry. I’ll just talk to you, how does that sound? I just need you to come back, Alastor. Come back to the Hazbin Hotel. It’s safe here and there’s no danger and you’re okay and I’m okay. Come on, Alastor, don’t listen to those other noises, listen to me.” 

Alastor’s monstrous form is trembling, again, both arms folded close to his chest. But his ears are twitching violently, and his eyes, although unable to focus on her, do seem to be following the sound of her voice. The war sounds continue, but his ears strain towards her, and he isn’t trying to protect his head from shells and gunshots anymore.

She takes that as a good sign, and since he’s listening, really listening now, she decides to try singing.

Part of her is tempted to sing something directly to Alastor, to use music to tell him she’s here for him and he’s safe, but she’s not sure he could really take in the message right now. More important is that music isn’t war, and she has to remind him where he is. So she picks simple things—the lullabies Dad used to sing to her when she was a child, or the simple songs she was taught when first learning to speak. Things that are calm, but too jarring to be in a warzone; things that will break Alastor out of his own head.

At first, she’s not sure it’s working. Alastor’s ears follow her, and his blind eyes try to, but although he’s not keening the radios and speakers and phones are still screaming to run. Alastor’s trying to communicate with her as best as he can, wherever he is in his own mind, and he’s trying very hard to get her off the battlefield.

She refuses to go, and she keeps singing, steadily making her way closer to his looming face. And after a while, the war sounds get a little quieter. Still there, still booming and whistling and screaming all around them, but softer. A little staticky, like they’re out of focus.

“You’re doing so good, Alastor,” Charlie encourages, in between songs. “Still with me? We’re still safe and sound in the hotel. I know, let’s try a song you know, how’s that sound?”

She breaks into a new song. This time it’s not one of her old lullabies or language-learning songs. It’s one of the songs she’s heard on Alastor’s radio programs before, a crooning female vocalist with a backdrop of jazzy tunes. She’d thought the song was pretty and asked him about it months ago, and he’d gladly given her the artist and title. 

She sings it now, thankful she’d added it to her playlist and listened enough to know the words. Alastor’s ears prick up as the vocals begin, and he definitely seems to recognize the tune. And halfway through the song, something amazing happens: the radios start to accompany her, tentatively playing the musical backdrop to the song. Not well, and it’s fighting for dominance with the war sounds, like when one tries to switch stations and they overlap each other. Staticky piano notes are interrupted by gunfire, and the whistle of a shell fails to explode when it’s cut off by the sound of horns. 

It’s messy. But Alastor’s trying. He’s fighting to come back. 

The song ends, and Charlie is close enough now that she’s under the shadows of his antlers. That puts her very close to Alastor’s enormous jaws and his person-sized jagged teeth, which is a very dangerous place to be. If he panics, he can swallow her in less than a second with one snap of his mouth. 

Based on the distant cursing behind her, Charlie has a feeling her dad has also caught on to this little fact. Thank goodness Vaggie is dealing with him, because she definitely couldn’t deal with both him and Alastor right now.

“How are you feeling right now, Alastor?” Charlie asks, making it very clear where she is, because the last thing she wants to do is startle Alastor at this point. His ears flick towards her, and his eyes try to. This close, she can see the nasty burn scars where radiant burst of light had scoured his pupils, leaving scratches in the dial shapes that had to hurt. She croons in sympathy. “That looks awful, Al! I’m so sorry, we didn’t mean to hurt your eyes. We’ll get it fixed up as soon as you’re feeling like yourself again, I promise.”

Alastor doesn’t answer or respond in any way. He’s still panting and trembling, and this close Charlie can feel the way the ground shivers because of him, and the rank breath he exhales over her is awful. 

She tries to ignore the stink of rotten flesh and inches closer. “I’m going to touch your hand, okay?” she says into the microphone. “I’d like to hold your hand for the next song, if you don’t mind. Just to remind you that I’m here, and you’re here with me, and we’re both safe and not in danger. We’re at the Hazbin Hotel. Here I am—see?”

His arm, the same one from earlier, is curled loosely next to where he is in turn curled up awkwardly on the floor. His hand is on its side, and comes up nearly to Charlie’s chest; his wicked claws are longer than she is tall. 

But she cautiously, gently, sets her hand on the topmost knuckle. Alastor twitches a little, and his claws scrape and screech against marble from even that slight movement. But he’s slightly more coherent this time, and he doesn’t pull away, or attempt to eat her. 

“Not so bad, right?” Charlie says. “We’re here nice and safe and everything is okay.” She carefully, gently, strokes down his knuckle to the base of his thumb, and then does it again, and again, soft harmless reminders that she’s here and this is real, not wherever he is. “Thanks for letting me hold your hand. See, this is real, and I’m really here, and we’re nice and safe in the Hazbin Hotel. Okay, how about another song then? Let’s see, what’s another one you know?”

She tries another song she’s heard on his radio show. She doesn’t know all the words to this one, but she recognizes the tune well enough, and she can hum along where she doesn’t know the words. She strokes Alastor’s hand in time to the music, a tactile reminder of what’s real and what senses he can trust. 

This time, when the radios and speakers and phones accompany her, the music is stronger, and it lasts longer than the war sounds. 

By the time it’s over, Charlie’s throat is starting to feel dry, and she’s thirsty, and really wishes she had a drink. The stench of Al’s breath makes her want to cough, and her heart is pounding from those enormous, terrifying teeth looming over her. 

But she doesn’t move. She strokes Alastor’s enormous hand and sings yet another song to him from his collection of radio tunes, and this time the war sounds are being crowded out almost entirely by the music. Charlie’s phone stops thundering with war and screams halfway through, falling silent as Alastor loses whatever grip he had over it. His trembling is weakening, and his harsh breathing is growing a little less so.

“You’re doing so good, Alastor,” Charlie says again, when that song is over as well. “You’re doing so good. Come back, Al. Everything is safe. Come back to us.”

Alastor hasn’t moved in a while now, staring at the floor in approximately her general direction. But he suddenly shudders, and his jaws open wide, and for one terrible moment Charlie thinks, oh shit, this is it, he’s going to eat me—

—and instead his warped, staticky voice rasps, exhausted and painful sounding, “Char…lie?”

Chapter Text

Charlie wants to cry. She hasn’t been so glad to hear her own name in a long time. 

“Here, I’m right here, Alastor!” she says through his microphone, and she pats him on the hand again at the base of his enormous thumb.

He blinks and shakes his head in confusion—his antlers thump against parts of the wall that haven’t been crushed yet, and the chandelier stuck to the left one rattles, narrowly missing snapping Charlie in the face with its trails of stringed crystals. He blinks again, and again, and claws at his face with the hand she isn’t holding. 

“Oh, don’t!” Charlie cries out. “Don’t, Al, don’t hurt yourself, you keep cutting yourself that way. It’s okay. It’s okay, please don’t hurt yourself.”

“Where,” he rasps. His voice is carried through radio more than his own throat, but it still sounds hoarse from screaming, torn and ragged. At least he drops his hand away from his face. “Can’t…s-see…s’too bright…everything’s too…bright…” 

He sounds like he’s starting to panic again. Charlie feels so helpless, but she wraps both arms around his massive thumb in the best hug she can give him, given their size difference. She angles the mic enough to still pick up her voice while she speaks. “I’m right here, Al, can you feel me? At your hand. I’m right here, and I’ll stay with you the whole time, I promise.”

Alastor’s enormous thumb twitches, as though testing her weight. Although even now he sports a wide, toothy smile, his burned eyes are frowning over it. His huge head turns, antlers and chandelier jingling, lamp-like eyes pointing in her direction, and blink rapidly. Obviously, it doesn’t help his condition, and a low noise of feedback starts to sound from the radios. It gets louder as the seconds pass. 

Charlie recognizes the noise of panic, even if she’s never heard it in radio form before.

“C-can’t…see…you,” Alastor rasps. “Why…small? Why…bright?” 

“It’s okay! It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay,” Charlie says urgently, squeezing his thumb tighter. “I’m not small, you’re really big. You can’t see because you got hurt, but it’s okay, we’ll fix that.” She doesn’t think now is the time to mention that her dad had blinded Alastor with radiance. 

Alastor makes a pained noise. “Blinded…shells…”

“No, no, no! No shells. No war. There’s no war, Alastor, we’re in the Hazbin Hotel. Remember the hotel? You help me run it?”

Alastor makes a humming noise that she can only assume is acknowledgement.

“We’re in the hotel. We’ve been in the hotel the whole time. See, you can feel me right here.” She squeezes his thumb again, and pats it with her hand for good measure. “And you can hear me too, see? And breathe in deep—you can smell the wood and plaster. Feel below your hand—you can feel the marble floor. All the hotel, see? Not war.”

“Hotel,” Alastor mutters under his breath, which, given his size, is still loud enough to pass for a shout. But he does as bid, taking a deep breath in through his nose, running the claws of his free hand over the floor. He frowns, as much as he’s able. “Broken…?” 

“It got a little broken. But that’s okay, we can fix it,” Charlie promises. “It was just an accident, it wasn’t attacked. We’re nice and safe here.”

Alastor hums again, seemingly mulling this over. It seems to be taking him a while to process things, but at least he’s responding. That’s better than ten minutes ago.

“Charlie!”

Charlie turns around as Vaggie hisses her name. Both Vaggie, Niffty, and her father are still waiting at a distance, but Vaggie gestures urgently now, indicating she wants to come forward. 

Right. Vaggie knows how to help Alastor, but they need his microphone to help him listen. “Alastor,” Charlie says, speaking into the staff, “Vaggie’s here too, okay? She’s going to come over and help us. She’s not a danger, okay? She’s not going to hurt you or me, so you don’t have to protect us. Okay? Can she come over?” 

Alastor seems to be struggling to process this one. But Charlie squeezes his thumb reassuringly, and says again, “I’m going to stay right here, okay? Please don’t move your hand, I don’t want you to send me flying, alright?”

This seems an easier request. Alastor hums in agreement, and his fingers even stretch, which moves his enormous claws away from her. 

“Thanks, Al,” Charlie says, patting his thumb again. She gestures for Vaggie to come forward. 

Vaggie does so, but thankfully, she’s smart about it. She doesn’t use her wings, mindful of the way Dad’s flight earlier had spooked Alastor. She walks over slowly, and although Alastor’s massive ears flick in her direction, and he seems to be able to tell somebody is there, he doesn’t attack. The muscles of his hand tremor a little under Charlie’s touch, like he’s thinking about it, but she strokes along the side of his hand again from knuckle to thumb and back, and that seems to remind him enough to not take action.

Charlie gestures for Vaggie to come close enough to speak into the mic. Vaggie eyes Alastor’s enormous, person-sized teeth and person-swallowing jaws looming over them with something close to dread. But Vaggie isn’t a coward, and Charlie’s so proud of her when she comes over anyway, and talks into the microphone.

“Hey. Alastor. Can you hear me?”

Alastor flinches for a moment at the new voice, enough to nearly dislodge Charlie from his hand. His jaws open enough to gasp out a hot, stinking, fleshy breath, and Vaggie coughs and turns her head away with a hiss of Spanish curses. 

“It’s okay, Alastor!” Charlie says hastily. “I’m still here too, I promise. It’s just Vaggie. You know Vaggie! My girlfriend!”

Alastor is silent for a moment, but then he hums in agreement. “Vaggie,” he repeats, in a guttural, warped voice. “Charlie. Run…”

“We’re not in the war,” Charlie reminds him as patiently as she can, because it really hurts her to hear normally sharp Alastor so confused. “Me and Vaggie are safe, and so are you.”

Vaggie recovers her breath, and leans forward enough to speak into the mic again. “I want to help you focus Alastor,” she says. “We’re gonna start with doing some breathing exercises, okay? You’re going to breathe in, hold it, and breathe out when I say. Charlie will do it with you too.” And under her breath, turning away from the microphone so that Alastor doesn’t pick up on it, she adds with a muttered grumble, “This is going to stink so bad.” 

Charlie winces in sympathy because yeah, Alastor’s breath is kind of rank. Still, she leans over to share the mic, saying, “Right, I’ll do it with you! Okay, Vaggie, start counting for us!”

It takes some work. Alastor struggles with the breathing exercise at first, and they have to restart multiple times because he can’t keep up with the counts. Based on the howls of frustration that escape both his throat and the radios, he’s just as frustrated with his failures. That’s admittedly a little terrifying, since he screeches right over their heads, and it’s very hard to ignore the fact that he could just get frustrated enough to swallow them whole.

But Vaggie is patient—Charlie loves her for that—and Charlie is encouraging and chipper as they retry again and again. Charlie takes exaggerated deep breaths into the microphone to help give Alastor something to focus on with sound, since he can’t see, and equally exaggerated breaths out, and she strokes his hand during the holding part to let him know she’s still there. And eventually, he’s a little calmer, and his trembling has lessened, and he’s maintaining the pattern on his own.

It says a lot that Vaggie and Charlie also rapidly grow accustomed to his breath. Charlie barely notices the scent of decomposing flesh anymore. Ew, but she can focus on that later when Al is okay.

“Let’s focus on awareness next,” Vaggie says, once Alastor’s breaths are under control. “Still with me, Alastor?”

He hums in agreement. His answers are coming a little faster now, and it’s taking him less time to interact with them. 

“Okay,” Vaggie says. “I want you to tell me four things you can feel.”

Oh! Charlie knows this one. Vaggie’s used it with her sometimes, when she gets so wound up in her own head and problems start snowballing and she starts rambling because she doesn’t know how to deal with a situation. Of course, it’s supposed to start with five things you can see, but Charlie’s thankful her girlfriend is tactful enough to skip that part. It would only stress Alastor out further, not calm him down.

Alastor frowns over his smile, but his thumb moves a little, thumping into Charlie. “Princess,” he mutters, his voice harsh and warped.

“That’s me!” Charlie says cheerfully, patting him back and internally thanking her lucky stars that it had only been the meat of his thumb, and not the claw, that had thumped her on the head. “Three more!”

Alastor seems to recognize that hand is stuck where it is, so he cautiously feels around with his free hand, flailing blindly. “Floor,” he says, after a moment of trying to figure out what he’s touching. “Carpet,” he tries next, when his hand stretches a little farther and finds the messy, tattered remains of the carpet that led to the stairs that he’d torn up. His fingers flail blindly again, settle on a messy pile of rubble that had been the wall he’d knocked over just a few minutes ago. His thumb trails over it, trying to identify it without seeing, and he finally offers hesitantly, “W…wood?” 

“Good job,” Vaggie says, and doesn’t bother to point out that it isn’t wood at all. Charlie is going to be giving her the biggest hug in the world when this is over for being so good about helping Alastor and not stressing him out further, even when she’s not his biggest fan. How did Charlie ever get so lucky to find somebody like her?

“Tell me three things you can hear next,” Vaggie continues.

“You should be so good at this, Al,” Charlie adds cheerfully. “Sound is your whole thing!”

To her delight, Alastor actually manages a weak snort in response. But his ears flick upright as he listens. “The waves,” is his first answer.

“The waves?” Vaggie asks, confused. “Like, ocean waves?”

“Radio waves,” Alastor says, and Charlie has never been so delighted to hear a trace of irritation in his voice. Vaggie looks relieved as well, but probably mostly because Al isn’t thinking he’s near an ocean. 

Alastor closes his enormous, luminous black-and-red eyes as he tilts his head left, listening. The chandelier still wrapped around his left antler jingles, its metal chain and strings of crystals clicking against each other. This seems to puzzle him, but he offers, “Wind chimes?” 

“The clicking noise?” Vaggie clarifies, and Alastor nods, gesturing vaguely when his movement causes the noise again. “Close enough. It’s the chandelier—it’s stuck on your left antler. One more, Alastor.”

Alastor seems puzzled with the chandelier answer, enough to cause him to be irritable again as he says, “Vaggie’s voice.” 

“I’ll allow it,” Vaggie says, with a roll of her eyes. Charlie grins, because this is the most interactive Alastor has been since this whole mess started, and the point is to remind Alastor where and who he is, not to get right answers.

“Two things you can smell next, Alastor,” Vaggie directs.

“Dust,” Alastor says almost immediately, and his lips actually curl back over his teeth in a sign of disgust. “Why is it so dusty? Where is Niffty?” 

“Here, sir!” Niffty yells. Charlie looks over her shoulder. Niffty is no longer attached to Dad’s ankle, and is instead standing on her bewildered father’s shoulders, waving brightly. “I’ll clean it as soon as I can! It’s so messy, I hate it!” 

“Good girl,” Alastor says. 

“One more smell, Alastor,” Vaggie reminds dutifully. 

Alastor inhales deeply, and says, “Blood.” 

Well, he’s covered in it, all of it his own. That’s hardly surprising.

“And finally, one thing you can taste,” Vaggie says. 

“Flesh,” Alastor answers, again immediately. And again, not at all surprising given how rank his breath smells. He must have had dinner with Rosie tonight, or maybe eaten some unsuspecting Sinner when he went to visit her. 

“Don’t want the details,” Vaggie says. “Alastor, can you tell me where you are?”

Alastor frowns over his enormous grin as he opens his eyes again and attempts to look about. “I…I assume the hotel,” he offers tentatively. “I just went out for business and came back, but…what happened? Why can’t I see? Why doesn’t anything feel right?”

Charlie pats his hand again. “Try to stay calm, please? But you’re kind of your big monster form… in the lobby.”

Alastor blinks. “Why in Heaven’s name did I do that?” he asks, bewildered. “Was there an attack? Is that why the hotel is broken?” 

“Um, not exactly,” Charlie says. “We can explain it, I promise. And we can fix your eyes too so you can see again. You got a little hurt. But, uh, can you please go back to your normal size? It’s a little hard to help you like this.”

“Oh…yes, I suppose that would…complicate things…” 

His answer is distant, and he lifts his eyes from the general direction of Charlie and Vaggie, staring blankly ahead. His ears flatten, for a moment, and he seems to be thinking or struggling. Normally it isn’t at all difficult for him to shift forms, but it seems to be taking some conscious thought this time, if the irritated grumble that reverberates out from him and shakes beneath Charlie’s boots is anything to go by.

She pats his thumb reassuringly. “Take your time,” she says. “No rush.”

He manages it eventually. His whole body starts to shrink in size first, and then his limbs readjust to proper proportions. His claws become a more manageable size, and his split deer hooves meld together and vanish, replaced by boots. His antlers finally slither away from their twelve-point branching monstrosities to the smaller, half-crescent nubs he typically wears in his more humanoid form. 

The chandelier starts to crash down when no longer tangled, but Dad hastily launches forward to snag it in his claws, sending Niffty cartwheeling through the air in the process. He beats his six wings silently, and lowers the chandelier gently and quietly to the ground. Charlie shoots him a thankful thumbs up. The last thing they need is another unexpected sound to set Alastor off again when he’s blind and still in an anxious state. 

Fortunately, Alastor doesn’t notice Dad darting in suddenly, because he still can’t see. His eyes have returned to their red coloration and the dial-shapes are gone, but there’s still awful burn scars cutting over his eyes from looking at even a partial angelic form. 

Unfortunately, this does seem to cause him some degree of distress. He’s on his side when he shrinks, and ends up sprawled in a broken bit of rubble, but he immediately reaches out to start fumbling blindly for something he recognizes. His ears are still flat and torn, and his breaths start to grow sharp again as he has trouble reorienting. 

“Easy, Alastor,” Charlie says, kneeling down in front of him. “Here, I’m right here—” she reaches out to catch one of his flailing hands, which wrap around her fingers reflexively when he finds something recognizable. “See, everything’s all okay. Can I help you sit up?”

“I suppose,” Alastor says distantly. She tentatively reaches out and touches his shoulder. He flinches automatically and bares his teeth in that direction, but thankfully doesn’t bite. She helps heave him upright into a sit, and when he sways uneasily, she sits down next to him on a bit of rubble and lets him lean against her.

“There we go,” Charlie says, keeping up the running commentary so he knows where she is at all times. “Sitting up. Let’s give you a minute to get oriented. Oh! And I guess you probably want this back.” She takes the hand holding hers and gently presses the microphone staff into it.

His claws seize on it immediately, and almost automatically settle it comfortably against his shoulder, like he often does when he’s sitting. “My—how did you—why did you have this, dear?” he asks in confusion.

“I’ve been talking to you with it,” Charlie says carefully. “Um, thanks for letting me use it. I think it was you? I’m not really sure how it works. The eye let me use it to talk to you.”

“Why?” Alastor asks, trying hard to look in her direction but mostly looking over her shoulder. “Why not talk to me directly? Why steal from me?”

“I didn’t steal it, Alastor, I promise,” Charlie says, patting him on the arm reassuringly. “I never would have touched it without permission. You dropped it, and…and you didn’t really hear me any other way. I’m sorry if touching it makes you angry, though. I promise, I wouldn’t have done it if there was another way.”

Alastor seems to consider this for a long moment, before asking dazedly, “Charlie, dear…what happened?” 

She hesitates. This next part is going to be difficult, because Alastor doesn’t like showing weakness or a lack of control. She squeezes his hand and says, “Promise me you won’t run away? Please?”

“I’ll promise nothing, and if I’m involved in something I can’t remember you owe it to me to give me an answer,” Alastor growls testily.

“Then please don’t leave until we’re done explaining,” Charlie says. “And until my dad can heal you. Your face is really cut up, and I think he’s the only one that can fix your eyes. Please?”

“Lucifer is here?” Alastor hisses, and his ears flatten again. He seems to be having difficulty controlling his emotional state, although Charlie can hardly blame him, given what he just went through.

“Um. S’up,” Dad says from over by the chandelier. 

Alastor bristles, and doesn’t seem pleased to have his rival as an audience. “I don’t need his help or his pity,” Alastor says snappishly. “Tell him to go away.” 

“He really can’t, Alastor,” Charlie says, squeezing his hand again reassuringly. “Dad’s the only one who can fix the radiant burns on your eyes—”

Alastor snarls. “He did this to me?” 

Dad bristles in return. “You were gonna flatten Charlie!” He snaps back. “I wasn’t going to let you crush my daughter, and you’re lucky I didn’t fucking smite you on the spot!”

“Dad!” Charlie hisses at him warningly. 

Thankfully, her dad grits his teeth and crosses his arms, before muttering, “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you that bad, for the record. I got a little angry and you might’ve caught a glimpse of my angelic form. But it’s fixable.”

“There, see? It was an accident, but my dad is happy to fix it,” Charlie says reassuringly. “Are you okay to let him now, or do you need a minute?”

But Alastor is staring ahead blankly, and there’s a stunned expression over his grin. “I attacked you?” he asks softly.

“It’s okay,” Charlie says, squeezing his hand again. “I’m totally fine. Everyone is fine! Dad stopped you from actually hitting me. And you didn’t know it was me. You were…a little confused.”

Alastor swallows. “I’m not supposed to attack you,” he mutters. It’s so low, under his breath, that Charlie almost doesn’t hear it at all. But his full-body shudder is something she can definitely feel, with him leaning against her, with her hand holding his. “No harm to befall Charlie Morningstar…”

Charlie finds that very confusing. What she finds more alarming is that Alastor seems to be working himself up again, and his breaths are increasing in speed. His shadow starts to move under its own power and a few tendrils slither up his arm in the beginnings of what Charlie recognizes as his attempt to slither into the void.

“Wait!” She says frantically, squeezing his hand and simultaneously trying to brush away the shadows. “It’s okay, Al! Everything is okay. I’m safe. You didn’t hurt me. Please don’t run away until we can take care of you, please.” 

For a moment, his fingers in her hand seem to grow thinner. But then the shadow retreats, slipping down into the floor again to mimic a regular old shadow, and Alastor slumps against her side. He’s exhausted, and he must not have had it in him to use his powers after hijacking every speaker in the hotel.

“Thank you,” Charlie says, graciously allowing Alastor to pretend he just decided to stay.

“What happened, Charlie?” he asks, and his voice is the closest she ever heard to a plead.

She takes a deep breath. Here they go. “Husk called it shellshock,” she says. 

Alastor freezes, going perfectly still. Then, “No.”

“Um, well that’s what Husk called it, but Vaggie called it something el—”

“No,” Alastor repeats. “No, no, no, absolutely not. It can’t be that.”

“Why not?” Charlie asks, squeezing his hand gently.

“I’m not a coward,” Alastor snarls. But his trembling suggests he’s afraid all the same.

“It’s not about cowardice,” Vaggie cuts in. “I’m pretty sure shellshock is what they called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in your day, before they understood how it worked. It doesn’t make you a coward.”

“That’s not it,” Alastor snarls insistently. “I don’t have it. I’m not a coward. I was cleared.” 

“Cleared?” Charlie asks in confusion. But Alastor refuses to say anything further.

“Husk mentioned something about facilities they’d take soldiers to,” Vaggie points out. “If they were showing symptoms of shellshock. To get them off the front lines for a bit.”

Alastor says nothing, but Charlie can feel how tense he is leaning against her side. And he seems to realize she can feel it, because he tries to push off of her and stumble to his feet. He almost immediately fails when he can’t see where he’s going and trips on a gouge cut into the marble. 

Vaggie catches him, and Alastor snarls at her touch, still trying to push her away. “Don’t be stupid, asshole,” she snaps at him. “You can’t see where you’re going and the floor’s a mess. Don’t try to walk until you can see.” 

She directs him to sit back down next to Charlie. He does so with great reluctance, and probably mostly because he’s tired and currently blinded. He would never let them manhandle him if he was in his normal state.

“I am not a coward,” he snaps again. “I’m not weak. I was cleared. It isn’t shellshock.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Alastor,” Charlie says, patting him on the shoulder. “And we don’t think any less of you. I know you’re not a coward or you wouldn’t have faced down Adam for us all by yourself, or helped us in the fight against the angels.”

This seems to mollify Alastor, but only a little. He still seems quite agitated about the shellshock revelation, taking it as a personal insult. 

“It’s not about cowardice,” Vaggie repeats, with a surprising amount of patience. “It’s just about how brains work. Sometimes when people go through traumatic things, their brain learns to survive those things in certain ways. If something reminds them of those traumatic things, their brain falls back on those old survival skills. That’s it.”

“And I would say war is pretty traumatic,” Charlie catches on. “You were a veteran in…what did Husk call it, the Great War?”

Alastor is silent for a long time, before he admits with a slow hiss, “Yes. I was.”

“It sounds like it was scary,” Charlie says openly. 

“What would you know of it?” Alastor says. “You would have been down here.”

Charlie exchanges glances with Vaggie. “I guess you don’t really remember,” Charlie says after a moment. 

“Remember what?” 

“I think it was a flashback,” Vaggie says. “Probably triggered by something in the movie. Maybe a sound. And it must have made you think you were back there, when you were alive and a soldier.”

Alastor stares blankly ahead of him. “Movie? Sound?” His grin never wavers, but his eyes are frowning. “Yes…you were watching a picture-show when I returned…you invited me to watch…”

“That’s right,” Charlie encourages. “And the movie, uh, it had some scenes from that war. Husk said the noises were pretty authentic, and it must have made you remember when you were a soldier, and it made you kind of…um… upset.” 

“I don’t remember that.” Alastor pauses, and then says, very slowly, “Upset enough to take my full form, I assume.”

“That,” Charlie agrees. She hesitates, reaches for his hand to squeeze it, and adds, “You also kind of…took over…everything that has a speaker and played noises through them. I’m guessing they were memories. That’s…that’s kind of how I know it sounded scary.”

Alastor looks stunned. “Did I,” he says slowly. “Then…the radios…?”

“And my PA system,” Dad says. “And all our phones. And the TV.”

Alastor pales. “I didn’t broadcast, did I?”

“I’m honestly not sure,” Charlie says slowly. “We couldn’t exactly check. But we can call Rosie and Mimzy and see if they heard anything after we get you taken care of.” She’s fairly certain Rosie, at least, would know how to be discreet. 

“Please do,” Alastor says, a little shaken. “If the rest of the Pentagram had that kind of insight to my memories, things might become… difficult.” He grimaces, and to Charlie’s surprise, slumps wearily against her shoulder again. “I suppose this explains why I was hearing temperature again,” he mutters under his breath.

“Why you were what?” 

“Look up a graph of radio waves, Charlie, dear. I’m too tired to explain it,” he grumbles. “Let’s simply say I may have…overextended myself with that stunt, if you’re telling the truth.”

“I wouldn’t lie about it,” Charlie says, a little hurt. “You really had us worried, you know. You seemed really…lost. You couldn’t hear us over the noise. That’s why I used your staff, by the way. I’m sorry, I know you don’t like people touching it without permission, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get through to you.”

He tries hard to suppress a shudder, and doesn’t quite succeed. “Given the circumstances, my dear, I suppose I can forgive you this once.” Then he heaves an exhausted sigh, and asks wearily, “How much damage did I do?”

“Huh?”

“I can only assume,” Alastor says, “that if I was in my largest form, because for some reason I thought I was in the Great War again, because of shellshock that I was promised I was cured of —that I was in a bit of a, shall we say… combative state.” He looks pained. “In the lobby.” He grimaces. “And I’m already given to understand I…attacked you, Charlie…at least once. I assume the wreckage I can smell and feel is because of me. What else have I done?”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Charlie says quickly.

“I assume it wasn’t your father gouging out the walls, Charlie,” Alastor says bitterly.

“No, but I mean, it wasn’t like you were doing it on purpose,” Charlie says. “You were confused and you didn’t understand. You were hurt. Nobody blames you.”

“Your kindness is sweet, dear, but I asked how much damage I did,” Alastor says curtly.

To Charlie’s surprise, her dad chimes in. “Nobody was injured beyond a couple bruises or splinters, besides you,” he says. “Based on what I can see, you did nothing structurally damaging to the overall hotel. You didn’t take out any load-bearing walls, and the rest is all superficial, really. Stairs are destroyed, chandelier needs to be fixed and remounted and some of the ceiling replaced. You took out one interior wall and mostly gouged up the carpet and marble flooring and destroyed the furniture. Oh, and you probably killed a few radios. But it’s fine, I can fix it all up in a jiffy.”

Alastor looks agitated by this. “I do not need to incur further debt to you, sir,” he says, his tone biting even if his words are carefully polite. He tries hard to glare in Dad’s direction, but the effect is severely diminished when he only stares blankly past him and over his head. “I did the damage, and I am the hotelier. I will repair it promptly, as soon as I’m able.”

“You and what power?” Dad scoffs. “You said it yourself, you overextended. We’re not gonna wait around for you to rest so you can put the stairs back. I’ve got it.”

Alastor does not look pleased by this. Charlie gives her father a pleading look.

Dad sighs. “Besides,” he grumbles, “I kind of owe you.”

Alastor’s ears prick up at this. “Do you?” he asks, honestly curious and always easy to tempt by debts and deals.

“I’m the one that blinded you,” Dad says. “I did it to protect Charlie, but I still should’ve known better than to force a Sinner to look at me in a higher form. Plus I think I might’ve made things worse once or twice when I was distracting you away from the others.”

Alastor seems perplexed by this. Charlie remembers the way his monstrous form had cowered away from the diving and swooping Lucifer, like he was an explosion or an incoming shell. She doesn’t say anything, because she doesn’t want to upset Alastor more.

Instead, she says, “He can also heal you. You didn’t just damage the room, Alastor, you really hurt yourself too.” 

Alastor’s ever-present smile is more of a pained grimace. “I’m aware,” he says stiffly. “I don’t remember doing that, either. How precisely did I manage to gash my face, or tear up my ears?”

Charlie squeezes his hand. “I don’t think you were doing it on purpose. I think you were trying to cover your ears and your head, but your claws are really long when you get big…and I don’t think you understood where your ears were anymore, either.”

Alastor grows tense against her again, and wrenches his hand away from her. “I see,” he says, and his voice is the most bitter she’s ever heard it. “Jumping at shadows…how hypocritical.”

“That’s not it,” Charlie says insistently. She wishes she could make him understand. “You didn’t understand. You thought you were somewhere else, and some when else. You were just trying to protect yourself based on what you understood.”

“Don’t attempt to coddle me, Charlie,” Alastor says sharply. “I don’t need or want your pity.”

Charlie sighs, but as much as she wants to hug Alastor and tell him everything is okay and he’s safe and it’s not his fault and it’s okay to need help, she doesn’t. He’s shaken, and she doesn’t think he’s ready to listen. Not when he’s so used to being in control and had it so effectively taken from him by himself. 

Instead, all she says is, “Fine, then. Are you ready to let my dad heal you?”

Alastor’s ears twitch, like he wants to flatten them to show his displeasure or his distrust but is forcing himself not to. He desperately wants some form of control in this situation, Charlie can see it in how tense he is. Having to let her dad help probably grates on his nerves, just like it had the last time after his wound from Adam needed treatment. 

Dad doesn’t really get along with Alastor, and doesn’t really care about being in Alastor’s good graces or about salvaging his bruised pride. But her father is genuinely guilty about having injured Alastor in some way, especially once he’d realized Alastor’s actions hadn’t been driven by malice, but fear. 

That works in their favor now. Alastor still doesn’t look pleased at having to accept help from Charlie’s father. But Dad encourages it by saying, “C’mon, bellhop, let me fix you up already. I don’t like being held in debt any more than you.”

This helps. The tension Charlie can feel when he leans against her shoulder doesn’t really lessen, but he does make an attempt to sit up a little straighter. “I suppose I can permit it,” he says, “if it will call the debt even.”

Charlie gives her dad a relieved, thankful look and a thumbs up with her free hand. Even giving Alastor that minor semblance of control, permitting what did and did not happen to him, was a start. 

Now she can only hope he’ll let them help him further.

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Dad says. He steps forward, until he’s in front of Charlie and Alastor, but hesitates as he reaches out. “I’ll have to touch your face,” he says after a moment.

Alastor visibly flinches at how close Dad suddenly sounds. His ears flatten as he lets out a soft hiss of static. 

“Sorry,” Dad mutters. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t,” Alastor says. Absolutely nobody believes him, but nobody contradicts him either. “Just…get it over with.”

“Alright,” Dad says. “I’m touching your face now.” He gives Alastor a second to adjust before he carefully places his thumbs against Alastor’s thin cheeks, and his fingers under Alastor’s jaw. Alastor lets out another burst of displeased static, but mostly manages to not flinch, although Charlie can still feel that he’s tense as a piano wire leaning against her. 

She pats his arm soothingly. “It’s okay,” she says. “Dad’ll get you fixed up in no time at all.” 

Alastor makes a low growling noise under his breath, accompanied by more static, but says nothing. He also doesn’t push her hand off his arm, which says precisely how much he doesn’t want to be alone in the situation, even if he’d rather die than ask Charlie to stay with him.

Charlie gets it, so she doesn’t move.

“The cuts aren’t too bad, thankfully,” Dad says after a moment. He brushes his thumbs over a few of them, and they melt away back into skin at his touch. “Geez, you did a number on yourself,” he mutters, as he continues to soothe away the gashes to Alastor’s face and head. “You ever think of maybe letting those claws of yours dull a little?”

“No,” Alastor says curtly. 

Alastor’s shoulders aren’t too difficult, but his ears are. Mostly because Alastor definitely dislikes people touching his ears, and they twitch away whenever Dad tries to touch them long enough to help. “C’mon, busboy,” Dad says, exasperated. “You swiss cheese’d these things. Do you want holes in them or not?”

“They are sensitive,” Alastor snaps—nearly literally, as he instinctively tries to take a bite out of Dad’s arm to protect himself. “Can’t you just snap your fingers and fix it?’

“Not how healing works,” Dad spits back. “Especially not if you want me to regrow those holes you put in yourself, or fix the fur so you’re not walking around with bald patches where your claws went.”

They manage in the end, but it’s not easy. Alastor flattens his ears to escape Dad’s hands, and Dad simply pins them in place with one hand while he carefully deals with the injuries with his other. Alastor is gritting his teeth so hard Charlie can actually hear his jaw creaking and his teeth grinding, but she takes his hand and squeezes it reassuringly. She’s surprised to find he squeezes back, especially when Dad touches a particularly abused area.

She doesn’t say anything. She has a feeling Alastor is upset enough already with needing her help for this.

Last of all come the eyes, and those are the most difficult injuries to fix. “Tilt your head up,” Dad instructs, easing Alastor’s face up with a careful hand under the chin. Alastor obliges, even if his smile is more of a snarling grimace. Dad produces a penlight with a snap of his fingers and shines it carefully into each of Alastor’s eyes, frowning as he does. “Do you sense this at all?”

“No,” Alastor says. “I don’t even know what you’re doing.”

“Hmm. No pupil dilation, no tracking. You’re already forming burn scars on the optic nerve. Geez, it was only a couple seconds, but the holy damage went all the way to your brain.”

“And who’s fault is that?” Alastor snarls. “Can you fix it or not!”

“Geez, take it easy! I can, it’s just going to take a little bit, and it’ll probably feel pretty uncomfortable,” Dad says. “Close your eyes, and I’m going to have to touch your eyelids.”

Alastor looks highly reluctant to make himself even more vulnerable than he already is, even if closing his eyes really doesn’t change anything for him at the moment. Charlie squeezes his hand again, and says soothingly, “Dad’s just helping, Al. Remember, this is the last thing, and then you can finally go. Maybe to bed? You look tired.”

“I suppose I could do with a rest,” Alastor concedes. He hesitates, and his ears are very flat to show his clear displeasure. “I am grudgingly trusting you, sir,” he growls warningly. “If you take advantage of this—”

“I’d be in more debt than I want to be, and Charlie would be pissed at me, so I’m not going to,” Dad says. He rolls his eyes, not that Alastor can see it. “Just hurry it up so I can fix this, so I can fix the rest of the room.”

Alastor’s rictus smile is skeletal and clearly displeased. But he slowly, grudgingly, closes his eyes.

“Great!” Dad says. “One little miracle, coming right up.”

Charlie can’t quite follow what Dad does after that. He plucks things out of the air too fast for her to follow, water and herbs and some kind of mud, crushing it all into a paste and adding a drop of his own blood. He plucks Alastor’s monocle away from his face and sticks it in Alastor’s free hand, where Al’s fingers wrap around it automatically. Then he spreads the poultice over Alastor’s closed eyes, and Alastor hisses and bristles, trying to pull back at the odd sensation.

“Don’t,” Dad warns, catching his head at the base of his skull to keep him from retreating further. “This stuff needs to sit.”

“If this is some kind of joke—”

“It’s not a joke,” Charlie promises, squeezing his hand. “Dad knows what he’s doing, and he promised he’d fix you.”

Once he’s done applying the handmade poultice, Dad closes his eyes and puts his hands over Alastor’s eyes, one hand for each, his long fingers wrapping around the side of Alastor’s head. Static crackles angrily and Alastor looks ready to flee, if the shadows circling faster at his feet are any indication. He’s vulnerable and anxious, and definitely hates being touched like this.

Charlie squeezes his hand again, and says, “Almost over, Al. How about I talk to you until Dad’s done? This might take a little bit. Oh, I know! I can tell you about my day—or you can tell me about yours, if you want to. You were out earlier, you said you visited Rosie? Did you tell her I said hello? She’ll need to stop by and see the new hotel some time—”

She rambles and does her best to distract Alastor, and thankfully, she seems to do an okay job. Alastor’s not thrilled about the awkward position, but he allows himself to be drawn into conversation, responding with short answers but at least answering. 

Her chatter doesn’t seem to bother Dad’s work, at least. He’s glowing faintly, especially his hands, and his eyes are closed in concentration, but he seems to have tuned her out as he works. Once or twice Alastor twitches, and his fingers clamp around hers as something obviously uncomfortable or mildly painful happens in the process, but he manages to not lash out or take a bite out of Dad to defend himself.

“Alright,” Dad finally says, after ten minutes, cutting into the middle of a rambling tangent about one of Charlie’s newest redemption exercise plans. He opens his eyes, takes his hands away, and cleans them off with a handkerchief he pulls out of thin air. “Go ahead and remove the mask and open your eyes—and be careful with those claws! I don’t want to have to replace your eyelids and scratched corneas after all that.”

Charlie lets go of Alastor’s hand as he pulls it away and raises it to his face. Thankfully, this time he’s cognizant enough of what he’s doing to use the back of his hand to rub the paste away from his eyes, flicking it away from himself in distaste. He slowly blinks his eyes open, before looking around cautiously.

Charlie is relieved to see the radiant scarring from earlier is gone. “Well, it looks better to me!” Charlie says in excitement. “How does it feel, Al?”

He blinks a few more times, and cautiously turns to her voice. It takes him a moment, but his pupils manage to focus on her. He squints. “Charlie?”

“That’s me! You…can see me, right?”

“I can, but it’s blurry.” He frowns as best as he can over his smile. After a moment, he seems to remember the monocle in his hand and fits it back into place. But based on the way he shakes his head in frustration, it doesn’t seem to help any.

“That should clear up after a day,” Dad says. “I had to rebuild your whole visual nervous system and kickstart cell growth in your eyes to fix the scarring once I removed the radiant energy. The entire thing was burned out. The poultice helps with that and should have reduced pain and swelling, but your brain’s probably taking a little bit to recalibrate. Sleep on it, but if it’s still a problem in twenty four hours, let me know and I’ll take another look.” 

“I see.” Alastor blinks a few more times, and shakes his head stiffly before cautiously looking around. His eyes widen in alarm as he takes in the damage, however blurry it must be. “Oh, dear…I do seem to have made quite a mess.”

“Don’t worry!” Niffty says brightly. While the rest of them had dealt with Alastor, she’s already in the process of sweeping and dusting. “I’ll clean it up as soon as possible, sir!”

“Yeah, I’ll get on that too,” Dad says with a sigh. 

Alastor looks like he wants to protest, or insist on fixing his own mess. But even healed, he still looks exhausted. Charlie interjects before he can say anything. “Vaggie, can you go tell Angel and Husk it’s safe to come in? And Dad, before you start cleaning up, can you make a portal for me and Alastor to the next floor? The stairs are a little…uh…”

“Gone? Yeah, sure, Char-Char.” Dad snaps his fingers absently, and one of his light-ringed portals appears just a few steps away. Through it, Charlie can see the guest halls. Dad had thoughtfully picked a spot some distance from the damage to the stairs themselves, just in case there were any structural issues with the floor.

Charlie gets to her feet and offers Alastor a hand up. He ignores it, levering himself to his own feet with the help of his staff, trying hard to hide the exhausted wobble as he moves and not doing a great job of it. Charlie holds up her hands as if ready to catch him if he falls, but he gives her a scathing look, and she tries to resist reaching out to steady him.

“Let’s get you to your room,” Charlie says.

“I do not need an escort,” Alastor says stiffly. He gives the portal a suspicious look before cautiously stepping through it into the halls above.

Charlie follows after him gamely. “Please? Let me at least walk you to your room. For my own peace of mind?”

“I can’t imagine what peace it gives you,” Alastor says, his voice sour. “I don’t need babysitting, my dear.”

She bites her lip, trying to figure out how to word it in a way that won’t leave the already-sensitive Alastor in worse states. “I’m not trying to babysit you,” Charlie says. “And I don’t think you’re weak, either, or a coward, or anything like that. I just…you really scared me, Alastor. I just want to be sure you’re okay.”

“Yes,” he says bitterly, “I imagine a monster rampaging in the lobby might be frightening.” His pace is slow as he walks, and he’s putting more weight on his staff than he’d probably like. He might have been healed of all physical issues, but he’s clearly exhausted mentally and physically by what had just happened. And the way he’s squinting at the hotel door numbers, she has a feeling he’s having a hard time navigating.

“I didn’t mean that.” She walks alongside him patiently, wishing she could link arms with him or touch him in some kind of way that would be reassuring. She doesn’t. She knows he’d hate it now that he’s more aware. “I mean, yeah, that part was scary, your demonic form is really…uh… demonic. But mostly it was scary to see you so confused and hurting. It was scary because I didn’t know how to help you.”

His ears flatten. He’s too tired to hide his emotions, still, and maybe that’s a good thing even if it means he’s definitely not well. “I apologize for frightening you,” he says stiffly.

“I don’t need an apology,” Charlie says patiently. “I know you weren’t doing it on purpose. I just want to be sure you make it back to your room okay and that you’re safe and comfortable. That’s all. Please?”

Alastor sighs. He sounds exhausted. “I suppose if it will give you peace of mind,” he says shortly. “But I do draw the line at that. No additional fussing.”

“No lullabies and tucking you in safe and snug, got it,” Charlie says. He gives her a squinting look, and she’s not sure if it’s because he’s suspicious or he’s just having a hard time seeing her. 

As much as Charlie wants to ramble to fill the silence, she has a feeling Alastor really wants quiet right now, so she bites the inside of her cheek to keep from talking. Instead she matches her pace with Alastor as he makes his way wearily down the halls, and keeps an eye on his expression. He seems tired and jittery, which is probably normal for the whole flashback thing that just happened. She’ll talk to Vaggie later to see if there’s anything else they can do to help with that.

It doesn’t take too long, even with Alastor’s slow pace, to reach his room. He’s nearly about to pass it, probably because his vision still isn’t that great, so Charlie chimes in brightly, “Here we are!” 

Alastor halts and squints at the door. “Ah. Yes. Of course. Thank you, my dear.” He unlocks the door with a little magic and wearily lets himself in.

Charlie waits at the doorway, not wanting to push too far but also wanting to make sure he’s okay before she leaves him. “Is there anything else I can help you with before I go? I know you’re still having a little trouble seeing right now. I could set out your clothes or get a drink?”

“Thank you, my dear, but I’m quite alright,” Alastor says curtly. And he does seem to be navigating the space in his own room better, even with his temporarily poor vision, probably through familiarity. He sets his staff against the nightstand before sitting down in his wingback chair with a tired sigh and glancing in her direction. “That will be all.”

“Alright. I did promise no fussing,” Charlie says. “Um, before I go, though…”

He closes his eyes. He looks like he’s barely holding himself together on her account. “Hmm?”

“I just…wanted to let you know. That if you ever wanted to talk, about what happened tonight, or whatever happened…back then… I’m always ready to listen.”

“I am not a coward or an invalid,” Alastor says sharply, snapping his eyes open and glaring in her general direction. “I don’t need to talk, and I am not here for your exercises.” 

“This isn’t about the exercises,” Charlie says. “I promise. I just…want to help. And sometimes getting something off your chest or out of your head helps a lot. It doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow, but there’s not an expiration date on my offer either.”

He says nothing.

“It doesn’t have to be me, either, if somebody else is more comfortable,” she adds softly. “Vaggie knows what it’s like to be a soldier, and she knew how to help you tonight. Husk knew what was happening, too. Or others.” She clasps her hands pleadingly. “I just really don’t want you to have to be alone with this, Alastor. That’s all. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. I just want to help.”

Alastor won’t even look at her by the end. “I’m rather tired, Charlie,” he says stiffly. “I would appreciate it if you could leave me be.”

“Right! Of course. Right.” Charlie swallows. “I’ll let you rest. Just remember, I’m always here to help. Good night and sweet dreams, Alastor.” She leaves and shuts the door behind her, and is unsurprised to hear the lock click the moment the door is closed.

She sighs, and leans wearily against the door for a moment, closing her eyes. She really does just want to help. She wants so badly to make Alastor feel better, feel safer. But she can’t force him to accept help. He has to want it. 

Until then, the best she can do is leave her door open and show that she’s available, when—or more likely, if —Alastor ever does reach out.

She takes her time walking back down to the lobby, wanting a chance to just…process. The past hour has been a lot, and she’s learned a lot of things she didn’t know about at all. She’d never thought brains could just…hijack people like that, make them re-experience awful things that happened to them. She hadn’t been lying to Alastor when she said it was terrifying, because seeing him so confused and hurt and unaware really had been alarming. Alastor might be the Radio Demon, but he’s still one of the most put-together demons she’s ever met in Hell. To see him undone so effectively by himself …it was disturbing in a way his eerie smile and screaming broadcasts could never compare to.

Charlie decides, right then and there, she’s going to work with Vaggie to learn more about this stress disorder thing. Almost everyone in Hell has some kind of trauma one way or another, she’s been learning. And if others could suffer things like this, things where their brains hijack any semblance of control they have, learning how to help them could be an important first step to redemption. If the ghosts of their pasts could so easily seize their minds and bodies, how could they ever move past it to be better? 

This whole thing had been scary. But she’s going to learn to be better. Do better. Grow more knowledgeable, so she can help other Sinners next time she sees something like this.

So she can help Alastor one day, if he ever decides to let her.

Charlie eventually makes her way back to the second floor of the lobby, moving more cautiously now that she gets closer to the damage. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like Alastor did too much to the second floor, since the carpet is steady beneath her feet. The stairs are still completely destroyed, though, and some of the railings overlooking the first floor are still torn out, so she’s careful not to get too close to the edge.

“Need a lift, Char-Char?” Dad calls from above. 

She raises her hand in answer, and Dad swoops down on open wings, locking wrists with her in a practiced movement. He lifts her gently with a beat of his wings and glides smoothly down over the edge, setting her neatly on her feet in a section of the lobby that isn’t as torn up and destroyed.

“Don’t go near the west wall until I can get it set up again,” he tells her, gesturing in the direction of the wall Alastor had accidentally taken out when he’d collapsed. “It wasn’t load bearing, but there’s some live wiring I need to fix.”

“Got it!” Charlie says, before her father flits off back towards the stairs. 

Between him and Niffty, most of the rubble has already been swept into a massive pile in the center, and Dad seems to be using it for replacement parts. He digs through the rubble with his magic and flings bits of wood in the general direction of the stairs, where they start assembling into the framework that had been destroyed. Niffty is currently sweeping and mopping whatever undamaged parts of the lobby are left, which isn’t much at the moment, not that it’s stopping her from trying.

“Charlie!”

Charlie looks up to find Vaggie waving her over, closer to the front door of the lobby. The damage here is minimal, mostly because Alastor hadn’t been able to reach it when he was bound by the chandelier, and the shrapnel and shards from all the destroyed things had already been swept away. Angel Dust and Husk are also with her, and Charlie is relieved to see both look shaken but unharmed.

Charlie hurries over to them quickly. “Husk!” she greets, as soon as she’s close enough. “Are you okay? Are you feeling better after…”

“Yeah,” Husk grumbles. He looks tired and still a little jittery, but not nearly as bad as Alastor had been. “The noises Boss was sending out were…a little more intense than the stuff in the movie. But getting outside helped. I’m fine now.”

“We walked down to the bottom of the hill,” Angel Dust adds. “Couldn’t really hear much once we got that far. Even the noises from the phones died down. I think that helped.”

“Probably a good sign,” Vaggie adds. “Alastor was worried that he’d broadcasted. But if his signal couldn’t make it to the bottom of the hill, then hopefully we’re just dealing with something completely local.”

Husk grunts. “Didn’t hear any public broadcasts out there,” he says. “Not over the speakers he usually uses.” 

“Neither did I,” Angel Dust agrees. 

“I’ll check in with Rosie just to be safe, but that’s a good sign,” Charlie says. “With the way he took over everything in the lobby, I don’t know if he would have known the difference between his personal station and publicly broadcasting to every speaker.” After all, it seemed like he’d just grabbed anything and everything within reach that could respond to his radio waves and emit sound. 

Angel Dust takes a deep breath. “Well, important thing is it’s done, and we’re not dead, which is more than I’d’ve hoped for with Big Smiles goin’ on a rampage like that.” He smiles shakily. “And it sounds like you got a lot to do with that, Toots. Vaggie was just tellin’ us. Did you really walk right up to his mouth while singin’? The giant toothy mouth he eats people with?”

“I had to get him to hear me,” Charlie says sheepishly. It did sound pretty foolish in retrospect, but she’d do it again in a heartbeat. “I’d do it for any one of you if you needed me.”

“I’d call it a death wish, except for the fact it worked,” Husk grumbles. “You’re damn lucky he didn’t eat you.”

“I don’t think he would have tried,” Charlie says slowly. “I don’t think he remembered eating people was an option. He was a soldier in the Great War in his head, not…not his big demon form.”

“Is that why you risked it?” Vaggie asks, incredulous. “Babe…I need you to never do that again. Ever. You scared me to death then, and you did it again just now.” 

“He never tried to bite anyone while he was having his flashback!” Charlie says defensively. “He didn’t know how to use his magic, either. He thought he was human.”

“Human and taking swats at tiny enemy soldiers with his totally normal human claws?” Vaggie says, crossing her arms with a scowl. 

“I…oh.” Charlie wilts a little as she realizes that yeah, Alastor had been acting a little strangely in all of that for a normal soldier. “He was confused, wasn’t he?” she asks after a long moment. “Mixing up his demonic instincts and his human memories. Like in a dream when things that don’t make sense feel like they make a lot of sense.”

“Exactly,” Vaggie says. “So please, don’t take that kind of risk again, okay?”

“Although helpin’ him with singin’ was kinda smart,” Angel Dust says. “He’s always liked the theatrics. He joined right in singin’ with ya when he first showed up.”

A little warmth grows in Charlie’s chest at that. She loves singing, but she’s mocked for it so often that it’s hard to be taken seriously sometimes. But Angel Dust is right. Charlie had been trying to get through to Alastor with sounds that didn’t fit on the battlefield, but he really did love music and song more than the average Sinner. She’s glad something she loves so much could be helpful, even healing.

“Where is the Boss, anyway?” Husk asks, looking around.

“I walked him to his room,” Charlie says. “I hope he’s resting now. Dad accidentally burned his eyes with radiant magic, and he fixed it after, but Alastor said his vision was still a little blurry. Hopefully sleep will help.”

Husk grunts. “Feel like I could sleep for a week myself,” he mutters. “Didn’t even do anything.”

“That’s not true!” Charlie says. “Vaggie explained some of this trauma stuff, and it sounds like it’s pretty tiring. I know you didn’t have the same response as Alastor, but you still had a hard time. You should go and rest.”

“I’ll walk ya there, Whiskers,” Angel offers. “I didn’t get to finish that story about my coworker and the jello shots, bet it’ll help ya keep ya mind off things.”

Husk grunts, which Angel must take for agreement, because the two wander off towards the stairs, where her Dad is working. The stairs themselves aren’t completed yet (although there is, by now, a solid foundation for it), but Dad snaps his fingers and gives them a portal to the second floor. They step through and disappear into the interior of the hotel.

“Dad!” Charlie calls, catching him before he can soar off again. “I think everyone is taken care of for now. Is there anything we can do to help with all of this?”

Dad drops to the ground for the moment, folding his wings away. “I think we’re good here for now, sweetheart,” he says. “I’ve got enough parts in this pile here—” he gestures to the enormous, swept together mountain of rubble, “—to more or less put things back together the way they were. Not much you can do here right now, although depending on whatever I’ve got left over, I might need your help on redecorating tomorrow.” 

“Are you sure, sir?” Vaggie asks with a frown.

“Positive! Trust me, building is one of my specialties,” Dad says. “You might need to get a new TV or furniture, but the stairs and structural integrity of the place are safe and sound with me. I got it.” 

He pauses, gives Niffty happily dusting in the corner an awkward, uncomfortable look, and adds, “Uh, I guess she does too. With a mess this big, I don’t think I could get her to leave. I don’t know how she got a hold of those, though…”

Charlie blinks, and squints over at Niffty. What she’d taken for a normal feather duster actually seems to be made out of a few of Dad’s cast-off red and white feathers. Even unattached, the angelic power still steeped in the pure white and blood red feathers appears to be doing an alarmingly efficient job of scouring dirt and dust from the premises with a much wider area of effect than a standard duster. Niffty touches it to one of the hellroaches fleeing her cleaning onslaught and it gets smited on the spot. She cackles gleefully and gives Dad a manic grin.

“I’m a little afraid she’s gonna come after me for more,” Dad adds, with an alarmed look. 

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow,” Charlie promises. “And Alastor if I have to, just to make sure she understands.” 

“Thanks, honey,” Dad says, with a look of relief. Charlie would almost laugh, because it is sort of funny to see her father so ill at ease due to a tiny demon that he could easily smite without thought. Except Niffty is kind of terrifying and she did kill Adam, so that fear is sort of justified. 

“You two head off to bed for now,” he adds after a moment, snapping a portal open straight to their suite at the top of the hotel. “Get some rest. It’s been a long evening, and you two have got to be worn out. Everything’ll be ship shape by morning, promise!”

“Thanks, Dad,” Charlie says. She gives him a hug, and he squeezes her back with just as much enthusiasm. “For everything tonight, but especially for holding back against Alastor. I know you don’t really like him.”

“I don’t, but I don’t want to see you upset either, Char-Char,” he murmurs into her ear. “Thanks for reminding me to hold back. You scared me half to death when you were in danger—it was easy to forget he was a scared Sinner.”

“Thank you for listening,” Charlie says with a smile and a tight squeeze of her own. “And for helping after. Not just with this, but with getting him to accept healing.”

“Any time, sweetheart,” Dad says, with one last squeeze, before he lets her go. “Okay! You two, off to bed. Get your rest!”

They say their goodnights and step through the portal into their room. 

It isn’t until Charlie sees their bed that she realizes just how exhausted she is. She hadn’t been the one having a violent trauma response, but she’d certainly worn herself out being worried for Alastor and the others. Not to mention the singing, the non-stop talking, and the near-death experience of almost being crushed by Alastor’s massive claws. 

But both she and Vaggie are also covered in dust, dirt, splinters and marble shards from Alastor’s rampage, and Charlie desperately wants to get clean first. They take the time to shower, Charlie downs an entire glass of water for her parched throat, and both settle into their pajamas and brush their teeth. 

It isn’t until Charlie is helping Vaggie comb out her hair for the night that they finally have a chance to talk. Or, more specifically, Vaggie reaches back to pat Charlie on the knee and says, “Okay, tell me what’s on your mind.”

“What makes you think something’s on my mind?” Charlie asks, as she runs the comb through Vaggie’s long hair and gently teases out the tangles. 

“I can hear you stewing,” Vaggie says. “Something’s got you upset. Is it Alastor?”

Charlie sighs. Vaggie knows her too well. “Yeah,” she admits. “He was pretty quiet when I walked him back to his room. I’m glad he let me at all. He really didn’t want any more help.”

Vaggie shrugs, although she’s careful not to move her head too much and risk pulling at the tangles. “He’s Alastor. He probably thought you were pitying him. You know he hates looking weak.”

“What happened down there wasn’t weakness,” Charlie says firmly.

“You know that, and I know that,” Vaggie says reassuringly. “But he doesn’t. Not yet. You heard what Husk said, and how Alastor reacted to being told it was shellshock. Sounds like there was a stigma to it that didn’t go over so well back in his day.”

Charlie sighs, because Vaggie is right. Alastor really had been so upset the moment they told him it was a trauma response. “He said he was supposed to be cured,” Charlie says slowly. “Does anyone ever really get cured of something like that?”

“Not that I know of,” Vaggie says. “It’s not like the flu, or a broken bone. It’s not something your dad could just heal away either. There’s ways to help people learn to process it, and there’s some medicines that can help, but…” She shrugs again. “It’s there for life.”

Charlie bites her lip. “I told him he could talk to me about it, if he ever wanted to,” she admits after a moment. “That my door was always open, and there wasn’t a time limit on it. I, uh, might have volunteered you too…you seemed to understand, and you know about being a soldier…”

Vaggie snorts a little at that. “Somehow I doubt he’d come to me, but I’d listen if he wanted me to,” she says. “As long as he took it seriously. Which I’m guessing he didn’t.”

“He just got mad about it,” Charlie says. “Kept insisting he wasn’t ‘a coward or an invalid.’” She tries to imitate him and fails pretty miserably. “I wish he’d let me help,” she finishes softly. “He was so scared and confused…I’ve never seen him like that before, Vaggie. I hate seeing my friends so upset. It hurt to see him hurting.”

“Charlie.” Vaggie turns around carefully, plucking the comb from Charlie’s hands before gently taking them in her own. “I know you want to help him. And I think that’s one of my favorite things that I love about you, that you’re always so willing to help, and that you can empathize with people so strongly.” 

“But?” Charlie asks miserably.

“But,” Vaggie says, squeezing her hands gently, “You can’t force him to get help he doesn’t want or isn’t ready for. This kind of thing, it’s…it’s a lot to process, and he’s not ready to accept it in himself yet. It’s scary. It might take him a long time to get there. I just…want you to be ready for that, and understand he might not come to you or me or anyone else for help for a while.”

“I know,” Charlie says, clenching Vaggie’s hands back. “I know! I told myself that too when I helped him get back to his room. I really wanted to stay and let him know he wasn’t alone and help him get comfy and talk to him, but I held back. It was really hard, but I tried not to push.”

Vaggie smiles at her. “That’s great! Sounds like you’ve been practicing some of your own lessons.”

Charlie smiles sheepishly. “I’m trying, anyway. I know I can be a lot sometimes…and sometimes I like that! It’s me, and I like putting all of myself into trying to help. But…it didn’t seem like the right time, with Alastor looking all…small and tired like that.” Her expression wilts.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you did the right thing,” Vaggie says. “I promise. If Alastor gets to the point when he’s ready to tackle this, he knows he can go to you. And, hey.” She gives Charlie a gentle nudge. “He already did let you help him tonight. Did you notice?”

Charlie grins. “That’s true! I’m not sure what I was expecting when he was all…monster-sized. But I definitely didn’t think he’d let me support him or hold his hand when he was uncomfortable.” She gasps. “Alastor trusts me, Vaggie! Alastor! The Radio Demon!” 

Vaggie laughs. “If anyone could earn the trust of an asshole like that, it’s definitely you, hun.”

That definitely raises Charlie’s spirits a little as she gestures for Vaggie to turn back around again so she can finish with her hair. As she finishes combing out the last of the tangles, and ties it into a loose braid to keep it from turning into a rat’s nest in the morning, she says, “Hey, Vaggie?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think you could help me learn more about that PTSD stuff? It seems like it’d be a good thing to know in the future, if stuff like this could happen.”

“Sure,” Vaggie says. “Probably not a bad idea. In a place like Hell there’s probably all kinds of things that can set people off from all different eras…it’d be a good idea to train all the staff in how to deal with it.”

“And I’m banning any movie with this Great War in it until we get this under control.”

Vaggie actually winces. “Probably not a bad call for now. I can’t believe it, but I almost feel sorry for Alastor. That war happened over a hundred years ago, the tech’s outdated even down here. We probably caught him by surprise. What are the odds he’d hear Great War shells again?”

Charlie grimaces. “Maybe he has the right idea about movies…”

Vaggie snorts. “Don’t let him convert you. This was just real bad timing. We’ll learn how to avoid it in the future and everyone will be better off.”

“Right.” Charlie finishes wrapping the tie around Vaggie’s hair. “Done! Now we can finally go to bed. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”

“I could sleep for a week,” Vaggie says. “C’mon, hun.”

They snuggle into bed together and turn out the lights. Keekee leaps onto the bed now that they’ve settled, and curls up behind Charlie’s knees like she always does, purring with contentment.

To her surprise, Charlie feels nearly as content. Tonight had been awful; there was no doubt about that. But Vaggie had been right, too. Alastor might not be ready to accept this new development, and it might take him a while to reach out to her or anyone else for help, if he ever did. 

But he had let Charlie help tonight where it mattered. She’d called him back with a song, and stuck by his side when he was vulnerable, and he’d let her. He trusted her, and today he’d proven that, and she hadn’t broken that trust.

Charlie will get better. She’ll learn more about these kinds of things and take better care of her staff and residents. She won’t ever stop learning, and she’ll keep working to build that trust even further. 

And maybe, one day, Alastor will finally come to her for help.