Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Charlie rarely had to steel herself for anything these days. Since one—almost two—of her friends and so many more of her subjects had died in the battle with Heaven, giving an employee a talking-to just seemed like small beans.

And it was.

But Alastor was no ordinary employee, no ordinary business partner, no ordinary subject. In the months she’d known him, Charlie’d managed to break his walls down a little—at least, she hoped she had—and there hadn’t been any silly indimidation or tension between them since he’d joined the hotel.

So she stood in front of the door to Alastor’s room, steeling herself to knock. It was no big deal, she told herself. It was just a question. Juuuust a question.

She knocked.

“Al? It’s me!” she called. Then, for good measure, “Charlie Morningstar!”

The door swung open after a second revealing Alastor knotting his tie. Charlie glanced at it. He’d nearly died for the hotel; had she still not earned the right to see him in anything other than his Sunday best?

“Yes?” he said, smiling. It seemed fairly genuine, though through the humidity of the swamp, his room smelled faintly of cigarettes. And, yep, there was the butt of one put out in a whisky tumbler on his desk. To each his own, Charlie supposed, though she would have to put out a friendly reminder about substance usage on hotel property.

She put on her own best smile and said, “Hi. So Vaggie and I were strategizing about, like, the angels and everything, and we’ve started watching back the Vees’ footage from the fight—you know, the one with Heaven?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

Of course not. Charlie herself was still dreading having to relive Pentious’s… death. And she herself had barely done anything during the battle. She couldn’t imagine how much it must be pressing on Alastor. “Right. But, anyway, we just got to your and Adam’s fight, and—”

Alastor’s grin shifted suddenly into a sneer. It really was incredible how little a plastered smile did to hide his reactions.

“—and I thought, um,” Charlie said. “You’re an Overlord, but you’re only a sinner. How long did you hold off Adam for? Rhetorical question. Ages.”

“I assure you, Charlotte,” said Alastor curtly, “that I was merely caught off-guard. Embarrassing as it may be to have that mistake broadcasted to all of Hell it won’t be a repeat occurrence and I have no need for—”

“Exactly! You were facing off against Adam, Adam, the first man, the exterminator! And the only way he could get a hit in was surprising you! Al, you—you’re an incredible fighter. Like, I don’t even—I haven’t—I’ve never even seen my dad move like that.” His ears pricked back up from where she hadn’t noticed they’d folded down. Maybe she was buttering him up a little too much. Escalating the conflict between Alastor and her father was the last thing she wanted to do. She plowed forward. “And I’m not.”

“Oh, don’t get your devilish little horns in a twist. You're very powerful deep down inside, I just know it.” It felt like something she’d say, and indeed, from Alastor’s microphone came her own voice saying,  “Believe in yourself!”

“I do! I know I am!” she said. “But I don’t know how to wield my power. And you’re the best of the best at what you do.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re asking me to teach you to fight,” he clarified.

“Please don’t ask for another ominous unspecified ‘harmless’ favor.”

He began taking steps around her. “Well, if you spoil the fun like that…”

“I’ll could always ask Vaggie to train me instead,” Charlie threatened.

“And get subpar training? Or, worse than that, be taught to use the angel’s own battle methods against them? I’m sure that’ll go well.” The door had closed behind her at some point. She saw it when she turned to face him again. He always seemed taller when he was on a roll talking like this. “Worst of all, you’ll still be weaker than me. I know how Vaggie fights. It’s simple. It’s brute force. That seems like the last thing you’d want.”

It was honestly impressive how he could manipulate her into wanting something she’d asked him for not even two minutes ago. “I won’t make another deal with you,” she said firmly. “You get one.”

Alastor eyed her for another split second, calculating, then sighed, “Very well. I suppose asking two favors of a princess is rather greedy of me.”

Charlie immediately brightened. “Yay! When do we start?”

His eyes glimmered. “We already have.”

Immediately, she was wrenched down to the floor, landing hard on her butt. One of Alastor’s shadow hands pinned her wrist to the ground. She yelped, using her free hand to try and tug it off but ended up getting her other hand ensnared too.

She looked up at Alastor desperately.

“Well,” he said disdainfully, drumming his fingers on the top of his microphone. “We certainly have our work cut out for us.”

“That’s not fair, you caught me off guard!”

“And you think an angel will count down from three?”

He was right. She glanced around for a weapon before remembering that, oh right, her hands were caught. So she focused—and she did have to focus quite a bit for it, embarrassingly enough—and summoned a golden swirl between her palms. The light of it dispelled the shadows and she jumped to her feet, summoning her trident and throwing it at Alastor in one fluid motion.

He’d dodged before it even left her hand. The trident impaled itself in one of the bluish trees in the swamp behind him. Charlie lunged for it but Alastor spun around himself and, still with the momentum of his dodge, kicked her to the ground. His heel dug in between her shoulder blades. That would hurt in the morning. It hurt now, actually.

Before he could settle his weight in, Charlie swung her elbow back into his ankle. But he’d anticipated it and stepped away, leaving her to swing herself right back down to the ground, landing on her back. The end of his microphone jabbed into her sternum—when she glanced up at his face he was barely even looking at her—and she let her trident disappear from the tree before summoning it again.

The instant it entered her grasp she twirled it above her, lightly knocking Alastor’s microphone out of the way and allowing her to spring back up. She whirled around, trident in hand. Where’d he gone?

“Al!” she barked.

“Right here,” he said into her ear. Something swept her feet out from under her and just like that, she was on the ground again.

Alastor gently pressed the toes of his shoes onto her fingers (at least, as gently as one person could stand on another) and leaned over, microphone primly behind his back. His eyes weren’t aglow. His antlers were small enough that she couldn’t see them from this angle. He hadn’t used magic. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.

A sound effect played from his microphone.

“Three strikes and you, my dear, are out,” he said.

Charlie felt her own horns against the grass receding. “Was that it?”

He laughed. “Not if you want any chance at surviving this war you’re getting into,” he said as he stepped off her hands and it looked like he moved to help her up but thought better of it. “Come back tomorrow, princess.”

---

“What,” snarled Vaggie, “happened?”

Charlie turned around, bewildered. Vaggie was staring at her now-bare back. Oh, it must be bruised to Heaven and back.

“Alastor,” said Charlie simply, hoping to brush it off.

Vaggie’s eyes un-narrowed slightly, but only just. “Does he think he’s training a princess or an exterminator?”

He’s training one to beat another, thought Charlie. But she just said, “Please don’t tell my dad.”

---

As Alastor told her to, Charlie did come back tomorrow—or—would it be ‘she went back today’?—no, that wasn’t it—she—

Alastor’s door swung open before she could even knock.

“Al!” she greeted. “I was coming for training… unless you’re busy?”

“Not at all, dear!” he said cheerily. More cheery than he tended to be these days, which was always good. “As a matter of fact, I was just on my way out to get something for your training. I was hoping you could help me with something.”

“Is this your favor?” she asked trepidatiously.

Alastor waved a hand in her face. “No, no, you needn’t do anything. Your mere presence will suffice.” He was wearing an airy pink suit that did not look like it would lend itself well to combat training.

“Um,” she started.

He sighed. “I suppose you’d like some real combat?”

She nodded.

“Well, let’s go.” He offered out a hand to her, but when she reached to take it, he’d melted into the shadow cast by his own body on the red carpet. “Catch me if you can,” came his voice over the intercom system.

“What? Hey!” Charlie shouted uselessly, sprinting down the carpeted hall and around a corner.

He stood at the end of the next hallway in front of a window and waved once before disappearing again and reappearing on the rooftop outside.

Charlie lunged against the window and wrenched it open as fast as she could but Alastor had already bounded up and away, over the marquee lights. She managed to crawl clumsily onto the roof after him and cast her eyes around in a circle. There—approaching his broadcasting studio from the outside

“If you can’t beat your enemy through pure strength,” he started, facing her and backing up slowly across the hotel, “you must outsmart them.”

So Charlie locked eyes with him coolly and stepped backwards off the rooftop. 

For an instant there was nothing under her feet, and the instant grew longer and longer and she thought maybe she shouldn’t have trusted Alastor this much.

But then his hand closed around her wrist he pulled her back up onto the ledge.

“Clever,” he bit, and for a moment she thought she saw a flash of panic or pain in his eyes, but he might’ve just been bitter at losing so quickly.

“Thank you,” said Charlie, managing to hide the shake in her voice. “You should come do trust falls with the rest of us sometime!”

“Not a chance,” he said pleasantly, brushing off his coat and then offering her his arm.

“Where to?”

“Cannibal Town.”

Well, that was nice enough. She took his arm and immediately had the disturbing feeling that she could scream and scream but never be seen again, and wind whipped her hair except it didn’t because she had no hair, no body—and then she opened her eyes in Cannibal Town. God, was that what Alastor’s shadow travel felt like?

Oh, Alastor! Charlie abruptly let go of where she’d been clinging to his arm and tried to smooth the fabric of his jacket back out with her fingers. “Sorry,” she said hastily.

Alastor made a slight distorted-screeching noise. Really, it was more of a hiccup than a screech, more of a hitched breath than a hiccup. She glanced up. His smile was tight and shoulders were tense.

“Are you okay?” she asked, confused.

He smiled down at her placatingly then, all relaxed sass and jaunty gentleman, so quickly she thought she might have imagined the screech, the hiccup, the shoulders. “Never better, my dear! Oh, I feel so at home here. Smell that rotten air.”

Charlie made an effort to breathe through her mouth as they set off down the deceptively cutesy street. “So,” she started, just for some small talk. “I was thinking. About the hotel, of course, and you’re my, uh, co-hotelier, so I thought you should know what I was—er, what Vaggie and I were—”

As she rambled, Alastor’s eyes grew narrower and narrower. More and more annoyed.

She wrapped it up quickly. “We wanted to invite VoxTek to the hotel so they can do a special on Pentious’s redemption.”

Alastor barked a laugh. “A special.”

“...yes.”

“Dear, the only thing special about that garish picture-box is his record-level customer dissatisfaction. Invite him into the hotel under the assumption he’ll sing your praises and you’ll wake up the most hated woman in Hell.’

“Most hated? But—I mean—sinners want to be redeemed, right?”

“Not as much as they want to be so mindlessly entertained they don’t realize they’ve drooled all over their phone screen. If Vox sees something attention-grabbing, that’s what he’s showing, no matter what you think you hire him for. He’s all about entertainment.”

Charlie considered this. “When you put it like that, he sounds like you.”

“Please. The things that entertain me and the things that entertain him are completely different. You’ll find mine far less perverted.” A laugh track played from his microphone, which was good for him, because Charlie didn’t laugh. “Not to mention—ah, nevermind, we’re here.”

Charlie looked up. They were back at Rosie’s Emporium. “Do you do anything else around here besides visit Rosie?” she teased.

“Hardly see the point,” he responded, and they went in. “Rosie love!”

“Al?” came Rosie’s squawking shout from somewhere upstairs. 

“I brought you a gift!” he called, then glanced at Charlie. “And a guest!”

“A gift and a guest? My, you spoil me.” Rosie tittered down the stairs, revealing a long, full white dress and then her hollow eyes that widened when she saw Charlie. “Princess! Oh, how nice to see you.” She swept across the room, brushing straight past Alastor, and pulled Charlie into a hug. “Did everything work out okay with your girlfriend?”

“What? Oh!” It was odd to remember that she hadn’t known Vaggie was an angel until recently. It seemed like such an innate part of her now. “Yes, we’re great.”

“I’m so glad to hear it. Well, what brings you all the way here?”

Charlie shrugged.

Alastor spoke, and for the first time Rosie set her full attention on him. He offered out the gift—a box of chocolates. “Do I need a reason to visit you?”

“Apparently, you do,” she said, not unkindly.

Oh, so there was something happening.

“Well, come sit, sit, tell me all about your hotel,” said Rosie graciously, waving them both over to a little dining area near a window. She and Alastor settled familiarly next to each other on a loveseat, and a white-gold swirl pulled up a plush riveted chair for on the table’s other side. Rosie offered the box of chocolates to her.

They looked beautiful, but Charlie waved a no, thank you. She’d learned her lesson from the ladyfingers. “It’s going… well…!” She didn’t want to start blabbing on like she had with Alastor a moment ago, and the tension between Rosie and Alastor was putting a damper on the whole party. She tried to think of something to ease it. “Oh! Alastor’s teaching me to fight. Like, in battle.”

“Is he now?”

“Oh, yes,” said Alastor around half a bite of chocolate. When Charlie peered around him she saw the insides of the chocolates were filled with something pink that looked more renal than raspberry and she felt very strongly she’d dodged a bullet with those. “We’re starting small, of course, but she’s making real progress.”

“I’m sure she is,” remarked Rosie.

“Why, I imagine in due time she could give me a run for my money!”

Charlie beamed with pride, though she thought that level of praise was excessive for one day of training in which he’d clobbered her.

“I’m sure she could,” said Rosie sweetly, reaching over to brush something off his shoulder.

“You know, I’ve been trying to take it easy after the battle with Adam. But who knows, I might have to start practicing again for the princess!”

“I’m sure you will.” Rosie’s hand drifted down and she pet his necktie slightly where it sat over his chest. “And I’m sure you have everything handled, pumpkin.” She gave the tie a little tug, cinching it tight around Alastor’s neck.

Charlie had to suppress a grin at the Radio Demon being called pumpkin.

“Oh, I don’t know, this Charlie’s a tough one.” Alastor was beginning to seethe.

There was a suspicion growing in Charlie’s mind very quickly that they weren’t talking about her. It felt very much like she was a child again, listening to her parents argue from upstairs while she was supposed to be asleep.

“Princess, I’m very sorry,” said Rosie decisively, standing suddenly and brushing off nonexistent dust from her skirt. “Dear Alastor and I seem to need a moment. Make yourself at home. Help yourself to chocolate and there’s tea in the cupboard.”

“Okay,” said Charlie hesitantly as Rosie opened two big doors to another room that looked like a study or office of some sort. Well, she was definitely not about to help herself to any food—”food”—that Rosie kept around, so she looked out the window around Cannibal Town. It was nice, if you didn’t mind the smell of blood and didn’t care for any technological advances more recent than film-photography.

The room was very quiet. Nearly silent, actually, and—oh, no, it wasn’t silent. There was a swelling sound of static coming from the study, and Charlie knew exactly whose doing it was. Well, two could play at that game, thought Charlie decisively. If she was being paraded around as some sort of bargaining chip she deserved to know what it was for, right? So she used her own magic to dispel the static—the magic of song applied to all audio, evidently, something she hadn’t thought to test until now—and stepped a bit closer to the door.

“—my pet,” Rosie was saying.

“Please. Look.” Wow. If Alastor was saying please this must be serious. There was a brief silence and the rustling of clothes.

“Well, that’s awful, honey. But I can’t help you there.”

“I understand you’re not supposed to help me. I only need this one thing.”

“And coming in demanding it, using that girl to trick me, is not the way to get it, Alastor!”

Alastor sighed, then said—no, he nearly purred—”Perhaps if you allow me to convince you—”

Charlie blushed and wondered if she should really be listening in on this. She was starting to have to fight against the static to be able to hear it still.

“Oh, you must really be desperate,” said Rosie derisively. “Put your shirt back on. I get nothing when you come back after seven years but when you need your little—”

“Wait,” said Alastor sharply. There was another rustling of clothes and then all at once the door was open and he was looming over Charlie. “Enjoying yourself, Charlotte?”

She blanched. “I just—I—”

“I didn’t bring you here to eavesdrop. I think you should go.”

“I wasn’t—” she said, although she most definitely was.

“I said I think you should go now,” he said in a voice that left no room for argument. “Run along. Go buy yourself a treat.”

She nodded, feeling clearly dismissed and incredibly childish.

Chapter Text

“Now, sweetheart, don’t think you’re not welcome back just because of this little snafu,” said Rosie, dousing the fire in the hearth with a flick of her fingers. “God knows I could see more of you.”

“Oh, I could never stay away from you long,” Alastor returned. He wasn’t wholly lying. He did love Rosie very much. But the collar around his neck felt tighter with every passing day and he thought if he didn’t get off her leash he might turn around and bite her.

“Tea this Friday?” she asked hopefully.

“Friday,” he confirmed, kissing her cheek stoicly, and then he was off to find the princess.

And there she was, sitting on a bench in a garden with a cup of ice cream in her hands. Ha! He hadn’t really expected her to follow his direction and buy herself a treat. But then again, what did he expect?

He stalked up to her. “That has eyeballs in it, you know.”

“I know,” she all but moped. “I’m eating around them. Al, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on—well, I guess I meant to eavesdrop, but I didn’t realize you were…”

He eyed her. He didn’t know how much of their conversation she’d heard. “We were what, exactly?” If Charlie knew about his deal, who owned his soul, the circumstances of his being at the hotel—

“I just—I didn’t mean to listen in on anything, uh, intimate.”

Oh, that. He barked a laugh, and steeled himself to shadow-travel the both of them back to the hotel.

---

The taste of blood filled Alastor’s mouth, and for once it wasn’t welcome. He’d bitten his tongue trying to keep from crying out in pain, half-reclined on the floor with a threaded needle in one hand and the other holding the skin of his abdomen together.

He’d given up on trying to heal the cut with magic—a homemade remedy that clearly wasn’t working—and had resorted to more… earthly tactics. Niffty would’ve been good at this, and he’d have asked her if he hadn’t been near certain she’d blab it to half of Hell before finishing the job. He’d have said Bless her soul, but it was a little late for all that.

A knock came on his door. “Al?”

It was Charlie. He swore under his breath. Damn that girl—and it was never too late to say that, not down here—damn her and her timing. Never the same time from one day to the next! Suppose he pretended he was out. No, that wouldn’t do, she must have hunted through the rest of the hotel already.

So he took a steadying breath and called back, “A moment!” He tied off the last few stitches with magic and threw some clothes on, then, picking up his microphone, began a plan of action. He didn’t want to move physically too much—magic would be draining, sure, but ripping an actual physical stitch would be catastrophic. God, he needed out of this deal.

He grabbed a book off the shelf, opened the door, and threw the book at Charlie’s face.

She squeaked and batted it away, catching it near her knees. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look pale.”

“Perish the thought,” he joked.

“Then what was that for?” she demanded, brandishing the book.

He drew his microphone back like a baseball bat and swung it, real oaf-like, right at her head. She ducked.

“Your reflexes are terrible!” he said as the metal grazed the top of her hair, then braced to summon a shadow-hand or two or ten.

“Wait! Like, actually wait, stop training for a second—” Charlie cried, curled into a ball on the floor.

He waited. It felt odd to do something someone asked him to without negotiating it to the end of its rope, but he was grateful for an excuse to take a break.

“I didn’t come for training—but thanks! I came to ask if you want to come do trust falls with us.”

He smiled. “I don’t.”

“That’s okay. Now I’m asking if you would come do trust falls with us anyway, because we need to spend more time together if we’re gonna put up a united front for the public eye.”

“I know you’re not still thinking about that VoxTek nonsense.”

“I’m not! He—Vox—he actually asked to come interview us, but I remembered what you said and I told him no thanks.” Charlie hoisted herself up from the floor once it was clear that Alastor had nothing else to hurl at her face and beamed with pride. “I was hoping you’d…”

Let them do a segment on his show? Absolutely not.

“...let us do a segment on your show?”

“Absolutely not.” Charlie alone would embarrass him, but to include the rest of the buffoons at this place would be suicide. He’d play nice with them when he had to, but he wouldn’t be giving this place any special treatment just because Rosie asked.

The wound on his chest smarted.

“Everyone said you’d say that, so I also started a Sinstagram for the hotel that’ll—like, if we post reels it’ll spread the word but also we can do those, like, slideshow infographics? You know? Nevermind. Wanna come to trust falls?”

He squinted at her, about to tell her no again, but his deal tugged tight around his neck. “Fine,” he growled, and offered her his arm.

Charlie took it tentatively and they began down the hallway. “We’re not shadow travelling?”

God, no. He thought if he had to stretch his magic any thinner he’d vomit, or at the very least kill a few people. “It’s only a few floors. Do you want to?”

“Um, I don’t mind.”

“Well, what’s the fuss?”

--- 

“Babe,” Vaggie said to Charlie. “I just really don’t want his gross hands on me.”

“Frankly, Vargarine, I don’t want my hands on you either,” said Alastor.

Charlie clasped her hands and looked at them imploringly.

“Fine,” said Vaggie, with no animosity towards Charlie. She turned, folded her arms, stepped off the table, and hit the floor.

“Al!” cried Charlie.

“Really,” he drawled. “All this talk of consent and you all still jump on me like water skeeters on a pond in summer.”

---

Alastor hadn’t bled through his stitches all day and he was not about to risk that streak by duelling Vox in the middle of the Entertainment District.

“As much as I’d love to let you continue this little—” Alastor flicked his hand. “—monologue, I do have work to do.”

He didn’t, actually—at least, not any more than he usually did—but Vox didn’t know that. They were standing damn near toe-to-toe, lapel-to-lapel, nose-to-screen. This close up, he could see the individual pixels changing colors as Vox breathed into his face. The blue light was rather garish, nothing like the soft background noise of a quiet radio broadcast. Alastor drew himself taller, knowing Vox would get out of his space. And he did.

“Okay, Bambi,” he mocked. “Run away. You’ll see me soon enough.”

“Oh, I’ll count on it!” replied Alastor cheerily, and then disappeared into the shadows, hopping from radiowave to radiowave until he stepped into the hotel lobby.

He was greeted with Charlie’s familiar girlish cry of “Al!” and then the woosh of a blade flying at his neck.

He sidestepped it in an instant. The trident wobbled as it hit the wall, and Alastor cracked his neck towards Charlie. “Good afternoon,” he said calmly, like his heart hadn’t jumped into his throat.

“Caught you!” she exclaimed gleefully.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Almost!” she protested, jogging over to tug her trident out of where it’d stuck in the wallpaper.

“Almost hardly matters. If I were someone that wanted you dead, you would be, unless you stuck that thing through my throat.” He watched her struggle to tug the trident free. “You oughta practice summoning that to your hand. Chasing your own weapon around a battlefield is humiliating at best.”

His gaze travelled around and across the lobby just in time to see Lucifer waddling down the stairs in a bathrobe. God, was he an embarrassment to all of Pride. Though, Alastor supposed, having such a pitiful king was a fitting part of punishment for a prideful sinner. Clever Heaven, cruel irony.

Alastor locked eyes with Lucifer for an instant, then set a hand on Charlie’s back. “Well, try it,” he prompted encouragingly. “It’s the same magic you use to summon it from nothing.”

Charlie splayed her hands in front of her, and opened and closed her fists a few times like a toddler begging for candy. He peered over his shoulder at Lucifer, who was holding his coffee mug so tightly it was probably cracking. Alastor’s grin widened.

He looked back down at Charlie. “Come on, dear.”

“It’s harder when it’s right there!” she protested. “I can’t help thinking I can just, you know, pick it up.”

As Charlie made a few more futile hand movements he stepped forward and wrenched the trident from the wall himself, ignoring the way his stitches pulled at his skin. “Catch,” he said, and threw it directly away from Charlie.

It careened towards the bar, but the crash of the marquee being speared never came.

Charlie inhaled slightly and the trident materialized in her palm. She laughed out loud and threw it again, summoning it back to her hand.

“Oh my gosh! Yay!” she cried, throwing her arms around Alastor.

Now, normally he’d just stand there passively until she decided she was done. If he was feeling especially caring—read: manipulative—he might pat her head. But Lucifer was still watching, and he’d have to be at double-death’s door to pass up a chance to torment the king, so he hugged her back (one arm only) and said, “Very good, dear.”

Sure enough, Lucifer’s grating voice carried across the lobby. “Oooookayyyy. Very sweet.”

Charlie jumped away. “Dad! I, um, didn’t know you were here!”

Alastor grinned at Lucifer. “Charlie and I were just—”

“It’s nothing!”

“—having a quick training session. See, it seems like no one ever taught her—”

“Really, it was just a favor!”

“—how to wield her power, and the poor dear was struggling! Someone had to step up. And, wouldn’t you know it—”

“Not, like, a favor favor, just—oh, nevermind. It’s not a big thing, Dad, really!”

“—my dear protégé is making me very proud.”

Charlie turned to look at him. “I am?”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Of course, dear.”

Lucifer knocked his hand away, looking nearly ready to burst a golden blood vessel. But he managed not to throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the hotel lobby and instead turned to Charlie and said slowly, “Charlie, I… I feel hurt that you didn’t think to come to me first.”

Alastor would never admit it, but—aside from Lucifer’s obvious attempt to show he’d been paying attention to Charlie’s communication lessons—that was a good point. Why hadn’t Charlie gone first to her father? From what Niffty had told him, Lucifer had been the one to give Adam a fairly thorough beating, and had only left him alive out of mercy. Alastor himself had been, hm, taken down much more quickly.

“Um.” Charlie glanced sidelong at Alastor for a moment, then back at Lucifer. “Can we talk about this in private?”

“Oh, don’t let me stop you,” said Alastor cheerily. He didn’t bother too hard to trick them into staying within earshot. After the princess’s little stunt back at Rosie’s, he’d have no qualms eavesdropping on their conversation, wherever they took it. At least, that was the excuse he planned to throw in Charlie’s face the next time she caught him doing something mean-spirited.

Lucifer said, “You’re not stopping us from doing anything. My daughter and I have a very strong relationship and you have no say in it.”

“Just what I like to hear,” sneered Alastor.

Lucifer looked back at Charlie expectantly.

“Well,” she started. “I just thought, um… Alastor doesn’t really participate in our redemption activities, and we don’t cross paths at the hotel a lot—like, he works the outside and I work the inside—so I never really get to see him and I wanted… I don’t know. I didn’t want him to be lonely.” She glanced at him again sheepishly.

He hated when she looked at him like that, like she cared about him. Because he knew that meant she did. At least when she was being bull-headedly cheerful it was easy to pretend that it was just a front. Just because you see a smile, he thought, don’t think you know what’s going on underneath. A ridiculous attempt to convince himself that she wasn’t as good as she claimed to be. But no, all that heart was genuine. Pure naivety, but genuine.

 “How thoughtful,” Alastor placated.

“I don’t come to the redemption activities either,” protested Lucifer. “And I could train you better than he ever could! You and I have the same magic, Charlie.”

Charlie clasped her hands around her trident and inhaled deeply like she was trying not to set the hotel on fire. Alastor, frankly, wouldn’t blame her. “But we have other things to do together! You’re my dad!”

“He’s your father,” put in Alastor. “Procreation is not a signifier of guidance nor is it a prerequisite.”

Lucifer balled his fists. “I’ll show you procreation.”

“Alastor,” said Charlie serenely. “Thank you for the help today. Would you please mind your own business?”

He smiled, said, “Gladly,” and disappeared into the radiowaves.

---

The next morning, the hotel received quite a few packages of venison jerky, DoorDashed by one Luci M.

---

For once in her life, Charlie managed to pick a good time to track Alastor down.

“Has your father forbidden your training?” he asked wryly.

“No,” said Charlie, hands behind her back and chest puffed out. “I’m an adult. He can’t forbid me to do anything. But, to answer your question, I convinced him not to feel bad. We went out to eat last night too and that helped things, I think. What’s up for training today?”

In response, Alastor turned on his heel, beckoning with his still-broken microphone. He didn’t bother checking to see if she followed. He knew she did.

Behind the hotel was a hill, and at the bottom of the hill was a big mess of rubble where the old hotel had been destroyed due to certain angelic events. The worst of it was on the edges, forming a lopsided circle. A ring, a battlefield, an arena.

Alastor walked into the middle of it and turned around. Charlie was right behind him, of course. “We,” he said, “are going to spar.”

“Okay!” She failed to completely hide the trepidation in her voice but she did a good enough job that Alastor wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t, well, himself. “Like… best two out of three?”

“Ha! No, no, not that difficult. We’ll go until you score a hit on me.”

“Just one?”

“Just one.”

She shuffled around. “Okay.” She shuffled around some more, then asked,  “Are you ready? Do you want to, like, count down or anything?”

He eyed her, keeping his hands folded behind his back and chin up. “Whenever you’re ready, dear.”

Charlie blew her hair out of her face, summoned her trident, and lunged at him.

He deflected it with a flick of his fingers the first several times she attacked. But this got old rather quickly, so when she moved to sweep his feet out from under him, instead of knocking her away he jumped and attacked her back, sending her flying into a rock.

“Just so you know,” she winced. “My dad is gonna be upset if you hurt me.”

Alastor fought the urge to roll his eyes and instead sent a shadow hand to drag her along the ground by the ankle. “He’ll be more upset if you get killed by an exorcist’s blade, I promise you.”

Charlie wrestled herself into a position where she could get a bit of leverage and sent her trident flying at him. He dodged.

“I’m going on TV tomorrow, too!” she called. “Please don’t bruise me up!”

“Which program?”

“...Vox News.”

He tossed her into a wall again. “Don’t you listen to anything I say? One wonders if those little ears can hear anything under all that hair.”

“I listen,” she said, as primly as one could while batting shadow hands away from their face. “And I take it into consideration but I make my own decisions based on what I think is best.”

“Charlie, dear. You have to learn to fight before you can get started on your banter. Good rapport doesn’t count for anything if you’re dead.”

“Good rapport doesn’t count for anything? Who are you and what have you done with Alastor?” she joked.

He tossed her into the ground again, just for that. “Come now, at least try.” He let his microphone disappear from his hand. “Look, I won’t even fight back.”

Charlie staggered to her feet and lunged for him, and he sidestepped easily again and again, dancing around her while she tired herself out. Between clumsy trident-throws she’d taken off her suit jacket, and her hair was coming out of the braid she always had it in.

The other residents were beginning to gather at the top of the hill—he could see Angel’s lanky frame and Husk’s wings over the horizon. Alastor gestured grandly to them and said, while turning around her trident. “Charlie! We’ve got an audience!”

“Ha,” she panted. Her next move was dangerously close to his arm, so he summoned his microphone again. She glared. “You said you wouldn’t!”

“Well, now I’m saying I will.” He waved an arm and a shadow knocked her to the ground. She really needed some grace; if she was tripping all over herself in a friendly spar, how would she stay on her feet when Heaven—or, just as likely, the Vees—attacked? He looked at her now trying to pull away from the shadows with pure strength. “Don’t be so boring,” he told her. “Your thin little body won’t help you. Get creative. You can dance, can’t you?”

She smiled—her heart always on her sleeve, that girl—and with it, she twirled herself up, trident in hand. “You’re one to talk about being so thin,” she snarked.

There we are, thought Alastor. Sure, she was a little clumsy, but her feet grew lighter the longer they danced. He didn’t attack her anymore, instead focusing on dodging and prancing and leading her all around the makeshift arena. But even as he did that, she forced him back just as much.

He bounded up to a high point, on the roof of what had been his recording studio, and the field got very quiet. “Chaaaaarlie!” he mocked, prowling in a small circle. “Come out, come o—”

Two hands closed around his calf and pulled him sharply to the ground. He tried to melt into the shadows, but up here on the roof, there were no shadows to melt into.

“Ha!” Charlie said, raising a hand. “One hit…!” She smacked her hand lightly on his chest, then clambored to her feet, whooping and cheering “I BEAT THE RADIO DEMON!” for all Hell to hear, nevermind that he’d practically let her win. Everyone watching had dispersed the moment she’d won.

But as he got to his feet, she froze, then said, “Oh my gosh. Did I hurt you?”

“Don’t worry,” Alastor said. “I’ll recover from a slap on the wrist like that.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Now it was his turn to freeze. He looked down at his chest, and sure enough, dark red was seeping through his shirt, enough that some must have stained Charlie’s fingers when she’d hit him. The light bit of adrenaline still coursing through him must’ve kept him from feeling the stitches rip.

He swore under his breath, off the air, then grabbed the front of Charlie’s shirt, pulling her close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice to get the point across. “You will tell no one.”

“What?” she squealed. “Are you okay?”

“Charlotte Morningstar.” His teeth were gritted, eyes boring into hers. “You will tell no one. No one in Hell can know. Do you understand me?’

Her eyes were tearing up. “But—”

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, yes, okay, I won’t tell! But—but—how bad is it? Does it hurt you?”

He ignored her, jumping down from the rooftop and disappearing into the first shadow in his path.

Chapter Text

Alastor was coming down the hall in Charlie’s direction, primly pretending not to see her after the last time they'd talked. Maybe this was an intimidation tactic to keep her from asking about his injury? It was working, it seemed, because she had to fight to keep her chin up as he approached.

“Soooo,” she asked awkwardly, “Are we still training today or…?”

“Not today,” said Alastor, brushing past her. “I’m meeting Rosie for tea.”

—

Charlie stumbled to her feet after being caught in the stampede outside VoxTek Studios. When she looked up, the blue-light billboard was screaming the newest headline in her face: ALASTOR DEFEATED AND CAPTURED BY VOX I MEAN ALL THREE VEES AT LONG FUCKING LAST LMFAOOOOOOOOO

—

“I’m going to get him,” declared Charlie.

“Are you insane?” came Husk’s voice from behind the bar.

“No.” Charlie tried to sweeten her voice. “Just because some of us, um, don’t get along, it doesn’t mean we aren’t one big family.”

Cherri barked a laugh. Vaggie smiled encouragingly.

“We are,” insisted Charlie. “And families protect each other.”

“Listen, Princess,” Husk growled. “That TV-head’s been after Alastor since before I got down here, and hasn’t even gotten close to beating him. Alastor’s done some crazy shit just to get away with whatever it is he wants to get away with. I promise you, that guy is exactly where he wants to be.”

“But he’s—” Charlie started, then bit her tongue. He’s hurt, she meant to say. She hadn’t made a deal, she hadn’t sworn herself to secrecy, but she knew if she broke Alastor’s trust with this she’d never be able to get under his skin again. So she said in a small voice, “He just looks so upset. They could be doing anything to him.”

“Who wouldn’t?” snarked Angel. Then, “Sorry. Habit.”

Vaggie smacked the back of his head, maybe good-naturedly, maybe not. “Husk has a point, Char. Alastor could be playing Vox.” Then, quieter, “Alastor could be playing you.”

Charlie waved a hand. “Pshh, no way. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Husk raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t he?”

A moment passed. Charlie twisted her fingers together in indecision, then relented, “Okay, fine. We’ll see what his plan is. But I don’t want him there for long. And if anything else crazy happens, we’re attacking the Vees.”

---

Lucifer was not answering Charlie’s calls. He always answered Charlie’s calls.

---

Charlie slammed her fist on the door to Vee Tower. “Vox!” she shouted.

“There’s three of us,” came Velvette’s voice from somewhere above her—there, leaning out a window maybe seven floors up. “People always forget there’s three of us.”

“Velvette!” Charlie seethed. “Let me in.”

Velvette laughed and disappeared into the tower, and Charlie saw red. She threw the doors open with enough force that they crashed off the hinges. She nearly flew through the building, searching for a Vee to fight or a prisoner to free, down blinding blue corridors until she heard, faintly, a voice.

“Dad?” she cried, nearly slipping on the cold tile floor as she scrambled back the way she’d come. There was another hallway, darker than the main ones, and she turned down into it and pulled open the big industrial doors. “Oh my gosh.”

It was a dark warehouse, the only source of light a glowing, white-gold apparatus in the center, and strung up within it was her father.

“Sorry, Charlie,” he said. “Those AI deepfakes are getting—OW—getting crazy good.”

“What?” she gasped. “What is this? Are you okay?”

He convulsed a little and the machine glowed golden, and when it stopped after a few seconds he said, “Eh, it’s—it’s not that bad.” A lie, if she’d ever heard one. “Charlie, you gotta get out of here, if those people find you here—”

“No way. I’m getting you out of this.” She summoned her trident and began whacking the restraints, trying to shatter them, but they didn’t break.

“Feels like angelic steel,” Lucifer said.

Okay, so they wouldn’t break. But there was a seam where it looked like the cuffs had closed around his hand, and that was a weakness. Charlie drove the blade of her trident into the crevice and tried to pry it open.

“Is Alastor here?” she grunted while she worked.

“Yeah.”

Her heart raced. “Where?”

Lucifer shrugged, which made the trident slip out of the seam. But when it did, Charlie saw a bend in the metal. This was working.

“But you’ve seen him?” prompted Charlie.

“Oh, yeah. Too much of him. They’ve got him only tied to a chair. Guess they know who’s more of a threat between us, ha. Sorry. Um, they took him somewhere cause he was paying too much attention to arguing with me and the TV one got jealous.”

“Vox,” Charlie supplied. Then, “Oh gosh. Are they torturing him? They must be. Oh gosh.”

“Eh, he can stand to be tortured a little bit.”

“Dad!”

“Sorry. He looked fine, actually. His hands are free and stuff.”

“Really? But I feel like—”

And all of a sudden, the middle prong of her trident snapped off with a deafening metallic BANG.

“No!” she cried. “Oh shit, oh shit. They definitely heard that. Oh no.” She whipped out her phone and texted Vaggie ROACH ARMY, the codeword they’d chosen beforehand that meant requesting backup, bring everyone. Then she sent another bubble, just to be safe, that said bring angelic spear plz!!! urgent!!!!!!!

And just in time, too, because those big industrial doors slammed open to reveal Vox, in a shiny black suit. “Well, well, well. Just the princess I like to see,” he said.

Behind him, he was pulling a wheely office chair, and in the chair was Alastor. He was bound with rope—or were those wires?—wrapped around his arms and chest. Vox held onto one end of it like a leash, and when he whipped it to make the chair spin and face Charlie and Lucifer, the chair only jerked unnaturally. Alastor was dragging his heels on the ground just to be annoying. That meant he couldn’t be too hurt, right? If he still had it in him to be annoying? Though, Charlie thought, it would take an awful lot to rid Alastor of his, um, spunk.

There were bags under his eyes and shadows under his cheekbones and blood on his shirt that hadn’t been shown on TV but that Charlie recognized from their spar. Alastor’s ears perked up when he saw her, but it looked like he was hiding any other reaction.

“Vox,” Charlie growled. “Let them go and no one has to get hurt.”

Vox laughed in her face. “What, is your ragtag little crew on the way? They won’t make it to the front door.”

“You don’t know them,” spat Charlie.

He shrugged, ego dripping from his shoulders. “Don’t need to. Anyone you can send, I’ll win against. Tell me, Charlie, who’s more powerful than the Radio Demon? Who’s more powerful than the king of Hell? And I’ve got them both at my mercy!” He giggled girlishly. “Send your angel girlfriend. I can deal with Chihuahua bites.”

“You,” said Charlie, wishing she’d prepared a monologue in turn, “cannot steal my friends, my family, or my subjects from me.”

“Caaaareful there,” said Alastor, tracing circles with the toe of his shoes on the ground, bowing his head, and for a single horrible instant, Charlie thought he’d betrayed them for Vox. “Don’t get in over your head, dear.”

“What do you mean? I’m saving you.” But she knew what he was saying. Vox held all the cards, and she knew it. But she would still fight.

“Please, like you’ll win against him. You only got a hit in on me because I was injured, and Vox beat me.” He finally lifted his eyes and they were glowing, boring into hers. “Doesn’t that mean Vox is stronger than I am?”

Vox perked up. “Really?”

“Don’t say that,” said Charlie. “You gotta be—be hopeful—”

“Hope is for cads and little girls,” said Alastor far too gleefully—no, not gleefully. This was sinister, this was not joy. “Go on, enlighten us. Who do you really think is the strongest sinner in Hell?” The glow of his eyes began to turn green. “Tell us, Charlie.”

She would not say Vox, no matter how true it was. But the second she thought this, she knew what was about to happen. “No,” she started. Why was he doing this? Had he betrayed them after all?

“Do me this one—” said Alastor, “—simple—”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“—favor.”

And when the word left his mouth, she said the truth, that Vox was stronger, and Alastor laughed and laughed and laughed and then… nothing happened.

She opened her eyes slowly. Vox and Lucifer were both staring at Alastor, and he was still laughing. Maybe he had been tortured after all; tortured into in-fucking-sanity.

Vox clapped once. “Weeell, now whatever that was is over with—” He raised a hand, claws extending with a shing, all polished and so sharp they could’ve been holograms. “—I’ll let your dad and Al watch as I fucking destroy you.”

“Try it,” snarled Charlie, shifting into a stronger stance, broken trident wielded behind her.

“Charlie,” warned Lucifer even as he began to convulse again.

But Vox had already lunged for her. To her own surprise, she managed to dodge, and again and again. She began strategizing, which she really should’ve done that whole time Alastor was laughing so she wasn’t doing it in medias res, but that was okay. You live and you learn.

Vox was physically a bit bigger than Alastor, and definitely moreso than her dad or Vaggie. But he was also clumsy. As he chased her around the room, Charlie thought he might’ve done better working with brute force than trying to dance about, light on his feet. Because that boxy TV-head was anything but light.

But what was oddest was that Charlie recognized his strategies. She really did make an effort not to do battle with her subjects, but it was Hell, and sometimes a little bit of conflict could not be avoided (see: Adam) (see: Alastor) (see: her ex) (see: Vox, right now). And she could tell; Vox was copying Alastor’s style. Adam didn’t fight like this. Her ex didn’t fight like this. Only Alastor and Vox, and one of them was far better than the other.

And after so long sparring with Alastor, she knew how to get in a hit.

But her trident was broken. She could summon magic, still, but the trident would only be two-thirds as useful as it normally was—not to mention the weight was all off, and—

She shook her hair out of her face. This was no time to be caught up in anxiety. Charlie waved a hand and summoned a cloud of music notes near Vox as he tried to pin her arm to her side with wires. She spun her trident, knocking them away, and the music staff wrapped around Vox’s ankle, dragging him along the ground.

She’d learned that one from Alastor, and she looked at him for the split second Vox was indisposed to gauge his reaction. But he was reclining in his chair, one leg over the other knee, just enjoying the show.

“Your three,” he called gleefully, still choking back laughter. She’d never say it aloud, but in the privacy of her own mind, she called him a freako.

Oh, right, her three. She envisioned a clock. Three was on the right—or left? No, right. A shower of gold sparks burst from the ground on her right side.

And just in time, too. Electricity sparked up her pant leg, singing it.

“Ow,” muttered Charlie.

And Alastor started laughing again, more maniacally than before. The sound of it filled the warehouse and drew Vox’s attention—at least it was away from Charlie, she figured. But then Alastor’s corner started glowing an unnatural green, and Charlie froze, too.

Alastor rose from his chair, ripping free from his bonds and summoning his microphone to his hand all in one motion, like he’d been rehearsing it in his mind. Or lying in wait.

“You absolute idiot,” he laughed, breaking the last of his restraints in Vox’s face. “Don’t you know a deal only works if both parties hold up their end?”

“What—you mean Charlie? I didn’t touch her!” Vox sputtered. “That was fucking—it was electricity! Electrons! Not my hands!”

“She said ‘ow’; you hurt her!"

“I didn’t put my hand on her!”

“Well, you oughta think through deals, baby.” Vox’s screen glitched. Maybe he and Alastor were both freakos. “You raised a hand against her.”

“What—that’s—fuck—you’re not—” argued Vox eloquently. “I had you! You tricked me!”

“Yes, I did. Very stupid of you, wasn’t it?” grinned Alastor, politely ignoring Vaggie sneaking through the doors behind Vox’s back.

Vaggie! mouthed Charlie as Vox and Alastor continued bickering.

Niff and Husk have the other Vees under control. What do you need? she mouthed back.

My dad’s shackles. They’re angelic steel.

Vaggie looked at her blankly, processing.

Shackles, mouthed Charlie again, more exaggeratedly, miming cuffs around her wrists. They’re torturing him.

But Vaggie had already flown to Lucifer, always pragmatic, and Charlie moved to chase after her but a blast of shrieking static knocked her to her knees. The wall behind her exploded out into the street. A few people screamed, Charlie included.

Alastor leapt past her, saying, “Let’s take this outside, shall we?” and then deftly dodged three wires Vox fired as he chased after him. As the sound of their fight faded out, the only sound in the room was Vaggie panting as she pried the shackles of Lucifer.

“Dad!” cried Charlie, rushing forward to help Vaggie, leveraging the spear until the wrist cuffs popped open. Without them holding him up, Lucifer nearly collapsed. Charlie caught him and held him upright while Vaggie freed his ankles, and then she lowered him to the floor a bit away from the whole apparatus, taking his hat and coat off so he could get some air. Getting some air was probably not a remedy for having angelic magic forcibly drained from your body, but it couldn’t hurt.

“We have to get out of here,” said Vaggie. “If the Vees come—”

“Nah,” mumbled Lucifer, and then coughed up a glob of golden blood. “I’m fiiiiine.”

“You’re not,” said Charlie. “I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry, Char.”

“The others are still fighting Valentino and Velvette,” said Vaggie. “And, not to be mean, but I don’t think they can fend them off much longer.”

“But Alastor—” said Charlie. “We can’t leave him!”

“He’s strong enough to win against Vox three times over,” argued Vaggie. “He fought Adam.”

“But—” she hesitated. But in the end he lost against Adam. But the Vees beat him once already. But he was just at Vox’s mercy for a week and I don’t want to leave him for another second. But he’s hurt. But I’m useless if I can’t protect my family and I already failed with Dad. She didn’t say any of that out loud, but she said something that encompassed all of it. “He needs me.”

“He’d deny it.”

“I know.”

Vaggie looked at her a moment, then said, “You’re too kind to be down here. Okay. We’ll be waiting for you back home. Be safe.”

Charlie smiled softly, then jumped to her feet, grabbed her broken trident, called, “Love you both!” and leapt out the hole in the wall.