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Charlie's hand lingered a little longer than she'd expect friends do before they parted earlier tonight.
She and her beloved friend took to the furniture shops around the Pentagram today. The Hotel is happening. To Vaggie, her friend always has this glitter sparkling around her (might just be an illusion she deluded in). But, Charlie today seemed… Immersed by the joy, like she's unearthed a long buried purpose in her life.
Of course, she would be; obviously, the princess of Hell is on her way to fulfilling her one destiny. Vaggie has been by her side since day one for the past year.
And she wants nothing else but to remain her companion during and onward.
Charlie is an impossible sight to behold in Hell.
Never in her past exorcist life she imagined such a creature lives in hell. They're all trash, like Adam kept rehashing to his soldiers.
But… Charlie is the irony of it to Vaggie. She's her enigma, and she can't help but to grow this pesky feeling of longing.
Maybe it's just Hell taking over her, but her desires make her yearn helplessly.
Created and grinded to kill, only to fall for Hell's princess.
But she can't possibly impose this idea of this budding relationship between them. She just can't. Worthy of Charlie is not her virtue to her despicable sin.
She's an ex-exorcist, there's no way Charlie would forgive this. And she rightfully shouldn't.
Freshly coming out of the showers, Vaggie scrubs the sides of her shoulder-length wet hair, drying it with a towel draped on top of her head. She shuffles her way to where she laid her phone down, on her bedside table across her studio apartment.
I've arrived home! Thank you for accompanying me today, Vaggie.
The days I spend with you are always the better ones amongst all my days.
Said some texts coming from the friend lingering around her shower thoughts.
Charlie can be so sweet with her, but she’s the sweetest being around. Maybe the only one. It's too easy to fall for Charlie, she's beautiful, charming, sensitive, and too considerate for her own good. Vaggie wants to say it's weird that she doesn't have a long line of exes, but then again, what does she know. She was a heavenly soldier, and Charlie lives where the equivalent of love is lustful desires.
Love
Its meaning and the emotion worry Vaggie. But it's Charlie. It's easy to fall for Charlie.
The affection she feels for this friend that she gained ever since she fell from Heaven is scary to Vaggie.
Love has consequences. It's been a year, but there are too few things Vaggie could get used to in Hell.
One, having feelings and someone important negates vulnerability. A woman like her can't have that.
Two, even just maintaining this fake identity so that she can mask her true self from Charlie is already so difficult. How is she going to start something with Charlie when the other woman can't possibly know who she truly is?
In that regard, three, they're realms too different from each other. Vaggie hasn't even grasped the concept of being her own self fully. Her very purpose was so attached to Heaven, now she's the very sinner she was made sworn to kill.
Four… The thought of having Charlie be affectionate with her shakes her to the very soul. Under the tips of her fingers, Vaggie would have exploded into atoms and ceased.
“God…”
The after-shower refreshments last barely 5 minutes, now she's back to being muddied by her overwhelming feelings. They text every day, but it's not the texting; it's Charlie. Charlie dismantles her in ways Vaggie couldn't have ever trained enough to retaliate.
She's beyond help.
Vaggie collapses onto her bed; she discards her phone mindlessly, covering her eyelids with both her hands.
“I can't afford to love you this way, Charlie… I just can't. I shouldn't. I don't know how to even begin to deal with this… I wish I weren't created with a beating heart—or rather, feelings. I wish I didn't have the ability to feel. I wish I could just be devoted to your purpose without wishing that I could kiss you every time you smile…”
“Good night, Vaggie,” Charlie says while holding her hand a little longer. She throws her usual ear-to-ear smile at Vaggie, she makes sure that her eyes are extra warm as they lock their gazes on each other's eyes. Holding her hand feels… right. The idea of letting it go feels wrong.
But Charlie is careful to leave the wanting to place that hand on her lips ungranted.
Vaggie can't know that she loves her.
Not yet, anyway.
Vaggie is doing the thing Charlie adores again. She looks into her eyes with this uncertainty, but the irony is, practical and rigid Vaggie does this when Charlie purposefully teases her a little.
Albeit missing an eye, Vaggie conveys her emotion that Charlie can write stories about through the remaining one. Charlie can even write one just to express her admiration for Vaggie's sunset eye. Her golden iris soaks Charlie in an enormous body of warm water filled with exciting bubbles and soothing scents.
It might seem like Charlie is the one reeling her in, but Vaggie is the one truthfully disabling Charlie. They're stuck in this loop of looking into each other's eyes because both are oblivious that they are struck by each other's charms just the same.
Charlie lets go painfully slowly, her fingertips linger down Vaggie's palm. She sees Vaggie move that hand to her heart, then she sees her turn around. Charlie can see that Vaggie maintains the same gaze, though the rest of her body betrays it, breaking their eye contact.
Vaggie disappears into the building, and Charlie stays by the doors a second longer.
Charlie loves her; she knows this now, she's accepted this feeling for a few months, she likes cradling it.
Such atrocious tragedy birthed Charlie a beautiful encounter. Vaggie feels like she wasn't meant for Hell.
It's been more than a year since, and—Charlie still can't believe how the extermination gave her Vaggie. Her dream is coming true soon because she found Vaggie in that alley, battered and withered. Initially, Charlie planned to care for her only until she was well again, but, somehow—there came a feeling of longing emerging from the stranger.
One day, when Charlie was sitting close by to watch over the girl, she began asking Charlie what she was so immersed in writing down in her notebook.
“This is redemption,” Charlie answered while presenting her notebook, puzzling the girl.
That day became day one.
Charlie turns around as Vaggie's silhouette disappears, and she begins walking back to her place.
They went furniture hunting for the hotel today, and, suffice to say, having Vaggie around literally realized her dream, even to this mundane little thing of furniture hunting.
“I can reconsider the price if the princess promises me a good time,” said Arnie, the furniture shop mogul.
After spending the whole day looking around, they decided Arnie had most of the furniture they wanted and the prices they liked. But of course, Arnie was a sinner just like everyone else was in hell. Before Charlie could react, Vaggie already raised her spear, pointing the tip at Arnie's neck.
“My spear and I will promise you a good time if you speak to Charlie that way again, how about that?”
Charlie would've never been able to negotiate the way Vaggie did, let alone find a way to assess the situation without Vaggie around.
Vaggie is rough and tough, the way Charlie likes. A lot.
She admires the way Vaggie stands her ground; she can never be Vaggie.
But that imbalance is exactly why she can’t tell Vaggie that she loves her yet.
She wishes to be worthy of Vaggie before she can begin to express this longing. It aches, but begrudgingly in a good way. Vaggie being a mystery to Charlie unravels her.
She's never met anyone in hell with a look so enticing yet appears so fiercely like Vaggie's.
If Charlie allows herself loose, she would have fallen and melted into Vaggie's strong and steady arms. But she can't yield into her own flaws that way, she wants to be on Vaggie's level.
They're aiming for the sky—that requires strength on both their sides. She wants Vaggie to know her love comes from a reliable place, just like Vaggie is to Charlie.
“Be patient, Charlie… Just a little more. Steel your heart just a little more. Vaggie is worth every wait, she deserves every little effort that you made,” Charlie quietly speaks to herself, clutching onto the little thing that bears her feelings for Vaggie.
One year ago
“... And this happens every day, Charlie?”
“Yep. You’ll be surprised at how much you get used to it.”
From the rooftop of Vaggie’s apartment building, Charlie and Vaggie were overlooking the rampant, sadistic, raunchy, and appalling scenes of hell. After a month of being almost literally chained down to bed by Charlie so that all she did was recover, Vaggie today asked that Charlie let her at least see the sight of hell.
Vaggie decided the lie she’d tell Charlie was that she’s just arrived in hell; a mere sinner. She couldn’t think of anything else to tell of her origin. Granted, of course, the woman who saved her HAD to be the daughter of Lucifer Morningstar, princess of Hell.
It could be good, but it could also be bad for her that it was Charlie. Such proximity to Heaven's first rebel could gain her something. But at the moment, she couldn't process it with clarity just yet. Vaggie had been compressing the trauma and the need to confront her future so badly that she thought it was good that Charlie chained her to bed.
All her weeping and whining were contained in that room. And Charlie was there the entire time, allowing her comfort that Vaggie was forced to reject her entire life.
Nothing about Charlie was comfortable for her; everything felt dangerous.
Dangerous because she felt safe and seen.
But Charlie wanted nothing in return; she kept assuring her.
Yet, Vaggie failed to understand her. She's the very original demon herself, why wouldn't she want anything in return?
“Vaggie, you're shaking,” Charlie said, taking Vaggie back to her body.
Vaggie was juggling so many thoughts, she couldn't carve out a space to have conscience for her own body. She didn't notice the cold creeping into her system.
“Let’s get you back, the wind’s really strong today-
“Charlie,” Vaggie stopped Charlie as she looked like she was taking her blazer off. Charlie halted on her feet. She tilted her head at Vaggie, puzzled.
“Yes?”
“Why are you being so kind to me?”
The dead quiet from the earlier chaos came back alive. Some sinners were screaming bloody murder, while the other side sang the march of outlaws. A bomb flew close to their building, and it exploded in the air; its light illuminated Charlie’s feature. The bloody red orange color chiseled her cheek, her red mark, her jaw, and Vaggie looked into her eyes.
“Because you're my people, Vaggie.”
Charlie turned to the Pentagram’s cityscape.
“Just as they are my people. Everyone matters to me. You can be as despicable as you think you are; you matter just the same. Every single one of you is just as important to me as the other.”
Charlie breathed heavily, her eyes flickered.
“I have to find a way to counter the extermination. We deserve to live and co-exist just like Heaven does.”
Ignited by another loud boom, the sound left a crater in Vaggie’s heart instead of the ground.
Her undoing was not because she realized the very realm she was born in could be wrong. It was because her angel was the demon in red, adorned with virtue and sincerity as her wings.
Charlie Morningstar, daughter to Lucifer. Meaning was lost to Vaggie at her mercy until there was nothing left of her old self. She had heard about the prideful Lucifer; God’s most favorable angel, all of heaven knew who he was.
But his daughter left her mark on Vaggie that day.
Inside Charlie’s apartment, they stand before a blackboard. There’s a blueprint of the building of their dreams tacked to it. It’s been a long week for both of them. On Charlie’s coffee table lie several takeout boxes; they’ve been working endlessly on the excruciating detail of the hotel.
The memory of them fighting over which wallpaper would say ‘welcome!’ more than the other baffles Vaggie. She still doesn't want to think much of her future, but her reality now seems like a trippy dream she never would have imagined.
Having a crush on hell’s princess and being her co-creator of a shared dream.
The hotel is like their baby.
Vaggie punches the mini Vaggie for saying that thought in her mind.
“Nope. I’m beat. I think we should call it a day, Vaggie, what time is it even— oH SHIT- I’M SUPPOSED TO CALL ARNIE.”
Charlie comically flails in her spot due to her own antics, moving to and fro frantically.
‘God, why is this cute to me?’ Vaggie thinks to herself as she remains, observing Charlie’s antics.
“Uh- I think I left the order form in my bed, be right back!” Charlie zooms to her bedroom on their left, leaving Vaggie stranded by the blackboard. Her eye is thereby fixated on the bedroom door, following where Charlie disappeared to.
The clock ticks, closing in on midnight on a wall behind her. Vaggie stares longingly at that door. She breathes in Charlie’s cologne present distinctly inside the apartment. Every corner of her apartment screams “Charlie”. There are plushies sitting snug on her couch, fridge magnets of caricatures Vaggie is unfamiliar with on her fridge, and a corkboard with drawings and a moodboard of images stuck on a wall.
Vaggie is trapped by Charlie’s presence. She still finds Charlie dangerously terrifying even after a year.
But she wants to learn to accept the affection and care that comes with loving Charlie.
She doesn’t even know if Charlie has the same longing she does, but it doesn’t matter to Vaggie.
‘But it does,’ another mini Vaggie inside her mind speaks achingly softly.
She’s already lying to Charlie; she has to stop lying to herself.
She’s desperate for Charlie’s touch; she wants more than her lingering handhold, she wants more than a friendly hug. She wants Charlie’s hands on every inch of her body; she wants Charlie to spare no surface of it untouched. She wants Charlie to hold her as if she’s hers, shelter her in her warm hell-ish embrace.
Vaggie’s prepared enough to be hell’s residence; she has Charlie here. She doesn’t care if her only purpose is Charlie.
She wants Charlie miserably, madly, sickeningly.
“Okay! Order’s placed! Can I walk you back home, Vaggie? It's really late-
Charlie stops herself as she finds Vaggie still standing where she was. But her eye is now locked on Charlie.
“Vaggie? Are you okay?” Charlie makes her way to her.
Vaggie can't do it; she can no longer contain it. She's a mouse in Charlie's cage, trapped mentally, physically, and even all her senses are overwhelmed by Charlie.
She's two feet away from her.
“Vaggie?”
She can't do it. Her apartment has no Charlie; she only wants to be where Charlie is.
“... I don't want to go…” Vaggie comes undone.
“Oh- it's getting too late, isn't it? It can be a little scary out there at this time-
“Charlie… I wanna be with you.”
Charlie’s heart skips a beat. Vaggie takes hold of Charlie's empty hand. She moves that hand to place it on her thundering heart, whereas Charlie lacks a beat.
“I wanna be with you…” Vaggie confesses helplessly.
“... Wow…”
Then Charlie’s lost her words. The clock keeps ticking; it’s only getting louder. Their breathing is just as loud against Charlie’s four walls. The sound echoes, but are returned by the walls yelling back at them, urging the friends to just lean in, surrender to love, to the feelings.
Charlie hesitates, but she’s overruled by the command of Vaggie’s longing. Her golden iris lures her to the blissful embrace. Why is Charlie still waiting? The clock hasn’t stopped ticking.
Is this okay?
‘YOU’RE NOT THAT STUPID, CHARLIE. YES.’ Mini Charlie yells at her cowardly act of hesitation.
So Charlie leans in, and she carefully moves her hand Vaggie is holding to her tender cheek, below where her missing eye is.
Vaggie’s golden iris is so lush, Charlie falls into it before Vaggie shuts it close.
Charlie lands a soft kiss on Vaggie’s lips.
Charlie’s kiss feels like a gospel to Vaggie.
The clock stops ticking.
Two hearts collide in a shared beating.
Hell and heaven yield to their tale.
A tale where Vaggie and Charlie retire to each other's arms.