Archive of Our Own

The first night is the worst night of Vaggie’s entire existence.

She has never hurt like this before. There is always the possibility of a scrape or bruise during the annual extermination—demons are crafty, and frequently produce makeshift weapons from scavenged angelic silver—but Vaggie has always been quicker and fiercer than most exorcists, and it goes without saying that Heaven permits its residents no injury.

All of that has changed in an instant.

She’s lying on her stomach, head turned to rest only the right side of her face in her folded arms, biting down on her wrist as she tries not to scream.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” the princess of Hell murmurs anxiously, but Vaggie can barely understand her through the delirious haze of pain that suffocates her. The princess’ hands are warm, warmer than anything Vaggie has ever felt from another creature—like the hellfire inside her has softened and tempered into gentle coals. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The damp rag tenderly swipes across her shoulder blades again and Vaggie moans raggedly through her clenched teeth, struggling to keep herself still since the princess isn’t doing her the decency of holding her down. The pain is indescribable: hotter than the acrid burn of Hell’s rain, sharper than an exorcist’s blade, constant and inescapable.

The princess makes another apologetic sound. “I’m almost done, okay? The bleeding has stopped, now I just need to clean it.”

Vaggie almost blacks out when the princess quickly pours two dashes of antiseptic over both of the gaping wounds where her wings used to be. She lets out a muffled shriek, a sweet, cloying tang clogging her mouth—she’s broken the skin of her wrist biting down too hard. The rest of it barely registers; through the agony, she vaguely notices the princess padding the wounds with gauze and then firmly taping down the edges, fast but confident. At some point, soft fingers move across her forehead, pushing her bangs aside, and Vaggie blinks blearily at the princess’ blurry face, her expression creased with empathetic hurt.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You’re safe.”

And somehow, despite it all, Vaggie believes her.

The pain drags her down into unconsciousness.

“Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter…”

Slowly, achingly, Vaggie opens her eye to crimson shadows. For a long moment, she stares into the darkness before things begin to resolve themselves into recognizable shapes: curtains, a low coffee table, a TV. The curtains are tied shut. On the table, a single candle is lit, emitting a warm glow.

A high, lilting voice continues somewhere behind her, “Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here…” The words lapse into faint humming, then pick up again. “Here comes the sun…”

Cautiously, Vaggie starts to push herself up—but the moment she shifts her arms, twin flares of agony stab into her shoulder blades and she chokes on a cry, collapsing back down onto the couch. The singing instantly stops. She finds she misses it.

Swift footsteps. Someone rounds the corner and Vaggie shrinks back, breathing hard, automatically reaching to her side for a weapon that isn’t there.

“Oh! Sorry!” the princess of Hell yelps, taking a step back. She holds up her hands in surrender, eyeing Vaggie fretfully. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Vaggie stares at her. The panic humming in her bones settles but doesn’t dissipate. The princess is dressed casually in a faded pink button-up, long blonde hair tied back in a braid and her lantern-yellow eyes wide. It makes Vaggie hyperaware of the fact that her own top has been sliced completely away to expose her back. After a long moment of loaded silence, the princess rubs the back of her neck awkwardly and takes another purposeful step away, giving Vaggie even more space.

“Sorry,” she says again.

“For what?” Vaggie’s voice comes out in a strained rasp.

The princess brightens, seemingly delighted that Vaggie is talking. “For scaring you. I know I came around the corner kinda fast, and you’re probably—” She cuts herself off in the middle of gesturing at her left eye, hands dropping sheepishly to her sides. “Depth perception. Sorry, jeez, I’m doing this all wrong.”

Another tense silence. Vaggie doesn’t move from her defensive crouch the entire time.

“Okay,” the princess says, dragging out the vowels, “I’m going to finish making breakfast, and then we can talk. Never have a hard conversation on an empty stomach!”

She vanishes back into—the apartment? House? Wherever this place is. Vaggie waits a few seconds before allowing herself to sink back down onto her stomach, letting her strained shoulders rest from the painful tension she’d pulled them into. Her empty eye socket throbs, and she finds herself reaching up to touch the white bandages that the princess had wrapped around her head, staunching the blood and covering up the open wound.

Her wings. Her eye. Her spear and her halo and her place in the universe. Everything taken from her in a single, shattering moment.

All for a single act of mercy.

Hot tears sting her remaining eye and she blinks rapidly, hurriedly pressing her face into the couch to hide the unseemly display. She can’t afford to show weakness, not in Heaven and especially not here. How much more violently will Hell repay her mercy? Her vulnerability? It’s just her luck that the princess would choose to drag it out rather than put her out of her misery—of course the heir to Hell’s throne is deceptive and cruel, keeping her alive with an illusion of kindness just to punish her later. Surely any demon here, hellborn and sinner alike, would kill to have an angel at their mercy.

She breathes in the scent of old leather and tries to stay calm. She has nothing to bargain with, nothing to offer that can’t be drained from her through a blade across the throat. All she can hope is that after an extermination, Hell will be too occupied handling its own fresh dead to waste too much time adding her to the ranks.

A quick death. Mercy. Something Adam couldn’t even deign to give her.

When the princess comes back into the room, she’s carrying with her two plates of something hot and steaming. She sets them both on the low table, then drags the table closer to the couch, an action that Vaggie tries not to react to.

The princess sits down on the floor next to the couch, right beside Vaggie’s head. She smiles radiantly at her, an expression that’s equally disorienting and soothing. Her teeth are very white. “Are you hungry? It’s just potatoes and eggs; hard to get groceries in times like this.” For a moment, her smile dims. But then she perks up again, giving Vaggie whiplash. “No worries! Sometimes simple meals can be some of the best! Wanna try some?”

“Um,” Vaggie says warily. “Sure.”

She starts to reach for the plate but then gasps at the pain that engulfs her shoulder, radiating down from the brutal rending of her wing joint and making her fingers seize up. She shuts her eye, biting back a groan.

“Hey, hey,” the princess mutters, helping guide Vaggie’s arm back up to a resting position on the couch. “Don’t try to move too much, okay? Here, I’ll help you.” She spears a potato cube with a fork and brings it to Vaggie’s lips.

In too much pain to refuse, Vaggie opens her mouth and suffers the blow to her pride. It’s not like she can fall any lower.

She chews and swallows. It’s not bad, but it isn’t good either. She’ll come to learn that all food is like this in Hell; not nauseatingly awful, but just wrong enough to register as distasteful for sinners and angels. But for now, she doesn’t insult the princess’ cooking.

As for the princess, she keeps up a steady stream of encouragement and praise, despite Vaggie doing nothing but opening her mouth when prompted and swallowing after chewing. She alternates between feeding Vaggie small, curated bites and shoveling her own food hastily in her mouth. When both plates are empty, she pushes the table back to its original place and then kneels next to the couch, bringing herself down to Vaggie’s level.

Having managed to relax a little bit during the meal, Vaggie now tenses again.

The princess notices. “It’s okay,” she repeats, smiling. “I know that, uh, being royalty… it’s probably a little scary for you, but I promise I’m not like that. Here, why don’t we do this!” She sits back on her heels and presses a hand to her chest, like she’s swearing a vow. “My name is Charlotte Morningstar, but you can call me Charlie.” Then she beams expectantly at Vaggie.

“Um… My name is Vaggie.” She pronounces it the way she’s always pronounced it in her head, no matter how Adam or her sisters say it: with a hard ‘g’. Charlie practically gets stars in her eyes.

“Nice to meet you, Vaggie!”

The worst part is that she sounds genuine. Hell, maybe she thinks she is. But Vaggie is well-versed in false niceties; that’s all Heaven is. Love and peace and compassion as the thin plastic veneer over a rottenness that goes right down to the core. She’d hoped that Hell would do away with the pretense.

“I’m glad I found you out there,” Charlie continues warmly, and Vaggie’s heart sinks. Here it comes. “You probably know, but it gets crazy around here after… um, after an extermination. You wouldn’t have been safe in that alley. I’m just glad the exorcists didn’t get you; usually they grab any sinner out in the open like that.”

Wait, what?

“The exorcists,” Vaggie echoes, and Charlie nods, wringing her hands unhappily.

“You got away, didn’t you? I mean—I guess I was hoping another sinner didn’t do this to you.” Charlie reaches out to cup Vaggie’s face; in her shock, she doesn’t pull away. “I kind of always felt like this should bring sinners together, you know? If we could all unify against those cruel angels… I don’t know. Maybe we could change things.”

Charlie doesn’t know she’s an angel. Charlie thinks she’s a sinner who got caught up in the mayhem and managed to crawl her way to safety. And judging by her frown, she doesn’t look charitably on the exorcists, the angels Vaggie had called her sisters less than twenty-four hours ago. If she knew Vaggie was one of them, would her kindness disappear? Would she finally show those fangs that Vaggie knew she had?

Would that soft look in her eyes turn to hatred?

Vaggie swallows, looking away. Charlie retracts her hand, leaving Vaggie’s cheek oddly cold.

“Well,” Charlie says quietly, “I’m just glad I found you. Do you… um, have anywhere to go? Anyone that might be looking for you?”

“No,” Vaggie says, and that, at least, isn’t a lie.

“Oh. Okay. Well, you can stay here for as long as you need to get back on your feet.”

“Are you sure?” Vaggie glances around the living room. “I don’t want to… impose, or anything.”

“It’s okay, really. It’ll be nice to have some company, actually.” Charlie rocks back and forth on her heels, her smile going uncertain. “I live alone. Dad didn’t want me getting an apartment out in the city, said it was too dangerous, but I needed some independence. But I’ve always wanted a roomie that wasn’t related to me! This is going to be so fun!” When Vaggie winces at her volume, Charlie laughs and flutters her hands in apology. “Sorry! I get carried away sometimes. I’ll let you rest, holler if you need anything.”

And with that, she practically twirls out of the room, lapsing back into the chorus of “Here Comes the Sun,” leaving an unmoored and lost Vaggie lying on the couch, staring blankly at her hands.

It is the first of many such days to come.

When Charlie catches her trying to walk around the apartment on her own, she puts a swift stop to it.

“You’re going to hurt yourself!” she exclaims, ushering Vaggie to sit back down on the couch. “You should’ve called me if you wanted to get up.”

“I can take care of myself,” Vaggie says, not sure how else to respond to the babying. She still feels weak and unsteady, but she tries not to show how much she’s relying on Charlie to stay standing; her back is on fire, and her eye socket has begun to seep fluid into the gauze from how hard she’s been scowling.

“I know that,” Charlie says, “I just don’t want to see you any more hurt than you already are. Just—” Vaggie sits down with a sigh, cupping her face and wincing. The princess hovers over her, shoulders slumping. “I like to feel helpful, okay? Indulge me?”

If it isn’t for herself, then… “Fine. But you back off when I say.”

Charlie nods vigorously. This time, the attempt goes a lot smoother; Vaggie braces herself against Charlie’s strong grip, taking one step at a time in slow loops around the living room until she’s shaking from exertion and Charlie makes her sit down again. As she recovers, catching her breath, the princess just sits patiently beside her, not pressuring or forcing her to try again. Just sitting beside her, a supportive hand on her forearm, her presence a balm.

Unwillingly, Vaggie is reminded of her fellow angelic comrades, always the first to offer a listening ear and the first to defend her in the field. She knows the righteous lance of loyalty, trust, and devotion like her own lost spear; she had never expected to find it in a place like this.

She had never expected any of this.

Gritting her teeth against the surge of betrayal that rises in her throat, she forces her voice even and says, “Help me up.”

They walk in circles until night falls.

At night, Vaggie dreams of a foot crushing her spine and ruthless hands tearing her wings off, painting the alleyway golden. During the day, she sits on the kitchen countertop and watches Charlie wash some strain of hellish lettuce under the faucet, singing along to the radio’s staticky rendition of “Tomorrow” from Annie.

Every day, Vaggie learns something new about Hell’s only princess, and every day, she has her assumptions blown out of the water.

The girl loves show tunes and broadway, cute animals and inanimate objects that look like they have faces. She loves to sing and dance and more importantly, for other people to sing and dance with her. Once, her phone screen had lit up with her father’s face, and she’d pursed her lips and let it ring out into silence. She handles Vaggie’s wounds with a tender bedside manner that any nurse would kill for.

She is possibly the most authentic person Vaggie has ever met.

When Vaggie’s eye socket heals enough to justify taking the bandages off, Charlie surprises her with a gift: a plain black eye patch, made of soft dyed leather that’s cool and soothing against her sensitive skin.

“I made it,” Charlie admits, as Vaggie stares at the offering in poorly-concealed shock. “You don’t have to wear it, I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide anything, I just thought maybe—it looked cool? I can help you put it on, i-if you want.”

Vaggie swallows. Gratitude squeezes her heart, and she runs her thumb over the skillfully hidden inseam of the patch’s leather strap. “I love it.”

“O-Oh!” Charlie coughs, flushing bright red. “I’m glad.”

Carefully, Vaggie slides it over her head, knotting the strap in the back so that it fits snugly across the socket but not too tight as to be annoying. She adjusts it a bit, then looks back up at Charlie, who seems to be shaking with the effort not to burst into happy tears.

“Charlie, this is…” She’s at a loss for words. No one has ever given her anything so thoughtful before. No one has ever crafted her anything like this before. She tries to modulate her tone into less of a deadpan, wanting to communicate the sheer depth of her appreciation without breaking down. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”

Charlie makes a high-pitched noise in the back of her throat like a train that’s had its brakes slammed, then lunges forward and folds Vaggie into a hug.

She’s mindful not to touch the healing gashes on her upper back, her arms instead falling to wrap around Vaggie’s waist as she pulls her close, briefly but firmly squeezing the breath out of her. Vaggie freezes out of surprise, but recovers before Charlie can clock any hesitation; she carefully winds her arms around Charlie too, returning the embrace. Abstractly, she notes that Charlie is incredibly warm.

As soon as she’d come, she withdraws sheepishly, looking flustered. “Sorry, I got excited. You don’t have to hug me if you’re not comfortable.”

Vaggie’s face feels distinctly flushed. “No, uh—it’s okay. I don’t mind.”

Charlie’s subsequent grin could illuminate all of Hell, and Heaven for that matter too.

Eventually, Vaggie was going to have to confront the fact of where she is now, and not just by looking out the window.

“I’ll be next to you the whole time,” Charlie confirms, tucking her shirt into her slacks with practiced ease in front of her mirror. Vaggie sits on her bed, knees drawn up to her chest, practically hiding behind her hair. “It’ll be a piece of cake! Just a quick stroll around the block, no biggie!”

“Easy for you to say,” Vaggie mutters. She hasn’t left Charlie’s isolated apartment once in the month that she’s been here.

“Look, Vaggie.” Charlie turns and takes up Vaggie’s hands in her own, her touch light and unobtrusive. “I know it can be rough, but Hell is my home. I was born here, and I… I guess I just want the people who didn’t choose to come here to see it the way I do. Not as a punishment, but just as another place.”

Vaggie looks down at their linked hands. Gathering her courage, she inhales deeply, then nods. “Alright. I’m ready.”

Charlie laughs brightly and Vaggie lets her pull her to her feet.

And it’s… good. True to her word, Charlie doesn’t take them farther than a few streets away, attentive to Vaggie’s flagging energy and turning them around when it starts to look like she’s struggling to walk straight. But the walk itself is almost nice considering where they are. The sky is a deep, bruised crimson, and far off in the distance is the white fluorescence of Heaven, which Vaggie tries not to look at. As they walk, sinners trudge along the sidewalks too, as diverse as the blessed souls above and no less animated, no less obviously human.

Vaggie had expected sinners to regard Charlie with fear, or at least reverence as due her station, but people barely spare her a glance, even as she waves and greets them with her unflappable cheer. Once or twice, a demon even glares and spits in her direction, or tells her to fuck off.

Defensive anger tightens in Vaggie’s gut. “You just let them treat you like that?” she asks, after they’ve hurried past the latter. Charlie gives her a rueful look.

“I’m used to it. It’s not really a big deal—me and my parents, we’re not like the rulers of the other rings. The demons here basically govern themselves. We just oversee really important stuff and deal with situations that get really out of control.” She shrugs. “So most demons don’t respect me. They’ve learned that violence is power out here and I’m not really about that.”

That’s an understatement. Still, it irritates Vaggie in some vague way that no one even gives Charlie a second glance unless it’s to be cruel. But she doesn’t bring it up again.

Later that week, she’s combing through Charlie’s closet for something to wear when she discovers her spear, hidden under a hanging bathrobe.

Undeniably, it’s her spear. Vaggie goes down to one knee to grab it, bringing it out into the light; its pale, angular blade gleams, and the notches in the wood near the top spell out a precise V. She’d assumed Lute and Adam had taken it with them when they left her, but here it is, reassuring and light in her hands. If Charlie doesn’t know that it belongs to Vaggie, then why has she kept it?

Vaggie uses the spear to lever herself to her feet, comforted by its sturdy weight, and goes back to the living room, where Charlie is clicking through the channels on the TV.

“Hey Vaggie! I wanted to know if you—” She cuts herself off when she sees what Vaggie is carrying. Her eyes go wide and anxious. “Where’d you find that?”

“It was in your closet. Not very well-hidden, either.” Vaggie taps the flat of the blade with one nail, meeting Charlie’s nervous gaze head-on. “Why did you have this?”

“I, um… I found it. In the alley.” Charlie ducks her head. “I went back after I patched you up because I wanted to make sure I got everything that belonged to you, in case you dropped anything. But I just found the spear. I didn’t want it going on the black market, but I also thought you wouldn’t want to see it.”

“Why?”

“Well, because…” Charlie points at her own eye meaningfully. “I didn’t want it to remind you of any bad memories.”

Oh. Charlie thinks this is the spear of the angel who’d maimed her. Vaggie feels some of the tension drain out of her. Her secret is safe.

“It’s just a spear,” she says, briefly but expertly spinning it. “I’m actually, uh, pretty good with a spear.” Certainly an understatement. “Can I… keep it?”

“Well—sure. If you really want to, then yeah.” Charlie smiles hesitantly. “Sorry for hiding it from you. I should’ve just asked.”

“Yeah. But uh, thanks. For keeping it.” This, at least, is one thing that Heaven can’t take from her now. She leans the spear against the wall, then goes to sit down next to Charlie on the couch. “What are we watching?”

The days stretch into weeks, and then into months. Her eye completely heals. Her back still twinges sometimes, and she doesn’t do anything too strenuous, but she gradually falls back into a routine of keeping herself active and alert, at first by pacing laps in the apartment and then eventually around the neighborhood.

She practices with her spear while Charlie cheers and claps supportively across the room, and tries not to blush too much at the praise.

Charlie tries to teach her how to cook and they both regret it.

On a different note, she had already known a passable amount about Hell, but nothing that wasn’t directly relevant to her vanguard’s goals of slaughtering as many sinners as possible—so she becomes extremely skilled in the art of prompting Charlie to ramble excitedly about her home, something she’s sure Charlie would do even if she was talking to a fellow hellborn. She learns about the realm through Charlie’s starry eyes, and then she goes out and gathers information for herself.

She discovers rather quickly that Hell’s overpopulation problem is a far larger concern for Pentagram City itself than Heaven. None of the other rings allow sinners to live there, so every new arrival ends up crammed into the same squalor and grime that everyone else is struggling through, exacerbating the natural tensions that simmer through the place by virtue of its own nature.

Overlords are the only exception to this. Vaggie tries to avoid the main areas where Overlords consolidate power, namely the southwest districts where a recent surge of hostile takeovers has decimated whole swaths of the city in the wake of the extermination. Charlie tells her that this always happens; the exorcists come down and shake up the entire already-fragile system, taking out key players and changing the whole political landscape, before flying away and leaving everyone to scramble madly for power and territory before the next cataclysm.

Vaggie had assumed for decades that the cleanses were necessary to maintain equilibrium in Hell. Surely, with less subjects to govern, the Overlords and ruling hellborn could better manage territory and control the populace.

But she sees now how utterly misguided they had been in Heaven. Hell’s politics are a fraught tightrope, and every year the exorcists come down and burn it to ash, forcing everyone to start braiding a brand new rope with their bare hands all over again.

No wonder every demon seems so frantic to seize and accumulate power by any means necessary; it’s the only way to move up in the world, the only way to make a grab for safety. Of course Heaven would only see violence and greed and mayhem every time they look down here, if the only times they look are in the aftermath of a massacre.

“Some people are genuinely bad,” Charlie says one night, after Vaggie had brought it up again restlessly. She stirs around some kind of aromatic soup at the stove, mouth twisted in a frown. “I truly believe there’s good in everyone, but some people just don’t care about the pain they cause. I want to believe there’s hope for them too, but… I don’t know. It’s hard.”

“I know,” Vaggie says quietly. “I’m glad you still have hope, though. Not many people would in your position.”

“I guess so. I mean, some people would say I’m crazy for thinking there’s good in someone like… like the radio demon, but,” Charlie chuckles, shaking her head. “But that’s an extreme example. I’m sure even he has people he cares about.”

“Who’s the radio demon?”

Charlie blinks, turning to look at Vaggie in shock. “You don’t know?”

Vaggie shifts, embarrassed. “I don’t really keep up with politics.”

“Oh, wow! I mean, well. I guess it has been a while since he broadcasted anything…” She eyes the radio. “Anyway, he’s pretty infamous around here. He used to kill and torture other Overlords and broadcast it for the whole ring to hear; it was pretty awful, I always turned the radio off when he started.” She starts to ladle the soup into two bowls. “He’s not really like all of the other Overlords though. He really just cared about his broadcast. It’s been a few years since anybody heard from him though, so you don’t need to worry about him. Who knows!” She sits down across from Vaggie, smiling crookedly, and slides her a bowl. “Maybe he finally took a vacation.”

“From all the murder and torture?”

“Must be a pretty stressful lifestyle.”

Vaggie snorts, shaking her head. If only Charlie knew how right she was.

Eventually, Charlie declares that they need a bigger apartment so that Vaggie can have her own space.

“I don’t want you to feel like just a guest,” she laments, leaning backwards over the couch to peer at Vaggie. At the kitchen table, Vaggie sharpens her spear, smiling wryly at Charlie’s antics. “It’s been three months! I feel so bad that you still sleep on the couch!”

“Charlie, I don’t mind the couch.”

“Please? Pretty please can we get a two bedroom apartment so you can have your bed and I don’t have to hear you pop every individual vertebra every morning because you slept badly on the couch that sucks?”

“Charlie,” Vaggie laughs. “Alright, if it’ll make you feel better.”

Charlie instantly brightens, swinging upright to perch atop the back of the couch. “I’ll start looking right now!” She jumps down and vanishes into her bedroom.

Two weeks later, they pack up and move.

Their new place—and it is firmly theirs, not just Charlie’s—is a lofty two bedroom suite with wide, wraparound windows overlooking the Pentagram’s inner city, the focal of the five-pointed star. It’s far roomier and tasteful than Charlie’s last place, probably because the landlord had nearly choked himself to death over the money Charlie had offered and rushed to give them the best suite in the whole building.

Charlie shrugs when Vaggie points this out. “I’m royalty. You don’t even want to know what my allowance looks like.”

Though it might come as a surprise, despite her status, Charlie never gives off the vibe of being spoiled or ungrateful. Naive, maybe, and a bit ignorant despite her genuine benevolence, but Vaggie comes from a place where money doesn’t exist, so she really has no metric for how material wealth impacts anyone down here. She’s aware that Charlie is infinitely more well-off than anyone save for the king and queen themselves, but the sheer breadth of that gulf between Charlie and her subjects is still a mystery to her.

Slowly, they build up their lives together.

Vaggie keeps her bedroom spartan and bare for a long time, something that was normal for her in Heaven but makes Charlie spasm with dismay when she sees it.

“You need color! Trinkets! Accessories!” she exclaims, waving her hands around at Vaggie’s blank beige walls, wood floor, and white sheets. “It looks like a hospital room!”

Vaggie glances around, suddenly self-conscious. It does look like no one lives here. “I guess it could use a little decor.”

“We’re going bedroom shopping!”

At the end of it all, Vaggie ends up with a muted purple wallpaper, matching bedspread, a dresser, a nightstand, and a variety of knickknacks and baubles that had made Charlie squeal with delight when she found them. They’re not really Vaggie’s style, but she still smiles when she looks at them because they remind her of Charlie.

One in particular—a vintage stuffed bear with black button eyes—gets tucked into Vaggie’s bed. It is imperative that Charlie never, ever find out about this.

(Charlie pretends not to know, and thinks it’s the sweetest thing in the entire world.)

They sing, they dance, they watch terrible reruns of soap operas late at night and fall asleep tangled up together, waking to the dim slants of Hell’s daylight pouring in through the gauzy curtains. Vaggie teaches Charlie how to wield her spear. Charlie teaches Vaggie how to do an alpine stitch.

Vaggie’s wounds fade to scars. She learns to compensate for her missing eye and wings, retraining her footwork and adjusting her balance until it’s as though she never lost them at all. She still has nightmares about it sometimes, but more often than not Charlie is right beside her to shake her out of it.

Months pass. Enough time that Vaggie almost forgets what event precipitated the anniversary of their meeting.

During the first extermination Vaggie has lived through since being stranded here, Charlie binds the curtains tightly closed, locks the door, and they hole up in Charlie’s bedroom together, trying to distract themselves from the screaming outside with a board game.

Vaggie flinches at every shriek, thump, or explosion that sounds throughout the city as her fellow angels descend en masse, mercilessly murdering every demon they catch in the open. Charlie is still smiling, but it’s forced and strained, and her hands shake whenever she moves her piece across the board.

Finally, when it becomes clear this isn’t working, they climb into Charlie’s bed and Charlie pulls the blankets over their heads.

It feels childish. Humiliating. Like Vaggie is cowering away from something she used to do every year without remorse. But she tells herself that this isn’t for her; it’s for Charlie, who looks close to tears in the dim shadows beneath the blanket.

“It’s going to be okay,” Vaggie whispers, reaching out and curling her fingers over Charlie’s hand. Charlie quickly latches onto the touch, giving Vaggie’s hand a squeeze.

“It’s just so awful, Vaggie,” Charlie whispers back. “Sometimes I hate my dad for agreeing to it. There has to be a better way.”

Vaggie stays silent. She doesn’t know what the solution would be, if there even is one that won’t end in more bloodshed. Violence always begets more violence. All she can do is be here for Charlie—to make up, in some small way, for her part in the cruelty. For the damage she caused to Charlie’s home.

Charlie sniffles, breath hitching, and Vaggie carefully pulls her in close, tucking Charlie’s head against her chest and hugging her. She cries into Vaggie’s embrace for a long time.

In the morning, when every last angel has returned to Heaven, Charlie rolls up her shirtsleeves, sets her jaw, and says, “I’m going to go out there and help.”

They spend the weeks afterward doing damage control. Repairing buildings, healing the injured, consoling bereaved friends and family. Vaggie gets to see the aftermath up close and personal for the first time in all its ugly glory, the pain and suffering and grief permeating the entire city like a sickness.

Watching Charlie murmur empty platitudes to a sobbing hellborn girl who’d lost her adoptive sinner parents in the onslaught, for the first time, Vaggie looks up at Heaven’s ethereal light in the carmine sky and feels hate.

But Hell is resilient. Life moves on, because what else is there to do?

Vaggie’s hair has grown out long, now, longer than she ever kept it when she was among the exorcist ranks, and she finds that she prefers it that way. It’s long enough for Charlie to comb her fingers through, long enough for Charlie to braid into plaits or twirl teasingly around her pinky or beg to dye fun colors, even though Vaggie refuses on that last count. There is a limit to what she’s willing to do for Charlie.

Even though that limit becomes increasingly more difficult to find as time goes on. Vaggie finds herself feeling fiercely protective of Charlie, to the point where it actually frightens her a bit to look back on the last two years and wonder where the deep, rich well of devotion and loyalty inside her has come from.

Charlie is just… so Charlie. Vaggie doesn’t know how else to explain it. She bursts into song like the lyrics have been cooped up inside her since birth, she buttons her suits all the way up to her neck even at home, and she cries in empathetic horror during exterminations but her eyes spark with righteous hellfire in the aftermath. She rubs Vaggie’s shoulders when her scars ache during acid rainstorms and she smiles like the sun.

She honestly believes, with her whole soul, that there is good to be found everywhere.

Vaggie realizes two years in that she’s in love with Charlie.

It should be the most terrifying thing she’s ever felt—she’s in love with the princess of Hell—and though she is nervous, she isn’t afraid. This is the first time in her life that love doesn’t feel like a concession, a carving-away or a giving-up of anything vital to her identity. This is a love like a burgeoning warmth, a flower unfurling into the sunlight. Something tender and new as spring.

Vaggie doesn’t intend to ever bring it up to Charlie, although she isn’t ashamed of it. She thinks that even if Charlie feels the same way, it will be indistinguishable from Charlie’s everyday kindnesses, already so vibrant and loving. The girl is a fountain of hope and light in the darkness of Hell—it wouldn’t be right for her to love an angel, even if she doesn’t know what Vaggie really is.

“Everything okay?” asks the princess in question, leaning over Vaggie curiously.

Vaggie meets her eyes. She’s been staring at the same page of her book for half an hour without blinking. “Yeah. Just thinking.”

“About what?”

I love you, Vaggie thinks, weighing the sound of it in her mind. “Uh, nothing.” Way to go, Vaggie. “Um. This book sucks. Yeah.”

Charlie’s eyebrows knit together. “Why are you reading it then?”

“I don’t know.” Vaggie closes it and sets it aside, sighing. “What have you been up to?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to go out for lunch! A new café opened up in the media district and I’ve been wanting to try their hot chocolate forever.”

“Hot chocolate for lunch?” Vaggie asks dryly, but she’s smiling.

“Yup! Wanna come with?”

Vaggie can’t say no to that excited gleam in her eye. “Sure. Let me get my shoes and my spear.”

“We’re not going to get attacked, Vaggie, you can leave the spear behind,” Charlie calls after her as she rolls off the couch, and Vaggie tosses back over her shoulder, “Not happening!”

They walk to the media district even though it’s a sizable distance, because only the Almighty God Himself is getting Vaggie to use Hell’s public transportation. ‘Media district’ is a new term that sinners have been throwing around lately, since the multimedia company Voxtech has its footing there and has apparently expanded rapidly over the last four years. Vaggie, who has been doing her research into Hell’s politics, suspects that the only reason the company’s CEO has been able to grow his domain so fast is because the radio demon has been conspicuously absent for four years as well, leaving an entertainment void that others are now scrambling to fill.

What it mostly means for them, though, is that the media district is relatively safe. Vox keeps an iron grip on the perimeter of his territory, and everyone who lives here is so hypnotized by their phones and the screens lining every shop window that statistical violence here is actually lower than in the rest of the city.

Vaggie still keeps a tight grip on her spear. It never pays to be underprepared.

She holds open the café doors for Charlie, who blushes sweetly and stammers out a thank you, and then follows her up to the front counter. Charlie orders hot chocolates for both of them, as well as some sandwiches and fries to share. It’s an odd lunch, but Vaggie appreciates the food for what it is—slightly better than most of Hell’s unfortunate fare. From Charlie’s sounds of pleasure, clearly it must be delicious for hellborn.

They eat across from one another by the window, legs entangled underneath the table. Vaggie sips her hot chocolate and finds that it tastes nothing like Heaven’s cafés, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Charlie passionately explains her ideas for an Envy-inspired aquarium up here in Pride, while Vaggie occasionally reminds her to breathe and eat her sandwich before it gets soggy. People give them a wide berth; Vaggie is certain it’s less because Charlie is royalty and more because Vaggie has an angelic spear within arm’s reach and looks prepared to use it.

But she prefers it this way. If people won’t be wary of Charlie—and perhaps rightfully, since Charlie is the furthest thing from frightening—then they can be wary of Vaggie. She’s glad to be Charlie’s guardian if it means demons will finally show the princess the respect she deserves.

I love you, she thinks again, as Charlie chatters on, blissfully unaware of the hot chocolate foam along her upper lip.

Afterward, they take a walk through the media district, avoiding the storefronts where sinners are crowded around the screens, ogling at the latest Voxtech innovations, and instead angling towards the outer boundaries of the north demarcation. It’s quieter out here, less oversaturated with glowing blue light and the constant chirping of notifications. Vaggie keeps pace with Charlie’s long legs, smiling faintly as Charlie throws her head back and laughs like a shower of bells.

I love you. I love you.

When Charlie slips her hand into Vaggie’s, she jumps a little, startled, but Charlie just grins down at her like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And isn’t it? In response, Vaggie laces their fingers together, hoping her feelings aren’t too obvious on her face.

They pass by a sinner who’s leaning in an alleyway, smoking something between his yellow claws. He blows out a puff of smoke and then straightens a bit when he sees them, raising his eyebrows. “Hey,” he calls, his smile a leer. Charlie stops, turning to look at him, but Vaggie frowns, tightening her grip on her spear.

“Hey there!” Charlie calls back, delighted to encounter one of her subjects being nice to her for once. “Good afternoon!”

“Yeah,” the sinner says, pushing himself up and off the wall. Vaggie tenses further with every step he takes. “You’re Princess Morningstar, aren’t you?”

“Yup!” Charlie turns bodily towards him, everything about her open and unassuming. Naive. Vaggie squeezes her hand warningly, but Charlie just squeezes back without guile. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Oh, yeah.” The sinner stops a few feet away when Vaggie narrows her eyes ominously at him, probably sensing her murderous intent. “Are you two like… an item…?”

Charlie jolts. “What? Um! No, no, what? We’re… um…”

“Friends,” Vaggie says darkly.

“Friends! That’s right, we’re friends.”

The sinner shrugs. “I mean, either way’s cool with me. I wouldn’t say no to some girl-on-girl action.” He makes a crude gesture with his hands that makes Vaggie’s blood boil.

Charlie laughs uncertainly. “Well, um…”

“Come on, sweetheart,” he continues, leaning forward with a lecherous sneer. From here, Vaggie can smell the pungent smoke from his cigarette, which he’s still clutching in his claws. “I’ve always wanted to know if you royal bitches scream the same as any other washed up slut down here. I could make it good for you—”

He doesn’t have time to finish that sentence, because in an instant Vaggie has lunged forward, sweeping his legs out from underneath him and pinning him to the sidewalk with her spear at his throat, the meticulously sharpened blade slicing a shallow line across his jugular that begins to slowly weep blood.

“Back the fuck off,” Vaggie snarls, as the guy sputters at her feet, “or we’ll see if you scream the same as any other wretched sinner when I disembowel you.”

“Vaggie,” Charlie begs, “please don’t hurt him. Let’s just go.”

“Charlie, he—”

“I know! I know. I just… we were having a nice day.” Charlie gives her a pleading look. “Don’t let him ruin it. He’s already being punished.”

Vaggie looks down at the sinner cowering beneath her spear and for a moment, sees only a faceless body, one of thousands that she’s murdered over the years. It would be so easy—muscle memory—to cut him down like he’s nothing. He is nothing. Two years ago she came down to this city with death in her heart and showed a child mercy, and look where it has gotten her.

Then she blinks, and she sees a man—a shitty, irritating, misogynistic man—who has already died and arrived here. There is little else she can do to him that he has already not done to himself.

And she is not an angel anymore.

She retracts her spear, taking a few steps back. The sinner scrambles to his hands and knees and then darts away, vanishing into the alley with a stifled whimper. Vaggie exhales, gritting her teeth.

Charlie’s hand touches her shoulder lightly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says automatically. She turns to face Charlie, scanning her expression. “Are you okay?”

Charlie gives her a watery smile. “Yeah. I just want to go home.”

They walk back to the apartment in silence. When Vaggie closes the door behind them, she finally relaxes enough to set her spear down, all of the adrenaline and stress leaving her now that they’re back home. Charlie stops abruptly in the middle of the living room, shoulders drawn up to her ears as she hugs herself.

“Hey, Charlie,” Vaggie murmurs, hurrying over to gently grasp Charlie’s arms. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. I guess I just thought—” Worryingly, she sniffs, blinking rapidly. “We were having such a good time and I was in such a good mood that I was so stupid to think he was just being nice. And then I made you feel like you had to protect me, and I don’t—”

“Woah, woah, hold on,” Vaggie interrupts. She steers Charlie around so that she can sit her down on the couch, since she looks too shaky for comfort. Then she kneels down in front of Charlie, resting her hands on Charlie’s knees. Charlie peers down at her through lashes glimmering with unshed tears. “You didn’t make me do anything. I wanted to protect you. I hate how other demons treat you—like you’re not the most wonderful thing Hell has ever created.” She flushes suddenly, cutting her eyes away from Charlie’s horrifyingly earnest gaze. “I know you can take care of yourself. I just… want to take care of you too.”

“Oh.”

When Vaggie risks looking back up, Charlie is full-on crying.

“Shit, um, uh,” Vaggie panics, casts around helplessly for help from the empty living room. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

Suddenly Charlie is throwing her arms around Vaggie, dragging her into a tight and tearful hug and knocking the wind out of her. “That’s so sweet,” she sobs into Vaggie’s hair. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Oh. Oh! Good.” Vaggie returns the embrace, protectively cradling the back of her head and letting Charlie slide forward until they’re both on the floor, hugging and breathless with relief. Vaggie lets the comforting warmth of Charlie’s body against her wash away everything else. “Come on. It’s okay. I’m here. Just let it out.”

Charlie cries herself out to exhaustion, slumped against Vaggie, until finally Vaggie just scoops her up into her arms and carries her into her bedroom, even though it’s only late afternoon. She lays Charlie down onto the bed, then tucks in the blankets around her even as she puts up a token protest.

“You know you’re tired,” Vaggie counters, and Charlie blinks up at her sheepishly. “It’s okay. It’s been a long day. Just take a quick nap, and I’ll throw together something for dinner.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am. Don’t worry about me, Princess Morningstar. I’ve got this.”

Charlie snorts, waving her off, and it’s only when Vaggie has left and shut the door behind her that Charlie fully registers what she’d said. “Wait, Vaggie, you can’t cook!”

Charlie’s strained relationship with her parents is one of those things that Vaggie never asks about. She lets Charlie go at her own pace when divulging information about Lilith and Lucifer, already guilty enough from having to invent and practice elaborate lies about her own “life” in the mortal realm to feel justified in pressing Charlie for more backstory.

But these things sometimes take them by surprise.

They’re weaving simple colorful bracelets together on the floor of Vaggie’s bedroom when Charlie’s phone lights up, beginning to ring. Too engrossed with the knot she’s tying, she scoops it up with one hand and answers without checking the caller ID.

Whoever speaks on the other end makes Charlie stiffen. Vaggie sets down her own half-finished bracelet, frowning.

“Hey, Dad,” Charlie says after a moment, voice low and flat in a way that Vaggie has never heard. “I’m kind of busy… Dad, I know you have my address. You don’t have to ask me where I live… No, I haven’t. I’m not your guys’ courier, and if you have something to say to Mom then you can just tell her yourself.” Suddenly scowling, Charlie rips the phone away from her ear and says sharply into the speaker, “Goodbye, Dad.” She hangs up and then flings her phone across the room with a growl, red flames licking around her wrists in response to her irritation.

“Woah,” Vaggie remarks, wide-eyed.

“Sorry,” Charlie mutters. “I didn’t want you to have to see that. He just—ugh! He makes me so frustrated.”

“Your dad, huh? King Lucifer.” Vaggie knows very little about Lucifer besides what Heaven’s upper echelon still titters about in those hushed tones, everyone always worried that they’ll be made into an example along with him. The favorite son whose lofty dreams had flown too high for even the Seraphim to handle. “That must be rough.”

“Yeah.” Charlie hugs her knees up to her chest, eyebrows furrowed with unhappiness. Vaggie wants to press her fingers to Charlie’s forehead and smooth away her upset. “It wasn’t so bad when I was a kid. When they were still together.”

“I’m guessing they’re… not, anymore.”

Charlie shakes her head. “They split up four years ago. Mom left and it’s like she vanished off the face of Hell completely. And Dad hasn’t wanted anything to do with me since then, unless he’s bored or he needs a favor or he wants me to give Mom a message.” She huffs sharply. “ I can’t even give Mom a message. Every time I call it goes straight to voicemail.”

Vaggie does know what she’s talking about there; every once in a while, Charlie will slip away to make a phone call in private, always coming back dejected and defeated. She seems to believe that Queen Lilith must be very busy with whatever business has taken her away from Pride, instead of entertaining the possibility that she might be deliberately ignoring Charlie. Vaggie knows which possibility she thinks is more likely, but there’s no way she’s going to tell Charlie that. Charlie needs to have that hope that her mom still loves her, considering how cold and distant Lucifer has been.

“I’m sorry,” Vaggie says hesitantly, holding out her hand. Charlie quickly grabs it and squeezes gratefully. “Parents are tough.”

“ That’s an understatement.” Charlie chuckles a bit. She clears her throat, shaking off the melancholy, and peers over at Vaggie curiously. “What about your parents?”

“Uh…” Vaggie stalls, scrambling for something to say. She’s a terrible liar when she doesn’t have time to prepare anything, and she hadn’t anticipated this line of questioning. And she hates lying to Charlie; it makes her insides contort with anxiety and shame, but it’s too late to come clean about the biggest lie now. It would only be cruel.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Charlie assures her quickly, when she takes too long to answer. “Sorry, I was just being nosy.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I didn’t, um, have parents.”

“You were an orphan?”

“Yeah.” Relieved that Charlie has filled in the gaps for her, Vaggie latches onto the falsehood. “Orphan. Never met them.”

“Oh.”

They’re both quiet for a moment.

Then Charlie mutters, “Parents are tough.”

Vaggie snorts. “That’s an understatement.”

Three years of living in Hell. Charlie’s birthday is at the beginning of what passes for spring in Hell, and Vaggie is ready this year. While Charlie is out running errands, Vaggie hatches her scheme: unwilling to burn down the apartment out of some misguided attempt at baking, she’d bought a small red velvet cake from a local bakery, which she now slides onto a silver serving tray and sets on the dining table. Next, she quickly and furiously wreaths the entire apartment with white and pink ribbons—incredibly not her style, but sure to make Charlie happy. Lastly, she fetches the gift she’d meticulously wrapped in shiny purple paper and hidden under her bed for the last few months, zealously guarding its existence from her lovely but very inquisitive friend.

By the time Charlie returns, everything is ready. Vaggie sets their record player, which had apparently been a present from Lilith some decades ago, to a vinyl of some sappy orchestral song; she hadn’t checked the title. Music is crucial to nearly every aspect of Charlie’s life, so Vaggie would be remiss not to include it for this too.

The door swings open and Charlie shoulders her way inside, hefting several plastic bags in her arms as she kicks the door shut with her heel. She turns, unsuspecting, and stops when she sees Vaggie standing by the table, looking nervous but excited. Her eyes dart to the ribbons strewn along the ceiling, then to the cake, then to the wrapped gift, then to the record player spinning gently in the corner.

“Happy birthday,” Vaggie says, smiling awkwardly.

The plastic bags fall to the ground as Charlie’s hands fly up to cover her mouth, eyes shining. “Oh, Vaggie,” she says, her voice coming out as a cracked squeak. “You did all this for me?”

“Well, yeah. You’re really important to me, Charlie. I just wanted to make you feel as special as you’ve made me feel every day since we met.” Vaggie crosses the room to meet Charlie by the door, unable to shake the bashful smile or the blush that clings to her expression as she avoids Charlie’s gaze. “I know since you’re a princess and all, you’re probably used to a lot more, but—”

“No!” Charlie shrieks, grabbing Vaggie by the shoulders. She leans in close and says in a dead serious whisper, “This is perfect. I love you.”

They both instantly freeze. Charlie flushes bright red and Vaggie feels the entire world upend beneath her feet.

“Uh, uhm, well,” Charlie stammers, wild-eyed, “platonically! If you want it to be. Or romantically. Or whatever way! I just really really value our friendship and I don’t want you to feel pressured to reciprocate my romantic feelings just because I’m the princess but I’m also not trying to understate your own autonomy because you can totally make choices for yourself I’m just really conscious of power dynamics and I don’t want to—”

Vaggie’s ears finally stop ringing long enough for her to snap out of her stupor and reach up, grabbing Charlie’s face and cupping it in her palms. Charlie falls silent, startled, and Vaggie smiles at her. Warm, unfettered joy thrums inside her like a plucked string.

“Charlie, hon,” she says softly, “I love you too.”

Cheeks still squished between Vaggie’s palms, Charlie mumbles, “Like friends?”

“Like girlfriends. If you want.”

Charlie nods vigorously, struck speechless with happiness. Her hands come up to curl around Vaggie’s wrists, loosely holding onto her and maintaining the contact. “I love you,” she manages to whisper again, awed, and Vaggie could live in those words forever. She seems to gain courage by saying it out loud. “I love you. I love you!”

“I love you too,” Vaggie says, and before she can react, Charlie lurches forward and plants a chaste kiss on her forehead.

“Oh my gosh! I just did that! Sorry, I should’ve asked first, oh my gosh —”

Vaggie seizes her flapping hands and stills them. She cracks a crooked grin, then brings Charlie’s right hand up to her mouth and kisses her knuckles. Charlie makes an adorable eep sound. “Oh wow,” Vaggie says, dry but warm, “I just did that.”

They both dissolve into helpless laughter, clutching onto one another for support. When they finally struggle back to coherency, Vaggie herds them over to the dining table and insists that they do the traditions the right way. They get distracted more than once peppering each other’s faces with kisses and giggling uncontrollably, but Vaggie ends up putting a lid on it and shoves her gift into Charlie’s hands, encouraging her to unwrap it.

Charlie unspools the ribbon and lifts the top off of the box, revealing what Vaggie’s been working on over the past year and a half—a scrapbook, made by hand and filled halfway through with various drawings, photographs, and mementos that Vaggie has accumulated since she first came to live with Charlie.

It’s not a masterpiece because Vaggie is hardly an artsy person, but it’s been crafted with genuine care and precision, down to the tacky felt lining and awkwardly heartfelt inscription on the inside of the front cover.

To Charlie, who always made me feel at home. From, Vaggie <3

“There’s room for more memories too,” Vaggie points out, guiding Charlie to flip to the final pages. “So you can add more stuff as we go along.”

“Oh, Vaggie.” Charlie hugs the scrapbook to her chest. “I love you so, so much.”

Vaggie kisses the top of her head and is dizzy with affection for Charlie’s ensuing giggle. “Love you too, honey.”

They share the cake on the couch together, with Charlie sprawled along the cushions and Vaggie nestled between her legs, watching one of Charlie’s favorite movies on the TV. Charlie combs her fingers through Vaggie’s hair as Vaggie gently rubs Charlie’s socked foot with her own.

It’s the happiest she’s ever been. Happier by far than she ever was in Heaven.

Someday, Charlie will have to know who Vaggie really is. She can’t lie forever, nor does she want to—she trusts Charlie more than anyone in the entire universe, and one day she will have to work up the courage to bare her vulnerable core and confess the rotten honesty of herself, on her own terms. Charlie may never see her the same way again. She stands to lose everything that she’s gained, and nothing scares her more.

But that night, after Charlie has drifted off to sleep wrapped around her, Vaggie makes herself a promise. If a day comes that Charlie asks her that ruinous question, she will tell her the truth.

Charlie deserves that, at least.

Until then, she will savor what she has—for as long as she is allowed to keep it.