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The Pride Ring’s “Hazbin Hotel,” while not an instant hit, had garnered a reputation as a relatively decent corner of Hell once the attempted Extermination had come and passed, with no repeats seemingly on the horizon. Charlie could have jumped for joy in the fact that new guests had begun to steadily trickle in, some staying for only a few days before checking out, others seemingly in for the long haul.
Less to her delight was the paperwork. Of course she’d known–because the hotel was a great idea, she knew they’d get all their rooms filled up sooner or later, take that, Heaven–that there would be forms to sign and all that. She’d bought a new set of premium crayons specifically for them. It couldn’t be that bad, don’t look so nervous, Vaggie.
Well, it turned out that she had been getting a bit ahead of herself. At least, she’d felt a bit silly under Alastor’s single raised brow, even if the overlord had held back any of his usual remarks. As it turned out, in a small world like the Pride Ring, certain precautions needed to be taken. It wouldn’t do if an addict and their dealer lived across from each other, or if a murderer and their victim were put in one of their many group activities together.
Background checks needed to be run, more formal contracts written up to avoid rough-housing and vandalism now that the hotel had more than a handful of occupants. Assessing their incoming residents was a necessary process, but exhausting. Charlie wasn’t used to this kind of detective work, if anything it caused her guilty conscience to pang at the thought of prying too deeply into the private lives of others, even if it was for the sake of safety.
Vaggie had fared a bit better, dutifully scouring pages of unquestionably disturbing internet history since Alastor avoided any electronic more recent than the 1930s. Their hotelier himself seemed to take to the task like a duck to water, going for the more old-fashioned route of public records and the information network he’d built as an overlord. Apparently finding out the dirty details of a person was a skill he’d honed in his days as a human, for the sake of his…moonlight job. Fun.
Anyhow, she was thankful to them both, but she didn’t want to be the weak link of their triumvirate as they were processing the recent influx of residents. So what she lacked in skill, she made up for in enthusiasm, even when it led into a couple more nights with–Four? Two? One?–hours of sleep than she’d originally intended. No, she was feeling fantastic! Her being busy meant the hotel was thriving, and she was feeling more like a proper business manager than ever! Ah, where had the sun gone?
Her dad wasn’t always in, at the end of the day he still had duties to attend to if only to keep Hell at a functioning minimum. But he’d been checking up on her whenever he could outside of that, and it made her heart swell whenever he walked into her office with new sketches of projects he’d been mulling over. She would coo over the pencil ducklings while trying to ignore the pinched expression he wore when he examined her face, no doubt looking at the bags forming under her eyes.
There wasn’t much she could do about it. She had Vaggie and Alastor helping (or rather, carrying) her in this task, and it needed to be done within the week. She could bring up hiring extra staff to take care of this in the future afterwards.
Truthfully, she was glad to see Alastor go the extra mile at all. He was the co-owner of the hotel, but there admittedly hadn’t been much for him to do for most of his tenure, besides summoning minions to patch the walls or swatting away trespassers. Sometimes he’d sit politely and observe one of Charlie’s group activities, or cook up the occasional fantastic dinner for their group, but his generosity usually ended at that.
He was being surprisingly helpful on the business side of things now that they actually had business. She’d have made dozens of mistakes writing up contracts for their guests without his keen eye for loopholes and necessary precautions, and he had a talent for picking a person’s psyche apart with only the thinnest of loose threads to go off of. She also didn’t miss the look of faint relief he and Vaggie shared between themselves when she broke out the nice pen set they’d given her for paperwork instead of her beloved crayons. She still thought the latter was nicer, but if it made them happy, how could she complain?
In a way, it reminded her of when she was still a child sitting in her bed with her mother, lessons on the politics and history of Hell given under the guise of a children’s bedtime storybook. Honestly, Charlie had never been particularly interested in economics–she was, as she was realizing now, more like her father in that regard. But the spark of pride in her mother’s eye, the gentle squeeze when she got a piece of trivia right, she’d cherished that feeling enough to try her damndest to play the part, even if she was sorely lacking in talent.
She wondered what her mother would think of–was thinking of her now, wherever she was. Charlie had accomplished a sliver of what had been asked of her, made the connections with powerful figures her mother had always emphasized were important, no matter the innate power of the Morningstar lineage. Was she proud? She hoped so. She wished her mom was here for her to ask.
But she wasn’t, and that fact seemed to only weigh on her soul more as the hotel steadily grew in patrons and influence. She’d dreamed once upon a time that this would happen, and that her mother would visit with her gleaming smile and faint humming, maybe leave a hot chocolate on her paper-covered desk for old times’ sake, even if her little girl was a grown young woman now. Give her advice and maybe even pull a few strings, just enough to guide instead of control.
What she had now was still pleasant and fulfilling, even if a ghost seemed insistent on pulling her eyelids down. Their newest client was a mobster who had made many connections and enemies on Earth, but had tried to get out of the life for the sake of his young daughter, an attempt that left him “hanging from the ceiling by my face,” as he’d put it. She wasn’t quite sure what that meant and didn’t really want to know, but regardless of how grisly his death had or hadn’t been, he was a real pain to vet.
She’d elected to leave her office and sit with everyone in the private area for staff–plus Angel, who was basically an honorary member anyway. It was modeled after the common room of the old hotel, and was the coziest place in the new one, in her opinion, less grandiose and more homely with the rosy lighting and vintage design. She’d missed the chatter of her friends and hoped the extra noise could keep her awake long enough to finish this guy’s profile. Vaggie had joined her on the sofa, her eyes scanning the screen in front of her in a way Charlie recognized meant she had mentally checked out, and she honestly didn’t have the heart to shake her out of her stupor. Husk and Angel were chatting away at the bar as per usual, and she thought she had seen Niffty wander in and out at some point–had those points in the floor always been there? Even her father was present tonight, a half-carved wooden duck that he’d started on a couple days back held limply in his hand as he tried to disguise his tense glances towards her.
“Charlie…” he began tentatively, only for his jaw to snap shut when she raised a hand at him without taking her eyes off her work.
“No, Dad. I appreciate it, but I don’t think this guy’s going to be comfortable with us if the King of Hell starts asking him about his personal life.”
She knew her dad had only good intentions for her, but he wasn’t always the best at curbing his temper and reigning in his still-present caution against sinners, even if he had warmed up to mostly everyone at the hotel.
“Mostly,” if only because of his ongoing feud with Alastor, though they had done a good job at lowering the amount of spontaneous musical duels they were all subjected to. Charlie honestly couldn’t tell what had had them so up in arms over each other in the first place. Well, granted, they were both prickly in their own ways, Alastor especially.
Speak of the Devil–or rather, the Devil’s rival, and he shall appear. Her distracted thoughts and head-fog cleared ever so slightly as he strolled towards them, red suit unmistakable in the corner of her eye. She faintly registered him throwing what was probably a snide comment her dad’s way–something about tact–along with the soft clink of a mug placed on the tableside next to her as he walked past.
Ah, she sniffed, coffee. Specifically the extra-caffeinated blend she’d bought a few days ago, if the almost pungent aroma was anything to go by. She’d wanted her mom’s cocoa in her internal angsting session a couple seconds or minutes ago, but this was good too. Al was such a pal, really. She should thank him to encourage this behavior as well as future drinks. “Thanks, Mom.”
In the instant those two words were offhandedly uttered, the room was vacated of any noise outside of a single quiet thump–Vaggie must have dropped something. Either the residents of the hotel had felt their little sliver of the fabric of reality shutter from the cursed phrase, or the universe hated Charlie and they had all conveniently stopped what they were doing at the exact moment needed to hear her mistake. Perhaps she was simply cursed from birth as the heir to the throne of Hell, a fairy tale princess tragically misplaced. Yeah, that was the most romantic option, not bad.
Or maybe their resident walking radio had done it in the shock he must have been processing, if the look on his face as he–or rather his head, with a grisly crack, the rest of his body slowly following suit–turned to stare at her. Alastor’s ever-present smile was wide as ever, but she’d learned to look at the top half of his face to read him better, and his eye was currently twitching like a fly had landed on it, wide open in what might have been awe. Maybe at her audacity. She ever so slightly regretted not staying in her room.
“Come again?” he murmured in a monotone voice, the usual static filter barely there. If she weren’t in shock herself, she would have thought it was funny and kind of endearing.
“Uh…”
She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the face as she felt her own swell with heat, so she moved her gaze behind him instead. Big mistake, because he’d apparently been heading towards her dad, probably for another half-hearted argument that she was convinced was just their way of saying hello at this point. Her dad’s already pale skin was practically translucent as he sat frozen, a look crossing between shock-induced insanity, mild betrayal, and wretched indignation at the Radio Demon and his missing ex-wife being even remotely connected in the same sentence.
“Uhhh…” At this point the sound was just sticking to the back of her throat, droning white noise to fill the excruciating silence. She needed to actually say something of substance, but the words wouldn’t come out of her, as if someone was squeezing her windpipe. They were both still staring at her like she’d grown a second head. Fuck.
A wolf-whistle cut through the tension like a knife, and she turned to see Angel grinning from his seat at the bar. Thank goodness for him and his fearlessness, she’d have to sneak him some of the gold-star stickers she’d been saving for group activities.
“Damn, Al, didn’t know you were into that sorta thing. How’s being a mommy?”
That seemed to spur the two men, plus Vaggie, whose laptop had slipped off her lap and onto the floor, back to life.
“Angel, don’t even–” she groaned at the same time her dad barked out “Oh hell no–” at the same time Charlie finally began to stutter out the beginnings of an apology.
All silenced by an almost excessively loud snap as Alastor twisted his head at a sickening angle. Again. She should really tell him to lay off on that, it was a sure way to get some killer neck pain.
“Well,” he said, tone once again back to its usual joviality, the awkwardness come and gone as if it had never been there in the first place. There was only a split second flicker of annoyance thrown in Angel’s direction before he fixed his–thankfully normal–gaze on her. “I’m quite honored to be compared to our illustrious queen, my dear. No harm done!”
“Y-yeah! No problem! It’s a compliment!” Charlie squeezed out, making a point to chuckle along with the studio audience laugh-track that rung in the air seconds later. “With tasteful sarcasm!”
Thank the Heavens, Alastor was either in a polite mood or just as eager to pass off the moment as she was. He waved a hand. “Yes, of course. You seem tired, dear. Perhaps Miss Vaggie ought to take you to bed.”
“I’ve got to agree,” Vaggie sighed, gently grasping her arms and flashing her with an indulgent smile. “C’mon, let’s check out for the night. Alastor can wrap things up.”
Normally Charlie was admittedly a stick in the mud, refusing to rest until she’d finished her task, come hell or high water. But her cheeks were still burning from embarrassment and honestly, she felt like she was about to fall over. Clearly something was short-circuiting in her brain if it was overlaying the image of her mother, Lilith, Queen of Hell with all the skill and ambition to match that title, with Alastor, as much as she was fond of her hotelier. Well, granted, he was pretty skilled, and perhaps outclassed her mom in ambition somehow, and he made her drinks, and was a guide for her when she needed it, and he needled her dad without fear, and was an excellent singer who loved an audience, and…
Oh, come on.
With a cross between a groan and a wail, Charlie buried her face into her girlfriend’s shoulder as she was carried up to their room. “Vaggieeeeeee…”
“Yeah?”
“I miss my mom…”
She did. Desperately. Heart-achingly. But she needed to confront that privately, not take it out on her friend and business partner, no matter a few surface-level similarities.
Vaggie sighed, gaze softening as she pulled her up for a nuzzle. “I know, sweetie, I know.”
Alastor let Charlie leave without any fuss. The poor girl’s entire face had gone as red as her cheeks, and as amusing as it would have been to poke at her a little more, he wasn’t quite willing to test his luck with Lucifer sitting feet away from him, currently having a crisis of his own.
“Mom. Mom!” The fallen angel looked the closest to crying that he’d ever seen the pitiful man, tail out and lashing as he dragged his hands over his face and mussy hair. “Why that? I’ll take trying to replace me as a dad over this…”
He tuned the noise out and approached the table where he’d left Charlie’s untouched coffee, quietly taking her spot on the sofa as he grabbed the mug and took a sip. No point in wasting a perfectly good and possibly spiked drink, and it wasn’t as if he planned on sleeping within the next few weeks anyway.
He flicked his gaze over to Lucifer again, grin widening as the man’s rambling quieted down into desperate little mutters, no doubt about his own pathetic nature and lack of a wife.
“Bet you that’s gonna drive his ego into the next year,” he heard Husker mutter. Angel let out a snort and strolled over, far too casually for a normal sinner approaching an overlord and currently-hysterical archdemon.
“Cheer up, big guy,” he said, almost gleeful as he patted Lucifer on the back. “Al here ain’t a bad catch. Decent face, decent check, and his garlic bread’s pretty good.”
Lucifer looked up from his hands. “I know he can fucking cook, that’s not–wait–” he glanced at Alastor. He flashed him a wide smile that bared his teeth, wiggling his fingers like he’d seen Rosie do at an irate customer during his last swing-by. Lucifer shivered, inching back. “–clearly Charlie and I need to talk. About her mom. Which I’ve been avoiding. And now she might have a complex because of it. Ugh.”
“There’s always room for improvement, your highness,” he crooned. “Especially with your size.”
The king wrinkled his lip as he stood up and brushed at his hair, evidently ready to leave and forget this night had ever occurred. “Real original, Bambi. Not even gonna start with you, I’ve hit my deer tolerance quota for the next week.”
He didn’t turn to exit immediately, however. For a few moments he gave Alastor a look, face smoothing out from childish petulance to cool neutrality in a way that made the hair on his neck stand on end. His muscles stiffened with the instinct of the animal of prey whose form he had been stuffed into, throat clenching around nothing as his brain played catch-up to the sudden shift in demeanor. But he willed those peskily emotive ears he’d been cursed with to stay relaxed instead of flattening against his hair, for his antlers to not grow with his trepidation, answering Lucifer’s probing stare with an innocently questioning look of his own.
“Something the matter?” he asked in a smooth tone, raising up a pointed eyebrow.
“Well, I guess you are tall…and the whole broadcast shtick…and also the–hey, how long were you gone again?”
Angel looked none the wiser, but he could feel Husker freeze up from here.
In an instant, he flashed his most winning smile, crinkling his eyes to create an expression that bordered on shameless. “So you are curious about me! I’m touched, your Majesty! Want me to start from the beginning of my escapades in Hell? There was this one overlord at the time who–”
“Whatever,” Lucifer turned on his heel, and Alastor shoved down the instinctual flare of anger at the lack of respect. Crisis averted, quiet down, ego. “G’night.”
Angel yawned and stretched his four arms. “Y’know, I’m gonna call it a night too. Got work tomorrow.”
“Seconded,” Husker sighed, putting away the glass he’d given Angel. He knew Alastor hardly slept, but gave him a glance anyway, the swell man that he was.
“Sweet dreams, you two. I won’t be for a while, so I may as well finish what our princess started.” He waved off their tired goodbyes and turned to the notebook of crayon letters Charlie had left behind. He needed to get her to use pen for more than just signatures, good God.
Her writing was still surprisingly legible. There was no problem there. But he had read the same sentence four times before he could admit to himself that something was nagging at the back of his mind. There had been a strange–uncomfortable–jumble in his stomach since Charlie had called him that, making him feel just a tad bit nauseous. It dug into his thoughts, the blood thumping through his ears, and he had no intention of letting it stay there to fester. As far as he was concerned, any emotion more complex than his joy at humiliating his foes, his fondness for the handful of people he considered his fellows, or the ever-present anger was only a shackle that would throw him off his game. And Hell knew he already had enough of those.
He huffed, dropping the notebook back on the sofa as he gripped his mug two-handed, staring out at the empty, candlelit room. Niffty must have been asleep as well, he couldn’t hear her scurrying in the walls. Shame, humming something to lull her to sleep usually calmed him when his thoughts started to dig at him like this.
He’d gone in planning to play the role of surrogate father, to take advantage of the King of Hell’s failings and present himself as the better option of guidance for a princess brimming with untapped power and potential. He had begrudgingly conceded that he would have to share that role when Lucifer showed no sign of vanishing from his daughter’s life again, even if he and the other man had learned to tolerate each other somewhat between staff breakfasts and mundane discussions over the hotel’s amenities. He at least was sure that Charlie saw him as a mentor figure, and that was perhaps an even more flexible position to be in. But…
“Mother” was unexpected. And wholly different to him than any image the word “father” conjured up. Traditionally it was considered a nurturing role. Did Charlie see him as nurturing? Surely not, if anything his nature pointed him in the exact opposite direction. Hell, he’d snickered the other day when she had tripped on nothing while inspecting rooms together. Perhaps Lilith in her dominating presence and nigh-untouchable aura had skewed the poor girl’s idea of motherhood. That must be it. His skills in those two areas were top-notch, so really, it was a compliment. Just a misguided one, as he didn’t have a motherly bone in his body. If he did, he might have been an angel with his maman in Heaven instead of a demonic overlord of the netherworld.
He feared his memories of her would, with the passage of time, fall away and be covered by the crimson haze of Hell, but he knew that he couldn’t be what he remembered her to be. Even if he knew the steps of this dance from watching how she’d bandaged his cuts, sat him down and taught him how to cook for himself, or held him tightly when the red-hot emotions ricocheting through his brain became too much for his body to handle, he couldn’t follow it through. Alastor didn’t have her spark, or whatever Charlie seemed to think he had when she–any of them–looked at him like he’d hung the stars and the moon just from doing a simple favor. All he had was an internal catalog of actions he knew to depend on if he wanted to live in polite society, for all the good it did for him in the grisly end. To not end up alone deep in the bowels of the bayou, old and dead and worthless like–
Anyway. Charlie was looking to the wrong person for motherhood. He would correct this mistaken assumption if a full night of sleep didn’t do it for him. And maybe have her interact more with Rosie, she was far better at this sort of thing.
Actually, this was fine. He could work with this. It was a new opportunity unlocked, maybe a better one than what he had originally been going for, even. He grinned to himself, the threads of plans already forming in his head to be strung at his discretion. This would be useful. This would be fun. All he had to do was nudge a little, as he always did. Maybe he wouldn’t even need the favor in the end, if Charlie became loyal enough.
He took another sip of his now-lukewarm drink and wrinkled his nose. Before all that, he should swap out Charlie’s coffee for decaf. This level of intake would send the girl to an early grave.