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a-dauntless-daffodil · 5 months ago

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Consider: Vaggie idly tracing her fingers along Charlie's horns, while Charlie's tail almost unconsciously coils to pull Vaggie closer.

Consider: post-almost breakup Charlie Morningstar's separation anxiety and new habit of curling up in demon mode on Vaggie's side of the bed whenever she's feeling miserable, and maybe Vaggie needed to see that

hmm this is more like a fic outline sampler than a headcanon. ah well

they're more partners than ever before, but being partners plus the hotel thing too also means they've each got so much stuff to DO

and they can't always do it together now

the newly re-built hotel (and relationship) comes with new rituals for them, like the squeeze of hands at the hotel gate when it's a busy day and one of them has to be on one side of town dealing with Cannibal Town politeness conventions and the other has to be on the other side of Pentagram City, saying thanks to Carmine while handing over all the new weapons picked up after the battle. Thank fuck there's two of them to cover it all and a promise to meet up back there later, like how they did after the-

Charlie doesn't like thinking about that part though. They separate and she blazes through Cannibal town with a smile big enough to devour heaven, instead thinking about meeting up with Vaggie at the hotel gates again just like they did last time, and won't THAT be fun?

she laughs and sings and pulls the cannibals into gleeful choruses of bloody defiance against heaven as they have proper gorgeous cannibal dinner funerals for the slain while Rosie watches with teeth-glinting interest

and maybe Charlie rushed things a bit too somehow, because she trots up the the hotel later all exhausted and eager and

finds the gates empty

had she really thought it would go just like last time? Had she really been counting on it...?

Charlie's wooden smile as she settles in to wait. Pacing up and down, doing a few nervous tap dances, casting hopeful looks down the street towards the Carmine territory

she could just call. Text to say she's home and Cannibal town went good and check in on how Vaggie's doing. Maybe ask if Vaggie wants Charlie to run over? Maybe they could meet up and walked home together, if Vaggie needs a hand with Carmilla-

no, Charlie shoves her phone away stops herself. She's not going to repeat the day with the trust building exercises, she's not going to ask Vaggie to do something and then not trust her with it or even risk making it LOOK like that's what's happening

one time being asked to leave Vaggie alone on a roof like that was enough

Charlie can just wait this time too

time ticks by. She fixes her hair, hugs herself, and tries not to look over at the giant gleaming memorial statue to Dazzle. she tries to wait

but handling things alone has never been Charlie's thing and waiting for Vaggie doesn't count as not feeling alone, so she doesn't stay out there long in the end

half an hour finds her heading into the endless noise of the hotel where someone is bickering with someone else about something. Charlie heads past it up to their room, too tired to do anything other than curl up and wait even if it mans being back in Vaggie's empty side of the bed

she also, though, keeps their bedroom suit door open a crack so she can hear the distant sounds of swearing from downstairs

Razzle would've been there to snuggle up with her, but right after shrugging off her jacket and kicking off her shoes and calling for him Charlie remembers she sent him off with Vaggie today. She'd insisted on it- just a little just-in-case help, just until the fresh heavenly steel marks in Vaggie's flesh stopped being quite so fresh both literally on Vaggie and non-literally on Charlie's stretched thin nerves

remembering Vaggie's blood smeared on her skin makes her feel sharp both inside and out, all horns and claws as she drops into bed, spade tipped tail already lashing the bedsheets into a lather

angry hurts less than loneliness so Charlie hunches inward and let's herself be angry all over again, burning over the years of guilt she spent thinking her home and her people had hurt Vaggie, done that to Vaggie, only to find out it was heaven all along

she sinks her claws into the bed and imagines Lute's flesh and bone being punctured instead. Imagines ripping-

Vaggie's small proud smile as she talked about having shone mercy flashes through Charlie's head and she snarls, kicking it away- of all the fucking times to show mercy, the one time Charlie's life actually could have been made so much simpler from Vaggie impaling someone-

cloven hoof slams into hardwood bedframe and cracks it. Charlie curls up tighter, not noticing how the voices downstairs have gone quiet

Charlie doesn't like being angry. Worse than that she hates being alone

right now she's both

Vaggie wasn't waiting for her at the gates and it's not fair how much that scared her, when there's nothing wrong and nothing to be scared of

she tells herself that and tells herself that, trying to relax

she's a lot less scared when she blinks awake later and hears Vaggie yelling at someone downstairs

and she COULD get out of bed now, she could jump up and smooth down her shirt, fix her hair, go bounding down the stairs three at a time and scoop Vaggie up in a twirl before Vaggie can even look around from threatening whoever was messing with the hotel today. Charlie could laugh and hug her and soak in Vaggie's smile and tell Vaggie how she missed her

Charlie stays in bed

She stays on Vaggie's side of their bed with her heart pounding, listening to Vaggie and Razzle bickering up the stairs

"...not a big deal and she won't notice anyway, right? My skin's already grey. You can't really tell if it's bruised..."

"Rrrreh!"

"Alright fine, she'd notice if you told her, which you could but won't."

"RRR."

"No you don't have to. How many doughnuts to make you not want to this time?"

"Mmmmr..."

"Me crashing into a window while flying us home is NOT worth two dozen doughnuts. I don't care how dumb I looked hitting the newly angel-proofed glass."

"Skrrrrghghghgh~"

"What do you mean you stole my phone and recorded it-"

she hears the exact moment Vaggie pushes open the door and stops dead

"Charlie...?"

Vaggie, seeing now exactly what Charlie had worked so hard not to let her see back then when being angry and hurt had hurt Charlie less than the gaping hole of terrifying loneliness she'd gotten from looking at Vaggie and wondering if Vaggie wanting to be with her- if the woman Charlie loves wanting to be with her- had just been another lie too

small wings flutter and Razzle's little paws pat her hair, little goat demon nose snuffling at her cheek

"Sweetie." Vaggie's voice is closer this time. Less confused. More worried. "Are you..."

Charlie doesn't want her finishing that question

talking would be the more normal option. Just tell Vaggie how she'd felt, but Rosie had said actions matter more and Charlie doesn't know what she felt or how to say it all anyway

so she makes the colossal effort to wiggle her tail tip out from under the blankets and lift it into a tiny wave

"Hi, Vaggie." she whispers, "You're back."

maybe she says 'i missed you' with those two last words anyway

because Vaggie is suddenly there by the bed, Vaggie who can step so quiet sometimes like she's not even touching the ground- the dancer in her Charlie used to think but maybe it's the angel thing- and Charlie can tell she's there with her eyes closed just from how her own muscles start to relax, even before Vaggie reaches down

"Hey." It's a soft stroke to Charlie's hoof, the one poking out from under the blanket cocoon, the one who'd kicked out earlier and probably dented their poor bed. "Tough time in Cannibal town?"

they're both really bad at actually talking about things. But that's fine

Charlie only notices her shivers when Vaggie presses down on her ankle and stops them, like magic. "Cannibal town was fine."

Vaggie hums. It's warm and low and soft and Charlie can hear how she knows what wasn't fine today, feels it in the squeeze of Vaggie's hand before Vaggie tucks the blankets in all neat an tidy around their balled-up blob of Charlie

"Do you want our door open," Vaggie asks, "or door closed?"

"Closed."

"Rrrrr." Razzle is up and fluttering before Vaggie can move. Razzle knows what Charlie needs just as much as she does

there's a click of the lock and a ping of guilt for only using the sounds of the hotel to make herself feel better when Vaggie wasn't here to do a better job of it, then a pang of something more sweet than bitter, thinking about how doors being open or closed were never even a question back when it was just them at home

the edge of the bed next to Charlie sinks and pulls her like gravity towards where Vaggie settles, sitting and fitting perfectly in the curve of the pitiful puddle of Charlie

"Kinda nice having guests in the hotel, huh?"

Vaggie's hand is brushing loose strands of hair away from Charlie's face, smoothing them off Charlie's horns and then staying there.

"Even if they're still part-time assholes about it."

Charlie feels it when Vaggie breaths in at the end of the sentence, tail having found its way over and around Vaggie without Charlie thinking about it

She thinks about how Vaggie had been yelling downstairs and trying to bribe Razzle on the way up. A corner of her mouth crooks, almost smiling

"Did they laugh when you hit the window?"

Tense up and slump and Vaggie huffing, giving up hiding it, also almost laughing too

"Only once."

There's a bruise on her somewhere a new fresh one to match the faded ones from the battle and Charlie's searching eyes snap open, that constant tight fist in her chest grabbing her heart and squeezing

"Are you okay?"

Vaggie is already looking back at her, like she's been waiting this whole time

"I'm fine, Charlie," she smiles. "Just a bruise to my stupid pride. Just what I get, for being in such a hurry."

her wings are still out. One relaxed and drooping all the way to the floor like a tossed aside blanket and the other held up over Charlie, feathers almost brushing her, mirroring Vaggie's arm still reaching out and her hand drifting mindlessly between smooth blood-red horn and tangled somewhat messy hair

she doesn't say she was in a hurry 'to see you' in the same way Charlie hadn't said 'i missed you' and that why today wasn't fine

that's okay

everything is okay, as long as Charlie can tug Vaggie closer and curl in closer around her still, her head snuggling on Vaggie's lap. As long as Vaggie can cradle her there with hands and wings and be there for Charlie to feel it when she breathes

post-angel revelation Vaggie sees a lot her demon gf's horns and tail and markings, more than she had in all the years they've been together

it's never about her wings. not about her lost halo, her spear, all the people she's killed with it. That's, somehow, not the problem

The problem is Charlie knows she knows about heaven now and she has questions, so many questions, but all Vaggie has are an exorcist's very narrow answers and a lightness where her mask used to be, and scars

Charlie always tries asking about the scars, then inevitably about how the fight with Lute went. Charlie can't ask those things or listen to the answers without heating up, angry in slow and silent and steady way Vaggie's never seen from her before

and sometimes Vaggie notices how she's casually playing with Charlie's horns during those talks, or tracing the black marks scoring down Charlie's cheeks or feeling how Charlie's tail adjusts it's already tight grip around her waist. Sometimes she wonders about how she savors it, when she's got her new ashen wings out and Charlie's running her pitch black talonned hands through them, like she wants to memorize every feather and check on each one, like how she seeks out Vaggie's new scars now too and adds it all to the tally of every last thing Lute took

it feels wrong to smile at the sight of the woman she loves wanting to kill someone because of her

definitely its wrong seeing Charlie wanting to kill not in a flash of passionate protective rage, but muted and hard and thoughtful. Vaggie has to have something wrong with herself when she sees how wrong that anger looks on Charlie, and still finds herself smiling over it

wrong feels pretty nice. That should worry her

Vaggie absentmindedly testing her thumb on one of Charlie's horn tips or breathing in to deepen the constrictor snake hug of Charlie's tail digging into her ribs. It's nice and it does make Vaggie smile

she'd felt Charlie's claws trembling at the end of the battle, them standing together as they looked down at un-armed and disarmed and half blinded from tears Lute

if ever there was a time to feel sympathy that would have been it. Well. Maybe it would've a bit more sympathetic if Lute hadn't still been spattered with Vaggie's blood. The woman had been on her knees and crying though, and Charlie had been ready to let Adam run home alive....

and if Vaggie hadn't been there anchoring Charlie, Lute would've been dead

but she had and Charlie hadn't and Lute wasn't

it's making Charlie angry, Vaggie knows, thinking about how the person who wanted to take out Vaggie's other eye before killing her is still out there, will probably be pathetic enough to try that shit again. Charlie doesn't like to be angry and now just looking at the new scar on Vaggie's post-impaled hand brings out the horns and hint of hellfire. Vaggie should feel bad about that

she runs her hand over Charlie's horns, hums into the tail wrapped round her chest, drapes herself and her wings over her girlfriend and smiles into Charlie's hair

these days Charlie wants so badly to hurt people for her, but also won't, because of her

Lute's life was Vaggie's choice and Vaggie chose mercy- edged with spite and the sharp cruel edge of revenge, sure, but still it was mercy and a second chance- and Charlie listened to that. Listened to her. Had needed her there for once as a reminder to be good

that almost makes it feel like.... maybe Vaggie does belong down in hell after all, in the good ways as well as the bad. Like maybe she really does belong right here, with Charlie

maybe Charlie holding on like this means she won't ever let Vaggie go

#hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #vaggie #chaggie #headcanon scenario thing #fanfic idea #hurt comfort with angst #I LIKE THINKING ABOUT THEM BEing A HOPELES MESS TOGETHER #u give me a fluffy idea and guess what #this happens

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