Chapter Text
Charlie Morningstar had zero intention of going out into Pentagram City to be social. In fact, Charlie had left her family’s estate in a huff to specifically not deal with people, still feeling on edge after an argument (because she would not acknowledge it as a fight, Hell’s royal family didn’t get into fights, they had spirited debates on the rare occasions they didn’t get along) with her father regarding the sinners. It wasn’t just that he refused to listen, digging his heels in with every word, it was also that her mother - who she knew would generally agree with her - told her that not every battle was worth fighting, that she needed to give her father space on this to try to let him eventually come around on his own.
After trying to calm herself with a cup of tea and a book, rereading the same sentence six times, and then getting mad at said book, Charlie decided that what she really needed to get out of her head was to get out of the house. It felt like sneaking out, even as Charlie reminded herself that she’s an adult and adults don’t have to sneak out through the service entrance. She even left a note on her vanity in case someone came to her room to check on her stating that she was going out for the evening, which only reinforced to her that this wasn’t really sneaking out, it was her taking some personal time for a night on the town.
An incredibly low-key night on the town where she intended to be alone with her thoughts and the strongest cocktail her palate could handle. Which would probably be something that was loaded with alcohol and even more fruit juice so she couldn’t taste the alcohol, but still it would be something. Which is how she found herself sitting alone with her thoughts on a less than comfortable barstool, nursing a drink that she was pretty sure didn’t have a name other than “The sweetest thing you can make for me with as much alcohol in it as possible, pretty please!”
Charlie, instead of something that would advertise her status of the Princess of Hell, was dressed simply in a red blouse and a pair of black slacks, which, given the sticky vinyl on the barstool’s seat, had turned out to be a wise choice. The outfit was a very specific choice made in an attempt to go as incognito as possible as she definitely didn’t have any intention of meeting anyone, not after breaking up with Seviathan for the third time in a decade a few months prior.
She was halfway through her second drink when she noticed that a sinner with a television for a head had sat a few seats down the bar from her and ordered an entire bottle of scotch. After a childhood spent in the Pride Ring, Charlie wasn’t exactly phased by the sight of sinners whose forms didn’t match up to what she understood about standard human anatomy. Multiple limbs? Wings? Tails in place of legs? None of these things phased her, if anything she was used to them more than the thought of a standard-issue human walking through the Pride Ring. So the sinner's head didn’t make her think twice other than the briefest thought of ‘huh, that’s a new one.’ No, instead the thing that got her attention was how fast he was downing his drinks, like he was on a one-man mission to drink an entire bottle of scotch in one night or, more likely, had decided to take the idea of drowning one’s sorrows literally. It was only after he had finished his fifth glass that she decided that maybe she should say something before he got hurt.
Charlie moved one seat closer to him, leaving two stools between them, preparing for the worst, but deciding that, fuck it, she needed to try to check in on him, if only to get out of her own head and stop focusing on her own problems for a few minutes. “Hey mister,” she said warmly, “are you doing okay?”
“Peachy,” he responded with a thick sound in his voice like he had been crying previously, and the burn from the alcohol hadn’t helped, “Now fuck off.”
While Charlie wasn’t surprised, had even prepared for that kind of reaction, that didn’t deter her. “Are you sure? Because you look like you could use a friend, or maybe a sympathetic ear?”
The sinner turned to look at her, his previously drooped antennas standing on end as his red eyes glared at her. “I don’t need friends and I definitely don’t need life advice from some kid whose idea of getting fucked up is a glass of cranberry juice.”
“Alright, would you be willing to give me a chance if I tried whatever you’re drinking?”
The glare on his face shifted into something more perplexed as he blinked a few times, letting her question sink in before letting out a sharp, hollow laugh. “Do you really think that’s going to convince me? Sure, fine, we’ll call it a deal. If you finish it, I’ll pour my heart out to you. If you don’t finish it, you’ll fuck off. Deal?” He reached out a hand to her, something crackling in the air around them.
Power. Deal-making power. The currency that gave sinners the ability to climb the ranks to be something more than just a damned soul. Charlie had heard of these kinds of deals before, of course, it was the kind of thing that the Overlords traded in. Charlie suddenly wished that she had kept more tabs on what Overlords were running around amassing power while she was away studying in the Gluttony Ring for the past couple of years. If she had kept better tabs, she would have known that the man sitting down the bar from her was a relatively low-ranking Overlord, one who had some sort of connection to the Radio Demon. Instead, she just briefly questioned why someone would be using these kinds of powers to convince a fellow drinker to leave him alone. Charlie reached out and took his clawed hand in her own as she shook his hand, “Deal.”
The sinner flagged down the bartender for a second glass before pouring her a long pour of the amber liquor, sliding it over with a “Drink up, blondie.”
Charlie picked up the glass and took a sniff, as if to prepare herself. It didn’t smell terrible, like caramel but less sweet, but once she took her first sip she made a face from how much it burned. The sweet scent turned to something that tasted like a marsh in her mouth as she had to take a beat to consider if this was worth it. Was it worth it to finish this drink just to get this sinner to open up to her? Probably not, but there was something bigger on the line here, in some form at least: the respect of her people. After all, how could this sinner ever trust her as the Princess of Hell if she was willing to give up on him that easily? She wavered for a second, as she measured how much earning his respect was worth it, when he started laughing. “You can give up any time and walk away.”
Oh, oh no, she was definitely not going to do that. “I was just… testing it before I drank it?” Charlie steeled herself before downing the drink, ignoring the smug chuckle coming from the sinner as she tried to imagine that it tasted the way it smelled. She set the empty glass on the bar with a grimace letting out a sharp “Fuck!”
The TV headed sinner stared at her, a look on his screen that was somewhere between impressed with her, kicking himself for making such a stupid fucking deal, and something smug that was trying to cover those mixed emotions. That was, until he started to laugh. It wasn’t a happy laugh, full of mirth, no there was something darker to it, as if he was about to have to face the inevitable. “So what now, you want me to bare my soul to you, blondie? Tell you all my darkest secrets?”
Charlie let out a mix of a half-hearted laugh and a cough, the alcohol still burning at her throat. “No! No, nothing that… you just- you looked like you could use a friend. I’m Charlie, by the way.” She put her hand out to him and, without the telltale signs of power around them. It took him a moment as he stared at her offered hand as he thought about it before he reached out to take her much smaller hand in his.
“Vo-“ he stopped for just a second, thinking over which name to give her as the barest hint of static flashed over his screen, before taking on a suave tone in an attempt to cover his previous weakness, deciding on the name that most likely wouldn’t get an immediate reaction if she followed the Pentagram’s Overlord politicking. “Vincent. The pleasure’s all mine, Charlie.” He had to make sure his brain moved before his mouth did, before he started spilling every thought out to her per the terms of their deal in a desperate attempt to try to regain the upper hand, to try to keep her distracted so she didn’t get too much out of him while still satisfying the terms of the absolutely fucking stupid deal he had proposed. “So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a shithole like this?”
She had to think for a moment about how much to actually tell him. She had no intention of telling him who exactly she was, deciding it was better if he just believed she was another sinner for the time being, better not to scare him off or make him want to flatter her. “I got into a…” How could she say it without making it sound too bad? “...disagreement with my dad earlier and needed to get out of the house.”
The look on Vincent’s face alarmed her a little, as Charlie was worried that he had figured her out from the mention of her dad since, duh, sinners reconnecting with family in Hell was pretty uncommon from everything she had heard over the years. “Aww, did poor wittle bwondie wun away fwom home because her daddy hurt her feewings?”
There was a hot feeling in her gut, a mix of anger and shame, before she realized he was baiting her and she needed not to fall for it as she straightened her back in an attempt to physically keep herself from falling for it. “You’re not getting out of our deal by being rude to me and making me leave!” She poured both of them another finger of scotch and grabbed hers as she held his out to him. “You promised, if I drank one, you’d talk to me. I’ll even drink two! See? Cheers!”
The look he gave her as he took the drink out of her hand was almost impressed? Was she really seeking validation from a sinner? “Alright, blondie, I guess you aren’t as gullible as you look,” he said as he took the drink from her hand and held it out as a toast. “Cheers, doll.”
Charlie knocked her glass against his and downed the drink, grimacing from the second round of the amber liquid burning down her throat, before she reached for her own drink and drained it, hoping it would cool the fire, before ordering another of her fruity cocktail and closing the distance between them as she moved down to sit next to him. “So, what causes someone to come to a bar, try to drink an entire bottle of scotch, and act like an asshole to someone who just wants to help them?”
“Uh… the fact that we’re in Hell and help always comes at a price? You did get me into a deal to make me talk,” Vincent pointed out, his voice mocking as he tried to get under her skin.
“Only because you made me! And I don’t want to have to use a deal to make you be honest with me, but you’re the one who offered in the first place! I promise, once you tell me, you never have to talk to me again, but you looked like you were hurting and I wanted to help!”
Not that she knew it, but it was slowly sliding into place in his head, through the previous hurt and alcohol induced static in his head, that she was being sincere. “Fine! I asked someone, who I thought was a friend and wanted to be more, to be business partners and he rejected me! Me!! Who the fuck would want to reject someone who’s going to propel them into the future and help them keep their status and help them grow their audience? That raggedy, deer fuck, that’s who! And then that fucker told me that we were never friends in the first place! Well I’ll show him who’s weak and pathetic! I’ll-”
Charlie reached out to grab his hand, cutting off his raving at the sudden touch. It had been… well, a while since someone had last touched him, let alone as tenderly as she was holding his hand in hers. “I’m sorry he hurt you, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to take it out on other people. Or to beat yourself up either! And he sounds like a jerk for treating you that way!!”
He stared at her as a blush of light blue bloomed across his screen, not looking down at where their hands linked, and tried desperately to not gaze into the too-sincere big red eyes that were gazing up at him before letting out a chuff of a laugh. “So what do you think I should do then? Make up and tell him it’s water under the bridge? Sing some campfire songs and pretend like he didn’t just break my heart the first time I made the mistake of wearing my heart on my fucking sleeve? Or-”
“No! Definitely none of that!” Charlie’s hand stayed in his, her pale fingers tracing little circles into his navy skin. “I think… tonight, we get drunk - because I’m in too deep now and I’m not letting you drink alone! - and tomorrow you start to figure the rest of it out, without whoever that guy is dragging you down!”
“Well, aren’t you friendly?”
She beamed up at him, showing off her sharp, little fangs with a bubble of a laugh, “That’s me! Friend to all - or I try to be anyway!”
He let out a sound that was somewhere between a ‘huh’ and a laugh, “You may want to tell my… former associate that since, according to him, there are no friends in Hell.”
The look on her face fell. The fact that poor Vincent had his heart broken was one thing, but to be told that on top of it? Oh, no, Charlie definitely wasn’t going to let that stand. “So he’s a liar and a jerk? Because that’s- that’s definitely not true, I have plenty of friends and I live here! And if you want, I’ll be your friend! If that’s okay, I mean! No pressure if you don’t want to be!”
Vincent fixed her with a look, as if trying to decide to take her up on her offer or to laugh her off before looking down as she laced her fingers with his, looking up to see the painfully earnest smile on her face. “I guess I could use a friend after how today went,” he said as he tried to ignore the little flutter in his chest.
Which was ridiculous, she was just some random woman that he barely knew who had managed to con him, a fucking Overlord, into a deal in a misguided attempt to be nice. But also… well, he did have to admit that he felt better after getting the worst of what that bastard had told him out in the open instead of playing it on repeat in his head. The anger was still there, deep down, but he was a little too distracted by Charlie to focus on it at the moment.
And, as if she knew he needed to be further distracted, she poured him another drink and passed it to him before grabbing her refreshed cocktail and raising it to him in a toast, “To new friendships!”
A laugh, a real, soft laugh, slipped out of his mouth, “I’ll drink to that, blondie.”
Maybe they overdid it. Vincent had finished his bottle, Charlie had put away an impressive number of overly fruity cocktails, and she had insisted as they left the bar that they go back to her place since Vincent was too drunk to walk straight, leaning against Charlie and slurring his words a little. In fact, he never realized he had nodded off in the cab, only coming to when Charlie had jostled him awake before pulling out a surprisingly large bill to pay the driver, catching a hushed mention of “Thank you for your discretion, have a good night!” before he stumbled out of the cab and into her arms, both of them giggling.
Wherever it was that she had brought him was completely unfamiliar to him. It seemed like the backdoor or service entrance as she hushed him and used her key, leading him into a kitchen that went beyond anything he had seen since he had wound up in Hell. Not that he had seen that many kitchens, but this one? It definitely didn’t look like something you’d find in a standard sinner’s residence. “Wait, did you bring me to your job?”
She guided him to a stool to get him settled before she went to ransack the fridge so they could eat something before she hauled him up to her room. “No??” She looked at him for a moment with confusion before turning back to the fridge trying to find the leftover roast chicken from the night before letting out a little “Aha!” and pulling out the foil wrapped carcass and carried it over with a victorious smile on her face “I live here!” she said, as if that answered his previous question.
She pulled the veil of foil off as if she were revealing a surprise. Which, she was in a way, even if she didn’t intend to do so. The serving plate was a pale white china, like the color of her skin, with gold accents and tiny, brilliant red apples painted on the lip of the plate.
The kind of thing that would be expected in the household of Hell’s royal family.
The series of thoughts that flooded into his head hit hard and fast to the point that his screen went to static a few times: 1) that Charlie-the-annoying-but-cute girl he spent the night drunkenly pouring his heart out to was actually Princess Charlotte Morningstar, heir to the throne of Hell, 2) that the princess hadn’t just gotten drunk with him, but had brought him back to the royal residence, and 3) the princess of Hell was trying to feed him leftover chicken to help him stave off the worst of tomorrow’s hangover. If he hadn’t been so drunk, a fourth point would have bubbled up there: that he could play this to his advantage. Instead he accepted a hefty chicken wing from her and said, “Thank you, Princess.”
She froze mid-bite into a chicken thigh, her sharp little fangs already digging into the skin, before she lowered the chicken from her mouth and just responded “Shit.” There was a beat of awkward silence before she launched into an explanation: “I promise, I wasn’t trying to hide who I am from you!! Sometimes it’s nice to just be Charlie instead of the princess and that doesn’t change anything we talked about earlier!! I still want to be your friend, if you’re okay with that!!
“Oh Charlie,” he said, a lazy smile on his face with a little crackle of static slipping into his words, “I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.”