Chapter Text
The little Princess Morningstar claps her hands from where she's standing at the end of the big table, and it somehow manages to make everyone shut their traps (despite her pulling this exact move about twice every ten minutes on a slow day). Vox would be impressed, if he wasn't on a strict being-a-petty-asshole-about-everything behavioral diet at the moment. Self-imposed, of course, but what's new.
"Okay!" Charlie starts, manic energy barely contained under her over-excited surface, "So, today's topic for art therapy is bad memories! I want you all to try to think of a bad thing that happened to you, it can be very important or not so much, then you're going to draw it," she takes a much-needed breath, "aaaand then you're going to make another drawing about a way that could have made the experience better for you!"
"Are we gonna have to show everyone?" One of the worthless randos who stays at the Hotel asks.
"If you want! You don't have to if you don't want to, but well, the idea of this is to maybeee share a teensy bit about yourself, so I'd love it if you could pick a memory you're comfortable sharing!" The Princess replies, fast-paced and fired-up, fluttering her hands about and almost smacking her angel girlfriend in the face. Said girlfriend sits down with the rest of them out of self-preservation.
Someone else snorts, "Yeah, sharing, and gettin' mocked about, right?"
"Nooo!" Charlie protests, like she can erase the simple reality that they're all assholes by barfing enthusiasm at them, "I'm sure not! We're all playing nice here, aren't we?"
"And if we decide to forgo the niceties, weeeell..." the way Alastor drags that vowel on and on is very reminiscent of the creak of a door in a horror movie. How ominous.
Charlie turns her head towards her business partner, who's been looming besides her like a vintage gargoyle under the pretense of supervising the session (whole lot of bullshit that, Vox would bet his soul he just wants to laugh at them). Paying no mind to her reproving look, he stares the rest of them down and briefly flashes his eyes into radio dials. The temperature in the room drops by a good dozen degrees.
"Who's to say what might happen, really!" The Radio Demon finishes cheerfully.
Charlie's smile wobbles a bit at the edges as she steps between her patients/hostages and her bloodthirsty associate. It could be to protect the rest of them, or it could be to simply conceal the threat from view. It's anyone's guess, honestly.
"Ooookay..." The Princess smiles in a clearly unsettled and markedly un-regal way. "Moving on! Even without the... threats... I'm counting on all of you to be kind to each other today. Okay? Even those of you who have just, um, joined us and might think they don't have to follow the rules and all the like, alright?"
Her gaze slides over to Vox pointedly. Everyone else's gazes are kind of doing that too. It's fine, Vox can deal with a crowd. Even one as tough as this one. He plasters one of his award-winning smiles on his screen and gives a little wave.
Charlie clears her throat loudly. "But anyway!"
"Let's not bring more attention to our resident disgraced Overlord than he deserves, mmh?" Alastor tops off with a flourish of his mic stand.
Despite his vow to not give a fuck, Vox sneaks a glance over at Husk, sitting near the back like the loner he is. The other disgraced Overlord in attendance meets his eyes with a bored look, apparently used to the way his owner completely forgot about his existence.
Ha! Couldn't be him.
If Alastor forgot about his existence, he'd probably just have to kill everyone around him and then himself.
...Right, that's most of the reason why he's here, isn't it?
And he also might have a pathological inability to stop giving shits about many... most things, really. Except for "ethics" or a "moral code", these have never been an issue.
He's somewhat stopped paying attention to her blabbering, but then another of the Princess' little claps cuts through his musings. Shit, is this a superpower? Like, mind control through clapping?
"So, let's start!" She's saying. "And remember to call on me if you need any help!"
The other residents obediently hunch over their sheets of paper and start scribbling. But from his spot near the end of the table, Vox is close enough to hear Charlie and Alastor start murmuring briskly. Oh oh, trouble in paradise? Vox focuses his attention on them, because he has never been able to resist being nosy. Especially not when it's about his second favorite topic, that fuckass deer.
"...-sure it'll be fine. You're certain you don't want to participate in the activity, Alastor?" Charlie's tone is halfway between pleading and chiding.
"What an idea, my dear! No, I think I'll be alright, but thank you very much for this torturous proposition! I am sure it will feed my nightmares for many weeks."
"But maybe you'll have fun!" The Princess continues, mostly undeterred. When he sneaks a glance at the two, he can see she has resorted to one of her most powerful weapons, the hellish puppy eyes. Shit, Alastor's brand of dramatic cynicism is clearly not as much use as it normally is in this conversation. That's actually quite impressive.
"Reminiscing? I don't think that's ever been a fun activity for anyone in all of human history!"
"And, and, it could help you process some things? Maybe?"
"Process what things? I am perfectly fine, Charlotte! Why-ever would you think otherwise!"
Vox snickers to himself, and tunes out of the conversation fully this time.
Right.
Drawing.
Let it be said, Vox never had the kind of artistic talent that can grab one at the neck and squeeze all those disgusting emotions out of them. But he can still convey a damn good idea with scribbles and tasteful arrows -if ever someone gets confused as to who one of his stick figures is. Though he has somewhat risen above the stick figures these days. It's harder to draw them getting stabbed (a recurrent theme in his artwork), so he avoids them.
On the first sheet of paper, he draws his big... It's not a dick. It was just the more obvious design for a big cannon shooting loads into-.
. Point is, it's not a dick. He draws his sad decapitated face on the floor, and after a second or two of deliberating, Velvette and Valentino's scribbled figures by his side. Then all those backstabbing Overlords who participated in his big defeat, red bastard included, plus all the other Has-Been losers holding hands and singing together to the power of friendship to save the city from getting blown up. Which was immensely gross and disgusting to witness, by the way.
The second picture is far less depressing. He puts himself front and center, with his sexy outfit and his toned arms and his very securely attached head, while his team is somewhere on the side doing toasts. The gates of Heaven are blown right off their hinges behind him, his d- cannon is still intact and ready to be pointed at anyone who so much as breathes wrong, and the above-mentioned treacherous losers are in varying states of dead, dying or grievously injured. He even includes Carmilla's daughters, who have been chewed on by Shock.wav and are now laying in pieces. That will teach her for growing a conscience right when he needed her to be the ruthless businesswoman who's been pissing him off for years.
Vox gets a bit absorbed in the details of his artwork, he'll admit. So much so that he actually misses the first presentation because he's not quite done, but then as someone new takes the stage his pencil is knocked out of his hand by a black tendril. Vox whirls in his chair to address a properly scathing glare to his least favorite radio host, and receives in response a malicious grin and a wink. Their little spat doesn't last long however, as Charlie steps in between them again, twisting her hands and looking on the verge of tears. The poor thing, she really is getting more than she bargained for with the two of them.
Whatever. He can drop it for now. It's Niffty's turn anyway. Figures, Alastor must be the biggest (and only) enthusiast of her peculiar creative endeavors, he would never allow anyone to be distracted while she presents an art piece.
The diminutive maid has climbed on top of the table, jumping in place as she excitedly shows them all a picture of a scribble of colors, seemingly... squished? In some sort of... cylinder? Vox looks around the table, trying to catch a context clue. The other residents are a patchwork of variations on confused, except for Alastor, clapping away like a proud dad who ate too many weed brownies.
"Umm, Niffty, would you mind... describing what happened here for us?" The Princess prompts, reliable as always.
"It's me!" The little monster giggles. "Right there," she taps at the colorful graffiti in the middle of her art piece. "It's from that day I chased a roach down a pipe and then got stuck!"
"Niffty, that must have been terrifying! You-"
But Niffty has already climbed up the front of Charlie's jacket, holding onto her shirt and staring into her eyes -far too close for comfort, surely- "It escaped from me!!" Poor Niffty is panting, as if reliving the no doubt intense trauma of that day.
Charlie manages to peel her off her clothes gently enough. The Princess sets her housekeeper down and, instead of addressing literally any of that, settles for asking:
"Okay, and your, uh, good version of that day?"
Niffty stays silent for too long, swaying slightly.
"No good version. I love having bad days."
"Fantastically said, my dear Niffty! Misery is the backbone of existence!" Alastor adds, because he just can't help himself, apparently.
Vox rolls his eyes. Edgelords, the two of them.
"Right!" Charlie says, mostly unruffled. It must be a gift. "Who wants to go next, then?"
Angel raises his hand. Vox raises an eyebrow. Oh, this could be interesting.
His artwork is actually quite pretty, some trippy composition of swirling colors, with a shape he assumes to be Angel himself in the middle, all eight of his limbs splayed out like he's been strung up in the middle of a web. Val's probably made a movie like that, now that he thinks about it.
"It's just a... a bad trip," their resident not-recovering addict explains. "Not one particularly memorable, I didn't even... have a specific one in mind, honestly. And you bet these things have happened to me a lot!" He chuckles, but it falls flat of his usual act. "It was more about the feeling... Um, hopelessness, not knowing who or where you are, not remembering anything except for the certainty that it's never gonna stop and you're gonna keep makin' those bad choices over and over."
And for once, Vox doesn't have anything scathing to say. Probably because that sob story is so dreadfully boring and overdone it's not even worth the effort to ridicule.
Oh, right, he does have one thing to say, actually: this stupid twink didn't even listen to the instructions, which were to pick one day in particular, and not just some feeling. But hey, Morningstar is probably going to eat it up anyway. She's probably already sobbing.
"Here's the better one. It's just... same thing, same feeling, but... contained. Not touching me, just for a moment."
On the new paper he shows them, the swirl of rainbows has been relegated to a corner, freeing the Angel-like-shape. The figure keeping Angel and his drugs separated definitely looks like a person holding him to their chest. Oh, the classic "all I need is to be loved and then all my problems will go away". How adorable.
Charlie has joined Angel on his side of the table, holding to one of his arms. She is not, in fact, sobbing, but it's a near thing.
"Thank you, Angel. You were so brave for sharing this."
Their bravest boy gives a sheepish smile.
"No problem, Char'. Was just having fun with the colors," he mutters as an excuse for emotional vulnerability (which he needs, by the way. Wouldn't want to look like a fucking wimp.)
The ex-angel girlfriend goes next, and it's at least obvious what day her image is meant to represent: the massive hourglass tower taking up most of the sky, a perspective of decrepit streets splattered in red, and nondescript black figures scrambling away from the observer. It's kind of funny how she couldn't even be bothered to give her would-be victims any recognizable characteristics, actually: something to be said about the dehumanization Heaven no doubt participates in or the massive amount of traumatic amnesia their soldiers experience.
"So, as some of you may know, I am... I used to work for, um, Heaven and the exorcists. Of course, I would never..." she falters, only starting to speak again when her girlfriend grabs her hand and squeezes it with an encouraging smile. "I would never claim that I had it any worse than the people I killed. But still, I-... Well, they're not good memories. I was miserable when I was an exorcist. I was created for that purpose, and yet..."
A+ for honesty, C- for presentation. He could absolutely drag that little number through the mud of public opinion if that was still something that held any interest to him.
He really can't be bothered, though.
The others are politely clapping, and miss-ex-war-criminal goes on with her little slice of life drama.
"Here's the better version of that day. It's a bit more abstract, I wasn't sure how to represent the idea."
What she's drawn is a checkerboard of reds and whites. "Abstract", yeah right.
"The white is Heaven, the red is Hell, of course. It's meant to represent all of us living together in harmony, maybe making going from one to the other easier, and..."
Vox has no interest in keeping down the chuckle bursting out of him.
"Okay, well, that's just stupid," he says flippantly.
"Excuse me?" The exorcist's edge is immediately back in her voice, her eyes narrowing.
Charlie immediately tries to step in, "Guys, let's not do this right now. Forgiveness is the first step in letting go of things that hurt us, Vox, so it could be good if you could..."
Vox brushes her aside.
"Look, disregarding the questionable art, you can feel guilty all you want about killing those people, nobody cares. But to think Heaven and Hell will ever actually be able to reach an understanding and start trading out people like hot potatoes? Really? I thought it was just the selling point you acted out for that hotel, but you actually believe it too? That's so stupidly naive. Sure, maybe you and your girlfriend and the snake are good enough to deserve a piece of Heaven, but, hate to break it to you, the rest of us are all sacks of shit who deserve to be doomed down there. If we got to heaven, we'd make it worse."
A grumbled, "And that's a fact," wraps up his tirade.
Charlie seems at a loss for words, for once. So it's the ex-angel who crosses her arms and glares down at him with a mean look (all her looks are mean, really, but this one especially.)
"After that whole speech I'm really interested in what you consider fuckin' better now."
Vox stands, because he has always hated being looked down on, and turns to the room, spreading his arms out dramatically.
"People of Hell! Behold!"
The five sinners around the table blink back at him, and he holds out his first drawing.
"That's when I tried to kill all of you," he explains without making any effort to conceal the disdain in his voice. "It's a bad memory because I failed, not because I tried in the first place. And here's-"
He swaps out the page because surely nobody actually wants to look at this for too long. It's awful.
"-here's the far better version! I obviously spent most of my time on this, because this hotel is about redemption and seeing the positive aspects of our afterlives and some of us,-" Vox glares pointedly behind his shoulder. The angel seems more amused than mad now. Ah, well, fuck, "-aren't lazy bums. Anyway, see, this one is great because everyone is dead and I won!"
"That's... uh..." Charlie's smile wavers some, "I'm glad you're so... eager, Vox!"
She certainly doesn't sound like she means it. He smashes the paper in her face like she just hasn't looked at his glorious victory hard enough to get it yet.
"Exactly! And I'm powerful, almost a god, you see, and-"
"Hold on," Angel rudely interrupts his pitch -he's just started, too!- "Why did you draw yourself holding Smiles on a leash?"
Vox barely falters, straightening out his vest reflexively. He did that on purpose, after all. It's perfectly normal to want to show everyone what a bitch your mortal enemy is.
"I put him in his place, that's where he belongs! And this way he can only look at me and how great I am!"
"And his shadow," Vox points at the black blob scribbled at the bottom of the drawing, oozing blacker shadow blood, "is dead too, so he can't even do his weird magic shit anymore." He sneers at Alastor. "Get wrecked, loser."
Alastor strangely doesn't rise to the bait, instead squinting at the image with an unreadable smile.
"So where am I? You didn't forget about lil ol' me, did ya? Or, right, what was it, more trouble than I'm worth?" Angel teases.
Vox scoffs. "Of course not. You're too much of a fucking w-..." he breaks off at Charlie's disappointed pout, "...um, have too... big of a... personality to... Yeah. No, look, you're here," he taps with a claw something that could resemble two heavy boots poking from the ground, if one wasn't quite sure what feet were meant to look like, "I punted you into the floor so hard you were buried. And right next to you that's Lucifer, he got fried like the chicken he is, ahah, d'you wanna know where everyone else is? I have a story for how all of you died, you know-"
Charlie clears her throat, "I think we're good for now! Okay, who wants to go ne-"
Alastor suddenly shadow-ports right in front of him, snatching the paper from his hands to press his nose almost right up to it.
"Are those little hearts you drew above my head, Vox?"
"No! They're- You-..." The beat of silence lingers. Vox attempts to yank his drawing back. Alastor lifts the sheet of paper away from his grabby hands. "Motherfucker, it's my drawing, give it back!" Vox yells instead, then without waiting for an answer lunges at his rival.
"Nuh huh!" Alastor sing-songs, side-stepping his attack easily, "I don't think I will! Actually, I think I'm keeping this. Why, it's just precious!"