Tonight, Vaggie found herself on dish duty, drying and stacking the hotel's clean china while Niffty darted between tending to the simmering pudding that would become dessert and scrubbing the dirty plates in a tempest of bubbles.

She felt her glove catch on something – the prongs of a fork? - and slip down her arm slightly. She swore under her breath and hurriedly, instinctively moved to pull her glove back up to its rightful place-

"Miss Vaggie!"

Mierda .

She could feel Niffty's gaze boring into her.

"Are you alright? You stopped."

Vaggie took a deep breath. "I'm fine. Just - something just caught on my glove."

Niffty nodded and turned back to the stove.

A moment passed, and Vaggie found herself just starting to relax… when the little cyclops spoke up again.

"I saw the scars on your arm, Miss Vaggie."

Vaggie froze.

"Do you use any creams or ointments on them?" Niffty scuttled a bit closer. "I used to get nicks and cuts all the time when I was cleaning, and if I didn't put a moisturiser on them, they'd itch awfully."

Taken aback, Vaggie stammered. "Uh…I used to wrap them, but... they're old scars."

"Well, as long as you're feeling alright." Niffty offered a genuine smile, patting the back of Vaggie's hand . "Oh – and, uh, sorry if I was being intrusive there, I know I can be a bit of a nosey parker…"

"No, no, it's alright… not a big deal," Vaggie answered absently, and Niffty chirped an "okay!" and scurried back to the stove.

Maybe Vaggie wasn't feeling truly 'okay'. But maybe she was feeling a tiny bit better.

She wasn't feeling good at all.

Today had been an utter nightmare. There'd been constant arguments breaking out between the patrons, nobody had taken group therapy seriously, and Angel had been accusing someone else of stealing his drugs which had meant he'd been hiding a stash in his room all this time which had meant that he'd relapsed…

And now she was so stressed, so wound up her skin and soul seared and burned with the tension.

Perched on a barstool, the last and most unlikely escape from the food fight that must be breaking out by now in the dining saloon, Vaggie cursed the stupidity of the sinners she had to deal with behind her gritted teeth.

She was dimly aware of her fingers, curled into claws, running up and down her gloved forearm. Scritch scritch scritch . She could practically feel her fingernails, long and sharp, through the fabric, a thin layer of cotton the only thing that stopped them slicing into her flesh…

"Hey," Husk grunted from behind her, interrupting her trance.

"What?" Vaggie shot back.

The feline, however, busied himself with wiping shot glasses. "Good, I got you to stop scratchin'."

"Well, sorry for bothering you," she muttered.

"It ain't that." Husk still didn't face her. "You wanted ta hurt yourself, didn't you?"

Vaggie's jaw dropped. "Wha – I – that's not – I wasn't thinking of that!" She fought down the fear and the urge to deny, to protect herself. "How could you tell?"

"I'm a gambler, kid. I know how to read people." Husk looked up, and suddenly the prickly old cat turned sad and wise before her eyes. "An' you wear your heart on your sleeve. Don't ever play poker, kid, you don't got the face for it."

She swallowed. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"I want to know what you think you see in me." Vaggie insisted. "Why you think I'd want to…to hurt myself."

Husk sighed, and resumed his cleaning. "You'd lost control over somethin', and you couldn't get it back," he said as if reciting a well-read passage from a book. "and now…you wanna take back control over something, anything… even if it means hurtin' yourself instead of the world hurtin' you."

She stared at him, feeling bare and exposed. Husk took her silence as a confirmation. "Takes one to know one," he said as he raised a glass in a sarcastic toast, and Vaggie found herself recalling the Radio Demon's treatment of Husk as an inferior, a subordinate. Another reason to dislike Alastor that she filed away in her mind.

This was all very out-of-character for Husk, and Vaggie's bafflement got the better of her.

"Why…"

"Why what?"

"You could have chosen to not bring…it… up, if you wanted…why did you choose to?"

"Fuck…maybe this place is making me soft." Husk muttered. "Cause I know it sucks real bad, when you get to that point. I know that if you're hurtin' yourself on the outside, you're probably hurtin' on the inside too."

"I'm sorry that this place is full of chumps, an' I'm sorry you gotta deal with them all - myself included - on top of your own shit… I ain't got the energy to be a sap any longer, but… this bar's always open if you need peace and quiet. At least, when Legs ain't here bein' a chatterbox…"

Husk turned away to his cleaning and tidying again, leaving Vaggie deep in thought and reassessing her opinion of the grouchy bartender.

Somehow, somehow Angel had convinced Vaggie and Charlie to come on a spa day with him and Cherri. Did it help that he'd paid for all 4 of them? In Charlie's case it made all the difference; she gushed over their patron's act of generosity all the way to the salon.

But Vaggie couldn't help but feel uneasy. Even if it were just her, Charlie and Angel – even though they had both already seen her scars – Cherri Bomb was a new addition to the mix, and very much aligned with the porn star spider in terms of attitude and propensity for chaos. Cherri was an outsider, a stranger, and Vaggie didn't know yet if she could be trusted with that .

She was noticeably shivering as they disrobed, and not from cold; so much so that Charlie enclosed her in an embrace for a whole minute before they left the changing room.

And when she stepped into the sauna, wrapped in a towel, she kept her arms behind her back as best she could.

"Loosen up, toots," Angel hollered. "We came here to relax , yunno?"

Vaggie grumbled and tried to shake the tension out of her arms, tried to ignore the prickling sensation of being watched .

Charlie had engaged Cherri in conversation, which was mostly a transparent (and predictably doomed) effort to try and get the spunky bomber cyclops to join the Hotel's growing guest list. But while Cherri was certainly not paying attention to Charlie, nor was she paying attention to Vaggie either. Vaggie's gaze drifted from keeping a protective watch over her girlfriend to assessing Cherri.

She was covered in scars too, Vaggie noticed, and, wearing a pair of towels like a bikini (as did Angel), Cherri put those scars on display with pride. Scratches and scuffs and cuts and more than a few old burns; the marks of her action-packed afterlife on her upper arms, her midriff, her thighs... She had woven her collection of tattoos across and between the scars, and she seemed completely at ease with herself.

Vaggie looked away quickly, hoping no one noticed her staring.

As they left the salon, later, Vaggie felt a hand briefly brush her shoulder.

"Yer a brave sheila, sistah…hold ya head high." Cherri murmured to her before racing ahead to catch up with Angel.

And that was that.

Vaggie had made it halfway down to the hotel lobby before she remembered she'd neglected to put on her gloves tonight.

Swearing to herself, she retraced her steps; back up the hotel's long, crooked staircase and along the maze of corridors to the owners suites.

A door opened ahead of her.

And Vaggie nearly ran into the Radio Demon as he exited his room.

Alastor looked down at her with his usual infuriating sneer and spike of static. Vaggie scowled right back, anticipating a typical goading comment about her 'lack of a smile' or her justifiable distrust of him…

Shit, her arms.

She saw his eyes trail slowly downwards, saw his pupils dilate like a predator honing in on its prey.

"What the hell are you looking at, cabrón ?", she snarled, futilely trying to cover up her bare arms. She knew what was coming next and she tried to steel herself for it; for the Radio Demon to latch onto her weakness and start exploiting it for all the amusement he could get…

Wait… why was his smile so barely-there now? Were his eyes softening? Was it her brain playing tricks on her or had the harsh buzz of static softened to an almost-soothing white noise?

What sort of trick was he playing at?

Slowly, Alastor rolled up one of his sleeves.

There were crisscrosses of pale discolouration across his forearm; from the wrist all the way up to the elbow. Scars, self-harm scars, just like hers.

She stared. She couldn't help it.

"Perhaps we have one thing in common after all, dear," Alastor murmured. He rolled down his sleeves and walked quietly away down the hallway.

Vaggie watched him go, dumbfounded.

"The others know ," Vaggie whispered to Charlie one night, cocooned beneath their plush blankets.

Charlie curled around Vaggie, enclosing her in safe arms and her soothing touch. "Are you okay with it… or not okay with it?"

Vaggie swallows and thinks it over.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I'm not not okay with it… I think. Maybe?"

Charlie squeezed her girlfriend a bit tighter. "Noone's saying anything negative towards you, are they?"

"They aren't," Vaggie whined plaintively. "I just… wasn't prepared for them to find out, and I didn't expect any of them to react how they did…"

"Vaggie." Charlie gently lifted her chin up so she could "You are not weak. You're one of the strongest demons I know - I mean that, and I think the others can see that too."

"You mean that?"

"I mean it. I - you don't have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, but I want you to know that whatever you choose to do, we're not going to think of you any differently. Gloves or no gloves, you'll always be Vaggie to us." She pressed a delicate kiss to Vaggie's nose. "You'll always be my moth baby, no matter what."

Vaggie sniffled, and let Charlie wipe a sudden, mysterious tear from her cheek. She let out a shaky sigh, and with it, out came some of the tension that had been coiled up inside her for so long. Some of the eyes that had scrutinized her for so long had closed, turned away.

"Thank you, mi amor ," she choked out, and nestled closer in Charlie's comforting embrace.

With Halloween just around the corner, Charlie had decided to throw an impromptu movie night for the hotel staff - which somehow included Angel now.

Niffty and Alastor had collaborated on a pumpkin pie, Razzle and Dazzle had been tasked with buying bags of popcorn. Charlie had used her veto to pick Corpse Bride after noone else could agree on which film to watch.

The dress code was informal; and there was even rumour that Angel had dared Alastor to wear one of Niffty's knitted sweaters.

And that was where the problem lay. The dress code.

Vaggie had thrown on a short-sleeved shirt and shorts. It was something she'd often worn alone with Charlie as of late, but she was having a hard time plucking up the courage to wear it around the others.

She knew, logically, that it would be alright, but the urge to grab a pair of gloves or an long-sleeved jumper to go on top was strong.

Staring herself down in the mirror, Vaggie reminded herself what Charlie had said that night. "Gloves or no gloves, you'll always be Vaggie to us."

She reminded herself what Angel had said. "I'm sorry… that life pushed you to that point."

She reminded herself what Cherri had said. "Yer a brave sheila, sistah…hold ya head high."

She reminded herself of Husk's empathy, of Niffty's delicate helpfulness, of Alastor's commiseration. She reminded herself that there were fewer eyes glaring at her with judgement now.

She didn't feel ready. Maybe she never would feel truly "ready". Maybe, though, maybe she was ready enough to take the plunge, knowing there were friends and acquaintances and colleagues at the bottom to catch her.

So, rejecting the urge to throw on a hoodie… Vaggie stepped out.