Hungover

Emily stands on top of the Hotel's roof, examining the Angelic Sword. The Fallen Seraphim is contemplating what to do with her life now. Charlie has offered her a job here. But that's work, not life. Her mind then wanders back to when the Primordial attacked and remembers how useless she was.

"Hey, Em!" a voice happily calls out and suddenly, Emily feels a sharp pain shooting through her back.

The Fallen Seraphim lets out a shout, drops the sword, and falls to her knees.

"Em!?" the voice turns to worry, and Cherri is suddenly by the Fallen's side. "I-I am so, so sorry! I didn't mean to! I just forgot! Sh(bleep)!"

"D-don't worry, Cherri," Emily winces through the pain. "I know it was an accident," she is then lead to the ledge where they sit down at.

Unsure what to do, the Sinner just softly rubs the Seraphim's back. Doing her best to comfort the girl. "I didn't think it still hurt this much after a week."

"Neither did I," Emily confesses. "It's not just the physical pain though. Sometimes, it feels like my wings are still there and they're hurting. Vaggie calls it phantom pain. She went through the same thing after she lost her wings."

"And look at her now! She now flies around the Hotel with the kid all the time! I'm sure that yours will grow back in no time."

At that, the Fallen Angel shakes her head and explains. "It's not that simple. Vaggie's wings were torn off by bare hands. Mine were cut off using an Angelic sword," she turns her gaze at the dropped weapon. "That sword. As you know, wounds from them don't heal easily from and any dismemberment is permanent."

"Why would you do that to yourself, Em? That's just stupid."

"Honestly?" Emily looks up at the Pentagram in the sky. "I mostly did that to make a statement. Hardly anyone in Heaven took me seriously. I needed to be heard. But a part of me did it because I knew that as long as I had my wings I'd be tempted to fly back up there."

Cherri looks up at the sky as well. "So, just like that you gave up any chance of going home."

Emily clenches her fist. "Can a place full of arrogant liars be anybody's home."

The Sinner's eye notices how her friend's posture changed. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No!" the Fallen Angel shakes her head. "The last thing I want is to talk about what happened. But you know what I want? I want a drink."

Cherri's eye widened hearing that and even cleaned her ears out to make sure she heard right. "Repeat that?"

"For once, I actually want a drink. One of the reasons people drink is to feel better. Right? I want to feel better."

The Explosive expert blinks a couple times before a smile crept onto her face. "There are far more reasons than that to drink. But yeah! That's one of them."

.oOo.

"Ow!" the first thing Emily registers is the pounding headache. "What happened last night?" she opens her eyes, and they soon widen as she does not recognize the place as her room at the Hotel. The Fallen then looks down and immediately pulls the covers over herself as she finds herself only in her underwear.

"No!" Emily says under her breath. "No!" Emily's voice rises. She's not stupid. She's heard stories. "No, no, no, no!" she knows what this means. "No!" she finally shouts while finding herself backing up and soon falls off the bed, right on her back, resulting in another shout of pain. "Ah!"

The bedroom door is then thrown open and Cherri runs in. "Em!?" she watches on as her friend drags herself across the room and up against the closet.

"This can't be happening! I know it didn't happen!" Emily starts banging her head against the closet door and could have sworn there was more going on from the inside.

"Em! Em! Em!" the Sinner grabs the Fallen Angel's hands in attempt to calm her down. "Listen, Em! Nothing happened!"

Emily's breathing starts slowing down. "R-really?"

"When have I ever lied to you?"

The Seraphim looks her friend in the eye before taking one last deep breath and is finally calm. "Then, how did we get here? I honestly don't remember much past the first drink."

Cherri then sits next to her. "Basically, after the first drink you insisted on more. A few drinks later," she looks down. "You ended up telling me everything about what happened with your wings."

Emily then pulls her legs up to her chest. "So, you know?"

"About your sister actually being your mom? Yeah! It's pretty f(bleep)ed up!" the Explosive Expert then continues. "We ended up being too hammered to make it back to the Hotel. Lucky for us, my old apartment was only a block away, so we crashed here."

That surprised the Fallen. "You're keeping the apartment even though you live at the Hotel?"

Cherri's eye glanced away for a moment before looking back at her friend. "Something like that," There was another thud coming from the closet and the Sinner just pounded on the door. "Had some old shelves in there. Something must have knocked over."

"Okay," Emily then glanced down at herself, and her face reddened. "M-mind telling why I'm, uh…" she can't finish.

The Sinner smirks. "As soon as we entered the apartment you complained about how hot it was and ripped your dress off. And I don't mean you just took it off. You literally…" she makes a ripping motion with her hands. "Shhhhh, ripped it off! Man, if I was into you a lesser demon might have jumped you," Cherri laughs as the Angel is flustered with embarrassment. "After that, you found the bed and just plopped right on it and was out for the rest of the night."

Emily sighs out of relief after hearing the story. "I feel better now."

"Good!" Cherri stands up while assisting her friend as well. "The bathroom is just down hall on the left. You go and freshen up before we leave. I'll get you a change of clothes."

"Thanks, Cherri," while still holding onto the blanket, Emily leaves the room.

As soon as the door closed, Cherri walks up to the closet and opens it to search through the clothing while completely ignoring the tied up, half-dressed, bloodied Hellhound woman with Emily's torn and stained dress draped over her. Even her snout was tied shut. "Nope! Too uncomfortable for her! Not gonna happen! Not while she's alive! Ugh! Not while I'm alive!"

The Hellhound growls as she attempts to kick the Sinner, only to have Cherri react fast enough to lift her foot and brings it down onto the offending limb, causing the Hellhound to let out a painful whine.

"What were you thinking!?" Cherri forcefully grabs the muzzle, squeezing it tightly. "That by getting it with an angel you'd be the talk among your friends?" she then slams the hellhound's head against the back of the closet. "Let me tell you this. I love Emily as if she were my own sister. There's no way in Hell I'd ever let scum like you touch a single hair on her. Now! You're going to stay quiet until we leave. Otherwise, I'll ripe your f(bleep)ing tail off and shove it somewhere very unpleasant. Got it!" the hellhound gives a nod. "Good! Oooh!" Cherri grabs some white heels, a black knee length dress, a grey jacket, and a white studded belt. "I'm sure she'll love these."

.oOo.

Emily examines her new look. "Huh? I don't hate this," she turns around and for the first time in her life, actually notices how her figure is.

"Told ya, Em," Cherri pulls the Fallen into a hug. "You can look good without having to worry about jeopardizing your purity. You can gladly die a virgin."

"Huh? Oh!" Emily realizes as they start to walk out of the apartment. "It wasn't losing my purity that freaked me out. It was more of the thought that I did it with some stranger that I never knew and not remember a thing about it."

"Wait!" the Sinner stops her. "Are you considering having sex at some point?"

"I guess. Maybe someday," the Seraphim shrugs. "But I would want it to be with someone that I truly care about, and I want the moment to be memorable. Not some one-night stand with a girl I'd probably never remember."

"A girl you say?" Cherri raises a brow at that, and Emily blushes a bit. "I guess I know your preference now," she giggles. "Just know that not only am I already taken, I don't swing your way."

Hearing that, Emily shakes her head. "Even if you did, um, swing my way, I don't think I can see you like that. Just as I said before. You're like my sister."

Cherri smiles softly as she hugs the Fallen. "You're like a sister to me as well, Em."

Just as the two walked out of the apartment, Cherri stopped. "Oh, you know what? There's something that I need to grab before we head back to the Hotel. It will only be a moment. Just wait here," the Sinner walks back into the apartment, head straight to the bedroom, and opens the closet door. "Thanks for letting my sister and I crash here for the night," she conjures a bomb and drops it in the lap of the panicking hellhound. "Here's some compensation."

.oOo.

Just as Emily and Cherri walked out of the building a blast was heard. Looking up, they see that a piece of the building was missing right where Cherri's apartment was.

"Oh, darn!" Cherri fakes her worry. "These old buildings sure have a lot of problems. Guess it's a good thing that I was going to let it go," she turns to a wide-eyed Emily who she quickly wraps an arm over her shoulders and leads the Seraphim away.

End