"No no, you can't…"

The whisper woke Charlie up. She was always a restless sleeper that moved constantly during the night. At the moment, she was curled into Vaggie's hair. Her face wasn't visible save for the side of her cheek. Charlie wasn't quite awake which is why she didn't react when something traced itself along her face. Her eyes opened under the hair as she realized she recognized the voice. She subtly shifted like she normally did to be able to see through the hair.

Alastor . He was standing over the two, looking at them with a stiff yet fond smile. His attention was on Vaggie. He was tracing his claws carefully along her face, murmuring to himself.

"It was such a close call. So close. She'll never let me go…if she knew…" He bit his lip. "I'm too close. I let myself get too close to you two. Now, what do I do? I'm too far in…" Charlie swiftly shut her eyes when it looked like he was going to do another sweep. As she expected, she felt him touching her face again. His hand paused near her lips that were just under the edge of Vaggie's hair. "Why did you two have to be so interesting? Charlie, Vaggie?"

"Unnnn…" Alastor froze as Vaggie started her wake-up noises. He withdrew his hand. Charlie was able to look quickly enough to catch him melting into shadow.

Charlie rolled onto her back and sighed sadly. He obviously cared. He hid it now, but that display proved beyond doubt that he had feelings of some sort for the two of them. If only…

"Bwa? Charlie?" Vaggie rolled over to cuddle her, a hand lingering on Charlie's side. She mumbled, "Was there someone else here?"

Charlie snuggled down, holding Vaggie tightly. "Ye-"

"Hello my brides!" The words were very loud and jovial, making the still mostly-sleeping Vaggie shoot straight up in bed. Alastor was descending the stairs. "Good to see you awake! Tell me, did you rest well?"

"The fireflies helped me sleep," Vaggie answered, thumbing behind them at the swamp.

"Excellent!" Alastor laughed as he walked over to the bed. "I'm so glad you found the accommodations acceptable!"

Charlie sat up in bed. She started, "Alastor…"

Before she could say anything else, Alastor asked, "I assume you two are hungry?"

Vaggie's stomach decided to grumble then. She admitted reluctantly, "Yeah, I guess I am."

"In that case…" Alastor partially transformed, looking towards the swamp. " I'll go fetch us some breakfast ." He then raced in, weaving through the trees expertly.

"He's going to get us a deer, isn't he?" Charlie asked.

Vaggie sighed, "Yeah, looks like it."

Charlie stretched as she thought on their to-do list. Their entire penthouse was burned. Walls, furniture, clothes, the poor roof... She had really lost her temper. There was no self-hate or depression at that thought. No. What would cause those feelings was the reason she got angry in the first place.

Oh! Vaggie was going to start her stretches soon. Once she started, she didn't listen to anything until she was done. She needed to say it now while Alastor was out of earshot! "Vaggie, you missed it ."

"Hm? What'd I miss?" She was pulling herself out of bed, stretching like a cat as she did so.

Charlie leaned towards her conspiratorially and whispered, "He was lovingly stroking our faces."

Vaggie froze. "While we were sleeping?" Charlie nodded enthusiastically. She made a face. "For most people I'd say that's really creepy. With Alastor? It's probably the closest we'll get to an admission of feelings."

"No! Don't you see, Vaggie?!" Charlie clenched a fist in success. "We're still so close! He was muttering about us being interesting, and how she'll never let him go, and-"

"Whoa whoa whoa, back up," Vaggie said, waving her hands to calm Charlie down. "Say that again. Who won't let him go?"

Charlie genuinely paused then. She replayed his words in her head. "He just said 'she'. And that if she knew something, then he trailed off." Her hand ventured to where Alastor had stroked her cheek.

"Charlie…"

" It's not my mom ," Charlie cut off whatever Vaggie was going to say. She didn't want to get started on such negative lies.

Vaggie's eye closed in defeat. "Okay. We won't talk about it."

"Good." Very intentionally switching topics, Charlie asked, "First on the list: get the penthouse clear of all the ash."

"Already on it." Vaggie looked rather smug as she said, "After you fell asleep on me, I texted a restoration service. They should be at work already."

"Ohmygosh, that's SUCH GOOD PLANNING!" Charlie jumped out of bed and nearly knocked Vaggie to the ground. Still leaning on Vaggie, she continued, looking at Vaggie's two-day-old clothes, "Second, new clothes." Her gaze traveled up to Vaggie expectantly.

Vaggie held out for all of two seconds before she sighed and said, "Already covered that too. Got in touch with the personal shoppers we used last year."

"No fittings in front of Alastor?" Charlie gave Vaggie a teary wide-eyed stare.

She was having none of it. "Alastor is asexual , Charlie. I'm not sure a fashion show of the kind you're thinking of is something he'd appreciate."

Dang it. Vaggie was right. She didn't want to trample over that barrier. His sexual preference was something that she wanted to respect. Charlie carefully sidestepped the idea that they were pushing hard to break down his shell. But that was necessary!

"Three: new furniture," Vaggie said before Charlie could. "I'm not sure we can find some of that stuff anymore. I mean, there was only one Marie Antoinette poster bed."

"It's okay. We should probably update the furniture anywa-" Then, suddenly, a deeeeevious idea hit her. She could feel her horns trying to peek through as she said, "Vaggie. I have an idea."

Vaggie looked at her flatly. "It'd better not be about painting the walls pink. I already told you I like easy-to-clean colors."

"Nooooo, not that!" Charlie said. She leaned into Vaggie and whispered in her ear.

Vaggie's eyebrows shot for her hairline as she said, "That's…a really good idea. Wow." She fake-slugged Charlie in the arm. "Do you think he'd realize something was going on?"

"Not until it's too late . BWAHAHA!" Charlie felt it needed the evil laugh.

"Calm down. Let's let him get back before we start doing anything." Vaggie started to do her morning stretches. That left Charlie to her own devices.

Charlie decided to venture a little ways into the swamp. It wouldn't hurt! She could take care of herself, and no Earth creature could ever hope to take her. It was also a mystery; how did Alastor connect an Earth environment into Hell? Was it magic? Was it real ?

She walked for a short distance until she could no longer see Alastor's home. Then she took a solid sniff of the air. It smelled…wet. Murky. There was a thickness in the air - was this humidity? - that made breathing a little more difficult. Sweat was starting to gather on her brow.

If this was magic, Alastor did a great job imitating a different biome.

Snap!

Charlie turned behind her to see that there was a long, thick snake coming towards her. She smiled, "Hey there little guy! You look-" it lunged at her; she dodged to the side and rushed "-hungry!"

She began racing for Alastor's room. It was a good thing she was paying attention. Her mind was going through a scenario where she got lost and Alastor had to save her and reprimand her for venturing somewhere she didn't know. And they had a personal talk. And he broke down and talked with her.

Wait. Why wasn't she doing that?!

She could see Alastor's living area where Vaggie was in the middle of downward-facing dog. It was time to detour. Instead of continuing to the room, Charlie turned straight left and began running. She ran for a good while until she came to a small pond. It looked like a good place to wait for Alastor to find her.

Charlie flopped against the tree, her clothes starting to stain with sweat. Dang it! She didn't think of that. Now when Alastor 'rescued' her, she'd be smelly!

She barely had that thought before she sank into shadows. Charlie took a big breath once she emerged. Looking around, she realized that she was back in Alastor's tower. Vaggie was finishing up her yoga while Alastor stood next to a table where a fresh deer carcass was sitting, waiting to be eaten; Alastor had done a good job gutting it already.

"There you are!" Alastor said with a laugh. "Why did you go and get lost in the swamp? I'm sure you're sticky with sweat now."

Charlie flushed. She couldn't admit her intention! Instead, she said, "Well, you know, I wanted to go for a run! There were the outdoors right there ; I couldn't resist myself!"

"Oh! If that's the case, would you like to go hunting with me next time?" The slightly sinister smile on his face told her that he'd have her give the killing blow if she did. …but then there might be the chance to have the heart-to-heart. Where he would finally admit he had feelings .

"Sure!" Charlie exclaimed.

The eye twitch told her that he didn't expect her to say 'yes'. "Excellent! Then we shall have to plan for that. Perhaps next week?"

"YES!" Charlie cheered.

"Fine then! Now…" He quickly changed topic. "I assume you need to start calling to get your little penthouse cleaned up?"

"Already done," Vaggie said as she let out her last breath.

"On top of it as always, Vaggie!" He again changed the topic. "You two simply must try this doe! Her flesh is nice and bloody!"

"Okay! Let's carve some out and go cook it on the stove," Vaggie said, her spear appearing in her hand.

"'Carve'? 'Cook'? My goodness, don't do that; it ruins the meat!" Alastor insisted. "Have either of you tried raw, freshly-hunted deer before?"

"No?" Charlie didn't know where he was going with this.

"Why not try it now?" He deigned to cut out a section with a knife and fork and present a piece to Charlie. "Go on! Try it!"

Not wanting to seem like a party pooper, Charlie went ahead and took a bite with a cringe. Then she stopped cringing. She said around the hunk of meat, "This is actually pretty good!"

"See what happens when you expand your horizons?" Alastor nodded to Vaggie as he cut out another piece, offering her a bite. Vaggie, blushing for some reason, accepted the bite. She, too, made a noise of acceptance. The smile on Alastor's face of genuine affection was barely there a second before another cynical smile ate it up. He changed focus to tearing a piece off the deer onto his fork and asked before he started eating, "What will your plans be this morning?"

Charlie and Vaggie looked at each other. Then Vaggie asked, "Do you happen to know where we could go and find some furniture? And help us? Neither of us is good at antiquing and Charlie likes stuff with history."

An unsuspecting Alastor nodded in acceptance. He had no idea what was coming.