It was late at night as Vaggie laid back in her silky white nightgown on her and Charlie's bed in their room of the hotel, her arms limp above her head and her eyes closed as she tried to recover slightly from the relatively substantial stress of completing some of the final touches in rebuilding the hotel after the last extermination brought mass destruction to their doorstep. Occasionally she glanced over at her girlfriend not so far across the room from her as she finished up getting dressed for bed, slipping her red button up pajama top over her head and covering her slender, pale form. Charlie was always beautiful for vaggie, but it was in no way subtle just how awfully disgruntled and exhausted she was after the events of today, a flat and exhausted expression on her mouth, and eyes laden with dark bags.
After slipping her top on, Charlie waddled ungracefully to the bed and flopped over, face first on the bed next to Vaggie, releasing a cartoonishly dramatic groan, moderately muffled by the bed she lay her face on.
"You okay, hun?" Vaggie asked, placing a gentle hand on her partners shoulder and giving a firm yet tentative squeeze.
Charlie rolled off her face and yawned, lightly stretching. "Yeah, I'm fine, Vaggie," she said, giving the girl a warm smile, "Just... really, reaaaalllyyyy tired..."
Vaggie smiled back, soft and knowing. "That's understandable." She tried -and failed- to stifle a yawn herself. "We've both had a busy day."
Charlie nodded in agreement. "Yeah." She sidled up closer to her girlfriend before lazily reaching up a finger to boop her nose. "But productive!" Charlie's antics elicited a tired, but pleasant laugh from Vaggie. "I think in just a few more weeks, we'll be ready for the grand reopening," the red-cheeked girl sleepily singsonged.
Vaggie nodded, brushing a stray strand of tousled hair away from the Charlie's forehead. "That's true. Things really are coming along pretty damn well..." Vaggie let out an uncharacteristically dramatic yawn in spite of herself, barely managing to cover her mouth. "But, I don't think it'd throw us too far off schedule if we took a day to rest a bit..."
Charlie let out a tired grin toward the silver haired woman next to her. "Honestly?" Charlie adjusted, sidling right up to vaggie and wrapping an arm around her as she pulled her into herself, "I was thinking the exact same thing." She kissed the shorter woman on the crown of the head, and could feel her smile broaden against the fabric of her pajama top.
"Alright. I think I'm ready to pass out," Vaggie said. Charlie nodded.
"Ugh, yes please. I don't think I can keep my eyes open much longer..."
Vaggie chuckled lightly as she turned off the only remaining light in the room, the small lantern next to their bed, and promptly tucked herself in and under the covers. She scooted up next to Charlie, lightly snuggling into her, and Charlie smiled down as she laid her head on her chest.
'KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK'
"CHARLIE! NEED YOU OUT HERE, NOW!" A deep, masculine voice: Husk. But frantic, loud, and panicked in a way that was almost upsettingly out of character for the cat-like demon, not helped by the equally frantic rapping at the door.
Charlie jumped with a squeak, as Vaggie was involuntarily flopped off her chest, spitting out a Spanish curse as she plopped to the mattress. Charlie swiftly jumped out of bed and ran to the door, followed not so shortly behind by a scrambling Vaggie.
Charlie was already speaking, full of worry before she had even finished opening the door. "Husk!? What's wrong, is everything okay-" Charlie put a hand, covering the fearfully expression on her lips as she stared with shocked horror at the scene in front of her. Vaggie just behind her, had a similar look of shock in her eyes, as she froze in place just behind her partner.
In the doorway stood husk, the whole front of his body drenched in bright, golden blood... Via his shoulder was propped a teetering young seraphim angel, her heavenly garb drenched in her own blood, as said liquid seeped through various gouges and wounds about her body. Emily.
She just managed to look blearily at Charlie's eyes, barely making eye contact. "Ch-Charlie..." The woman began to fall forward and Husk just missed catching her from her fall. Charlie stepped in, dashing to the ground to just stop her from another injury.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Charlie panicked, as angelic ichor seeped into her top. She just managed to barely here a soft, wavering, 'I-I'm sorry,' seep out of the seraphim's lips. "What do we do, what do we do!?" Now that the grey skinned woman was slumped into her lap, she could see one of her six wings was missing, the corresponding patch of hair that lay about the bloody stump drenched in gold.
"We can't exactly take her to a doctor. Even St. An's only specializes in hellborns, they'd have no clue what to do with an angel!" Charlie was desperately looking about and feeling parts of Emily's body in an attempt to inspect the damage. Suddenly, Charlies head perked hopefully as an idea popped to her mind. "I'll call my dad! He was a seraphim, maybe he'll be able to help her!" Vaggie was now knelt next to Charlie as she held Emily. She nodded her head in
agreement."That's a good idea, hun... In the meantime, I'll get her into the nearest guest room, and try and see if I can get a feel on how bad she is... I am an angel, after all..." She looked to the side with an expression that carried no small tinge of guilt. "And I was a, um... soldier, too..." Vaggie wasted no time lifting the ripped up angel off of Charlie into a bridal carry. "Thank you so much, Vaggie, you're incredible! You got her alright?" Vaggie was already moving out the door, past husk toward the nearest spare room. "Sure. She's about as heavy as you, honestly." Charlie gave her a worried look as she went down the hall and took the angel into the nearest room. Charlie wasted no time going back into her room and pulling her phone off her nightstand, dialing her dad's contact.
Husk, still in the doorway, looked toward Charlie. Then toward Vaggie long gone down the hall. Then he sighed, and grumbled as he walked off looking down at himself and his blood drenched slacks. "I needa get a new fuckin pair of pants..."
Vaggie carried the limp angel into one of the hotel's spare rooms, and kicked the door open before entering the room, and gently placing the fragile woman onto the bed. She made sure to place her on her side, as so not to irritate the broken, bleeding stump on her back where a wing once was. Vaggie briefly glanced back over her shoulder at the door, before turning all her focus to the woman atop the bed in front of her. I'll fix that later, she thought.
Emily seemed to be completely unconscious, but was, as shallow as she was, still steadily breathing, which was as good a sign as could be at that instant. Vaggie examined what little she could, taking quick note of the fact that most of the multitude of wounds on her body had already healed, and the blood around them was beginning to dry and congeal. That was a good sign. However, the stump of her wing was still oozing fresh blood, and on her stomach was a deep, open gash which appeared to be caused by... an angelic sword. Vaggie let out a sigh, straining her face as she realized the best course of action next was to remove her dress to better analyze her injuries. That was, however, easier said than done in this case, as the textile seemed to be very well form-fitted in parts, and there was no easy way to properly remove her wings out of the back of the dress without risking immense pain and spending far too much time while Emily continued to bleed precious fluid. There was only one thing she knew to do.
Vaggie moved as fast as she could, spreading her wings and soaring her way back back to her and Charlie's room, before crossing paths with the pale skinned girl as she was running the opposite way up the hall toward where Vaggie had brought Emily. Vaggie stopped to hover next to Charlie for the briefest minute.
"Emily is just down the hall. Most of her wounds have healed but she does have some big ones we have to take care of now. I need to get her dress off to better see her injuries, but it's too tight and complicated to take off fast enough. I need my spear, we have to cut her out of it," Vaggie shot off like a drill seargent.
"We don't need to use your spear! We can just use the medical scissors from the first-aid kit we have in our bathroom! We can use some gauze to wrap up the worst of it." Charlie smiled with desperate optimism. "That is something I know how to do!"
"Got it! I'll go get the first-aid, I'll meet you in the room!" Vaggie said, before darting back on wing toward her and Charlie's bedroom. Charlie nodded and booked down the hallway.
Vaggie soared back in and slid onto the ground, running up to the bed with the first-aid, and handing it to Charlie. "I'll let you handle things from here." Vaggie gave her girlfriend an encouraging smile, which Charlie returned, before quickly popping open the kit. Year after year of countless exterminations had prepared Charlie more than well enough for this. She had helped patch up the bloody wounds of so many sinners. And once, even an angel.
The first thing that Charlie did was to get out the surgical scissors, and slip them just underneath the front-neck of the dress. Gently, she slowly cut down the front of the dress, down along the center, until eventually just cutting through the cinched waist before stopping. She couldn't help but gasp as she saw the rapidly bleeding gash along her stomach in it's full definition, gathering a pad of gauze before pressing it down firmly on the wound.
Charlie looked to her partner. "Vaggie, can you please dress her wing? I've got my hands full down here."
"Got it," Vaggie said, simply, wasting no time in addressing the bleeding wing. It was far from as big a threat to Emily as the gash on her abdomen, but it was still bleeding and urgently needed to be attended to.
It was just then that a portal opened up and a disheveled Lucifer stumbled through, dawning an ever elegant set of white pajamas spackled all over with tiny, yellow ducks. "Sorry, Char!" He spoke, "I tried to get here as fast as I could." His eyes widened as he saw the angel strewn on the bed. "Oh, my..." Lucifer quickly came to the bed, gently putting a hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Why don't I have a go for a couple seconds, sweetie?"
"Of course, dad..." Charlie scooted aside, keeping her fingers pressing on the wound until the time that her father had a good firm push on it.
As he started doing so, a small aura of yellow magic enveloped is hands. In seemingly as little time as it took him to lay his hands on the wound, it had already closed up.
"Maggie, would you give me... well, uh, what's left of her wing, there?"
"Vaggie, and, yes, of course." She backed off from the now dressed wing, and Lucifer gently put a hand to it, as he gave it a little magical kick to stop the small trickle of bleed that remained to come from it.
"You did a good job girls," he said. "You did absolutely everything you should have. But, I'm still glad you called me, duckling."
"Thank for coming, dad." Charlie gave him a grateful smile and he returned the gesture with a gentle grin of his own, before gently brushing some of the hair away from his daughter's forehead, and giving a gentle peck to it.
He looked at Emily, the broken woman laying on her side, steadily breathing, but with a pained look as she rested. He went over ot her and gently brushed some ruffled hair out of the way of her face and eyes. He gave her a sad smile. An apologetic one that spoke more words than anything he could possibly come up with that moment to verbalize. He left her side, went to Vaggie -who was sitting just on the edge of the bed- and ruffled her hair in a very paternal, albeit somewhat purple-circle breaking manor, as Vaggie gave him an awkward smirk.
Lucifer cast a portal ahead of himself and began to walk toward it before looking back over his shoulder. "See ya later, kiddo. And, if you don't mind, I might pop in in the morning and check on our new angel friend here."
Charlie chuckled. "Sounds good, dad."
Lucifer gave a soft smile, before turning back toward the portal before making yet another double take. "Oh! Also, see you for dinner tomorrow!"
Charlie laughed though not bothering to mask just how exhausted she was. "Dad!" She groaned.
"Aaaaa, alright, fine, I'll letcha finish up and get some sleep." He laughed as he walked through the portal. "See you tomorrow, duckling." He grinned at her and Vaggie as his portal finally closed behind him.
Charlie shook her head, sighing, but smiling nonetheless. Vaggie couldn't help dawn a smirk of her own.
Charlie and Vaggie worked together for the next half an hour, finishing the task of gingerly removing Emily's torn up, bloodstained garments. As awkward and embarrassing as the process was, and... weirdly sensual, at points, Charlie had made a good point that it wasn't fair to make the poor girl sleep in her own gore. Vaggie agreed, with a sigh, despite already being embarrassed by the fact she was bare chest. As... admittedly, beautiful of a chest as it was. Wait, did she think that? That couldn't be right...
Regardless, the two women worked carefully to make sure the injured angel would hurt as little as possible while they freed her from the filthy garb. Charlie then gently dabbed away the strewn spots of dried blood off Emily's skin with a wet wash cloth. Vaggie admittedly felt a very... odd cocktail of emotions during this process. Jealousy, embarrassment... a little bit of something else. She tried to shove that off and ignore it as much as she could, though, just focusing on some distant corner of the room. When Charlie finally finished cleaning Emily up as much as she possibly could, Vaggie lifted her up with a huff and gently tucked her in under the covers. After pulling the blanket up and over her shoulders, Charlie gave the sleeping angel a little squeeze on the shoulder and stepped back with a sigh. Vaggie put her hand onto Charlie's shoulder and gave her a gentle squeeze of her own.
"Vaggie, I..." Charlie sighed, straining her eyes like she was on the verge of tears, but lacked the energy to actually get there. There had been a lot of crying the past few days. "Why? Why... I just... how can heaven be so cruel as to do this to their ownpeople!? And Emily-" Charlie let out a shuddering breath. "I never knew her that well, but, from the time I did... I know that she is so kind, and so gentle, and she believes in us! She believes in what we're doing down here, I just..."
Vaggie gave Charlie a gentle squeeze around the waits."I... I really wish I knew the answer to that, sweetie. Heaven's... well, it's certainly got its own shitheads and assholes..." Charlie let out a breathy, short, humorless snicker. "I don't know... Heaven's never like people challenging the status quo, of course you know that, but... If Emily was banished by her own sister... they're cruel, and unforgiving, but I still have a hard time imagining her doing this to a person she loves." She sighed. "The only reason my, 'fall,' was soooo... uhhhhh, 'extravagant,' let's say, was because Lute and Adam... they're just a special kind of psychotically deranged."
Charlie let out a sigh. "I guess it doesn't do any good to worry about it now... If she's open... maybe... she'll talk about it when she wakes up in the morning. Let's just... let's go clean up and go to bed... I'm... I'm so tired..."
Vaggie smiled understandingly at her girlfriend. And it was no secret either how exhausted she herself was by the bags under her eyes. Vaggie stood on her toes to give a gentle peck to Charlie's cheek. "That sounds like a good idea, hun."
Vaggie moved away from Charlie and headed towards the door of the room, waiting for a second as Charlie lingered behind her.
Charlie gave a gentle hand to Emily's hair, before turning to leave. "Sleep well..." She turned off the light and rejoined with her partner as the two returned to their room.