Why yes, I'll take your soul

Charlie went lightheaded as adrenaline flooded her system, the world narrowing to him. His body, his stillness. She rushed in and planted both hands on his chest.

Her palms slid slightly. Slick. congealed blood smeared across her palms.

Her stomach drops.

He was Cold.

His blood was cold.

The sharp tang of copper filled her nose, threaded through with the faint sting of ozone.

‘He can’t be dead.’ Charlie refused to let the thought settle, refused to give it weight. Not him. Not like this. Not because he had been too stubborn, too proud to get help.

How had she not noticed? How had she let this happen? This was her fault.

Charlie dug deep, past the panic, past the shaking in her hands, reaching for that oft forgotten power that lives deep within her. She gathered all that latent power, every ounce of it she could find, and she forced it into Alastor.

It felt like pouring magic into an endless pit, but she didn't stop. She grit her teeth and kept pushing. 

The strain was immense. Her lungs burned, chest tight as if something pressed down on it from the inside. She kept pushing. Her vision wavered at the edges, colors dulling around the sharp, fixed point of his face. She kept pushing. Blood dripped from her nose. She kept pushing.

She poured everything she had into Alastor, shoving that demonic energy into him in a brutal torrent. Her breaths came out in ragged pants until her whole body trembled, shoulders shaking with the effort, the world tilting. Her body gave before her will did. She collapsed into a heap by his feet. 

She was so tired it hurt. Everything hurt.

But she wasn’t done.

Charlie gritted her teeth and dragged herself back up anyway, fingers scrabbling against the floor as she forced herself onto her hands and knees. Her head swam. Her eyes watered. She lifted her face.

Her tear filled gaze met a sinister red one.

Alastor stared down at her with sunken crimson eyes, exhausted and sharp at the same time.

Alastor leaned forward, wiping some of the blood from Charlie’s chin with his thumb, and then, like it was the most natural thing in the world, licked his thumb clean. He tasted it, swallowed, and let out a low, almost thoughtful “Hm,” his head tilting a fraction.

“Something in Charlie snapped.

“You,” she said, pointing a trembling finger at him.

Her voice climbed. “You. HOW DARE YOU!—YOU!” she screamed, the last word breaking as everything came out at once.

For once, Alastor actually looked taken aback. His eyes widened a little. For a heartbeat he just stared at her, mouth slightly open, as if someone had cut his sound. Charlie did not care. She was filled with an incandescent rage. 

“You’d die to keep your fucking pride intact!” she shouted, voice breaking on the words. “You were just going to—to what? Bleed out in here alone because you couldn’t stand to ask for help?” 

Alastor’s jaw tightened. He tried to pull himself upright. Charlie stepped in closer anyway, not giving him room. 

“You could’ve come to us!” she snapped. “To me!”

Her throat burned. She had to stop, just for a second, to drag air back into her lungs. Her chest heaved. Her hands trembled.

In that pause, the reality hit her in full.

‘He could have died. He would have died.’

Alastor’s eyes hardened into a glare. “I—”

“Of all the foolish things,” Charlie cut in, her voice ragged from screaming, “I’d have thought the Radio Demon had a stronger survival instinct! How did this even happen?!”

Charlie finally stopped yelling. The words dried up. Her lungs burned from the effort, and each breath came out in a thin, shaky wheeze. The adrenaline that had been holding her up ebbed all at once, leaving her legs weak. The anger didn’t vanish, but it had lost its momentum.

She was so fucking tired

Charlie had poured everything she had into him. Every scrap of power, every last bit of strength to bring him back from the brink.

She was done.

She dropped to her knees, shoulders slumping, head bowed with exhaustion. Blood still dripped from her nose. Her arms hung at her sides, fingers slack.

She stayed there, sniffling, trying to pull her breathing under control, swallowing against the tightness in her throat. She stared at the floor and waited for him to say something. Anything.

And as the silence stretched, the guilt wormed its way through her. 

She’d noticed something was off about him. The distance. The strange quiet. How he always looked…wrong. She’d dismissed it because it was easier to pretend he was moody than to pick a fight she wasn’t sure she could win.

How long had this been going on? How long had he been rotting in private smiling as though nothing was wrong?

“How… how did this happen?” Charlie asked weakly. Her throat felt dry. “Did someone attack you?”

“Ĥ̸͍o̷̹̕w̸̟̰͉̚?” he echoed, incredulous. “Why, you were there, darling. The first man was tougher than I gave him credit for.”

Charlie froze.

“Oh,”

Alastor had nearly died. Dies because he’d been protecting her hotel. Protecting her. And she hadn’t noticed. Worse, she had noticed something was wrong, and she’d dismissed it because it was easier than confronting him. Because he’d looked at her with that smug smile and she’d let herself believe it meant he was fine.

Three weeks.

Three weeks of him wasting away, and she hadn’t done a damn thing.

Charlie’s chest tightened until it hurt. “Alastor,” she said, voice wavering, “You could’ve come to someone. To me. It’s not too late, I'm sure my dad—”

Alastor shot up suddenly, one second slumped and pale, the next snapping upright with shocking, violent speed. His hand curled into a fist as an ethereal green chain manifested in his grasp, ending in an ethereal green collar cuffed around her throat.

Alastor yanked.

Hard.

The chain dragged her forward. Her feet slipped on the floor and she stumbled up, hauled to her feet and pulled in close. Her body pitched forward until she was balancing on her tiptoes, neck stretched just to keep air moving past the solid band around it.

The collar pressed in against her skin, smooth and weightless and wrong. It hummed with a sickly, familiar power that sank under her flesh. Her skin prickled along its edge. She stared up at Alastor, looming over her with a vicious grin carved across his face. His eyes burned red, sharp and alert in a way they hadn’t a moment before. 

“You are not to tell anyone about this,” Alastor hissed. “Especially not your father.”

The room felt smaller. The air felt heavier. Charlie stared at him, heart pounding so hard it made her lightheaded. 

This was the first time it had really sunk in. Alastor owned her soul. He could make her obey. Make her do almost anything. For nearly all intents and purposes, his word was law.

And yet, after weeks of wasting away, weeks, stubbornly bleeding out in private, this was the first time he exerted that power. Not to save himself. Not to secure strength or fame. To protect a secret. The embarrassing, humiliating secret that the Radio Demon can be hurt. That he needed help. 

Charlie’s eyes stung. From rage. From helplessness. From the ugly fact that even now, even half-dead and shaking, he’d rather put a chain on her than get help.

“F-Fine!” she forced out, despite being choked by the collar. 

“I’ll keep your secret,” she rasped, “But you’re not going to fucking die on us. You’re not allowed.”

She tried to calm herself. To force her heart to steady itself. “I’m going to heal you, damn it.”

Alastor’s gaze locked on her, sharp and fever-bright. Then he leaned down until their noses touched. His breath was fouler than usual.

“You’re trying to negotiate?” he asked. “You forfeited that chance when you sold me your soul.” His voice oozed venom and condescension in equal measure. “You do what I tell you to do.”

She held his stare as best she could, sucking in thin breaths past the choking pressure around her neck.

“Buuuut,” he said suddenly, tone turning sing-song as he straightened.

The chain vanished in an instant. The collar snapped out of existence. Air rushed into her lungs. Charlie coughed once, then again, rubbing her throat. 

“I suppose I can allow you to help. So long as you’re discreet.” He said with false graciousness.

‘As long as I’m discreet. He’s dictating the terms of her saving his life? That’s stupid! Arrogant! Assh—’

Charlie stopped herself before the thought finished forming. She shut her eyes and took several slow breaths until her heart calmed down.

He had nearly died saving the hotel. He gave everything he had in that fight against Adam. He kept going long past the point where anyone reasonable would’ve backed off. He held the line, protected everyone. While she just got in the way, and he paid for that in blood.

So fine. She’ll take what she can get. Not that she had much of a choice. This time she was going to be useful, even if that meant saving Alastor while being “discreet.”

“I’ll start looking through the library,” Charlie said, already building a plan as she spoke.  “I’ll see if there’s anything about treating angelic wounds—anything specific, anything that isn’t just… ‘wait and hope you don’t rot from the inside out.’”

She took another breath, slower. Her hands still felt numb from how much power she’d just poured into him. “And in the meantime,” she continued, eyes hardening with resolve, "I'll charge you up as much as I can.”

Her jaw tightened. “It takes a lot out of me,” she admitted, “But I should be able to do it once a day.”

“Acceptable,” Alastor drawled, “Now don’t you have a show to get to?”

“Oh shit,” she blurted. “The dance competition—I’ve gotta get back.”

It sounded insane, saying it out loud in this room, with blood on her hands and a fresh ache in her chest. The last thing on Charlie’s mind was the silly dance competition she had organized for Alastor, but if she was going to be “discreet,” then she couldn’t just abandon it.

Normal. She had to be normal.

Charlie used her last flicker of magic to clean off Alastor’s blood and roughly flipped up the hatch, and hurriedly climbed down Alastor’s radio tower.

A crackling voice called out after her, “Don’t forget to smile, my dear!”

‘Right. I need to keep it under wraps.

A smile means you are fine. A smile means you are in control.’

Charlie found herself recounting her day the moment she stepped back into the hallway, and fuck if it wasn't the worst, most stressful day since the extermination.

Her throat still felt tight where the collar had been. Her hands still trembled when she tried to unclench them. Her head aches from the strain on her magic, and the taste of blood lingered at the back of her mouth.

She spent all morning prepping the dance competition, which she set up as a reward for Alastor, stormed up to his tower to give him a verbal lashing, only to find out he’d been suffering in silence for weeks, slowly dying because he had to desperately protect her from Adam when she got herself involved.

Charlie’s chest tightened, and her steps toward the lounge slowed without her meaning to. It felt wrong to go back to the others and pretend everything was normal. It felt wrong to smile. It felt wrong to laugh. It felt wrong to exist in the same building and not scream what had happened.

But she couldn’t.

Not with the contract sitting on her shoulders like weight. Not with his warning still ringing in her ears.

Charlie didn’t think she’d ever felt more guilt-ridden or ashamed in her life.

She’d seen the signs and she’d dismissed them because confronting Alastor was hard. Because he was good at smiling like everything was fine and making her feel foolish for pushing.

Because part of her had been afraid of what she’d find if she pressed deeper.

The moodiness, the scarcity of his presence, him sneaking out at night with an angelic spear… Actually, it didn’t explain that. That’s still suspicious as fuck.

Charlie clenched her fist and forced herself not to spiral. One crisis at a time. A problem for another time. Right now, she needed to do some research on angelic wounds, discreetly.

She shuddered.

Being completely at his mercy had been claustrophobic in the worst way. And, beneath the fear, there was embarrassment, or…shame? Like being severely scolded by her mom, but with an underlying sense of dread.

She was going to have to forgive him. It wasn’t his fault. Not truly. He wasn’t acting rationally, he was feverish and running on whatever her magic had shoved into him. A cornered animal lashing—

A hand gently squeezed her shoulder. “Is everything ok babe?” Vaggie asked, brows furrowed in concern.

Charlie’s brain stalled.

She just stared for half a heartbeat, mouth parting, no sound coming out.

Fuck!

She couldn’t tell Vaggie. 

Panic crawled up her throat, choking her worse than the chains did. 

She had to lie, didn't she?

Charlie realized, with a sharp stab of irritation at herself, that she should’ve thought of an excuse earlier. She should’ve prepared something the moment she left the tower.

She didn’t have time to think, Vaggie was staring at her expectantly. Words left her mouth before she had a chance to think.

“Oh—yeah.” Charlie forced a smile. “Everything’s fine.”

She added an awkward little wave with her hand, like she could physically shoo the topic away.

“I’m noticing a distinct lack of Alastor,” Vaggie said, tone sharp. “I’m assuming the asshole isn’t going to show.”

Charlie’s heart lurched. A few hours ago, she would have agreed without hesitation. That had been her attitude when she thundered up to his tower.

Except now Charlie knew the truth. Now she could still see him slumped and sweating, the gold infection creeping, his blood cold under her hands.

She didn’t want to disparage him. Not when he was upstairs barely holding himself together.

And she couldn’t explain why. 

Charlie’s mind scrambled, uselessly blank for a beat too long. Vaggie was looking at her, expectant and worried and already suspicious.

So Charlie grabbed the first excuse that came to mind.

“No—he’s actually been pretty busy,” Charlie said quickly, forcing a laugh. “With paperwork, y’know…Overlord…politics…stuff.” She made a vague hand motion.  “I don’t fully understand it, but it’s pretty important.”

Vaggie paradoxically looked skeptical, yet mollified. Charlie meanwhile, felt sick. She’d just lied to her girlfriend’s face. 

She needed to get Alastor healed quick, before she was compelled to lie again.

Alastor stared at his hands.

Minutes had passed since Charlie left, and he still hadn’t moved. He stood there in the dim quiet of his tower, staring.

His palms looked normal.

And yet he’d been minutes from dying. From a slow, ugly death.

He would’ve died if Charlie hadn’t burst into his radio tower. If she hadn’t shown up for whatever reason had driven her there, then poured herself raw to drag him back from the brink.

Alastor. The great radio demon. Saved by happenstance. Happenstance and sentiment.

‘Shameful’

His mouth twitched. A low chuckle slipped out before he could stop it, thin and weak at first, then twisted, sharpening into full, mad cackling that bounced off the walls and bled into static from the dead speakers.

It was funny.

It was fucking hilarious.

He almost died, only to be saved by the most naive soul in Hell.

He only lived because she helped him.

Because of her generosity.

Because of her pity.

What’s done is done. Alastor could seethe and rage later.

Right now he needed to take stock.

He stood in the dim quiet and forced himself to breathe slowly, to feel where the rot ended and his body began. He felt like he was positively bursting with energy. Not in a healthy way. Like a candle burning at both ends. It was a dangerous kind of momentum, the sort that made you feel invincible right up until you snapped.

His shirt and coat were still open, fabric stuck to his skin where the blood had dried. The gilded rot that had spidered out from the wound had retreated. Only a few thin veins of gold remained, clinging stubbornly close to the injury, dull instead of glowing. It looked closer to how it had in the beginning. Back when he’d first noticed it. Back when he’d allowed himself a brief moment of worry.

Alastor lifted a hand and flexed his magic experimentally.

Power flowed freely. Too freely. He certainly had his magical strength back, but he’d burn out quickly if he wasn’t careful.

Now that his faculties were in order, it was time to worry about the consequences of today.

There were several, and none of them were pleasant.

But the most important one was, as previously established, he was fucking dying.

Charlie had bought him time. She’d forced vitality into him, and for the moment it had worked. He could stand. He could think. He could summon power and feel it answer. But he didn’t know how long Charlie can keep him topped up for. Days? Weeks? Months? Maybe forever, but he’s not that optimistic.

Even if she could sustain him indefinitely, that would still mean depending on her.

He needed a cure.

Charlie had said she’d figure something out. And Alastor didn’t doubt she would throw herself at the problem until she bled if she had to. But despite her immense raw power, Charlie had never displayed any significant aptitude with magic.

Alastor didn’t have time to sit back and let her flail at it while he slowly decayed in the background. He couldn’t afford to experiment anymore. He needed to do something drastic. 

It had been some time since he’d delved deep into the occult, but if there was an answer, he was certain he could find it.

Now, what to do about Charlie? That is the question. 

As much as he wanted to call the entire thing unacceptable and wipe the slate clean, reality remained annoyingly solid. It was not as if he could simply kill her the way he had Chum.

Not this time.

Charlie was not disposable. As much as it infuriated him, he was reliant on her until he could repair the damage himself. And more importantly, she belonged to him. Her soul was his. He did not throw his possessions away on a whim.

It would be fine. He still had her under contract. He still had the leash. He would just have to set some strict rules for her. 

Alastor stared at his hands again, annoyed at himself all over. He still couldn’t believe how amateurish he’d been when she… woke him. 

He let her lead the negotiations. ‘Negotiations!’ When he owns her soul. She had to obey him. It shouldn’t have ever gone as far as it did.

It had been foolish of him.

He had been feverish, half-dead, and honestly a little disoriented. His head had felt packed with cotton, his body failing, senses blurring at the edges. Then suddenly he had been full of her magic, every nerve firing, everything too bright, too loud. He had been trying to stabilize himself, to keep from collapsing again, while she yelled at him about something. Something about secrets and pride.

In that haze, he had let her lead. Had given her the power.

Then she said something about Lucifer, and all rational thought left his mind. He would NOT! let that insufferable false king know of his weakness. Not the wound, not the rot, not the fact he’d been minutes from ending. 

So he exerted his power. Summoned her chains. He stared down at the Princess of Hell, the naive demon belle in his thrall, and for a moment it felt…good. 

Alastor had always relished the power he held over others. He’d always savored their fear, the way it tightened their voices, the way pain twisted their faces. 

But it was different this time.

When he looked down at Charlie, up on her toes, struggling to breathe, something in him shifted. This wasn't satisfaction. It was hunger. 

A strange, inexplicable, inexorable hunger stirring deep within him. One he had no idea how to sate