Chapter Text
It’s been a while, dear reader. About a month, I’d say?
I cut a scene back in Chapter 2 because I couldn’t find a way to word it without the big boy buck interfering. Three weeks ago, as I was waffling over how to start Chapter 15, I decided it was time to wrestle that troubled scene into a readable state. I've been picking away at it since, eking out sentences little by little, writing until the static threatens to crescendo, then backing off just before it spreads to the rest of me.
This memory is the king of all paradoxes. It's the only memory the deal hasn't altered, and the fact that it's unaltered makes no goddamn sense given the content and context. It hits my brain like a derailed freight train every time I try to think about it, so I'm done thinking about it. There's a few weeks worth of thinking about it in fits and starts ahead. You'll have to be content with that.
***
Chapter 2.5: My First Ten Minutes
Charlie’s hand shakily extended, but before either Alastor or his partnered shade could take it, her fingers curled in on themselves until it looked like she was offering an awkward fist bump.
“I… I don't think I can do this,” Charlie said.
Her arm retracted, but not entirely. She made no move for the door. The deal was settled in her heart, but her head needed convincing. Charlie searched the other's spectrum of eyes for something that would convince her to shed the last, clinging shroud of selfishness preventing her from saying ‘yes’ to a trade that would save three other people.
The eyes searched her back. Several narrowed in thought. “How about this,” the other said after a moment of Charlie's silent scrutiny. “I can show you what it’ll feel like to be your new self.”
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.
“I’ll temporarily switch your self with his,” the other said, her avatar pointing a lightless thumb at Alastor. “A few minutes in his shoes, and you’ll see it isn’t so bad.”
Charlie glanced at Alastor and imagined seeing me in the mirror. She had no idea what the body beneath the clothes looked like. Gloves hid the darkened arms and legs. The pink, split hooves never left the bedroom unshod. She didn’t suspect the dusting of chest fluff under his shirt, nor the tail tucked out of sight. But she could imagine antlers. Shorter hair. A flat chest. She'd worn approximations of all of those before.
“How long?” Charlie asked, wondering what it must be like to talk around such vicious teeth.
“Let's say ten of your minutes,” the other said.
Ten minutes of me would be bearable, Charlie thought. She'd been through worse and weirder. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
Alastor’s shadow nodded, mirroring its owner's ever-present grin. It split into halves, tearing down the middle like a piece of paper. One jagged half twisted toward Charlie. It reached out its single arm and offered the princess its hand in the manner of a gentleman asking a lady for a dance. Charlie took it. The shadow felt smooth and solid despite its ethereal appearance. It squeezed her hand encouragingly, and its bisected face treated her to half of a kindly smile.
The other half snaked to Alastor. It pressed its cheek against his and coiled the rest of itself around his arm and hand.
“Ready?” the voice from the mic asked. Charlie nodded.
Struggling to pull his cheek away from the shadow's, Alastor growled, “Get on with it.”
“Alrighty,” the other said. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three!”
The head of the mic flared stoplight red. When the light dulled, the halves let go of the waiting pair and coalesced into a single form: a long-haired girl with tall horns and a spaded tail that whipped with the other’s surplus of energy.
“Ta-da!” boss said, accompanied by jazz hands from the shadow.
“Ta-da?” I said. I looked down at myself. Everything was normal. Brown arms with pink fingertips reached up to poke at antlers and quizzically tilted ears. I ran my tongue over my teeth. They were the usual size and shape. Tugging a lock of hair into view, I saw chocolate on strawberry. Everything under my clothes and below the belt felt the same as always.
“You didn't do anything,” I said.
“I most certainly did,” boss said.
“But I'm still me,” I said.
“Well, yes, you are you. That'll never change. You're just not the exact you you were a minute ago,” boss said.
“I… what?”
Charlotte rapped the top of the mic to draw my attention. When my eyes were on her, she said, “I believe our selves have been swapped, as promised. We just don't remember. That's part of the trade, if you'll recall. Our memories were modified to fit the new selves.”
I looked down at my hands again. Wiggled my fingers. Ran my palms along my arms. Touched my cheeks, my nose, my chin. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “No way. I'm supposed to be someone other than myself right now. That wouldn't feel like this. This feels like nothing. It should feel at least a little off,” I said.
“But it is a little off, isn't it?” boss said. “Don't you feel just a teeny bit uncomfortable in those clothes?”
Now that she mentioned it, my clothing did feel off. Over some parts it hung too loosely, while others stretched it taut. Plus, there was no tail hole in my pants or underpants, a glaring—and uncomfortable—omission.
In Charlotte's case, her familiar red suit and black pants had clearly been tailored to a taller form. She shrugged at me, lifting an arm to show how the cuff enveloped her entire hand.
“Here, lemme fix that,” boss said. The mic lit up, and our clothes resized and reshaped themselves to fit our bodies like they should.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, straightening her now perfectly tailored jacket.
I didn't say anything. I was combing through my memories, certain that if boss really had switched our selves, there must be something of my the old life remaining to prove it. But no matter how far back I went, the only me I saw was Alastor.
I stared at Charlotte. If we'd been switched, the person in my memories should look like her. I thought back to earlier that morning, to minutes spent in front of the mirror hanging over my sink, fixing myself up for the day ahead. I tried to visualize my brush running through golden hair or a wash cloth scrubbing porcelain skin. I imagined seeing her smile in the glass when I looked up from spitting out toothpaste. The attempt made my head ache so badly I could only hold the image—incorrect and unwanted, according to the sputtered protests in my head—for a few seconds before it snapped back to reality as I knew it.
I massaged the sides of my head, regretting my decision not to take boss at her word. The pain confirmed that she’d done something to me.
Out of curiosity, I tried to imagine being someone else. I chose the person currently just behind myself, Charlotte, and boss at the forefront of my mind.
The mirror again. Me with long, white hair and gray-purple skin. Short enough to need a step stool to reach some of the cupboards in the Hotel kitchen. Female. Always ready to spring into action.
It was just a normal, painless thought exercise. Trying the same with other Hotel denizens had similarly benign results. Only Charlotte was off-limits.
Which meant… well, you know what it meant. And now, to my brain’s displeasure, so did I.
“What am I going to remember when these ten minutes are up?” I asked.
“Physically? Only that your clothes were wrong and that it felt like, in your words, nothing,” boss said. “It'll seem like I held your hand for a second then spent ten minutes pretending things were different. All the other stuff—what we talked about, what you thought about, your emotional state—will be intact.”
“If I'm not going to remember the physical part, then what was the point?” I asked. “I thought this was supposed to be me trying on a different body, but I'm not even going to be able to compare the two.”
Boss said, “Of course you will. Think about it. We both know you're not being literal when you say it feels like ‘nothing.’ You're not numb. Surely you feel the current against your limbs when you move. Breath entering and leaving your body, the saliva in your mouth, the urge to blink… All that ‘existing in a meat body’ type stuff.”
I did feel all of those things. I also felt an itch that made my ear flick. The heat of Charlotte's magically blazing fireplace. My tongue touching the roof of my mouth. The push and pull of my lips when I spoke.
“What you called ‘nothing’ is an absence of the dysphoria you thought you'd suffer,” boss said. “A proper self exchange prevents it. The point of this exercise was to show you that.”
“Oh,” I said. “That’s… a relief, I think?”
With its hands on its hips, Charlotte’s shadow nodded. Boss said, “Trust me, it is. A botched trade isn’t a pleasant experience. Luckily for you, I’m real good at what I do.”
Charlotte’s shadow clapped its hands soundlessly together. “Now, what do you wanna do with the next several minutes? You got some time before I swap you back.”
Raising her hand, Charlotte said, “If I may make a suggestion.”
The shadow motioned for her to continue.
Charlotte’s eyes flicked to me. “You and I are long overdue for getting to know each other a little better, Mr. Morningstar. Why don't we make a game of it? Tell me one fact about yourself, and I will tell you one about me. We'll continue until our ten minutes are up.”
“Whatever I tell you now might not be true,” I said.
Charlotte said, “Perhaps not to those outside this room. If you and I make this trade, however, the world of your memory will also be the world of mine. I’m giving you this chance to define yourself before others presume to do it for you.”
I folded my arms and tapped my foot. After a moment spent staring at the light fixture overhead, I said, “Why not? Not like I’ve got anything to hide.”
“Wonderful,” Charlotte said. She snapped her fingers, and the chair her minion had offered earlier jerked into position behind her. She lowered herself into it, crossed her legs, and laid the mic across her lap.
“Let's start with the basics,” Charlotte said. “Tell me your name.”
“You know my name,” I said.
“I want to hear you say it out loud,” she said.
I said, “I’m Alastor Morningstar.” The ‘as you know’ went unstated.
“A pleasure to meet you, Alastor Morningstar. I’m Charlotte,” she said with the slightest dip of her head.
“Last name?” I asked.
“None that you’re getting,” she said. Before I could protest, she was on to the next question: “What sex are you?”
“Are you joking?” I asked.
“Answer the question,” she said, drumming her fingers on the cane.
“I’m a man,” I said.
Her smile twisted into a smirk. “What a shame. You’re so tolerable otherwise.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re supposed to give me a fact, asshole.”
“I am a woman. Thank God,” she said.
“They didn’t do shit. Thank me,” boss said, the shadow’s chin tilting upward and arms crossing in a silent “harrumph.”
With a chuckle, Charlotte said, “Very well. Thank you, boss.”
When Charlotte wasn’t immediately forthcoming with another question, I asked, “What other basic facts do you want about me? My age?”
“I am curious,” Charlotte said.
“I’m four hundred and seventy two,” I said.
Charlotte whistled. “And here I thought I was the geriatric in the room.”
“How old?” I knew Charlotte had died sometime in the 1930s, but not the exact year, nor how old she was when she kicked the bucket. Sinner appearance doesn’t necessarily correlate to their age at death, and she wasn’t in her original demon form anyways, so it was impossible to tell at a glance.
Charlotte said, “With the revelation of your advanced age, I believe I’m the third oldest soul in the Hotel, not counting my benevolent patron.”
“I gave you the exact number, and this is what I get?” I said.
Quirking an eyebrow, she asked, “Did you really expect me to be entirely forthcoming when we started this game?”
“Good point,” I sighed. “What next?”
“What’s your favorite color?”
With a certain someone’s bow in mind, I said, “Pink.”
“Acceptable,” Charlotte said, “though the right answer was, of course, red. Favorite animal?”
I’d sketched out that answer in hundreds of Keekees over the years. “Cats.”
“Not deer?” she asked.
“I’m not that self-obsessed,” I said. “What about you?”
She hummed. “You know, I think I quite like cats myself.”
“That explains Husk, I guess,” I said.
Charlotte pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and slumped. “Yes, losing him will be a terrible blow to my menagerie’s entertainment value.”
“I haven’t agreed to the deal, yet,” I said.
She snapped a finger. “Next question, then: If you had to decide at this very moment, would you say yes to the deal?”
“I…” It was an abrupt change in the questions’ tone and contents, and much harder to answer than the silly stuff she’d been asking so far. “Would I?” I asked myself out loud.
“Would you?” boss asked. Charlotte’s shadow slid to my side. Its head engulfed my chair’s arm, grinning up at me. “I’m curious, too.”
“Now I don’t want to answer,” I said.
“Aw, c’mon. It’s not like saying ‘yes’ would make the deal take effect immediately,” boss said. “You gotta sign your name before I can do anything.”
I tried to wave her away. When the gesture only drew her closer, I put my head in my hands and said. “Fine. I would say yes.”
“Why?” Charlotte asked.
“Aren’t you supposed to be giving me a fact?” I said.
Charlotte said, “I am thrilled to hear you’re interested in the deal. Now answer my question, please.”
I parted my hands, looking out at her from the gap. “Because I want to save my friends. And because this isn’t unbearable.”
“You don’t mind being Alastor Morningstar?” Charlotte asked.
“Fact first,” I grumbled.
Her smile’s cutting edges softened. “I don’t mind being Charlotte,” she said.
I said, “No, I don’t mind being Alastor Morningstar.”
We filled the next several minutes with more questions. I learned that Charlotte's favorite food is a special jambalaya recipe made with “ingredients one can only reliably source in Hell,” whatever that means. She learned that my favorite was apple pie, a “fact” that turned out to be a lie when I later realized my tastes had been traded away.
When asked about my feelings toward the upcoming battle, I admitted I was nervous about our chances.
To the same question turned her way, she replied, “I certainly don’t intend to die,” which could have meant anything from “I’m confident we’ll win” to “I plan to hightail it out of there at the first opportunity.”
Finally, boss spoke up. “All right, time’s up.”
A flash from the mic briefly blinded me, and Charlie was left blinking away blotches of leftover light.
When her vision cleared, she looked down at herself. Blonde braid. Black nails on white fingertips. Feminine shape and structure. But her clothes fit wrong, though they were the same in style and color as what she'd been wearing going into the experience. Another flash of light, and her outfit was back to normal.
She combed through her memories of the last ten minutes. As predicted, it seemed like the other had simply held her hand then spent ten minutes pretending something had changed. Charlie remembered being herself throughout all of it, even the first time her clothes had been wrong.
Yet she knew the trade had happened, because one of her answers in Alastor’s little fact exchange should have been a lie. It certainly would have been a lie if Charlie tried to say it.
She remembered it as “I don’t mind being Charlie Morningstar.”
Chapter 15: Some time later
Of that particular memory, only the conversation with Charlotte is easy to think about in detail. I kept coming back to it as I floundered my way to sleep after we all abandoned the Lounge following our impromptu “Fuck Yeah, Sir Pentious!” party.
I’d said I hadn’t minded being Alastor Morningstar, but it was more than that. I liked being Alastor Morningstar, and
Chapter 2.6: Side effects
It had been a long time since Charlie Morningstar had liked being herself. Decades of failing to enact meaningful change in Pentagram City had chipped away at her self esteem. Now only shards remained, and those were being pulverized, one by one, as the time to Extermination Day ticked away.
The contentment she’d felt when answering Alastor’s inquiry had been a pleasantly alien surprise. Some version of her had wanted to be some version of her. She thrust her hand toward the shadow and its connected body, thinking only about how nice it would be to feel that again.
Then her intellect caught up with her heart, and she realized what the swap had done.
“Oh, you little bitch,” she muttered. “You absolute fuck.” Hugging herself tightly, she hit Alastor’s shadow with a red-eyed glare. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“What did I know?” crackled through the mic.
Charlie leapt out of her seat and pointed an accusatory finger at the mic. “You knew that if I let you switch our selves, I’d end up wanting to take the deal.”
“You want to take the deal?” the other said. The shadow's ears perked up. Its grin spiraled wider.
“Not the point!” Charlie said, flame erupting from a mouth of swiftly sharpening teeth.
The shadow wilted into the ground, then rematerialized behind Alastor. “All right, all right, princess,” the other said, her avatar’s head poking over the shoulder of its cervine shield. “Calm yourself before you burn down the Hotel. Neither of us wants that.”
Charlie took a deep breath. As she exhaled, her demon features faded away, and she was her unassuming, faux human self once again.
***
It used to be so damned easy to revert after a temper tantrum. Centuries of practice made shedding my scarier features a seamless process. I could switch between my forms two or three times in as many seconds without breaking a sweat.
Charlie’s demon form looked like Charlotte. I know that much. Mine, as I remember it, grew sharper rather than larger. My antlers were honed to piercing points, their tips colored a bloody red. Nails and hooves became claws. Teeth were refined for separating flesh from bone. Black markings slashed across my eyes. There was none of the bone cracking or flesh tearing that accompanies my body surging into a twisted, disproportionate version of itself. There was fire in my chest, but no static in my head. My irises glowed golden, and the pupils within looked nothing like dials.
I might still be able to summon that form, but I've been afraid to try. I tamp down my inner fire because I'm afraid letting it loose will just create a version of the Radio Demon who can ignite things as well as tear them apart. It’s unsettling to know that the power I’ve always trusted to protect me and mine might be off-limits until I get the Radio Demon under control.
***
The other said, “I didn't hide the fact that I was hoping to convince you to take the deal. But the trade was supposed to do that by setting your mind at ease. If something else got you actively wanting it, that’s all you.”
“What could possibly have me wanting something this crazy?” Charlie asked, hands tangling in the hair at the sides of her head, voice rising in pitch.
The other said, “A fairly common reason for self-trades back in my home dimension was that there had been some kind of trauma with the previous self, and the new self was seen as a fresh start. You've been through a whole lot since my boy first met you six months ago. From my observations, I’d wager you saw some horrors the four hundred and seventy one-ish years prior, too.”
Extermination Day after Extermination Day flashed through Charlie's mind in a senseless jumble of bodies, of blood that coated her shoes as she scoured the streets for survivors, of screams that played the chorus to lamentations of the bereaved. Just thinking about it made her heart catch. Her breath sped up. She looked at Alastor, and the Extermination Days coalesced into an imagined future. The bodies she saw sprouted familiar faces. Alastor’s radio drone forever silenced. Sir Pentious and Angel Dust, broken, never to see the redemption they deserved. Husk and Niffty felled without tasting the freedom she could buy them. Vaggie bloody-backed and wingless once again, her intact eye as empty as the socket beside it.
The other's avatar let go of Alastor's shoulder. It crept around him, low to the ground, pulling itself forward with its clawed hands. “I can see it in your eyes,” the other said. “You want a change. You want something new.”
Charlie had to admit that something new sounded nice.
With a shoulder-heaving sigh, she said, “It'll come into effect after the battle?”
The shadow nodded.
“Great time to start fresh, I guess,” Charlie said.
“The perfect time, really,” the other said.
And she wouldn’t be the only one getting that chance.
Chapter 15.5: Results
Husk thrived under his newfound freedom. His attitude behind the bar was much improved (not that I blame him for prior grumpiness), and he’d been drinking less while on the job. He’d even let Angel take him shopping for new, Lounge-appropriate attire, and hadn’t refused when Angel demanded they buy some casual wear with it. They’d come home with bags slung from four of Angel’s six arms and one of Husk’s two.
“The man owned basically nothin’ ‘sides those overalls,” Angel said. “I couldn’t let it go on. He deserves better than that.”
I agreed vehemently, and not just because Husk looked fantastic in a selection of sweaters, button-downs, and flannel. It was nice to see him doing something for himself with his new paycheck, especially after I caught him trying to use his own money to stock the Lounge.
According to him, most workplaces in Pentagram City expect that of their employees.
“How’s anyone supposed to save money that way?” I asked, indignant on his behalf.
Angel and Husk exchanged glances, then burst out laughing. I was reminded, once again, that a hellborn royal is underqualified to comment on the state of Pentagram City, so I simply told Husk that whatever he needed to run the Lounge counted as a work expense, and to let me know whenever anything came up.
Then Niffty did the same thing with her cleaning supplies, and I had to draw up a ten step walkthrough to explain what a work expense is and why the fact that she liked bleach soooo much didn’t disqualify it from coverage. She still occasionally buys a bottle of “the fun bleach” on her own. I don’t know what that is, and quite frankly, I’m too scared to ask.
At least two new things had appeared since Niffty’s first paycheck: a terrarium she’d been filling with “the lucky ones” as her war against Pentagram City’s pest control problem continued unabated, and a spreading board on which to pin and display her “most valiant foes.” Both held places of prominence in the common room, where her prey could see the hanging dead and her pets would witness the demise of the unlucky.
Aside from her purchases, Niffty’s life post-freeing was mostly unchanged. She still did whatever Charlotte asked her to. She still spent most of her time cleaning, even in her off hours. But she seemed happy, and if she ever became unhappy, well, she now had the power to change that.
All in all, I was pleased with the results of giving the pair their fresh start, and I was hungry to do the same for Angel Dust. If I couldn’t convince Vaggie that my contentment with myself was real, surely sitting her down and explaining the virtues of what the deal had done for the others would convince her to give up her ill-advised crusade against boss.
I rolled over, grabbing my phone from my night stand, and considered sending Vaggie an explanation right then and there, but at some point in my tossing and turning the clock had struck three. I wanted to resolve the matter as quickly as possible, but three in the morning was perhaps not the time.
Boss said, “Put your communications device down and go to sleep. I don’t wanna deal with you being a grump all day.”
“Sleep’s not always that easy,” I said.
“Well it should be. You guys need it to survive, yeah? Seems like something that integral should be simple.”
“Should be,” I agreed. “Isn’t.”
My shadow peeled away from the wall and drifted over to me. “What’s bothering you?”
Telling her the truth seemed like a bad idea. I didn’t want her seeing Vaggie as an active threat. I didn’t know what boss might do if she felt she needed to take action. Honestly, I didn’t know what she could do, but my imagination manufactured dozens of possibilities from what material I had.
“Just thinking about what Husk said earlier. About Angel Dust,” I lied. “I want to free him from his contract as soon as possible, but I don’t even know how close I am to earning my payday.”
“Closer than I thought you’d be this early on,” boss said. “That interview session really boosted your numbers. But you still got a while to go.”
“How long is ‘a while?’” I asked, pulling myself into a sitting position.
“Depends on how well your shows do,” boss said. My shadow shrugged. “Could be sooner, could be later.”
“Real helpful. Thanks, boss.”
Boss spawned five eyes just to roll them at me. “All right, all right, don’t get your fluffy little tail in a twist. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll give you something to keep track of your progress.”
“That would make me feel better, yes,” I said.
“Right. Spell incoming,” boss said.
The item her spell produced was an obsidian hourglass. The top bulb held a little less than half of the sand, and the bottom a little more. Strangely, no sand flowed between the two bulbs, even when I turned the item over in my hands. “Not much of a timekeeper,” I said.
“Not a timekeeper,” boss said. “Each grain of sand represents a new listener. Once all the grains are at the bottom, I’ll give you your payday.”
I frowned. “Further away than I was hoping,” I said.
“Well, there’s stuff you could be doing to increase your fanbase a little faster,” she said.
“Like?”
“Advertising, for one,” she said. “You gotta get the word out. Coasting on the audience you inherited from Charlotte isn’t gonna get you anywhere. You need to take advantage of the avenues she wasn’t using.”
“How did Charlotte advertise?” I asked.
“She sent some ads to the newspaper early on, but she mostly drew people in with the whole tormented screaming thing. People tuned in out of morbid curiosity, and occasionally they’d stick around for her less fatal content afterward. I’m guessing you don’t want to do that second thing,” she said.
“Yeah, no thank you,” I said.
Boss nodded. “She stalled for a long time ‘cause the newspaper fell out of fashion, she was running out of Overlords she was willing to throw in the grinder, and she wouldn’t take advantage of new technologies. You aren’t totally against the internet or TV, so you’ve got options.”
“But the internet’s so mean, and TV’s ruled by Vox,” I complained.
“You want Angel Dust out of his contract, right?” boss said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Then you gotta deal with it, fluffy,” she said, stretching forward and patting me on the head.
“Ugh,” I said, sliding back into sleeping position.
I put the hourglass on my nightstand, and fell asleep wishing the sand would start to flow on its own.