I thought @l-egionaire's Sin of Despair!AU Charlie would have really fun interactions with my Swap!AU cast so I sketched and wrote up a whole bit of the Charlies and Vaggi(e)s interacting below the cut (Spoilers below the cut for how "Season 1" of Hell is Forever is going to end because that allows for the most interesting interactions, the most emotion for Despair!Charlie to sink her teeth into in Angel!Charlie.)
For the above, Adam and Despair!Charlie have different methods for sure, but their goals (or rather, Adam upholding Eve's goals) are actually really similar! They want to help sinners but have no aspirations of redemption into Heaven. Everyone's stuck down here because they fucked up one way or another, but that doesn't mean it has to be awful forever.
(Also the idea for these is that Despair!Charlie has been like. Reality hopping talking to herself to try and spread her message of despair. And somehow she Know Things about other versions of herself, except when she doesn’t. Listen it’s all about the Vibes.)
Vaggi(e)s:
Vaggi fluffs up her wings and growls at her counterpart, confronting her aggressively. “Who are you, demon? Who are you to wear my face and depict me in chains?”
Vaggie chuckles, “I’m you, hon, from another world. And these,” she holds up her wrists and the pendant around her neck, “Bind me to my beloved.”
Vaggi sneers, and Vaggie laughs. “What, like you’re not bound to your Charlie?”
“We are united in our love, not in some sick display of servitude. We are not the same.”
“But we are. We’re devoted, we’re loyal. We’re angels, Exorcists, soldiers, tools of genocide, muderers.”
“How you dare call me that!” Vaggi snarls.
"That's what we are! We're Vaggies, we're killers, there is so much blood on our hands. Thousands of sinners died by our spear."
“I eliminated targeted sinners who were a threat! I did what was necessary for the safety of Heaven!”
“Like lie to your Charlie?” Vaggie tilts her head with a raised eyebrow. Vaggi falters, looking aside nervously.
“I- I it had to be done! For her wellbeing!”
“Aww is that what the Seraphim told you? So obedient, do you always parrot what they say like a good little birdie?” Vaggie mocks, and Vaggi snarls again, jabbing a finger at the other angel, punctuating each of her words with a step forward and another jab.
"You are bound in chains by a demon."
"And yet I'm freer than you'll ever be. My Charlie knows all of me, loves all of me.” Vaggie holds her hands to her chest, eye closed in a moment of reminiscence, sighing fondly.
“There are no secret between us. We see all of each other, the good and the bad.” Her eye snaps open and locks with Vaggi’s fiercely, starting to march towards the other angel. “Are you scared, of what would happen if your Charlie knew all of you?”
“She does know all of me!”
“Like how she knew about how you enjoyed the exterminations? About your secret missions? About how you were assigned her little babysitter to make sure she didn’t feel anything too scawy?” Vaggie flutters her eye at Vaggi.
Vaggi starts to back up away from her, but Vaggie follows step for step. “She knows now!”
“Not because you told her, but because you failed in your missions to keep it secret. Quite upsetting! I can only imagine how she’ll feel if anything else comes out~”
“It won’t. No more secrets.” Vaggi trips and stumbles, looking up with wide eyes as Vaggie towers over her, still smiling.
“You sure there’s nothing else you’re forgetting to tell her about? Nobody else?”
“Stop it!” Vaggi clutches her hands over her ears to block out the other angel’s tormenting voice.
Charlies:
“It’s always nice to meet another one of myself!” The Sin of Despair greets cheerfully.
“Uh.. what?” The angel responds, dumbstruck by the dark mirror of herself standing before her.
“I just love getting to spread my message! So many of us are so delusional. They pretend everything is fine when they’re suffering inside, continuing to prance about with their silly little hotels.”
The angel stiffens at that, crossing her arms indignantly. “The Happy Hotel is not stupid! With Adam’s help I’m sure it-“
“Oh yes, the first man, the mortal soul that’s been in Hell for as long as mortals have been dying. I’m sure he’s so trustworthy and believes in your idea of Heavenly redemption wholeheartedly.”
“Well, he, he doesn’t believe in redemption, necessarily, but he believes sinners can be good! One of his guests even GOT redeemed!”
“The snake, right? Sir Pentious?” The demon tapped a finger on her chin in thought before pointing it at her doppelgänger “The one you killed?”
“I didn’t mean to! I was just trying to protect Vaggi! That whole Extermination attempt was a mistake! He- he accepted my apology!” The angel frantically insists.
“The first redeemed sinner would have to be exceptionally virtuous, wouldn’t he? The pinnacle of forgiveness.” Charlie continued to waltz around, feigning deep thought. “You know, if a sinner can be redeemed, wouldn’t it make sense that an angel, if sinful enough could fall?”
“W-well, I-“
“An angel who lived a life of violence and temptation, perhaps. Lustful, wrathful… slaughtering so many without fair trial?”
The angels eyes began to water. “S-stop it!”
“Cast into the pits of Hell, to burn for eternity with the other demons. That’s where you belong anyway isn’t it?”
“Cease your lies, demon!” The angel clutched at her head as tears begin to fall, her hair fluttering from the power of her true nature threatening to burst out.
“That’s what you are, isn’t it? A demon, just like me. No little lamb of God, but the offspring of the Devil himself.”
“STOP IT!” Charlie screams as her head pounds, her rage bursting through. Long curved red horns grow from her forehead, straining against the bounds of her halo. She looks up at her dark mirror, hair flowing with power, eyes turned red and long, spiked tail thrashing behind her.
“Yes! Yes! Feel those emotions! Don’t bottle them up! Let them free!” The Sin of Despair exclaims, her own hair beginning to lift, darkening as horns sprout from her head, chains lifting and spreading around her as her stature grows.
“This is what you are! What we are!”
“Sthop, why are you doing thish?” The angel cries out, slurring her words through fangs and a forked tongue she’s not used to.
“Because you need to see the truth! You. Are. A. Demon. Destined for the fiery pit! Now that it’s out, the seraphim will see you’re hopeless, and cast you down!”
“No! Emily wouldn’t! She-“
“How can you know what Emily would and wouldn’t do? When she hid your true nature from you for two hundred years?”
“She’th my family!”
“Oh and family has always done right by you, haven’t they? How did you end up in Emily’s care in the first place?”
“That’th not-“
“That’s right! Abandoned by your parents as a sacrifice, an experiment. Giving you up in the hopes that if you were good enough to never come home, they’d be granted permission to have other children. Didn’t seem to care much about what it would mean if you were cast down, guess they wouldn’t want a failure anyway. Suppose it’s only a matter of time till you find out now.”
“Sthop it!” The angel sobs, curling in on herself, wings as a protective shield, only for the Sin of Despair to gently pry them open with her chains, forcing her to look her in the eye.
“What, am I wrong? Do you have any proof that what I’m saying is untrue? Or do you just not want to accept it?”
The angel looks up at the towering demon with tears streaming down her face. “I- I-“ her face scrunches up in a hiccuping sob, shoulders shaking with the force of her tears as she lowers her head in defeat. The Princess of Despair smiles, crouching down in front of her and gently stroking her wings.
“That’s it, feel the despair. Let those tears flow.”
They spend several minutes on the floor like that as Charlie Dawnslight’s world was shattered, the weight of everything that had come to pass finally crushing her, as the Sin of Despair gently looked down on her. When the angel seemed to have finally cried herself dry, the demon snapped her fingers and a cup of cocoa appeared before her, topped with mini marshmallows.
“Here you go, drink up. I usually skip on the marshmallows but I figured I’d probably like cocoa the same as myself, especially with a Heavenly sweet tooth.” She said with a wink.
The angel looked up with utter confusion as she took the mug from the smiling demon, staring at it baffled. “Wh-what?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never offered cocoa to a sorrowful soul! This is your area of expertise isn’t it? Spreading joy?”
"I- I can’t spread hope to anyone. You're right.. I’m no Princess of Heaven, I'm just some orphaned demon." "No, not just!" She takes her chin gently in her hand.
"You can be so much more!" "Then w-what was the point of all of that?" "Because you can't live your life in denial. You had to accept your horrible past in order to move on and be who you can truly be!" The Sin of Despair’s eyes shone with a fiery passion, explaining her mission.
“Living behind a mask only causes more pain and suffering! No one can ever help to be better if they build those happy lives on a lie!”
She takes the distraught angel’s hands in her own, both girls slowly retuning to their normal forms. She looks sadly into her eyes, a look of recognition. “So what if our parents don’t care. We can make our own family.”
As if on cue, there was shouting and a clash of metal as angelic spears collide, Vaggi’s spear caught in the prongs of Vaggie’s. The Princess of Despair smiles fondly at her love confidently disarming the other angel and then sighs, looking back to the other Charlie and offering her a hand up.
“Let’s go break those two up. My muse hasn’t had as much experience as I in breaking others, I’m not surprised she struggled against someone as stubborn as herself.” The Sin’s chains reared again, ready to restrain anyone who would hurt her beloved. “CEASE YOUR ATTACK, ANGEL!” Charlie looked after her with bewilderment, tear tracks still on her face.
She was shaken out of her stupor by an obnoxious slurping sound next to her, looking at Adam next to her. “So like, definitely smash, right?”
“What?”
“Lots of people are into scary, it’s a whole thing. Power dynamics and what not.”
“Th- that’s me!”
Adam raised an eyebrow at her. “You’d never fuck a clone? I know if girl me walked in here I’d tap that. And you swing both ways or whatever, right?”
“I’m bisexual yes, but-“
“So you can’t deny that that’s definitely hot.” Adam gestures with his cup back to the brawl Charlie had forgotten about, now halted, with other Charlie’s chains how holding and restraining Vaggi midair.
“OH SHOOT! VAGGI!” Charlie snapped back into action, hooves clattering as she rushed over, arms waving. “Vaggi, babe, stop fighting!”
Despair!Chaggie the minute they’re done here:
Bonus! Snip Snip Snip AU Charlie:
The Princess of Despair fidgets awkwardly, looking down at the sniffling Charlie in front of her. It didn’t even take two minutes to reduce her to tears. “Wow, uh, hmm. I’ve never broken one of me so easily. Usually we’re so… chipper and blinded.”
“Well it’s not like you said anything that isn’t true.” Charlie sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “My people laugh at me, my parents are ignoring me, I can’t even run a hotel. I’m a failure, even more than usual if I understand what you’re saying. My hotel never even got off the ground enough to flop. No staff, no advertising. I mean, I never even got a single guest.”
The Sin of Despair looked down at herself pitifully. “Not even Angel Dust? That’s usually where Charlie’s like you start.”
The princess on the floor laughs bitterly. “The porn star? I can’t imagine what other mes did to attract him to a dingy little hotel, when he’s got V-Tower to return to.”
Despair!Charlie sits on the bed next to the other Charlie. “I think he usually just wants to get away from Valentino. Must not be as bad for him here.”
The Charlie on the floor shrugs and curls more around her knees with a sigh. “Must be.”
Despair!Charlie looks down at the version of herself on the floor. “So it’s just you and Vaggie here, huh?”
Charlie’s brow furrowed and she looked back up at herself with confusion. “The model? I thought you said Angel Dust is usually our first guest? Why are we talking about someone else?”
The Sin of Despair looked down at her own confused expression, confusion growing on her own. “He is, but I’m talking about-“ her eyes widen as realization dawns. “Oh… oh I see. That’s why you were… on man. You really are alone.”
The Charlie on the floor laughs bitterly again, almost turning into another sob. “Yeah. We’ve been over than. You really live up to your title, Princess of Despair.”
