Ever since she was a little girl, her parents had told her the stories about soul marks. She'd stare in awe at the apple-shaped marks on their hands, listening to how they first met and fell in love, how her mother knew the first man wasn't for her when her mark failed to change color.
Even after her parents separated, Dad's mark still glows bright red, meaning he and Mom truly are meant to be. She doesn't know why Mom left, Dad would never say anything in the interest of sparing her feelings, and after a while he started to distance himself from her. But he still visits, his mark still glows, and Charlie knows someday Mom will come back and she and Dad will patch up whatever the issue is.
Charlie's mark isn't an apple, rather a pair of dark gray wings. Marks don't necessarily have to match, it's the change in color that indicates you've found your soul mate, but half the couples down here have matching or complementary marks. And while Charlie hasn't been too concerned about finding The One, she's never stopped hoping that that day would come sooner than later.
One day after an extermination, her mark begins to glow as she makes her way through the streets, looking for survivors.
Edited 2026-03-07 00:48 (UTC)
Angel/Husk - Can't sign a contract if your soul's been promised to someone else
Angel Dust's life ended up sucking enough that once he got to Hell, he decided he'd just live his afterlife like nothing else mattered. He got into sex work, kept his drug habit, and since he was already dead it wasn't like any of this could kill him.
His hard party boy living led him to a man named Valentino, whom he fell head over heels for while ignoring every red flag being thrown at him. The love bombing, the possessiveness, the first time Val hit him and then apologized by giving him a pet pig. Sex that was consensual only fifty percent of the time and that percentage shrinking.
Then came the day he brought out the contract, and the pen refused to work. Not only that, the contract rolled back up before he could try again. Val got pissed, of course, but when he tried to hit Angel an invisible barrier stopped him.
The heart-shaped mark on Angel's middle right hand stayed dark gray.
Re: Charlie/Vaggi - Vaggi was destined for Hell, but not meant to fall
Vaggi's always hated her mark. It's an apple. A small apple, but still an apple. Lute always grumbled that it probably meant Adam, but it never did change color around him.
She has no idea, and mostly keeps a glove on it to hide it away. Some of the girls have found each other, some don't know or won't share their marks, and honestly Vaggi's tired of it.
And then Lute is ripping off her wings and stabbing her in the eye. She's barely able to slink back to lean against a dumpster, totally ignoring the fact that her mark is now glowing bright shinging red.
Husk somehow made it from drunk on a casino floor to owning the damn place. He's pretty good at that when it comes to it. A few choice bets and he won the place from the previous owner, then used all of that to leverage owning the entire district.
When he got down here, he realized he had a mark on one of the pads on his palm, an oval with lines coming out of it. the fuck is that supposed to be? He mostly ignores it, and shrugs it off when people ask him questions about it.
Thankfully, there are more survivors this time around, meaning less families to notify that a loved one who thought they'd be safe outside for even a minute is forever gone. A while ago Charlie set up a safe spot for extermination survivors, but it doesn't seem like enough because these exterminations should not keep happening in the first place.
As she rounds a corner, her mark glows even more having gone from dark gray to gleaming silvery-white. And that's where she spots a young woman collapsed against the dumpster, badly injured; ignoring her mark and everything else, she immediately approaches her and holds out a hand.
That incident with the contract and the barrier felt like a fog lifting from Angel's vision, forcing him to re-contextualize...everything about their relationship. The honeymoon period's slow shift into Val becoming more insistent on certain things, his violent jealousy if someone so much as looked at Angel, slowly cutting him off from Cherri Bomb and anyone else he was remotely friendly with.
He left only because he knew Val would dump him anyway now that he knew something was keeping him from chaining Angel to his side forever. So Angel's free, but he's still processing everything. He wanders the streets, ends up in the casino district, and steps inside a place called the Magic Kat for a drink.
Hopefully no one makes too big a fuss over him bringing his pig inside. Fat Nuggets is the only genuinely good thing Val ever did for him and like hell was Angel going to abandon his child.
"Oh..." Vaggi looks up at her, blinking her one good eye, and wincing. "Um... thanks." She takes the girl's hand, standing up, and crying out a bit in pain, then grabbing the dumpster and hissing. Everything hurts.
"Oh, they did a number on you, didn't they," Charlie observes, offering her shoulder for the girl to lean on. "I've got plenty of first aid supplies at my place." It's a penthouse suite attached to a building Charlie has...Plans for.
The Overlord happens to be behind the bar today, dressed less like an Overlord, and just like a bartender, with a white shirt and red tie under suspenders. He raises an eyebrow at the new arrival, as well as the pig trotting behind him.
When he sits down, Husk walks over. "Haven't seen you in here before. What's your poison?"
"Er, yeah." Her entire back is bloody, and obviously her eye is gone. "You don't have to... I'll be alright." She might be bloody and broken, but she's still bad at accepting help. It's... an exorcist thing.
Charlie's too concerned with getting this girl to safety to notice anything off about the blood, just that there's a lot. "I can't just leave you here like this! Besides, those wounds could get infected and I don't think you want that."
She carefully helps the girl towards the hotel, whose sign is currently burnt out. The penthouse is much nicer, she promises.
"Eh, he can come up here. Cute little guy." Husk gets to work with the drink, then pushes it across to the new guy, as well as a small bowl of water for the piggie.
"What's your story? You look tired and more than a bit lost."
Oh. Angel feels his heart race a little, as well as a sudden sense of warmth from the hand with his mark on it. Fat Nuggets squeals as he starts drinking the water, and Angel smiles.
"Thanks. Um, from me and Nuggs." He takes a sip of his drink. "Guess I am. I...just got out of a bad relationship." He doesn't want to discuss the specifics. Luckily any bruises left from Val are covered up by his clothing.
"Ugh. Sounds like you need something stronger than that, or maybe more of it." He can tell from the way this guy carries himself that it's a very specific kind of bad relationship, but he's not going to push.
"Good for you for gettin' out, though. A lot of people don't."
"And you were already attacked by the exorcists," Charlie mutters. "Don't worry, Vaggie, you'll be safe from now on. They won't be back for a while, and hopefully we'll have a way to protect ourselves next time."
Angel downs his drink. "Got any strawberry vodka or campari? If not, I'll take a few more of these," he sighs. "I got lucky. I could sorta tell he was losin' interest so I did him a favor and dumped him. Bad enough he was such a dick, but I wasn't about to be the one thrown away."
Angel takes a sip of the drink and for the first time in a long time, smiles brightly.
"That's the good stuff!" He sips again. "Used to be a prostitute, but...I gave that up. Wasn't as much fun, kept getting the same boring guys." Actually, Valentino had insisted he quit, citing his jealousy as a reason and insisting he would care for Angel financially.
Oh, they won't be back. And they won't be back for her at the very least. They were very clear about that.
"Yeah. That would be... good." She sighs, not really wanting to say any more. Her head's spinning, and she's... actually embarrassed. She's starting to realize that what she and her sisters had done was actually pretty terrible.
"Easy now, we're just about there." There's an external elevator to the penthouse so they don't have to walk through the messy and rather dirty hotel that she's struggling to get clean.
Once they're in Charlie's room, Charlie gets Vaggie settled onto the bed on her stomach before taking out her first aid supplies. "This is going to sting, so you may want to bite down on this." She hands her a folded washcloth.
"Well...I've always wanted to act, or sing," Angel says quietly. "Almost tried to become a porn star, but I dunno if I want random perverts jerking off to me." He watches Fat Nuggets chowing down on the nuts. "I wanted to become a singer in life, too, but I never had much of a chance."
"Well, you clearly need a job, so why don't you sing here?" He points. "We have a stage, and when that idiot's off of it, go talk to the piano player and show us your pipes. If you're any good, you're hired."
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