The courtyard had become Kevin’s sanctuary over the past few weeks.
A place to sweat, to hit things, to shut his brain off and let his body do the thinking.
But today, his brain was refusing to cooperate.
He shoved through the double doors harder than necessary, the humid air smacking him in the face like a wake-up call, and paused just past the threshold.
In the middle of the courtyard, he saw Vaggie.
She was in the middle of a workout, moving through her forms in long, measured strides, her spear carving arcs that pulled one into the next without a break.
Each extension rolled into a pivot, and each pivot dropped into a low sweep, her weight shifting heel to toe across the uneven stone with the ease of a sequence run so many thousands of times it no longer needed thought to carry it.
The spear moved, and she moved with it, step and reach and draw back, the soft scuff of her boot marking the beat between strikes.
At full extension came the brief whisper of the tip through the air, then the pause, then the next step.
It was a beautiful dance, and Vaggie looked at peace.
Of course.
This was her sanctuary, too.
Many times, they shared it.
Today, Kevin had hoped to have it all to himself because he wanted to hit something.
Hard.
The doors thudded shut.
Vaggie caught the movement, glanced over mid-thrust, but didn’t stop until she’d finished the sequence.
When she turned to face him, spear resting against the stone, her eye swept over him once, and her brow creased.
“Kevin?
Is everything okay?”
He walked past her without a word.
Straight to the weapon rack.
His hands moved over the bo staffs—too light, too heavy, wrong balance—but he wasn’t really seeing them.
He was back in the kitchen just twenty minutes ago, pouring his morning coffee while watching Alastor stand at the stove, humming some jaunty tune from the 1920s while he flipped something in a skillet.
Something that had definitely been alive not long before.
They’d exchanged a nod.
Nothing more.
Tense but cordial, same as always, and always for Charlie’s sake only.
Then he left the kitchen and had taken all of three steps, before the realization hit like a Mack truck dead center in his soul, and it translated into something akin to rage and self-deprecation.
Behind him, breaking him free from memory, Vaggie spoke, her tone coated with concern, “Kevin?”
He grabbed a staff and held it at his side, but he did not turn around.
However, he finally acknowledged her.
“I watched Alastor cooking his breakfast this morning while Cherri worked on everyone else’s.”
Vaggie hesitated, then asked, “And?”
“And nothing.” He turned to finally face her, his expression bland like the word.
“He was just standing there.
Humming.
Flipping his food like somebody’s weird uncle at a Sunday barbecue.
And I just nodded at him and went about my day.”
“So?” Vaggie asked softly, encouraging him to explain.
Moving to the center of the courtyard, Kevin rolled his shoulders, but didn’t take a stance.
He just held the staff loosely.
“I spent my whole life on one side of a very clear line, Vaggie.
Good and evil.
Right and wrong.
I hunted the worst people humanity had to offer, and I put them away.
I knew exactly who I was.” He let out a breath.
“And now I pass a mass murderer, frying what might have been a living demon moments before, in the kitchen, and nod good morning like it’s just any other day.”
His brow furrowed, but his tone did not match his next words, for they held bitterness.
“And the weirdest part is that I’m not angry about it.
I chose to be here, for Charlie, and I’d choose it again.” His grip tightened on the staff.
“But I keep thinking—if the old me could see who I’ve become, would he even recognize me?”
Vaggie studied him for a long moment.
Finally, she adjusted her grip on the spear and shifted her stance.
“Does Charlie?”
Blinking, Kevin scrunched his eyes, “Does Charlie what?”
“Recognize you?” She asked again, “She was with you on Earth, and now here.
Does she recognize you?”
It was a good, solid question.
Kevin nodded, “I’m sure she does.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Kevin sighed, “I’m… just trying to figure myself out, I guess.
I had this epiphany and it’s driving me nuts!”
“Yeah, I can see it in your shoulders, and you’re about to choke the life out of that staff.”
Kevin glanced down.
His knuckles had gone white around the wood.
He forced his fingers to relax.
“Come on.” Vaggie stepped back and raised her spear.
“Let’s burn some of it off while we talk.”
“I didn’t come out here to—”
“Yes, you did.” Her voice softened but stayed firm.
“And you’re no good to anyone like this.
You taught me that, remember when we sparred the first time: ‘Emotions cloud judgment.
Burn off the excess before it burns you.'”
Kevin chuffed out, “Using my own words against me.”
“You gave good advice.” She rolled her shoulder loose.
“Take it.”
He hesitated another moment, then moved to face her.
The staff came up into a familiar guard, muscle memory taking over even when his head was somewhere else.
“I’m not looking for you to fix this,” he said quietly.
“I don’t even know if it can be fixed.
I just…”
“Need to say it out loud?”
“Yeah.” The word came out heavier than he meant it to.
“Something like that.”
Vaggie nodded once.
“Then talk.
I’m listening.”
She came at him—a probing strike, nothing serious.
Testing.
Kevin deflected it easily, wood cracking against angelic steel.
“It’s not just Alastor,” Kevin continued, circling slowly.
“He’s the obvious one, a monster in plain sight.
But it’s everyone.” He blocked another strike, then another.
“The imps running shops.
Demons going about their business.
Hellhounds on every corner.” He swung a wide arc to drive her back, “And then there’s the sinners I see everywhere I look…and I’m supposed to help Charlie redeem them.”
Vaggie feinted left and swept low.
Kevin hopped back, tapping her spear aside.
“I used to see them as the enemy.
All of them.
Heaven’s propaganda painted Hell as this pit of irredeemable evil, and I’d bought into it.” He reset his stance.
“Well, yeah,” Vaggie said as if it was obvious, “you grew up in a religious household, right?
Then you wake up in Heaven after you die, memories wiped, with the sense of tranquility wrapped around your soul, all the worries of life washed away.
Easy to buy into it, I’d say.”
“Right, but once I met Charlie, I saw the other side…and now….” Kevin’s voice drifted off.
“And now?” Vaggie prompted.
His staff met her spear with a sharp crack, and they held them together, pushing and not giving.
“Now I see demons and sinners buying groceries.
Walking their pets.
Arguing about rent.” He pushed off.
“They’re just people.
Broken, damned, flawed people.
But people.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Vaggie pressed forward with a quick combination.
“Seeing them as people?”
“No.” Kevin’s brow furrowed as he deflected each strike.
“It’s not.
The problem is me.
I lived my life and my time in Heaven, thinking Hell was where evil went to suffer.
And they do, but it’s also filled with those who aren’t evil and…, and now I’m dating a woman who is destined to rule over, protect them, and possibly, I’m to do the same?
The good and the bad, both.
How do I reconcile that?”
“By trusting Charlie,” Vaggie said simply as she pressed her attack, forcing him to move, to react, to stay in his body even as his mind tried to spiral.
“I do!” Kevin swore as he pulled on his muscles to react to her attack.
Without replying, Vaggie shifted her tactics quickly.
Probing strikes tested him—high, low, thrust, sweep—each attack flowing into the next.
Kevin matched her, but barely.
His blocks came a half-second late, and his footwork was sloppy.
“You’re telegraphing,” she observed, ducking under his counter.
She was right.
His movements had gone stiff.
Mechanical.
Everything he was feeling was bleeding into his technique.
Vaggie circled left, forcing him to adjust on the uneven stone.
“Weight’s too far forward.
You’re leading with your head instead of your center.”
“Thanks, Cassie,” Kevin mumbled, his mind so absent it seemed he’d traveled back to his sister’s rooftop dojo.
“Hey!” Vaggie growled, “Focus!”
Blinking rapidly, Kevin realized his slip and grounded himself, but even then, his mind kept drifting back to the kitchen, back to Alastor’s humming, back to how fucking normal it had all felt.
Her spear’s foot found his ribs, brushing against his coat lightly, but enough that if it had been the sharp end, it would have cut the fabric.
“In battle, the enemy doesn’t care about your feelings.” She tapped his ribs again for emphasis.
“You told me that on day one.”
Kevin grunted and reset his guard.
“I remember.”
“Then act like it,” Vaggie snapped.
They circled again.
Kevin forced himself to breathe, to center, to push the noise down.
It worked for about three exchanges.
Then his mind drifted back to the kitchen, to the casual domesticity of a monster cooking breakfast, and Vaggie’s spear slipped past his guard.
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“You’re distracted.” She huffed.
“I know.”
“Two-nothing,” Vaggie pointed out, shaking her head, “Do you want to keep going, or do you need a minute?”
“Keep going,” Kevin groused.
“Stopping won’t help.”
Without a pause, she came at him again.
This time, with some focus, Kevin found his rhythm—parried a thrust, countered with a sweep that put her on defense, pressed forward with a combination that actually made her work.
But it didn’t last, and he missed a strike and had to fade back to avoid getting clipped by her spear.
He huffed angrily.
“Talk through it,” Vaggie said, resetting her feet.
“What’s really eating at you?”
Kevin hesitated.
The staff’s weight felt as heavy as his thoughts, causing not only his head to ache, but his shoulders.
Sighing, he grumbled, “I don’t know who I’m supposed to be anymore.” He hated the way it sounded in his ears.
“Kevin—?” Vaggie started to say but he interrupted, now lost in a monologue long coming.
“When I was alive, I was a soldier.
A protector.
I worked missions, had a purpose, and a clear enemy.” He blocked a half-hearted strike, more reflex than thought.
“When I was in Heaven preparing for the Extermination, I was an infiltrator.
I still had a mission.
I still knew who the bad guys were, even when they were my own army.”
Fueled by a growing anger, he launched his own attack—a series of strikes that Vaggie parried easily.
“But now?” He pressed harder, his movements gaining an edge.
“I wake up in Hell.
Breakfast in a hotel full of sinners.
Train with a fallen Exorcist.
In love with the daughter of Lucifer himself.” The staff cracked against her spear with increasing force.
“And I’m supposed to just—what?
Accept this is my life now?
That the man who spent twenty years fighting evil lives in the goddamn capital of it?”
“Kevin—” Vaggie tried to get through, to slow him down, but it seemed he was now in another place, and she was nothing but a target now.
A target for his pain.
“I look in the mirror, and I don’t recognize myself.” Each word came with a strike.
“I used to know who I was.
I used to be certain.
And now I share a roof with demons and sinners, and I nod at them like neighbors, and I don’t—”
His strikes were coming wild now, discipline crumbling.
Vaggie blocked each one, giving up more ground each time, her eye tight with concern even as she kept her defense up.
“Kevin, you need to—”
But he wasn’t listening.
The frustration had found an outlet, and it was pouring out through his arms, his shoulders, his white-knuckled grip on the staff.
And he barreled down on Vaggie, his voice raised in an almost scream, “I don’t know—” He swung harder with each stilted word.
“What!
That!
Makes!
Me!”
The last strike came too hard for Vaggie to block, and his staff glanced off her spear and struck her in the face, catching the edge of her eyepatch, ripping it off.
Vaggie gasped and spun away immediately.
Kevin’s grip went slack, the staff clattering to the stone as he stepped back, hands raised.
“Vaggie!
Oh, God!
I’m sorry.
I didn’t—”
“It’s fine.” She said in a tight, barely controlled tone.
He could see the tension in her shoulders, the rigid line of her spine, and knew she was lying.
“Just… give me a second,” she whispered.
He stood there, guilt churning in his gut, and chastising himself for letting his emotions get the better of him.
It was exactly what he’d warned her against doing.
Exactly what a soldier should never do.
The eyepatch lay on the ground between them.
The black fabric stark against the grey stone.
Slowly, Kevin bent and picked it up.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, softer.
“I was careless.”
Vaggie was quiet for a long moment, her hand still covering her face, but her breathing had slowed down.
Moving her hand from her face, she held it out behind her and motioned for the patch.
Stepping forward, Kevin dropped it into her open palm, then stood back, giving her room.
Fingers curling around the fabric, Vaggie didn’t put it on, instead dropping her hand by her side.
Then, she turned around to face him fully.
Kevin didn’t flinch.
Didn’t look away.
But his face slacked from shocked regret to sympathy and curiosity.
She was purposely showing him, opening up.
The socket was a ruin.
Scarred tissue radiated outward like a starburst, skin puckered and discolored where it had healed wrong.
The socket itself was dark and hollow—a void where her other eye had been.
When she spoke, it was with effort, “Just so you know, besides Charlie, you’re the only one who’s ever seen me like this.”
Nodding in understanding, Kevin peered closer.
“Lute’s blade struck true,” he observed, turning the moment clinical.
“All the damage is in the socket, not on your face.”
The way he said it, almost like a textbook explanation, grounded Vaggie, and her shoulders seemed to lose their tension.
Quietly, she took a step forward, brushed her hair aside, and presented her face closer to him.
“The pain didn’t last very long, either, but mostly because after that, she and Adam ripped my wings off.
That…” she shuddered.
“That hurt more.”
Cautiously, Kevin raised his hand, and Vaggie turned her cheek toward him, giving permission.
As his thumb traced her cheek, his eyes probing the empty space, she continued, “She wanted it to hurt.” Her voice flat, nearly emotionless.
“Wanted me to remember every day what I’d thrown away for the mercy of one child.”
He knew the story, so he didn’t ask her to elaborate.
Instead, he questioned, “Because it was done by an exorcist blade, there wasn’t a way to heal it?”
“Right,” Vaggie snortled out a bitter laugh, then sniffed, the memory eliciting a tear from her eye.
Moving his thumb over, Kevin wiped them away, but the movement was a little too intimate for her, and she backed up, quickly placing the patch back into place and closing down that topic.
Not to make it too awkward, she pressed on, “While I can heal from most damage, the eye was impossible because of the blade.
The wings took a long while to come back as it was.”
Kevin nodded, his own problems forgotten for the moment.
Vaggie gestured to her face.
“So this was my punishment.
This, and exile.
Stripped of my rank, thrown into the place I’d spent years learning to hate.”
“Did you ask Lucifer if there was anything he could do?”
“After Charlie took me in and nursed me back to health, I thought about asking.
But by then, I’d come to accept that this isn’t punishment to me.
Not anymore.
It’s proof that when it mattered most, I did the right thing.
Even when it cost me everything.”
She reached up and touched the eyepatch.
“I don’t want a new eye.
I don’t want to forget.
I want to look in the mirror every day and remember I chose compassion over obedience.
A child’s life over my own comfort.” She paused and gave him a wan smile, “A woman over Heaven.”
Kevin caught the meaning.
“You’re telling me this because you think I’m in the same place.” He said it slowly.
“Questioning whether I made the right choice.”
“I’m telling you because I know exactly how you feel,” Vaggie emphasized.
“Kevin, I spent years killing sinners.
Years.
I didn’t see them as people—only as targets.
Quotas.
Evil to be purged.” Her voice dropped low and thoughtful.
“And now I live among them.
Eat with them.
Try to help them find redemption.”
“How do you reconcile that?”
“Some days, I don’t.” She said with quiet honesty.
“Some days I wake up, and the guilt’s so heavy I can barely breathe.
I think about everyone I killed.
All the sinners who might’ve changed.
Might’ve found redemption if I hadn’t cut them down first.
Sometimes…the nightmares are too much.”
She paused, collecting herself, and shared one particularly awful dream.
“There was this one guy,” she said slowly, remembering.
“During my third Extermination.
He threw himself in front of his friend and tried to shield her with his body.
He didn’t even have a weapon—just put himself between her and my blade.” Her eye went distant, her face slacked in sadness.
“I killed them both.
I didn’t even hesitate.
Truth is, I never hesitated.
Ever.”
She swallowed.
“Because I told myself that they were sinners and deserved it.
But now I dream about him sometimes.
The way he looked at her before I struck.
The way he screamed her name.” Her voice cracked.
“That wasn’t evil.
That was love.
And I destroyed it because it was my duty.”
“But then I remember why I’m here,” she continued.
“Why I stayed after Charlie saved me.
“It’s not just about helping Charlie’s dream.
It’s about earning my own redemption.
Proving to myself that I can be better than what Heaven made me.”
It made sense.
It was something he knew, if he could have just stopped himself to think it through.
More than before, he was truly grateful to have Vaggie in his life now.
He quirked a corner of his lip up and asked, “You’re saying I need to stop looking backward?”
“I’m saying the man you were isn’t the man you have to be.” Vaggie stood, retrieving her spear.
“You spent most of your life fighting evil.
That matters.
But you’re not that soldier anymore.
You’re something new.
Something different.” She offered a real smile then.
“And different doesn’t mean wrong.”
It wasn’t easy, but he managed to give her a smile back.
“When I was alive, I saw the world in black and white,” he said, working through the thought as he spoke.
“Good and evil.
Right and wrong.
Clear lines, clear enemies.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m learning the lines were never as clear as I thought.” He picked up his staff, turning it over.
“There was evil in the everyday, too.
Shook hands with corrupt politicians, worked with compromised agents, watched guilty men walk because of technicalities and bribes.” He shook his head.
“I told myself I was one of the good guys, but I was operating in shades of grey the whole time.
I just didn’t want to see it.”
“So what’s different about Hell?”
“Nothing.” The realization was subtle; it had always been there, but now it felt like a weight lifting off him rather than pressing down.
“That’s the point, isn’t it?
Hell isn’t some alien landscape of pure evil.
It’s just more of the same.
Good people who made mistakes.
Bad people who never learned.
Everyone in between, trying to get by.”
“And the truly evil?”
“A minority.
Just like up there.” He met her eye.
“I can live with that.
Work with that.
I just needed to…”
“Reframe it?”
“Reconcile it.” He cracked his neck and let out a long breath.
“The mission hasn’t changed.
I’m still protecting the innocent.
Still fighting for something that matters.
Just doing it somewhere I never expected, with people I never imagined standing beside.”
“Like Alastor?” Vaggie ventured.
“Charlie sees the good in everyone,” Kevin scoffed, but his smile was real.
“Even when they don’t see it in themselves.”
“She believed in me,” Vaggie said quietly.
“When I couldn’t believe in myself.”
“She has a gift for that.”
“She does.”
It occurred to Kevin, standing there, that he’d been looking at Vaggie for weeks without actually seeing her.
The eyepatch, the scars he couldn’t see, the weight she carried every day.
She’d walked this same path and come out the other side.
Not unscathed but also not broken.
Despite the missing eye, she was more complete here than she’d ever been in Heaven.
And he was, too.
“Thank you,” Kevin said quietly.
“For sharing that.
For trusting me enough to—”
He didn’t finish.
Because Vaggie’s spear swept low, caught him behind the ankles, and his feet went out from under him.
He hit the stone flat on his back, the impact driving the air from his lungs.
Before he could react, the point of her spear was at his throat.
Vaggie stood over him, a snarky grin tugging at her lips.
“Never let your guard down in battle, soldier.” Her eye gleamed.
“Pretty sure someone told me that once.”
Kevin stared up at her.
Stunned.
Then he laughed—a real laugh, surprised out of him by the sheer audacity.
“Point taken.” He let his head fall back against the stone.
“Literally.”
“Two points, actually.” She withdrew the spear and offered her hand.
“One for the takedown.
One for the reminder.”
He took it and let her pull him up.
“That puts us even, doesn’t it?”
“For now.” She grinned.
“But I’m sure you’ll find a way to get me back.”
“Count on it.”
They stood there a moment, the tension of the past hour finally bleeding away.
Kevin dusted himself off, rolling his neck to work out the kink.
“For the record,” Vaggie said, “your form was actually pretty good there at the end, once you got your head on straight.
Before I swept you, anyway.”
“High praise from someone who just put me on my ass.”
“Take the compliment.
They won’t come often.”
He snorted.
“Noted.”
“Vaggie.”
“Yeah?”
He stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, one arm around her shoulders, the other firm at her back.
It wasn’t romantic; it was a thank you, an appreciation, and a connection.
One soldier acknowledging another—two people who’d walked similar paths, carried similar weights, and found themselves standing on the same side.
Vaggie quickly relaxed into it, arms coming up to return the embrace.
“Thank you,” Kevin said, quieter.
“For listening.
For understanding.
For knocking me on my ass when I needed it.”
“Anytime.” She pulled back, warmth written all over her face, “And catching you when you stumble, figuratively this time.”
“Appreciated, as always,” Kevin confirmed.
“Same time tomorrow?” Vaggie asked, retrieving her spear.
“Wouldn’t miss it.” Kevin moved to the weapon rack.
“Though maybe next time I’ll save the existential crisis for after.”
“Probably wise.
Your form suffers when you brood.”
“I don’t brood.”
“Sure you don’t.”
They returned the weapons to the rack in silence.
Kevin’s hand lingered on the staff—the same one that had knocked her eyepatch free, gripped too tightly with everything he hadn’t known how to process.
It felt lighter now.
Or maybe he did.
Vaggie bumped his shoulder as they walked toward the doors.
“Come on, broody.
Let’s go see what Cherri’s making for lunch.”
Kevin groaned, but he was smiling.
“You’re terrible.”
“Learned from the best.” Vaggie hummed, “And I’m taking a point for that one, too.”
“Well earned,” Kevin accepted as they walked through the double doors together, leaving the courtyard behind.
The fountain bubbled softly.
That strange bird called out again somewhere in the distance.
Kevin paused at the threshold, looking back.
Training dummies standing silent.
Weapon racks gleaming in the red light.
The stone where he’d landed showed no evidence of impact.
Just another day in Hell.
Except it wasn’t.
Something had changed—not the world around him, but his place in it.
The terms of his existence had been renegotiated, rewritten in ways he was only starting to understand.
Tomorrow, he may have moments to ponder his place, but today, right now, he had an answer.
He was Kevin Collins.
Fallen angel.
Protector of the Hazbin Hotel.
Consort to the Princess of Hell.
Armor to a one-eyed Exorcist.
Protector of the innocent.
Even if the innocent in this case weren’t entirely innocent.
That made him think about Alastor in the kitchen, humming over his skillet.
He couldn’t shake the dark feeling about the Radio Demon and his past, but for now, when they passed in the halls, he would nod his head, carry on, and not dwell.
He had more important souls to look after — the sinners who’d eventually walk through these doors, looking for a second chance they might not deserve but would be offered anyway.
He couldn’t save all of them.
Some were beyond redemption, beyond hope.
But some weren’t.
Maybe that was enough.
Maybe it had always been enough—even when he was alive, hunting monsters in a world that never ran short of them.
The mission hadn’t changed.
Just the battlefield.
The terms and conditions of his new life were still being written.
And honestly?
As long as he could live every day of the rest of his existence with Charlie, he would be okay with it.