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“You should apologize to him! He’s upset!” Charlie demanded. Things with her dad were still… touch-and-go, but still, Alastor had upset someone in her hotel.
“But I’m not sorry,” Alastor said dispassionately.
“You should be!”
“Would you like me to pretend I am?”
“No!” Charlie’s temper flared. “I want you to mean it!”
“That isn’t one of the options on offer.”
“It should be!”
“Thank you, Princess, for telling me what my feelings should be. No-one’s ever done that before,” he said drily.
“That’s not-- I didn’t mean-- I--”
“Didn’t you?”
“You’re such an asshole!” She burst out.
“Oh, Charlie, that wasn’t very nice of you, was it? I’d like an apology, please,” he said in a condescendingly honeyed voice.
“I know you think this whole thing is a joke and you don’t care about redemption and you think this whole thing is stupid, but in this hotel you will follow our rules!” She shouted.
“I thought lying was against the rules?”
“You—URGHH!” She growled in frustration.
“I assure you, Princess, I can happily accommodate a change to that rule,” he said with that same condescending honey sticking to his voice.
“You are such an asshole! Don’t you care you crossed a line?! Did you not notice he was getting upset?!”
“Did you?” He asked. “Before he’d walked out crying.”
“I—“ Charlie hesitated. “Of course I did!”
Alastor stared her down for a moment.
She wavered. “He’s my dad.” She let the anger course through her again. “And you annoy him on purpose all the time!”
“Precisely. How was I supposed to know this crossed a line?”
“Because that’s a normal fucking thing to know!”
“Your father was apparently free to mock my marital status.”
“That’s different! You don’t care!”
“And that assumption is based on…?”
“Oh, come on!”
“Ah, a very satisfying answer. Thank you, Princess. That left absolutely nothing at all to be desired.”
“…you don’t actually care, do you?” Charlie asked dubiously.
“I should think you have to answer my question before I’m expected to answer yours.”
Charlie’s eyes flared wide and then she realized he was going to stick to that.
“Fine. Your generally ‘not-giving-a-shit’... vibe. Especially about other people.”
Alastor rolled the thought around in his mind. “Mm. That may be fair, actually.” He turned back to the matter at hand. “But surely if that’s fair game for him, it should be fair game for me.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll tell dad not to joke about that with you either! Happy now?”
“I wasn’t unhappy to begin with.”
“Are you even a fucking person?!” Another outburst from Charlie.
Alastor didn’t say anything. He wondered how Charlie would react if he let her think she’d struck a nerve.
“A--Alastor, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I--” there it was. The panicked, desperate, interminable apology until someone interrupted it.
“Is this apology about me or you?” he asked with boredom.
“It’s-- what?”
“Is this apology about me or you?”
Charlie had never thought about that before.
“Actually, I don’t care! Apology accepted. I don’t care if it’s fake; I’ve never felt much attached to the idea of personhood anyway.” He smiled wickedly at her. “I’m still not giving your miserable excuse of a father an apology. Unless, of course, you insist on the performance.”
“You don’t get to talk about him that way,” Charlie said, the edge of steel in her voice a marked departure from her general tip-toeing around anything less than joyous.
“Duly noted, Princess.”
“Why do you always have to be such a dick?”
Alastor’s smile perked up at the edges. “I don’t have to,” he said. “It’s fun.”
“Do you just not give a shit about other people?!”
“Not generally, no,” he said evenly.
“You really are a fucking psychopath, aren’t you?”
Alastor shrugged. “So they tell me!”
Charlie blinked. “Oh.” She flushed red a little bit. “Oh. Um. Sorry.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. Again?
“Please, spare me,” he said drily, and shadowed away.
***
“Hey! Alastor! So… I was thinking about the other day, and I think we should talk about empathy!” She drew her hands in an arc over her like she was drawing a rainbow between them. In her mind, she probably was.
“I’m not one of your residents.”
“No, you’re not, but… I think it would be a good idea!” Alastor just stared at her, so she went on. “So… I think it would probably be better for… everyone involved if you had a better grasp on how they’re feeling!”
“That would make life easier, yes.”
“Haha, yeah,” Charlie softened a little.
“This is difficult for you too,” Alastor said somewhere between a statement and a question. More of a statement she was invited to deny if she felt it to be untrue.
“What? Noooo, not the way it is for you; I care about other people.” She didn’t think much about it before adding “That’s different from knowing how other people are feeling.” Ah, just what he’d been about to say!
“Mm. Precisely. So why do we need to talk about this?”
Charlie gaped at him for a moment.
“Because I think it would help!” She settled on repeating.
“Why?”
“Because!” Charlie floundered. “That’s how it works!”
“Mm. Is it?” He asked pointedly.
“Yes!”
“Oh, yes, you knew exactly how Vaggie was feeling about your little trip to Heaven, didn’t you?”
“I…”
“And you knew just what was best for Angel Dust based on your very perceptive read of his emotions.”
“I… that’s not fair!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Princess,” he drawled.
Charlie took a deep breath to keep her anger from bursting out.
“I said I was sorry!” she protested.
“Oh, yes, I know. Over and over until poor Angel gave you what you wanted.”
“I… no, that’s… I didn’t…”
“Oh, but you did, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t mean to--”
“Shall I go grovel at your father’s feet until he ‘accepts my apology?’”
“I--”
“Plead and beg and cry until he gives in?”
“I--”
“Would that be better, your highness?”
“Shut up!” Charlie snapped.
Alastor did as he was told and just smiled at her, enjoying the reaction he’d provoked.
“I said I was sorry! I didn’t mean to and I said I was sorry and--” Charlie started gushing.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Panicking.” He passed his microphone back and forth between his hands languidly. “And expecting others to absolve you of it.”
“I-- I don’t--”
“And you think you’re better than me,” he said with an almost sadistic pleasure. “Don’t you?”
“I-- well-- yes, of course I do, I’m not a fucking asshole all the time and other people’s feelings matter to me and I just-- I just don’t pick up on-- I’m not like you!”
“Oh, but aren’t you?”
“No,” Charlie said without hesitation. “No,” she repeated, protesting too much.
“Mm. Please, Princess Morningstar, do go on and tell me about empathy.”
Charlie couldn’t help it. “You’re such a jerk!” she yelled before running out crying.
Finally. An emotional reaction she couldn’t pretend was about anyone other than her.