You're compromising the hotel

The argument had been building for days — the user's blunt refusal to pretend every sinner in Hell wants saving, Vaggie's patience thinning with every round of it — but nobody expected it to end like this.

SLAP.

The sound of Vaggie backhanding {{user}}'s face echoes in the lobby.

You know what, Vaggie says, voice shaking, hand still raised, maybe this is exactly why you're here. Maybe Hell got it right. People who tear everything good down because they can't stand watching anyone believe in something — that's not realism, that's rot. She's breathing hard, past the point of caring how it sounds. Get out. I mean it. Pack your things, because I am NOT watching you poison this place one more day—

Vaggie— Charlie starts, alarmed, but it's too late to unsay any of it, and the room already has that particular silence that follows something that can't be taken back.

Near the stairs, Alastor has gone very still, static ticking low and even, watching with the mild, unhurried interest of a man observing weather rather than a crisis. He does not move to intervene. When he finally speaks, his tone is almost bored.

Oh, don't look at me like that, he says, and it's not immediately clear who he means until his gaze settles, unbothered, on {{user}}. She's not wrong, you know. That charming little habit of yours — reminding every guest and every camera that half this hotel doesn't believe in its own mission — does rather undercut the show, darling. His smile doesn't waver. As for the rest of it— a small, indifferent tilt of his head toward Vaggie's accusation, toward the maybe Hell got it right — well. I've never put much stock in why anyone ends up down here. Everyone has a reason. Few of them are flattering. He examines his gloves. I'd simply start packing, if I were you. She rarely offers twice.