Chapter Text
Vincent stood in front of his demise.
Specifically, the Hazbin Hotel. An arm's length away. Real. Tangible. Aggressively red in a way that felt like a personal attack.
He had been standing here for four minutes.
Not because he was scared. Obviously. He was Vox. He was the Media Overlord. He had just come off a meeting with Carmilla that was essentially two hours of numbers and polite threats dressed up as business strategy, which ended with a 60/40 split in his favor because he was, at his core, a capitalist, and also because he was a little bit scared of her. He would not be elaborating on that.
The point was: he was here. He had shown up. Voluntarily. To a hotel in Hell run by the Devil's daughter on the basis of a deal he had mostly sung at her.
He was a very normal person making very normal choices.
[The System notes the User has been standing on the front step for 4 minutes and 13 seconds]
He was taking in the ambiance.
[The System does not believe this]
He knocked.
The door opened approximately three inches. One large eye appeared in the gap. The door shut again.
"Nope," said a muffled voice from behind it.
Vincent stared at the door.
He stared at it for what felt like a very long time.
"...Hello?" He tried again, because apparently this was his life now.
"We're not interested."
"In what."
"Whatever you're selling."
"I'm not—" He stopped. Breathed through what he was fairly sure was a developing migraine, which was impressive considering he technically didn't have a brain anymore. He squared his shoulders. He manifested his inner Vox, which was to say, the specific brand of confidence that bordered on clinical delusion and somehow worked anyway. "I am not selling anything, darling. I'm here on business.
Specifically, the business of being your benefactor."
Silence.
Then: "Charlie!" The muffled voice called somewhere further inside. "CHARLIE THERE'S A—"
"A WHAT?"
"A VOX."
A longer silence this time which was a bit stiffling. He was just awkwardly standing at the front entrance, which was not allowed for his image. The hotel was at least in the middle of nowhere in Hell so there were fewer people to witness this, which was the only mercy currently being extended to him.
Then the door swung open, and Charlie Morningstar appeared in the frame looking like a woman who had just been informed of an audit she didn't know she was scheduled for. Which is true with him coming unannounced.
"Mr. Vox!" she said, with the energy of someone who had absolutely not expected this and was going to smile through it on the strength of pure optimism alone. "You're — here. At the hotel. In person."
"Surprisingly, yes." He gestured mildly at himself. "In the flesh. Metaphorically."
"I just thought — I mean, of course, obviously, we have a — yeah." She blinked. Rallied. "Come in."
She stepped aside. He walked in.
[Quest: Check on your investment. Progress: 10%]
He looked around.
Okay, so. The hotel. In person.
It was... fine. It was genuinely fine in the way that things are fine when you have absolutely no grounds to criticize them and are annoyed by that fact. The ceilings were high. The aesthetic was chaotic but committed to itself. Somebody had clearly put real effort into the décor, which he could respect even if he personally found it hideous . It smelled like someone had made a genuine effort at air freshener, which he respected professionally, he had a monopoly on the hell air freshener market and it was, quietly, his most profitable product line. Nobody ever talked about it. He found that funny. Hell's entire economy ran on suffering and impulse purchases, and he had cornered the market on making it smell slightly less like burning.
"Lovely place," he said, with the neutral tone of a man who had opinions and was actively choosing not to voice them. "Very... cozy."
"Thanks!" Charlie's face lit up immediately, which was almost painful to look at. "We're still working on a few things but we think—"
"Mr. Vox."
He turned.
Vaggie stood at the foot of the stairs. Arms crossed. One eye. All of it aimed at him. The spear wasn't out, which he was choosing to count as a warm welcome.
[The System thinks the User is delusional]
"Vaggie," Charlie said, in the specific tone of someone attempting subtlety while standing directly in front of the thing they're being subtle about.
"He's Vox," Vaggie said. Like that was the whole sentence. Like that was sufficient.
Which granted, it was. He is the Vox. He just thinks she could have put a little more effort into the delivery.
[The System says the User is once again in a narcissistic streak]
He was simply observing.
"He's also our—" Charlie glanced at him. "—business associate."
"Mhm." Vaggie's eye did not move from him. "Sure."
Vincent smiled pleasantly. He had been on the receiving end of Carmilla's gaze, which carried the distinct energy of someone calculating how many pieces he could be rearranged into and whether the math was worth it. He had survived that. What he honestly did not understand was why she seemed to hold such a specific grudge against him in particular like seriously even Valentino of all people didn't even get that level of targeted hostility, and Valentino had done genuinely terrible things in plain sight. It was frankly unfair. But he digressed.
The point was: Vaggie was not a threat. Vaggie was, in fact, an opportunity.
He filed that away and kept smiling.
He excused himself from the entrance hall on the grounds of wanting to "look around," which was both true and a lie, and went to scope the place out properly.
The bar was occupied by Husk, who looked as if a cat and a gargoyle had an argument and the argument won. He was wiping glasses with the focused energy of someone who was deeply, personally not getting paid enough for whatever this was. Which he probably wasn't, all things considered.
Vincent leaned against the bar.
"Nice place," he said.
Husk looked at him. Did not say anything.
"So," Vincent said, because he had come here with a purpose and he was going to see it through. "Is Alastor around?"
Husk put down the glass. Picked up another one. Began wiping it with precisely the same energy as before.
"Wow," he said. Dry as the Sahara. "Bet you wanna know that."
Vincent blinked.
"...Is that a yes or a no?"
"What do you think?"
"I think," Vincent said slowly, "that you're enjoying this more than is strictly necessary."
"I think," Husk said, in the tone of someone who had been tending a bar in Hell for long enough to have lost all patience for the concept of nonsense, "that you walked into a rehabilitation hotel to ask me where the Radio Demon is. And I'm just a bartender." He set the glass down. Picked up another one. "Figure it out yourself, TV head."
Vincent stared at him.
[The System finds this interaction amusing]
‘WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON’.
[The System does not take sides]
He stood up straight, adjusted his jacket with great dignity, and went to find Charlie.
He found her in the main hall, in conversation with Vaggie, both of them stopping the moment he appeared in a way that was either suspicious or just a natural response to being approached by Vox, which was arguably the same thing.
"Quick question," he said, deploying his most reasonable voice. "Alastor — is he in?"
Charlie and Vaggie exchanged a look that contained a small but complete conversation.
"He's, um." Charlie glanced toward the upper floor, then back. "Out? I think? He mentioned — actually, I'm not totally sure what he mentioned, it was kind of vague—"
"He left this morning," Vaggie said. Her voice was flat. The specific flatness of someone who had a lot of feelings about a topic and had made a firm executive decision not to have them out loud. Never say that his psych major was wasted on nothing HAH I told you mom!
"Didn't say where."
"Doesn't he ever?" Vincent asked, mildly curious.
Something tightened around Vaggie's eye. Subtle. If he hadn't been watching for it, he might have missed it.
"No," she said. "He doesn't."
A beat. She definitely dragged that out.
"Who knows where that guy goes," she added, and the sentence was casual, perfectly casual, except for the current running underneath it. The specific current of someone who had asked that question privately, more than once, and not loved the shape of the answers she'd come up with on her own.
Vincent looked at her.
She looked back.
He filed that away too.
[The System observes the User is scheming]
He was simply paying attention. Those were different things.
"Right," he said easily. "Well. No matter."
Charlie was already moving on, the anxiety of the previous moment metabolized into forward momentum the way it always seemed to be with her — like she ran on a fuel source that converted worry directly into action. "Did you want a tour? We've actually made a lot of progress since—"
"That would be lovely," he said.
The tour lasted longer than he expected.
This was Charlie's fault entirely.
Not because she was slow but she moved through the hotel with the energy of someone who had personally renovated every inch of it and wanted credit for every square foot of that, but because she talked. A lot. In the specific way of someone who had rehearsed this tour in their head approximately forty times and was very excited to finally be giving it to someone who had not immediately walked back out the door.
He listened to about forty percent of it. Genuinely. Which was, all things considered, generous of him and he would like that noted.
"And this is the common room!" Charlie said, gesturing with the enthusiasm of someone unveiling a completed masterpiece. "We repainted it last week. The original color was kind of, um, ominous, so we went with something warmer—"
It was, he noted, an extremely “warm” room.
The previous color had allegedly been ominous. He chose to believe her because the alternative was imagining what color was worse than this and he did not want to do that.
"Lovely," he said.
"And we're adding more seating! Because we're expecting more residents soon, so—" She stopped. Her face did something complicated. Then it un-did the complicated thing and returned to optimistic.
"We're growing. Slowly. But we're growing."
"Mmm." He looked around the common room.
There was, at present, one sinner in the common room. He was sitting in the corner with the posture of someone waiting for a moment when nobody was looking at them. His eyes kept traveling to the lamp in the corner. Then to the exit. Then back to the lamp.
"Oh!" Charlie said, following his gaze and brightening considerably. "That's Gerald. He came in this morning. I think he's really considering staying."
"Is he," Vincent said.
"He seemed really interested in the space. He kept looking at everything very carefully."
"He did."
"I think he's just taking it all in. Processing, you know? It's a big decision."
"Absolutely." Vincent watched Gerald look at the lamp. Look at the exit. Look at the lamp. Conduct an extremely thorough visual measurement of whether the lamp would fit through the exit. "Taking it all in."
[The System finds this funny]
‘Yeah okay it's a little funny.’
He kept walking.
This was where things got interesting.
There was a sinner leaning against the wall just outside the staircase with her arms crossed, doing an impression of someone casually hanging around that was, to be generous, not very convincing.
"Oh, hi!" Charlie said warmly. "Are you settling in okay? Do you need anything?"
"Yeah, actually." The sinner straightened, pivoting toward Charlie with a smile that was doing a lot of work. "I was just wondering, sooooo Angel Dust lives here, right?"
Charlie's face lit up like someone had flipped a switch. "He does! He's one of our first residents, we're so proud of how far he's—"
"That's great, that's so great," the sinner said, nodding along with the energy of someone who had stopped listening approximately four words in. "So like, which room is his? Just so I know. For, um." A pause. A very long pause in which she was clearly generating a reason. "Community reasons."
"Oh, it's on the second floor! Room—"
"Charlie," Vincent said.
She turned.
He looked at her. Then at the sinner. Then back at her, with the specific patience of a man who has all day and is waiting for a very obvious light to turn on.
Charlie looked at the sinner.
The sinner smiled wider. Wider was not helping her case.
Charlie's smile flickered. "...Why do you ask?"
"I just think it would be really nice to, um." The sinner's eyes slid briefly toward the ceiling, which was not where the reason was. "Welcome him. Personally. As a neighbor."
"He has a welcome basket already," Charlie said, a little more carefully now. "From us. So you don't really need to—"
"No, no, I mean like a personal welcome. Like I'd bring something. Of my own." Another pause. "From my collection. Which is in my room. Which is hopefully right next to his."
Vincent watched Charlie process this in real time.
It was, honestly, a little fascinating. Like watching someone do a puzzle and keep going 'no this piece definitely fits here' about a piece that very clearly did not fit there. Charlie was smart, he knew she was smart but she was also the kind of person who had made a fundamental decision about people and was going to honor that decision through sheer force of will until reality physically stopped her.
Bless her heart, as his mother would say.
"You know," Vincent said pleasantly, to no one in particular, "I do think the community bulletin board would be a lovely place for residents to post any, ah, personal welcoming notes. Rather than door to door visits."
The sinner looked at him.
Recognized him.
And then did the thing that sinners in the Pride Ring did when they recognized Vox, which was to immediately reassess every decision that had led them to this moment and start making better ones.
She left. Quickly. Without saying goodbye.
Charlie watched her go. "...Hm."
"Lovely enthusiasm," Vincent said. "Very community-minded."
[The System notes the User is enjoying himself]
The dining room was its own thing entirely.
There was a sinner in it who was on his phone, having what appeared to be a very engaged conversation via text, and who stopped the moment they walked in with the speed of someone who had just been caught doing exactly what they were doing.
He looked at Charlie. Looked at Vincent. Looked back at Charlie.
"Just — talking to myself," he said. "Habit."
"That's completely okay!" Charlie said warmly. "Self-dialogue can actually be a really healthy coping mechanism, we actually have a whole workshop on—"
"Right, yeah." The sinner's eyes slid back to Vincent in the way eyes slide to things they are actively trying not to look at. "Is he staying long."
Which was rude.
"Mr. Vox is our business associate," Charlie said, with the air of someone who had decided on a framing and was committing. "He's just visiting."
"Right." The sinner looked at Vincent one more time. Made a decision about something. "Cool. Cool cool cool. I'll just—" He stood up, pocketing his phone. "Come back later."
He left.
Charlie looked at his empty chair. Then at Vincent. "I think you might be a little intimidating," she said, with the careful tone she had wanted to say since a few minutes ago and then decided to finally just say it.
"Probably," Vincent agreed.
He did not mention that he had clocked the phone screen in the three seconds he'd been standing in the doorway.
He did not mention that the sinner had been mid-text to someone saved as Big D, asking where "the spider keeps his good stuff" and whether it was "worth the hassle."
Truly none of his business. Not his hotel, not his spider, not his problem.
[The System hums]
"So," Charlie said, as they came back into the main corridor, her voice going warm in the way it did when she was building up to something she cared about. "What do you think? Of the hotel?"
He thought: the lamp is gone within forty eight hours, Gerald has been planning this since this morning.
He thought: someone is actively trying to rob Angel Dust and at least one person has already escalated it to a Big D, whoever that is, which is frankly a concerning name for someone to be consulting.
He thought: there are at least three people in this building who are not here for rehabilitation and Charlie has looked directly at every single one of them and come up with a different reason each time and every reason has been more generous than the last and she has not once — not once — landed on the obvious conclusion, because she has made a decision about people and she is honoring it and she is going to keep honoring it until something makes her physically stop.
It was going to get her into trouble, so he told his “honest” opinion.
"I think," he said, "that you have a very genuine vision."
Charlie beamed.
"And," he added, because he could not fully help it, "I think your vetting process could use some work."
"Oh, we're working on that!" Charlie said, in the tone of someone for whom this was solidly in the bottom half of the priority list. "We're still figuring out the best way to—"
"Mmm." He nodded. "In the meantime. Angel's room number. Off the welcome board."
Charlie opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Looked down the hallway.
"...Hm," she said, for the second time that afternoon, in a slightly different key.
"Just a thought," Vincent said pleasantly.
[The System observes the User is experiencing something he has not categorized]
He was not experiencing anything. He was protecting his investment. The hotel needed to remain structurally functional for the deal to mean anything and that meant he had a vested interest in it not getting looted by its own residents, which was a completely practical and businesslike concern and had nothing to do with anything else whatsoever.
[The System remains observational]
[The System is really milking this]
He kept walking.
Angel Dust materialized from a side hallway with the energy of someone who had been waiting for an excuse to make an entrance. He looked Vincent up and down with the practiced appraising eye of someone whose entire career had been built on reading rooms.
"Huh," Angel said. "You actually came."
"I did, yes."
"Bold move." Angel tilted his head. "What, you don't have lackeys for this?"
"I like to be hands-on sometimes."
"Uh huh." The assessment continued. And then he could see it, the small change, the professional reflex kicking in under the attitude. Angel's posture shifted into something performatively casual when someone is being careful. Not quite servile. Angel was too much of a smartass for that. But aware. "So what's the deal, you here to check on your little investment or whatever?"
"Something like that." He let his gaze travel the room, then back. "How are you settling in?"
Angel blinked. Then blinked again. Like that hadn't been the expected question. "...Fine?"
"Good." He kept his tone easy. Conversational. "Val giving you trouble?"
Something moved across Angel's face. Too fast, layered over immediately with a grin that was doing a lot of heavy lifting. "When isn't he?"
"Mmm." He let that sit for exactly one beat. Then, lightly, like it wasn't a thing: "You know, I've been meaning to review some of the contractual frameworks VoxTek operates under. Interesting what turns up when you look carefully at the fine print."
Angel stared at him.
Vincent smiled.
He said nothing else. He didn't need to.
[Relationship: Angel Dust. Influence +5 pts]
Charlie had clearly been following along with approximately half her attention. He could see the moment the implication arrived, watching it travel across her face in real time.
"Wait, so you're technically — you're kind of Angel's — "
"Employer is a very strong word," he said pleasantly, watching her parse it. "My associate manages his contract. I'm merely..." He made a gesture. The kind of gesture that contained an entire sentence without committing to any specific words in it. "Adjacent."
Charlie looked at Angel.
Angel looked at the ceiling.
Charlie looked back at Vincent with the expression of someone whose optimism was actively fighting a losing battle with observable reality and refusing to accept the score.
"...Okay," she said, very carefully.
"She's taking that well," he thought.
[The System notes the User seems pleased]
Oh for the love of— Is there a mute button he can buy?
"Oh!" Charlie said suddenly, "Actually, since you're here. Do you want to see the kitchen? We just redid it and Sir Pentious has basically adopted it as his personal, well, you'll see."
Vincent had approximately zero interest in the kitchen.
"Love to," he said.
“Great! It’s just—” Charlie glanced over her shoulder as Vaggie called her name from down the hall, voice tight with something that sounded like urgency wrapped in restraint.
“Charlie.”
Charlie winced. “Sorry, one second—Vaggie needs me. But the kitchen’s just through there, left at the end, you can’t miss it! Sir Pentious is probably—well, you’ll see.” She smiled, a little apologetic, a little distracted. “Make yourself at home!”
Vaggie called again, sharper this time.
“Coming!” Charlie turned back to him briefly. “He’ll be fine, right?”
Vincent gave a small, easy shrug. “I can take care of myself.”
Vaggie’s flicked to him, unconvinced, but she didn’t argue. Charlie hesitated for half a second longer, then let herself be pulled away, the two of them disappearing down the opposite corridor in a low-voiced conversation that sounded like it had been waiting to happen.
Vincent watched them go.
Then, without a word, he turned and headed for the kitchen.
He found Pentious in the kitchen.
The man was wearing an apron. He was attempting to fold a napkin. Three Egg Bois sat in a row watching him with the solemn devotion of disciples witnessing a religious rite. The napkin was not cooperating.
"Ah! Mr. Vox!" Pentious straightened so fast he nearly launched one of the Egg Bois off the counter. "I did not expect — that isss — you are HERE. In PERSSON!"
"I am, apparently, doing everything in person today." Vincent pulled out a chair and sat down without being invited, which cost him a great deal of nothing. "How's it going?"
Pentious's enthusiasm curdled into something more complicated. It happened in layers, which was almost interesting to watch.
"It isss going very well!" he said. "Extremely well! Wonderfully, even, I would sssay—" He stopped. The napkin drooped. "Angel Dust doesss not like me."
"Does he like anyone?"
"He likesss the cat."
"Uhuh" He leaned back. "What happened?"
Pentious wilted. The apron made it somehow significantly worse. He had the energy of a defeated Victorian naturalist who had gone out to discover something extraordinary and found mostly disappointment. "He went through my room."
Vincent kept his expression where it was. "Did he."
"Yesss. I think he thought I was — sssspying." He wrung his hands. The Egg Bois, sensing distress, wrung their hands in solidarity. "But I wassn't! I am genuinely trying, Mr. Vox, I ssswear it. I don't entirely know what I'm doing but I am trying very hard to — to figure out the trying." A pause. "He only found my Voxtagram account. Which you follow, sso—"
"Which I follow," Vincent confirmed.
"He sseemed confused by that."
"I imagine he was."
[The System notes the username “ImaTransmigrator” remains a significant security liability]
It was a throwaway account made at 2 AM on a whim. He was not changing it.
[The System strongly disagrees]
It. Stays.
They talked for another ten minutes. Mostly Pentious talking and Vincent making sounds of acknowledgment while running three parallel trains of thought, which was a skill he had developed in Hell and probably said something about his mental state that he was choosing not to examine.
The picture was useful. Angel was suspicious. The hotel's internal dynamics were simmering. Pentious was mostly just one thing at a time. Loud and bad at it and trying anyway with his whole entire chest. And the trying was real in a way that was slightly annoying to be in close proximity to because it had a way of doing something to you if you weren't careful.
He was being careful.
"For what it's worth," he said, which was purely strategic and not any other thing, "the room search means he's paying attention to you. Angel doesn't bother with people he's already written off."
Pentious blinked. "...Is that good?"
"Means you exist to him. In a place like this," Vincent said, "that's somewhere to start from."
Pentious looked at him with those wide, watery eyes and his expression did the thing.
[The System says nothing]
[The System continues to say nothing]
[The System is being very loud about saying nothing]
"What," Vincent said, quietly, mostly to himself.
[The System is simply present]
"You're doing the thing."
[The System does not do things]
"You're absolutely doing the thing," he muttered, stood up, and left before Pentious could say anything else.
He was at the verge of leaving without saying goodbye when he found Vaggie.
He found her in the corridor near the back stairs, holding a clipboard, radiating the energy of someone who had absolutely been following him at a careful distance and was now pretending she hadn't been.
“Following me?” he asked.
“Monitoring,” she said. “There’s a difference.”
She looked at him. He looked at her. She did not answer, which was itself an answer.
Vincent let his gaze drift past her shoulder, down the corridor Charlie and Vaggie had disappeared into earlier.
“The princess,” he said lightly. “Where’d she run off to?”
Vaggie didn’t bite. “Busy.”
“Mhm.” He rocked back on his heels. “Sounded important. You two seemed… a lil heated there huh.”
“We live here,” she said flatly. “We talk.”
“Of course you do.” A beat. His smile didn’t move, but his eyes sharpened just a fraction. “And what exactly did we talk about?”
Vaggie’s grip on the clipboard tightened. “Nothing you need to worry about.”
“Everything in this building is something I need to worry about,” he said pleasantly. “That’s sort of the arrangement.”
“Then worry from a distance.”
He hummed, like he might push it further.
He didn’t, setting it aside. There were more efficient ways to get answers than asking for them directly.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he said.
"Yeah," she said flatly. "Figured."
He looked at her. Really looked, the way he'd learned to look at people in Hell, where the surface was almost never the full story. In his previous life he'd been a journalist, then a streamer, then a man with too many opinions and not enough impulse control. But underneath all of that he had been, at his core, someone who watched people. Noticed the gaps between what they said and what they were.
And Vaggie had gaps.
"Former Exorcist," he said. Conversationally. The way you'd mention the weather.
Vaggie flinched, almost dropping the clipboard she was holding.
"Don't know what you're talking about," she said.
"Mmm." He tilted his head. "I deal in information. Media, data, old footage. You'd be surprised what turns up when you go looking." He let that sit. "The Exorcists have a very distinctive fighting style. Very recognizable, once you know what to look for."
‘And the fact that it’s so obvious it hurts’
The silence was brewing.
"What do you want," Vaggie said. Flat. No longer a question.
"Nothing dramatic." He waved a hand. "I'm not interested in outing you. Messy. I don't do messy." He paused.
"But I think," he continued, "that we might want the same things. Broadly."
"I doubt that."
"You want to protect Charlie." He watched her jaw tighten. Right on cue, almost. "I want the hotel standing when the extermination comes. Different reasons. Same endpoint." He held her gaze. "And I think there are people in this building you're not entirely sure you can trust."
"Like you," she said.
"Yes," he said simply. "Like me. You're smart. Keep doing that." A beat.
.
.
.
.
"But also like Alastor."
.
.
.
She didn't answer.
Which was the loudest possible answer she could have given.
He let the silence do its work before he kept going.
"He made a deal with Charlie," Vincent said, keeping his voice even. The voice of someone sharing information rather than pushing a narrative, which was the exact voice you used when you were pushing a narrative. "You know that already. You also know he doesn't do anything without a reason and his reasons have never, not once, in the entire history of his existence, been primarily about anyone other than himself." A pause. "Whatever he told her it was for. That's not the whole story. It never is with him."
Vaggie's grip on the clipboard tightened .
"I've known him a long time," he said. "Longer than you have. And once—" He let the sentence open up, just a fraction. Just enough. "Once, I thought that meant something. I thought we were—" He stopped. Smiled, brief and wry and entirely controlled. "Well. I was wrong about what that was. People who smile like that don't have friends. They have pieces they haven't moved yet."
Vaggie was very still.
"I'm not asking you to trust me," he said. "That would be stupid of both of us and I think we both know it. I'm asking you to watch him. That's it. Just pay attention." His smile was warm and perfectly assembled. "You were already going to do that anyway."
She stared at him for a long moment.
"If you're running an angle—"
"I'm always running an angle," he said pleasantly. "So is everyone else in this building. I'm just the only one saying it out loud."
He left her there.
[Relationship: Vaggie. Influence +15 pts] [Side Quest: Plant seeds of mistrust. Progress: 60%]
Right. Good. That was—that was good. That was a productive visit, he had planted things, gathered things, nudged things in directions that were useful. The hotel was still standing, Angel had a door left open, Vaggie had a seed in soil that was already tilled by her own doubts. Charlie's deal was intact. Everything was fine and functional and proceeding according to a plan that technically existed even if it was mostly held together by spite and improvisation.
He was heading toward the front door.
"Oh, Mr. Vox—!"
He closed his eyes for exactly one second.
He turned around.
Charlie was coming down the hallway toward him with the expression of someone who had just remembered something important and was hoping very much that he hadn't left yet. "I just wanted to say — thank you. For actually coming. And for the, um, the lamp thing, and Angel's room number. I know that's probably not really your—" She stopped. Fidgeted. "I just. Thank you."
He opened his mouth to say something smooth and deflective and perfectly in character.
Static. The door opened.
"My, my."
The voice arrived before anything else did ; warm, rich like those you hear in an ASMR.
"I wasn't made aware we were expecting company."
Alastor stepped inside in the middle of the hotel lobby like he had been there the whole time and the room had simply failed to notice. Smiling. The smile. That specific, particular, eat-shit smile that had been making Vincent's screen flicker with secondhand Vox instinct every single time he encountered it.
His gaze found Vincent immediately.
"Charlie," he said warmly, without looking away. "You might have mentioned."
"Oh! Alastor, you're back!" Charlie said, brightening, and then immediately doing the anxious back-and-forth look between the two of them that suggested she had just remembered that she had in fact not mentioned this. "Um. Mr. Vox was just — he was visiting, we did a tour, it was really—"
"How wonderful," Alastor said.
"It was," Vincent said.
"And were you just leaving?" Alastor asked, with the pleasant attentiveness of someone asking a question they already knew the answer to and were simply curious about what answer they'd be given.
The Radio Demon was apparently, as of right now, back and he is definitely not panicking.
[The System notes the User's electrical output is currently stable]
It was. New upgrade. He was fine. He was perfectly, completely fine. He was not thinking about the single-use immunity-bypassing hypnotic override sitting in his inventory like a grenade he hadn't decided what to do with yet.
[The System notes the User is thinking about exactly that]
He was NOT—
He was a LITTLE—
That was DIFFERENT.
Vincent stopped walking.
"Alastor," he said.
"Vox." Alastor tilted his head, slow and profoundly irritating. "I didn't expect to see you here. In person, no less." A beat, warm as a knife. "How bold of you."
"Just checking in on my investment," Vincent said. Pleasantly. Normally. Like a normal person.
"Mmm." Alastor's gaze moved around the lobby with the unhurried interest of someone taking inventory. "And here I thought you had people for that."
"I like to be hands-on."
"You never used to."
The sentence seemed to be saying something, Vincent kept his expression where it was. Partly because he has no idea what he is supposed to feel so he did what he did best and improvised.
"People change," he said.
"Do they." Not a question. Alastor's smile widened by a fraction, which was somehow worse than if it had widened by a lot. "How fascinating."
They looked at each other across the lobby of the Hazbin Hotel, and Vincent thought, not for the first time and probably not for the last: I watched this man get defeated by a teenage girl and a sad dad in a Season Two finale that ruined a lot of people's weeks, including mine. I wrote a review about it. That review is why I am here.
That was the funniest thing that had ever happened to him.
It was significantly less funny in person.
[The System advises the User to say something before this becomes weird]
It was already weird.
[The System amends: weirder]
"Well," Vincent said finally. His smile was just as wide and just as carefully assembled as Alastor's, which was either impressive or a cry for help and possibly both. "Lovely running into you."
"Indeed," Alastor said, with the warmth of a man who meant the opposite of that. "Do visit again."
Vincent turned and walked toward the exit at a perfectly normal pace.
“Wait, Mr. Vox—” He can hear Charlie’s voice yelling to him which caused him to pace faster.
[Quest: Check on your investment. Completed. +50 pts] [Side Quest: Plant seeds of mistrust. Completed. +40 pts] [Achievement Unlocked: Looked the Radio Demon in the eye without shorting out]
[The System is proud of the User]
He stepped outside into the ash-grey Hell air. He stood on the front step. He took a breath that tasted like sulfur and someone's bad decisions, which was on brand for the neighborhood.
He stood there for a moment and then started walking back toward V Tower, hands in his pockets, face doing its best impression of a man who was not doing any kind of processing at all.
He was fine.
He was absolutely fine.
[The System reminds the User that Plot Armor is single use]
He walked faster.