Chapter Text
The idea came from Velvette, which already put Vox in a bad mood.
She was kicked back in one of the chairs in his office, legs over the armrest, scrolling through her phone like she owned the place. Which, in fairness, she acted like everywhere.
"The hotel is doing some big community outreach thing," she said. "Open doors, free food, local vendors, cute little family angle. Total princess crap. You show up with cameras, donate something expensive, smile for ten minutes, and suddenly everybody online remembers you have a public image."
Vox tapped a claw against his desk and watched numbers crawl across the bottom of his screen.
Hazbin Hotel was trending again.
Not for a fire. Not for a scandal. Not for anything useful.
Just Charlie Morningstar smiling at people and making Hell act like it had a heart for five whole minutes at a time. The clips were getting passed around like candy. Charlie waving at strangers. Charlie helping hellborn kids hang decorations. Charlie talking about "community" like the word meant something down here.
It was stupid.
It was also getting attention.
And Vox hated anything in Hell getting attention that wasn't his.
"Fine," he said. "I show up, we get the footage, I look generous, I leave."
Velvette grinned. "Knew you'd get it."
"I always get it."
"Sure you do. Try not to look homicidal for the family shots."
He waved her out before she could say anything else.
He really had planned to be in and out.
Then Charlie opened the door herself.
She lit up the second she saw him, and it was so immediate and so real it almost threw him off his rhythm.
"Vox! You actually came!"
She hurried down the front steps before anybody could stop her and caught one of his hands in both of hers. Like they were old friends. Like this wasn't weird.
Her hands were warm.
He hated noticing that.
"I wasn't sure which VoxTek address to send the invite to," Charlie said, talking fast in that bright, happy way she had. "So I sent it to six of them. Maybe seven. One might've gone to legal by accident, which, sorry, but you're here, so it worked out."
"Thrilling," Vox said smoothly. "I figured your little event could use a proper sponsor."
Her smile didn't drop even a little. "That was really nice of you."
It wasn't. It was strategy. But saying that to Charlie felt weirdly useless, so he let it go.
"And I made you a nametag," she added.
She held it up.
It said VOX in giant pink bubble letters.
There was a little blue lightning bolt beside his name. And, for some reason, a smiley face in the corner.
He stared at it.
"No."
Charlie looked offended. "It has your branding on it."
"I can see that."
"I thought you'd like the lightning bolt."
Before he could stop her, she stuck it neatly to his lapel.
One of his cameras caught the whole thing.
Taking it off now would make him look petty. He was not going to hand the internet that kind of gift.
So the nametag stayed.
The hotel was busier than he'd expected.
There were folding tables against the walls, strings of warm lights overhead, crooked little handmade signs, way too many baked goods, and enough glitter in the air to count as a health hazard. A local bakery had a cupcake table. Somebody was selling little handmade charms. Angel Dust was running a knitting booth for reasons Vox did not want explained. Husk sat beside him with the look of a man who had accepted his fate and hated all of it.
Niffty blew past with a tray of cookies and a streak of glitter across one cheek.
There were hellborn families everywhere. Tiny imps in nice clothes. A hellhound kid trying to climb onto a chair twice her size. A pair of baphomet twins in matching bows.
Charlie had somehow turned the hotel into something that felt... normal.
Not normal for Hell.
Just normal.
Warm. Busy. Lived in.
He didn't like that either.
A small imp stopped in front of him, looked up at his face, and announced, "You're a TV."
Vox gave him a bright, empty smile. "Excellent work. Top marks."
The kid gasped and ran off yelling, "Mom, the TV talks!"
For the first ten minutes, everything went exactly how it was supposed to.
Vox stood by the donation banner. He posed with the oversized check. He gave a polished little quote about community investment and the future of Hell and other meaningless garbage that played very well on camera.
Charlie stood beside him through all of it, smiling like she believed he was being sincere.
That was the part that got under his skin.
Not because she was stupid. Charlie wasn't stupid. Naive sometimes, maybe. Too hopeful by half, definitely. But she wasn't stupid.
She knew exactly why he was there.
And she was still glad he'd come.
He was fixing his smile for another close shot when Charlie appeared at his elbow holding a clipboard.
"Okay," she said. "Tiny problem."
"No."
"You don't even know what it is."
"I know enough."
Her mouth twitched. "The face painter canceled."
He looked at her. "And?"
"And there is a table full of paint, a line of kids, and nobody running it."
"Devastating."
Charlie tipped her head toward the far wall.
There it was. Cheap paint trays. Little mirrors. Cups of water. Brushes. Six kids already waiting with the kind of quiet patience that always meant trouble.
Vox looked back at her. "Absolutely not."
"You'd be really good at it."
That made him bark out a laugh. "Based on what?"
"You have a good eye," she said simply. "Your whole thing is visuals. Branding. Design. You notice details."
"My whole thing is not painting butterflies on children."
"You don't have to do butterflies."
Charlie shifted the clipboard against her chest. Her smile softened, just a little.
"I know you came for PR," she said quietly. "I'm not oblivious, Vox."
His screen gave a faint flicker of static.
"But if you help for fifteen minutes, it'll make a bunch of kids really happy. And selfishly, yes, it will also make the footage adorable. So. Engagement."
There it was. No fake innocence. No act. Just Charlie being weirdly honest.
Then she added, "I'll stay with you."
He narrowed his eyes.
"I'm terrible at face painting," she admitted. "So if this goes badly, you won't be suffering alone."
That should not have worked.
It did.
"Fifteen minutes," he said. "Then I'm done."
Her whole face lit up again. "Great!"
That was how Vox ended up sitting behind a folding table with a tray of face paints while Charlie dropped into the chair beside him like this was the most natural thing in the world.
The first kid wanted something cool.
"That means lightning," Vox said.
Charlie nodded seriously. "That does sound right."
The kid sat surprisingly still while Vox worked.
He knew composition. Clean lines. Contrast. What would look good up close and from across the room. He painted a sharp blue bolt across the kid's cheek, edged it in black, then added a silver line to make it pop.
When the kid saw it in the mirror, his whole face lit up.
"Whoa!"
Charlie leaned in. "Okay, wow. That's actually amazing."
Vox lifted his screen. "Obviously."
The next one wanted stars.
The next wanted flames.
One of the twins asked for something "pretty but scary," which Charlie declared the best request so far.
Vox found himself getting into it.
Charlie, meanwhile, was awful.
Her hearts came out lopsided. Her flowers leaned. One bat looked enough like a bow tie that the child wearing it asked if she could turn it into a real bow instead.
But she made every kid at her side feel like they were the most important person in the room.
She listened to every story. About favorite snacks. About lost toys. About an older brother stealing the good cupcake.
By the time that particular kid sat down in front of Vox, he already had paint on two fingers and a streak on the side of one hand.
"I want monster teeth," she said.
"You already have teeth."
"Cooler ones."
Charlie folded her hands under her chin and gave him the most innocent look he'd ever seen on a face capable of that much chaos.
"You are doing amazing," she whispered.
"I am being extorted by a child," Vox muttered, but he painted the fangs anyway.
His crew was still filming.
At some point one of the camera operators stopped trying to hide the fact that he thought this was hilarious. Vox caught him smiling and chose, out of remarkable generosity, not to fire him on the spot.
Charlie bumped his arm while reaching for a clean brush.
"Sorry!"
His screen flickered once. Fast. Barely there.
Charlie noticed. Of course she noticed. But all she did was smile a little and keep painting a crooked moon on the next kid's cheek.
That was somehow worse.
"You've got yellow paint on your face," he said a few minutes later.
"Where?"
He gestured vaguely.
Charlie wiped at the wrong side of her forehead.
He stared.
She stared back.
"That was very helpful," she said.
It was the tiniest bit sarcastic. Soft Charlie sarcasm. It caught him so off guard he almost laughed.
Then the lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Hard enough that a few kids went quiet.
Charlie looked up immediately, smile gone, attention snapping across the room. "Okay, everybody, hang on just a sec."
Vox followed the buzzing to the far corner and saw the problem almost instantly. Too many things crammed into one power strip. One half-dead sign barely hanging on. Wires that looked one bad second away from starting a fire.
He was on his feet before he really thought about it.
"Keep them away from that wall," he said sharply.
Charlie didn't even argue. She just moved.
"Okay!" she called, clapping her hands. "Mini cupcake break. Everybody off to the snack table for two minutes. Angel, can you distract them?"
From across the room, Angel shouted, "With what, my raw sex appeal?"
"Whatever works!"
A few people laughed, which kept the room from tensing up too much.
Vox crouched by the overloaded strip and pressed two fingers to the casing.
Power hummed up his arm. Easy. Familiar.
He felt the current snag, wobble, then settle under his control. He rerouted it, cut the pull to the dying sign, smoothed out the draw through the wall, and killed the worst of the overload before the whole thing could go.
The lights steadied.
The buzzing stopped.
When he stood, Charlie was right there.
"You fixed it!"
"Yes," he said. "It was a simple overload."
Her shoulders dropped with obvious relief. "That could've gone really bad."
"It didn't."
Charlie looked at him for a second, and her voice went soft. "Thank you."
Not for the cameras.
Not because it looked good.
Just because she meant it.
That warm, stupid feeling hit him again, low and annoying.
He folded his hands behind his back. "Don't make this a thing."
She smiled. "I wasn't going to."
He looked at her.
"Okay," she said. "Maybe a tiny thing."
"Charlie."
"Fine. No thing."
The line at the painting table got even longer after that.
Word spread fast. Kids wanted the TV demon who did lightning bolts and monster teeth. They wanted the princess who added glitter to everything whether the design needed it or not.
At one point Charlie leaned across him for the rinse cup and her shoulder brushed his arm again.
Static cracked softly between them.
Just a tiny spark.
Charlie's eyes flicked to his screen, then back to his face.
She didn't say anything. She just smiled that little smile again and went back to painting.
Vox hated how much that got to him.
By the time the line finally died down, his fifteen minutes had somehow turned into almost an hour.
Charlie slumped back in her chair and flexed her paint-stained fingers. "Okay. I think that officially counts as a success."
"You have very low standards."
"We had no fire, no major crying, and only one punch-related injury."
"That child hit another child with a serving spoon."
"He said sorry after."
She looked tired now. A little worn out around the edges. Paint on her wrists, glitter in her hair, one stubborn yellow smudge still near her jaw. But she looked happy. Really happy.
"You didn't have to stay," she said.
Vox wiped at his fingers with a napkin. "Of course I did. Strategic generosity benefits my public image."
"Uh-huh."
"It does."
Charlie rested her chin in one hand and studied him with that impossible, open expression of hers.
"I think you came here for selfish reasons," she said.
He narrowed his eyes. "Excuse you."
"I also think you helped because you wanted to help."
"That's ridiculous."
"Is it?"
"Yes."
She smiled, not mean about it. Just sure.
"I think both things can be true," she said. "I don't think helping for the wrong reason cancels out helping."
For one weird second, he had nothing.
No slick answer. No insult. No easy way around it.
So he went for offense.
"You sound dangerously close to giving me a gold star, Princess."
Her smile turned a little crooked. "You already gave yourself, like, twelve."
That got him.
Not a full laugh. Nothing that obvious.
But something in his expression slipped, because Charlie's eyes widened like she'd caught it.
"Defamation," he said.
This time she laughed for real.
Bright and easy and loud enough that one of his cameras definitely caught it. Probably caught him watching her, too.
And for once, he couldn't bring himself to care.
Charlie tore a napkin in half and held one piece out to him.
He took it.
Their fingers brushed.
A tiny line of static jumped between them.
Charlie blinked.
"Oh," she said softly.
He set the napkin down with a level of care that would have been impressive if it wasn't ridiculous. "Don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"Maybe."
Someone across the room called her name. Charlie turned in her chair.
"Coming!"
She got to her feet, then paused and looked back at him.
The pink nametag was still stuck to his lapel.
"You know," she said, reaching toward him, "pink kind of works for you."
His whole body went still for one terrible second.
Then Charlie plucked a fleck of silver glitter off his sleeve and held it up between two fingers like she'd won something.
"Evidence," she said.
"Of what?"
"That you had fun."
"I did not."
She grinned. "Sure."
Then she was gone again, heading across the room in a blur of red suit and bright hair and too much energy.
Vox stayed in the chair another thirty seconds, which was nobody's business.
That night he reviewed the footage in his office.
First the official cut. Then the raw clips.
He told himself he was checking angles. Reading audience response. Looking at what would play best online.
It was a very good lie.
The clip he replayed three times wasn't the donation shot.
It wasn't the power fix, either.
It was Charlie at the paint table, laughing at something he couldn't even hear over the room noise, head tipped back, hands stained with color, looking over at him like he'd done something worth smiling about.
His nametag was still on his jacket when he got home.
He peeled it off carefully.
VOX, in pink bubble letters.
He turned it over once in his hand, then set it on the corner of his desk instead of throwing it away.
A second later, one of his side screens pinged.
Unknown number.
For a brief second he thought legal had finally tracked down whoever Charlie had spammed with invitations.
Then he opened it.
Hi! It's Charlie. Thanks again for helping today. The kids loved you. Also I counted and you stayed forty seven minutes, so I think that means you liked it at least a little :)
Vox stared at the message.
Then he stared at it longer.
He typed out You are reading far too much into basic public relations.
Deleted it.
Typed Your wiring is a disaster.
Deleted that too.
Finally, he sent:
Next time, warn me before you put me to work.
The reply came back almost instantly.
Next time?
Vox looked at the screen.
At the stupid pink nametag on his desk.
At the freeze-framed clip of Charlie smiling at him from his monitor.
His face flickered once with a stripe of static.
Then, against every better instinct he had, he typed back:
Do not get sentimental about this, Little Miss Bleeding Heart.
There was a pause.
Then:
Too late. Goodnight, Vox :)
He should have muted the conversation.
He should have deleted the number.
He should have thrown the nametag in the trash and gone back to work.
Instead, Vox set the phone beside the monitors, left the pink bubble letters where they were, and let Charlie Morningstar stay on the screen a little longer than necessary.