Chapter Text
Rivka “River” Morningstar was not impressed by Alastor.
For one thing, he smelled. Like, really bad. As in a proper bath with soap and water might not be enough to save him at this point. For the second thing, he had terrible taste in fashion.
Now one couldn’t expect too much from a guy who died in the 30s like Alastor did, but she thought he’d at least dress better…
That old red jacket of his looked about ready to fall off of him. Surely he had better clothes. Surely.
Nevertheless, it was the ensemble that seemed practically glued to his body 24/7 and she got the feeling that she would not see him wear anything else anytime soon.
And then there was the commercial. River was actually torn on this one because she found it hilarious for the most part (except for the part where he called her adopted sister Charlie delusional— that was not funny). On the other hand, it didn’t do anything to make the hotel seem even remotely appealing.
In fact, it did the exact opposite. Which was not what she, Charlie, nor Vaggie wanted to start with.
River was grateful that Charlie had someone like Vaggie at her side, willing to say the things that her older sister couldn’t bring herself to. Charlie was far too nice for her own good sometimes. Actually, make that a lot of the time.
Really, the only good that came with Alastor deciding he needed to help out the hotel, in his own weird and very unhelpful way, came in the form of Husk and Niffty.
Both Sinners did their jobs somewhat effectively and in Niffty’s case very vocal enthusiasm.
The same could not be said for Alastor.
Which was why most mornings, River would just send Alastor the most unimpressed glares while drinking her coffee and scrolling her phone.
And on one of said mornings…
“You aren’t a patron and you aren’t an employee of the hotel,” Alastor spoke, planting his staff against the floor and resting his hands comfortably atop his microphone. “Why are you here?”
“What’s it look like? I’m here to help my sister with the hotel, duh,” River answered, looking back down at her phone.
She paused when she saw Velvette had released a new line of sunshine yellow fleecy sweaters. She didn’t bother going through the process of finding the link, tapping on it, finding the sweater in the online store, tapping it, confirming her card, etc.
River instead sent a signal to her phone to do all of that in a split-second. Meaning she wasted no precious time, time that if spent could have left her with a horrifying gray “Sold Out” button.
“Why? To seek redemption for yourself?” Alastor asked incredulously.
River wheezed, clutching her stomach. She looked up at the radio demon with an incredulous grin.
“You’re kidding me, right? You’re kidding me?”
He was not, in fact, kidding, if his narrowed eyes and tense smile were anything to go by.
River let out a long, drawn out sigh as she sat back in her chair and twirled some of her hair around her finger. One of her ears twitched as it caught the sound of Husk dropping a bottle, it shattering, and the string of annoyed curses that followed.
“I’m not a Sinner like you,” River told him. “I was born down here. So yeahhh, no redemption for me.”
She put on the fakest pouty look she could manage.
“And yet you look nothing like your supposed parents,” Alastor observed, tilting his head as he looked at her.
“Adopted,” River clapped back. “Mom found me abandoned in a pile of rubble when I was a baby about… 70 years ago now, and took me home.”
“And what of your biological parents?” Alastor asked. River’s grip on her phone tightened and she bit her lip. “You haven’t tried to search for them?”
River slammed her hand against the kitchen table as she stood up and glared at the radio demon, seething. Blue claws dug into the table, and her ears flattened against her head.
How dare he? How fucking DARE HE?? It wasn’t the first time River had been asked this question, in fact it was something she was asked often, and quite frankly after a little over 60 years of people asking over and over and over she was quite sick of it.
“They abandoned me when I was a baby!” she snarled. “Why the fuck would I ever want to find them? To do what, pretend like nothing happened, play ‘happy families?’ Yeah, no thanks. Doesn’t matter where I came from, I’m a Morningstar and that’s that.”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of revenge,” Alastor offered, shrugging. “I slit my father’s throat when I was seventeen. I must say, offing the pathetic bastard was rather cathartic. Can you believe he had the gall to beg for his life?”
Well… that was certainly an interesting piece of information.
“I take it he must’ve done something to deserve it,” River finally said after a moment.
“You could say that.”
Alastor didn’t elaborate beyond that. Not that he needed to.
“Well,” River began, breathing in and out, and relaxing her grip on her phone, “I don’t think I care enough for even that.”
Alastor hummed thoughtfully.
“I’ve got a good life here,” she continued, gesturing to the surrounding space that was the hotel’s kitchen. “Why would I give shit about some assholes who couldn’t even be bothered to at least take me to an orphanage instead of leaving me to die?”
River grabbed her coffee mug and downed what was left of the cherry macaroon creamer flavored stuff. She then set the mug back down as she said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get changed before the hotel opens for the day.”
Alastor snorted derisively as he looked her up and down.
“Yes, we wouldn’t want any potential guests seeing you in your jammies, now would we?”
River was so, so close to attempting murder that very moment.
--------------------
River stood in front of her bedroom mirror, trying to settle on a pose. She defaulted to her usual outfit, as she wanted to be comfortable today but still look presentable. Now if only she could figure out the right pose for her photo of the day…
She finally decided to just stick her hand in one pocket, tilt her head down slightly, and snap a photo. It was a very simple pose, but it would do. Then she could post the photo on Sinstagram and call it a day. She didn’t want to waste twenty minutes for one photo. Twenty minutes that could be spent helping her sister with the hotel.
And then the moment River was walking back down the stairs to the hotel lobby, her ear twitching as she caught the sound of her sister saying, “Well, it’s not like people are just going to show up on our doorstep…”—
BOOM!!
A massive hole was blown in the wall.
“SHOW YOURSELF, ALASTOR!!”
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.
She rushed after Charlie, Vaggie, and Angel Dust as they ran out of the hotel to be met with the sight of an all too familiar steampunk-esque blimp.
Sir Pentious had apparently decided showing up unannounced last week and destroying the hotel’s first set of front doors wasn’t enough— nope, apparently today it was one of their walls. And as Sir Pentious’ monologue would reveal, all of this was to “slay Alastor” so the Vees would see him as “their equal.”
River could somewhat sympathize, as she really did like Velvette and sometimes daydreamed about working with her— but this was Hell, and she understood that more likely than not she’d just get chewed up and spat back out without a care in the world. The same thing would likely happen to Sir Pentious if he succeeded in grabbing the Vees’ attention.
It didn’t matter in the end, because Alastor tore apart Sir Pentious’ airship easily, and then when the reptilian Sinner made the grave mistake of tearing off a small piece of the radio demon’s coat, he sent the poor guy flying halfway across the Pentagram.
“Well, it looks as though I need a visit to the tailor!” Alastor declared.
River’s eye twitched. His jacket looked about the same as it always did. The edges were already so frayed she couldn’t even tell where Sir Pentious had ripped it.
“Best of luck, chums!”
The radio demon began to walk away.
“Hey!!” River snapped. “You’re not going anywhere!”
“We need your help, Alastor,” Vaggie said. “We need you to do your job.”
“We need a wall,” Angel Dust added dryly, gesturing to the massive hole in question.
“Of course!” Alastor stopped and turned around. “Can’t let my new project fall into disrepair already! What would the papers say?”
“Your new project?!” River repeated incredulously. “It’s Charlie’s project! But sure, be all blasé, call it ‘your’ project. Take all the credit for work you’re not even doing!”
Alastor’s eyes narrowed and his ears flattened against his head. He snapped his fingers, summoning a few large shadow puppets.
“I will be back shortly,” he said in a rather clipped tone. “If any further problems arise while I’m gone, my shadow puppets are more than equipped to handle it.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and strode off down the street.
Then Angel proceeded to hit on one of the more muscular looking shadow puppets.
“Angel, let them work,” Vaggie told him tiredly. She then gently grabbed both Charlie and River by the wrists and pulled them along down the street. “C’mon. Let’s start looking for some new recruits.”
--------------------
“Hello! I’m Rivka Morningstar, here to represent the Hazbin Hotel. Would you like to—”
“FUCK YOU!!”
River blinked as the door was slammed in her face. Sighing, she looked down and crossed another address off her list.
As she walked down the stairs, Charlie and Vaggie approached.
“No takers?” Vaggie asked.
River shook her head no.
“Same here,” Charlie said, her gaze cast down towards the ground as she rubbed her arm in clear disappointment and exhaustion.
“Are we… doing the right thing here?” River asked, staring down at her clipboard with a frown. “Taking advantage of people’s fear about the Extermination?”
“Huh?” Charlie lifted her head to look at her younger sister with visible confusion.
“It’s just that…” River tucked her clipboard under her arm and tapped a fingernail against the plastic back. “It feels underhanded. I know we’re trying to save these people, but taking advantage of their fear feels wrong, especially since we don’t know for sure redemption is possible.”
“What else are we supposed to do?” Vaggie asked in a genuine tone. “No one’s showed up to the hotel on their own. We recruited Angel Dust in the middle of the street, and that was mostly because we have free room and board.”
River’s shoulders slumped. Vaggie wasn’t wrong. Still, even with the threat of the new Extermination deadline looming over their heads, pretty much everyone whose door they knocked on just slammed said door in their faces before they could even finish the pitch.
“Maybe we should take a break?” Vaggie suggested after a moment. “Get something to eat?”
“But we only have six months!” Charlie protested.
“We’ve been walking for two hours now, and it’s almost lunchtime,” River pointed out.
“We’re not going to get much more done on empty stomachs,” Vaggie added, gently placing a hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder.
“But every second we waste—”
“It won’t take that long,” Vaggie interrupted, still gentle yet firm. “We still have time.”
“Besides, your favorite place isn’t far from here,” River added with a cheeky grin, lifting up her phone to show them the screen.
She had VoxMaps open and displayed on the screen was a map with a fork icon a few streets from their present location. Next to said fork in small typeface was the name of the restaurant: “Taco Hell.”
“Oooo, Taco Hell!!” Charlie cheered excitedly. She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself, though she couldn’t hide her grin. “Okay, we can take a quick break. But right after we’re gettin’ back to it!”
That was good enough for River and judging from Vaggie’s nod, it was good enough for her too.