divinetree | It's not that complicated, no matter what they say

"You're not exactly endearing, yourself. What are you talking about, newfound duties?"

Vaggie leered at him, eyeing him for where she might stab first. Does he have a heart? He'd probably electrocute her, but if she got one solid jab right in the middle of the screen... was the screen where his brain was, still? Hmm.

He ignored her, raised the phone to what passed for an ear on his setup.

"...Princeeeess! Good morning! Hey, so, I'm in your lobby on official business and your dragon's not really playing ball, here. ...Nono, not the little pets, I mean the spitfire with the spear. Are you free~?"

Just???? They're kind of in the middle of a group therapy session...???

"Well, uh-- aaaaare you checking in? What kind of business do you mean? ...You're not angling for another very mean and unfair piece on the hotel for TV, are you?"

"No, quite the opposite, actually! You know what? Why don't I just go ahead and get things set up. I'll stick to the lobby for now!"

Not a moment of waiting for a response before he hung up. Then, after a snap of his fingers, he turned to finally address Vaggie again.

"Right-! I'm going to need any and all task sheets for the different roles in the Hotel, if you'd please...! Color me curious on who does what. It'll give me something to mull over before the delivery arrives."

God, he's helpful. Isn't he great?

Delivery?? The opposite-- so some positive coverage? WHY...??

Vaggie walked around the counter, spear in hand but not yet pointed in the media overlord's face.

"Okay, hold ON. What is even going on right now? Why are you doing this? What're you getting out of it?"

He was already conjuring up holographic slides, adjusting their sizes and changing their angles, whistling a merry tune. It was still rather early, and yet here he was, as obnoxiously chipper as ever thanks to a combination of an entire pot of good coffee and waking up next to someone he'd wanted to for a very, very long time.

"Now, now, in good time...! ...Ah, but if you know of any guests that have been a bit of trouble lately, I'll need their names, too. A little sit-down chit-chat should fix that right up."

What were these slides...? One stated his credentials, complete with some truly awful doodles of him flexing alongside how good at businessing he is. There were sharks in sunglasses swimming around charts of numbers, doodles of the hotel and the members of staff he could remember. The little scribbly scrunkle that was Niffty was a nice touch.

"Are you fucking kidding me? You are exactly the kind of demon that we have to worry about protecting our guests from! Stop dodging the question-- is that a pitch with your credentials?" Vaggie pressed - if nothing else, she was persistent?

Charlie was going to come down and hear him out, but. Why was this guy here?

"You can't just use the hotel or whatever your plan is to 'get back' at Alastor or whatever hare-brained overlord scheme you're trying to pull."

"Getting back? Who's getting back at Alastor?" His voice lifted briefly an octave, playing lofty and innocent as he arranged a few more hologram windows and- as an afterthought- deepened the caricature of Vaggie to scowl a little more deeply. That's better.

With a ping from his monitor, he gave a soft 'ooh!' "There it is...!"

He turned, raised a hand to his mouth. "BRING IT IN!"

The doors were shoved open by a trio of imps, who in turn held them open to allow the drones to fly in and deliver a... really, really, really, really big flatscreen television.

"There we are. Resolution so clear you can see every last PORE on the faces of the actors on screen! A little freebie, courtesy of VoxTek-"

A little breath as he leans down to better address the fallen angel.

"You're welcome."

"No no no, we JUST-- built that lobby. Damn it."

Watch in amazement as Vaggie's frown deepens even further than thee exaggerated caricature!! Truly, she is humorless.

"If you don't have an explanation in thirty seconds--"

"WWwwwwwwwow that is... a big tv... Alastor is gonna hate that," Charlie remarked from the top of the stairs, breathing a bit since she'd jogged down to see what in the hell was going on.

"So, uhm. Vox. Hi? What's this all about?"

He whirled on a heel with the new voice. The laugh was uproarious. "Oh, he absolutely will, but that's not important right now...!"

Vox opened his arms to present himself.

"That old so-and-so decided to go on a sabbatical, as you know, and I decided to take on the challenge: You're looking at the new host of the Hazbin Hotel!"

One of the imps scurried over, dug into her pockets, and retrieved a party cracker. After pulling the string, it popped and showered confetti over the four of them.

"...Now, if you'll refer to slide one here, you'll see my extensive credentials for my business sense and experience in face-to-face interactions, but considering you've got quite a few of VoxTek's innovations right here in the hotel, I think we can skip that bit, right?"

He wheeled a wrist in a circle as he closed his eyes and puffed his chest. "...Buuuut, you know, if you wanted to go through the motions, you're welcome to feast your eyes. The other slides have befores and afters among other businesses VoxTek has loaned their assistance to, and how they consistently thrive over time. I'll take questions at any time, but understand that more confidential questions demand the privacy of a conference room."

A beat.

"You have those here, right? For staff meetings?"

"Waaaait wait wait-- Alastor did say he was going to be back! I... understand and respect that you're looking to... help? But I don't know if he'd be comfortable with you just sort of taking his place!"

No one really had the context for why Alastor was taking a break... or any knowledge whatsoever that he'd been talking to Vox at all. All they really knew was the public spats, and Alastor's bitching about modern TV, and the reaaaaally obvious creepy stalking...!

And as far as Charlie was concerned, Al seemed really stressed out lately, so...

"And, well... when we have meetings, we kind of just have them in the lobby?"

"Oh, he issued the challenge! See, I'd gotten to bragging more about how things work in VoxTek and I guess he got a little butthurt! If you're such an expert, why don't YOU do it, then? You won't last a week, haw HAW!"

He tipped his hat. "...So here I am, until he decides I've kicked his ass at this or he decides he's done and comes on back."

But Vox quirked a brow. "Uh... the lobby, though? Really? What about for sensitive matters...?"

Oh, honey. Honey.

"Well, if something's THAT sensitive, we can usually go to the office...? That's where a bunch of the notes for the business stuff are anyway..."

And the staff is about... six people... sooooo. No need for a whole conference room...?

"You're here because of Alastor... huh..."

"--Wait. He didn't say you could torment the guests or bully them or anything like that, right? He's not supposed to do any of that either. Even if he said he just wants to watch people fail..."

"Besides, Alastor hardly did anything around here. Getting him to do his job was like pulling teeth."

"Yeaaaah... but he brought Husk and Niffty! They've been great! And he helps rebuild that front wall that always gets blown up."

He adjusted his tie. "Mm, no- see, his whole schtick is to get his rocks off when people fall on their face and eat dirt, but I wanted to see if I can't actually get things rolling in a productive fashion..."

He crossed his arms behind his back and grinned. "...Y'know. Prove that I know what the fuck I'm doing... like literally looking throughout Hell and all of its technology and access to media wasn't ABUNDANTLY FUCKING OBVIOUS, ha... haha--"

Ahem. The grin tightened.

"So... you... actually want to help Sinners redeem? You really want to help?"

The fact that she's so surprised speaks miles, doesn't it...

"Well... yeah, okay! We can talk about it."

"I want to... see... what the fuss is about."

God, he doesn't fucking care at all. If this pipe dream of Charlie's is true, then let some suckers head up to Heaven and lick lollipops and play in ball pits all day or something, but a Deal was a Deal.

This was a shot to make Alastor eat his words.

...But he would do anything for the little potato he'd been exchanging transmission peeps with, too. He wondered if his father ever felt like this for him at all.

"Perfect!" He brought his hands together. The slides all clipped together into something of a flippable little book that he directed to Charlie to peruse at her own leisure. It tingled to the touch, yet had some semi-solid sensation to it nevertheless. Weird.

"So my suggestion is that I spend the day in observation, see how everything goes in the hotel. Ideally, I'd like if everybody acted like I'm not here, but that can be a tall order."

He stepped up and draped one arm over Charlie's shoulders, the other hand sweeping before them. "Give me a taste of the Hazbin Hotel experience! Let's see that big first impression for those who want to reach those pearly gates...!"

Charlie scrunched a little under the touch, though she was so used to being pulled and yanked around that it hardly registered - he was shmoozing, sales guys did that sort of thing, yada yada. Flipping through the slides-turned-weird-book, Charlie tilted her head this way and that in thought.

Keeping employees in line...? Well, they've been great, so that hasn't been a huge issue... funding and money management? Well, keeping the business documents in line is a little annoying, but no one's really called her on any mistakes...

"I guess most of what's not in here is just helping with maintenance and de-escalating anything violent happening. Sometimes helping take care of pets when the guests are gone for a long time... uhh, sometimes helping them through their withdrawals... and finding all the stashes of drugs..."

Those are the things that keep them busiest.

"That's an everyone job, but Alastor was really good at finding stashes. And keeping people from fighting."

Half of the time just by virtue of showing himself - most people scrambled just to get out of the way, offering plenty of time for cool-off and for someone more reasonable to intervene.

"Yeahhh, he's got his, ah- tall, dark and spooky bit going." He wiggled his claws in emphasis. He gave Charlie mercy by backing off.

"But deescalating fights? Please..." He turned to face her with a cheshire cat smile, left eye swirling.

"I can be persuasive, dear. They may even be happy to show me where every last baggie is hidden away, as one important step toward their new life."

"Noooope, no you don't--" Vaggie interjected, practically bristling. "I know you have a hypnotism trick-- that's not going to fly here. Mind controlling people is not going to be something we do, we can't force people to be better."

Though not nearly as angry as her girlfriend, Charlie nodded in agreement. "Vaggie's right - we have rules, and our guests agreed to them, but we can't just force them to do the right thing. That isn't being better or kinder, and that isn't talking through their anger and hurt at each other. So that sort of thing wouldn't work here for what we're doing."

"Mmmm." 'Make things take longer and more difficult'. Loud and clear.

"Then I trust you've got alternative methods! Since Alastor's not here, I'm now more curious than ever on how you propose breaking up a fight! All the more reason to observe, see this place in its most... organic."

He clicked his tongue. "We'll just circle back to hypnotism another time."

He conjured one more slide, an overview on hypnotherapy, and slid that hot little number in with the rest of the 'book' he'd offered Charlie.

"Now, when you mention maintenance...?"

"Yeah - Niffty's really good at being on top of cleaning, and Vaggie and I are used to sorting out the rooms - but Alastor definitely handled rebuilding stuff, fixing piping issues..."

"Usually while he was already looking for drug stashes, since half of those are just flushed..."

"Hah! Yeah, that's true. Oh man, you get over being squeamish about toilets SO fast here, haha!"

Right, Al's conjuration. Shit, he can't really do anything like that- probably tag ol' Kingy for that- but he was technical enough that he could do repairs.

Vox froze briefly. Toilets. Alastor mentioned toilets.

He burst out laughing, hands on hips. "Ohohokay...! Alright- you got me! See, I thought I just heard I was going to be working on toilets... good one...!"

"Weeeee all end up having to fix the toilets... last time Niffty tried, she got stuck and almost flushed down one."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1/2

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject