Vox: Babe, please don’t do this! I’ll do whatever you want!
Y/N: Vince, we both know it’s too late for that
Vox: No, no! What do you want from me? You want Shock.wav to sleep on your side of the bed? Fine! You want me to stop obsessing over Alastor? I can try!
Y/N: Vincent, come on. You chose your fate the second you thought this little game of yours would be a good idea.
Vox: No! I-I can cut the network for you! Do you want that? Please! Anything but this! Y/N!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Y/N could handle some blood and gore! Her brother was the Radio Demon! Their entire territory was made from the suffering of others. It was only their deaths that allowed Y/N to live without fear in Hell. Sometimes she wondered if her hands were as stained as Alastor’s.
“Does Vox talk about me?” she asked, if only to keep her mind away from the knowledge that she was as blameless as her brother. The shark pup nodded. Y/N supposed she already knew the answer to that question anyway, and the answer to the next. “Good or bad things?” Red eyes flicked up at her. “Both?”
A radio is nothing without a good amplifier. It increases its power and allows it to be transmitted further.
You are Alastor’s precious amplifier, and what is left of his human heart. So naturally, you’re tucked safely away within the depths of his territory - lest you have a repeat of your previous… heartbreak.
But when you’re dragged into the world of Charlie Morningstar, you’re not just Alastor’s anymore. You’re making your own life. The one thing Alastor fears more than anything else. So when the King of Hell starts to show an interest in you and Alastor, how far would the Radio Demon go for power? Why does Lucifer act like you’re a replacement for your brother?
And with all these things coming to light, what did actually happen all those years ago that Alastor is hiding?
This will follow the plot of Hazbin Hotel up until the end of season 2, after which it will naturally become canon divergent.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
When Husk stepped through into her room, the first thing she noticed was he wasn’t holding alcohol. Alastor hated him drinking in front of Y/N, but that had never stopped Husk before. The cat demon groaned and massaged his head, muttering things she could only partially catch. When he was done cursing himself for whatever bad decision he was about to make, his eyes locked onto her.
“Hey there, Bambi. Wanna break some rules?”
A radio is nothing without a good amplifier. It increases its power and allows it to be transmitted further.
You are Alastor’s precious amplifier, and what is left of his human heart. So naturally, you’re tucked safely away within the depths of his territory - lest you have a repeat of your previous… heartbreak.
But when you’re dragged into the world of Charlie Morningstar, you’re not just Alastor’s anymore. You’re making your own life. The one thing Alastor fears more than anything else. So when the King of Hell starts to show an interest in you and Alastor, how far would the Radio Demon go for power? Why does Lucifer act like you’re a replacement for your brother?
And with all these things coming to light, what did actually happen all those years ago that Alastor is hiding?
This will follow the plot of Hazbin Hotel up until the end of season 2, after which it will naturally become canon divergent
Human! Alastor: I tried to summon him, but it wouldn’t work
Y/N: I’ll try
Y/N, standing in the pentagram: Oh great King Lucifer, accept my humble offering of… one of the ducks from the lake I own, and give me unimaginable power!
Human! Alastor: Oh please. You’re not even saying the correct things, and your ‘offering’ is tiny.
Human! Alastor: Besides, I tried summoning him like twenty times. What’s going to be differe-?
Lucifer, appearing in the room: Hey, yo, what’s up, I heard there was a duck?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Angel hesitated, like the act of displaying empathy was foreign, and then awkwardly patted her arm. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Al loves you. People are dangerous when they love like how he loves you.” Y/N’s hand brushed against her stomach. Of course Alastor was dangerous. He’d always been dangerous. She’d always known it. And she’d chosen it over everything else in her life.
She watched the shadows twist and twirl over each other like snakes coiling and curling. The dark power her brother had down here was what kept her as alive as she could be in her afterlife. She didn’t fear it. She called it home.
A radio is nothing without a good amplifier. It increases its power and allows it to be transmitted further.
You are Alastor’s precious amplifier, and what is left of his human heart. So naturally, you’re tucked safely away within the depths of his territory - lest you have a repeat of your previous… heartbreak.
But when you’re dragged into the world of Charlie Morningstar, you’re not just Alastor’s anymore. You’re making your own life. The one thing Alastor fears more than anything else. So when the King of Hell starts to show an interest in you and Alastor, how far would the Radio Demon go for power? Why does Lucifer act like you’re a replacement for your brother?
And with all these things coming to light, what did actually happen all those years ago that Alastor is hiding?
This will follow the plot of Hazbin Hotel up until the end of season 2, after which it will naturally become canon divergent.
Vox: Honey, how would you react if I told you I went to an aquarium and I, like, stole some shark pups and used Baxter’s tech so they could breathe air? Just a hypothetical
Y/N:
Y/N: Vincent, what’s under that giant coat you have on?
Headcanon that if when you went to Hell, and you were still worried about your living family, Vox would pull some strings for you.
He insists that as the partner of VoxTek’s CEO, you can have anything you want and he’ll give it to you. So if you express concern for a relative that you were close to, or depended on you while you were alive, Vox will let you in on their secret project of accessing human technology.
There are rules in place, naturally, so it’s not obvious. For example, you need to make anonymous accounts online, and you have to never tell any of your family who you are. But you can keep up with their posts and learn about what they’re doing - and use some of VoxTek’s income to anonymously donate to any links they have up. You can watch videos of your friends or see pictures of your pets that were taken in by someone. Even if you can’t interact with them one on one, and the most you can do is like their posts, it’s a comfort.
What you don’t know - and what Vox will never let anyone know, even if he was being tortured for the information - is that Vox is doing the exact same thing. Not as frequent, but as interested. After all, you hang out with the Vees, so why shouldn’t he have a curious look at who you were close with? Technically your family would be his in-laws anyway.
He will never ever admit it, but he likes knowing about your life before Hell.
Plus if you had a pet you were really close to, he’ll speak to Baxter about making you a ‘second version’, a robot like Shock.wav.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Everyone is being too nice,” Pentious said. “Obviously, it must be a lie! Miss Y/N here is offering to help me! Clearly, she is the leader of the murder efforts.”
Both Y/N and Alastor giggled to themselves at that, and Alastor began playing with her hair. “Hardly. If my sweet sister ever wanted someone dead, she’d never need to plan. A simple request would suffice, and I’d have the demon’s head displayed on the dinner table within half an hour or less.” He braided some of her hair into a messy plait while he spoke, doing it completely absent-mindedly.
Charlie scowled for half a second at Alastor’s comment, and the Radio Demon grinned and put his hands in the air. “Oh, relax!” His eyes darkened. “I would kill anyone she wishes before the request even needed to be made. Isn’t that right, fawn?”
A radio is nothing without a good amplifier. It increases its power and allows it to be transmitted further.
You are Alastor’s precious amplifier, and what is left of his human heart. So naturally, you’re tucked safely away within the depths of his territory - lest you have a repeat of your previous… heartbreak.
But when you’re dragged into the world of Charlie Morningstar, you’re not just Alastor’s anymore. You’re making your own life. The one thing Alastor fears more than anything else. So when the King of Hell starts to show an interest in you and Alastor, how far would the Radio Demon go for power? Why does Lucifer act like you’re a replacement for your brother?
And with all these things coming to light, what did actually happen all those years ago that Alastor is hiding?
This will follow the plot of Hazbin Hotel up until the end of season 2, after which it will naturally become canon divergent.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The reminder Pentious actually seemed like a decent person hit Baxter like a slap to the face. The mania and delight on his face vanished. For a moment, he cursed himself. He’d done nothing but scowl at how open Pentious was, yet had gone and showed some of what he truly was! He was just lucky he’d only spoken a tame thought. The ones he kept in his head – the ones that most Sinners would find disturbing – were far worse.
“You’re right,” Baxter lied. “I would never harm a child either. I… promise.” Hopefully that would allow Pentious to hold him in the same regard as he did a minute ago. But if Baxter really had to be genuine… “I swear on our partnership that I would never intentionally hurt a child. If I do, you may terminate the partnership and cease contact with me.”
Baxter doesn't need anyone. He doesn't want anyone. He's happiest on his own, and he knows no one understands his genius.
But suddenly someone might. Suddenly, Baxter has someone who gets it. Suddenly, Baxter isn't alone. Suddenly, Baxter has a partner - totally just a lab partner!
Yet as Baxter discovers that he might just have a heart after all, he will find himself forced to choose between what and who he wants.
Because how can two Sinners ever have a happy ending?
A canon compliant Baxtious prequel covering exactly how two demons lost what they had before even knowing it was there.
Imagine Vincent Whittman with a Y/N that haunts his narrative without ever meeting him
Vincent is vaguely aware of your story before he applies to the weatherman position. You were the one who presented it before him, but met your end in some freak accident. He read it in a newspaper and even saw the mourning take place. You had so many people tune in to watch you. When he’s hired, his one instruction above all is to keep those ratings. He has to be on your level, no matter what.
People don’t react well to Vincent at work. Everyone says that it’s not his fault, and they don’t mean any harm, it’s just they can’t believe you were replaced so quickly. You were friends with everyone in the network, baking them cookies every Monday, and being the designated shoulder to cry on.
They know they can’t freeze Vincent out of the group, but he sees the way people eye him when he sits at your desk. He hears how they talk about how you were sure to have been promoted soon if you’d lived, and he had such big shoes to fill, because you were a blessing to the network and to all your coworkers.
What makes Vincent angry is one of the friendlier colleagues pulling him aside and explaining that it’s not Vincent’s shortcoming, but you’ll always be one of the faces of the network - especially due to your early death. All Vincent can hear is he can try and try as much as he wants, but he won’t be treated the same as you were. It makes him want more recognition. More power. More standing.
After all, you were just a weathergirl. How much impact could you have even had?
When Vincent becomes a news anchor, he doesn’t pay much attention to whoever they hire to be the new weatherman. He just shuffles his papers and adjusts his tie, unbothered. For the first time, someone is ranked beneath him, and that feeling is good.
Until the man asks what personality do they want him to display on screen, and he’s handed a collection of your recordings.
Not Vincent’s. But yours.
Whatever, he tells himself. He’s above you now. You’ll always be stuck as a weathergirl, stuck in your position as you are your grave.
Yet that nagging feeling tugs at him. You were meant to be promoted before he died. Is the money he receives now every month meant to be yours? Is he… is he still not better than you? How can he prove that he is?
Vincent hallucinates you for the first time just before he hosts his talk show. He’s thinking of how to pick off his producers, and rifling around in their office, when he finds some old notes that look like they haven’t left the drawer in years. Most are irrelevant.
Apart from one.
Y/N - star potential. work her up from weathergirl? would be good on talk show?
Vincent doesn’t fully register he’s crushed the paper in his hand until his nails go through it and make his palms bleed. What the fuck? How can he still be on your fucking level? Why does everyone here think you were a Saint? You couldn’t have been that interesting, damn it!
He feels you in the corner of the room before he looks. You seem a lot more judgy than you were in your pictures, but maybe you were cruel behind your facade. Or maybe that’s Vincent trying to convince himself you had to stoop to his level to be so loved.
“Shut up,” he snaps. You haven’t even said anything. You just tilt your head towards a nearby poster detailing the talk show’s cast this month. Your eyes are directly level with his name. The message is perfectly clear.
“Yeah,” Vincent scoffs. “But I’m here and you’re not. I’m better than you.” But how can he know if the only reason he’s here is because you’re not? What if you’d survived? Would he be in an entirely different career? Would he have never hurt anyone?
You stare at him for a second, eyes piercing through like you can see his soul, and then vanish as Vincent hears the clock strike and realises it’s time to go host.
Time to go play his hand at being you.
Murder is getting a lot easier for Vincent, he thinks, as he strangles one of his producers with the microphone wire. He wonders if you would’ve killed for this. Or would you have earned it genuinely, surpassing him and going on to even greater things?
“You-” the producer gargles. “You are nothing but a fraud. We n-never should’ve hired you.” He chokes on his words as Vincent prepares the makeshift noose.
But then come the words.
“If Y/N didn’t die-” Vincent never gets to find out what the producer was going to say, because the mention of your name fills him with a rage so sudden that he won’t allow the man the grace of last words. How can someone be dying and still think of you? Yeah, Vincent knows there’s some domino effect of your death leading to all of theirs, but god damn! Why can’t they be focused on him?
And that word: fraud.
Not like you. Not like the real thing, who had her future with the network secured. Vincent did more digging. The weathergirl status was temporary. You were just about to sign a contract to be a news anchor before you died. And they already had plans to boost your position after that.
Vincent wishes from the bottom of his heart that he‘d killed you. It would make him feel so much better about this. But no, it just had to be some accident. Something that could’ve been avoided or changed. It was just bad luck and not Vincent’s hand that got you. That makes it so much worse. Now he can’t say you were weak and deserved to lose your position. Now he can’t say anything bad about you at all because he never even spoke to you.
Perhaps the pettiest murders Vincent has ever committed are those of your old coworkers. Of course, it was all for fame and becoming more recognisable, but a part of it was because he was so sick of still hearing about you, twenty whole years after your death.
Marie, who runs the cooking show, still lights a candle for you in the office. She cries and calls you a dear friend she will always miss. Maybe it’s because of that candle that Vincent makes her favourite matchbox - your old one you insisted she have - her cause of death.
Rodney has a game show, and Vincent doesn’t actually mind him as much as the others. His murder wouldn’t have been personal if he didn’t mention one day how you helped him brainstorm some of the questions and the game rules when he wanted to pitch it to the network. Vincent makes that kill a little more gruesome than intended.
It feels like every path he takes leads back to you. Every light shining on him reminds him that had you not died, it would be you here and not him. You weren’t his victim, just fate’s. Every twist and turn catapults Vincent right back to you, eating him alive. He can write off everyone else, but you? You escaped him without knowing. And it is destroying him.
Bob, the owner of the network, is old when Vincent sits down with him to discuss his extreme increase in popularity.
Old and forgetful, it seems.
Because when he looks at the list of Vincent’s shows, and the small screen time of everyone else, he frowns.
“And Y/N? Where is she?” Vincent wants to tear his hair out. You’re dead! Six feet under! Bones! Did you seriously make such an amazing impression as a fucking weathergirl that the network owner knew who you were?! Why couldn’t Vincent do that?
Is - is he seriously still not as good as you? After all of this, surely he has to be! He’s killed for it! He’s spent twenty three years proving himself! He has to be better than you!
Vincent hallucinates you more and more as his followers increase. You never speak, because even though he watches your recordings religious to find out what he’s doing wrong to not be your perfect replacement, he can’t mimic your voice in his head.
Maybe that shows how no matter much he tries, he’ll never be like you. Not in the slightest.
You make your points though, like a good little hallucination. Any gathering he throws, he can see you in the back, laughing when someone says it is an honour to meet him. You smirk when he calls himself a god. You roll your eyes when he says he’s the ruler of the airwaves.
You grin when he dies, like you’re satisfied. Even though every person has told Vincent you hate the idea of anyone suffering. Vincent justifies it by saying you had to be cruel internally. Or maybe you hate him for picking off your friends, from using your loveliness as an excuse for jealousy. Vincent hopes you hate him. He can justify hating you back that way.
Fifty years go by, and slowly Vincent turns into Vox, and you’re still fucking pestering him out of the corner of his eye.
You, of course, didn’t end up in Hell because you were Little Miss Perfect. So this isn’t even a haunting, it’s just Vincent always second guessing himself. Would he really have all this power if you were down here? Would he be your second in command? Or would he not even be on your radar?
Would you get along with Alastor? Despite what he knows about you, Vincent warps your memory into what he wants you to be. He is convinced you and Alastor would be two peas in a pod, unreachable and smug and cruelly mocking him. He wants to show the both of you that he is a threat.
But is he? You and Alastor are who you are because you had natural talent. Vincent just had a natural inclination for violence and narcissism.
Vincent has never escaped you. He can turn into Vox all he likes, but he is still Vincent Whittman when it comes to you.
Vincent, Y/N’s replacement.
Vincent, the backup.
Vincent, the one not meant to even be an option.
His fingers pause their tapping as Baxter presents him Heaven’s shows that VoxTek accessed.
There’s a pretty fucking common theme. Weather with Y/N. The News with Y/N. Y/N’s Early Evening Show.
There are plenty of other things that don’t include you, but Vincent can’t focus on them. Every single promotion he’d received in life, you’d had in death. You were chosen by Heaven, by the best of the best.
Vincent still can’t catch up to you. And now here is the undeniable proof that you weren’t like him: you didn’t need to lie and backstab and kill for your following. You were simply a loved person.
Vox doesn’t hear Valentino calling him as he slips back into Vincent. He has to get to Heaven. He has to wipe those smiles off your and Alastor’s faces, the only two people who ever escaped him and continued to thrive.
He has to.
But some part of Vincent that always stayed the weatherman knows the truth by now - has known it for years. He’s never going to be on your level. He can’t escape his past or the truth. He is where he is because he is himself, and not you.
Vincent can shine as bright as he wants, but you? You will always, always, be brightest.
