when life gives you lemons

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!

Y/N: Vince, I’m sorry

Y/N: **puts down card**

Y/N: Uno

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?”

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?”

**after Alastor makes the deal with Rosie**

Y/N: So why not Lucifer?

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?

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.

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?

Vox: You already know

Angel! Y/N: I’m really mad at you!

Angel! Y/N: You lied to me, you stole from me!

Angel! Y/N: But you want to know the worst thing you did?

Vox: Try to destroy Heaven and Hell, I know

Angel! Y/N: No. It was saying we weren’t friends

Vox:

Val: Why the hell was Vox crying his eyes out earlier?

Y/N: Oh we watched a movie about a group of giant sharks going after people, and he cried at their deaths

Val: Wow, that’s… strangely empathetic of him

Y/N: Oh, no, he didn’t cry at the people dying, he cried at the shark deaths

Val:

Val: Okay, yeah, that’s not as surprising

**meanwhile**

Vox, patting Shock.wav in tears: and Daddy will never let those monsters get close enough to ever do something like that to you! Never!

Vox: I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I can’t eat, I can’t sleep!

Vox: Maybe I’m coming down with some sort of virus. The only person I was with today is Y/N and now I feel all weird.

Velvette: Oh, I know what you’ve got: the ‘L’ word

Valentino: Leprosy?

Velvette:

Velvette: No, Val, no. Four letters. Starts with ‘l’, ends with ‘e’

Valentino: AHA! Lice!

Velvette: No! Vox is in love!

Valentino: Oh yeah! Love!

Vox: **watching Y/N**

Velvette: Uh oh!

Vox: What?

Velvette: Somebody’s in love!

Vox: What? No! I just think Y/N’s smart, okay? She’s a VoxTek department head! It’s not like I lie awake at night thinking about her!

**later that night**

Vox, at 3am: Uh oh

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.

“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?”

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.”

Imagine getting Shock.wav those buttons dogs use to talk

Vox: My little Shock.wav, did you miss me?

Shock.wav, pressing a button: Daddy!

Vox: Awww. I really am his favourite

Y/N: Shock.wav, did you miss me?

Shock.wav, frantically pressing buttons: MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY MOMMY

Vox:

Y/N: Vincent, don’t accidentally kill someone

Vincent: Well, I’m not a fucking idiot!

Vincent: I know how to do it on purpose

Charlie: Shit, you guys, we need to distract Vox. Any ideas?

Y/N, who exclusively reads CEO and demon romances: My time has come

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?