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~o*oOo*o~
To say Niffty serves as a domestic goddess at the Hotel is to gravely underserve the matter entirely. The halfhearted, watered-down equivalent of observing Husk was merely fond of booze, Lucifer vaguely-interested in ducks, or calling Baxter a scientific dilettante.
And, like Hestia, goddess of the home—so often overlooked amidst the titanic overlords clashing for control of their burning homeland—Niffty keeps everyone’s hearths warmed at the Hotel like a cheerful, live ember, twinkling in near-constant motion like a falling star.
She rises, very early or very late—perhaps not even Alastor is privy to the strange engine of her hours. By the time she dusts the spindly tables, grand applewood banisters she delights sliding down, she’s already brought the woodwork to a pulse with beeswax imported from Gluttony. Replaced wilting flowers in the lobby, emptied the trash.
Then, with a speed belying her impossibly-petite frame, she hops upon the hotel trolley and zooms for the kitchens, wherein baking tart crust and the dark grains of coffee swell the day open. Baxter quietly delights in attempting to keep his gaze level with Niffty’s pace, awestruck. Niffty is a Newton’s forgotten footnote to his laws of motion. A Niffty at Rest is something he’s seldom—if ever—witnessed. Scientific anomaly.
(Oh, Baxter is terribly fond, of anomalies.)
Hitherto moving to the Hotel, Baxter regularly found himself come the slow squint of consciousness at his laboratory workbench after nodding off during late-night work. Invariably, there were cricks in his neck, an ache in his shoulders from his abysmal posture in a near-constant slouch. Often his face was speckled with ink from his notes.
Nowadays? Baxter wakes most mornings in the gratifying-bewilderment of being wrapped in a quilt, still warm from the dryer. A squashy feather pillow tucked underneath his cheek in lieu of stainless steel, a platter of coffee and a plate of that day’s pastry sitting patience. Niffty’s ability to break and enter like Hell’s most thoughtful cat burglar is both a little unnerving and incredibly-sweet. Like Niffty herself.
The stony set of Baxter’s shoulders sinks just a little more each week at the Hotel, whenever he eases with a sigh in the hot bubble baths Niffty draws up for him after a grueling shift at VoxTech.
Baxter hadn’t truly grasped just how much he keeps his guard up at work—a tiny fish shadowed by apex predators—until, at last, there had been an opposite to bring it to form. How his shields go crumbling down when his draconian shifts blissfully end, when Niffty gleefully scampers down the hotel drive to greet his approaching, staggering figure, painting Hell’s dusk with kitchen light from the ajar door.
Baxter’s bootfalls coming to a halt on cobblestone. Niffty clutching him too tight in her little matchstick arms, and not nearly tightly enough.
Baxter’s gloved hands stroking a fondness through Niffty’s hair. His breathing touches the floor, and his tired heart need not make a sound. And Baxter’s rendered sweet with the phantom ache of gratitude. Ironically, Niffty treats him more like a human as an anglerfish abomination than Baxter ever recounts being treated back when he could claim the title.
Niffty tugging back to welcome Baxter home before hanging up his cloak, gently shooing him to the marbled parlor hearth where Husk has already tugged out a cerulean mocktail at the bar. Baxter holding his fins over the fire in silent thanksgiving.
Pots of smoky gumbo bubbling on the hotel stove, that day’s dessert—a glistening cherry tart, apple cake, peach cobbler —coloring in the oven. Your sheets tucked at the precise angle and smelling of lavender for no reason but that it mattered to you. Even if Baxter’s initial theory had been correct, Redemption impossible, it would be worth staying for these home comforts alone.
Home.
Watching Niffty work, his scaly features painted with firelight, Baxter muses that long ago, he’d wrinkled his nose against sweet things. As it is far better policy to wrinkle your nose against the things you are not likely to ever keep, like Pentious.
But this aversion likewise has been soundly debunked, its true, secret name was Longing. And like Baxter’s initial dismissal of Redemption, it’s not so bad to be disproven. Because, after decades of sawdust protein bars, canned meat of dubious origin, thousands upon thousands of solitude, Baxter is starved for sweetness of one kind or another.
And Niffty in her turn, seems starved to offer someone sweetness, for all the spitfire of her on the battlefield. Baxter startles himself with his own hunger, sometimes partaking of two helpings of blackberry pudding after dinner. The difference of simply eating to consume, vs. eating to experience, is worth scientific inquiry.
Charlie and her friends—Baxter’s friends, now, too, a curious thing to have in the plural noun—had clearly been bewildered that Baxter had been so willing to betray the Vees for a mere handful of home comforts. That was certainly part of the truth. After all, what were these comforts without the souls who worked so fiercely and tirelessly to home the hotel, Niffty chief among them?
Baxter does not envy Pentious’s title as the first rehabilitated Sinner. Not even Heaven could hope for room service of this quality—of Niffty gently knocking each morning at Baxter’s door to greet him with the tea tray. The novelty of company, and once more, of being glad of it.
And, if Pentious had completely fumbled the likes of Niffty for the wrong, red-headed cyclops, well. Baxter muses whenever he gruffly bids Niffty to come in, he’s surely not about to make the same cosmic error.
Like clockwork, Niffty appears at Baxter’s door each morning. Until one day, when blackening clouds croon a tempo of thunder, the knock at Baxter’s door never arrives.
~o*oOo*o~
Niffty’s eyelashes slowly part in a daze.
The furnishings of her room are curiously-slow to build upon themselves today: The patchwork Creolean quilt Alastor helped stitch one sleepy afternoon. Friendship bracelets made by Charlie during a Hotel teambuilding exercise. Fruit-shaped pincushions. Old cookie tins full of buttons, fabrics and feathers and other “materials” Niffty’s corvid-like eye fell upon in fascination. Torn-out fur courtesy of Valentino now lining the smart collar of a Pride dress draped upon a mannequin.
A makeshift roach theater with tiny velvet curtains Alastor gifted for Niffty last Sinsmas. A little curious beeping machine Baxter had invented to help her clean, which he’d christened a Doom-ba, capable both of vacuuming a room and bringing doom to approaching enemy fodder. The little Bug Band stage Baxter had constructed for Niffty.
Some people would ask why insects would need to be reanimated and given opposable thumbs to play musical instruments. Baxter, not being of the mind to ask Little Bitch Questions, would merely inquire if Niffty wanted Classical, Merengue, or Big Band. And that was sufficient reason for Niffty to superimpose Baxter’s face in crayon over the groom faces in all of Niffty’s wedding magazines stashed underneath her bed like contraband with her fanfiction.
Countless polaroids of her friends look on where Niffty’s fondly strung them up with streamers of origami hearts and roaches. For some reason, her friends’ faces are swimming. The blurring colors in her room are all watercolors, today.
Flushed, Niffty wriggles like an overturned ladybug, impatiently-bidding herself to rise. Normally she’d be zooming out the door almost immediately upon waking, plucking her apron and freshly-pressed uniform from the hat stand, marching solemnly in front of her roach troops like a general intending to lead them to battle. Firmly, she bids her tiny limbs to move. They flop like a beached fish’s fins for all the headway she makes.
Brow now glistening with sweat, throat on the clutch with trepidation, Niffty decides to simply roll out of bed and crawl to the door if needed. “Not today, Satan!” There’s simply far too much work to justify staying in bed. To say nothing of an important diplomatic treaty to form with the rats in the attic seeking an alliance against the rats in the basement. Snuffling, Niffty drops over the edge of her bed with an anticipatory squeal of: “Yay, pain!”
But before she can hit the ground, a pair of cold arms sharply close around her, catching her inches before she can eat carpet, as Angel enjoys saying. Startled, Niffty attempts to whip her head up to glimpse the culprit—who would even try catching her?
But the sudden movement is a mistake.
Niffty doubles up, gooseflesh pebbling her spine as she shiver-shudders, tasting the warning sting of bile. Hurriedly, she bites the inside of her cheek, but not in time to suppress a whimper.
A pause. Slowly, gently—so very gently—Niffty’s settled back in her bed. Flushed, Niffty squints, waiting for her vision to repair itself. There’s a silhouette standing over her. And the shape has Baxter’s colors.
Smile concentrated to a beam, Niffty lights at him in sheer joy, a firefly spelling out are you there are you there are you there in the arboreal gloom. The bioluminescent lure on Baxter’s head answers back to the beacon summons like a lighthouse storm-lantern shuttering a message.
“Lay down this instant.” Baxter implores sternly. His concern is a stumbling thing. His features seem ransacked, mind a singular note strained too high as his palm finds Niffty’s brow. “If you were any hotter, I’d have scorched my hands just now. And my gloves are flame-retardant.”
Niffty is touched. Her cheeks brushstroke pink. “Aw, thank you, Smart Boi!” The sound of her rasping voice sounds like a punctured accordion just now. “And can I just say you must be made of O₂ and H₂O, because you're the coolest element in the room!” Niffty had taken it upon herself to search-engine science-themed pickup lines the moment she’d glimpsed Baxter scowling at the check-in desk.
Baxter coughs and hurriedly averts his eyes. The blush brushstroking against his cheekbones momentarily renders him purple. “Not what I….” He attempts to halt a grudging smile, but the action of attempting to stop merely unfolds it on his features like a love letter. Niffty could be actively bleeding out on the ground, and she’d still flirt with Baxter somehow. “….you’re welcome, I suppose.”
Brightening, Niffty attempts to recline on her bed upon her side in her best, Draw-Me-Like-Your-French-Girls pose since Alastor is not around, pointedly polishing a shotgun he curiously acquired shortly after Baxter moved in. Alas, the effect is admittedly less Seductive Temptress and more Asthmatic Teletubby on Niffty’s part, judging by how Niffty soon doubles-up coughing. “Bleh. What use is bein’ sick if you feel too icky to play Doctor and get a checkup?”
Baxter, much more adept in rifling through cadavers than in gentleness, nonetheless practices what Charlie would approvingly-call “Nice Hands” on Niffty by tucking her feverish head under his chin, stroking her back. Certainly no had bothered offering tenderness to Baxter throughout his short, sad life. Or for that matter, to Niffty throughout her shorter, sadder life. So, they bother with being tender with one another—if bother is quite the right word for it. Baxter wonders if this is what spooning a space heater would be like.
Niffty leans into the soothing caress with a little hum, eyes lidding as Baxter nuzzles the old lobotomy stitches hidden under her hair that prickle when she’s agitated. She’s never been more relieved Baxter’s cold-blooded, if not nearly not so much in demeanor as he pretends. At last, she sighs, still lightheaded.
“What time is it? I need to start breakfast for everyone in the hotel!” Frantically, Niffty starts flapping like a hummingbird attempting to take off. “I need to wash the floors! I need to vacuum! I’ll get your coffee bench-pressed. I mean French-pressed, gah, I have a few of the dizzies today—”
“No.” Baxter’s hands are implacable as a raven’s talons as they firmly tug Niffty back against her polka dot pillows. “Not today.” Fumbling in his crab bag, Baxter extracts a small stoppered vial filled with light turquoise, translucent fluid with a soft sheen. “I suspected when I heard you hacking down the hall you might require this, so I whipped medication up in my lab in a trice.”
Niffty is one part exasperated, two parts touched. “Baxter, you know we can’t die from sickness—”
“Coming from someone with the constitution of a sickly Victorian orphan, I can vouch it’s no less the pleasant for not being fatal.” Baxter grumbles, settling in the armchair beside her. “Drink.”
Resigned, Niffty wraps her hands around the vial and downs the contents like hemlock, wincing as she swallows, though relieved for the cool reprieve against her parched throat. Then, she buries her face in the small of her knees, clutching the lurch of her tummy to keep the potion Baxter made from returning to sender.
“Good girl. You always take care of me.” Baxter tenderly tugs the quilt back over her. “Perhaps it’d do you well, to be taken care of for a change.” He rises to his feet. “I’ll let Vaggie know I’ll be filling in for your duties today at the Hotel.”
Niffty is so startled she nearly falls out of bed again. “….can ya please let everyone know I’m real, real sorry? Alastor, too.” Then Niffty’s brow gets scrunchy as she ponders the implications with growing apprehension. “Is that really gonna be okay? Have you ever cooked before?”
“Whyever not? You’re always quick enough to get everything done.” Baxter waves upon his hand like a ship captain upon the Titanic pooh-poohing the approaching icebergs. “I’ve never actually cooked anything, but cooking is chemistry. Follow the recipes, and the science will take care of itself.” He nuzzles her. “Go back to sleep, poppet. The sedative should be kicking in at any moment now. I’ll be back along with breakfast soon enough if you think you can try and hold it down.”
Hesitantly, Niffty lies down with murmured thanks as Baxter takes his leave, sinking beneath her quilt. It’s with a wan flicker of gratitude she spies Keekee wandering in. Already drowsy from the potion, Niffty pats the bed in invitation; Keekee leaps upon the corner of Niffty’s bed, circling like a cat and kneading the bedding before lying down. Soon her purr is a soft motor, and Niffty is grateful for the company.
“Hi Keekee. And.” Niffty does not even need to look up to Know. “Hi, Jacques. I know you’re there, silly. Come down already.” It seems Niffty’s absence downstairs this morning hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Pause. Then, looking every part of an eldritch, sleep paralysis entity starring out of one’s worst nightmares, eyes white hollows, mouth a near-constant rictus smirk, Alastor’s shadow slowly, sheepishly obliges. Insofar as any part of Alastor sheepishly does anything.
Niffty blows a kiss at Alastor’s shadow, who cheerfully catches it in his dark fist, waving gaily before bowing. “I missed you.” And she means it. And he knows she does—Niffty cared enough for Alastor’s safety to materialize during the street fight with the Vees. Even if it ultimately resulted in her staring down the golden chamber of Valentino’s angelic steel pistol. “Did Alastor send ya to check in on me? Don’t worry. I’m already feeling loads better. See?”
With that, Niffty attempts to rise, only to faceplant against the pillows seconds later. Jacques is standing over her seconds later, shadowed hand resting upon Niffty’s shadow on her bedroom wall. His shadow casually reclines beside the windowpane, white static eyes warily flickering around en guarde for any intruders. Niffty sighs, but it’s two parts exasperation, three parts gentleness as she curls up, eye lidding.
Somewhere nearby, the sound of a piano trills a soothing melody familiar as a lullaby. Before she falls asleep, Niffty muses that Alastor seems curiously fond of practicing piano whenever the contents of Niffty’s head are reduced to broken glass.
~o*oOo*o~