Rabbit Blood

Chapter 26 - Break The Cutie

Over the next few days, Leslie noticed a spike in hellpox cases at the Hazbin Hotel. Nobody was spared. It was almost like one of the infected had teleported to each guest's bedroom in turn and breathed all over them in their sleep.

Many guests checked out in protest, leaving Charlie distraught, and even worse, Channel 666 heard something was rotten at the hotel. That was a headline in the papers on Friday: Something Rotten At Hazbin Hotel. Though most reporters merely called reception for the story, Tom Trench actually knocked on the door a few times. Perhaps he thought the gas mask ensured his immunity.

Leslie herself was doing better. The blisters had crusted over, which, according to Baxter, meant the window for contagion had passed. He'd had the pox decades ago, and was attempting to find a vaccine for it.

"Not remotely my field," he told her, a mad gleam in his eye, "but that never stopped me before."

Having recovered somewhat, Leslie volunteered to help around the hotel with laundry and room service. Her boss didn't need to know she was better, especially if he himself was sick. Angel Dust was much improved, so she took half an hour to go visit him.

"Look at this!" he said, pointing to the band of blue in his fur. "I'm gonna have ta get this bleached out before I'm fit ta be seen. Fuck's sake!"

"It's not that bad," Leslie assured him, "kind of goes well with the pale pink."

She planned to do something about her own hair. Alastor had suggested shaving it off, but Leslie was terrified of being even uglier without it, like a naked mole rat.

"A pity," he said, "it would be nice to really see the marks I leave on you."

The phrase rang in her brain as she finally ventured outside to get some hair dye. She found two boxes of the darkest shade, and returned to her room to apply it. The test swatch stung what remained of her pox, though, so she gave it a few more days before trying again.

When the time came, she stripped naked, mixed up the dye and brushed it onto her body, wherever she could reach. Her middle back was tricky, but she managed. Then she spent an awkward forty minutes standing in the center of her room while the stuff worked its magic, and hoped nobody would spontaneously walk in and see her like this. Then Leslie cursed, because she'd forgotten to grab a towel to wear. She wrapped herself in a bedsheet toga, checked the coast was clear and ran to the restroom to wash everything off. This time, she forced herself to keep the light on, watching as a pool of grayish water spread around her feet in the shower.

Afterwards, having wiped the fog from the mirror, she hopped on the spot to get a look at herself. It seemed the blue was concealed, and she actually looked better than before. Her darker pelt had a nice shine to it. Yeah! Fuck you, Dad, for never letting me do this as a teenager! What do you know?

o - o - o - o - o

Leslie came downstairs that night to raid the fridge, but heard an argument taking place in the lobby, and crouched on the stairs to eavesdrop. From here, she could see legs, and a pair of gesticulating hands which turned out to be Charlie's.

"You want to throw him out now? He's making a vaccine!"

"Oh, my dear naïve girl... had it occurred to you that Baxter might've introduced the disease in the first place?"

"Why would he do that?

"A nice, controlled environment? A plethora of sinners to experiment on?"

There was a faint slapping noise as Charlie's head fell into her hands. "Do you have evidence though, Al? Do you have any basis for this? He's trying to help people, and you could have evicted him last time when- Oh, Angel, where are you going?"