Chapter Text
Pentious really should have known it was coming, when he officially moved into the Hazbin Hotel .
Of course, he hadn’t thought about it at all at the time. He’d been too distraught over losing his Egg Boiz. The thought of never having anyone to do his Evil Bidding again had been terrible! Or, well, perhaps Regular Bidding, given he’s supposed to be attempting redemption, and this time for real. Regular Bidding is still useful, and at least they can clean his quarters and bring him things when he’s building and be perfectly sized comfort objects to wrap around when he needs them.
And he’d been delighted to get them back, of course. Vag atha had been quite kind, to return them! And Alastor as well, he supposes. Well, perhaps not kind, but he hadn’t put up a fight about it. Which was fortunate, because although Pentious doesn’t like to admit it, he is perhaps a bit outmatched against the Radio Demon if he does not have his airship at his disposal.
Not that he would say that out loud, of course.
The point being that he had been a bit distracted with the loss of his little Eggies and the resulting complicated trust exercises and bonding through battle. And by the time it had all been over he’d been thoroughly exhausted, and his fatigue hadn’t seemed out of place.
In the morning, though, it’s clear that more than just the stress of losing his Egg Boiz and being thrown into battle without his minions or artillery is affecting him.
It starts when Pentious wakes up and feels… off. Not sick, exactly, he never feels sick, but he does feel strange. Still tired, even after a full night’s sleep. And a little chilly, which is odd given they are in Hell, and he always keeps his room at a minimum of 28.8°C. He’d never liked the cold even when he was alive, which was truly a bother when he hailed from dreary England, but it had gotten worse when he’d died and reformed in this reptilian body.
Pentious yawns and curls up around two of his Egg Boiz, wrapping one up in his arms and another in his coils. Both “ oooh” softly and do nothing at all to protest, used to being constricted. He’s tired, and even the dim lights of his room seem too bright, and everything puts him in a sour mood.
“ Raissse the temperature on the thermossstat,” he orders sleepily to one of the Egg Boiz not acting as comfort objects. “And sssomeone put out that infernal light,” he adds, burying his head under his pillow enough that it comfortably blocks his eyes.
“ You got it, Boss!” two of the Egg Boiz say excitedly. There’s a faint scampering noise as two of them scurry away, and a few clicks as they do his Regular Bidding. He sighs in relief.
“Are you getting up yet, Boss?” a voice says from nearby.
Pentious recoils his head from the pillow long enough to crack a single eye open. It’s difficult; his eyes feel sticky with sleep, and the lid is difficult to lift. But he eventually catches sight of Frank in the gloom, standing next to his head dutifully, already outfitted in his Evil—that is, Regular Minion suit.
“Why would I be getting up?” Pentious asks, scowling at him.
“You slept through breakfast, Boss!” Frank says happily. “It’s almost lunch! And I think Charlie said there’s a redemption thing you’re supposed to do today!”
Pentious jerks upright, scattering the two Egg Boiz he’d been wrapped around and flaring his hood in agitation. “It’s what time?” he yelps, and then yelps again as he moves, because he’s sore everywhere after the fighting yesterday.
“It’s almost lunch!” Frank repeats with a wide smile.
“ How?” Pentious hisses incredulously. As a general rule, he’s an early riser. On a lazy day he might sleep in as late as nine in the morning, but he likes to have daylight to work on his inventions. O r…well, he supposes he won’t be doing that anymore if he’s being redeemed, but now he can get up to be redemptive. Whatever that means.
Either way, sleeping in until almost lunchtime is hardly his style. Perhaps the spider’s— Angel Dust, he reminds himself, the man had pulled him out of a war zone and he supposes that earns him a name. But certainly not his. Invention and genius requires order and schedules.
“You just kept sleeping, Boss!” Frank offers helpfully.
Pentious hadn’t expected an answer, but that’s besides the point. “Fetch my hat and lay out my clothesss!” he orders, as he pushes himself upright and gets his coils beneath himself. He feels heavy and slow and sore everywhere, and his numerous extra eyes down the length of his body are blurry and useless. A few of the eyecaps had been scratched in yesterday’s fracas and limited his vision significantly, which is irritating. He’ll have to see if he can buff them out later.
His Egg Boiz rush to work, fetching Pentious’ shirt, suit jacket, tie and hat. They stack atop one another to help Pentious out of his pajama shirt and into his clothes, and Frank ties his bowtie with a surprising degree of finesse.
He’s ready in minutes, but even the act of dressing is a miserable one. He’s still sore and tired everywhere, and wants nothing so much as to go back to bed. Even his clothes feel strange on his scales, oddly sensitive where the fabric pulls and rubs against them in a scratchy sort of way he can’t stand.
The old rough-and-tumble really hadn’t done him any favors yesterday. Pentious is unused to direct combat without so much as a weapon or a machine to use. His demonic body isn’t exactly designed for it, and he’d looked for alternative ways to protect himself almost as soon as he’d descend to Hell. Even his fights with the Radio Demon had ended differently—mostly because Alastor preferred to assault him with magic. That was painful, but not sore and exhausting like this.
Still, he’d agreed to this redemption effort, and he’s going to do his best to fulfill it. Charlie had spared his life, and it was the first kindness anyone had ever shown him in Hell. This place isn’t so bad, he supposes. He’d even gotten used to the other residents, and Vagatha had even returned his Egg Boiz to him.
So, if he is required to partake in a redemption activity today, he will pull himself together and attend. No matter how sore he might be currently.
He slithers downstairs to attend lunch, and discovers moving is its own set of problems. Stairs are old hat to him by now, even without legs; he’d gotten used to his new method of locomotion well over a hundred years ago. But making his way down the stairs is especially painful today. He’s sore in places he wasn’t aware he had muscles until this moment, from his upper body all the way to the tip of his tail.
By the time he reaches the dining room, he’s exhausted, and would like little more than to curl up under the table and rest. The tablecloth is so long it nearly touches the floor, and it would make a nice, enclosed little cave of darkness if there weren’t so many legs under it from the others sitting.
He resists the temptation, but he does decide to use a chair today. Sitting is always an awkward experience without hips or legs, and they’re never designed for the length of his snake body or his tail. If he tries to sit like someone more human-shaped, it usually means he’s resting directly on his spine, which is always uncomfortable. More often than not, it’s easier to stay upright in a cobra-stance and use his body in place of a chair, coiling his back half as needed.
But today he’s tired, so he twists his coils into an awkward approximation of a sit, choosing a chair without armrests so he can drape his tail off to one side. His tail tip automatically curls around one of the chair legs as support, and he sags a little in relief, letting the chair take most of his weight.
“There you are, Pentious!” Charlie says happily, waving to him from further down the table. “I was just about to come get you!”
“I apologize for my tardinessss,” Pentious says sheepishly. “I didn’t intend to ssssleep in. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I mean, you got the shit kicked outta you yesterday,” Angel Dust points out through a mouthful of food. “And normally you use yer ray guns or big war machines, right?”
“ You aren’t wrong,” Pentious admits. “And I am rather sssore. Ssstill, I apologize for being late.”
Vagatha winces a little. “Sorry if my trust exercise went overboard,” she says. “I might’ve gotten a little carried away yesterday.”
“ A little?” Husk grumbles, before taking a long swig of booze.
The conversation turns to Angel Dust and Vagatha sniping back and forth about yesterday’s unexpected combat exercise. Pentious is too tired to join in, so he turns his attention to the spread of food on the table.
As always since he joined the Hazbin Hotel a few days ago, he’s rather impressed by the meals. Although it appears anyone can use the kitchen facilities to make food, the little housemaid and the Radio Demon are the ones who typically prepare meals for the staff and residents. Niffty’s meals aren’t terrible as long as she doesn’t include the bugs she kills in them, although she does on occasion prepare some truly bizarre repasts that were common in the American nineteen-fifties that Pentious would rather not dwell on too often. And the Radio Demon has a surprising gift with food preparation that Pentious certainly wouldn’t have guessed at from their score of fights in the past, although his fondness for spices is on occasion excessive.
Today’s repast looks as delicious as ever, and since the Radio Demon isn’t present, he can only assume it was prepared by Niffty. As always, there’s plenty for everyone. That in itself is a novelty to Pentious. In Hell, especially as a loner with no affiliations, a next meal is not always guaranteed. Pentious has been grateful in the past for the slowed metabolism that came with his reptilian body, which meant he didn’t need to eat as often as other more humanoid sinners. But it’s nice to have a guaranteed chance at a meal without having to scrape or scrounge or wonder where it will come from.
Despite that, Pentious finds himself uninterested in eating. He puts a little food on his plate, but only manages to nibble at a roll before giving up on food. He doesn’t feel sick to his stomach, exactly, but the thought of eating is just…unappealing, at the moment.
By contrast, he finds himself quite thirsty. An entire pitcher of American sweet tea sits on the table today. Although the thought of cold tea makes the Englishman in him wince, it’s cool and refreshing and not altogether terrible, and he finds himself draining half the pitcher in intervals over the course of the meal.
He picks at the roll on his plate in between sips of sweet tea, shredding it apart without actually putting any of it in his mouth. He’s lost in his own thoughts, wondering how long the redemption exercise will take so that he can go back to be d. It isn’t that he wants to avoid the redemption work, but h e really does feel awful and sore and quite tired from yesterday’s events.
He’s aware that he probably should pay more attention to the conversations of his newfound compatriots, to better learn about them, especially since Charlie had been so insistent that trust was important. But he finds it difficult to pay attention today.
Perhaps this is why hearing his own name comes as a shock. “Pentious?”
“Ah! Yes!” He looks up in alarm, whipping his head this way and that and flaring his hood until he spots the princess staring at him. And everyone else, for that matter. “My apologiessss again, Your Highnesss,” he says hastily. “Were you sssspeaking to me?”
“ You don’t have to call me that, Pen,” Charlie reminds him for the dozenth time. Which simply feels wrong. Sir Pentious may have been enough of a S inner in life to be condemned to Hell, but he was a proper Englishman and addressed the nobility with all due decorum. Unlike the rest of these American heathens.
“ Of courssse, Ma’a—I mean, Charlie,” Pentious says…for now. “Did you have a quessstion for me?”
“I was just curious if you were feeling okay,” Charlie says. “You haven’t eaten much, and you didn’t come down for breakfast…is everything all right? Besides being sore from yesterday.”
Pentious actually hasn’t had the opportunity to explain his unique snake-like metabolism to Charlie yet in the few days he’s been here, so he can understand the confusion. He’s more reptilian than mammal since his death, and while he doesn’t habitually take weeks between meals like many true snakes, every few days isn’t uncommon. A single large meal every two to three days is usually more than enough to satisfy unless he truly exerts himself or has recently died. His joining at mealtimes has mostly been for socialization, and perhaps a drink at most. Even snakes need to hydrate.
He’s about to explain as much, except that Niffty speaks up abruptly, her single eye gleaming. “The Not-Bad-Boy is the wrong color,” she complains.
Pentious blinks, baffled. “I beg your pardon?” he asks, bewildered.
“Actually, yeah.” Vagatha squints at him curiously. “Now that Niffty mentions it, you’re a lighter gray than normal.”
“The yellow in yer hair or whatever it is is a lot paler too,” Angel Dust notes, regarding him curiously. “And your eyes look a little funny.”
Oh.
Oh, no.
The blood can’t exactly drain from his face in a visible way, with all his scales, but Pentious can feel it anyway. He’ s unexpectedly cold, even though he knows he shouldn’t be , because Hell is eternally warm.
Oh, it can’t be that time. Not now! Not after arriving at the Hotel!
Except, it does track, loathe as he is to admit it. He hadn’t expected this to happen for at least another month, but environmental changes can and do affect his biological schedule in unexpected ways. It came upon him months early when he first finished his airship and had a new relatively safe environment to call his own.
And now…between the recent extermination day, multiple territory battles, arriving at the Hotel, officially moving in, and grudgingly coming to accept his newfound hotel-mates…well, it seems that is enough of a change to force the process early. Perhaps the most dreaded, loathsome, horrible part of his demonic form and everything that came with it:
His shed has arrived early.
It makes sense. His symptoms had been masked by feeling poorly from the fight yesterday, but everything lines up. The exhaustion, the desire to hide in a dark cave and rest, the excessive thirst but lack of appetite, the way his clothes don’t feel right against his scales. He’d been too preoccupied to notice his color, but dulled markings and paler eyes were always an early sign of his separating scales. Even his degrading vision, which he’d thought was due to scratch damage from the battle, would be explained by an upcoming shed.
Oh, no no no. This couldn’t happen at a worse time. Shedding is awful. He’s vulnerable and helpless and uncomfortable and, for a time, he’ll be completely blind. There is nothing more dangerous in Hell than a condition that makes one completely and unquestionably at the mercy of others. Especially not when surrounded by people fully willing to take advantage of every exposed weakness.
Pentious needs to get out of here as fast as he can.
“Awww, Pentious!” Charlie says, eyes wide. “Are you feeling sick? Maybe you caught something on the battlefield yesterday?”
“Oh, no,” Pentious says hastily. “I’m sssure it’sss nothing at all like that.”
“ You sure?” Angel Dust asks, frowning. “Maybe ya didn’t pick up a cold, but there was a lotta junk all over and ya rolled in like, half of it.”
“ I didn’t do sssso on purposssse!”
“Not sayin’ ya did,” Angel Dust says, holding a pair of hands up. “But it coulda still hurt ya. Bad needles, rusty metal, poisons…”
“There was so much!” Niffty says. “It was so messy! I tried to clean it up but they just kept making more mess!” Her single eye looks positively haunted.
“I assssure you, I don’t believe that is the issssssue,” Pentious says hastily. The last thing he needs is for the entire lot of them to hover over him with the mistaken impression that he’s badly injured or poisoned. Not when he’s approaching his shed, and can’t afford to let them know about it.
He’s far too vulnerable when he’s shedding. He trusts them more, after yesterday’s trust exercise debacle, but there is trust and there is stupidity. And this…this is not something he can tell people about. Not even Charlie, sweet as she is.
It’s too dangerous to let anyone know of one’s greatest weakness in Hell.
“ I’m afraid I’m jusssst feeling a bit under the weather,” he adds, at their dubious looks. “Assss you correctly pointed out, direct combat issss a bit difficult for me without my minionssss. But don’t worry, Your H—I mean, Charlie! I shall endeavor to be an excellent sssstudent at your redemption sssssession today regardless.”
He can probably manage for that long, at least. A few hours won’t make a meaningful difference, and perhaps he can earn some gratitude for the coming days.
“Oh, no no no!” Charlie says. “I know I said our redemption exercises are mandatory, Pentious, but if you’re not feeling well that’s another story. I don’t want you to make yourself feel worse! Why don’t you take today off and go back to your room to rest for a bit?”
“ Hey!” Angel Dust scowls. “How come he gets a day off for gettin’ his ass kicked and feelin’ a little sick, but when I’m sick I still gotta go?”
“Because you weren’t actually sick, you were faking it,” Vagatha snaps back.
“You don’t know that!”
“ You literally said the word ‘cough,’” Vagatha shoots back stubbornly.
“ I was there, she ain’t wrong,” Husk backs her up bluntly. Niffty giggles. “For a so-called actor you play sick like shit.”
“Tough crowd,” Angel Dust grumbles, crossing both sets of arms.
“ The point is,” Charlie cuts in quickly, trying to stop a fight from escalating, “that if you’re actually not feeling well, it’s okay to take a break and rest up! In fact, that’s a really good lesson for all of us! Self-care is really important.” She gasps. “Oh! Maybe I can write up a lesson plan about that!”
“Drag the boss into that one if you can,” Husk says dryly. “He could probably use it.”
All of them glance around habitually for Alastor, who hasn’t bothered to attend lunch. Which is probably proof enough that he could use a few lessons in caring for himself, or whatever Charlie has in mind.
“If you’re certain,” Pentious hisses, uneasy. He’s worked very hard over the past couple of days to prove he’s not working for the Vee’s anymore, and to show he’s genuinely interested in giving redemption a try. He’d even given up his little Egg Boiz at Vagatha’s insistence, no matter how much it hurt! He doesn’t want to ruin his chances now that he truly is giving it his best shot.
“Absolutely!” Charlie says. “You go ahead and rest. And if you need anything, let us know! And one of us can check on you before dinner, or even bring you something if you like! Oh, what’s your favorite food? Niffty or Alastor can make it, I’m sure! Oh, and—”
Vagatha puts a hand on Charlie’s arm, slowing her excitement. “How about we start by letting him rest,” she says pointedly. “We’ll see where things go from there, okay?”
“Right!”
“I truly appreciate it,” Pentious says, as he slides wearily off his chair and unspools his coils on the floor. “I’m sure the ressst will do me good. Thank you!”
And he slithers off before anyone can argue further with him. He’s absolutely exhausted, still, and it’s a strong temptation to simply slither under the table, wrap himself up in his own coils, and go to sleep. But he knows that’s shed instinct talking now, and he must get somewhere safer and more prepared than a dining room table for the upcoming awful event.
It takes longer than it should to make it back to his room. His Egg Boiz are chasing each other around and tumbling over things and engaging in ridiculous slap flights. But the moment he slithers through and snaps, “Eggsss! Attention!” each one stops what it’s doing and immediately stands upright in a practiced salute.
“Begin fortifying at once, my minionsss!” Pentious barks. “We have a Code Grey!”
“An attack from the Doomsday District?” one of the Egg Boiz asks.
“ No!” Pentious snarls, flaring his hood wide. “The shed isss upon me! We must begin preparing immediately. You two!” He points to two Eggs at random. “Begin consssstruction for a sssafe cave! You, work on heat and humidity.”
“You got it, Boss!” three of the five Eggs say, snapping sharp salutes again before jogging off for their respective tasks. One rushes for the temperature meter for the room while the others begin hunting for supplies for a proper humid hide.
“ And you two have the mossst important job, to ssstart,” Pentious says, whirling on the final two Egg Boiz. “ Defensesss.”
“Uh, against what, Boss?” Frank asks, scratching his shell approximately where a skull would be. “We’re in the hotel, so there’s no weapons to set up.”
“ Againsssst visitorsss,” Pentious says. “None of the other residentsss are to know about my… condition. I don’t want anyone else ssssneaking around or learning about my weaknesssses while the shed issss upon me. You are to find ways to disssstract and deter them. Create defenssses to protect the room. And no one isss to enter without my expressss permission, do you undersssstand?”
“You got it, Boss!” They salute, and immediately scuttle over to the door to begin investigating it.
With his Eggs properly dispatched, Pentious sags in exhaustion. He really should have recognized his shed was coming with how tired he is, in retrospect. Not even good old fashioned fisticuffs left him this winded and out of sorts.
For now, there’s not much else he could attend to or assist with. His Egg Boiz will attend to their duties, and he lacks the energy to assist with any building or additional preparations. For now, he changes back into his pajama shirt, slithers to his circular gear bed and tries to get some rest.
Getting comfortable is difficult. It always is, when he sheds. Normally, he tends to sleep more like the human he was, but when the shed comes he loathes how exposed it makes him feel. For a while he tries to rest on his side, using his pillow, but it feels too open. He eventually wraps his coils around himself instead as he curls into a loose ball, forming a shape his Eggs often called the ‘Boss Cinnamon Roll.’ With his coils curled protectively around his head and shoulders, he feels a little more secure, and eventually drifts off to rest.
He wakes feeling stiff, cold, lethargic, and deeply miserable.
It takes him a while to even properly open his eyes. They feel sticky and gummed up, but now that Pentious knows the shed has arrived, it’s clear it isn’t because of sleep.
Earth snakes don’t have eyelids, instead protecting their eyes with transparent special scales called eye caps that function more like permanent goggles. During the shed, the eye caps also come off, replaced with new ones.
Demonic snakes function more or less the same. Pentious has six lateral eyes and three ventral eyes along the length of his snake body, and an additional four on his hood, and each one comes equipped with no lids and permanent eye caps. But because of his unique physiology that mixes human mammal and reptilian snake, the natural eyes on his face have both eyelids and eye caps. They work a bit like the ‘contact lenses’ he’s heard about in the living world more recently.
This makes shedding for his natural eyes especially difficult, given the cap scales loosen and stick beneath his eyelids most uncomfortably and eventually come off. Before that, the shed fluid often leaks from beneath the eyelids, making them sticky and giving him the illusion of oily-looking tears.
It is a thoroughly unpleasant sensation and he detests it every time it happens.
That is expected, but the rest isn’t. When Pentious finally blearily wrenches his eyes open and raises his head enough to look around his room, it’s to find it in useless disarray. Items are scattered everywhere, his Egg Boiz are running back and forth seemingly on business, and the air does not feel at all warm or humid as he had demanded.
A glance at the thermostat shows that it is indeed 29°C, barely above the standard temperature he prefers. The humidity gauge is equally terrible at a pathetic 49%—not at all high enough to facilitate a reasonable or comfortable shed.
“Why isssn’t this place ready yet?” Pentious snarls, wearily levering himself upright. “I told you, thissss is a Code Grey! You know the parameterssss!”
“Sorry, Boss!” the Egg Boi assigned to climate control says, pausing in his seemingly pointless running around to throw another sharp salute. “The room’s got its own temperature and humidity settings! And we don’t have the equipment to fix it yet ‘cause we just got here!”
Pentious grimaces. Irritating and useless as his Egg Boiz can be, he must grudgingly admit there is not much they could do in this scenario. The Hotel is climate controlled specifically to make it comfortable in Hell, keeping it cooler and drier than the outside world.
He could, perhaps, adjust the temperature by adjusting the settings on the thermostat. It might prove dangerous, and perhaps it would count as defacing hotel property, which might not be considered a redeeming action…but he’s certain if he explained to Charlie that as a snake demon, he needs more heat, she would be accepting. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Humidity, though…now that proves more difficult. He’s only just moved into the hotel a few days ago, and he hadn’t anticipated his shed to arrive so early. He’s barely moved any equipment out of his flying machine, or even base parts to tinker with. Especially given the recent ultimatum on no weapons.
But he doesn’t have access to a humidifier, or anything to build one with, as a result. He could try steaming out the room with the shower in his attached private bathroom, but he would have to keep it running, and Charlie would almost certainly investigate if he ran the shower for over a week straight. Or worse, the Radio Demon, who Pentious is… still a little bit frightened of, given their most recent battle and resulting apology. Certainly he doesn’t want the man anywhere near him at his most vulnerable.
He could send his Egg Boiz to scavenge or transport parts from his flying machine. He has the materials needed there to facilitate a proper humid environment. But they’d have to take apart some parts of the steampowered apparatus to do so, which would make it inoperable, and he might still need it in an emergency. Plus, Vagatha had been keeping a careful eye on his Egg Boiz, and he’s afraid of her coming to yell at him about building weapons if he sends them off to collect machine parts. It isn’t as though she would know the difference between parts for a humidifier and a cannon.
He looks around miserably, but there’s nothing for him to really work with. It seems the Egg Boiz have already pillaged anything they could find, mostly to build him the hide he’d asked for. Even that is pathetic by comparison: a shoddy blanket fort crafted in one corner, propped up and tied down by spare giant gears and a few pillows scavenged from his mattress.
Just looking at it makes Pentious exhausted. Exhausted, and a little desperate to curl up in even that pathetic cave’s dark confines and go back to sleep.
But needs must! He will address the one thing he can, at least. “You, fetch my toolsss,” Pentious orders, gesturing at one of the Egg Bois. “And you two—go to the kitchen, sssecretly, and obtain the largessst bowls you can find. Bring them back here and fill it with ssssteaming water.”
“You got it, Boss!” All three salute smartly, and two rush out the door while the third scuttles off to collect Pentious’ tools. Pentious slithers over to the thermostat and studies it carefully while waiting for the tools to arrive, before snapping out the name of the tools he needs and holding out an expectant hand.
His Egg Boiz are idiots, but they do know their way around a toolbox. This one hands him what he asks for perfectly and takes it when Pentious is done, ready to hand off the next object.
With the assistance, Pentious is able to pry the casing off the thermostat in record time, exposing the wiring and sensors within. He flares his hood irritably at the relatively modern wiring and scowls. He’s never been fond of the direction technology went in after he’d died—he prefers the elegance and brilliance of his steam-powered mechanical designs rather than all this electricity and artificial intelligence and WiFi and touch-screens.
But he knows his way around it well enough. One had to be acquainted with it in Hell to get anywhere. So it doesn’t take him long to dismantle and rewire the thermostat to his own preferences. The sensor preventing the temperature from rising past a pre-set level is disabled and the cooling unit turned off. Perfect.
He replaces the paneling and immediately cranks the temperature to 32.5°C, and is gratified to immediately hear the heating units in the corners of the room hiss to life. Good. The temperature should match what he needs soon enough, at least.
His Egg Boiz return just as he finishes, each with a massive metal bowl nearly as big as them in their hands. They rush off to the bathroom immediately to fill with steaming hot water, then carry the heavy bowls out carefully and stare, waiting for their next orders.
“Bring them in here,” Pentious says, slithering towards the pathetic little blanket hide that had been prepared for him. He’s exhausted from just the effort of rewiring the thermostat, miserable and chilly, and wants nothing more than to curl up safe and sound in the dark and go back to bed.
Thankfully, although the little cave is miserably inadequate, it is at least cozy and small. Pentious had never been especially claustrophobic in life, and it’s fortunate now. W hen he sheds, his snake instincts all but scream to curl up as tight and enclosed and safe as possible.
The Egg Boiz had prepared the inside well. A soft blanket to sleep on, a small, cylindrical pillow to hold onto. Wrapping his tail around things often made him feel calmer when he was stressed, and shedding time is always stressful. Pentious slithers in, wraps himself around the pillow and burrows his head under the edge of the blanket, and makes himself as small and concealed as possible.
He’s drifting off, but thankfully, the Egg Boiz know the needs of Code Grey enough to manage. They place the steaming bowls in the corners of the hide with him, before backing out and draping another blanket-door entrance closed. In the enclosed space, the heat and steam of the hot water will hopefully produce a small but humid environment.
It’s not ideal. Or even comfortable. But if it lets him get through this shed cycle without anyone catching on…
That’s Pentious’ last thought before his sticky, struggling eyes finally manage to slip closed, and he falls into a weary sleep.