Chapter Text
"So Charlie, and, uh, Charlie's girlfriend, how have your Furbies been doing?” Lucifer asked as he got back to the couch with his coffee in a mug that Alastor had apparently vandalized.
Charlie said, “Oh well our Furbies are both napping in our room right now, Puerperium’s been doing great! No crying or fussing, not nearly as demanding as I expected! Last night they asked me to sing them to sleep so I sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to them in Furbish and they went right to sleep and they stayed asleep all night! No sleeptalk, no nightmares, just sleeping in heavenly peace!”
“Wish I could say the same for mine,” Vaggie grumbled. “I made sure to put Hysterotomy to bed at a proper time last night, and it told me good night and then it just lay there with its eyes shut making demonic noises in its sleep.”
“Sounds like he or she is struggling with a recurring nightmare,” Lucifer said. “But that’s different from how Charlie’s little brother or sister Lanugo handles a nightmare - he or she woke me up screaming in the middle of the night from it! And that was after only like one hour of sleep because he or she was rocking around singing in gibberish for three hours after I put him or her to bed before FINALLY settling down for some sleep. After the nightmare I had to put on the rubber ducky nightlight to get him or her back to sleep for a couple hours or so before waking me up earlier than that blasted radio alarm clock - heh, his or her circadian rhythm is nearly as messed up as Daddy’s! I put him or her down for a nap now, but I don’t expect him or her to stay asleep for long, maybe I should go up and check…”
Everybody was hanging around the lobby for Alastor to arrive and start the “gender reveal party” except for Mimzy who still hadn’t arrived yet. Niffty was brushing Colostrum’s fur while spraying it with dry shampoo and looking carefully through its bleach-white coat for spots to bleach out with her bleach pen. "May-tah kah!" the Furby demanded, to which Niffty corrected his manners with "DOO-MOH may-tah kah!" and kissed him as requested. Angel had Meconium nestled in his chest fluff, rocking it up and down to try and calm it down from a bout of colic, petting its head again and again in response to it incessantly demanding "koh-koh!". Husk, looking unusually sober, was at his concierge desk, staring at Trophoblast with a look of intensive observation and slight concern on his face, every now and then looking at the instruction manual or doing something such a shining a flashlight on the Furby’s face or covering it as if to play peekaboo or pick it up to turn it upside down. Baxter was seated at the dining table with Syncytium sitting at the table in front of him as he held a tablet in front of the Furby’s face for both of them to watch.
The tablet screen was suddenly scrambled with a brief telltale glitch - to which Syncytium responded with a "Hey! Boo loo-loo!" - and with a jolt of panic, Baxter turned to see Alastor behind him.
“Eager to get a head start on raising a VoxPad kid? Or are you just experimenting to find out whether screen addiction can create a crackless crack baby?”
“Oh n-no, sir, we use the tablet only for watching STRICTLY educational content, there will be no Cocomelon or skibidi brainrot on my child’s screen! Ah-and at least I don’t let my child stay up until the crack of dawn watching porn and R-rated movies while I’m passed out from partying all night like some kind of crack adult!”
Baxter turned his head and pointed his lure at Cherri Bomb, leering, as she jammed to whatever she was listening to through headphones on her 80s style boombox, while Placenta rocked from side to side, also wearing headphones, while singing in off-key Furbish. "Kah toh-loo ee-kah-lee-koo! Dah-noh-lah! Noh-lah! Noh-lah!"
Alastor's ears twitched as he heard Mimzy's car screeching to a halt outside. He cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, sinners and fallen ones, it is time for a POP QUIZ!"
Alastor grinned his cheeriest grin as he heard groans and boo's from the audience.
"BOOOO! You never said anything about a pop quiz!" shouted Angel.
"Well fuck me dead! I thought today we were gonna PARTY!" shouted Cherri.
"Patience, Cherri dear, we shall get to the gender reveal party right afterwards. All I'm asking is that you translate one word of Furbish that you recall from studying the glossary and communicating in Furbish with your child, without peeking in your glossary. It can be any word that you like. And you can be the first - go on, my dear?"
"No worries, I'm gonna go with my fave word - dah-noh-lah, which translates to "big dance' or 'party'!"
"Atta girl! Now, Angel?"
"May-may. That's Furbish for 'love'. I have no idea what Furbish for MAKING love is though... the closest they have is for 'kiss' and 'hug' which are-"
"Save some words for the rest of the class, Angel dear. And your word, Baxter?"
"Dah-way. It translates to 'genius', or literally, 'big-mind'".
"A word I'm sure you hope to use and or hear a lot in the coming days! Niffty?"
"Boo-dah! That means 'bad' eheheheheh... there isn't a Furbish word for 'boy' though,
the closest they've got is 'dude', which is 'dee-doh', so um, kah toh-loo boo-dah dee-doh! EHEHEHEhehehehe..."
"Yes, Niffty, you like bad dudes, we all know that by now, try not to flaunt your advanced Furbish skills to the rest of the class from now on dear, all right? Good. Now, Husker?"
"Moo-lah. Furbish for 'money' as if that wasn't a little obvious considering it's a slang term for money in a number of other languages..."
"Silly Husker, you know more Furbish than that... but well I did say not to flaunt it. Charlie?"
"Noo-loo! Which means 'happy!"
"Like your hotel used to be! Lucifer?"
"Ay-koo, it means 'diamond', or literally 'lightness' and 'rock'. Speaking of which I showed some of my ahem drops of Jupiter to Lanugo and he or she is obsessed with the shiny things now-"
"Vaggie?"
"Ay-loh. It means 'light' and what's funny is that it sounds like the word 'halo' with a silent h..."
"Hey I thought that too!" said Lucifer.
"HAha, is that all you angels think about is halos?" Alastor remarked.
"Angelic minds think alike I g-" Lucifer was interrupted at that moment by Mimzy bursting in through the hotel entrance. "Sorry I'm late... fucking traffic!"
"Mimzy! How good of you to join us. Have a seat, you're just in time for your turn to get credit for today's pop quiz! All you need to do is tell me one word of Furbish you have learned and the English definition for it - you did take a peek inside the Furbish-to-English glossary in Lochia's instruction booklet, you know that thing that I handed you along with your new child the other day, did you not?"
Mimzy stared up at Alastor's eager, wide-eyed, perky-eared and deceptively smiley face, poised to make one of several pretentious gestures with his microphone staff, and gulped. "Uh-oh..."
"And...?" Alastor pointed his staff at Mimzy, spinning it around as if cajoling her to elaborate. "'Uh-oh' is Furbish for...?"
"Um, uh, is it 'uh-oh'?"
"Bingo! A cognate, you lucky duck! But don't think I'll be so easy on you next time around! Say, where is Lochia?"
"Oh I uh, I left her with a, um, a babysitter. Hehe..."
"Of course you did Mimzy dear, why am I not surprised... if you're not going to raise your own child, then don't be surprised when you finally do decide to start raising it but you can't understand a word they're saying because he or she learned the au pair's native tongue instead of your own."
"Well in my defense I...uh, I haven't yet installed an infant car seat in my car. It wouldn't be safe to take my baby for a drive until I do, especially with the way I drive, the poor child will get shaken baby syndrome!"
"Nice save. Luckily for you, bringing baby is optional for today's activity. Now I know all of you are simply on the edge of your seat waiting to hear which gender reveal party idea won the referendum?"
Charlie indeed was on the edge of her seat, fingers crossed, giddily repeating "King cake king cake king cake king cake..."
"But I'm afraid I have some... news for you all... the referendum resulted in a three-way tie. Three of you Furby parents voted for gender reveal by king cake, three of you voted for gender reveal by pinata, and three of you voted for gender reveal by volcano. Now, you might expect me to exercise my own democratic prerogative and cast the tiebreaker vote, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided... porquoi pas les trois? To HELL with democracy-scratch that, to DOUBLE HELL with democracy! I say, every man a king! And every woman a queen! We shall do ALL THREE types of gender reveal - if you voted for king cake, you will get your gender reveal by king cake. If you voted for piñata, you will get your gender reveal by piñata. And if you voted for volcano, by golly you shall have your child's gender revealed by way of volcano."
Alastor snapped his fingers and the king cake appeared on the coffee table. "Now which of you were the three who voted for the king cake?"
Charlie, Angel and Lucifer raised their hands, Lucifer somewhat hesitantly. Alastor raised an eyebrow. "Oh, what's this? The pompous king of Hell wants to try MY peasant-slop home cooking now?"
"What can I say, hehe, I'm a bit of a... sugar addict... plus the dessert is very king-coded, you know, almost like it's branded specifically to appeal to ME! I mean like, I see that it's called KING cake and I'm all, HEY I'M A KING!"
"Splendid! But what about you, Husker? I thought you loved my king cake! I made it extra-boozy just for you too..."
"I did until I found out what an unholy sacrament you made of it..." Husk grumbled.
"Uh, what's he talking about?" Lucifer asked but Alastor laughed it off. "Never you mind! Now, shall we cut the cake?"
First Alastor cut off a piece of the purple part of the cake and served it to Charlie. "Purple for justice. The purple coloring is a natural violet dye. It should taste of violets too." Alastor then cut off a slice of the green and served it to Angel. "Green for faith. Dyed green with absinthe." Lastly, Alastor sliced off a piece of the gold part and served it to Lucifer. "Gold for power. Colored with saffron and sprinkled with 24 karat gold flake just for you, your Majesty. Now, laissez les bon temps rouler and dig in!"
Charlie, Angel and Lucifer all enjoyed the cake. Angel in particular was very pleased to see that it had a rich poppy seed filling, and the booziness of the absinthe and the rye whiskey in the pecan prailine filling also appealed to him. Charlie loved the violet flavor and let Angel and her dad each have a taste of it. Lucifer seemed delighted in how expensive his piece was, being dyed with Earth's most expensive food as well as being sprinkled with one of Earth's most expensive elements.
"So, could you tell me a little more about this recipe?" asked Angel. "Is it a family secret or somethin', or did you come up with it yourself?"
"HAha, good question, Angel! It's a modified version of a classic recipe that yours truly came up with way back when I was a youngster and I was in my edgy atheist phase to be served at my little Black Mass tea parties. The poppy seed paste is meant to be the consecration of the Christ child's first defecation - the meconium!" Alastor laughed to himself for a moment. "Ahahahahahaha... Ah, Stercoranism, my favorite heresy."
"Heh, thought it tasted like blasphemy." Angel took another bite of the sinfully good poppy paste. Lucifer made a face like he thought he was supposed to lose his appetite after hearing Alastor's story behind the recipe, but ultimately he succumbed to another bite of the sugary euphoria of pecans and flaky pastry coated in golden frosting.
"It's got this special flavor to it," Charlie said as she savored the pastry part, "Can't put my finger on it, but it's got this tang to it that's... oddly nostalgic?"
"Yeah, it reminds me of my Nonna's cookies," Angel said. "What were they called again..."
"Tastes very vintage, for some reason," Lucifer said with his mouth full, nodding.
"Vintage! That's the word for it. Vintage," Charlie agreed.
Alastor stood over them, watching, his grin looking particularly, almost suspiciously gleeful. Charlie, Angel and Lucifer all started to feel uneasy about it.
"I can see that you're all eager to find out what the special secret ingredient is?" Alastor asked. "Very well, allow me to spill the beans: it's the leavening agent. Instead of using yeast or ordinary baking powder or baking soda, I used good old-fashioned spirit of hartshorn!"
The three of them stared at him in confusion.
"What, are you telling me that none of you have ever heard of making baker's ammonia out of deer antler before? Well I wasn't about to let that fallen rack of mine go to waste! Waste not, want not, I always say..."
Lucifer swallowed the huge bite he had taken to ask, "You mean..."
"That's right! The three of you are all eating a piece of ME!"
Alastor grinned as though immensely proud of that fact. Charlie's eyes widened as though grasping a spiritual significance to it. Angel shot Alastor a flirty look and remarked, "Wow, Smiles, I never thought I'd see the day that ya let me know what ya taste like!"
Lucifer tried to look blasé about discovering such a fact. "Hmm, oh so that's what you meant when you said that you were 'host' of this hotel, hehe, pretty clever I gotta admit... hehem... one quick question, if I catch your chronic wasting mad deer disease from eating this, would that be transubstantiation or consubstantiation?"
Alastor simply laughed in response. "So have any of you found your fève yet?"
Charlie poked her spork through the poppy seed paste some more until she hit something hard. She pulled it out and licked the paste off to find that it looked like a mini Fabergé egg in Mardi Gras colors but mostly a shimmery purple. She found that it had hinges so she pried it open and found a mini doll inside.
Charlie teared up. "It looks just like the worry doll Vaggie gave one time... back when we had just met and she saw that I was having a really bad day..."
"Sweetie, aren't you going to open that diaper up so Daddy can find out if his grandchild is a grandson or a granddaughter?" Lucifer asked.
"Oh! Right..." Charlie pulled the diaper open to see what color pee stain was inside.
"It's a girl!"
"Congratulations!" Alastor said. "Puerperium's a girl! Now, Angel, seems you've been chewing on that bit of cake for a long time..."
Angel's eyes widened and he spit the piece he was chewing on and wiped the saliva off with a party napkin. Charlie leaned over to take a look.
"It's a... cocoon?"
"A spider egg sac," Angel said, feeling the sticky cobweb-like texture. "Appears my spider saliva enzymes have dissolved it open a bit..."
Angel pulled the tiny plastic baby doll out. It had five arms and three legs. He opened up the diaper that had three legholes, licking it to dissolve the residual spider silk that made it difficult to remove.
"I'm a girl dad!"
"Congratulations Angel, Meconium is a girl!" Alastor said as Angel raised his black baby Furby into the air, only for her to say "koh-koh!" in response to being taken away from Angel's snuggly chest fluff.
"I hope I'm a girl dad," Lucifer muttered as he made a mess out of the rest of his cake.
"You're already a girl dad!" Charlie reminded him.
"Oh right! Well, um, oh I think I found it..."
It was a tiny golden sarcophagus. Lucifer pried it open and found that it had another, smaller sarcophagus inside, which he pried open and found yet another, even smaller sarcophagus inside, which he pried open and found a tiny wrapped mummy inside.
Lucifer unwrapped the dingy linen - or was it toilet paper? - from the mini mummy until he found what looked like the smallest, innermost doll of a set of matryoshka dolls with a diaper wrapped around its one "foot".
"It's a boy! I've finally got a male heir!" Lucifer shouted. He picked up Lanugo and told him, "You're a boy! Did you know that?"
"Congratulations!" Alastor said. "And now, we move on to the piñata."
Alastor snapped his fingers and the piñata was hanging up in the hotel lobby, just high enough that everybody could reach it without jumping or flying. "So who here picked the piñata?"
Vaggie, Husk, and Mimzy raised their hands.
"So here we've got an angel and a winged sinner, is that right? Well, how about we make this interesting?" Alastor used his shadow to adjust the height of the piñata so that Vaggie and Husk would have to fly in order to reach it.
"Vaggie, I believe it's your turn?" Alastor handed her a baseball bat.
"I don't have to put on a blindfold or anything first?" Vaggie asked.
"No dear, all you have to do is flex those wings of yours to reach it!"
Vaggie brought out her wings, placed her spear down and took the bat. She smashed open the purple polyhedron in only three blows, producing a shower of supplies fit for a baby shower, such as pacifiers, bottles, formula packets, little present boxes containing baby pajamas, rolled up baby blankets, diapers, baby wipes, little bottles of baby oil, baby lotion, and baby powder.
Mimzy ran to gather up some goods, but Alastor held her back with his staff. "Not your turn, Mimzy darling... Vaggie, have you found it yet?"
"You mean this knockoff Labubu thing that you probably got out of a gas station vending machine?" Vaggie opened the blind box to reveal that her counterfeit Labubu keychain had blue fur.
"Congratulations Vaggie, you're a boy mom!" Charlie said, hugging her.
"I promise I won't be like one of those toxic boy moms from TikTok or EnVee," Vaggie muttered.
"Yes, congratulations indeed, Vaggie, your little Hysterotomy is a boy! Now, Husker, I believe it's your turn."
"But didn't she just bust open the piñata ... oh." Husk saw that the purple piñata had left behind a new green piñata after Vaggie busted it open.
Husk hoisted himself aloft with the bat and swung several lazy swings at it.
"Come on Husker! Quit swinging at it like a drunk, you're sober for crying out loud!" Alastor shouted at him from below.
"I ain't used to being this sober..." Husk grumbled the moment before he managed to get bat to collide with papier-mâché. For him, one blow was enough to get the piñata to burst and release its contents.
Husk landed and opened up the blind box. "Blue," he huffed. "It's a boy..."
"Congratulations! Now, Mimzy, it's your turn."
Mimzy tried jumping to reach the golden third layer of the piñata but it was too high. "A little help here, sweetie? I don't exactly have wings like those other two..."
"You don't say..." Alastor snapped his fingers and the piñata lowered to almost ground level. Mimzy proceeded to thrash it, continuing to beat it up even after all the insides had burst out.
"All right, Mimzy dear, you've been beating it like a dead horse for quite long enough, don't you want to find out what color your blind box item is?
Mimzy looked at the piñata prizes strewn all over the floor and got angry when she saw that they weren't candy.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE GONNA FILL THIS PIÑATA WITH CANDY YOU TWIT! IF I HAD KNOWN YOU WERE GOING TO FILL IT WITH BABY CARE ITEMS INSTEAD I WOULD'VE VOTED FOR THE KING CAKE!"
"It's all right, Mimzy darling, there's plenty of leftover cake for everyone. Now, you can take a piece and go home right after you've revealed to us all what gender Lochia is."
Alastor handed the box to Mimzy and she opened it up to reveal pink fluff.
"I've got a baby girl!"
"Congratulations!"
"Yeah... well, I'm a busy gal, so I'd best be leaving..." Mimzy walked toward the cake and cut three big pieces, one of each of the colors.
"Mimzy, put some of that cake back," Alastor told her, "There are other guests who might want a piece too."
"I want ANOTHER piece," Lucifer added.
"You can have my cut," Vaggie grumbled.
Mimzy seethed and put most of the cake back, taking a small sliver of each color. "Later... and oh, um, Vaggie, was it? Happy Cinco de Mayo!"
"I'm not Mexican..." Vaggie growled as Mimzy slammed the hotel entrance door.
"All righty then, time for those who voted volcano to get their gender reveals~" Alastor snapped his fingers and the papier-mâché volcano appeared. Niffty immediately showed up with a jug of cleaning vinegar and a jug of Clorox, laughing "HEHEHEHE..." as she poured both into the crater.
The volcano emitted a light yellowish-green plume.
"Green?!" Charlie frantically searched her phone. "What gender is green?! WHAT GENDER IS GREEN?!"
Angel rolled his eyes. "Can't keep track of all these new genders..."
Baxter's eyes widened in alarm, and he put on his emergency gas mask that he kept in his coat pocket at all times. "That's no gender - that's Cl₂ - that's diatomic elemental chlorine gas! DANGER! EVERYBODY EVACUATE THE PREMISES!"
Everybody did as told except for Niffty and Alastor, who was already wearing his own gas mask. "Niffty dear, do as he said." Alastor then turned to Baxter and said, "Leave this to me, I've got it under control."
Alastor raised his staff and opened a dimensional portal over the crater to suck up the green plume. The chlorine gas spiraled like a tornado as it was sucked up by the whirl of shadowy tendrils into the hole, which closed up the moment the volcano became empty.
Alasor hijacked the hotel's speakers to announce, "The situation has been contained, the hotel is now safe for re-entry."
Everybody re-entered the hotel. Alastor bent over to Niffty's eye level and asked, in a gentle parenting tone, "Niffty, darling, what did I tell you about using bleach and vinegar to make green smoke volcanoes?"
"Uuhh... I'm only supposed to do it outdoors?"
"Good girl!" Alastor patted her on the head and conjured a vial of powder, labeled with a picture he doodled of Niffty, out of his pocket dimension.
"Now I need you to fetch me the cleaning vinegar and the BAKING SODA," Alastor ordered as he poured the contents of the Niffty labeled vial out into the volcano. "You may pour it yourself, but if we have another bleach-related mishap I'm afraid I shall have to put Smart Boy over there in charge of pouring the chemicals from now on," Alastor pointed his staff at Baxter.
Niffty did as she was told. The sodium bicarbonate and acetic acid mixed with the powder and resulted in a blue smoke plume.
"Blue..." Nifty's eye widened, the blue of the smoke reflecting off her cornea. "Did you hear that Colostrum? Your gender is blue!"
"Kah bah-loo!" Colostrum said, rocking back and forth. He then started singing, "Kah bah-loo, dah bah dee dah bah dah!" The other Furbies joined in, dancing and singing, "Kah bah-loo dah bah dee dah bah dah, dah bah dee dah bah dah, dah bah dee dah bah dah!"
"Congratulations darling - Colostrum is a baby boy!"
"YESSS I'm a BAD BOY MOM!" Niffty hugged Colostrum. "You're a BAD BOY just like your Daddy!"
"And who might his Daddy be, if you don't mind me asking?" Alastor asked.
"I have nooo idea, heheheh I've banged SO many bad boys HEHEHEHEHEH..."
"Cherri, it's your turn." Alastor got the vial of white powder with his doodle of Cherri taped to it out of his pocket dimension and poured its contents into the volcano.
"I'd like to pour my own chemicals, if you don't mind," Cherri said. "I'm an explosives engineer, so I know what I'm doing."
"All right then... Niffty?"
Niffty gave the baking soda and vinegar to Cherri, who carefully eyeballed the right amount with her one eyeball and then stood back to watch it blow.
"PINK!" Niffty shouted at the pink plume.
"Congratulations, Miss Cherri Bomb, your little Placenta is a baby girl!"
"All right! Ya know I was kinda hoping to be a boy mom, but I guess this way at least ain't nobody at school's gonna be calling my kid a poofter!"
"Well that brings us down to just you, Smart Boy." Alastor got the vial labeled with his doodle of Baxter out of his pocket dimension and poured it into the volcano. "I take it you'll want to measure out and pour your own chemicals?"
Baxter peered inside the volcano to make sure it wasn't contaminated, then measured out a quantity of vinegar in a graduated cylinder and baking soda on a mass scale. He added them to the volcano with the care of a professional.
Niffty squinted at the plume that came out. "...Purple?"
Baxter wiped his glasses. "That can't be right..."
"What gender is purple?!" Charlie checked her phone.
Baxter got on his laptop and hacked into Angel's phone to check his surveillance footage and photos. The pictures of Niffty's and Cherri's smoke clouds along with his were there to compare with a color tool - Baxter found that his was indeed purple and it wasn't just a trick of the light.
"There must be some mistake, Alastor - are you certain that my baby isn't a boy and that his diaper sample wasn't just contaminated by Cherri's? That would mix it together to make purple-"
"I'm afraid not, Baxter, I've tested this volcano dozens of times before using it for today's gender reveal and the construction of the volcano along with the procedure I've devised is absolutely contamination-proof. The only time it ever turns up purple is when the gender fluid contains a mixture of bromothymol blue and phenolphthalein to begin with."
Charlie said, "Hey Baxter! I looked up what purple means on GenderWiki and it means that your Furby is bigender, nonbinary or intersex!"
Baxter's fishy ears flattened. "That means...?"
"You're German right?" Alastor asked, peering down at the small fish boy. Well, allow me to put it in your native tongue - hehem:" Alastor bent his back perpendicular to his legs to meet Baxter at eye level and adjusted his monocle. "Glückwunsch... Dein Baby ist ein Zwitter!"