Work Text:
"Soo...d'ya have any folks?"
Pen slid out from beneath his current project - a new engine - flipped up the visor on his welding mask and looked up at Arackniss, who was sitting on the ground next to him, absentmindedly fiddling with the various wrenches and hammers in Pen's toolbox.
"Beg your pardon, Nissy?"
"Family. D'ya have any family down here?"
Pen eyed the spider briefly at the question. "Not that I know of - could you hand me that spanner? - Why do you ask?"
Niss passed the wrench down, simultaneously picking up another one to fidget with. "No reason, just wonderin."
Pen shrugged. "The rest of my family was mostly up-tight religious freaks, so I suppose it isn't too hard to imagine that they went up and I went down."
"Bit of a grim outlook."
"I don't imagine my attempts to make inventions for world domination really earned me any heaven points."
"Guess not, no." Niss responded, slightly raising one eyebrow at the off-hand comment. "Still a bit grim though."
"Product of the times. Back in my day..." Pen paused for a moment, thinking over his words. "Good God, I sound like an old man. Scratch that thought."
Niss almost chuckled slightly before catching himself and regaining his standard blank composure. Pen took mental note, for future use.
"At any rate, no, I'm alone down here. Except for you, of course." Pen coiled his tail around the spider and squeezed tightly, flashing a smug grin as a slightly startled Niss fumbled the wrench he was holding and it clattered to the ground with a loud metallic clang.
"Air, Pen, air." Niss inhaled and caught his breath for a moment as Pen relaxed his tail. "Christ, Pen, give me a fuckin warning before ya suffocate me, maybe?"
"Oh hush, you like it."
Niss' face flushed red, quickly making him glad that his fur made it impossible to tell when he was blushing. Even still, he spun his head away and crossed his arms.
"Do not."
"Do too."
"Mmph." Niss decided to redirect rather than rebut. "I'm fuckin starving. Gonna go make dinner, whaddya you want?"
"Spaghetti?"
"Pen, we've had spaghetti...at least three nights in a row, by my count. You want it again?"
"Not my fault you make really good spaghetti."
Niss rolled his eyes. "You finish up out here, I'll have the Eggs come get you when I'm done."
"Try not to break them this time?"
"No promises."
Pen flipped his visor down again and slid back under the engine to continue welding as Niss' tiny footsteps faded in the distance and the workshop door closed behind him. Back to work, for now.
---
Sometime well into the night, Pen woke up to find the opposite side of his bed mysteriously vacant of one four-and-a-half-foot tall spider demon. Pen reached over to the other side of the bed and found the fabric was cool to the touch.
The snake sat up to look around. The room was naturally, rather dim. Although it never got properly dark outside, Pen had long-since built a series of shutters for his windows to keep it dark and cool in the room at night, making the only light in the room the slight glow of Pen's own eyes.
He blinked the blur out of his eyes, and after a moment, his vision picked up on a sliver of red peeking out from between the doors leading to his balcony, one door ever so slightly ajar. Pen turned and fumbled in the dark for a moment before finding the switch on his bedside lamp, flicking it on and sliding out of bed to make his way over to the balcony.
Pen cracked the door just enough to slip through and exited onto the balcony. Niss was sitting on the floor, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, staring blankly off into the skyline from between the railing posts.. Pen slid up beside him and sat down,
"Couldn't sleep?"
Niss nodded slowly, still staring out into the empty crimson sky.
"Are you okay?"
No response, verbal or physical.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"....not really, no."
The two sat in silence for several minutes, idly staring out at the red sky. Pen didn't press the issue any further. If he'd learned anything about the spider, it was that he liked to move at his own pace; no slower, no faster. Sometimes he was lucky and Niss would open up, or sometimes he would get shut out. Only time would tell what tonight would be.
Niss pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and set it down with a loud exhale.
"It-" Niss began and abruptly cut off, contemplating if he actually wanted to share. "Fuck it. It's about my family."
Pentious glanced down at the spider inquisitively, tilting his head slightly to encourage him to elaborate.
"I asked about your family earlier 'cause I dunno what to do about mine."
"What to do about them?"
"My pops... he doesn't know 'bout this. 'Bout us. And now, he's askin' around, and I can't tell 'em because..." Niss' words trailed off for a moment. "Well, you know why. Son of the boss havin a gay streak didn't go over so well the first time, don't imagine it would go over much better the second. After Angie...after...."
Niss drifted off again, and the silence returned as the spider turned his eyes to the ground, collecting his thoughts.
"My life was a war zone, my afterlife isn't any better. Everything I've ever done, alive or dead, has been for the family. Now I have somethin I care about, something ta' call my own, and I can't tell 'em because they'll take it away from me."
"You don't answer to them, Niss. Not anymore. You are whoever you want to be."
Niss turned to face the snake, his eyes wide and sad, but dry regardless, as though he wanted to cry but didn't know how.
"I don't want to lose the one good thing I've found here."
"You're not going to lose me. I'm not going anywhere." Pen gave Niss a soft smile. He reached over to scratch Niss behind his neck. At first, he tensed up - his typical reaction to being touched - but relaxed after a moment, closing his eyes and enjoying the attention.
"Mmmmm. Keep going." Niss crawled the short distance over and curled up next to the snake, moving his head and neck around to shift where he was getting scratched. After about a minute or two, he slowed down and grew still, his breathing becoming long and heavy. Pen cautiously pulled his hand away, watching to see if Niss would react.
"You awake down there?"
"Mm...barely..." Niss mumbled, barely audible.
"Well, in that case," Pen slid his arms beneath the spider and stood up, all four-and-a-half feet of fuzzy black spider demon in his arms. "I'm tired, and you need sleep, my little sniper. Let's get you tucked back in."