Chapter Text
“You better not pout, you better not cry, you better look out… or that Krampus will get you what’s why. Krampus, Krampus, is coming to tooooooown,” Charlie sang, hanging up decorations.
“Hun, you’ve been putting up decorations since three in the morning,” a bathrobe clad Vaggie groaned, trying to force herself awake with Death Wish coffee. “How do you have any decorations LEFT?” she asked. She’d strong-armed Charlie into waiting until the day after the mortal ‘Thanksgiving’ to start decorating. She didn’t know that meant Charlie wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink in anticipation.
“Now that I’ve got my own place to decorate, I’m only halfway through what I’ve been storing up for the occasion!” Charlie said gleefully, twirling through the main lobby. “Can you go see if Sir Pentious is awake? My giant animatronic Krampus isn’t working properly, and I want to know if he can look at it.”
Vaggie sighed and wandered up the stairs. “Hey snake boy,” she called, knocking on his door. “You awake?” she asked.
Pentious groaned. “No,” he answered, his voice groggy.
“Well when you are awake, Charlie has things for you to fix,” Vaggie informed him, wandering back downstairs.
“Mmmmmmfff…” the snake moaned and buried his face back in his spider partner’s fluff, the end of his tail twitching happily.
The sound of the speaking had started to stir the sleepy spider. Why did he have to be awake? The heated blankets the snake required to maintain his internal temperature in the drafty hotel just made the bed so perfectly warm, and to be able to hear the thumping of the snake’s heart so close to his head… Wait…
“OH SHIT!” Arackniss shouted suddenly, jumping up and almost punching Pentious in the face. “Shit shit shit shit…” he said, scrambling to find all his clothes scattered across the room. “I overslept! I meant to get out of here before anyone noticed I spent the night!” It took him a moment to find his hat, before he realized his hat was sitting on Hat. He couldn’t tell if that was intentional or if Hat was as confused as he was. Being non-verbal, Hat was… a bit of an enigma.
He buttoned his jacket up wrong but was in too much of a hurry to stop and fix it. “I’ll go out the fire escape and…” he opened the window. “… Why is there no fire escape?”
“Do you think Hell builds to code?” Pentious asked with a yawn.
“Well, I’m a… spider man. I’ll do… whatever a spider can,” he said, swinging outside of the window. He disappeared from the window for a moment, then reappeared. “Goodbye kiss?” he asked.
Pentious couldn’t lean out the window due to the protective barrier on the building, but Arackniss leaned in for his parting gift. With that, he was climbing down the building again.
He hated that he’d unintentionally got the spider man song stuck in his head. Enough people sung that at him on a regular basis that he could no longer stand hearing it. Had he not been so wound up in his own thoughts, he might have noticed something long and leggy skittering along the side of the building towards the open window. Or, he might have noticed the shape crawling out of the shadows behind him. As his foot touched the ground, someone suddenly grabbed him from behind and threw him hard up against the wall. Only having spider-like reflexes allowed him to break free and twist around to face his attacker.
“Dateline NBC, this is to Catch a Sssssssspider,” the attacker hissed. Crouching on the side of the building directly behind the hotel, blue eyes glowing with the intensity of blue fires, was a massive three-armed white cobra. As Arackniss’ bullets tore towards him, he vanished, letting the bullets ping wildly against the stone exterior of the adjacent building. He was looking around frantically when Ghost slowly started to emerge out of the shadows above him, arms outstretched.
“You walked into the wrong neighborhood this time, motherfucker,” Angel Dust shouted as he let loose his own barrage of fire, causing Ghost to once again vanish as he retreated.
“How rude. I don’t walk, I slither!” Ghost hissed, sticking out of a different shadow. He disappeared as bullets tore up his former location.
Inside the lobby, Vaggie and Charlie jumped. “What… what is that?!” Charlie cried.
“Sounds like gunfire,” Vaggie said, manifesting her own weapon and running outside.
Pentious had also heard the gunfire and rushed to his window. Seeing Ghost and Arackniss both below, he tried to get out the window, but the barrier sparked up and held him back. He pounded on it with both fists, screaming angrily at it, but it refused to break. The adrenaline coursing through his system as he was striking the window prevented him from feeling the sudden sharp pain in his tail. A shining blue centipede-like creature disappeared underneath his bed, its mouth dripping with the snake’s blood.
“You almost hit me!” Arackniss shouted at his brother as they rapidly scanned the area, looking for the snake to reappear.
“Almost isn’t the same as did, and oh, you’re welcome that I’m here saving your ass,” Angel noted. Cherri had arrived with him.
Ghost appeared directly to the left of them, grinning. They spun around, but by the time they had their guns aimed, he was gone again.
“Damn it, the fucking vanishing act again,” Arackniss grunted. “Look out, he can come out of any shadow.” That wasn’t entirely true. Ghost could only move from shadow to shadow if they were connected, but in the side alley by the hotel, there were plenty of shadows to move in.
“Including your own!” Ghost crowed, appearing behind Cherri and pushing her forward. She slammed into Angel, who took Arackniss down with him when they all fell in a pile on the ground. Ghost laughed hysterically. “Tell me, if I’m a motherfucker, doesn’t that also make itsy-bitsy spider there a motherfucker too, since he’s after what’s MINE,” Ghost screeched before disappearing into the wall again, just before a rain of bullets left a swiss cheese pattern on it.
“He’s running circles around us,” Cherri groaned. “Trying to hit him is like trying to eat soup with a fork!”
“Quick, stand back to back so he can’t sneak up on us,” Arackniss ordered as the three huddled up.
“Everyone cover your eyes. Fucker can’t pull his shadow trick if there are no shadows!” Cherri announced, pulling out a flashbang.
There was a loud and pained shriek when the sudden lighting up of the alley caused the shadow Ghost was hiding in to vanish, forcing him to materialize. He rose up on his tail. “Cute,” he hissed.
“We know you’ve got an angelic weapon. Drop it before we punch a few new assholes in you,” Angel ordered.
Vaggie came around the corner, holding her bathrobe shut with one hand and her spear in the other. “Vags, look out! Don’t let your shadow touch any other shadows!” Cherri shouted to her.
Ghost grinned at them. “Did you happen to think that maybe I’m just the distraction, and the real threat is inside your precious hotel right now?!” he asked with a hiss.
“Charlie!” Vaggie cried, turning and running back towards the hotel. Arackniss tried to lunge forward at Ghost, but enough shadows had returned that he was able to dive into one and vanish. As he disappeared, his laughter echoed off the walls of the alley.
.
“It would seem he was bluffing,” Vaggie grunted. The hotel had been searched thoroughly, and nothing had been found. Although with all the decorating Charlie had done, it was kind of hard to tell for certain if anything was out of place. “Of course, he’d have to show up one of the few times Alastor isn’t here and could have actually been useful for once.”
“… Actually, I’m not sure Al is the best match for Ghost,” Husk frowned in deep thought. “A lot of Al’s powers are shadow based, right? So are Ghost’s. If anything, he might accidentally give Ghost more points to attack from. It’s also possible that he’s intentionally avoiding a run in with Al if he IS afraid of the Radio Demon being able to take him out.”
After a few more moments of silence, Angel Dust turned to his brother, who was trying to comfort the miserable-looking snake on the couch next to him. Angel looked them both up and down. In the smuggest tone he was capable of, he said, “by the way, you are so buuuuuusted,” he added. “How does it feel to be caught with a butt full of snake dick, sir?”
“You… you got the wrong idea! I just wanted to make sure he was coming down from the pot safely and I accidentally fell asleep!” Arackniss stammered.
“And that’s why you had to sneak out the window?” Cherri asked.
“Wait, were you two ALSO waiting for me outside?!”
“And for a dang long time too. You really slept in. But I suppose if you haven’t cleaned your gun in a while and Pentious had a full double barrel…” He was enjoying watching both his brother and the snake grow redder in the face.
“I’m telling you, I just stayed to make sure he wasn’t going to have a bad trip!” the sweating spider snapped back.
“Tell that to Baxter. His room is under Pentious’, you know.”
“Please oil your bed springs and fix that headboard,” Baxter groaned. He was certain he was getting a migraine from lack of sleep.
“Or maybe he wanted you to know he was getting laid while all you have is blue balls,” Angel grinned at the fish demon.
“… Can we tell Ghost he can just kill me now?” a very flushed Pentious asked, pulling his hood in front of his face in embarrassment.
“I don’t need to hear any of this,” Baxter said, getting up. “I’m going back to my room.”
Arackniss looked his brother directly in the eyes. “Why don’t you stop playing the joker and say what you’re really thinking. I know the look in your eyes when you can’t match your inside and your outside.”
Angel’s smile melted. “You want to know what I’m thinking? Fine. You were the one who stood by and watched dad beat the shit out of me and throw me out on the streets when I came out of the closet, and now you’re… you’re… You’re trying to keep being daddy’s good boy while you’ve been having your boyfriend’s cake and eating it too?! Am I supposed to feel better about all of that just because you’re all whee I’m gay too now?? Is HE supposed to feel great that you’re willing to date him only as long as no one knows about it?! He’s just sitting there looking at his hands while you deny that you have any feelings for him to his face!”
“First, I am NOT gay!” he said angrily, getting up and pointing a finger upwards towards his brother. “I’m bisexual! And second, Pent is also bi and non-binary!”
“Well if he’s got two dicks and you’re riding them, you two ain’t exactly straight!”
“I thought you’d be the one to understand!”
“Understand? Yeah, I understand. You’re happy to keep fucking him, but only in secret because you care more about what pops thinks than you care about your so-called-boyfriend” he snarled, and Pentious looked genuinely hurt. His face was painfully twisted.
“Go fuck yourself!” Arackniss shouted.
“I’d say the same, but you already got Pentious to do that for you!”
Before they could argue further, the snake suddenly pitched forward onto the ground with a heavy thud. “Pent!” Arackniss shouted, kneeling next to Pentious.
“Did we hurt his delicate feelings and he got the vapors?”
“Shut up, ANTHONY, this is serious,” he snapped back. “He’s freezing cold.”
Husk narrowed his eyes and picked up the end of Pentious’ tail. “The hells is this?” he asked. There was a ring of what appeared to be sharp teeth marks punching through the scales of the snake’s tail. It was hard to tell on the black scales, but they could clearly see the area around the yellow scales was turning bluish everywhere there was a mark.
“Pent? Pent, baby, wake up!” the spider fussed, cradling the snake in his arms.
“Get him back up to his room and warm him up, I’ll call my family doctor,” Charlie shouted to Arackniss.