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"Where in Heaven, is my elixir?" A red headed deer like Demon called as he tapped into the kitchen where the rest of the 'family' was gathering.
"The stuff you use on me?" Arackniss asked before pulling up the vile along his necklace.
"Cause it's here if you need it, Sir?"
"No, no, dear boy, an elixir I've been working on for months, one that's supposed to allow the user access into the dreams of others!"
Instead of ohhs and ahhs from the assembled group, Husker coughed and Charlie blinked slowly.
"Rather'a invasive don't'ja think, Al?" Angel Dust asked, however the smirk never left his lips.
"I would like to know what everyone thinks at all hours of the night too you know!" Alastor spoke calmly, ever the smiler.
"Al.. That's a bit.. You know…"
"WRONG?" Vaggie shot in sharply over her partner's shoulder.
"Pish posh~"
"Well, wherever it is, I hope someone is brave enough to hand it in~" Charlie beamed and turned back towards the meal prep at hand.
"So'a, what's it do exactly?" Angel asked, scooting over so Alastor could sit beside him.
"Well, once it's drunk, the user can expect to be knocked out in an hour, giving them time to prepare for the amount of time they'll spend within the dream. Eating, restroom-"
"Ya, dos are called, 'Sleeping Pills', Sir." Arackniss offered and Sir Pentious giggled.
As Alastor kept going, ignoring the Hitman ahead of him, Angel began to feel a pull in his head. A pull he DESPERATELY wanted to get away from but found he wasn't able to move.
The kind he felt when he overdosed-
"Once the hour has come, the drinker gets comfortable and closes their eyes~ They think of the dream they wish to inhabit as they succumb an-"
"TONY!"
Chairs scratched upon the wooden floor as the creamy spider Demon up and fell off his chair without warning. A chair banging in Arackniss' case as he leapt from his, over the table, and by his out cold brother's side.
"Fuck!! TONY!? TONY!!??"
The racket he made didn't rouse the brother, nor did the frantic whimpers that began to escape his lips as he found his brother not responding-
"Not again… T..Tony please.."
"Al, what's wrong with him?" Charlie asked in a hurry, rushing towards the spider's side.
"Niffty, get into Angel's room at once and find my elixir!"
The Radio Demon's voice sounded calm but the eyes that burned upon the comatose spider turned fully enraged.
"It wasn't perfected you ninny!!"
"He can't get into your room, Al, you must have misplaced it- He must have foun-"
"He shouldn't be drinking things he knows doesn't belong to him-"
Everyone went quiet as Alastor touched his bleeding face with a shaking clawed hand.
The attacker was none other than Arackniss, his tiny body bristled, fangs bared, claws out and dripping.
"YOU FUCKEN SON OF A BITCH!!"
"Niss!"
Another swipe at the Overlord. A near miss until the broken arm struck the Deer Demon on the shoulder.
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YA THINK GOT HIM HERE YOU FUCKEN PRICK BITCH!? HE'S HERE TO RECOVER FROM THAT LIFE!! YOU TINK FOR A SECOND HE'S GANNA SEE SOMETHEN AND WALK AWAY? DAT FUCKEN SIMPLE?"
"Arackniss.. Arackniss breatheh-"
"YOU FIX MY BROTHER OR DOS ANTLERS OF YOURS ARE GANNA BE MOUNTED ON MY FUCKEN WALL!!"
The rest expected the Overlord to respond in retaliation however, he slumped forward, half bent and frothing at the mouth as the venom from Arackniss' tainted claws took effect.
"ARACKNISS HOW'S HE MEANT TO HELP LIKE THIS?" Vaggie yowled as Charlie checked the Overlord and found him aware but pupils tiny and in unbelievable agony.
"He's… Vaggie.. He's not dead.. Not.. Yet?"
"Ta..ke it…s cour..se.." Alastor shuddered out from his place along the floor, his head now in Charlie's hands.
""I'm.. S..orr..y.."
He twitched and lowered his ear tufts.
The pain shot through his body like Angelic fire. He tried keeping his eyes open and looking at Angel, but the pain was blinding, nauseating!
"Take its COURSE!?" Arackniss hissed, body now puffed up in absolute rage and fear as he checked his brother's pulse.
"Bastard you just said it wasn't PERFECTED!"
"NISSSY SSSTOP!" An unnaturally dark hiss came from the silent serpent just arms reach from the Hitman.
His hood flared and with it the eyes within burned a strange blood orange, his arm finally reaching out for the angry spider.
Unfeeling the bristles and keeping face as his partner whipped around and snarled at him, Sir Pentious grabbed hold of his little Sniper and turned him to look him in the eyes.
"Nisssy, I know you're sscared!"
The spider struggled, clamping his four eyes shut, screaming words in his native tongue.
But the snake kept speaking. Calm, gentle, making sure the spider in his arms finally took a good look at him before offering at last, "He'ssss going to be fine! He's your brother! Have faith in him, Dear!"
The first ever time the group saw the snake's hypnotic powers in action, and used successfully, was on the enraged spider.
His fighting for release went slack. His four remaining eyes grew glazed. He became a dead weight in Sir Pentious' arms.
"He'ssss strong, my Dear~" The snake hissed softly, bringing the spider close to his chest.
Slithering close to Angel next, Pentious rested the brothers close and coiled protectively around their forms, hood flared, daring anyone to near them.
"Take its course!" Charlie repeated the Overlords words and shakingly got herself onto a chair and sat down.
Niffty returned five minutes later and in her tiny hand was the empty elixir bottle.
She handed it to Charlie who looked at it carefully.
What she found, disturbed her-
It smelt nice! Like applesauce!
As Charlie eyed the bottle then crossed over to the Overlord still writhing in his pain from Arackniss' venomous swipes, she had to admit, he deserved a small bit of this.
No one should have been conjuring up voodoo magic in the Hotel! She'd trusted the Overlord to uphold her request!
She pulled her gaze off Alastor and over towards the large snake Sinner and his coils.
Two forms lay together within the center, as if asleep but as still as death.
She whispered the words Sir Pentious' had spoken to Arackniss to herself as she watched the slow rise and fall of her first ever patron and family member to her Happy Hotel-
Maybe the more she repeated it, the faster she'd begin to believe it herself-
'He's strong! He's strong! He's-'
—
"Holy Mother of fuck!" Angel groaned, touching his pounding head tenderly.
"Jesus Christ Al! What da fuck was in dere?"
He looked around himself then called out when he saw no one nearby, "Al?"
"Charlie?"
"Nissy?"
It was dark, like nighttime!
Had he been dumped back onto the streets for breaking his promise to Charlie in not drinking shit?
He worried his hands till they hurt then got up onto his feet.
No! She was such a sweetheart!
Relapses happened and he hadn't had one in two months!
He smiled weakly at the next thought, trying to look around for any sort of light.
'I know you can do it~ Just believe in yourself and when temptations come a'knocking, we'
"Fuck up-" The tall spider whispered then flinched before looking ahead of himself when a much grifter voice said the same thing.
He knew that voice..
But.. But Niss hadn't been anywhere NEAR the Boss and his turf since!
He knew his Pops was blood thirsty but..
No! No, Nissy!
He felt himself running but didn't see where or to whom!
Nothing was in this place.
Just him and the voice of his Pops!
It was dark, like night, but so deathly quiet, it made him run harder. Not a soul, not a sight!
He remembered a feeling like this once before, before he finally slipped away after overdosing-
And it made him stop running once that slammed him in the face.
He was fading-
He'd fucked up for a last time-
And now?
"You WHAT?"
"I.. Fucked… I fucked up again.."
Angel fell to his knees and waited for that cold embrace to take him. When he took that last breath and fell.
He listened to the voice of his Pops and wondered somberly, if he fell again when his last breath came-
Where would he end up next?
And if he'd be alone like before-
So alone-
So.. So alone-
-
His eyes shot open at such a disturbing, heartbreaking thought when a new, deep but low voice spoke up suddenly.
One he didn't expect to hear if his Pops was at the Hotel!
"I called an ambulance!"
Angel looked around himself but saw still darkness, but the sound of his brother's voice seemed to reassure him somewhere deep within that he wasn't falling alone.
His brother was there by his side~
This too felt familiar to the spider Demon the more he began to listen yet it remained just out of reach when he tried grasping for it, wherever IT was!
-
"What for? He fucked up n' now he's paying for it!"
"Sir.. Sir please.."
"Shut'up, quit yer cry'n, Johnny!"
"What little brain he had is andato! Finito! He's dead, Johnny 'n now dat you's called for the Pigs aid, we need ta get outta here!"
"Pops, pl-"
-
A loud PUNCH brought Angel Dust back to where he'd remembered this whole thing and found himself watching as Arackniss/Johnathan clutched his gut and slipped to the ground beside his barely breathing body, and their Pops, large fist clenched, standing over the wounded youth and his dying boy.
"When I say we leave, we LEAVE, comprendere!?"
The brutish man began stomping out of the room, leaving Arackniss still holding his stricken guts and teary eyed.
"And it's Sir, not Pops! What did I raise you's to be? Soft!? Damn dat women for maken you's soft!"
Without seeing if he was being followed the Mob Boss walked through the doorway and left the scene of the suicide.
He had far better things to be worrying about now that Pigs were coming his way.
Like grabbing as much of his shit as he could and ditching!
But Arackniss stayed where he'd landed beside his brother.
He released his arms from his guts and brought them to Anthony's neck and chest.
"Tony.. Tony pl..ease.."
Angel watched mystified and heartbroken as his older brother tried rousing him just knowing that he knew and hearing him plead weaker and weaker as the tears finally shed from his stricken eyes.
"Ton..y I'm.. I'm sorry.. I didn't mean it! To..ony please! We need ta get outta here… You's can't leave Molly, T…ony! She needs ya.."
Angel reached for his brother when the last, heartbroken words left his lips, "I need'ja.."
Then watched in a new angle what became of him when his last breath had come and gone.
The light which took him to this new place faded to a blackened world around him once more.
But he wasn't disturbed by the darkness around him now.
What did was how the ending of his life signaled the end of his own brother's last shred of caring.
Arackniss sat hidden from view as the service men arrived at the location.
Brooklyn was crowded, even back then, and their time was already overdue in saving the young man's life.
So, Angel watched and listened as the workers spoke aloud and didn't seem to care for what they had been called out for-
A life, a once living being!
"Another druggy!" A female worker.
"Jesus Christ, should have known when the call came from this strip!" A male.
"Pretty boy, tho! What'a waste!" The female.
"Shove off it, he stoked up, offed himself, fucken fag!" The male.
Back and forth the two belittled the body he once inhabited, unaware they were being watched and listened to by a living pair of ears and eyes and boiling over with his final straws being broken.
"Let's get'm outta here, don't wanna find out who was fucken him to get him to off himself like dis!" The male.
In a gross display of inhumane behavior, the two workers carelessly lifted his body and deposited it upon the stretcher.
Wheeling him out wasn't much better as without putting a sheet over his body, the world could see the face of death via overdose like it was the headline in the paper.
Vomit dried all over his front and mouth, tear streaks running his face, and the swollen black eye he'd been gifted before he chose his end.
No, they simply pushed him into the back of the vehicle, not bothering even to strap him in, and closed it up.
A sudden noise broke into Angel's violent inner sobbing and it was Arackniss speaking aloud as the medical truck drove off, "Ti voglio bene.."
He felt the violent shaking of Arackniss as he watched the vehicle vanish out of sight and at last heard a final, broken, Riposa Ora, Tony.."
Then, just before the light returned and blinded him, Angel watched as the brother he once knew, the brother he loved and cared for despite their fights before, went from hysterical sobbing to chilly, almost muted silence both from voice to features.
The eyes were the last thing he got to see before he closed his own due to the light.
Eyes once with a semblance of life, love, and protection hidden in their depths, froze over into pools of emotionless nothingness.
-
"FUUUCK!!!"
"Holy SHIT!!"
"What happened, who screamed!?"
The group of awaiting Hotel 'family' all gave a different start to Angel's scream.
Husker jumped out of his skin whilst Charlie jerked into an alert state once more in her chair.
Sir Pentious merely looked up from his head's resting place where he watched the two brothers, and gave a slow, little nod.
"Nisssy~"
His snout brushed Arackniss' still fluffy left cheek and whispered, "Come back, my Dear~ Ssssomeone's come back around~"
The glowing of those blood orange eyes faded and with it, so did the smaller spider's motionlessness.
He returned to what he'd been doing before being sent under and went to chew out his partner only to stall at the last second when the snake's words connected.
"Anthony?"
Pentious pointed with his snout and watched as his little lover's head spun in the direction he'd been given.
"To..ony!?"
"You.. You stayed.."
"Where would I have gone, Tony?"
"Wit Pops- Like he ordered you's to!"
At this, Arackniss blinked and offered slowly, "Tony.. Pops ain't here.."
"No, no.. I mean.. I saw when you found me.."
"You stayed, Niss.. Breaking Pops' orders.. Even doh you already knew I was gone-"
The realization dawned on the elder brother and he began to choke back tears, biting his lower lip sharp enough to begin bleeding.
"I saw how… How you's called for help even tho.. Even tho you knew it was too late… How you's tried ta… Ta wake me.."
"What was I ganna do… I ha..d ta try… Tony.. You did yourself in.. Cause of me!"
"Nissy," Angel carefully wrapped an arm around his brother's back and pulled him in, feeling the once chilled to stone body break to pieces in his hold.
"I didn't mean ta take dat much- I just.. I wanted not ta feel and well.. I kinda overdid it.."
"Cau..se o…f me!"
Angel touched his blackened eye then whispered, pressing his snout into his brother's head fluff.
"No, Nissy, not cause of you!" His eyes grew teary and he closed them tightly. "Cause Pops finally won! He'd have done me in himself if you hadn't scared me off yourself!"
"Then I could'a told yo-"
"I haven't listened yet, now have I, Nissy?" Angel asked, smiling some at his confession.
"I.. I should have told y..ou-"
"Told me what, dat I was ganna be marked by my Pops for being me? Dat what you's was doing was try'n to keep me alive, free of the fishes? Given me a chance to run and start fresh?"
"Nissy!" The two looked at each other and Angel touched the scarred right half of the other's face, punctuating his next words, "I wouldn't have understood what you's was try'n ta do back den! It took me till almost losing you here in Hell dat I pieced it together!"
"You's been keepin all dat in ever since and it wasn't even your fault!"
"I p..ushed yo..u over the edge-"
"Ya, but you didn' pop dos pills into my mouth! Didn't guzzle de booze ta wash them down wit!"
"Nissy…"
"We both fucked up.. I never listened n' fucked around whilst Pops turned you into his Heir! You took da blunt almost every damn time he got angry, beaten and broken till you bent to his will and became de Enforcer you are today!"
"Yet, somewhere inside, that lil piece of self you still had, KNEW that he'd kill me if you didn't try and scare me off, and cause I didn't see it till too late, I took it da wrong way an..d I wound up… Here…"
"I'm just.. Sorry I fa..iled-"
"Den I'm sorry for failing you back, Niss, a'right?" They looked at each other again and Angel smiled once more, gaining the rare one back from Arackniss, "If you's can fail, so can I! If you's apologize for it, den so will I!"
"If you drink anything that's not yours-"
"Den you may punch me in da other eye!"
"Tony you.. You fucken idiot~"
"I'm sorry for hurten you again, Niss.."
Pulling out of the hug, the brothers looked at one another, Niss into the broken left eye of Angel's whilst Angel saw the gorges of claw marks that ran down his empty sockets.
"That's why we're here, right?"
Angel smiled and nodded as Arackniss finished, looking at the Princess for confirmation, "Ta help each other when we slip a few steps back n' work together in try'n again~"
"I couldn't have said it any better, Arackniss~" Charlie whispered gently, watching as the brothers held again.
After a good few moments of the brothers' silence, Angel looked around himself and saw things this time.
Not darkness, but faces~
Relieved faces of those that cared!
And one that looked downright awful, nursing a couple of slashes to his person.
"Damn, Al! You alright?"
It had taken the extent of his elixir that Angel drank to finally break himself of the body shocking pain of the venom and managed to claw himself into the corner where it was he gasped and rocked until the waves of agony eased up.
That was until Angel had come out of the sleep.
Then and only then did Alastor dare move and anger the venom again. But it was for a good reason that he did and told himself so as his hair bristled like a static dosed balloon overtop one's head.
"Good… My De….ar!"
If Angel didn't know any better, the strawberry pimp was looking at Arackniss as he wheezed that comment out!
Weird!
Instead of mentioning that and instead of asking what had happened, he looked around, first at the faces, then the table and chirped up excitedly, "Ooh ya, I forgot, dinner! I'm starved!"
"Your drink's WATER, Anthony!" Arackniss warned, getting up out of his snake's inner coils, watching closely as Angel did the same with no issue.
"I know, I know~"
"Ya you 'know'!"
Slowly, the 'family' each took their seats, again at the table, Alastor still where he sat crunched up after refusing to move, and began on what was by now, frozen food and lukewarm water and drinks.
Niss never stopped eyeing his brother, didn't cease listening to his ongoing struggles of needing this and that and not enough time even in Hell to get them!
But in the same breath, Niss never ceased glaring daggers behind his brother at the lonely soul eating in the corner.
Any time the Deer Sinner chanced a look up, Arackniss was already eyeing him back down with a silent threat only the Overlord understood.
Speak out against Angel in any manner like that again, and the pain wouldn't end!
It would only get worse if he dared!