That did not go to plan
Jul. 19th, 2024 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessI planned to do SO much writing while doing laundry today. My cousin came. was here five hours. So.... well at least I started a second ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomgiftbasket story today.
But here have my fandom recs for the week (guess I'm back to doing this while I have little else going on) and have my 6 words story forspikesgirl58's challenge.
Title: Brother Mine
Summary: Seeing his brother on 666 News fighting off exorcist angels, stirs up so many memories and feelings in Arackniss.
Author Note - Written for spikesgirl58’s six word challenge and the six words were Minor, Favorable, Competence, Disposition, Champion, & Freight
This is S2 speculation based on what? 3 seconds of seeing Arackniss at the end of episode 8. It pulls a little from the fandom wiki since no one really knows yet what will be retained of Arackniss’s history. According to the wiki Viv gave the name Jonathan for Arackniss in a Q&A so I went with the Italian of that (Giovanni).
Now I know that you're just my little brother
And I don't expect you to get everything just right
But I think you ought to use a little more sense than what you're using
And maybe then things would be all right
Brother Mine- Suzanne Vega
Arackniss stared up at the large TV screen in the square, watching his brother’s life and death struggle playing out on the news. The only thought in his head was holy fuck, Antonio is beating angels, fucking angels! Tony’s competence as a killer had never been in doubt. Their dad had fashioned both his boys into butchers from the moment they were old enough to hold weapons. Their fate had been chiseled in stone. Tony’s disposition, however, was not meant for such things. From childhood on, Arackniss had watched his gentle, sweet brother hardened, break, reform and break again. It had been no shock, not really, when he learned Tony was snorting up as much coke as he sold.
“Didn’t keep you from getting pissed off about it,” he mumbled and a bird-like woman gave him a sharp look. Arackniss ignored her as whatever VoxTech device that had recorded the angelic attack on the hotel showed it in ruins. His heart stopped at the sight of it. Was Tony dead again, gone forever from him? Everyone knew there was no coming back if an angelic weapon took you out. That’s why his boss, Carmilla, was so selective on who she sold them to. She had obviously sold some to the princess’s crew.
Tension fled his body as he spotted Tony searching the rubble for something. The tough stupid bastard had made it. Had Papi seen this newscast? Was he proud of his son finally? Arackniss doubted it. Being a monster in a fight was expected, not something that got praise. Arackniss smiled up at the screen as his brother huddled up with the princess and oh my god, that was Lucifer standing right there.
“God damn, Tony, you really are something.”
Arackniss turned away, walking back to Carmilla’s place of business, which really why the fuck had he been sent out on Extermination Day anyhow? Was it because the rumor was the princess’s hotel was the only target? He didn’t get two blocks without running into his brother’s face again. In the poster he was nearly nude, leering at the camera, hands cupped suggestively over his crotch and the other set fluffing up his impressive amount of white and pink chest fluff. Arackniss counted himself lucky every day that he got to hell after his father who should have had time to process that Tony ended up white and pink and so fucking tall Arackniss kind of had to hate his guts. But of course Papi hadn’t gotten used to his son being so pretty, so well-known these last handful of decades, so damn slutty. He would never accept one of his sons wasn’t just gay but was letting every sinner in hell watch him fuck on screen.
It wasn’t something Arackniss liked either. He could give a shit that Tony was gay – he had wondered a time or two back when they were alive before the big blow out but no one dared speak of that, not back then. He had seen one of Tony’s movies, it being on in a club he couldn’t leave, waiting to teach some welcher a lesson. The deadness of his baby brother’s eyes in all his scenes had hurt him but, of course, when he tried to talk to Tony about it, they’d fought. They always fought. Now they mostly ignored each other.
I should go see him after this. He doesn’t even have a home anymore. I should offer him mine for now.
But it would have to wait until his job was done. In the end, he did nothing because he’d slipped up and mentioned it to Papi who backhanded him straight through a door for thinking about helping Tony. Anyhow, the hotel had been quickly rebuilt – no doubt under Lucifer’s power and damned if it didn’t seem tailor made for Tony with hearts and triple Xs up in lights on one side – so Tony would be fine. But he wouldn’t leave Arackniss’s mind.
# # #
The acrid taste of tobacco filled his senses. Tony shot him a sharp look. Yeah he shouldn’t be smoking and giving away their position but someone he had caught mixing cocaine into his whiskey had no business telling him what to do. Giovanni flipped his little brother off. The freight they were waiting for would help them rub out a minor family trying to get hold on their turf, like that would happen. He flicked his cigarette into the East River and pulled his pistol, hearing paddles in the water. Tony had done the same.
There was no need of their suspicions. Their supplier paddled ashore with their freight, some more machine guns hidden in a false bottom of a couple crates of cotton diapers. If caught, they’d claim the crates ‘fell off a truck’ and they were going to make a quick dime selling the diapers cheaper than the stores. The war was over but not the effects it left behind. Giovanni couldn’t run far enough to escape what he saw in Europe. Hopefully if they got caught with the crates, the cops wouldn’t question it further and let them keep the diapers. He didn’t want to have to shoot cops and end up hiding out in Wisconsin again or Vegas, which seemed to be up and coming for made men like him and Tony.
All his worries were for naught. No one stopped them and they easily hid the guns in their dad’s secret room. They really would sell the diapers to neighbors. Even with daily washings, diapers got old fast fit for nothing but dust rags. His own kids had proven that much. Task done, Giovanni slipped his silver ring back on his finger, a picture of his beloved Chiara behind celluloid as the center piece. She had died earlier in the year giving birth to their third son. He didn’t dare wear anything that identifiable out on a job but he didn’t like to be parted from her for long.
No sooner than they finished locking up the concealed room did the hair stand up on the back of Giovanni’s neck. He turned to see their father filling the doorway. Like Giovanni, their father wasn’t tall but he was broad, muscled like a damn bull and knew how to use every pound of that muscle in spite his advancing age. Tony froze and Giovanni didn’t blame him. The look on their dad’s face boded ill.
“Went without a hiccup, Papi,” Giovanni said, pretending he didn’t see murder in his dad’s eye. “All the merchandise is present and accounted for.”
“As it should be.” He stabbed a finger toward Tony. “You, you fucking little moron.”
“What? What did I do?” Tony took a step back as if it could stave off the inevitable. He knew it. Giovanni did too. There was going to be blood on the floor tiles.
“Your dumb little ass was seen in Prospect Park in the middle of the night,” their father growled and Giovanni’s gut twisted. Tony lost all color.
“No, I wasn’t, Papi! I never went there,” Tony protested, running a hand through his slicked back hair, several shades lighter than Giovanni or their father. He and Molly took after their mother’s northern Italian side of the family.
“You were seen, Antonio. Just like you were seen in Coney Island.”
“I admitted I was there, didn’t I? Coney Island has Luna Park and you know I love rollercoasters and all the rides. I was there riding the rides.”
“Oh, I bet you were riding the rides in Muscle Beach,” their father spat. “And in Prospect Park, you little degenerate.”
“No, Papi! I wasn’t there doing that!” Tony held out his hands, desperation and fear on his face. He was lying. He might have been in Coney Island for the rides but if he was in Prospect Park, he was cruising for men. Shock set up tremors in Giovanni. Papi would kill Tony before letting anyone know his boy was a fairy.
“Giovanni, teach your brother a lesson,” their father ordered. “And if he don’t learn it, he ain’t living to regret it.”
“Come on, Papi. He said he wasn’t there. Who you gonna believe? Your son or some rat spreading rumors?”
Their dad stormed across the room and knocked Giovanni off his feet. “You do as you’re told or I’ll do it for you. Is that what you want? That I should handle it myself?”
“No, Papi.” Giovanni picked himself up, wiping his bleeding lip. Tony hyperventilated, backed into a corner.
Their father slammed the door behind him and Giovanni advanced on him.
“Don’t do this, fratello,” Tony begged.
“You know I have to. Just toss some shit around the room and let me fatten your lip for you. He’ll buy it,” Giovanni said.
“You don’t have to do everything he says, Giovanni. Stand up to him!”
“Don’t you get it? You can’t be this dumb, Tony. If he catches wind you were even eyeballing the park again, let alone doing something with your pants down, he’s gonna put a bullet in your empty head.” Worse, he would make Giovanni do it and maybe that would be the best thing. He’d end his brother with one clean shot. Their father would torture him first.
“Fuck you both! I wasn’t in the park!” Tony screamed.
“It don’t matter no more, does it? He thinks you were. That’s all that matters.” Giovanni balled his fists, steeling himself for what he had to do.
“Tale padre, tale figlio,” Tony spat.
Like father, like son his ass. Giovanni skinned his lips back in a furious scowl. “I’m nothing like him.”
“You do everything he says. You never think for yourself.”
Giovanni grimaced. “Now I’m gonna hit you for real, Tony.”
“Just try it.”
Giovanni rushed Tony, going at him hammer and tongs. Tony might be lanky but the bastard hit like a freight train. He had reach and swiftness over Giovanni but Giovanni had power in his small frame. Fists flew and neither of them could dodge them all. Chest heaving, face hurting from the punches landed, Giovanni cocked his fist back and swung for all he was worth. He had been aiming for Tony’s shoulder hoping to stun him into immobility. Instead it crashed into Tony’s face as Tony went low to hit Giovanni in the gut.
Tony fell back, shrieking. Giovanni stared at his fist, seeing blood and a crack in the ring’s celluloid cover. He clawed the ring off, wiping the blood away before it seeped into Chiara’s picture.
“Fuck you, Tony. If you ruined….”
The words died in his mouth as the sight of his brother’s face horrified him. Sprawled on the floor, Tony bled profusely. His eye was bleeding inside and out, fingers of blood filling the whites of that eye. Oh god, had he blinded his brother? Tony curled up, cradling his eye protectively.
“My eye!”
“I’m so sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to.” Giovanni knelt beside him, trying to check his brother’s injury. He got bitten for his troubles. “Damn it, Tony!”
“You fucking leave me alone, Giovanni.” Tony scrambled to his feet. “All of you just leave me the fuck alone.”
“I said I’m sorry. Let me help you.”
“Oh, go to hell. All you had to do was listen to me instead of Papi but no, you never do. You are the worst brother.”
“And why should I listen to a dope fiend? How can I trust you when your head’s never clear? You being high is going to get me and you killed.”
Giovanni regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. Tony’s face purpled.
“I’m leaving and you’re not stopping me.”
“Go! Go snort some of your cocaine and go feel superior to the rest of us, like you always do, like you’d be anything without us.”
“I’d be happy without you.” Tony snarled and banged his way out the door. If their father was out there waiting, he didn’t stop Tony. His grievously injured eye signaled he’d gotten the beating Papi wanted.
Giovanni wanted to chase after him but he didn’t. Tony needed space and the last thing he needed was Giovanni in his face. Instead he tended his broken ring to make sure Chiara’s photo was okay. He’d send it to the jeweler in the morning and his kid brother could go fuck himself.
# # #
“Come on, Jonny,” Molly tugged on Giovanni’s arm. She, alone, went by their anglicized names most of the time. Of course, she was the one out there determined to make a living outside the family and not being Italian helped that cause. No one trusted the Italians before the war and even less after. He preferred her real name, Maddalena, but if she wanted to be called Molly, how could he say no to the one person in the family who had a favorable opinion of him?
Giovanni refused to be dragged along. He wasn’t going up the steps to his brother’s home. Their mom had given him a disgusted look, spotting his bruises and busted knuckles when he checked in with her and her four grandkids. His mom had been watching them since Chiara died. What the hell did he know about diapers? More than he wanted to, mortified the first time he ever stuck his baby with a safety pin by accident. He’d worn his onyx ring with the god Mars in intaglio on it hoping on quick glance she’d think it was his mourning ring. No fooling her. She made it clear if he didn’t go with Molly to apologize to Tony, he’d be in trouble.
“He don’t want to see me, Molls.”
“He will. Tony loves you.”
“You mean he loathes me.”
She scowled. “He doesn’t. He’s just angry and yes, I know you are too but you’re making up with him,” she said like she could command such a thing.
Giovanni sat on the porch swing and lit up. “Then he can come down here and make up with me. You don’t know what he did, Molly.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, tossing back her fair mane. “You won’t tell me.”
“Leave it as Papi wanted him beaten harder than I gave him.”
He couldn’t tell her that her twin was in the park kissing men, which was all he allowed his mind to imagine. He couldn’t wrap his brain around Tony sucking on….that or letting someone put their cazzo inside him. Molly paled at that declaration that the vicious beating hadn’t been enough.
“Fine. I’ll bring him out here.”
He took a drag. “You do that.”
She used her spare key to open the door and then stomped inside. He blew smoke into the wind, determined not to be the first one to apologize. Tony could go jump in the river if he thought that was happening.
Molly’s screams shot straight to his soul. Flicking his cigarette into the street, Giovanni raced into the house and up the steps two at a time. He nearly fell over in the bedroom doorway. He didn’t need to go inside as far as Molly had. He knew the look of death, the smell of the body starting to let go. In his final moments, Tony had managed to get his finger into the rotatory dial of the bedside phone. Lines of cocaine stood next to the phone on the nightstand.
“No, fuck no, Tony! No, no, no, you can’t do this!” he screamed, barely audible over Molly’s heart wrenching wails.
He took Tony’s cold, stiff hand, the bruised knuckles standing out like beacons on the gray skin. His eyes were wide open, clouded now with the injured one filled with blood. Fear cut into the lines of his face as he died. Tony had known he was dying. He’d been so afraid. He took his final breath, alone, trying to call for help. Had he been calling for his brother? Hopefully he’d been trying for the family doctor not that it would have helped. Tony had done exactly what Giovanni had told him to: he snorted cocaine, enough to kill him.
“I killed him,” he whispered.
Molly stopped wailing, turning wide wet eyes on him.
“I beat him and told him to go snort his coke,” he said more to himself than her. “I killed him.”
With a banshee screech, Molly was on him, fists and feet finding their targets. He didn’t fight back. He stared at his brother’s battered face, dying inside, as she struck him.
# # #
Screams jolted Arackniss awake. Blearily, he realized they were coming from him. His heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears, he shuddered. He hadn’t had that dream about Tony’s last days in so long. Surely it was the news cast from the other day’s fault: Tony going up against an army of exorcist angels and coming out a champion. Shouldn’t that have given him better dreams than this?
He’d never gotten over Tony’s death, haunted until his own death in a hail of bullets. Molly and Mom never fully forgave him and he knew it. Papi had merely grunted and said the stupido had gotten what he deserved. And maybe he was glad Tony died without anyone proving he was what he was. But their father changed after that, losing his son affected him even when he tried to play it off as if it hadn’t. Did he feel regret? Maybe Papi did.
Arackniss certainly did. Had he been kinder, had he just done what Tony wanted and stood up to their father, his brother would have lived a little longer. Or not. Papi might have killed him on the spot had Arackniss not done as he asked. Maybe Tony would have lived long enough for Molly to convince him to go into those rehabilitation centers that were popping up. Papi would have killed him then too, no doubt, afraid of what Tony might blab in therapy or over the shame of having an addicted son.
If only he’d been kinder.
If only he’d be kinder now.
Arackniss went into the bathroom splashed water on his face and decided it was too late to go back to sleep. He dressed, ate and took his coffee to go. Carmilla had a never-ending stack of work for him to do anyhow. He might as well get on it.
He wasn’t five feet from his door when he spotted a movie poster, Lupercalia Lust. Angel Dust wore a toga that covered almost nothing and bondage gear peeked through but he was the one with the whip, looking ready to do a wolf-man.
“Jesus, Tony!”
Groaning, Arackniss texted Carmilla he needed the day for family business and got in his car. Finding the princess’s hotel wasn’t hard. He parked and walked up to the door. Giving it a perfunctory knock, Arackniss walked in. Behind the bar was a cat man with wings that he barely recognized as Husker. He’d help handle guns for the overlord’s casino security back in the day. He’d thought the Radio Demon had killed him and had been stunned to see him fighting next to Tony on the news.
As for Tony, he sat on the floor, his mouth dropped open wide at the sight of him. Above him in pride of place was a portrait of Sir Pentious. Arackniss had signed off on many orders for the minor overlord. Everyone saw Adam vaporize his airship.
Did Tony have a pig in a pink and purple Hawai’ian shirt sitting in his lap? Arackniss couldn’t wrap his head around that.
Husker stepped out from behind the bar. How had he bought into the idea of redemption? That was idiocy for people like them, right? “Is that you, Arackniss?”
“Yeah.” Arackniss hunched in on himself. He hadn’t thought this through at all.
“What can I do for you? We don’t buy weapons here,” Husker said.
Arackniss shook his head violently. “I’m here to talk to my kid brother.”
Husker widened his eyes, glancing at Tony.
Tony didn’t tell him to get out or go fuck himself. He simply stared in disbelief.
That was a good start.
Arackniss walked across the room and looked down at Tony. He held out his hand. “Can we talk, fratello?”
Candlelight The Owl House
Buffy’s Bad Day Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Testing the Waters Hazbin Hotel
Family is Everything Prodigal Son
That Perfect Smile Torchwood
Being the Poster Boy Stargate Atlantis
to fend the darkness at the end Star Trek Voyager
Batteries Not Included Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Stress Overload Torchwood
Panic Attacked The Owl House
Fighting the Fire 911/Teen Wolf
Reflections Hazbin Hotel
fandomgiftbasket story today.But here have my fandom recs for the week (guess I'm back to doing this while I have little else going on) and have my 6 words story for
spikesgirl58's challenge.Title: Brother Mine
Summary: Seeing his brother on 666 News fighting off exorcist angels, stirs up so many memories and feelings in Arackniss.
Author Note - Written for spikesgirl58’s six word challenge and the six words were Minor, Favorable, Competence, Disposition, Champion, & Freight
This is S2 speculation based on what? 3 seconds of seeing Arackniss at the end of episode 8. It pulls a little from the fandom wiki since no one really knows yet what will be retained of Arackniss’s history. According to the wiki Viv gave the name Jonathan for Arackniss in a Q&A so I went with the Italian of that (Giovanni).
Now I know that you're just my little brother
And I don't expect you to get everything just right
But I think you ought to use a little more sense than what you're using
And maybe then things would be all right
Brother Mine- Suzanne Vega
Arackniss stared up at the large TV screen in the square, watching his brother’s life and death struggle playing out on the news. The only thought in his head was holy fuck, Antonio is beating angels, fucking angels! Tony’s competence as a killer had never been in doubt. Their dad had fashioned both his boys into butchers from the moment they were old enough to hold weapons. Their fate had been chiseled in stone. Tony’s disposition, however, was not meant for such things. From childhood on, Arackniss had watched his gentle, sweet brother hardened, break, reform and break again. It had been no shock, not really, when he learned Tony was snorting up as much coke as he sold.
“Didn’t keep you from getting pissed off about it,” he mumbled and a bird-like woman gave him a sharp look. Arackniss ignored her as whatever VoxTech device that had recorded the angelic attack on the hotel showed it in ruins. His heart stopped at the sight of it. Was Tony dead again, gone forever from him? Everyone knew there was no coming back if an angelic weapon took you out. That’s why his boss, Carmilla, was so selective on who she sold them to. She had obviously sold some to the princess’s crew.
Tension fled his body as he spotted Tony searching the rubble for something. The tough stupid bastard had made it. Had Papi seen this newscast? Was he proud of his son finally? Arackniss doubted it. Being a monster in a fight was expected, not something that got praise. Arackniss smiled up at the screen as his brother huddled up with the princess and oh my god, that was Lucifer standing right there.
“God damn, Tony, you really are something.”
Arackniss turned away, walking back to Carmilla’s place of business, which really why the fuck had he been sent out on Extermination Day anyhow? Was it because the rumor was the princess’s hotel was the only target? He didn’t get two blocks without running into his brother’s face again. In the poster he was nearly nude, leering at the camera, hands cupped suggestively over his crotch and the other set fluffing up his impressive amount of white and pink chest fluff. Arackniss counted himself lucky every day that he got to hell after his father who should have had time to process that Tony ended up white and pink and so fucking tall Arackniss kind of had to hate his guts. But of course Papi hadn’t gotten used to his son being so pretty, so well-known these last handful of decades, so damn slutty. He would never accept one of his sons wasn’t just gay but was letting every sinner in hell watch him fuck on screen.
It wasn’t something Arackniss liked either. He could give a shit that Tony was gay – he had wondered a time or two back when they were alive before the big blow out but no one dared speak of that, not back then. He had seen one of Tony’s movies, it being on in a club he couldn’t leave, waiting to teach some welcher a lesson. The deadness of his baby brother’s eyes in all his scenes had hurt him but, of course, when he tried to talk to Tony about it, they’d fought. They always fought. Now they mostly ignored each other.
I should go see him after this. He doesn’t even have a home anymore. I should offer him mine for now.
But it would have to wait until his job was done. In the end, he did nothing because he’d slipped up and mentioned it to Papi who backhanded him straight through a door for thinking about helping Tony. Anyhow, the hotel had been quickly rebuilt – no doubt under Lucifer’s power and damned if it didn’t seem tailor made for Tony with hearts and triple Xs up in lights on one side – so Tony would be fine. But he wouldn’t leave Arackniss’s mind.
# # #
The acrid taste of tobacco filled his senses. Tony shot him a sharp look. Yeah he shouldn’t be smoking and giving away their position but someone he had caught mixing cocaine into his whiskey had no business telling him what to do. Giovanni flipped his little brother off. The freight they were waiting for would help them rub out a minor family trying to get hold on their turf, like that would happen. He flicked his cigarette into the East River and pulled his pistol, hearing paddles in the water. Tony had done the same.
There was no need of their suspicions. Their supplier paddled ashore with their freight, some more machine guns hidden in a false bottom of a couple crates of cotton diapers. If caught, they’d claim the crates ‘fell off a truck’ and they were going to make a quick dime selling the diapers cheaper than the stores. The war was over but not the effects it left behind. Giovanni couldn’t run far enough to escape what he saw in Europe. Hopefully if they got caught with the crates, the cops wouldn’t question it further and let them keep the diapers. He didn’t want to have to shoot cops and end up hiding out in Wisconsin again or Vegas, which seemed to be up and coming for made men like him and Tony.
All his worries were for naught. No one stopped them and they easily hid the guns in their dad’s secret room. They really would sell the diapers to neighbors. Even with daily washings, diapers got old fast fit for nothing but dust rags. His own kids had proven that much. Task done, Giovanni slipped his silver ring back on his finger, a picture of his beloved Chiara behind celluloid as the center piece. She had died earlier in the year giving birth to their third son. He didn’t dare wear anything that identifiable out on a job but he didn’t like to be parted from her for long.
No sooner than they finished locking up the concealed room did the hair stand up on the back of Giovanni’s neck. He turned to see their father filling the doorway. Like Giovanni, their father wasn’t tall but he was broad, muscled like a damn bull and knew how to use every pound of that muscle in spite his advancing age. Tony froze and Giovanni didn’t blame him. The look on their dad’s face boded ill.
“Went without a hiccup, Papi,” Giovanni said, pretending he didn’t see murder in his dad’s eye. “All the merchandise is present and accounted for.”
“As it should be.” He stabbed a finger toward Tony. “You, you fucking little moron.”
“What? What did I do?” Tony took a step back as if it could stave off the inevitable. He knew it. Giovanni did too. There was going to be blood on the floor tiles.
“Your dumb little ass was seen in Prospect Park in the middle of the night,” their father growled and Giovanni’s gut twisted. Tony lost all color.
“No, I wasn’t, Papi! I never went there,” Tony protested, running a hand through his slicked back hair, several shades lighter than Giovanni or their father. He and Molly took after their mother’s northern Italian side of the family.
“You were seen, Antonio. Just like you were seen in Coney Island.”
“I admitted I was there, didn’t I? Coney Island has Luna Park and you know I love rollercoasters and all the rides. I was there riding the rides.”
“Oh, I bet you were riding the rides in Muscle Beach,” their father spat. “And in Prospect Park, you little degenerate.”
“No, Papi! I wasn’t there doing that!” Tony held out his hands, desperation and fear on his face. He was lying. He might have been in Coney Island for the rides but if he was in Prospect Park, he was cruising for men. Shock set up tremors in Giovanni. Papi would kill Tony before letting anyone know his boy was a fairy.
“Giovanni, teach your brother a lesson,” their father ordered. “And if he don’t learn it, he ain’t living to regret it.”
“Come on, Papi. He said he wasn’t there. Who you gonna believe? Your son or some rat spreading rumors?”
Their dad stormed across the room and knocked Giovanni off his feet. “You do as you’re told or I’ll do it for you. Is that what you want? That I should handle it myself?”
“No, Papi.” Giovanni picked himself up, wiping his bleeding lip. Tony hyperventilated, backed into a corner.
Their father slammed the door behind him and Giovanni advanced on him.
“Don’t do this, fratello,” Tony begged.
“You know I have to. Just toss some shit around the room and let me fatten your lip for you. He’ll buy it,” Giovanni said.
“You don’t have to do everything he says, Giovanni. Stand up to him!”
“Don’t you get it? You can’t be this dumb, Tony. If he catches wind you were even eyeballing the park again, let alone doing something with your pants down, he’s gonna put a bullet in your empty head.” Worse, he would make Giovanni do it and maybe that would be the best thing. He’d end his brother with one clean shot. Their father would torture him first.
“Fuck you both! I wasn’t in the park!” Tony screamed.
“It don’t matter no more, does it? He thinks you were. That’s all that matters.” Giovanni balled his fists, steeling himself for what he had to do.
“Tale padre, tale figlio,” Tony spat.
Like father, like son his ass. Giovanni skinned his lips back in a furious scowl. “I’m nothing like him.”
“You do everything he says. You never think for yourself.”
Giovanni grimaced. “Now I’m gonna hit you for real, Tony.”
“Just try it.”
Giovanni rushed Tony, going at him hammer and tongs. Tony might be lanky but the bastard hit like a freight train. He had reach and swiftness over Giovanni but Giovanni had power in his small frame. Fists flew and neither of them could dodge them all. Chest heaving, face hurting from the punches landed, Giovanni cocked his fist back and swung for all he was worth. He had been aiming for Tony’s shoulder hoping to stun him into immobility. Instead it crashed into Tony’s face as Tony went low to hit Giovanni in the gut.
Tony fell back, shrieking. Giovanni stared at his fist, seeing blood and a crack in the ring’s celluloid cover. He clawed the ring off, wiping the blood away before it seeped into Chiara’s picture.
“Fuck you, Tony. If you ruined….”
The words died in his mouth as the sight of his brother’s face horrified him. Sprawled on the floor, Tony bled profusely. His eye was bleeding inside and out, fingers of blood filling the whites of that eye. Oh god, had he blinded his brother? Tony curled up, cradling his eye protectively.
“My eye!”
“I’m so sorry, Tony. I didn’t mean to.” Giovanni knelt beside him, trying to check his brother’s injury. He got bitten for his troubles. “Damn it, Tony!”
“You fucking leave me alone, Giovanni.” Tony scrambled to his feet. “All of you just leave me the fuck alone.”
“I said I’m sorry. Let me help you.”
“Oh, go to hell. All you had to do was listen to me instead of Papi but no, you never do. You are the worst brother.”
“And why should I listen to a dope fiend? How can I trust you when your head’s never clear? You being high is going to get me and you killed.”
Giovanni regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. Tony’s face purpled.
“I’m leaving and you’re not stopping me.”
“Go! Go snort some of your cocaine and go feel superior to the rest of us, like you always do, like you’d be anything without us.”
“I’d be happy without you.” Tony snarled and banged his way out the door. If their father was out there waiting, he didn’t stop Tony. His grievously injured eye signaled he’d gotten the beating Papi wanted.
Giovanni wanted to chase after him but he didn’t. Tony needed space and the last thing he needed was Giovanni in his face. Instead he tended his broken ring to make sure Chiara’s photo was okay. He’d send it to the jeweler in the morning and his kid brother could go fuck himself.
# # #
“Come on, Jonny,” Molly tugged on Giovanni’s arm. She, alone, went by their anglicized names most of the time. Of course, she was the one out there determined to make a living outside the family and not being Italian helped that cause. No one trusted the Italians before the war and even less after. He preferred her real name, Maddalena, but if she wanted to be called Molly, how could he say no to the one person in the family who had a favorable opinion of him?
Giovanni refused to be dragged along. He wasn’t going up the steps to his brother’s home. Their mom had given him a disgusted look, spotting his bruises and busted knuckles when he checked in with her and her four grandkids. His mom had been watching them since Chiara died. What the hell did he know about diapers? More than he wanted to, mortified the first time he ever stuck his baby with a safety pin by accident. He’d worn his onyx ring with the god Mars in intaglio on it hoping on quick glance she’d think it was his mourning ring. No fooling her. She made it clear if he didn’t go with Molly to apologize to Tony, he’d be in trouble.
“He don’t want to see me, Molls.”
“He will. Tony loves you.”
“You mean he loathes me.”
She scowled. “He doesn’t. He’s just angry and yes, I know you are too but you’re making up with him,” she said like she could command such a thing.
Giovanni sat on the porch swing and lit up. “Then he can come down here and make up with me. You don’t know what he did, Molly.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, tossing back her fair mane. “You won’t tell me.”
“Leave it as Papi wanted him beaten harder than I gave him.”
He couldn’t tell her that her twin was in the park kissing men, which was all he allowed his mind to imagine. He couldn’t wrap his brain around Tony sucking on….that or letting someone put their cazzo inside him. Molly paled at that declaration that the vicious beating hadn’t been enough.
“Fine. I’ll bring him out here.”
He took a drag. “You do that.”
She used her spare key to open the door and then stomped inside. He blew smoke into the wind, determined not to be the first one to apologize. Tony could go jump in the river if he thought that was happening.
Molly’s screams shot straight to his soul. Flicking his cigarette into the street, Giovanni raced into the house and up the steps two at a time. He nearly fell over in the bedroom doorway. He didn’t need to go inside as far as Molly had. He knew the look of death, the smell of the body starting to let go. In his final moments, Tony had managed to get his finger into the rotatory dial of the bedside phone. Lines of cocaine stood next to the phone on the nightstand.
“No, fuck no, Tony! No, no, no, you can’t do this!” he screamed, barely audible over Molly’s heart wrenching wails.
He took Tony’s cold, stiff hand, the bruised knuckles standing out like beacons on the gray skin. His eyes were wide open, clouded now with the injured one filled with blood. Fear cut into the lines of his face as he died. Tony had known he was dying. He’d been so afraid. He took his final breath, alone, trying to call for help. Had he been calling for his brother? Hopefully he’d been trying for the family doctor not that it would have helped. Tony had done exactly what Giovanni had told him to: he snorted cocaine, enough to kill him.
“I killed him,” he whispered.
Molly stopped wailing, turning wide wet eyes on him.
“I beat him and told him to go snort his coke,” he said more to himself than her. “I killed him.”
With a banshee screech, Molly was on him, fists and feet finding their targets. He didn’t fight back. He stared at his brother’s battered face, dying inside, as she struck him.
# # #
Screams jolted Arackniss awake. Blearily, he realized they were coming from him. His heart pounding, blood rushing in his ears, he shuddered. He hadn’t had that dream about Tony’s last days in so long. Surely it was the news cast from the other day’s fault: Tony going up against an army of exorcist angels and coming out a champion. Shouldn’t that have given him better dreams than this?
He’d never gotten over Tony’s death, haunted until his own death in a hail of bullets. Molly and Mom never fully forgave him and he knew it. Papi had merely grunted and said the stupido had gotten what he deserved. And maybe he was glad Tony died without anyone proving he was what he was. But their father changed after that, losing his son affected him even when he tried to play it off as if it hadn’t. Did he feel regret? Maybe Papi did.
Arackniss certainly did. Had he been kinder, had he just done what Tony wanted and stood up to their father, his brother would have lived a little longer. Or not. Papi might have killed him on the spot had Arackniss not done as he asked. Maybe Tony would have lived long enough for Molly to convince him to go into those rehabilitation centers that were popping up. Papi would have killed him then too, no doubt, afraid of what Tony might blab in therapy or over the shame of having an addicted son.
If only he’d been kinder.
If only he’d be kinder now.
Arackniss went into the bathroom splashed water on his face and decided it was too late to go back to sleep. He dressed, ate and took his coffee to go. Carmilla had a never-ending stack of work for him to do anyhow. He might as well get on it.
He wasn’t five feet from his door when he spotted a movie poster, Lupercalia Lust. Angel Dust wore a toga that covered almost nothing and bondage gear peeked through but he was the one with the whip, looking ready to do a wolf-man.
“Jesus, Tony!”
Groaning, Arackniss texted Carmilla he needed the day for family business and got in his car. Finding the princess’s hotel wasn’t hard. He parked and walked up to the door. Giving it a perfunctory knock, Arackniss walked in. Behind the bar was a cat man with wings that he barely recognized as Husker. He’d help handle guns for the overlord’s casino security back in the day. He’d thought the Radio Demon had killed him and had been stunned to see him fighting next to Tony on the news.
As for Tony, he sat on the floor, his mouth dropped open wide at the sight of him. Above him in pride of place was a portrait of Sir Pentious. Arackniss had signed off on many orders for the minor overlord. Everyone saw Adam vaporize his airship.
Did Tony have a pig in a pink and purple Hawai’ian shirt sitting in his lap? Arackniss couldn’t wrap his head around that.
Husker stepped out from behind the bar. How had he bought into the idea of redemption? That was idiocy for people like them, right? “Is that you, Arackniss?”
“Yeah.” Arackniss hunched in on himself. He hadn’t thought this through at all.
“What can I do for you? We don’t buy weapons here,” Husker said.
Arackniss shook his head violently. “I’m here to talk to my kid brother.”
Husker widened his eyes, glancing at Tony.
Tony didn’t tell him to get out or go fuck himself. He simply stared in disbelief.
That was a good start.
Arackniss walked across the room and looked down at Tony. He held out his hand. “Can we talk, fratello?”
Candlelight The Owl House
Buffy’s Bad Day Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Testing the Waters Hazbin Hotel
Family is Everything Prodigal Son
That Perfect Smile Torchwood
Being the Poster Boy Stargate Atlantis
to fend the darkness at the end Star Trek Voyager
Batteries Not Included Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Stress Overload Torchwood
Panic Attacked The Owl House
Fighting the Fire 911/Teen Wolf
Reflections Hazbin Hotel
