Snake Eyes

Chapter 11

Closing the door behind him, Arackniss leaned against the panel and fought to stay awake. He was late, of course, he was tired, and he was more in need of a cigar than he'd ever been in his after life. It wasn't long before the phone rang and his tired mind roved over why anyone in their right minds would be calling him this late at night. And then he remembered pink eyes, soft scales, and a touch that had him screaming for hours. "Fuck." Grabbing the phone, he put it to his ear and listened for a few seconds. "Pronto?" There was more silence on the line and he wanted to shoot himself for how awkward he felt.

"How was your day?" That slight hiss and he was leaning against the wall with a smile upturning his lips.

"Busy, as always. It feels like I'm everybody's gopher all the time." He thought about it for a moment and bit his lip. He wanted to say something else, but it was too soon for that, right? "How was your day?" He waited for a moment and listened to the background sounds from Pentious' line.

"Full of testing, waiting, planning, as always. I finished one of my side things, but it's a piece for a bigger machine, so I can't use it just yet." He paused and Arackniss moved to sit on the couch before his lover could speak again. "Lonely. My day was so terribly lonely." Another little skip of his heart and he was laying himself across the cushions of the couch.

"Yeah. Mine was lonely too." It hadn't been any different from every other day at the office, and yet there had definitely been something he was missing. Almost like he felt cold all day and didn't have a jacket. He could hear the door closing behind the snake, could hear the shifting fabric of sheets and blankets, and he thought about the large bed Pentious slept in. His array of pillows and blankets creating a nest of comfort and warmth. "Whoever's idea it was to give me any sort of responsibility in this Family should be shot. Oh wait." That pulled a laugh from the snake and his smile grew.

"Ah, to be born into the responsibility." Arackniss rolled his eyes and audibly groaned for the other man.

"Bull shit! I was born first, that's all the old man needed to make me do everythin'." Another laugh and he could feel all of the tension melting away for some reason. "I remember when they decided I was old enough to watch the twins, and that was hell. I went from being able to leave them and play by myself to having an entourage that had a habit of getting into shit they weren't supposed to."

"How old were you?" He thought for a moment, tapping his fingers against his leg.

"Nine? Ten? I think? I couldn't have been younger than nine, cause by the time they left me alone with them, Tony could walk, and that was part of what caused the chaos. He was cute, so everyone had a habit of letting him get away with shit, but I never let him. They would always tell me I was too hard on him." His heart sank as he thought of his brother and the last thing he'd said to him all those years ago. The shiner that he'd left him with and stormed out because he wasn't listening, like always. The news he got a few days later when they'd found him dead in his apartment. "Maybe I was too hard." He cringed and tried to breathe through the unfamiliar emotions causing his eyes to water. Nope, not gonna happen, he did not cry over this. Not over what happened that day, because it wasn't his fault. Sure, he fought with Tony, sure his one and only little brother had then done an ass ton of drugs that had killed him, but that wasn't his fault. He was not going to feel guilty about that.

"If nobody was ever hard on him, he wouldn't have grown up at all, right?" He thought about the reply and relaxed again. "Besides, you're his brother, not his father. It shouldn't have been your responsibility anyways."

"I guess you're right. I'm just so used to being in control of everythin' for them, that when somethin' happened that I couldn't control, I felt like I failed." Why was he doing this? Opening up to the snake like he was. This wasn't in anyway Pentious' business, even if they were physically intimate now. There was a pause on the other line and he had to tell himself it was fine.