Snake Eyes

Chapter 17

How they got away with the number of times they snuck around behind the goons back was beyond him at this point. They'd spent nights wrapped around each other, being very careful to be as quiet as possible while the goons listened to the transmissions. It was dangerous, of course, but their little touches, short make out sessions, and scheduled times to "sleep" had simply built up until they couldn't take it anymore. And the two in the living room had no idea. They'd gotten creative in ways to make sure clean up was minimal and that they were both as silent as possible. He had to admit that he was surprised Arackniss' pillow could take the abuse of his lover biting it. Now, they had slept, they needed to, but the days passed and some days they would sleep, and others they'd break. So far, though, there had been no movement on the objective.

He was listening to the foreman talk now about what felt like nothing. The eight millionth time about how things needed to be recounted and moved around, logged and a contact about upcoming shipments. Nothing that stood out. Beside him, Arackniss was listening, but he was severely multi-tasking as well. He had two files out, his notebook, and his phone. He kept moving back and forth, taking sips of coffee in between, and marking various parts of each file. Just looking at his lover work both impressed the hell out of him, and gave him a massive head ache. He'd learned that the spider drank a lot of coffee and had a habit of working non-stop, fielding calls, and did numerous calculations in his head. He'd also learned that part of Arackniss' visual prowess was that he could focus his different sets of eyes on different things, meaning he could literally read two files and write in his notebook all at the same time. He used his third set of arms when he needed to sign three different things at the same time, and he definitely was not ambidextrous. He was right handed. "What?" He jumped and lifted his hood in a reaction to the broken silence.

"What?" Arackniss looked up at him and raised a brow.

"You're staring at me. What is it?" Pentious felt the flush cross his face and turned to face forward.

"Just impressed that you're still doing all of that." He waved a hand at the filed and heard his lover take another drink of his coffee before setting the mug down.

"I have to, it's my job." There was laughter in those words that had him crossing his arms. "It doesn't stop just because I'm on a stake out. And if I leave it, it doesn't get done, so I bring it, I do it, and nobody bitches about how they need those files by Monday, blah, blah, blah." And he was back to working on the files, filling in numbers on one and signing the other.

"You know, most people in your position have full departments to do that. You seriously deal with running an entire company practically by yourself?"

"It ain't my company, it's Don Henroin's company. I just do whatever he tells me to do. In this case, it means I control every aspect of his company that he wants, even though I was only formally trained to do specific parts of it." Pentious thought for a moment about how many times Arackniss had worded it so specifically. That he had been "formally trained" or "specifically taught" and what that could mean.

"You have a college degree? In specifically the shipping side of things?" What kind of degree was that? When Arackniss laughed he felt like he'd said something wrong.

"Pen, I have an MBA, a Masters in Business Administration. It's a pretty all encompassing thing." Pentious thought about everything he'd learned when he was alive, but he couldn't remember ever hearing about that life path. Sure, he'd learned more skills even after death, but he had never thought to look into more business related degrees, because he couldn't see why there would be many. The spider stole a glance around the room before nudging Pentious' tail with his foot and smiling. "It's fine if you don't know what it is. It's not a degree that was around for too terribly long before I got it. I'm pretty sure it didn't even exist when you were alive, so it's not that surprising you wouldn't know about it." The man relaxed in his chair and Pentious did the same. "I got it because I actually like doing this, as funny as that sounds. This beats the hell out of the alternative."