Commissioned [completed]

Chapter 19 - What Plan?

You were reluctant to put Sodo down, which was childish if he wasn't dead, but almost as childish as believing in resurrection. Papa was understanding and allowed the ash and helmet snowman to sit neatly on his bathroom floor as he ran you a bath.

"I want to be there," you pulled the dagger from your bindings and placed it on the basin. "When you summon him."

"I thought you did not want to know, Pittore," he said carefully, adding salt to the spa bath.

"Wanting and needing are two different things, I suppose." You murmured and added your empty spice bottle to the sink, instantly thinking of Marie.

"And that is the fabled ghost pepper, huh? Marie sounds like a keeper, ______."

"She is... she deserves to be treated better than I have been treating her lately," finally, you added your phone and the scrappy bible to the ledge before sitting beside Papa on the edge of the bath. "How clean do you think this bath is going to be?" You changed the subject.

"I uh.. wouldn't ask.. cleaner than a sewer, maybe."

You gazed absently at the tub's shape, imagining many lewd things. "How strong of a maybe?" You trailed your attention back to him, realising how close you'd sat next to him.

He still wore a pained look towards you but had a sly cover and a wicked grin. "Eh, a soft maybe," he shrugged. That stark white iris came to linger on your side, "does it hurt, Pittore?"

"Enough to know it's there, but it's fading... I don't understand it. Has something to do with this," you picked the blade off the basin and showed it to him, "Sodo couldn't touch it... I don't know if you should...."

"Sodo isn't human; I'm still... humanish."

"That feels like a question I'm not ready to ask," you flipped the blade with the same expertise as years of pencil flipping had taught you, and you offered the handle.

Papa picked it up and squinted at the writing, "It's not infernal, not Latin; I think Copia and Swiss are the people to go to about this. But if they're coming after you with it, it's safe to say, they want you alive."

"Yeah, I've been thinking that, though I'm not wholly sure what would happen if I were to take a fatal wound with it."

"Perhaps that's what they're aiming for?" And suddenly, he was rolling up his sleeve; he had monochrome tattoos. They were sigils, black scrolling words, and symbols. You realised that was the most skin you'd seen from Papa. You'd caught a glimpse of his chest in the past and nothing more.

In your sluggishness, you hadn't calculated what would happen next. Then Papa ran the blade over his forearm.

"Oh," is all you thought to say. "Fucking hell, Terzo," you swore when what you were seeing caught up with your brain.

He suddenly gasped. The blood that rose to the surface was ink-black, just like Sodo's.

"What the fuck are you thinking?" You rushed for a towel.

"I thought... I thought it would be gold, honestly."

"That's a.. you're supposed to do a little prick, just the tip or something AND for fuck sake, warn someone before you do." You brought the towel beneath his arm.

"Just the tip, huh?" He chuckled, then seized up and held his forearm above the cut. "Lord Satanas."

"What! What is happening?" And from the black ichor came black veins that crawled up his arm. "Papa, I don't like this."