I need to make a change
Went to the endocrinologist today. We decided to stop the trijardy and put the meds as 3 separate pills which I wasn't happy about because I was only on two of those meds (inside of trijardy which is a three in one) but okay I can do one more pill. Let's see if it makes a change. We're trying to get a dex com out of my insurance especially since the competitor was just pulled for being inaccurate (yikes)
But the real change is going to be me learning to make the pasta shapes I want out of chickpea flour because the pasta tonight fucked up my sugar. BAD. Like nearly 400 and nearly 100 units of insulin later it's still bad. I love pasta. I don't want to have to give it up for good. Sigh. I have a pasta sheeter and I guess I'll have to learn to live without some forms but there are some I can make by hand if I'm not lazy.
I now have 3 bags of clothes ready for donation. I'm proud of that.
I made a bad call. I should have driven to Huntington to see the River Circus. A friend went and there was plenty of parking and it was fun. I could go tomorrow but it's going to rain. And it's further than Portsmouth but I realize now that it's there Labor Day so now I'm a little bit wondering will there be anything open food wise. Ah well, take a chance
I wrote a story. You can read it here or on Ao3
Title: Never Forget
Summary: Arackniss will never forget his brother nor his role in contributing to his death.
Author Note - This is a pre-series using Angel’s human name and I gave a human name to Arackniss, Giovanni, based off a Q&A where it was suggested his name might be Jonathan (Giovanni is Italian for John). Also it is my head canon that it was Valentino who came up with the idea of the name Angel Dust for Anthony’s porn star identity so he has a different name here in hell, especially (as depicted in the story) PCP was not synthesized until 1956 and not a street drug until the mid 1960s so there would be no reason for Tony to pick that name prior to meeting Valentino in the 70s.
Written for written scifirenegade in comment_fic for the prompt author's choice, author's choice, Carnation (Pink) - I'll Never Forget You and also written for spikesgirl58’s six word challenge and the six words were Pleasant, Overconfident, Strive, Scandalous, Dash, & Island.
CW: death of a sibling, drug use, mentions of mafia violence, 1940s era terminology and intolerance for homosexuality.
The attempt to make this place pleasant pissed Giovanni off more than he had words for. Were people comforted by the soft surroundings and hushed tones? Antonio had been the opposite of hushed. Loud, boisterous, he strived to be the one people noticed no matter how many times Giovanni told him in their business it was a bad idea. They’d fight about it. They fought about everything, especially when their father got involved, which he did far too often. Turn your brother into a man, Giovanni. Make him someone we can be proud of. Giovanni never understood why their father thought Antonio was weak. Tony could be a monster when he had to but Giovanni always did what their father wanted. He and Tony would fight about that too.
Not any more, he thought bitterly.
A sniffle reached his ears and he turned to see Molly in the doorway, her lace handkerchief sodden and useless. He gave her one of his and in return she pulled him into the other room. God, he didn’t want to be in that space. He didn’t want to see the soft lighting, the fucking burnished coffin center stage at the head of the room with the kneeler in front of it. He sure as hell didn’t want to see his kid brother lying in that coffin, hands on his chest with a rosary dangling in his cold fingers. The funeral director had done too good a job on Tony. The wound Giovanni had given him over his eye had all but disappeared under the heavy makeup. It pissed Giovanni off because he wanted to remember and be hurt by the now-hidden injury. Tony looked asleep. Giovanni would open his chest like a bird cage and hand over his own heart if it meant Tony was only sleeping.
Molly had taken over the decorations for the funeral, sprays of white and pink carnations everywhere. They were beautiful. Pink carnations would forever be the flower that reminded him of his brother’s too-young death. Pink carnations would forever remind him he was responsible for Anthony lying in that coffin being anything but asleep. The scent of carnations filled his brain and he hated them in that moment.
Molly clung to his arm. “Pink carnations mean I’ll never forget you,” she said. “I thought Antonio would like that. We’ll never forget him.” Dragging in a ragged breath, she sobbed into his handkerchief.
“Never,” he whispered. He’d never forget this was all his fault. Molly couldn’t know that. He could never tell her that her twin was gone because of him. Giovanni replayed that night again and again in his brain. What could he have done differently? Everything you miserable bastard. You just had to flip your wig.
He’d finished a job on Staten Island for his father and really needed to talk because it had been bloodier than he wanted the job to be. After the war, Giovanni preferred using his sniper skills to do what needed doing but Papi had wanted a message sent in blood and bile. Tony knew how to make him smile and he needed that so Giovanni had surprised him at Tony’s home. The surprise had been on him, walking in on his brother riding some guy he recognized from a Broadway play Tony had dragged him to.
I reacted badly. Giovanni hated how badly he reacted. All he could think of was ‘what if Papi found out?’ He’d murder Tony for being a fairy. He might make Giovanni do it and he’d have to chose who he would kill: his brother or his father. The actor fled, barely taking time to pull on pants. Giovanni hadn’t threatened him but he had snapped his cap at Tony, especially after seeing the white lines of cocaine on the table which was somehow worse than finding him with a dick, balls deep, inside him. They could hide his tendencies because Tony had been doing that his whole life, hadn’t he?
But Tony had promised he wasn’t snorting that shit any more after the last big blow up between them. His kid brother lied to him. Him being high could mean bad things for the family, especially if he got caught. Giovanni hadn’t meant for their fight to go so badly. He’d landed an unlucky blow, slicing open Tony’s brow and hurting his eye. He left his brother crying on the floor, naked and bloody as he shielded his injured face. He’d flung the metal tube Tony used to snort snow so hard it stuck in Tony’s shoulder.
Snort some more. Maybe that’ll stop your sniveling, you moron.
Those were his last words to his brother. They were probably the last thing Tony had ever heard. When Giovanni had gone back over the next day to apologize, he found Tony dead on the living room floor. He’d been dressed and his wound plastered and he was dead halfway to the phone niche. He had tried so hard to call for help but the cocaine took him anyhow. If he had only kept his mouth shut, his brother would be alive. They could have covered up his scandalous lifestyle and he could have helped him stop the cocaine. If not him, then surely Molly.
Instead, he had spent what felt like forever cradling his brother’s cold body, rocking him, weeping uncontrollably. He had to cry himself out then because if he cried now, his father would punish him for the weakness. Boys don’t cry. He needed to be in the other room because seeing Anthony surrounded by the pink carnations brought tears to his eyes.
Their father walked past him and Molly, taking their mother, white faced and so very quiet, to a chair. He looked at his children and said, “If you want to say goodbye to the idiot, they’ll be shutting the coffin soon.”
Their mother howled and Molly glared, screaming, “I hate you.” Giovanni wanted to lay the bastard out flat. He couldn’t show Antonio empathy even now.
Giovanni rubbed Molly’s back. “Let’s say goodbye.”
She pulled away from him. “I can’t! I can’t tell my twin goodbye!” she screamed and their father curled his lip, embarrassed by her show of emotion.
“It’s okay, I’ll tell him for you.” He promised, fingering his own rosary in his pocket for strength.
Giovanni didn’t kneel at the coffin with the carnations around him. He put his hand on Tony’s, so cold in spite of the stuffiness of the funeral home. “Mi dispiace tanto, Antonio,” he whispered. He couldn’t be more sorry. “Addio, fratello” Saying goodbye broke him and Giovanni stifled a cry with his hand.
The funeral director patted his shoulder and then reached into the coffin. He pulled out the crucifix and gave it to Giovanni who walked mechanically back to his family. How could he get through the mass and then the burial? He had to. His mother and sister needed him. To hell with his father. Giovanni clutched the crucifix, the metal biting into his fingers. He had prayed the rosary the night before with Molly at her request, each bead a prayer to a god he didn’t believe in, hadn’t done for years, but if he was listening he hoped his brother was in a better place.
But Anthony wasn’t a good man. Giovanni was worse. Would a better place be waiting for them?
# # #
It took twenty years for Giovanni to get his answer to that thought at his brother’s funeral. There was no better place waiting for him. He hadn’t believed in hell. Oh how he had been wrong. For the rest of his days, he had thought about his brother at least once a day. He didn’t need Molly’s pink carnations to do that. She had turned her backyard into a garden of pink and white carnations and pink and white roses. She maintained that the flowers would be something Tony would have liked and that she felt more peaceful among them.
The carnations freaked him out. It brought back that painful night of Tony’s death, his role in it that he had never confessed to anyone, not even Molly. Especially not Molly. He had only even said it out loud once in a confessional in Canada where he had been hiding out until the heat died down after an incident back home. He had felt safe enough then.
Safe? Would he ever feel that again? Three days ago he had woken up in hell, his body now as monstrous as his soul obviously had been. He couldn’t bear to look at himself from the knees down, those black skinny straws tapering to tiny spider paws. His face was even worse with eyes everywhere. He had spent at least one day utterly terrified and naked where he woke up. By day two, he’d mugged someone for clothes and got the lay of the land.
People worked in hell? Where was the fire and brimstone? Honestly working 9-5 forever at some drudgery scared him more than fire anyhow. But he needed a job. Food and rent were things in hell. Who knew? Certainly not any priest he’d ever listened to. By the beginning of day four he’d heard that Carmilla Carmine was the best weapons dealer in hell and that she might be hiring so Giovanni went there. Maybe he’d get lucky but now having been escorted into the vast compound Carmine called home, Giovanni trembled. He didn’t know enough to know what he was getting himself into. Would he trade his soul for a job? How much pain would he suffer for it? Was Papi here in hell?
If you ended up here, Papi definitely did. He was worse than you and Tony together.
As much as he often hated his father, he would take his presence now because Papi was familiar. He’d know how to handle hell. The pig-faced woman who escorted Giovanni surveyed what she had called a breakroom. A bird-like man was talking to someone with four arms whose back was to Giovanni. He was covered in white and pink fuzz. Giovanni shuddered. It was Molly’s fucking pink carnations in humanish form, especially the little pink heart on the back of the man’s head, perfect pink carnation in coloration. He took an instant dislike to him because of the color. ‘I’ll never forget you.’ God, he wished he could. If he never saw pink and white again….
A tall pale blue man with goat horns dashed past Giovanni and his escort. He sat next to the pink and white dude and flapped his hand at the bird man who backed off. He turned the pink and white guy’s face toward him and they kissed, their tongues, long and pointed, intertwining like mating snakes. Giovanni tried not to make a face. He did not need to see that much tongue being shared. Goat guy gathered pinkie pie into his lap, letting him rock there, obviously getting off.
“Hey Ragno, when you’re done sucking face,” the pig-woman called. “The little dude wants to talk about getting a job.”
Goat guy laughed but Ragno - spider, which seemed appropriate when he turned to look at Giovanni he looked just as spidery as he was - looked annoyed. He unfurled from goat guy’s lap and sauntered toward Giovanni. God, he was tall and he walked with the overconfident air of someone who knew he was handsome, knew he was hot shit. His suit was pale pink too with white pinstripes and his wing tips were actually high heels. Why did he look so familiar? Giovanni had never even seen an eight foot tall pink and white spiderman, not even in his nightmares.
“This mezza sega?” Jerking a thumb at Giovanni, Ragno laughed, which was every bit as familiar to Giovanni.
“Figlio di puttana! Don’t call me that,” Giovanni snapped.
Ragno smirked. “My big brother used to get pissed when I called him that. You remind me of him.”
“Culo,” Giovanni muttered. “My little brother used to call me that all the time too whenever he was mad at me. Anyhow, about the job?”
“You think you can work with weapons?” Ragno cocked up an eyebrow. “I don’t know that Carmilla is hiring.”
“I did a lot with weapons until, well, just a few days ago.”
Ragno’s smart assed expression eased. “Freshly dead?”
“Yeah.” He dug in his pockets but the cigarette pack he’d stolen was empty. Ragno offered him one.
“And you jump from that right into the big leagues? Might be more than you’re ready for, mezza sega.” The pipsqueak insult was very deliberate that time. Ragno studied him, gauging his reaction.
Giovanni took a causal drag on his cigarette. “Keep it up and I’ll make your other eye black for you and take your job.”
Ragno curled his lip, touching above the eye with the black sclera. “My brother did that, the night I died.”
Giovanni stumbled back a few steps, staring up at Ragno. No, it couldn’t be, could it? “Antonio?”
Ragno’s jaw dropped. “Giovanni? Is that you?”
“Yes.” His eyes misted up. “What are the chances?”
“Sometimes hell throws you a bone. Papi’s here too, well not here here. He works for Carmilla over in the Doomsday district running drugs and guns. I work for her here. Giovanni…I can’t believe it.”
Tony scooped Giovanni up, hugging him hard and about a mile off the ground, leaving him dangling. Giovanni hugged him back. It had been too long.
“What’s this about?” Goat Guy interrupted, a hot look on his face.
“I was wondering that myself.”
Giovanni kicked free of his brother and stared at the hard eyed ballerina who had strolled into the room.
Tony patted Giovanni’s shoulder. “This is my brother, Giovanni. He needs a job, Carmilla. He’s fresh to hell and…do you even have a place to stay, Fratello?” he asked and Giovanni shook his head. “We can help him with the job, right? He can stay with me for a little while until he gets on his feet.”
“You’re vouching for him?” Carmilla asked.
“Absolutely. Anything I can do, he does better, which I probably shouldn’t say but I’m not going to lie about my brother,” Tony said.
“We have room. Come see me tomorrow, Giovanni,” she replied. “Ragno, take the day off, get your brother settled.”
“Will do. Thanks, Carmilla.” He turned to the goat man. “Phil, I’ll have to cancel our date tonight.”
Goat guy waved him off. “I get it.”
“Great.” Tony raced over and kissed goaty again with less tongue this time.
He grabbed Giovanni’s arm and marched him out of the complex. “Come on, I live just down the block. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. Oh wait, I need to make a stop.” Giovanni ran ahead to a vending machine, a first for Giovanni. He was used to cigarettes being in them, not drugs. “Have you tried this new stuff? Angel Dust? We just started getting it a few years back.”
“Tony, I don’t do drugs. That was your thing. It fucking killed you!” He couldn’t believe his brother was still doing this.
“Ugh, I can’t die again. What’s the harm?” Tony slammed some money into the machine and grabbed his bag of drugs. He had gone with cocaine.
He led Giovanni to an apartment complex and he hadn’t lied; it wasn’t much but it was cleanish. Tony tossed his drugs on a tray on the coffee table that was obviously well used for snorting. Trying to ignore the blatant drug use, trying not to remember the fear etched into Tony’s dead face or how the coke straw stuck out of his flesh after Giovanni had hurled it at him like a spear, he surveyed the apartment. He could be in Brooklyn again with the small, barely functional kitchen but at least the couch was long and soft. He only saw two doors down a small hallway and assumed bathroom and bedroom. This couch was going to be his friend for the time being.
“Does the job pay well?” he asked dubiously.
“Yeah, Carmilla is demanding but fair, which is more than most overlords will give ya.” Tony sat down and opened his bag. “But drugs are expensive here too if that’s what you’re wondering. You’ll be able to afford a better place than mine.”
Giovanni turned his back and looked out the window so he didn’t have to watch his brother suck up lines of cocaine but he could hear it, causing him to shudder. “You think she’ll hire me?”
“Definitely. She is really big about family, super important to her and she likes me well enough. I’m easier to get along with than Papi but you can go out and work with him too if you prefer.”
“I think I’ll start with you. I’m not sure I’m ready to see him.”
“He still hates me, even more now that he knows I’m queer.” Tony narrowed his eyes. “Is that going to be a problem for ya?”
Giovanni gulped, not really ready for this conversation. “That wasn’t my problem. I was just shocked that night. It was the drugs, Tony. It was gonna get ya killed.”
“Well ya weren’t wrong. I’m done for the moment.”
Giovanni turned around to see him tying off the remainder of the bag. Tony carried the tray into the kitchen and came back with a whiskey bottle and two glasses. He nodded to the TV stand.
“Ashtray is over there.”
“Thanks.” He retrieved it and sat on the couch next to his brother. He lit up with a trembling hand. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Tony. I had to live with that night for the last twenty years.”
“Has it been that long?”
“Yeah it’s 1967.”
“I’m still mad at ya for what ya said to me.” Tony shrugged. “But none of it was a lie or wrong. So I’m mad at me, especially for leaving Molly that way.”
“She was never quite the same.” Giovanni studied his brother’s face. It crumbled before his eyes. “I can’t believe you look like this. Molly…she filled your funeral with pink and white carnations, said they meant I’ll never forget you. You know dolls and their flower language crap.” He rolled his many eyes. “She grew them and roses, still is, and I couldn’t bear to look at them but it gave her peace. If she could only see ya now, you look like your carnations.”
Tony snorted and stood up. He took off his jacket, tie and shirt revealing a giant pink heart over his chest. Giovanni’s jaw dropped. He peeled off his gloves. One set of hands were pink with white fingers and the other was the reverse. “The rest of me is similarly marked.”
Giovanni shook his head with a laugh. “Why do I feel it suits ya?”
“Because you and Papi spent your life thinking I was a pansy and now I look like one. I like it by the way. I’m hot.” He struck a pose.
Giovanni took a puff. “You always thought that.”
“And I was right.” Tony smirked. “Then and now. Phil’s not my only guy, just so ya know. I won’t bring them here while you’re here.”
“I don’t want to be a problem,” he said but couldn’t hide the gratitude in his tone.
“You’ll move out fast enough. You and I are like oil and water most of the time and I’m sad to see ya, brother mine. I mean, I knew I eventually would just like I know I’ll never see Molly again. She’s too good to end up here. But you…you helped Papi to turn me into a murderer. We should have known where we were going.”
“I know. My kids…I didn’t want them in the business. Only Joe came in. Tony went the other direction, right into the F.B.I.”
“Ha, you named one after me. I’d wait to tell Papi about that and about what he does for a living.”
“I figure he don’t needs to know.” Giovanni shrugged. “And for what it’s worth, I never had much of a choice in teaching ya like I did. I was trying to shelter ya from Papi when what I should have done was take ya and run as far as we both could have gotten.”
“It probably wouldn’t have been far.” Tony sighed, leaning on Giovanni’s shoulder. “But it’s my turn to teach. You taught me to survive Papi and the mob. Let me teach you all about hell. There’s a trick to getting by but you’ll get it. I mean, if a dummy like me figured it out…and I’m going to start with something you never do because it’s considered rude. How did you die?”
“Never ask that, right?”
“Yep but I’m asking ‘cause you’re my brother and I hafta know.”
Giovanni grimaced. “They caught me on the steps of Queen of All Saints Church, Easter services. Those crazy bastards opened fire on a bunch of people, women and children included just to get to me. I hope…Molly and Nita were going to go to a later mass with our first grandbaby, who was being fussy. I hope others didn’t get killed on my account but at least my family is safe.”
“Sorry it was such a violent end.” Tony draped an arm around Giovanni’s shoulders.
“Didn’t hurt much. Caught six to the chest.” He had a half dozen white Xs marking the spot on his fur. “I was probably gone before I hit the ground, not like you who knew you were dying.”
“I don’t remember much, better that way. So, ya trust me to guide ya through this?”
“Of course I trust ya, Tony. I always trusted ya even when ya were making me nuts but I hafta ask, why Ragno? It’s just Italian for spider. Not very inventive.”
“A lot of people rename themselves down here and I couldn’t think of one I liked so spider it is for now at least.”
Giovanni studied his face. “I have eyes all over the damn place. How come you didn’t end up with an ugly mug like mine?”
“Ya were born with an ugly mug.” Tony laughed until Giovanni’s elbow forced the air out of his chest. “Aw, come on! Ya know ya were never as good looking as me.”
“Vai a prenderlo in culo!”
“Oh, I will gladly take it up the ass.” Tony laughed. “Let me call Phil.”
“Antonio! I’m remembering why I hate you sometimes,” Giovanni growled.
“And if you’re upset over the fucking weird ass eyes you have, here, I have eight of them too.”
The tiny fuchsia freckles under Tony’s eyes in cute symmetrical arcs opened up into eyes with purple pupils. The bastard did have eyes but unlike the hodgepodge of mirror image red eyes he’d ended up with, Tony’s enhanced his face.
“I might even hate you more now,” he huffed.
“That’s because ya’ve always been jealous of how hot I am.” Tony patted Giovanni’s arm. “It’s gotta be killing ya that I’m so much taller than ya too.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He lit another cigarette from the tip of the one he was finishing. He considered his brother for a moment. “Ragno, huh? Naturally you take the cool sounding name.”
“I was here first.”
Yeah, the poor bastard had gotten to hell far too young and Giovanni let that slide. “Maybe I’ll build on the theme…how about Arackniss?”
“I like it. Nissy sounds good.”
“Do not give me a stupid nickname, Antonio,” he warned and Tony beamed. He was going to be in for it…forever because hell was for forever, right? “Why did I ever miss ya?”
“Because ya love me and Molly was right, carnations or no, ya weren’t ever forgetting me.”
“You’re not wrong.”
A wave of emotion struck him then and tears came so hard and fast Giovanni couldn’t stop them. He wept against his brother’s shoulder as Tony caught him in a hug. Tony’s tears dripped down onto Giovanni’s face, mingling with his own. He'd probably regret this later but right now, if he had to be in hell then he didn’t want to be there alone. He had his baby brother back and that just might make hell bearable.
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But the real change is going to be me learning to make the pasta shapes I want out of chickpea flour because the pasta tonight fucked up my sugar. BAD. Like nearly 400 and nearly 100 units of insulin later it's still bad. I love pasta. I don't want to have to give it up for good. Sigh. I have a pasta sheeter and I guess I'll have to learn to live without some forms but there are some I can make by hand if I'm not lazy.
I now have 3 bags of clothes ready for donation. I'm proud of that.
I made a bad call. I should have driven to Huntington to see the River Circus. A friend went and there was plenty of parking and it was fun. I could go tomorrow but it's going to rain. And it's further than Portsmouth but I realize now that it's there Labor Day so now I'm a little bit wondering will there be anything open food wise. Ah well, take a chance
I wrote a story. You can read it here or on Ao3
Title: Never Forget
Summary: Arackniss will never forget his brother nor his role in contributing to his death.
Author Note - This is a pre-series using Angel’s human name and I gave a human name to Arackniss, Giovanni, based off a Q&A where it was suggested his name might be Jonathan (Giovanni is Italian for John). Also it is my head canon that it was Valentino who came up with the idea of the name Angel Dust for Anthony’s porn star identity so he has a different name here in hell, especially (as depicted in the story) PCP was not synthesized until 1956 and not a street drug until the mid 1960s so there would be no reason for Tony to pick that name prior to meeting Valentino in the 70s.
Written for written scifirenegade in comment_fic for the prompt author's choice, author's choice, Carnation (Pink) - I'll Never Forget You and also written for spikesgirl58’s six word challenge and the six words were Pleasant, Overconfident, Strive, Scandalous, Dash, & Island.
CW: death of a sibling, drug use, mentions of mafia violence, 1940s era terminology and intolerance for homosexuality.
The attempt to make this place pleasant pissed Giovanni off more than he had words for. Were people comforted by the soft surroundings and hushed tones? Antonio had been the opposite of hushed. Loud, boisterous, he strived to be the one people noticed no matter how many times Giovanni told him in their business it was a bad idea. They’d fight about it. They fought about everything, especially when their father got involved, which he did far too often. Turn your brother into a man, Giovanni. Make him someone we can be proud of. Giovanni never understood why their father thought Antonio was weak. Tony could be a monster when he had to but Giovanni always did what their father wanted. He and Tony would fight about that too.
Not any more, he thought bitterly.
A sniffle reached his ears and he turned to see Molly in the doorway, her lace handkerchief sodden and useless. He gave her one of his and in return she pulled him into the other room. God, he didn’t want to be in that space. He didn’t want to see the soft lighting, the fucking burnished coffin center stage at the head of the room with the kneeler in front of it. He sure as hell didn’t want to see his kid brother lying in that coffin, hands on his chest with a rosary dangling in his cold fingers. The funeral director had done too good a job on Tony. The wound Giovanni had given him over his eye had all but disappeared under the heavy makeup. It pissed Giovanni off because he wanted to remember and be hurt by the now-hidden injury. Tony looked asleep. Giovanni would open his chest like a bird cage and hand over his own heart if it meant Tony was only sleeping.
Molly had taken over the decorations for the funeral, sprays of white and pink carnations everywhere. They were beautiful. Pink carnations would forever be the flower that reminded him of his brother’s too-young death. Pink carnations would forever remind him he was responsible for Anthony lying in that coffin being anything but asleep. The scent of carnations filled his brain and he hated them in that moment.
Molly clung to his arm. “Pink carnations mean I’ll never forget you,” she said. “I thought Antonio would like that. We’ll never forget him.” Dragging in a ragged breath, she sobbed into his handkerchief.
“Never,” he whispered. He’d never forget this was all his fault. Molly couldn’t know that. He could never tell her that her twin was gone because of him. Giovanni replayed that night again and again in his brain. What could he have done differently? Everything you miserable bastard. You just had to flip your wig.
He’d finished a job on Staten Island for his father and really needed to talk because it had been bloodier than he wanted the job to be. After the war, Giovanni preferred using his sniper skills to do what needed doing but Papi had wanted a message sent in blood and bile. Tony knew how to make him smile and he needed that so Giovanni had surprised him at Tony’s home. The surprise had been on him, walking in on his brother riding some guy he recognized from a Broadway play Tony had dragged him to.
I reacted badly. Giovanni hated how badly he reacted. All he could think of was ‘what if Papi found out?’ He’d murder Tony for being a fairy. He might make Giovanni do it and he’d have to chose who he would kill: his brother or his father. The actor fled, barely taking time to pull on pants. Giovanni hadn’t threatened him but he had snapped his cap at Tony, especially after seeing the white lines of cocaine on the table which was somehow worse than finding him with a dick, balls deep, inside him. They could hide his tendencies because Tony had been doing that his whole life, hadn’t he?
But Tony had promised he wasn’t snorting that shit any more after the last big blow up between them. His kid brother lied to him. Him being high could mean bad things for the family, especially if he got caught. Giovanni hadn’t meant for their fight to go so badly. He’d landed an unlucky blow, slicing open Tony’s brow and hurting his eye. He left his brother crying on the floor, naked and bloody as he shielded his injured face. He’d flung the metal tube Tony used to snort snow so hard it stuck in Tony’s shoulder.
Snort some more. Maybe that’ll stop your sniveling, you moron.
Those were his last words to his brother. They were probably the last thing Tony had ever heard. When Giovanni had gone back over the next day to apologize, he found Tony dead on the living room floor. He’d been dressed and his wound plastered and he was dead halfway to the phone niche. He had tried so hard to call for help but the cocaine took him anyhow. If he had only kept his mouth shut, his brother would be alive. They could have covered up his scandalous lifestyle and he could have helped him stop the cocaine. If not him, then surely Molly.
Instead, he had spent what felt like forever cradling his brother’s cold body, rocking him, weeping uncontrollably. He had to cry himself out then because if he cried now, his father would punish him for the weakness. Boys don’t cry. He needed to be in the other room because seeing Anthony surrounded by the pink carnations brought tears to his eyes.
Their father walked past him and Molly, taking their mother, white faced and so very quiet, to a chair. He looked at his children and said, “If you want to say goodbye to the idiot, they’ll be shutting the coffin soon.”
Their mother howled and Molly glared, screaming, “I hate you.” Giovanni wanted to lay the bastard out flat. He couldn’t show Antonio empathy even now.
Giovanni rubbed Molly’s back. “Let’s say goodbye.”
She pulled away from him. “I can’t! I can’t tell my twin goodbye!” she screamed and their father curled his lip, embarrassed by her show of emotion.
“It’s okay, I’ll tell him for you.” He promised, fingering his own rosary in his pocket for strength.
Giovanni didn’t kneel at the coffin with the carnations around him. He put his hand on Tony’s, so cold in spite of the stuffiness of the funeral home. “Mi dispiace tanto, Antonio,” he whispered. He couldn’t be more sorry. “Addio, fratello” Saying goodbye broke him and Giovanni stifled a cry with his hand.
The funeral director patted his shoulder and then reached into the coffin. He pulled out the crucifix and gave it to Giovanni who walked mechanically back to his family. How could he get through the mass and then the burial? He had to. His mother and sister needed him. To hell with his father. Giovanni clutched the crucifix, the metal biting into his fingers. He had prayed the rosary the night before with Molly at her request, each bead a prayer to a god he didn’t believe in, hadn’t done for years, but if he was listening he hoped his brother was in a better place.
But Anthony wasn’t a good man. Giovanni was worse. Would a better place be waiting for them?
# # #
It took twenty years for Giovanni to get his answer to that thought at his brother’s funeral. There was no better place waiting for him. He hadn’t believed in hell. Oh how he had been wrong. For the rest of his days, he had thought about his brother at least once a day. He didn’t need Molly’s pink carnations to do that. She had turned her backyard into a garden of pink and white carnations and pink and white roses. She maintained that the flowers would be something Tony would have liked and that she felt more peaceful among them.
The carnations freaked him out. It brought back that painful night of Tony’s death, his role in it that he had never confessed to anyone, not even Molly. Especially not Molly. He had only even said it out loud once in a confessional in Canada where he had been hiding out until the heat died down after an incident back home. He had felt safe enough then.
Safe? Would he ever feel that again? Three days ago he had woken up in hell, his body now as monstrous as his soul obviously had been. He couldn’t bear to look at himself from the knees down, those black skinny straws tapering to tiny spider paws. His face was even worse with eyes everywhere. He had spent at least one day utterly terrified and naked where he woke up. By day two, he’d mugged someone for clothes and got the lay of the land.
People worked in hell? Where was the fire and brimstone? Honestly working 9-5 forever at some drudgery scared him more than fire anyhow. But he needed a job. Food and rent were things in hell. Who knew? Certainly not any priest he’d ever listened to. By the beginning of day four he’d heard that Carmilla Carmine was the best weapons dealer in hell and that she might be hiring so Giovanni went there. Maybe he’d get lucky but now having been escorted into the vast compound Carmine called home, Giovanni trembled. He didn’t know enough to know what he was getting himself into. Would he trade his soul for a job? How much pain would he suffer for it? Was Papi here in hell?
If you ended up here, Papi definitely did. He was worse than you and Tony together.
As much as he often hated his father, he would take his presence now because Papi was familiar. He’d know how to handle hell. The pig-faced woman who escorted Giovanni surveyed what she had called a breakroom. A bird-like man was talking to someone with four arms whose back was to Giovanni. He was covered in white and pink fuzz. Giovanni shuddered. It was Molly’s fucking pink carnations in humanish form, especially the little pink heart on the back of the man’s head, perfect pink carnation in coloration. He took an instant dislike to him because of the color. ‘I’ll never forget you.’ God, he wished he could. If he never saw pink and white again….
A tall pale blue man with goat horns dashed past Giovanni and his escort. He sat next to the pink and white dude and flapped his hand at the bird man who backed off. He turned the pink and white guy’s face toward him and they kissed, their tongues, long and pointed, intertwining like mating snakes. Giovanni tried not to make a face. He did not need to see that much tongue being shared. Goat guy gathered pinkie pie into his lap, letting him rock there, obviously getting off.
“Hey Ragno, when you’re done sucking face,” the pig-woman called. “The little dude wants to talk about getting a job.”
Goat guy laughed but Ragno - spider, which seemed appropriate when he turned to look at Giovanni he looked just as spidery as he was - looked annoyed. He unfurled from goat guy’s lap and sauntered toward Giovanni. God, he was tall and he walked with the overconfident air of someone who knew he was handsome, knew he was hot shit. His suit was pale pink too with white pinstripes and his wing tips were actually high heels. Why did he look so familiar? Giovanni had never even seen an eight foot tall pink and white spiderman, not even in his nightmares.
“This mezza sega?” Jerking a thumb at Giovanni, Ragno laughed, which was every bit as familiar to Giovanni.
“Figlio di puttana! Don’t call me that,” Giovanni snapped.
Ragno smirked. “My big brother used to get pissed when I called him that. You remind me of him.”
“Culo,” Giovanni muttered. “My little brother used to call me that all the time too whenever he was mad at me. Anyhow, about the job?”
“You think you can work with weapons?” Ragno cocked up an eyebrow. “I don’t know that Carmilla is hiring.”
“I did a lot with weapons until, well, just a few days ago.”
Ragno’s smart assed expression eased. “Freshly dead?”
“Yeah.” He dug in his pockets but the cigarette pack he’d stolen was empty. Ragno offered him one.
“And you jump from that right into the big leagues? Might be more than you’re ready for, mezza sega.” The pipsqueak insult was very deliberate that time. Ragno studied him, gauging his reaction.
Giovanni took a causal drag on his cigarette. “Keep it up and I’ll make your other eye black for you and take your job.”
Ragno curled his lip, touching above the eye with the black sclera. “My brother did that, the night I died.”
Giovanni stumbled back a few steps, staring up at Ragno. No, it couldn’t be, could it? “Antonio?”
Ragno’s jaw dropped. “Giovanni? Is that you?”
“Yes.” His eyes misted up. “What are the chances?”
“Sometimes hell throws you a bone. Papi’s here too, well not here here. He works for Carmilla over in the Doomsday district running drugs and guns. I work for her here. Giovanni…I can’t believe it.”
Tony scooped Giovanni up, hugging him hard and about a mile off the ground, leaving him dangling. Giovanni hugged him back. It had been too long.
“What’s this about?” Goat Guy interrupted, a hot look on his face.
“I was wondering that myself.”
Giovanni kicked free of his brother and stared at the hard eyed ballerina who had strolled into the room.
Tony patted Giovanni’s shoulder. “This is my brother, Giovanni. He needs a job, Carmilla. He’s fresh to hell and…do you even have a place to stay, Fratello?” he asked and Giovanni shook his head. “We can help him with the job, right? He can stay with me for a little while until he gets on his feet.”
“You’re vouching for him?” Carmilla asked.
“Absolutely. Anything I can do, he does better, which I probably shouldn’t say but I’m not going to lie about my brother,” Tony said.
“We have room. Come see me tomorrow, Giovanni,” she replied. “Ragno, take the day off, get your brother settled.”
“Will do. Thanks, Carmilla.” He turned to the goat man. “Phil, I’ll have to cancel our date tonight.”
Goat guy waved him off. “I get it.”
“Great.” Tony raced over and kissed goaty again with less tongue this time.
He grabbed Giovanni’s arm and marched him out of the complex. “Come on, I live just down the block. It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. Oh wait, I need to make a stop.” Giovanni ran ahead to a vending machine, a first for Giovanni. He was used to cigarettes being in them, not drugs. “Have you tried this new stuff? Angel Dust? We just started getting it a few years back.”
“Tony, I don’t do drugs. That was your thing. It fucking killed you!” He couldn’t believe his brother was still doing this.
“Ugh, I can’t die again. What’s the harm?” Tony slammed some money into the machine and grabbed his bag of drugs. He had gone with cocaine.
He led Giovanni to an apartment complex and he hadn’t lied; it wasn’t much but it was cleanish. Tony tossed his drugs on a tray on the coffee table that was obviously well used for snorting. Trying to ignore the blatant drug use, trying not to remember the fear etched into Tony’s dead face or how the coke straw stuck out of his flesh after Giovanni had hurled it at him like a spear, he surveyed the apartment. He could be in Brooklyn again with the small, barely functional kitchen but at least the couch was long and soft. He only saw two doors down a small hallway and assumed bathroom and bedroom. This couch was going to be his friend for the time being.
“Does the job pay well?” he asked dubiously.
“Yeah, Carmilla is demanding but fair, which is more than most overlords will give ya.” Tony sat down and opened his bag. “But drugs are expensive here too if that’s what you’re wondering. You’ll be able to afford a better place than mine.”
Giovanni turned his back and looked out the window so he didn’t have to watch his brother suck up lines of cocaine but he could hear it, causing him to shudder. “You think she’ll hire me?”
“Definitely. She is really big about family, super important to her and she likes me well enough. I’m easier to get along with than Papi but you can go out and work with him too if you prefer.”
“I think I’ll start with you. I’m not sure I’m ready to see him.”
“He still hates me, even more now that he knows I’m queer.” Tony narrowed his eyes. “Is that going to be a problem for ya?”
Giovanni gulped, not really ready for this conversation. “That wasn’t my problem. I was just shocked that night. It was the drugs, Tony. It was gonna get ya killed.”
“Well ya weren’t wrong. I’m done for the moment.”
Giovanni turned around to see him tying off the remainder of the bag. Tony carried the tray into the kitchen and came back with a whiskey bottle and two glasses. He nodded to the TV stand.
“Ashtray is over there.”
“Thanks.” He retrieved it and sat on the couch next to his brother. He lit up with a trembling hand. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Tony. I had to live with that night for the last twenty years.”
“Has it been that long?”
“Yeah it’s 1967.”
“I’m still mad at ya for what ya said to me.” Tony shrugged. “But none of it was a lie or wrong. So I’m mad at me, especially for leaving Molly that way.”
“She was never quite the same.” Giovanni studied his brother’s face. It crumbled before his eyes. “I can’t believe you look like this. Molly…she filled your funeral with pink and white carnations, said they meant I’ll never forget you. You know dolls and their flower language crap.” He rolled his many eyes. “She grew them and roses, still is, and I couldn’t bear to look at them but it gave her peace. If she could only see ya now, you look like your carnations.”
Tony snorted and stood up. He took off his jacket, tie and shirt revealing a giant pink heart over his chest. Giovanni’s jaw dropped. He peeled off his gloves. One set of hands were pink with white fingers and the other was the reverse. “The rest of me is similarly marked.”
Giovanni shook his head with a laugh. “Why do I feel it suits ya?”
“Because you and Papi spent your life thinking I was a pansy and now I look like one. I like it by the way. I’m hot.” He struck a pose.
Giovanni took a puff. “You always thought that.”
“And I was right.” Tony smirked. “Then and now. Phil’s not my only guy, just so ya know. I won’t bring them here while you’re here.”
“I don’t want to be a problem,” he said but couldn’t hide the gratitude in his tone.
“You’ll move out fast enough. You and I are like oil and water most of the time and I’m sad to see ya, brother mine. I mean, I knew I eventually would just like I know I’ll never see Molly again. She’s too good to end up here. But you…you helped Papi to turn me into a murderer. We should have known where we were going.”
“I know. My kids…I didn’t want them in the business. Only Joe came in. Tony went the other direction, right into the F.B.I.”
“Ha, you named one after me. I’d wait to tell Papi about that and about what he does for a living.”
“I figure he don’t needs to know.” Giovanni shrugged. “And for what it’s worth, I never had much of a choice in teaching ya like I did. I was trying to shelter ya from Papi when what I should have done was take ya and run as far as we both could have gotten.”
“It probably wouldn’t have been far.” Tony sighed, leaning on Giovanni’s shoulder. “But it’s my turn to teach. You taught me to survive Papi and the mob. Let me teach you all about hell. There’s a trick to getting by but you’ll get it. I mean, if a dummy like me figured it out…and I’m going to start with something you never do because it’s considered rude. How did you die?”
“Never ask that, right?”
“Yep but I’m asking ‘cause you’re my brother and I hafta know.”
Giovanni grimaced. “They caught me on the steps of Queen of All Saints Church, Easter services. Those crazy bastards opened fire on a bunch of people, women and children included just to get to me. I hope…Molly and Nita were going to go to a later mass with our first grandbaby, who was being fussy. I hope others didn’t get killed on my account but at least my family is safe.”
“Sorry it was such a violent end.” Tony draped an arm around Giovanni’s shoulders.
“Didn’t hurt much. Caught six to the chest.” He had a half dozen white Xs marking the spot on his fur. “I was probably gone before I hit the ground, not like you who knew you were dying.”
“I don’t remember much, better that way. So, ya trust me to guide ya through this?”
“Of course I trust ya, Tony. I always trusted ya even when ya were making me nuts but I hafta ask, why Ragno? It’s just Italian for spider. Not very inventive.”
“A lot of people rename themselves down here and I couldn’t think of one I liked so spider it is for now at least.”
Giovanni studied his face. “I have eyes all over the damn place. How come you didn’t end up with an ugly mug like mine?”
“Ya were born with an ugly mug.” Tony laughed until Giovanni’s elbow forced the air out of his chest. “Aw, come on! Ya know ya were never as good looking as me.”
“Vai a prenderlo in culo!”
“Oh, I will gladly take it up the ass.” Tony laughed. “Let me call Phil.”
“Antonio! I’m remembering why I hate you sometimes,” Giovanni growled.
“And if you’re upset over the fucking weird ass eyes you have, here, I have eight of them too.”
The tiny fuchsia freckles under Tony’s eyes in cute symmetrical arcs opened up into eyes with purple pupils. The bastard did have eyes but unlike the hodgepodge of mirror image red eyes he’d ended up with, Tony’s enhanced his face.
“I might even hate you more now,” he huffed.
“That’s because ya’ve always been jealous of how hot I am.” Tony patted Giovanni’s arm. “It’s gotta be killing ya that I’m so much taller than ya too.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” He lit another cigarette from the tip of the one he was finishing. He considered his brother for a moment. “Ragno, huh? Naturally you take the cool sounding name.”
“I was here first.”
Yeah, the poor bastard had gotten to hell far too young and Giovanni let that slide. “Maybe I’ll build on the theme…how about Arackniss?”
“I like it. Nissy sounds good.”
“Do not give me a stupid nickname, Antonio,” he warned and Tony beamed. He was going to be in for it…forever because hell was for forever, right? “Why did I ever miss ya?”
“Because ya love me and Molly was right, carnations or no, ya weren’t ever forgetting me.”
“You’re not wrong.”
A wave of emotion struck him then and tears came so hard and fast Giovanni couldn’t stop them. He wept against his brother’s shoulder as Tony caught him in a hug. Tony’s tears dripped down onto Giovanni’s face, mingling with his own. He'd probably regret this later but right now, if he had to be in hell then he didn’t want to be there alone. He had his baby brother back and that just might make hell bearable.
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