halloween oooooo
long chapter for you lovelies!
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Nightfall sinks the country into a desolate shade and you add a tally to the number of nights you've failed to submit to. Another line creases beneath your eye, another sore develops in your side, gradually, as your laptop reacquaints itself with you over, and over.
Your shadow stretches onto the wall in a spectral shape that does nothing more than act as your phantom, an observer to something that it refuses to recognize as itself. Such phantom follows your movement as you pick your head from where it dipped, and looked to the clock.
Weary eyes glazed over its ugly red numbers, stinging with light-- Any minute something should happen, you convince yourself, and you will have earned a reason to take a break from your work.
But nothing gives you the pleasure.
So with a sigh, you remain in a half-conscious state as you work, returning to the mind-numbing occupation that was-
"Mx. (Y/n)?"
Hadn't there been armrests on either side of your chair, the floor would've welcomed you stiffly. Brooklyn stands at the side of your desk staring at you, unmoving.
A moment passes in silence.
How did she get in here?
You glance at the door, seeing it cracked ajar, the bright of the hallway leaking in to your painfully dim office. Like a vampire reeling away from the light, your body pulled backwards into the comfort of coming night.
"Christ, child, what do you want?"
"Sorry," She half whispers. "Mister Giovanni wants to talk to you."
-------
"Explain to me again, why I'm here, wasting my time--" You gesture broadly with a loose hand. "--At a fucking pumpkin patch."
Valorie is already lost among the stretching rows of orange masses, swollen with air and seed. She carefully inspects each one with expert detail, as if no decision meant more in life than that of which will be chosen to bear the brunt of a dull knife.
Doppio and Brooklyn, who insisted to come with ugly, pleading faces and bribes of whatever Halloween candy they scrape together, weren't too far behind. In fact, your assistant seemed more into the choosing of the pumpkin than the child bound to ruin it.
And with their successful plea deal, more begged to come along, hoping to see the opportunity as an escape from work and a vacation from the smoke-stained casino. Even the newcomers happily filled the empty seats of your car.
"We come here every year and you ask the same stupid question." Giovanni sighs behind you.
"And every year, you decide to wear heels to a farm."
He laughs and sticks his leg out in flashy demonstration. A gaudy ankle-breaker, as you favor to call them, shoots a thin spike from his heel. "Louis Vuitton, sweetheart."
You flick it from sight as Giovanni laughs, and brings the waste of money back to earth with a punctuating step. He waves to a figure way out, a smudge against the horizon.
It's hard to believe he would have any influence or authority over Dio and Diavolo, the two that had since been picked to... Entertain. But they listen well enough, at least to the point where the only thing Giovanni complains about is that he wishes he could have similar certain features Dio possesses.
Speaking of the asswipe, you could see him far off yonder, in the distant reaches of the patch, carrying two pumpkins on either shoulder.
He grades each pumpkin he passes with an expert eye, and if there is one that surpasses the quality of either he holds, he will drop it to the ground and let it crack into messy splinters before picking up a new one.
"He's making a mess." You note to no one in particular. "I don't feel the particular need to repeat myself, Giovanni, but--"
"You hate messes, got it, we all got it. It's all you say." He said. "I'll go tell him off, as I assume you're wanting me to do?"
You give a half-nod in response, and watch as he steps forward, only to then pause. For a brief moment, you sense there was a slight realization that seemed to have taken place as his heel sunk into the muck.
The towel was thrown the moment he realized his mistake, and the heels were begrudgedly abandoned by the car, left to be watched over by Lilith who in all righteousness did not care for his bitching.
To pass the time, take away from the sore ache in your feet blooming further with each second, you end up counting how many pumpkins, and similarly how many bills, you'll need to take care of.
Dio has a constant of two, but is breaking each one he wants to replace. There is a trail of waste behind him.
Wamuu is cradling a baby pumpkin. His brothers are laughing at him, theirs are much larger.
Kars is delicately handling a petite cat he found. You'll have to let him know he will not be taking it back with him.
Pucci picked the best pumpkin first. No scars or bruises or dirty patches, he says he's saving it for Dio, and will take whichever poor one is left.
Kira took a squash and left to sit in the car. He isn't thrilled by the trip. You believe he tagged along to keep an eye on you and how well you're following the contract.
Diavolo is smashing pumpkins with his foot like the teen edge lord he thinks he is. You just watched him slam his foot into a rock instead. He then screamed and kicked it again, the genius.
Diego is eating... Rocks. And the broken shards of pumpkin Dio left for him to follow.
And Valentine is nowhere to be found.
Something blocks your eyes, sealing out the mute sky, its depressing grey. The pumpkin patch has disappeared behind a curtain of long fingers, and you sigh as you await for the inevitable headache to reveal itself.
"Guess who~"
"Funny, to what misfortune do I owe your presence?" You ask
"Nothing else than me simply enjoying you." He says. "I admire your authority, is all."
"Admire it elsewhere."
"Right here is the best spot."
You flick your hand to the vast farmland, to Brooklyn and Doppio, to Dio and Diego, "Why don't you pick a pumpkin like the others?" You say. "It would be a better use of time than just standing here, admiring."
"Alright." He says plainly. A second passes, and he seemed suddenly satisfied with something. "I'm done."
That was fast, fast for someone with apparently no interest in the subject of pumpkin picking. Maybe there's one he's had an eye on, one that hasn't been victim to the cherry picking of Dio or wrath of a man who chose the wrong box dye.
"Is that so?" Curious, you try to find what he may be looking at in the field before you ask. "Which one is it. I need to know how much it'll cost."
"I'd say it's priceless."
"Pucci already has that one. Pick something else." You thought you'd caught onto his scheme, the theft of someone who'd already made the oh, so difficult decision. Valentine shakes his head.
"You've got it wrong," He laughs, heavy and rich. "I pick you, pumpkin."
"I am not beneath stabbing a man with a rake."
He grins something sincerely wicked and traces your jaw with a single, deft finger. "Oh, you are so much fun."
"Valentine. Go pick a pumpkin before I pick a place to bury you."
"How about I pick one for each of us, then?"
"Whatever will get you away from me."
-----
"I told you to leave it at the farm. And once again you have chosen to defy me."
Kars remains where he stands, tall and proud, with the cat you specifically told him not to take back sitting in his arms.
Already the reserves of your sanity are running dry. Esidesi and Santana had apparently not seen the trip as a break from work, but instead an opportunity to escape all together. Given your unfortunate handicap, Valorie and Lilith had to stalk them down a mile down the patch and bring them back in defeated bonds.
So naturally your attitude towards Kars and his brothers was not very pleasant at the moment. Only Wamuu seemed to be tame enough, but even then you'd catch him glaring at you when he'd think you weren't looking.
Or maybe he did notice you'd caught his face, and hoped it'd impress upon you that even if he was docile he was not happy.
But that's besides the point; The point is Kars now has a pest in the casino and is refusing to be rid of it.
"I've already given him a name." He says.
"Wonderful. Kick it out."
"I am not going to let this delicate creature loose onto the street to die. Patch doesn't deserve it."
"That thing will be treated far worse in here. No one will take care of it. It is infested with fleas and grime and it is a waste of work in a place where work is all that is keeping you alive right now, Kars."
Your weight pushed against your desk as you leaned onto its ledge, contemplative, ignoring the urge to flick a card into the things side and end the matter now rather than later.
Kars doesn't respond to the small purrs of the cat lounging in his arm, the messy licks that left stripes on his hand. He seems to think that if he stares at you intently enough you will change your mind.
"Why are you still in here?" You ask him, pushing yourself to stand. "I said to get rid of it."
"And I said I don't want to." He said. "Kira likes the cat too."
"I don't care for his opinion, nor do I have a shit to spare for yours. Get it out."
Patch, as you think it's called, shifts from the cradle Kars made with his arm to the broad of his shoulders, perched pretty beside his head with its black pearl eyes sticking out of its ragdoll fur.
So badly do you want to just snap your finger and send him marching out the door, have him drunk off the greenlight where he'd gladly punt the cat out himself. You even try to summon it, but all that amasses is a burning sensation in your arm.
"No." Kars says all too punctually for you to be comfortable with.
"No?" You repeat. "I will give you one chance to correct yourself."
"I said, no. I'm keeping the cat."
"Kars, you better watch your fucking tone with me, cause I'm not in the mood after your brothers pulled their stunt."
"They are their own persons."
"And yet being a shit seems to run in the family." Doppio and Brooklyn are coming down the hall, you can hear their equally annoyingly high-pitched voices mix among each other to the point where you don't know which belongs to who. "You want to know what I do to difficult people, Kars?"
He laughs and folds his arms, Patch adjusts his feet with the moment. "You lecture them to death?"
"No. I do them a service much kinder." You say. "I preserve them."
He stares at you with a crooked brow, silent, waiting for some sort of clarification. And when nothing happens, and nothing happens some more, he asks, "Preserve them?"'
You're already pulling open one of your drawers by the time he's made up his mind to ask. A heavy binder weighs your hand down with the strength of a bowling ball, and it slams onto your desk with the same force of a cannon ball.
"In here, is every person who owes a debt to me, and decided to be difficult about it." Gloved hand slide onto the first page.
Rows upon rows and slots upon slots, all filled with colored chips of every kind and size, with plenty odd faces carved into each so that each is strangely unique. There is a plump man, there is a frail looking woman, a kid barely breaking eighteen and a crone hitting eighty.
"You could become apart of my collection. All it takes is one trip to D'arby and you won't have to work for me anymore-- you won't have to think at all." You smile as you close the binder again. "That is my kindness."
Kars is silent as he considers, and considers. A fighting man, you knew him as such, even if it's only been a month or so you can tell his type, and that he should be set right early on.
His lips stick into a slight pout and his teeth grind each other into a paste as he picks up on your nasty look. The cat is plucked from his shoulders like a fresh fruit from a tree.
"Fine." He snaps. "Consider him gone."