EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
"Whatthefuck?!" In an instant James snapped awake, quickly sitting up in the bed and looking around his room. He soon calmed down and settled his rapidly beating heart, the pounding in his chest alerting him to the woman next to him.
Right near his side lay Nifty, a small smile on her pale face as she curled up tighter next to James. She seemed at peace, happy with whatever she's dreaming about.
He smiled and decided to lay back down, bringing Nifty closer into his embrace before kissing her–
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
'Okay, I can't do this shit, bruh.'
Without any hesitation James swiftly got up(while gently removing his arm from Nifty's grasp) and quickly did his morning routine before rushing down the stairs.
When he got to the lobby of the hotel he was met with the usual faces doing their usual things; Angel Dust was watching TV, Vaggie was reading her book on contortionism, though Amery was nowhere to be seen.
The only thing different is that all of them were blocking their ears from the presumable siren that was going off within the building. "Okay, does anyone know what in the world that is?" James opened his arms and asked everybody.
"The only bitch I know that can get that loud has to be Charlie," Angel said, bringing a glass of tequila to his lips and–
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
The cup shattered in his hands, the tequila bursting all over his clothes and face. "...Godmanit." he muttered under his breath before standing up and beginning to stretch, cracking the joints in his back. "Yo Darkside, I'll bring you up to Charlie's room so you can talk to her and shit while I fix my clothes."
He said, walking right by James and tapping his chest as a signal to follow him. James trailed behind him until they came to a small door by the stairs. "What the hell is this?" James asked before Angel Dust grabbed the doorknob and opened it, revealing an elevator.
'...Are you kidding me!?' James thought as he walked inside, marveling at how big it was. 'This thing looks like it could fit like 20 damn people, how did this even happen?'
"...We have an elevator?" He muttered unknowingly as he stared up at the ceiling.
"Uhhh, yeah, why wouldn't we?" Angel said as he pressed floor 6. "Wait a minute, have you been running up the stairs every single time? You're room number 420 something right?"
"...Yeah."
"Holy shit, have you been running up 42 flights of stairs every single time you needed to get to your room?"
"...Yeah."
A beat went by in the room before Angel Dust genuinely started to crack up laughing, falling on the floor and even holding his stomach while James just sat there awkwardly.
"Oh my– Oh my god, so that banging last night wasn't you and Nifty fucking, it was just you running up 42 flights of stairs?"
"...I refuse to answer this question and plead the fifth amendment until my state appointed lawyer arrives." He said, crossing his arms and looking away.
There's no doubt Angel would continue his ribbing, but the elevator soon stopped at his floor, making him get up while wiping a tear off his face. "You're a riot, Darkside. Come with me, I wanna show you somethin'."
Without any more talking, Angel walked out, expecting James to follow after him. 'I can't believe I'm in a stage of my life where I'm genuinely getting laughed at by an Italian femboy in hell.' He thought, shortly following behind him.
Only after a few seconds of walking did they get to room number 69.
"What did I even expect?"
"Eh, Charlie wouldn't let me get full nelson or mating press on the label so this'll have to do." He shrugged before unlocking the door and walking inside, James following shortly after.
The first thing he noticed about the room was that it was much different from his. Purples and pinks being brightly displayed on a lavish bed that had a pig on it.
'...Wait, he has a pig?' he thought, doing a double take to focus on the pig now being shoved in his face by Angel Dust. "Look at him, Darkside, isn't he so fuckin' cute!" James gently picked up the pig and looked at him.
To his six eyes at least, the pig seemed normal… Well as normal as any hell-pig could be. It didn't have any hell energy but it was surprisingly small, especially for a pig. "I thought all pigs were meant to be fat bastards, or eat donuts-" He held the pig close to him, snuggling him a little before–
CRUNCH
"Shit!" he yelled, dropping him down and holding his finger. 'That honestly didn't hurt as much as I thought it did… Did it even hurt at all?' He questioned as he shook his finger a little while Angel Dust embarrassedly picked the pig up from the ground. "So where'd you get the little dickhead from?
"Well, one day when I was still working for Valentino, I just found him out in the dark and in the cold– As Angel Dust spoke, he let the pig down on the bed, "Everytime when I had to walk back from a shitty day he was just out there on the street."
He sat down on the bed next to the pig and pet him a bit. "I couldn't ever really afford to adopt him, so I just settled on giving him food and water and shit. But that was until yesterday where the little shit just showed up at the front door. I dunno how he even rang the doorbell."
He soon scratched behind his head, "To be honest, I've only told you since I dunno what Charlie feels about pets here and I wanted you to get into her good graces before I spring this on her, y'know?"
"I mean, I guess; but knowing Charlie, she'd just squeal and yell about how far you've come." James said, sitting down next to Angel… Only to immediately move to the left as the pig tried to tackle him, instead slamming into the door. "Man, that guy really doesn't like me, does he?"
Angel let out a little snort and picked up the pig. "Yeah, little Fat Nuggets here really hates your ass for some reason." He sat back down on the bed, crossing his legs while trying to soothe Fat Nuggets by petting him. "You're a tough guy, though, you can take it." He teased.
James clicked his tongue, but ultimately still had a small smile on his face as he laid back on the bed and got ready to tell Angel Dust–
Pumph
Fat Nuggets had pushed him off the bed and onto the floor. James slowly raised one finger, "Fuck that pig."
Angel Dust on the other hand was doing his best to hold back his chortles while genuinely trying to reprimand Fat Nuggets.
But while James was on the floor he saw something odd. He looked under Angel's bed only to find nothing but a single revolver within arms reach. He picked it up and checked the ammo count; only 1 bullet.
"Hey Angel, don't you need more than 1 bullet for a gun? Seems pretty counterintuitive to me." He said, standing up with the gun. In almost an instant, Angel's jovial mood completely turned off, being replaced with a much more serious one with a small frown.
"That's…" He tried to say, but trailed off. He slowly reached for the gun and held it in his hands. He looked as if he wanted to make an excuse, but eventually started to talk: "Every single day under Val was a nightmare, I hated it so much… I always believed in fate, it was my fate to end up in hell, it was my fate to end up under Val, and it was fate that had me meet little Fat Nuggets over here."
He slouched over, scratching Fat Nugget's head while he spoke. "I believed in fate for so long, I thought that if my fate was to be an eternal slave to that son of a bitch, I would reject it. So I bought a gun and one bullet out of angelic steel–" He took the bullet out of the gun and held it up.
"If it ever got too hard, when I just couldn't take anything anymore, I'd spin the barrel and put it up to my head… I've done that 13 times now." He scoffed, putting the bullet back into the gun and putting his head in his hands. "13 times I tried to fuckin' kill myself just for it to not happen."
He picked his head back up and looked at James, staring him down with tears and red eyes. "Thank you for… Thanks for helping me, y'know?" He looked at James, the gun and at his hands before slowly putting the gun in James' lap.
"I want you to have it." He said, but before James could say anything, his voice suddenly gained an edge. "But promise me… Promise me that if I want to, I'll get it back and do it one more time. Promise me that it'll be my choice if I wanted to… Understand?"
"Angel…" James held his hand out and grabbed Angel Dust's. "I promise–"
!!!!!!!
As soon as the words left James' mouth, something incredibly weird happened. Everything except for Angel Dust faded in his vision and his eyes were swiftly drawn towards his chest, where a pink fire burnt inside of him.
His eyes swiftly turned to his hands as he saw pink threads coming from Angel's hand into his. He looked over at himself only to see his liquid-like green soul begin to form a cluster near his heart along with spreading threads through Angel Dust's hand.
Angel Dust's soul was quickly surrounded by James' green that quickly formed a hand and grasped it, simply holding it. Meanwhile James' soul was tied up by Angel's threads, ropes forming around it in an almost bondage style.
A million questions raced through James' head in a second. 'I thought… But Amery… Binding vows with souls?' There was no doubt, the feeling in his chest and the chain he felt around his heart was the exact same feeling he would get when he'd initiate a binding vow on himself.
He couldn't think about the topic much longer however, as Angel Dust quickly pulled him into a hug, silently sobbing on his shoulder. TO Angel Dust it felt good to let all the tears out, good to let out all of his grievances, good to finally tell someone about–
"You smell like cheap liquor"
…
EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
…
"Go fuckin' deal with Charlie!" Angel yelled embarrassed, shoving James out of the room and closing his door. James let out a good laugh and started his walk to the elevator, yet the smile he had was quickly replaced by an intense look of concentration as he put the gun in his shadow.
'What the hell was that?' He thought, stepping inside of the elevator and clicking the highest floor, level 100. 'Why the hell could I make a binding vow with Angel Dust, but not Amery? Was it because she was a soul, did she not have a body, was it because she had cursed energy? Damnit, I have so many questions… But I suppose this isn't a bad thing.'
He leaned on a wall while the elevator went up. 'At least I know that I can make binding vows with other people now, though, I don't know what happens if I break them, why it worked on Angel Dust, or just how they work in general… But that's fine I guess.'
He slowly reached in his shadow, halfway pulling the gun out, '...' He didn't even think anything, simply letting it flow back into his shadow once more. 'It won't happen… Nobody else will die as long as I'm around.'
After a few minutes of waiting, the elevator finally hit Charlie's floor with a small ding and he finally stepped out with his arms crossed–
EEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…He might've plugged his ears with his fingers as he walked to the door. It was honestly massive, dwarving him entirely while being a brilliant gold coloring with red highlights at the bottom.
'I have a feeling that I shouldn't turn left at this place…' He quipped in his mind before placing a hand on the door and gently opening it, revealing Charlie's room.
It was the exact thing you would envision if you thought of the room of a princess. A giant bed in the middle could only barely take up a little space, the rest of it being filled up with various toys, fancy jewelry or multiple copies of the same red suit folded on the bed.
James looked to the left, only to see Charlie on a stool, looking at herself in the mirror whilst putting on a layer of makeup-applying eyeliner and soft blush to her face before she noticed James.
"Hey Charlie–"
BLINK
"JAMES!"
In literally the blink of an eye, Charlie was already standing in front of James, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him back and forth. "Jamesdoyouknowwhat'shappeningtoday!?"
It took a moment to reorient himself after Charlie almost turned him into a brain slushie, but he eventually worked up enough brain cells to ask: "W-what's happening today?"
Charlie quickly stepped back, holding her arms out with a crazed expression, "Heaven wants ME, they want a meeting with ME" She repeatedly pumps her fist, muttering under her breathwords of excitement.
'What the hell, is canon already starting?' he thought, before Charlie let out yet another squeal that caused him to plug up his bleeding ears.
"You know, I thought the hotel was failing at first, with only You and Angel Dust being our only two members that came here willingly, aren't slaves and are still sane, but this proves it. This proves that my hotel works… Somehow." Charlie almost spaced out at the end before a hand landed on her shoulder.
"Go ahead and knock 'em dead,Charlie." James said, Charlie giving an excited nod before running away, only somehow leaving a smoke cloud with her figure behind.
'Man… I could NOT hear a single damn word that she was saying.' He thought, digging in his ear and finding blood. He swiftly walked down to the elevator, summoning Round Deer to heal his bursted eardrums while he went down to the first floor.
He planned on actually cooking for the whole hotel today, wanting to do something nice and actually try to put his skills in the kitchen to the test. But unfortunately, before he could get to the kitchen, a knock was heard at the door.
Not only had Charlie just gone out, but he just saw Vaggie walk to her room. So safe to say, he was a bit weirded out. But, he'd also just remembered that Amery was gone so he assumed that was just her.
But when he walked over to the door and opened it, he didn't see Amery, but a tall man in a white suit with black hair. "Hello, is Charlie Morningstar her?"
"No, she just went out." James replied, going to close the door, but the man put his foot in the wedge and instead gazed at him.
"...Is James Richardson here, then?"
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THE END
I honestly think that this is about my second longest chapter I've written. I've been doing some training on questionable questing where I had myself write only 2k word chapters and I think that definitely carried on here. If you're curious, it's called "Back with the milk, got it in a flash!"
OK byeeeeee