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Arno is on the back porch of the mayor’s house when Federico gets there. He’s sitting, for some reason, between the elegant wooden furniture and not on it, looking like he’d stopped to rest in the middle of a journey and somehow forgotten to get up again. There’s a bottle of something expensive at his feet, and he raises a nearly empty glass in greeting as Federico approaches.
“Welcome to the mayor’s mansion,” he says, and drinks.
Federico studies him for a beat, taking in the disheveled hair, the dark circles under his eyes, the fact that his clothes aren’t color-coordinated.
“Are we day drinking now?” he asks amiably, and sits on the floor beside Arno.
“If it’s still daytime,” answers Arno, “then yes.”
“Hmmm.” Federico eyes the label on the bottle – wine, ludicrously expensive, a brand he sipped exactly once when his father brought it home from a friend’s.
“College changed you,” he observes.
That gets a laugh, albeit with all the humor choked out of it.
“Is this official mayoral wine?” Federico adds, when Arno goes quiet again. He lifts the bottle, tipping it idly from hand to hand, watching the way Arno tightens his grip on his empty glass.
“It’s Élise wine,” Arno says. “Élise...Élise’s wine.”
“Wine which belongs to Élise?” Federico clarifies, with an innocent smile.
Arno scowls. “You’re going to spill it.”
He reaches to take the bottle back, but Federico leans away. “I would never spill Élise wine,” he says. “I’m guessing she’s not home.”
Arno shakes his head, momentarily distracted.
“And I’m guessing our favorite mayor is off doing mayor things.”
“I don’t know,” Arno mutters. “He’s not here. He’s not here a lot. Give it back, you’re...” But he doesn’t finish the thought, and lets his hand drop away when it’s clear Federico isn’t giving the bottle back. He sighs, a soft rush of air from wine-wet lips, and closes his eyes as though Federico isn’t there at all. His arms wrap around his knees, his head dropping low.
“So,” Federico says after a moment, watching Arno’s eyes flicker open again at the sound. “Why, exactly, are we day drinking?”
Arno lifts his chin and studies Federico for a beat. “You won’t understand,” he decides.
Federico’s eyebrows raise, something unpleasant stirring in his chest. “Really.”
Arno doesn’t answer him for a moment, just looks miserably out at the perfectly manicured garden. “You can do anything you want,” he says finally, his syllables just barely slurred, only if you’re really listening for it. He’s always been able to hold his liquor better than Federico. He lifts a leaf, fallen from one of the tall oaks in the yard, and picks at it clumsily. “Have anything you want,” he adds.
Federico’s hand closes tight around the neck of the bottle. “Is that what you think?”
Arno gives a lopsided shrug. “It’s just...true. You,” he says, and waves an arm at nothing. “Your family.”
Federico has never before been really angry with Arno Dorian, he realizes, but lately he’s come close. There was the whole stupidity with his – with Napoleon, whatever he was. And Paris, and the incredible, entirely unfamiliar effort of keeping his mouth shut and his opinions tamped down (you can’t go to Paris for six months, how could you go to Paris for six months? you already leave for the whole week, every week, how could you leave for six months?). And then the determined way Arno refused to seem even a little upset after the whole thing. The determined way he forces himself to push through every stupid thing. Like he doesn’t think he’s allowed to be upset. Like he doesn’t trust his friends to help.
Like he doesn’t trust Federico.
You won’t understand.
“Then why the fuck did you text me?” he hears himself say, a little too loud past the blood rushing in his ears, and Arno blinks at him in clear surprise.
“What?”
“If I’m so perfect,” Federico says shortly. “If I won’t understand. Why did you text me to come over?”
Arno looks at the shredded leaf in his hands. “Because,” he mumbles. “Because I...because you came. I mean, you...you always do.”
“Yeah,” Federico says. “Yeah, I do.” He wants to kick the bottle down the stairs. Instead he just keeps it close by his side, out of Arno’s reach.
Close enough that when he turns abruptly back to Arno to ask him what the hell it is that he won’t understand, he knocks the bottle with his knee. It tips over easily, seeing as it’s so light, and they both watch as dark wine spills across dark wood, dripping through the cracks of the floorboards between them, wetting Federico’s hand before he draws it aside.
“Sorry,” says Federico, not feeling sorry at all.
Arno’s eyes are wide, staring at the wine as it trickles away. “No,” he mumbles, then turns his stricken gaze directly on Federico. “Noooo,” he says, louder, and lowers his head to his hands briefly. “No, no, no, no,” he tells the floor.
“You were going to drink it all anyway,” Federico tells him, and he feels a weirdly familiar stab of annoyance in his gut. Like a splinter he can’t get rid of, digging deeper whenever he accidentally brushes against it. And yet otherwise invisible, forgettable, so normally he hardly knows it’s there.
You can do anything you want. Have anything you want.
It’s not true. He knows it isn’t, has spent too much time and energy and worry into making it seem like it is. The idea: to let everyone think it’s easy, always easy, to be Federico Auditore...and he doesn’t know why he does it, even. Only that it seems essential. To smooth the edges and smile a languid smile and make sure no one ever guesses that you might be worried or afraid. Not his classmates, not his teachers, never Ezio or Claudia or Petruccio. And not Arno, if he can help it, except that somehow...
Somehow he thought Arno already knew. He isn’t sure why that bothers him.
“I wasn’t,” Arno is saying, and then he adds something in French that Federico is mostly sure is a curse. “I wasn’t going to drink it all, I was going to...”
“What, put it back half-empty? Leave it in the mayoral fridge with a note?”
“Stop calling things mayoral,” Arno groans, rubbing at his forehead. Federico wonders if the alcohol is starting to wear off. “I was... I don’t know, all right? I don’t know, but I definitely wasn’t going to pour it on the fucking ground.”
“You were going to drink it all,” Federico repeats, and adds a curse of his own, one he’s certain Arno will understand. “Idiota francese. You were going to sit here drinking a whole bottle of fancy wine and making yourself sick. Why? Because no one was home?”
“Because this isn’t my home,” Arno snaps, lifting his eyes to Federico’s finally. They’re bright with anger and alcohol and something else.
“Of course it is,” Federico snaps right back at him, and Arno blinks, like he hadn’t expected this.
“It’s Élise’s home,” Arno says slowly. “It’s –”
“The mayoral mansion, yes, yes, and the decorating is questionable, but the mayor likes you and so does his daughter, and you live here, whether you think you’re allowed to or not.”
Arno just stares at him. “It’s not about allowed to,” he says.
“No? Arno Dorian, who could do anything he wants but chooses not to –”
“What? I don’t –”
“You can stay with us,” Federico interrupts angrily. “You know that. You could stay with us, when your mansion is empty. Why didn’t you?”
“How would I know that?” Arno asks, looking at him like he’s lost his mind.
“’You’re always welcome here, Arno,’” Federico replies, mimicking his father’s voice. “You are aware that my mother loves you better than me? And we’re best friends. We don’t even live that far away. What, am I supposed to print you a golden ticket?”
“A – what?”
“Ticket,” Federico says impatiently, waving his hands. “Like a – dannazione, not a ticket. Invito...”
“Invitation,” Arno says, voice straining not in anger now, but more like he’s trying not to laugh. “Golden tickets are Willy Wonka.”
Federico frowns. “What?”
“Oh for – nevermind, nothing.”
They both fall quiet again for a moment.
“I don’t...” Arno says, and then hesitates. He threads his fingers through his hair distractedly, pulling it loose from its ponytail. It’s gotten longer since he’s been at school, which has been a point of controversy. (If you come back next week with a man-bun, Élise had warned last time they were all together, we’re not friends anymore. Federico, for his part, thinks it looks nice, but he’s refrained from voicing this opinion. He’s not entirely sure why.)
“What?” Federico repeats, impatient now.
Arno drops his hands to his sides again and glances up, all dark-eyed nervousness, like he used to look before a big exam. Probably still does; Federico’s just not there to see it.
“I don’t...have anywhere that’s...mine,” Arno says, stilted and quiet. He pauses uncertainly, but seems encouraged when Federico doesn’t interrupt. “I’m glad – it’s good – I mean, I’m grateful – for Élise, and her dad, and for school, and...and for you.” His voice softens at the end in a way that makes something stutter in Federico’s chest, the world shifting ever so slightly beneath his feet. Luckily Arno doesn’t seem to notice. “I just – I don’t...since my dad, there’s...”
“Yeah,” says Federico. “Yeah, I know.”
He hadn’t. Known, that is. He should have guessed; anyone could have guessed. A better friend would have guessed.
“Sometimes just walking down the hall in this place is...” Arno gestures helplessly. “It’s...”
“It’s not yours,” Federico says, all of his annoyance turning in on himself suddenly. He should have known. Should have asked Arno to stay with them months ago, at least then Arno wouldn’t have been by himself so much...
“It’s not.” Arno looks down at his feet. “And that’s – that’s fine, I mean, it’s...all right. But when it’s empty – especially after, you know, everything – then it’s...um, not. Not fine.”
Federico sits quietly for a moment, parsing through this haltingly provided information. “By ‘everything,’” he says, “you mean –”
Arno gives him a tired, knowing look. “Napoleon,” he says, the name falling heavily between them. “Paris. Midterms. Napoleon.” He waves a hand. “Everything.”
Federico feels an inexplicable twinge of relief. “I told you he was a bad idea,” he says.
Arno lets out a weak laugh. “No,” he says. “You told me you didn’t like his haircut, that he talked too much – which, again, could not be more hypocritical – and that he had bad taste in music.”
“Well,” says Federico, “I thought you understood what I meant.”
Arno’s lips quirk in what, on a better day, might be called amusement. “I think I did understand what you meant,” he says. “That’s the worst part. I knew...”
He looks so miserable and so sober now that Federico almost feels bad about the Spilling of the Élise Wine. “We all date terrible people sometimes,” he says, trying for cheerful. It comes out forced. “Remember, there was the girl from the party...”
Arno snorts. “Which one?”
Federico waves a hand. “Oh, all of them.”
“I think, in at least some of those cases, you were the terrible one,” Arno points out, and Federico brings a hand to his chest in mock offense.
“Me?”
Arno shakes his head a little, smiling faintly. He looks at the tipped over bottle again, and Federico follows his gaze.
“Élise is going to be angry at me,” he mumbles.
“For spilling her wine or for trying to drink your problems away?” Federico says, before he can manage to bite his own tongue.
Arno shrugs. “Either. Both.” His eyes meet Federico’s, and he looks – embarrassed, Federico thinks. “...I’m sorry,” he adds, quieter.
Federico shrugs back at him. He doesn’t say it’s okay, because it isn’t really okay. Because Arno isn’t really okay. Because Federico still isn’t sure how he feels about You can do anything you want, but now doesn’t really feel like the time to discuss it.
“I spilled the wine,” Federico offers instead. “She can be angry at me.” When Arno doesn’t respond, he adds, “And anyway, you can come over. To our house. You don’t need a tick—an invitation.”
Arno doesn’t look at him now. He picks up his empty glass again, turning it over and over in his hands. “I’m trying to save up,” he offers hesitantly. “To move out. I haven’t –Élise doesn’t know yet.”
“Move where?” Federico asks, way too quickly, and feels his ears redden a little for some reason. Arno is too busy staring at his glass to notice.
“Somewhere in the city,” he says vaguely. “Near the cafe, maybe, so I could walk to work...After school’s done, probably? That would make more sense.”
“Oh.” Federico swallows, relief slumping his shoulders. And then it hits him. “You need an apartment,” he says, turning toward Arno again and accidentally knocking their knees together.
“Um. Yes,” Arno answers, blinking at him, startled. “That was the idea.”
“No, no, I mean – the apartment. Above the cafe.”
Arno furrows his brow, frowning. “That’s just a storage room.”
“No, no,” Federico repeats, and he’s gesturing animatedly now as he talks. “Have you been up there? It has its own bathroom, kitchen, everything, we just use it for storage. But my mother wants to clean it up and rent it next year, she – she never talked to you about it?”
“I never told her I was looking,” Arno says cautiously. His expression turns guarded. “Federico, I don’t want – I mean, I don’t need any –”
“It isn’t charity,” Federico interrupts impatiently. “It’s an apartment. She wants to rent it. For money. So we can invest more in the cafe, new chairs, or something...” He waves a hand vaguely; he has never been particularly good at paying attention to the various practical needs of the family business. He much prefers waiting tables, or just chatting to his favorite customers, or lingering around the kitchen stealing tastes of whatever Arno is cooking (in the name of quality control, of course). Lately he has managed to sit still long enough to help with the bookkeeping for a few hours a week, which he knows his parents regard as a small triumph.
“New tables,” Arno corrects distantly. “A few of them are starting to wobble.”
“New tables,” Federico agrees. “We can’t have wobbly tables.” Their knees are still touching, and Arno’s expression, when he meets Federico’s eyes, is full of poorly guarded hope.
“I could talk to her about it,” he says, hesitant.
“You should talk to her about it,” Federico says firmly.
Arno nods, then reaches a hand up to touch his forehead, wincing.
“You should drink some water first,” Federico adds. “Eat something. Some mayoral food.”
“Mm,” Arno agrees.
“And then you should come to my house.”
Arno’s eyebrows knit, and he glances once toward the door. Then he sighs. “I...yeah. Okay.”
Federico stands up, reaching down to offer Arno his hand. “And you shouldn’t date political-science majors anymore,” he continues.
The warmth of Arno’s hand spreads from Federico’s fingertips all the way to his chest, and he blinks at the unexpectedness of it.
“Never again,” Arno groans, oblivious, and takes a moment to steady himself before he lets go of Federico.
Federico clears his throat and swings an arm around Arno’s shoulders. “So,” he says briskly. “Show me this mayoral mansion.”
Arno gives him a long, exasperated sigh, and marches them slowly forward. “This,” he says, “is the mayoral sliding glass door.” He reaches for the handle. “This is the mayoral curtain...and over here we have the mayoral lamp...”
He goes rambling on, his voice gaining clarity and losing its leaden quality with every step, and Federico half-listens, his mind running over possibilities. Arno could rent the apartment, Arno could stay in the city, Arno could stay. An entire future that Federico had been doing his level best not to consider now stretches out before them and shifts into something hopeful. Something where no one moves far away, or goes to live in Paris, or dates stupid, conceited, polisci bastardi with bad haircuts.
He can ignore the rest for now. The weird feeling in his chest. The accusatory tone from Arno earlier. (You. Your family.)
He wonders if Arno realizes – Arno is his family, in a way. In a way that somehow feels more true the longer they’re apart.
But they can talk about that another day maybe. They can talk about everything, eventually.
They’ll have time.