Chapter Text
Loud feet pound the ground as they run, time is scarce and Leone has a new objective. He’s been through this so many times his hands shake with rage, breaths coming in short, hard gasps as he stares down the perpetrator. There was no time to process and he lowers his weapon unintentionally for a moment, feeling the impact of it hit him. The shopkeeper was dead already, he always was and he knows that some things will never change. There was one thing that had to, though, he was going to die here and nobody could stop him. There’s a yell- An oh, so familiar yell and a blur, but he’s prepared this time. He shoves his partner away and he takes the bullet himself, which sends an agonizing jolt into him as his vision flashes. The world slows and the ground breaks underneath him when his back made contact with the cold, blood soaked concrete of the shop.
He sees himself reflected, wide eyed in a million bloodied shards as he plunges into a pitch black void. There’s no end to the regrets that the reflections show. There are a million things he wants to change, hundreds of moments he wants to take back and they all collect at the bottom, the sharp edges gleaming as if they welcome him. He screams, but the sound is lost as he makes impact with the remnants. When he crashes, he shifts and Abbacchio awakens in a cold sweat.
They were gone.
It’s all that’s apparent to Leone when his eyes slide open and there’s an ache in his back instead of a warm body beside his own. He sits up and he scans the area, his eyes catching on the tall, judgemental numbers that sit on the blackened screen of his alarm clock. It’s one that never goes off, staring at him with the flashing of the red of the symbols there. He reaches out for it, perhaps it would be better if he just unplugs it. He wants to, but when his long, thin fingers are just shy of the cord, he stops in his tracks and the clock lives for another day. Maybe tomorrow would be the day he reclaims his own time, he thinks, throwing bare feet over the side of the bed.
Wide strokes cover pale lips with a deep colour, obscuring the flesh that lies underneath in one fell swoop. Long, pale hair is painstakingly brushed, with long, deliberate passes. Mascara’s applied to long, pale lashes to darken them, twisting them into long, obsidian fans and a sweet brush of perfume scents his pulse point and wrists, lending a softness to his otherwise aloof and cold presence.
He takes a look at his surroundings before he pulls a long, dark garment against his chest, watching from behind it as a sad and strange, broken man looks back at him, holding the exact same article of clothing that he himself has grabbed. He wants to break the skin of his knuckles on his cracked reflection one more time, but the pink remnants of the last time sting at the memory. He still hadn’t removed the stitches from the last time and he still needs his energy for what’s to come, so he removes himself from the situation and turns the cracked mirror around. A few pieces of the broken glass clatter against the floor but he doesn’t care enough to try and clean them from the planks.
It sounds like a problem for a later version of himself, he figures.
There’s no point when he’s the only one that may happen to tread on them, and even then, at that point he may very well enjoy the break from the monotony that stepping in it may provide. The thought takes him by surprise and draws a sigh from his painted lips as he takes a seat on the edge of his own bed. His hips slant to the right, following the incline of the mattress and, while it’s not enough to dump him onto the ground, an event his neighbors downstairs would undoubtedly hear, it is enough to menace him somewhat in the long run. All the evidence of the sleepless nights the broken leg of the frame contributed to would be easily found.
One would only need to glance at the dark remnants of many sleepless nights hidden beneath a layer of foundation to realize it and, with that realization, Abbacchio becomes somewhat restless and decides that, perhaps, he does not want to sit there anymore. It would only cause a problem, propelling him into a bout of self help he knows will only worsen things when he fails to maintain it. Things were better this way, he thinks despite the ache in his shoulder. A hundred years from now, the bed wouldn’t matter anyways, nothing really would and he contents himself with that as he gets up and pads out of his room.
Bare feet tap the ground as he walks until he reaches his door. He bends at the waist, snagging his shoes before he slips them on. There’s a small grunt of pain when he laces them, but the show must go on, so he makes his escape.
Violet eyes scan the street corner and find themselves stained by the red lights that rest overhead. They're supposed to be discreet but everyone and their uncle know what it means, the white haired male thinks. There's a distasteful grimace pulling at his violet painted lips as a cold breeze ghosts along the skin he's left exposed, raising goosebumps there. It was difficult to be this exposed in the encapsulating darkness and the chill it brings in turn, but still, a tall figure stands sentry, his thinly clothed back pressed to a lamp post as he pretends to casually loiter in the area. He pretends as if he's waiting for a ride, but he's waiting for far more than that, he reminds himself, handling it with no small part sensitivity. There was no point in kidding himself about what he would, hopefully, be doing when someone stopped to give him the time of day.
It was the dry season, more and more people were getting laid off from their jobs, leaving more and more regular patrons on the curb, practically leaving them penniless. Their plight was not one of a self-contained sort, however, and the more people that went hungry that night would mean he would have to work that much harder to keep. Where once there was a fear of the activity stricken into Leone Abbacchio's heart, he's long since been numbed to it. He's been numbed to a lot of things over the years.
It was difficult to care about one's safety when there was nothing to lose, and Abbacchio keeps this philosophy tenderly tucked to his chest, clinging to it when there's no other purchase for him to grab onto. There was nothing else. He'd lost his one purpose, his one partner, his dignity, and, if he didn't perform here, he'd lose his apartment too. It was a tragic, but all too real concept. He'd lost his life a long time ago and he was in danger of losing the space where he'd lived as well, which would destroy him, shattering what was left of a broken man into a million more pieces. While it was a hit he'd like to think he could take, should worse come to worst, but his hardened heart had grown brittle, waiting for the final blow with a constant agonizing twinge and not much outside of that.
Those deep purple lips twist in disgust when he realizes he's pitying himself and he attempts to shove it away as he does most other things that bother him. It remains, however, combating the apathy he's worked so hard to implement. It makes his skin crawl with an unwanted bristle and a low, audible growl presents itself, which frightens off a possible patron. He could almost kick himself at the disturbed way the man looks at him, as if nonverbally asking him why as he makes his escape. It takes Leone a moment to realize that he doesn't really know what the question is, it's just one word. He's stuck on a single word question that he's given to himself through a complete stranger. Either way, he feels the loss of what could have been his meal ticket for the night. In response to the irritation, he forces the scowl off of his face and watches for another opportunity, his arms crossing over his chest to bar him from the cold as he does.
"That's a good way to drive clientele away, Roxanne," he hears from behind him and he's almost astonished with himself in the fact that he bothers to recognize the soft, sweet lilt.
It's not aggressive and he knows the other doesn't mean to menace him, aside from the affectionate dubbing of a name that's got so many connotations behind it. There's a pause before he turns, his gaze sweeping the man he's seen so often here on the corner. His jet black hair catches the crimson glow in such a way that it almost seems gorgeous and it almost certainly would be, should it have been from any other source. He seems at ease and Abbacchio finds himself wondering what the other might look like in the light of day.
Were this man's eyes always this dark or was it a product of Abba's own imagination? His own self projection? It's unimportant, he scolds himself as he clears his throat to speak, eyes narrowed on the other's figure.
"Roxanne's a distasteful stage name," a deep, jaded baritone informs, a distant iciness creeping into his tone as he fights to figure out how to address this man. He was no stranger to the sharply dressed figure whose step had only ever once faltered before him, and he abhors the absolute ease in which he addresses the situation. The pretty man with the bob cut and nice shoes had made it clear that he was trying to put them on equal grounds to speak, but his true intentions seem hidden. He’d never made a purchase, so, for all intents and purposes, the man before him, whom he vaguely recalls is named Bruno from a previous encounter, has no real real reason to be here. There should be nothing about Abbacchio’s plight that should speak to him and yet-
“My apologies, but perhaps if you’d give me a real name I wouldn’t have to keep making guesses and assumptions,” Bruno practically purrs and Abbacchio feels no small part irritation at the tone, but it’s not towards the mafioso himself.
No, this anger is internalized and it leaves him feeling as if he’s suddenly in a much too crowded space. His lungs ache in the frosty air and his shaking breaths leave his body in faint pink clouds propelled into the dimly lit space by a little too much force. He feels the confrontation building in his frame when there was absolutely no provocation from who should be on the receiving end of his overreaction. It nags at some small part of himself that he just can’t bring to throw out as he’s done with so many other aspects of who he was before. It set him on edge when Bruno had said no more than two sentences to him.
How could he give him his true name when he didn’t feel like he was Leone anymore?
“Or maybe we just shouldn’t do this dance anymore, Bruno. I’m sure you must have more urgent matters to attend to,” he says, turning from the other to face a different corner when he sees a flash of an unpleasant emotion on the shorter man’s face.
He doesn’t have the time or the emotional integrity to have an actual conversation tonight, not with the weight of the red shine that illuminates the street corner looming ominously over him. No, not here and not now.
“That’s a shame, honestly. I enjoy a good dance, the slow ones are actually my favorites.”
“Does that mean you’ve considered my offer?” he asks as he moves to stand shoulder to shoulder with Abbacchio and he looks up at him. It’s something the taller of the two has grown used to over the years, but he finds himself wishing that he could disappear under Bruno’s gaze. He’d thought about the offer, of course he had. It had nagged and pulled at him for a week, taunting him. It sounded too good to be true and, chances were, it probably was. He typically knew how these things went and the idea of messing up his slow, tedious plan wasn’t an overly tempting proposition.
“No,” he murmurs, lilac eyes meeting deep dark orbs as he considers his answer, “I haven’t had the chance to think it over, but I think my answer from last time still stands.”
“How unfortunate. I could improve your living standards drastically, you know? You don’t have to put on a red light, Leone.” The words hang in the air between the two of them and thin brows pull together as Leone backs away a step or so, startled by the sudden use of his name. He was a fool- Of course Bruno would know who he was, from what Leone can tell, it’s not hard to get information in the raven haired male’s line of work.
“I need you to leave, Buccellati. I’ve got someone I’m waiting on and I’d honestly rather meet them alone,” he says, his nose wrinkled in distaste. He’d met with this man a few times over the past few months. The meetings were generally uninvasive, leaving Leone slightly uneasy with a sense of impending dread. There’s no way he’s going to trust this man, not when there’s absolutely no reason for Bruno to want to help him. He’d actually be more of a risk than anything else, given that he’s an ex cop and there was no such thing as goodwill. Nothing good ever came out of nothing and he couldn’t bring himself to be a patsy, no, not this time.
“They’ll be here soon, so you’d probably better get moving,” he says with a vibrato he doesn’t quite resonate with as the shock fades from his system, which earns him a slight frown and a quiet moment of consideration on the other man’s part. Finally, it seems that he’s gotten through to him and Bruno Bruno glances away, as if actually considering taking his leave and it seems as if he may, but not before he gets the last word in.
“I know,” He says with a small, sad smile stretching those plump lips of his, “Arrivederci, Leone. Until the next time our paths cross.”
Just like that, he’s gone, turning on his heel to take his leave, stringing a trail of wispy steam in his wake and, unfortunately, something in Abbacchio thinks it’s almost a shame when he does leave so easily, though his parting words do not sit well in the pit of his stomach.