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“Hey, Narancia. I got another joke for you.”
“Enough with the fucking jokes already,” Fugo grumbled from the far end of the counter. Though he made his demand loud enough for the both of them to hear, it still landed on deaf ears.
“Alright, Mista,” said Narancia, who leaned over the counter and closer to the other so that he could give him his undivided attention. “Lay it on me!”
Mista downed two gulps of his beer before placing his warm mug next to a much emptier glass that had been cleared of its contents a little less than five minutes ago. As he hooked an arm around Narancia's slouched shoulders he cracked another smile. “You gotta listen closely, alright?” he said. “If you don't, the joke will probably go clean over your head. Are you ready?”
With a nod of his head, Narancia signaled that he was ready to hear the joke as he reached over to grab the orange slice garnishing his mimosa cocktail.
“Okay, here it is. A penguin and a farmer walk into a bar...”
When Bruno Buccellati had given his subordinates a large sum of money to indulge in whatever capitalistic escapade they so desired— which, in reality, was just a bribe that would allow him to have some special alone time with Abbacchio— he probably didn't expect them to go spending it at a bar. Alas, all four of them were sitting at the front of some shabby little bar with broken light fixtures and a faint, mildewy stench.
Within the first minute of entering the bar the group had almost been kicked out of the place entirely. The majority of their party were still underage, and no matter t how much Narancia argued that he was almost eighteen, that didn't change the fact that Mista was their only legal adult. But Mista was able to handle the situation in such a civilized manner that he was able to convince the barkeep to let his friends stay.
“Don't worry, man. They're with me!” he had said to the bartender, further reiterating his point by unsheathing his revolver and laying it against the countertop.
Well, maybe threatening to put a bullet in an innocent man that was just trying to do his job wasn't very civilized, but he got the message nonetheless and chose not to hassle them about their crime any longer. Instead of risking a bullet in his body, he allowed the young men to drink to their heart's content.
Mista and Narancia were both very obnoxious drunks. Every time Mista would crack one of his stupid jokes, they would cackle so loud that their laughter would drown out the soccer game Fugo had become enamored with watching on the television. For some time, his hand had been gripping his empty wine glass, almost enough to make the thin glass shatter in his palm and to color his knuckles into a sharp white, but now that Tweedledee and Tweedledum had temporarily lowered their tones, he softened his hold on and silently motioned for the bartender to serve him a refill.
Giorno was seated to the right of Mista and remained fairly quiet since their arrival. Though he offered no verbal input, he still keyed in to their conversation, letting himself crack a grin or giggle whenever he found himself amused by their silly quips. As he sipped his martini, he watched the bartender retrieve the bottle of exquisite wine that Fugo had been drinking. His eyes wandered elsewhere as the man refilled Fugo's glass, and he heard the low “Grazie,” that left the other boy's lips over Mista continuing to relay his joke to Narancia, along with the cheering coming from the television and the overall ambience from other spaces of the bar.
Right when the blonde took the first sip of his refill, Mista approached the punchline of his joke.
“...and so the penguin says, ‘Dude, he's not an eggplant,” Mista suddenly threw his free hand into the air, almost hitting Giorno upside his head, “he's just retarded!’”
Fugo's eardrums were blown to pieces when Narancia exploded into a howling laugh next to him. He cringed from the sound, wincing even more so when Narancia began to slam his tiny palm onto the countertop. Mista chortled along with him, lifting his mug up in the air and using their embrace to rock their bodies back and forth. The blonde tried his best to ignore them and the annoying squeak coming from the legs of one of their stools before Narancia's body had bumped into his, nearly causing him to spill his wine onto his shirt full of holes. That was when he knew he had had enough.
“Jesus, can you two please shut the fuck up!? ” he yelled, and with Narancia being the closest poor soul that he could assault, in a swift movement he had set his wine glass aside and dug his fingers into the older boy's messy hair. Gripping at his locks, he used his leverage to slam Narancia's head down into the countertop. Narancia shrieked out curses and pleas as he tried to pry Fugo's hands away from his scalp, but the more he tried to stop him, the more pressure Fugo would press into his skull. By the time Mista had jumped out of his seat to break it up, almost the entire bar were looking their way, though Giorno remained just as indifferent as ever. He was much too tipsy and much too busy snickering at Mista's joke to pay the altercation any mind.
“What the absolute fuck is wrong with you, Fugo?!” Narancia snarled at him, trying to tame the newer mess that was made of his hair. He made an effort to lurch forward and claw at whatever part of Fugo he could reach first, but Mista stood between them and hindered Narancia from getting his payback.
“I'm trying to watch the fucking game, alright? You're too fucking loud, and you almost made me spill my fucking drink!” Fugo shouted back at him.
“Hey, do you fellas mind taking it down a couple of notches?” the bartender requested. “I don't want any trouble, but I can't have you fighting in here. If you keep at it I'm gonna have to ask you to—”
“Look, I'll handle it guy, so mind your own,” Mista warned, still in the midst of trying to hold Narancia back from tearing Fugo to shreds. The man held his palms up in defense, but said nothing more, his hands finding another glass to wipe down with his cloth. “And both of you need to calm the fuck down, alright? There's no need for this shit,” Mista said to his quarreling comrades. “I'd love it if we could go someplace without you both at each other's necks for once.”
“Then tell Fugo to keep his stupid fucking hands to himself!” Narancia hissed.
“Fuck you, Narancia, and fuck you, Mista!” Fugo retaliated. “This wouldn't have even happened if you two would just shut the hell up for once!”
The three continued to bicker, and Giorno continued to giggle at the joke that had long since passed prime of its humor, when someone else in the bar had called out to them.
“Aye, you four! The ones sitting at the front counter!” the patron hollered, causing the young group of mobsters to turn their heads in his direction.
On the other side of the bar were booths with worn, conjoined velvet leather seats, and in one of the several booths were three men none of them had never seen before. A redheaded man with a buzzcut, green eyes, and tawny skin appeared to be waving them down with his right hand. His other arm reclined against the top of the seat, hidden by the much larger man seated next to him, who's dark pigtails and mostly effeminate facial features could make one mistake him for a heavy built woman. Seated across from them was a much skinnier and more oddly dressed male who had lavender colored hair, which was longer on the right side of his face but cut shorter on the left, and a tacky purple mask over his eyes. The round table in front of them was littered with poker chips, shot glasses, playing cards, and a lone bottle of rum.
“Aren't you some of Bruno's guys? Or, Buccellati, I should s—” The redhead had been cut off by a loud belch rolling off his tongue. He covered his mouth as he excused himself. “Fuck. Sorry 'bout that. Anyway, you're with Passione, right?”
The four of them merely stared at the much older trio of men before Fugo broke the silence by asking, “What's it to you?”
“What's it to me? Shit, I dunno, I'm just asking!” He responded to Fugo's hostility with a friendly laugh. “I don't mean no harm by it. We're apart of Passione too. Why don't you gents come over and play a game of poker with us? We don't bite— or, me and Illuso,” he used his free arm to gesture between him and the man with the pigtails, “don't bite. You can't be too sure about Melone over there, though. He's kinda... off, if you catch my drift.”
“Okay, that was rude,” the one with lavender hair, who he had to have meant by Melone, remarked after his spiel.
“But am I wrong?” the redhead asked with a shrug of his shoulders, giving Melone no time to defend himself before he regarded the others again. “Anyway, come over here and sit with us. Not trying to start any trouble, I promise.”
Despite the warm hospitality of his offer, the others remained skeptical and made no effort to move an inch from where they were. “I'm not too sure about this,” Mista said under his breath. “That guy in all that purple really does look like a weirdo. When I looked at him, I'm pretty sure he licked his lips.”
The gangster with the long pigtails, Illuso, cut into the stagnant air with a sneer. “What, are you guys fucking deaf?” he said. “Or are you just a bunch of pussies?”
“What the fuck did you say?” Fugo growled back, his stool nearly toppling over as he jolted out from his seat. “You think you're tough shit, huh, pigtails?” Now Mista had to step in between him and another mobster, who definitely looked like he had enough gains on Fugo to put him twelve feet under the dirt, but Illuso only smirked at him and folded his arms over his chest as he watched the teen practically foam at the mouth.
“Listen, excuse my foul mouthed friend over here,” the redhead said as an apology. He nudged Illuso in the shoulder and gave him a brief and serious look, wordlessly telling him to knock it off. “Illuso's just trying to get under ya skin. He does that with everybody, he don't mean any harm by it. Just come play with us.”
“Err... Sorry, but don't have much money to play with,” Mista uttered sheepishly.
“Neither do we, my friend!” He laughed once more. “It's only a mock game, so don't worry about having any money. The only thing we're betting on is shots of rum. Other than that, there aren't any stakes. You in?”
“Well, how about it?” Mista asked his friends. “You guys wanna go play poker with the other team? It sounds like it'll be pretty fun to me.”
“How the hell do you even play poker?” Narancia queried.
“I’ll teach you!” the redhead offered. “Don't worry, the rules can seem a little complicated at first, but it’s easy as all shit once you get the hang of it.”
“You guys can go ahead. I'm staying right over here,” Fugo decided as he eased back on his stool. “I'm trying to watch the game. I'm not interested in playing poker with a random group of wackos.”
“Yeah? Then stay.” Mista retrieved his revolver from the counter and tucked it into the waistband of his pants. “Nobody likes a goddamn buzzkill. Narancia, Giorno, you coming?”
“I don't know jack shit about poker, but I think it's best if I get the hell away from Fugo for a bit,” Narancia said. Fugo scoffed at him as he hopped off of his stool, his hand finding his wine glass as he resumed watching the soccer game.
“I'll play,” Giorno had spoken for only the second time that night. With his martini in hand, he joined the other two as they began stumbling their way over to the booth.
“Ah, sweet!” The ginger snapped his fingers in Melone's direction. “Hey, Melone. Scooch over this way. Make some space for 'em.”
“Don't sit too close to me, Mel,” Illuso advised as Melone's body began to shift towards him. “You know how I feel about personal space.”
“Oh, suck it up.” Once he had gotten close enough, Melone jokingly placed a hand on Illuso's thigh and snatched it away before Illuso could manage to plunge whatever sharp object he could find into his skin. As Mista slid into the booth, Melone averted his attention back to his eye candy of the night, studying his robust physique and the ripped pecs underneath his cashmere crop top. His ogling was beginning to make Mista uncomfortable, but Mista had no other choice but to sit even closer to Melone once Narancia and Giorno had him sandwiched on the dingy leather seats.
“What's your name, big guy?” Melone asked him in a flirtatious tone, placing a gloved hand upon his shoulder.
“...Guido Mista,” he answered reluctantly.
“Guido Mista,” Melone purred, placing extra emphasis on the syllables of his name. “That’s cute. So, do you come here often?”
“For fuck's sake, Melone! Leave the poor bastard alone!” the redhead exclaimed. “Don’tcha see you’re making him uncomfortable?”
“I was just asking him a question, Formaggio. What's so wrong about that?”
“What's wrong is that you're flirting with someone who's probably ten years younger than you,” Illuso retorted. “Maybe you should stop, weirdo, because if one of them decides to call the cops on you, we aren't bailing you out.”
“Ten years? Oh, please.” The hand that was on Mista's shoulder was now stroking his entire upper arm. The light sensation, along with the intense eye contact from Melone, was beginning to make his body run hot. “How old are you, Guido?” Melone asked him, his hand rising up to return to his tense shoulder.
“I'm eighteen,” Mista answered with a noticeable quaver in his tone.
“See? He's only seven years younger than me, not ten,” Melone corrected. “And he's perfectly legal.”
“Yeah, but he's still too young for you, so...” Getting fed up with Melone's antics, Formaggio snatched up his couple of cards and swung them towards his face. Melone snapped his head back around to shoot a sour look into the scowl that was growing on his lips. “How about you stop being a fucking creep and shuffle the goddamn cards, before I beat you to a fucking pulp?” Formaggio threatened.
“Fine.” Melone let go of Mista's shoulder with a huff, and he leaned down into his seat to scoop Formaggio's hand of cards up from the dirty floor. Mista exhaled after what felt like hours of holding his breath and mouthed “Thank you” to Formaggio. Formaggio shot him a thumbs up before Melone sat upright again, gathering the rest of the cards that lay flat against the table.
“Well, that was... interesting,” Narancia commented before he started to snicker. Mista feigned an amused grin as he wiped the sweat from his brow.
“On his behalf, I am really fucking sorry,” Formaggio apologized. “Let's just forget that it ever happened, okay? We don't need another restraining order.” He leaned over and offered his hand for Mista to shake, then proceeded to do the same for Narancia and Giorno. “Name's Formaggio, and us three, we're a few of the assassins from La Squadra di Esecuzione.”
“La Squadra di... oh! Hey! I know you guys!” Narancia said as he shook Giorno's hand. “Aren't you those broke boys that Abbacchio likes to hang out with?”
Formaggio's lips twisted into a split second frown, but they gradually faded into another smile— although, that time around, his grin had a much more bitter undertone.
“...Heh, yeah. That's us. The... broke boys, ” he droned.
“So, is that what he calls us?” Illuso said, practically asking the question Formaggio held on his tongue. “The fucking ‘broke boys’?”
“No, that's just what I call you,” Narancia clarified with a short giggle. But the “broke boys” in question obviously weren't very amused by his joke, because now all three of them were beginning to eye him up and down like a predator sizing up its prey.
“Narancia!” Mista began to laugh, all nervous and hysterical, as he wrapped an arm around him and gave his shoulder a hard squeeze. “Listen, buddy, here's a little suggestion— y'know, could be a lifesaver, but um... Maybe it isn't the best fucking idea to make fun of a bunch of guys with murderous tendencies. Don't you agree?”
“...Oh!” And now Narancia was hysterical as well, the realization of his insult settling in to his intoxicated mind. “Umm... Whoopsie daisy!”
“Y'know what? You're right,” Formaggio said with a sigh. “Our team is as poor as fucking dirt. There's no point in trying to hide it if the entirety of Passione already knows.”
“And why is your team so poor?” Giorno asked quietly. Had he not been close enough, they probably wouldn't have even heard him speak at all.
“The Boss doesn't give us any fucking territory,” Illuso responded. “Unlike everybody else, who has small shop owners and big businessmen kissing their fucking feet, we live from paycheck to fucking paycheck.”
“If Passione was a small, nuclear family, our team would be something similar to the unloved bastard child,” Melone added as he shuffled the deck of cards in his hands.
“Exactly,” Formaggio said. “The Boss let's everybody else do the whatever the fuck they want, but has us on a tight leash. It feels like we're just his little lackeys, risking our lives to take out whatever punks he asks us to get rid of, only to get little to fucking nothing in return. If I could go back in time and change one little thing, I would have never joined Passione. Ever.”
Both Illuso and Melone nodded and murmured small comments in agreement. Giorno observed their sullen faces as he sipped from his glass.
“Then, have you ever thought of doing a little coup d'etat?” he asked. “As I'm aware, Passione is already corrupt. If someone takes over the organization and makes a few changes, then that could bring good fortune to you.”
The three assassins briefly exchanged puzzled looks with each other before they broke out into a fit of laughter.
“A coup d'etat, eh?” Formaggio chuckled. “Yeah, let me ask the last couple of guys who attempted a coup d'etat if they think it's a good idea...” He seemed to be reaching into his pocket for something, more than likely his cellphone, but stopped when a sense of realization had hit him. “Oh, shit, silly me! I forgot that they're all fucking dead!”
“Trying to take down the Boss is practically suicide,” Illuso said. “Plenty of people have tried, but not a single soul has made it out alive. There's no point in us even risking our lives to do it. If we wanna live to see another light of day, it's best to just follow the orders he gives us and keep our mouths shut.”
“You're always on this revolution shit, Giorno,” Mista said. “Didn't I tell you? It's like biting the hand that feeds us.”
“But for them, it's biting the hand that starves them,” Giorno pointed out. “And regardless of whether or not people lost their lives trying to make a change, at least they can say they tried. Tell me, would all of you rather fight for a cause that you believe is just, or let yourselves perish like sick dogs?”
While Giorno downed the last of his martini, the others were left at a complete loss for words. His question had caused them to become pensive, and they spent some time silently pondering their answers— excluding Narancia, who had little to no clue of what the hell Giorno was even talking about— but the silence was lifted away from the table once Formaggio had found something to say.
“Well, how about this,” he scratched the side of his head. “First, let me teach you how to play poker. Then, while we're playing the game, we'll discuss whether or not we should consider having this little, uh... coup d'etat. Got me?”
With that, Formaggio began to give them a ten minute rundown on the essentials of a classic, all American game of Texas Hold'em. He started off by explaining the general setup, such as how many cards each player was allowed in a single hand and how each round would play out, and then went over the more complex rules of betting due to the fact that they weren't playing any ordinary poker game.
“On the count of us being fucking broke, here's what makes it a little more fun,” he said. “Each of us gets a shot glass. Betting is just the same; you either check, raise the bet, or fold. But, if you choose to fold, you have to take a shot. If you lose a round against someone else's hand of cards, you have to take a shot and you lose some of your chips. If you run outta chips, you're outta the fucking game, and you'll have to take a shot for losing the round, plus two more shots for losing all of your chips. The game will run until either one of us wins, or if we just get too goddamn drunk to keep playing. You got it? Good.”
He then discussed every ranking for each valuable hand in poker from lowest to the highest. Melone helped out by providing a visual representation of each type of hand with the deck of cards. Once Formaggio had finished giving them the breakdown, and once the others felt confident enough with the tutorial to play the game, Melone distributed their poker chips and shot glasses, shuffled the deck one more time, and began passing out the first set of hands for their entirely new game.
“Hey. You guys sure that kid over there don't wanna hop in?” Formaggio asked in regards to Fugo, who still had his eyes glued on the television screen hanging up in the corner of the bar.
“It's best to just let ol' Pannacotta do whatever the hell he wants,” said Narancia. “He's a little hotheaded, a little pazzo. ” The boy made a quick gesture by twiddling his index finger near his temple.
“I see,” Formaggio snorted. “Well, it's whatever. We'll just have fun without him!”
The two separate teams of gangsters spent the rest of their time at the bar getting well acquainted with one another. The longer their poker game lasted and the more shots of rum they would consume, the more their voices would gradually increase in volume, and what was once a serious conversation about the oppressive state of Passione turned into nothing but whooping, hollering, and useless, drunken banter. What Fugo once thought would have been the perfect chance to get away from his annoying comrades turned into yet another challenge as the table made much more of an uproar that Narancia and Mista couldn't have possibly done alone. While struggling to tune their voices out, he found himself wishing that they really did get kicked out of the bar, so that he could indulge himself with wine and soccer within the comfort of his own room.
Unfortunately for him, he was only stuck in a limbo of expecting to hear the cheers of the game's audience after each field goal, but instead having to listen to the abrupt shouting coming from the table full of drunkards. He, too, chose to succumb to his alcohol by asking for as many refills of wine his body could take, before he was too drunk to hear them in nothing but a distant blur and was too tired to lift his head up from its lolling state. Eventually, his head had become to heavy for him to keep upright, and as a result he had to watch the game sideways, with his cheek lying against the stained countertop, before he drifted off into a long nap.
Just as Formaggio said, the game would only end either if one of them won the entire match or if they were too wasted to continue, and the latter was what became the fate of their competition. Surprisingly enough, if the game would have ended properly then Narancia would have been their winner; out of the whole group of six he had the most chips and had taken the least amount of shots. But the rest of them were too tore up to go on anymore. Formaggio lost almost all of his motor control and vision, Giorno was hunched over the table and groaning every few minutes about not feeling too good, and Melone had completely passed out. Less than an hour ago they had been the life of the party, and now they were reduced to nothing but a bunch of wasted, mumbling fools.
To the bartender, that was a huge relief. Their ruckus resulted in incessant complaints from other patrons or made some of them vacate the bar entirely, which briefly killed business for the night. He wanted to intervene, but the possibility of him getting a cap in the ass still remained as a looming threat. Fortunately, business soon returned to usual as all of them calmed down enough for them to stop disturbing the peace. Until...
“Hey, we've all gotten comfortable with each other, right? Comfortable enough to... to show each other our Stands, yeah?” Formaggio brought the almost emptied bottle of rum to his lips, swallowed the very last bit of it, and carelessly tossed the bottle off to the side, paying no mind to the crash of glass that landed on the wall.
“Formaggioooo,” Illuso crooned, his head lolling on top of the redhead's. “You're asking that like... like showing each other's... like showing our Stands to each other is like... comparing the... our sizes of our dicks, or some sh— burrrrp!”
“What a way to make it fuckin’ weird, Illuso,” Formaggio mumbled somewhere towards Illuso's general direction, squinting as if it were too hard to find the assassin sitting right next to him.
“If we're showing Stands, I guess, uh... I’ll go first.” Mista spoke with his face lying right next to the mess of Melone's stiff body and disheveled hair, and in an instant he summoned his colony of six, tiny bullet shaped buddies, only to find out that they were just as trashed as he was. All of them were sprawled against the flap of his hat, one Pistol in the middle of trying to crawl its way over to his eyebrow.
“Meeeestaaaaaa!” the Pistol cried.
“Whaaaaaat?” Mista responded, trying his best to mock its whining tone in his state. “Which Pistol is this? Is it Number Five?”
“I’m starving, Mista!” said the Pistol, neglecting to answer his question. “I’m starving! Get me something to eat!”
“Damn.” Formaggio's eyes were just as narrow as before as he stared off in Mista's direction. “I can hardly see them, but your Stand sounds fucking annoying.”
“Fucking tell me about it,” Mista grumbled.
“Alright, my turn. Come on out, Little Feet.”
The very instant the robotic humanoid Stand materialized next to Formaggio, it somehow lost its footing, tumbled forward, and crashed into the table with a loud thud while trying to balance itself. As Little Feet collapsed to the floor, Formaggio groaned and clutched the sides of his body from the mighty fall his Stand took, and Illuso wheezed as he watched the entire event unfold under his crimson colored eyes.
“Fuck, that kinda hurt,” Formaggio croaked. “I keep forgetting I can't make it dance so well when I'm too fucking drunk.”
“Okay, I’ll go after one of you go,” Illuso said in the middle of his laughing, weakly lifting his hand up to point at Narancia and Giorno.
When Narancia glanced over at Giorno and heard him murmur, “I think I'm gonna vomit...” for the umpteenth time, he concluded that he probably didn't even notice that anybody was talking anymore, so the older boy summoned his Stand and allowed it to float idly in the air above him. “That’s my Stand, Aerosmith,” he introduced.
Formaggio was no longer squinting as he gazed up at the blurry aircraft with the utmost astonishment, a breathy “Woah” leaving his lips. Illuso acknowledged the Stand with what mostly appeared to be indifference, but one of his dark eyebrows rose as if he had even the slightest curiosity about it.
“...Your Stand is a fucking airplane?” he asked.
“Yup! A motherfucking airplane!” Narancia answered.
“So, what does it do?” Formaggio asked. “Is it like a, uh... A fighter jet?”
“Yeah, somethin' like that. It's got machine guns. And a bomb.”
“A bomb? It has a bomb? ” Illuso could have cared less about the Stand at first, but now that he knew it had a bomb he had become much more uncomfortable with its presence. “Hey, kid, I think you should—”
“Machine guns? Dude, that sounds fuckin' coooool!” Formaggio interrupted. “Hey, Narancia, do you think you can show me how they shoot?”
Per Formaggio's request (and without even thinking it over once), Narancia began readying the machine guns on Aerosmith. Mista had been distracted by the whines of his Stand and his heavily sedated body, but his eyes shot open when he heard the barrels of the machine guns begin to whirl, and he quickly jolted out of his slouched position to try and stop him before it was too late.
“Wait, Narancia, don't shoot the goddamn—!”
The sound of rapid gunfire rang through the building as Aerosmith unloaded some of its ammo into one of the walls of the bar. Thankfully, none of the bullets had rammed into anyone, but the sound of what seemed like a sudden shootout made the other remaining patrons shout with fright and immediately seek protective cover. It was loud enough to yank Melone out of his alcoholic coma, enough to kill Giorno's nausea, and enough for the napping Fugo to jump up and fall off of his stool.
That was their cue to leave.
Overall, they had a wonderful night together. Before the group of gangsters had gotten too drunk to see their cards, they took it upon themselves to exchange numbers with the slight chance that they could make plans to hang out again.
But, as of now, all of them were scrambling and tripping over their feet to leave the premises as fast as they could. There was no doubt in their minds that the police would be on their way, and though they were positive that nobody else in the bar were Stand users, they had already caused enough trouble for disturbing the peace, and none of them could afford to spend any time in jail.