Chapter Text
They were there for a meeting. That was all that he knew. They were supposed to have been there by 6:15. That was all they were told. But after he pulled down his sleeve and unsheathed his wristwatch from the cuff of his blazer, the hands of time had told him that it was almost a quarter till seven.
A quarter till seven, and their Capo still hadn’t arrived. Risotto Nero was unfashionably late.
Being a Caporegime didn’t necessarily make him any less human than the rest of them. There were a couple of occasions where Risotto had found himself running a few minutes late, turning up with quick apologies over the small matters that would have delayed his arrival. But Risotto being nearly thirty minutes late was very unusual— concerning, even, for someone who constantly stressed proper time management to his subordinates.
“Time is money,” he would often mumble to them whenever they turned up tardy. To further reiterate the proverb, he would no longer mention the occurrence and would jump straight into business.
Now the tables have turned, and the seconds that ticked by phased into each minute that tacked onto Risotto’s tardiness. The thirty minute mark soon turned to thirty-one, then thirty-two, then thirty-three, and so on. But watching the time go by did nothing to set him at ease, so rather than continuing to fret over the prolonged absence of his leader, he pondered over something else that he could occupy himself with.
To cure their boredom, his fellow men were discussing miscellaneous topics that Prosciutto didn’t care enough to get involved with. He reckoned a cool cigarette could help calm his nerves instead, and as he grabbed a stick from the nearly empty pack in his pocket, he thought about stopping by the convenience store on his way home to purchase another. He placed the cigarette between his lips, hoping that he wouldn’t forget.
“Alright guys, which one do you think came first? The chicken or the egg?”
The click of Prosciutto’s Zippo lighter could be slightly heard over the question that left Formaggio’s lips. After sparking a flame, he guided the fire towards the end of his cigarette, waiting for it to catch before releasing his thumb from the wheel. He then closed his Zippo and dropped it back into the front pocket of his blazer. The bright burn of the cigarette had diminished a few seconds before he exhaled the smoke from his nostrils.
Sorbet and Gelato, the dubbed lovebirds of La Squadra di Esecuzione, sat in the recliner opposite to Risotto's own. Gelato napped soundlessly in his partner's lap, and Sorbet appeared to have been preparing to join him in his dreams before Formaggio made his query. Shortly afterward, Sorbet’s lids were no longer narrowed, and the rise of an eyebrow had followed.
“Formaggio, I have a better question,” he said, yawning as he spoke. “No, actually, I have two better questions. Where the hell is this coming from, and why the fuck is it important?”
“I mean, it’s not that important,” Formaggio said, shrugging his shoulders. “It’s only a hypothetical.”
“That’s not even what ‘hypothetical’ means,” Melone uttered over the constant pitter-patter of his fingers hitting the laptop keys. “The question of whether the chicken or the egg came first is actually a dilemma.”
“Umm...” Formaggio’s eyes briefly averted elsewhere, his thick fingers reaching up to scratch at his head. “Okay, well I’m just asking a... dilemmic question, Sorbet. Which do you—”
“Dilemmic isn’t a fucking word, you imbecile,” Ghiaccio interjected. He had been wiping his glasses down with a silver colored cloth, and he gave them one last look over before he placed them back over his eyes. “The more you speak, the more you make it evident that you need to be sent back to fucking primary school.”
Formaggio shot his hands up in his defense. “Whoa, okay, my fucking bad! I apologize for being so damn improper! I mean, what the hell else am I supposed to say, Blue?”
“Just call it a dilemma,” offered Melone.
“That’s what I just did, but Ghiaccio said it was wrong,” Formaggio argued.
The sound of the keys clicking under his fingers had ceased before Melone looked up and away from the screen, a small sigh leaving him. “Formaggio, you called it a ‘dilemmic question,’ not a dilemma,” he said, his eyes slightly narrowing. “Dilemmic isn’t a word. Call it a dilemma.”
Formaggio huffed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He had just about enough of their nitpicking and chose to disregard the tangent altogether. “Alright, whatever the fuck the question is— who even gives a shit?— just fucking answer it, for Christ’s sake.” He moved his hand away from his face and took a gander around the room. “Now, let me ask you all again. Which came first: the chicken or the egg?”
“Egg,” Sorbet answered, ending the brief silence that followed Formaggio’s echo.
“Well... I think the chicken came first,” Pesci spoke up.
“What you think is bullshit,” Sorbet retorted, and he sneered as Pesci flinched under his scorn. “The egg had to have come first, genius. If not, then where the hell did the chicken come from?”
“The chicken came from God,” Illuso chimed in, his answer dripping with sarcasm. “Everything aside, this conversation is giving me cravings for some chicken parmigiana. Do you guys think Risotto would cook for us if we asked? I don’t have a lot of food left at home.”
“I dunno,” Formaggio replied. “I mean, he only called us here for a meeting. Not sure how he’d feel if we randomly started asking him to cook dinner for us. But back to the question at hand. Which do you think came first, Lu? Chicken or egg?”
“I say the egg,” Illuso responded. “Sorbet has a good point. A chicken can’t just pop up out of buttfucking nowhere without the first egg.”
“Then let me ask you this,” Formaggio went on with a smirk. “If the egg came first, then where did the first egg actually come from?”
Illuso had opened his mouth to speak, but he slowly shut it once he found that he had no probable answer, and another moment of silence fell over the room, save for the clacking of Melone’s keyboard. Formaggio looked at Sorbet for an answer, but the assassin had done nothing but shrug his shoulders, and Pesci was no more help than him, giving him nothing but an awkward stare in return.
“Prosciutto?” The blond regarded the redhead with a quirked brow. “You’ve been mighty quiet over there, old man. What do you think? Where did the first egg come from?”
“I don’t care,” Prosciutto answered flatly.
“Neither do I,” Melone acquiesced. “There’s an actual answer to this question, but I couldn’t care less enough to involve myself with something so simplistic.”
Formaggio rolled his eyes at that. “Melone, do you ever mind digging your head out of your own ass for once?” he jested.
“Why, yes, Formaggio,” Melone said, playing along with his insult. “I actually do mind.”
“I just don’t care in general,” Prosciutto reiterated. “I honestly can’t bring myself to give two shits about the first egg that happened to pop out of the first hen’s ass. I’m more concerned about this meeting and what’s taking our Capo so long to get here.”
“...Oh. Then I see.” The bright screen of his laptop illuminated his grin. “After all, it is natural to be concerned about someone you love.”
“Get that damn smirk off of your face,” Prosciutto barked. “Nobody said anything about loving anybody. I just want this meeting to be done and dealt with so I can go home and get some rest.”
“Why are you getting so offended? I never implied you loved him in that light. You can love your Capo just the same as you love your protege.”
“You implied it when you gave me that shit eating grin.”
“Actions are actions, but a reaction is also a reaction,” Melone noted. “The way you reacted to my smile implies much more than the smile itself. Nobody will ever play you harder than the way you just played yourself, my dear. Try to remember that before you make any more assumptions.”
Melone’s statement roused quite a few giggles out of some of the others, but Prosciutto was nowhere near amused. He scowled at Melone as he pinched the butt of his cigarette, drawing it away from his lips. “I advise you stop fucking with me, Melone,” he warned.
“Fucking with you?” Melone smiled once more. “But in order to be fucking with you, I’d have to be—”
“I won’t hesitate to turn this entire room into a graveyard if you don’t shut your fucking mouth.”
Melone’s smirk immediately shifted into a frown, and as he looked up from the screen, he glared right into Prosciutto’s taut eyes. Everyone else had turned their heads towards Prosciutto’s threat, and they could feel the air in the room growing thicker by every passing second. But Melone did not seem phased by Prosciutto’s words at all, and the tone of his next statement was so monotonous that it had been leering.
“Oh, I’m frightened.”
“Alright, amici miei!” Formaggio called on them with a nervous laugh. “Let’s just calm down, you hear? I really think you’re starting to scare the bitches.” He had been referring to Pesci as “the bitches,” even gestured towards him, because he was the only one who seriously looked like he was getting ready to shit his own pants from Prosciutto’s aimless remark, but Prosciutto and Melone maintained their hard gazes on one another as if nothing had been said. “We should go back to discussing the chicken and egg shit,” Formaggio suggested. “That should bring the peace back into the room.”
“I’m already calm,” Melone mumbled. Following Formaggio’s advice, however, he made no further remark about the subject and let his eyes fall back onto his laptop screen.
“Like I said, I don’t care for this conversation.” Prosciutto brought the cigarette back to his lips. “I just want to get this meeting over with already.”
“Well, this shit ain’t over ‘til Riz says it’s over,” Formaggio said, “and Riz isn’t even here to start it. Until then, you’re just gonna have to hang tight.”
Prosciutto pulled on his sleeve to check the time again. 6:57. “That doesn’t mean I’m obligated to get involved in some foolish debate about chickens and eggs,” he said, fixing the cuff back over his wrist.
There was a delay before Formaggio scoffed and shook his head in reply, murmuring, “Man, I swear,” as an aside that Prosciutto wasn’t meant to hear. But the blond heard it anyway, and his brows furrowed at the remark.
“What’s that, Formaggio?”
“Nothing. Just forget about it,” he said, laughing and waving it off. “No, but can somebody answer my question already? If there was no chicken, then where would the egg have come from?”
“God, Formaggio. The egg came from God. End of story. Now, can we please move on to something that isn’t making me so damn hungry?” Illuso implored.
Before Formaggio could assemble another humoring topic of discussion, they suddenly heard the distant creak of the hideout’s front door. There was the sound of footsteps passing the threshold before the door had been closed with a gentle slam, and the man’s steps seemed to grow heavier as he gradually approached the debriefing room.
“There’s the man of the hour,” Formaggio said. His focus fell on the door that was located behind the couple’s recliner. “I wonder what he thinks about the chicken-egg debate.”
“I wonder what he’ll think about the chicken parmigiana,” Illuso said to himself more than anybody else.
The twist of the doorknob followed Prosciutto’s snort, and once the door itself swung open, Formaggio had opened his mouth to greet his Capo and ask him about his opinion over the dilemma of eggs and chickens. But his face had fallen when Risotto’s paled frame limped into the room, his forehead full of sweat and his eye squeezed shut, with his palm clenched over the blood spilling out of his left shoulder. The visible parts of his chest had been riddled with gashes and scrapes. A separate wound in his thigh had already stained his striped trousers with crimson red.
The assassins then broke out into a frenzy. Prosciutto started shouting orders at them, and Melone nearly dropped his laptop as he rushed to help his Capo. The commotion was enough to stir Gelato from his nap, but he didn’t even have time to process his surroundings before he had been standing alongside the others, helping them carry their wounded and bleeding Capo to lie down on one of the sofas.
But Risotto was too tall to fit on every cushion, so his feet were left dangling on top of the arm of the couch, and his recumbency seemed very uncomfortable for him. When Melone suggested they take him to one of the spare bedrooms, Prosciutto immediately ordered them to help Risotto back up to his feet, and they all led him back out of the debriefing room, out into the dark hallway, and into the first bedroom they came across. After getting him situated onto the large bed, they removed almost every article of his clothing to access most of the damage, leaving him in nothing but his bloody trousers.
“Gelato, stop dawdling and go get the damn medical supplies!” Prosciutto commanded. In Gelato’s half languid and half frightened daze, he nodded and ran out of the room to retrieve all of the supplies they had stored in their medicine cabinet.
“I think I’m gonna pass out,” Pesci whined. For the greater good, Prosciutto chose to ignore him.
“How the hell did this even happen?!” Formaggio shouted.
Risotto’s response only came out as a garble of words and phrases before he coughed up a few more specks of his blood. Gelato soon returned with his arms full of medical supplies: scissors, gauzes, bandages, antiseptics, and a few bottles of medicines. He set everything down on the nightstand beside the bed before taking several steps backward, as if he had no clue on what he was supposed to do.
To be fair, none of them knew what they were supposed to do. They did nothing but gaze at their Capo’s wounded body, practically paralyzed by what they saw— excluding Ghiaccio, who had begun to pace across the room with his hands on the side of his head and his teeth grinding against each other. He paced a couple of more times before he abruptly stopped, and then he decided to direct all of his fear and frustrations onto Melone.
“You’re the fucking doctor here!” he screeched at him. “Do something!”
“Ghiaccio, I studied to be an obstetrician, not a fucking surgeon,” Melone corrected. “I’d appreciate it if you would stop fucking shouting at me.”
“What the fuck even is an obstetrician?!” Formaggio growled.
“It’s another word for a fucking gynecologist,” Sorbet answered. “Last time I checked, Risotto isn’t a transsexual, so Melone’s no fucking use for this shit.”
“Out of all the things medical fields you could’ve pursued, you just had to be a fucking pussy doctor, eh Melone?” Illuso sneered.
Melone seemed appalled by Illuso’s comment. “Illuso, our Capo is fucking dying, for Christ’s sake, and you really think this is the time for jokes?”
“Well isn’t this just fucking great?” Ghiaccio seethed. “Eight motherfucking assassins, and none of us have a proper fucking medical degree!”
“Screaming about it isn’t gonna help a goddamn thing, Blue!” Formaggio shouted at him. “Since you fucking know everything, how about you help him?”
“I don’t see you doing fuck shit either, Red!” Ghiaccio shot back.
“I’m starting to feel sick,” Pesci whimpered over their babbling.
It didn’t take long for Prosciutto to reach his absolute limit. He couldn’t stop clenching his jaw, his ears were starting to ring, and his fingers were rubbing at his temples as he tried to tune out their incessant bickering. But they were doing nothing— none of them were doing anything — while their Capo had been left bleeding and trembling on the bed in front of them. His once ferocious eyes looked helpless in that very moment, as if his team were doing nothing but letting him down, and before he even realized it, Prosciutto had already snapped.
“Shut the fuck up!”
Their arguing had ceased the instant he yelled out into the room. His palms had balled into fists at the sides of his face, and his protruding teeth almost tore through the skin of his bottom lip.
“You all are fucking useless!” he yelled, turning to face the other assassins. “You’re fucking insufferable! You’re fucking idiots! I’ve had it with each and every one of you! Our Capo is dying as we fucking speak, and instead of grabbing some of the fucking supplies and cleaning his wounds, you’re too incompetent to do nothing but argue over his fucking deathbed! This meeting is officially fucking dismissed! Leave and get the fuck out of my sight!”
For a moment, the rest of them were left utterly speechless by Prosciutto’s outburst, and there was nothing but the sound of Risotto hacking up more of his blood until Formaggio tried to speak against his command.
“Look, Prosciutto, I-I don’t think you can do this alone!” he spluttered. “He’s in really bad shape, we all should try and help out!”
“Yeah? Well look where trying to rely on all of you fucking got me! I’m not going to fucking repeat myself, Formaggio! Get out!”
And so the assassins did exactly what they were told. They slowly filed out of the room before they left the hideout altogether, their nerves still completely wracked from the scene that had been set out before them. Prosciutto locked the door immediately after their departure, and he felt almost nothing but despair as he turned around to face his declining Capo. His throat was dry, his hands were clammy, but he had been thankful that Risotto managed to survive long enough to be able to get to their hideout. Prosciutto prayed that his Capo would survive to see another light of day.