Chapter Text
“Can we please address what the fuck is up with that guy already,” says Abbacchio, who looks to be in physical pain. “Like, I’m really tired of walking into a giant phoenix who glares at me with its horrifying sundial eyes.”
“Magician’s Red: Knight of Wands does as it pleases,” Avdol sniffs. “I have little control over it at this point. And I have told you all I know -”
“That is a fucking lie,” says Narancia. “You haven’t told me how you knew those lottery numbers.”
“It isn’t my fault that you were wrong.”
The turtle is a cozy home for Polnareff, but it becomes even cozier when you cram the entire gang (save the Don and his bodyguard) in there, plus one topic of conversation the size of an elephant.
The mysterious fortune-teller with a Requiem Stand had shown up one day and been allowed in, and that was just… that. Word got around of his presence eventually, but he disappeared and reappeared with the wind, and was basically a walking security risk.
One no one could do anything about, because Magician’s Red, Knight of Wands or not, was absolutely untouchable if it wanted to be, which it always did. Bruno was very tired of hearing Abbacchio shriek in the middle of the night because he’d seen it loitering in the hallway.
It’s not even that frightening. Just… very striking, one might say. And red. And glowing. And on fire. And massive. It’s a massive flaming bird-man and it’s going to scare you no matter how strong your nerves are when you walk up on it hunched over a turtle.
The two old men, because they’re old men compared to everyone here but Bruno feels decades older, murmur to each other in French. No one here speaks it, which is why they’re doing such a thing.
Now, Bruno knows a little more than everyone else, considering Magician’s Red is the reason he’s alive, but he’s been asked to keep quiet about it, and he isn’t going to break a promise. Even though he definitely already has, to Abbacchio. (He can keep no secrets from Leone, and Leone from him. They know each other too well.)
“I suppose I do owe you an explanation,” Avdol says at length. Bruno breathes a sigh of relief. “But it is quite a long story.”
“Just tell it,” says Fugo, leaning against the opposite wall of Mr. President. “We have time.”
“Mista’ll get the explanation as well,” says Bruno, for everyone’s benefit. He wants to make it clear that otherwise, this will not leave this room, but it will be getting to Mista. He isn’t the boss, but as capo, he still has an important role. Giorno can be the Don. Bruno will handle the things he always has - the people of Napoli and his family.
“Of course.” Avdol scratches his chin. “Where to begin…”
“The beginning?” Abbacchio suggests dryly.
“It really does depend on where you think that is, but - fine. The beginning.”
__
We were assigned together after a great journey.
“So… we’re sticking together on this one, right?”
Avdol looks over at Polnareff from the safety and comfort of the last hotel bed he’ll be in for hopefully a time exceeding one thousand years. (He’ll be on the road again in a matter of weeks, he knows - Avdol has always had a wanderer’s spirit.) The question seems to escape him, so clearly, the best option is to just stare until Polnareff clarifies.
Polnareff is used to not being understood, so he says it again. “I mean, we don’t have to. I’m just… I figured we had kind of an unspoken agreement.”
Oh fuck. Unspoken agreements are kind of Avdol’s worst nightmare. He and Jotaro both have problems with them, and have, on occasion, bonded over it, mostly by nervously looking at each other and whispering about how things should just be said when people want them said. Avdol’s better at it than Jotaro, though, poor sap. He had no idea he and Kakyoin had a morning ritual until he accidentally went against it and they both freaked out for no reason they could understand, and then Avdol had to fix it without Joseph figuring out what was going on, and then it was a whole nightmare.
“Hm?” he says, and then, because he is really quite clever, “Which one?”
“Well - I think saying it makes it just a normal agreement,” Polnareff mutters, “but I was thinking we’d, uh. Stick together, after this.”
… Oh! That’s fine! He got all worried over nothing. “So did I?” he says, vaguely amused. “Was there a time I implied otherwise?”
“Yeah,” says Polnareff, clearly relieved, “yeah, no, you didn’t.”
“Will you be working with the Speedwagon Foundation?” he asks, because Avdol probably will on retainer. He’s good with helping new Stand users, he likes to do it, and he feels responsible for the ones he can’t help. The Speedwagon Foundation does a great job of finding the stand users and completely fucking up once they do. It seems like, perhaps, they would do well to work together. “I think I could be fairly reliable backup.”
“Oh, yeah, fairly,” Polnareff starts, and Avdol is pleased, because this means that he’s about to do that thing where he compliments him, but pretends to complain. Avdol likes it when he does that. He claps his metal hands together, politely. “Like you didn’t save my ass time and time again after whooping it so hard I almost died.”
“I did do that,” Avdol agrees, with a smile.
“... You’re such a card.”
Their time with the Speedwagon Foundation was… something. Polnareff chased leads, Avdol advised him where to go, and neither of them acknowledged how little time they liked to spend away from each other.
They got together properly without really ever admitting it to each other, much less anyone else. Polnareff snuck in Avdol’s room sometimes to make sure he was still there. Avdol let Polnareff help him with his prosthetics when Magician’s Red could just as well do it himself. Their stands lean on each other in quiet moments. Looking back, it was very obvious how wrapped up in each other they were.
They fought frequently, both sparring and simple disagreements, but never about the things that mattered. Quite odd, it was. How moving someone’s cards could become a massive issue, while breaking a hand didn’t even feel like an inconvenience.
__
“No offense,” says Narancia, “but I didn’t ask how you guys got hitched, I want to know who the fuck you are and why you live in our house.”
“Oh,” says Avdol. And then, “Are you sure? It is very cute.”
“He’s doing this on purpose. Babe, the real beginning,” says Polnareff, resting one semisolid hand on Avdol’s. It’s very gay. Bruno smiles, thinly, and scoots a little closer to Abbacchio. He’s always a little cool, but he’s still warmer than Bruno’s hands - turns out, unzipping your body at every opportunity is not amazing for one’s circulation (a fact he must never let Leone know, on pain of death.)
___
It wasn’t by any means a quiet life, but it was the one they had, and it turned out well for them.
Until. There’s always an until.
Those that gained new Stands were always Polnareff and Avdol’s focus - everyone’s focus, save Jotaro, whose focus was school. Yes, they could have used him, but Avdol threatened and swore and Kakyoin’s dear Hierophant nearly strangled a man after finding out he’d been sent out alone to fight a group of twelve and just hope for the best. The Speedwagon Foundation could rely on others that were not a child. Sure, he survived, but the cost was notable in the way Jotaro woke up every hour on the hour, making sure nothing was waiting to ambush him, making sure he wasn’t in danger.
Jotaro was special to them both. He was young. And hurt, of course. His Nonno always got him out of his shell, but they didn’t live together, so he spent more time stuck like an oyster than not, and Avdol hated having to shuck him out. Especially once he became a father.
The call came one day, but Avdol didn’t take it. Polnareff did, as Polnareff always does. Avdol only got the full story later, as he was packing, even, that same night.
“What is all this,” Avdol had asked. And that started it.
“I’m packing,” says Polnareff, as if Avdol wasn’t fully fucking aware that was what he was doing. Of course Avdol can tell he’s packing - packing for one hell of a trip, as he’s taking mostly clothes that can be folded as small as a pack of cigarettes and a thousand things of hair gel. To Avdol, it looks like he’s fleeing.
Avdol tamps down his temper, and then does it again, because it didn’t quite stick the first time. His temper has never been smooth, but boy, is it roiling at the moment. Polnareff can surely tell, and that must be why he takes so long to answer. Avdol can wait. Avdol can be patient.
Avdol can’t be patient. “Oh, you’re packing - thank you, Jean-Pierre, for the update. Packing for where. For what. Because I was unsure, you see. We didn’t have anything planned as far as I knew.”
Polnareff says nothing, because Polnareff is a coward.
Avdol takes a seat on the bed and takes the pair of too-thin-to-be-worn-anymore slacks from Polnareff’s still fingers. He folds in a pair of underwear and two skinny socks, starts rolling the whole pack to a little cylinder no bigger than three fingers. It’s better done than Polnareff’s. He generally packs more, because he’s better at it and he can fit more in.
So, when he isn’t asked to, it’s for a reason.
“How long have you known you were going?” Avdol settles on, starting on some actual clothes instead of scraps masquerading as nightwear.
“An hour and a half,” Polnareff says, having stopped folding clothes (good) to look at Avdol. “Maybe hour-forty-five, by now.”
“Good.” There’s a beat, as he starts rolling again, metal fingers clinking as he did his best to brace his thumbs against the swell of fabric. “It’s about a group.”
Polnareff doesn’t respond, which is response enough. Avdol considers leaving. Letting him go on the kind of trip that could kill him alone. But then, that was never an option - that’s why Polnareff didn’t tell him. Avdol was always going to go.
“Where are you going?”
“Mmh.”
“Europe?”
“Yes.”
“Eastern?” A noise of dissent. “Mediterranean?”
“... Yeah,” Polnareff says, slowly starting to lean onto the bed, like he’s about to collapse. Something in his eyes, in the clothes he’s packing.
“Italy or Spain?”
Polnareff looks at Avdol, a moment, like he’s been shot. “Italy,” he mumbles. “How do you always do this?”
“It’s my job. Buy another ticket, I’m coming with you.”
Polnareff would squawk if Avdol hadn’t planted a hand in his chest and shoved him off the bed. He’d finish packing, and Polnareff would buy another ticket, and whatever they were doing, they’d do it together, and Avdol wouldn’t have to sit in this empty house and stare away from the guest bedroom that would hold nothing forever.
So no, Jotaro did not get to take the assignment. Jotaro got to stay with his family, and Kakyoin got to meet their surrogate, and Polnareff went to Italy.
And Avdol came, too, because he wasn’t busy.
(Wasn’t busy because the child had fallen through, again, because no one wanted a child to live with two men, because they wouldn’t be home enough, because he wasn’t fit to father -)
__
“Wait,” says Polnareff. “You don’t - that’s why you came with me?”
Avdol purses his lips. “... Kind of,” he decides, instead of lying, and Bruno can tell that isn’t a choice he’d normally have made. He must be getting tired by explaining so much. Avdol doesn’t strike him as a man who has a lot of patience for explaining himself.
“We both knew the adoption wasn’t going to go great, babe, it was just a long shot -”
“You guys tried to adopt?” asks Narancia, and Bruno can taste the change in the air. “Like, a kid?”
“Yeah, we wanted a family - Avdol, I had no idea -”
“These young fellows don’t need to hear this,” snaps Avdol, suddenly. “Let’s not.”
They stare at each other, a moment, and Polnareff puts his hand on Avdol’s knee. Bruno shifts, a little, watches how skittish Fugo looks, how sharp Leone’s eyes have gotten. Everyone knows this isn’t something they should watch, but no one will look away.
Except Narancia. Sweet, clever Narancia, who’s maybe the quickest of all of them when it comes to social cues, and who immediately goes to the two, completely pushing aside the awkwardness in favor of taking a running start and leaping onto Avdol. To Avdol’s credit, Narancia is not incinerated instantly.
“Well, that’s fucking stupid!” they cry, slinging their arms around his neck. “You’re way better than my dad, and he was straight.”
Polnareff looks like he’s been kicked in the stomach. Avdol, partially flattened under a young person with more bones than three others their size, just looks confusedly up at the ceiling.
Fugo clears his throat. “You seem fine,” he offers. It’s stilted.
“Get off him,” hisses Leone, leaning forwards toward Narancia.
“No,” Narancia hisses back, as Avdol’s hands find their way out from under them. The hands waver in the air, a moment, and then pat between Narancia’s shoulderblades. “He doesn’t mind!”
“He does so, get off him! He’s trying to explain a very sensitive topic -”
“You all,” Narancia nearly shouts, “are just going to tiptoe around it, and that’s boring and stupid! He doesn’t want to talk about it and I don’t either! So I’m gonna give him a hug, and Polnareff is gonna take his big fat nose out of Mr. Avdol’s business, and later we can not tiptoe around it! It can get talked about when he feels like it. Without the stupid dancing around it like it’s gonna bite!” Their arms tighten around Avdol, sliding off to the side of him so his (very surprised) face is visible. “He’s a cool guy, and his Stand rocks, and he gives me lottery numbers, so let’s shut up and let him talk about the shit he actually wants to talk about!”
There’s a silence, for a moment, broken by Narancia’s ragged breathing and Leone’s heartbeat. Bruno can hear it thrum through his body - a little too fast, testament to how surprised he is. It’s the stress. He puts a hand, flat, on the small of Leone’s back.
Bruno starts to voice his support, but Fugo beats him to it.
“He’s right,” he says. As Bruno looks at him, he takes note of his white-knuckled grip on his own upper arms, the determined set of his jaw. “There are - some things people don’t want to talk about. Even when they’re relevant. So let’s all shut up and get on with the actual explanation.”
When they first met, Fugo wouldn’t even have had the ability to say that without exploding. He’s come so far - they all have - and Bruno is struck by how proud he is, especially as Leone leans back against his hand, visibly drops the topic he’d once have harried at like a terrier with a raccoon tail. And Fugo just brushes through, cuts the tension, and starts the conversation again. Bruno feels as if he may cry.
“Let’s,” Bruno agrees. “We were in the beginning?”
Avdol laughs, sitting up and letting Narancia slide down so their head is in his lap. He pets them like a cat.
“No,” he corrects, voice rich, but taut with tension. “Now we’re at the end.”