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The clip of the streetlights, a beat. The way some were orange, then turned to white, washing over the ridges of the car. The ins, outs, of its insides Bruno had stared at for so long he couldn’t see anymore. The worn down metal curves of the dash, disappearing into the plastic; scratches marking time and tale; the dent of something thrown, the line of a bullet, skimmed; to the build up of hanging air fresheners, new bouncing against old, shapes that were just paper now. Their purpose lost.
He ran his thumb over the steering wheel, catching the stitch. Lately, it had begun to unwind.
“You missed the turn,” drawled Abbacchio, stretching his leg back up onto the dash. He didn’t look away from the window as he spoke. But Bruno turned, catching his reflected eyes. Uncaring. As they passed by, and on. Wheels turning over an unasked stretch of road, littered in streetlight and unexpected expectation.
It was a statement, not an accusation. A commentary on what was unravelling beneath Bruno’s hands; Abbacchio a passenger in seat, and situation.
“You miss turns a lot, lately,” said Abbacchio, staring back at his reflection, to Bruno, who he could feel watch him, more than the road, for a moment too long.
Bruno turned away. “Lot of shit on my mind.”
“What’s new.” Abbacchio turned back around in his seat, both feet back up on the dash as he watched the road ahead. Quiet. Late. Feeling the old tyres pull the rumble of the road heavily through to the car. A rhythmic drone. A vibrato that grew louder, the heavier the pedal. And Bruno pressed harder. Seemingly with no intent to turn back around to correct his mistake.
Bruno stretched his hands over the wheel. Thumbs tracing the stitches, rolling over the frayed edge that had broken. “Could do with something new,” said Bruno, side eyeing Abbacchio, watching a pulse of streetlight wash over his profile, so perfectly outlined in orange and dark. His lips almost the night, painted in black.
Abbacchio turned, watching the slide of Bruno’s hand from steering wheel, to gearstick. A spread of fingers, nails tipped gold. His pinky almost brushed Abbacchio’s thigh, nail scratching a line. Abbacchio spread his legs. A little more. “Isn’t that all you do?” Abbacchio watched Bruno’s head tilt up a little at that. Eyes still on the road. “Feet first. Blind. Chasing something new, a risk, like a high. Because you just won't snort a line.” Abbacchio smirked, seeing the clench in Bruno’s jaw at that.
“That what you think of me?”
“There’s a lot I think of you.”
Lips parted in reply, but nothing came out. Eyes to the road. Orange, then not. Sometimes white. As they drove. Wheels turning on the concrete, as they sped through the city, to its edges, ascending up the hills, winding around corners one handed. Bruno knew this road as well as he knew himself. This city spilling its secrets to him.
A sharp turn. A shift in gear. And Bruno’s hand brushed against Abbacchio’s leg, as it slipped off the gearstick, knuckles dragging against black jeans. Tight.
“Where are we going?” said Abbacchio at last, pressing his knee against Bruno’s touch, hanging off the stick.
“I’d say somewhere new, but it’s not for me.” He caught Abbacchio’s eyes, different in the night. The purple almost black like his lips, sunken. The amber, pulled out. To be a star. “New for you.” Two fingers, to his knee. “Us.”
Abbacchio pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth.
“You know we gotta finish this job, right?” The remains of it were on his clothes. Bloodied. A spray, as he’d stood too close to Bruno (was it an instinct, or was it part of the job. Or was everything just blurring into one, now. Since that night, dragged by a hand he didn’t want. But did. Fucking entitled prick thinking he can step in and do anything he wants - but maybe he can. He’s got the gall. The grace. The fucking power to rip open space. To see oblivion-). The gun was still tucked into Bruno’s back as he drove. It never left his side until the job clicked done. It was less messy with his stand. But the feeling of iron, to skin; of bullet and blood-
-Abbacchio understood.
And so did the streets.
Bruno ran his thumb over the thread on the steering wheel again. “Who says we won’t.”
Bruno pulled up the car to a spot, high on the hills overlooking Naples. Half a mile away from the tourist traps. The cafes, the car parks littered with their shit, the roads and paths tread with their prints. Here, was his own slice of beauty. Tucked beneath branches. Amongst foliage, dipped down by wheels (more than once. Who else had he brought here before?), to a hang of peace, sucked away from the city below they called home, work, life-
Ignition, off. But on enough that the music still played, the dull orange from the stereo the only light. It sometimes reminded Bruno of the other half of Abbacchio’s eyes. Amber. The halfway between stop; go. A suspension of decision. Of time. Bruno was guilty of both, far too much than he wanted. A bad habit, picked up from the reminder in Abbacchio’s eyes? Or was that just an excuse, so he didn’t have to blame himself for purgatory.
Bruno unwound the windows and stepped out of the car, letting the music filter out to their solitude. A vista, over the city. Pews of streets for cars. Back, forth, lit for the night. For pedestrians, too small to see up here, lost, to the night. Everything crowned, pointed towards the sea. Ink black, reflecting the jewel of the moon, cut uneven; the swathe of stars, long dead to mortal eyes. A pretender of beauty lingering, as they looked up.
Sometimes Bruno understood that. Something long dead behind beauty. Obscured. Hidden. Forgotten.
And he knew Abbacchio did too. But it had never been an omission on his tongue. Just silent, in his eyes. A touch, before. But never enough to really speak. But that was also something they both sometimes understood too - the desire to say nothing. Nothing at all.
Bruno sat on the bonnet of the car. An old BMW. Black. Dented and keyed too many times over. And lit a cigarette. Abbacchio slid next to him, pulling another cigarette from the pack.
“You got good taste in cigs at least,” said Abbacchio as he leaned in to light his off of Bruno’s, the swathe of his white hair pooling to a curl atop the bonnet, at Bruno’s hip.
Bruno inhaled, letting his end burn bright, as Abbachio held his cigarette; his position; his eyes. Colour now, both lost to the dark. He exhaled, painting Abbacchio grey, lines of smoke slithering through parted strands of hair. So white, in the night.
“It’s lit,” said Bruno, staring at Abbacchio, still lingering so close, the smoke curling from their cigarettes twisting together, up, and away. Into nothing.
Abbacchio inhaled deeply. And exhaled. Giving back what Bruno had just given, watching his own cloud of smoke glide over Bruno’s brown skin, picking out a scar here. There. Uniformed in the teeth of his zippers, once yawned into a galaxy, or simply below. To blood, and bone. He stared at one in particular. Curved around Bruno’s upper arm. Messy. As if he’d run a zipper around there several times to sever, or extend, his arm. But not quite catching the same track each time.
Bruno said nothing as he stared. Just watched. Until he pulled away, and sat back. Eyes back to the city.
The music changed -
-Closer - Kings of Leon, crawled the walls, the floors, washing over bodies that moved in rhythm, limbs painted in neon and strobe, in gentle, in sensual, touching others in the basement of this sweaty club. Feet scratching over the concrete. Fingers catching. Eyes, blinded behind lids. To drugs and drink; to bliss and lust.
Bruno was alone. Feeling like he stood at the epicentre of everything, with everyone, their hands palmed against his skin. Starlit in sweat. Lace printed against his chest in lines, the only thing he wore above, with his fishnets below, his shorts, so short, tight, he wondered why he bothered. But no-one cared here. And that’s why he bared, here.
That’s why he breathed, here.
A pause. Bruno felt a body behind him, press. Writing its shape, against his.
A sink, back.
A glide of fingers rolled against his bare arms, painting lines through the starlight of sweat, and down, catching, in the end, the way Bruno’s fingers moved to the slow rock of rhythm.
Bruno twisted his fingers around their hand, long, black nails catching skin. The cut of his bob, half pulled up in a ponytail, brushed against the unknown as he leaned back - giving more of himself, everytime he moved with the music, with them. His eyes were still closed, lost to sensuality. To sense.
Breath in. Sharp. As their hand spread across Bruno’s side. His naked stomach, and the way it rolled, with the way he moved. Catching the edge of his lace, across skin and shine, catching the gem on his belly button they couldn’t see. But felt. A thumb, etched it to sight. Pressing into pad the way the metal and gem felt. Hot.
They flicked it.
A dip of his head. To their neck. Lost, to a swathe of hair. Long. Silk. Known.
A turn -
“Bruno?” whispered in drunken surprise.
Eyes opened. Piecing together the blackened purple. The shade of amber that painted a pause - and Bruno held Abbacchio’s eyes, begging him to let this be nothing more than purgatory. Touch. Stuck to the floor, eyes closed, wrapped in arms you didn’t know, to a beat you did.
And turned away.
They’d never talked about that night, colliding in a place they could lock the moment away, and pretend it was something that had only existed somewhere else. Between the zippers that Bruno pulled; beneath the rewind on Moody Blues; in a dream.
Abbacchio looked up, and with a smokey touch, a hesitation, dragged two fingers across Bruno’s hand.
“Of course I remember,” whispered Bruno, the words so quiet, Abbacchio had to hold his breath.
“Sometimes I wanted to apologise for leaving right after, saying nothing-”
Bruno exhaled another cloud of smoke, shivering as Abbacchio’s fingers counted his knuckles (three, four- his nails were shorter tonight. But still painted black.) “Why? That’s what I wanted.” He held the cigarette just before his lips. Hovering. “And you.”
Between knuckles, fingers slid. They were warm that night too. But that was circumstance, wasn’t it. Closeness and confine. Too many bodies and movement. Intoxication and desire, wrapped within four walls that seemed to steadily close in with every breath they took. Quicker, quicker-
Bruno’s teeth caught his bottom lip.
“Do you go there often?” asked Abbacchio, watching their hands ball to a gentle fist. Moonlight dipping in and out the dents and angles of bone and scars.
Bruno shrugged, crossing a leg over the other. “When I have the time, and I want to let loose around people I don’t know.” Another draw.
“Why not around people you do?” Abbacchio’s legs were spread atop the bonnet. Knee touching their hands that somehow didn’t want to stay still. The roll of fingers beside, touching. The twist of Bruno’s hand, so it was palm up, instead of down.
So he could feel.
A small laugh through the smoke. “You of all people are asking me that?” A touch of thumb, to knuckle. An arch of Bruno’s back, letting a ray of moonlight touch his chest, catching another belly button ring. Simpler, than that night. At least Abbacchio thought, from what he’d touched. Not seen. “It’s the anonymity. The touch - the look - of someone who knows nothing about you.” A flick of ash. A deep draw in. And he held it. Then out, eyes closed. “Being known changes how it feels - how you feel. Like every fingertip, every brush of lip, pulls another truth to the surface, rather than smudging it all away.” Bruno turned. “Something like that, right?”
Abbacchio pulled his fingers down Bruno’s hand, pressing deep into his palm, wondering what it was he dragged to the surface just now, beneath each finger. Was it written in a language only Bruno could read? Or was Abbacchio not close enough, known enough, wanted enough to be one of those people, yet. And all he did when he touched Bruno, was smudge his skin, blurring away things he wanted to know.
But why should he complain, when that’s exactly what he wanted. To escape the reality of being unravelled before eyes, to become known-
“Something like that,” said Abbacchio. But he didn’t stop touching Bruno. His fingers running along palm. Pressing into wrist, feeling the thump, thump of his heartbeat. Abbacchio listened with his touch. Counting. Spreading fingers around wrist and arm. And up. Feeling another scar, two, left behind by Sticky Fingers. A perfect line of the memory of a zipper, white under the moon. Abbacchio traced it lightly, wondering if it would open up, and tell him more. “You said you could do with something new-”
Bruno watched the way he touched, not realising he had folded his legs to the side. Towards Abbacchio. The dip of his head angled so the cut of his bob spread across his shoulder. A black wing, extended from the sky.
Abbacchio had nearly forgotten about his cigarette, the ash curved and hanging. But he flicked it away. And took a draw from the side of his mouth, watching Bruno as he did. “Well so could I,” fell words, thick with smoke.
“You’re always so much more talkative after a job,” said Bruno, shuffling closer. His words like a touch; the brush of his legs like fire, in the night cold. The raven wing of hair dipped lower, a fan over Abbacchio’s shoulder, now.
“Is that why you brought me here? To lure words out of me?” he said, watching the intricacies of Bruno. The way he moved, weaving to the way he wanted to. Sometimes he enjoyed trying to dictate the way he was going to move. The languid ease of his body already a forever in his mind. Awake. A dream.
“Maybe.” A last draw of his cigarette, before he reached across Abbacchio, and stubbed it out onto the bonnet of the car, at his side, right through several strands of his hair. Severed. The singe of burned hair nipped the air. Abbacchio smirked, half way. “Maybe something else.”
“How long?”
Bruno shrugged, staring at the streetlight opposite. Flickering. Dying. The wall was cold at his back. Seeping to his bones. “Whenever they turn up. I don’t know who’s driving-” He could feel a heat hang above his head. Spread. Fingers scratching against the stone; against the weave of his braid.
Abbacchio’s nail was ragged. It pulled free several strands of hair from Bruno’s braid. They caught the light of the streetlight, paces away. Plucking lines in the shadow they stood.
Ahead. Eyes, ahead.
Bruno couldn’t look up, or he’d never look anywhere else again.
“There’s a bruise on your cheek,” said Abbacchio, his finger pulling back the front of Bruno’s bob, tacky with blood.
“I know.”
Two fingers smeared the blood to his jaw. A ruby line. Punctuated, with a press, at the edge of Bruno’s mouth. Pushing lips apart, brushing the warmth of the inside of a lip, bumpy from being chewed. What would it feel like against his tongue? Softer. Warmer. Would he even notice, as he sank-
“The car’s here.”
Bruno didn’t look back either, as he stepped away.
“No backing out this time.” Abbacchio said as he pinched Bruno’s chin, when he moved. As in one swift move, Bruno straddled, leaning his lace bare back against knees as he sat. Relinquishing Abbacchio’s hand, he sank both into his long hair - moonlight dripped from the sky when he wasn’t looking.
Bruno pulled out of Abbacchio’s grip. But only to kiss his palm. Suspended, before his face. “We both took that option,” said Bruno against his hand, before it dragged around his neck, beneath the cut of his bob, watching the way it separated over skin and movement and-
“What stopped us?”
“Is that a question you want for tonight?” said Bruno, leaning back into Abbacchio’s touch on his neck, the deep press of his fingers easing muscle, pulling a moan. The moonlight hid behind Bruno, now. The most it gave was an outline. An aura of pearl, so light it might crack.
Two fingers traced the bumps of Bruno’s spine. Descending. A countdown, to-
“Not if I won’t like the answer.”
“I’ve forgotten it already” Bruno’s voice was lost to the way he breathed. Almost, ghostly. Plucked by the aura on his skin that Abbacchio touched, with fingers calloused, fingers warm, shaping now the curves and lines Bruno’s lace made on his back. Up and around and down- “Already-” A whisper, he wasn’t even sure he said.
Bruno opened his eyes, and dipped his head. He hadn’t realised how close Abbacchio was. The purple of his eyes plucked out this time by the moonlight, its walk across the sky, reached high, its spotlight a pause on their pedestal, that no-one else could see. The amber, though. The amber was always there. Like a fire, a flame alight. Refusing to even be doused by the dark. Abbacchio’s stubbornness, in full colour. Beauty.
“I don’t know why tonight,” said Bruno, cradling Abbacchio’s face with a palm, cracking a dry line of blood. His? Someone else's? “Maybe I just want to fuck it all up.” Abbacchio smirked. But he’d inched closer. “Maybe I just don’t know how many more tonights I’ll get.” His other hand, slid through white hair. Weeping starlight. “Maybe,” Bruno pressed his tongue behind teeth, “I just love the smell of blood on you.”
Bruno felt the pistol tucked into his back shift, as Abbacchio’s hand dipped lower. He exhaled sharply, knees sliding against the bonnet of the car (and he dipped down, crotches grinding together. Hard, to hard-) as with one last moment that hung in the air between them.
Heavy.
Saturated in everything they’d put on pause; that they hadn’t done (had, washed off with the blood on their hands at the end of the night. forgotten.); hadn’t said (but admitted in the silence, a blurt of hollow words they’d used as a cover).
So fucking heavy, it almost felt impassable, as Bruno lingered a breath from Abbacchio’s lips. Parted. Bruno wondered if he could unzip the air between them. Break it down, to let them pass.
A breath. Another.
It was just another excuse.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” hushed Abbacchio, the words touching Bruno’s lips. Before he just held him by the back, by neck, denting fingers into his skin-
-and kissed.
Full, and deep. Curving Bruno’s body into an arch, trickled in moonlight, pressed into Abbacchio’s palm. The shape of his ribs, like keys of a piano. And Abbacchio touched. Dancing notes along the curve, pushing beneath his lace that he wasn’t sure he ever took off. An imprint, to skin. As much of him, as his hair, that draped like silk, as Bruno moved, falling into the kiss as inhibitions and fears, snapped.
He tasted just as he expected to. Smokey (he noticed that Bruno only really smoked with someone. As if it had been a habit, he couldn’t shift.) If sensuality had a taste (like something heavy on your tongue. Velvet and honey), because of the way he moved, was in the way he kissed. And when Abbacchio closed his eyes, he saw that night in the club, through their kiss. And it crawled through his body. Beneath his skin. Touching nerve and sense and need, as Bruno’s tongue rolled against his, unwinding all the words they’d never said.
And maybe never would.
Bruno’s arms were lost in the blanket of Abbacchio’s hair. And he shivered at the touch, despite it feeling warm. There were many times he’d thought about this. Worked it through his head as they’d been alone somewhere, rolling the dice on whether he’d make his move or not. Even if the numbers said yes, he still said no. But tonight - tonight he missed the turning and just kept going. Wheels over concrete, finally splitting the path in two. As clear as it might ever be.
The kiss always felt detached in his head when he imagined it happening (it could have been the time after that accidental kill, adrenaline hit so hard, Bruno could barely see, but feel feel feel-; or just, behind their favourite bar down the street when Bruno went to catch a breath of air, for far too long and Abbacchio found him. Sitting on the wet ground; it could have been yesterday). A messy moment he wasn’t sure would help them stick together. But instead, crumble apart.
It wasn’t anything like that, now. It was just exactly what Bruno wanted, even if he couldn’t pinpoint what that was. Only that it was now. This.
Abbacchio.
Bruno’s lips dragged along Abbacchio’s cheek. A breath, staggered. Fogging his skin as they paused, Bruno pulling back for a second. Long enough for Abbacchio to see the black smears of his lipstick across Bruno’s lips, drawn in passion. A thumb, to lip. “Black looks good on you.”
A smirk, around his thumb. Before Bruno wrapped his lips around the tip, and sucked, tasting the grime of their job tonight over his skin. Tangs of blood. Of dirt and danger, scraped off with teeth. With tongue. “You’re only realising that now?” said Bruno around his thumb.
“Aren’t you?”
Bruno dragged teeth over his bottom lip, scraping at the lipstick there; at the kiss, hanging, waiting for more. “I should have done this months ago.”
“Maybe.” A light kiss at the edge of Bruno’s mouth. “But I like where it’s going now.” A hand, dipped beneath the waist of his trousers. An accompaniment to the pistol at his back.