Archive of Our Own

[5 April 2001, 06.04; Costa Smeralda, Sardinia]

Death is his penance, he reminds himself. At the very least, the rocks are warm from the unwavering morning heat. His feet sank from their dead weight into loose sand. The crimson-fuschia-white dissipates from his sight as fast as it had appeared.

It felt like Moody Blues was hovering just beyond his reach. She fell onto the shattered monument, movement as stagnant as he feels his own is. The tether he had to his soul had been severed.

There’s a lot of blood. He tries not to pay heed to the wet scarlet washing over his hands and clothes and into the waiting earth, and oh, God, there’s so much blood on him and in him and staining his teeth and tongue and pouring out of his chest. All while blotted whites creep ever so surely into his vision and the sun is hot, and the sound of the waves are distant, and he hears his name but he is far away, now, too far to move his lips, too far to return. No longer tied to the heavy body under him.

[5 April 2001, 06.05; ???]

Abbacchio comes to. On a table outside a restaurant. A clear day in a nondescript town.

clink clink clink clink clink

There’s a plate of spaghetti in front of him. He’s eating, yes, a fork makes its weight known in his right hand. His favourite wine, a glass of water, servings of bruschetta, arugula salad, a bowl of soup.

clink clink clink clink clink

The air carries a heavy silence. An intrusive one, even. There’s no one but himself and the sound of

clink clink clink clink clink

Abbacchio sinks to his knees, lifting the tablecloth and watching as a man’s face comes into view. An officer kneels under the next table, silently sorting through shards of glass strewn about the sidewalk.

“What are you doing down there?”

He lifted his head, eyes fixed on Abbacchio’s, hands idle to follow his stream of words.

“Sorry to interrupt your meal,” he starts, and his voice was like a bane that went through Abbacchio’s mind. “I’m in the middle of an investigation. I’m looking for fingerprints,” he points at the tray of shards he’s collected, “a mugger hit his victim with a bottle here last night. The part he was holding should be disposed of around here, so I’m looking for that.”

Abbacchio startles at the strange feeling cloying at his heart. He ignores it, as all things he suppresses deep into himself. “You’re checking all that?”

“That’s my job,” a shadow of a smile makes its way onto the officer’s face.

“I— There’s something I’d like to ask you, out of personal curiosity,” Abbacchio leans ever closer to the man, yet still careful to keep a fair distance. “What’re you gonna do if you don’t find anything? You might not even get those fingerprints.”

The man lifts his eyes yet again. The glass he sees now felt like vices pricking Abbacchio’s skin.

“Even if you do, the mugger could simply hire a good lawyer and be judged as innocent,” he continues, “so what is it that keeps you going despite this?”

“The result is not what I desire,” he replies, like the words were so easy to escape his lips, “when you desire only the result, you start taking shortcuts, and you lose sight of the truth.”

He turns his body to face Abbacchio fully, crouching comfortably on the stones under him.

“I believe the will to seek the truth is what’s important. Even if the mugger gets away this time, you’ll reach your destination, eventually. He’ll be put away, because that’s the truth. Because that’s what you’re seeking.” An almost-chuckle left him. “Don’t you agree?”

“I envy you,” he looks away, gazing at the empty street drenched in radio silence before him. “In the past, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be a cop. A good one. I used to have that will of yours, but I fucked up. That’s just the kind of guy I am. A worthless guy who can’t see anything to the end. Fucking up halfway through.”

“No, Abbacchio,” the smile spreads true on the officer’s face, and painted terror stabs through Abbacchio’s sinews as he hears his own name. “You’ve done a fine job. That same will has returned to your heart.”

“You know my name,” the pit in his stomach threatens to swallow everything he is, “we’ve met before. Somewhere. You—“

He jumps on his feet, watching as the bus across the street lets itself be seen in his eyes. Fear tingles in his fingertips and realisation dawns upon him. Squadra. His squadra.

“Where are you going, Abbacchio?”

The question stops him within a step of his fervor. He whips his head back to face the man, the man who’s haunted his dreams with innocent blood spilled upon his hands.

“I need to go,” he feels his feet tremble as he tries to move another step. “I need to go back to my squadra.” Famiglia. Family. Home.

“Did you forget, Abbacchio?” the kind voice resonates between his ears. He leans on a table for support, and the silence behind them feels as grating as the cries of a mourning bird. “That’s the bus that took you here. This is the last stop.”

“You—“ his legs lose all feeling, and he collapses with the support of his arms upon an empty table. The white tablecloth his eyes forcefully fixated on was eerily similar to the blotting white of a blurring vision. The sky might as well be bleeding onto him, as well. “You died on patrol. Because of me. Because I took that bribe!”

“You did a fine job, Abbacchio. I’m proud of what you've done.”

The way his name left the officer’s lips felt like a soft memory, yet with a lining of foreign touches and cold. Nothing like the way his famiglia called upon him. It’s different. It’s wrong. He didn’t say his name like that.

Oh,

Him,

Right.

As the air was stripped from his lungs and throat, the landscape of Sardinia greets him again in its technicolour glory. He sees the sunny azure sky and the deep blue ocean.

Your eyes look like that, his gaze transfixed to the horizon, like the sky and sea. I wish I could see them again.

He can vaguely see masses of cloth and skin and hair beside him, and he wants to scream, but his body isn’t his, now. He can’t even discern who from who, though it almost felt like he could reach out and his fingers would touch those hardened yet kind hands, those cruel but loving cerulean eyes kissing him in spirit with a strange softness that he’d think was love if Abbacchio were someone else.

How selfish of me, to wish I could die in your arms. I’m sorry. I’m leaving first.

The mocking yellow of marigolds shoot into the base of his cranium, and he is far away, and his famiglia is far away.

[5 April 2001, 06.06; ???]

Leone walks along an unfamiliar path with a familiar grip under his feet. Coastal sand sinks under him as his vision clears from the lifeless black.

When was the last time he’d called himself by that name? Leone. Leone. Everyone had called him by his father’s name, and his father’s before him. It didn’t belong to him, but it was the word that beckoned him nonetheless.

The name he was given by his mother and father was a far removed part of his own self. A gift he was sending back time and time again ever since blood stained his hands red. A borrowed name was all he’d allow himself, though shame rears its ugly head in a dull reminder each time he hears it.

But it sounded nice, once. Soft and pliant. On that day when his gut was drenched in cheap wine and a saint with his all-merciful smile stood before him as the heavens poured out its wrath. Beautiful even in the throes of rain and blood.

(He imagines the white-clad man reciting his name in playful jest. Leone, he smiles, and it reaches his eyes and this Leone wants only to sink to his knees and worship.)

I miss you, he thinks, I miss you already.

Haze sets in Leone’s mind and all he can think of is the one precious thing the world has allowed him.

He thinks of their usual table for five in the back room of Libeccio. Naples in its last edges of spring. And perhaps even of stolen touches and long nights at the end of a shared cigarette stick and the stillness of winds over two glasses of Greco di Tufo.

I can’t see the summer with you this year. You’ve asked if I wanted to set off as well. I’ve always wanted—want to go with you. Where you go I will follow.

His legs move on their own accord. The dull ache lapping onto his chest mere moments before was replaced by the salty sea breeze. The scent of blood was nowhere on him.

The blood loss-induced delirium was barely turning back into visceral consciousness. He can only make out a vague shape in the distance, like a small lodging near the sea, a place where his feet are adamant on taking him.

With every blink it draws closer. A stone cottage at the coast of some white-sanded beach. The door was ajar, as if it was a confessional booth silently asking for the weight of his sins. He steps in, slowly, and it surprised him that it was his own will that moved him into the oak floors of the house.

The morning sun shines ever so gently, streaming into the whites and beiges inside, nothing like the astringent heat that seared into every pore in his body as he was dying by an identical seaside. Though foreign in his eyes, Leone can’t shake off the feeling of homeliness within the walls, what with the soft couches and welcoming dinner table. It felt lived in, in a way, almost like he had stumbled upon a well-loved place through utter coincidence.

A record player, the same one as he had in life—now never to be touched again at his apartment—sat in silent song upon a dark wooden table. The vinyls mounted upon the shelves beside it were the same as the ones he’d quietly listen to in the depths of white nights.

(If that indulgence was at least partly because his capo would check on him from time to time, only to stay for a glass of wine and a remark about how he enjoyed the late nights with the hums of his opera plates, he doesn’t say. Leone had even bought the man’s favourite records to keep in his shelves; a testament to how he was welcome in his home anytime.)

Monteverdi. Lots of them. He was quite particular to both mundane and sacred works; the records he kept at his bare residence were one of the few things he’d let himself indulge in. His old walkman had likely played the sounds of Vespers for the Blessed Virgin more times than a person can count.

(And if Leone were allowed a sliver of hope, he could almost mistake that the smile he’d been offered back then was really for him, not the sublime vocal tones accompanying their clove-laden tobacco. That the divine somehow found solace in Leone’s company. That the words were really long-winded entendre and that he really cared for Leone, the way one would be oiled and perfumed and loved by a king—

He halts himself there. His presence alone around him was likely akin to blasphemy in of itself. It feels like a transgression against the divine to even think of something so selfish.)

Footsteps had been rippling outside his door for the past few minutes, growing closer and closer by the second. Leone, though, couldn’t be bothered to heed the sound, occupied in thought as he is.

A voice from outside ripped his attention away. “Leone Abbacchio, yes?”

He wasn’t inclined to answer properly, but the voice spares him no time to reply anyways. “A word of warning. There is someone who will come for you shortly. Don’t fall asleep until then.”

Leone walks towards the peephole, and surely enough, a nondescript man stood straight like a soldier outside his door. He was the embodiment of the little grey man; someone you could pass by every day in your life without noticing they’re there.

“Who are you?” Leone instead asks.

“I’m the mailman,” he curtly replies, then turns away to leave the porch. “Enjoy your stay.”

As the man’s back vanishes from sight amongst the blurring sea-sand, Leone leaves his stalking stance and heads to the common room. A record was put into place—the song that played was Possente spirto. Orpheus and Eurydice.

Don’t fall asleep, his mind repeats. He opens the kitchen cabinets to find them all well-stocked, grains and spices alike. A wine rack sat by the countertop with his favourite drinks resting upon the sills. Leone pours himself a glass of Castle Silent, taken from another shelf where a supply of crystal stemware was arranged.

He walks slowly to a door set slightly ajar; one that leads him to a modest bedroom. A bed for two covered in soft-looking white linen. He could still hear the lull of lyres and strings from outside.

Setting the wine down, he peers into the closet, and finds himself staring back at his own clothes parted to its left side—ones he’d left in his flat in Naples—all smelling of the tobacco and lavender he always wore. He notices that though his face still bears the dark pigments he’d set into his eyes and lips every morning, the weight on his shoulders is no longer that of his usual heavy coat set, but a soft cotton shirt draped comfortably over him. It felt odd, like how domesticity suddenly engrafts its way into his being.

(The right side of the wardrobe was vacant as if waiting for someone else to fill in the silence that it occupies.)

The state of the house was almost as if someone had built a home for him; then left it so he could live surrounded by the warmth of their gifts.

Don’t fall asleep. Leone felt fatigued, but not in the way that makes his eyelids heavy and his limbs dead weight. It was almost a content tiredness, eating away at him to recline further into the bedding and stare off into the off-white ceiling. The early morning sunbeams fell dappled into his face, yet the light doesn’t feel like an intrusive presence, for once.

Sol tu, nobile Dio, puoi darmi aita,
né temer déi che sopra un'aurea cetra
sol di corde soavi armo le dita
contra cui rigida alma invan s'impetra.

What point is there in Leone’s life if not for his fealty to his lord? He would die a hundred times over to repay the cost of mending his heart. And unlike the aria of Orpheus playing quietly amidst his reverie, he is armed with strings of wrath and white-hot devotion.

A sleepless sleep. Leone entertains the thought of falling into the arms of his gentle saviour, and instead falls into a haze that fills his mind with cotton and clouds.

[6 April 2001, 05.46; ???]

When Leone comes back to himself, it is as if no time has passed. Morning to morning he’d watched nothing dance around in front of his eyes, with no clue of what signals the passage of time.

The wine in his glass was still as fresh as it was when he left it. The bottle had topped itself off, somehow, and had made its way back to its place at the rack. The vinyl he was listening to yesterday had been neatly stowed away.

“How’re you settling in?” The mailman’s voice suddenly came from outside the door. Leone ignores him in favour of putting on a record of Vespro della Beata Vergine into the vintage player.

“I’ll tip you off on something, though,” he says, still pacing behind the walls, “someone’s coming. In a few minutes, even.”

Leone’s eyes widened. Someone is coming. Someone is coming. Someone has died and came to see him.

Horrible choice, he thinks, through the building ire in his heart. He stands just a hair’s breadth away from the heavy door, close enough for the mailman outside to hear the heavy tone of his voice as he finally speaks.

“Who is it,” he growls, almost feral in his crimson rage, “answer me.”

“Your child,” came the answer.

Leone’s heart dropped. Which one of them is it? The horror sinks itself deep into his gut.

“Send them back,” he commands, voice roughed up by the nausea building up in his throat. “to life. Give them back.”

“That’s not possible,” the mailman replies. “And the heart sets the course for what comes after death. The child is coming here, to you, because the heart wills it. Nothing more.”

He swallows the sour lump in his throat, sinking further into the wooden floors in silent grimace.

“Why are you telling me this?” he almost chokes on them, nails gripping faded crescents upon the lacquered wood his forehead rested on.

The question was met with silence. The mailman is gone, and Leone is left to collect the pieces. Or perhaps just the weight of his withered soul.

(He also wipes away the shame from feeling, for a split second, relief—after the mailman had said your child—that it wasn’t him who had fallen into death’s grasp.)

The end of Deus in adjutorium, Psalm 69, seeps through his bereft disposition like a whisper in the wind.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum.

What was the point of an eternal Firdaus if he could not have the one thing he’d prayed for most?

(And what was the rage that he felt piercing needles into his palms? Was it rage that he wasn’t there to soak up whatever bloodshed happened in their midst? That that’s because he’s here, in this damned cottage, in a landscape where the sun sets in the east, because he’s fucking dead? That he knew that even if he were there, he’d just die all over again because his powers are useless and his stand is useless and even the shape of his fucking soul is that of crystallised regret like a coiling vice and all he’s ever been good for were his bloody bruised human fists—

Was it not enough that he left them first in a trail of blood? Why did the heavens decree that they needed more blood to overthrow the devil’s throne?)

They were all children, Leone realises at that moment. Only he and Bucciarati were truly adults, but even then they were only twenty-one that year. Still, he feels his sins dragging what feels like twenty more years down his repertoire. He wonders if his capo feels the same, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

The heavy air projected a knock on the door, and a familiar voice called inside.

“Hey, anyone home? Can ya open the door?”

Not a second passes and the door opens. “Oh, it’s not locked—“ Narancia’s eyes meet Leone’s, “Cavolo, Abbacchio!”

To say that Narancia clung to him within an inch of their life was an understatement. They were really squeezing him like he was a fucking ragdoll.

“Narancia,” Leone wheezes, arms locked tight to his sides by the bone-crushing hug. “Alright, brat, let go a bit, I can’t breathe—“

“Oh! Sorry!” They leapt off from the tackle and sprung onto their feet. “Shit, man, ‘s great to see you again!”

A bitter sigh couldn’t help but leave his lips. “You too,” and his signature scowl makes its way into his visage, “you’re here, too.”

“Uh, yeah,” Narancia scratched the back of their head, “The boss offed me, I think. At the Colosseum.”

He raises a brow. “The Colosseum?”

“Oh! Right! After Sardinia, y’know, Moody Blues— you left a print of that asshole’s face on the monument. We were looking for him in the country’s database and shit, but suddenly this dude started talkin’ to us through the laptop!”

Leone rests his face on his hand, looking up to Narancia’s comical gesturing from the floor. Listening.

“Yeah, and the dude’s all like, “The boss’ name is Diavolo and I’ve been waiting for people to dig up shit about him, so come to the Colosseum so we can work together!” So, turns out, this Diavolo fucker’s stand can skip time or something, and the mystery man’s got another one of those lighter arrows. Apparently that’s the secret to killing the boss, so we went off to Rome to get it. But then, we were on the boat, and suddenly this fuckin’ mold stand started attacking, and I was infected, and Mista was also infected, and suddenly everyone was melting all over the place! Mista blew up the boat’s engine so we could get to shore, and I passed out right then and there.”

They stop, as if anticipating Leone’s response, still bouncing on the balls of their feet.

“So… Mold?” Leone lamely responds.

“No, no, not yet!” Narancia continues, “So, I guess the rest of ‘em go out and beat the shit out of the mold guy, ‘cause one second I was bein’ bandaged up in the turtle and the next time I woke up it was the ass crack of dawn already and I was Giorno and Giorno was me and Trish and Mista were each other and Bucci was the fuckin’ boss! The boss—“

They turned to a deadpan stare into Leone’s eyes. “He has pink hair like Trish but that stronzo has, like, dog lice or some shit.”

He tries to emulate what he thought was an incredulous expression, but couldn’t fight the faint smile breaking on his lips. “Really, now?”

(Even if Bucciarati looked like the dirtiest sewer rat from the vilest gutter in all of Italy, there won’t be any mistaking the kindness in his eyes. Leone was certain of it. He, however, briefly angers at the thought of the Devil himself possessing Bucciarati’s body—the most beautiful, divine man in the world—like a sense of possession washing over him to protect his heart’s deliverance.)

“Really! I swear! That stinky bastard looked like a damn clown! Anyways, all that body swap shit was happening in the Colosseum, right, and apparently the dude who had the other lighter arrow was, like, possessing the fuckin’ turtle now!”

“Che palle,” Leone huffs, something close to a laugh. “And?”

“The arrow dealer dude’s name is Polnareff,” they crossed their arms, “he’s old or something. Had some ancient beef with Diavolo. Anyways, he’s a stand user, right, and apparently he stabbed his stand with the magic arrow right before the boss killed him, so his stand, uh, Chariot, I think, he turned into this thing called Chariot Requiem, and he was making off with the arrow. Polnareff couldn’t control him anymore, it was like that Requiem wasn’t even his stand! But all that shit caused our stands to go ham, like, Aerosmith shot a whole ass hole through a wall within half a second! And Bucci tried to take the arrow, with him going ham at it in the boss’ body, but Sticky Fingers just shot out and attacked him like he wasn’t gonna let him take the damn thing!”

(To think that Sticky Fingers, Bucciarati’s own soul, somehow tried to go against his master’s resolve. It must be painful, Leone thinks. As expected, it doesn’t sit well with him at all.)

“Sette saw Bucci’s body wake up, so Bucci told Mista to shoot the guy, and he did, then Bucci told him to shoot his legs too for safety,” Narancia heaved themself on the floor in a lax pose, “and suddenly… I was up there on the gate spikes. Shit didn’t even hurt, but I was alive for long enough to see ‘em realise that time skipped, and…”

Their voice trailed off as they gazed away outside the window, towards the gentle morning sun. Contemplative. It’s a rare sight to see, Leone supposes.

(He told Mista to shoot his body. Leone could feel the bubbling words of but that’s yours, Bucciarati, that he’d no doubt swallow back because he trusts the man’s judgement more than he fears the boss, or death, or retribution.)

“Y’know, Abba, right before I died, I told everyone,” their words had an edge of guilt laced within, “When we’re back home, I want to eat fresh margherita pizza with porcini mushrooms. Then I’ll go back to school. For real, this time, not just leech off of you guys for crash courses or whatever. I… I wanted to win against that fucking cagacazzo for you, because even if you weren’t there, you’d be proud of us, and I wanted to look for Fugo, when all this shit’s blown over, I swore I’d find him and drag him back by the ear and tell him all about how we won…” A sigh escaped them, eyes refusing to look away from their fixed gaze. “I can’t really do all that, now that I’m here.”

A beat of silence settles between them, until Leone says, “I can make you that pizza, if you want.”

Narancia looks up, eyes shining from unshed tears and reflected sunlight. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Leone grunts, and opens his arms. “Come here, ragazzo. It’s been a while.”

They scoot over to him and take his embrace in turn, holding him as tight as they did the first time. Only, now, Leone reciprocates, letting the kid bury their face into his shirt.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Abba,” they say between silent sobs, “but I’m really glad you’re already waiting here for me, y’know? I—I’m not glad you’re dead, I mean, and you’re probably not waiting for me specifically, but— I guess, what I’m tryna say is…” the hold on his shirt grows even tighter, a small choke coming from the wavering voice, “it’s nice to see a familiar face. I love ya, y’know?”

(Something in Leone connected at that moment. Building a home from lives left shattered, his own and many others. Narancia, now, before him, telling him that they’re happy to see him. It was a lot to be loved after being lonely. Perhaps it took him this long to find the family standing right before him all along.)

Tears inadvertently fell down Leone’s cheeks, hands tightly gripping his child in his hands as if the world would collapse upon them. “Ti voglio bene, Narancia, ti voglio tanto bene, meno male che sei qui con me, grazie per avermi trovato, Narancia, grazie mille, mio figlio…”

“Abba, anch’io, anch’io,” they say, breath laboured from crying, but laughing nonetheless.

A comfortable silence settled between them after they broke off. Leone props himself up to rise with the kitchen counter, humming along Psalm 109. Narancia scrambles up and rests their elbows on the cool marble.

“The others are alright, if you’re wondering,” they mutter as they watch Leone crouch to survey the pantry.

“I wasn’t worried.”

“I’m gonna tell you anyway,” Narancia grins. “Mista and Trish can totally still kick ass in each other’s bodies. Gold Experience is fucking overpowered, so Giorno’ll be okay. Bucciarati, I mean, he looks like a piece of moldy bread right now in Diavolo's body, but he can handle that shit like a champ!” They climb up to sit on the countertop, “Though, to be honest, I’m kinda worried about him. Bucci, I mean.”

Leone ever so slightly peeks his head up from the cabinets’ refuge at the statement. “And why is that?”

(He’d like to think he hides his excessive worry quite well against Narancia’s emotionally astute eyes.)

“Uh, it started with Trish, when we were getting fucked over by the mold guy. I was lying down on one of the couches because I had to get bandaged up since I was bleedin’ all over the place. Trish was looking after me, and she said something like, “Why does it seem like Bucci doesn’t give a shit about you? Or any one of us?” And I told her, like, “What he’s doing is common sense, I know Bucci more than you. What’s important is we’re getting to Rome.” But now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve seen him even smile a single time since we left Sardinia. Didn’t even reply to small talk. I guess it’s kind of a do or die, but y’know…you dying, that probably had something to do with it. I mean, when I saw you, I felt like I was going to have a fuckin’ heart attack. That time he just told us to beat it and leave, but for God’s sake, I can’t imagine how Bucci must’ve felt.”

Narancia pouts, straightening their legs to stretch out more. “Fuck, that’s a bummer. Sorry, Abba.”

And it struck him, right then and there—Bucciarati, the man he wanted to follow. A distant dream of sharp angles, a clean disposition, and promises of salvation. One he’d chase to the distant ends of the earth and to the greater beyond, and one he’d be content enough simply trailing behind, even if the path they walk on is a slow walk to death.

But further than that, Leone wants to hold Bucciarati in his most distraught moments. Wants to clutch his heart close to his own and console him the way he was consoled. Wants to be Bucciarati’s comfort the way he is Leone’s.

Because how could anyone not fall in love with Bucciarati? How could Leone?

And he realises his heart is content enough if he is allowed to exist outside Bucciarati’s door. But Leone longs to wake up in mornings where he could see Bucciarati as Bruno, who’d smile like he lives a life unfettered by blood and taint, who’d let Leone hold his hand and lead him through a slow dance amid their kitchen. They would listen to vinyls like they always have, drink their favourite wines and watch their favourite movies, fall asleep in the late hours to the sound of each other’s heartbeats.

The only time I’m ever at ease. His exact words as he stepped onto that boat in Venice, his unsaid vow of til death do us part.

He’d vowed to kill and die for Bucciarati, to let him chase his happiness even outside of Leone’s reach, but his words, don’t die bound to your past, now forms an echo chamber in his mind. And for once, Leone doesn’t have it in him to let go.

In death, Leone wishes he’d chased his happiness with Bucciarati. Leone wants to live for Bucciarati.

“—ba, Abbacchio! You there?”

Leone rubs his face to wipe down a nonexistent film of sweat. “Yeah.”

“Good. ‘Cause I wanna ask you, why the fuck do you look like a kicked puppy every time I mention Bucci?”

“I do not,” Leone scowls, throwing a sharp glare at Narancia.

“You absolutely fucking do,” they drum their fingers on the countertop as if it proves the point. “Don’t tell me your emotionally constipated ass has unresolved shit going on with Bucci.”

The tips of Leone’s ears are starting to burn. “I’m not…“

They zero in on his eyes, and Leone wants nothing more than to look away, but that’s going to make him look more suspicious—

And suddenly, “Cavolo! No way! Abbacchio!”

Leone panics.

“Stai zitta, Narancia!”

“You’re just proving my point! What the fuck, Abba! Is this what goes on when Bucci disappears for, like, five hours after dinner and reappears smiling ear to ear like a fool at three in the morning? I’m gonna lose my shit!”

Leone is definitely red.

“No, you fucking dumbass! We’re— Bucciarati and I aren’t…”

“Don’t shit me, Abba!”

Leone glares what he hopes is a withering stare to Narancia, though with the heat buzzing through his entire body, he sorely doubts he looks intimidating at all.

“…Wait, so you’re not a thing?”

Leone continues glaring.

“But did you wish you were?”

Leone still continues glaring.

(Though his gaze falters, a bit. And of course Narancia sees it.)

“Holy shit.”

And all he can do at this point is hide behind a half-assed frown and take it like a champ. Though he wishes he could simply not.

“But we’re dead,” they pout. “Shit, man. Sorry, Abba.”

If he didn’t feel miserable about dying before, then he certainly does now.

“Oh! But on the bright side, you get to think about it for the next, like, 50 years or so! That’s a long-ass time to deal with your crush, though.”

Leone breathes out a sigh. “Bucciarati is alive. I’m content enough with that.”

Narancia just throws in, “Damn. You’re down bad.”

The both of them, again, revert to companionable silence (or at least, one in which Leone could cool off and calm his rushing heart). He half-expects the garrulous kid to start another conversation. Instead, he finds Narancia’s eyes starting to wander, drooping ever so slightly from their usual waxy alert.

“Narancia?”

They snap up as their attention is called. “Yeah? I’m fine. Just real sleepy.”

And footsteps start to echo again outside the house. Leone sighs, while Narancia whips their head around in an attempt to keep themself awake.

“This ominous fucker again,” he curses under his breath.

“That shit’s a regular?” Narancia huffs.

“Someone’s finally come to pay their dues,” and thus the mailman’s voice returned from behind the door.

“What the fuck? Why’s he still here?” they laid their face on a hand, propping it on a crossed leg. “Abba, this postman-looking dude’s been outside the house since I came in. Fucker’s all like, “don’t sleep until you find someone”, or something like that. Flipped him off and came here.”

“Bastard told me the same thing,” Leone crosses his arms. “Who the fuck’s paying their dues? The boss? For us to beat the shit out of?”

“Even if Giorno and the others killed that pezzo di merda already, I don’t want to see that ugly-ass mug within a mile of me ever again. Rot in hell, motherfucker!”

“For the best.”

Narancia reclines fully on the countertop, now, obstructing any activity Leone might’ve wanted to do in the kitchen. They close their eyes and cover them with their forearm, stretching out a big yawn.

“Alright, fuck it,” they roll over to their side, much to Leone’s perfected side-eye, “I’m off. Buona notte, Abba, love ya.”

“The mailman told you to not sleep,” he deadpans.

“Hell if I care. ‘Sides, I was supposed to wait for the person I wanted to see most or some shit, but when I died, the only thing I thought was, like, man, I hope I can see Abbacchio again, y’know, ‘cause I still feel like shit for leaving you on that beach. And you’re here. So that fucker can stick it up his ass.”

A barely-a-smile smile betrays his previous disposition. “Don’t complain about back pain, kid.”

Leone stalks off in swift motion to the sitting area where the record player was still serenading consecrated melodies. His fingers leafs through the selection of vinyls; the obvious Monteverdi, Handel, Schubert, Bach, Vivaldi. Neatly aligned in the order Bucciarati had helped him arrange them the first time he visited.

(In many ways, he carries pieces of both Bucciarati and Bruno with him.)

He almost misses how his ghost of a smile tugs further into the hollow of his cheeks at the sight of those American rap CDs he’d always hear from the occupied guest room back whenever he stayed the night at Bucciarati’s.

A soft knock suddenly comes from the door. Narancia heaves a loud sigh and scrambles to their feet, jogging towards the front of the house. “Fuck’s sake, yeah, yeah, I’m gettin’ it!”

Leone picks up a novel from one shelf above—The Remains of the Day; one Fugo gifted to him last year, Leone’s by the smell of aged plum wine and the slight coffee stain on the fore edge—and sits on a plush armchair, beside where a boombox rests on the wooden floor.

Perhaps, he thinks, I’ll build a home for you, Bucciarati.

He cards his finger through a page, carefully reading through the cascade of words, until—

“Oh, Dio,” he hears Narancia’s gasp, one filled to the brim with emotions he can’t discern. “This can’t be!”

Upon that, Leone drops his book and strides towards the front door.

A pit opened itself in his stomach.

“Bucciarati! Why are you here? Why?”

A wet sob choked out of Narancia who’s holding onto the door frame for support. They hunch down and fall into steady arms as their hands smear the falling tears out of their eyes.

In front of them, Leone sees Bucciarati again.

His hands are circled around Narancia’s weeping figure, careful and attentive. He looks ethereal while backlit by the gleaming shore like this, no longer wearing the pressed suit Leone is so accustomed to seeing on him. A loose shirt and slacks makes him look his age and not the hardship-tempered mafioso that he is. The sun behind him makes his hair glow a tint of ash-brown, warmer than its usual steely tone, like a halo of smudged colour upon him.

Leone’s chest aches at the sight.

“It’s alright, Narancia,” Bucciarati consoles the child within his arms, a gentle smile painted upon his features as he speaks. “The others will be fine. They will win, I’m sure of it.”

Then his eyes lock with Leone’s, and he could swear the sapphire pools within Bucciarati’s eyes are far bluer than any ocean in the world.

Leone opens his mouth, the dam within him bursting with thousands of unsaid words, all sealed within one name: “Bucciarati—“

“Leone,” he cuts him off, and the sound of his name within Bucciarati’s lips feel like the warmest reprieve Leone’s ever experienced in his entire life.

(If Leone’s heart skips a beat as he hears Leone come out of his mouth instead of Abbacchio, he keeps it to himself.)

Narancia seems to have fallen asleep out of combined exhaustion from earlier and the crying. Bucciarati offers Leone an apologetic smile, silently asking for him to let him through.

Leone instead picks the kid off of Bucciarati’s hold, lifting the weight of the resting figure away. He carries Narancia past the bookshelves and tables a few strides away from the door.

“Come in,” he says, and hopes Bucciarati doesn’t notice the way his voice slightly hitches when their eyes catch each other’s again.

Bucciarati enters the threshold of the house and he is, yet again, a most welcome intruder in Leone’s life (or, rather, death). He wears the morning sunbeams like a king wears his robes, Leone’s throat runs dry, as the raven-haired man’s tan skin catches on the light from the windows.

Leone sets Narancia down on the bed in the master bedroom. Bruno lingers on the doorway, arms crossed as he leans his slender hip on the frame.

“Vespro, Nisi Dominus,” he laughs into his words, and Leone is awestruck. “That’s your favourite part.”

Happiness, Leone decides, looks divine on Bucciarati.

“You can choose a new record, if you’d like,” he offers, noticing new vinyls had appeared on the shelf.

(Agharta’s vibrant reds and blacks was in stark contrast to the placid beiges of Leone’s collection. And he realises, those records in his living room in Naples, the ones of Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, were never his to begin with. They were Bucciarati’s. A fragment of him lodged within Leone’s life.)

“This is more than fine, Leone,” Bucciarati instead shows a content expression. Leone feels himself go warm.

The two of them sit on the armchairs on each side of the record player. Leone closes his novel and sets it on the table, hands still quivering in their course.

“You’re dead,” Leone starts, and he instantly regrets the bluntness of his words. Dead suddenly feels too real for him to comprehend.

“That I am,” Bucciarati drags his chair slightly to face Leone better, thankfully not at all bothered by his brusqueness. “I’ve done my part. But I have been, actually, since Venice.”

“What?”

“Diavolo, the boss, killed me in San Giorgio Maggiore. He punched me straight through my heart, and I only survived long enough to take Trish to the ground floor,” he keeps an intent eye on Leone’s, and he feels himself turn to liquid before Bucciarati’s eyes. Focus. “I had died before Giorno could heal me with Gold Experience. But somehow, my soul returned to my body, and it kept me alive, or rather, undead, for these past three days.”

Leone swallows thickly, and asks, “did it hurt?”

“Oh, of course it did! There was a hole in my chest, you know,” he grins in return.

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, it didn’t really hurt, Leone,” Bucciarati muses. “Rather, I felt less pain from everything, and I stopped bleeding altogether, since my heart wasn’t beating. I was losing my senses, too. Yesterday, it got to a point where I couldn’t see, hear, or touch; I couldn’t even walk properly on my own.” He sighs, massaging his head slightly. “It was a slow death. Not a painful one, but incredibly taxing nonetheless.”

Quiet briefly settled between them. Leone admires the subdued slope of Bucciarati’s neck, now unburdened by whatever worries dug into his flesh as a living man. He too, in turn, seems to be content in what he sees in Leone now.

Leone averts his gaze from the watchful wonder those blue eyes are fixing upon him. “I’m sorry I left first.”

He hears a soft gasp, and resumes his view on his partner’s face. A glint of poignant sadness crosses Bucciarati’s visage. Leone wants nothing more than to kneel in front of him and wipe away the unshed tears.

“Leone.”

“Yes?”

“When we found you at Costa Smeralda, we…” he stops abruptly, taking a sharp breath, “I told them to leave your body. It was harsh of me. The kids were distraught. I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t want to leave you there, either.”

Leone offers a consoling hum. “It’s alright, Bucciarati. It was the right decision. If you’d stayed there, the boss would’ve killed you. It’s just a body.” A small shift of his frame and hands hides his steadily warming face from view. “And I’d do all that again if it could keep you safe.”

Bucciarati’s expression remains unreadable to him. The pondering frown remains as he looks away to the floor and returns his gaze to Leone. He licks his plush lips, parts his mouth slightly, once, twice. Casts a shadow of a plea upon his own face before the words finally tumble out.

“There’s something else I need to tell you, Leone.”

Despite the growing blush that’s been heating his ears, Leone is as attentive as ever to the man beside him. “What is it?”

“I need to be honest with you,” Bucciarati sighs, an ample, pensive smile spreading across his face. “When I was given the order to investigate you, I was skeptical you’d even want to stay the night after your fever broke. We— I was a mafioso, after all, I’ve made it clear since the beginning. I wanted you to decide by your own volition, and even knowing what you were getting yourself into you stayed anyway.”

Of course I did, Leone thinks; following wherever Bucciarati goes was an easy decision for him. That first rainy evening, the morning after, and every time since.

“When you lived with me you’d wake up early in the morning to make a pot of coffee and buy us the day’s paper from the store at the end of our complex,” he continues, his image turning fonder as he speaks. “When you moved out, you told me I was welcome anytime. That I wouldn’t even have to knock because you gave me spare keys the day you left.”

Leone knits his eyebrows together. “You got it for me, Bucciarati. You bought it off for me with your money. It was the least I could’ve done. Of course you’d be welcome in my home.” And he adds, “Even if I didn’t, you would’ve been able to enter with Sticky Fingers, anyways.”

“No, I’m not done yet, Leone. When I told you the kind of music I like the next time I came over to yours you had bought vinyls of them and we’d take turns each time choosing songs for the night. You’d let me drink your favourite wine and share a cigarette with me.”

Leone coughs to hide his face again. “That’s…”

“Every time you come back from a job battered and bruised it hurts me to see you like that,” Bucciarati continues, “You’ve always talked as if you throw caution to the wind when it comes to your own life. It scared me, Leone. Remember what I told you back then?”

“You told me…” he softens his voice, coyness creeping into his mind, “even if I didn’t care for my life, you— you did.”

“Yes. You were so quick to throw yourself in front of danger for me. Did you forget I was supposed to be your senior, Leone?” Bucciarati laughs. It’s a melodious sound.

“I’d hate for you to get hurt, Bucciarati,” Leone mutters. “I’d do anything to prevent that.”

“A good leader puts their people before themself,” he grins, amused. “You should let me take care of you, for once.”

“But you already have. Many times,” Leone reasons. “The first time we met you saved me. You gave me everything I was thankful for in life. There’s nothing else I could ask of you.”

“This is my desire, Leone,” he watches Bucciarati clasp his long fingers together as if in prayer. “When I was dying at the church, you were all I could think of. The others came to mind, but for some reason, all I could say was for you to leave, even if you couldn’t hear me. And in Sardinia…That was my biggest regret, Leone. We shouldn’t have gone to investigate the body at the cliff. I should’ve stayed with you. Perhaps things would’ve turned out differently, that way.”

“Bucciarati, I was the one who told you and the others to check. And my death should be my own burden to bear, not yours. Don’t blame yourself.”

He sighs, azure eyes fluttering closed. “Still… It made me realise. I was on a lagging race to death’s door. Even if I was offered a chance to keep on living after I’ve finished my purpose… I’d certainly refuse.”

He stands from his armchair and strides past the singing record player between them. He lowers himself in front of the opposite armchair, lets his knees touch the ground, and rests his hands on Leone’s.

Leone feels blood burning his neck and shoulders from the touch. His entire face must be blazing crimson, at that point. “Wh— What? Bucciarati, what are you—“

“My name is Bruno, Leone. Don’t you understand?” Leone sees his brows knit together, eyes begging for something from him. He bites his lower lip; a nervous tic Leone had learnt to recognise. “As mafiosi we weren’t allowed to cross these irrevocable lines. But now…”

“Bruno,” he whispers reverently, tastes the name on his lips like it’s the most precious thing he’s allowed to utter, and the man who kneels before him breaks into a fond smile that makes his eyes crinkle.

Leone thinks he’ll have all the time in the world to see it again.

“Ti amo, Leone,” Bucciarati— no, Bruno, says, like an orison long overdue, “I don’t want to live in a world without you.”

He doesn’t even notice he’s crying until Bruno cups his tear-streaked face and wipes the wetness from his cheeks. Bruno is close enough, now, to hear his stuttered breathing.

“Anch’io, Bruno,” Leone’s teary voice is barely a whisper then, and he can’t help as a rapturous smile pulls upon his lips, “ti amo più della vita stessa.”

And when Bruno pushes himself up to stand between his parted legs and see him eye to eye, with a smile so bright and tireless and true, Leone thinks there’s no place he’d rather be.

“Kiss me?” Bruno says, fingers languidly stroking Leone’s jaw.

As Leone cranes his neck and surges upwards, Bruno meets him halfway in sweet convergence. His hands moved to firmly hold Bruno’s tapered waist, feeling the warmth of the body in front of him, holding on as if to make up for the unsaid words in blank spaces. Colours burst behind closed eyes, and it felt like everything finally fell into place.

They pull away and meet in the middle, again and again, chaste kisses pressed ardently onto each other’s lips. Leone was never one to believe in fate, but the feeling of love and life coalescing in his chest despite death having caught up to them was too real to be a coincidence. Everything in his short life had coincided for this very moment. Finally allowed the touch of the man he’s ached for like an anchor keeping him from dying a second time.

They separate when they are both breathless and drunk, foreheads resting against the other’s, and Leone sees the dark blush on Bruno’s cheeks and ears and his own lipstick smudged on his lips. And Leone knows this is how he wants to spend today and tomorrow until the end of forever, tender kisses and moonlit nights and clumsy waltzes and being loved. It’s like sewing close loosened seams that’s pressing them close to each other in a reckless sort of affection.

“I love you,” Leone says again in a whisper, letting all the warmth wash over him like tides of spring melting the barren snowbanks. “More than anything.”

Bruno kisses down his forehead, to his brow and nose. “And I, you.”

And it makes Leone want to take him dancing in the dark and lie under the stars like the main couple in a silly romance they’d see on the boards of theatres. Take in the sights of everything there is in death, even if it’s just the same stretch of white beach as far as the eye can see because he’s with Bruno and Bruno is with him, and that is more than enough.

Leone tilts his head slightly, pressing a kiss to the palm of Bruno’s hand. Like a silent promise of til death do us part, but this time branded softly onto skin.

And they stay there, Bruno settling on Leone’s lap in the light of daybreak, arms around each other so that the claws of anything outside couldn’t pry them away from this.

As Leone finally surrenders himself to fatigue, the comforting weight of Bruno sets him at ease. With easy amore diffused in his voice, he bids goodbye to whatever lovelorn eternity he thought he’d endure, and turns the key to a box of endless possibility.

“Good morning, Bruno.”

And, likewise, the man curled up against him doesn’t stop smiling, even as his eyes close in the same sleepiness permeating his form.

“Sweet dreams, Leone.”

And the lovers could finally say, this is home.

[22 March 2012, 21.15; Home]

The calendar’s pages flip themselves every month. The blue hydrangeas on the kitchen table never wilt. Dust never collects on their books, and sunlight never discolours their clothes.

Leone, Bruno, and Narancia don’t need mirrors to realise they still move with the passing of seasons. Though, they don’t grow out of their clothes. Their fingernails don’t become unruly. They don’t trim away their hair.

Narancia’s paintings now cover almost every wall in their home, having found a passion for it around a year after they arrived. A large one in particular hangs over the unlit fireplace (it had appeared in their living room the morning of the first day of 2001’s winter). A utopian mural of their family—with the other four in it as well—with smiles brighter than the sun that shines upon it every day.

(“I’ll work on it whenever I start missing ‘em,” Narancia had said. Almost a decade later, they still ask Leone to take down the canvas from its studs every other week or so.)

Leone woke up one day in the summer of 2003 with a band of gold circling his ring finger. The hands clutching his chest had the same band in its finger, and Bruno’s face that morning made Leone the happiest he’s been in his entire existence.

But in general, every day since the first goes like this: the three of them take turns deciding what’s for dinner. The ingredients would already have been stocked in the fridge and cabinets by the time they need to start cooking. They’d have their meal and stay up until however late their bodies would allow them, watching the clear sky from their terrace as if it were a window to look upon the world of the living.

But today is a disruption of the ordinary.

Because as Leone was clearing the table whilst Bruno and Narancia were side-by-side cleaning the dishes (as a custom; they’d be back in the cupboards clean as new the next day regardless), the footsteps returned.

So did the voice that came with it.

“The day of reckoning has passed,” he says, and leaves as soon as that.

And this time, the knock on the door comes right after the mailman flees the scene.

“Leone, can you get that, please?” Bruno turns around, only for Leone to wrap his arms around his waist and press his smile onto Bruno’s.

“Of course, amore.”

Narancia scrunches their nose. “Gross.”

Leone pulls away from Bruno’s tranquil laughter to ruffle their mop of hair. He strides off to the front door, now attended by two frames: one of the view their home overlooks, and one of the three of them vaguely depicted in their old clothes.

Not bothering to check the peephole, Leone opens the door—

to see Giorno, a decade older, dressed in similar fashion to himself: less pressed suits with tight pants and more whatever-you’d-want-to-sleep-in.

He squints and does a double take. And again. And again, until Giorno says, “Good to see you too, Abbacchio.”

Leone keeps his eyes narrowed, scanning the blonde now-adult twat in front of his door.

“What is all this about, Giovanna?”

“I died,” he states, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world to say. “We died, actually.”

“The hell do you mean, we?”

And the screams of “Giorno, wait up!” in the distance confirms his suspicion. Mista, Trish, and Fugo, all twenty-something years old; the first two on a mad dash racing against each other across the coastline and Fugo more leisurely jogging towards where the house is. Mista trips and dives face first into the lapping water. Trish continues running while laughing wildly.

“The world ended,” Giorno supplies.

Leone crosses his arms, leaning the side of his body to the stone doorway. “I’m dreaming. This isn’t real.”

“Fuckin’ hell! No fair!” Mista’s voice hollered once he got close to them.

Trish, already ascending the wooden stairs, shot back, “Not my fault you tripped all over yourself in the water!”

“Crap, I’m all wet!”

“Oh, hey, Abbacchio,” Trish ignores Mista’s woes and leans on Giorno’s shoulder. “We’re all here. Are Nara and Bucciarati in there?”

Leone grunts in some sort of affirmation. Enough of a response.

Mista arrives with his pants and shirt sopping wet, Fugo dragging him by the forearm like an errant child. He circles an arm around Giorno, opposite to Trish, dripping seawater onto the porch as if the sand from the others’ bare feet weren’t enough. Leone cringes a bit, inside.

“So, this is where you’ve been, huh?” Mista darts his mercurial gaze around. “Damn. Nice pad.”

Leone cocks an eyebrow at Fugo, who’s standing slightly behind the rest on the second to last step to the deck. “Why are you here?”

“I rehired him,” Giorno replies. “Besides, we’re all still a team at heart, aren’t we?”

He shrugs off the entire Fugo issue; after all, Bruno, Narancia, and himself all think he did the most sensible thing of their group: self-preservation. That got him out of the boss ordeal alive, at least.

“I’m not teaming up with fucking Giorno,” Leone tries to put on his usual scowl, pinching his brows together to get rid of the relaxed look his face must’ve accumulated through the decade. Tries to resist the unerring pull his cheeks seem to force onto his lips.

Giorno’s expression stays neutral, as always. Fugo’s eyes widen slightly. Mista and Trish squint at him so blatantly that Leone almost feels offended.

“You're smiling,” Mista sputters, “Abbacchio. What the fuck happened to you?”

“Death happened,” Leone deadpans.

“B—but you’re, like, smiling and shit! Like properly! For the whole ass year and a half I knew you all you did was fucking brood!”

Leone pinches the bridge of his nose, left hand raising to straighten the lines of his face. This time, all four of them scrunch their eyes in varying degrees of shock. Leone suddenly feels as if the weight of the band on his finger had multiplied by the hundreds, flushing his ears with heat.

“Bucciarati is inside,” Fugo says, still in shock. “I knew it. I fucking knew it!”

“You had a wedding? In the afterlife?” Trish blurts out. “That’s awesome. Congratulations!”

Giorno smiles, so sincere that Leone couldn’t find it in him to shoot back. “Likewise. I’m very happy for you.

Mista slaps his own forehead, staring at the ground. “I— I didn’t see that coming. Holy shit. Wow.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see that coming,” Fugo leans towards him. “He said all that shit when he was about to board the boat! What part of that did you not understand?”

“I don’t know, I thought he was saying that, like, as a bro!”

“He was quite honest then, you know?” Giorno chuckles behind his hand at the scene.

Leone’s blood was rushing to his cheeks and neck. “Fucking hell! Quit it!”

And of course Bruno heard. His fond voice hums from behind Leone, “Everything alright out there, caro?”

He positively burns up at that, coughing sputters to hide himself from his gaggle of kids. Trish clears her throat, taking a step closer to the door. Her brows were pulled in an apologetic arch.

“So, Abbacchio. Can we come in?”

Leone huffs out a sigh. Squints at Giorno, specifically, who’s adorning a conciliatory smile on his face—though the malice has long escaped Leone’s body somewhere within the ten, almost eleven years of domesticity. The rest of them look up expectantly, waiting for his green light.

So he turns to the rooms behind him, swings the door open further, and shouts,

“Ragazzi, we’ve got company!”