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“Psst, hey Mista! Over here.” Narancia beckons the gunman over, sending him crashing to the floor in one swift tug when he gets close enough.
“Hey!” Mista grumbles, rubbing at his sore back, “What was that for?”
Narancia lifts a finger to his mouth in response, silently urging Mista to stay quiet. The two of them sit, crouched against the backside of a couch occupying their shared living quarters.
“First of all, shush! I don’t want anyone to hear us!”
“Okay?”
“Second of all, I think Abbacchio might be a vampire.”
“...I’m never taking you to watch one of those Dracula movies ever again.”
“Like I can’t just go by myself!”
“Yeah, but you’re always the one asking me to come to the theatres with you!”
“Not the point! Can you at least hear me out? For starters, have you seen Abbacchio? Look at him for a second and tell me he wouldn’t turn you into stone with a single glare if you pissed him off enough!”
“...That’s Medusa. It’s Dracula we’re talking about.”
“Psh,” Narancia continues with a shrug, “Medusa powers aren’t mutually exclusive— besides— there’s no rule stating otherwise, so...”
He lets his voice drift off, and silence fills in the spaces.
“...Ok, not buying it I’m guessing?”
Mista grimaces in response.
Narancia sighs.
“Well, I’m gonna try an’ prove it then.”
🍊🍊🍊
“Exhibit A: Toothbrush.”
Narancia supplies Mista with a grin.
In front of them is Abbacchio’s toothbrush. The device is being held in a dark purple cup, Abbacchio’s signature colour. The bristles are worn down, the individual material all bent out in different directions.
“So, do you see this toothbrush?”
“Uhuh?”
“Ok, well you’re gonna have to hear me out on this one... ”
———
Abbacchio looks into the empty mirror, hands pressed against the sink counter. He lifts one of his hands to tug at the side of his mouth outward, examining his canines.
“…Fucking fangs.”
He takes care to make his voice as quiet as he can muster, trying not to wake anyone else up.
“Is something wrong, Leone?”
Another man joins Abbacchio in the bathroom. His eyelids are tugged downwards with the draw of sleep, an accompanying yawn following his steps towards Leone. The man looks at his subordinate and tries to ignore his lack of reflection with a concerned expression.
“Not really. Why are you up this late, Bruno?”
“I could ask you the same question. I was just—” yet another yawn escapes his grasp and he blinks groggily, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before continuing— “I could hear you leaving our bedroom, so I came to see what was going on.”
Abbacchio blushes at this, averting his gaze away from his conversation partner. Embarrassedly, he wonders how much noise he must have been making to wake Bucciarati up.
“Oh, I see. Well, I was just making some tea for myself, and I’m just gonna go brush my teeth now, so… nothing major.”
“Well, alright. Goodnight then, Leone.”
The man gives him a tender smile and steps away from the doorway, heading back towards their shared bedroom. Abbacchio watches him until he disappears into the dark room.
Once Leone is sure he's gone, he turns towards the sink again and looks at his toothbrush. It’s seen better days. Its tip is intact but mangled and dishevelled all the same.
He takes the bristles into his mouth, methodically brushing it against his teeth in a familiar fashion.
Once he’s done, he rubs his finger along his teeth. No plaque.
He would check to see if his teeth were clean, if there was anything between them or if there was a tooth just a little smaller than the others. But he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. His idea of what his teeth look like simply comes from the way they feel when Abbacchio runs his finger along them. He knows about the gap between his two back teeth— he could describe to you the way his fangs hook around his finger in vivid detail if you wanted him to— all this, but never how it looks reflected in a mirror.
Trusting his teeth are clean enough, he puts his toothbrush back in its holder and yawns. His need for sleep has caught up to him.
The quality of the bristles is significantly worse than before he picked it up. His fangs are always prodding and pressing at them, making the tip deteriorate much faster than what would be considered normal. He needs to swap out his brush for a new one soon, but that’ll be a problem for another day.
He stumbles back to his bedroom and lifts the covers over his head.
———
“So?”
“I mean… yeah? I could see it.”
“See? Told you.”
Narancia leaves and comes back with a camera. Tilting the lens towards the toothbrush, he flashes Mista a look of excitement.
“Time for the next piece of evidence.”
🍊🍊🍊
“Exhibit B: Photograph.”
The two of them are standing over Abbacchio’s dresser. The bottom drawer lies open, revealing a black-and-white image.
Mista picks it up, examining the front.
The photo captures the features of a young man with a light crew cut.
“Hey…” Mista sees the dual-toned eyes, the severe expression, the crease in between the eyebrows. It’s all too familiar to him.
“This kinda looks like... Abbacchio?”
“A little?” Narancia snorts in amusement, “It’s practically a spitting image of him.”
“I would say it’s uncanny… kinda freaky even.”
“Ok but, what if this IS Abbacchio?” The shorter boy wiggles his eyebrows. “What if Abbacchio has lived here for hundreds of years as a vampire? Wouldn’t that be cool?”
———
Living for hundreds of years was in fact, not cool.
Abbacchio walks through the streets of Naples, tipping his boater hat at random passerby as a sign of acknowledgment. He dons a simple suit, his tie secured under a crisp suit jacket.
He needed to move soon. He’d been stagnant for a good 40 years now, and he was afraid that could jeopardize his situation further. If anyone living here for a good amount of time saw the same face, seemingly unmalleable to the changes that time continuously provides, would they not spare him a second glance? They would, and Abbacchio knows that well; it had already happened to him once before.
He steadies himself with his umbrella. He’d already made arrangements to get a new ID. Not a legal ID, but one that would suffice regardless.
This was nothing new to him; he had changed his name many times: Oreste, Piero, Orazio, so many more letters strung together. All of them had their own identity, living their own lives. Maybe if they hadn’t all suddenly vanished, they would be living full lives right now. Corrado would be an old man now, sitting in an armchair. Maybe he would be surrounded by his grandchildren. Maybe one of them would be crawling in his lap, maybe the other would be lying peacefully at his feet. Eufrasio would be in his forties. He would be walking down the street, just like Abbacchio was now. Except instead of his solitude, there would be a lover at his side. Maybe they would be holding hands, smiling at the shopkeepers that waved as they passed by.
But Leone was frozen in time. Wrinkles never appeared at the corners of his eyes, his skin would never loosen with the unravelling of time. All signs of his ageing stopped a long, long time ago.
Someone taps him on the shoulder. Turning around, he sees an old man looking up at him.
“Excuse me, are you related to Piero by any chance?”
Ah, that was one of his old names. Abbacchio scrunches his nose in confusion.
“Maybe I ask who you are?”
The old man smiles.
“My name is Onorato. Onorato Ghioni.”
Onorato.
He looked so old now. But even with time, his eyes remained the name. Under the folds and wrinkles were the blue eyes Abbacchio remembered with such fondness. He can’t believe he didn’t notice. Those eyes would be what he saw when he went outside in the mornings, what he saw at night during their late-night talks. He remembers when they would both sit down at the side of the road, talking about anything and everything. He still remembers the day Ghioni came to him telling him about his move. He remembers the promise that they would meet again soon.
So many years have passed since then, he could count the months with each crease on his old friend’s face, weathered with years of living.
“I am… I am related to Piero, yes.”
It feels like a stab to Piero’s heart. Well, his heart. But the man staring expectantly across from him isn’t supposed to know that. That his old friend hadn’t aged a single day since meeting him, and actually? He’s standing right in front of you right now? The sheer absurdity of that would be alarming.
“You look just like him.”
Abbacchio knows this well, after all, he hasn’t changed.
They both move so sit on a nearby bench and the man smiles.
“You act just like him too.”
Abbacchio wonders if his personality was cemented along with his personality before he lost his humanity. He wonders if his lip still curves the way Onorato described so many years ago if his eyes still soften the same way when he sees little children run past him on the street.
Nothing else is said. Nothing else really needed to be said. They just sit there for a good long moment, watching time pass by them, if only for a fleeting moment.
——
“...Jesus Christ, Narancia.”
Narancia scratches the back of his head.
“That aside, the way you described everything sounded so cool. It could seriously be a movie plot.”
Narancia beams in response to the praise.
🍊🍊🍊
“Okay, last piece of evidence now! Exhibit C: Halloween.”
Both Narancia and Mista are rummaging through the storage closet, and Mista emerges with a smile and a cape.
“This was from Abbacchio’s costume, right?”
“Yep, and— oh! Panna’s strawberry costume! I almost forgot about that!”
——
“Hey, you stuck with the strawberry costume! We’re matching now! Heh.”
“I shouldn’t have agreed to this.”
“Aw, Panna. I know you love it!”
“...”
Narancia hobbles around with his orange costume.
It was a hassle trying to get Fugo to agree to even consider the idea of matching costumes. At first, Narancia had proposed the idea of a pannacotta-styled outfit, but after being hit with a hard ‘no’, the strawberry costume seemed to be the second-best option. Luckily for him, Fugo was just exhausted enough to accept the idea.
As he walks down the hallway and turns the corner, he is instantly met with a disgruntled-looking Abbacchio.
Granted, he always looked like that. But somehow more than usual now, if that was even possible?
“Hey, are you gonna dress up?”
Abbacchio looks at him with a ‘why the fuck would you ask that?’ look on his face, but Narancia chooses to ignore it. It’s Halloween and Abbacchio should be having fun, dangit.
“Here,” Narancia takes the taller man by the arm and drags him to the closet, much to his exasperation.
“Catch this!”
And he throws a cape at him. And a monocle. And a white bowtie.
“There,” he rubs his hands together, “vampire attire. It’s perfect for you, so put it on!”
Abbacchio gives him a dry smile, “...Is this because I’m goth?”
He grins back.
“It’s because you’re goth.”
A few minutes later Abbacchio comes out wearing the outfit.
Ok, Narancia could easily admit this, but with Abbacchio’s pale skin, dark makeup, and general gothic appearance, he could easily be mistaken for a vampire. Not a single doubt about it. Narancia is scaring himself thinking about it too hard at this point, even. On a side note, the monocle was a bit overkill, but it was definitely something.
He leads the tall man into the shared living room where the rest of the gang is waiting for them.
Mista pipes up. “What took you both so long?”
Narancia tilts his hand side-to-side.
“Just needed to find Abba here a costume.”
He and said man sit down, Narancia on the couch and Abbacchio on one of the lounge chairs. Bucciarati nods in acknowledgement and presses the button to turn on the movie. Giorno passes the Twizzlers to Narancia, who strips off a handful, moving it to Mista.
The moving pictures illuminate the screen, and they all fall into a comfortable silence, sounds of dialogue and character themes thrum through Narancia’s ears.
——
Both Narancia and Mista have gravitated over to Libeccio while the former was describing his version of events.
“Oh, he is totally a vampire.”
“See? I told you.”
Narancia holds up a photo he snuck of Abbacchio in the getup between his fingers.
“And there’s proof now-”
Their conversation is cut short by Abbacchio and Bucciarati walking into the restaurant. They both look content, with the former blushing and the latter tucking stray hairs behind his ear. The younger of the two walks away from their designated table, mumbling something about having to pick up a phone call. Meanwhile, Abbacchio walks over to them.
Narancia puts his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his hands. He waits until Abbacchio orders his wine from the waiter to continue.
“Heyy Abbacchio... ”
“...Yeah?”
“Are you a vampire?”
“Am I a-”
The two are momentarily interrupted by the return of the waiter holding Abbacchio’s drink.
The mafioso clears his throat before trying again.
“Sorry, am I a what?”
“A vampire.”
“And you would think that… because?”
Narancia lines up the photos and shows him the evidence: his toothbrush, the man, and Abbacchio in a vampire getup.
“I’m not a vampire; that’s my grandp-”
Abbacchio starts to point to the middle photo before stopping. He looks, contemplative, a look of mischief appearing on his face instead of his usual stoic expression.
“Actually, yes, I am. How did you know?”
Narancia crosses his arms, absorbing the praise.
“Y’know, I think I’m somewhat of a detective myself.”
Mista adds to the conversation lightheartedly, “Ooh, Abbacchio, you better watch out. Nara’s coming for your skillset here.”
Abbacchio snorts, reaching for his glass of wine. Narancia swears he sees the tiniest flash of a vampire fang in his mouth.
“So… why would you join Bucciarati’s team then?”
“Well... ” Abbacchio ponders, “I offered to join him, and he’d let me collect the blood from our targets after the missions were accounted for.”
Narancia and Mista lean in as Abbacchio continues his long tale.
“What are we talking about here?”
Bucciarati joins the three of them at the table, the rest of the gang are back as well, trailing behind him to sit down in the available chairs.
“Abbacchio’s a vampire!” Narancia exclaims.
“He’s a what? Abbacchio, stop humouring them again, please.”
“Well, it’s been fun, I’m going to take my leave now!” Abbacchio is already out of the door, waving a goodbye.
Narancia slumps in defeat.
“Dangit, I guess vampires don’t exist, huh.”
“I mean, it’s a valid assumption,” Bucciarati reassures him, “and besides, if stand users exist, who’s to say vampires and other supernatural creatures don’t?”
“I guess so, it’s a shame I don’t know any though.”
Giorno tilts his head to the side in consideration.
“Actually, I’m a dhampir.”
“Wait wait wait… what the FUCK-”
Fin.