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Trnava, Czechoslovakia. 1991.

Like most things in Sorbet’s life, it comes down to money in the end.

There aren’t many opportunities for a chemistry PhD in Sorbet’s country. His framed diploma from University of St. Cyril and Methodius opens fewer doors than four years of labor had promised, especially in the uncertain post-Soviet economy. After his thesis defense, he spends hours on the infuriatingly slow university library computer to pore over online job listings. The ones he qualifies for are high school or even elementary school teaching positions, but Sorbet would rather scoop out his own eyeballs than consign himself to a classroom full of children. His English is decent enough, but there are even fewer jobs willing to sponsor a visa, putting his hopes of expatriation to rest.

He’s at his wits’ end when he meets up with an old childhood friend for drinks in Trnava. The man who waves to him from the dingy bar’s booth is fatter and more bearded than Sorbet remembers him.

“Damn, you got tall!” Ladislav greets him. “I always remembered you as such a skinny little thing!”

They exchange the customary pleasantries over beers- Ladislav reports that their rural hometown is the same as ever, still trapped about twenty to thirty years in the past when compared to the rest of the country.

“But most of the kids we grew up with are married and settled down with their own families by now,” he remarks. “How about you? Attracted any pretty girls with that fancy degree of yours?” He raises a conspiratorial eyebrow at Sorbet.

“You know me,” says Sorbet, rattling off the old, familiar excuse. “Too busy to date. Guess you’d call me a perpetual bachelor.”

“It’s funny. Even when we were teenagers, you never went crazy over the chicks like the others.”

The conversation teeters too close to treacherous territory. As if sensing this, Ladislav changes the subject.

“You found a job yet?”

Sorbet sighs, his fingers flexing around his glass.

“Actually, no.”

Ladislav listens well enough as Sorbet tipsily vents his frustrations.

“You know,” he says at last, scratching his ruddy chin, “I might know of someone who could use a chemist. It’s not exactly above-the-table work, though, if you’re okay with that.”

Sorbet is more than okay with that. Money is money, a job is survival, and his morals have always been flexible.

He barely bats an eye when the contact he meets a few days later informs him that he’ll be synthesizing high-quality methamphetamine for the Czechoslovakian mob. Demand for eastern European drugs is rising, and the mob intends to provide. In short order, he’s set up with a lab and all the raw materials he could require.

Sorbet’s father would be utterly disgusted by him. But then again, the man has been dead and buried since the second year of Sorbet’s PhD program, so he doesn’t get a say in how Sorbet conducts his life anymore.

The job isn’t altogether a bad gig. The boombox he brings to the lab fills the silence with music every day. In winter, he starts and ends work in the dark, but the paychecks his contact Michal brings him beat any high school teacher’s wage, even in this shit economy.

Sorbet has always worked alone, without the assistance of any lab techs. It’s a surprise when he opens the door to the lab to find Michal inside, accompanied by a stranger.

“Michal,” Sorbet greets him. “Who’s this?”

“Morning, Sorbet,” Michal says in English, evidently for the stranger’s benefit. Sorbet raises an eyebrow.

“Got some news for you from the leadership and figured it’d be better relayed in person,” Michal explains. Sorbet understands implicitly; telephone communication among the mob is limited for fear of bugged lines.

“It won’t affect your work much,” says Michal. “Maybe some later hours at worst. But for the next few months, Gelato here will be overseeing you.”

“ Dobrý deň ,” the stranger pipes up. Sorbet spares him a confused glance.

“He’s an operative from Rome on loan to us from Passione,” says Michal.

“We’re working with the Italians now?”

Michal shrugs. “Seems like their boss is interested in expanding their meth supply. He’s auditioning a few labs to test their quality. If all goes well, we’ll have a new source of income and safe inroads into Italy, an entire new market.”

Sorbet scans the blond Italian with a critical eye. “Then what’s he for?”

Michal shoots him a look that says be polite, for the love of God, but Gelato doesn’t seem insulted. He cracks a grin, displaying a mouth crammed full of too many sharp teeth.

“I’ll be taking samples of your product back to Italy for approval. In addition, I’ll provide the usual protection that comes with collaborating with Passione.”

His English is excellent, as close to the British-accented model as Sorbet has ever heard.

“I don’t need protection.”

“I’m sure,” says Gelato, unfazed. “You look like the kind of guy who can take care of himself. I’ll stay out of your way for the most part.”

Sorbet takes in his tousled hair, longer on top with close-shaved sides. Small metal hoops dangle from each of his earlobes. Sorbet has never seen a man with earrings before.

He’s ashamed to recognize the attraction that shivers through him.

Gelato sticks his hand into the space between them. “Passione sends its regards and wishes for a profitable partnership.”

Under Michal’s gaze, Sorbet takes Gelato’s proffered hand and shakes it before releasing it quickly.

This will not be a problem. He won’t allow it to become a problem. Gelato will keep his distance- hell, he probably won’t even come by the lab most days. Sorbet will have his own space as always, to focus and keep himself too busy to think of anything but chemical reagents and mass yields.

Nothing will change. He’ll make certain of that.

-

Tuesday morning begins the same as any other.

Sorbet slams his palm down on his beeping alarm clock at 6 AM. Rain pelts his apartment windows as he shuffles through his tiny kitchen to make a hasty breakfast of microwaved porridge. What he wears is of no real consequence alone in the lab, so long as his skin is covered and safe from any errant chemical spills. He drains the last bitter dregs of his coffee, tugs on his street gloves, and makes for the door.

His doorstep is occupied.

“Good morning,” says the Italian from yesterday. He extends an umbrella to Sorbet from where he stands beneath his own.

“Uh,” says Sorbet. “I- what are you doing here?”

“Protection,” Gelato chirps. “I’ll be escorting you to and from the lab on workdays.” He gives his coat an assured pat over a pocket that Sorbet assumes contains a concealed handgun.

“That is entirely unnecessary,” says Sorbet. “I’ve been biking to the lab perfectly safely since I began this job.”

Gelato shrugs insincerely. “Boss’s orders. Maybe he thinks your cooperation with us would make you a bigger target? Honestly, who knows what goes through the Don’s mind.”

He steps back on the stoop, making room for Sorbet to follow him outside.

“Besides, biking to work in this mess sounds miserable. You’ll be better off letting me drive you in.”

He has a way of phrasing things that makes Sorbet feel he has no choice but to acquiesce. Charisma, perhaps, or coercion. Helplessly, Sorbet takes the umbrella and follows him to the street, fuming quietly.

Gelato’s car is spacious and clean, scarcely recognizable as the same type of machine as the decrepit flatbed truck that Sorbet had learned to drive as a teenager. Sorbet settles into the passenger seat as Gelato shuts the driver side door and brushes stray raindrops from the interior.

He expects to hear strains of the local news radio when Gelato turns the keys in the ignition, but what comes through the speakers instead is a familiar synthesizer tune.

Words mean so little and money less

when you're lying next to me

“Is this Pet Shop Boys ?”

He regrets speaking up when Gelato fixes him with a defensive glare.

“Why? Got a problem with them?”

“Um. No.”

It’s pointless making conversation with a glorified bodyguard. Sorbet’s not looking to make friends in this business, and he’s never been the type to speak just to fill the silence.

But when he catches sight of the CDs stacked messily in the center console- New Order, Bronski Beat, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode- his fascination overtakes him.

“It’s a good album,” Sorbet says after a lengthy silence.

“Oh,” says Gelato. His fingers loosen on the steering wheel. “Sorry. Didn’t expect to find a fellow fan here of all places.”

The rain drills against the windshield as the song continues.

“You’re into British music, then? Is it popular around here?”

“Yes,” Sorbet replies. “And no, it’s… unusual to hear that sort of thing.”

“Huh. I knew a British guy back in the Foreign Legion who played this stuff nonstop in the barracks.” Gelato keeps his eyes on the road as he talks.

“I couldn’t help but get into it after a while. Damn, I forgot, is it a left or right here?” Gelato gestures to the current intersection. Outside, a deli vendor switches the sign in her window from Closed to Open .

“It’s left.” Sorbet points to the road that leads to his lab.

“Thanks.”

The light turns green. Gelato accelerates into the turn.

“Driving here’s a lot different from Italy. I might need you to help out a bit with the directions until I get used to it.”

“That’s fine.”

Sorbet expects his new acquaintance to drop him off at the lab’s entrance, but Gelato follows him inside, strolling right through the doors after Sorbet. Normally he wouldn’t have a problem telling anyone to fuck off and let him work, but this guy is Italian mafia, and mouthing off could come with serious consequences.

“Your English is good.” Gelato seems to be giving himself a tour of the lab, tapping curiously at glass jars and cylinders. “Where’d you learn?”

“College and grad school.” Sorbet shrugs on his lab coat.

“Do you mind if I get to work now?” he asks Gelato pointedly.

“Not at all!” Gelato waves a flippant hand but gives no indication of removing himself from the room.

Sorbet takes a deep, steadying breath and releases it slowly. He walks over to the boombox and inserts a CD, because he’ll be damned if the new guy keeps him from enjoying the music that gets him through each day.

Gelato is chattier than any mob member Sorbet’s ever met. It strikes Sorbet that he could be gathering information to take home to his capo, so he keeps his answers curt and clipped. He doesn’t go so far as to refuse to respond; Gelato will surely get bored eventually and leave him alone.

But after a few hours of back-and-forth conversation, it becomes evident that Gelato’s talking for his own entertainment with no ulterior motive, mostly because the topics he asks about are so useless that Sorbet can’t imagine any mafioso discerning helpful information from his answers.

When he asks about Sorbet’s education, Gelato ends up going off on a tangent about mugging a college kid rather than pressing about Sorbet’s skills. And when he learns Sorbet’s hometown, the conversation inexplicably turns to favorite cuisines.

Sorbet’s tasks are typically mind-numbingly routine, allowing him to drift off into dark thoughts and memories. Not so today. Conversing in English demands focus, and the stories Gelato relays are strangely compelling. He’s nothing like the boastful mob men Sorbet encounters in bars and warehouses who think their exaggerated exploits make them worthy of Sorbet’s respect.

More than once, Sorbet catches himself stealing glimpses of Gelato from across the room. He forces his gaze away, cursing his weakness.

Gelato is waiting patiently at his front door the next day. He winks at Sorbet when he slots in a Eurythmics album for the drive to work.

Gelato’s energized chatter makes it easier for Sorbet to facilitate himself to the constant company of another person. He doesn’t grow impatient at Sorbet’s hesitant speech as he plucks the correct English words from deep in his memory. Gelato’s mind makes leaps that are inscrutable to Sorbet; he switches topics like shuffling a deck of cards, yet he always asks for Sorbet’s opinions. The attention is unnerving and yet flattering.

Today, Gelato clamors to know about Czechoslovakia’s history. He perches on an unoccupied lab bench, spinning a butterfly knife deftly between his fingers.

“Communist rule ended just two years ago, right? What was that like for you?” His voice is bright, his tone insistent.

So Sorbet explains his history- how he’d hunted rabbits and deer with his father from childhood to put dinner on the table, how he’d sat enthralled before the neighbor’s television and learned of a world outside the forest border of his tiny town.

He doesn’t mention the disappearances that shadowed the edges of the village. He’ll find some means of explaining them away should Gelato prove curious enough to search for his town’s name in the library archives.

Sorbet has to pause a few times to take sips of water. Has his mouth always been so quick to dry in conversation?

The discussion turns to other eastern European countries, then to Gelato’s travel across the continent. Sorbet lets the motions of his hands and feet take on an automatic quality as he bustles around the lab, his attention occupied almost entirely by Gelato’s ramblings. With his back turned, he strains to catch each word over the hum of the air purifiers.

“The Normandy coast was nice,” Gelato muses. “There were these long, white cliffs there over the frigid ocean. In some places you could still see bits of artillery and bunkers from World War II.”

“Lots of history.”

“Yeah. All that war history.”

“You were in the military, right?” Sorbet lets his curiosity get the better of him. “Did you travel then?”

“Oh, of course. Before the whole dishonorable discharge thing, I was stationed all over. Morocco, Greece, Turkey.” Gelato’s voice turns dreamy as he reminisces. “Benin, for a while. So many stories I could tell you.”

“So tell them.”

Gelato straightens up on the table. “You really wanna hear?”

“Yes,” Sorbet replies immediately, then catches himself. “I’ve always wanted to get out of this country.”

Gelato seems happy to oblige him.

Sorbet loses time in the rhythm of Gelato’s speech. He weaves vivid images of bright-painted stone castillos , of red desert landscapes like the surface of a foreign planet, of the close, stifling jungle air and the way it could make a man paranoid of what lay in the lush green darkness beyond.

That night, Sorbet walks to the city library before closing time and selects a cassette: Italian Language for Beginners . He avoids the librarian’s curious gaze as he checks it out.

After dinner, he sits on the edge of his bed and slots the cassette into his tape player, hitting Play .

“ Buona sera ,” says the voice on the tape.

“ Bon-a sera ,” Sorbet repeats to the empty air of his apartment.

“ Come stai? ”

“ Co-me sta. Come sta-i .”

The language sounds clumsy and stilted on his tongue. He thinks of the way Gelato speaks, charming and rapid, forming the sharp shapes of his words with a roll of his tongue.

“ Per favore .”

He pictures Gelato in a café in sunny Italy, ordering one of those fancy Italian coffees with too much foam. Sorbet would ask him for a recommendation before ordering after him. He’d drink anything Gelato favored.

“ Grazie .”

Then they’d sit together in the square outside, the warmth and noise of crowds so unlike the air-conditioned silence of Sorbet’s lab. Sorbet could stroll the streets until sunset with Gelato in a new city, a place where the two of them could be unknown and free.

-

Gelato’s leaning against the rail of the stairs up to Sorbet’s apartment building when Sorbet heads out in the morning. His head lifts when he hears the door close behind Sorbet.

“ Buongiorno ,” Sorbet greets him, enunciating carefully.

Gelato’s eyes go wonderfully wide.

” Buongiorno? ”

Smirking, Sorbet breezes past him to the passenger side of the car.

“ Parli italiano adesso? ” Gelato hurries after him, grinning broadly.

“ So solo un po’di italiano, ” Sorbet replies.

“Wow, look at you! Already sounding like a pro!” Gelato settles into the driver’s seat and immediately turns to Sorbet as he twists the key in the ignition.

“Did you do all that for me?” Gelato’s tone is teasing, but the look he gives Sorbet through those long eyelashes of his makes his chest ache with pointless hope.

“Just thought it might be useful,” Sorbet manages.

“Well, if you ever want to practice, I’d be more than happy to be your teacher.”

Sorbet presses his lips together to bite back his smile as he gazes out the window.

“I’d like that.”

Once in the lab, morning passes in a blur of beeping timers and discarded pipettes. Gelato selects the day’s album and inserts it into Sorbet’s boombox, bobbing his head in time to the beat as Sorbet hustles around the room.

“Is that Erasure ?” Sorbet asks when he catches the plinking notes of the synthesizer backed by a booming drum machine.

“Yup. The Innocents , 1988.”

“Have you heard Chorus yet?”

“Ah, I’ve been meaning to pick it up. I hear Vince Clarke really outdoes himself on it.”

“I’ve got it back home.” Sorbet pauses from titrating his solution to address Gelato. “Want me to bring it in tomorrow?”

“Yeah!” Gelato beams. “Let’s give it a listen together.”

The sight of him is so distracting that Sorbet nearly tips his solution out of the target pH range with a few too many drops of hydrochloric acid. He swears under his breath.

Hours later, Sorbet punches twenty minutes into the lab timer and sets it on the counter by a gently bubbling beaker.

“Lunch break?” Gelato’s already munching on a sandwich, having run out of patience for Sorbet’s increasingly late lunches. “Took you long enough.”

“I had to get this thing boiling first.” Sorbet taps the rim of the beaker. “I’ll need to be back soon to take it off the heat and let it crystallize.”

“You really ought to visit Italy,” says Gelato. “This whole workaholic thing wouldn’t fly there- meals are practically sacraments. My mother always said everyone works better on a full stomach.” Gelato gestures as emphatically with his sandwich as he usually does with his hands.

“Mmm. You make it sound awfully tempting.” Sorbet hangs his lab coat on a hook, tucking his goggles into a pocket.

“Hey, what’s that on your nails?”

Sorbet freezes midway through peeling off his latex gloves.

“It’s, ah. Nothing.” With his back turned to Gelato, he pats frantically at the pockets of his chemical-stained lab coat for his leather street gloves.

He hears Gelato’s light footsteps approaching. “Have you got them painted?”

Gelato’s green eyes are bright with curiosity when Sorbet turns to face him, tucking his arms behind his back.

“Oh, come on, show me!” Gelato insists. “You’ve always got them hidden under your gloves, so I never noticed before.”

Sorbet crumples under the force of Gelato’s pleading gaze and warily proffers his hands before him. He represses the urge to extend his fingers to display his black-painted nails like a woman would.

“It’s just a silly thing,” he mutters. When he dares to meet Gelato’s gaze, expecting derision, he’s stunned to read only fascination.

Gelato’s hands lift to support the painted tips of Sorbet’s fingers as he tilts his head, inspecting. Sorbet forces his breathing into a regular pattern.

“Do you always do them like this? Or do you do different colors?”

“Usually just black.” Sorbet feels compelled to explain himself before Gelato can draw his own conclusions. “Do you know the band Queen ?”

Gelato’s face lights up in recognition. “Who doesn’t? I almost saw them in France for their News of the World tour.”

Sorbet’s heart leaps. “Then you know Freddie Mercury and Brian May?”

“Of course!” Gelato’s up in his personal space as usual, the tips of his shoes nearly touching Sorbet’s, seemingly unaware of the effect it has on him. His fingers burn warmth into Sorbet’s.

“Freddie paints his nails black for shows, and Brian does his in white,” Sorbet explains. “Then the fans picked it up as a way of showing their appreciation for their favorite member.”

“Ah, neat! So Freddie’s your favorite, then?”

Sorbet had been ten years old when he’d first seen Freddie Mercury perform on the grainy television set at a neighbor’s house. 1974, the Sheer Heart Attack tour. As he’d watched the man twist and strut across the stage in his sweat-soaked tank top, Sorbet had felt something stir deep within him, a feeling like a compass needle in his preteen body settling into place to point home.

A feeling that would plague him for the rest of his life.

“Yeah,” Sorbet stutters out. “Yeah, he’s… talented.”

“Mm-hmm. Such a captivating performer.” Gelato glances up from his nails to lock eyes with Sorbet. “Maybe you can do mine sometime.”

“Okay,” Sorbet says before he can stop himself. Sometimes it frightens him how little he can deny Gelato. “You’ll have to pick. Black or white.”

Gelato releases his hands at last, making a show of tapping his chin thoughtfully as his brow furrows. “Tough choice. I’ll let you know!”

-

The static background hum of Sorbet’s shame abates after that day.

He waits for the other shoe to drop- for Gelato to mock the way he dresses or walks or speaks, just like the other men. He imagines it so vividly that it would almost seem a relief.

But the occasion never comes. Gelato still shows up at his door every morning, still drives him home every evening. During the day, he chats happily away in the lab, utterly at ease.

“You live alone, right?” Gelato had once offhandedly asked.

Sorbet had nodded.

“Are you, uh, seeing anyone in town?”

“Like… a girlfriend?”

“Sure.”

“No,” Sorbet had told him, feeling his pulse pick up.

“Huh.”

Gelato had dropped it instantly and had never pushed the subject again.

It’s enough to make Sorbet wonder.

At night, he stares at the spreading water stain on the ceiling above his bed and sifts through the same scenarios again and again in his mind. He reviews his mental videos of Gelato’s mannerisms; he replays every precious detail of his old military stories, searching for a hint.

Never a mention of a wife or girlfriend back in Italy. No ring on his finger.

Could he be-

But what are the odds of that? And is it worth the risk, the disastrous consequences of pushing his luck?

Sorbet’s hope is a frantic, frightening thing. It possesses his waking thoughts. It leaves him climbing the walls of his hollow apartment.

When Sorbet tentatively proposes the idea of exploring the city together on a Saturday afternoon, Gelato nearly smacks his head against the roof of the car in his enthusiastic agreement. There’s plausible deniability in the invitation; Sorbet is just helping Gelato get his bearings in a foreign city.

And so Sorbet takes him on a tour of the area around the university, pointing out the stone buildings where he used to live and study. Gelato laughs uproariously at his retellings of doomed projects and drunken escapades. The sound of it hits Sorbet with a feeling like he’s scratched the winning numbers on a lottery ticket.

They walk the cobblestone streets side by side and smile so widely that Sorbet imagines the pair of them must look like the sort of happy tourists that travel agencies like to put on their brochures.

He leads Gelato through Trojicne Square, the city tower’s sharp spires looming over red-slate rooftops, and shows him all the sights of Little Rome.

“So many churches.” Gelato’s eyes are wide and awed as he takes in the Gothic architecture. “It really does remind me of home.”

“I had a feeling you might like it.” Sorbet internally winces as his fondness makes itself apparent in his voice.

Gelato abruptly stops walking, turning to face Sorbet.

“I appreciate you doing this,” he says. “Showing me around your city and all.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“I’ll have to repay the favor someday.” Gelato’s eyes glitter as he meets Sorbet’s gaze. His teeth pull slightly at his lower lip. “I’m excited to bring you to Rome. Hell, all of Italy if you want.”

Sorbet shoves down the resulting flare of absurd hope.

“That’s… nice of you to say,” he manages.

Gelato’s face falters.

“What? I mean it. I’ll take you everywhere worth visiting, I promise.”

Sorbet’s been promised other things by other men. Men who proved to be liars, men who were even more afraid than he was.

They regretted it in the end.

“You shouldn’t say things like that. You shouldn’t tease,” he says to Gelato, hating the slight tremble in his voice. “It’s- in English, it’s hard for me to tell.”

Gelato’s brows draw together.

“You think I’m making fun of you?”

Sorbet tries to piece together a response, but the foreign words don’t surface in his mind. He lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Look, forget it.”

“I’m not gonna forget it . Why would I mock you?”

Sorbet’s feet move of their own accord, taking him back away from the square as he prays for Gelato to get the hint and move on to more stable conversational territory.

“Would it be so hard to believe that I mean what I say?”

He flinches as Gelato stalks back to his side.

“I’m not a nice man, Sorbet, but I’m nice to you . Why do you think that is, huh?”

“Gelato, please- “

“Jesus, Sorbet, is it that hard to figure out?”

He can feel his heart accelerating, blood thrumming in his ears. They cannot be having this conversation, not in a public square, not on an afternoon that was supposed to be safe and easy and harmless-

“I know you’ve already guessed why I was dishonorably discharged,” Gelato continues, almost pleadingly. “Come on. I was a young, healthy guy. A highly effective soldier.”

When Sorbet averts his eyes, Gelato steps defiantly in front of him, green eyes ablaze. “Look at me. Why would they kick me out, huh?”

Gelato waits expectantly for an answer. Sorbet’s ears burn with shame as he avoids his gaze.

“The same reason they’d kick a guy like you out, right?” Gelato’s voice comes out softer, more sympathetic. It’s unbearable.

“Don’t- don’t say that,” Sorbet stammers. He digs at his collar, at the sides of his neck, so that he won’t grab Gelato by the shoulders and shake him like a doll to get him to shut up.

“Why? Why are you acting like this, you know - “

Gelato’s voice is rising, and if he draws any more attention to them then someone will hear and Sorbet will have to-

“You don’t know what it’s like here!” Sorbet growls.

Gelato recoils in surprise.

“Maybe things are different, somehow, in Rome,” Sorbet continues, “but here it’s- I- my father, he would’ve killed me growing up if, if he’d found out- “

“Then you should’ve killed him !”

Gelato’s furious expression falters when he sees the look on Sorbet’s face.

“…did you?”

“I’m not discussing this with you.” Sorbet shoulders past him. He can feel himself flushing with a poisonous mix of anger and miserable self-loathing.

Gelato follows on his heels. Sorbet feels a hand fist in the back of his sweater before Gelato yanks him back.

“What’s wrong with you? How can you be so ashamed?” Spittle flies from Gelato’s lips as he bites out the words.

“How can you be so shameless ?”

It comes out as an indictment rather than an honest question.

How are you like this, how did you make peace with it, and can you teach me-

“Haven’t you ever wanted something enough that it made you bold?” Gelato’s voice is quiet and eerily calm when he finally speaks.

“Because I think if you want something, you reach out and you take hold of it with both hands.” He steps in closer, chin jutting out. “And you mow down any obstacle, anyone or anything, that would separate you from it. You keep it jealously.” His voice drops to a low hiss on the last word.

Gelato’s eyes flick over Sorbet’s face, searching for something. Disappointment settles over his expression when he fails to find it.

“I thought you’d understand that.”

There’s a moment when Sorbet nearly reaches out and catches him by the shoulder to say stop, you’ve got it wrong-

But Sorbet lets him go. He lets him walk away across the plaza and says nothing like a fucking fool.

Above him, the spire of the town church casts a deep shadow across the cobblestones. Sorbet keeps his eyes on the receding blond blur of Gelato’s hair and stands frozen in place as if turned to stone with the other statues here.

-

The pendulum of Sorbet’s emotions swings all weekend between righteous anger and despair. On Sunday, he bikes a few miles out of the city. Pushing his body to exhaustion has always served well as a distraction. The cool wind whips against his face as he pedals.

The distant forest brings ancient memories to surface from the river-bottom of his mind. They creep in at the edges of his consciousness, from where Gelato’s constant companionship had suppressed them.

Yes. He’s been alone before, and he can be alone again.

The sight of Gelato’s stony face at his door on Monday morning nearly crushes Sorbet’s hard-earned resolve. If Gelato had said something, opened his mouth and demanded answers, Sorbet is certain he would have folded.

But Gelato only turns on his heel and stalks back to the car. The ride to the lab is spent in tortuous silence.

Gelato disappears somewhere after dropping him off, leaving Sorbet alone in the lab. It’s the first time he hasn’t stayed with Sorbet for at least part of the day.

By lunchtime, Sorbet nearly hallucinates the smell of Gelato’s usual toasted sandwich from the nearby deli. Even his music fails to sufficiently distract him.

If Gelato wants to sulk, let him. He’ll be waiting a while if he expects Sorbet to go to him and ask forgiveness for- what, exactly? For not taking something at face value that seemed too good to be true?

He’ll be damned if he’ll explain himself. Everything he’s done has only served to help him survive this long. Gelato may have traveled the world, but he will never understand the place Sorbet came from.

A knock on the door startles Sorbet from his brooding. A blond head pokes hesitantly into the room.

“It’s, uh, seven o’clock. You almost done?”

Ah. Sorbet confirms this with a glance at his watch. He’d lost track of time. It’ll surely be dark outside by now.

“Finishing up.” He punctuates his statement with a snap of his gloves as he peels them off. Out of the corner of his eye, Gelato’s figure recedes back into the hallway.

If Gelato had radiated anger in waves on that morning drive, he’s subdued now as he walks by Sorbet’s side to the parking lot. There’s tension there that begs for an outlet, but it’s no longer suffocating.

“Hey, Sorbet.”

He nearly jumps at the soft sound of Gelato’s voice.

“Look, I’m sorry about the other day,” says Gelato.

Sorbet falters in his stride. Ahead of them, there’s an unfamiliar black car parked in the lot near Gelato’s, glinting under the single floodlight.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand upright.

“You’re right,” Gelato continues, “things are different here than in Italy.”

The walls of the narrow alley seem to close in on Sorbet. A flicker of movement stirs by the hulking metal cooling unit attached to the building.

“And I shouldn’t have held you to the same kind of- “

Sorbet flings out an arm to grab Gelato around the waist just as a figure detaches from the shadows ahead.

“Whoa, what- “

He dives and rolls, shoving Gelato ahead of him into the brick wall behind a dumpster.

“Get down!”

Three gunshots sound out, loud and close enough to make Sorbet’s ears ring. One pings off the metal of the dumpster, inches from Gelato’s body.

Sensation goes strange as adrenaline hits him. The world sharpens and tilts.

He catches the sound of footsteps on the pavement.

“It’s the Italian I’m here for, chemist.” The voice from down the alley speaks Slovak.

Sorbet’s blood chills with sheer predatory fury. He can feel his upper lip lift from his teeth in a snarl.

“Give him over and you’ll be spared.”

Gelato’s eyes are dazed but wide where Sorbet crouches over him. Blood oozes from a cut over his brow where he’d collided with the brick, but he doesn’t so much as grimace.

Sorbet puts a finger to his lips.

“Passione owes us a blood debt. This isn’t your fight,” the man calls out, his footsteps growing nearer. He’s got a southern accent. A Hungarian transplant to the Slovak mob, maybe.

The advancing soles of his shoes are visible in the gap between the dumpster’s base and the pavement beneath it. Sorbet sees Gelato’s eyes track their movement.

With the two of them tangled against the wall like this, the sound of Gelato going for his gun beneath his jacket will alert the assassin to where they’re trapped. Gelato seems to recognize this in the same moment that Sorbet does. His eyes flash wide, then narrow again.

One after another, the hitman’s steady footsteps bring him closer to their cover. Sorbet’s whole body tenses in anticipation.

He knows what Gelato will do the moment he sees his hand creep toward his boot.

Gelato flicks his wrist, and a flash of metal cuts through the air, almost too quick to see as the man’s leg passes their hiding spot.

When Sorbet hears his howl of shocked agony, the result of Gelato’s knife finding its home in the back of the stranger’s knee, he’s already springing to his feet, uncoiling every muscle to strike.

A vicious kick to the back of his other knee brings the man tumbling down. One more gunshot rings uselessly through the air before Sorbet can punch the gun from his hand. It skitters out of reach across the cold asphalt.

Sorbet lands on his back, hunkering low, spreading his body weight over his target’s ungainly frame. Hot blood pulses like a fountain from where Gelato’s knife sticks out of the assassin’s leg. He pins him to the ground, knees locked around both sides of the man’s torso as he splutters and curses. Sorbet’s gloved hands secure themselves reflexively around the jaw and the back of the neck.

A quick, forceful rotation, just as his father had taught him in the woods all those years ago. Just as he’d practiced on every vanished villager.

Snap the deer’s neck. End its suffering.

Crack.

The body under him crumples instantly. Its gurgles cease.

His own heaving breaths are the loudest sounds in the alleyway. Sorbet lifts his hands after several heartbeats pass. His fingers barely tremble.

“I knew you had it in you.”

Sorbet whips around to watch Gelato push himself up onto his knees from where Sorbet had tackled him into the wall. His eyes are huge and reflective like some night creature’s.

“I knew you felt it too.” Gelato’s half-crawling to him now, heedless of the blood pooling from the corpse that Sorbet still straddles. His expression is rapturous.

“Gelato,” Sorbet breathes. His voice sounds ragged and foreign to his own ears.

“We’re just the same, you and me,” Gelato murmurs wonderingly, and Sorbet lets out a shuddering breath as he moves to pull Gelato in and hold him close. His hands leave crimson streaks where they cradle Gelato’s face, brushing his blond hair out of those fever-bright eyes.

It’s a messy, clumsy thing when they finally kiss. Sorbet lurches forward too eagerly and catches his lip on Gelato’s sharp teeth, but Gelato makes this animal noise in his throat and clutches at the back of Sorbet’s neck to deepen the kiss. Sorbet tastes blood and doesn’t know if it’s his own or that of the man he just killed.

Gelato kisses greedily, all-consuming, and Sorbet is all too happy to give and give until his head swims with the need to breathe. He holds Gelato tightly, bodies aligned so naturally it’s as if they were made to fit together.

“Gelato,” he gasps when they break apart.

“Sorbet.” Gelato plants kiss after fervent kiss against his open mouth.

“Gelato, we- mmph- “ he’s cut off by the insistent press of Gelato’s lips, “we have to- ah- deal with the body.”

“Oh, I don’t want to,” Gelato murmurs lowly. “Not right now.” His hands rove restlessly across Sorbet’s chest and sides.

“I know, I know,” says Sorbet, and truthfully he’s tempted to ignore the corpse between them to stay right here with Gelato and make up for lost time. “But someone’s bound to have called the cops on those gunshots. We need to get out of here.”

“Ughhh.” Gelato makes a drawn-out noise of frustration as he buries his face against Sorbet’s chest.

“Later, later,” Sorbet soothes him, stroking his hair. “I promise.”

“Fine.” Gelato pecks him once more on the lips before bouncing to his feet. “I’ll get the car.”

-

The lights of Trnava fade quickly into the rearview mirror as they set out on the main road north, the hitman’s body wrapped in a tarp and bumping around in the trunk of Gelato’s car. Sorbet directs him onto increasingly rural roads; asphalt turns to gravel, then to dirt. The Carpathian foothills of Sorbet’s childhood loom dense and black ahead of them.

Sorbet’s arm extends across the center console as his hand rests cupped around the back of Gelato’s neck, a constant point of contact. Now that he can stare without reserve, he drinks in the sight of Gelato’s profile in the shadows of the car- the pointed slope of his nose, the slight purse of his lips. His gold earring glints in the headlights of a truck passing in the opposite lane.

They take a narrow side road past a logging site until it terminates in a clearing.

“Here is good,” says Sorbet.

The plastic-swaddled body swings heavy between them as they walk it a distance off the road into the woods. Gelato doubles back to the car for a pair of shovels after they drop the man’s corpse onto the mossy forest floor.

Sorbet is left alone to pant for breath in the cool night air, silent but for the intermittent hoots of a nearby owl. The moon sheds bars of light through openings in the trees above. It’s peaceful. Serene.

The forest will swallow up this body, just as it has the others Sorbet has buried here over the years. This corpse will disappear into the earth, decomposing back into carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen, forgotten by the world. No authority, police or mob, can touch him when he’s with Gelato. Of this, Sorbet is certain.

The burial process goes quicker with two sets of hands than it had with one. Sorbet smooths a layer of pinestraw over the grave when they’re finished. He leans heavily on the shovel, hands now stained both with blood and wet earth.

“Hey.” Gelato is there by his side, curling eagerly around him like a python. “It’s officially later.”

“So it is.”

Gelato’s lips curl into that slow, wicked smile that Sorbet would gladly kill again only to see.

“Mmm.” He feels the soft press of lips against his cheekbone before Gelato speaks directly into the shell of his ear. “Let’s get back to the car.”

They barely make it to the backseat.

-

Every second or third weekend, Gelato makes the drive across Austria to the Italian border, where he drops off samples of Sorbet’s methamphetamine to his Passione contacts. He typically spends the night somewhere in Udine, according to the photos and texts he sends Sorbet. Their communications have changed in tone after that paradigm shift in the woods; what had previously been only an undercurrent of longing has blossomed into full-blown love notes.

Stopped off in the middle of nowhere for a bathroom break and saw a waterfall. Really romantic. Made me want to bring you here if only I knew where the hell here is.

Sorbet squints at the tiny screen of his mobile phone to see the attached image. A pink blur in the corner seems to denote Gelato’s thumb.

It hadn’t taken long for him to become accustomed to Gelato’s presence in every moment of his life, from sunup to sundown. Sorbet spends the weekend pacing around his apartment and trying to remember how he ever used to pass the hours before. The songs he plays in an attempt to distract himself only drag his thoughts back to Gelato.

Another trip: Got some decent Italian ham for breakfast this morning in Udine. Are you eating well? Miss you already.

Sorbet takes his lunch outside and thinks of Gelato on the road, somewhere under the same sky.

And later: Thought about what we got up to Friday night and nearly had to pull the car over. Can’t fucking wait to get back to you.

Gelato always returns straight to Sorbet’s apartment on Sunday nights. The weight of Sorbet’s anxieties evaporates from his shoulders the moment he hears that knock on the door- he all but sprints to open it, to twirl Gelato into his arms and kiss him breathless, and then to rush him to the shower and massage the tension from his exhausted shoulders.

“Got a treat for you,” says Gelato the next morning, opening Sorbet’s ancient fridge to remove the small white box he’d placed there the previous night. “Smuggled it across the border.”

When Sorbet comes peering over his shoulder, Gelato nudges him away with a finger to the tip of his nose.

“No peeking!”

Gelato unveils the surprise mid-morning at the lab once Sorbet’s finished with his maintenance tasks.

“Come over here, babe.” He beckons with a sly crook of his finger. Sorbet hurries to him, a hapless fish on a line.

Gelato pops the box open and lets Sorbet look inside.

“What… are those?” Sorbet stares wonderingly at the box’s contents.

“ Sfogliatelle . Picked them up for you Sunday morning.”

The dough of the pastries is layered in fine sheets, hair-thin and delicate like the lines on a clamshell. They’re dusted with a covering of powdered sugar.

“They’d be better fresh, but.” Gelato shrugs apologetically.

Sorbet makes to pluck one from the box but stops short.

“Oh, damn,” he mutters, fiddling with the edge of his latex glove. “I’m not supposed to touch food with these on. Contamination concerns or something.”

“Oh no,” Gelato purrs, his grin broadening. “Whatever will we do?”

He leans forward to hold a pastry to Sorbet’s lips. A puff of powdered sugar falls onto the front of Sorbet’s turtleneck.

Ah.

Sorbet keeps his eyes locked on Gelato’s as he takes a first bite. The taste of flaky dough and cream breaks over his tongue. He sucks every last crumb from Gelato’s fingers.

-

Logically, Sorbet knows that Gelato can’t stay over every night; he returns to his place to cook, change clothes, and communicate with his superiors.

But when Sorbet first awakens to the bare expanse of the bed at his side, some part of him always flares up in a panic that the past three months have all been a vivid dream. He buries his face in the pillow beside him to breathe in the leftover scent of Gelato’s shampoo.

He doesn’t begin to worry until Gelato fails to arrive at his door to pick him up for the day’s work. Sorbet waits around for nearly half an hour, trying his cell multiple times to no avail before he gives up and wheels out his bike.

Sorbet finds himself scanning the roads for the familiar make and model of Gelato’s car as he pedals along his usual route. The sky above hangs low and grey, threatening rain.

There’s a familiar figure waiting in his lab.

“Sorbet,” says Michal, straightening up off the wall. “How’s it going?”

Sorbet blinks at him in confusion. “I’m doing fine. Where’s Gelato?”

“Ah, he was called back to Italy. You must’ve been confused when he didn’t show up this morning, right?”

It suddenly becomes very hard to breathe.

“So the- the collaboration is over?” Sorbet manages. It can’t be right, he hasn’t had time to prepare, as if anything could help him come to terms with Gelato’s imminent departure.

“Well, that’s what I came here to tell you about.” Michal approaches him and claps a heavy hand down on Sorbet’s shoulder. His smile stretches his jowls. “Give yourself a pat on the back, Sorbet. Your product was good enough that the Italians want more of it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sounds like you passed the test!”

“Oh,” Sorbet breathes.

“Couldn’t spare a little more enthusiasm than that, huh?” Michal arches a sardonic brow. “Regardless, it’s good news. Hey, the guy from Passione even suggested giving you the rest of the day off! They must be pleased.”

Sorbet’s stomach churns nauseatingly as he processes Michal’s words.

“Why don’t you head on home, then?” Michal seems mildly disconcerted by Sorbet’s lack of a reaction. “Celebrate that upcoming pay raise, eh?”

Sorbet nods jerkily.

“Right. I… guess we’ll talk later.”

His head feels like it’s stuffed with wool as he bikes home. Even his handlebars beneath his palms seem distant, as though someone else is reaching through his body to grasp them.

The door seems to creak especially loudly as it closes behind Sorbet, echoing through his empty apartment. He sits heavily down on the edge of the bed.

The duvet feels soft between his clenched fingers. The floor is solid under his feet. There’s no waking up from this.

Sorbet jumps at the sound of something colliding with his window.

Is it hailing outside?

Another sharp thwack sounds out, too isolated and heavy to be ice.

“What the hell?“

When he goes to the window, Sorbet recognizes the shape of the car parked in the alley behind his building. And the man at the foot of the fire escape is-

“Sorbet!”

Gelato’s voice is muffled by the pane of glass as he waves his arms, another small fragment of pavement clutched in his fist.

Sorbet’s hand flies to his mouth. The corners of his eyes burn with warmth as a wave of overwhelming relief washes over him.

As he watches, Gelato yanks down the ladder of the fire escape and begins determinedly climbing up. Sorbet’s trembling fingers fumble with the latch of the window.

“Gelato!” Sorbet sticks his head out the open window as he calls his name.

“Shh, keep your voice down!” Gelato’s own voice shakes with joy.

As soon as Gelato finishes wriggling through the window frame, Sorbet is there to catch him and pull him upright.

“Gelato,” Sorbet breathes. The figure in his arms is solid and utterly real. “Oh my god, Gelato, what’s going on? They told me- “

“That I went back to Italy, right? I was supposed to.” Gelato grips him tightly around the waist, his eyes wide and avid. “But I had to come find you first.”

Sorbet pulls him in for a breathless kiss, cupping the dear shape of his face. Gelato’s expression is giddy when they first pull back, but in the silence that falls, his face darkens.

“We have to get you out of here, babe,” Gelato whispers.

“What?” His euphoria is beginning to fade at the edges, dissipated by Gelato’s sudden seriousness. “I thought the deal was set. The boss approved my product.”

“There wasn’t a deal, Sorbet,” says Gelato lowly. “It was a trap.”

“What do you mean?”

“I only just pieced it together after I got off the phone with my capo. I can’t believe I wasn’t more suspicious from the start!”

Gelato releases him and begins pacing back and forth across Sorbet’s bedroom. “The boss wasn’t really testing out samples to collaborate. He wanted to find out who was producing meth of comparable quality to our domestic supply so he could eliminate them.”

“How- how do you know that?” Sorbet stammers. “What did they tell you on the phone?”

“My capo told me to clear out my things and head home immediately without contacting you.” Gelato spins on his heel, his hands fluttering in agitation as he speaks. “He thanked me for helping ensure the security of Passione. Not a word about the deal itself! Don’t you see, Sorbet?”

“This whole project,” says Sorbet, “it wasn’t about expanding your international trade routes?”

Gelato shakes his head somberly. “That was never the goal. It was about killing off the competition by targeting the chemists- “

He prods Sorbet in the chest with one pointed finger.

“-at the heart of it all.”

Some fragmented part of Sorbet’s brain attempts to assemble this new information as Gelato stands before him, breathing shallowly.

“That’s an insane plan,” Sorbet says at last.

“The Don is paranoid, Sorbet,” Gelato hisses, his eyes wide. “Any man who hides his face and his name for so long must be. He’ll do anything to keep Passione at the top.”

“And you… just found out about this?”

A stricken look passes over Gelato’s face.

“I swear to god I didn’t know, Sorbet, I would’ve never allowed it.” His voice is tremulous. “Please believe me when I tell you that.“

Sorbet has killed men under less suspicion than this. It’s only his vigilance that has allowed him to live this long.

If this is a deception, then Sorbet has made his peace with it.

“I believe you,” he tells Gelato.

Gelato’s expression transforms into something unutterably tender. He steps forward, letting his hand alight on Sorbet’s cheek.

“We’ve got to get you out of here, babe,” Gelato whispers. “They’ll be sending someone here to take you out, and it won’t be like the last guy we killed. Whoever they assign will be someone who can outgun us. They’ll set a bomb in your building if it means killing you.”

“We could go into the country,” Sorbet suggests haltingly, “to somewhere like my hometown. We could hole up for a bit- “

Gelato’s already shaking his head. “They’ll find you. The moment you get sighted, it’ll be over.” He chews his lip as he ponders. “No, no, we need to leave the country.”

“And go where?”

Scarcely a second passes before Gelato abruptly grips Sorbet by the lapels.

“Come back with me to Rome,” he says fervently, and it’s as though he’s reached directly into Sorbet’s mind and pulled forth his most guarded desire. “I mean it. I can protect you there, Sorbet.”

“How- “

“I’ll get you papers, a new passport. I’ve got the connections.” Gelato’s words blur together. “And once you’ve left your lab behind, then you’re no longer a threat, right? It would be a waste of resources for Passione to hunt you down once you’re not competition anymore.”

The world tips on its axis. If Gelato were to release him, Sorbet might float up to the ceiling.

“You really want me to go with you?” he chokes out.

Gelato smiles that broad floodlight smile. “I want it more than anything in the world.”

What is there to keep him here in this country? A language, a job. An apartment as lifeless as the buried bodies softly rotting in the forest.

Sorbet covers Gelato’s hands with his own, squeezing them so tight as to bruise.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

-

In the end, it doesn’t take long at all to pack away what’s left of Sorbet’s life here. He hands box after box to Gelato through the window to take down the waiting car below. His clothes, his guns and knives, his money all make their gradual way into Gelato’s trunk. Sorbet can’t help the way that random bouts of incredulous laughter seem to grip him, despite Gelato’s urgent hushing.

“Quickly, sweetheart, we may not have much time,” Gelato tells him, but he hasn’t stopped smiling since this began.

When they’re finished, the apartment is blank, absent in character and personality. Sorbet looks back and hardly recognizes it. It’s as if a ghost has inhabited the place all these years, tied by memories to the stained bathtub and the kitchen that always managed to smell of smoke.

The sun’s just beginning to sink down over the horizon, forming watercolor bands in the sky by the time they make it to the highway. Sorbet makes his selection from the cassette rack and slides in a Smiths album. Gelato nods his approval as the opening strains of a jangly guitar tune come through the speakers.

The open road stretches before them. Sorbet settles back in the passenger seat and taps out a drumbeat on the car door handle.

“It’s a good thing you agreed to come with me, you know.”

Sorbet turns from the passing scenery to face Gelato. The sinking sun sets the edges of his blond hair aglow.

“How could I not?” He reaches to cover Gelato’s hand on the stick shift with his own. “For the man I adore.”

“Aww, babe.” Gelato’s smile is sweet and self-satisfied. “I only mean to say I was prepared to, ah, take care of things if you’d been hesitant to leave. I know it’s not the easiest thing to pack up your whole life on such short notice.”

“You were prepared?” Sorbet lets his thumb stroke across Gelato’s hand. The sight of their painted nails together fills his heart with a lightness like helium. “Tell me what you would’ve done.”

“Well.” Gelato grins. “I would’ve had to chloroform you.”

“Oh?”

“And tie you up.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad.”

Gelato’s smirk widens. “And keep you in the back of the car until we crossed into Rome.”

“Oh my,” Sorbet breathes, transfixed. “You bad, bad man.”

Gelato giggles when Sorbet swoops in and kisses the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose, then his temple. The car wobbles across the lane with Gelato’s distraction, but Sorbet is too giddy with devotion to care.

“But that’s how much I love you, baby,” says Gelato, steadying his hands on the wheel as Sorbet leans back into his seat. “That’s how bad I want to keep you with me.”

God.

It’s the most romantic thing Sorbet has ever heard.