Chapter Text
“Pass me the wine bottle, will you?”
Right as his lips form the last few syllables, Leone is hit by a strange sense of familiarity—a deja-vu, almost. The ease at which his hand extended along with his words isn’t even the odd part, nor is the willingness of his companion when he does as requested.
No, it’s the flash of memories that follows when cool glass presses against his palm, sudden and vivid, as if he were rewinding a VHS tape. Ha, must be Moody Blues’ doing. Leone barely stifles a good-natured scoff, following it up with a cough before Bruno starts asking what’s going on in that ever busy head of his.
Leone allows himself, surprisingly enough, to look a little deeper into the depths of his memories here. Disregarding uninvited thoughts is an easier route for sure, but ignoring a problem doesn’t quite make it go away. That’s a lesson he learned the hard way, and Leone does pride himself in his ability to learn quickly.
Fingers smooth over the wine bottle’s label, which he pretends to inspect closely as he would with an unknown bottle. This is one of his favourites, ‘Recioto Della Valpolicella’, beautifully fragrant but not too heavy on the tongue. Either way, Leone takes advantage of his makeshift interest in the old classic bottle as he delves deeper into the image his mind’s eye displays so clearly.
There’s a hand he doesn’t quite recognise, shaky and wrinkly, passing over a nondescript bottle of presumably cheap wine. It’s already opened, a single drop hanging on for dear life at the rim before it teeters over the edge and rolls down the neck. Metaphorical in a way, Leone thinks now in hindsight, though at that time he’d already been too far gone to even pay such implications any mind.
It tastes bitter, Leone recalls, sour, vile. How a liquid could taste so dry is beyond him, as is the knowledge that he’d knocked back litres of it in his time.
Of course, drinking for enjoyment was the last thing on his mind then. No bright Chardonnay or rich Pinot Noir, no Sauvignon to bring out the flavours of a freshly prepared steak. Just a distraction.
Looking back at it all, Leone is almost relieved he hadn’t wasted any artisan wines, though surely voicing a cynical thought like that would earn him a disapproving tut from Bruno.
“Are you going to open it?”
Leone straightens up a little where he is seated on the sofa, briefly wondering whether his mind is playing tricks on him or if Bruno had really asked. The smile he witnesses when his eyes drift off to confirm his suspicions tells him it wasn’t his imagination, but rather a fond little tease. Leone makes a point of rolling his eyes before returning to the task at hand, swiftly popping the bottle’s cork.
He can’t be blamed for questioning reality however, since Bruno has uttered these exact words before in the past. Leone recalls the look on the man’s face, a stark contrast to the easy-going comfort he wears so well right now.
It happened years ago, his own fingers feverishly clutched around a champagne bottle he’d found, more than prepared to undo months of hard work and effort with one mere swig of sparkling liquid. Bruno had caught him in the act, right in time to stop Leone from ripping off the plastic seal around the cap.
He’d asked then, gaze fiery with desperation, fingers clenched into a fist. His words didn’t sound sad or disappointed, Leone remembers. It had come out as a challenge, almost as if that very moment had been a prefabricated test to determine the true extent of his progress. That alone had been enough to awaken the fight within Leone again, rather than fueling the despair that had led him to the liquor cabinet in the first place.
Bruno has always been good like that, Leone thinks to himself as he holds out his current bottle, encouraging his companion to take in its aroma. Deep blues lid as he inhales, humming appreciatively. “Hm, truly exquisite,” Bruno adds in what Leone assumes was supposed to be an imitation of himself, complete with a flip of imaginary long hair.
He’s not entirely wrong in doing so, but that doesn’t stop Leone from pretending to fill only his own glass, until he’s subjected to Bruno’s infamous puppy eyes.
It’s those words, along with the swirl of burgundy liquid contained in crystal that brings forth a vision far more appealing than the previous two—possibly because it’s more recent. He looks healthier, relaxed, happy even; a collection of words he didn’t believe to ever associate with ever again back then.
But how couldn’t he be when Bruno had returned home with a bag full of painfully pricey bottles they were tasked to taste? He’d been a bit nervous initially, facing such a ridiculous amount of liquor all at once despite the confidence in his newfound ability to make better choices. But it was for a good cause, he knew to tell himself, one that replaced the beginnings of nervous jitters with warmth and more positive excitement all over.
After all, their wedding required only the most exquisite selection of wine known to mankind, no?
It was that day, surrounded by people he had come to love, drinking their carefully hand-picked bottles, where Leone learned to truly enjoy and appreciate the liquid he claimed to love so much. Be it the flowery aromas, smooth mouthfeels, or perhaps his good company, it’s a sensation Leone still experiences each and every time he pops a cork.
All he needs is a warm thigh pressed against his own, the chime of two glasses meeting, and the pleasant sound of his love’s voice,
“Salute.”