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“Here, take my hand.”
“Kid, I’m like twice your height ‘n probably twice your weight. Just move.”
“You’re not that heavy. Just–”
“Move!”
It hadn’t exactly been Narancia’s fault that Abbacchio had gotten hurt. Not really.
Bucciarati and his men had been ordered by a superior lieutenant to case an old abandoned apartment building where some low squadra was rumored to be operating. The squadra owed the lieutenant a shipment of freshly laundered bills totaling approximately two million, but three days had passed since the agreed upon delivery date and there was not a single euro to show for it. The squadra had seemingly vanished. Radio silence. When their leader was spotted driving around just outside of town in a shiny new Maserati, the fate of the shipment became evident. Bucciarati decided they would act that very evening, informing his team that they were to seize any remaining assets and to make sure the traitorous thieves understood the repercussions of stealing from the very famiglia which so generously employed them.
The building had been decrepit and dark, and water damage had gotten to the interior. The smell of mildew was heavy in the air as the team crept through, flashlights providing only narrow cones of light, in search of the thieves. Abbacchio and Narancia, their stands best suited for reconnaissance, had been sent in as a pair with their team members posted just outside, just a Sticky-Fingers-zipper-void away. It had been Abbacchio’s decision to grab Narancia when the kid, distracted by Aerosmith’s viewfinder and not focused enough on his plain sight, had nearly fallen through an old, rotted bit of the flooring. The momentum of the hasty motion had sent Abbacchio tripping forward, swapping his and Narancia’s positions, and instantly plummeting through to the basement below as layers of weathered plywood gave way under his weight. Thinking back on it, he wasn’t sure what had made him sicker - the four shocked faces of the greedy squadra members as he fell some three meters directly into their hidden meeting room all suddenly staring at him, or the sound of his bones crunching against the concrete floor as he landed hard on his side and felt his skull bounce. Luckily, with the rest of the team behind him (now above him, technically), the thieves were quickly dispatched and the remainder of the pilfered shipment secured. Abbacchio spent his time during the brief clash curled into a fetal position swallowing down the need to puke until he blacked out to the ratatat of gunfire and whirring of zippers.
So it wasn’t exactly Narancia’s fault Abbacchio had brained himself. But it sort of was. Abbacchio was still pissed at him, either way, and Narancia could sense it. That’s why he’d been the one to hover over Abbacchio in the basement until the older man had roused, asking him if he was okay and whether he could stand; the one to hold Abbacchio’s hair back as he shakily rolled onto his stomach to respond with dry heaves; the one to volunteer to pull the car around when Fugo and Bucciarati set eyes on the trickle of blood dripping out of Abbacchio’s nose and the quickly deepening bruises around his eye sockets; the one to fetch him cup after cup of shitty instant coffee from the vending machine in the emergency department waiting room while they waited for two fucking hours; the one to ask the consulting physician way too many questions after he’d finally been assigned to a private bed; and the final straw that led to Abbacchio yelling for everyone to “just fuck off” as he was still waiting for a morphine drip that was supposed to have arrived forty five minutes ago. Reluctantly, around three in the morning, Bucciarati had ushered the group outside, agreeing that they could all use some sleep at home and that their comrade deserved some privacy. The team had bid Abbacchio goodnight and promised they’d be back to check on him soon, Narancia lingering an extra few seconds to tell him, once again, that he was really, seriously, totally sorry.
For Abbacchio, the next several hours had been spent in blissful, solitudinous peace. The morphine came. He was whisked away into imaging for x-rays and a head CT. Diagnosis: a linear skull fracture, a handful of cracked ribs, and one hell of a concussion. He was told he’d be under observation for a few hours but there was no need for surgery (unless his brain decided to swell from the trauma, in which case they would pop his skull open like a cookie jar to give it more space to expand, or something; Abbacchio's understanding of the intricacies of a craniotomy was somewhat limited thanks to the really good shit fucking up his central nervous system by that point, thank god). More morphine, a visit by a phlebotomist that siphoned off what must have been half his blood for some analysis, a tetanus shot, and deep, black sleep.
And then Abbacchio woke up, and there they were again - all four of ‘em. Fresh faced, bathed, and in clean clothes. Their sunshiny faces made his headache worse.
Initially, Fugo and Bruno had done a pretty good job of getting Narancia to sit down and be quiet (Mista hadn’t helped; he thought all the pestering was hilarious). Through a half delirious daze caused partially by the head wound and partially by the drugs, Abbacchio was aware of the kid constantly looking at him, imploring with those big, sad eyes to let him atone for the fuck-up. A couple times he offered to refill his water bottle or to bring him some decent food from off-campus establishments (Abbacchio allowed the former but refused the latter; even the thought of food was awful). But for the most part, he was still and he was quiet, occupied with some algebra prescribed by Fugo, and so he was not an issue.
But as the team had whiled away the morning and then the afternoon, Narancia’s fidgeting seemed to become contagious: the more neurotic Narancia had become about making sure Abbacchio was staying hydrated and receiving sufficient pain meds, the more Bucciarati's brows knit together in quiet concern over the fact that Abbacchio had - apparently - slurred a word or two, and the more tidbits of information Fugo began dropping about how lucky he was that it hadn’t been a basilar fracture or a serious brain bleed or a cerebrospinal fluid leak. Even Mista didn’t seem totally immune, trying to cheer Abbacchio up by assuring him that “the whole raccoon eyes thing kind of meshes with your goth look.”
Abbacchio gave a half-hearted attempt at suggesting his team go home and deal with whatever work they surely had piling up, but Bucciarati promptly shut that down, telling him the wellbeing of the team came first and that they’d already made him spend the most precarious hours of that first night alone. Bucciarati had even leaned in, hand on Abbacchio’s shoulder, and shot him through with the warmest, most paternal smile Abbacchio had ever been given. The gesture had been so endearing, so candid that Abbacchio had given up on booting them out right then and there. At least Bucciarati; he would have been happy to get rid of Mista, Fugo, and especially Narancia, but they, unfortunately, came as a package deal.
And so Abbacchio had sighed and decided right then and there to endure it: the fussing, the worrying, the offers to help him go to the bathroom (hell no; there were some things he could do just fine on his own, head injury or no, thank you very much!) He’d spent as much of the day as he could sleeping, but constant interruptions from ward nurses and doctors poking and prodding him for blood or neurological exams made that tricky. And then there was the filial bickering of his comrades; Mista and Narancia and Fugo would get into some kind of discussion - the topic didn’t matter - and inevitably end up arguing, hands flying around in passionate gesticulations to make their points better. And then it would get too heated, and Bucciarati would have to shut it down with a stern “enough!” If the bickering hadn’t already awoken Abbacchio, Bucciarati’s authoritative orders always would. There was something Pavlovian in his psyche that was tuned into the voice of his superior, and that hardwiring hadn’t been dislodged even with the brain damage he was now suffering, it seemed.
He’d looked forward to nightfall as it crept closer, assuming his comrades would go home like the previous night. Not so. For whatever reason, they’d decided to stay packed in the room, sleeping in shifts on the uncomfortable folding chairs that had been provided so that there was always someone awake to keep an eye on him. Fugo’s shift was first and had been the most tolerable. Fugo had mostly just ignored him, probably figuring that no news was good news and that if something came up, Abbacchio would say so. Smart kid. He was Abbacchio’s favorite right now.
Bucciarati had been equally quiet, but Abbacchio couldn’t sleep when Bucciarati was awake and on edge, and so the two men had just sat silently in the room from the hours of midnight until three in the morning not saying anything but not being able to sleep.
Mista had been fidgety during his shift, bouncing his leg in his chair and making the plasticky cushion go creak-creak-creak-creak-creak. Abbacchio had given an annoyed grunt and Mista seemed to get it, promptly going still. For, like, six minutes. Then more creak-creak-creak-creak-creaking. And then the Pistols had come out to whine about how they were bored and how this situation blew and how they were hungry and how Bucciarati was cruel for making their shift include the four o’clock hour because if something was going to go wrong, then it would, of course, happen then. Abbacchio always assumed the Pistols just said aloud whatever Mista was thinking. Maybe Moody Blues wanted to announce Abbacchio’s inner thoughts sometimes, too. Abbacchio wouldn’t have allowed it in a room with a sleepy, concussed man at such an ungodly time of day, though. There was probably something to be said about the fact that Abbacchio's stand had no mouth where Mista's had six.
Narancia had been given the early morning shift, and of course he had immediately resumed his oppressive regime of babying. “Are you hungry, Abbacchio?” “How’s your head, Abbacchio?” “You know I’m really sorry, right, Abbacchio?” Abbacchio had provided curt, monosyllabic responses: “No.” “Fine.” “Hmph.” They were meant to be deterrent to any future questions, but Narancia hadn’t picked up on that. Light had started to filter through the blinds on the window by the time Abbacchio was able to convince Narancia that he was fine, needed absolutely nothing, and just wanted to be left alone. A bit too late, really; everyone else had started to rouse by then, and the cycles of being checked in on started up again.
Thirty four grueling hours in the hospital and Abbaccio had been allowed to leave with nothing to show for the trip but a prescription for some heavy duty narcotics and some gnarly bruising. There was no concerning bleeding, no vitals that were cause for alarm. He had been ordered to rest in a dark, quiet room until the concussion symptoms abated - an order with which he was all too thrilled to comply. Sleep in his own bed, the curtains drawn and his door locked, sounded nice. Better than nice. And the only thing standing between Abbacchio and sleep was a single car ride. No problem.
Or at least he’d thought as much.
The hospital had insisted on wheeling him out to the pick-up/drop-off zone in a wheelchair - per their policy, they claimed - which was demeaning and already had him miffed. He could walk just fine, goddamn it. But then Bucciarati had pulled their sedan up to the entrance and moved around to open the back door, thus revealing that Abbacchio was going to have to Tetris himself into the backseat around Mista and Narancia (Fugo had claimed shotgun; bastard).
“Fuck that,” he’d groaned, pushing himself up on shaky legs from that stupid goddamned wheelchair and shaking off the nurse who tried to help him up. “I want the front.”
Bucciarati had muttered something apologetic about how he felt the backseat was the safer, more secure option, and how the view through the windshield might be too bright and dizzying given the concussion and extended a hand out towards Abbacchio.
Gloomily, Abbacchio had sighed and moved stiffly to the backseat, wedging himself in and vying for territory in the floorboard for his legs. His height was working against him. Bending his spine at all caused a significant amount of pain in his ribs which made it excruciating just to breathe. That fact made sitting down about six times more laborious than it should have been and equally as embarrassing. Seated and buckled, he warned the two goons beside him, his voice hoarse with exhaustion and pain, “If you even breathe too loudly, I’ll gut both of you.”
Luckily, the drive itself had gone easily enough. The residual meds in Abbacchio’s system knocked him out a kilometer down the road and his comrades had the decency to let him rest. Then Bucciarati had parked them out front and they found themselves in the current standoff - Abbacchio just wanting the dignity of walking to the front door on his own and Narancia trying, once again, to be helpful with an outstretched hand and a big encouraging grin.
“Narancia,” Fugo huffed, already moving to the front door with the house key readied, “just shut up and get out of his way.”
Narancia huffed and took a few paces away from the car, allowing a very annoyed looking Abbacchio to ease his legs out. Narancia was still muttering under his breath how he could, too, manage Abbacchio’s weight if he needed to.
Abbacchio hoisted himself out of the car in a less than graceful fashion, shoes skittering a bit in the gravel drive. Mista and Bucciarati, both standing at the ready, flinched in response to what looked like Abbacchio about to topple over sideways, but relaxed when he righted himself and shot them another pissed-off scowl.
“Would you all stop acting like I’m suddenly an invalid? I’m fine.” With that, he limped towards the front door, looking decidedly not fine.
Sensing the boy’s desperate yearning to fix the situation, Bucciarati placed a hand on Narancia’s shoulder. “He’s not mad at you,” he assured him.
“He totally is, though,” Narancia grumbled in response, digging the toe of his shoe into the gravel. For as tough as Narancia acted, he was still just a kid.
Giving him one last reassuring pat, Bucciarati released Narancia and moved towards the door himself. “Just give him some space.”
Inside, life returned to normal. Mista and Fugo set to raiding the refrigerator for lunch, Bucciarati checked for any further communications from the lieutenant (who had sent his gratitude to the team for a mission well done, along with his sympathy over the injury of their teammate and well-wishes towards a speedy recovery), and Narancia ghosted around the house, moping and fidgeting and trying his hardest not to dote.
Abbacchio had managed to haul himself as far as the loveseat before running out of steam and breaking down, monopolizing the entire piece of furniture by sprawling out across it, head on one arm and ankles crossed over the other. It was a ratty old thing, presumably having been left behind by the home’s previous owners, but it was plush and familiar and comfortable. His eyes fluttered shut and with the white noise of his teammates going about their business, the pain lessened, lifting off of him like water evaporating. A drug-influenced sleep closed in around him.
At least until someone nudged him awake and asked, “Hey, Abbacchio, you want some lunch?”
Goddamn it.
One of Abbacchio’s eyes fluttered open and he glowered as hard as he could. Tupperware of something in-hand, Narancia was leaning down over him, beaming a wide, honest smile. Clearly he thought he was being helpful. Again.
“No.”
“You sure? I didn’t see you eat anything at the hospital. Aren’t you hungry?”
More forcefully, he said again, “No.”
Narancia frowned. “You won’t get better if you’re starving yourself, y’know.”
Abbacchio would have scoffed - where had the kid learned that? A parent? Sounded like a mom thing. Would have if, one, it wouldn’t have hurt to do so, and, two, any humor he felt in that moment wasn’t being overridden by some serious, morbid annoyance.
“Narancia,” he grumbled, a warning growl just under the surface of his voice, “just fuck off.” Beyond Narancia, Abbacchio could make out Mista and Fugo leaning over the half-wall bar in their dining nook, picking over something in takeout boxes. They were a bit blurry - something about the head injury temporarily fucking with his distance vision - but from what he could piece together, they looked amused, eager to see what would happen next. Bucciarati was nowhere in sight. Where was the leader when you needed him?
Abbacchio had hoped that would be the end of it, but Narancia was persistent. “Well at least drink some water. I’ll go get you some, okay?”
“NO,” he snapped, his fabled and now rarely used “cop voice” coming out to play. The ringing of his own yell off the walls was like an electric jolt in his ears and battered brain, but it was worth it if it got his message across. It seemed to have; Narancia flinched, eyes going all wide with genuine surprise as if he hadn’t been given several warnings already. “All I want,” Abbacchio continued, keeping his voice level as best as he could but ultimately not doing a stellar job, “is to sleep. I don’t want food. I don’t want water. I don’t want you to bother me. Feeling guilty that you got me into this isn’t gonna fix it any faster, so I need you to just leave me the FUCK alone!”
The commotion did summon Bucciarati, the single loud “no” having been enough to bring him downstairs with Sticky Fingers out and ready to throw a punch. When their leader realized the situation, he called off his stand and sighed, “Narancia, please, go to the kitchen with the others.”
Abbacchio was already struggling to get off of the loveseat. It had been comfortable while he was lying down but the way the broken-down cushions gave far too easily under his weight made it almost impossible to escape it without bending his side in some way that made his ribs twinge or neck turn too far, and that pissed him off. Stupid fucking goddamn couch being stronger and more agile than him! Stupid upholstered bastard! Eventually, Abbacchio was practically clawing his way up off the clingy old sofa, letting out a vocal string of swears that had Mista snickering, “Damn, dude, where have you been storing those?!”
“You shut the fuck up, too!” Abbacchio barked, cutting Mista off at once and preempting any joviality Fugo or Bucciarati might have wanted to find in the situation. Moody Blues might have flickered behind Abbacchio in a position similar to a cornered dog ready to bite, but if it did, it was fleeting. Shooting one last glare at Narancia (the poor kid looked lost, taken aback by what he probably viewed as a sudden and unprovoked verbal assault), Abbacchio stormed towards the stairs as best as he could. Some impact was lost when he went to actually climb them, limping stiffly up one by one instead of employing his usual two-steps-at-a-time, half running lope. From downstairs, there was the sound of his bedroom door slamming and the barely perceptible sound of an 80- or 90-kilo body hitting a mattress and squeaky box springs. Then nothing.
There was a collective release of held breaths downstairs.
“Well that was… something,” Fugo murmured, stabbing his leftovers absently with his fork, still lost in the entertainment and confusion of the moment.
“You see?” Narancia asked, turning to Bucciarati. “He’s definitely mad.”
Bucciarati sighed again - the only adult in the room. Possibly the only adult in the world just then. He felt far too tired to be as young as he was. “I did tell you to leave him alone.”
The remaining hours of the day ticked away, and one by one, the crew began retiring to their rooms. Bucciarati tended to keep late hours, preferring the silence of the house at night to finish up any pending work. Once everyone else had gone to bed and all work completed or else too complicated for his sleepy brain to focus on adequately, he silently crept up the stairs towards Abbacchio’s room. Pausing only temporarily to reconsider, he gave a couple light knocks. “Leone?”
There was no reply at first. Then, about to turn towards his own room, Bucciarati heard a very faint “come in.” Knowing his friend well enough to know the door would be locked, Bucciarati unzipped himself a portal through the door and stepped inside, letting it dissipate behind him.
Abbacchio was sprawled on his back and covered up to his shoulders in blankets. One eye, almost gleaming against the darkened skin around it, looked back at Bucciarati.
“How are you feeling?”
“The volume of my own thoughts is enough to make my head feel like it’s splitting open, and my ribs creak whenever I breathe,” Abbacchio half-whispered, “but aside from that, I feel great.”
“Mind if I sit?”
Abbacchio blinked slowly in lieu of a verbal response. Bucciarati understood and padded quietly across the carpeted floor to perch on the edge of Abbacchio’s mattress. Upon closer inspection, the man looked a bit more frail than he did at a distance. The bruising around his eyes had spread and darkened since they’d brought him home, and an equally nasty bruise was now peeking out from under his hairline where he’d smacked his head. He was paler than usual, and there was a light sheen of sweat shining on his skin. Though he was buried in sheets from the shoulders down, Bucciarati had to imagine the entire side he’d landed on must have looked just about as bad as his head. He might have been trembling, but it was hard to tell.
“You look like you’re hurting pretty badly.”
“Uh,” Abbacchio grunted, swallowing thickly. He seemed to be having trouble keeping his eyes focused on anything in particular and just closed them. “I want to say I’ve had worse hangovers, but I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe when I was going through the DTs, but that's such a blur, anyhow....”
“You were given painkillers, right? Have you taken them?”
“Uh,” he grunted again, the pause afterwards lasting longer this time. “Well, they’re narcotics.”
Bruno blinked. “Indeed. They’re narcotics that were specifically prescribed to you because you split your skull open. Did you think I’d have an issue with them?”
Abbacchio’s shoulders twitched into what was probably meant to be a shrug, but he winced and stopped short, his breath hitching. He must have tweaked his damaged side.
“I appreciate your commitment to our goals, but consider it an order to take your medicine as prescribed. You’re no good to me if you can’t heal because you’re in too much pain to rest and recover.” Personally, Bruno wasn’t a fan of the way that sounded - so detached and utilitarian. But he knew Abbacchio. Knew him well enough to know he worked best when receiving direct orders from a superior. Pleading with him, one friend to another, had maybe a fifty-fifty chance of working. Maybe sixty-forty in Bruno’s favor if he was being confident - Abbacchio did have an uncharacteristic fondness for him. Softness and empathy just didn’t do it for someone like Abbacchio who tended to find such things embarrassing. Appealing to the part of him that highly respected the chain of command, however….
“Sir.”
“Do you need one now?”
“...Yep.”
Bruno smiled; that level of candidness from Abbacchio was rare and charming when it happened. “Alright. I’ll go get some water for you.” He’d only just gotten to his feet when the other man's voice came from the bed once again.
“Was I too intense with Narancia?”
Bucciarati stopped and turned back. “Well,” he mused, smiling a little. “I think you caught us all off-guard with that shouting. He took it a little personally, though, yes.”
“Fu-u-uck,” Abbacchio groaned, sounding not dissimilar to a coffee percolator. “I didn’t mean to blow up at him. I feel shitty for it.”
“He knows you like your personal space even on a good day.”
“Still, though….”
Bucciarati leaned over Abbacchio and placed that same fatherly hand on his shoulder, gave him that same warm smile as he had in the hospital. No way was Bucciarati two years his junior. No fucking way. “You just rest for now. You can sort out the situation with Narancia tomorrow when you’re feeling better, yes?”
Abbacchio averted his eyes; the holy glow he swore he saw around Bucciarati was killing his head. “Yeah.”
“Good. Now let me get you that water.”
…
The next morning was groggy and slow-starting. No one had gotten a great night’s sleep the previous night, and so everyone seemed to be making up for it today. Bucciarati was up first, cleaned, dressed, and reading the paper at the kitchen table while the Moka pot brewed up some thick, super-concentrated espresso by the time Mista trailed downstairs looking scruffy and still unshowered. Both of them had had a cup each (Bucciarati took his americano style; Mista mixed his with enough sugar that it was almost a paste and then pounded it like a tequila shot) by the time Fugo and Narancia made their appearances.
Breakfast passed with little discussion, but the caffeine did its part in waking the group up. Quiet conversation started up amongst them - something about the results of a recent football match, and then something about whose turn it was to go do the grocery shopping. A little light arguing, some brotherly joking. And then things were back to normal.
“Ragazzi,” Bucciarati called them to attention as the hour approached eleven. “We haven’t had a chance to debrief since the mission was completed. Let’s talk.”
Bucciarati relayed to his men how the upline Passione members had been pleased by what they’d seen and how Bucciarati’s team was going to be rewarded for a job well-done by receiving a twenty percent cut of what they’d recovered. It was nothing extraordinary - after the funds had been dipped into to purchase the gaudy, tricked-out Maserati (a lost asset, really; even the higher ups couldn’t risk driving around in what amounted to a billboard screaming “look at me - I’m a mafioso”) and to fund other aspects of the thieves’ lives, there had only been about 800 thousand of the original two million left. Still, a 160 thousand euro payday was nothing to sneer at. Even divided five ways between them, that was a year’s above-board salary apiece. That was essentials - food, rent, and clothing - but that was also entertainment and frivolities.
The news was received well among the boys. “Glad I gave university a pass,” Mista commented, grinning toothily as he mixed himself another coffee syrup concoction. “Sure, I coulda struggled my way through four or six or eight years of school and then gone to work my ass off in some dead end accounting job for three hundred and sixty five days a year to earn thirty thousand, or I could just stand outside a building for a few hours while someone else–” here he paused to emphasize the ‘else’ with an elbow to Narancia’s ribs before resuming, “–does all the work and still come home with a nice chunk of change.”
“Yeah, hey, maybe I should get your cut,” Narancia mused, swatting away Mista’s elbow and returning the sneer. “Did you ever even come inside the building?”
“Sure I did,” Mista assured, leaning back in his chair until it was only on its hind two legs. “For like thirty seconds at the end, there. Me ‘n the Pistols helped take care of those guys.”
“That hardly counts!” Narancia wailed. “Bucciarati, can you, uh, what’s it called?” The boy scrunched his face up, trying to think of the word he’d heard his boss use before. “Can you ‘prorate’ his cut? I think he should only get thirty seconds’ worth of wages.”
“Nahhh,” Mista interrupted before Bucciarati could respond with whatever he’d been about to say. “I deserve my cut. Without me, you probably couldn’t have handled those four guys on your own, Aerosmith or no. And besides, I didn’t push Abbacchio off a ledge.” He managed to still grin as he pounded his second coffee-flavored sugar sludge.
It was probably all in good jest, but it was a sore spot for Narancia whose cheeks and ears went vibrantly red. “Hey, asshole, I didn’t push him! He fell! The floor was really–”
“Su-u-ure,” Mista drawled, dropping his chair down onto all-fours and leaning across the table, resting his weight on his elbows. He shot a meaningful look to the younger boy as if indicating he was in on some secret. “Sure ya’ didn’t, Narancia.”
Narancia’s hand was going to his waistband to retrieve his switchblade when Bucciarati and Fugo both simultaneously interjected that the joke had gone on long enough, both of them needed to back off.
“You bastards are loud as fuck,” came a grumbly voice from the stairway.
The house fell instantly silent. All eyes turned towards the staircase. It was creaking in a staccato rhythm that unmistakably marked someone limping unevenly down them. Abbacchio looked worse for the wear, the bruising around his eyesockets now at its deepest, his skin appearing paler than ever, and hair having gone unwashed for nearly three full days hanging in limp tangles. His lip was caught back in a pained snarl, one hand protectively clutching his ribs while the other maintained a deathgrip on the banister lest he should stumble and hurt himself worse. He was employing a grandfather’s technique for navigating the steps by bringing both feet down to rest on the same step before descending to the next one.
No one dared comment.
“Abbacchio, you’re up.” It was Bucciarati who broke the ice.
“Uh, hey, man,” Mista tried next, sounding much less confident than his boss. “How ya’ feelin’?”
Abbacchio responded with a tired, low grumble, and nothing else.
On the ground floor, he padded slowly across the carpet and back to the loveseat, starting and failing a couple times to lower himself before finally managing to plunk down. He winced at the shift in position, snarl widening to reveal both sets of teeth and a flash of pink gums, but after a moment, he seemed to settle in.
The silence in the kitchen lingered as everyone stared. It was like a tiger had just stalked its way into their home and they weren’t sure exactly how to remove it.
“Narancia,” Abbacchio said. The boy snapped to attention, nearly falling as he scrambled his way out of his chair and onto his feet. “Y-Yeah?! I mean, I mean, yes? S-Sir?” There might have been tears gathering at the corners of his eyes.
Abbacchio swiveled his head to glower at the boy for a few moments before finally speaking again. “Coffee? Please.”
Narancia gave a quiet, small gasp, trying (and failing, at least for a moment) to bite back a grin. “Yeah, okay! Sure! Uh, cream, right?”
Fugo and Mista shot each other and then Bucciarati questioning glances as Narancia sprang into action. Unlike Narancia, Bucciarati wasn’t trying to hide his smile.