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Leone Abbacchio was just another corrupt cop, too weak to hold out after temptation had grabbed him by the jugular. He’d been lucky enough to be put with a partner who, somehow, had never wavered.
There were two key differences between the two men. The first was that his partner believed in Leone; Leone did not. The second was that his partner was too kind to make it in this profession; Leone had contorted himself into becoming what he had despised. A part of him had died with the hopeful young man he’d been charged with protecting, only to fail.
An angel had arrived one rainy night, getting to Abbacchio before he could decimate himself. Bruno Bucciarati looked at this scraggly stray disappointment of a man, and believed.
Leone matched the man’s sapphire gaze, shining with resolve. Seeing the same glimmer that had been in his partner’s gaze, he knew a sign when he saw one. He took the man’s hand, going with him to begin to pick up the shards of his life.
Abbacchio was, Bruno Bucciarati had observed, a man whose eyes were forever shaded with the sunset, his words always touched with a sense of sorrow. Still, he hoped beyond hope that one day, he could see the man smile without the aid of alcohol.
One day, it finally happened. Stone cold sober, he flashed a smile Bruno’s way at some truly awful pun.
Bruno couldn’t believe his eyes.
He barely managed to keep his cool until he made it to the men’s restroom, where, closing a stall behind him and going into a zipper void, he wept with joy. When Bucciarati returned, Leone, a knowing look in those sunset eyes, said nothing, but slid over to him a square of tiramisu, that smile of his sorely welcomed.
The smile Bruno flashed toward him in reply was positively radiant.
Leone understood Fugo on a deep level; mostly because he, too, had fury coiled in his bones.
Still, Fugo had beaten Leone in a category that the elder of the two had thought he’d never lose in—hating himself. Hell, his Stand was a walking biohazard. The kid would crumple in on himself if you touched his shoulder from behind, eyes going blank with… something. He’d worked on the Force long enough to know what Fugo’s behaviors were a symptom of. It broke his heart.
The kid had been the first member of Bruno’s team, and nothing could beat that bond. Still, Leone and him had grown closer as they’d worked together. So, he couldn’t deny that he was moved when one day, Pannacotta sat beside him on the couch, falling asleep as he used the ex-cop’s arm as a pillow.
Brought back to when his younger sister would sit beside him, dozing during a movie as the TV’s glow illuminated the night, a warmth he had thought he’d never feel again filled Abbacchio’s heart.
Narancia was an asset to the team, yes, but he was sure as hell a liability from time to time. Such as, for example, when he used his remote-control-airplane Stand to shoot at an enemy in an area that had CAUTION: FLAMMABLE MATERIALS signs all over it. Suffice it to say, that had smoked out the enemy—quite literally.
Still, Leone breathed a sigh of relief when, after the two of them had managed to duck behind a wall and avoid the brunt of the blast, Narancia poked his arm and flashed his comrade a thumbs-up, pride in his eyes.
While Leone rolled his eyes in reply, grumbling about property damage not being something their team could afford, when Narancia wasn’t looking, he smiled to himself, swiftly followed by Leone rustling his hair. The Ghirga boy had done a good job. He’d earned the gelato they’d gotten after the mission—Leone’s treat. The only thing Narancia had to do was promise not to tell Bruno, a promise which the boy kept to Leone without any trouble.
No one really understood Guido’s tetraphobia. Still, Leone didn’t complain; if a menu item came with 4 pieces on Libeccio’s menu, Mista would shuffle one of them off to Leone. In return, Leone would do the same. On days where one of them would be injured and unable to join the customary relaxation in their home base, both Abbacchio and Mista had to admit–even if they’d never say it aloud–that they were the slightest bit lonely.
Once they’d return from their absences, however, there’d be twice as much dessert waiting for whomever had been missing, and with a grin, they both knew each other well enough to know that this was their silent way of saying, Welcome back.
Giorno hadn’t been who Leone had expected to see sprawled over him in Sardinia, frantically attempting to heal him after Diavolo had gotten to him, plugging a wound that hurt like a bitch. Still, based on the way that the kid shook and collapsed, speaking to Leone as if a prayer had been answered, Giorno must have just barely saved his life. Heart beating soundly and blood supply regained, Leone felt the adrenaline leave him and he began to doze off, musing to himself that the blond brat wasn’t half-bad.
When Abbacchio first awoke on the couch the next day, Trish, on turtle lockdown, was tending to him. She held his hand with both of hers, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles in a repetitive motion. She was anxious as hell. Still, he couldn’t help but be shocked when, words saturated with tears of joy, the girl finally spoke: “I’m happy you made it.”
While he was surprised at her kind words, never in his wildest dreams did he expect that he’d reply, his own eyes getting a bit damp, “...Me too.”
It was then that it finally hit him, what the other members of his team had been trying to show him all along: Even a dead man walking could have a chance at happiness.