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“If you don’t want to be miserable in the morning, I’d suggest you cut back on the drinks for tonight,” Avilio advises in a smooth tenor, eerie eyes dispassionate as always as he moves about the room to prepare for bed.
Nero grunts noncommittally, almost hyper aware of how closely he’s watching the other man's movements, fluid and quiet even after such an exhausting day.
He’s noticed that, after just a few days of traveling together. That Avilio never really seems winded after a chase through the city or tired after a night of driving or even off-balance after more than a few glasses of whatever shit-drink they have at the town speakeasy. He barely winces when dressing his wounds and usually offers to take first watch. He’s always composed aside from very rare occasions, always has that closed off expression on his pretty face except for the rare smiles Nero spots from the corner of his eye that make his stomach do a funny little twist.
In other words, Avilio never shows weakness - at least, not in front of Nero.
He can’t say he blames the younger man. Even after all the shitstorms they’d been though, he barely knows a thing about the mysterious liquor seller and his friend besides his name and the fact that he’s had a rough life - pickpockets usually do, especially ones that can throw knives and shoot guns with the best of them, but Avilio especially.
(No one, even the rougher men his father takes into the family, have that edge that Avilio has. That shadowed, cagey distrust that is only worn by survivors.)
In return, he has no idea just how much Avilio knows about him beyond his status and his family aside from the impromptu reveal of his first and hardest job and the other few things he’s rambled about since their journey began. Half the time he’s not even sure the younger man is listening to him.
But they’ve saved each others lives more than a few times now, and if there’s one thing Nero knows with certainty, it’s that Avilio won’t kill him or let him die in the near future - if not because they’re tentative friends or acquaintances, then because the pickpocket knows Nero’s friends don't let the him live if Nero somehow turns up dead. It’s fucked up but right now, that’s good enough for him.
Avilio is interesting in a way that’s caught his attention, and unlike many others, the younger man has kept it.
Avilio is unbuttoning his shirt now, concentrating on the task at hand and so painfully unaware of the effect his quick, slim fingers are having on Nero’s ability to think with his upstairs brain. Those hands, so clumsy with colorful balls and so capable with a knife, look almost elegant now, attached to delicate looking wrists and deceptively strong arms that he remembers pushing him out of the way of a bullet more than once. He wonders what they would look like tied down, straining, bruised and marked with rope burns.
The eldest Vanetti son has to make an effort to reel back his wayward thoughts - of how pretty Avilio would look on his back, glaring up at him with those unfathomable, narrowed eyes, or how beautifully his pale skin would bloom with red bite marks-
Definitely too much to drink this time.
Nero sighs mournfully as he knocks back the rest of what’s in his cup. It’s usually when he has a few drinks in him that he starts to have these...thoughts.
As the son of one of the most prominent families on the coast, he’s used to getting what he wants - with or without a little work. His father isn’t open-minded per se, just more tolerant of all his children's indiscretions as long as they kept it from the public, especially Nero with his less socially favorable activities involving other men, reasoning that God can’t hate the Vanetti Family more than He already does for lying with other men when they already have so much blood on their hands.
He can’t say he knows how Avilio...views men and women. He hardly seems to have any interests in either sex - or anything really, besides his friend Corteo, humiliating the eldest Vanetti son at any given opportunity, and just being a sarcastic little shit when it suits him. Nero knows, however, that if he tries anything without even a tiny hint of interest on Avilio’s part or forcing anything...well, the whole ‘won’t kill him or let him die’ thing would definitely change.
But…
“Whoa, sorry. Had more than I thought,” Nero grins, hand resting on Avilio’s shoulder after ‘bumping’ into him on the way to the bathroom to help him keep his balance. He’s close enough for his breath to brush the back of Avilio’s neck and his hand lingers, drags across the younger man's taught back, and finally falls to his side while he scratches his head with his other hand.
The grin only grows wider when he catches the tiny splotches of red dotting Avilio’s pale cheeks, visible even in the soft candlelight.
Whether or not Avilio wants him now, Nero will make sure he does by the end of their little road trip.