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Don't listen to a word I say
The screams all sound the same
Though the truth may vary
This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore
- "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men
The pain of dying paled in comparison to the agony of being torn from the afterlife and stuffed back into his corpse unceremoniously.
It reminded Bucciarati of being a child- how his mother had zipped him into suits three sizes too small, cursing his growth spurts.
Giorno was too late; by the time that Golden Experience reached beyond the veil to grasp at his soul it had long since severed its connection from his body.
Not that he could tell the young mafioso that, choking the bitter taste of life after death as he looked into the panicked blue eyes of the younger man.
“You’re okay.” His blue eyes shone with tears, even as his tone was level.
He didn’t have the heart to break Giorno’s.
The job of a capo was to take care of his men, which now extended to a heartbroken Trish.
Let the dead bury their own dead.
Perhaps his body was now a reanimated coffin, but the mission wasn’t finished, and the dream was still yet to be fulfilled.
The taste of rot never left his mouth, heart frozen in suspended animation as he slipped from the role of capo to traitor as though he were changing shoes.
So he abandoned his humanity at the docks alongside any semblance of safety, eyes trained on the waves, the setting Italian sun breaking on the water like a shattered mirror.
A strong hand on his shoulder snapped him out of his reverie.
“Bruno.”
He turned to see Abbachio’s purple lips turned into a frown, brows knitted together in worry. “What happened back there?” he asked quietly.
Bruno glanced at the others.
Narancia was joking loudly with Mista, the bullets occasionally interjecting with opinions about where they should dock to eat, and both Giorno and Trish were whispering to one another at the front of the boat.
“Don’t worry yourself so much.” He did his best to smile, although his lips felt numb. Perhaps that’s why it’s called the kiss of death.
Abbacchio’s frown only deepened and he leaned forward, knee knocking into Bruno’s. “Don’t give me a reason to worry,” he said, golden-violet eyes scanning his face as though they could detect the rot festering underneath his skin. “You scared us back there.”
“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like blood in his mouth.
The white-haired man leaned forward, nose brushing his cheek. The others were still too engrossed in their own conversations to notice when Abbacchio’s tongue darted out for the briefest of moments to flick the skin of Bruno’s cheek.
“You always were a terrible liar.”
His breath hitched unintentionally, although the blood didn’t rush to his cheeks like it once did.
“You taste different,” Abbacchio mumbled, worry pulling at his handsome features. “We need to get you to a doctor.”
Numb lips pulled into a sad smile. “It’s too late for that.” He patted the other man’s leg. “And we have all of Passione after us anyway. There’s nothing a doctor can do for me at this point that Giorno can’t.”
Including a botched resurrection.
But perhaps what hurt worse than being reanimated in like a marionette in a body that no longer felt like his own was the agony of being forced to leave Abbacchio behind.
The red string of fate between them reduced to blood splatters on a nowhere beach, twin flame snuffed out by a twin wound.
His teeth tore into his lower lip, and for the first time since being stuffed back into his body, he could feel his dead heart break.
If only he could bleed enough to restart Abbacchio’s heart, zip up the wounds, and tear him out of sunset-tinted clouds and stuff him back into the gaping, matching hole in his chest.
He was no stranger to death and grief, but seeing his fingers outstretched to nothing, laces of his jacket torn open, eyes hazy was too much for him. If he turned around to look at him again, he’d freeze in the spot forever.
Leave him.
The words tasted like the rot consuming his insides on his tongue, and he tilted his head skyward in a vain attempt to force the rivers of tears to flow back into his eyes.
The others were begging Giorno to fix it, dammit, and wailing, but they both knew it was too late.
He would happily tear his heart out to give Abbacchio’s a shot in hell of beating again, but the decay was spreading to his arteries, and his wounds could weep no more than his eyes.
They’d figured out the boss’s identity thanks to Abbacchio’s quick thinking in his final moments, but at what cost?
“You’ve never refused any of my orders.”
“A soldier does not think.”
“Is that all you believe you are? A soldier enslaved to another’s dreams?”
“I believe in you, Bruno. That’s enough for me.”
“Don’t you ever long for more?”
“I longed for escape from that night. From the sound of the gun and the body hitting the floor. I couldn’t drown my own thoughts- God knows I tried every night. The only time I’ve known peace is by your side, under your orders.”
“And if I command you to do something that could lead you to your grave? Would you refuse me then?”
“I swore my life to you that night in the rain. My faith in you would mean nothing if I doubted you when you demanded proof.”
Bruno might have been the first to die, but somehow he found himself on the wrong side of death once again.
So he swallowed the blood in his mouth and tried to focus on the fact that they now had an imprint of the boss’s face.
He would sooner damn himself a thousand times than let the sacrifice be in vain.
The night was restless and cruel.
It felt as though King Crimson had punched through his chest to reach into Abbacchio’s, scooping two hearts out cruelly in one fatal move.
With no one around to witness the brave mask start to slip, he allowed himself to cry.
Or rather, he would have, had his tear ducts not dried up and died with any physical sensations of pain.
Instead, he was left with a strange numbness in his body and an ache in his soul.
He missed those gold and violet eyes with shadows that stretched beneath them like the setting Venetian sun. Those painted lips that were permanently curled into a scowl and left a bruise on every wine glass. The long strands of white hair that he’d find littered all over the apartment and in coats that he hadn’t used in ages.
“You’ve left enough hair at my place that I could make a doll out of it.”
“You’re the one who said you liked it long. Unless you’d rather I book a haircut.”
“Don’t, it suits you. Besides, the long hair matches your namesake.”
“Ha ha. Very funny. Narancia teach you how to make shitty jokes, or is that one you came up with on your own?”
“I’m teasing you, Leone. Although your hair spiders do find themselves all over the apartment.”
“Pfft. Whatever.”
Although now that he was gone, Bruno missed the way the hair spiders crawled their way inside the sleeves of his shirts.
He regretted how quickly he’d run to the bathroom to wash the foundation off his shirt, fingers seeking the ghost of Estée Lauder on the white fabric.
At the time, it seemed tasteless to reach into Abbacchio’s corpse’s coat in search of the lipstick tube he always kept in the left pocket.
Now with nothing but ghosts of hair spiders haunting him and unmarked wine glasses sparkling with the street lamps, Bruno wished he’d used Sticky Fingers when the others weren’t looking.
It wasn’t grave robbing if they were both corpses.
Watching Giorno cradle Narancia’s corpse reminded Bucciarati that he couldn’t save anybody.
Not Trish from her father, trading life and limb for a mission that left him with a gaping wound in his chest, with rot that pumped through his veins.
Not Abbacchio from paying the ultimate price, left alone on sandy shores as the ocean lapped away the memory of him from that beach.
And now Narancia’s hollow corpse lying in Giorno’s lap, glassy eyes staring at heaven’s open gates.
Bruno was becoming too familiar with the sound of agony that tore through the throats of his people, tears flowing down their cheeks like blood.
All while stuffed in the body that had orchestrated all three of their deaths within a handful of days.
He’d traded the taste of rot and failing eyes and decayed nerve for hands soaked in his men’s blood.
He should have forced them all to stay behind with Fugo, banned them from the suicide mission on threat of reporting them to the boss himself.
The flowers climbed over the boy’s corpse, sweeping the hair out of his eyes and collecting their tears like offerings to heaven.
“Getting in the habit of adopting strays?”
“Hush, Leone. This is progress for Fugo.”
“Yeah, you must be really proud of your boy, coming into a fancy restaurant with the kid and demanding to be served. I leave for five minutes to go piss, and I come back to the boy ripping into a plate of spaghetti like it owed him money.”
“The poor boy hasn’t eaten properly in days, Leone. Have some compassion.”
“Yeah, well, they’re fighting one another like stray cats in an alley. Maybe it’s time to go break them apart.”
“It’s all in good fun.”
“He’s got a knife at Fugo’s throat, and Fugo’s got a fork at his temple, Bruno. Are you sure this is a smart idea?”
“We’ll make it work. Just leave them to me.”
The flowers bloomed, petals brushed against the long-since healed scar on Narancia’s face.
Bruno looked up at the broken bars to the pale moonlight streaming into the coliseum.
Take care of our boy.
The angels sung sweetly, at long last releasing Bruno from the prison of Diavolo’s body and his soul from the purgatory of suspended animation.
Finally, he was free.
The sands of the afterlife were warm underneath his bare feet, the golden waves lapping gently at his ankles.
A familiar silhouette faced the sun, head tipped back to receive the warm rays and dark jacket billowing behind him.
Heaven suits him, Bruno thought as he padded across the beach.
A silver-haired angel turned gold in the light of eternity.
“Took you long enough,” Leone teased, turning to face Bruno.
Gone were the years of guilt weighing down his eyes, the skin under his eyes radiant instead of bruised by a thousand sleepless nights. His smile pulled at his eyes in a softness Bruno never knew the other man was capable of.
“Yes, well, they still needed me,” he chuckled, raising a hand tentatively to the other man’s face. Leone’s skin was warm to his touch and softer than he remembered.
Leone huffed, pressing his purple painted lips to Bruno’s palm. “They aren’t the only ones who need you,” he says, cupping Bruno‘s face. “I missed you.”
Bruno smiled at him, tipping his face down.
Their mouths met somewhere in the middle, a warm breeze ruffling through their hair. Leone tugged him closer, one strong arm wrapping around Bruno’s waist.
Bruno pulled away slightly, resting his forehead against Leone’s. “I missed you too.”