Chapter Text
'...making this the third death this week associated with what local police are calling the most potent form of the nervous system suppressant yet seen to ravage Naples. Detectives are still unsure of the source, believing it to be synthesized or cut with an import traveling through Sicily from Libya...'
Abbacchio grimaces. Wants to spit, but doesn't.
Puts his headphones on to drown out the radio.
Every morning, the radio gives him the ten minute update that strangles any potential good mood to take root. Every morning it reminds him that there is nothing good in this pit of a city. How he stands on the edge, gazing in, shovelling in shit as fast and as guiltily as every other scumbag dooming the town to ruin.
Drawing the mini-disk player from his inside jacket, he swipes his thumb over the controls, and lets the gentle picking of classical guitar start to dilute the tar of his thoughts. With every note it swirls from black to muddy grey before, eventually, static. Blank.
Ready for a day's work.
Mista talks animatedly, gesticulating, Narancia hanging onto his every word with a slack, stupid jaw. The angry kid, Fugo - whom Abbacchio can't recall sharing a word with, other than basic business, which suits him just fine - stirs his coffee. He looks as disconnected as Abbacchio feels. Good. At least he's smart enough to realise that there's nothing here, really. They all drift without him, island states, independent. They sit each morning and wait for the tide to roll back, and for him to walk out of the surf.
Abbacchio snorts to himself, raising the dainty espresso cup to his mouth.
Like Venus?
Well, he does know how to turn heads wherever he goes.
As if the idle thought took wing and flew out into the world, the three faces opposite him at the table twist up to him - no, not him. Of course not.
Buccellati's here.
The first he sees of their boss, their shared savior, is one thin hand curling around the empty chair back to his left. He doesn't look up to see the rest of the arm beyond the gleaming white cuff, keeping his gaze downcast. The guitar rings soft and melodic in his ear, indifferent to the outside world, playing on and on.
It plays on, yet the outside world seems to have paused suddenly. The hand is still there, the capo not having taken his seat.
Oh - no, the faces are actually looking at him now. Mista's mouth is working the same syllables at him, what - what does he -
'-acchio!'
'What?' he snarls, hitting pause.
The three boys jut their chins to his left in unison, and if they weren't looking so mortified, he wouldn't have spent the energy to look or care. But what did they -
Buccellati. Right. Wants his ring kissing or whatever.
With a lazy incline of his head, the headphones slip off into his hand, and Abbacchio concedes with a barely audible 'Buongiorno, boss'. He doesn't look up.
Fuck, even Narancia is glaring at him - a child with no concept of manners. Where did these teenagers get such a hard on for authority, anyway? Their ready deference to the man - the boy in charge was almost embarrassing, really. He's barely twenty.
'Buongiorno, Abbacchio,' the leader says plainly. 'Buongiorno, boys. All in good spirits, are we?' he adds, a hint of irony in his voice, slipping into his seat in one fluid movement. Mista, supplicating little shit that he can be, awkwardly half-stands out of his seat in a scramble to pour Buccellati a cup of tea before he even asks for one. It takes everything in Abbacchio's power not to roll his eyes.
Everyone stays silent, waiting for their boss to speak; instead he raises the cup to his mouth, both slim-fingered hands wrapping around the china, and blows. He takes a meditative sip.
All that can be heard around the table is the gentle, repeated whirrrr-click as Mista anxiously spins the barrel of his revolver and knocks it back into place with a flick of his wrist. Narancia fiddles with a spoon. Fugo stares.
Finally, the clink of the cup rested back in the saucer. Out the corner of his eye, Abbacchio can see Bruno resting his chin on his laced fingers.
'I've found some work for us to do, gentlemen.'
~
Abbacchio had no misconceptions when he was dragged into Passione. Same shit, different workplace. Same weird structure - power tripping, intensely odd loyalties, duties and mystifying rules, and somehow he had to draw some sort of meaning out of the tangle for himself. Same boring, excruciatingly dull toe tapping; waiting for a nod from a hallowed superior before being allowed to take a piss, step off the path. No such thing as taking initiative, and no rewards for sticking your neck out.
At least his experience in accepting a folded note with a quick twist of the wrist carries over.
Between the two jobs he has now held in his young life, the line between lawful and unlawful governance had blurred completely in his mind. Two months with Passione and he's come to see that they were all part of the same economy, the same machine. Two sides of the same coin, and coin is all that matters; it's what he tells himself to stave off the last shreds of guilt blowing through his empty mind. Life for him as one of Buccellati's Boys seems practically indistinguishable from life as Officer Abbacchio.
'I believe,' Buccellati continues gingerly, 'that your abilities will be especially useful in aiding my search, Abbacchio.'
Well. Apart from the new magic powers, he supposes.
But the boss' words do give him pause. He needs him. His abilities aren't worth a dime in the gang, he's grown to see. He can't gun anyone down with pinpoint accuracy, or lay waste to twenty men in a hail of bullets, or choke out a crowd. Or, uh, detach people's limbs harmlessly from their bodies during interrogation, leaving their marks screaming helplessly, writhing in fear.
'Oh,' is all he manages after the pause becomes awkward. 'Sure. Whatever you want.'
Buccellati nods once; moves on swiftly. Now that the situation is explained, there are little favours they all need to do for him. Little favours, he puts so kindly. An execution can be a little favour for Bruno Buccellati, and these chumps wouldn't think twice in garroting the chosen idiot for his approval.
Abbacchio still hasn't caught up yet, though. How exactly is he to be useful, here? Their boss has told a strange story - summoned by distant family on behalf of their friend; cashing in some long forgotten debt. Something like a stalker, an ex, a child in a coma - a wild sob story. None of it made sense as a situation for them to give a shit about until the vast quantities of suspected drug use and dealing were mentioned. A vulnerable kid and pushers to dispose of - an operation tailored to the young gang leader, then. He can't seem to help himself when it comes to helpless wretches.
Shame he has to drag Abbacchio into the kitchen sink with him, but it's not like he has anything better to do. Or any choice.
Lunch is adjourned, the bill is waived, and the boys head their separate ways on the porch, each having been given things to do; only Abbacchio and Buccellati remain, waiting under protection of the awning as it sags with rain. January in Naples is bitter to the natives, but mild to anyone else - Abbacchio prefers it this way, but Buccellati, with his olive skin and peek-a-boo suits, shivers visibly with discomfort. The rain isn't making any signs of easing, and Buccellati suddenly produces - from where, Abbacchio doesn't see, but can imagine - a smart black trench coat that he hasn't seen on his boss before. He is also handed an umbrella. Abbacchio stares at it in his hand dumbly.
'What are you waiting for?' Buccellati says, humour in his voice. 'Do you want to get wet? Open it!'
'Am I - what are we doing?' Abbacchio asks, clearly having missed something.
'I told you. I'm in particular need of your abilities. We're going together to do some snooping, and --' Buccellati pauses, flipping the collar of his coat, the stiff waxed fabric grazing his fine jaw, '-- we ought to walk. I'd like to explain more on the way.'
He steps out into the rain, and Abbacchio remembers himself, his role as underling; he steps out after him, erecting the huge umbrella to shield his boss' pristine head. He falls in step easily enough, but can't help glance at the shorter man intermittently - the rain breaks up the silence that settles between them while he waits for a cue, anything. Has he actually ever been alone with Buccellati, save for their meeting, or the first time he was taken to Polpo? Glossing over the thought that this is all too reminiscent of their first encounter, he thinks instead of all the times since then - a whirlwind of new faces, situations, jobs, duties, watches, hustles; all with Buccellati's other strays, rarely the boss himself. He's their leader, not their friend. That line has seemed clear, comfortable. He doesn't think the even knows the man, and that has been fine until now. Yet now he appears to be needed, one on one, and has no idea what to say to the man next to him.
Is Buccellati just... like this? Immaculate, perpetually collected? He's a boy, younger than him, and Abbacchio is young still, he knows that. So outside of this gang shit, with other people, is he still like this? Are there other people? Does he have friends?
What does he do when he gets home at night?
Abbacchio imagines him staring at the wall of his apartment with the same cold hunger and resolve as he has on the job. Walking around, looking for more strays to rehabilitate. All part of some grand master plan he couldn't possibly be privy to. Does he wash his breakfast dishes with those fingers he's seen crackling with murderous intent?
'We're going to see her again, except this time, I want you with me,' Buccellati starts. Abbacchio, suddenly jerked from his pondering, finds himself blurting a response.
'You don't trust her, then.'
Buccellati snaps his head to Abbacchio, but the older man doesn't look back. He can feel the intensity of his look boring into his cheek, but just looks straight ahead, watches their feet striding over puddles.
'Don't presume to know my feelings on the matter. You're missing the full story. We have more pieces to collect.'
A little more quiet, save for the sound of their smart shoes clacking on cobblestones and the relentless rain.
'I don't have the full story,' Buccellati admits a few beats later. Aha. So Abbacchio was right, then; he enjoys a small smugness for split second before the boss stubs that out double quick. 'And another thing,' he continues - the tone makes Abbacchio brace, having fucked up enough to know when he's due reprimanding. 'Any particular reason for your...' a gesture, fluttering fingertips, '...this morning?'
Abbacchio apparently has a deathwish, and actively bucks against the urge to be contrite.
'My insubordination, Buccellati? Didn't spring to a curtsy fast enough for you?' he sneers instead, not able to stop himself. He imagines that he looks perfectly teenage as he says it, especially with his beloved black lipstick, and hates himself.
Buccellati just stops; no warning. Just stops. Abbacchio, holding the umbrella keeping him dry, is forced to stop after a stutter - jerking like he's tugged on a short leash.
Buccellati's face doesn't crack, but an unmistakable quirk of his lips tells Abbacchio everything he needs to know; he's got him under his thumb, really, just like all the others. He knows he has. The embarrassment rolls off Abbacchio in waves.
'I don't need you to fall and kiss at my feet, Abbacchio,' he says at last. 'In fact - I don't want you to. The others...' he looks out onto the empty street; with the lunchtime closures, and the rain, it feels as though all of Naples has stepped out to give them some privacy. 'The others behave the way they do because I think - they think they should, that's how they want to.'
'Right,' Abbacchio says, starting to wonder what this is about.
'If you don't have the energy to play those games, I don't care,' he carries on, looking at him now, straight up at him through that severe black fringe. Abbacchio's eyes slide away to the right. 'But if you're finding it difficult to find your footing with us, or if any of this isn't working for you - you need to tell me.'
Abbacchio, sinking deeper into the pit that has hollowed in his bowels, keeps his gaze lowered, somewhere on the first button of Buccellati's trench coat. He had expected to be scolded. He can handle that. This - whatever this is - makes him squirm like a guilty child.
'Right,' he repeats thickly. Why can't he say anything else? Why does this man - this stranger, he has to keep reminding himself - give a shit? Why does anyone here give a shit?
'Good,' Buccellati nods, and starts to walk again. 'I've been looking forward to something like this, anyway.'
'Something like what?' Abbachio manages, all the bile drained from his voice, all the heat swirling around in him evaporating with every step.
'A chance to see what you can really do,' Buccellati says. His face is still expressionless, but his eyes are bright with excitement, and Abbacchio just feels sick.