Work Text:
Memory is not in the head
only. It’s midnight,
you existed once, you exist
again, my entire skin
sensitive as an eye,
imprint of you
glowing against me,
burnt-out match in a dark room.
***
(Margaret Atwood, Memory)
***
(-65 years)
No separation could they stand between each other, they stayed as close as they could bear the intensity of it, the pressure of their skin against the other never quite enough to sink past boundary of bone to the ache of the soul. The way they touched marvelled in the disbelief that they were even there to sense anything at all, the numbness of death withdrawing from their fingers like a cold fog breaking in the sun. The smell of their cologne infused with salt-tears catching on heated skin and the taste of lips returning to the fullness of perception stole away any breathless murmur, suffocated sentences with heedless kisses on which all their intention bent.
Only dead men returned could appreciate the sensation taken for granted by so many, could scribe all desperation not with despair but with relief. Leone laughed against the bite of Bruno’s lips. What grace had he been given for just one more moment? He trembled, and it echoed back to him through Bruno’s own, through the breeze of his fingertips on his skin and the heat of his breath across his cheek. Joy and sorrow had never been so inseparable, tears and laughter had never sounded to him so indistinguishable.
Perhaps, with each passing second, Leone could make his future a past worth looking back upon.
***
(-65 years)
It was nearly one in the morning when the door opened quietly and Bruno slipped in, taking in the scene with a softness that Leone couldn’t linger on at the moment: not with Narancia’s bony elbow poking into his side and his nails clutched onto his worn t-shirt like a fistful of brambles. Narancia’s head was heavy against his chest, his arms still wound tight about the awkward curl of his waist despite the kid having long slipped past fitful sniffling and into deep motionless sleep. There was no possibility of movement with the rat clinging onto him like this, so Leone accepted his fate with minimal grumbling, trying to find some position of comfort against the pillows smashed flat against the headboard.
“Nightmares again?” Bruno asked gently, drawing a blanket over the spindly entanglement of limbs.
He nodded. He’d never seen Narancia so upset than when he burst into the room afraid that he’d find Abbacchio had really been left lying on the beach in Sardegna and that the last few months were nothing but a fever-dream. Dying hadn’t meant so much as it was leaving his friends behind, so much as it was failing them. Leone could never have imagined that he’d meant that much to anyone, but now that he knew something in him would never be the same. He ruffled the messy bedhead of Narancia’s hair gently, tried to make room for Bruno at his side as he settled down to sleep.
***
(-64 years)
Never would he have imagined affection to be the feeling inspired in him from such a sight so much as it should be annoyance that the brat was even in his room. But the protective way Bruno hugged Giorno close to him and the tenseness across the kid’s shoulders spoke volumes on how unaccustomed to the gesture he was, and the catch of tears along the crest of his cheeks stilled any possibility of interruption. He watched a moment longer, caught Bruno’s eyes across the room as he turned to leave and nodded once in understanding.
Sometimes he forgot that Giorno was only sixteen, had to remind himself that he wasn’t just the Boss, but a kid thrown suddenly into managing Italy’s largest crime organization. That despite the absurd ease of power Gold Experience Requiem wielded, drawing them all forth from beyond the veil of death, Leone had to remember that it must have affected Giorno greatly: that he too must have long sleepless nights and formless terrors dogging his steps. That was something Leone could empathize with, after all— he didn’t know how to ask for help either, didn’t think that he was deserving of anything so generous or so kind as comfort.
***
(-62 years)
Bruno pretended to be asleep, but he was watching from the heavy gaze of his eyes the form of Leone— the straight line of his nose, the fullness of his lower lip, the cluster of pale lashes, the faint freckle that was usually concealed with makeup just to the right of his eye. So absorbed in the book under the low light, hypnotized by the deep breaths Bruno struggled to keep even and slow, and lulled by the scent of both their colognes overlapping in the room, Leone didn’t bother keeping the ease from softening all his pointed edges. A pleasant breeze drifted in from the windows, curling nighttime tranquility about the room, tugging the corners of Leone’s lips upwards unconsciously.
How easy it was to drift down into sleep with such a sight blurring any harshness out of perception.
***
(-61 years)
It seemed like hours it took for him to comprehend what Bruno meant when he held out a small band of unadorned gold, one that happened to be about the size needed to slip over his finger: not even with the lack of tact to the lilt of Bruno’s words or his nervous slip back into a thick Neapolitan dialect giving Leone all the truth to his intentions as he could ever need. He was only vaguely aware that he had to say something or risk Bruno thinking he wanted anything but exactly what he was proposing, wanted anything but to spend his entire life with him. So he just nodded his head with an almost deranged fervency, kissed him like it was only from the shape of Bruno’s lips against his own that he could recall how to draw breath.
***
(-56 years)
He finished wrapping the bandage around his arm, sending Abbacchio one last look from the pleading shade of his eyes. It took all Leone’s strength-of-will not to give into such a hue of blue that made all his soul desire to dissolve within— but in particular it was the thought of having to wake up Giovanna that kept him from complying. He wasn’t about to disturb the brat just so he could heal this little wound, even with that look in Bruno’s eyes.
“Don’t do that to me,” he grunted, pulling Bruno towards him from where he sat at the edge of the bed, holding him closer so he didn’t have to look at the concern that hung on every aspect of his expression. He kissed the tip of his nose when he protested, smothered him with the affection of his embrace before he could pull away. Bruno knew better than to deny the slip of Leone’s normally reserved show of emotion, savored the clear articulation of the trust that bridged every one of their gestures, fell in the silence between every one of their conversations, wrote itself even in their most fleeting touches.
“I’m alright, amore mio. I’m not going anywhere.”
***
(-54 years)
Abbacchio laid back against the sheets, let him do what he would. He needed nothing more than to narrow down his awareness to the fullness of their contact, needed all of his being spread thin with the blended torment of his bliss and coiled desire until all knowledge of something other than the warmth and shape of Bruno moving against him, within him, melted into irrelevancy. Split-open, the rawness of his nerves was alight with the tilt of his hips and the suck of lips bruising his throat, his voice spilling honey-molten praise that lost form as soon as it passed his mouth, words glowing with their transmutation. Lead beat to the pulse of straining gold, the formula that so alluded the most esteemed of alchemists sketched along the pale of Leone’s chest by hands that could barely contain their veneration for the body below. He was made holy only by his touch.
***
(-51 years)
The door to their room burst open, the sound of the stopper hitting the moulding barely a warning for the flash of pink hair and purple sequins characteristic of the tumble of limbs that unceremoniously dove between the startled tenseness of both their bodies bracing against the inevitable impact. The little Tesoro’s flurry of words, in which only the babble of “Abba!” and “Nonno!” could be discerned, drowned out Trish’s chiding from the doorway and Bruno’s attempts at soothing the ball of excitement that decided now was as good a time as any to bounce on the mattress.
Being a grandfather, Leone decided, was worth the occasional early mornings.
***
(-50 years)
The rain sometimes washed with it the memories of the past, things that Bruno knew Leone would never forgive himself for. When the clear of the sky broke for the static of clouds and the purring of thunder, his fingers would lace with his more on instinct than anything else, the constant baseline concern he always held close to his heart surfacing to consciousness. Sometimes the desire to drink would hit Leone with a terrible craving, a need deep inside of him to be free from the potency of his thoughts with something more potent still. Then Bruno would let him clutch onto his shirt with an angry sound as the howl of wind through the rocky passes in the loftiest solitude of the Apennines before holding him still to his body, running his fingers through his hair and whispering everything and nothing all at once.
***
(-49 years)
Abbacchio adjusted his cuffs in the mirror for the thousandth time in what must have only been a few minutes, worried at his collar and shifted the jacket over his shoulders to better line up the pattern of embroidery on both sides. The sounds of the famiglia down below in the villa garden turned-venue was a paradoxical mix of comfort born from familiarity and the nervous discomfort of an unfamiliar situation, and it curled within him until he made to adjust his shirt cuffs again... only to catch sight of the brat slipping into his room and closing the door quickly behind him.
Neither of them said a word. Leone balked at the thought of forming words and Giorno was too perceptive to break the silence. He looked over him instead: the navy of Leone’s jacket and the gold filagree that complimented the broadness of his shoulders, the glint of ornamentation at his cuffs and the typical contrast of his makeup done in lighter shades and kinder lines. Giorno walked up to him, smoothed down the edge of his collar and pulled a little at the silk of his shirt as if he wanted to provoke a fist fight.
“Bruno’s going to love it,” he said softly, turning back to the door. And just like that, the nervousness broke like a storm and Leone was left with nothing but the adrenaline of determination to see his soon-to-be walk towards him from the end of an aisle.
***
(-48 years)
Bruno paused at the threshold of his room, a smile that lit him all-aflame with gold breaking like dawn across the set neutrality of his typical expression. He leaned against the door-frame, watching the scene play out in front of him with an attention to the most insignificant of details as much to the whole of it all, the feel that infused every easy motion.
Around their coffee table was a mountain of pillows and blankets made richer by the fireplace warming the coolness of the season. Tea-cakes and small sandwiches and delicate pastries half-eaten were pushed aside for the chaotic spill of the combined contents of both Leone’s and Trish’s makeup bags across the surface: lipsticks and nail polishes and stacks of palates of eyeshadow among it all. Nothing could have made Bruno happier than the softness of the smile across the messy smear of black on Leone’s lips, or the uneven scribble of Trish’s eyeliner over the pink smoke hastily applied across her lids. The giggling of the little Tesoro as her mother and Abba each painted the nails of one of her unstill hands— one cherry-red and the other lavender— was a contagious jubilation that floated up to the ceiling and rained back down upon them all like the sparks of fireworks.
***
(-43 years)
Various records pulled from the shelves spread messily across the table, the two chairs that faced the fireplace pushed to the walls of the room so as to make space for the pair to loop long orbitals, tracing over the pattern of the rug to the softness of the music. The late evening light filtered through the curtains with the drowsiness that comes in the hours between the satisfaction of supper and the allure of sleep. The leisurely pattern of their dancing, the loose spirals Bruno led, framed their inevitable slowing until it was only the sway of their bodies in time to the quiet of the waxing nighttime.
***
(-40 years)
“Not a chance,” Leone proclaimed with a firmness matching the yank of the tablet away from Bruno’s hands and the narrow points of polished amethyst he sent Bruno’s way when he opened his mouth to protest, only to quickly cover it with a handkerchief as the next series of sneezes overcame him.
Emails could wait, the whole world could wait as far as Leone was concerned— Bruno wasn’t going to do anything but relax until he’d recovered from whatever seasonal bug had decided to plague him with chills and a red runny nose more stubborn than even Bruno himself. He tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, brought the chamomile tea to his lips and didn’t miss the gratitude in the blue of his eyes when he slipped at last into sleep.
***
(-38 years)
Bruno let his head fall back with a pleased moan, the grey beginning to colour the strands of his hair lending a certain softness to the glossy black. He’d begun to grow it out and Leone pushed the drape of it across one shoulder to continue massaging the knot of tenseness out of the stiff motion of his shoulders, warming the lean muscle with the heat from his palms, the callouses catching on the satin of his skin echoing in the hitch of their breaths. He trailed his fingertips along Bruno’s sides when he finally unwound enough to rest limply against the broad span of his chest, his head fallen just under his chin. Leone traced the swell of ribs and their gentle expansion and smiled at the jump of his sensitive flesh, moving back to the spot to caress it oh-so-gently once more until Bruno was squirming to avoid the touch.
His protesting “Leone!” was nearly lost to the influence of the laughter that coloured the mock-indignancy of his tone, the scrunch of his nose worth it more than even the secret satisfaction of knowing that Bruno of all people was more ticklish than a child. And it was certainly worth the pillow he took to his face, if only to confirm that any trace of tension was gone.
***
(-32 years)
The box in the middle of the room was so large as to be absurd, and the violet of the ribbon was so silk-soft that the sumptuousness of it would’ve been extreme were it from anyone but Bruno. The sounds coming from inside of the box, the soft pitter-patter of uncoordinated movement and the forlorn squeaking of a meow that had yet to deepen with maturity lent the gift a charm that matched the cupping of Bruno’s hand over his lips to hide his smile and the worried tone that told him to open the box before she got too frightened.
Abbacchio hummed with an amusement he couldn’t keep from vocalizing. He turned to Bruno as he pulled at one end of the bow, the loops of it shrinking until the ribbon fell to the floor.
“I wonder what this could be?” he teased, watching Bruno clasp his hands just in front of his face, biting the nail of his thumb with excitement as if he couldn’t wait for Leone to see what he’d gotten him. And Leone was trying not to vibrate with his own excitement, successful only because Bruno like this was just so impossibly… lovely, endearing, adorable, so infuriatingly lovable.
“Oh, open it already!”
The tiny black kitten inside quieted only when Leone held her close to his chest.
***
(-27 years)
He isn’t sure what kept them up this night, but the yellowed light of fireplace bathed them in indistinct shapes too bright to be a dream and too soft to make it farther than an instinctual awareness. It was as if they’d both woken from a long nap and were only just beginning to recall their place in the world, despite the ease with which their bodies fit together. Neither of them spoke. It was a moment to just be, a rare treat of mood and contentment that made one pause to savor one’s own fleeting existence tucked into confounding absurdity of the universe. Until everything condensed to vague sensation.
Bruno’s eyes were the blue of the sky before the sun was visible, a blue so deep as to be unfathomable— unmistakeable for something as plain as black but so near to it that it was difficult to put word to, something that felt like velvet and tasted like eternity. The wrinkles that had deepened with all his passed years seemed to underline the blue with affection, the long eyelashes curling with the slant of them. In that moment Leone was swallowed whole by the intensity, such that he was sure he could live in the span of those fleeting seconds-turned-minutes for all of the time left to him and beyond: into the perpetuity enclosed in Bruno’s eyes and promised to them both.
***
(-20 years)
It isn’t often that Abbacchio was able to stir himself up to consciousness enough to wake earlier than Bruno, but each year on the 27th of September he was sure to rise well before the sun, the ache of his own adoration more important than the typical length of sleep he so championed. And each year, Bruno awoke with a sigh, as if the rich smell of the coffee and the sweet foam of cream were not enough to draw him from the sleep that was so light upon him, and that he required the permission of Leone’s lips along his jaw.
Arms fling themselves around his shoulders and Leone grunted in surprise at the messy insistence of the kiss to his lips, careful to pull him away before he could tip the tray-table slipped over the end of the bed and the many dishes of breakfast filling all the china. He did this every year, but every year Bruno was still just as thankful as the last for such a simple ritual. And every year Leone had to remind him that the pastries would get too cold and the slices of fruit too warm, and they pull away with only the briefest of regrets.
“Happy birthday, amore mio.”
***
(-11 years)
The years pass by quiet and slow now, a sweetness like the languorous midsummer heat eased by cool breezes and spiced by the perfumes of salt from the sea and green growth maturing to a vibrant ripeness.
They sit on the balcony overlooking the garden of their villa home, the sun just beginning to crest over the tops of the olive trees at the horizon, painting the blue of the sky all citrus. Abbacchio brings the tea to his lips, lets the heat curl from the cup before bringing it back down with a clink to the saucer. ‘Not yet,’ he thinks, watching the play of the light kindle the bronze of Bruno’s face, the tilt of his expression to the glorious caress of the morning and the herald-song of the birds.
***
(-4 years)
He is sitting in his chair, aching feet propped up in front of the amber glow of the fireplace when he feels Bruno at his shoulder like the pressure of an embrace on all his yearning nerves. The headphones he’d slipped on blocked all sound save for the drone of the narrator’s voice for the book that rested forgotten in his lap. He pushed the glasses up from their slip down the long line of his nose, turned to the fingers that wove in the white of his hair, to the press of lips against his temple and the ease of him there at his side; something so familiar that he’d never quite gotten used to, something that he’d always kept close and indescribably precious but treated as if it were the first time that Bruno had touched him so divinely. He lost himself on the winding paths of Bruno’s fingertips, gentle through the tangles of his hair, his consciousness contained to the tumble of his warm breath from the seal of his lips, the scent of his cologne a heavenly intoxication.
***
(-8 months)
This was how it should be, for Bruno. Nothing less than he deserved than to be surrounded by them all in the end, the sterile white of the hospital exchanged for the comfort of his own bed. For the mechanical metronome readily forgotten in favor of the warmth of soft voices and many souls crowded into one continuum of intimacy orbiting the fading vibrancy of the epicenter that had brought them all together. They each took their time knowing he was stubborn enough to wait until the last.
Joy and sorrow made a strange pair, but with a roomful it seemed more like an inevitability. Mista and Narancia still bickered with each other, a timeless back-and-forth that coaxed the last of Buccellati’s fond smiles. Trish clasped his right hand, her Tesoro just behind her and Giorno to the side worrying at the fluff of the pillows until Bruno stopped his anxious movements with a reassuring murmur. Fugo waited at the back, silent, a storm of emotion kept in check by years of practice.
“Leone,” he said finally, turning to where he leaned over to him at his left. The sound of his name seemed far-off, like Bruno was already at an unfathomable distance and was speaking through the clouds.
“Bruno,” he replied, his voice had static at the edges and a fullness in the middle.
He smiled in the way that made his eyes crinkle, the one that coloured his eyes the same as the sea at its most placid. So many indescribable shapes formed and broke in the wavelets of those waters, things that neither Leone nor Bruno could put to words but needed to be physical somehow, something that could only be implied and not stated. An unspeakable language of gesture and gaze.
“It’s alright,” Leone said, because he’d never been one for words anyways.
Bruno sighed, leaning into the hand that brushed trembling fingers through the grey of his bangs and closing his eyes.
“You’ll watch the kids for me?” A sudden drowsiness had overtaken him, and the angle of his body against the mattress deepened with the pull of sleep that rounded the enunciation of his words.
Leone laughed, a deep breathlessness so much like the sting of salt on heated cheeks, so much like the last imprint of his favorite shade of blue, so much as the feeling of nearing an end.
***
(-3 months)
The heavy thwack of Mista’s footsteps announced him better than his cautious knock on the door: Mista only ever barely managed to contain his exuberance within the bounds of what was physically capable for him at his age. From where Abbacchio was sitting in his chair (turned towards the empty seat of the other by the fireplace), he couldn’t follow the shape of him as he crossed the room, save with the sound of him and the feeling of his presence beyond the wingback and his shoulder.
“I wanted to check up on you, grumpy old man,” he teased.
He grunted, both a half-hearted laugh and an attempt to maintain his image as said grumpy old man.
“I’m supposed to be the one keeping you out of trouble, Guido.”
The hand that weighed his shoulder was exactly what he’d needed, the presence of the feeling of strong fingers and warmth that came from somewhere other than the fireplace in front of him. Its firmness was grounding, a reminder of the present when he’d more often than not been slipping back into the past.
The voice, in contrast, was soft like the light caught and blurred at the corners of his eyes.
“You always have, Abba. You always have.”
***
(The Present)
Abbacchio fell against the bed with a drawn-out sigh that filled all the room’s corners with the sea of his exhaustion. Replaying so many scenes and from so far back took all of his concentration, made his bones ache as the memories unravelled themselves from deep within his marrow. As if it were all written in his very blood, everything that he once lived projected out of the boundaries of his body in an exquisite exsanguination. He felt a smile pull at his lips, undeniable as gravity. There had been a time long ago where he’d thought of Moody Blues as nothing but a curse, the burden of his own mistakes made manifest. But he was sure of it now:
Leone Abbacchio was the luckiest man in the world.
He let himself sink into the tangle of blankets and pillows, let all his gratitude bleed into his exhaustion as he fell into the furthest reaches of slumber.
The next time he woke up, Bruno was there waiting for him.