Chapter Text
A bird.
That was Danio’s first thought when Gregson brought in the man—no, the boy—who was apparently to be his new cellmate. Small frame, wide dark brown eyes, floppy, gently curling hair that appeared dark but shone wine red in stray rays of light, and skin like the milk the prisoners got with every meal. He was clutching the thin canvas bag all prisoners were issued when they first arrived; a change of uniform, basic toiletries such as a toothbrush, toothpaste, safety razor, and soap, whatever precious few items he had been allowed from the outside, and a sandwich. The guard was speaking to him, probably giving him the rundown of the daily schedule, and then he was clapping him on the shoulder and turning towards Danio, who was lying sprawled on his bunk.
“Giovanetti,” Gregson said sharply. Danio looked up from the book he had been reading, or rather, pretending to read for the last several minutes, and feigned surprise, as if he hadn’t noticed his visitors.
“’sup, mate?”
“Sir,” the guard corrected half-heartedly. Danio ignored him. He idly dog-eared the page he was on in the book and set it down. “This is Enzo Lucelli. Another Italian, like you. He’s going to be your new cellmate. Do your best not to send this one to hospital, yeah?” Gregson said, sounding exasperated.
“Y’know that pervert had it comin',” Danio said lazily. He stretched and sat up on his bunk to rest his feet on the floor. “I did us all a favour, didn’t I? Still got three weeks in the Hole for me troubles. Is he out yet, by the way?”
If possible, Enzo The Bird’s eyes had gotten wider during this exchange and he clutched the bag tighter to himself as if it would offer him some sort of protection. Danio winked at him, flashing some teeth. The boy flinched.
“Not yet. Word is he won’t be able to leave hospital for at least another week or two,” the guard said carefully, clearly trying to mask the hint of approval in his voice but failing. Paedophiles didn’t have many friends in prison. “Do your best, though, yeah? I doubt this one could do anything to get on your nerves, but still.” He turned to leave, but seemed to have an afterthought and turned back slightly. “You can be a right bastard, y’know, but keep an eye on him, yeah? Punk looks like a slap would shatter his face. Since when did they lock up babes fresh from their mums with the big boys?” Gregson seemed genuinely concerned.
“Blame this fucked up system we got, mate. Overcrowding, poor sentencing, and all that, innit. I got it, chill. Get back to your post before your bleedin’ heart pops out and messes all over me floor,” Danio said, waving him away.
The guard gave Enzo an almost fatherly look and clapped him on the shoulder again. “Good luck, kid. Giovanetti’s a decent bloke, give ‘im half a chance.” Then he was gone and it was just Enzo and Danio.
It was like a lamb staring at the lion whose cage it had been thrown into, with the lamb trying to figure out if the lion was hungry enough to eat it right that second and whether or not there was anything it could do to escape. Enzo was staring at Danio with eyes that looked like they were about to pop right out of his head, they were so big. Danio could already see this being a problem, indirectly or directly. He sighed, as if a great burden had been placed upon his shoulders. “Quit shakin’ there and go on and put your stuff on the top bunk.”
The boy flinched slightly at the sound of Danio’s voice, but took the directive to mean that it was alright to speak. “You’re Danio?” he asked. His voice was soft with a slight Italian accent—so a first generation brat, then—and if the words themselves hadn’t already raised his guard, it would have gotten Danio’s attention right away. Its clarity was like light to a moth.
“Who wants to know?” he replied casually, sizing the kid up and looking at him with a newly appraising eye.
Bit below average height, small frame with minimum muscle, pretty face. But…Enzo could very well be a trap sent in by a rival Family to knock him off . It was the perfect setup, now that he thought about it. Gentle, unassuming looking kid, but probably crazier than a crackhead looking for a fix. He looked carefully for any signs of drug use. Annoyingly, he couldn’t tell if the kid’s trembling was from nerves or from withdrawal. But it would be convenient if someone on the outside pulled strings with the Warden to have him assigned as Danio’s cellmate.
Enzo stepped forward hesitantly and Danio casually slid a hand beneath his pillow, seeking out the slit in the sheets where he kept his shiv. “Me b-boss said to look for you once I got in.”
The words ‘setup’ and ‘convenient’ keep rattling around in Danio’s brain. “Yeah? And who’s your ‘boss’?” he said. His fingers found the shiv and curled around it. It was made out of a painstakingly sharpened toothbrush handle with the blade off a razor attached on one end so it could slice as well as stab.
“Montie Pellio?”
Montie Pellio. Danio relaxed and was embarrassed to say a flood of relief went through him. Montie Pellio was, while not strictly his own Family, in alliance with his boss and was ‘safe’. He let go of his shiv, making sure he covered his action by stretching lazily.
“He said y-you’d take care of me in here,” Enzo said hesitantly, clearly unsure if he was able to trust a man who had apparently sent his former cellmate to hospital, and severely at that.
“Well, that’s me,” Danio said cheerfully. “If it’s comin' from Pellio, it’s the truth. Pellio’s boys are our boys, too. So what you in for? Not murder, goin' by the looks of you.”
Enzo was clearly uncomfortable with the question. He shifted his weight to one foot and clutched his bag even tighter. “I, uhm. Actually, I killed a bloke that owed money to Pellio.”
Now that was a lie if Danio had ever heard one and he laughed. He laughed until tears peaked at the corners of his eyes and he shook the bunk beds with his laughter. Enzo looked at him with surprise and a little indignation. “Oh, oh, that’s a good one,” Danio gasped, wiping his eyes. “Oh, thanks, kid, I haven’t laughed like that in forever. But seriously now, what is it? I hate liars, kid.”
Enzo’s face was unhappy and his trembling had gotten worse. Santa bloody Maria, the kid really was like a bird. One of those little twitchy brown ones that sat on fences and looked at people walking by with black eyes bright as jewels.
“I ain’t goin’ rat you out, kid, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ve got an idea why you’re here, but I’d prefer to hear it from you,” Danio drawled. He patted the space on the bed next to him. “C’mon, sit next to ol’ Danio and whisper what it is. Ears are everywhere, after all.”
It was like watching a condemned man walk to the noose. When Enzo finally forced himself to sit down, he was wound up so tight, Danio was sure he could have broken a board over his head and the kid wouldn’t even have felt it.
“Well?’ Danio prompted.
The kid plucked nervously at the neck of the bag he had been clutching the whole time. He had slim, shapely fingers, almost like a woman’s hands. “Y’know Luca Arrigoni?”
Luca ‘The Artist’ Arrigoni. The crazy bastard could carve up someone’s face till they were no longer recognisable. And he did. Often. Enjoyed it as well, the twisted fucker. Arrigoni owed some sort of life debt to Montie Pellio, which was the only reason Pellio was able to keep him on a tight leash. It was also one of the reasons Danio’s own boss upheld their alliance with Pellio’s Family and paid a percentage of their profits annually as a token of respect. It’s better to be the friend of the mad dog’s master than the prey of the mad dog.
Enzo happened to glance up at Danio and seeing the look on his face, smiled for the first time and waved a hand reassuringly. It fluttered before Danio’s face like a dove’s wing. “He’s actually a really decent bloke if you ignore all the bad things he does,” he said softly. “Luca’s the one who picked me up several years ago when some big kids beat me up on the street. I didn’t want to go home and show me mum, so I was hidin’ out on some stoop when Luca passed me. Took me to a small Italian joint, fed me, and told me to tell his name to anybody who tried to mess with me again. He also gave me Pellio’s name and told me to come by one day. He’s like a big brother to me.”
Danio made a noncommittal noise, though inside, his mind was absolutely reeling from this revelation. Luca ‘The’ fucking ‘Artist’ Arrigoni, saving messed up kids off the street? When he’d just as quickly turn around and stab some poor sod through the eye and pop it out like a martini olive? And make the man eat it, too?
Then again, Danio thought, looking at Enzo sideways with a critical eye, the brat did seem more than capable of inspiring a certain amount of sympathy in the most unexpected people. Gregson, who had delivered Enzo to the cell, really was of the decent sort for a bloody pig, but sympathetic? Hardly.
“So you’re in here because of Luca?” he finally said bluntly.
“I guess,” Enzo said, his voice getting even smaller. “Luca got pinched by some coppers that was doin' a raid on a bookie’s house and they got his mug and prints. They let him go, though. A week ago, Luca brought me along on a collectin' route. Wanted to show me how it’s done, since I’m old enough now to start in on the proper stuff. One of our borrowers wouldn’t pay up and started gettin’ rough. Luca was doin’ the talkin’ but the bloke pushed me instead, and I fell. Luca got mad and just pulled his knife out and stabbed the poor sod in the throat and killed him.” Enzo was quiet for a moment before adding softly, “There was so much blood. I never saw that much before….”
Enzo fell silent, his face slightly pinched. Danio realised he was probably reliving what it was like to see a man killed in front of him for the first time. He supposed he could sympathise, though killing a man himself was probably different than watching it happen. That had also been many years ago, with many bodies afterwards. Enzo suddenly seemed to shake himself a little and continued.
“The bloke was jus' a dry cleaner doing a bit of gamblin’ on the side, nothin’ criminal, so his boys panicked and ran for the police. We had to run, but I’d twisted me ankle funny when I fell and didn’t make it far. Usually when Luca… goes feral,” Enzo said. Danio heard ‘batshit fucked up’. “Ain’t nobody there, y’know? But there was witnesses this time, and Luca was still a bit off. We had to get out, but I knew that Luca couldn’t carry me the way he was, so…I told him to just go. Pellio and me are the only ones Luca ever listens to,” Enzo said with a strange sort of pride. Danio could believe that. His mother, rest her soul, used to pray fervently for his own soul when she realised he was sinking deeper and deeper into the underbelly of the city. And the innocent shall turn the hearts of murderers and thieves and the wolves will protect the lambs. “He didn’t want to, but I made him.”
How, Danio was actually dying to know. He refrained from asking, though, and let Enzo continue.
“I remembered Luca had had his prints done, so I sort of smeared me fingers up and down the knife to cover any prints and put me own on it. It took the judge less than ten minutes to convict me through the evidence, though he kept askin' if the witnesses had been drinkin’, because he didn’t believe I done it.” Enzo laughed. It sounded a little frightened.
Danio let the story sink in. He felt like his world had been shaken a little. Crazy Luca had a soft side, apparently, and this bird kid had more guts to him than he’d thought.
“Pellio let you take the rap?”
“I made him,” Enzo said. “I didn’t want Luca being locked away. He’d go insane in a cage. He already went to jail once when he was younger. Boss said he was never the same afterwards. He’s a good man, just…different.”
Danio snorted. “I don’t know ‘bout ‘good man’, kid, Luca’s done some pretty ‘not good’ shit, and I’d put money on the fact that he’s already insane, but if you got a bloke like 'im backin’ you up, more power to you, kid.”
“I guess….” Enzo looked as if he didn’t quite agree with what Danio was saying but didn’t want to argue. Not with a new cellmate and especially not with the man he was asking for protection.
“Anyways,” Danio said. “How long you in for?”
“The judge thought maybe I was actin' in self-defence and that’s how the lawyer Pellio got for me played it, so I got charged with manslaughter. I also just turned nineteen, so I fell under the twenty-one bar. I’m officially eligible for parole in ten years, though Pellio said he’d work the judge and get me out earlier.” Enzo voice broke dangerously towards the end, as if he was finally realising just how long he could be in prison. His face flushed and he averted his face, though not before Danio could catch a glimpse of something wet sliding down his cheek.
“Hey….” Danio felt extremely out of his depth. He wasn’t really sure what he should be doing in the current situation. Comforting people really wasn’t one of his strong points. Need someone to hustle a troublesome bookie, he was your man. Need someone to disappear, Danio could do the job for you, and for a competitive price, too. A doe-eyed, nineteen year old, skinny kid almost about to burst into tears because he was in jail for something he didn’t do? Danio’s brain was honestly coming up blank on that one.
“Hey. Ki—Enzo.” Danio reached out awkwardly and patted his new cellmate on the shoulder in what he hoped was a soothing gesture. Danio didn’t hang around people that needed comforting. All his mates—because true ‘friends’ rarely exist in prison unless you’re from the same Family—were hard men who would probably rather punch a brick wall repeatedly in a stupid, supposedly masculine demonstration of strength than accept anything more than a consolatory slap on the back. He himself found the thought of his mates hugging him outside of a greeting almost repellent.
It seemed to do more harm than good, however, because Enzo let out a choked-back sob and Danio saw fresh tears streaming down his cheeks. He withdrew his hand quickly and sat there feeling slightly guilty and waited for Enzo to cry himself out.
Enzo was denied that opportunity, though—and Danio secretly was quite glad for that—when the dinner bell blared and the sounds of other inmates leaving their cells began rumbling through the block. Before they could go to dinner, though, Danio had some things to run over with Enzo.
“Enzo. Enzo. Listen to me, kid. C’mon,” he said, forcibly turning the boy to face him. “Ah, Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Clean up your face.” Danio got up and snagged his last clean washcloth from the small cupboard that was afforded to him for his personals and thrust it at the distraught kid. Enzo’s pale face was flushed red and his eyes were swollen from crying. Instead of making him ugly, though, it made him look even more vulnerable than before and that could not be happening just before dinner hour. Not when they would be dining among murderers, thieves, and worse.
“Here, and there,” Danio said, gesturing towards spots on Enzo’s face. Enzo obediently dabbed at his face and attempted to stem his tears. He took the washcloth back and ran it under the tap. “Here, get the swellin' down,” he said, pressing the cold cloth underneath Enzo’s eyes to show him what he meant before letting the boy hold it. “Look, we got some things to go over before we go to dinner. You listenin’?”
Enzo nodded.
“Right. One. You’re under me protection now, ain’t you the lucky one?” Danio said, putting some cheer into his voice. “Most newbies would kill to have that. Literally. So basically, anybody touches you or comes near you lookin’ like trouble, you run like hell. Maybe you can fight, maybe you can’t, I don’t know, but I don’t want you fuckin’ with people and gettin’ hurt, y’hear? Just find either me or one of me boys. I’ll point ‘em out to you later. Fuckin’ ugly bastards, you’d never miss ‘em.” Danio chuckled.
“Two. For God’s sake, try to not look so frightened. Don’t cause trouble, but don’t look so…weak. Most of the blokes in this block are mine, but there are some in another faction who’d just love to snap a sweet little thing like you up. Don’t look at me like that. In fact, try not to look like that at all. You should have figured that one out already. Just do what I said before.”
“Three. Stay close as fuck to me when we go out. Until it’s established that you’re one of mine, you’re basically seen as free game. Understand?”
Enzo nodded rapidly. “Got it,” he whispered.
“I’ll show you how to make a shiv later,” Danio said practically, getting up and stretching. Enzo got up, too. Danio absolutely towered over him. The thought of Enzo actually using the shiv was amusing, he thought, watching as Enzo slung his bag up onto the top bunk, though it could actually be a scary thing to see the kid angry. Enzo had already surprised him by willingly taking the rap for Luca.
“Let’s go, then.”