Work Text:
*
On the way in, Luca eagerly glimpses the Isola del Mare on the horizon.
Sunset brightens Alberto's tower-ruins.
He's missed this…
There's no rain pattering on his head when Luca wanders off the train. No scary-looking Machiavelli. No fishermen with harpoons in hand.
"What's wrong with you, stupido?!"
Alberto's voice hollers.
Luca cheerfully calls out his name, jumping into Alberto's hug when the other boy sneaks up behind him. He nuzzles his face contently into Alberto's yellow shirt. Alberto hugs his sunburned arms tighter, lifting a wide-eyed and squealing Luca right off his feet.
"Did you miss me, Luca—oh, I bet you did! So did you? Did you jump off a cliff? Huh? Did you look through the school's telescope?"
Alberto babbles away, practically nose-to-nose with him, his cheeks visibly warming. Luca flushes.
"Of course," Luca murmurs, grinning, and Alberto pulls away to hoot and punch the air in victory. "I didn't jump off a cliff, no. Genova would have kicked me out of school if I had been caught. And, Giulia showed me the telescope! It's bigger than I imagined it would be!!
Lucas tries to measure with his hands, but groans, unable to spread them out more than what's physically possible.
"Yeah, yeeeah, yeeeeah!" Alberto says humored, slinging an arm comfortably to Lucas's neck. "Time to go home for dinner, mio amico!"
*
"Ciao, Mr. Branzino!"
He reluctantly waves from a distance, tucking his leashed champion show crab under his arm (it mimics a slow wave with a claw).
"Ciao, Mrs. Aragosta! That's a Magic Singing Lady Machine!" Luca yells, bewildering his neighbor inspecting a gramophone, and then gleefully turns to Alberto walking beside him. "Lots of sea monsters came here to stay! It's nice! Everybody's getting along for once!"
"Probably because those idioti left and never came back," Alberto confesses, absently picking his teeth.
Luca grimaces at the thought of Ercole Visconti and his friends.
But… there's so many good things about the surface… how light the air is, the feeling of rushing towards the ocean when Luca falls, the wide emptiness of the skies above Portorosso, the puffy clouds and the hot-heat of the sun and everything human stuff involves.
"The anchovies are out swimming," Alberto interrupts Luca's thoughts, clasping their hands together and pointing up.
The… stars?
Luca's grinning mouth twitches.
"How about the big fish?" he asks, pointing up to the full white moon with Alberto's hand in his. "Is she swimming or sleeping, Alberto?"
Alberto hums, rubbing his chin as they stop walking. For a moment, Luca remembers the moment they were separated. By a train ticket crumpled in Luca's quivering hand. By an act of selflessness. Alberto pressed his lips lightly onto Luca's cheek before Luca boarded.
They never… kissed before then. Luca never kissed anyone.
His cheeks flushed again.
"I dunno!" Alberto laughs, gently pinching one of them.
*
Massimo serves trenette al pesto without expression and pats Luca on the head.
"Did you enjoy going to Giulia's school? Did you behave?" he gruffly says.
Giulia rolls her eyes, smiling.
"Yes!" Luca beams, then asking shyly, "I know Mamma and Papà want to see me as soon as I was back, but… may I stay for the night?"
Alberto perks up.
He nods frantically with his mouth bulging.
"Very well," Massimo answers dully, surrounded by a round of excitable and high-pitched cries of "grazie!—grazie!—grazie!—"
*
"I'm heading upstairs! Come up later! Bunonanotte!"
Giulia quickly disappears out of the kitchen, leaving them alone.
"So," Alberto blurts out, locking his hand behind his head and going sullen, "Do you like school more than being here, Luca?"
Luca's stomach… it feels like there's a kickball instead…
Hitting him on the inside…
"I wanted you to come. With me." He insists, secretly wishing that the joyous demeanor would return to Alberto's luminously green eyes. "I'm different there. Genova won't accept sea monsters, I know. But if you had been there… it would be easier for me, I think?"
Alberto sighs, and it's heavy. Much more heavy than a kickball-stomach.
"I know."
Luca bites his mouth.
Silenzio, Bruno!… Silenzio, Bruno!
"Uhm, they taught us something," Luca announces, hurrying onto his feet to rummage through a cabinet. "I'll show you how to make snow!"
Alberto frowns. "Snow?"
"Snow!"
Lucas overhears a loud scoffing noise.
"Yeesh, I know how to make snow! I basically invented snow!" Alberto crosses his arms, eyeing Luca setting out a gigantic bowl, and the baking soda Giulia remembered to keep in the icebox, and several cups of cold sink water. He hesitates. "… wait, what's snow again?"
"I'll show you, Alberto! Watch!" Luca says, giggling. He mixes together the frozen baking soda, little by little, with the cold water.
Within a few minutes, and then a few minutes more…
"Snow!" Luca tells him, scooping a little of the textured, cold powder into Alberto's opened palm waiting.
Alberto straightens up, gawking, immediately molding it.
"It's like shaved ICE! But it's SO MUCH THICKER!"
"Snow is usually finer and it melts easier, and—I guess what, it comes from the sky, Alberto!"
"MOTHER-OF-PEARL!"
Luca giggles harder when Alberto's hand smushes a little 'snow' against his own face. It's relief in the summer's building heat. He joins in, scooping more from the bowl, smushing Alberto's cheek and giggle-gasping for dear life when Alberto tickles him in retaliation.
He's missed this.
Missed him.
*