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The bathroom mirror has steamed up. The post-shower mist hanging in the air carries a deep, yet fruity scent to it. With a trace of musk, woods, maybe, it smells fresh, albeit strong. Defining yet lightweight. Expensive. The privileges of indulgence in mafia retirement.
Softly, jazz tones descend into the steamy room. Courtesy of a speaker in the ceiling, they form yet another addition to the scene.
Plush towels carelessly tossed aside, the heated bathroom floor reveals a trace of bare feet, wet marks across marble slabs leading up to the sliding door bordering it from, what must be, the bedroom.
Half-closed, the milky glass pane reveals a large window overlooking the Neapolitan bay, and before it, obscuring the view, a silhouette of a man.
Wearing nothing but a pair of tight boxers, a famous designer’s name adorning the stretch (courtesy of his tendency towards the nouveau riche indulgence, regardless of the slight touch of kitsch).
But his boyfriend loves it and loves the sound the elastic material makes against the man’s skin when it slaps, to his great displeasure.
Sprawled across the bed, said partner admires the masterpiece that his lover’s body is. Like a modern god, sculptured of marble, almost, the romance of his classical features with a turpist kiss, the trace of muscles and his otherwise pristine skin marked with expansive, one would say, ugly scars.
Long, silvery white strands cover some of the - quite literal - devil’s work. Obscuring the scarred tissue, pink and risen even after all those years, the man’s hair reaches down to his waist. Greying at the roots, it finally gives him a break from the three-monthly bleaching process with its horrific smell and suffocating fumes.
Now dripping with water, the silver strands appear darker - and earn a scornful look from the lover sprawled across the bed, his own dark-and-greying hair tied back into a messy half-updo.
“You’re staining the floor, Leone, my love,” he complains as he reaches out towards a neatly folded linen shirt placed on the edge of the bed. His hand– the whole of his left arm shakes as he does and the grip is not as strong as he would like - but after all those years, he has grown used to it. He sits up straight just as he earns an eye roll from the man before him. Removing the red velvet nightgown he is wearing, he reveals he is no more of a god of war than his lover. Scarred tissue takes the shape of a crooked star all over his torso, risen, uneven skin running up across his collar where it simply takes a turn down onto his back. It stings, sometimes, even after so many years.
And it truly is a miracle that his left arm is working, somehow, through some divine power perhaps - because his legs are not.
Coming back from the dead twice holds its price, it seems.
“You and your hard water complaints. No one, I assure you, no one notices limescale traces when it dries up,” comes a response as the white-haired man turns around holding, in contrast, a pitch black linen shirt. It is a little crumpled on the sleeves - its looseness seemingly incapable of tightly wrapping its fabric around his muscular torso the way the one his boyfriend is wearing does. Then again, a matter of preference it seems, as he buttons it down, hiding the scars, a stoma bag and, to his lover’s displeasure, the sight of his muscular torso under the airy linen. Even after so many years he dreads the feeling of bandages wrapped around his stomach much too tightly for his liking, and with them, the memory of staples keeping yet another unnecessary hole in his body sewn shut. Now just a reminiscence in the form of a blast-shaped scarred tissue decorating the front and back of his torso, along with a thin surgical line running vertically all the way down to his abdomen, they do not hurt as much. More so, they itch, be it at night or at a change of weather. He still can’t believe he survived the near-fatal blow of King Crimson, back then. Must have been the power of youth. Or spite. Both, perhaps.
“But I do notice them, is it not important?” his boyfriend furrows his eyebrows as he shuffles himself off the edge of the bed into the seat of a wheelchair parked by its side. Unnecessarily expensive, it accidentally - or perhaps purposefully - aligns with the man’s favorite color combination. White wheels match a cushion of the same color with black lace adornments at the seat. With its spokes shining golden and the pushrims glossy black, it seems a user’s fad more than it appears practical - but Leone were not there to judge, convinced by his boyfriend’s argument that his own silver hair matched the whiteness of the fabric perfectly. And at the end of the day, they both deserve a little bit of indulgence. After all they have been through. After what happened some twenty years ago.
“Of course it is, Bruno, darling. You just make a lot more fuss of it than it asks for,” he shrugs in response and continues to put on a pair of matching black chinos, an attire respectable for someone his age - and a preference he, to his own surprise, enjoys.
“Says the man who goes off for hours if his favorite piece of cutlery ends up in the wrong drawer,” Bruno, the ravenette boyfriend, bites back and wheels towards Leone. “Now, I demand a kiss for such a disgrace.”
“Disgrace?” The white-haired man raises an eyebrow, but leans in obediently anyway, allowing for his face to be cupped before the lips of his lover rest upon his own. Then he crouches down beside the ravenette and grabs his hands in an affectionate gesture. Briefly, his eyes rest upon the nine fingernails he himself painted glossy gold the night before - and brings every single one to his lips, placing a kiss on the dried polish. Nine caresses for Bruno Bucciarati with the prettiest hands in Naples is missing half a finger. Coming back from the dead twice has its price, it seems - the poor piece of flesh must have fallen off in Rome and stayed there to rot.
And since Gold Experience’s healing abilities became quite limited (resurrecting people did not, it seems, equal bringing them back unscathed), nine fingers it is, for some twenty years now, on and counting. Requiem could only do so much. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“What did I do to deserve you, ” Bruno corrects him, cupping his face yet again, running his hand across the man’s long white hair. The fresh fruit-musky smell of his cologne breezes through the air as he does. “How on earth do we still put up with each other?”
“The power of spite,” Leone bites back without thinking and straightens up, suppressing a groan of pain. His back has not been the same since that memorable beach trip. Sometimes he wonders if the inside of his body is just as scarred as the outside is. “Now, shall we go?”
***
With its spacious terrace situated on the edge of a tall cliff, the restaurant overlooks Mount Vesuvius and the sea. The sun has almost set by now - its warm glow lays flatly on the Tyrrhenian; illuminating the walls with a shade of yellow. Briefly, it seems to be blinding Bruno too - as he covers his eyes for a moment, his right hand flashes aureate, reflecting the light on the prosthetic finger he’s wearing - not quite a ring, not quite an aid, more of a fad, an accessory matching the man’s outfit. Engraved on it, surrounded by vines of fig plants, detailed leaves and fruits, is the symbol of zodiac libra - a gift from Leone dating back to some fifteen years ago, a response to a complaint about having to accusatory point at people with his middle. Not ideal, was it, such a situation - and so Abbacchio came up with an extravagant solution.
But then the aureate glow disappears as Bucciarati moves away from the sun towards the shaded side of the table he’s sharing with his boyfriend - in their favorite restaurant, an accidental discovery in the shithole that he has always considered Portici to be.
Yet it caters to their needs with its fine food and safe options; with one, two, maybe, can’t-really-have-that’s on the menu, positions that would send Abbacchio's tormented insides flying.
And a date night it is, an anniversary, how on earth do they still put up with one another?
“You’re beautiful in this light, you know that?” Leone says with a smile he only reserves for Bruno. Warm and kind, unlike his usual scowl - a cause behind the permanent crease between his brows. Or maybe it’s just old age. They are both retired, after all.
But he’s right. In this light, Bucciarati is beautiful. With his chin-length hair waving slightly in the humid seaside air, strands of silver between jet black, he steals the older man’s heart in an instant with his gaze unfocused, resting on the sea to his side, holding a glass of white wine as he gets lost in thought, warm evening breeze moving the fabric of his tight white shirt ever so slightly, the two top buttons left open, revealing a gold chain and a line of greying chest hair.
“But you’re prettier,” he disagrees and glances at Abbacchio, his ocean blues piercing across the man’s heart, making it flutter.
And he’s right, Leone is beautiful, too. With a cascade of white hair falling on his shoulder in a lazily-tied low ponytail, all the creases on his face, his prominent nose and the trace of eyeliner around his eyes, he would make Bruno’s knees buckle if he could.
Like teenagers in love they feel, still, after all those years, scars marking the passage of time.
And how do they still put up with each other?