Archive of Our Own ^beta

He don't know if it's right or wrong
Maybe he should tell someone
He's not sure just what it was
Or if it's against the law 

Friday 2nd June, 1967.
Caffè del Merlo, 12.30pm 

A chill catches Officer Abbacchio square in the back. It’s not suited to the summer, but still it persists; pressing at the base of his spine like an icy fingertip. 

It’s not for the place. This is a prime spot; right where one can bathe in the sun seeping through, illuminating the tablecloth with its golden glow. 

And it’s definitely not for the company, either. 

Bruno Buccellati is, Leone concedes with a sigh, the perfect dining companion. A good conversationalist. Polite to the wait staff. Staggeringly handsome. 

Yet, for all his charm, that natural charisma, it’s something Bruno has said that made the officer run cold. 

“I will have your house bourbon. Neat,” he’d asked, “and my friend here, your finest white.” 

His ‘friend’ here, his ‘pal’ there. Hell, once or twice, Abbacchio had even been Buccellati’s ‘associate’. 

“I can order for myself, but yeah. White will be fine.” 

Buccellati responds to his grumbling with a look, one that’s somewhat subtle, but put to rest when their drinks arrive. 

The summer heat is quenched, but Abbacchio’s chill persists.

✿ ✿ ✿ 

Once paid up, inclusive of a large tip on the gangster’s part, the men venture out.

The city is at its best this time of year. It is a place rich with life and experience, awash with smiling faces, folks holding hands and laughing together, joy all around. The weather is generous, promising all anyone could wish for the season, and this particular summer is one future history books will deem ‘the summer of love’. 

But for now… 

“It’s rare we’re both free during the day,” comments Buccellati, with a light smile, “what do you want to do?” 

Presented with the illusion of choice, Leone perks up a little, and he pauses to hitch up his sleeve to check his watch. 

“It’s still early. Could catch a matinee?” he suggests. 

The picture house is in the centre of Napoli, surrounded by shops, bars, and any other amenities two young men could hope for on a Friday afternoon. 

“That’s a wonderful idea!” 

Leone considers he’s done good with his decision, until Bruno speaks again, beam soured by the slight knitting of his brow and heat advancing his nose. 

“The only thing… I think Connie is there today.” 

Hearing the name, one Leone was blissfully unfamiliar with not a couple of months ago, makes the officer turn red as well. He attempts to hide a grimace, as his mind struggles with finding a convenient excuse. 

Connie is Bruno’s roommate. She’s 19 years old, works part-time at the picture house… oh, and is currently expecting Bruno’s child. 

The two of them weren’t together, not ever properly. Buccellati had been very insistent on this; first, when he broke the news to Leone, and second, when he showed him a photograph. It was just an ordinary snapshot, hardly anything to write home about. Two people sharing a picnic together, amidst blue skies and red spots where their camera had let in too much light. Connie was pretty, but Leone wasn’t that shallow… was he? And though she and Bruno were smiling, had he not known any better, the officer would have pinned the two as just friends, nothing more.

Clearly though, they had history, and the pending evidence of which to boot. 

Abbacchio has never met Connie. Nor does he intend to. 

Being a police officer, he is no stranger to seeing things he is uncomfortable with. Much like the grisly crime photos and the unpleasant hand gestures perpetrators hurl at him on the daily; the picture of Buccellati and his past lover smiling over wine and pastries is filed under ‘do not instigate’ and left there. 

The excuse comes. 

“Actually…there aren’t any films I’m interested in seeing.” 

And then it goes, along with the faltering smile of hope that quickly fades from Buccellati’s lips. 

✿ ✿ ✿ 

No matinee, but a walk through the park; sheltered by trees from the heat of the burgeoning summer, Abbacchio’s anxieties are put on hold, like the halting of a record still in-spin. 

When Buccellati asks him if he would like to head back to his penthouse - “Connie is out, after all” - he accepts with a hopeful smile. 

Buccellati has a way of comforting Abbacchio without even knowing it. 

The peppering kisses, hand brushing against his thigh, the way he manages to make the policeman feel at almost complete ease, as they forgo the pleasantries and the blanket, tumbling onto the bed to take a slow, steady pace. 

But it’s after the fact that the needle heads back to place…

“What’s wrong?” 

Buccellati asks, hitching his robe around himself as he perches on the end of the bed. He gives Leone a look. A kind of dopey, kind of sweet kind of a look, which he always gets after having sex. It’s a look that Leone has seen - that chill runs his spine again - dozens of times now, and one - and again - he’s grown quite fond of. 

But regardless of the look or not, the policeman bristles whilst dressing, his hand hovering over the buttons of his fly momentarily before he grumbles away an excuse of ‘nothing, nothing!’, before doing them up entirely. 

Buccellati’s brow furrows. 

The young gangster has a theory. If somebody says they are fine once, he’ll accept the answer, even if their demeanour says otherwise. If they repeat it, following it up, as Abbacchio did, with huffing and a blanching complexion, chances are, it’s a lie. 

(...and Buccellati despises lies.) 

“Come on,” he implores, “there’s something. Was it the restaurant? We could have gone to Libeccio instead, Polpo was out today-” 

“No,” interrupts Abbacchio - one awful piece of baggage to Buccellati’s life at a time - as he reaches for his shirt, “it was just fine.” 

Buccellati nods. 

“So, the restaurant was fine,” he concludes, “fine. And today?”

“Mm?” 

Once again, Abbacchio feigns distractions by means of buttons, rather than face the interrogation of blue eyes. But his lover continues to wax lyrical. 

“Well, I thought today was just groovy…” admits Bruno, with a singular, gentle laugh, “we had fun, you and I… didn’t we?” 

✿ ✿ ✿ 

“We’re going to have a little talk, you and I.” 

Leone was sixteen years old. Hot around the collar, from the steam surrounding the kitchen, and the stillness of his father’s tone.

He placed down the plates, finishing his mother’s request to set the table. He gave her and his baby brother a glance, then finally his sister, who responded with only the slightest shake of her head. 

She didn’t have to say much else, for she and Leone had an understanding. 

Yes, Regina thought it strange that her little brother always got dry in the mouth when greeting their father’s work partner, and quickly came to the conclusion long before even Leone himself did. Regina said nothing, except to offer him a promise that he could talk to her, if he needed to. But he didn’t. Leone simply got on, swallowing his shame, watching TV reruns of Elvis Presley - silently enthralled, crossing his legs just so whenever the King would flex his, eating his school lunches alone, far from the handsome older boys, and learning it was wise to never quite meet the morning postman’s eye. 

But when the day came that the postman brought him the brochures from the academy, Leone thanked him exuberantly, and rushed to his room to inspect his quarry in secrecy. Beneath his bed the magazines remained, until that day. 

They glowed, turning to cinders and ash on the fireplace as the family prepared for Sunday dinner. Unhappy embers of a snuffed-out dream… and a deplorable fantasy. 

Leone knew his father had a cruel streak. 

But he didn’t know just how cruel. 

The belt was made of genuine leather, and smarted like all hell when it struck Leone's bare neck and collarbone. Despite how a recent growth spurt had put the teenager a full head in height above his father, he cowered, begging forgiveness, promising it would never happen again. 

“You’re right it will never happen again!” Righello cried, bringing the belt forward for another lash, “I didn’t know there were three girls in this house! To think, my son, nothing more than a poof. You bring disgrace to this family.” 

The correlation between his affection toward the same sex, and his being anything less than a man not withstanding, his father’s words hurt young Leone far more than any physical punishment he could dole out.

“I-I’m sorry…” he spluttered between angry, red sobs, as he hugged at himself and clawed his arms, “I… I’ll make it up… to you… when I start the sch-ool… when I start training for the academy… I’ll show you I’m a real man…” 

Lash. 

“A real man!” repeated Righello, “ha. You don’t know the meaning of the word. A real man wouldn’t let himself be led astray by such perversities, by something so unnatural. How can you be so stupid?” 

✿ ✿ ✿ 

“I felt stupid today.” 

The officer leans against the wall, absently drumming fingers over the scratches that rest still, albeit faintly, along his biceps. 

Out in the open, the confession isn’t condemned to kindling, like the first he’d ever made, but left intact, to glow of its own volition. 

No use holding back now… 

“You made me feel stupid. In fact,” Leone comes to admit, “you make me feel that way most times we’re out, Buccellati.” 

He turns, red-faced, and as he slides and he sits, he exhales a sigh of…relief? Embarrassment? Whatever it is, it sure feels good to let it out. 

Bruno says nothing, but he joins him; sitting in the space beside so that he’s close enough to reach, but far away enough to give Leone room. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the time we spend together,” Leone continues, “a lot. Before you, heh… well, all the things we do just seemed like a fantasy.” 

Bruno shares his wistful chuckle, but there’s uncertainty on his face; a face that’s turned pale with the news. 

“But now we’re doing more… like hanging out here, or the dance…” happier memories age Leone in his mind’s eye, as he reminds himself of huddling together underneath a knitted blanket, watching football on the black-and-white TV, or the two of them arm in arm at a dancehall; not a care in the world, just letting the music and the mood take them.

“What are you saying, Leone?” asks Bruno, quietly, “you don’t want to do that kind of thing any more? You want to go back to us just…uh…y’know…” unusually, the gangster is without words, and just lets pursed lips and a coy expression finish the sentence for him. 

At any other moment, Leone might have laughed. It’s such a hopeless picture; Bruno Buccellati, legs pulled up close to his chest, cheeks ruby red. His eyes twinkle, every bit as doe-eyed and innocent as the man has the propensity to be behind closed doors. Even when talking about such sordid things as the nature of their affair. Such a curious thing… 

But, in this moment, the kindly laughter is allowed only to flutter away at the top of Leone’s throat, and he shakes his head, banishing any previous notions. 

“No, I’m not saying that…” 

The admission is quiet. He pauses. And the spectre in his mind’s eye almost recoils, like the one Leone knows is true to memory - when he got accepted to the academy as a young agente and stood up tall and proud and declared himself every last bit of him a man, more so than Righello. And his flat palm was raised while he watched his old man back away with, momentarily, a look of panic etched on that stalwart face. 

“...I like what we do.” 

Apparently, the sentiment is shared, but as Bruno lifts his head, all he can muster is a pair of simple words. 

“Me, too.” 

And maybe, for now, that is enough. 

“It’s just…” 

Leone fancies himself frozen in time. Once again, searching for alibi, anything to say outside of the truth. And it comes, characteristically awkwardly, tumbling from his lips as he plays with a stray strand of white hair, dangling irritatingly close to his forehead.

“It’s just... how they make you feel, isn’t it? Fathers,” he mumbles, “worthless. So small and stupid. My father, I mean,” he quickly adds - “I mean, you’re not going to be like that.” 

To this, Bruno stays quiet, but the softening of his eyes says enough. A reflection of gratitude, understated. Natural. 

It’s a sight Leone allows himself to drink in, savoring the moment, for a brief interlude, enjoying the possibility he could be okay with the situation, the bizarre mess he and this gentleman gangster have gotten themselves into. 

But then the nag in his core recalls him of the one he’d felt earlier at the restaurant, and at the park, and he knows it won’t do any good to allow himself to be distracted by Bruno’s wiles any longer. 

It’s out in the open now. 

A deep breath. 

That’s where it has to stay. 

“But, Bruno…look…” strength returns to his tone, as he nudges himself a little closer, his elbow brushing against the mafiosi’s side, “what we’re doing…what we have… it’s all so new to me.” 

Bruno edges nearer, too, his head cocked to the side as he reminds.

“It’s new to me too-!” 

He’s cut off. Perhaps for the best, before he can tell of errant nights and days in the company of countless other men that had gone before, but none as special to him as Leone. 

“We’re getting closer,” the policeman dares, “and while I dig all that, it’s just that… well... you called me your friend today, Bruno. You do it a lot. I know you can’t exactly be all over me at a cafe, but it just made me think of when I was younger. When I…when it…was even more hidden.” 

The ‘it’ in question, Bruno knows right away, and an empathy tugs at his brow as he offers his shoulder.

“Something about the secrecy…” Leone continues, dipping his head into the crook of Bruno’s neck, “...and how you have to call me your friend, or your work pal…” 

“...Leone, you know why I have to-” 

“It makes me feel like I’m not…” a sigh, “like I’m not even a real man at all.” 

Leone knows the laugh that follows is not meant with malice. And Bruno has such a queer little laugh that he can’t help but want to join him, though Leone could never hope to match that distinctive, airy way Bruno’s baritone slides up an octave, all in the name of jest. 

“I’m sorry,” Bruno concedes, “you’re outasite, you know that? How can you even think you’re not a real man?” 

The rock stars. 

The postman. 

The belt. 

Leone wants to say so many things, but it’s the first time he’s even really contemplating these thoughts, let alone voicing them. For so long, they had lain dormant, he supposes, with a smirk at his own expense, much like soiled magazines beneath a bed. 

Throat dry, he considers what it is that deems Bruno as more worthy of such a moniker. 

Well… there’s one thing. 

“Women,” shrugs Leone, “I’ve never even sniffed at one. But you, you’ve been with scores of chicks, hell…even knocked someone up, to boot. And you aren’t even steady with her.” 

Leone isn’t usually like this. He has no spite toward the fairer sex, no real thought toward them at all, and perhaps in the hours that follow, he’ll appreciate the offence he’d cast at half the population, not to mention Bruno is wearing that telltale rouge again. 

“I see…” the gangster replies, “well, I suppose you have me there. Some example of masculinity I must be, if that’s how you look at it. But I am of the opinion that a man ought to be determined by how he treats others and not by his conquests. I know that you don’t like to talk about what I’ve done…but Leone… it is not what I would consider a 'real' man’s behaviour at all. No. I’m no man. I’m just a pig.” 

It’s unexpected how Bruno can transcend from clumsy, bashful laughter into a higher truth, and it surprises Leone so that he bypasses the notion that Bruno has hijacked his moment of need altogether with his own insecurities, and offers a veiled attempt at flirtation instead. Barely. 

“...you’re some cute pig, then.” 

Looking more pale now than porcine, Bruno throws up a gasp of indignation. 

“I mean it!” he insists, “you, Leone. You who tries so hard to uphold balance in a world that’s so unjust, you who has so much to give but has no idea. You’re more a man than I will ever be…” he pauses, and his eyes glitter impishly, as the bow of his lips crook into a smirk, “I wouldn’t be going steady with you, if you weren’t.” 

The afternoon seems so long ago, but the chill is ever present in Leone’s spine, cocktailed with a whirring, dizzying feeling that takes up residence in the pit of his stomach. A feeling of tenderness, or something like it, slowly making its way up and out, etching itself upon the officer’s anxious face. 

Something akin to butterflies. 

“We… we’re going steady?” 

Luckily for him, Bruno decides to throw a lifeline by way of arms flung about his neck and a sudden kiss to his jaw. 

“We are, I’m afraid.” 

❀ ❀ ❀ 

Monday 5th June, 1967
Caffè del Merlo, 12.30pm 

“You know I can’t stay,” says Officer Abbacchio, as he takes place opposite at the table, Bruno casually smiling in response. 

“I know.”

They had arranged to meet for lunch here, before the officer had to return to his beat. Bruno’s chosen a prime spot, one where he and his boyfriend can bathe in the sun as it seeps in through the window, illuminating them with its golden glow. 

When the waitress comes over, both men order independently for themselves, but, hidden beneath the shiny red and white squares of the table cloth, their hands entwine, fingertip against fingertip, seemingly none the wiser. 

Just outside their window, they spot smiling faces, folks laughing together, joy all around. The weather is generous, promising them both all could wish for the season, and this particular summer is one the two men will look back on fondly as the summer of love. 

But for now…