Chapter Text
– ♧ –
Pannacotta looks at his client with a deep frown. A young man, charged with the theft of over two dozen cars, and involvement with illegal car trade, sits in the chair across from Pannacotta’s desk, his back turned to the door that the lawyer had just come in through. The young man turns around in his chair. He has an immaculate bob that was no doubt dyed to be raven black. When he spots Pannacotta he gets up, no doubt to greet him. Looking at the man and his laissez-faire smile already gives Pannacotta the impression that there was no shot he'd have an easy case; this man was at least somewhat guilty.
He grips the manilla folder under his arm a little tighter as he softly closes the door to the office. It doesn't help that he knows that this client must be un loro amico.
“Is Signore Polpo a friend of yours?” Pannacotta asks, knowing the answer. The client stops dead in his steps. It's a valid question at this point. Every man that knocks at Pannacotta's door specifically got sent to him by one Signore Polpo, a long time client of Abaltangelo & Corti. With other men and women Pannacotta's superior had to sell the clients on him, assuring them that the seventeen-year-old that was about to represent them actually has been practicing law for a year and a half now and had a success rate that surpassed pretty much every other lawyer in their firm. Pretty much any lawyer in Italy.
Polpo, however that had happened, trusted Pannacotta, despite the two of them never having met. He at least keeps sending his friends to him, who are undoubtedly affiliated . And no matter how utterly horrendous the case, Pannacotta manages to disarm the prosecution irrecoverably every time, which keeps the clients coming.
It's abject horror, morally. Economically it's a success. Being a mafia lawyer was not something he ever saw himself pursuing, he more or less slipped into this position.
“Yes,” the young man says, nodding his head slightly. The pin straight hair looks mesmerizing when moving. Pannacotta suspects more products than just hair dye might be involved, but then again, some folk on Sardegna really had hair that thick and shiny. The man certainly looks like he is from there, with his tan skin and sharp eyes. His suit, however, bespoke and white with intricate beading, looks more like something from Milan o. “Polpo recommended you. I trust you are well-versed in criminal law?”
“It was my main field of study,” Pannacotta presses out, biting his tongue. He is calm. He is collected. He is not going to throw a tantrum. But truly, who just showed up without an appointment to a lawyer, not knowing their field? Did Polpo have such blind faith in Pannacotta's abilities? Or did this client just mindlessly do whatever Polpo told him? What if Pannacotta one day fails to deliver? Would they blame him for not cleaning up their shit?
“Did you do it then?” Pannacotta asks, locking the door behind himself before rounding the table and sitting down. He has had this office for over a year now and it still felt like a stranger's abode.
“Excuse me?” The man asks and Pannacotta wishes he knew his name; Wishes he had time to prepare for this interaction.
“36 vehicles were stolen and an illegal car-ring was busted. You're implicated in both charges, did you do it?”
The young man nervously turns his head, looking at the door. Pannacotta sighs. Uneducated or just unknowledgeable on his legal rights. Pannacotta could take this man apart at the seam, but the vague threat of Polpo hangs over him like the knife of Damocles.
“Anything you tell me is told in confidence. I am here to represent you. If you did it, but don't want to plead guilty, I'll have your back.”
Pannacotta isn't allowed to lie, and neither is Bruno, and lying doesn't actually get you all that far in these kinds of cases, but if Pannacotta has to bend the book a little to let his client off the hook, so be it. It's what he does. It's his job . And he's good at it.
“Even if I did steal all those cars? And more? What if I killed a guy?”
Pannacotta feels shivers cascade over his skin. The other man looks more curious than serious, so he chooses to believe that that was just some exaggeration. To test the limits.
“You don't have to tell me about all that,” Pannacotta assures him, hoping it'll discourage any admittance to murder. “Just make sure to be truthful about what you do tell me. If I construct a case around a flimsy lie it will bite both of us in the ass down the line.”
The young man nods, and Pannacotta puts away the folder. Some copies he made, for a client called Gerard Helio, unrelated to this case.
“Well then, my name is Pannacotta Fugo, feel free to simply call me Fugo, it is easier,” Pannacotta offers, clasping his hands on the table as he stares down his client. The young man stares back, clearly caught up in thought.
“Bruno Bucaletti. Bruno is perfectly fine, the only people that call me by my last name are my co-workers,” Bruno assures him and Pannacotta figures that's fine.
"Fine," he says. He feels his own expression grow more severe.
”So tell me: Bruno, did you do it?”
– ♤ –
Leone is fighting his lipstick for dear life. The oily purple just won't sit right on his lips today, smudging and thinning out before it can properly dry down and set. It's driving him up the wall.
He blames the weather. With this restless humidity no pigment was able to set and before he knew it the paint would be diluted by his sweat. He has half a mind to just let it be and accept the messy look, but he could already hear Officer D'Amato complain.
If you insist on that face paint, at least make it look good, Abbacchio.
“Ugh, fuck it,” Leone groans, giving up and throwing the tube into the sink. He'll just pass on the lipstick today. He'll wear eyeshadow tomorrow, to compensate. He'll get something lavender and shimmery.
He looks at the mirror, trying to map out the look he envisions for tomorrow. The mirror looks back with a set of familiar eyes. They stare into his own, cop to dirty cop. The jawline is just as familiar, broad and brutish. Unmistakably masculine. It's the smaller features that don't fit. The fat above his eyes, shaping them rounder, the nose, strong but lithe. The lips, red and round, with a severe cupid's bow. His mother's marks in his father's face.
Leone picks the lipstick up again and uncaps it.
– ♡ –
Haruno wakes up too late and she knows this the moment she opens her eyes. They're crusty and dry with sleep. She raises her head off the rickety table, slowly blinking through the dried out muck.
Looking out of the small window in her dorm room she can tell that she missed school. That's… bad. But not as bad as it could be. She fell asleep doing her homework. The Italian language still trips her up sometimes. She was never very prolific at writing or reading.
Her hands fly to her shoulders and she feels herself up and down, checking for bruises or, god forbid, any surprise piercings. Waking up with freshly pierced earlobes had been terrifying, especially because she had it on very good authority that they hadn't seen a professional to get it.
At least if the lighter and bloody needle by her bedside was anything to go by.
When she can't find anything she lets out a sigh of relief. She's still in the same clothes she had on when she passed out. There aren't any markings or tattoos on her. Her hair is still black, shoulder length and pin straight.
That means she probably didn't blip. Just fell asleep.
She looks down at her homework and frowns. Maybe she did blip. She doesn't remember getting this far, and it looks like… His handwriting. His doodles too. On the margin there is no space left, only flowers and ladybugs. The teacher will give her shit for it. She plays with the thought of transcribing it on another page, but then he will be upset, and if she had to choose between a disgruntled Signora Pacilli or Him being annoyed she knew her choice. At least Signora Pacilli wouldn't get revenge by throwing out all her clothes or getting her nails manicured with stuff that she doesn't know how to get off again.
A deep exhaustion claws at her heart. She should be energized and well rested, but who even knows how much of lar night she actually slept? Blipping was nothing like actual rest, her body was still moving and some part of her mind seems to become possessed and active. It was almost more tiring than being awake. She wonders what He gets up to. There was a time where she worried what He could do to her body while she was out of commission, but she quickly learned that He considers it just as much as his own body. Whatever he does to it, he wouldn't violate or harm it, at least not substantially.
Her eyes stray to the pad of paper that she had put there for only one purpose. She never remembers what He does, so He sometimes leaves her notes. Not that she had to write anything down herself.
I know what you do, writing it down is useless. Don't do it.
The last note was nothing new. Don't touch the box under the bed, it reads. That was from a week ago. The box was still there, ominously lurking, and she was still not supposed to open it. She has no idea what is in it. At this point she just hopes it isn't hard drugs. She hopes that if it is hard drugs that He was only ticking them, not taking them.
She hugs herself, breath hitching. Why does stuff like this always happen to her?