Archive of Our Own ^beta

Bruno wondered just what his father would have said if he knew his beloved fishing boat would eventually become a witness of his son’s acts of love with another man. 

Would he have minded, he pondered as he lay underneath Leone, bathed in his kisses, tested out the different positions which worked or did not - be it in his lap, pushed up against the wall outside, as though the overheated, white-painted metal did not burn his skin at all. Back in the year 2000, catching the last warm days of the year, they did not consider much the exposure of half-naked bodies out in broad daylight, as they drifted in the open sea, far enough from land to avoid prying eyes, side glances and outraged comments for how could they - a man and another - commit acts of sodomy as blatant as theirs? 

Though it was only right to serve, Bucciarati supposed - the boat had been, after all, baptized Virgil, like the allegedly male loving poet. A name could not lie - an arrangement of gold-colored letters against the navy blue vessel, the dark wood ornaments on the deck above fading from old age, yet maintained in a condition which still paid respects to the late owner. 

There was only so much space on the small boat - a single bed under the deck, a memory of Bruno’s father docking it in Capri or Ischia overnight, the way they often did, now, even if the purpose, back then, had simply been that of simplicity - it paid more off to pick up customers directly in the port on either side, offering round trips as needed. 

It served a new role, now, in the eve of the twenty-first century - as it creaked and begged for mercy under the weight of two grown bodies, the heaviness and arrangement of which it had never been designed to accommodate. 

“What do you mean,” Abbacchio ran his finger down the pink, slightly raised scar vertically crossing Bucciarati’s stomach. His lips followed, feather-like kisses along the line, a moment of silence building up the anticipation for the remaining half of his question: “They cut you open in the hospital?”

“They did,” Bucciarati laughed - a soft giggle more at fault of the goth’s lips tickling the skin on his abdomen, right above a bush of dark hair, revealed slowly as Leone’s hands worked their way around his boxers, determined, it appeared, to pull them off ever so slightly. “So they did to you,” he nudged Abbacchio’s right ankle with his own foot, causing the man, accidentally, to roll onto his back from the semi-hovering position he’d hung above him in, supported on his side primarily, for the sake of his bad leg not bending quite right. 

The goth frowned in mock indignation.

“Yeah, but,” he said as he blew a strand of hair away from his face. “You had the full experience. What’s a bunch of screws compared to–,” he gestured towards Bucciarati’s stomach, as if looking for the right expression to encompass the details of the procedure, though he appeared not to have found them: “... Whatever they did to you.”

“So we compete now, huh?” Bruno rolled over, too, so that he now found himself above Leone - and stole a kiss from him, before teasing any further: “Scary stuff going on, for sure, having half of your guts taken out so you’d stop shitting yourself every fifteen minutes.”

“You should have asked them to leave it to you as a souvenir,” Abbacchio laughed, then pulled Bucciarati closer to him, causing the man to lose his balance and fall straight onto his own torso, where he simply wrapped him in a tight hug, as if he were a stuffed toy more than he was a grown boyfriend. “Mine.”

“Yours, yes,” the ravenette choked out, his voice muffled from the strength of the embrace. “But you’re going to suffocate me like that, honey.”

Abbacchio rolled his eyes but loosened the grip around Bucciarati. 

“You deserve it sometimes, you know?” He teased as he began to play with the other man’s hair instead. The couple of red strands, unruly from the ruffling, contrasted nicely with his natural jet black shade. 

“Do I, now?” Bruno pouted, looking up at Abbacchio from the comfortable spot on his chest. 

He reached down to his thigh and produced a glossy photograph - which again made the goth question his dating choices and the ravenette’s sanity - or perhaps the level of filter he seemed to be lacking. “They wouldn’t let me have the actual thing and I was too high on sedatives to bother sneaking into whatever medical waste refrigerator they had to nick it but they did take a nice picture for me.”

In the photo, resting in a rather large white enamel kidney dish, covered in blood and grime, there lay Bucciarati’s colon, removed in its full glory. The turquoise sheets covering the table on which it sat complimented it nicely. Folded in three to fit, it filled the entirety of the available space. “One would think it's a tripe waiting to be boiled, don’t you think?”

“I hate you sometimes,” Abbacchio scoffed, fighting the urge to push Bruno off himself - though he did take the picture from his hand to have a better look. It wasn’t often that one got to see their boyfriend’s insides - and suddenly, he wished he’d asked to have a photo of his broken bones taken in color, too. An x-ray just wasn’t the same. 

“I know,” Bucciarati placed a kiss against his lips then laid back down and closed his eyes. “Spend the entire day here?”

“Yeah,” Abbacchio put the photograph away and began tracing the tattooed lines on Bruno’s arms idly, until his fingers reached the man’s shoulder blades and the scars across his back. Dirty whore, they read - though was he? 

Leone brushed his fingertips gently over the scarred tissue, caressing it, as if to soothe the damage done. Bruno just stirred ever so slightly under the touch, but remained silent. 

Around them, waves washed softly over the sides of the boat as it rocked on the water. The sound of the movement crashing rhythmically against the concrete docks in Capri marina interrupted them every so often - though Abbacchio didn’t mind it in the slightest. 

Bruno shifted underneath his touch, pulling, as it turned out, his boxers back up now that no further undressing had followed the initial attempt. Then he laid back down on Leone’s torso with a contented sigh and entwined their fingers. 

“There’s a place round the corner which serves good grilled fish if you fancy,” he murmured after a while, not caring to move as he suggested, like it weren’t lunchtime already. Somehow, it no longer mattered he’d just moments earlier suggested staying in for the day - though he had a point. Virgil could only fit as much as a portable cooler filled with lunch food, one which they did not bring.

“But do they do oysters?” Abbacchio asked, giving in to the momentary whim caused by the idea - even if it made sense. The year - and by extension, the warm days - were coming to an end. He wanted to seize every opportunity he had to bathe in the sunshine of a restaurant terrace while he had the chance, knowing well he would have to wait until spring, at least, for the next occasion. Considering his innate impatience, he did not particularly fancy the perspective. 

“Think so, yeah,” Bucciarati rubbed his eyes and stirred, as though to rise from the spot he’d claimed on Abbacchio’s chest, though made no effort to do so. And the goth did not mind it, he realized - the comfortable warmth of a lover pressed against him and the rubbery familiarity of the man’s stoma bag squeezed between the two bodies. The vivid green fabric cover - the fashionable addition, as Bruno called it, complaining the sacks themselves only came in three standard colors, like no one considered he wanted to match them with his clothes; lay tossed on the floor beside the single bed they occupied, filling the tight space. Why - or when - it ended up there, neither of them could tell for sure. 

Though the shade complimented the ravenette’s socks - pulled down ever so slightly, so that they rolled at his ankles. Abbacchio swore to himself to get them off before they headed out for food. He did not watch Bruno paint his toenails red for no reason the night before. He wanted to bathe those tattooed feet in kisses. 

He wondered if his fondness for certain body parts came solely at the fault of leg fracture-associated trauma; or whether it was a natural preference, the same way he struggled to take his eyes off Bruno’s round, stretch-marked ass. “I’ll steal a couple if you order.”

“Take as many as you want,” Abbacchio rose slightly to kiss the top of Bucciarati’s head - then pulled the striped white and blue duvet over them, caving in to a sudden wave of coldness which ran across him. 

“Oh no, just a couple,” the ravenette laughed. “Don’t wanna get a blockage. Or constipation, as you’d call it.”

Leone rolled his eyes in response, then sighed, defeated. Truly, moments like those called for a reevaluation of the reasons why he called Bruno his boyfriend.

He wanted to cherish their quiet Sunday together for as long as he could. Here, protected by the boat’s metal walls, laid out with dark matte wood on the inside, sea-themed blue decorations arranged about - a polished helm, a fishing net in the corner - it did not matter, for a little while, that he had a morning shift the following day; or that dating a gangster could only ever get him so far. 

The old-school wooden wheel was a nice addition, he had to admit - and it were a surprise in itself, too - when Bucciarati had once taken him up into the small, sheltered space of the bridge situated above them; only to show him all the movement controls were more than a nice-looking helm - an arrangement of knobs, handles, switches and buttons, none of which made sense to him but which the ravenette appeared to know by heart. He couldn’t articulate what about this fact excited him so much - yet, he liked the idea of dating a sailor, even if said sailor stole cars, smuggled cigarettes, booze and expensive goods on a daily basis. 

“No oysters for you, then,” he concluded with a victorious smile. “More for me.”

“More for you,” Bruno agreed, then reached somewhere behind Abbacchio’s head, only to grab a souvenir sailor hat, one of the cheap ones sold at every stall in the town on the island - and in Naples, too because what was a better memory for a child than a marine cap with their name written across it? 

The white fabric had yellowed over the years, dusted ever so slightly at the glareshield. The cheap plastic anchor placed in the middle front had long lost half of its color, though unmistakably, the hat had once been a proud possession of little Bucciarati - the name Bruno sewn across the front formed undeniable proof of that. 

The ravenette placed it on Abbacchio’s head with a grin, then moved up ever so slightly, rolling onto his side - and taking the duvet with him, at it. 

“Bring your police cap next time,” he demanded, outstretching his hand idly into the air as if he wanted to brush his fingers against the ceiling - an unexplained demand to feel the muscle pull, perhaps. Abbacchio didn’t care to wonder - he had picked up the habit from the man a long time ago, anyway. 

“Only if you promise not to damage it,” he agreed, then placed the hat on Bruno’s head, instead. “Don’t think I’d be able to explain myself to Seppie otherwise.”

“Aw, dating a cop is no fun,” Bucciarati whined, earning himself a glare from the goth, though he paid it no mind. “You and your stupid rules.”

“Darling,” Abbacchio rolled his eyes. “Just because you ignore them doesn’t make you any better.”

“Rules don’t exist, anyway,” Bruno shrugged. “It’s all in your head, isn’t it?”

Abbacchio opened his mouth to argue - then gave up just as quickly, seeing he would not win a discussion against the plot of The Matrix, the movie which he had not, despite best efforts, yet seen himself. 

“ You don’t exist,” he bit back instead, hoping it would do the trick, but Bucciarati only grinned in response. 

“You get it,” he concluded with a sense of satisfaction in his voice, then rose and crossed over Abbacchio, pulling his boxers up as he stood, then looked around, as if searching for his pants - a pair of red cargos which lay tossed carelessly onto the small plywood desk in the corner of the room. “Shall we go and get food?”

Truly, he reckoned, his father wouldn’t have minded him sodomizing his boyfriend on the boat which had been his dearest possession. The name spoke, after all, for itself. Though Paolo Bucciarati would, he realized, have an issue with the mess he tended to leave all over the place. 

“Food and wine, yes,” Abbacchio corrected him from behind as he, too, got up from the bed - the uneven step and the tap of the cane against the floor preceding the kiss placed at the nape of Bruno’s neck moments later. “Damn, it feels illegal to be here with you.”

“It is illegal, sweetheart,” Bucciarati turned to face him, tucking his bag behind the waistband of his pants. He didn’t bother putting a t-shirt on as he headed up onto the deck. “You’re a cop, anyway.”

A scoff was all he got in response before he reconsidered his choice of clothing - or lack thereof, as he opened the door moments later and was met with a cold gust of wind carrying with it the cries of seagulls, the smell of fried food and the fading rhythm of Saturday Night from one venue or another. 

“Here, you’re gonna get sick,” Abbacchio handed him a folded black sweatshirt - the one he’d been wearing the evening before. Dutifully, Bucciarati pulled it on - though he refused to admit just how much warmer it made him feel. “Now, where’s that fish place?”

“Just up the road there,” he pointed towards the land where a blue building stood out among the pastel yellows and whites. The early afternoon was warm, embraced kindly by the sunshine, despite the freezing wind. Bucciarati supposed the biting sensation of dust and sand particles colliding with his skin would accompany as soon as they got onto the land. He did not particularly enjoy the colder half of the year, even if proper winter only lasted for a month in Naples. 

Gesturing for Abbacchio to follow, he crossed the deck over to the pier's side, then threw the entry flap over the little gap between the boat and the concrete. On any other day, he would have jumped the little distance - though he doubted Leone were able to, despite his best efforts. Not with that leg of his, certainly.

The last thing Bruno wanted was to accidentally kill his boyfriend if he fell into the narrow, yet cold and deep space, down into the abyss. Who would he steal hoodies from, then, he wondered - who would he sodomize on his late father’s fishing boat?