devil in him .

The air inside the mansion had grown stifling, weighed down by the chemical fog of pomade and perfume, and though Erik could not determine if this was an objective truth or the side effect of his encounter with Nalini, it nonetheless left him desperate for the fresh night air. Out here everything seemed sharper and clearer, as if the world had come fully into focus in a camera lens. It would’ve been preferable if it were a little less crisp and a little more dulled at the edges, softened by expensive champagne, if only to help one bear the weight of the dreaded small talk. But Erik had, to his current dismay, decided it wasn’t the kind of night for ill-advised impulses and regret and was thus currently dreadfully sober.

Too involved with his own drama to fully pay attention at first, he now looked through the windows into the well-lit interior and followed the rippling effects of whatever had left the crowd scandalized and vaguely electrified. In retrospect, it was a bit too optimistic to assume shit wouldn’t eventually decide to go down. He was just glad not to be in the immediate vicinity of Vera or Sal when it did. Playing with an unlit cigarette he cast his gaze around to make sure he’d moved far enough out to be obscured by the darkness when a sound of heavy steps drew his attention towards the corner of the mansion. For a moment he stilled, watching the figure assault the brickwork with an air of blind rage, too far away from Erik for him to see his face. Though not quite far enough to ignore the familiar set of Luci’s shoulders or the way he swung his arm when he hit the wall. If he’d known Luci a bit less he might have remained blissfully oblivious, but years spent together had made them familiar and the war had honed that part of Erik to a fine point - a useful skill to have when you’re all down in the trenches covered in blood and mud and otherwise unrecognisable.

Really, he should’ve taken another glass of whatever was offered. If he’d been drunk he would’ve been able to plead impaired judgement, but there was no one to blame except Erik himself for what he did next. He closed the distance between them, watching Luci take it out on the wall as he approached and his steps on the gravel finally became loud enough to be overheard over Luci’s rage. “Fuck indeed.” Stopping some distance away he rolled the cigarette between his fingers, taking in the blood now that he was close enough to tell in the darkness. “You should’ve finished that sentence. For once be the voice of reason - me fucking off from here, I assume, would be the wisest decision.” Too bad that had never been their dynamic. Perhaps an hour ago Erik would’ve adhered to that common sense and left the way he’d been doing for the past year whenever the two were left alone and unsupervised, but an hour ago he hadn’t yet spoken to Nali, or seen Luci so out of it. God, this was a stupid fucking move.

“I suppose you’re the answer to my questions about why everyone in there is so… enlivened suddenly.” Not that it was a particularly shocking thing, Erik was just wondering who the other half of that equation was. Or if by approaching he’d somehow involved himself in it. It was hard to tell when Luci was like this, harder even since the divide between them grew wider and heavier with rage and resentment. Some ravenous, impulsive thing in him wanted to insert himself in it, but he lit a cigarette instead. The scrape and hiss of a striking match as Erik took a deep breath interrupted the silence and he watched the red glowing tip instead of looking at Luci when he spoke again. “Don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not here to finish off whatever… this is.” With a flick of his wrist, he gestured vaguely towards Luci. “Though I am tempted. I’m here for Nali - she insisted on talking to me. Can you get your shit together for a minute and talk?”

.

to not be immediately greeted with a punch is, luciano will admit, surprising. on days where he’s been sober enough to consider the consequences of what he’d done to erik’s father, he’d thought of a half-dozen scenarios with which this sort of conversation would play out. or, rather, run in as he’d figured there would be a significant lack of conversation and more brawling. and though luciano is as incredibly prone to not thinking things through as he is to ignoring the consequences of his actions, he hadn’t forgotten that there would come a day of reckoning for erik and he.

a man could only avoid dealing with the man who’d stomped his father’s skull into pudding for so long, after all.

he licks his lips, tastes blood, debates whether he should be grateful erik hasn’t been sent by vera. the information doesn’t do anything to relieve the tension in his shoulders - those are rigid with it, every muscle in his body still wired with his anger for bruno that has, for now, dissipated somewhat. left behind, however, is the state of hypervigilance both erik and he had come to know well in france.

he can’t take his eyes off erik, he can’t keep his eyes on erik. at least with his back to the wall of the mansion he doesn’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up on him. it doesn’t help that his his good ear is ringing again; catching erik’s approach had been a stroke of pure luck. irritably, luciano shakes his hand again as if to urge feeling back into it before flexing it again. pain, a familiar kind, lances up against his arm again; after all these years one would think he’d be immune to the pain that comes with breaking a hand or, at the very least, lose enough sensation in his hands that he hardly notices.

his eyes snap back to erik when he utters nali’s name, narrowing as if he can assuage just from a look what it is that happened between his once closest friend and his former lover. somehow, he feels even more on edge. were they inside, he’d get a drink or three and down them all in quick succession to quell it. his cigarettes, to his great annoyance, fell out somewhere inside. with neither vice at his disposal and enough common sense to not push his luck and ask erik for a cigarette, luciano gets left with the uncomfortable and aggravating sensation of ants crawling all over his skin.

“you never know. vera could round the corner any second now and rectify that,” he mutters and spits bloody saliva onto the gravel. “give you the excuse you’ve been waiting for.” erik would enjoy it - the opportunity to let out a year’s worth of anger and betrayal in one glorious unbridled moment. luciano knows he would happily do so if their positions were swapped so, of course, erik must feel the same way. their only difference is luciano wouldn’t have waited a year for vengeance. 

“You had me worried me there,” Maxine said with a short laugh, a genuine smile on their face. “Did you really forget me?” They leaned in closer to get a good look at his arm, instinctively reaching out at the familiar scar. They stopped short of touching it, only letting their finger ghost over the raised skin. Had it been any other injury, they would have probably forgotten it by now, but Maxine could never forget the first wound they’d had to fix up, the slight panic that their role as a cleaner hadn’t prepared them for the role of a nurse as much as they’d thought. The responsibilities weighed heavy in both roles, but in a manner that was vastly different. “Looks like it healed well enough. Maybe I shouldn’t have done such a good job — leave you a memento to remember me by.”

“Yes, I immediately looked you up after the war and spent five years in desperate search of you,” Maxine drawled, shaking their head in an almost dramatic flourish. But truly, how much could they trust Luciano? And did his last name carry any significance, or was it simply a curious coincidence? “Unfortunately what brings me here is less finding your address, and more of a work trip. Though a familiar face is always a welcome surprise.”

“wouldn’t that constitute malpractice?” he asks with a curious cant of his head. lazily, he unfurls his shirtsleeve but doesn’t bother with redoing the buttons or replacing his cuff links. those are buried somewhere in his pockets, hoping they make it home safely.  “i suppose it’d make it harder to forget you if that had been the case, but no - i’ve got the mind of an elephant when it comes to lovely faces who won’t indulge a bone weary soldier.” a cheeky grin flits across his face as he offers his arm to maxine, tired of lingering in an empty alleyway. the police, once they recognize him, won’t hassle him but he doesn’t feel like having to deal with them at all tonight.

“If I said no, would it stop you?” Etienne counters, though he already knows the answer. As they have already established in this same conversation, there is nothing that can be done to deter Luciano once he has already decided what he is going to do. It isn’t a question of should he, as much as it is when he will, and Etienne doesn’t want to be around when it happens. He can keep him here for now, doing little else but talking, but it seems to be doing little to improve his mood. In fact, he can’t help but wonder if he is doing more harm than good.

And then comes the question that brings Etienne’s own good mood to a screeching halt, doing what Luciano’s other surly statements could not, and for a moment, Etienne doesn’t answer. What he does do is frown, because he was there in France too, albeit in an entirely different place to Luciano. He didn’t fight, but he saw the people who did and the states they came back in, and did his best to fix their broken bodies and alleviate their pain. It is a time of his life he does his best to forget, because to remember is to sacrifice his own happiness in the now, but he can still pinpoint exactly where Luciano’s mind has gone, even without any explicit words to signpost it. 

“Do you really want to know, Luciano?” he asks, voice a little lower, and a lot more sombre now. “Skin grafts are an ugly business, old chap. And it would only be the cosmetic damage that I could work with. You’d be likely to never use those hands again.” He’s talking purely in the medical sense now, but there is also the emotional impact of what such a sight would do. Tending to people he had never met was one thing, but it always cut him a little deeper when it was those he knew, those he counted as a friend.

.

blindly, luciano reaches for his drink and manages to pick it up without knocking the glass over and staining the table cloths vera surely spent hours agonizing over: egg shell or cream, which do you think is most impressive? the thought, briefly and painfully so, steals his thoughts back to happier times - before the war, when maeve and he were newlyweds and doing the sorts of shopping that all newlyweds do.

every item in their home is perfectly curated by his wife and regularly faces the guillotine in terms of if it remains the best option available to them. every item in their home has luciano’s approval, if only in the sense that it was his money what paid for the items - if only because luciano, who cared little for shopping for home goods and more for clothing because he could steal maeve away into a changing room, paid careful attention to which items maeve lingered the longest over and voiced his agreement to which set of silverware was best. as if she’d needed his opinion when she’d done all the research and asked all the questions, but she cared about it so luciano made an effort.

unfortunately for him, the memory doesn’t last long enough to drown out etienne’s voice. he tunes back in to hear his longtime friend spelling out the realities and, involuntarily, flexes his own hand. when the days are cold and damp - thankfully not a frequent problem in new orleans - they ache from a lifetime of fighting, of taking his anger out on inanimate objects. with a sniff, luciano exchanges his cigar for a long pull of gin and sighs. “how bleak.” the nonchalance with which he speaks might startle others, but he doubts it bothers etienne at all. “i’ll be sure to avoid any cheese graters i see, hm? every time i watch someone wield one i always wonder how often they’ve accidentally brought their fingers too close.”

His touch is unexpected, given his reaction when she crossed the line between them and made contact, but certainly not unwelcomed. His hand encircles her wrist, the other cupping her face so gently and so reassuringly that Nalini forgets for a moment that they have ever been apart, that there is a wife and a father and an acute danger that would come if she is seen like this with him, and for the first time in a year, that sickening feeling that twists in her stomach rests, and her heart flutters in the most pleasant of ways. She didn’t hurt him. She didn’t do anything wrong, and that confirmation brings a palpable relief to her demeaour, the nervous energy evaporating from her body. 

But it is over far too quickly. He lets go, and it’s all she can do not to grab his hands again and stop him. All the rest of it comes rushing back, the things that keep them from being together as she envisioned once upon a time, and her grip tightens on the bottle in her lap. 

She never thought she’d find herself missing France. When they had been there, getting to know each other, so much of their conversation had surrounded the future she thought they had, if they only survived the war. They had survived, but that future has still been denied to her. She’d since refocused her dreams, learning to find new ways to forge happiness, but over the last year, that had been eroded away too. But it blooms again now, the first shoot of spring after a long winter, and while she knows logically that this could still be nothing more than a final goodbye, she can’t help but let herself believe that it is the door opening on them again, even if just a crack. 

“Oh, thank goodness,” she sighs her relief, her cheek still tingling from where he had touched her. One man should not hold so much power over anybody, but if he asked her to, Nalini would walk into the pool and drown herself in it. Something about him captivates her so completely, and it has been like that since the day she met him. She doesn’t know how to break the hold he has, and neither does she want to. “I’ve been so afraid of that.” 

And then he finally reveals the truth, the reasoning she has been waiting a year for, and Nalini recoils like he has slapped her. For a moment, she can only look at him in shocked silence, suddenly remembering that there are greater things to fear than the prospect of upsetting him. Yet, somehow, it seems to pale in comparison to the thoughts she’s been torturing herself with. Even if there is nothing between them beyond tonight, leaving her hadn’t been his choice, and that will be a comfort for her in the lonely nights that follow. 

“Are you okay?” She can’t help herself. Absently, she reaches out, brushing her fingers gently along the back of his neck. The touch is only fleeting before she catches herself, withdrawing her hand and letting it rest on her chest. “Are you safe?” There’s a futility to her question, because if he wasn’t, she doubts very much he’d have been here at the party tonight, though she won’t sleep tonight if she doesn’t ask it, and his current appearance does little to assuage any fears she has for him. 

“Thank you, Luciano.” It is a strange thing to thank the man you’re in love with for leaving you behind, but now she has insight she did not have before, she knows how necessary it is. “For looking out for me like that.” There’s a pause, an inner battle with herself not to ask the question that’s on the tip of her tongue, but in the end, her mouth wins the fight with her brain, and blurts it out anyway. “Do you? Care, I mean? Still?”

.

he can’t help himself. he leans into the ghosting touch of her hand, head turning so that at the last moment his lips brush against her retreating fingertips. it lets him catch the faintest whiff of her perfume, dabbed onto her delicate wrists and resolutely clinging to her warm skin. the scent brings a sense of calmness to him; much the way maeve’s does though for different reasons. with nalini, there’s the sense that all things are fine and that the ugliness of the world simply doesn’t exist so long as they are sat here together. it does and it’s laughable of him to think otherwise, but it cannot reach them in here. with his wife, she’s the steadying presence - the affirmation of everything his mother and father raised him to be, that he is where he is meant to be.

selfishly, luciano wants to be able to have them both in his life. it’s unfair for him to have to trade peace and reassurance depending on which he needs more at the time.

“i’m fine. nothing to worry about.” the state of his face, his hands probably does little to reassure her. at least she can’t see his body - he’s confident it’s already mottling underneath his clothing - or the brand on his chest. that, the brand, he could certainly get away with lying about. make something up, convince her it’s nothing. he hadn’t stood a chance with doing so with maeve. word had already reached her about what he’d done to erik’s father before luciano and salvatore had finished yelling at each other. “this - this has nothing to do with that. just a disagreement.”

for him, it’s easier to brush aside her concerns as more than nothings because, then, he doesn’t have to worry about explaining things to her. the greatest thing he can do for her is keep her in the dark as much as possible. she’s so ridiculously genuine with her big eyes that it would be impossible to not believe her if someone were to question her. if his father wanted to make sure luciano had been making good on his promise to stay away from her, letting her have a broken heart would only help her. cruel as it was, but it kept, and keeps, her safe.

so when she asks if he cares, luciano can’t help the bark of incredulous laughter that escapes him. can’t help how it makes him grin which only reopens the split in his lip and he rakes a swollen, and likely broken, hand back through the unruly mess that’s become of his curly hair. “i care about you way too fucking much, nalini khuranna.” i killed for you. he’d killed for maeve, too, but that was more to get back to her - to the woman who represented everything that was normal and, oddly, safe in his world.

“of course i care about you.” luciano shakes his head, still smiling as he looks at nalini. “i love you.” he’s wished he didn’t. he’s wished he didn’t love maeve. he’s wished he loved only one of them because it would make everything with the other easier. if maeve was vile and a cruel and suffocating, loving nalini would make perfect sense. if nalini were nothing but piece of ass, he wouldn’t be sitting here - he would be wherever vera is instead, the crown jewel of his father’s empire, with maeve at his side.

sometimes, however very rarely, when luciano’s blood runs as hot as his does right now he’s well aware enough to know he needs exactly what a foul-tempered toddler needs: a timeout. he doesn’t stick around to listen to whatever tongue lashing or backhanding salvatore has to offer for embarrassing him or, just as likely, for embarrassing vera. he doesn’t care about that; it’s bruno’s fault any of it happened. showing up here, tonight, thinking he’d be welcomed as if he hadn’t turned his back on them all because he’d decided he was better than the rest of his siblings or whatever bullshit he believes about himself.

luciano carves a warpath through his childhood home, dripping blood and sending partygoers scurrying out of his way, until he’s made it outside. at least it would be a warpath if anyone was brave enough to try and stop him. none are; he can’t blame them. a stolen drink, snatched from a gape-mouthed guest, gets downed quickly before the glass is tossed aside to shatter in the darkness. the night air, heavy even in late september with humidity, feels suffocating. it only furthers his foul mood until he rounds the corner of the mansion and, finally alone with no one left around, he can let out the rest of the fury denied by salvatore’s earlier intervention.

the only thing that can withstand luciano vincelli’s fury is the brickwork of the house. he lays into it with heavy fists, punching until he’s both winded and a lance of white hot pain shoots up his whole forearm. “fuck!” luciano grips his wrist, flexes his fingers, swears so loud he almost drowns out the sound of someone approaching. “fuck-” he turns and the off part of snarled fuck off dies on his tongue when he sees erik standing there.

“fuck.”

Etienne shakes his head, genial little smile on his face. “My apologies, Luciano, I meant no offence.” His regret is offered calmly, easily, because he knows when Luciano is wound this tight, it bodes better for everyone not to push him into further frustration. He’d seen too many people make that mistake over the years, and he would not be one of them. Not just because Etienne never fought with anybody, but because Luciano was his friend, and he would be a poor friend indeed if he aggravated him to the point of breaking.

There were so many similarities between the two men, born into a life of luxury, given every opportunity, sent across the world to serve in war, but many differences too. In so many ways, they are polar opposites, one quick to forgive and forget insult, the other quick to repay any slight tenfold. Etienne does not think he could ever be happy living like that. Not when he has so much more to be glad over. 

“Let it never be said it wasn’t for lack of trying,” he’s teasing him now, but his gaze is fond. There is never any malice in Etienne, and that remains true now.  “Alas, I’m not a strong enough man to stop you from doing anything you put your mind to.” He wonders if there is anybody in this house tonight who has such powers. His gaze flicks to Luciano’s hands, the pale skin of his knuckles, starkly different to the rest of his skin, and he chuckles lightly. “There’s still time to prove me right, Luciano.” 

.

“that’s part of my charm,” he replies with a thin smile dripping in sarcasm. sometimes, it’s true. when luciano wants something there’s little anyone else can do to stop him from getting it. it’s simply unfortunate that the things he wants the most tend to be alcohol and fights rather than success or power. he has both through his family already and neither really appeal to him. not in the same ways they appeal to his sister or a good number of people in the mansion tonight.

he lets his head fall back against the chair as he blows lazy smoke rings towards the ceiling, gaze fixated on some highpoint of the ceiling until it unfocuses and he’s staring through it rather than at it. if it weren’t for how close etienne sits to him he would be completely checked out of the party until someone eventually disturbs him with a touch. as such, he can still hear etienne and so he remains, however barely, tethered to their current reality.

“so i should get into another fight tonight?” he asks, as if both his mood and his mind haven’t already decided he would. as if luciano getting into a fight isn’t inevitable and is, in fact, completely and wholly avoidable. he wets his lips without looking from the ceiling, recalls a nightmare-ish scene from the trenches he’d forgotten he’d ever witnessed. “what would you do if i showed up with all the skin sheered from my hands?”

Up until this point, Bruno was fighting back in defence, trying to find a quick exit before they both got seriously hurt. It just took one blow to the wrong side of the face to collapse into a heap forever. The insult had been generalised, though if Bruno had considered it for a moment longer, bitch was a pretty good term for Rosa Vincelli.

Then Luciano had to make it truly personal. One thing to insult the living, another the dead and Bruno had already had most of his life tormented by the fact his mother had been a mistress without needing her memory degraded.  His eyes burned with rare fury, the alcohol in his own system not helping matters. When the punch came again, it made half contact, catching the side of his head as Bruno had unsuccessfully tried to block it.

His anger helped him absorb the pain, however, and instead, he got low and tackled his brother to the ground, trying to use his heavy frame to help. Whether he was successful or not, the result was the same, Bruno came in close and threw hard body shots.

"Better a whore than a liar from the witch's womb. Cheating bastard."

.

bruno tackles him and he doesn’t care. they’re a snarl of limbs on the floor, each scrabbling for the upper hand and trading punches with little regard for protecting themselves from the next one being thrown. giving as good as they get and luciano, ever salvatore’s son, likes getting hit a bit more than he ought to. always has, using the pain of it to drive him into punching or elbowing back harder. it’s one of the things that makes others fearful of fighting him. he’s relentless.

he can tastes his own blood, either from biting his tongue or from his leaking nose, and luciano takes the opportunity to spit into bruno’s eyes and shove him off. winded as he is from a couple hard knocks to the ribs, the act of shoving bruno off comes far too easily. it’s about that moment he realizes why: their father, and a pissed off vera, has arrived with the cavalry in the form of a gaggle of foot soldiers.

luciano staggers upright, without pulling his glower from bruno, doesn’t hear remotely anything anyone says because his good ear is ringing, because he’s breathing heavy, because his blood is still rushing and if anyone else touches him they’re going to find themselves on the receiving end of his fists, too.

Their excitement faltered at his reaction — or rather, lack thereof. And while they hadn’t expected some sort of fanfare or giggly excitement at the revelation, knowing well that the two hadn’t been close by their standards, the shared experience of the horrors of the War had inspired some amount of camaraderie within them for their fellow veterans. The violence of it all was not something that those who had not served could empathize with. Like an unsolicited inside joke, except no one was laughing. Though, they thought wryly, they’d soon found out that perhaps this was not a returned sentiment. Excitement gave way to mild confusion, not quite sure if Luciano had truly forgotten them, or if he’d chosen to pull their leg instead.

“It certainly would be troubling,” Maxine agreed, though not without a quirked brow, “If he too was in your exact likeness.” Five years was barely enough time to change his appearance too much, they would think, though the possibility that they were wrong was still fully on the cards. And for an inexplicable reason, that worried them slightly. With a tilt of their head, they gave a short pause at his question, as if in contemplation. “He certainly thought of himself handsome,” they mused drily, corner of their lips upturned against their volition, “Left the nurses fawning over him as he marched off, of course. Had a particular bad scrape on his forearms I had to patch up.”

.

except for one nurse who’d seemed more content to roll their eyes at his antics despite his best efforts to win them over. when, of course, his attention hadn’t been stolen away by nalini or games of cards with the other soldiers. luciano hadn’t been attempting, however playfully, to court a nurse maxine though.

A more cynical person would say that it was hope that pushed Nalini into drawing him to sit beside her, and perhaps it was, but there was no manipulative machinations on her part. The hope that they may still be able to pick up where they left off burns eternal when it comes to Luciano, but there is never any expectation on her part. She didn’t do this because she is trying to draw him in - rather, she is guided by pure instinct, a desire to care for him and tend to him as she once had. Even if this is the last chance they get to sit with each other, to speak to one another, it will be something to hold on to. She’s long since given up on the idea that she will ever truly let go of him. 

She doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t press him on exactly how he gained his injuries, because she never does. In the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters to her is that Luciano is hurting, and that she cannot fix it, no matter how much she wants to fix everything that causes him trouble. She has wondered, more than once, if she could achieve just that by taking flight again, packing all her belongings and disappearing from this city. It would be the third time she has packed her entire life into a suitcase, but New Orleans is different to Paris, even to India. She would be leaving too much of herself back here with him, and so she can’t. Not until he tells her to go. As much as it would break her heart, she would do it for him. 

He doesn’t ask that of her now, doesn’t fight her when she pulls him down to the tiles. Instead, he offers assurances that he is fine, and draws his hands away from hers. He tries to make it look like it’s for the purpose of cleaning himself off, but although she can be foolish, Nalini sees it for what it is - a way of disengaging from her, and she understands, but it still stings. She picks up the bottle again, if only for something to do with the hands that only a few seconds ago had been touching him, and takes a deep drink, a few seconds to try and find some composure. 

Maeve is here, he says, and she nods, because she’s well aware of the fact. “I know. She belongs here.” It’s a simple enough statement, but loaded all the same. This world was never one intended for Nalini, but since she met Maeve, it’s been obvious that she wears the role well. There’s parts of Luciano’s life Nalini could never be privy to, and Maeve gets all of those parts of him. She might have been envious of that, if she were a different sort of woman, but she never truly has been. Instead, she accepts it, because if Maeve is what Luciano needs, what makes him happy, she can’t bring herself to feel anything else. 

“Oh,” in truth, she hadn’t even thought about the possibility that Maeve had found out about them. If she had, surely there would have been more of a sign - she would have been out of a job, for one. She doesn’t say that, though, because she can never bring herself to disagree with Luciano, no matter how wrong he is. “I guess I just thought you’d got tired of it all. Tired of me. That, or I had done something wrong, or to hurt you.” Her eyes seek out his, begging for something she doesn’t know if he wants to give her. “I’m sorry if I did. That’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.” 

.

sometimes it would be easier, he thinks, if nalini were the type of mistress he’s overheard other men complain about when they’re drunk and puffing cigars at the boston club. women who demand to be made wife, who threaten to reveal the truth in exchange for gifts, who machinate their way into getting what they want or die trying. how he’d never bragged over his luck - his childhood nickname once more ringing true - in finding a woman seemingly happy with receiving whatever attention luciano would spare is beyond him. but that would have made it seem like their entire relationship was exactly like all the others: a woman either conniving or dumb and a man who wants his cock wet.

nalini is neither of those things and, while sex is one of luciano’s favorite pastimes, it’s never just been about wanting sex with her for him. he wouldn’t have murdered someone to protect her if it was just about sex as erik’s father had so incorrectly assumed.

he’d like for this conversation to be simple - to be about his time in college, in sports, and other things so unimportant they don’t really need to be discussed except for the fact that they’re safe, easy sorts of things. his life, however, hasn’t been simple since the war and this is no different.

“hey-” he catches her wrist in his big hand, the other coming up to cradle her check - thumb smoothing against the plane of soft skin. he meets her imploring gaze with one of his own, wanting her to understand that what he said was true. “-no, you didn’t- no, you didn’t do anything wrong, nalini.” except come to new orleans looking for him, but he’d never say that to her. “you didn’t hurt me. you could never.”

in truth, luciano could only be grateful for her. she’d been something of a lighthouse for him in france, guiding him back alive when the letters from maeve grew further and further apart until they’d simply stopped arriving at all. she’d been an anchor to keep him grounded when he’d watched too many men die and felt the angel of death watching him from the shadows of bomb-blasted buildings. and in coming to new orleans, nalini had become a rudder for him - righting him as best she could as everything else continued to fall apart.

he sniffs and then winces when it stings and pulls his hands back to wipe at the blood leaking from his nose. the cuffs of his shirt sleeve are already well stained with it and a little more won’t hurt. “it’s not your fault.” as if saying it another way will help. he spits into the pool again. “i promise. i did something dumb. made a mistake.” the brand on his chest itches and he rubs at it through his shirt, gaze dropping to the tile while he weighs how much he wants to tell her. “my father - he found out. he thinks i’ll make the same mistakes he did with bruno so.” luciano sighs, scrubs the back of his neck. “i thought it would be better, for you, if he thought i didn’t care.”

Bruno saw it coming. They were blood, after all, and one only had to look at the stare in Luciano's eyes to know what was coming. The question was only when. Even though he was ready, the viciousness of it was hard to fight. Luciano's forehead cracked right against Bruno's nose, and the blood was immediate, running down to his chin. It wet his tongue and his own fire was lit.

One wasn't a cop in New Orleans without getting in a fight or five. He slammed with a grunt into the pool table, his glass of whiskey splashing on the felt top, but his arm was up in time for Luciano's fist to hit his forearm rather than face.

"Figlio di puttana!" He spat at his younger brother, come blood flicking along with the words. He never felt that connected to his Italian roots on his father's side, but every now and then they provided the perfect sentiment. His knee followed his insult, aiming right for Luciano's stomach to wind him and also create space.

There was a part of Bruno which knew he went too far, but the other side of him no longer cared.

.

the blood on luciano’s face thus far all belongs to bruno - either from the initial gush upon cracking his nose open or from the spittle sprayed with his insult - though he doubts it’ll stay that way for much longer. not with bruno insulting rosa, even if son of a bitch is about as generic of an insult as one can toss around. it’s enough of distraction for bruno’s knee to connect with luciano’s gut, winding him and forcing breathing room between the two, as it is enough to maintain his anger.

Luciano doesn’t speak, and Nalini doesn’t know if that is better or worse. The longer the silence between them stretches, the more lost for words she is. It wasn’t always like this between them, but a year is a long time to be apart. She hasn’t changed, not really, but she cannot say that if he has or hasn’t. She doesn’t know if he would be receptive to talking the way that they used to, to laughing at the smallest of jokes, to even spending time in her company. She doesn’t know if she can even bring herself to that anyway when there were so many questions unanswered. The heartache of the last year pricks at her again, and she trembles a little with the effort of not letting it show. 

He doesn’t speak, until he finally does, but what comes from his mouth has her blinking in confusion until the realisation hits her. She lets go of the wall, raising her hands to her cheeks in an attempt to cover the flush pink of embarrassment that blooms there. “Oh, this is mortifying,” she manages a laugh, and for a second it’s almost as though things are normal, they’ve never been apart, and the last year is just a bad dream. Just for a second, until she remembers why she has the shirt in the first place.  She could make up an excuse, but he knows her too well now, and she never wants to lie to Luciano (apart from the small ones, the ones that couldn’t hurt). Instead, she bends to the plant pot, scooping up the jersey and the journal and stepping closer, holding them out to him. 

“Um… it smells like you. Nothing I have smells like you anymore.” If she wasn’t flushed before, she definitely is now, inwardly cursing herself for the situation she’s found herself in. Why couldn’t she have come face to face with him after her set, when she still had a little bit of dignity? Why did it have to be here, now? And then, before she can stop herself, the next stupid statement tumbles from her lips. “I’ve been missing you.” 

She looks at him again, properly looks on him, intent on drinking in every aspect of his appearance, and it is only then that she sees. The shock of his initial appearance has worn off, and now she can see the details, the telltale signs that he has been in a fight, and worry for him clutches at her. “Luciano…” Her brows knot together, the items she was clutching dropped to the floor as she reaches out to take his wrists in her hands instead and tug him down to kneel on the floor with her. It feels like France again, when she would send him off to battle and he would return to her covered in mud and blood and she would clean him off and sing him to sleep. 

“Are you hurt?” she asks, voice gentle, accompanied by the soft stroke of her thumb on his wrist.

.

he ought to take both back from her, but sneaking them back through the house runs the risk of luciano having to explain why he’s carrying his old football sweater and a journal around the party. he’s rarely sentimental and never for old things like that. it’s easier to let nalini have them, better than letting them sit around his parents’ home and collect dust until the moths find them. it’s only fair, for the way he ended things by all but disappearing last year, to let her have them - to let his belongings bring her comfort. he’s the only reason she’s here now, after all, rather than back home with her family or living a happier more fulfilling life in paris now that the war is long over.

it’s the very least he can do.

before he can voice as much, she cuts him off with a look of both horror and concern on her face. she missed the fight. he’s happy about that, glad that it didn’t somehow interrupt her performance. she deserves to be center stage on a night like tonight, with new orleans most prominent families all gathered around at vera’s demand.

luciano’s night is a series of doing things he shouldn’t do it seems. he shouldn’t have fought with bruno, shouldn’t have stayed here once he saw nalini, shouldn’t let her take his hands in hers and bring him to the floor when he has maeve who would happily do that. or, maybe, this fight at this party would be the straw to break the camel’s back and she would spurn him. finally admit to herself that luciano is good for little more than ruining nice things and find someone better suited for her. that fear never rears it’s ugly head when it comes to nalini.

“it’s fine. i’m fine,” he reassures because he’s certainly had worse. he’s got enough liquor in him tonight that it doesn’t hurt. tomorrow it will and he’ll stay in bed or sprawled on the sofa with fulvio doing his best not to move because fighting at almost 36 years old catches up to him faster than it did when he was 26.

"Touché brother, touché." Bruno offered with a small grin, though a brief flicker of guilt was on his face. When Luciano signed up for the war, he had been tempted to join him and make sure he made it back. He owed his younger brother that much. But the needs of the Vincelli came first, and their father couldn't have both the eldests galavanting off to Europe. So like the dutiful pup he had once been, he stayed behind and watched Luciano bravely march on.

The first stone that was thrown in a long journey of leaving. But all smiles faded when they both stared each other down. Bruno straightened up, meeting his brother's eyes unflinchingly. Maybe Luciano cared about the people around them, but he had long since thrown caution to the wind. He set his glass on the side of the pool table and offered a small mercy but talked in a hushed but firm tone. "What, Luc? You worried about what people think?"

"Out but never gone, eh? You still care about this stupid game, and people are being caught in your mess. Innocent people. Because you're a selfish bastard. What will it take for you to own your life? Dad doesn't give a fig about you anymore." There was a hint of a slur, just slight, on the edge of Bruno's tone. He was normally quiet and all smiles, but whiskey can do something to a man.

.

younger brother he may be, but the difference between luciano and bruno is only a scant four years and not much else. beyond that, he’s never been one to be intimidated by anyone - not even his own father who gave both his temper and vice for violence to his legitimate firstborn son. he’d stood toe-to-toe with salvatore, old bull and new bull, and they’d both come away with shameful bruises and neither wholly satisfied. he’d been in the trenches in france and if that hadn’t quelled luciano into being a meeker, more thoughtful soul who shied from the prospect of violence then bruno certainly wouldn’t be the one to convert him.

there’s a million things luciano could say. he could rip into his brother for being so pretentious, so fucking holier than thou for simply turning his back on his family. call him selfish for abandoning his family, for abandoning luciano when he’d come back from the war and found his family in shambles. tell him he hadn’t so much as sniffed a whiff of nalini’s perfume in the last year because he’d murdered someone to protect her. tell him he’d murdered someone to protect maeve from the hurt of his poor choices, as if he hadn’t realized how he could hurt her, and ask when had bruno ever done anything like that? when had bruno cared so much about someone he’d dirty his hands for them?

never.

The better question was, did he need to keep an eye on Luciano? Not that he would ever tell the other man that he was watching him for the sake of their affiliation. “No, there’s plenty of other nooks around here for me to use.” The last thing he wanted to do was make a Vincelli feel like they were the inconvenience or anything. “It’s a beautiful house, I understand.” How someone could sound so ungrateful, he wasn’t sure. “Have you spoken to the Eastside Family yet?” He wondered about Luciano’s opinions when it came to the New Yorkers, if he shared the same opinions as his sister did.

luciano shrugs at the comment about the house - not particularly concerned with it’s design the way everyone else seems to be. maybe it’s the fact that he grew up in it and it’s nothing special to him. it’s been such a secret to the large majority of party goers and he knows his mother is busy preening over the fawning. interior design and decoration isn’t his interest; even his own home has largely been left to maeve’s discretion. “not that i’m aware of yet. have you?” he takes a pull from his flask, swallows a belch. “one of them’s-” he adopts a condescending tone, “-in the family way, isn’t she?”

Bruno considered his brother with a wry smile. It was hard with Luciano. On the one hand, he had a mile-long list of grievances with his brother and past behaviour to look down on. But there was a litany of memories that he couldn’t let go of either. A childhood spent both fighting and also being there for the tears and the harder moments. Until his father’s hammer slowly beat it out of them at least.

“Your faith in her to play by the rules is brave. Either way, she didn’t have much choice, I had an invite from…someone, and she couldn’t make too big of a scene.” He murmured with a grin; he had his own rather copiously filled whisky in his hand, which he didn’t shy from gulping down a few times.

But despite telling himself that he could still care for his brother, that didn’t mean Bruno was willing to let him off the hook. His gaze drifted up to Luciano from above the rim of his glass, and he tilted his head with a hard look. “Which wife would that be Luc?”

.

so long as salvatore sits ahead of the family, vera’s shackled to their father’s way of doing things. beyond that, it wouldn’t put confidence in her newfound new yorker allies if two of her brothers, even if one is a turncoat like bruno, turned up dead at a party thrown half for her but mostly to impress said allies. but that’s the kind of information bruno’s excluded himself from in becoming an officer and, while he might be luciano’s favorite sibling, it’s the kind of information luciano knows better than to part with.

so he shrugs, smirks. “my bravery got me a distinguished service medal in france. i’m happy to take my chances with vera.”

his smirk, however, fades as soon as bruno alludes to nalini. a hard, glittery stare of his own replaces it - jaw muscles tensing before he forces them apart to down the last of his drink - and never leaves bruno. tonight is neither the time nor the place for bruno to act all high and mighty, judging luciano like he’s never done a goddamned thing wrong in his life. especially with all the people around - people who will gossip because they have nothing better to do. “run that by me again, bruno.”