#frankiedhd

"Something is wrong."

As he speaks, his leg taps incessantly beneath the dining table: little creaks and the rhythmic scuff of his socks against the linoleum punctuating the syllables and iambs in his anxious words.

"Somethin's always wrong with yous," I mutter. My words are muffled as I lazily press a chunk of bread, drowned to limpness with pumpkin soup, into the pocket my right cheek. "What's the matter, coniglio? Jeez, is it the bread? Sorry, baby, I know you ain't a fan of them baked-in olives, but it's all the bodega had out when I got there-"

"Gio, damnit! I ain't a frigging toddler, I can stomach some damn olives!"

...Jesus.

I like his skittishness. I know it sounds a little patronising, but it's endearing to me; the constant fidgeting and wriggling is as much a part of him as the borrowed trace-scent of my cologne in the crook of his neck and the way he gets little crow's feet by his eyes when he smiles. But this, right now, is more than his day-to-day restlessness: he's cagey today: more so than normal. I can see it in the way his eyes dart frantically around the room, the way those dilated pupils can never quite seem to sit in one place, caught in that same little loop of endless motion as his squirming lower half.

"...Sorry."

As soon as he breaks the silence, I realise I've been absentmindedly holding my breath in - as if, if I had let it go, some inappropriate response to his seemingly unprovoked outburst would have slipped out with it. But he's taken the weight of the reply off my shoulders, leaving me with nothing to do but give a barely audible, shaky out-breath after I choke down the food still in my mouth with an unwittingly stilted swallow.

"I... I, uh, don't apologise, Frankie," is all I manage to offer, at first. "I shouldn't 'a cut you off like that. My foul, alright?"

"No, Johnny, it ain't your fault, babe, I just... I just-"

Ironically, he's never been very good at expressing himself: it's no real surprise that the words he wants to get lost at the tip of his tongue, leaving him with nothing but stutters and frustrated little grunts - and once he's run out of those, all he has left to give is a big, defeated groan as he buries his face into his hands.

"It's just... Things have been good."

That confession, meek and padded by the hum of his lips against his calloused palms, is the absolute last thing I expected to hear.

"Good?"

"Too good," he whines, still refusing to look me in the eyes. "Everything is too damn good, and I feel like somethin' awful is about to happen. I can't freaking relax, Gio, I feel like- Damnit, I don't know, it feels like my brain is full 'a fluid, and- And my head is going to explode- Or somethin'-!"

"What, like, a fever? Frankie, if you got a fever-"

"No, no, it's metaphor-ismical, or freakin'- Whatever you call it! I just... It feels like there are a million bees inside my skull, Johnny. Does that make sense?"

No, not really. The bees, at least: I can't particularly envision something like that, I've never been all that good at creative thinking - or whatever the ability to picture insects in your head is called.

But, what does make sense is the look in his eyes as he raises his gaze: only slightly, just enough to meet my own.

There's a frenetic, anxious energy there, one that I've seen time, and time again: in the eyes of the lanky, up-town sixteen-year-old who'd ride past my shop on his bike a suspicious amount of times every day, in the eyes of the point of contention sat across from me at one too many impromptu meetings of DiMaggio's inner circle, in the eyes of the disgraced caporegime reluctantly settling into his new place among the ranks of my crew...

In the eyes of the man sat opposite me.

I give my best attempt at a sympathetic smile.