gold drips from the wallpaper and the light fixtures and the steady light of the sun out the window, catches in the coils of giorno's hair and makes it a shifting, molten braid of precious metal resting above the intricate ivy of his suit. buccellati waits patiently in his seat, legs neatly crossed and fingers toying idly with his half-finished glass of wine as giorno bring the food around to him, a monolith of stark white against the ostentatious decor of the passione villa, rococo walls of swirling patterns and large paintings competing with the view of the gardens on the wall opposite. he is, in the chaotic decadence, a sliver of simple grace to rest your gaze on. the visual equivalent of an exhale. 

buccellati waits until giorno's begun to take his fork to the swordfish flank he's prepared: a simple sauce of herbs, deboned and well-crisped. a few flakes of pale meat sit on the prongs and buccellati examines it with the same harsh scrutiny he would an interrogation subject before placing it on his tongue, a moment passing before a hum of appreciation sounds from behind his lips. it's simple, yes. but buccellati asks for little more. his eyes rise from the plate to find giorno, and the small smile on his lips buccellati knows isn't mere affectation for how it reaches his eyes. 

his parents had taught him how to eat politely, but polpo had taught him the world of intricate, noblesse etiquette; which fork to use, where to set it, how to dab his lips before speaking. habits polpo had ground into him, sometimes with a cruel hand, but habits buccellati had not seen the bloated man exercise once.

             "thank you, giorno," if there's a heavier sentiment behind it, it goes unheard in his tone, no more rigidly neutral than usual. he traces the tired lines below giorno's eyes, six months of accumulated stress and trial-by-fire duties as don contributing to their weight. this boy is only sixteen, and that fact is not lost on buccellati; he would have rejected the meal if not for the fact he understands that, sometimes, caring for yourself means caring for others.

besides, it is his birthday. had he used to event to twist giorno's arm into something resembling a break? perhaps. four hours here, even if he's worrying over a flank of fish, is not worrying for passione. buccellati cuts himself another tender mouthful, impressed by the taste if nothing else. 

a hum at giorno's question. in truth, buccellati had never been fond of movies, or the movie theatre. he went only when a member of his team really insisted— fugo's arthouse films, mista's romantic comedies, abbacchio's action flicks. 

‘ zzz ’ well :-)

fugo reaches and pushes giorno’s ring binder closed, he holds it there with the end of his index finger and puts the rest of his weight on an open stack of papers on giorno’s desk. he’s weary so the professional divide fugo puts up between the public and the private hallways of the villa quickly fold.

his tongue presses into the roof of his mouth, a dam against knee-jerk rejection, keeping him silent and his expression neutral. olbia lights the sky behind them, drowning the stars out with its resorts and restaurants. the coastal roads are quiet except for the click of their heels on the sidewalks, these small hours of early dawn devoid of tourists and locals alive. giorno is awake because, buccellati imagines, he's as wound up with stress and uncertainty as everyone else. 

buccellati is awake because he no longer needs to sleep.

he holds his tongue stiff, because he does not want to lie, because he does not know how to say it's too late for that. the distance between them widens an extra few centimeters with buccellati's next step, so that giorno can't accidentally brush his skin and feel how cold it is and confirm what buccellati thinks he must already know thanks to gold experience. 

          "I'll need you by their side as well," it comes out curt. the look in buccellati's eyes holds no softness, just the determined glint pointing ever forwards— always forwards, for however much forwards he has left. "my team... no, our team. they follow us because they believe in the path we've laid ahead."

he stops. 

          "giorno. we walk this path because we believe it's right, but that does not mean we walk it for ourselves. if you want to stay by my side... then stay by theirs. that way, no matter happens to either of us, someone will continue in our stead. you can do that, can't you?"

his answer hinges on the pull of his cigar, smouldering bright red as the smoke puffs and drifts around buccellati's lips. this pocket of inactivity, an unrest settling into buccellati's bones that he tempers with his disciplined training regiment, honing himself on sandbags and, when they make the time, the members of their circle where no enemy exists on which he may do the same. his gaze only finds giorno’s to assure him he’s listening, and then drops back to the movement of people over the balcony and beneath their feet.

           "we'll stay vigilant," he tells him, tapping the ashes into the growing pile in the tray. "it won't be a week before the clans find some other war to start. they always do."

like deep-sea fish whose bodies break and distort if the sheer weight above their heads lessens for even an instant, buccellati struggles to adapt to the empty space; pressure is something he no longer knows how to live without. he gives another tap of the cigar. no ash falls with it.

sunlight passes in choppy segments over the stolen car, like someone is quickly flipping through slides of the tuscan countryside behind the red filter of mr. president's glass dome. even as buccellati hears mista round the corner of another tunnel, his eyes drop to his water and detect no noticeable movement, nor does he feel the momentum of the car push him to one side like it would if he were in the passenger's seat. it's an idle observation, but one he makes to fill the space between giorno's prodding as he examines buccellati's open mouth. one of the signs passes too quickly through his almost-entirely-vertical perspective for him to read, but he knows by the tunnels they haven't passed through bologna yet— a fact which slithers into his legs as the anxious desire to tap his foot and fill the dead air between departure and arrival. buccellati smothers it half because he has no reason to let it show, and half because it will make giorno's work more difficult if buccellati is moving.

on the table beside them is a few folded wads of paper, and a small cloth reddened by buccellati's blood, holding a few fragments of his teeth that prosciutto had dislodged with his kick— some of those reconstructed teeth, buccellati notes internally with a small amount of dark amusement, are less than two days old, and the person who put them there is now preparing to repair them with the help of his stand.

an ugly purple-black bruise marrs the side of buccellati's jaw, roughly the dimensions of a size 42 leather loafer. gucci, he thinks. though in truth buccellati wasn't too focused on the heel being slammed into his already-injured face and more on how to avoid being splattered on the blurred countryside beneath; prosciutto ended up there long before buccellati did anyway, and the whole encounter is all just memory now. it lives only in the persistent ache in his jaw and damaged teeth that punishes buccellati twice over for his habit of clenching them to hide whatever pain he's in. he's taken to crossing his arms instead, hiding a tensed fist in the knot of limbs as giorno inspects him, measuring buccellati's reaction.

        "it'll be fine, giorno," he assures him, tone clipped. "besides, you can't possibly do any more damage to them than you have already."

a pause. buccellati huffs, and whether it's laughter or light exasperation is giorno's decision to make.

it isn't often buccellati comes out of a fight looking worse than when he went in. that first week, he thinks, set a bad precedent; but he has not found a way to easily bridge the topic of I was already dead, so injuries were no concern to me and so allows that topic to rest. it is a disagreement they'll have another night. buccellati's pain is always calculated— must be, for the lengths he goes to to avoid it. even now he sits, statue-like, with lips drawn taut and eyes focused forward as giorno mends his dislocated shoulder with the help of gold experience. the only hint of his discomfort comes in the way his fingers clutch like talons into the edge of the couch. the rest of him is still.

he sets his jaw. with his teeth, buccellati is constructing a bulwark against both the throbbing ache of a misread grapple and giorno's concern, and tells himself it is the same impersonal disapproval he would receive through a thick sheet of glass. this argument, at least, is a familiar one. like a gun needs its firing pin, giorno giovanna needs buccellati.

his safety is a matter of pragmatism.

that sterile maintenance is easier for him to stomach is secondary.

10.  the wheel of fortune  :  how well / badly does your muse take setbacks on their goals ?

in a general sense, buccellati deals with them fairly well, largely in part because I don't think buccellati is one to create strict plans. he's more goal-oriented: he has an end state he wants (protect his father/fix passione/defeat the boss), but he doesn't fuss too hard over the details until the time comes: having lived in both in a home with unstable income and the tumultuous world of passione, buccellati knows how quickly a plan can go awry.  above all else, buccellati's mindset is efficient: if there isn't a use for the thought, he tends to discard it.

furthermore, we see buccellati demonstrate an incredible amount of resolve and willingness to go to extremes for his goal, taking routes other people would find too risky or convoluted to work: like jumping off the train to surprise prosciutto, using the punched-out hole in his gut to trap diavolo, and jumping towards secco.

and this too ties nicely into sticky fingers: in a literal sense, sticky creates openings. it cuts a path through anything that comes between it and its target with clarity and precision, like buccellati knows his goals and knows a path exists to get there. no matter what setbacks lie before him, he'll zip through or around them.

my first title for buccellati's blog was troverò una strada o ne farò una: I will find a way, or I will make one.

Being in the turtle was weird. Not that the room itself was uncomfortable or strange, though it still was, but the thought of being toted around like she was stuffed in a handbag was odd to her. She knew it was probably safer in here than walking around outside, but it still made her antsy being in the same room all the time.

It gave her a good amount of time to think about things however, about how far they’d come, and how much she’d grown, and the apparent new occupant in her head. It all felt so bizarre, like some sort of dream.