Chapter Text
In the dull morning light Reborn stood, shoulders back, hair sleek. His shirt was rumpled as he shrugged it on from where it had been draped across a chair, his belt curled up nicely beneath it.
Reborn walked through the apartment, gently straightening up the chairs and packing the wine glasses away. He took out the rubbish. He wiped the surfaces. Slowly and gingerly, Reborn erased all marks of his presence in this cosy little apartment in Venice.
The door closed behind him without so much as the snap of the latch, stairwell empty and quiet. A blast of cold air nipped at his face as Reborn stepped out into the street, the morning crawling to a start as bakeries and cafes reluctantly unlocked their doors, their yawns fogging up the windows.
A triple shot espresso burnt his lips as Reborn took long draws, a paper bag stuffed with biscotti and chocolate cornetti. It smelt heavenly in his arms, fresh-baked pastries and hand-ground coffee and another cup in its tray, piping hot. Reborn hummed as he sauntered down the road, his so-called ‘walk of shame’.
Reborn stopped. He touched his hair.
Ah. He had left his hat.
His feet carried him, brisk and light, the wet cobblestone paths barely splashing in his wake. That frequency, the rumble and hum of an unfamiliar Flame drew Reborn through the streets, tips of his ears flushed pink with chill and steam burning from his lips—
Silvestro squinted up at him. Reborn smiled.
A man simply could not go without his hat.
“Good morning, bella!” He crooned and took the second cup, brimming with an almond-milk hot chocolate. Reborn could feel his brain churning, trying to place when and why he chose to do this— “Did you have a good rest?”
Silvestro stared at Reborn from underneath the blankets, the collar of her shirt twisted around her neck awkwardly, lines pressed into her cheeks from her pillowcase. Reborn remembered the feeling of that material against his arm. The kind of soft that came from regular use, from going warm against someone’s core.
Silvestro dropped back down onto her pillows with a groan.
“Damn it, you’re a morning person,” she grumbled, and Reborn only laughed as he set himself on the side of her bed.
“I brought breakfast,” he urged, setting her hot chocolate on her nightstand as he unpacked the bakery’s paper bag.
An arm, thick as a tree’s branches, wrapped around his waist and Reborn froze, biscotti crumbs on his fingers. Silvestro scooted closer, her face buried in the pillows even as her ears and nape burnt red at her own audacity.
Reborn could feel her heart beating against his waist, her arm a dead weight on his hips.
“Take your shoes off and get back in bed, it’s too early,” Silvestro muttered before she could regret it.
Reborn sat there, weighed down and lightheaded. He had left his hat.
Reborn stared at the woman’s nape, flushed red against the white of her old shirt.
A man simply could not go without his hat.
“Who am I to deny such a lady as you, Miss Silvestro?” Reborn purred and shed his coat, his shoes and his plans to leave this place behind as he crawled back into Silvetro’s body-warm bed, urging her arm to stay wrapped around him.
Silvestro’s face was still that charming red as she peeked out from her pillow, sleep crusting the corner of her eye and hair rumpled. Reborn smiled at her, something warm and soft, something befitting the dull dawn and body-warm sheets. He ran his thumb along the swell of her bicep.
Silvestro huffed and smothered her face into the safety of her sheets, feeling the scratch of Reborn’s nail glide against her skin.
“Glad you came back,” she murmured.
Reborn didn’t tense. Didn’t so much as pause the slow stroke of his thumb, his callouses rough against smooth scars.
“I couldn’t leave without my hat,” Reborn responded lightly.
Silvestro scoffed.
◇◇◇
Silvestro stared at the bag of coffee beans sitting on her kitchen counter, the sharp, rich smell swarming her senses. She shifted it in her hand; Silvestro did not buy this. She didn’t have a grinder.
Renato seemed all too pleased as he sipped on a fresh espresso at her tiny dining table.
“I don’t know how you expect me to use this,” Silvestro grumbled as she reached for her usual cup and instant blend.
“I’ll be happy to prepare it for you whenever your heart so desires, bella,” Renato hummed.
Silvestro sent a glare over her shoulder, and Renato didn’t hesitate to smile in response. She sighed and made a grab at the kettle as it rumbled ominously on the stovetop.
An elbow bumped against her hip, and Silvestro glanced to see the man leant against her counter. He was sleep-rumpled, a few too many buttons undone on his dress shirt, pants a touch too loose on his hips, hair pillow-whipped. Renato looked up at Silvestro over the rim of his coffee, eyes crinkled in his usual charming smile.
Silvestro rolled her eyes at the artful display.
“And how will you know when I want it?” She asked, caving to his play as she reached around his lanky figure to pick at sugar cubes.
Renato hummed as he continued to take up prime real estate at her counter, watching the mountainous woman lumber back and forth as she worked around him. Silvestro squinted suspiciously at the bottle of oat milk he had placed in her fridge.
“I'm merely a call away,” Renato assured, and watched the moment Silvestro's shoulders jumped.
She squeezed the door to her fridge; the metal wheezed under her grip.
“I don't have your contacts,” she said, voice steady and almost off-handed — if not for the way she avoided looking at him, if not for the way her ears went red.
Silvrestro took the bottle of oat milk and, after giving it a careful sniff, added it to her coffee.
“I don't have a telephone,” Renato said. “Never home enough for it to warrant the fuss of installing a line.”
“Ah,” Silvestro huffed and drank, lacklustre. “An address for mail?”
“Any letters would sit for weeks at a time, I'm afraid.”
Silvestro frowned as she stirred her coffee, all but bleached almond-beige. Renato thumbed at the rim of his cup, pensive, observant. Dark eyes watched fingers flex, a tendon under tanned skin rippling in and out of sight as it stirred a small spoon around and around.
Renato weighed the atmosphere carefully. The man stepped close and leant against the woman’s shoulder—
She flinched. The spoon clattered loudly against the ceramic. Her sleeve jostled violently over her scarred, empty shoulder.
Silvestro thinned her lips, glaring down at the spills on her counter. Tense all over. Renato waited.
“I…I would like to be able to contact you,” she said, finally, through gritted teeth. Her voice was rough, like someone grinding their heel into the earth out of frustration. “If we’re going to do this, I want to be able to contact you.”
Renato leant back against the counter again, cradling his espresso in his hands. He tilted his head as if rolling her demand around his brain.
“I must admit, I am notoriously difficult to get a hold of, bella,” he said, voice light.
“Then you will have to make an exception for me,” Silvestro retorted.
“Why the sudden urge?” Renato asked teasingly,
Silvestro bared her teeth a bit, her jaw tight. He was testing her patience, pushing her out of her comfort zone. The idea made him want to coo.
“I want to get to know you? You’re hard to pin down-” Renato hummed, “-And I want to talk with you more. Doesn’t have to be in person but— I’d just like to get to know you.” Silvestro lifted her gaze finally, her breath almost laboured. Then she turned to Renato, a painfully soft look on her scarred face as she said, “Don’t you want to know about me?”
Renato smiled and took a breath, his tongue curling to press purring words to Silvestro’s ears— Nothing came out. Reborn’s smile dropped. The sharp chill of stage fright. The roaring silence of an empty mind.
Silvestro continued to look at him.
Reborn didn’t know what to say.
“Oh, but I know so much about you.” Incriminating, cloying, alarming.
“Bella, dear, you know better than that.” Patronising, rude, vague.
“No.” Incorrect.
“Yes.” — Reborn felt his throat close up.
“Ah,” Silvestro uttered, and that sweetness melted away into something stony and cool. “I misunderstood.”
No. Yes.
Reborn stared into his cup, face carefully blank even as his heart thundered in his chest. Why was he hesitating?
The plan was simple. It always was.
Woo the woman. This woman with a story to tell and the ink in her blood to write more — and embed himself in her memory. Emblaze himself in a way where she will always mourn what could have been with a bittersweet smile, entwine his likeness in her next chapter, the shadow of her success blending in with his black suit. So that in one incarnation or another, his name — Gustavo, Andrei, Maxwell, Yvette, Renato, Francesco, Reborn — will live on.
The plan was simple. Why was he hesitating?
Reborn’s mouth felt dry. His heart was in his ears.
Ruggine sank his sharp little teeth into Reborn’s shin.
“Ouch!”
Reborn had never fumbled a good coffee before. He hadn’t accidentally dropped something since he had developed the fine motor skills. But the crash of that old ceramic mug on the linoleum floor was deafening as Reborn clutched at his shin.
“Ruggine!” Silvestro snapped, but the cat was already swaggering out of sight, little nugget of a tail wagging.
His hands were moving, deft fingers plucking the coffee-steeped pieces with the usual grace — you wouldn’t even know his mind was in tatters. A scalpel sliding through the grey matter to find what had gone wrong, where the misstep had originated.
Then his hands were stopped, long fingers wrapped around his wrist with a crushing strength as a voice rumbled overhead. He couldn’t quite hear it, the sounds of the surgeon’s knife overpowering as he sorted each slice of brain and thought, trying to find why—
“Renato!”
Reborn’s head was yanked up, that full-handed grip now on his chin and all but dragging him around. He breathed out, feeling the warm air bounce off the rough palm pressed against him.
Silvestro’s brows were furrowed. Her teeth were grit in a way that pulled on the scars on the right side of her face. And she was calling for him, her voice louder than the scalpels, louder than his own thundering heart.
“Come on back, Renato, come on.”
It sounded the same as when she was calling that damned cat. The same exhausted roughness and drips of affection that were just enough to cajole it out of the corners of the house, claws tapping on the hardwood floors and fur bristled. Reborn kneeled there, in her grasp, and slowly crawled his way back out of his own brain, claws tapping on the inside of his skull.
Silvestro observed Renato as he came to himself. He reached up and grabbed the wrist of the hand holding his face. He didn’t attempt to remove it. Silvestro let him hold it.
Coffee soaked into her pants as Silvestro waited for Renato to signal to move, counting the breaths she felt bloom warm under her hand. The easy, controlled pattern of someone practised in calming themselves.
It was slow, measured, but Renato started to stir. He tugged at her wrist, but didn’t pull it off his face. Instead, he moved it to press to his cheek, head leaning heavy into her palm. Smooth skin in scarred hands. Renato looked at her from under his lashes, almost demure.
Silvestro recognised the signs of someone buying time. Still, she let him. If she thought about it long enough, she could still taste sweet pears and rum.
But Silvestro wanted answers. Hot rum and bleeding steak could only sustain a woman for so long.
Reborn averted his gaze. He could feel the window of opportunity closing. The noose tightening around the throat of this… relationship. The thought of it made his chest tighten uncomfortably in a way that was so close to anxiety, the prelude to regret.
Reborn was never a man to know regret.
“I do,” he said, voice only slightly tight. “I want… Want to know you.”
Silvestro gazed at the man in front of her, his face cradled in her hands, kneeling on her kitchen floor. She felt a smile tug at her lips, skin buzzing with nerves, heart squeezing with hope and anxiety.
“Then you’d better find a way for me to contact you,” she said.
Reborn smiled almost sheepishly, like he was defeated. But that was okay. He could ride this wave for a bit longer, follow the story. Cement himself as something unignorable. Something unforgettable.
Silvestro’s eyes narrowed for less than a moment, her smile never slipping. With a man like this, she supposed, this was what could be considered ‘progress’.