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He really shouldn’t be smoking with a set of broken lungs like his, but that doesn’t stop him. He likes the burn, the sweet musky smell that leaves the air thick and the risk of having a fit that doesn’t stop until the oxygen is snatched from his swollen throat. Leone isn’t above judgement because they’re an enabler and reluctant but willing participant. If Bruno dies like this it should be ruled an assisted suicide if not manslaughter. They know what this is.
“I’m not an addict.” Bruno holds the cigarette between his thumb and pointing finger, gripping it in place like the cold salty wind of the bay might blow it clean out his hand. Leone watches the red-orange-yellow butt breathe a thin line of smoke that wavers in the breeze as Bruno takes another puff. He exhales a cloud of grey as he talks. “I don’t really need this and could quit if I wanted. I don’t even like it.” He extends his hand to Leone, offering them the cigarette.
Leone twirls the cigarette in their hand, ash falling between their scuffed boots, through the railing and into the icy waves below. They stare at the cigarette between his index and middle finger with a thumb tucked over the top, thinks about how Bruno held his comfort style and how they hold it in the style of a classy woman, an Audrey Hepburn or Sharon Tate type. They’re not a classy woman. They’re a woman with lean hairy legs and smudged makeup, no breasts to fill the bra under their shirt, a scab on their arm from a fight.
Weird girl. Shameful girl with semen splattering the lining of the panties she shoplifted from the junior’s section of a department store to fit their narrow hips. Gross girl with eyeliner and mascara streaming down their face and lip gloss on their teeth and chin, wondering if there’s more to love than gagging on spit and cum. Bad girl that was thrown out of the bar for fighting back when someone called them a tranny. Weak girl that cries for the family that abandoned them.
More ash builds at the end of the cigarette. Leone flicks it away and passes it back to Bruno. Bruno takes a final drag and crushes it beneath his sneaker. As he struggles to light another, he grits out, “Why are you staring off like that? Am I upsetting you?”
Leone is always upset. She can't remember a time when guilt didn't wrack her bones. “No. I’m just thinking.” They lean over the railing, folding their arms under their head and resting their chin atop their hands. “I want more than this.”
Bruno scoffs and ashes the cigarette. “What more is there than ‘this’?”
He knows what this is. They have blood on their hands. They are sin personified. This is why they suffer.
Femininity hurts. Leone has known this since they were a little girl trapped in the perception of a boy. The women in their family would always remind them as they waxed their legs and plucked their eyebrows, telling them to be happy they were born with a dick between their legs, that it would save them from a world of pain. Leone tries not to be angry at the memory because they didn’t know and wouldn’t understand that their flesh was what made them suffer. Leone could wash away makeup and kick off heels and remove wigs but they could never remove the girl that they were and couldn’t erase memories of assault and anger directed at their body. There was that suspension between man and woman that they bridged — too ugly to be a girl, too pretty to be a boy. Just Leone, nothing else.
They only feel like a real girl when they’re hurting. Beauty is found in strong hands on your hips, puking up the apple slices you ate for lunch to make sure you can fit those tiny little skirts, duct tape ripping the skin of your thighs and cigarette burns. It’s a cliche and so disgusting to think that way but it’s all Leone knows and all Leone can be. Girls have to be weak and scared and fuckable and they can do that well enough. And Bruno is their testament.
Bruno isn’t a man but he’s close enough. He’s not really a woman either. He also walks that thin line between the sexes but for his own safety he is a man. He’s always been good at trying on new skins and adopting new identities, better than Leone. Leone can’t figure out how he does it and doesn’t quite understand it but they don’t need to in order to respect it. He’s their girl and they’re his.
It’s a thought that makes them giddy, like they’re in on a secret no one else knows about. It’s like when she used to sneak out of her room at night to kiss pretty boys and handsome girls in high school but she’s finally learned all the ropes and knows exactly what she is and wants now.
Love, family, warmth, something better than this. She has all of that when she’s with Bruno.
“You always talk about getting out but what do you really want? What is there to have and leave?” Bruno spits the words out through grit teeth, lips curled into a snarl. The cigarette burns and smoke curls from it.
“A home.” The word is foreign on Leone's tongue. What would home be? Somewhere they can be themselves, without constant violence and fear. No Stand attacks or new orders to take on. “Cottage by the ocean. Picket fences and a garden.” Small dreams that are still as intangible and innumerable as the stars in the night sky.
“And what then?” They have the money to do it, but at a cost. Safety is not guaranteed. There is no way out but down. Cynicism has always been Bruno's second skin and no matter how often Leone penetrates it, it always heals with a thicker scar.
“We‘ll find a way. We always do.”
Bruno leans closer, exhaling a cloud of smoke into Leone's face. “And then what?”
Leone struggles to stifle a cough as their eyes well with acidic tears. “I could be your wife.”
A beat of silence is punctuated by the salty waves splashing against the sea wall meters below them. “You really want to be with me.” It’s a statement framed like a question but Leone can hear the disbelief and worry in his voice. They’ve struggled enough already and will have more struggles to face regardless of where their relationship takes them. They are nothing but their crimes. There is nothing else to do. They know what this is.
“I do.”
“Even when things will go wrong, you’ll stay?”
Leone can’t help but cry, leaning against Bruno's shoulder and covering her mouth to quiet heaving sobs. Bruno is there to hold her up. He's all they have. There’s nowhere else for either of them. Women like them aren’t meant to live in a world like this. The scars and bruises on their bodies reflect that reality.
“Even if I can’t give you everything?” Bruno's shell has cracked and his soft innards are exposed. The seagulls circling overhead feel like an omen.
Leone trembles in Bruno's hold. “I have everything I need with you.”
Want, want, want. That's all Leone's ever known how to do. She has no idea what it means to be fed and full. She is constantly starving, ravished and empty. She is beyond desperation. She is forlornness personified.
Bruno wipes the tears and snot from Leone's face and strokes their light hair, hushing them and quelling any worries. Being held like this by him always comforts Leone in a way they cannot properly articulate. It’s how they knew Bruno was different. No one else, especially a man, had ever been this gentle with her. No one waited for her or listened. It was now or nothing but Bruno had patience even if sometimes he behaved in a petulant manner because he had to wait on her.
Leone's face is still wet when she finishes crying. She chalks it up to the spray of the ocean or the mist rising around them because Bruno doesn’t cry, but she swears she sees something in his eye as he looks over the sea beneath them.
With another drag followed by a loud cough and a puff of smoke, Bruno says, “Tell me about the cottage with the picket fence, Leone.”