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“We could run, you know.”
It isn’t the first time Riccardo has suggested it, but it’s the first time he has sounded this desperate, as if Amadeo has suddenly been thrust into great danger, as if living and dying in the walls of the palazzo has not always been his destiny.
Amadeo rolls his eyes and continues to make careful work of peeling his orange; it’s some new variant, brought in from a traveling merchant. Padrone bought an entire crate of them on a whim, wants to know what the boys think of them.
“And where would we go?” He asks, peeling away the pith with his nails before sectioning it. “You think like a child. He will find us, drag us back, and have us both whipped. Perhaps worse.”
Riccardo scrunches up his face in a most unattractive manner. “Not worse. You’re his precious thing, he feels no enjoyment seeing you in pain.”
Amadeo wants to laugh, to tell Riccardo that it has been a long time since he has been Padrone’s precious thing— that he has not been a precious thing since experiencing his first wet pleasure— but he does not. Riccardo already fears for his wellbeing, and knowing the explicit details on what occurs in the master’s bed would only serve to anger him further. Instead, he forces half of his orange wedges into Riccardo’s hands before bringing one up to his own lips.
“We would have to leave Venice,” Amadeo points out, biting into the section of fruit; it shocks him. There’s more juice than usual, and it’s sweet, almost enough to make his teeth ache. “And there would be nobody to watch the boys who remain.”
“Alfredo and Albinus are old enough to take your place, in that regard,” Riccardo insists. “And we could easily find lodging in Spain.”
“More childish thinking,” he sighs, resting his head in Riccardo’s lap while he eats his half of the orange, piece by piece. “I would never burden children with the caretaking of other children. You know just as well as myself how it feels. Aside from that, you forget a crucial detail, sir.”
Riccardo hums, scrunches his face up again as he bites into an orange wedge, forcing the remaining pieces back into Amadeo’s hands as he spits the mouthful out into the dirt beside him. “And what might that be, sir?”
“You are a charge,” Amadeo murmurs, closing his eyes. “I am property.”
“That means nothing to me.”
“But it is my life,” he finds himself insisting, eyes flying open again. “He bought me. There are papers, proving this. We… I do not look like everyone else. It would cause trouble.”
“We could,” Riccardo starts, then stops, as if ashamed of the mere suggestion. “We could fashion some sort of plan—“
“I will not, Riccardo. Why do you insist on suggesting such things? It sickens me, and it will only bring us pain and suffering if he finds out.”
“He will only find out if you tell him,” Riccardo snaps, and it’s enough to make Amadeo jolt where he lays. “You tell him everything, it will not hurt you to keep your mouth closed, just this once.”
“I tell him nothing!” Amadeo exclaims, suddenly feeling frantic as his eyes pierce Riccardo’s. Things would be so much easier if they all had Marius’ Gifts, if he could only tell Riccardo what has been happening without being accused of insanity. “He knows everything, and it is not through my own doing—“
“This is exactly why we must leave,” Riccardo hisses. “He is trying to divide us. Driving you to the brink of madness. Sending me off to studia—“
Amadeo gasps, sitting upright. “He’s finally sending you. Where?”
“I tried to refuse him, but he insisted,” Riccardo explains, sounding so apologetic that it has Amadeo’s stomach in knots. “He told me that I had stalled for long enough, and that my long boyhood was to come to an end at once.”
“Where?” Amadeo reiterates, turning to face him fully. “I hope not Padua, you would not make much of a healer.”
Riccardo glares at him. “No, I am not studying in Padua. I will be attending Accademia Fiorentina and studying poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy, as Padrone claims it will “help me discover the answers to my endless questions,” what-ever that means.”
Amadeo smiles sadly. “It means that you pose a threat to him, and he wants you away from me.”
Riccardo scoffs. “Such nonsense. What threat could I possibly pose to him?”
“He is afraid that one day I will give into your begging, and I will run away with you.”
“Despite your protests?”
“Despite my protests, yes.”
“And why is that, Amadeo? Is he truly that self-important? That he must have you all to himself?”
“It is because he knows he does not,” Amadeo whispers, the silence between them so loud that he can hear the buzzing of the sun as it beats down on them from above. “I have loved you for many years, as you know. Just as you have loved me. I am to be his kept-thing. That is what I was purchased for. That is why he is sending you away.”
Riccardo grabs him by the wrists, squeezing hard. Amadeo can’t bear it, the tears in his eyes, the wobble of his lips. Grown men of twenty and twenty-and-two years respectively, crying like spoiled schoolboys. He might be disgusted with himself, if he weren’t entirely heartbroken.
“You don’t have to be a kept-thing,” Riccardo whispers, tears streaming down his face. “You have never been a kept-thing to me.”
Amadeo laughs wetly, eyes burning. “Maybe it is for the best that you are to attend studia, if you are truly that oblivious.”
Riccardo embraces him without warning, and presses their lips together in a way that hurts, but only for a moment. It is so easy to get lost in this kiss, this perfect day on the palazzo ground beneath Amadeo’s favorite oak tree, to imagine this small-infinity as their own forever.
He pulls away before he becomes too attached to the notion.
“I’ll be caned for that,” he murmurs, running his fingers through Riccardo’s short curls. “For letting you steal a piece of me.”
Riccardo pushes him down into the soft grass and smiles wildly above him. “Perhaps I behaved like a brute, and forced myself upon you.”
“Oh, please. We all recall when you wept after Giuseppe smacked you with his wooden sword and bloodied your lip. You do not have what it takes to behave in such a way.”
“And to think I was going to come visit—“
“Oh you must, that is not up for negotiation,” Amadeo declares, rubbing his hands up and down Riccardo’s biceps, feeling the soft muscles there. “And you must bring me books. Especially if you are studying Greek.”
“Of course, books in Greek, and Latin, and little trinkets, and any other thing that reminds me of you,” Riccardo agrees, bending down to kiss him again. “I have been given a very handsome allowance.”
“I’m sure. He believes it reflects poorly on himself if his charges are left wanting,” Amadeo sighs, turning to hide his face in the grass. Riccardo does not comment on the healing wounds in his neck— he knows better than to do so, and was loudly and endlessly scolded the last time he did so. “When are you leaving me?”
“In a fortnight.”
“Well then,” Amadeo starts, pulling Riccardo down so that his head lay on his breast, his heartbeat nearly enough to soothe Riccardo to sleep. “We must make the most of the time we have left.”
Amadeo is not awoken by Marius, or any of the younger boys when Riccardo takes his leave. He wakes alone, in his master’s chambers, with a note resting atop the bedside table. He opens it like a madman, intending to read voraciously. His plans come to an abrupt halt as he scans over the two sentences written on the page.
Amadeo,
You are the kept thing of no man.
I will come back for you, wait for me.
Riccardo
And with that, Amadeo throws the note to floor, and cries himself back to sleep.
Life marches onward, and Riccardo grows quickly from boy-thing into man. He comes home on occasion, for Easter and Christmas, and Amadeo remains Amadeo. Covered in paint, nose stuck in the books that Riccardo brings home for him, parading around a small flock of children after their studies. It’s easy to settle into this rhythm, coming home and resting and returning to Florence with a few kisses and lingering touches being enough to tide him over.
He writes endlessly to Amadeo through the years, who has taken to sending and receiving his letters through Bianca. Some letters are tame and describe a week’s happenings at the palazzo. Others are not, endless flowery pages damning Marius and telling Riccardo in vivid detail about where he wishes to be touched and kissed. It’s shocking, and vile, and Riccardo has tied all such letters together with twine to keep safely in the drawer beside his bed and revisit on long, lonely nights.
He fully intends on granting Amadeo’s every wish as he makes his way home through rain and sleet. It’s Hell, but he has yet to miss a Christmas, and he has no intention on missing out due to some fleeting foul weather.
“Riccardo!” Albinus calls out as he approaches, closing the gap between them. “Deo gratias, you’re here!”
“Please, please, hold your applause,” he teases, climbing out of the carriage with ease. “I will not lie, Albinus, I was not expecting such a welcome from you—“
“It’s Amadeo, you fool,” Albinus sneers, dragging him inside from the icy rain. “He’s… something has happened in Padrone’s absence. He’s behaving strangely—“
A howl of agony from the master’s chambers sends him sprinting down corridors and flinging the door open. Amadeo lay there, writhing in the sheets and sobbing as Bianca shushes him, pressing a cold, wet cloth to his forehead. A physician hovers over him, humming quietly as he works.
“This could very well be a sacred disease,” he observes, tightly binding Amadeo’s limbs with ligatures that leave Riccardo in a state of horror. “A spirit attacking his humors. It might fair him better to be under the care of a priest—“
“Absolutely not!” Riccardo exclaims, rushing to Amadeo’s bedside. “We need nothing more, leave us be.”
“Sir—“
“I said leave us!” He bellows, watching the physician take his leave before turning to Bianca. “What has he done to him?”
Bianca shakes her head, eyes wide. “I know not— Amadeo has been acting strangely for weeks. I only called upon the physician when he began to—“
As if on cue, Amadeo’s body begins to quake with such thunderous force that the bed begins to clatter against the wall. It’s a hideous sight, with excessive drool and rolled-back eyes and great exhales that sound more like death’s rattle than purposeful breathing. The way his body twists and contorts is totally unnatural, completely different from the falling-sickness that affected Paolo, the boy he once sat beside during lessons, in his youth. It looks as if an invisible person is tossing him around on the bed, penetrating his very being.
As soon as it starts, it stops once more, and Amadeo lets out another howling cry, eyes fraught with confusion and terror and tears.
“Oh, my love,” Bianca coos, wetting the cloth again in the small bowl beside her before applying it to his head again. “It’s alright, I’m here. Riccardo is here, as well.”
“Where?” Amadeo asks, staring straight up through a mess of tears. “Where is he?”
“I’m here,” Riccardo chokes out, cupping Amadeo’s face and gently guiding it so that they’re eye to eye. Amadeo looks so tired, as if his soul has already died and the rest of him has remained behind. “I’m right here, Amadeo.”
“It will get better, now,” Amadeo sighs, closing his eyes as he leans into Riccardo’s touch. “All is well, he is home. All is well.”
Riccardo opens his mouth, on the verge of listing all the reasons why all is decidedly not well, when the door gently opens.
In comes Marius— Papa, Padrone, whatever Amadeo has taken to calling him these days— looking more like a weary, ancient god than a man, his brows knitting together curiously as he steps into the room.
“Another spell, Bianca?”
“Yes, this one worse than the others,” Bianca says, standing to greet him. “We’ve tried all manners of remedies, and nothing has worked thus far. Perhaps it would behoove you to take him with you on your business trips, as you’re the only thing capable of calming him?”
Marius hovers over Amadeo in a way that unnerves Riccardo, runs his long, glassy nails through Amadeo’s damp black curls.
“Where I go, he cannot follow. Riccardo, my boy, might you bathe and clothe him while the bedding is changed? There’s much to be done, as Amadeo has been ill for the duration of my absence.”
Riccardo nods, resisting the urge to reach out and slap him across his long, perpetually-tormented face and opting to relieve Amadeo of the ligatures binding his limbs instead. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
He hauls the water by hand and scrubs Amadeo down, despite his protests that he is more than capable of doing it himself. Oils on his skin, perfumes in his hair, soft linen bedclothes. He pushes through his rage to be gentle with Amadeo, ignoring the bruises already beginning to form on his arms and legs— violet marks blooming angrily against his warm brown skin— in favor of gently running a hairbrush through his wet curls.
“He’s let them grow so long,” he murmurs, tucking the tresses behind Amadeo’s ears. “I’m surprised he has not cut it all off.”
“I have been quite ill,” Amadeo breathes, leaning back against him. “Though I suppose the excess will be cut, soon.
“What has happened to make you so sick?” Riccardo finally asks, rubbing his back. “What has he done?”
“You always think my suffering is his fault—“
“Because it is!” He snaps, shushing and cradling Amadeo in his arms when he yelps. He’s never seen Amadeo so fragile, so afraid of a little sound. “He knows things you do not tell him, and hears things you do not say. You writhe around and scream in the bed like some beast, but when he returns, you claim all is well. He is a devil.”
Amadeo’s eyes well up and threaten to spill over. “He is not! You forget yourself—“
“He is. He is a creature from Hell, and I will be removing you from this house—“
“Can’t you see what will happen if you do?” Amadeo cries, folding himself in half to lay upon the top of the vanity and weep. “I will die if I leave, it is certain!”
“So he has done something to you!” Riccardo doubles down, pulling Amadeo back into his arms. “We will undo it— I can run to the physician, or find a priest—“
“For the love of God, please stop,” Amadeo hiccups, pressing his face into Riccardo’s shoulder. “Nothing can be done, please stop it.”
Riccardo wants to argue further, but he hasn’t seen Amadeo cry this way since he first came to the palazzo. A starving, angry child subjected to unimaginable horrors. He has the same dark circles under his eyes now that he did then. He rocks Amadeo in his arms, rubbing his back and whispering gentle, sweet nothings to him.
“How can I help?” He asks, not knowing what else to say. “Please, tell me. I just want to help you.”
“No more doctors,” Amadeo eventually answers, lifting a hand up to cup his face. “It is a minor affliction of the blood, nothing more. I do not need doctors.”
Riccardo sees right through his lie, and plants a kiss on his trembling mouth regardless.
“Very well.”
After spending the duration of the holiday laying with Amadeo in the master’s bed, plying him with fresh fruit and reading him Greek poetry, Riccardo crosses himself upon exiting the palazzo, and spits in the dirt before climbing into the carriage to head back to Florence.
He makes sure Marius is watching from the front entryway as he does it.
It is a mere matter of months before Giuseppe is sent to retrieve him.
“My, look at how much you’ve grown in such short time,” Riccardo muses, clapping him on the shoulder. “It’s nearly time for you to come and complete your studies—“
“Amadeo is dying,” Giuseppe blurts out, voice quiet in spite of his interruption. “He… there was a conflict, with a lord from abroad. Amadeo rejected his advances. He came in the night and killed two of the young boys. Amadeo fought him swiftly, and was victorious, but was stabbed in the process. The blade was coated in poison.”
Riccardo stares at Giuseppe in abject horror, before tossing his books onto the table beside him. “And I’m assuming treatment has failed, and Marius has sent for me?”
“Yes.”
“We mustn’t waste any time, then,” he says, grabbing Giuseppe by the wrist and dragging him from the library. “We’ll leave at once.”
The ride back to the palazzo is entirely too long, and fraught with dread and preemptive grief. Riccardo is not a man of faith, was not raised to be under Marius’ care, and yet, he finds himself praying, desperately hoping that he wasn’t too late, that he’ll at least get to see Amadeo during his last breath.
The palazzo itself feels empty and abandoned upon their return. He stumbles on his stupid feet to Marius’ chambers with Giuseppe close behind, and finds every boy crammed inside from wall-to-wall, the younger ones pestering Marius and a barely conscious Amadeo while Bianca murmurs soft prayers and drags a wet cloth over his skin. There are flowers in the room, perfuming the air in the hopes of canceling out the underlying rot. Amadeo is thin, and unshaven, and it is a sight so sad Riccardo wonders if he should be weeping or reaching for a basin to be sick in.
“Look at that,” Amadeo breathes as a young boy, no older than six, scrawls away on his slate next to him in the bed. “I can tell you’ve been working on your letters.”
“I like to draw more. I want to make art, like Papa,” the little boy says, and Amadeo smiles weakly, presses a kiss to his hair with pale, chapped lips.
“Even artists like Papa need to know how to write their name.”
“That’s right,” Marius says quietly, grave expression on his face as he looks up. “You have a visitor.”
“Who?” Amadeo asks, sounding dazed in a way that makes Riccardo’s chest clamp up.
“Your oldest friend, of course,” he says after a moment, hoping his tone sounds more teasing than terrified. “Came all this way to see you.”
“Oh, Riccardo,” Amadeo calls out, suddenly weeping. “I was so worried that you would not come home.”
“I’m here now,” Riccardo murmurs, settling in beside him and grasping his hands, kissing the backs and palms of them both. “I’m here, that’s all that matters.”
“Let us give Amadeo some privacy,” Marius says softly, ushering the boys out with gentle hands on backs. He stands there for a moment, before saying, “He might like a bath and to have his wound dressed,” and shutting the door behind himself.
It is easy for Riccardo to draw parallels to the last time he was here. He’s drawn and warmed the water, he’s washed Amadeo’s hair and rubbed lovely scented oils into his skin, and dressed him in soft linens. He has also cut his hair, shaved his face, and dressed his infected, festering wound. Amadeo is almost too weak to keep his head up on his own; he can’t possibly live longer than another day or two.
“Very curious,” Amadeo breathes as Riccardo tucks the blankets and sheets around him. He’s sweating, the poor thing, his eyes glazed over and his brown skin somehow pale and ruddy all at once.
“What is?” Riccardo asks, lacing their fingers together. Amadeo pushes against his palm, and he pushes back, their two hands gently swaying back and forth, intertwined.
“You made the spiders go away.”
Riccardo raises his brows “Spiders?”
Amadeo coughs, lets out a feeble noise. “Everywhere. On the walls and my skin. They went away when you arrived home.”
“He’s been having awful visions,” Marius intones, voice oddly strained; Riccardo had not noticed his return. He doesn’t look like a god to Riccardo, anymore. A man devastated by the imminent loss of his son. Or lover, or whatever it is Amadeo has been to him this whole time. “Terrible things. Spiders, beasts, men watching him.”
“It’s okay, Papa,” Amadeo assures him, clinging to Riccardo. “They are gone. All is well.”
“Yes, my child,” Marius whispers, touching his face. “All is well. Riccardo is with us, and Bianca is watching the boys.”
“They ought to behave.”
“They always do,” Riccardo tells him, pulling his hair away from his face. “You’ve raised this group well.”
“They are good boys. Much better than we were.”
“Oh, surely not,” Riccardo teases. “You were a studious, polite boy, and you certainly never drank to excess—“
“I was awful,” Amadeo croaks, shaking his head. “And now that I am making things right, I am to die.”
“Oh, quiet yourself. You might recover, yet.”
“All those years of studying, and yet you still fail to understand the simplest things,” he chuckles, spiraling into a coughing, gagging fit. “I will die tonight. I am at peace with it.”
“How can you say that when you have not even lived yet?” Riccardo questions, dangerously close to weeping. “You have spent your whole life in one building—“
“Not my whole life—“
“Since I have known you,” Riccardo amends. “These ten-and-two years. Surely you want something more?”
“I have been more safe in these ten-and-two years,” Amadeo breathes, placing a hand on the nape of Riccardo’s neck and lowering him down. “Than I ever was before. My life has been hard, Riccardo. The good just barely outweighs the bad. I am satisfied with that.”
“I love you,” he whispers, helpless to the tears streaming down his face. “I love you, Amadeo.”
“Shh, I know,” Amadeo coos, playing with the short curls at the base of his neck. “I know you do. Listen to my heart. It beats for you, just listen.”
When Amadeo falls into fitful sleep, Riccardo extracts himself from his embrace and crosses the room to Marius.
“I assume you would like your time alone with him?”
Marius sighs, watching over Amadeo’s sleeping form. “You assume correctly, yes.”
Shocking himself, Riccardo grabs Marius by the shoulders and gives him a firm shake. “You will send for me at once, should he start to pass. We were boys together, and that may not mean a thing to you, but it means everything to me.”
“He will not die tonight—“ Marius tries to say, shocked into silence as Riccardo shakes him again.
“Listen to me, you bastard spawn of Satan,” he hisses, crying openly. “You took his entire life from him. He could have done so many beautiful things. I loved him, wholly and truly, and I will hold him as he goes. Do you understand me?”
“Unhand me at once!”
“Not until you promise me,” Riccardo sobs. “You need to promise me.”
Marius nods, looking into Riccardo’s eyes with a flickering expression, filled with sadness and true understanding. “I promise. Go sit with Bianca and the boys. I’m sure arrangements can be made for you, in terms of an evening meal.”
Riccardo sits with Bianca for so long that he feels more statuesque than human. He retches twice, sobs once, and tucks the youngest boys into bed at a reasonable time. Exhausted, he collapses next to Bianca and watches her work on her point de Venise.
“I don’t see how you can partake in idle tasks right now,” he grouses, removing his spectacles to rub at his face. “I am beside myself.”
“You are not the only one who loved him,” Bianca mumbles, and Riccardo becomes acutely aware of how her tears catch in her long, elegant eyelashes. “I love him in ways I will never fully understand. If I cease movement, I will lose myself. I cannot lose myself until I know that he is gone forever.”
“I apologize—“
“Oh, we are beyond that,” Bianca sighs, looking up in an effort to dry her eyes while she continues her needlework. “Let us just sit together and be friends to one another. He would like that.”
“Yes,” Riccardo agrees, guiding Bianca down to lay her head on his shoulder. “He would like that very much.”
They fade into exhausted slumber when they cannot stay awake any longer. Riccardo wakes several times throughout the final hours of night, jumping at the smallest of sounds and finally bolting awake when Giuseppe begins walking around the palazzo and closing all the curtains.
“Has it happened?” He asks, laying Bianca the rest of the way down and bolting up, grabbing his spectacles and putting them on. “Marius told me he would send for me—“
“No, Padrone told me that he is recovering,” Giuseppe replies, covering each window fastidiously. “That he has spent the night vomiting and purging the poison from his body. His condition worsens in sunlight, and he cannot receive visitors until after dark.”
“None at all?”
Giuseppe shakes his head. “None at all. I have it on good authority that he would like it if you slide a letter beneath the door. Padrone might read it to him while he rests. He has requested that you eat and rest, before anything else.”
So, that is what he does. He sleeps in his old bed, scarfs down a confused midday meal of bread, pottage, and wine, then sets out to write a rambling, frankly-embarrassing letter describing the depths of his love for Amadeo and his wishes for his swift recovery. He also takes it upon himself to require everyone else in the palazzo to write a letter, even those who cannot technically write due to their young age. Once everyone has finished their letters, he gathers and neatly stacks them before marching down to Marius’ chambers to slide them under the door one-by-one.
Doing so takes longer than anticipated— the gap beneath the door is not as large as he’d remembered— but it is worthwhile upon hearing muffled laughter from behind the door.
“It is good to hear you in good spirits!” He shouts, cramming more letters beneath the door. “Everyone is worried sick about you!”
“Tell them to stop worrying, I’m fairing well!” Amadeo shouts back.
He sounds different— better, yes, but his voice has taken on an almost-melodic quality. Warm, soft, honeyed. Like the Amadeo of his dreams has replaced the ailing young man behind the chamber door.
“I am well,” Amadeo reiterates, the voice sounding much closer than it did before. “I am glad you left the room when you did, as I was sick the rest of the night. I am much, much better.”
Riccardo wets his lips, takes a deep breath. “Are you sure this is not one last moment of excitement—“
“I am standing and walking at this very moment, to Padrone’s dismay,” Amadeo chuckles, sticking his little finger under the door and wiggling it. “Could I have done so yesterday?”
That’s when Riccardo notices his fingernail. Glass-like, sharpened to a point. He decides against stooping down to link their fingers together.
“I suppose not, no. When are you allowed to receive visitors?”
“After nightfall. The light hurts my head.”
“I’ll be back, then.”
“I will send for you, Riccardo,” Marius calls, sounding exhausted and distant. “Do not come a moment before.”
“Of course, sir.”
Marius comes to retrieve him by hand, although much later in the evening than Riccardo had anticipated. The walk back to his chambers is mostly-silent, strained by Riccardo’s emotional outburst the night before.
“I…” he starts, sighing as he crosses his arms over his front. “Do not believe that you are the bastard spawn of Satan.”
Marius hums, looking as if he is trying desperately not to laugh. “Thank you.”
“I believe that you have behaved untowardly towards Amadeo on endless occasions,” he explains, leaning against the wall immediately next to the door. “And I believe that you are something that my mind does not understand, but you are my guardian and mentor, and I was your charge. So I do suppose I will have to get over it.”
“I… appreciate your newfound maturity and attempts at understanding everything that has occurred,” Marius eventually replies, looking down in order to properly look Riccardo in the eyes. “You are much smarter than that old schoolmaster ever gave you credit for.”
Riccardo smiles tensely, shrugs. “Perhaps that is why I am starting my regency as a lecturer.”
“Perhaps so. Are you ready to see him?”
“Yes, please.”
Marius opens the door, and Riccardo has to resist the urge to force himself inside first, carefully stepping in behind Marius and immediately scanning the room.
He finds Amadeo sat at the dressing table, fingers gently gliding over the words in a letter from a younger child. The first thing Riccardo notices is his posture, immaculate as can be; he’d half-expected Amadeo to remain hunched over and ill. He remains dressed in bedclothes, but has changed into a fresh pair, and has seemingly showered again since the previous evening.
Amadeo is gorgeous, and seems to embody the pinnacle of health, which is why Riccardo is fighting against his innermost urge to run and never, ever come back.
“I was beginning to worry I would never see you,” Amadeo says, startling him out of his own thoughts. “You took longer to arrive than anticipated.”
“I was… apologizing. For speaking foully to Padrone.”
Amadeo tuts, turning and rising from the chair in a singular fluid, graceful motion. It’s completely unnerving.
“One would assume that you would have learned to hold your tongue by now.”
That’s when Riccardo sees them— bright, amber eyes in the place of fawn-like brown. Unblinking, yet holding the same fond expression within them that he is most familiar with. Marius comes to rest a hand on the small of Amadeo’s back, and he blinks twice before settling back into his seat. Riccardo continues to stare as the events of the night before unfold a thousand different ways inside his mind. Amadeo has died in almost every way that matters.
Amadeo’s brows knit together as he leans forward to take one of Riccardo’s hands in his own. “What troubles you?”
Riccardo pulls away from his touch, wiry and devoid of warmth, then clears his throat and steadies himself.
“Nothing,” he lies, looking between Marius and Amadeo, presenting a smile he can only hope comes off as convincing. “I merely did not realize how similar you two have grown in terms of looks throughout the years.”
Amadeo’s face falters for just a flicker, as if he knows that Riccardo knows something truly terrible has happened. He laughs, then, a twinge of panic in his voice.
“Really?” He asks, tilting his head as if the comparison is confusing and he and Marius are not both walking corpses. “I take after him?”
Riccardo watches as Marius’ hand slides to rest on Amadeo’s hip, and resists the urge to retch out of terror and disgust.
“Yes,” he exhales, his own fear mirrored back to him through those unblinking amber eyes. “You are undoubtedly your father’s son, Amadeo.”