#I was about to ask friends living in Naples if they could please go there and take some photos for me

[greypetrel]

Every time I think that it's a pity that I live in Italy and I never write anything set in my country (I love historical fantasy and mainly write that for my fully original works)... Every time I think that and then I try to research something historical/artistical here that's not the two villas in Pompeii, the Coliseum or the Uffizi Gallery, I spend at least one hour cursing like a sailor because everything is done with the apparent purpose of kicking people away and making finding informations difficult, and close everything like this:

[rae-pss]

May I please ask for soulmate au with Sorlato with reader genuinely think their soulmates are ice cream please

masterlist

˗ˏˋ꒰ 💭 ꒱ . . . i think you refer to "each others’ names on their wrist/palm/etc". also, this list is perfect if you want to see how many soulmate au exist. i hope you like it, dear anon (<3). ˗ˏˋ꒰ 💭 ꒱ . . . lowercase intended, 409 words.

throughout your life, you lived under the constant jokes from family, friends, and even strangers, about the name of your soulmates.

you lived in a world where, when you turned eighteen, the name of your future partner materialized out of nowhere on your wrists. nevertheless, the fact that it could appear more than one name in itself was already strange, unusual even; well, to that you had to add in your case the two curious words that appeared on your skin that day.

"sorbet" and "gelato", it should be an awful joke of fate, one that only sought to laugh at you because, honestly, you couldn't find another reason behind the random names of your supposed soulmates.

who can be called "sorbet" and "ice cream"? and on top of that the second one is in italian? damn, your non-existent luck.

there have always been smiles and laughter when the topic of names on your wrists came up. there wasn't even one damn occasion during your life when, when you told your situation, a laugh escaped those around you.

and, at the moment it did not seem that that was going to change. not when, in that godforsaken bar in naples, the two strangers with whom you were so pleasantly talking for much of the night, couldn't help but laugh when you showed them the brands.

what you didn't expect, much less did you imagine could happen authentically, was the exact moment in which your name came out from the blonde man's lips as if nothing had happened. you didn't even remember having given it to any of them, you didn't even remember knowing them at all, and as if nothing had happened, he spoke as if you were someone very important.

—excuse me, but how do you know my name?

—oh, honey.

with a smile, which you found curiously cute, he rolled up his khaki green shirt to his shoulder and calmly showed you his two wrists.

“sorbet” was written on the right, and… your name was on the left.

without being able to contain yourself, you raised your gaze quickly and observed both men carefully. you couldn't believe that one, you had finally found your soulmates, and two, that name didn't fit either of you.

—because of you i have suffered ridicule throughout my life...

your comment only earned more laughter from both men. on this occasion, the one with black hair extended his hand to you.

—i'm sorbet, it's nice to finally meet you,

—and i'm gelato!

[joestvr]

༺✮ atashi no kimyona jinsei // あたしの奇妙な人生 ✮༻

༺✮ summary: five years after the fall of diavolo, you, y/n romano, who was sent away to japan at 11 to further your studies—find the courage to come back to naples after living out your schoolgirl & gaijin university student facade in morio-chou to see how your clan’s worsened—as well as become the “donna” of your father’s gang, il terrore, while your older brother is the real leader behind the scenes, just using you as a front. with plans to murder your clan, you seek the particularly handsome young don of passione for friendship. with your tyrant father’s intervention, your friendship with the don turns to something you never saw coming.

★ 1 // il terrore

★ 2 // bella

★ 3 // viva romano

★ 4 // morte al romano

★ 5 // sorellina

★ 6 // amore

cw: it gets kinda dark this chapter💀self harm(cheri lady telling y/n to do it😭😭), y/n being delusional, bloodlust, thoughts of murder, and heavy overthinking ~

5 days later

This evening, your father was coming to have a talk with you.

You were planning on killing him, of course.

You glanced at your watch, waiting by the door. 5:02.

The doorbell rang. You answered and saw your father... and Alexander?

"Father. Alexander." You forced a smile, letting them inside.

You told them to wait in the living room while you made tea.

As you made the tea, sweat trickling down the side of your face, your hands trembling, your pupils the size of pinpoints.

It was Alexander, he was preventing this.

Should you even have told him?

But you weren't going to kill just your father. You were going to take out the entire Romano clan. You needed to. They were a poison to Italy. They were too powerful.

Could Alexander have figured it out?

You had a million different stories coming up in your head, trying not to fall into delusion and struggling to separate fantasy from reality.

You being the woman leader of Il Terrore... Just a front-- A cover up that your father wanted you to believe. It was all Alexander anyway, he was the real Don. He could easily remove you from his plans for the clan. But he didn't know that you knew the truth... Right?

You brought the teapot and cups on a silver tray, setting it down and pouring the tea into cups for them.

"So what did you want to talk about, Father?" You asked.

"You've come to the age where you require a partner and someone to assist you with our gang activities, Y/n." Your father said, taking a sip of tea then taking a cigar out of his breast pocket and lighting it.

"Wh-What do you mean, Father?" You replied nervously.

A large cloud of smoke exited his mouth. "What I'm saying is it's time for you to get married and settle down already."

Your heart was beating in your ears.

Your hands were shaking.

You felt like you were going to pass out.

The room twisted in your vision, your mind wanting to turn to delusion.

"N-No--" You laughed, "I'm only twenty."

"Mia bella sorellina, mia cara, cuore mio," Alexander said desperately, frowning, "Please just consider this. It's a Romano tradition."

"No." You laughed again, "I'm not a Romano. I'm not like any of you. The only thing we share is a last name."

"Y/n, since you're so eager to not be a part of this clan anymore, you are going to be betrothed to Giorno Giovanna, the Don of Passione."

What? What?

"A-Are you serious?" You breathed out.

"I already know you went without asking for permission and made friends with him, so this is what you get for going behind my back. " Your father said.

What?

"Che cazzo fai, padre?" What the fuck are you doing, father? You muttered weakly.

"This is your fate. You two will be perfect together and will make a perfect heir."

What?

"Perché, padre? Ch-Che cosa ho fatto di sbagri—sbagliato?" Why, Father? What did I do wrong? You cried out, stumbling over your words in Italian after so long of only speaking Japanese and English.

"Look at you, you've forgotten your family, your culture, your values, and now your language! How much of a useless tramp are you?!" He yelled angrily.

You opened your mouth to argue back, but he was quick to raise his hand against you and slap you to keep you quiet.

"Cagna stupida." Stupid bitch. He spat angrily then stood up, walking out.

You were stunned.

You were seconds away from turning to your fantasy of a perfect life and ignoring your surroundings.

You were disassociating, but you were too shocked to fully comprehend it. You started to pick at the skin on your hand.

Tears formed in your eyes. A smile crept up on your lips. You bit on your lip until it bled, holding back laughter.

"Y/n.. Mia cara sorellina..." Alexander began guiltily.

"Che cazzo, Alessandro? You knew, didn't you?" You said, fighting a grin.

"Listen to me, Y/n, I was going to tell you—"

You burst out laughing at that, turning hysterical beyond control.

"I shouldn't have told you anything! You planned this."You exclaimed humorously.

"Oh, of course all the blame comes onto me!" He stood up and shouted.

"You are such a weak bastard! I don't mean anything to you! I never have!" You replied, still laughing as tears ran down your cheeks.

He grew furious at that. "Why, you ungrateful little girl! Don't forget what I did for you while Father was too busy drinking and smoking at the bar all day! Don't forget how I pushed my grief aside after Mom died to take care of YOU!"

You sniffled. "Stop fucking lying, Alessandro! Don't forget how you supported father's decision to send me away when I was 11! I've only been back here twice since then, and the last time we saw each other I was 15!"

"Fuck, Y/n, you're such a brat... You're just like a little kid... You're a grown woman, for fuck's sake! Act your age!" Your older brother struggled to stay calm.

"Get the fuck out of here! I don't have time to deal with your multiple personalities." You scowled.

"As you wish, sorellina." He complied bitterly and left, slamming the door shut.

You were burning with anger, furious. You grabbed a tissue and wiped the running mascara off your face.

"I should kill him too..." You murmured to yourself, while intrusive thoughts started to fill your mind. Your hand twitched, genuinely wanting to murder him in that moment.

You were about to light a cigarette when you heard a familiar young voice call out your name, "Y/n?"

Leo walked into the room where you were sitting with a disappointed expression, scarily resembling Alexander. You were a bit afraid since he was already 190cm, just 3cm away from being the same as his father.

You flinched and took the cigarette out of your mouth. "Yes, Leo?"

"What the fuck are you arguing with my dad about? So much yelling." Leo responded, his voice almost as harsh as Alexander's always was to you.

"I-I'm sorry, sweetheart, I didn't know you were still home. I thought you went with your mother and Elena?" You mustered out nervously.

"I was playing video games. What did Dad say?" He said.

"Don't worry about it." You shook your head.

"Y/n..."

"Leonardo, I'm not in the mood." You responded back authoritatively.

"Fine. Sorry. Can I go to my friend's house while Mama and Dad are gone?"

"No," You furrowed your eyebrows, "Don't you need to study?"

"You're not my mom. Who are you to tell me what to do?" Before you could make another remark, he scowled just like Alexander and went out the front door, slamming it shut.

You were dizzy and lightheaded from everything that just happened, and sat down on the sofa, becoming riddled with anxiety.

"Kusso..." You muttered to yourself, extremely anxious, picking at your fingers and hands, "I'm being betrothed to the son of Dio... What will Jotaro-san think? Koichi-kun? Josuke-kun? Shit..."

"Kusso... Should I even tell Jotaro-san? Just seven years ago we were dealing with remnants of Dio... I don't want to bother him... He's probably working... Fuck..." You were overwhelmed with anxiety and muttering to yourself like a crazy person.

What will you do? Get engaged? Or take out your clan first?

Once again, you were struggling to separate delusion from reality and you had different scenarios coming up in your head that made you feel schizophrenic. You were delirious.

Without even noticing, your fingers became bloody from picking at them, along with the backs of your hands, old wounds opening up on your palms from past self infliction.

You felt yourself wanting to see more blood. A smile crept up against your lips as you gnawed on your lower lip. You hadn't felt this bloodthirsty since Kira Yoshikage.

You stood up to get the first aid kit in the kitchen, catching a glance at the knives, making you stop and stare.

"Do it." Cheri Lady mocked.

"Come on, Y/n, your palms aren't bloody enough, right? It'll be just like old times." She smirked.

Without hesitation, before you knew it, you were staring at the bloody gash across your left palm with a sullen smile on your face. It hurt so good.

Watching the blood gush out of your fragile hands, you loved it.

Drip, drip, drip. You wanted more. The kitchen sink below your hand was red from your blood.

You chuckled breathlessly, feeling a lightheaded, dizzy rush overwhelm your body, then sighed with petty satisfaction.

You were about to cut your wrist, a no-no spot for you because it scarred badly and told everyone that you cut yourself on purpose but you hesitated.

"Alright, that's enough, Y/n." Alima's voice startled you, making you snap out of your daze and drop the bloodied knife in the sink, making a loud sound.

"Sh-Shit, Alima—"

"How much longer are you going to keep doing this to yourself, Y/n?! What if one of my children came home and saw this?!" She burst out, making you stand there with shock. Alima never yelled at you.

"Or, God forbid, your brother walked in and saw you doing this? By God, Y/n, Alexander would slap you so hard you would forget ever losing your sense like this!" Her voice broke as tears welled up in her eyes. You suddenly felt a tiny sliver of remorse.

After all these years of your family betraying and destroying your feelings, Alima was the only one who truly cared about you. She had nothing but love for you.

Your heart was in emotional turmoil. "Alima, I..."

She approached you and gasped at all the blood that was pouring into the sink from the deep wound on your palm. Tears started to run down her face and it hurt to see her so horrified from your selfish pleasure.

"I wish I knew how to help you... Please stop doing this, Y/n..." She wept, shaking her head.

"Alima, don't cry." You murmured calmly, your sanity returning.

You took a deep breath, the pain from the wound feeling unbearable, but you enjoyed it at the same time, feeling high off of your blood loss. You were in guilty bliss.

"Doesn't it hurt, Y/n? How can you keep living like this?" She sobbed, breathing shakily.

"Please, Alima, stop crying. I'm sorry you had to see me like this." You responded, a blank expression on your face. She shook her head and sat down at the dinner table, covering her face while she cried.

"Alima," You sat down in front of her and tried to moved her hands from her face, which made her jerk away.

"I can't even look at your face..." She sobbed, "Every time I look at you, I can only see the little girl who begged me not to marry her big brother because he was mean... You're still just a child to me..."

Pain flashed across your face, but not from your throbbing wound. She still thought of you like that? It had been sixteen years since she married your brother.

"I'm going to take a shower." You mumbled numbly and went upstairs.

As you stepped in the shower, the hot water making the pain from your cut unbearable, watching lightheadedly as the reddened water swirled around the drain.

You began to question why you came back to Naples in the first place.

Why did I come back here?

What was my goal?

I should have known.

When you returned to Naples in 2001, you were targeted by Diavolo for your knowledge of his whereabouts and somehow escaped with your life because of your stand. You packed your bags and ran back to Morioh as fast as you could to continue your typical-schoolgirl facade and forget about everything that happened.

What will the Don think? A wife who gets so immersed at the sight of blood, who craves it so much she cuts herself?

I should have stayed in Japan. I could have become a resident at a high ranking hospital or even a model. I'm too beautiful for this.

The gem of the Romano Clan: Married off to the Don of Passione... I could have gone to America and been dating Hollywood stars... I'm so beautiful...

Your mind was going in circles, and you were quite literally spiraling in your arrogance. You were about to pass out but caught yourself and got out of the shower quickly.

After getting dressed and going back downstairs to the kitchen, you went to a nearby cabinet containing medical supplies and grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a roll of bandages.

Alima was still sitting at the table with her hands over her face.

"Alima, I hope you're not still crying." You said softly as you went to sit down across from her and prepare a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol on it.

You pressed the cotton ball to your wound and it stung so bad, you had to smile.

"Stop that, Y/n!" She suddenly yelled with a shaky voice, making you jump.

You didn't respond and finished cleaning up the wound, wrapping the bandages tightly around your hand. You felt relieved from the pain.

She wouldn't stop crying, and you couldn't bring yourself to feel any guilt. Coldhearted and uncaring—That's how it is being a Romano, right?

"Alima, Alexander's gonna come home soon. Please stop crying." You fastened the bandages and forcefully moved her hands from her face, giving her a hug.

"I should just tell him and you can get your ass beat... You don't deserve my kindness..." She sobbed on your shoulder. You suddenly felt the same fear you felt all throughout your childhood caused by your father flood back into you. 

Will she really tell Alexander?

"I—I'm sorry, o-okay? Forget this-s happened." You stuttered, fear setting in at the thought of your older brother finding out.

She didn't respond and just sniffled.

"Alima? You won't tell him, r-right?" You said anxiously, "Right?"

"Fuck, Y/n, I won't! Stop being paranoid!" She pulled away and shouted, standing up.

"I-I'm so sorry, Alima, I'm s-so sorry you had to see me like this." You said solemnly.

"Enough." She held a hand up and went upstairs.

You were in a pit of anxiety, desperately trying not to rip the bandages off and hurt yourself all over again.

"I should really kill Alexander..." You whispered to yourself, Cheri Lady's unwanted, murderous whispers taking its toll in your head, "I should really kill him. He's just like the rest... He doesn't matter to me..."

"He doesn't matter to me."

[haydectorcci]

DO IT FOR THE PLOT

-SPACE RELATED ASKS-

PLUTO: what do you love most about yourself?

MARS: who is your ideal best friend?

EARTH: what’s your ideal house/home?

SATURN: what’s your aesthetic?

JUPITER: if you could choose your own name what would it be?

NEPTUNE: what’s an album that you can listen through entirely w/o skipping song?

VENUS: go to piece of clothing/outfit?

MERCURY: what’s something you couldn’t live without?

URANUS: what’s your zodiac sign?

THE MOON: favorite quote?

THE SUN: what motivates you?

KEPLER-22B: if you could go anywhere, where would it be/why?

PHOBOS: what was your favorite song as a child?

CERES: out of everyone/thing in this world, who would you elect president?

TITAN: if you could die your hair absolutely any color and pull it off, what would it be?

CALLISKO: what’s your ideal job?

ENCELADUS: who is your favorite person? what are they like?

HYPERION: do you have a favorite store/shop?

COMET: what’s your biggest secret?

ASTROID: what’ your biggest fear? i there a reason why you’re scared of it?

SHOOTING STAR: who is your ideal s/o?

zinc white; how are you really feeling today? no one-word answers please!

cadmium yellow; when you think of the word “happy” what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

lemon; what’s your comfort food?

hansa yellow; what’s your guilty pleasure song?

yellow ochre; name an artist/band whom you just discovered & can’t get enough of!

naples yellow; where do you feel most at home?

raw sienna; with whom do you feel most at home?

golden ochre; describe the relationship you have with your closest friend.

golden deep; what’s your favorite season?

cadmium orange; what do you like to do on your days off?

orange lake; do you have anyone you can turn to when you’re sad?

titans; do you prefer slow mornings or relaxing evenings?

shakhnazaryan red; are you currently binge-watching anything?

red ochre; are you more right-brained (creative) or left-brained (analytical)?

burnt sienna; is there a painting that brings you peace when you look at it?

english red; what animal do you relate to most?

vermilion; what’s your favorite accent?

cadmium red; do you have a “type” when it comes to a significant other?

scarlet; describe your current crush/es.

ruby; what does your ideal first date look like?

carmine; what does your ideal second date look like?

madder lake red; would you ever kiss someone (or accept a kiss) on a first date?

rose; what’s something really positive going on in your life right now?

quinacridone rose; what’s something you’re really looking forward to?

violet rose; what does your dream house look like?

violet; is there any place in particular you’d like to settle down?

blue lake; what would you like to do/accomplish before you settle down?

cobalt blue spectral; what is the most beautiful place you have ever been to?

ultramarine; when was the last time you were in a good mood? do you know/remember what sparked it?

blue; what’s the most recent dream you remember?

bright blue; what does your dream family look like? any kids or pets? how many of each?

blue cobalt; do you like your name? would you give yourself a different name if you could?

prussian azure; what’s your favorite scent?

azure blue; what’s your favorite type of tea, if any?

turquoise blue; if you could start a garden, what would you plant?

cerulean blue; if you were guaranteed to have a viewership, would you start a youtube vlog?

glauconite; describe your body without using any negative adjectives.

yellow green; picture yourself walking in a field. what do you see & hear in this scenario?

green light; are you in a comfortable place in life? if not, what do you think might make it better?

green; name three countries you want to visit; do you have any actual plans in place to visit any of them?

emerald green; do you speak any languages besides english? are there any additional languages you want to learn?

oxide of chromium; what’s your favorite book?

olive green; are you currently reading anything? how do you like it so far?

mars brown; what’s a movie that always puts a smile on your face/makes you laugh?

burnt umber; what’s something you plan to do before the day is over to take care of yourself?

umber; have you drank enough water today?

voronezhskaya black; what or who is your go-to outlet for when you need to vent?

sepia; name five things that always make you happy.

indigo; what’s the best/sweetest compliment you have ever received?

payne’s gray; describe your aesthetic?

black; post a selfie because you are so beautiful!

[animapunkocchidipeterpan]

Hello, I'm animapunkocchidipeterpan (literally "punk soul, eyes of Peter Pan") 🩵

I took my nickname by a verse of the song "La Storia Infinita" by Pinguini Tattici Nucleari, my favourite Italian boy band.

there's no much to say about me... I'm from Italy, I'm in my mid 20s, my favourite colour is sky-blue, I'm learning guitar on my own, I'm really into music and I like every genre, I listen to Pinguini Tattici Nucleari and Harry Styles the most. I love Disney - Disney/Pixar movies, Un Professore, Glee and Friends are my favorite TV shows🌷

I love the Sanremo Music Festival, a famous music festival which takes part every year in Italy. The 72nd Festival of 2022 and the 74th Festival of this year (2024) have been my favourite festivals of all the times, because of the camaraderie, cohesion and mutual respect and support among all the artists: they were such one big colorful group ❤️🫶 I found out that there are other people who agree with me and that makes me feel less alone ❤️‍🩹

I'm in love with Ghali and Rich (Rich Ciolino, Ghali's new best friend: an extraterrestrial who landed in Italy (precisely in Naples) this January to discover our planet starting from there, and who accompanied Ghali during his adventure on the Sanremo Music Festival and helped him share messages of peace, like when he whispered in Ghali's ear "STOP AL G3NOC1D1O!"), especially Rich because he's too cute and tender, and their friendship is authentic, genuine and makes me smile ���🫶 and I think I am the only Ghalich supporter on this planet 😅 (and sometimes I wonder: if Ghali and Rich read what I write about them, would they appreciate or would I be in a lot of trouble? 😰)

yes, I've been writing about them in private, fantasizing about their friendship, asking what great adventures could they live together, as long as Rich is going to stay here on planet Earth... always being careful not to offend nor hurt them 🩵 then I thought to share what I write on AO3

I write but I don't like to read what I've just written because I know I would soon change my mind and delete everything... I'm open to constructive criticism but please don't be rude because I'm very sensitive 😞

I use lots of emojis because I'm afraid I seem cold writing from behind a keyboard 😅

I also support Ghali and Rich by making videos for them by using photos and videoclips of them I find on Instagram and by making fan arts by using AI (Bing Create / DALL•E 3) because I'm really bad at drawing 😅

"Proud to be a Ghalich supporter" is my slogan because, although I am the only one (I searched around), I'm proud of it 🩷🛸

[aarghhaaaarrrghhh]

Wings (Крылья, 1906) by Mikhail Kuzmin - Part Three

They were sitting, the three of them, in a café on the Corso after Tannhäuser, and in the noisy,  half-unknown Italian speech, the tinkling of plates and glasses with ice-cream, and the distant sounds of a string orchestra heard through tobacco smoke, they felt almost intimate, especially friendly about the impending separation. The officer sitting by the table with a whole rooster’s feather in his cap and the two ladies in black, yet loud, dresses did not pay them any attention, and through the tulle curtains of the open window were seen the streetlamps, the carriages passing by along the pavements and roadways, and the closest fountain on the piazza could be heard.

Vanya had, on the whole, a boyish look in civilian dress, seeming dandyish somehow, despite the complete ordinariness of the very pale, tall and thin person wearing it; Daniil Ivanovich, in his capacity, as he would laugh, as ‘the travelling prince’s tutor’, had accompanied his friend everywhere, and now chatted benevolently and patronisingly with him and with Ugo Orsini.

“Whenever I listen to the first scene in the second edition, the edition of a Wagner already having achieved Tristan, I feel an unheard-of delight, prophetic awe, like with Klinger’s paintings or D’Annunzio’s poetry. Those dances of fauns and nymphs in those open, resplendent, radiant, unprecedented, yet achingly, deeply familiar antique landscapes at the appearance of Leda and Europa; those cupids shooting from the trees, like in Botticelli’s Primavera, at the fauns dancing and dying in provocative poses – and all of this before Venus, keeping watch over the sleeping Tannhäuser with otherworldly love and tenderness – all of this is like a breath of the new spring, of a new passion for life and the sun, boiling up from the darkest depths!” And with his handkerchief, Orsini wiped his pale, smooth-shaven face that had begun to grow fat, with black, lustreless eyes and thin, crooked mouth.

“This was indeed the only time that Wagner touched on Antiquity,” remarked Daniil Ivanovich, “and I’ve seen this opera more than once, but without the reworked scenes with Venus, and I always think that it along with Parsifal are of one kind and are Wagner’s greatest inventions, but I neither understand nor want their conclusions: to what end is this renunciation? Asceticism? Neither the character of Wagner’s genius, nor anything else entail such ends!”

“Musically, this scene is not particularly in accordance with those written previously, and Venus is somewhat of an imitation of Isolde.”

“As a musician, you would know better, but the thoughts and ideas – those are the domain of the poet and the philosopher.”

“Asceticism is, in fact, the most unnatural phenomenon, and the chastity of some animals is the purest fantasy.”

They were given some strong ice-cream and water in large wine glasses with tall stems. The café was emptying somewhat, and the musicians were already repeating their pieces.

“Are you departing tomorrow?” asked Ugo as he adjusted the red carnation in his buttonhole.

“No, I’d like to say goodbye to Rome and not be separated from Daniil Ivanovich for a while yet,” said Vanya.

“You’re to Naples and Sicily then? And you?”

“I’m off to Florence with a canon.”

“Mori?”

“The very same.”

“How do you know him?”

“We were introduced by Bossi Gaetano, you know, the archaeologist?”

“The one who lives on the via Nazionale?”

“Yes. He’s really very sweet, this canon.”

“Yes, I can say properly: lettest thou thy servant depart; from hand to hand I pass you on to monsignor.”

Vanya smiled affably.

“Are you really that bored by me?”

“Terribly so!” joked Daniil Ivanovich.

“We will probably meet in Florence; I am going to be there in a week: my quartet is playing there.”

 “I’m very glad. You know you’ll always find monsignor in the cathedral, while he will know my address.”

“And I’ll stay with the marchioness Moratti, borgo Santi Apostoli. Please, without any ceremony – the marchioness is lonely and glad to see anyone. She’s my aunt and I am her heir.”

Orsini smiled slickly with the thin mouth in his white, fattening face and with his black, lustreless eyes, and rings glittered in their bunches on his musically developed fingers with shortly trimmed nails.

“This Ugo looks like a poisoner, don’t you think?” asked Vanya to his companion as they walked home up along the Corso.

“What’s with this fantasy? He’s a very sweet person, nothing more.”

Despite the soft rain running in little rivulets downhill along the pavement, the museum had a pleasant and sought-for coolness. After a visit to the colosseum, the forums, the Palatine, all before their departure, they stood almost alone in the modest hall before “the Fleeing Youth”.

 “Only that torso called “Ilium” can compare with this in terms of the life and beauty of a youthful body, where, below the white skin, you can see how the crimson blood flows, where all the intoxicating, mesmerising muscles are, and where the lack of arms and a head does not bother us, the moderns. The body itself, the material, will die and works of art, Phidias, Mozart, Shakespeare, let’s say that these too will die, but the ideas, the model of beauty contained within them, cannot die, and perhaps that’s the only thing of value in the ever-changing and transitory medley of life. And however crude the realisation of these ideas is, they are divine and pure; have not the highest ideas of asceticism in religious practices taken the form of symbolic rituals, wild, fanatical, yet illuminated by a symbol hidden within them, divine?”

Making his final exhortation before their going separate ways, Daniil Ivanovich said:

“You, listen to me, Smurov: if you ever you need spiritual consolation and the means to set yourself up without going to great expense, appeal to monsignor, but if money has completely departed you, or you need intelligent and sublime counsel, turn to Larion Dmitriyevich. I will give you his address. Is that alright? Do you promise me?”

“Is there really no-one else I can turn to? This really isn’t what I want.”

“I know of no-one more trustworthy; find one yourself, in that case.”

“What about Ugo? Can’t he help?”

“Hardly, he rarely ever has any money himself. I truly do not know what it is you have against Larion Dmitriyevich to the extent that you won’t even write him a letter. What happened to sufficiently explain this shift?”

Vanya looked at the bust of Marcus Aurelius in his youth for a long time without responding before he finally began, slowly and monotonously:

“I don’t blame him for anything, I don’t think at all that I’m in the right to be angry, but it’s unbearably regrettable to me that, having learned of some things not of my own will, I cannot treat with Stroop as before; it prevents me from seeing in him the instructor and friend that I desire.”

“What romanticism that would be, if it didn’t sound rehearsed! You’re of the conviction, like the damsels of past times, that the knights must think that maidens don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t sleep, don’t snore, don’t blow their noses. Every person has their own functions, which do not diminish him at all, no matter how unpleasant they may be to an outside viewer. Being jealous of Fyodor – that means you recognise yourself as being his equal and having the same significance and goal. But, sharp-minded as it may be, it’s all the same better than excessive, romantic attention to detail.”

“Let’s leave all this; if there’s no other way, I’ll write to Stroop.”

“And you’d do so well, my little Cato.”

“It was you yourself who taught me to scorn Cato.”

“Evidently, not very successfully.”

They walked along the straight path between the lawn and the flowerbeds, with their flowers unclear in the twilight, towards the terrace; a tender white fog crept along the ground, almost racing, it overtook them: somewhere, owlets cried; to the east, stars glared fuzzily and unevenly in the pinkening mist, and the windows in the façade of the building directly opposite them, lit from within, already had the unusual glare of the morning sky on the glass. Ugo finished whistling his quartet and silently smoked a cigarette. When they passed by the terrace itself, before their heads had come level with the bottom of the lattice, Vanya stopped as he overheard Russian speech clearly.

“So, are you going to spend much longer in Italy?”

“I don’t know, you see how weak mama is; after Naples, we’ll spend some time in Lugano, I don’t know how long.”

“I’ll be deprived of the ability to see you, to hear your voice for so long…” began a male voice.

“Four months,” a female one hurriedly cut in.

“Four months!” the first echoed. “I don’t think you’ll get bored…”

They fell silent as they heard Vanya and Orsini’s approaching footsteps, and in the morning twilight the figures of the seated woman and the not very tall gentleman standing next to her were only dimly visible.

As they entered the hall, where they were enveloped by the somewhat stuffy heat of the overcrowded room, Vanya asked Ugo:

“Who were those Russians?”

“Blonskaya, Anna, and one of your artists, I don’t remember his name.”

“He’s in love with her, it seems?”

“Oh, everyone knows that, as well as about his dissolute lifestyle.”

“Is she a beauty?” asked Vanya somewhat naively.

“Here, take a look.”

Vanya turned and saw a very thin, pale girl entering, with smooth, dark hair, combed behind the ears, narrow facial features, a slightly large mouth and pale blue eyes. Five minutes after her, a man, about 26 years old, came in quickly, hunching, with a sharp, fair little beard, brown hair  and light, very convex eyes beneath thick brows the colour of old gold, with pointed ears, like a faun.

“He loves her and leads a dissolute life, and these are both known to everyone?” asked Vanya.

“Yes, he loves her too much to treat her like a woman. Russian fantasies!” added the Italian.

They went their separate ways and the fat ecclesiast, rolling his eyes, repeated:

“His Holiness tires, so tired…”

The rays of the sun glared harshly in the windows and the dull noise of carriages being brought could be heard.

“Well then, until we meet again in Florence,” said Orsini, shaking Vanya’s hand.

“Yes, I’ll be off tomorrow.”

They were all laying on the windowsills covered with colourful quilted pillows: the signore Poldina and Filumena at one window and signora Scolastica with the cook Sangina at another, when monsignor led Vanya down a narrow, dark and cool street to the old house with an iron ring instead of a bell on the door. When the first knock sounded, the shrieks and cries died down, signora Poldina alone continued to orate:

“Ulysses says, ‘I’m bringing a Russian gentleman, he’ll live with us.’ Ulysses, you’re joking, no-one has ever lived with us; he’s a prince, a Russian nobleman, how are we going to look after him? But whatever comes to my brother’s mind, he does. We thought that this Russian gentleman would be big, of full figure, tall, the sort of way that we saw Mr Buturlin, and instead here’s this little boy, so thin, such a darling, a little cherub,” and the senile voice of signora Poldina softened movingly in sweet cadences.

Monsignor directed Vanya to survey the library, and the sisters removed themselves to the kitchen and their bedroom. Monsignor ascended the stairs after hiking up his cassock, on account of which his thick calves were visible, clad in black homemade stockings and the fattest shoes; with spiritual affect, he read out the names of books which he thought would interest Vanya, and silently skipped past the rest, stocky and ruddy-cheeked despite his 65 years, joyous, stubborn and specifically didactic. Books stood and laid upon the shelves, Italian, Latin, French, Spanish, English and Greek. Thomas Aquinas next to Don Quixote, Shakespeare with a jumble of biographies of the saints, Seneca with Anacreon.

“Confiscated books,” explained the canon as he noticed Vanya’s surprised look, and further, took a small, illustrated volume of Anacreon. “There are a lot of books here, confiscated from my spiritual children. They can bring me no harm.”

“Here’s your room!” announced Mori, directing Vanya into a large, square room, blue with white curtains and a canopy on the bed in the middle; paperless walls with gravures of the saints and Madonne of Good Counsel, a simple table, shelves with books with moralising contents, beneath glass on the chest of drawers, a painted wax doll of St. Luigi Gonzaga, dressed in a hand-sewn enfant de chœur suit, an aspergillum with holy water by the door – these gave the room the character of a monk’s cell and only the piano by the door to the balcony and the vanity table by the window interfered with the totality of the resemblance.

“Kitty, ack, kitty, shoo, shoo!” Poldina threw herself at the fat white cat that had come to the hall for its complete triumph.

“Why are you chasing him? I love cats rather a lot,” remarked Vanya.

“Signor loves cats! Ah, sonny! Ah, my lad! Filumena, bring Mishina here with the kittens to show signor…Ah, my darling!”

They had been walking since morning around Florence, and in a loud, sing-song voice, monsignor was giving out anecdotes and details on the events of the fourteenth century as much as about the twentieth, getting across with equal enthusiasm and involvement a scandalous chronicle of modern times as well as a story from Vasaris; he paused in the middle of busy alleyways to develop his eloquent, and for the most part, accusatory periods, he conversed with passersby, with horses, with dogs, he laughed loudly, sang, and the whole atmosphere around him – with his simple, somewhat common politeness, uncouth tact, unthinking in his instructiveness as well as in his joy – recalled the atmosphere of Sacchetti’s novellas. Sometimes, when his stockpile of tales ran too low to fit his speaking needs, speaking figuratively, with intonation and gestures, made a primitive work of art out of a conversation – he returned to the oldest subject matters for novelists and reiterated them with naïve eloquence and conviction. He knew everything about everything and at every corner, the stone, whether it be Tuscan or sweet Florentine had its own legends and anecdotal historicity. He led Vanya around everywhere with him, taking advantage of his position as a person on his travels. Here there were marquises in the process of going bankrupt as well as counts living in decaying palazzos, playing at cards and arguing because of them with their lackeys; here there were engineers and doctors, merchants who lived simply, in the old fashion: economically and limitedly; musicians just starting out and aiming for the glory of Puccini, imitating him with their fat, beardless faces and their ties; the Persian consul who lived below San Miniato with six nieces, fat, important and benevolent; pharmacists; some delivery-boys; Englishwomen leaning towards Catholicism and, finally, m-me Monnier, an aesthete and artist, who lived in Fiesole with a whole company of guests at her villa, painted with delicate autumn allegories, with a view on Florence and the Arno valley, she was eternally cheerful, of small stature, chirpy, red-haired and unsightly.

They remained on the terrace around a table, where the plates on the pinkish tablecloth grew thickly dark in the already approaching twilight, dark red all around, like pools of blood, and the smell of cigars, strawberries and wine in half-finished glasses mingled with the scent of flowers from the garden. A woman’s voice could be heard from inside the house, singing old songs, interrupted now and then by a brief silence or by prolonged chatter and laughter; and when a fire got started inside, the view from the already half-dark terrace recalled the exhibition l’Intérieur by Maeterlinck. Ugo Orsini, pale and beardless, with a red carnation in his lapel pin, continued to speak:

“You can’t imagine the kind of woman he’s throwing himself away with! If a person is not an ascetic, then there is no greater crime than a pure love. While having love for Blonskaya, just you look at who he has sunk to: all that’s good about Cibo are those lecherous siren’s eyes in her pale face. Her mouth – ach, her mouth! – just listen to how she speaks; there’s no crudity she won’t repeat, and each and every one of her words is a vulgarity! With her, like with girls in fairy-tales, along with every word out of her mouth springs a mouse or a toad. The positives! … And she doesn’t let him go: he’ll go and forget Blonskaya, and his talent, and everything else in the world for this woman. He’ll die like a man, and particularly like an artist.”

“And you think that if Blonskaya … if he were to love her otherwise, he might break things off with Cibo?”

“I think so.”

Silent a moment, Vanya begun again, shyly:

“And you think that a pure love is not something he can have, don’t you?”

“You see what comes out of it? You only have to look at his face to understand this. I make no claims because you can never guarantee anything, but I see that his is dying and I see why, and this drives me mad because I love him dearly and value him, and because I hate both Cibo and Blonskaya in equal measure.”

Orsini finished smoking his cigarette and went inside the house, while Vanya, left alone, thought all about the young, slouching artist with light brown hair and a pointy beard and light, very convex grey eyes below thick brows the colour of old gold, sarcastic and sad. And for some reason the memory of Stroop came back to him.

Mme Monnier’s voice came in from the hall, garbled and affected.

“Do you remember, the Sagantini with the spirit with huge wings beside the lovers?[1] The lovers themselves should have the wings, all brave, free lovers should.”

“A letter from Ivan the Wanderer, sweet lady! He sends us Anatole France’s bow and blessing. I kiss your name, great teacher.”

“Yours? Per D’Annunzio’s word? Of course, it goes without saying, why didn’t you say anything?”

The noise of chairs being pushed aside was heard, along with the sound of loud and proud piano chords and Orsini’s voice beginning a wide, somewhat banal melody with a gauche passion.

“Oh, how glad I am! Uncle, say something? It’s incomparable!” prattled Mme Monnier as she ran out onto the terrace, all in pink, ginger, unsightly and charming.

“You’re here?” she stumbled on Vanya. “News! Your countryman has arrived. But he’s not a Russian, although he is from Saint Petersburg; he’s a very good friend to me; he’s an Englishman. Ah? What?” she threw out without waiting for a response and disappeared off towards the travellers arriving along the wide carriageway in the garden, already illuminated by the moon.

“For the love of God, let’s get out of here, I’m afraid, I don’t want this, let’s leave, without saying goodbye, now, right this minute,” Vanya hurried the canon, who was sitting with his ice-cream and looking Vanya squarely in the face.

“But of course, but of course, my child, but I don’t understand what’s got you so worried; let’s get going, I’ll just find my hat.”

“Faster, faster, cher père!” Vanya languished in this groundless fear. “Here, here, they’re coming here!” He turned to the side from the main road, where the rattle of hooves and the wheels of a carriage could be heard and at a turn down a narrow path in the moonlight, Mme Monnier unexpectedly emerged, very close to them, with several guests, and unmistakably, clearly illuminated in the moonlight, undoubtedly Stroop.

“Let’s stop,” whispered Vanya as he gripped the canon’s hand, who clearly saw how the smiling, restless face of his student was covered by a thick blush, noticeable even by moonlight.

They set out on a gig pulled by four donkeys from the gate of the house, built back in the 13th century, with a well on the first-floor dining room in case of a siege, a hearth that could fit a shepherd’s hovel inside of itself, a library, portraits and a chapel. In case of cold during the ascent, the servants brought overcoats and plaids, apart from those who had been sent ahead with provisions. Having arrived from Florence via the station Borgo-san-Lorenzo, then on horses past Scarperia, past Sant’Agata with its castle and its steel goods, they hurried to finish breakfast so that they would return from the mountains before dark, and in the absence of conversation all that was heard was the clatter of knives and forks, and at the same time, teaspoons in the coffees. Passing by vineyards and farms amongst chestnut trees, they ascended higher and higher along the meandering road, such that it happened that the first carriage was directly above the last, leaving the more southerly plants behind for birches, pines, mosses, and violets, where clouds were already visible down below. Without having yet reached the heights of Giovi, whence could be seen, it was said, the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic seas, upon turning around, they suddenly saw Firenzuola, which had the look of a heap of red-grey stones, the big, twisting road to Faenza running through it and an old-fashioned stagecoach in motion. The stagecoach stopped in order to give some time for one of its passengers to get out and attend to their needs, and the driver on his tall box smoked peacefully while he waited for the moment to get going on their way again.

“How reminiscent this is of Goldoni’s blessed memory! What rapturous simplicity!” exclaimed Mme Monnier in delight, cracking her red-handled whip. In a sooty tavern reminiscent of a bandit hideout, they were offered an omelette, cheese, chianti and salami and the innkeeper, a crooked and sunburnt woman pressing her jaw against the back of a wooden chair, listened how the jacketless man in a hat of felt going green, with black brows and big eyes, told the gentlemen about her:

“It’s been known a long time that Beppo is here at night-time … The carabinieri say to her, ‘Aunt Paska, don’t shy away from our money, Beppo will get caught anyway.’ She thought about it, she didn’t come to a decision… She’s an honest woman, just look… But fate will always be fate; once he came from a countryman’s wedding, drunk and slept lightly … Pasca had warned the carabinieri earlier and she whistled, but she’d taken the knives and rifle off of Beppo earlier. What could he do? He’s a man, signori…

“How he swore! He was tied up, he kicked over this very bench, fell over and began to roll around!” said Pasca in a husky voice, her teeth and her only eye gleaming as she smiled, as though she had just said the most pleasing thing.

“Yes, yes, she did well did Pasca, no matter how crooked she is! Another glass?” offered the bearded man, while patting the innkeeper on the shoulder.

“Smurov, Orsini, go back up top quickly, I forgot my umbrella, you’re the last ones, we’re waiting for you! Huh? What? My umbrella, my umbrella!” cried Mme Monnier from the first carriage, reining in her donkey and turning her unsightly, pink and smiling face with its fluttering ginger curls backwards.

The tavern was empty, the uncleared table and benches and chairs that had been pushed together stood as reminders of the guests that had only just been there, and behind the curtain, where the bed was hidden, only sighs and an unclear whisper could be heard.

“Who’s there?” hailed Orsini from the porch. “Signora left her umbrella here, have you seen it?”

Some whispering started up behind the curtain; then Pasca, pottering about with neither shawl nor bodice on, sorting her dirty skirt out as she went, sunburnt, thin and, despite her youth, frightfully old-looking, silently pointed out the umbrella standing in a corner, white, lacy, with a vague yellowing design on the top and a white handle. From behind the curtain a male voice cried, “Pasca, Pasca? Will you be back soon? Have they left yet?”

“Coming,” replied the woman hoarsely and as she approached the fragment of a mirror on the wall, she placed the red carnation forgotten by Orsini in her dishevelled hair.

They were almost the only ones in the theatre following Isolde’s outpouring at Brangäne with full attention, as they hardly noticed how the king entered with his queen the box opposite the stage, and after bowing awkwardly to the audience that greeted him with cheers, sank into a chair right up against the barrier with a bored and businesslike expression; he was small, moustachioed and big-headed, with a sentimental and harsh face. Despite the performance, the hall has fully illuminated: the ladies in the boxes, in robes décolletées and necklaces, sat almost with their backs to the stage, exchanging words and smiling; suitors with boutonnieres, boring and courteous, made visits from box to box. Ice-cream was handed out and the elderly gentlemen seated in the depths of the box read their newspapers, spread open wide.

Vanya, sitting between Stroop and Orsini, did not notice the whispering and noises around him, as his thought was wholly absorbed by Isolde, who thought she could hear the horns of the hunt in the rustling of the leaves.

“This is the apotheosis of love! Without the night and the death, it would be the greatest song of passion, and the very outlines of the melody and the whole stage are like unto rituals, how similar they are to hymns!” said Ugo to Vanya, who had gone completely pale.

Without turning, Stroop watched the box opposite theirs, where the fair-haired artist and a woman with wavy, bright black hair were sitting very tightly next to each other; she had huge, stuck-out and cloudy eyes set on her pale, unpainted face, with a large, thickly red mouth and she wore a bright yellow dress, embroidered with gold; she was noticeable, pretentious and had a chin that was vulgar and determined to the point of ludicrousness. Vanya absent-mindedly listened to the tales about the adventures of this Veronica Cibo, in which the names of various men and women who had died around her all intermingled.

“She is the utmost villainess,” Ugo’s voice reached him, “of the 16th century sort.”

“Oh! That’s too lofty for her! She’s just a rotten woman,” and the coarsest appellations were heard from the lips of the courteous suitors who had looked with desire upon that yellow dress and that face’s lustful siren eyes.

Whenever Vanya had to talk with Stroop, even the utmost simple of questions, he blushed and smiled, and there was the impression as though you were talking, having just reconciled after a violent argument, or with a patient convalescing after a long illness.

“I’ve been thinking all about Tristan and Isolde,” Vanya was saying as he walked down the corridor with Orsini. “Here we have the most ideal depiction of love, the apotheosis of passion, but if, say, you look at it from the outside and the end of the story, then is it not in essence ultimately the same as what we walked in on back in the tavern in Giove?”

“I don’t completely understand what you’re trying to say? You’re confused by the presence itself of the fleshly union?”

“No, but in any real act, there is the amusing and the embarrassing; Tristan and Isolde had to unbutton and take off their clothes, and were the coats and trousers as unpoetic then as jackets are for us?”

“Oh! What thoughts! That’s amusing!” laughed Orsini, giving Vanya a look of surprise. “It’s always like that; I don’t understand what you were expecting?”

“If the naked essence is the same, is it not all the same, whether it is reached by the cultivation of worldly love, or by animal impulse?”

“What’s with you? I don’t recognise canon Mori’s friend! It goes without saying that the fact of the naked essence is not important; what’s important is your attitude to it – and the most outrageous fact, the most unbelievable situation can be justified and made clean by your attitude towards it,” said Orsini seriously and almost pedagogically.

“Despite its sounding like instructions, that might be true,” remarked Vanya, smiling as he regarded Stroop, who was sitting next to him, attentively from side-on.

They arrived slightly early at the train station to see off Mme Monnier, who was departing for Brittany in order to spend a couple of weeks there before Paris. The orbs of the electric streetlamps glowed against the pale yellow sky, cries of Pronti, partnenza rang out, passengers fussed over which trains were earlier, and from the restaurant car came incessant orders and clatterings of cutlery. They drank coffee while waiting for the trains; a bouquet of gloire de Dijon roses lay on an open copy of Le Figaro next to gloves belonging to Mme Monnier, who was seated in a maize-coloured dress with light yellow ribbons, and suitors made witticisms about the political news that they had just read, while at the neighbouring table, Veronica Cibo appeared in an expensive dress with a lowered green voile, along with the artist with a garment carrier, and behind them their porter with their things.

“Look, they’re leaving! He’s finally going to die!” said Ugo after greeting the artist and departing for his own company.

“Where are they going? Does he not see anything? How low, low!”

Cibo lifted her voile, pale and provocative, silently showed the porter where to put the things, and placed her hand on her companion’s wrist as though taking him into her possession.

“Look – Blonskaya! How did she find out? I envy neither her nor Cibo,” whispered Mme Monnier, at the same time that the other woman, all in grey, quickly went to the artist who was sitting with his back to her and did not see her, and his companion, who stared motionless with her siren eyes. As she approached she began to speak quietly in Russian:

“Seryozha, where and why are you going? And why is it a secret to me, to all of us? Are you not a friend to all of us? It doesn’t matter, I know, and I know that this is your death! Maybe I’m guilty myself and I could set something write?”

“Set what right?”

Cibo watched motionlessly directly at Blonskaya, as though not seeing her, blind.

“Maybe you’d keep around if I married you? You know that I love you.”

“No, no, I don’t want any of this!” responded the other, brokenly and coarsely as though afraid of giving in.

“It can’t be that nothing will help here? It can’t be that this is definitive?”

“Perhaps it is. Too much is happening too late.”

“Seryozha, come to your senses! Let’s go back, before you perish, not just as an artist, but also in general!”

“What can I say? It’s too late to fix it, and then I want it so much!”

“No, you do not want it that much,” said Blonskaya.

“What, I don’t know myself what I want?”

“You don’t know. And what a little boy you are, Seryozha!”

Cibo climbed after her porter, who was carrying a suitcase, and inaudibly signalled to her companion; the latter stood up and put on his coat without answering to Blonskaya.

“So then, Seryozha, Seryozha, you’re going to leave, all the same?”

Mme Monnier, whispering loudly, bade her friends farewell and was nodding her ginger head out of her compartment from behind the bouquet of gloire de Dijon roses. As they started on the way back, they saw Blonskaya walking quickly, all in grey, led by her umbrella.

“We might as well be at a funeral,” remarked Vanya.

“There are people who may as well be at their own every minute,” replied Stroop without looking at Vanya.

“When the artist dies, that will be very difficult.”

“There are people who are artists of life; their demise will be no less difficult.”

“And there are things which it is sometimes too late to do,” added Vanya.

“Yes, there are things which it is sometimes too late to do,” repeated Stroop.

They entered a low little room, lit only by the open door, where an old shoemaker with round glasses like in a painting by Dawe was bent over a boot. It was cool after the sun out on the street, it smelt of leather and jasmine, a couple of branches of which stood in a bottle just beneath the ceiling on the top shelf of the boot cabinet; The apprentice watched the canon as he sat with his legs apart, dabbing at his sweat with a red foulard, and the old Giuseppe said in a kind-hearted and sing-song voice:

“I’m what? I’m a poor craftsman, gentlemen, but there are artists, artists! Oh, it’s not so simple to stitch boots according to the rules of art; you need to know, to study the foot you’re sewing for, you need to know where the bone is wider, where it’s narrower, where the calluses are, where the instep is higher than expected. No one person’s foot is like any other, you know, and you’d need to be an ignoramus to think that a boot’s a boot and it’ll fit all feet; ack but what foot there are, signori! And they all need to fit. The Lord God made it so that a foot should have five toes and a heel, and anything else is equally fair, you understand? Yes, if someone has four or six toes, then the Lord God himself bequeathed him feet like that and he needs to walk like other people do, so a master bootmaker needs to know that and make it possible.”

The canon was loudly swilling chianti from a large glass and, with his wide-brimmed black hat, he drove off a fly that had been crawling all over his forehead, covered in drops of sweat; the apprentice continued watching him while Giuseppe’s speech continued to ring out evenly and songlike, inducing sleep. When they were passing through the cathedral square in order to go the restaurant Giotto, popular amongst the clergy, they met the old Count Gidetti, in makeup and a wig, as he walked, practically dragged along by two very young girls with modest, almost grave airs. Vanya recollected the tales about this half-collapsed old man, about his so-called ‘nieces’, about the excitement demanded by the dulled senses of this old debauchee with his face painted like a corpse and his lively eyes, glittering with intellect and wit; he recollected his conversations, where out of his slurring mouth flew paradoxes, witticisms and stories, which were all more and more lost on people in our modern times, and he heard Giuseppe’s voice as he said, “if someone has four or six toes, then the Lord God himself bequeathed him feet like that and he needs to walk like other people do”.

“The bricks and the walls were blushing when the Count’s trial took place,” said Mori as he passed to the left into a room filled with the black figures of clergymen and a few visitors from the lay people, who wanted to eat Lenten food on Fridays. An elderly Englishwoman with a beardless youth was speaking in strongly accented French:

“We, the converts, we love more, we understand more consciously all the beauty and charm of Catholicism, its rituals, its dogmas, its disciplines.”

“A poor woman,” clarified the canon as he laid down his hat on a wooden settee next to him, “from a good, rich family – and here she goes to lessons, needy, because she has learnt the true faith and everyone has turned their backs on her.”

“Risotto! Three portions!”

“We were 300 when we went from Pontassieve, there’s always enough pilgrims to Annunziata.” Saint George! With him along with Archangel Michael and the Holy Virgin, you can’t be afraid of anything in life with such patrons! The Englishwoman’s accent was lost in the general noise.

“He was of a race from Bithynia; Bithynia is the Switzerland of Asia Minor with green mountains, little mountain streams and pastures, and he was a shepherd before Hadrian took him in; he accompanied his emperor on his travels, it was during one of these travels that he died in Egypt. Rumours floated around that he drowned himself in the Nile, as a sacrifice to the gods for the life of his patron, others insist that he drowned whilst saving Hadrian while bathing. In the hour of his death, the astronomers discovered a new star in the heavens; his death, surrounded by an aura of mystery, his extraordinary beauty, breathing new life into stagnant art, these things impacted not only the courtly milieu – the disconsolate emperor, wanting to honour his favourite, numbered him amongst the ranks of the gods, instituting games and building palaestrae and temples in his honour, and the oracle-houses, where at first he himself wrote the responses in ancient verses. But it would be a mistake to think that the new cult was widespread, only amongst the circle in Caesar’s palace was it official and it fell along with its founder. A lot later, almost several centuries, we encounter communities in honour of Diana and Antinous, defined by burial at the expense of the community members, collective meals where everyone contributed and humble worship. The members of these communities – prototypes of the first Christians – were people of the poorest class, and the complete charter of such an organisation has passed down to us. Thus, over the course of time, the divinity of the emperor’s favourite takes on the character of a nocturnal, afterlife deity, popular amongst paupers, without achieving a widespread propagation like the cult of Mithras, but one of the strongest examples of the phenomenon of an apotheosised person.”

The canon closed his notebook and, after taking a look at Vanya over the top of his glasses, remarked:

“The morality of the pagan emperors does not concern us, my child, but I can’t hide from you that the disposition Hadrian had towards Antinous was, of course, far from a fatherly love.”

“What made you decide to write about Antinous?” asked Vanya indifferently, whilst thinking about something completely different and without looking at the canon.

“I read to you what I had written this morning, but I generally write about the Roman Caesars.”

It struck Vanya as funny that the canon was writing about Tiberius’ life on Capri and he could not hold himself back from asking:

“Do you write about Tiberius as well, cher père?”

“Without a doubt.”

“And about his life on Capri, do you remember, the way it’s described by Suetonius?”

Mori, wounded, launched into speech with fervour:

“It’s terrible, you’re right, my friend! It’s terrible and out of that fall, out of that cesspit, only Christianity, holy instruction could lift up the human race!”

“You have more restraint when it comes to emperor Hadrian?”

“There’s a big difference there, my friend; here we have something sublime, although, of course, it is a terrible delusion of feelings, which even people enlightened by baptism cannot always fight.”

“But, in essence, is it not one and the same in any given moment?”

“You are terribly deluded, my friend. In each act, what is important is your attitude towards it, its goal, and also its motivation, its consequences; the acts themselves are no more than the mechanical motions of our bodies, unable to outrage anybody, much less the Lord God.” And he opened his notebook again on the spot marked by his thick finger.

They were walking along the rightmost road in the Cascine, where meadows with farms, and low mountains beyond could be seen through the trees; passing by a restaurant, empty at this time of day, they moved through an area that was taking on more and more of a rural appearance. Guardsmen with bright buttons were sat now and then on benches, and little boys ran along in cassocks under the supervision of a fat abbot.

“I am so grateful that you agreed to come here,” said Stroop, as he sat on a bench.

“If we are going to talk then it’s better to be walking, as I have soon come to learn,” remarked Vanya.

“Excellent.”

And they started to walk, now pausing, then starting amongst the trees.

“So why did you deprive me of your friendship, of your favour? Did you suspect me guilty in the death of Ida Golberg?”

“No.”

“Why, then? Answer freely.”

“I’ll answer freely: because of your history with Fyodor.”

“What do think?”

“I know what it is, and that you won’t deny it.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe I would have treated the whole thing completely differently now, but back then, I didn’t know much, I wasn’t thinking about it either, and it was very hard for me, because, I recognise now, it seemed to me that I was irrevocably losing you and along with you, every path towards the beauty of life.”

Having made a full circuit around the garden, they once again walked the same path, and the faraway children loudly, but distantly laughed while playing with a ball.

“I must go tomorrow, in any case, to Bari, but I could stay; it depends now on you: if it’s to be a no, write Go; if it’s a yes, Stay.”

“What is this no, this yes?” asked Vanya.

“You want to tell you in words?”

“No, no, there’s no need, I understand; only, why?”

“It has now become so essential. I will wait until one o’clock.”

“I will reply in any case.”

“One more effort, and you’ll grow your wings, I can see them already.”

“Maybe, only it will be very difficult when they grow,” declared Vanya, laughing.

They sat out on the balcony until late, and Vanya noted with surprised how he was attentively and nonchalantly listening to Ugo as though he would not have to give Stroop an answer the next day. There was a kind of pleasantness in that lack of definition of position, of feelings, of relationships, a kind of lightness and hopelessness. Ugo continued with fervour:

“It does not yet have a title. The first painting: a grey sea, cliffs, the golden sky calling in the distance, the Argonauts in search of the golden fleece – everything is startling in its novelty and unprecedented nature, and you suddenly discover within it the most ancient love and fatherland. The second is Prometheus, bound and punished: Nobody may behold clearly the secrets of nature without punishment, without breaking her laws, and only the father-slayer and he who commingles with his own blood may solve the riddle of the Sphinx! Pasiphaë appears, blind with lust for the bull, terrible and prophetic: I see neither the richness of colour of a discordant life, nor the harmony of a prophetic vision. Everyone is terrified. Then the third: on a blissful lawn, scenes from The Metamorphoses, where the gods took on whichever form for love; Icarus falls, Phaethon falls, and Ganymede says, Poor brothers, only I, out of those who took off to the heavens, remained there, because pride and children’s toys drew you towards the sun, while I was taken by a cacophonous love, incomprehensible to those who are dead. The flowers, huge like prophecy and fiery bloom into colour; the birds and the animals go in pairs and in the shivering pink fog, 48 examples of human couplings from the Indian manuels érotiques can be seen. Everything begins to rotate in two parts, each in its own sphere, in a bigger circle, faster and faster until all the outlines blur together, and the whole shifting mass takes shape and comes to a standstill in the vast, radiant figure, standing above a glittering sea upon woodless yellow cliffs below the unbearable sun, of Zeus-Dionysos-Helios!”

He rose, following a sleepless night, exhausted and with an aching head, and, after dressing and washing deliberately slowly, without opening the jalousie blinds, he wrote unhurriedly at the table upon which stood a glass with flowers, “Let’s leave”; after thinking about it, he added with the same, not yet fully awake face, “I’m coming with you” and he opened the window onto the street, flooded with bright sunlight.

The End

[1] L’amore alla fonte della vita, Giovanni Segantini, 1896

[thedivinefish]

TGIWednesday: How is your perception?

TGIWednesday News

In Florida we have an 80-mile long stretch of highway known as Alligator Alley named for obvious reasons!  It runs from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami.  When we were young my father dragged my brother and I around the world hunting and fishing and every mile or two driving over Alligator Alley, I could point out alligators swimming, sunning themselves or walking around.  By contrast my friend who grew up in the city lives in South Florida and will often make the trip over Alligator Alley and swears he’s never seen alligator one!  While I know for a fact they are on both sides of the highway, who’s right or wrong in all of this? No one, it’s just perception and I can scan both sides of the road for alligators and find plenty - but by comparison he wouldn’t see one if he ran over it with his car! 

Today I am envisioning you observing favorable sights, sounds and outcomes laid out before you.  When we find bliss and glorious events, dare I say even miracles, as every day events and occurrences more will show up and Spirit will dance and delight with us!   Feeling extra crispy?  Get on my schedule one day soon!  Appointment Info   or View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins         

TGIWednesday Download

~ INCREASING PERCEPTION ~ I believe, think, know and feel that my perception increases daily awakened by Spirit and seeing all that is a wonder and wonderful.  I know, when where, how and why to be in the present moment sensing what others may never be aware of and contributing all I can.  I am ready, willing and able to open my Third Eye and tap into the perception of gentle undertones and sense that which is wonderful now. I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is. Knowing that if you make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life.

A new Cosmic Conversation with my friend Marla Martenson for St. Paddy's Day! Watch and listen to receive more Good Luck and Good Fortune!

March Zoom Event

NEXT LIVE ZOOM EVENT WEDNESDAY MARCH 29TH Theme:  Good Luck & Good Fortune Blessings and Returns 7:30PM Eastern (30 mins) Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (includes reminders and replay)  https://calendly.com/jmh-calls/march-2023-zoom-event

This call will focus on money, good luck and good fortune, and it’s going to be a different type of Zoom! We’d like to take an altruistic slant with all of this, more about charity towards others and blessing them, so that we will also be richly blessed just by doing so!

All who are registered, email your 3 short sentences to support@jimmymackhealing.com  Health is Wealth, so let’s start there! In the spirit of abundance what would you like to wish for? Samples are below: 1) Health of someone else or a pet (other than yourself) Please bless my Aunt Sadie so that she’ll fully recovers from cancer surgery; bless our cat so that his kidney enzymes will return to normal; bless my son so that his broken arm mends FASTER than expected   2) Blessing of money towards (others than yourself) My son is chosen and receives his anticipated raise and advancement at his work/job/career; My daughter qualifies for that full ride sports scholarship to the college of her dreams; my father receives the money he needs to fly overseas to visit his sick uncle   3) With a viewpoint of abundance what would you wish for the world? Let’s pray for peace in the middle east and in Ukraine and there is more than enough money, food and water to go around to those in need; that any and all pandemics are resolved as fast as they started with natural remedies and in wonder and amazement to all; that worldwide inflation and the threat of lack is dispelled and we all return to some form of normalcy, grounding and balance   You get the idea!  Make it all about blessing others and after this Zoom event you will notice that you received blessings when you least expected and in a wonderful, mystical, magical way!  

There will be a limited # of slots on the live call

Pre-Register Now - $22

FREE Live Appearances

Get Your Free Gift and gain access to the You Wealth Revolution Season 25 The New Energy - New You™ Gathering All Beginning on March 23rd Our friend Darius Barazandeh is offering a completely new tool to help you create your best life. It's an energetic shift experience that fundamentally changes your life and gives you a special shortcut. This unique tool is called The 1 Minute Miracle™ - 7777 Hz and it opens you up to the secrets of 1,787 documented energy awakenings.

Get Your Free Gift - Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

From the Fish Box

My Daily Prayers Subscriber Testimonial

 Hi Jimmy, not sure where to start. I have been on your prayer circle since December and have to say the 1st two months have been pretty wild and the energy was pretty strong. The last 2 weeks have been incredible, everything has been fallen into place almost at once. The biggest issue for me was my relationship with my Daughter it was almost non existence.  We are now talking, out of the blue and she is in the process of selling her house and moving to the same village we are currently building our home. No too sure what to say, I am speechless but extremely happy. I can't thank you enough. I am truly blown away with all the changes in the last 3 month. Just amazing. Thank you Jimmy for being here to help us all living a more fulfilling life. Much love - Ute

  Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

MARCH 15TH "Today I will change my focus. I will not complain today, I will give thanks. I will realize that I may be entertaining Angels unawares. I will continually endure; I will overcome event the worst of circumstances. I will survive and eventually I will thrive and I will give thanks!"

Come See Me In Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS  

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions on the last Friday of each month - This will sell out so you’ll want to call their office to schedule asap!

NEXT DATE:  FRIDAY APRIL 21ST | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

Upon written email request, for each new order we offer a one-time email analysis via the intelligent healing software that Jimmy uses on your behalf.  Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day!  SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription  Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here  Use Stripe for subscription Click here.  Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now  Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

30-Days of Prayer - $99

The Fish Market

 ?? MARCH IS MONEY MONTH! ?? Choose from these 9 featured money-themed MyBeliefWorks Audios and get 10% OFF through March 31st.  This is the Prosperity Collection of MyBeliefWorks Audio clearings that are all themed about Money, Prosperity, Abundance, Gold, Retirement Investing, Stocks, Bonds, Good Luck, Good Fortune, Bountiful Harvest, IRS/Taxes PLUS our newest Treasure Chest.

TYPE IN CODE MARCH10 at CHECKOUT or GO TO THIS LINK

The fishing is DONE-FOR-YOU on these MP3s - Clearings can be played just once daily or on a loop at low volume.

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

10% OFF Receiving Abundance 10% OFF Bountiful Harvest 10% OFF Financial Windfall 10% OFF Gold Coin: Money in All Forms 10% OFF Joy of Money Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders

10% OFF Lucky 777  10% OFF Positive Money Mindset 10% OFF Pro$perity Unlocked 10% OFF Treasure Chest 10% OFF IRS Stress & Taxes Mental Stress Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Finding Love & Romance Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Traveling with Ease Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special.  You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions  Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one!   View Grounding Mats here Enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at Checkout for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection 

T Terahertz Frequency Wand If you haven't heard of this healing technology yet, you soon will. This is the most affordable wand/blower we've seen out there. View Terahertz Wand here Use 10% discount code: TSG10

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly. 

Self-paced Online Courses Available Anchors Away Masterclass & Mastery/Practitioner Certification

MEMBERS LOGIN HERE

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

We recently launched our new ANCHORS AWAY MASTERCLASS and what has come through from Spirit is truly a game-changer in the way we can ALL now clear off evil, dark energies, aliens and anomalies in a deep, profound and lasting way.   

I recorded a video to tell you more about how you can get access to my brand new Anchors Away Masterclass so you can learn how to protect and clear the 5 Anchors & more.

Watch the Video Now

MLF MASTERY LEVEL 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime!

The Certificate of Mastery Program includes 2 best-selling ebooks and 2 clearing audios plus written & video instructions, AND one-on-one time with Jimmy ALL for about the cost of a single 1-hr session! This online course is for anyone who is familiar with OR new to "fishing" and is ready to dive into the deep end & get results that are beyond the ordinary! It includes The Tackle Box & The Dowser's Handbook ebooks PLUS 2 MP3s "Clearing Dark Energies" & "Increasing Your Intuition" to help clear, strengthen and prepare your energy field for optimal “fishing” results. This is a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum that will TEACH & CLEAR you at the same time! In under 2wks you will be finished with the program and ready to fish on your own with greater results! Level II offers Practitioner Certification for those who qualify.

Learn About Certification Here

Module 1 has about 3 hours of core material and Module 2 contains about 8 hours.  Most people go through the course and take the test within a month but can be as fast as a week depending on how quickly you work through the pdfs, audios, videos, and testing.  Also, there are many hours of OPTIONAL reference materials.  

TGIFunny

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Access the FREE MLF Online Training Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

[divinefishingtips]

TGIWednesday: How is your perception?

TGIWednesday News

In Florida we have an 80-mile long stretch of highway known as Alligator Alley named for obvious reasons!  It runs from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami.  When we were young my father dragged my brother and I around the world hunting and fishing and every mile or two driving over Alligator Alley, I could point out alligators swimming, sunning themselves or walking around.  By contrast my friend who grew up in the city lives in South Florida and will often make the trip over Alligator Alley and swears he’s never seen alligator one!  While I know for a fact they are on both sides of the highway, who’s right or wrong in all of this? No one, it’s just perception and I can scan both sides of the road for alligators and find plenty - but by comparison he wouldn’t see one if he ran over it with his car! 

Today I am envisioning you observing favorable sights, sounds and outcomes laid out before you.  When we find bliss and glorious events, dare I say even miracles, as every day events and occurrences more will show up and Spirit will dance and delight with us!   Feeling extra crispy?  Get on my schedule one day soon!  Appointment Info   or View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins         

TGIWednesday Download

~ INCREASING PERCEPTION ~ I believe, think, know and feel that my perception increases daily awakened by Spirit and seeing all that is a wonder and wonderful.  I know, when where, how and why to be in the present moment sensing what others may never be aware of and contributing all I can.  I am ready, willing and able to open my Third Eye and tap into the perception of gentle undertones and sense that which is wonderful now. I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is. Knowing that if you make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life.

A new Cosmic Conversation with my friend Marla Martenson for St. Paddy's Day! Watch and listen to receive more Good Luck and Good Fortune!

March Zoom Event

NEXT LIVE ZOOM EVENT WEDNESDAY MARCH 29TH Theme:  Good Luck & Good Fortune Blessings and Returns 7:30PM Eastern (30 mins) Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (includes reminders and replay)  https://calendly.com/jmh-calls/march-2023-zoom-event

This call will focus on money, good luck and good fortune, and it’s going to be a different type of Zoom! We’d like to take an altruistic slant with all of this, more about charity towards others and blessing them, so that we will also be richly blessed just by doing so!

All who are registered, email your 3 short sentences to support@jimmymackhealing.com  Health is Wealth, so let’s start there! In the spirit of abundance what would you like to wish for? Samples are below: 1) Health of someone else or a pet (other than yourself) Please bless my Aunt Sadie so that she’ll fully recovers from cancer surgery; bless our cat so that his kidney enzymes will return to normal; bless my son so that his broken arm mends FASTER than expected   2) Blessing of money towards (others than yourself) My son is chosen and receives his anticipated raise and advancement at his work/job/career; My daughter qualifies for that full ride sports scholarship to the college of her dreams; my father receives the money he needs to fly overseas to visit his sick uncle   3) With a viewpoint of abundance what would you wish for the world? Let’s pray for peace in the middle east and in Ukraine and there is more than enough money, food and water to go around to those in need; that any and all pandemics are resolved as fast as they started with natural remedies and in wonder and amazement to all; that worldwide inflation and the threat of lack is dispelled and we all return to some form of normalcy, grounding and balance   You get the idea!  Make it all about blessing others and after this Zoom event you will notice that you received blessings when you least expected and in a wonderful, mystical, magical way!  

There will be a limited # of slots on the live call

Pre-Register Now - $22

FREE Live Appearances

Get Your Free Gift and gain access to the You Wealth Revolution Season 25 The New Energy - New You™ Gathering All Beginning on March 23rd Our friend Darius Barazandeh is offering a completely new tool to help you create your best life. It's an energetic shift experience that fundamentally changes your life and gives you a special shortcut. This unique tool is called The 1 Minute Miracle™ - 7777 Hz and it opens you up to the secrets of 1,787 documented energy awakenings.

Get Your Free Gift - Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

From the Fish Box

My Daily Prayers Subscriber Testimonial

 Hi Jimmy, not sure where to start. I have been on your prayer circle since December and have to say the 1st two months have been pretty wild and the energy was pretty strong. The last 2 weeks have been incredible, everything has been fallen into place almost at once. The biggest issue for me was my relationship with my Daughter it was almost non existence.  We are now talking, out of the blue and she is in the process of selling her house and moving to the same village we are currently building our home. No too sure what to say, I am speechless but extremely happy. I can't thank you enough. I am truly blown away with all the changes in the last 3 month. Just amazing. Thank you Jimmy for being here to help us all living a more fulfilling life. Much love - Ute

  Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

MARCH 15TH "Today I will change my focus. I will not complain today, I will give thanks. I will realize that I may be entertaining Angels unawares. I will continually endure; I will overcome event the worst of circumstances. I will survive and eventually I will thrive and I will give thanks!"

Come See Me In Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS  

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions on the last Friday of each month - This will sell out so you’ll want to call their office to schedule asap!

NEXT DATE:  FRIDAY APRIL 21ST | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

Upon written email request, for each new order we offer a one-time email analysis via the intelligent healing software that Jimmy uses on your behalf.  Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day!  SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription  Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here  Use Stripe for subscription Click here.  Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now  Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

30-Days of Prayer - $99

The Fish Market

 ?? MARCH IS MONEY MONTH! ?? Choose from these 9 featured money-themed MyBeliefWorks Audios and get 10% OFF through March 31st.  This is the Prosperity Collection of MyBeliefWorks Audio clearings that are all themed about Money, Prosperity, Abundance, Gold, Retirement Investing, Stocks, Bonds, Good Luck, Good Fortune, Bountiful Harvest, IRS/Taxes PLUS our newest Treasure Chest.

TYPE IN CODE MARCH10 at CHECKOUT or GO TO THIS LINK

The fishing is DONE-FOR-YOU on these MP3s - Clearings can be played just once daily or on a loop at low volume.

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

10% OFF Receiving Abundance 10% OFF Bountiful Harvest 10% OFF Financial Windfall 10% OFF Gold Coin: Money in All Forms 10% OFF Joy of Money Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders

10% OFF Lucky 777  10% OFF Positive Money Mindset 10% OFF Pro$perity Unlocked 10% OFF Treasure Chest 10% OFF IRS Stress & Taxes Mental Stress Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Finding Love & Romance Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Traveling with Ease Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special.  You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions  Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one!   View Grounding Mats here Enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at Checkout for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection 

T Terahertz Frequency Wand If you haven't heard of this healing technology yet, you soon will. This is the most affordable wand/blower we've seen out there. View Terahertz Wand here Use 10% discount code: TSG10

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly. 

Self-paced Online Courses Available Anchors Away Masterclass & Mastery/Practitioner Certification

MEMBERS LOGIN HERE

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

We recently launched our new ANCHORS AWAY MASTERCLASS and what has come through from Spirit is truly a game-changer in the way we can ALL now clear off evil, dark energies, aliens and anomalies in a deep, profound and lasting way.   

I recorded a video to tell you more about how you can get access to my brand new Anchors Away Masterclass so you can learn how to protect and clear the 5 Anchors & more.

Watch the Video Now

MLF MASTERY LEVEL 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime!

The Certificate of Mastery Program includes 2 best-selling ebooks and 2 clearing audios plus written & video instructions, AND one-on-one time with Jimmy ALL for about the cost of a single 1-hr session! This online course is for anyone who is familiar with OR new to "fishing" and is ready to dive into the deep end & get results that are beyond the ordinary! It includes The Tackle Box & The Dowser's Handbook ebooks PLUS 2 MP3s "Clearing Dark Energies" & "Increasing Your Intuition" to help clear, strengthen and prepare your energy field for optimal “fishing” results. This is a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum that will TEACH & CLEAR you at the same time! In under 2wks you will be finished with the program and ready to fish on your own with greater results! Level II offers Practitioner Certification for those who qualify.

Learn About Certification Here

Module 1 has about 3 hours of core material and Module 2 contains about 8 hours.  Most people go through the course and take the test within a month but can be as fast as a week depending on how quickly you work through the pdfs, audios, videos, and testing.  Also, there are many hours of OPTIONAL reference materials.  

TGIFunny

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Tweet

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Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Access the FREE MLF Online Training Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

[365dailyaffirmations]

TGIWednesday: How is your perception?

TGIWednesday News

In Florida we have an 80-mile long stretch of highway known as Alligator Alley named for obvious reasons!  It runs from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami.  When we were young my father dragged my brother and I around the world hunting and fishing and every mile or two driving over Alligator Alley, I could point out alligators swimming, sunning themselves or walking around.  By contrast my friend who grew up in the city lives in South Florida and will often make the trip over Alligator Alley and swears he’s never seen alligator one!  While I know for a fact they are on both sides of the highway, who’s right or wrong in all of this? No one, it’s just perception and I can scan both sides of the road for alligators and find plenty - but by comparison he wouldn’t see one if he ran over it with his car! 

Today I am envisioning you observing favorable sights, sounds and outcomes laid out before you.  When we find bliss and glorious events, dare I say even miracles, as every day events and occurrences more will show up and Spirit will dance and delight with us!   Feeling extra crispy?  Get on my schedule one day soon!  Appointment Info   or View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins         

TGIWednesday Download

~ INCREASING PERCEPTION ~ I believe, think, know and feel that my perception increases daily awakened by Spirit and seeing all that is a wonder and wonderful.  I know, when where, how and why to be in the present moment sensing what others may never be aware of and contributing all I can.  I am ready, willing and able to open my Third Eye and tap into the perception of gentle undertones and sense that which is wonderful now. I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is. Knowing that if you make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life.

A new Cosmic Conversation with my friend Marla Martenson for St. Paddy's Day! Watch and listen to receive more Good Luck and Good Fortune!

March Zoom Event

NEXT LIVE ZOOM EVENT WEDNESDAY MARCH 29TH Theme:  Good Luck & Good Fortune Blessings and Returns 7:30PM Eastern (30 mins) Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (includes reminders and replay)  https://calendly.com/jmh-calls/march-2023-zoom-event

This call will focus on money, good luck and good fortune, and it’s going to be a different type of Zoom! We’d like to take an altruistic slant with all of this, more about charity towards others and blessing them, so that we will also be richly blessed just by doing so!

All who are registered, email your 3 short sentences to support@jimmymackhealing.com  Health is Wealth, so let’s start there! In the spirit of abundance what would you like to wish for? Samples are below: 1) Health of someone else or a pet (other than yourself) Please bless my Aunt Sadie so that she’ll fully recovers from cancer surgery; bless our cat so that his kidney enzymes will return to normal; bless my son so that his broken arm mends FASTER than expected   2) Blessing of money towards (others than yourself) My son is chosen and receives his anticipated raise and advancement at his work/job/career; My daughter qualifies for that full ride sports scholarship to the college of her dreams; my father receives the money he needs to fly overseas to visit his sick uncle   3) With a viewpoint of abundance what would you wish for the world? Let’s pray for peace in the middle east and in Ukraine and there is more than enough money, food and water to go around to those in need; that any and all pandemics are resolved as fast as they started with natural remedies and in wonder and amazement to all; that worldwide inflation and the threat of lack is dispelled and we all return to some form of normalcy, grounding and balance   You get the idea!  Make it all about blessing others and after this Zoom event you will notice that you received blessings when you least expected and in a wonderful, mystical, magical way!  

There will be a limited # of slots on the live call

Pre-Register Now - $22

FREE Live Appearances

Get Your Free Gift and gain access to the You Wealth Revolution Season 25 The New Energy - New You™ Gathering All Beginning on March 23rd Our friend Darius Barazandeh is offering a completely new tool to help you create your best life. It's an energetic shift experience that fundamentally changes your life and gives you a special shortcut. This unique tool is called The 1 Minute Miracle™ - 7777 Hz and it opens you up to the secrets of 1,787 documented energy awakenings.

Get Your Free Gift - Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

From the Fish Box

My Daily Prayers Subscriber Testimonial

 Hi Jimmy, not sure where to start. I have been on your prayer circle since December and have to say the 1st two months have been pretty wild and the energy was pretty strong. The last 2 weeks have been incredible, everything has been fallen into place almost at once. The biggest issue for me was my relationship with my Daughter it was almost non existence.  We are now talking, out of the blue and she is in the process of selling her house and moving to the same village we are currently building our home. No too sure what to say, I am speechless but extremely happy. I can't thank you enough. I am truly blown away with all the changes in the last 3 month. Just amazing. Thank you Jimmy for being here to help us all living a more fulfilling life. Much love - Ute

  Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

MARCH 15TH "Today I will change my focus. I will not complain today, I will give thanks. I will realize that I may be entertaining Angels unawares. I will continually endure; I will overcome event the worst of circumstances. I will survive and eventually I will thrive and I will give thanks!"

Come See Me In Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS  

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions on the last Friday of each month - This will sell out so you’ll want to call their office to schedule asap!

NEXT DATE:  FRIDAY APRIL 21ST | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

Upon written email request, for each new order we offer a one-time email analysis via the intelligent healing software that Jimmy uses on your behalf.  Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day!  SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription  Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here  Use Stripe for subscription Click here.  Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now  Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

30-Days of Prayer - $99

The Fish Market

 ?? MARCH IS MONEY MONTH! ?? Choose from these 9 featured money-themed MyBeliefWorks Audios and get 10% OFF through March 31st.  This is the Prosperity Collection of MyBeliefWorks Audio clearings that are all themed about Money, Prosperity, Abundance, Gold, Retirement Investing, Stocks, Bonds, Good Luck, Good Fortune, Bountiful Harvest, IRS/Taxes PLUS our newest Treasure Chest.

TYPE IN CODE MARCH10 at CHECKOUT or GO TO THIS LINK

The fishing is DONE-FOR-YOU on these MP3s - Clearings can be played just once daily or on a loop at low volume.

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

10% OFF Receiving Abundance 10% OFF Bountiful Harvest 10% OFF Financial Windfall 10% OFF Gold Coin: Money in All Forms 10% OFF Joy of Money Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders

10% OFF Lucky 777  10% OFF Positive Money Mindset 10% OFF Pro$perity Unlocked 10% OFF Treasure Chest 10% OFF IRS Stress & Taxes Mental Stress Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Finding Love & Romance Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Traveling with Ease Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special.  You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions  Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one!   View Grounding Mats here Enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at Checkout for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection 

T Terahertz Frequency Wand If you haven't heard of this healing technology yet, you soon will. This is the most affordable wand/blower we've seen out there. View Terahertz Wand here Use 10% discount code: TSG10

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly. 

Self-paced Online Courses Available Anchors Away Masterclass & Mastery/Practitioner Certification

MEMBERS LOGIN HERE

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

We recently launched our new ANCHORS AWAY MASTERCLASS and what has come through from Spirit is truly a game-changer in the way we can ALL now clear off evil, dark energies, aliens and anomalies in a deep, profound and lasting way.   

I recorded a video to tell you more about how you can get access to my brand new Anchors Away Masterclass so you can learn how to protect and clear the 5 Anchors & more.

Watch the Video Now

MLF MASTERY LEVEL 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime!

The Certificate of Mastery Program includes 2 best-selling ebooks and 2 clearing audios plus written & video instructions, AND one-on-one time with Jimmy ALL for about the cost of a single 1-hr session! This online course is for anyone who is familiar with OR new to "fishing" and is ready to dive into the deep end & get results that are beyond the ordinary! It includes The Tackle Box & The Dowser's Handbook ebooks PLUS 2 MP3s "Clearing Dark Energies" & "Increasing Your Intuition" to help clear, strengthen and prepare your energy field for optimal “fishing” results. This is a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum that will TEACH & CLEAR you at the same time! In under 2wks you will be finished with the program and ready to fish on your own with greater results! Level II offers Practitioner Certification for those who qualify.

Learn About Certification Here

Module 1 has about 3 hours of core material and Module 2 contains about 8 hours.  Most people go through the course and take the test within a month but can be as fast as a week depending on how quickly you work through the pdfs, audios, videos, and testing.  Also, there are many hours of OPTIONAL reference materials.  

TGIFunny

Share

Tweet

Forward

Pinterest

Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Access the FREE MLF Online Training Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

[advancedthetapractitioner]

TGIWednesday: How is your perception?

TGIWednesday News

In Florida we have an 80-mile long stretch of highway known as Alligator Alley named for obvious reasons!  It runs from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami.  When we were young my father dragged my brother and I around the world hunting and fishing and every mile or two driving over Alligator Alley, I could point out alligators swimming, sunning themselves or walking around.  By contrast my friend who grew up in the city lives in South Florida and will often make the trip over Alligator Alley and swears he’s never seen alligator one!  While I know for a fact they are on both sides of the highway, who’s right or wrong in all of this? No one, it’s just perception and I can scan both sides of the road for alligators and find plenty - but by comparison he wouldn’t see one if he ran over it with his car! 

Today I am envisioning you observing favorable sights, sounds and outcomes laid out before you.  When we find bliss and glorious events, dare I say even miracles, as every day events and occurrences more will show up and Spirit will dance and delight with us!   Feeling extra crispy?  Get on my schedule one day soon!  Appointment Info   or View Calendar First, Then Pay and Schedule 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins         

TGIWednesday Download

~ INCREASING PERCEPTION ~ I believe, think, know and feel that my perception increases daily awakened by Spirit and seeing all that is a wonder and wonderful.  I know, when where, how and why to be in the present moment sensing what others may never be aware of and contributing all I can.  I am ready, willing and able to open my Third Eye and tap into the perception of gentle undertones and sense that which is wonderful now. I am asking in all languages and throughout all time lines and so it is. Knowing that if you make a little daily progress, the rest of your life will be the best of your life.

A new Cosmic Conversation with my friend Marla Martenson for St. Paddy's Day! Watch and listen to receive more Good Luck and Good Fortune!

March Zoom Event

NEXT LIVE ZOOM EVENT WEDNESDAY MARCH 29TH Theme:  Good Luck & Good Fortune Blessings and Returns 7:30PM Eastern (30 mins) Pre-register at Calendly for $22 (includes reminders and replay)  https://calendly.com/jmh-calls/march-2023-zoom-event

This call will focus on money, good luck and good fortune, and it’s going to be a different type of Zoom! We’d like to take an altruistic slant with all of this, more about charity towards others and blessing them, so that we will also be richly blessed just by doing so!

All who are registered, email your 3 short sentences to support@jimmymackhealing.com  Health is Wealth, so let’s start there! In the spirit of abundance what would you like to wish for? Samples are below: 1) Health of someone else or a pet (other than yourself) Please bless my Aunt Sadie so that she’ll fully recovers from cancer surgery; bless our cat so that his kidney enzymes will return to normal; bless my son so that his broken arm mends FASTER than expected   2) Blessing of money towards (others than yourself) My son is chosen and receives his anticipated raise and advancement at his work/job/career; My daughter qualifies for that full ride sports scholarship to the college of her dreams; my father receives the money he needs to fly overseas to visit his sick uncle   3) With a viewpoint of abundance what would you wish for the world? Let’s pray for peace in the middle east and in Ukraine and there is more than enough money, food and water to go around to those in need; that any and all pandemics are resolved as fast as they started with natural remedies and in wonder and amazement to all; that worldwide inflation and the threat of lack is dispelled and we all return to some form of normalcy, grounding and balance   You get the idea!  Make it all about blessing others and after this Zoom event you will notice that you received blessings when you least expected and in a wonderful, mystical, magical way!  

There will be a limited # of slots on the live call

Pre-Register Now - $22

FREE Live Appearances

Get Your Free Gift and gain access to the You Wealth Revolution Season 25 The New Energy - New You™ Gathering All Beginning on March 23rd Our friend Darius Barazandeh is offering a completely new tool to help you create your best life. It's an energetic shift experience that fundamentally changes your life and gives you a special shortcut. This unique tool is called The 1 Minute Miracle™ - 7777 Hz and it opens you up to the secrets of 1,787 documented energy awakenings.

Get Your Free Gift - Sign Up Here

Watch and listen to hundreds of Radio Show replays for FREE here in the archives from the Jimmy Mack Healing Radio show.

https://thejimmymackhealingshow.com/

From the Fish Box

My Daily Prayers Subscriber Testimonial

 Hi Jimmy, not sure where to start. I have been on your prayer circle since December and have to say the 1st two months have been pretty wild and the energy was pretty strong. The last 2 weeks have been incredible, everything has been fallen into place almost at once. The biggest issue for me was my relationship with my Daughter it was almost non existence.  We are now talking, out of the blue and she is in the process of selling her house and moving to the same village we are currently building our home. No too sure what to say, I am speechless but extremely happy. I can't thank you enough. I am truly blown away with all the changes in the last 3 month. Just amazing. Thank you Jimmy for being here to help us all living a more fulfilling life. Much love - Ute

  Fish Food 

The Daily Bread To Feed The Fish

Tell the Fish - 365 Daily Inspirations and Affirmations - by Jimmy Mack Own this e-book so that you can read inspiration every day!

MARCH 15TH "Today I will change my focus. I will not complain today, I will give thanks. I will realize that I may be entertaining Angels unawares. I will continually endure; I will overcome event the worst of circumstances. I will survive and eventually I will thrive and I will give thanks!"

Come See Me In Tampa

SWANN HOLISTIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS  

Jimmy Mack will be offering sessions at Dr. Charla Tempone’s office at Swann Holistic Health Solutions on the last Friday of each month - This will sell out so you’ll want to call their office to schedule asap!

NEXT DATE:  FRIDAY APRIL 21ST | 10-4pm 

Please call their office directly at  ?? (813) 873-7773 in order to get on the schedule for 15-minutes $45 or 30-minutes $75. If you’re new to working with him, we suggest you schedule 30 minutes

403 S. Habana Ave. Tampa, FL 33609 Just south of Azeele next to Skin Savvy http://www.ctholisticsolutions.com

Receive 24/7 Prayers from Jimmy

Your name will be added to a special VIP Prayer list where Jimmy will use his intelligent computer software, src4you which runs 24/7, to delete the negative and increase the strength of the positive creating a higher probability of favorable outcomes for you.  

In addition, throughout the full 30-days, Jimmy will be dialing into your energetic signature each day upon rising and make certain that you are a clear yes, unclear to no and running forward before you start your day. He is doing the heavy lifting for you around 3am NY time while most of you are asleep in order to smooth out your way and increase your most favorable life outcomes.

Upon written email request, for each new order we offer a one-time email analysis via the intelligent healing software that Jimmy uses on your behalf.  Most clients have had amazing results and outcomes!

You can add yourself and those living in your immediate household and yes you can include pets! Merely include everyone’s names and Jimmy will add them to his daily prayers.

You can run this monthly and stop at any time after the 30 days is up, you will have the opportunity to renew and update your list each month but are under no obligation. I believe you will experience magical transformations and make progress every day!  SUBSCRIPTION AUTO-RENEWAL ($95/mo - save $5) Purchase a recurring subscription  Update your prayers monthly. You can cancel or pause anytime.

Use PayPal for subscription Click here  Use Stripe for subscription Click here.  Could you use a private session? Are you feeling extra-crispy?  If so, you can now  Book Appointments... View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins  

30-Days of Prayer - $99

The Fish Market

 ?? MARCH IS MONEY MONTH! ?? Choose from these 9 featured money-themed MyBeliefWorks Audios and get 10% OFF through March 31st.  This is the Prosperity Collection of MyBeliefWorks Audio clearings that are all themed about Money, Prosperity, Abundance, Gold, Retirement Investing, Stocks, Bonds, Good Luck, Good Fortune, Bountiful Harvest, IRS/Taxes PLUS our newest Treasure Chest.

TYPE IN CODE MARCH10 at CHECKOUT or GO TO THIS LINK

The fishing is DONE-FOR-YOU on these MP3s - Clearings can be played just once daily or on a loop at low volume.

Below is list of over 35 titles in the MyBeliefWorks Clearings audio series, monthly Zoom clearing call replays and Guided Energy Processess. Find a topic that addresses your issue(s), click on the link to read more. We had a lot of help downloading & channeling these over the years & they keep getting better and we are ALWAYS working on the next one. Don’t forget… you can share these with your immediate friends and family.

10% OFF Receiving Abundance 10% OFF Bountiful Harvest 10% OFF Financial Windfall 10% OFF Gold Coin: Money in All Forms 10% OFF Joy of Money Freedom from Abuse Overcoming Addiction Body Scan: Head to Toe Healing Igniting Creative Spark Discovering Your Destiny Daily GPS Reset Releasing Dark Energies/Fears Crossroads -Decision Making Diet & Exercise Support Education & Learning Support Empowering the Empath Healing Family Relationships Healing Body Disorders

10% OFF Lucky 777  10% OFF Positive Money Mindset 10% OFF Pro$perity Unlocked 10% OFF Treasure Chest 10% OFF IRS Stress & Taxes Mental Stress Relieving Holiday Stress Increasing Intuition Easing IRS Stress & Taxes Finding Love & Romance Moving Forward from Past Chronic Pain Relief Pet Healing Support Improving Sales & Success Improving Sex Improving Sleep Traveling with Ease Work & Career Success Weight Loss Support Restoring Youth & Vitality

We now offer digital Gift Certificates for gift-giving. Gift a free session, daily prayers or clearing audios/videos to someone special.  You simply select the denomination that matches the gift you'd like to give from the options on this page amounts from $19 - $225.

Buy Gift Certificates here

Healing and Grounding Mats for all occasions  Yes even Lily my cat uses the pet one!   View Grounding Mats here Enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at Checkout for Free Shipping

View Full Zoom Replay Collection 

T Terahertz Frequency Wand If you haven't heard of this healing technology yet, you soon will. This is the most affordable wand/blower we've seen out there. View Terahertz Wand here Use 10% discount code: TSG10

The 5 Anchors Process

The Purple Rain Process

The Magical Golden Key

**We are NOT involved in the sales or shipping process of the 3rd party items, please contact them directly. 

Self-paced Online Courses Available Anchors Away Masterclass & Mastery/Practitioner Certification

MEMBERS LOGIN HERE

**Can't See The Full Email? Click Here to View Online**

We recently launched our new ANCHORS AWAY MASTERCLASS and what has come through from Spirit is truly a game-changer in the way we can ALL now clear off evil, dark energies, aliens and anomalies in a deep, profound and lasting way.   

I recorded a video to tell you more about how you can get access to my brand new Anchors Away Masterclass so you can learn how to protect and clear the 5 Anchors & more.

Watch the Video Now

MLF MASTERY LEVEL 1 is open to ANYONE at anytime!

The Certificate of Mastery Program includes 2 best-selling ebooks and 2 clearing audios plus written & video instructions, AND one-on-one time with Jimmy ALL for about the cost of a single 1-hr session! This online course is for anyone who is familiar with OR new to "fishing" and is ready to dive into the deep end & get results that are beyond the ordinary! It includes The Tackle Box & The Dowser's Handbook ebooks PLUS 2 MP3s "Clearing Dark Energies" & "Increasing Your Intuition" to help clear, strengthen and prepare your energy field for optimal “fishing” results. This is a work-at-your-own-pace curriculum that will TEACH & CLEAR you at the same time! In under 2wks you will be finished with the program and ready to fish on your own with greater results! Level II offers Practitioner Certification for those who qualify.

Learn About Certification Here

Module 1 has about 3 hours of core material and Module 2 contains about 8 hours.  Most people go through the course and take the test within a month but can be as fast as a week depending on how quickly you work through the pdfs, audios, videos, and testing.  Also, there are many hours of OPTIONAL reference materials.  

TGIFunny

Share

Tweet

Forward

Pinterest

Jimmy Mack | Appointments ???Transformational Healing of Body, Mind? & Spirit, People, Places, Pets & Situations!? ? View Availability First, Then Pay 15 mins  | 30 mins  | 60 mins Search FAQ Access the FREE MLF Online Training Clearing Audio Downloads? and eBooks Get Certified in MLF Mastery or Practitioner Watch Free Videos on YouTube Radio Show Archives Healing and Grounding Mats ...enter code: MyLiquidFishfs at checkout for Free shipping! http://www.jimmymackhealingshop.com www.jimmymackhealing.com Copyright ©1998-2023 All Rights Reserved

[astoryisaloveaffair]

My Mercenary Bold - Part 2: Off the Deep End

Pairing: Pero Tovar x Mermaid!Fem!Reader

*race and weight inclusive, see moodboard <3*

Read on A03

Spotify Playlist

Chapter Summary: Pero decides if he should try to see you again, damn the consequences

Word Count: 6,500K

Rating: Explicit, 18+

*If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature and explicit themes and kinks. Additionally, you understand and acknowledge warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story*

Chapter Warnings: scary, mentions of mermaids eating people, blood, cussing, SPOOKY & CREEPY, fingering, teratophilia (monster fucking)

A/N: I rise from the dead for five seconds to post this update! Finally! I’m gonna be honest, this only got done because 3/4 was already written before I went AWOL. I’m going on vacation and hopefully reset. No beta, we live and die like Oberyn Martell <3 M.

Suggested Song: “Shallow” cover by Fleurie & Tommee Profitt

*mermaid credits: Mermaid Skye

The next morning Pero woke early, calling for a maid to bring him a bucket of water and a mirror so he could finally shave. He used his dagger despite protestation from the maid, a buxom wench that easily would have pleased him in the past. He had no interest in her now. 

After bringing a bucket for William to do the same, the two head up the steep hills of Positano in the direction of the Franzese Winery, the potential job they were told of in the pub the previous evening.

The main house was set up on the crest of the hill, overlooking the sea and the town below. A long, tiring dirt road leading up to a moderately sized house, surrounded by a remarkable amount of acres of grape vines. Set off to the side of the main house were three more smaller buildings, presumably where the storage and cellars were.  

Pero and Will made their way to the front of the main house, pausing when they saw an older looking woman walking through one of the closest plots, periodically checking plants as she went. They wait patiently so as not to scare her, it would not do to frighten a woman alone, and she notices them as she ambles closer.

“Buongiorno!” [Hello!] She sang, a hand raised and a brilliant smile on her face. She was a handsome woman with a beautiful voice, hearty and round with long white hair braided into a sloppy crown on her head covered by an ill-fitting bonnet, sparkling eyes that reminded Pero of the ocean and a healthy blush on her cheeks from the sun. “What can I do for you, good sirs?”

Will steps forward, knowing never to trust Tovar and his surly attitude to make a good first impression. “Good day. My friend and I have unfortunately landed far astray from where we intended to travel, and we are out of coin for the remaining journey. We asked around town, someone in the pub suggested we come up here. He said you might have some work?”

She smirks, rolling back on her heels as she crosses her sun-tanned arms. Then, she calls out a name, so loud and bellowing that it startles Will. “Denis!” She looks back at the pair of men. “I am calling my brother, he will want to meet you before we decide.”

Will hears Pero grumbling behind him and turns abruptly to glare just as a thin older man wanders around from the back of the house. 

“Denis, these men were inquiring about work.” She clues him in, the two of them looking Will and Pero conspiratorially. 

“Where are you from?”

Will takes the lead once again. “I am from Ireland, and my friend here is from Spain. We are mercenaries for hire, and we had journeyed far East and are trying to make our way home. We set sail to Naples but there was a storm and our ship wrecked. We came ashore here.”

“Very lucky you did not die. Many have died in that sea.” Lady Franzese says. She did not sound surprised at all to Pero, and he found that odd “Were there no other survivors?”

Will shook his head. 

“You must be very strong to have found your way to shore. A blessing from God, surely.” Says Mr. Franzese.

“We had help.” 

Everyone’s eyes snapped to Pero, who had been so quiet until now. Will glares at him again. 

“I am sorry, my friend got his head knocked a bit and is still confused on what happened. We are very lucky to have survived. We are still trying to make it to Naples and then back home, but we no longer have the money to do so. It is doubtful anyone needs our help fighting their enemies, but this is work we are surely capable of doing. We are strong and used to hard work, little sleep, and we keep to ourselves. I assure you, you will not be sorry.”

The older brother and sister whisper to each other, then invite WIll and Pero to get acquainted with the property while they decide. 

The farm is beautiful, and Will takes his time taking in every single part of it, but Pero only settles himself on the crest of the hill, looking in the direction of the cove where he met you. He can’t stop thinking about you, even after last night’s dream, his mind comes back to you no matter how hard he tries to push it away.

He’s not an idiot. He’s heard tales of sirens and mermaids, all beautiful creatures capable of hypnotizing an unassuming man and dragging him to his doom. That certainly was true of the creature in his dream. But he did not feel the same way about you.

You had been scared of him. You’d had plenty of time that you could have put him in a spell, it would have been so easy. But you didn’t. You had sat with him and simply looked upon his face, allowing him to touch your hand. All the power and fear you could instill was not shown until you felt threatened, and instead of attacking, you fled. He was a warrior, he knew what a defensive action was and what wasn’t.

But he was still unsure. He remembers how you cupped his face, how you began humming to him and it made him feel a little fuzzy. Not out of control, but more relaxed. You’d closed your eyes and moved closer to him and…it felt like…maybe you were going to kiss him. His heart is hammering in his chest so hard that when he hears his name he jumps and almost rolls down the hill. He turns to Will with a glare. 

“Sorry. I didn’t realize you were…lost in your thoughts. Come. They’re going to take us on. They want to show us around.”

Their quarters are attached to the back of the cellar, it was a cozy but clean room with two beds on opposite walls, both filled with sweet smelling hay. It would do for the time they would be here, and the Franzeses leave the two mercenaries alone to get settled before supper. 

A heavier sleeper than Pero, William takes the bed furthest from the door, as usual, and Pero settles himself onto the bed nearest to it, ripping his boots off with a sigh and stashing the last weapons he had under the mattress and his dagger under his pillow.

The meal was even more delicious than the pub, another strong bowl of seafood stew but with fresh bread and the best wine Pero has ever drank. Spending time with the brother and sister is more pleasant than Pero thought it would be. They are a jovial pair with a brusque manner and plenty of stories to tell from their long lives, intrigued about his and William’s story without being nosy, and Pero is surprised to find himself enjoying their company and slipping into a state of ease. They talk late into the night, and Pero is pleasantly drunk when he collapses into bed. He can’t remember the last time he felt comfortable enough to do so.

The next morning he wakes with William bright and early, settling themselves on the stone fence before the main house for direction. He might be gruff and quiet, but Pero was always punctual, and when he intended to do something he committed himself completely. They spent the morning following around Denis as he tended to the fields, showing them the methods they used to nurture, weed, nourish, and harvest the vines. It became clear how the pair could need help, the amount of fields they had to do alone was overwhelming. Pero couldn’t imagine the two of them having to do this alone. He asks about it during lunch, launching Marena into a detailed outline of how they rotate which field is worked on which day, and how now that they were here it would be worked in the future.

After lunch, Marena brings the two men into one of the buildings they had noticed the day before, which ends up being the fermentation cellar. She shows them the different areas for freshly picked but not sorted grapes, then picked and sorted, as well as several massive barrels filled with grapes for crushing, some for red and some for white. The men spent the rest of the day here, learning what to look for when sorting the fruit and the best way to extract the juice (by foot!). That was Pero’s favorite part.

From there, William and Pero were shown the fermentation, clarification, and bottling processes, ending the day in the storage cellar used for aging the final product before selling. Early evening was left for their own devices, and they were given the option to join for supper or see to themselves. They chose to dine with the siblings. The food Marena made was too good to pass up, and the company was excellent. 

But after supper, once again, Pero found himself at the crest of the hill, his eyes gazing longingly in the direction of your hidden cave lagoon.

The next week settles the two men into their new routine, waking with the sun to tend to whichever field was next in rotation, followed by assisting Denis and Marena in bottling preparations. They each found what they enjoyed or were good at, and Will was happy to leave Pero to stomp on grapes to his heart's content while he helped ferment the results. Occasionally they would go down to the village in the evenings, together or separate, but most of the time they continued dining with the Franzeses. They went to bed every night exhausted and sore, but content and feeling fulfilled.

They learned much of the older siblings, born of a French father who had found himself in the village by chance and ended up staying when he fell for a local, a beautiful woman who loved the sea and couldn’t bear to be taken away from it. So he stayed for her, building a business and raising their children together. Pero noticed that Will had seemed very taken with the story.

And every single night, Pero would perch on his lookout until it was so dark he couldn’t see anything, let alone a hint of you in the ocean from so far away. William learned to leave him alone and not ask questions as Pero preferred to not speak about it.

He couldn’t stop thinking about you. It was a yearning he’d never felt so strongly, incomparable to the pull of a favored whore or willing bedmate he’d had on the road. He felt like his chest was collapsing in on itself more as each day passed without seeing you again.

He made it two weeks. Two weeks until he made a great show about how tired he was, waiting patiently for Will’s heavy snores and the lights of the main house to be blown out before getting up once more and creeping into the yard. He paused near the stone gate, turning back to make sure no one had heard or seen him.

He’s surprised at how easy it is to find his way back towards the cave. The stars are bright, his lantern is steady, and the moon is three quarters full, but the night’s still dark. Yet it seems like his feet just know where to go. 

He takes extra care as he enters the switchback path that leads down to the cliff edge he’d almost fallen from before, holding his lantern arm straight in front of him for balance, other hand gripping the dirt and rock of the hill as he shimmies along. The sound of the soft waves below him tells him what would happen should he misstep.

He stumbles at the end, his heart almost flying out of his mouth as he trips over some rubble and dives forward, thankfully landing on the grass of the cliff's edge. He curses, gathering his wits back and righting his lantern before entering the cave.

The going is slow, he can’t see anything, and there is no moonglow or star shine to even light a bit of his way. He’s more careful than before, reaching his foot out farther than his normal gait at every step to see if there’s any rocks or boulders in the way to trip on. After what feels like hours, he finally sees the soft and barely visible glow of blue from deeper in the cavern.

He hopes it’s you.

In excitement he trips and stumbles once again, his free hand flinging out against the walls of the cavern to catch himself so he doesn’t bash his brains out upon the rock floor, but his grip on one side lands awkwardly. His palm slides forward against something sharp and he feels a piercing burn as his palm slices open on the wall. 

When he gains his footing he kneels, holding the lantern against his palm. His hand is bleeding profusely, but the cut is not too deep. He quickly slices a piece of his undertunic and ties it tight to staunch the flow, only looking back up to the pool when he’s done.

You aren’t there. The blue-ish glow was from the water itself and the moon shining in from the cracks in the ceiling above. Pero sighs in disappointment, crawling forward towards the edge of the water, lifting his lantern out to try and see if you’re hiding behind something.

“Sirena?” He whispers into the dark. But the only noise he hears is the barely audible sound of the ocean water meeting the rocks. He pauses, realizing if you did come and he was wrong about you, he would be defenseless. He sets the lantern down on the ground beside his leg, pulling his dagger out with his dominant hand.

He waits for a long time, softly calling, wishing for you in the case you were telepathic and could hear him from where you were. Just before he’s about to give up and go back to the winery, something urges him to reach out his hand, slipping it into the cool water as if he could summon you to his palm.

He immediately regrets it, forgetting about the cut on his hand and the salty ocean water stings like a thousand little knives all over the surface of his skin. But before he can withdraw, a scaled hand with sharp, pointed nails bursts out of the water and grabs his wrist. He gasps, falling back on his arse as he tries to force the mystery hand to release him. He can feel the water and blood dripping down his wrist and onto the hand, the salt water having cleaned the injury and re-opening it, and he panics when he realizes he’s probably about to be eaten.

The hand does let go, and he scoots backwards as two hands emerge from the water and grasp the rocks, heaving you up and onto the rock floor. 

He recognizes you instantly and moves towards you. “Sirena!”

You hiss softly, grabbing his wrist and pulling him close, his nose almost bumps into yours and he can see the translucent glitter of your skin sparkling in the moonlight. You push him back and pull his bloody hand in front of his face. “You go!” Your eyes are wide and look like the night sky and he doesn’t understand. 

“Sirena, I-” You shake your head, dropping his hand and pushing him back forcefully on the chest. “What are–”

“We EAT. They EAT!” You point again to his hand, and then back to the water. “YOU LEAVE! Be SAFE!” You look absolutely terrified, and as you grimace he sees the flash of your long pointed teeth. And it clicks. 

Those are the teeth of creatures that eat meat. Ripping, tearing, shredding. 

There’s more mermaids. They’re hunters. And he just put his bloody palm in the water.

“Fuck.” He scrambles up, snatching his dagger and lantern as he backs out of the cave. Before he leaves, he whispers to you. “Sirena, what of you?”

Your blue lips tremble. “You leave. You safe. Go!” With that, you leap back into the pool with a massive splash, turning quickly and putting your hands over where your ears should be. You pat them repeatedly. He doesn’t understand what you’re saying. “No.” You pat your ears several times again and repeat yourself. “No. Okay?”

Your attention is pulled away from him, and you look back towards the water with concern, disappearing from view without another word. Pero turns to run out of the cavern, miraculously not falling at all the entire way out to the cliffside.

He skids to a halt, placing his lantern on the ground haphazardly as he leans over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. His heart is racing and he kneels, trying to beat the vertigo coursing through his system. When the swirling stops, he lowers himself fully to the ground on his belly, shuffling forward to be able to look over the cliffside into the dark ocean crashing against the edge below him. He hopes to see you, and for a moment his heart soars as he sees the soft glow of multiple blue lights shining from beneath the surface. But…the lights are coming from the wrong way, and then there are more, and more, and even more beyond that so it looks like the whole ocean is lit up. There were too many lights for just you.

“Mierda…” He whispers to himself, pushing himself away from the edge as they came closer faster than he ever could have imagined, rolling to his feet and grabbing his lantern to traverse the little path, shimmying the same way back as he came. 

And then he heard it.

[the mermaid’s song]

At first it sounded like a woman sighing in the breeze, cresting into a chorus of song so haunting it sent shivers up Pero’s spine. There were no words, just a trilling harmony that grew so loud Pero would be shocked if the village hadn’t heard it, so loud his head was buzzing and he couldn’t hear anything else but the beauty of it. He halts in his steps, closing his eyes as he grows confused and his nerves start tingling.

It builds quickly, a swelling of euphoria from the tips of his fingers and toes shooting through his nerves and veins until they slam into his chest. His knees almost buckle and he instantly becomes hard as the cliff he’s clinging to, a long whine releasing from his lips as he is overwhelmed with such a need, he can’t think about anything other than relieving it.

He presses his back to the cliff, his feet sliding forward slightly on the thin path but he doesn’t even notice as he reaches down to take himself in hand, squeezing and pulling at the throbbing bulge there. He’s about to rip his laces apart and shove his pants down when he hears the soft call, slightly familiar, sweeter than honey. 

It’s unintelligible but not, calling his name, but he can’t actually hear his name called. Regardless, his feet move of his own accord, he couldn’t stop them even if he tried. He pushes himself off the cliff wall and turns, intending to head back the way he came, back to the beautiful woman calling for him, who needs him so desperately he won’t even consider denying her.

He walks right off the side of the cliff in a haze, barely missing jutting rock pieces that could have impaled him, and he doesn’t even feel the chill of the water when he drops into it. He turns to swim towards his woman, only going a few feet when out of the shadows of the murky water, a blob forms, coming fast and close. At the last moment, it swerves and whizzes past him, but grabs him by the arm and yanks him behind it. He’s so out of it he can’t even feel the pain of his shoulder almost dislocating.

He struggles, it is the complete opposite way he wants to go! He has to follow the sounds, he has to be together with the one calling his name. But the creature holding him is too strong, it tugs him down and around the cliff face, aiming straight for the shore of Positano. It hugs the cliffside, using the overhang above to keep to the shadows as it approaches the shore without slowing down at all. The inertia carries it through with the aid of a wave, flinging it forward as it beaches itself further up in the sand. 

It pulls Pero up to sit and grabs his face with slimy hands, forcing him to look at it. He can’t register it, can’t even process what he’s seeing before him because the voice calling him is so fucking loud it actually is painful. He winces in pain, folding in on himself because it feels like his head might explode. He’s so cold, violently shaking, but not from the ocean. It makes him almost cry out, but the slimy hand clamps itself over his mouth.

“No.” A voice hisses. “SHHhh!”

He can’t recognize it’s you, can’t realize what he’s doing at all. You flip him onto his back as the ocean crashes against your tail, pinning him to the ground as he struggles.

“Man. No. Shhh.” You coo but it doesn’t work, even though the sounds of your sisters are fading away. His trembling intensifies and you sigh, knowing you have no choice. You tilt your head down pressing your cheek to his as you sing as soft as you can right into his ear. He soothes immediately and shifts his focus to you with wild eyes, his arms wrapping around you and touching you everywhere, large cold hands up your sides, to the sides of your breasts. You can feel how he is reacting to you.

You sing to him until your sisters are gone, holding him close as he mindlessly kneads your chest and licking and nipping at your breasts. When you end your song it doesn’t take long for him to recover, the tension in his body releases against you, his eyelids lower in a more natural position, his heart rate slowing. You stay with him until he finally notices you, your tail flipping absently in the surf.

“Sirena?”

You hum, looking back down into his eyes as you lay beside him. He looks different, the blackness around his mouth is gone revealing white skin from chill. You find that you like how he looks without it. 

You sit up, releasing him to cover your pointed ears with both hands, patting your ears several times for emphasis, staring at him with wide eyes. You point to the ocean, remaining patient as you try to communicate with him. 

“Cover your ears.” He whispers beside you, and you can tell he understands now, the dawning on his expression barely visible in the dark. “Sirena…you save me again.” He touches your arm hesitantly, then cups it with his palm and slides down to your hand which he grasps inside his own. “Thank you.”

You don’t know what he’s saying but you feel it, and he scoots forward in the wet sand to get close to you once again. He slowly reaches to take your chin between his fingers and meet his eyes. 

He finally has the chance to see you up close, take you in as long as he wants. You were eerie, yes, but he also found you to be the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen, land or sea. Wide eyes with an odd shaped pupil, jutting cheekbones and the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen.

The spell breaks and you jerk your head out of his hand, rolling to pull yourself back to the ocean.“No no, please, let me.” And then you are up in his arms, your own naturally falling around his neck. You softly thread your long pointed fingernails through his salty hair. Your tail trails on the ground as he takes you down the wet sand and wades into the water until it’s at his hips, but he just can’t let go of you yet. “Sirena…I…I wish to see you again. I do no want to say goodbye.” His arms tighten and you press your cheek to his chest. 

After several bittersweet moments he finally releases you with a sigh. You plop back into the water with a splash. He laughs, and he looks so beautiful to you, the way that smile lights up his face. You want to see it more. You point in the direction of the cave. “You go.”

“Go…go…again? Go back to that place, si?”

You tilt your head, pointing once more. “Go.”

He cups your face. “Bueno, Sirena. Till next time.” He pulls away, and you take one more look at him before diving under the next wave and disappearing.

He doesn’t realize until you’re gone that he has no idea how to call for you.

Sopping wet, Pero walks in silence down the main street of town, turning away from the cobblestones and onto the dirt road that leads farther up the hillside to more homes, less wealthy merchants, and farms. Everything at the winery had remained as it was when he left, no one had noticed his absence.

He sighs, heading to his own quarters and slides through the door quietly, immediately pulling off his drenched tunic and breeches and reaching for a new one that the Franzese’s had loaned him. He crawls into bed with a groan, already feeling the soreness from his ordeal spreading across his muscles.

Up in the main house, Marena turns from the darkened window and slides back into bed with a smile on her face.

The next day can’t go by fast enough for Pero. He finds himself having to pause and try to calm himself multiple times during his work to keep from rushing through and making mistakes. He barely comprehends what he’s doing and the moment everyone has gone to bed, he throws the quilt off him and all but races to your cave.

But when he gets there, he has no idea what to do. How does he summon a mermaid? And not any mermaid, just you? He racks his brain for stories and legends he may have heard throughout his life for some means to call you to him, but he recalls nothing, and he finally opts to just sit on the rocky floor and wait for you. He’ll wait all night if he has to.

After about an hour, his back is tired and his muscles are sore. He’s not a patient man and he feels himself growing frustrated. But he won’t give up waiting. You said you’d be here. Pero pulls a knee up to his chest, resting his cheek against his knee while he waits, drifting in and out of sleep. 

A soft bubbling rouses him, but when he looks up he sees nothing, no disturbance in the water, and he can only see about a foot down into the dark depths. But he hears the sound again, so he leans over the water, praying for that beautiful blue glow from your fins.

Suddenly, something explodes out of the water and before he knows it, two arms are wrapping around his chest as he is yanked back down as it sinks underwater again. It doesn’t let go, he is held tight with such strength he doesn’t even need to tread water, and a tinkling giggle sounds in his ear as you push him back from you to look into his face. 

His surly expression immediately breaks, a wide smile and a huff of laughter as he recognizes you. “Sirena!”

You grin back at him, sharp teeth shining with the small amount of light, a soft bubbling coo escaping your lips as you pull him to you again, hugging him close. Pero sighs, an arm cautiously moving to grasp your waist so as not to touch your spiny fins, the other hand cupping the back of your wet hair as he folds you into him. 

“Are you well, mi ángel?” He whispers. He’s already growing cold, he’s only in breeches and his night tunic after all, but he ignores the shivers as he rests his chin on top of your wet hair. His chin rests on something hard and he pulls back, fingering his wet hands through your hair to see that you have tiny little shells and twining wrapped in the braids of your hair.

When he meets your eyes again you’re staring at him with an overeager expression that he finds adorable and sweet. Nothing like the monster in his dream. He opens his mouth to speak to you once more, but stutters as a strong shiver runs from his head to his toes and fingers. “Fuck, Sirena.” He pulls away from you and he sees your face fall as he turns around and heaves himself back up onto the rocks, yanking his sopping wet shirt off and laying it out on the rocks to dry. He motions for you to come join him. 

You pull yourself up shyly, he thinks maybe you are hesitant to stray too far from the edge, so instead he moves back to you. “You need not fear me, Sirena. I would not hurt you.”

But that’s not it at all. He was…you don’t know, you’d never felt this way before looking at someone, a pinching in your chest and a warmth growing near your sex at the sight of his broad form. Rivulets of water drip across the skin and you suddenly feel the desire to want to lick them up and off of him.

Instead, your hand darts out to him, fingers spread, but you pull back when he startles away from you. You consider for a moment singing to him once again, calm him down so you can touch him, even kiss him, but before you push that thought aside his large hand encompasses your wrist, fingers carefully avoiding your sharp arm fins. He tugs your hand back slowly and places it palm flat on his chest. “It is okay, Sirena, you can touch me here.”

You close your eyes and hum, sensing the hearty blood running through his veins, the heartbeat quickening under your scaled hand the only indication he feels any fear at all. It is a lot for him to give you trust, you can sense it immediately. His torso is riddled with scars and circular wounds that have long since healed, similar to the best warriors of your own pod. He was a fighter as well. You trail your fingers from his chest up, following the path of a very large and wide scar rounding over his shoulder to his back, leaving his skin only momentarily before you inspect the scar over his eye. You touch it too, oh so gently, you know your hands and arms are weapons and you don’t wish to startle him. He sighs and closes his eyes at your touch. You run your fingernails through his beard stubble as you take them away from him. You wish you could touch him forever, be adjoined to him always.

But it was impossible. You look down abruptly, trying to stave off the tears burning under your eyelids, but a rough finger pad taps you under the chin, forcing you to meet his eyes once more. 

“Do no be shy, Sirena. You are beautiful.” He reaches out then, mimicking what you did to him so you would understand, careful not to align his hand with your chest. It takes everything in him not to constantly stare at the water running down them, how hard your nipples always are. You were not a whore, it was not right to stare, and for some reason Pero suddenly gave a fuck about that.

He meets your eyes instead. “Can I touch you, mi hermosa criatura?” You simply stare, and he tries to communicate with his eyes his good intentions as he takes your hand in his, turning it so it is palm down in his own. 

Your hand is slightly slimy, scales merging with skin around your wrist and up your arm surrounding your arm fins. The color is impossible to determine, they look like pure opal, able to reflect any color under the sun. They glimmer in the light too, and he slides his thumb over them to feel the texture. They are sharp, but don’t cut him and he continues up your arm to your wrist fins, knowing the spines are capable of being so much longer than they are now.

Pero holds your arm up close to his face to inspect it, an iridescent membrane supported by six spines in an arc when he spreads the fin gently. It reminded him of a ship’s sail, it could be open or closed, used to swim or protect. 

“Quite impressive weapons, Sirena.” He chuckles, letting your arm go. Your eyes are sparkling with mirth and he can see those sharp teeth through your grin. He crosses his arms in an X in front of his chest. “Come, let me see. Let them out.”

You tilt your head and he carries on, mimicking slashing something up until you giggle and push his arms down. He takes your hands in his, holding them in his lap as your fins lift and expand, growing longer the spines are almost a hand long instead of half of one. 

“Que bonita.” He admires. “Now, let me see the back.”

He motions for you to turn around and you do, a shiver running down your flesh as he fingers and caresses a similar but much larger dorsal fin on your back. Finally satisfied again, he turns you back in front of him and cups your shoulders, fingers sliding across shimmering scales.

“Eres magnifico…may I see your lights Sirena…I have dreamed of them most nights since I first saw you.” He motions with his hands once again, it takes a few moments to understand him but once you do you close your eyes, pushing the energy out so the ends of your appendages, pectoral fins, and several more protective spines all the way down to your massive tail fins swirling around in the water.

Pero’s face lights up with the blue glow bathing the entire cavern, completely swallowing the warm light of his small lantern and  you can’t help but smile with him as he instructs you to let him hold your entire tail in his lap to look closer. His hands are large and rough, yet they feel…

The way they slide down the muscles of your body makes you feel a warmth low in your gut start growing, burning stronger and stronger as he continues down, petting and cooing, spreading out your fins and fingering the webbing between them with such care you sigh out in a gasp. 

When you open your eyes again he is sitting and staring at you with such a hunger you would have thought he might eat you, his fingertips sinking into the scales of your tail in a way that should hurt, but only makes you more overcome with the feeling. You hadn’t realized you had moaned.

“Does that…feel good, Sirena?” He husks, sliding his hands back up your tail, the rough backsides of your scales grazing against his palms. You can’t move, your jaw simply drops open as he shimmies closer to you. Hands glide over hips, against your waist, settling neatly on your abdomen. Your heart is racing and you’re panting and you don’t understand why.

His thumbs hesitantly brush against the underside of your breast and you look down at his hands, remembering how he had touched you the day before. He hadn’t meant it, and you were too occupied trying to save him to really register how it felt. But you find that you want him to touch you like that again.

You take his hands in yours and guide them up to your breasts, and he heaves a sigh of arousal as he cups you in his hands, massaging and squeezing until he feels you are receptive enough for him to tease your nipples. When he’s certain you enjoy it, he increases his attentions on them, pinching and rubbing the cold skin, almost cumming in his breeches at how pretty you sound for him. 

He launches forward, his lips fastening to one of your nipples as he continues playing with the other, tongue swirling and nudging and nibbling on the sensitive flesh. You moan loud, the sound echoing off the cavern as you arch your back, presenting yourself more to his groping. Your fingers slide into his still drying hair, gripping it hard to keep him where you want him.

You can feel it happening abruptly, and the moment it does you understand. The little fins below your hips opening and revealing the small slit of your entrance. He was trying to mate with you, peeling you open like a clam and readying you for his seed. And you find that you don’t object to that at all.

But this…is not how it’s supposed to be. When you come of age you must choose your own mate, but you had never once heard of coupling with a human. Yet he instinctively knows, a hand sliding back down your body, fingers searching and searching for something. When he finds it, he slows down and observes you.

You’re a wreck. Overwhelmed and panting, it feels like your brain isn’t even working correctly and it scares you but doesn’t. You don’t know what you’re doing, you’ve never done this before, yet you don’t want to stop…

“If I were to touch you Sirena…would it be here?” His eyes flick upwards as he circles his finger around your sex, gently nudging a fingertip inside. You cry out and he withdraws, making sure you are not in pain. “I am sorry. I…I forgot myself hermosa. Lo siento.”  

You sigh, your body slumping slightly as he pulls you to him and cradles you in his arms. 

“I know you can no understand me well. Did I hurt you? Did I scare you?”

“No.”

“Bueno.”

You spend the next two hours in his arms against his bare chest as he cards his fingers through your hair, listening to him speak even though you only understand a few things until you pull away from him with no warning and slide back into the water.

“Oh. You must go?” Pero feels his heart drop into his stomach, only to swoop back up as you slap your hand on the rocks. 

“Go.” You point your fingertip to the cave floor, then gesture around you at the walls. “You go.”

He smiles, pointing to the ground as well. “Here?”

You blink rapidly, your lips twisting as you say the word. “Here.”

He nods. “Yes. Here. I go here tomorrow.”

He gives your hand one more squeeze before you dive back beneath the water.

Pero spends the next few weeks visiting you every evening. He teaches you his name, tells you about his life, holds you close and the two of you often simply lie on the floor of the cave in silence staring into each other’s eyes.

He never tries to touch you again. Two weeks pass full of frustration until tonight, when you take matters into your own hands out of desperation, grabbing his hand and firmly pressing it onto your breast. 

You’ve never felt anything like what he does for you tonight.

--

He smiles as he heads back to the winery, his head so in the clouds thinking about the way you moved, the sounds you made as he made you cum around his fingers, he doesn’t even see Marena until he all but slams into her. 

“Come.” She snips. “We must talk. Now.”

-----------

Post A/N: Hopefully the descriptions of all her fins make sense, if not, here is an idea! Her tail is the color you want it to be <3

[babyjamiebarnes]

Build-A-Bear

Part Three

Featuring: Bucky x Stark!reader, dad!Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, Morgan, various characters in other chapters

Warnings: language, sexual innuendos and implications

Chapter Summary: Reader has dinner with her family and gets grilled even harder than her food. But she’s turned to a light simmer when Bucky takes her out for their first date.

Author’s Note: This chapter is fucking monstrous lol. I did not expect it to be this long so it might be a couple extra days before the next chapter so I can catch up! I’m also not sure if my Italian is accurate so I apologize in advance. I used to work for a man named Gennaro from Naples and he called me “bella” so hopefully I’m sort of right? If you like the story so far, feel free to buy me a coffee!

Part One • Part Two

Tags: @kennedywxlsh

Dinner that night was tense, to say the least. It was nice to have your dad, step-mom, sister, and uncles Happy and Rhodey over again, but your dad wasn’t quick to forget what he saw earlier.

“What was that with Barnes today?” Tony asked as you all sat around the dining room table in your midtown flat, poking away at the remnants of your meals.

“What do you mean?” you asked innocently.

Your dad just gave you an incredulous look. “You know what I mean.”

You sighed and avoided meeting his eyes. “I was just working on his arm, dad. I didn’t wanna make him lie down on a hard lab table while I poked around to do what you wanted and quiet his arm,” you explained.

“Wait, Barnes as in Bucky Barnes?” Uncle Rhodey clarified.

“Yeah,” your dad confirmed, not taking his eyes off of you. “I found her kneeling between his legs while he sat shirtless on the couch.”

“You’re sleeping with Bucky?!” Rhodey asked.

“I’m not sleeping with anyone!” you defended, dropping your fork onto your plate. “I’ve known him for a month.”

“That’s never stopped your father,” Pepper mumbled under her breath, making you huff out a laugh despite your current grilling.

“Listen, when I said ‘no fraternizing with coworkers,’ I meant it,” your dad said.

“Please stop saying ‘fraternizing.’ It’s weird.”

Tony sighed and crossed his arms. “No ‘slumber parties’ with coworkers,” he rephrased.

This made Morgan perk up in her seat, having spent the past couple minutes confusedly watching you and your dad bicker.

“Can we have a slumber party, [Y/N]?” she asked.

“Yes, honey, we can have a slumber party,” you responded.

“Tonight?” she continued.

At this, you pointedly looked at your dad and raised your eyebrows as a way of saying ‘are we done now?’ You could tell he didn’t want to end the conversation, but you were grateful for the sudden change of topic. Tony uncrossed his arms and leaned against the table as he replied to your sister.

“If your big sister says it’s okay, you can have a slumber party tonight.”

Morgan lit up like the Fourth of July, quickly listing off all the movies she wanted to watch even though you knew she’d fall asleep halfway through the first movie.

As your family packed up to leave, leaving Morgan since she had a drawer of clothes for the impromptu sleepovers you’ve had before, you calmed your racing heart before saying the words that would either make your father more suspicious or completely quash his suspicions.

“You’ll have to pick her up by four tomorrow. I have a date.”

All of the adults turned to face you. Pepper had a huge smile on her face, clearly excited for you, but your dad and Rhodey looked ready to fight. Happy looked curious, maybe even worried, but he played a big role in raising you so while Tony was the overprotective parent, Happy was the comforting parent (not that he’d ever let anyone know that).

“A date?” The tone of your dad’s voice made you roll your eyes at him.

“I’m a grown woman. I’m allowed to go on dates.”

Your dad let out a quiet harumph at that, but understood where you were coming from. “I know, sweetheart. Forgive me for being a bit overprotective of my little girl.”

“I get it. I appreciate your concern,” you said with a smile, “but this is good for me. You want grandkids eventually, right?”

“Oh god,” your dad groaned, pressing a hand to his chest. “I’m not old enough to be a grandpa but I’m old enough to have a heart attack at the mention of it.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re so dramatic.”

“So what’s this person’s name?” Pepper piped up. You visibly tensed and internally panicked. You couldn’t just admit it was Bucky after denying anything there. But his name was technically pretty common...

“His name is James.”

Rhodey snapped his fingers and pointed at you as he said, “I like him already.”

‘Yeah, sure you do,’ you thought. The sight of your dad narrowing his eyes at you and crossing his arms as he stood in the entryway of your apartment made you nervous. Maybe James wasn’t good enough to get him off your trail (probably because he was right).

“How did you meet this guy?” Tony asked.

If anyone else had asked, you would’ve said ‘work,’ but that’s the last place you could say to your dad — with whom you worked.

“Uhh, at the grocery store. We accidentally followed each other and got a lot of the same food so he jokingly accused me of stalking him and we just hit it off,” you rattled off. It’s a good thing he didn’t know how your friend Monique met her girlfriend or he’d know you were lying.

“That’s so cute,” Pepper cooed. She was definitely the more relaxed of your parents, possibly because she wasn’t your biological mom. She had been raising you since you were ten though, so she played a big part in your upbringing.

“Text me his last name so I can run a background check,” your dad said. You’d love to think he was joking, but you knew he was serious.

And as much as you knew you’d regret it, you had to make a joke…

“His last name is Barnes,” you said, keeping your face as serious as possible. “James Barnes. I actually know his middle name too: Buchanan.”

“[Y/N] [Y/M/N] [Y/L/N], you better be joking right now,” Tony said. He was already getting red in the face, clearly unenthused at the prospect of you dating the man who, admittedly, killed his parents — your grandparents. Yeah, understandable.

“I’m obviously kidding,” you said, forcing a laugh. “It’s just funny that they have the same first name and you’re so anti-Bucky.”

“You’re gonna send me to an early grave,” he muttered. “I’m going home before I actually have a heart attack.”

You said your goodbyes and ‘I love you’s before you and Morgan put on your pajamas and set up a pillow fort in the middle of your living room to watch her favorite sleepover movie: “Shrek.”

As the movie went on, you leaned back in the fort to take a photo of Morgan with the movie in the background. Well, the back of Morgan’s head as she was engrossed in the movie she’d seen a million times.

[Image attached] She’s got her teddy bear but where’s my Bucky Bear? 🥺

Across the city, Bucky’s phone buzzed from its spot on the kitchen counter as he made himself a late dinner. He didn’t recognize the number, but smiled when he saw the picture of who he assumed was your sister or niece.

I never got an invite. Looks like more fun than my night.

You smiled to yourself when you saw his reply, rolling your eyes at the lack of exclamation points and emojis. Typical man.

What does your night look like?

Eating a late dinner and talking to you.

Talking to me isn’t fun?! I’m hurt 😢

Not as fun as actually being with you.

Even though he wasn’t there and didn’t say it verbally, you could feel your cheeks get hot at his words.

There’s no way sweet talk like that didn’t get you in more than four beds.

You’re still on that? I swear doll, I have the same number as you.

Whatever you say! 🙄

There was a lull in conversation after that, giving you time to move your sister to lie on her back with pillows and blankets in the fort so she could sleep more comfortably.

Are we still going out tomorrow?

You let the next Shrek movie start automatically, but you didn’t pay any attention as you texted Bucky.

I’m still down if you are 👀

You sent him your address and let him know you’d wait on the front steps for him so he didn’t have to come all the way up. With the exchange of ‘good night’ messages, you drifted asleep to the sounds of Shrek 2.

•

The next morning, you somehow managed to wake up before your sister, then brought her back to the land of the living with the smell of French toast.

You spent your day watching another movie with Morgan before fixing lunch and taking her to a park down the road. Morgan’s childhood was definitely different from yours. Happy was the one who took you to parks and shopping, but Tony parented at home. Morgan would have the same early experiences, but the world knew Tony and Pepper had a daughter. They kept her identity hidden for now, waiting until she could decide if she wanted to reveal herself later in life. The world never knew about you.

And you had to be somewhat grateful for that. You still got all the perks of being a Stark — the money, the Tower, meeting the Avengers (and having James Rhodes as your godfather) — without the stress of fame. But part of you still wished you could talk about your father without keeping his occupation vague and referring to him as “Anthony” when telling stories instead of Tony.

Morgan also got to know her mom. You only spent the first seven years of your life with your mom before she was killed in a drive-by shooting. The police investigated it like crazy because everyone thought since it was Tony Stark’s wife, it had to be a targeted hit. But since she never took the same jogging route twice, all they came up with was an unplanned drive-by. You cherished the memories you had with her, but still openly welcomed Pepper when she came into the picture. She may not have played the same type of role in your life, but she helped shape your middle and high school years.

By the time you and Morgan got back to your place, she was exhausted, climbing back into the still-intact blanket fort to take a nap. When your dad and Pepper stopped by to pick her up, she was still knocked out.

“We’ll get out of your hair so you can get ready for your date,” your dad said with Morgan in his arms. “Send me this James guy’s last name. I still want to run a background check.”

“Dad,” you grumbled. “I already did my research. He’s clear.” Kind of. He technically has murdered hundreds of people, including your grandparents, but he’s reformed and fighting for the good guys now. Not that your dad would let it slide if you told him that.

“That’s my girl,” he grinned. “Let me know if you need to hide any bodies, okay?”

“You got it,” you said with a laugh as they headed out. You had two hours to get ready for Bucky, giving you plenty of time to look extra cute.

By the time six rolled around, you were all dolled up and ready to go. The autumn weather had you in a jacket and boots, but that just pulled your outfit together.

Your doorman Matt was standing inside the lobby when you ran downstairs, tossing him a small wave as you left.

“Have a good night, Miss [Y/L/N],” he said with a nod.

“See you later, Matt!”

You stood at the bottom of your building’s front steps, checking your phone and looking up and down the block for Bucky. It was six on the dot, so you figured he’d be there soon.

“Hey!” You looked up from your phone to see Bucky jogging toward you, a black leather jacket covering his arms and a black glove hiding his left hand. “Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t get away from Sam. Had to tell him I was gonna check out my old stomping grounds in Brooklyn.”

“You’re, like, 30 seconds late. I’m just glad you’re here,” you said with a smile. “So what are we doing tonight?”

Bucky’s smile faltered as he looked down at you. Your boots gave you a bit of a height bump, but Bucky still stood taller than you.

“I, uh, I kinda thought you had something planned,” he said softly.

“Oh, oops,” you laughed. “Well… what about those Brooklyn stomping grounds of yours? Care to show me around?”

Bucky lit up at the recommendation and started leading the way to the nearest subway stop. Before you started down the stairs, he paused and turned to you with a sour expression.

“I probably should’ve asked if you’d rather get a cab,” he said.

“Bucky, I take the subway to work every day. It’s fine.”

“Why do you take the train? You don’t live too far away.” You two made your way down the steps to the bustling station.

“It’s just easier. Less work for me,” you explained. “I didn’t take the train much as a kid so I like taking the opportunity now that I can.”

“Most people don’t willingly take the subway,” he laughed. “Steve and I always used to talk about how we’d be rich enough to have a car someday. But now that I could get any car I wanted, I don’t think I want one. I like the subway.”

“Even though it’s smelly and dirty?” you joked.

“Yeah,” he laughed. “It’s one of the things that still reminds me of home.”

The gentleness in his voice nearly brought you to tears. This man had been through so much and was still the sweetest soul you’d ever met. Forced into a war he didn’t want to join, experimented on, tortured and brainwashed, hunted by every government in the world, captured, frozen, and forced into another war and more battles he shouldn’t have to join. He just couldn’t catch a break.

“Well I’m excited to see what else reminds you of home,” you replied.

The trains to and through Brooklyn were relatively busy so you and Bucky couldn’t really talk much, but it was a Saturday night so you couldn’t blame people for getting out. It was tough to find seats, but Bucky was willing to stand to make sure you could have a seat. Ever the gentleman.

When you made it to Bucky’s Brooklyn stop of choice, he started telling you more stories from the ‘40s, like when Steve couldn’t get off the train in time and accidentally went down another stop so Bucky ran to the next stop and found Steve heading his way anyway. And how he and Steve followed his sister Rebecca on a date “to watch out for her,” he said, and her date thought they were stalking her and tried to beat them up. And all the fights he pulled Steve out of.

“Punk was a chihuahua who thought he was a Rottweiler.”

For a while, you two walked around the streets of Brooklyn just telling each other stories. You were careful about names you used, often just calling Happy “Uncle Harry” and Rhodey “Uncle James.”

Bucky showed you the movie theater he and Steve used to go to, which was surprisingly still in business. You walked past what used to be a diner Bucky frequented but was converted into a bridal shop.

“This used to be a magic store Steve loved,” he said, looking up at the bank on the corner of the street. “Things have changed a lot.”

You heard the nostalgia in his voice, clearly missing the New York he grew up to love. He had a soft smile on his lips as he reminisced, though.

“What about where you lived?” you asked. “Do you remember where that is?”

“Oh yeah,” he chuckled. “I could never forget that.”

Everything was within a fifteen minute walk of where you got off the subway so even though your feet were getting tired, you followed alongside Bucky as he led the way up and down the streets. Before too long, you strode up to a large brick building that had clearly been remodeled recently, if the fresh windows and front doors were any indication.

“It’s… a lot nicer than when I lived here,” Bucky said with a sigh. “But it’s been nearly 100 years so I can’t blame them for updating things.”

“Brooklyn is kind of booming now, too,” you added. “More people to appeal to, ya know?”

You stared up at him again, seeing that same lost look as before, like he wished to turn back time and show you the Brooklyn he knew. So you decided since he couldn’t do that, you’d show him the Brooklyn you knew.

“Come here. My turn to show you around,” you said, holding your hand out to him. He gave you a small smile before grabbing your hand in his and letting you pull him back to the subway.

Ten minutes later, you hopped off the train with Bucky in tow and headed to the little Italian restaurant you found while exploring the city a couple years before. It wasn’t anything elaborate; it was honestly more of a little hole-in-the-wall, but you liked the quiet atmosphere.

“Bella!” the owner shouted as you walked in.

“Hey Genny,” you smiled at him.

“Who’s this?” he asked as he approached you, raising his eyebrows when he saw Bucky.

“This is James,” you said. You opted against using his more common nickname to avoid any recognition.

“James, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Gennaro, but you can call me Genny. Welcome to my restaurant.” The two men shook hands before Genny ushered you two to a table and handed you menus. “Would you like to start with focaccia?”

“Yes please!”

“Con formaggi?”

“Si! Grazie!”

Gennaro left you and Bucky while he started your appetizer.

“You speak Italian?” Bucky asked.

“Definitely not,” you laughed. “I’ve just been coming here for a while and have picked up on some things Genny says. Like ‘bella’ means ‘beautiful,’ this pizza,” you pointed to your favorite pizza on the menu, “‘cinque formaggi’ means ‘five cheese.’ But I could never hold a conversation.”

“Un peccato,” Bucky sighed before flashing a smile at you.

“You speak Italian?!” you nearly shrieked. “No way! Don’t talk shit with Gennaro behind my back.” You pouted at Bucky, but knew he wouldn’t say anything bad about you. Maybe an embarrassing moment or two — like your dad walking in on you between his knees — but nothing negative.

“I picked it up pretty quickly back in the day,” Bucky explained. “Before I was sent to Germany, I was stationed in a small town in Italy for a while. The locals didn’t mind having us there because we kept the Nazis out, so they taught us some Italian when we were in town.”

“Maybe I should take Gennaro up on his offer to learn Italian,” you mused.

“Or you could learn from me,” Bucky was quick to offer. “I’ll teach you some stuff when you’re working on my arm.”

Your server arrived with the focaccia and water for both of you, before giving you more time to actually look at the menus instead of talking. You decided to split a bottle of red wine and two pizzas, one of your choice and one of Bucky’s. As the night went on, you and Bucky both opened up to each other even more than before. You could easily blame the buzz from a couple glasses of wine, but Bucky’s super soldier serum made you confused. His cheeks were flushed and he had more than half the bottle, so you wondered if maybe...

“Can you still get drunk?”

“Unlike Steve, yes. It takes more than this,” he said, lifting the nearly empty bottle of wine, “but since Steve and I received different serums, they work a little differently. I can definitely get drunk. Marijuana admittedly hits harder.”

You paused as you stared back at him, his elbows perched on the table and his clasped hands propped under his chin.

“Are you drunk now?”

“No,” he laughed quietly. “A little tipsy, sure, but not drunk by a long shot.”

You narrowed your eyes at him playfully, reluctantly accepting that he was just as buzzed as you but not quite drunk.

Before long, your server brought over your tab and you realized how empty the restaurant had gotten. Then you noticed the broom and mop the server had brought out to the floor, then the dark ‘open’ sign, and finally the clock on the wall.

“You closed 20 minutes ago and didn’t kick us out?” you shouted at Gennaro. “Genny, you can always kick me out! I feel bad!”

Gennaro walked over to your table as you scrambled for your wallet and handed the server your card to run.

“I can’t kick you out, bella. You and your moroso are welcome any time.”

“I think this poor girl would beg to differ,” you said as the server handed your card and signature slip back. She just laughed at your comment, agreeing without saying it outright.

You left a hefty tip and hugged Genny before you and Bucky, both still a bit tipsy, shuffled outside.

“Thanks for buying dinner,” Bucky said. “This means I get to pay next time, though.”

He said it so casually and you already planned on another date, but it still kind of caught you off guard.

“Next time?” You smiled up at him and took a step closer until you were almost toe-to-toe. “There’s gonna be a ‘next time’?”

“I sure hope there is,” he said quietly, his smirk sending a rush up your spine.

“If you insist,” you sighed. He knew better than to believe you weren’t excited for your future plans. “I’m cold. Care to get an Uber with me?”

He gently grabbed your shoulders and spun you around, pulling the loose opening of his jacket over your arms and wrapping his arms around you to help keep you warm.

“Well, yeah. I need to make sure you get home safe so ‘next time’ can happen,” Bucky said as he nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck.

“You know, I don’t usually let men spoon me on the first date,” you joked as you tapped away to order an Uber.

“I can stop, if you want,” he teased.

You gripped his arm as he started to pull away. “I never said that.”

Bucky rode back to your place with you, keeping conversation casual as you both avoided the controversy you were about to face: to kiss on the first date or not. You never really had any issues with it before, but you already really liked Bucky. You didn’t want to risk messing it up by moving too fast. But what grown man would think a kiss on a first date was too fast? Well… maybe one born in the early 1900s…

Before your thoughts could throw you into a downward spiral, the driver pulled up outside your apartment complex. Bucky stepped out first and held the door open for you to scoot out after him. As you stood at the bottom of the stairs to your building, you felt those nerves creeping up on you again. God, you hadn’t felt this nervous about a date since high school.

“I had fun tonight,” Bucky said first, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Me too,” you smiled back. “I’m excited for what you plan for next time.”

Bucky laughed at this, the crinkle of his nose making your own smile grow. God, you wanted to invite him inside already. In your defense, you’ve known him for a full month and spent even longer getting heart-eyes over him in college.

But you reined in your hormones and just took a step closer to him to rest your hands on his chest. His right hand came up to rest on your waist, but he kept the metal hand in his pocket. With your hand placement, you could feel the thrum of his heartbeat and judging by the pace, you knew you were both on the same page. As you were trying to shove your nerves aside, Bucky asked the one question you were hoping for.

“Can I kiss you?”

Knowing he wanted this as much as you did relieved some of your nerves, but also made the moment that much more real. You smiled up at him and nodded your head.

“Yes, please do.”

You perched up on your toes to meet him halfway, letting his lips mold to yours. His hold on your waist tightened as he pulled you closer; you gripped the lapel of his jacket in your fists. Suddenly the cold of the night no longer existed. All you could feel was the warmth radiating off of him as he held you close. He pulled back for a second before diving right back in, this time nipping at your bottom lip. You giggled against him, but didn’t stop him from taking the innocent kiss a step further. Your hands slid from his chest to the nape of his neck before tangling into his long hair. The vibration from his moan as you tugged on his hair ran straight down your spine, making it even harder to leave the date alone.

Reluctantly, you both pulled apart just enough for your noses to brush against each other, the stubble of his beard still tickling your nose. You opened your eyes enough to see the smile on his lips as he pulled back a bit more to see your face.

“I’ll see you Monday?” you said quietly, as if speaking any louder would break you two out of your bubble.

“See you Monday, [Y/N],” Bucky replied just as quietly. His hand slipped from your waist as you backed away, biting your lip at him before you turned and scurried up the steps. Bucky stood on the sidewalk until he could see the light in your apartment flick on, just to make sure you were safe.

[tenthgrove]

yess thank you for letting me ask you about the lore >:3c so I have to get my absolute favorites outta the way first— what kinda lore and thoughts do you have for sorbet or gelato ( <- before they get together and the earlier years of them getting together if you need a specific period ) I have to also ask are you ok if I go down the “line” and get your thoughts in other asks about the rest of the la squadra babes? Thank you sm 💖💖 I hope you’re having a wonderf day/evening

Ah! Now this is one of my absolute favourites! Apologies to anyone who has already heard me ramble about my Sorbet and Gelato backstory ad nauseam on multiple occasions, but this is really an area where I can't help myself. Besides, this is my opportunity to go more in depth where I haven't before:

(Note after writing this: It's stupidly long. I'm sorry I just can't help myself with these backstories. I couldn't decide what to leave out so I decided nothing.)

(Also please feel free to ask me more lore questions because I love doing this)

We'll begin with Sorbet, born in Naples in February 1967 if you follow the canon timeline (although by default I write in modern AU so move the dates 20 years later). His situation at birth was absolutely dire, the eldest child of an incredibly vulnerable woman and one of her clients as a sex worker. Sorbet's mother was by all means a decent woman but her severe mental illness and drug addiction made it impossible for her to be a good mother, which of course had a bad effect on Sorbet growing up. After Sorbet, she had 5 more children, all through clients, and Sorbet was saddled with much of their care.

Though he loved his siblings, Sorbet was pretty much done with this life by age 12 and was easily swept up by older boys from the local street gang, who paid him well to peddle drugs when he should have been in school. This was a very underfunded neighbourhood so nobody questioned his truancy, and within the next couple of years he had stopped going to school entirely. Shortly after this, having acquired sufficient money through his crime involvement, Sorbet left his family to stay with his new friends, moving between them on a regular basis. He also discovered his sexuality around this time and dated a few male friends, though none of these relationships got very far.

By age 16, Sorbet had earned a reputation in the street gang for skilled and passionate violence, and was selected by the ringleader to commit the group's first planned murder, in exchange of course for a lucrative reward. Sorbet accepted, succeeded, and became the group's de-facto assassin whenever needed. He continued to hoard considerable money for the remainder of his adolescence, though continued to be functionally homeless since he didn't see it necessary when sofa-surfing was suiting him fine.

Before resuming with Sorbet, let's explain the life that Gelato came from. Gelato was born in October 1967 in St. Petersburg, Russia, (Note- I previously used the city of Minsk, unaware that this is in fact, in Belarus) to an upper-middle class businessman and his Italian wife, a distant relative of French Monarchy. Gelato's relationship with his parents was rocky from the start due to the fact they would have preferred a girl after three successive sons, but any parental love they had for their youngest child broke down entirely after he was diagnosed with both Autism and ADHD at age 5, in an evaluation intending to find the cause of some behavioural issues that were really, just a response to emotional neglect.

When Gelato was 13 he, his parents, and two of his three brothers (the eldest was already an adult by this time and elected to stay behind) moved to Italy to escape some allegations of corruption in the father's business. They moved to a rural village in North-West Italy where the community was very middle-class and quite stifling for Gelato, who had enough social rules to remember in the familiar, economically-diverse city he grew up in. His behavioural issues got worse and began to include things he would later regret, such as attacking and stealing from younger children, and things he would absolutely not, like attacking and stealing from teachers. By this point the family had largely written him off as a failure, revering instead their academically successful, well-behaved older children, which absolutely contributed to the spiralling cycle of behaviour issues Gelato faced.

Then, at age 17, Gelato failed a crucial exam and was expelled from high-school. His parents kicked him out on the spot, and with no other family in Italy Gelato had very few options on what to do next. He recalled, however, one older friend having links to a street gang in Naples, and decided to see if this boy might have a route out of destitution for him. Indeed, the friend did know of a man in Naples needing assistance within the gang, but could offer no help in getting Gelato there. Seeing no other way, Gelato walked the whole journey.

Arriving in Naples, the friend's associate announced that the position Gelato was after had been taken, but taking pity on his distress, informed him of another friend who needed someone to look after an unlicensed bar that served as one of the group's main meeting points. He agreed to arrange for the small apartment above the bar to be given as payment.

Gelato accepted, but although he had now solved the problem of homelessness his life was still incredibly miserable. For one, with his pay being the apartment he had to rely on measly tips to get by, which rarely left him with enough to eat let alone anything else. Additionally, as an outsider with little understanding of the way gangs work Gelato was an easy target for abuse, and was treated like absolute shit by the bar's patrons.

By this point in time, Sorbet had just turned 18. He was, incidentally, in the same gang Gelato had joined, and a regular at the bar he worked in. For a good couple of months they took no notice of each other, until Sorbet came to be in a coincidental feud with one of the men who was violent to Gelato at the bar. When Gelato witnessed the two of them in a fight, he made the spur-of-the-moment decision to join in on Sorbet's side, knocking the patron unconscious and leaving him too afraid to visit again. For his trouble, Sorbet gave Gelato a portion of the money he looted from the fight's loser, and flirted with him lightly before going about with his evening. Unknown to Sorbet, he had just sent Gelato falling head over hills in love.

Gelato found out about Sorbet's sexuality from other patrons and, delighted, attempted to flirt with him the next time they saw each other, but his attempts came off very poorly and Sorbet actually thought he was being insulted. Angered, he dragged Gelato into the cellar to demand what was going on. Gelato, terrified, admitted having a crush, which Sorbet found to be the sweetest and most genuine thing he'd ever heard. While he couldn't promise a relationship, he did agree to show Gelato more attention in the future. But, it was only a matter of days until Sorbet found himself loving Gelato back.

This whirlwind relationship continued happily for three weeks, Sorbet greatly improving Gelato's situation through his saved money and helping him fend off the abusive patrons. Gelato, in turn, offered Sorbet a permanent place to stay in the apartment, which he accepted. Sorbet was in the process of moving his things, and they had plans to refurbish the place to make it actually habitable.

But then, everything came crashing down. One night the bar was subject to a surprise raid by the police, operating by the false assumption it was empty. Sorbet and Gelato attempted to flee but were caught, and in a panic, Gelato shot a policeman dead. Rushing to his defence Sorbet killed two more, but a fourth escaped to tell the tale. The couple knew they were screwed. Running to the headquarters of their gang they begged for protection but were informed the small group simply could not save them from a charge this serious, and gave them only a single night of shelter to plan their next move. Gelato, who remember had never committed anything more serious than minor ABH before, had an absolute breakdown over this predicament that night, and whilst comforting him, Sorbet devised a blood pact with him to stick together no matter what came.

Over the next few days, Sorbet and Gelato fled north, avoiding the police through Sorbet's skills as a criminal and Gelato's very convincing Russian tourist impression. They were almost at the French border when Sorbet awoke one night to find Gelato missing behind him. He chased his tracks to the driveway of a rural house, a tearful Gelato clutching a knife at the shut door and trembling. He informed Sorbet that he had intentionally led him to the village where his family lived, with the intention to break in and kill them as revenge for the years of abuse. Sorbet warned Gelato that this would not be good for their attempts to flee, but said he understood fully and would help him if this is truly what he wanted. Gelato agreed, and together they broke into the house and slaughtered Gelato's mother and father, additionally killing one of his brothers after he woke from the noise. The other brother, the youngest other than Gelato, was spared, as Gelato felt his role in the abuse had been comparatively more minor and he did not deserve to die. This of course, left another witness.

The massacre in the village was quickly linked to the one at the bar and Gelato was promptly identified from a comparison of DNA found at the scene to his surviving brother's. Sorbet, a known criminal, was identified soon after. Not only were the pair now known but the police figured out what their plan was and informed the French police as well, making things exponentially harder for the couple.

They made do for a while by hanging low and keeping on the move, living off money stolen from the parents' house. Eventually however, they needed more, and began making deals with local crime organisations to carry out assassinations in exchange for money or temporary shelter. While Sorbet was already a pro at this, Gelato found himself a fast learner, and soon realised he shared Sorbet's adoration for the act of killing. He felt as though he was finally coming to meet his true self.

Though the assassination deals were lucrative, they did not help the couple keep a low profile and the attacks from police were relentless. Several times, they barely escaped capture. All this was not good on their mental states, and after two years, Sorbet knew it needed to end. He and Gelato returned to Naples in the hope their old gang might reconsider protecting them, but they were met with a surprise as their old gang had been completely overtaken by Passione. Even still, the new mobsters had heard a lot about Sorbet and Gelato's exploits and agreed to get them an audience with a local Capo, Pericolo, who was impressed by the men's skills and moved by the sense of honour suggested by their love for each other. He agreed to initiate them into the gang.

Soon after this, Sorbet and Gelato recieved stands which, although not very powerful, assisted them greatly in the art of assassination. Soon, they were natural choices for Passione whenever a hit needed carrying out in the Naples area. At some point a few years in, they befriended a man named Prosciutto who had been recently forced into Passione due to his heritage. Prosciutto was also funnelled into assassination jobs and, with less of a reputation for impulsivity than Sorbet and Gelato, was the one given the order to form a new assassination squad when the need arose, around 1993 if we're following canon.

(Note, I hc La Squadra was created by Passione in response to a real life government crackdown on the Italian mafia around 1992-93, in response to an incredibly scandalous series of assassinations. In such a climate, it would make sense for Passione to want to consolidate an elite squad of its best hitmen, do avoid future problems.)

Due to personal commitments Prosciutto did not want to be the captain, so attempted to give this responsibility to Sorbet, a request the boss promptly denied. Prosciutto was, however, allowed to add Sorbet and Gelato to the team's ranks, cementing the three of them as the first members of the team.

Prosciutto would, soon enough, find another person to give the title of captain to, but that's a story for another time.

[costellos]

a/n: I’ve been reminiscing on a lot of cheesy romcoms and one of my favorite tropes are “dates that aren’t officially dates but basically are dates.” we love a good yearning. that said, here are some #unofficialofficialdates that the boys use to spend time with you!

tw: mentions of drugs

❥ ┋ ❝ bucci gang & what excuses they use to get closer to you!

bruno bucciarati.

Bucciarati gets closer to you by having you assist him at “fundraisers.” 

Passione holds a handful of events throughout the year. elaborate parties with expensive champagne, mindless chatter, and some very high-profile attendees. people will join to officialize deals, buy drugs, and of course, donate to keep Passione thriving.

Bucciarati usually goes alone, acting as a representative for his escort team. this isn’t the type of scene you’d see the others at. but up until your joining, you’ve found yourself as his sole companion.

it began as a way to familiarize yourself with mobster life. his idea, of course. although he didn’t push the idea, he’d be lying if he said he hoped you would accept. ↳ “it’s not required, but the company would be nice.”

it’s an odd affair. celebrities and politicians join and no one blinks an eye. it’s not where you’d usually find yourself on a Saturday night, with you and your partner dressed to the nines (okay, maybe not a usual scene for you; Bucciarati always had something beautiful draped onto his figure).

the hors d'oeuvres and cocktails are nice, at least. but you find yourself drawn to your conversations with Bucciarati the most.

he makes you feel welcome at every event, that you deserve to be here as much as the starlet making her grand appearance. you’re unsure that you can handle business with new clients, but the way he talks to you is so reassuring and supportive that you quickly help the gang obtain new patrons.

you can’t help but notice that his speech became more casual after the first outing. he’s a fan of crude jokes and local gossip, you find. but you also notice the hand at your hip as he guides you to every following fundraiser. if you look at him while he he does so, he’d send a the kindest grin. ↳ “see? you’re a natural. we need to work on your eye contact, though. clients respond better when they see those pretty eyes look back at them.”

that shameless flirtation came out after your fifth fundraiser. by that point, Bucciarati made less of an effort to hide his attraction toward you. all the other patrons thought you to be a couple. why not play the part? besides, he finds your embarrassment endearing. cute, even. he’s already planning ways to make this night last longer.

leone abbacchio.

Abbacchio gets closer to you by helping you get ready for your missions.

you’re typically the first choice for espionage missions. the way you slip into parties, meetings, anything without anyone noticing is impressive, to say the least. but only part of that is thanks to your own abilities. Abbacchio does a lot of the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

it started when he noticed your god awful attempt at masquerade makeup. your contouring left much to be desired. ↳ “...please don’t tell me you’re actually going out like that.”

and so began a tradition of sorts. you usually meet him at his apartment, considering that’s where all his tools are. it was awkward at first; Abbacchio isn’t the best conversationalist, but he did try to seem somewhat engaged in whatever you had to say.

with time, however, it became easier. less awkward. Abbacchio shares whatever wine (and gossip) he has at his disposal that week. you find that his humor can be quite dry once you melt through that icy exterior. and with more time, you start to notice the tiniest smiles when you pop by.

he’s also less fussy when you ask him to do your makeup. before he would roll his eyes and ask when you were next available, but now... he just says to come by that Friday night. not without some minor teasing, though you found that to be a part of his charm. (plus, the fact you were breaking through to him was exciting in itself.)

he’s incredibly gentle when he does your makeup. he always holds your chin as he dabs liquid foundation onto your face, his hand moving your head for those hard-to-reach areas. when he does your eyeshadow, you can feel that same hand cup your cheek to keep you steady. though intimate, it’s not uncomfortable.

whenever he caught you staring at him, Abbacchio would ask what you were looking at. recently, however, you’ve noticed he merely purses his lips, swallows, and looks away. ↳ “huh. would’ve never known you could look so stunning. you’re welcome.”

his rude teasing made its appearance after eight visits. it’s an awful attempt to deny his feelings. maybe you’ll back off if he’s mean enough. but the way you smile at him after every session, how you shamelessly compliment him... he can’t help himself. he has to get closer to you in any way that he can.

giorno giovanna.

Giorno gets closer to you by asking you to help him with his hair.

you’d often watch girls fawn over Giorno whenever you went on patrols with him. and it’s warranted: his chiseled cheekbones, long lashes, and defined physique had him rival the Roman statues that lined Naples. everything about him is a piece of art. including his hair. 

you caught him struggling to braid his hair shortly before your next patrol. strands would be thicker than others, and in one case, you watched as his hair tie snapped between his fingers. he obviously needed help. ↳ “well, if you’re offering. be my guest.”

so you got to work. it wasn’t a big deal; part of the issue was that Giorno couldn’t see the back of his head. you separated his hair into three strands, weaved them between each other, and tied the ends of his hair into a loop. just as you’d always seen him do it.

but once you finished, Giorno was hooked. the way your fingernails dragged along his scalp, how you were so careful to not pull his hair... it was wonderful. such a small action that felt so personal to him.

he asks you to help him with his hair whenever he can. not too frequently that you’d catch on, though. and he knows you well enough to know you wouldn’t deny his request. you’re far too kind. it’s a little manipulative on his end, but he’s also aware that you wouldn’t mind.

it never feels awkward. he asks you about your day while you work. sometimes he gives you a briefing about what’s on the agenda. though it seems casual on your end, as mentioned, Giorno finds the experience quite intimate. ↳ “I don’t know what it is, but something about your touch is enough to make me feel so relaxed. ...ah, excuse me. was that too forward?”

that statement comes out after you’ve braided Giorno’s hair ten times. by that point, you’ve started to think that he doesn’t really need help with his hair. the fact that he’s started producing flowers to put in your own hair was a dead giveaway. but can you blame him? he loves seeing you blush as he tucks daisies behind your ear.

guido mista.

Mista gets closer to you by showing you his favorite quick eats.

as a long-standing resident of Naples, the gunslinger is aware of all the best restaurants in the city. from hole-in-the walls to elegant restaurants, he knows ‘em all. he has a particular soft spot for the former.

you’re the opposite of him: new to Naples and unaware of what foods await you. Mista takes it upon himself to change that. ↳ “you’ve never heard of Sorbillo and you’ve been living here for how long? ...alright, well. we’re gonna change that. you and me, Sorbillo, this Saturday.”

and thus a new tradition began. whenever you and Mista had a free Saturday night, you’d meet at whatever restaurant he recommended that week. sometimes it was seafood, other nights it was pizza, but it was always something extremely delicious (and extremely unforgettable).

he caters his choices to what you’re in the mood for. Mista’s not a picky eater by any means (so long as it’s not in fours), so he’s down for whatever you want. plus, it lets him get to know your tastes a little better.

he’s a great conversationalist. he can keep you distracted from long lines and longer food prep times. you never get the impression that he’s just making small talk, because honestly, he’s not. he genuinely wants to get to know you better. he usually asks about your life before Passione. 

your weekly outings originally started as a fun hangout between two friends. but during one chilly night, Mista was quick to notice your shivering. he wasted no time in giving you his coat and hat. ↳ “hey, you don’t ever get... I dunno... bored of this, do you? I know we’ve been doing this for a while and... if you ever wanna stop, you can let me know.”

that question came up after your seventh outing. you’d never seen the gunslinger get embarrassed like this. it only comes up because Mista’s realizing how much he loves being around you. he loves when your eyes widen as you take that first bite, he loves when muse how good the food is. he needs to know where you stand before he gets too invested because honestly, he’s starting to love you as well.

narancia ghirga.

Narancia gets closer to you by asking you to help him read. 

Fugo’s not the best tutor. bless him, he tries, but Narancia isn’t the best student either. the latter often spaces out while working. and when he doesn’t, he tries to distract Fugo with some meaningless chatter to end the session sooner. Fugo was quick to catch onto this.

as a result, he turned to you to tutor Narancia. it started as a joke. “if [Name] can’t do it, no one can,” he laughed. the pupil, however, was more than happy to switch tutors. ↳ “fine! [Name]’ll be a better teacher than you ever were!!”

and like that, you were Narancia’s new tutor. not that you minded. it would benefit the whole team if he could read above a primary school level. every Tuesday and Thursday, an hour before the gang’s meetings at Libeccio, you and Narancia would grab a table and go over his reading material. sometimes Fugo joins to watch Narancia’s progress, sometimes Mista to hang out and enjoy a slice of cake, but it’s normally a one-on-one lesson.

Narancia quickly realizes that he likes those lessons best. it’s much easier when the others aren’t teasing him for his inability to read words like “signorile.” plus, he likes his time alone with you. you don’t laugh. you never judge him. if he has a question, he doesn’t feel stupid to come to you about it, even outside of tutoring sessions.

he’s still distracted when he’s with you, but half the time it’s intentional, half the time it’s not. he just wants to learn more about you. he’ll take breaks between questions to ask you about yourself. Narancia usually sticks to questions regarding your hobbies and interests. lord help you if you share the same music taste because he’ll want to share all his favorite tunes with you.

lately he’s been quite diligent with his work. he’ll go a chapter ahead of what you’ve scheduled and... oh my, are those annotations? you’d never seen him smile brighter than when you praised him for his hard work. ↳ “what are we gonna do once my reading is like... really good? we’re not just gonna stop, are we?”

he asks you this after your fourth session. the question came up rather early, honestly. but Narancia was already having a lot of fun after working with you. he knew that this was going to be something worth his time. and when he saw your own smile, he knew that you were worth everything, too. 

pannacotta fugo.

Fugo gets closer to you by requesting your help planning missions.

most of the gang’s missions are planned by Fugo himself. while he is a college dropout, he still spent hundreds of hours studying Italian history and law. he can be trusted to help the escort team avoid law enforcement.

but there was one job he couldn’t wrap his head around. it was a breaking-and-entering mission meant for Bucciarati and Narancia. they were supposed to cross through an Armani outlet, yet... the security was fool proof. there was no way to cleanly get through it, even with Bucciarati’s Sticky Fingers. that was when you came in and proved him wrong. ↳ “[Name], would you mind helping me with this next mission? it’s a reconnaissance job for Abbacchio.”

he started coming to you whenever he felt stuck. you’re one of the few people he trusts with a task as important as this one. besides, you’d already proved that you were more than capable to untangle tough situations.

working with you is a mixed bag, though. sure, you help Fugo resolve his questions, but you make him feel so... small. it’s not that you do it on purpose. it’s just that being smart is all that he has. it’s all he’s ever known. and here you come, making these problems seem like they were nothing.

yet he can’t get enough of you. you don’t make it seem like these things are a big deal. he loves when you place your hand on his arm and praise him when he figures it out himself. god, he hates that he can’t look you in the eye; he can only imagine how lovely you look when you’re glowing.

there’s one moment that will stick with you forever. it was an infiltration mission meant for the whole team, the eleventh job you’d worked on with him. it took hours of back-and-forth bantering, Fugo having to leave the room to go scream outside, and one of Narancia’s awful energy drinks until Fugo figured it out. and when he did, you’ll never forget how he was beaming, his fingers laced with yours as he thanked you for your help. it’s too bad it didn’t last that long, for he quickly became embarrassed and turned away. ↳ “[Name]! I have another mission to work on with you! when are you free?”

Fugo saw you as his planning partner after that occurrence. he came to you with every mission he received; after all, he needs you to make sure that there aren’t any holes. he wants to chase every high he can with you. hell, every low if you’ll let him. he wants to do everything and more with you.

[ddarker-dreams]

I Got The Blues. Yan Bruno x Reader [COMM]

warnings: implied manipulation, isolation, some paranoia. word count: 5k.

This isn’t how you were expecting your evening to go. 

Flashing by you in a dreamlike world of blurred colors, the city of Naples at night is a picturesque sight to behold. Gone is the sun that kindly lavished the bustling streets in shades of amber and marigold, moonlight and twinkling stars taking its place. How a city can have a clear enough sky to spot stars is a miracle beyond your own knowledge, though the lights of streetlamps and buildings do dull it some; it’s not enough to diminish the greater beauty. 

Butterflies dance around in your stomach, threatening to send you careening in your leather seat. Your exposed skin gratefully takes in the cool of the air conditioning that you’ve found yourself fiddling with, in hopes of quelling your inner anxiety. Every now and again, you work up the courage to look over at your date for the night. When knowing, cobalt eyes flicker to meet your gaze, all of the valiance it took to look his way melts like ice. Your muscles go taut, fingers curling into a fist atop your bare thighs, rose colored lips set into an unsteady smile to dissipate the uneasy air of your own making. 

You haven’t even made it to the restaurant, and you’re already on the verge of boiling over with excitement. 

Bruno Bucciarati is nothing if not a stunningly handsome man, eyes smoldering and raven hair perfectly framing his sharp face. There are plenty of mysteries in this world, now you’re able to add one of your own design. Why is it that Bruno had asked you of all people, on a fanciful date? What he had seen in you up until this point to have extended this invitation to you is up for debate. It’s not that you think poorly of yourself -- far from it -- but that Bruno’s beauty is so ethereal, that it’s hard to fathom his interest in you. Today isn’t the first time he’s expressed it, and far from the last, but you mistook it for friendliness. 

“I promise I won’t bite, amore,” Bruno’s rich, velvety voice invades your ears, senses incapable of processing anything other than his presence beside you. “There’s no need to be so on edge.” 

Your heartbeat increases tenfold at his good-natured teasing, a nervous laugh leaving your lips. Having conversation fill the air provides you with some much needed reprieve, a playful response of your own bubbling to the surface. “You say you won’t, but I get the feeling you may go back on your word.”

He returns your laughter with equal fervor, the skin underneath his eyes crinkling in delight. “I have to admit, it’s a tempting proposition. But I’ll save that for another time, should you let me.” 

There’s no getting ahead of his game, he’s too suave and adept. You look out the window to hide how your cheeks flush, but from the pleased hum he lets out, you’re certain he knows anyways. The banter is an enjoyable aspect of your time with Bruno, though there’s an underlying factor of honesty to his words. All the compliments bestowed upon you come from a genuine place. Your mind wanders to the first time you had encountered him, a fated meeting that you won’t be forgetting anytime soon. 

You had been jet lagged, searching frantically for a place to meet up that your native friend suggested. Directions went into your head without making proper sense, and before you knew it, you were lost. Your concerns of meeting up with your friend were soon replaced by wondering if you’d ever pinpoint where you were, the foreign area making it increasingly difficult to do so. It’s in this pitiful stupor that a well spoken man in a fine pressed suit appeared before you, asking if something was the matter. 

He hadn’t looked down upon you for the admittedly embarrassing plight, instead, he said he knew the area and wouldn’t mind taking you there as it was on his way. From that point onwards, you couldn’t thank him enough, praises stumbling from your tongue. He introduced himself as Bruno Bucciarati, and the time you spent with him was enough to forget your earlier problems. The long walk to where your friend awaited was filled with pleasant conversation and humor, with some light flirting that you enjoyed a little too much. From afar he looked serious, but had a coquettish nature that drew you in like a moth to a flame.

While it would’ve normally sounded terrifying to follow a stranger to a destination in a land you weren’t familiar with, Bruno put your heart at ease. He kept an appropriate distance and observed the theoretical line in the sand, never crossing it and using adequate charm to steady your frayed nerves. Upon hearing that you were a fresh arrival to Naples, he gave a brief overview of some culture tidbits that you might find useful during your stay. What was going to be an awful afternoon turned into a memorable outing, full of adventure and discovery. To say that you were grateful would be an understatement. 

Upon reaching your destination, all your anxiety from before was a thing of the past. Bruno was glad to see you off, refusing any monetary payments you tried to offer as thanks for his altruism. Instead, he asked if he could see you again at some point, to which you readily agreed. Thus began your pleasant friendship, and led to where you are now. On an excursion to a restaurant that, when you looked it up, seemed to frequent politicians and celebrities. How he managed to score a reservation at such a fine place is beyond you, but you’ll make the best of it. 

Fidgeting with your purse, you consider reapplying a touch of blush to your cheeks. Your outfit choice for tonight, a simple yet form fitting black dress that ends above your knees, was the best your closet could produce for such an event. Bruno looked the part of someone who would fit into high society, and you hope the same can be said for you. From how he complimented you earlier, it induced enough confidence to make it this far. 

The chauffeur pulls in front of the grandiose restaurant, and you watch as men and women dressed in designer clothing worth more than months of your paycheck climb out of sports cars. This is a large jump from the picnics and gelato outings Bruno had taken you out on before. Up until today, where romantic intentions could clearly be sighted, you only thought your relationship with him was friendly. The bouquet of deep, crimson roses he presented to you when you answered the door earlier made sure there were no confusing his intentions. 

He gets out before you, coming over to your side and opening the door. Accepting the hand that he extends out, the two of you stay close together while walking towards the front of the restaurant. Up until now, it felt like another world entirely, until you heard the familiar sound of waves crashing against the shore. The inside is as luxurious as you could imagine, fine glass chandeliers hanging overhead and classical music being played live. Candlelight dots the tables, the glow setting a romantic atmosphere. 

Bruno speaks a few words to the hostess while you gape at the surroundings. It’s hard to believe that just this morning, you had been eating a ham sandwich to save money for bills. Now you stand in one of the grandest spots in Italy, surrounded by socialites. No one pays you any heed, much to your internal relief, instead showing the utmost respect to Bruno. He turns back to you, smiling, and the two of you are led to a private room overlooking the ocean. 

“If I’m being honest, I feel a bit out of my element here.” A nervous laugh leaves your lips as you take your seat, smoothing out the bottom half of your dress. The fresh water on the table is a welcome excuse to have something in your hands, and you take the opportunity to steady yourself. Gingerly picking up the glass by the rim, feeling the coolness against your fingertips as you do so.

“You look the part,” Bruno responds in kind, steepling his fingers together and setting his head atop them. “I apologize if the atmosphere feels stifling, signorina. It isn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable.” 

Shaking your head, you place the cup down after a few sips. “Not at all. It’s beautiful, the view especially. I know I said it earlier, but… thank you for inviting me.” 

“It’s my pleasure. I’ve been wanting to take you out for an evening for some time now, but I’ve been preoccupied up until this point.” 

This catches your attention, an eyebrow raising in interest. Bruno has rarely spoken of his occupation, claiming the details would be a bore, but that must be what he’s referring to here. It was one of the few aspects of him that he didn’t delve into, and not wanting to seem invasive, you left it as is. Now seems like a prime opportunity to learn more about it, curiosity getting the better of you. You choose your words with care before proceeding.

“Is it a… busy season in your line of work?” You inquire with interest, hoping it doesn’t seem like you’re prying. The question is innocent enough, Bruno’s sought to learn more about your job, to which you readily answered him. His tone of voice and mannerisms, whether it be on purpose or not, always seems to command respect. It’s an aspect of him you and many others in his presence picked up on, always straightening their back in his presence and properly addressing him. Is he a politician or something…? 

“You could say that.” 

The opportunity is fleeting, a waiter coming over and paying great reverence to your dinner partner for the night. It’s a shame you won’t be able to push the topic further, having been interrupted and the conversation steering elsewhere. Bruno had asked beforehand if he could order in your stead. Seeing as he’s more familiar with the menu and charms of Nepotalian cuisine, you accepted, taking the opportunity to learn more about the food here. Some of the words he uses when placing an order for your antipasti you recognize, whereas others must be a dialect exclusive to this city. After the waiter hurriedly scribbles down and scurries off, Bruno’s attention is returned to you.

“So tell me, how are things with you? It’s been, what, a week or so since we last met in person?” 

You nod your head to confirm, nose scrunching while thinking back on your past experiences. Truth be told, it hasn’t been the best past couple of days. The other tenants in the apartments beside you have been obnoxiously loud at unholy hours into the morning, and no matter how politely you asked them to tone it down, it made no difference. Your landlord, to make matters worse, had been on about some special fee that you need to meet by the end of the month. When looking back on your agreement, you saw nothing of the sort. You wonder if he’s trying to take advantage of the fact you’re not a native Italian speaker, but finding a new place to live on such short notice would be a nightmare. This, and you’ve been having a difficult time aligning your schedules with your friends.

“It hasn’t been the easiest,” you confess with a sheepish smile, folding the napkin from the table onto your lap. That’s what you’ve seen in movies, so it seems like the right thing to do in this proper setting. “I actually wanted to talk to you about it, but it might not be the most proper dinner topic.” 

Bruno raises an eyebrow at this, before prompting you to continue. “Oh? I’d love to be of assistance to you.” 

The order comes out as you explain your sticky predicament. What appears to be octopus cooked alongside tomatoes and chili peppers, mixed into a leafy green salad with a zesty lemon dressing. The flavor bursts onto your tongue, spices complementing one another perfectly as you wrap up your woeful tale of adulthood. Bruno’s attention remains solely on you throughout, looking increasingly perplexed as you recount the problems, jaw tightening with agitation on your behalf.

“It might be in your best interest to end the lease then,” Bruno considers aloud with a sorrowful expression, shaking his head in dismay for your misfortunes. “The fee for doing so would still be less than having to pay that ridiculous sum every month.” 

It’s an option you considered with great displeasure. Shelling out all that money to end your lease early is a nightmare to think about, hundreds gone in the span of a second over an arbitrary bill, tacked on at the last second. The legality of it is up in the air, but your knowledge of the law surrounding tenants in Italy is… lacking, to say the least. Bruno’s affirmation of your idea serves to sour your mood, and you almost regret bringing up this grim subject on what’s meant to be a date night. Even though you planned to seek his guidance on it eventually, now may not have been the best time to do so.

Placing a forkful of steamed octopus into your mouth, you lament over the issue further. “I guess I should start looking for a new place. Everything else within range of my job is ridiculously expensive, though, so it looks like I’ll be walking a lot in the future.” 

The lighthearted joke does little to lift your downtrodden spirits, your gaze now facing downwards. How pathetic Bruno must think you are, incapable of properly navigating your finances despite being an adult. It’s embarrassing to think about, your cheeks burning in indignation. He never once chastises you, instead extending his hand over the table, resting it gingerly atop your own. A gentle action like this is enough to soothe your troubled mind, the coarse pad of his thumb rubbing reassuring circles into your skin.

“To think you’ve been through so much in this short amount of time… I’m sorry to hear about all of this,” Bruno’s words are soothing to your weary soul, maturity present in his visage. You feel better about talking to him already, sensing he has a great deal of life experience. “I’ve made up my mind. [First], why not live with me?” 

The sudden proposition sends your mind in a whirlwind, blinking rapidly while trying to gather your bearings. You’ve known Bruno for the time period of about three months, and while he’s been nothing but courteous towards you, there’s still a lot of secrecy surrounding him. You’d be pressed to say he isn’t charming, and that you don’t hold some form of affection toward him, but it feels so sudden. 

Sensing your apprehension, Bruno continues to explain in an attempt to smoothen other any concerns. “By all means, take time to think about the idea.” 

“I-It means a lot that you’d even extend the offer to me,” you stumble over your words truthfully, gulping to get a hold of yourself. “I’d feel awful to impose on you, especially on such short notice. You’ve been so considerate of me already…” 

“You could never impose. I hoped I’d made my feelings for you clear, [First]. Anything you need, I want to provide it. Please, allow me to do so.” 

He’s earnest, willing to overcome your apprehensions with thoughtfully crafted words and sentiments. Vacillating between two halves of yourself, you consider the options set before you. The romantic atmosphere from the restaurant is long forgotten, as you enter a reverie of contemplation. There isn’t a better option that you can think of, none of your friends living close enough or even open to the idea of a roommate. The time of splitting rent would be productive as well, letting you bolster your already deplenishing savings. Bruno has never given you reason to be alarmed, you trust the man before you. 

“In that case, I’ll continue thinking about it.” You answer after a moment’s deliberation, Bruno offering a nod of the head in acceptance. He retracts his hand from your own, and you can’t help but miss the warmth and reassurance it brought. Throughout your stay in Italy, you’ve felt like a stumbling mess at times. Sure, you’re capable enough, but wading through multiple decisions while balancing your job has been a lot to deal with. Bruno, on the other hand, feels so well put together. There’s never a moment in your interactions where he falters in his decisions, always full or resolve to see things through. He feels like a pillar of support in your life, a foundation that you cling to without even noticing it. This level of reliability is what you desperately need right now.

The air is silent for a moment, aside from the clattering of silverware against plates and muted chitchat from the other patrons. You look down to your lap, feeling the full weight of his stare set upon you. It feels like the evening has been getting away, running off in a direction you didn’t mean for it to go. After all the work he’s put into treating you to a nice night out, it feels impolite to ruin the mood any further. Putting on your best, brightest smile, you swiftly change the subject.

“I never realized seafood could taste so good,” you praise the meal before you, that’s been reduced to a shadow of its former self. Only a few crumbs remain in the bowl, a nice appetizer before the food to come. “A lot of the seafood I’ve had is either chewy, or just tastes strange. Whatever you picked out is amazing.” 

“A lot of it depends on the quality of the product itself. I grew up in a coastal town, so I know how to spot the difference. For octopus, the best method is the aroma. The same can be said for most seafood…” 

The remainder of the evening is spent in the throes of conversation ranging from lighthearted topics, to discussions about your plans for the future. Bruno revealed a bit more information about himself, but still not enough to sate your deeply rooted curiosity. His offer from before stays present in the back of your mind, but you do everything within your power to not think dwell on it. After having dessert from his behest, the two of you make your way to the entrance once more. You can’t fathom the bill after a dinner like that, but Bruno refutes any attempts to split it, following up his earlier offer of paying for it in full.

“Thank you for everything,” you express your gratitude while getting up from the chair, glancing out the window a final time. When you look back to Bruno, his attention is set solely on your presence, eyes softening considerably. It makes your heart flutter, how he looks at you. “I enjoyed my time with you.”

“And as for your offer…” 

There hasn’t been a great deal of time to think about it, but your chest feels light, like an invisible weight had been lifted. The man before you is an anchor that you never knew you needed, fastening you down in the wake of travesties. He’s well put together, offering you every courtesy known and making for delightful company. Whether what you feel is the beginning of love, or a platonic attachment, you’re uncertain. To discover things for yourself, and get a better bearing on your life, you’re ready to make a leap of your own. It reminds you of the time before moving here, this decision is minuscule in comparison to that… right? You’re not making a deal with the devil or anything. 

“I think… I think I’m going to accept.”

- - -

Anytime moving is involved, it’s a stressful endeavor. You know this firsthand, having come to Italy with a few things of luggage and starting off a new life with it. Much to your surprise, everything went far smoother than you imagined. Unlike your arrival, you had help in moving your boxes of belongings to Bruno’s villa, leaving you with little to do aside offering plenty of thanks. It felt like the start of an exciting new adventure, turning over a new leaf after a string of misfortunes. Leaving behind your old apartment building felt strange, but oddly right. Working through the manner of cutting your lease short was as awful as it sounds, but Bruno was by your side for all of it. 

What you can’t get off your mind, is how different your landlord acted in Bruno’s presence. When it had just been the two of you, you were treated with a complete lack of care, like your existence itself as a nuisance. There was a complete shift in demeanor upon walking into his office with Bruno by your side, like you were speaking to a different man. It reminded you of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, how he retained the same physical characteristics but adopted polite mannerisms. The whole exchange had been so jarring that you couldn’t help but ask Bruno about it, to which he offered a lackluster explanation. This haunting occurrence made you have more questions about his cryptic line of work, that you’re only fed spoonfuls of information at a time.

The two of them knew one another, but you don’t get the full spectrum of their relationship. It’s a gut feeling that it has to do with Bruno’s occupation, that he carefully skates around whenever brought up. 

Mostly settled in for the evening, you’ve been lounging on the balcony of Bruno’s home. It’s a quaint house, in the suburbs of Naples, further confirming that he’s well off to some extent. The ocean is within view, the house sitting in a gated community near the water. In the distance, you hear seagulls mixed with traffic over people coming home from their jobs. You hug your knees to your chest, staring down at your phone with a frown. It’s a mild summer day, the breeze from the ocean tickling your face, but not lifting your spirit. You had texted a few friends before your move in hopes of getting their assistance, only for none of them to return your calls or messages. 

It feels lonely. You feel lonely. 

If it hadn’t been for Bruno’s quick thinking and connections, it would’ve been the two of you moving boxes on your lonesome. This cold shoulder behavior hurts, and you can’t help but wonder if you did something wrong without knowing it. Had there been some sort of cultural aspect you were unaware of, that offended them? Is that why they’ve been ghosting you? It’s one thing if they were busy, but you see your friend group posting regularly on social media. A sigh leaves your lips, weariness from the week’s events getting to you. It won’t do any good to dwell on these things, but insecurities haunt you like a persistent cloud. 

“Is there something on your mind?” 

Your head whips around at the voice behind you, settling down when you recognize Bruno. He’s in lounge wear, and you flush at the domestic sight. He’s a sight to behold, lithe frame pressed against the door and awaiting your response. It almost feels like you two are a married couple, being this casual with one another. The thought serves to fluster you further, so you push it away. 

After all he’s done to assist you, it’d feel wrong to add friend troubles to the ever growing list. “N-not really, no.” 

Bruno frowns at this, coming out to join you on the balcony. He takes the seat closest to you, leaning forward and gazing deep into your eyes. A hand is pressed to your bare thigh, though it stops before it can travel up in a lascivious way. Feeling his cold hand against your skin sends shivers down your spine, his knowing eyes making you shrink back into your seat. Guilt seeps into you for the lie. He seems in tune with people’s feelings, you’re no different. Instead of calling you out point blank on the falsehood, he offers reassurance.

“Remember what I said,” his tone is almost chastising, face scrunched up in displeasure. “I care about you greatly, [First]. You don’t have to carry your burdens alone.” 

It comes before you can register. Tears sting the corner of your glassy eyes, silent sniffles leaving your person. As you think back to the images of your friends from last night, hanging out in one of your favorite spots with you, your lower lip trembles. Why is it that all this is happening? That you finally found a group of people that share your interests and passions, only to be left behind without an explanation? You despise how your throat clenches, each breath you take becoming more labored than the last. Bruno takes the opportunity to sit beside you, wrapping a reassuring arm around your shoulder and cooing into your ear.

All of it comes out like the floodgates of a dam, your head resting on his chest at his prompting. He holds you close, grounding you in reality, alternating between offering words of encouragement and peppering kisses onto your head. Your hands bunch up the fabric of his shirt, tears streaming down your face. No longer does shame occur to you, a forgotten thing of the past. You smell his rich cologne, that mixes in with the scent of the ocean. He’s been so good to you, too good. When the world has fallen apart, Bruno picks up the shards, placing them back together with tender care. Where would you be without his support? The thought is enough to bring a fresh set of sobs, self deprecating thoughts a mantra within your tattered mind. 

His warm breath fans across your face, soft lips making contact with the shell of your ear. “Amore mio, what is it that brought this on? Tell me, so that I can take care of it all.” 

“I have no one…! I don’t understand, none of it makes any sense,” you sniffle into his chest, voice muffled and waning. “My friends, even my coworkers! They act like I don’t… like I don’t even exist.” 

Large, reassuring hands cup either side of your damp cheeks, pulling you to look him in the eyes. His thumbs wipe away your tears, unblinking sapphire eyes steadying you. The world stops around you, nothing else registering other than his existence. How his skin feels against your own, the way his hair brushes against your face, how wonderfully close he is. He hasn’t left you, he’s still by your side. Your lips tremble, and you curse your wretched existence. A moment of clarity comes, and with it, your sobbing subsides. The two of you stay still, your face in his hands, until your hiccups are reduced to occasional sniffles. Even that fades with time, much to your relief.

You take a shaky, deep breath, hoping to gain better control of your fluctuating emotions. In the blink of an eye, Bruno leans forward, pressing his lips against yours in a chaste kiss. A noise of surprise leaves you, but before you can think to return it or move away, he pulls back. Looking up at you through heavily lidded eyes, dark eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks. The predetermined movement seems to have a physical effect on you, your face erupting into a blush. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions that Bruno brings with him.

“You’re wrong on a single account,” he murmurs, his voice sweeter than honey, ensnaring you in a web of his own making. “You have me, and I’m not going anywhere.” 

It’s strange, you think. How like two sides of the same coin, so much can go wrong, but an equal amount can go right. For every loss, Bruno has almost made up for it in some other way, an equilibrium being maintained. Will one side tip over, ruining the delicate balance, and sending you into chaos? There’s no way of knowing, yet you can’t help but wonder. Your life is interconnected to his now, for better or for worse. No longer do you care for the innate selfishness of seeking out his warmth, canting your head into his hand and closing your eyes.

“Thank you, Bruno. You’re right… I do have you.” 

He seems content with your realization, a gradual smile spreading across his face. The sun has begun to set, warm colors dancing across his tanned skin. After a moment’s deliberation, he leaves your side, standing and looking towards the glass doors that lead inside.

“Let’s head inside for a cup of tea. It’s been a long day, so you shouldn’t stay up much later.” 

You nod your head lazily at his suggestion, using the back of your hand to wipe away at the wetness that remains on your face. A nice warm drink sounds wonderful just about now, even in the middle of the summer. Having a task to distract yourself with is an added benefit, so you get up, following after him to the kitchen. The brisk air conditioning feels like a welcome wake up call, and you look around at the tastefully decorated surroundings. Your new home, for the time being. Life is unpredictable, if anything.

It has been an exhausting day. Or more like an exhausting past few weeks, you think. For now, your attention remains solely on the person who walks in front of you. A bashful idea pops into your head, and you catch up to Bruno and walk by his side. He looks over at you with potent curiosity, and the opportunity is present to offer a confession. “I, um… I wanted to say that you have me too. I mean it.” 

Little did you know, there was never a time he believed otherwise.

[gio-is-writing]

REQUEST; Yes, this was a request hehe but if was REALLY specific (which i loved btw) and putting the request would spoil it so to the anon who sent me two asks for this request, here you have it!!

Also this is angsty or so I intended so I listened to “As the world caves in” by Matt Maltese, hope you like it!!

NOTES AT THE END OF THE FIC

Pairing: Bruno Bucciarati x fem! Reader

TT: ‘Gli Amanti’ — ‘The Lovers’

Warnings: major character death, blood, reincarnation au, angst with happy ending i guess

AS THE WORLD CAVES IN 

March, 2001.

“You know tesoro” (Y/N) called out to her lover as soon as she walked into the room “There’s this new café in Naples called ‘Gli Amanti’ isn’t that romantic?”

Bruno lifted his eyes from the papers he was occupied reading and stared at her as she paced around moving stuff (really just fooling around)

“I like the name”

“I walked past this morning and seems like a very cozy and relaxing place” she continued while silently side eyeing him

“Are you hinting that we should go?” he lifted a brow with a grin, earning a big playful smile from her

“That sounds like a good idea tesoro!”

Bruno chuckled and turned back to the papers, they had everything in place and seemingly perfectly planned.

“After everything is done, we’ll go.”

She stopped pacing around and sat in front of him resting her hand on his knee while looking at him with pleading eyes.

“Promise? You know how much I like cafés”

“Promise amore”

April, 2001.

They knew it from the start, they knew that this mission was risky and betraying the boss was easier said than done, if anything they could hope for the least tragic ending. But even if they knew all along, that didn’t stop them from feeling the pain of the aftermath, they could’ve never imagined how high the price of justice would go.

Loosing Abbacchio had taken a hit on everyone, Narancia sobbing loudly begging Giorno to heal him and bring him back but it was helpless. Abbacchio died long before they could do anything to aid him and there was nothing they could do. (Y/N) could barely hold her own tears, holding Narancia in a tight embrace as he grieved his heart out. Bruno bit into his lip to keep his composure, making it bleed from the force but (Y/N) saw through that, he was hurting the most.

“Enough grieving” she said softly to the rest after a couple of deep breaths “We must continue on, to avenge Abbacchio’s death”

But for the boss it wasn’t enough, it was never enough.  

There he was, Bruno Bucciarati holding into (Y/N)’s lifeless body covered in blood, he tried so hard to suppress the tears, pretending to be strong like he had when Abbacchio’s life was ripped away the same way but his sobs were loud and clear, Trish and Narancia cried holding each other after losing the closest thing they had to a mother figure while Mista and Giorno stood completely shocked with teary eyes, not believing their eyes.

October, 1999.

“What do you think happens when we die?”

It was a late night, Bruno and (Y/N) sat in the balcony of the house looking up at the sky, wrapped in warm blankets while talking the night away.

“Well, stop living?”

“Haha very funny” she laughed dryly slightly glaring at him “I mean, do you believe there’s an afterlife or do we just disappear?”

Bruno thought for a moment “I believe we are reincarnated to live a new life”

“Oh?”

She turned all her attention from the stars to him, his eyes bright despite the lack of light. The moon being the only one illuminating the scenery. Bruno turned to her with a lovesick look in his eyes before speaking again

“I also believe that if we’re meant to be, we’ll be together in every lifetime”

“Like soulmates?” her voice sounded so hopeful and Bruno nodded with a hearty chuckle taking her hand between his

“Yes, soulmates.”

“Always the romantic type” she laughed looking back the stars still holding his hand “Then let’s find each other in every lifetime Bruno Bucciarati”

April, 2001.

“I’ll find you tesoro” he cried into her hair “We’ll meet again”

And like they had done with their other fallen companions, they couldn’t stay for long. Finding a safe place among the chaos Bruno left her body with one last kiss and with heavy pain in his chest he turned away, he had to finish this mission in the honor of the fallen.

September, 2001.

Fate was cruel, life was cruel. Giorno discovered that at a very young age and now once again grieving the loss of his friends.

He was now don of the mafia, men coming to pay his respects as he sat almighty on his chair but he knew the heaviness of the price he had to pay and how he got there. Thoughts of his friends constantly plagued his mind, thoughts of what could’ve been.

In the privacy of his loneliness Giorno couldn’t stop the rogue tears that came with remembering, looking over the small items placed to remember his deceased friends.

April, 2019.

(Y/N) walked along the city of Naples with phone in hand, searching for the right address her mom gave her leading to a café she had visited before but was completely new to (Y/N), apparently it was a small café that had been running since 2001 and opened everyday ever since.

She looked around with a frown in her features until she spotted it, ‘There it is! ‘Gli Amanti’ finally!’ she smiled and turned both ways to cross the street but she didn’t really think about actually stepping back into the sidewalk as she stumbled before a hand caught her arms pulling her back into balance

“Are you okay miss?” a voice asked with concern,

“I- I’m good thanks” (Y/N) sighed after the scare and looked up at the stranger that had helped her,

“No problem”

She stood frozen for a moment; both did. Those eyes had something familiar to them but (Y/N) couldn’t place a name on this stranger’s face and apparently, he was having the same struggle until he spoke up again

“Excuse me but… have we met before?”

“I don’t think we have… but you look oddly familiar”

“I’m Bruno” he gave her a relaxed smile and extended his hand for her to take

“(Y/N)” shaking his hand she could her cheeks burning but that didn’t stop her from smiling back at him

“Would you mind sharing a drink with me?”

“I would love to”

As they walked into the café (Y/N) could still feel some odd familiarity to this complete stranger, as if they had met before and it was a good tingling feeling in her heart.

—

NOTES: I had this fic in the works for SO LONG but I’m glad i finished it! I wasn’t really confident about it but please let me know what you think💞

What do you think happens after we die?

Also thank you so much for 700 followers!!!! Y’all mean the world to me❤️