Breakfast is served in a large conservatory at the back of the hotel. The tables overlook the courtyard, where people smoke and drink coffee under parasols, laughing in the sweet Italian air. The food comes out hot, steaming plates of continental breakfast with pastries and meats alike. Your shoes click on the tiled floor, and the air borders between a comforting warmth and suffocating. The other patrons chatter, cutlery clinking and scraping on plates, and the bubbling noise of conversation settles in your eardrums. Bruno spots Abbachio and Fugo sat in the corner and leads you over, winding around tables and mismatched chairs. Four plates of breakfast sit before you, with two half-eaten, and a pot of coffee steams pleasantly. You pour yourself a cup, stirring in milk absent-mindedly as you watch out the windows.
The grass of the courtyard is wild, and flowers grow freely in pavement cracks. Birds flutter between trees, dancing in the air, twirling and twisting like streamers. You watch the floating hands of vibrant stories, the readjustment of hair, the touchup of makeup in mirrors. You're brought back to the table by Fugo's hand slamming on the table,
"Where did it go?" He says, you can hear his voice as it toys the line of fury.
"Huh? Where'd what go?" You ask. Abbachio barely lifts his eyes of his plate,
"Your chair its-"
"It's missing! Yes I know!" Fugo steps back, indeed his chair is nowhere to be seen. Bruno crosses his arms,
"Strange. First the door lock and now this."
"The door lock was your imagination," Fugo says, "This is not... I-"
You're about to say something, halfway through a mouthful of croissant when suddenly you bite down on something hard. Your jaw aches, and you barely stop yourself from crunching down and cracking a tooth.
"O-ow, what the hell?" You pull the foreign object out of your mouth, it's a lock. The door lock Bruno had supposedly seen the night before. It's here. In your hand, covered in your saliva. You drop it onto your plate. Bruno gasps,
"What is this?"
"An enemy?" Abbachio readies himself, on his feet in an instant.
You scan the room. The courtyard. It's all so... normal... Anyone in this room could be the user, but nobody even looked your way.
"We have to get out of here. There's too many people around, someone could get hurt." Bruno grabs your hand, and the four of you run out of the room, into the maze of hallways.
It's dark, with no windows in the hallways, the light is limited to the yellowish tinge of the ceiling lights. You squint in the shadows, remembering the way you had stumbled through here in your exhaustion last night, wishing for nothing but to sleep. The four of you wandered around, refusing to speak as you scanned the bottom floor of the hotel. You reached the reception, where the desk lay abandoned and light comes through the door, dust dancing in the air. Sticky Fingers emerges from the wall, and Bruno sighs, restless.
"There's nobody around, everyone is at breakfast."
"What do we do?" You ask, you can feel the stand energy vibrating through your body. You're itching for a fight, desperate to release some of the pent up energy in your body. Abbachio huffs, and from behind you comes a noise, like a rewinding tape. You turn,
"Bruno?" You hesitate, "there's two of you?"
The other Bruno ignores you, walking down the hall towards your room. There's a screen in his forehead, numbers quickly counting down. Abbachio looks the other way, and you can tell he's embarrassed to use his stand so openly in front of everyone.
"You thought you saw a doorknob, right? Let's check." Abbachio follows his stand down the hallway, and you trot along behind him, soon followed by Fugo and the real Bruno. The hallways are haunting, and you recall how dank they felt the night before. The fake Bruno stumbles along slowly, exhaustion visible in his delayed movements, and you watch as he enters the room. At that moment, Bruno's hand reaches behind him and turns a lock with a soft click.
"The lock really disappeared, but how?" You observe the stand as it climbs into bed, and you can see the space your body had filled, the way the stand curls up behind something that is no longer there. There's another noise, and Bruno fizzles into Moody Blues, who then disappears completely.
"We can see that as well, Moody Blues will turn into anyone present in this hallway throughout the night."
And with that, the noise resumes, but quicker, you see Moody Blues shake and glitch as it tries to find somebody to become. The time counts down, 9 hours, 8, 7, 6... until. 0 hours, 0 minutes. Nothing. Nobody went past this hallway all night, but the lock still disappeared.
"Excuse me gentleman, oh- and lady."
The four of you turn around. There's a bellboy, dressed in a suit, with soft white gloves covering his hands. His hair hangs low in his eyes, but age is visible in the crows feet and smile lines. He bows to you politely and when he smiles, you, catch a glimpse of a single, golden tooth.
"Are the four of you looking for something? May I assist?"
"I lost a ring," you say, holding up your hand, "It's my engagement ring, so I was really hoping to find it. I thought somebody may have taken it, have you seen anybody around? Maybe last night?"
The bellboy shakes his head, "I'm afraid not, my apologies. I must ask you to return to breakfast now, but I will ask the cleaners."
You nod to him, "Thank you, we appreciate it." You link arms with Bruno and walk together back towards the dining hall.
Bruno chuckles, "Engagement ring?"
"Shut up, would you rather I tell them the truth?"
~~~~~~~~
Breakfast ends, and you stir your coffee aimlessly,
"Why don't we just go? The user doesn't want to reveal themselves, and they're yet to pose any real threat, why can't we just leave?"
"We don't know what they're capable of, but we can't wait forever, at some point we have to give up." Fugo agrees, twirling a fork between his fingers.
Abbachio just shrugs, and signals for the waiter,
"A bottle of this, please." He points to a wine on the list, the waiter shakes their head.
"I'm sorry, signore, but we haven't carried that vintage for years. I'm not sure why it's still on the menu. May I recommend this instead? It's very similar."
"Sure, grazie." Abbachio hangs his head and blows the hair out of his face. Bruno sighs.
"Maybe you're right. Come on, let's just go collect our things and go." Bruno pushes his chair out and stands, much to Abbachio's dismay.
"But my wine-" he begins,
"You can get some later, quickly now, before we're any real danger."
~~~~~~~~
Your bags are heavy in hour hands, weighing you down as you trudge towards the door. Bruno takes one from you wordlessly and you ease up. It's a shame you never got to fight, but maybe it's for the best. You'll need your energy for Cioccolatta, and fighting an enemy you don't know? You let out a weak sigh and straighten out your spine. You trudge along behind Abbachio and Fugo, not really looking where your going. You don't even notice that Abbachio has stopped walking until you crash into the back of him.
"What is it?" You ask.
"It's gone," he replies, voice dangerously quiet
"What is?"
"The door."
YOU ARE READING
Work With Me -Bruno Buccellati x Reader-
FanfictionThe job of Capo came with a lot of pressure, and not a lot of free time. A life of infinite wealth and power awaits Bruno Buccellati, if only he could keep his papers in order. Passione didn't accept just anyone, and with no one else quite fitting t...
