un regalo per EVERYONE
Revenge, Emphatic
by ? // for EVERYONE
characters/pairings: Lambo/Reborn
rating: PG-13ish
warnings: dumbassery, mostly.
wordcount: 1829
summary: Lambo invites Reborn to a simple, low-key wine-tasting. Or at least, that was what it was supposed to be.
notes: My god, I think I had about four different versions of this prompt going at one point. Reborn and Lambo hate me. Absolutely. I really really really hope you (i.e., [recipeient] and any other reader, but mostly [recipeient]) don’t hate it. It’s meant to be a light, fun read without getting overly schmoopy, but if you violently disagree with my assessment, do critique accordingly! It is very welcome and encouraged.
This takes place in Rome, btw, so there are a couple refs, e.g. Tiber River, Trastevere (the western bank of the Tiber). And no one really cares except for me, so moving on!
Please enjoy.
This begins with the classic line:
A hitman walks into a bar.
So a hitman walks into a bar. He’s a tall, thin, unfriendly kind of guy, very young with a kind of easy swagger to his steps, and he’s toting a gun. Not a big one, but just big enough to creep out the tourists in Trastevere, which was where he heading through.
And this bar, well. It’s not a bar-bar, or a pub-bar, or a club-bar. It’s a classy dig. It’s an enoteca, where you drink wine and eat cheese sticks and explicate on the meaning of life via more wine. What’s nice for the hitman is that it’s down one of those dark narrow medieval streets so lined on either side with Smart Cars that no sane tourist would go wandering down it without good reason.
Anyways, the tall unfriendly guy walks into the enoteca, and stops at the open door. He’s good at his job, which means he’s got a decent tingling spider-sense, which means he can see he just walked into a set-up.
At the back, the sommelier and his daughter are tied up and guarded. Two goons flank Reborn on either side of the doorway, and straight up front and center, a certain stupid cow is being held up by an ugly Sicilian.
“…You,” says Reborn flatly. “You stupid cow.”
Lambo smiles sheepishly from behind his shaggy wave of bangs and manages to look suave even with the barrel of a gun digging into his back.
“Ciao,” he greets in his slow, mellow manner, only slightly apologetic. “I’ve got a rosso picked out for you though, if that helps-”
“What part of ‘simple’ and ‘low-key’ wine tasting did I fail to understand?” Reborn asks coolly, arms folded across his narrow chest. “You promised this would be quick.”
“We can still place the order for the dinner on Friday tonight, Giovanni says he’s got a couple crate- Ow, man! Relax.” The last bit is directed at his captor who seems to be entertaining a violently spastic wrist.
“Basta,” snaps the dame in between them, a scowl marring her pretty features. At her flick-of-wrist, the big Sicilian pokes Lambo hard with the gun again. Reborn notices her for the first time, and then notices her shapely figure again, appreciatively.
“You’re not holding back due to some misplaced ideas of chivalry, are you?” Reborn finally asks, narrowing his eyes at Lambo.
“I- no, that is. At first a little. But Reborn, they’re wearing rubber gloves!” the captive adds hastily as Reborn’s expression shutters. Indeed, the three goons have on what look like yellow dishwashing gloves. Reborn rolls his eyes.
The woman clears her throat impatiently. “Reborn!” she snaps. The hitman turns to her slowly. Beside him, the two goons take a menacing step forward. “Do you know me?” she demands.
Reborn tilts his chin up at her, runs his sharp gaze over her body again, and finally shrugs. “No one important, at least,” he concludes.
“I am Carmela Torrone,” she spits, tossing her short black hair, dark eyes sparking with emotion. “You killed my favorite brother sixteen years ago, and now, I will have the satisfaction of your death!”
“Excuse me,” Lambo interjects, holding up one hand tentatively. “I was four when he killed your brother. So obviously, there’s no need for extra bloodshed and I can go, right?” He winces when both Reborn and Carmela snap at him to shut up. “This is your fault,” he tells Reborn accusingly.
“Feel free to kill the useless sack of meat anytime,” Reborn drawls. Lambo glares at him balefully.
“You can posture all you want, Reborn,” Carmela sneers unpleasantly, voice like poisoned honey. “We know all about you and your caro Lambo. I will kill him slowly, so you know what it’s like to see your dearest person die while you are helpless, and then- what? What?” Carmela looks angrily at Lambo as he tries to cover up his sudden gag reflex.
“Pardon me. Lady,” Lambo shudders, “I think you got it wrong. Me and Reborn, we hate each other.”
“I don’t even notice him,” Reborn agrees loftily.
“It’s my goal in life to kill him,” Lambo continues.
“And I break his face in,” Reborn finishes with a certain morbid satisfaction.
Carmela looks unconvinced as she exchanges looks with her goons. “But we have evidence of you two trysting at the Café Ludo,” she says doubtfully.
“I was trying to strangle him,” Reborn clarifies, bored.
“-At the Piazza Trilussa-”
“Don’t remind me,” Lambo says sullenly. “I couldn’t eat solids for a week.”
Carmela looks discomfited, then plows forward obstinately. “We heard what happened in the Hotel Angelica.”
Reborn sneers. “What you heard was me beating the crap out of him.”
Lambo smiles beatifically. “I scratched his ankle,” he admits proudly. “First time drew blood.”
With a passionate motion, Carmela jerks up her hand and fires off two shots at Lambo with her pearl handled revolver.
Lambo obediently shuts up. Stares down unhappily at the bullet-grazed sleeve of his favorite leather jacket and looks reproachfully at her.
“Silence!” she orders, a flush rising high in her pale cheeks. “Do not make a mockery of my revenge!”
“You’re not helping your case with the,” Reborn gestures critically. “…dishwashing gloves.”
“Davi! Rolf!” Carmela orders, and the two goons on either side of Reborn spring into action.
Reborn moves like a flash of light; he disappears and reappears behind the two men and with little preamble smashes their heads together. As Carmela levels off shots at the hitman, Lambo drops to the ground and rams his head into the third goon’s solar plexus. Once on his feet, he’s shaking his coat out and catching the handles of the Berettas that fall into his hands. One he keeps trained on his previous captor, the second at Carmela. Materializing behind her, Reborn presses a revolver against the back of her pretty head as well.
“The gloves’ll really come in handy now,” Lambo quips dryly.
“Shut up,” Reborn drawls, smirking at the back of Carmela’s frozen figure. “Well well, Ms. Torrone. Still keen on that sophomoric attempt at revenge?”
Carmela fumes, and says nothing, her firm, delicate chin raised stubbornly high. Lambo feels his resolve waver as a perfect tear crystallizes and slides down her cheek.
“Hey, Reborn, maybe we can just leave?” he suggests, and knew it was the wrong thing to say, because there, right there! is a flash of triumph on Carmela’s face. Fortunately, Reborn knows what he’s doing.
“Shut up, stupid cow. My professional opinion of you has just dropped another level,” he says witheringly.
“But we don’t have time to mix the cement,” Lambo protests, trying to make up for the slip of tongue, and is guiltily gleeful at the horrified, hateful look Carmela gives him.
“Pity,” Reborn deadpans. He flips open his slim mobile. “Alas, I suppose I can just place a direct call to Francesco Torrone and tell him where he can pick up the bodies.”
And as Carmela’s lovely brown eyes widen, the butt of Reborn’s gun smashes into the back of her head, and she goes down in a crumple of limbs and fine silk. Lambo squats down and pulls the yellow gloves from the Sicilian’s hands, and smiling lazily, advances on him with a raised finger. The man is speechless with fear, eyes huge and skin paling to a sickly gray.
Lambo flicks his nose.
It’s only a small shock of static, but the anticipation seems to have been too much, and the Torrone slumps to the floor, unconscious.
As Lambo heads over to secure the rest of the goons as well as free the sommelier and his daughter, Reborn finishes his call and picks up the open bottle of red wine, eyeing the label critically.
“Thanks,” Lambo says, sauntering up to the hitman. Reborn ignores him.
“Ten crates, Giovanni. Friday,” Reborn calls to the sommelier and leaves the enoteca, kicking at the slumped bodies in his way.
“Hey, wait up,” Lambo calls, loping after him in a long-legged stride. “I mean it, thanks for actually answering my call.”
Reborn spins and backs the other man into the wall. “Never contact me again for something as idiotic as that farce again,” he warns, low and deadly. “You won’t live to regret it.”
Lambo looks mulish. “I was thanking you,” he mutters.
“You can do that by jumping off the Tarpeian Rock,” Reborn informs him coolly. “I don’t want your gratitude.”
“What about a drink?” Lambo suggests, and then winces at the glare Reborn sends him.
“Okay, bad example. Skipping the drinks,” he notes, and then in a long stride, traps Reborn against the wall. “Straight to the old-fashioned way.”
“Excuse me-” Reborn begins sarcastically, but is cut off by Lambo’s mouth on his, firm and insistent.
For the first time in a pretty long time, Reborn’s mind blanks. It doesn’t happen often, and that’s probably why he doesn’t immediately jerk back and shoot the suicidal moron in the face. And so in that brief moment, Lambo’s tongue flickers past his teeth, and unwittingly, Reborn breathes in so sharply he gets just a touch lightheaded. Still in shock, that’s why Lambo’s still standing and not-mortally wounded, and Reborn hates it when he’s forced to remember how much strength the freakin’ cow actually packs on that broad rangy frame of his. Lower down, Lambo’s bony hands are splayed warm and wide on Reborn’s waist, and slowly, tentatively, they inch towards the pants line on a hopeful search for access to skin.
But finally, there’s the famed Reborn survival instinct kicking in, and at a point of sharp pain, Lambo jerks back, blood welling from where Reborn’s teeth have cut into his mouth.
Before Lambo can protest, Reborn knocks out a one-two combo that would have impressed Joe Louis, and the scruffy guardian crashes to the cobblestone ground, rubbing at his jaw. His hound-dog eyes stare soulfully up at the other man.
“Ow, Reborn!”
“You want to die?” Reborn growls, wiping his mouth with a look of utter distaste and pissed-offness. “I don’t know why I made that a question.” With fierce rapidity he fires his gun at the man sprawled on the floor, the bullets ricocheting off the stones and making Lambo scramble for his life.
“You kissed back!” Lambo shouts back heatedly, panic making him sound remarkably like his five-year-old self as he runs full-speed down the narrow alleyway. “Admit it- you liked it!”
“Die,” Reborn repeats emphatically, shooting at Lambo’s heels with deadly accuracy. He listens with grim satisfaction to Lambo’s fading yelps as the bullets nick his calves and seriously debates hunting the moron down and stringing him along the Tiber.
Instead, Reborn puts away his weapons, and then thoughtfully licks Lambo’s blood from his lip. A small, predatory smile lifts the corners of his thin mouth as he mentally places bets on just how long the stupid cow thinks he can avoid him.
by ? // for EVERYONE
characters/pairings: Lambo/Reborn
rating: PG-13ish
warnings: dumbassery, mostly.
wordcount: 1829
summary: Lambo invites Reborn to a simple, low-key wine-tasting. Or at least, that was what it was supposed to be.
notes: My god, I think I had about four different versions of this prompt going at one point. Reborn and Lambo hate me. Absolutely. I really really really hope you (i.e., [recipeient] and any other reader, but mostly [recipeient]) don’t hate it. It’s meant to be a light, fun read without getting overly schmoopy, but if you violently disagree with my assessment, do critique accordingly! It is very welcome and encouraged.
This takes place in Rome, btw, so there are a couple refs, e.g. Tiber River, Trastevere (the western bank of the Tiber). And no one really cares except for me, so moving on!
Please enjoy.
This begins with the classic line:
A hitman walks into a bar.
So a hitman walks into a bar. He’s a tall, thin, unfriendly kind of guy, very young with a kind of easy swagger to his steps, and he’s toting a gun. Not a big one, but just big enough to creep out the tourists in Trastevere, which was where he heading through.
And this bar, well. It’s not a bar-bar, or a pub-bar, or a club-bar. It’s a classy dig. It’s an enoteca, where you drink wine and eat cheese sticks and explicate on the meaning of life via more wine. What’s nice for the hitman is that it’s down one of those dark narrow medieval streets so lined on either side with Smart Cars that no sane tourist would go wandering down it without good reason.
Anyways, the tall unfriendly guy walks into the enoteca, and stops at the open door. He’s good at his job, which means he’s got a decent tingling spider-sense, which means he can see he just walked into a set-up.
At the back, the sommelier and his daughter are tied up and guarded. Two goons flank Reborn on either side of the doorway, and straight up front and center, a certain stupid cow is being held up by an ugly Sicilian.
“…You,” says Reborn flatly. “You stupid cow.”
Lambo smiles sheepishly from behind his shaggy wave of bangs and manages to look suave even with the barrel of a gun digging into his back.
“Ciao,” he greets in his slow, mellow manner, only slightly apologetic. “I’ve got a rosso picked out for you though, if that helps-”
“What part of ‘simple’ and ‘low-key’ wine tasting did I fail to understand?” Reborn asks coolly, arms folded across his narrow chest. “You promised this would be quick.”
“We can still place the order for the dinner on Friday tonight, Giovanni says he’s got a couple crate- Ow, man! Relax.” The last bit is directed at his captor who seems to be entertaining a violently spastic wrist.
“Basta,” snaps the dame in between them, a scowl marring her pretty features. At her flick-of-wrist, the big Sicilian pokes Lambo hard with the gun again. Reborn notices her for the first time, and then notices her shapely figure again, appreciatively.
“You’re not holding back due to some misplaced ideas of chivalry, are you?” Reborn finally asks, narrowing his eyes at Lambo.
“I- no, that is. At first a little. But Reborn, they’re wearing rubber gloves!” the captive adds hastily as Reborn’s expression shutters. Indeed, the three goons have on what look like yellow dishwashing gloves. Reborn rolls his eyes.
The woman clears her throat impatiently. “Reborn!” she snaps. The hitman turns to her slowly. Beside him, the two goons take a menacing step forward. “Do you know me?” she demands.
Reborn tilts his chin up at her, runs his sharp gaze over her body again, and finally shrugs. “No one important, at least,” he concludes.
“I am Carmela Torrone,” she spits, tossing her short black hair, dark eyes sparking with emotion. “You killed my favorite brother sixteen years ago, and now, I will have the satisfaction of your death!”
“Excuse me,” Lambo interjects, holding up one hand tentatively. “I was four when he killed your brother. So obviously, there’s no need for extra bloodshed and I can go, right?” He winces when both Reborn and Carmela snap at him to shut up. “This is your fault,” he tells Reborn accusingly.
“Feel free to kill the useless sack of meat anytime,” Reborn drawls. Lambo glares at him balefully.
“You can posture all you want, Reborn,” Carmela sneers unpleasantly, voice like poisoned honey. “We know all about you and your caro Lambo. I will kill him slowly, so you know what it’s like to see your dearest person die while you are helpless, and then- what? What?” Carmela looks angrily at Lambo as he tries to cover up his sudden gag reflex.
“Pardon me. Lady,” Lambo shudders, “I think you got it wrong. Me and Reborn, we hate each other.”
“I don’t even notice him,” Reborn agrees loftily.
“It’s my goal in life to kill him,” Lambo continues.
“And I break his face in,” Reborn finishes with a certain morbid satisfaction.
Carmela looks unconvinced as she exchanges looks with her goons. “But we have evidence of you two trysting at the Café Ludo,” she says doubtfully.
“I was trying to strangle him,” Reborn clarifies, bored.
“-At the Piazza Trilussa-”
“Don’t remind me,” Lambo says sullenly. “I couldn’t eat solids for a week.”
Carmela looks discomfited, then plows forward obstinately. “We heard what happened in the Hotel Angelica.”
Reborn sneers. “What you heard was me beating the crap out of him.”
Lambo smiles beatifically. “I scratched his ankle,” he admits proudly. “First time drew blood.”
With a passionate motion, Carmela jerks up her hand and fires off two shots at Lambo with her pearl handled revolver.
Lambo obediently shuts up. Stares down unhappily at the bullet-grazed sleeve of his favorite leather jacket and looks reproachfully at her.
“Silence!” she orders, a flush rising high in her pale cheeks. “Do not make a mockery of my revenge!”
“You’re not helping your case with the,” Reborn gestures critically. “…dishwashing gloves.”
“Davi! Rolf!” Carmela orders, and the two goons on either side of Reborn spring into action.
Reborn moves like a flash of light; he disappears and reappears behind the two men and with little preamble smashes their heads together. As Carmela levels off shots at the hitman, Lambo drops to the ground and rams his head into the third goon’s solar plexus. Once on his feet, he’s shaking his coat out and catching the handles of the Berettas that fall into his hands. One he keeps trained on his previous captor, the second at Carmela. Materializing behind her, Reborn presses a revolver against the back of her pretty head as well.
“The gloves’ll really come in handy now,” Lambo quips dryly.
“Shut up,” Reborn drawls, smirking at the back of Carmela’s frozen figure. “Well well, Ms. Torrone. Still keen on that sophomoric attempt at revenge?”
Carmela fumes, and says nothing, her firm, delicate chin raised stubbornly high. Lambo feels his resolve waver as a perfect tear crystallizes and slides down her cheek.
“Hey, Reborn, maybe we can just leave?” he suggests, and knew it was the wrong thing to say, because there, right there! is a flash of triumph on Carmela’s face. Fortunately, Reborn knows what he’s doing.
“Shut up, stupid cow. My professional opinion of you has just dropped another level,” he says witheringly.
“But we don’t have time to mix the cement,” Lambo protests, trying to make up for the slip of tongue, and is guiltily gleeful at the horrified, hateful look Carmela gives him.
“Pity,” Reborn deadpans. He flips open his slim mobile. “Alas, I suppose I can just place a direct call to Francesco Torrone and tell him where he can pick up the bodies.”
And as Carmela’s lovely brown eyes widen, the butt of Reborn’s gun smashes into the back of her head, and she goes down in a crumple of limbs and fine silk. Lambo squats down and pulls the yellow gloves from the Sicilian’s hands, and smiling lazily, advances on him with a raised finger. The man is speechless with fear, eyes huge and skin paling to a sickly gray.
Lambo flicks his nose.
It’s only a small shock of static, but the anticipation seems to have been too much, and the Torrone slumps to the floor, unconscious.
As Lambo heads over to secure the rest of the goons as well as free the sommelier and his daughter, Reborn finishes his call and picks up the open bottle of red wine, eyeing the label critically.
“Thanks,” Lambo says, sauntering up to the hitman. Reborn ignores him.
“Ten crates, Giovanni. Friday,” Reborn calls to the sommelier and leaves the enoteca, kicking at the slumped bodies in his way.
“Hey, wait up,” Lambo calls, loping after him in a long-legged stride. “I mean it, thanks for actually answering my call.”
Reborn spins and backs the other man into the wall. “Never contact me again for something as idiotic as that farce again,” he warns, low and deadly. “You won’t live to regret it.”
Lambo looks mulish. “I was thanking you,” he mutters.
“You can do that by jumping off the Tarpeian Rock,” Reborn informs him coolly. “I don’t want your gratitude.”
“What about a drink?” Lambo suggests, and then winces at the glare Reborn sends him.
“Okay, bad example. Skipping the drinks,” he notes, and then in a long stride, traps Reborn against the wall. “Straight to the old-fashioned way.”
“Excuse me-” Reborn begins sarcastically, but is cut off by Lambo’s mouth on his, firm and insistent.
For the first time in a pretty long time, Reborn’s mind blanks. It doesn’t happen often, and that’s probably why he doesn’t immediately jerk back and shoot the suicidal moron in the face. And so in that brief moment, Lambo’s tongue flickers past his teeth, and unwittingly, Reborn breathes in so sharply he gets just a touch lightheaded. Still in shock, that’s why Lambo’s still standing and not-mortally wounded, and Reborn hates it when he’s forced to remember how much strength the freakin’ cow actually packs on that broad rangy frame of his. Lower down, Lambo’s bony hands are splayed warm and wide on Reborn’s waist, and slowly, tentatively, they inch towards the pants line on a hopeful search for access to skin.
But finally, there’s the famed Reborn survival instinct kicking in, and at a point of sharp pain, Lambo jerks back, blood welling from where Reborn’s teeth have cut into his mouth.
Before Lambo can protest, Reborn knocks out a one-two combo that would have impressed Joe Louis, and the scruffy guardian crashes to the cobblestone ground, rubbing at his jaw. His hound-dog eyes stare soulfully up at the other man.
“Ow, Reborn!”
“You want to die?” Reborn growls, wiping his mouth with a look of utter distaste and pissed-offness. “I don’t know why I made that a question.” With fierce rapidity he fires his gun at the man sprawled on the floor, the bullets ricocheting off the stones and making Lambo scramble for his life.
“You kissed back!” Lambo shouts back heatedly, panic making him sound remarkably like his five-year-old self as he runs full-speed down the narrow alleyway. “Admit it- you liked it!”
“Die,” Reborn repeats emphatically, shooting at Lambo’s heels with deadly accuracy. He listens with grim satisfaction to Lambo’s fading yelps as the bullets nick his calves and seriously debates hunting the moron down and stringing him along the Tiber.
Instead, Reborn puts away his weapons, and then thoughtfully licks Lambo’s blood from his lip. A small, predatory smile lifts the corners of his thin mouth as he mentally places bets on just how long the stupid cow thinks he can avoid him.