Holiday Ficlet for chlorate!
This fic is for chlorate, my Godfather slash soulmate. She beta'd her own gift ficlet because there is no one else who could, and I appreciate it greatly. As usual, the fic is so much better for it. :) :)
Title: To the Mattresses
Fandom: The Godfather
Pairing: Sonny/Tom
Rating: R
Summary: After Michael goes into hiding, the anticipated war begins in New York, and Sonny moves into a mattress-strewn apartment on the West Side with Clemenza, Tessio, a collection of button men, and Tom.
Notes: This was inspired by chlorate's request for a shaving scene and Clemenza teaching Michael how to make pasta sauce, telling him, "you might have to cook for twenty guys someday." I love that the Corleone kids aren't excepted from that duty.
They have a piece of paper taped to the wall with a list of their names -- code names, just in case, 'cause who needs the cops coming across a list like that -- and a set of check marks so that nobody will try to get out of his duty when his turn comes up. Sonny keeps a close eye on it to make sure that nobody is cheating, though he's tempted to himself. Who would have the balls to call him on it? He leaves the list alone mostly because it's the kind of decent thing you do when you're crammed into an apartment with nine other guys for God knows how long and every time you go out to see your family or buy a paper is another chance to die. And anyway he can always count on Tom to do most of the work for him when it's his turn to cook.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Tom says when Sonny asks for help. "All you really have to do is stir."
"Hey, what can I say, you're better at this than me," Sonny says, slapping Tom's shoulders as he moves in to take over stirring the pot of tomato sauce that's beginning to boil on the apartment's crummy old stove. Tom gives him a look but keeps stirring, turns the burner down. They've been underground for three weeks now, and it's been going okay, all things considered. Only one of the guys Sonny sent out hasn't come back. News is hard to come by; there's what they print in the papers, but that's barely half the story. Tom wants to work on the outside and report back, but Sonny doesn't need information that bad, not yet.
Last time the families went to the mattresses it was exciting, the kind of action Sonny had been waiting for. That was before his father nearly died and his brother got shipped off to hide in Sicily after volunteering to kill the Turk and that cop. Being underground isn't a thrill anymore; it's frustrating and slow. Sonny used to be the one running jobs and reporting back, but now, somehow, he's the Don, and he has to stay put. The only good thing about this trip to the mattresses is that Tom is here now, to stir the sauce and keep things in order. Last time around, Tom was at school. So was Mike.
"Hear anything about Mike?" Sonny asks later, when he and Tom are alone in the glorified pantry they've converted into a bedroom by paving the floor with a mattress. It's lousy not to have any windows, but they need the privacy. There are things only the two of them are allowed to know.
"You know you'd be the first one I'd tell if I heard anything," Tom says. He's sitting with his back to the wall beside the single lamp they've claimed for their room, one knee bent and a newspaper propped against it. Sonny is pacing.
"I don't know anything anymore," he mutters, pulling his hands through his hair. He didn't have enough time to think about what it would be like to be the Don someday, and even if he'd tried, he wouldn't have been able to envision a world that wasn't shaped by his father's careful calculations. He hasn't mentioned anything to Tom, but he's sure that Tom can tell how directionless and frantic he's felt since his father was hit and Mike left town.
"Do you have to do that on the bed?" Tom asks when Sonny continues to walk back and forth across the mattress that stretches from one side of the room to nearly touch the opposite wall. "And with your shoes on?"
"Hey, Ma, sorry to mess up your fine linens." Sonny kicks the sheets they've been using across the mattress. Tom stares at him, unblinking. "I need to get out of here," Sonny says. But there's nowhere to go, so he only sits down beside Tom.
"We can go up to the roof later," Tom says, like that's some big treat. He keeps bugging Sonny for permission to go around town and sniff out information, but they've got button men for that, and it's not like Sonny doesn't know that he really just wants to get the hell out of here for a little while. They're all starting to go crazy, cooped up and waiting to hear who's still alive and who ain't and who's probably next. Clemenza says the restlessness always happens around three weeks, but Sonny was underground for a month and a half last time, and he doesn't remember it being so goddamn tedious. Of course, back then he was one of the button men who had the privilege of coming and going.
"What're you reading?" Sonny asks, pulling the paper toward him.
"I was just looking at the picture they printed of the Gambino kid," Tom says. "I can't figure out who did him. I told Rocco to try and ask around, but even that's dangerous. It might not be worth it."
"Rocco can handle himself," Sonny says. Tom scoffs, 'cause he's got to doubt everything Sonny says on principle, and Sonny brings the paper closer to study the picture of Nicky Gambino, face down in some shithole dinner on the Lower East Side. Sonny used to steal cigarettes with him when they were kids. He was an idiot.
"Tessio told me Carlo's been sniffing around Pop's house," Tom says. "He wants a job, or, I don't know what he wants, something."
"Eh, fuck him," Sonny mutters. "What's going on now is too important. He shouldn't even know where we are, he'll end up coming around and tipping guys off and fucking it all up."
"You think I don't know that?" Tom says, and Sonny whacks him with the newspaper. Tom shoulders him and yanks the paper out of his hand. "All's I'm saying is that Carlo's been coming around without Connie. To me it's kind of curious."
"Kind of curious," Sonny says, in the voice he always puts on when he's giving Tom hell for being a college boy. "Carlo couldn't find his dick with a map. Relax."
"Sometimes stupid people are dangerous," Tom says, like Sonny doesn't know that. Tom folds up the paper and slips it into the crack between the mattress and the wall they're leaning against. He tries to keep the place organized and is always making neat piles of the junk Sonny leaves lying around. Sonny joked the other day that Tom is his wartime wife, and that really pissed him off, even though he didn't say it around the other guys.
Sonny brings his fist up to Tom's jaw and presses a fake punch onto him, pushes his knuckles into his cheek. Tom gives him that look of his, then grins.
"We going up to the roof or what?" Sonny asks.
They go every day unless it's raining, usually around dusk, the light low enough to offer some cover but not so far gone that they stand out against the lights of the city. They don't do anything special up on the roof, just smoke and maybe have a drink, but the dirty city air reminds them that there is a world beyond their cramped temporary dwelling, and the sound of car horns and police sirens is strangely comforting from outside the walls of the apartment.
"You able to get word to Teresa this week?" Sonny asks when they're sitting on the ledge that looks down into the alley behind the building. They're always careful not to get too close to the side that faces the street. Tom lights a cigarette, shrugs.
"She knows I'm alright," he says. Sonny isn't sure what that means. He's starting to miss his kids, which is a brand new phenomenon, since he's never been away from them for more than a few days. He misses Sandra, too, though not as much as he misses his mother's cooking and nailing Lucy Mancini. Not that he misses Lucy in particular, since her whining about why he doesn't come around more often has gotten as bad as Sandra's complaining about how often he's gone. He just misses sex. With everybody laid out on the mattresses they can't even jerk off except in the shower, and the thought of all the other guys going to town in there is enough to turn his stomach, though it doesn't stop him from taking advantage of the time alone. He's considered suggesting to Tom that they take turns having private time in the room, but Tom would just laugh at him. He doesn't seem to need things like that, at least not as much as Sonny does.
"It's been quiet for a few days," Tom says, squinting at the horizon. "I don't like that."
"Don't be dramatic," Sonny says.
"Now who sounds like Ma?" Tom grins at him, and Sonny shoves him, trying not to laugh. Sometimes it still sounds strange, Tom referring to Sonny's mother as his own. Not that Tom doesn't feel like a brother; he always has. It's just that he's always felt more like Sonny's brother than Vito and Carmella's son.
"Speaking of Ma," Sonny says. "Clemenza talked to her when he went by the house the other day. She says Fredo's still, uh." Sonny motions with his hand, trying to indicate 'screwed up' in a charitable way. Tom nods in understanding.
"He'll be alright," Tom says. Sonny scoffs and flicks his cigarette across the roof. It cartwheels, shooting sparks, until it hits the base of a chimney.
"Fucking Fredo," Sonny says. "Jesus Christ. If it had been me there that day --"
"Hey, c'mon," Tom says, grabbing his wrist to stop him from emphasizing the sentiment with a gesture. "If it'd been you with him they might have gunned you down, too, for good measure."
"At least I woulda died like a man," Sonny mutters. Tom smacks the back of his head, and Sonny elbows him, but keeps his eyes on the ground. He's been having dreams about that day when his father got shot, and in them he's always locked in jail, watching it happen from behind bars that look out onto the street.
"You've got a death wish," Tom says. "I don't understand it."
"You don't understand it," Sonny repeats mockingly, feeling listless and tired. This whole war is like a dream for him; he has to sit back and watch other guys make things happen. He didn't think being Don would be like this, but maybe he should have known.
They sit in silence for awhile, Tom smoking his cigarette down to a stub and Sonny staring off into the distance, wishing he'd thought to bring something to drink. Everything is so damn tense and frustrating. He wants to put out a hit on the older Gambino brother while the family is weak, but Tom tells him the only rational thing to do is wait. Sonny is beginning to think waiting is Tom's greatest joy in life.
He hears Tom's jaw click and glances over to see him yawning. Sonny laughs to himself. He's not sure why, but it's funny. He can't remember ever seeing Tom yawn before.
"What?" Tom asks, looking at him. He's bleary-eyed but straight-backed, the last of his cigarette still burning between his fingers.
"Nothing," Sonny says, but he goes on staring at Tom until he gets shoved.
*
Sonny has the dream about his father again that night, but this time it's Michael who is with their father instead of Fredo, and the faceless attackers gun them both down. Sonny bangs and punches the bars of his prison cell, because he'd rather break his hands against them than just stand there watching his father and brother bleed onto the pavement, and he wakes up in a struggle, Tom holding onto his fists and trying to calm him down.
"Hey, c'mon," Tom says when Sonny blinks up at him. "You're dreaming, Sonny. Be still."
Those last two words hit him like hypnosis and he goes limp in Tom's grip, panting. The room is almost pitch dark, the only light coming from the lamp that's always on out in the main living area, glowing dimly along the outlines of the doorway. He can't really see Tom, but he can picture his face pretty clearly, tired and irritated. He pulls away from Tom and runs his hands over his face, feeling humiliated.
"Jesus," he says. "This lockdown is getting to me. I don't know. Go back to sleep." Tom is still hovering beside him like he expects another outburst.
"You alright?" Tom asks. He touches Sonny's shoulder, and as Sonny's eyes begin to adjust to the low light he sees that Tom looks worried and wide awake, as if he had been lying there waiting for this to happen. Sonny laughs and pats his cheek.
"Yeah, I'm alright," he says. "Must have been a spider crawling across my face or something. This place is disgusting." He rolls away from Tom and waits for him to move back to his side of the bed. Tom pats his shoulder before he does, and Sonny feels like a moron. Tom Hagen is the only person he's ever met who he considers to be tougher than himself. Tom never fights and doesn't carry a gun and only ever raises his voice when Sonny gets him worked up, but he survived on the streets for a whole year when he was only eleven years old, no family or food and not a single person to watch his back. Sonny can't even imagine that kind of naked isolation, let alone as a child. He hates appearing weak in front of anyone, and it's usually not an issue, but more than anything he can't stand the idea of Tom thinking he's soft. Funny, too, because for some reason Tom always seems to be the person who sees him like this, fighting nightmares.
Sonny sleeps late that morning, which is easy to do in the windowless room. When he finally turns onto his back, Tom is gone. He lies there for awhile, getting his bearings, then hoists himself up with a groan and shrugs his crumpled shirt back on. They'll have to send the laundry out soon. Sonny hates having to think about this sort of bullshit, but maybe Tom has already made arrangements.
He walks through the crowded apartment and greets the men unenthusiastically, absorbing bits of news from them as he makes his way toward the bathroom. There was a bust at a club in the Bronx late last night, two major players were arrested, the Tattaglias were probably responsible for the tip off. The sound of that name makes Sonny's throat tighten, and he thinks of his father, laid up and helpless at the house. Sonny has fifty guys watching the place round the clock, but he only knows a few of them personally, and he doesn't even trust them one hundred percent. He doesn't trust anybody who doesn't share his blood, except Tom, of course, but Sonny needs him here.
"Hagen's in there," Rocco says when Sonny goes for the bathroom door.
"That's too bad for him, 'cause I gotta take a leak," Sonny says, though he really just wants the shower. He pounds on the door twice. Whoever picked out a place with only one bathroom for ten guys is really fucking brilliant. "Hey, Tommy, put some clothes on, I'm comin' in."
He knocks into Tom with the door as he's opening it, and Tom grunts in annoyance but moves aside to let him in. Sonny shuts the door behind him and flips the toilet lid down, sits on it. Tom is filling the sink with hot water, and the whole bathroom is still humid from his shower. He's wearing his undershirt, but it's tucked neatly into his belted trousers, his suspenders hanging down around his hips. Sonny hasn't seen him without a buttoned-up Oxford since they went swimming together as kids. He even sleeps in one, but everybody's been sleeping fully dressed since the war started.
"What's the matter?" Tom asks, looking at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He's patting shaving cream onto his cheeks, and Sonny sniffs in amusement at the sight. Tom is always perfectly groomed, like he's still trying to audition for a spot in the family, afraid to slip up. It's strange to see him in the process of making himself perfect.
"You hear about Gio and Luke Renato getting picked up?" Sonny asks.
"It's not our problem," Tom says. "Not yet, anyway."
"Not yet, anyway, he says!" Sonny throws up his hands. Tom ignores him and draws his razor carefully down his cheeks, tipping his chin up.
"What do you want to do?" Tom asks, dunking his razor in the water. Sonny doesn't like his tone, like he's humoring him, like always.
"I want to show the Tattaglias that they're not running the goddamn show," Sonny says, standing. He crosses his arms and crowds Tom at the sink, but he won't look at him, just keeps shaving like he can't break his concentration. "They're getting cocky and it's not good for us."
Tom breathes out a tiny laugh, and Sonny knows he must think it's hilarious, him calling somebody cocky. Well, let him laugh. He's going to storm out but he doesn't, just stands watching with sleepy fascination as Tom's smooth face reappears from underneath the white fluff of the shaving cream.
"First you want to take out Rob Gambino," Tom says. "Now you want to send the Tattaglias a message. I got news for you, Sonny: we don't have that many expendable guys left."
"Well, what do we got guys for if not to do what we need them to?"
"Need?" Tom says. He dunks his razor again, nothing left on his face now but two tiny spots of cream on his cheekbones. "Or want?"
"Huh?" Sonny shakes his head, feels like he's lost track of the conversation. His heart is racing. "This ain't about what I want," he manages. "It's about anticipating, you know. Making, uh. Jesus, Tommy, you know what I mean."
Tom wipes his face with a towel and inspects his work in the mirror, turning from left to right. The soapy smell of him reminds Sonny of taking baths when he was a kid. He wouldn't mind one now, instead of that narrow goddamn shower again.
"Striking preemptively," Tom translates for him, and Sonny slaps his shoulder, points at his face.
"Exactly," he says. Tom smiles a little, glances at him.
"You might be right about the Tattaglias," he says. He takes his shirt from a hook on the back of the door and pulls it on. "They've got something planned, this bust is a sign. Maybe just a message, but either way. I'll see what I can find out."
"You're not going anywhere," Sonny says.
"I meant through Clemenza and the guys! Jesus, Sonny! Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what? I'm not! Will you get outta here, I'm trying to get my fucking shower."
"Alright, alright," Tom mumbles, tucking in his shirt. He checks himself in the mirror and pulls his suspenders up over his shoulders. He looks like he always does, put together, though his hair is still damp. Sonny stares at him, feeling like he's underwater, fuzzy and slow. Maybe because he didn't sleep so good last night. Tom walks out of the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. Sonny undresses, throws his clothes into a heap on the floor and steps under the water once it's hot. He feels like he's on the verge of figuring something out, about Nick's murder and the timing of this bust, but maybe he's kidding himself. It's all a soupy mess in his head, and he keeps thinking about Tom yawning, and how he looked in his undershirt, shaving with the same obsessive precision he applies to everything. He's like another kind of mystery, and Sonny doesn't really know why he's stuck on it, except that it's funny, how he'd trust Tom with his life though all it takes is a yawn to make Sonny feel like there's a lot he doesn't know about him.
This gets him thinking about how Tom looks when he fucks, naturally. He's got to do it at least sometimes; he's got two kids. It's hard to imagine at first, but Sonny has his dick in his hand, a reflex when showering here, and though he still can't imagine Tom with his wife, sweaty and thrusting or anything like that, he can picture what he was probably doing in here before Sonny came in, tugging on his own cock. Tom would be all businesslike about it at first, then his knees would get weak and he'd have to brace himself against the wall of the shower. Sonny leans forward and spreads his own hand out against the tile. Maybe he would really fuck his hand toward the end, hips jerking, cock all soapy and red between his fingers. But what would his face look like? That's the hard part. Sonny shuts his eyes and moves his hand faster, his muscles going tense as he gets closer. He holds onto the image he's worked up: Tom with his hand on his cock, feeling good, about to let himself go, needing it. He'd tip his head back, maybe, open his mouth, his eyelids all heavy. When he came he'd moan, never mind that he'd have to swallow it up here with all the guys outside, Sonny imagines him moaning from deep in his chest, almost sobbing toward the end of it, yeah, yeah, and then his face would turn red as he caught his breath and remembered himself.
Sonny comes on the floor of the shower and leans against the wall with both elbows, panting in the steamed-up air. It's the first time he's really enjoyed a jerk off since he's been here, and his cock is still catching up, almost sore with surprise in the aftermath. He laughs at himself, feels his own cheeks heating. Well, so what? Tom wouldn't mind. He'd probably just think it was funny. Not that Sonny's gonna tell him.
There's a lot of talk among the guys for the rest of the day, about the arrests the night before and why the Tattaglias might have been behind them. The general opinion is that Gio and Luke would be dead if the Tattaglias were really behind the sting.
"Listen," Tom says from the beat up old easy chair where he's been sitting, one leg thrown over the right arm in a way that's making Sonny wish he would just sit with both his goddamn feet on the floor. He sits up straight as if he read Sonny's mind, but Sonny knows it's really only because he's excited about what he's about to say. "I think I might have worked this out."
Everyone gathers around, though they'd previously been ignoring Tom, who was quiet while the other men shouted their theories. Even the greenest button men know that when Tom says he's got something figured out, it's worth listening.
"The Tattaglias are still in bed with the cops, right?" Tom says. "They're running an investigation of the whole department, but that doesn't mean that everybody who had a stake in their business is gonna have the nerve to brush them off just because of a little heat. I'm thinking they had Gio and Luke arrested so that one of their inside guys could make them an offer while they're being held. Everybody's watching who everyone else talks to, right, and there's consequences, so we're all being careful. But if they let some junior cop who's on the payroll do the talking, they're covering their asses, right?"
"That's it!" Sonny says, jumping up from the battered sofa. "That's it, that's it, those dirty fucking -- the Renatos and Tattaglias together, that's exactly how they paired up last time, back when Tattaglia was nothing."
"Good thinking," Clemenza agrees, and Toms sits back, pretending not to be thrilled with himself. "But what the hell do we do about it?"
Tom holds up his hands and looks at Sonny, who is grinding his fist into his palm, ready for a fight.
"We hit 'em both," Sonny says. "We stamp this shit out right now."
"Wait a minute," Tom says, sitting forward. "It won't do any good if we don't wait for the most opportune time."
"Wait, wait, wait, that's all you ever want to do!" Sonny shouts. "We'll all be in our goddamn graves before you make a decision."
"We'll all be in our graves by tonight if we go after two families when they're still scattered all over the city!" Tom shouts back. "You and I need to think about this and we need to send guys out to find out if the deal even took with Gio and Luke --"
"They're alive, ain't they!" Sonny says. "I'd say the deal took, Tommy."
"Alright, but we can't go around acting as if we know it has until we get some sort of reassurance," Tom says, his voice lower now but still tight. "Clemenza, I need you and Rocco on that," he says, and then he looks to Sonny, realizing he's just given an order without his consent. He'd never try to pull that with the old man. "Okay?" Tom asks, still staring at him.
"Yeah, great." Sonny throws up his hands, paces the room. "But the longer we wait the stronger they get, okay?"
"Not necessarily," Tom says. "These temporary unions don't always go so great. The Renatos are probably afraid of the Tattaglias now, but that fear could turn into resentment, and we could exploit that as a weakness in both families."
"What, a year from now?" Sonny shouts. He kicks an ottoman over as he walks across the room. Tom stands up and walks to him, and Sonny considers reeling back to deck him, but he just shrugs Tom's hand away when he touches his shoulder.
"We'll wait and see what Clemenza and Rocco can find out," Tom says, quiet like Sonny is a kid who needs to be reined in. That's how he thinks of him, and Sonny would have had killed him for it a long time ago if he was anybody else. "I agree that the timing is important. We'll be careful at first, but I don't want to miss our chance, either. I just need more information before we make any decisions."
"We," Sonny mutters.
"Yeah," Tom says. "You know I'm only trying to help. Jesus, Sonny, you act like --"
"Alright," Sonny shouts across the room, pointing to Rocco and Clemenza. "You two get out of here. Don't be long, but don't come back with just bullshit to tell me. And watch out who you talk to, eh?"
They nod and get their coats, and as they're heading for the door another group of guys return from street detail. Sonny lets Tom grill them, goes to the makeshift bedroom and turns on the lamp. He punches the mattress, and it squeaks under his fist like he's hurt its feelings.
*
It's foggy and cold out by five o'clock, but Sonny goes up to the roof anyway, this time only in the company of a fifth of bourbon. He's pissed off at Tom and everybody else by extension. He spent most of the day listening to a Dodgers game on the radio with Tessio and eating gummy pasta that some idiot overcooked, and he just wants to be left alone, but it gets old fast and he's glad when Tom appears at the top of the stairwell.
"What are you doing up here?" Tom asks. He's left his coat downstairs, and he pulls his shoulders up to his ears as he walks across the roof to the place on the ledge where Sonny is sitting and drinking his bourbon.
"What am I doing? What am I ever doing in this shithole? Killing time, sitting around. Christ."
Tom takes the bourbon and Sonny watches him drink some. Tom always closes one eye when he drinks hard liquor, or maybe he only does that when it's straight from the bottle, or only when Sonny is watching.
"Listen," Tom says when Sonny takes the bottle back. "I'm sorry about before. That was disrespectful of me."
"Fuck, Tom, don't apologize like you think I'm gonna whack you for being an asshole. You're my brother, okay? And anyway, I disrespect you all the time."
Tom grins down at the cement and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "That's true," he says.
"Sit down, will ya? What are you thinking coming up here without a coat?" Tom is shivering beside him, making him think of the day they met. "And don't tell me I sound like Ma."
Sonny slides his coat off and drapes it around Tom's shoulders like he did that day he found him in the park. Some bum had stolen Tom's jacket, and he wasn't just shivering but shuddering, skinny as lightning, his eyes dark and hollow. Sonny had seen homeless people before, but never a kid. He put his coat around him, and Tom was so out of it he barely noticed. Sonny got him all the way home and fed him milk and pound cake before Tom even had the presence of mind to tell him his name.
Tom is avoiding his eyes, and Sonny knows he's thinking about the same thing. It's still hard for both of them to explain to other people what happened that day. Sonny was unwilling to let Tom out of his sight from the moment he laid eyes on him. He thought Tom would die for sure if anyone else was trusted with him, especially some orphanage like the one he'd escaped from. Tom had spent the last year running from everyone who got near him and knowing that anyone who tried only wanted to steal from him or harm him, but when Sonny came along he clung hard and fast, and he still hasn't let go.
"Hey," Sonny says, tapping Tom's cheek to snap him out of it. "Ain't it your turn to cook tonight?"
"No," Tom says. He looks dazed. "I don't think so."
Something is flipping around in Sonny's stomach, wreaking havoc, and he doesn't like it. Maybe it's the sight of Tom slumped in his coat, looking vulnerable for the first time in years. Sonny wants to yank him into his arms and hold him steady until he's back to normal. He decides he'd better pick a fight with him instead.
"You do think you know everything," Sonny says, as if Tom asked him to please detail his faults. "What if you're wrong about the Renatos and the Tattaglias?"
"Then we'll find out from Clemenza or somebody that I was wrong, and we'll be glad we did the research." Tom frowns at him. "You seemed to think that scenario I came up with was pretty likely when we were downstairs."
"Eh, I don't know." Sonny stands up; he's beginning to get cold. The sun is disappearing fast behind the cloud cover. "Maybe, maybe not."
"Well, have you got a better theory?" Tom asks. He stands up and follows Sonny back toward the stairwell. "You think it was random, you think anything that goes on between any of the five families is random these days?"
"Don't get all worked up!" Sonny shouts, though that was exactly his intention by returning to this subject. "All's I'm saying is that you've been wrong before."
"Yeah? So have you, actually."
"Oh, right, I bet you keep a list, huh?"
"C'mon, Sonny," Tom says, his shoulders sinking inside Sonny's coat. "You know I'm not like that."
"Not like what?"
"I don't -- keep a list -- I don't think there's anything wrong with you."
Something about the way he says it makes them both freeze in place and clam up. Sonny shakes it off and throws up a hand.
"Yeah, great, you just think everything I say and do is wrong and that I'd be dead without you, and --"
"Sonny!" Tom sputters. His eyes are wide, and Sonny isn't sure he likes him like this, unraveling. "Don't talk like that. You know I'm the one who'd be dead without you."
"That's right you would," Sonny says, and he grabs the lapels on the coat and drags Tom over to the stairwell, pins him against the brick. Tom doesn't even blink, his eyes big and afraid like he thinks Sonny is going to kill him. Sonny could do it, too, and Tom would just accept his fate. He's the toughest guy Sonny has ever met, but he's always been in Sonny's pocket, however he tries to pretend he can run things around here. He relaxes in Sonny's grip, waiting to see what will happen, always waiting.
"Goddammit, Tommy," Sonny says, squeezing the lapels tighter into his fists. Tom lets out a ragged breath, and it puffs out between their faces, visible in the cold air. Sonny feels like he's about to kiss Tom on the mouth and he's not sure why the hell he would but suddenly it seems like the right thing to do. Tom's hands are on his sides, and his thumbs are perched over Sonny's belt like he'll hook them into it if he's allowed. Sonny is getting hard just thinking about this morning and the shower, the smell of Tom's shaving cream still lingering on his face. He leans forward to crush his body against Tom's, wanting the warmth of his coat back as much as anything. Tom is even harder than he is, and Sonny laughs deep in his throat. Tom just shuts his eyes and breathes deep, his chest moving against Sonny's.
"This is the worst thing we could do," Tom says. He opens his eyes slowly, like he's afraid to see Sonny's expression. Sonny shakes his head, shrugs. He feels good like he hasn't in a long time, doing something he shouldn't, something he'll get away with anyway. He thought he'd run out of sins to conquer, brand new.
"Here," Sonny says, snaking a hand between them and fumbling for Tom's belt buckle. "Let me see something."
"Christ," Tom breathes, but he doesn't stop him, keeps his hands tight on Sonny's waist, his thumbs locked around his belt now. "Can't you wait until we're inside?" His face is bright red and his lips are shaking. From the cold, he'd say, if Sonny was cruel enough to ask.
"It's too dark in there," Sonny says, sliding a hand down into Tom's trousers. "I wanna be able to see your face."
"We do have a lamp--ah, yeah, that's -- that's --" Tom's face is so hot Sonny can feel it even before he presses his lips to his cheek, almost jokingly, like this is a game. He strokes his cock slow and firm, knows how frustrating it is when a broad doesn't apply enough pressure. Not that he's the broad in this scenario. He just wants to see Tom's face, to see if he was right about the way he looks when he's hard and dripping like he can't wait to come. His mouth is open, eyes hooded, but he looks sweeter than Sonny could have pictured, scared. His cock is so warm and thick and it fits so well in Sonny's hand that he's sorta shocked that they've never done this before. Suddenly it seems like their kind of thing, something about him that Tom will just get without explanation.
"You like that, Tommy?" Sonny asks. He reaches lower when Tom spreads his legs apart, strokes his sweating balls. Tom doesn't answer, just lets his eyes fall shut, so Sonny gives his balls a squeeze, drawing a sharp gasp out of him. Sonny smirks and cocks an eyebrow at him, slides his hand back up to tease his fingers along the length of his dick.
"You wanna come?" Sonny asks. Tom nods, slow and deliberate like he's struggling to remain conscious. He's breathing crazy, hard and fast, and he reaches up to hold Sonny's elbow with one hand like he's bracing himself. Sonny leans in to press his face against Tom's smooth cheek while he pumps him, feels his cockhead swell and pulls back to watch his face when he comes. Tom pinches his eyes tight, wrinkles his nose, then lets everything go, breathes out and moans in the back of his throat, the tension melting out of his face as his cock pulses in Sonny's hand. His hands slide up Sonny's back, pulling him in closer, and he ducks his face to Sonny's neck, hides.
"How was it, Tommy?" Sonny asks, because he feels like that should have been more revealing somehow, like he didn't really glimpse whatever he's looking for. "Huh? Felt good, right?"
"Sonny," Tom cries, soft and buried. He lifts his face and lets Sonny see him. He looks wrecked and happy, his hair still perfectly slicked but his whole demeanor different, like suddenly he's open wide. He kisses Sonny on the mouth, his tongue pushing his lips apart, and it somehow feels like more than Sonny has agreed to, but Tom seems to really need it, so Sonny kisses him back. He never understood the point of kissing, but maybe this is it: doing it with the wrong person, somebody who could get you in trouble. It was like this with Lucy at first, though that was more about the actual fucking than anything else. This is like Tom trying to tell him something in a language that neither of them really speaks, and it's so good that when Tom reaches down to rub Sonny's cock through his trousers he comes in his underwear like a kid.
Tom doesn't stop kissing him when he comes, doesn't stop until the sky has gone completely dark. Sonny has his arms wrapped around Tom's back, inside the coat where it's warm. Tom is boneless and punch drunk, sighing like he's going to fall asleep. Sonny is addicted to the sweet, soapy smell of his face, keeps kissing his cheeks. He's waiting to feel awkward or regretful, but it's Tommy, who has always seemed to know and understand everything about him, and this is no different. Tom is the only person who's ever looked all the way into his eyes, straight to the back of him.
"You don't know," Tom says, pulling the flaps of the coat up around Sonny's shoulders. "You don't even know."
"I don't know what?" Sonny asks.
"How long," Tom starts to say, but then he gets a look on his face like he just remembered he left the oven on and straightens his back against the wall. "Nothing."
They go downstairs like somebody's called for them, like they've got someplace to be. Tom goes straight to the bathroom and Sonny to the bedroom, and they clean up as best they can. Out in the apartment, guys are sloping toward the table for dinner, a few of them kind of drunk, which Sonny would give them hell for if he weren't in the same boat. Tom is sitting at one end of the table talking with Tessio about a politician friend of Pop's who's waffling now that things have gotten serious. Sonny sits at the other end and eats a slice of cold lasagna that somebody's wife sent over. Guys try to talk to him about what his next move is going to be, but he just grunts at them.
He keeps thinking about the last time he felt this way, when he noticed things about Tom that seemed out of place and couldn't stop thinking about them. They were sixteen, and it was right before Sonny quit school and convinced his father to let him work for the family. It started on the stoop of a brownstone in the Bronx. They were waiting for Fredo; they were going to drive him home from some friend's house. Sonny was ranting at Tom for claiming that he was going to leave school and join up with the family, too. Tom was too smart for that and they both knew it, but he wanted to do everything Sonny did, back then. Sonny was in the middle of telling him it had nothing to do with the fact that he was good in a fight (he actually wasn't, but Sonny didn't want to crush him with the truth) when Tom stuck a cigarette behind his ear. He'd been waving it around like he was getting ready to smoke it, but then he got too frustrated with Sonny to concentrate on lighting it and just slipped it behind his ear like he kept his cigarettes there all the time. He didn't; Sonny was pretty sure he'd never done it before, and he wasn't sure why he knew that, or why he couldn't stop looking once he had, staring at that line of white against Tom's blond hair.
In the days that followed, other things caught Sonny's eye: the way Tom touched his eyebrows when he was overwhelmed, drawing two fingers over each of them and pressing hard enough to make his eyes slant, the way he ate artichoke hearts right out of the jar and licked the juice off his fingers when he thought nobody was looking, and anything else that broke the facade of perfection he'd been keeping up for five years. He always tried so hard to stay in the background, keep quiet and be helpful. He did Sonny's homework and helped Connie set the table and kept Fredo company at school even though everybody else thought Fredo was a pest. He tried hard not to have any problems of his own, never talked about his dead parents or that year when he was homeless, even when Sonny pelted him with questions about it. For some reason, this made his every flaw fascinating. He came home from school with his tie askew and Sonny couldn't stop looking, was sad when he straightened it before dinner. He shut his finger in a kitchen cabinet and cursed, almost nodded off during church, touched the back of his neck when he was nervous. Sonny wasn't sure if Tom had always done secret sloppy things, but suddenly he felt like he was doing them just for him, so he would notice, like they were talking in code. What was actually happening almost crashed onto Sonny the night Tom laughed at something Clemenza said at the dinner table and got the hiccups. Every time Tom bounced in his seat and tried to swallow up the sound of a hiccup, Sonny's pants got tighter, and he wrote it off as the kind of random thing that had been giving him embarrassing erections since he was fourteen, but he made an effort to stop looking too long at Tom after that, no matter what he did.
Tom goes into the bedroom after dinner and shuts the door behind him. Sonny stays out in the living area to play cards and drink some more, not sure what he's supposed to do when he's alone with Tom after what happened on the roof. He could do nothing and Tom wouldn't complain, would just read his newspaper, turn over and go to sleep. He could take Tom's pants down and fuck him all night, and Tom wouldn't complain, would just stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from making too much noise. Sonny knows what he tried to tell him on the roof; he's not stupid. You don't know how long. He's losing badly at cards, letting the other guys rob him, thinking about how he could have gone up to Tom's college on weekends and fucked him against the dormitory wall and nobody would have known. Not that things would have turned out differently, but he feels like he's lost something he can't get back, even with Tom in there waiting for him to do whatever he's going to do, and he wishes he'd never stopped looking at him the way he used to.
When he finally goes into the room it's after midnight, and Tom has fallen asleep with the lamp on, stretched out on his back with the newspaper on his stomach. The sight of him lying there with his head tipped sideways on the pillow, one hand still spread out on the newspaper and the other fallen to the mattress, yanks so hard at Sonny's gut that it almost makes him mad. He shuts the door carefully so Tom won't wake up, pulls off his suspenders and unbuttons his shirt. He almost wants to sleep somewhere else, afraid of what Tom is expecting from him and knowing he'll never find out, no matter what he gives him. He could watch Tom come in his hand ten thousand times and there would still be some part of him that stayed closed up and far away. Sonny slides onto the mattress and leans over Tom to turn off the lamp. Tom's eyes flicker open, and he sighs sleepily, wrinkles the newspaper and stares up at Sonny.
"Hear anything from Clemenza and Rocco?" Tom asks. His voice is bent up from sleep. Sonny still has his hand on the lamp's chain, his arm stretched across Tom's chest.
"I'd 'a woke you up if I had," Sonny says, like he's disgusted with the question, and he pulls the chain. The room goes pitch dark, and Sonny crawls back to his side of the mattress. He hears Tom fold up the newspaper and tuck it away. It's cold in the room, but neither of them reaches for the blanket.
Sonny is exhausted and falls asleep almost immediately. He dreams of the street where his father was shot a few days before Christmas, snow falling lazily and turning to gray mush on the sidewalk. He realizes with a flood of panic and relief that he's not in prison this time, he's walking around freely, and maybe he can stop the guys who are about to try to kill his father. He doesn't see his father anywhere, Fredo either, and he scans the street for suspicious characters. He has no weapons, but he'll take these guys down with his bare hands if he finds them.
When he sees Tom wandering around, he runs to him, thinking he can at least stop Sollozzo from kidnapping him. As if shooting at his Pop wasn't enough of a death wish, that fucking Turk had the nerve to lay his hands on Tommy, and to insult him by asking him to talk Sonny into taking his deal. Nobody understands Tom Hagen, and it's worked to the family's advantage before, people thinking they can confide in him about their betrayals and schemes, because he's not a real Corleone, because they think he'd be the first one to sell the family out. I told him, Tom had said when he got back, his voice still shaking, I told him you'd come after him with everything you've got. Sonny will never forget that fucking Turk's voice on the phone, his father nearly dead, Mike panicked, Fredo destroyed, Ma stoic with worry, and the bastard says We've got Tom Hagen. Sonny went out of himself for a few seconds, barely heard him claim they were going to release Tom in three hours, and Sandra got mad at him after it was all over, for writing the time on the kitchen cabinet. He doesn't even remember doing it.
"Tom!" he shouts as he winds his way through the street, which is more crowded than it usually is in his dreams about that day. Tom is walking ahead of him in a beat-up overcoat, his hair messy and his gait unsteady, and Sonny thinks they must have roughed him up, those fucking Tattaglias, that Turk, whoever, they're dead. He finally catches up to Tom and grabs his shoulder, spins him around. Tom's face is dirty and hollow, and he rears back, looks at Sonny like he's crazy to try and touch him.
"Tommy," Sonny says. "What did they do to you?"
Tom shakes his head and backs away as if he's never seen Sonny before in his life. Sonny thinks they must have hit him on the head, he's confused, and he walks forward to grab him again, but suddenly there's gunfire everywhere, and he hits the ground, knows for a moment that they're all dead, his whole family. Tom, too.
He wakes up sucking in his breath, everything dark, but someone is with him. It's Tom, touching his face and telling him it's alright, it's okay, everything's okay.
"Tommy," he says, clutching at him, drawing him down. He doesn't know where they are or what's going on for a moment, but Tom is here and he says things are okay. Tom isn't always right, but he usually is, and anyway he wouldn't lie.
"You're alright," Tom says, his head tucked against Sonny's chest. Sonny pets his hair and stares into the thick black of the room, trusts that Tom is right about this. Tom slides a cautious hand across Sonny's stomach, holds onto the point of his hip.
"What if I didn't see you that day," Sonny says. He runs his hand across Tom's back, feels his suspenders still strapped on tight. "When we were kids."
"I'd be dead," Tom says.
"No, I don't know. I don't know about that."
"I do," Tom says.
"How come you never talk about it? That year when you were on your own?"
Tom is quiet, his heart pounding against Sonny's side.
"What do you want to know?" he asks.
"I don't know. What was it like?"
Tom sits up on his elbow, tries to draw away, but Sonny won't let him. He hooks a leg around him and flips him onto his back, crushes him against the mattress. Tom huffs out a surprised sound that makes Sonny want to lick his lips apart, but he just finds his hands, pins them over his head.
"Go on, Tommy," Sonny says. "Tell me."
"It was awful, okay?" Tom says. "You saw me. You remember what I looked like when you found me."
He does, but more than that, he remembers the way Tom cleaned up and started to gain weight, stopped flinching all the time, started sleeping in his bed instead of on the floor underneath it. Sonny watched him come back to life, and he remembers the first time he saw Tom smile, not just politely but really wide and sincere, beaming like sunlight. It was an afternoon in summer, the two of them wandering around the property, Sonny squeezing a bullet casing into his palm like it was a good luck charm, something to make wishes on. He'd found it in the woods the week before, and it was always in his pocket if it wasn't in his hand.
"When's your birthday?" Sonny had asked Tom.
"I don't know," Tom said, his usual answer to any question of a personal nature.
"Well, fuck," Sonny said. "Then it might as well be today."
Tom smiled at him then, for real, for the first time, and Sonny gave him the bullet casing as a birthday present. It was his most cherished possession, but ever since he'd met Tom he'd wanted to give him everything he had.
"You don't have to tell me," Sonny says now, still lying on top of Tom, who's getting hard against his thigh like a teenager who'll take anything he can get. "You don't have to tell me anything."
Sonny kisses him, and Tom sighs into his mouth with what sounds like relief. They roll onto their sides and then across the bed, until Tom is lying on top of Sonny, and he likes the feeling, but he pulls Tom's suspenders down to let him know he's still in charge here.
"You remember that shell I gave you for your made-up birthday?" Sonny asks. He reaches over to flick on the lamp so that he can watch Tom unbutton his shirt.
"Yeah," Tom says. He turns the lamp back off, fumbles with his pants. Sonny reaches for the lamp again, annoyed that Tom doesn't want him to see him undress, but Tom catches his hand. He uncurls Sonny's fingers and puts something in his palm. It's rounded and metallic, and Sonny is confused only for half a second. He leaves the lamp off, closes the bullet casing into his hand.
"Tommy," he says.
Tom leans down to push his face against Sonny's, and his eyelashes are hot and wet on Sonny's cheek.
"I love it when you call me that," he says, his voice soft and broken, and this must be the hidden thing Sonny's been searching for, because it floods him like the lamp has come back on, and suddenly he can see Tom through the dark.
*
Title: To the Mattresses
Fandom: The Godfather
Pairing: Sonny/Tom
Rating: R
Summary: After Michael goes into hiding, the anticipated war begins in New York, and Sonny moves into a mattress-strewn apartment on the West Side with Clemenza, Tessio, a collection of button men, and Tom.
Notes: This was inspired by chlorate's request for a shaving scene and Clemenza teaching Michael how to make pasta sauce, telling him, "you might have to cook for twenty guys someday." I love that the Corleone kids aren't excepted from that duty.
They have a piece of paper taped to the wall with a list of their names -- code names, just in case, 'cause who needs the cops coming across a list like that -- and a set of check marks so that nobody will try to get out of his duty when his turn comes up. Sonny keeps a close eye on it to make sure that nobody is cheating, though he's tempted to himself. Who would have the balls to call him on it? He leaves the list alone mostly because it's the kind of decent thing you do when you're crammed into an apartment with nine other guys for God knows how long and every time you go out to see your family or buy a paper is another chance to die. And anyway he can always count on Tom to do most of the work for him when it's his turn to cook.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Tom says when Sonny asks for help. "All you really have to do is stir."
"Hey, what can I say, you're better at this than me," Sonny says, slapping Tom's shoulders as he moves in to take over stirring the pot of tomato sauce that's beginning to boil on the apartment's crummy old stove. Tom gives him a look but keeps stirring, turns the burner down. They've been underground for three weeks now, and it's been going okay, all things considered. Only one of the guys Sonny sent out hasn't come back. News is hard to come by; there's what they print in the papers, but that's barely half the story. Tom wants to work on the outside and report back, but Sonny doesn't need information that bad, not yet.
Last time the families went to the mattresses it was exciting, the kind of action Sonny had been waiting for. That was before his father nearly died and his brother got shipped off to hide in Sicily after volunteering to kill the Turk and that cop. Being underground isn't a thrill anymore; it's frustrating and slow. Sonny used to be the one running jobs and reporting back, but now, somehow, he's the Don, and he has to stay put. The only good thing about this trip to the mattresses is that Tom is here now, to stir the sauce and keep things in order. Last time around, Tom was at school. So was Mike.
"Hear anything about Mike?" Sonny asks later, when he and Tom are alone in the glorified pantry they've converted into a bedroom by paving the floor with a mattress. It's lousy not to have any windows, but they need the privacy. There are things only the two of them are allowed to know.
"You know you'd be the first one I'd tell if I heard anything," Tom says. He's sitting with his back to the wall beside the single lamp they've claimed for their room, one knee bent and a newspaper propped against it. Sonny is pacing.
"I don't know anything anymore," he mutters, pulling his hands through his hair. He didn't have enough time to think about what it would be like to be the Don someday, and even if he'd tried, he wouldn't have been able to envision a world that wasn't shaped by his father's careful calculations. He hasn't mentioned anything to Tom, but he's sure that Tom can tell how directionless and frantic he's felt since his father was hit and Mike left town.
"Do you have to do that on the bed?" Tom asks when Sonny continues to walk back and forth across the mattress that stretches from one side of the room to nearly touch the opposite wall. "And with your shoes on?"
"Hey, Ma, sorry to mess up your fine linens." Sonny kicks the sheets they've been using across the mattress. Tom stares at him, unblinking. "I need to get out of here," Sonny says. But there's nowhere to go, so he only sits down beside Tom.
"We can go up to the roof later," Tom says, like that's some big treat. He keeps bugging Sonny for permission to go around town and sniff out information, but they've got button men for that, and it's not like Sonny doesn't know that he really just wants to get the hell out of here for a little while. They're all starting to go crazy, cooped up and waiting to hear who's still alive and who ain't and who's probably next. Clemenza says the restlessness always happens around three weeks, but Sonny was underground for a month and a half last time, and he doesn't remember it being so goddamn tedious. Of course, back then he was one of the button men who had the privilege of coming and going.
"What're you reading?" Sonny asks, pulling the paper toward him.
"I was just looking at the picture they printed of the Gambino kid," Tom says. "I can't figure out who did him. I told Rocco to try and ask around, but even that's dangerous. It might not be worth it."
"Rocco can handle himself," Sonny says. Tom scoffs, 'cause he's got to doubt everything Sonny says on principle, and Sonny brings the paper closer to study the picture of Nicky Gambino, face down in some shithole dinner on the Lower East Side. Sonny used to steal cigarettes with him when they were kids. He was an idiot.
"Tessio told me Carlo's been sniffing around Pop's house," Tom says. "He wants a job, or, I don't know what he wants, something."
"Eh, fuck him," Sonny mutters. "What's going on now is too important. He shouldn't even know where we are, he'll end up coming around and tipping guys off and fucking it all up."
"You think I don't know that?" Tom says, and Sonny whacks him with the newspaper. Tom shoulders him and yanks the paper out of his hand. "All's I'm saying is that Carlo's been coming around without Connie. To me it's kind of curious."
"Kind of curious," Sonny says, in the voice he always puts on when he's giving Tom hell for being a college boy. "Carlo couldn't find his dick with a map. Relax."
"Sometimes stupid people are dangerous," Tom says, like Sonny doesn't know that. Tom folds up the paper and slips it into the crack between the mattress and the wall they're leaning against. He tries to keep the place organized and is always making neat piles of the junk Sonny leaves lying around. Sonny joked the other day that Tom is his wartime wife, and that really pissed him off, even though he didn't say it around the other guys.
Sonny brings his fist up to Tom's jaw and presses a fake punch onto him, pushes his knuckles into his cheek. Tom gives him that look of his, then grins.
"We going up to the roof or what?" Sonny asks.
They go every day unless it's raining, usually around dusk, the light low enough to offer some cover but not so far gone that they stand out against the lights of the city. They don't do anything special up on the roof, just smoke and maybe have a drink, but the dirty city air reminds them that there is a world beyond their cramped temporary dwelling, and the sound of car horns and police sirens is strangely comforting from outside the walls of the apartment.
"You able to get word to Teresa this week?" Sonny asks when they're sitting on the ledge that looks down into the alley behind the building. They're always careful not to get too close to the side that faces the street. Tom lights a cigarette, shrugs.
"She knows I'm alright," he says. Sonny isn't sure what that means. He's starting to miss his kids, which is a brand new phenomenon, since he's never been away from them for more than a few days. He misses Sandra, too, though not as much as he misses his mother's cooking and nailing Lucy Mancini. Not that he misses Lucy in particular, since her whining about why he doesn't come around more often has gotten as bad as Sandra's complaining about how often he's gone. He just misses sex. With everybody laid out on the mattresses they can't even jerk off except in the shower, and the thought of all the other guys going to town in there is enough to turn his stomach, though it doesn't stop him from taking advantage of the time alone. He's considered suggesting to Tom that they take turns having private time in the room, but Tom would just laugh at him. He doesn't seem to need things like that, at least not as much as Sonny does.
"It's been quiet for a few days," Tom says, squinting at the horizon. "I don't like that."
"Don't be dramatic," Sonny says.
"Now who sounds like Ma?" Tom grins at him, and Sonny shoves him, trying not to laugh. Sometimes it still sounds strange, Tom referring to Sonny's mother as his own. Not that Tom doesn't feel like a brother; he always has. It's just that he's always felt more like Sonny's brother than Vito and Carmella's son.
"Speaking of Ma," Sonny says. "Clemenza talked to her when he went by the house the other day. She says Fredo's still, uh." Sonny motions with his hand, trying to indicate 'screwed up' in a charitable way. Tom nods in understanding.
"He'll be alright," Tom says. Sonny scoffs and flicks his cigarette across the roof. It cartwheels, shooting sparks, until it hits the base of a chimney.
"Fucking Fredo," Sonny says. "Jesus Christ. If it had been me there that day --"
"Hey, c'mon," Tom says, grabbing his wrist to stop him from emphasizing the sentiment with a gesture. "If it'd been you with him they might have gunned you down, too, for good measure."
"At least I woulda died like a man," Sonny mutters. Tom smacks the back of his head, and Sonny elbows him, but keeps his eyes on the ground. He's been having dreams about that day when his father got shot, and in them he's always locked in jail, watching it happen from behind bars that look out onto the street.
"You've got a death wish," Tom says. "I don't understand it."
"You don't understand it," Sonny repeats mockingly, feeling listless and tired. This whole war is like a dream for him; he has to sit back and watch other guys make things happen. He didn't think being Don would be like this, but maybe he should have known.
They sit in silence for awhile, Tom smoking his cigarette down to a stub and Sonny staring off into the distance, wishing he'd thought to bring something to drink. Everything is so damn tense and frustrating. He wants to put out a hit on the older Gambino brother while the family is weak, but Tom tells him the only rational thing to do is wait. Sonny is beginning to think waiting is Tom's greatest joy in life.
He hears Tom's jaw click and glances over to see him yawning. Sonny laughs to himself. He's not sure why, but it's funny. He can't remember ever seeing Tom yawn before.
"What?" Tom asks, looking at him. He's bleary-eyed but straight-backed, the last of his cigarette still burning between his fingers.
"Nothing," Sonny says, but he goes on staring at Tom until he gets shoved.
*
Sonny has the dream about his father again that night, but this time it's Michael who is with their father instead of Fredo, and the faceless attackers gun them both down. Sonny bangs and punches the bars of his prison cell, because he'd rather break his hands against them than just stand there watching his father and brother bleed onto the pavement, and he wakes up in a struggle, Tom holding onto his fists and trying to calm him down.
"Hey, c'mon," Tom says when Sonny blinks up at him. "You're dreaming, Sonny. Be still."
Those last two words hit him like hypnosis and he goes limp in Tom's grip, panting. The room is almost pitch dark, the only light coming from the lamp that's always on out in the main living area, glowing dimly along the outlines of the doorway. He can't really see Tom, but he can picture his face pretty clearly, tired and irritated. He pulls away from Tom and runs his hands over his face, feeling humiliated.
"Jesus," he says. "This lockdown is getting to me. I don't know. Go back to sleep." Tom is still hovering beside him like he expects another outburst.
"You alright?" Tom asks. He touches Sonny's shoulder, and as Sonny's eyes begin to adjust to the low light he sees that Tom looks worried and wide awake, as if he had been lying there waiting for this to happen. Sonny laughs and pats his cheek.
"Yeah, I'm alright," he says. "Must have been a spider crawling across my face or something. This place is disgusting." He rolls away from Tom and waits for him to move back to his side of the bed. Tom pats his shoulder before he does, and Sonny feels like a moron. Tom Hagen is the only person he's ever met who he considers to be tougher than himself. Tom never fights and doesn't carry a gun and only ever raises his voice when Sonny gets him worked up, but he survived on the streets for a whole year when he was only eleven years old, no family or food and not a single person to watch his back. Sonny can't even imagine that kind of naked isolation, let alone as a child. He hates appearing weak in front of anyone, and it's usually not an issue, but more than anything he can't stand the idea of Tom thinking he's soft. Funny, too, because for some reason Tom always seems to be the person who sees him like this, fighting nightmares.
Sonny sleeps late that morning, which is easy to do in the windowless room. When he finally turns onto his back, Tom is gone. He lies there for awhile, getting his bearings, then hoists himself up with a groan and shrugs his crumpled shirt back on. They'll have to send the laundry out soon. Sonny hates having to think about this sort of bullshit, but maybe Tom has already made arrangements.
He walks through the crowded apartment and greets the men unenthusiastically, absorbing bits of news from them as he makes his way toward the bathroom. There was a bust at a club in the Bronx late last night, two major players were arrested, the Tattaglias were probably responsible for the tip off. The sound of that name makes Sonny's throat tighten, and he thinks of his father, laid up and helpless at the house. Sonny has fifty guys watching the place round the clock, but he only knows a few of them personally, and he doesn't even trust them one hundred percent. He doesn't trust anybody who doesn't share his blood, except Tom, of course, but Sonny needs him here.
"Hagen's in there," Rocco says when Sonny goes for the bathroom door.
"That's too bad for him, 'cause I gotta take a leak," Sonny says, though he really just wants the shower. He pounds on the door twice. Whoever picked out a place with only one bathroom for ten guys is really fucking brilliant. "Hey, Tommy, put some clothes on, I'm comin' in."
He knocks into Tom with the door as he's opening it, and Tom grunts in annoyance but moves aside to let him in. Sonny shuts the door behind him and flips the toilet lid down, sits on it. Tom is filling the sink with hot water, and the whole bathroom is still humid from his shower. He's wearing his undershirt, but it's tucked neatly into his belted trousers, his suspenders hanging down around his hips. Sonny hasn't seen him without a buttoned-up Oxford since they went swimming together as kids. He even sleeps in one, but everybody's been sleeping fully dressed since the war started.
"What's the matter?" Tom asks, looking at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. He's patting shaving cream onto his cheeks, and Sonny sniffs in amusement at the sight. Tom is always perfectly groomed, like he's still trying to audition for a spot in the family, afraid to slip up. It's strange to see him in the process of making himself perfect.
"You hear about Gio and Luke Renato getting picked up?" Sonny asks.
"It's not our problem," Tom says. "Not yet, anyway."
"Not yet, anyway, he says!" Sonny throws up his hands. Tom ignores him and draws his razor carefully down his cheeks, tipping his chin up.
"What do you want to do?" Tom asks, dunking his razor in the water. Sonny doesn't like his tone, like he's humoring him, like always.
"I want to show the Tattaglias that they're not running the goddamn show," Sonny says, standing. He crosses his arms and crowds Tom at the sink, but he won't look at him, just keeps shaving like he can't break his concentration. "They're getting cocky and it's not good for us."
Tom breathes out a tiny laugh, and Sonny knows he must think it's hilarious, him calling somebody cocky. Well, let him laugh. He's going to storm out but he doesn't, just stands watching with sleepy fascination as Tom's smooth face reappears from underneath the white fluff of the shaving cream.
"First you want to take out Rob Gambino," Tom says. "Now you want to send the Tattaglias a message. I got news for you, Sonny: we don't have that many expendable guys left."
"Well, what do we got guys for if not to do what we need them to?"
"Need?" Tom says. He dunks his razor again, nothing left on his face now but two tiny spots of cream on his cheekbones. "Or want?"
"Huh?" Sonny shakes his head, feels like he's lost track of the conversation. His heart is racing. "This ain't about what I want," he manages. "It's about anticipating, you know. Making, uh. Jesus, Tommy, you know what I mean."
Tom wipes his face with a towel and inspects his work in the mirror, turning from left to right. The soapy smell of him reminds Sonny of taking baths when he was a kid. He wouldn't mind one now, instead of that narrow goddamn shower again.
"Striking preemptively," Tom translates for him, and Sonny slaps his shoulder, points at his face.
"Exactly," he says. Tom smiles a little, glances at him.
"You might be right about the Tattaglias," he says. He takes his shirt from a hook on the back of the door and pulls it on. "They've got something planned, this bust is a sign. Maybe just a message, but either way. I'll see what I can find out."
"You're not going anywhere," Sonny says.
"I meant through Clemenza and the guys! Jesus, Sonny! Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what? I'm not! Will you get outta here, I'm trying to get my fucking shower."
"Alright, alright," Tom mumbles, tucking in his shirt. He checks himself in the mirror and pulls his suspenders up over his shoulders. He looks like he always does, put together, though his hair is still damp. Sonny stares at him, feeling like he's underwater, fuzzy and slow. Maybe because he didn't sleep so good last night. Tom walks out of the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. Sonny undresses, throws his clothes into a heap on the floor and steps under the water once it's hot. He feels like he's on the verge of figuring something out, about Nick's murder and the timing of this bust, but maybe he's kidding himself. It's all a soupy mess in his head, and he keeps thinking about Tom yawning, and how he looked in his undershirt, shaving with the same obsessive precision he applies to everything. He's like another kind of mystery, and Sonny doesn't really know why he's stuck on it, except that it's funny, how he'd trust Tom with his life though all it takes is a yawn to make Sonny feel like there's a lot he doesn't know about him.
This gets him thinking about how Tom looks when he fucks, naturally. He's got to do it at least sometimes; he's got two kids. It's hard to imagine at first, but Sonny has his dick in his hand, a reflex when showering here, and though he still can't imagine Tom with his wife, sweaty and thrusting or anything like that, he can picture what he was probably doing in here before Sonny came in, tugging on his own cock. Tom would be all businesslike about it at first, then his knees would get weak and he'd have to brace himself against the wall of the shower. Sonny leans forward and spreads his own hand out against the tile. Maybe he would really fuck his hand toward the end, hips jerking, cock all soapy and red between his fingers. But what would his face look like? That's the hard part. Sonny shuts his eyes and moves his hand faster, his muscles going tense as he gets closer. He holds onto the image he's worked up: Tom with his hand on his cock, feeling good, about to let himself go, needing it. He'd tip his head back, maybe, open his mouth, his eyelids all heavy. When he came he'd moan, never mind that he'd have to swallow it up here with all the guys outside, Sonny imagines him moaning from deep in his chest, almost sobbing toward the end of it, yeah, yeah, and then his face would turn red as he caught his breath and remembered himself.
Sonny comes on the floor of the shower and leans against the wall with both elbows, panting in the steamed-up air. It's the first time he's really enjoyed a jerk off since he's been here, and his cock is still catching up, almost sore with surprise in the aftermath. He laughs at himself, feels his own cheeks heating. Well, so what? Tom wouldn't mind. He'd probably just think it was funny. Not that Sonny's gonna tell him.
There's a lot of talk among the guys for the rest of the day, about the arrests the night before and why the Tattaglias might have been behind them. The general opinion is that Gio and Luke would be dead if the Tattaglias were really behind the sting.
"Listen," Tom says from the beat up old easy chair where he's been sitting, one leg thrown over the right arm in a way that's making Sonny wish he would just sit with both his goddamn feet on the floor. He sits up straight as if he read Sonny's mind, but Sonny knows it's really only because he's excited about what he's about to say. "I think I might have worked this out."
Everyone gathers around, though they'd previously been ignoring Tom, who was quiet while the other men shouted their theories. Even the greenest button men know that when Tom says he's got something figured out, it's worth listening.
"The Tattaglias are still in bed with the cops, right?" Tom says. "They're running an investigation of the whole department, but that doesn't mean that everybody who had a stake in their business is gonna have the nerve to brush them off just because of a little heat. I'm thinking they had Gio and Luke arrested so that one of their inside guys could make them an offer while they're being held. Everybody's watching who everyone else talks to, right, and there's consequences, so we're all being careful. But if they let some junior cop who's on the payroll do the talking, they're covering their asses, right?"
"That's it!" Sonny says, jumping up from the battered sofa. "That's it, that's it, those dirty fucking -- the Renatos and Tattaglias together, that's exactly how they paired up last time, back when Tattaglia was nothing."
"Good thinking," Clemenza agrees, and Toms sits back, pretending not to be thrilled with himself. "But what the hell do we do about it?"
Tom holds up his hands and looks at Sonny, who is grinding his fist into his palm, ready for a fight.
"We hit 'em both," Sonny says. "We stamp this shit out right now."
"Wait a minute," Tom says, sitting forward. "It won't do any good if we don't wait for the most opportune time."
"Wait, wait, wait, that's all you ever want to do!" Sonny shouts. "We'll all be in our goddamn graves before you make a decision."
"We'll all be in our graves by tonight if we go after two families when they're still scattered all over the city!" Tom shouts back. "You and I need to think about this and we need to send guys out to find out if the deal even took with Gio and Luke --"
"They're alive, ain't they!" Sonny says. "I'd say the deal took, Tommy."
"Alright, but we can't go around acting as if we know it has until we get some sort of reassurance," Tom says, his voice lower now but still tight. "Clemenza, I need you and Rocco on that," he says, and then he looks to Sonny, realizing he's just given an order without his consent. He'd never try to pull that with the old man. "Okay?" Tom asks, still staring at him.
"Yeah, great." Sonny throws up his hands, paces the room. "But the longer we wait the stronger they get, okay?"
"Not necessarily," Tom says. "These temporary unions don't always go so great. The Renatos are probably afraid of the Tattaglias now, but that fear could turn into resentment, and we could exploit that as a weakness in both families."
"What, a year from now?" Sonny shouts. He kicks an ottoman over as he walks across the room. Tom stands up and walks to him, and Sonny considers reeling back to deck him, but he just shrugs Tom's hand away when he touches his shoulder.
"We'll wait and see what Clemenza and Rocco can find out," Tom says, quiet like Sonny is a kid who needs to be reined in. That's how he thinks of him, and Sonny would have had killed him for it a long time ago if he was anybody else. "I agree that the timing is important. We'll be careful at first, but I don't want to miss our chance, either. I just need more information before we make any decisions."
"We," Sonny mutters.
"Yeah," Tom says. "You know I'm only trying to help. Jesus, Sonny, you act like --"
"Alright," Sonny shouts across the room, pointing to Rocco and Clemenza. "You two get out of here. Don't be long, but don't come back with just bullshit to tell me. And watch out who you talk to, eh?"
They nod and get their coats, and as they're heading for the door another group of guys return from street detail. Sonny lets Tom grill them, goes to the makeshift bedroom and turns on the lamp. He punches the mattress, and it squeaks under his fist like he's hurt its feelings.
*
It's foggy and cold out by five o'clock, but Sonny goes up to the roof anyway, this time only in the company of a fifth of bourbon. He's pissed off at Tom and everybody else by extension. He spent most of the day listening to a Dodgers game on the radio with Tessio and eating gummy pasta that some idiot overcooked, and he just wants to be left alone, but it gets old fast and he's glad when Tom appears at the top of the stairwell.
"What are you doing up here?" Tom asks. He's left his coat downstairs, and he pulls his shoulders up to his ears as he walks across the roof to the place on the ledge where Sonny is sitting and drinking his bourbon.
"What am I doing? What am I ever doing in this shithole? Killing time, sitting around. Christ."
Tom takes the bourbon and Sonny watches him drink some. Tom always closes one eye when he drinks hard liquor, or maybe he only does that when it's straight from the bottle, or only when Sonny is watching.
"Listen," Tom says when Sonny takes the bottle back. "I'm sorry about before. That was disrespectful of me."
"Fuck, Tom, don't apologize like you think I'm gonna whack you for being an asshole. You're my brother, okay? And anyway, I disrespect you all the time."
Tom grins down at the cement and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "That's true," he says.
"Sit down, will ya? What are you thinking coming up here without a coat?" Tom is shivering beside him, making him think of the day they met. "And don't tell me I sound like Ma."
Sonny slides his coat off and drapes it around Tom's shoulders like he did that day he found him in the park. Some bum had stolen Tom's jacket, and he wasn't just shivering but shuddering, skinny as lightning, his eyes dark and hollow. Sonny had seen homeless people before, but never a kid. He put his coat around him, and Tom was so out of it he barely noticed. Sonny got him all the way home and fed him milk and pound cake before Tom even had the presence of mind to tell him his name.
Tom is avoiding his eyes, and Sonny knows he's thinking about the same thing. It's still hard for both of them to explain to other people what happened that day. Sonny was unwilling to let Tom out of his sight from the moment he laid eyes on him. He thought Tom would die for sure if anyone else was trusted with him, especially some orphanage like the one he'd escaped from. Tom had spent the last year running from everyone who got near him and knowing that anyone who tried only wanted to steal from him or harm him, but when Sonny came along he clung hard and fast, and he still hasn't let go.
"Hey," Sonny says, tapping Tom's cheek to snap him out of it. "Ain't it your turn to cook tonight?"
"No," Tom says. He looks dazed. "I don't think so."
Something is flipping around in Sonny's stomach, wreaking havoc, and he doesn't like it. Maybe it's the sight of Tom slumped in his coat, looking vulnerable for the first time in years. Sonny wants to yank him into his arms and hold him steady until he's back to normal. He decides he'd better pick a fight with him instead.
"You do think you know everything," Sonny says, as if Tom asked him to please detail his faults. "What if you're wrong about the Renatos and the Tattaglias?"
"Then we'll find out from Clemenza or somebody that I was wrong, and we'll be glad we did the research." Tom frowns at him. "You seemed to think that scenario I came up with was pretty likely when we were downstairs."
"Eh, I don't know." Sonny stands up; he's beginning to get cold. The sun is disappearing fast behind the cloud cover. "Maybe, maybe not."
"Well, have you got a better theory?" Tom asks. He stands up and follows Sonny back toward the stairwell. "You think it was random, you think anything that goes on between any of the five families is random these days?"
"Don't get all worked up!" Sonny shouts, though that was exactly his intention by returning to this subject. "All's I'm saying is that you've been wrong before."
"Yeah? So have you, actually."
"Oh, right, I bet you keep a list, huh?"
"C'mon, Sonny," Tom says, his shoulders sinking inside Sonny's coat. "You know I'm not like that."
"Not like what?"
"I don't -- keep a list -- I don't think there's anything wrong with you."
Something about the way he says it makes them both freeze in place and clam up. Sonny shakes it off and throws up a hand.
"Yeah, great, you just think everything I say and do is wrong and that I'd be dead without you, and --"
"Sonny!" Tom sputters. His eyes are wide, and Sonny isn't sure he likes him like this, unraveling. "Don't talk like that. You know I'm the one who'd be dead without you."
"That's right you would," Sonny says, and he grabs the lapels on the coat and drags Tom over to the stairwell, pins him against the brick. Tom doesn't even blink, his eyes big and afraid like he thinks Sonny is going to kill him. Sonny could do it, too, and Tom would just accept his fate. He's the toughest guy Sonny has ever met, but he's always been in Sonny's pocket, however he tries to pretend he can run things around here. He relaxes in Sonny's grip, waiting to see what will happen, always waiting.
"Goddammit, Tommy," Sonny says, squeezing the lapels tighter into his fists. Tom lets out a ragged breath, and it puffs out between their faces, visible in the cold air. Sonny feels like he's about to kiss Tom on the mouth and he's not sure why the hell he would but suddenly it seems like the right thing to do. Tom's hands are on his sides, and his thumbs are perched over Sonny's belt like he'll hook them into it if he's allowed. Sonny is getting hard just thinking about this morning and the shower, the smell of Tom's shaving cream still lingering on his face. He leans forward to crush his body against Tom's, wanting the warmth of his coat back as much as anything. Tom is even harder than he is, and Sonny laughs deep in his throat. Tom just shuts his eyes and breathes deep, his chest moving against Sonny's.
"This is the worst thing we could do," Tom says. He opens his eyes slowly, like he's afraid to see Sonny's expression. Sonny shakes his head, shrugs. He feels good like he hasn't in a long time, doing something he shouldn't, something he'll get away with anyway. He thought he'd run out of sins to conquer, brand new.
"Here," Sonny says, snaking a hand between them and fumbling for Tom's belt buckle. "Let me see something."
"Christ," Tom breathes, but he doesn't stop him, keeps his hands tight on Sonny's waist, his thumbs locked around his belt now. "Can't you wait until we're inside?" His face is bright red and his lips are shaking. From the cold, he'd say, if Sonny was cruel enough to ask.
"It's too dark in there," Sonny says, sliding a hand down into Tom's trousers. "I wanna be able to see your face."
"We do have a lamp--ah, yeah, that's -- that's --" Tom's face is so hot Sonny can feel it even before he presses his lips to his cheek, almost jokingly, like this is a game. He strokes his cock slow and firm, knows how frustrating it is when a broad doesn't apply enough pressure. Not that he's the broad in this scenario. He just wants to see Tom's face, to see if he was right about the way he looks when he's hard and dripping like he can't wait to come. His mouth is open, eyes hooded, but he looks sweeter than Sonny could have pictured, scared. His cock is so warm and thick and it fits so well in Sonny's hand that he's sorta shocked that they've never done this before. Suddenly it seems like their kind of thing, something about him that Tom will just get without explanation.
"You like that, Tommy?" Sonny asks. He reaches lower when Tom spreads his legs apart, strokes his sweating balls. Tom doesn't answer, just lets his eyes fall shut, so Sonny gives his balls a squeeze, drawing a sharp gasp out of him. Sonny smirks and cocks an eyebrow at him, slides his hand back up to tease his fingers along the length of his dick.
"You wanna come?" Sonny asks. Tom nods, slow and deliberate like he's struggling to remain conscious. He's breathing crazy, hard and fast, and he reaches up to hold Sonny's elbow with one hand like he's bracing himself. Sonny leans in to press his face against Tom's smooth cheek while he pumps him, feels his cockhead swell and pulls back to watch his face when he comes. Tom pinches his eyes tight, wrinkles his nose, then lets everything go, breathes out and moans in the back of his throat, the tension melting out of his face as his cock pulses in Sonny's hand. His hands slide up Sonny's back, pulling him in closer, and he ducks his face to Sonny's neck, hides.
"How was it, Tommy?" Sonny asks, because he feels like that should have been more revealing somehow, like he didn't really glimpse whatever he's looking for. "Huh? Felt good, right?"
"Sonny," Tom cries, soft and buried. He lifts his face and lets Sonny see him. He looks wrecked and happy, his hair still perfectly slicked but his whole demeanor different, like suddenly he's open wide. He kisses Sonny on the mouth, his tongue pushing his lips apart, and it somehow feels like more than Sonny has agreed to, but Tom seems to really need it, so Sonny kisses him back. He never understood the point of kissing, but maybe this is it: doing it with the wrong person, somebody who could get you in trouble. It was like this with Lucy at first, though that was more about the actual fucking than anything else. This is like Tom trying to tell him something in a language that neither of them really speaks, and it's so good that when Tom reaches down to rub Sonny's cock through his trousers he comes in his underwear like a kid.
Tom doesn't stop kissing him when he comes, doesn't stop until the sky has gone completely dark. Sonny has his arms wrapped around Tom's back, inside the coat where it's warm. Tom is boneless and punch drunk, sighing like he's going to fall asleep. Sonny is addicted to the sweet, soapy smell of his face, keeps kissing his cheeks. He's waiting to feel awkward or regretful, but it's Tommy, who has always seemed to know and understand everything about him, and this is no different. Tom is the only person who's ever looked all the way into his eyes, straight to the back of him.
"You don't know," Tom says, pulling the flaps of the coat up around Sonny's shoulders. "You don't even know."
"I don't know what?" Sonny asks.
"How long," Tom starts to say, but then he gets a look on his face like he just remembered he left the oven on and straightens his back against the wall. "Nothing."
They go downstairs like somebody's called for them, like they've got someplace to be. Tom goes straight to the bathroom and Sonny to the bedroom, and they clean up as best they can. Out in the apartment, guys are sloping toward the table for dinner, a few of them kind of drunk, which Sonny would give them hell for if he weren't in the same boat. Tom is sitting at one end of the table talking with Tessio about a politician friend of Pop's who's waffling now that things have gotten serious. Sonny sits at the other end and eats a slice of cold lasagna that somebody's wife sent over. Guys try to talk to him about what his next move is going to be, but he just grunts at them.
He keeps thinking about the last time he felt this way, when he noticed things about Tom that seemed out of place and couldn't stop thinking about them. They were sixteen, and it was right before Sonny quit school and convinced his father to let him work for the family. It started on the stoop of a brownstone in the Bronx. They were waiting for Fredo; they were going to drive him home from some friend's house. Sonny was ranting at Tom for claiming that he was going to leave school and join up with the family, too. Tom was too smart for that and they both knew it, but he wanted to do everything Sonny did, back then. Sonny was in the middle of telling him it had nothing to do with the fact that he was good in a fight (he actually wasn't, but Sonny didn't want to crush him with the truth) when Tom stuck a cigarette behind his ear. He'd been waving it around like he was getting ready to smoke it, but then he got too frustrated with Sonny to concentrate on lighting it and just slipped it behind his ear like he kept his cigarettes there all the time. He didn't; Sonny was pretty sure he'd never done it before, and he wasn't sure why he knew that, or why he couldn't stop looking once he had, staring at that line of white against Tom's blond hair.
In the days that followed, other things caught Sonny's eye: the way Tom touched his eyebrows when he was overwhelmed, drawing two fingers over each of them and pressing hard enough to make his eyes slant, the way he ate artichoke hearts right out of the jar and licked the juice off his fingers when he thought nobody was looking, and anything else that broke the facade of perfection he'd been keeping up for five years. He always tried so hard to stay in the background, keep quiet and be helpful. He did Sonny's homework and helped Connie set the table and kept Fredo company at school even though everybody else thought Fredo was a pest. He tried hard not to have any problems of his own, never talked about his dead parents or that year when he was homeless, even when Sonny pelted him with questions about it. For some reason, this made his every flaw fascinating. He came home from school with his tie askew and Sonny couldn't stop looking, was sad when he straightened it before dinner. He shut his finger in a kitchen cabinet and cursed, almost nodded off during church, touched the back of his neck when he was nervous. Sonny wasn't sure if Tom had always done secret sloppy things, but suddenly he felt like he was doing them just for him, so he would notice, like they were talking in code. What was actually happening almost crashed onto Sonny the night Tom laughed at something Clemenza said at the dinner table and got the hiccups. Every time Tom bounced in his seat and tried to swallow up the sound of a hiccup, Sonny's pants got tighter, and he wrote it off as the kind of random thing that had been giving him embarrassing erections since he was fourteen, but he made an effort to stop looking too long at Tom after that, no matter what he did.
Tom goes into the bedroom after dinner and shuts the door behind him. Sonny stays out in the living area to play cards and drink some more, not sure what he's supposed to do when he's alone with Tom after what happened on the roof. He could do nothing and Tom wouldn't complain, would just read his newspaper, turn over and go to sleep. He could take Tom's pants down and fuck him all night, and Tom wouldn't complain, would just stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from making too much noise. Sonny knows what he tried to tell him on the roof; he's not stupid. You don't know how long. He's losing badly at cards, letting the other guys rob him, thinking about how he could have gone up to Tom's college on weekends and fucked him against the dormitory wall and nobody would have known. Not that things would have turned out differently, but he feels like he's lost something he can't get back, even with Tom in there waiting for him to do whatever he's going to do, and he wishes he'd never stopped looking at him the way he used to.
When he finally goes into the room it's after midnight, and Tom has fallen asleep with the lamp on, stretched out on his back with the newspaper on his stomach. The sight of him lying there with his head tipped sideways on the pillow, one hand still spread out on the newspaper and the other fallen to the mattress, yanks so hard at Sonny's gut that it almost makes him mad. He shuts the door carefully so Tom won't wake up, pulls off his suspenders and unbuttons his shirt. He almost wants to sleep somewhere else, afraid of what Tom is expecting from him and knowing he'll never find out, no matter what he gives him. He could watch Tom come in his hand ten thousand times and there would still be some part of him that stayed closed up and far away. Sonny slides onto the mattress and leans over Tom to turn off the lamp. Tom's eyes flicker open, and he sighs sleepily, wrinkles the newspaper and stares up at Sonny.
"Hear anything from Clemenza and Rocco?" Tom asks. His voice is bent up from sleep. Sonny still has his hand on the lamp's chain, his arm stretched across Tom's chest.
"I'd 'a woke you up if I had," Sonny says, like he's disgusted with the question, and he pulls the chain. The room goes pitch dark, and Sonny crawls back to his side of the mattress. He hears Tom fold up the newspaper and tuck it away. It's cold in the room, but neither of them reaches for the blanket.
Sonny is exhausted and falls asleep almost immediately. He dreams of the street where his father was shot a few days before Christmas, snow falling lazily and turning to gray mush on the sidewalk. He realizes with a flood of panic and relief that he's not in prison this time, he's walking around freely, and maybe he can stop the guys who are about to try to kill his father. He doesn't see his father anywhere, Fredo either, and he scans the street for suspicious characters. He has no weapons, but he'll take these guys down with his bare hands if he finds them.
When he sees Tom wandering around, he runs to him, thinking he can at least stop Sollozzo from kidnapping him. As if shooting at his Pop wasn't enough of a death wish, that fucking Turk had the nerve to lay his hands on Tommy, and to insult him by asking him to talk Sonny into taking his deal. Nobody understands Tom Hagen, and it's worked to the family's advantage before, people thinking they can confide in him about their betrayals and schemes, because he's not a real Corleone, because they think he'd be the first one to sell the family out. I told him, Tom had said when he got back, his voice still shaking, I told him you'd come after him with everything you've got. Sonny will never forget that fucking Turk's voice on the phone, his father nearly dead, Mike panicked, Fredo destroyed, Ma stoic with worry, and the bastard says We've got Tom Hagen. Sonny went out of himself for a few seconds, barely heard him claim they were going to release Tom in three hours, and Sandra got mad at him after it was all over, for writing the time on the kitchen cabinet. He doesn't even remember doing it.
"Tom!" he shouts as he winds his way through the street, which is more crowded than it usually is in his dreams about that day. Tom is walking ahead of him in a beat-up overcoat, his hair messy and his gait unsteady, and Sonny thinks they must have roughed him up, those fucking Tattaglias, that Turk, whoever, they're dead. He finally catches up to Tom and grabs his shoulder, spins him around. Tom's face is dirty and hollow, and he rears back, looks at Sonny like he's crazy to try and touch him.
"Tommy," Sonny says. "What did they do to you?"
Tom shakes his head and backs away as if he's never seen Sonny before in his life. Sonny thinks they must have hit him on the head, he's confused, and he walks forward to grab him again, but suddenly there's gunfire everywhere, and he hits the ground, knows for a moment that they're all dead, his whole family. Tom, too.
He wakes up sucking in his breath, everything dark, but someone is with him. It's Tom, touching his face and telling him it's alright, it's okay, everything's okay.
"Tommy," he says, clutching at him, drawing him down. He doesn't know where they are or what's going on for a moment, but Tom is here and he says things are okay. Tom isn't always right, but he usually is, and anyway he wouldn't lie.
"You're alright," Tom says, his head tucked against Sonny's chest. Sonny pets his hair and stares into the thick black of the room, trusts that Tom is right about this. Tom slides a cautious hand across Sonny's stomach, holds onto the point of his hip.
"What if I didn't see you that day," Sonny says. He runs his hand across Tom's back, feels his suspenders still strapped on tight. "When we were kids."
"I'd be dead," Tom says.
"No, I don't know. I don't know about that."
"I do," Tom says.
"How come you never talk about it? That year when you were on your own?"
Tom is quiet, his heart pounding against Sonny's side.
"What do you want to know?" he asks.
"I don't know. What was it like?"
Tom sits up on his elbow, tries to draw away, but Sonny won't let him. He hooks a leg around him and flips him onto his back, crushes him against the mattress. Tom huffs out a surprised sound that makes Sonny want to lick his lips apart, but he just finds his hands, pins them over his head.
"Go on, Tommy," Sonny says. "Tell me."
"It was awful, okay?" Tom says. "You saw me. You remember what I looked like when you found me."
He does, but more than that, he remembers the way Tom cleaned up and started to gain weight, stopped flinching all the time, started sleeping in his bed instead of on the floor underneath it. Sonny watched him come back to life, and he remembers the first time he saw Tom smile, not just politely but really wide and sincere, beaming like sunlight. It was an afternoon in summer, the two of them wandering around the property, Sonny squeezing a bullet casing into his palm like it was a good luck charm, something to make wishes on. He'd found it in the woods the week before, and it was always in his pocket if it wasn't in his hand.
"When's your birthday?" Sonny had asked Tom.
"I don't know," Tom said, his usual answer to any question of a personal nature.
"Well, fuck," Sonny said. "Then it might as well be today."
Tom smiled at him then, for real, for the first time, and Sonny gave him the bullet casing as a birthday present. It was his most cherished possession, but ever since he'd met Tom he'd wanted to give him everything he had.
"You don't have to tell me," Sonny says now, still lying on top of Tom, who's getting hard against his thigh like a teenager who'll take anything he can get. "You don't have to tell me anything."
Sonny kisses him, and Tom sighs into his mouth with what sounds like relief. They roll onto their sides and then across the bed, until Tom is lying on top of Sonny, and he likes the feeling, but he pulls Tom's suspenders down to let him know he's still in charge here.
"You remember that shell I gave you for your made-up birthday?" Sonny asks. He reaches over to flick on the lamp so that he can watch Tom unbutton his shirt.
"Yeah," Tom says. He turns the lamp back off, fumbles with his pants. Sonny reaches for the lamp again, annoyed that Tom doesn't want him to see him undress, but Tom catches his hand. He uncurls Sonny's fingers and puts something in his palm. It's rounded and metallic, and Sonny is confused only for half a second. He leaves the lamp off, closes the bullet casing into his hand.
"Tommy," he says.
Tom leans down to push his face against Sonny's, and his eyelashes are hot and wet on Sonny's cheek.
"I love it when you call me that," he says, his voice soft and broken, and this must be the hidden thing Sonny's been searching for, because it floods him like the lamp has come back on, and suddenly he can see Tom through the dark.
*