Francisco didn’t plan on staying long, wrapped in the responsibility of showing face for the family, his first charity event with the title of don marked something glaringly important. He walked into the event, as expected, with Roxanne Zuzen on his arm, his consigliere not far behind. He shook hands, made introductions, a slow and steady movement across the open space, pleasantries, eventually getting separated from her, going off to entertain her own audiences; he supposes his conversations are boring to someone like her who’s all about the glitz and glamour, she doesn’t have the business mentality, doesn’t enjoy flitting between the two worlds. Franco tends to find the balance, can enjoy the bullshit and the gossip, but he isn’t built to make it the heart of the event, has to be done tastefully in side-bars, leaned close and whispered under their breath, while she likes it loud, a statement, and to be the very center of the room. He’s determined in their short time together, that they couldn’t be more different. Admittedly, the parts of her he enjoys most are primarily the parts that remind him of someone else.
Of course he sees him when he enters, feels his presence like a magnet, ignores the sensation of his eyes on him, drawing himself further through the crowd, another drink, anything to not have to think about it, about him. Two months came and went, the presence of someone new and consistent in his life and in his bed only managing to make him somehow feel sicker. He doesn’t sleep, he drinks more, barely leaves the office; it is truly, he finds, his first real heartbreak.
How foolish is it that it happens as he nears thirty years old, the horrible detached feeling of a break-up that never was even truly a relationship, fifteen years of kinship doomed from the beginning, lost in a weak moment of tender words and honesty. It’s bitter and harsh, leaves a bad taste on his tongue just to think of it, his presence like an open wound, prodding and picking at the scabs, too entwined in work and in life to ever fully escape him. It’s a prison, it’s hell, and at the end of the day, it’s the bed he made.
Most of the night passes uneventfully, the same bullshit as always, polite smiles, useless banter, friendly quips bubbling from the bottom of champagne glasses. It feels endless, time moving so slowly, distracted and disjointed, endlessly tired, if he were being honest, fucking miserable. Covered head to toe in responsibility, the aftermath of mourning, of being accepted and pushed away and dismissed in his new role, so many smiling to his face and waiting patiently to shove a knife in his back. There’s so few people he can truly trust, the circle dwindling smaller everyday and even the people he does, he finds there’s no one he really feels comfortable talking to. It’s incredibly lonely, using busy as an alternative word for exactly how lonely he really is, always telling everyone that he’s so very busy.
Eventually he can’t take it anymore, the little pleasantries, the feeling of Max’s gaze finding him, so distinct and sickly, and excuses himself from his conversation.
He makes his way through the moving bodies, the loud cadence of fake laughs and the clicking of heels on marble, and pushes through a back door, up some stairs that are clearly meant to be for employees, and out an exit. For a moment it’s perfect, the air cool, a breeze, Vegas spread out underneath with all the lights bright, blocking out any hint of stars. He lights a cigarette, leaning against the railing surrounding the roof. For a moment, he thinks he may be able to gather himself, the flush of nicotine and the silence bringing a peace that is too soon broken. Franco doesn’t have to look when he hears the door swing open, even if there were more than one person it could be, he could sense him, feel him, in the way he’s always been able to. He closes his eyes, doesn’t move away from the railing, a pull of brows.
He innately knows that he doesn’t want to do this, can’t handle it, already wound so tight from everything else in his life, the addition of his presence, here and alone, making his fucking chest hurt immediately. The eventualities, the possibilities, none are satisfying; what does he want? To be friends? To fall back into the way things have always been, painful and cruel? The same song and dance that lead them here, that makes his heart clench in his chest, his neck stiff and eyes screwed shut.
He opens them again when fully Max approaches, the proximity buzzing in the air, not able to look over and meet his gaze fully, the vision of him in his peripheral already more than enough. He takes another drag on his cigarette, chewing over the quip in his head, everything fumbled and aching and hurt, doesn’t have anything left to offer. The intention is sarcasm, but it just comes out dry and empty, feels too real when he just says, “No, not yet. I’d say I probably have a good few years left before I get to that point.”
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