[Bucciarati speaks. Fugo listens without interruption, hands folded and posture perfect, expression as still and unmovable as stone. He doesn't look away. He doesn't reach for the glass of water. The whole weight of his attention is focused entirely on the conversation, each word sliding between his ribs like a collection of well-sharpened knives.
There's no comfort in any of it. Not even in the accomplishments he used to take pride in. It's all ash in his hands, too far gone to save, fragile and crumbling. It wasn't enough. He wasn't enough. None of it means a thing because, when it really mattered, he couldn't set his logic aside and take a single step forward. Even now, he can feel the prickle of a sunburn on the back of his neck; he can smell the salt of the canal. In a way, Pannacotta Fugo never left the stairs at the foot of the San Giorgio Maggiore. He's still there, staring at the horizon, at the point where the water met the sky and the boat carrying his world disappeared.]
I know.
[This is the bitter truth he carries with him; the one that's never far away from his heart, his thoughts. Every time Trish comes to listen to him play, he can't help but remember what he said. We don't even know what kind of music she likes! As if that was a reason to join the rest of the world, which had politely turned around to give Diavolo the privacy he needed to murder his daughter.]
But if you had listened to me in Venice, you would have died.
[Maybe not all at once. But it would have driven a shard of ice into the yawning hole in Bucciarati's heart, the wound that got bigger and bigger every time he found a child with track marks in their arm in his territory. Little by little, piece by piece, Bucciarati would have died-- leaving a doppelgänger who would wear his face and talk with his voice behind to keep them company.]
What I said might have been correct, but it was wrong. I wasn't there with you when you needed me.
[Never mind that Bucciarati all gave them a choice. Out of all of them, Fugo is the only one who got it wrong. He might have been correct, but he hates the logic that lead him to that point. There was no other choice he could have made in that moment-- but he regrets it. So much. More than anything. And he can never, ever take it back.]
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There's no comfort in any of it. Not even in the accomplishments he used to take pride in. It's all ash in his hands, too far gone to save, fragile and crumbling. It wasn't enough. He wasn't enough. None of it means a thing because, when it really mattered, he couldn't set his logic aside and take a single step forward. Even now, he can feel the prickle of a sunburn on the back of his neck; he can smell the salt of the canal. In a way, Pannacotta Fugo never left the stairs at the foot of the San Giorgio Maggiore. He's still there, staring at the horizon, at the point where the water met the sky and the boat carrying his world disappeared.]
I know.
[This is the bitter truth he carries with him; the one that's never far away from his heart, his thoughts. Every time Trish comes to listen to him play, he can't help but remember what he said. We don't even know what kind of music she likes! As if that was a reason to join the rest of the world, which had politely turned around to give Diavolo the privacy he needed to murder his daughter.]
But if you had listened to me in Venice, you would have died.
[Maybe not all at once. But it would have driven a shard of ice into the yawning hole in Bucciarati's heart, the wound that got bigger and bigger every time he found a child with track marks in their arm in his territory. Little by little, piece by piece, Bucciarati would have died-- leaving a doppelgänger who would wear his face and talk with his voice behind to keep them company.]
What I said might have been correct, but it was wrong. I wasn't there with you when you needed me.
[Never mind that Bucciarati all gave them a choice. Out of all of them, Fugo is the only one who got it wrong. He might have been correct, but he hates the logic that lead him to that point. There was no other choice he could have made in that moment-- but he regrets it. So much. More than anything. And he can never, ever take it back.]