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For the most part, Alberto had gotten used to Luca’s odd nightmare.
They didn’t happen often, usually only after a particularly stressful or tiring day would his best friend have to be shaken out of a distressing dream followed by giving him a comforting hug, but they always left Alberto feeling awful for the other boy who clearly had things in the back of his mind that taunted him in his dreams, things that had set down roots that couldn’t quite be shifted.
On those days Alberto stays awake to keep a watchful eye on the boy beside him so he can pull Luca out of those nightmares as fast as possible. He hasn’t told Luca about him doing this, of course — the last thing he wants is to worry him. But he’d do just about anything for him, staying awake every now and then when he slept over was nothing.
Today had been one of those days.
After an unwanted encounter with Guido and then Ercole of all people that resulted in Alberto almost throwing fists in the direction of the lanky older man (he thinks Ercole was lucky that Luca and Guido had been there to disengage them from the situation) it was clear that it had left Luca with his feathers ruffled to say the least.
The shorter boy (‘ piccoletto’ rings spitefully in Alberto’s mind) was still uncomfortable around Ercole. Alberto doesn’t fault him for it — the guy had tried to literally kill them in broad daylight and even Alberto felt the guy was still dangerous even though Portorosso had become friendly with sea monsters, especially considering Ercole was fond of picking on Luca more than himself or Giulia or just about anyone else. The guy was a walking reminder of everything horrible sea monsters were taught about humans from their parents and the gangly catfish had absolutely no shame about his transgressions to boot.
Unfortunately the entire thing had drained Alberto of his energy (and given him a headache) — he’d begun dozing off before he could force his eyes back open and at some point had been awoken by the shuffling of bed sheets and sound of his name being mumbled. He had no idea how long he’d been out but any amount of time when he was meant to be keeping an eye on Luca was too long.
Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he looks over to the boy next to him.
Luca looks rough. His face is pale even in the dim light from the moon shining through the curtains, here’s sweat beading on his forehead, his face and eyebrows are scrunched up in a way that makes it look like he’s in pain, and his hands are twisted into the duvet to the point they look like they’re about to make holes in it even with his short, blunt nails.
Alberto sits up in bed, and not wanting to risk startling Luca awake in the dark like he had once in the past that almost resulted in him getting whacked in the face with a clenched fist, he leans over him to flick the bedside lamp on and starts by speaking softly.
“Luca, hey...”
He shakes the younger boys tense shoulder lightly. Luca had proven to be a light sleeper unlike Alberto, even the lightest of creaks from the floorboards or Alberto turning over in bed could wake him up but this time he’s in his bad dream a little too deep for it to be enough.
A whine makes its way to Luca’s throat and his legs writhe under the covers.
“Wait…”
Alberto pauses, although only for a brief moment. For a second he’d thought Luca had woken himself up. It wasn’t uncommon for him to mumble in his sleep, especially during nightmares, but it was normally quiet, slurred, or nearly incomprehensible whether he was saying people's names or mumbling random space terminology that Alberto couldn’t make heads nor tails of. This time he had been loud and clear.
“Luca, wake up.” Another shake of his shoulder, this time a little less gently.
“‘Beto...” Such a quiet mumble but Alberto doesn’t miss it. Not in the dead silence of his room so late at night. “Wait, I’m...”
“Luca—”
“I’m sorry, come back.”
“Okay, Luca. Time to wake up.” He’s decided that whatever terrible dream is causing Luca to have such a pained expression is one that has no right existing, not when it’s within arms reach of himself. Using both hands on narrow shoulders he tries to shake Luca awake again and all it achieves is making the other boy kick at the mattress with his heels and twist a hand into the sleeve of Alberto’s shirt until his knuckles are white.
“Luca, wake up! You’re just dreaming.”
Tears are pricking at the corners of his eyes, squeezed shut and long brown eyelashes glittering in the warm glow of the lamp. Alberto would find them pretty in any other scenario.
“Sorry.. I’m sorry.. ‘Beto—”
A hard shake this time and finally it works.
“Alberto—! ”
Brown eyes shoot open with the gasp of Alberto’s name, a tear overflowing and trailing down the side of his face.
This had been the worst reaction to a nightmare as of yet. There was normally only a bit of restlessness and tossing and turning, maybe the odd sound of his name being half-uttered, but this reaction had been bad. There was real fear and desperation in the things Luca was saying and Alberto is almost too scared to wonder what exactly had caused it.
Luca’s hand is still twisted into his shirt and Alberto notices he’s holding his breath as if he’s not sure if he’s actually awake yet.
“Hey! Hey, you’re okay.” Tanned hands loosen their grip on the other’s shoulder and instead of holding the distressed boy in place, Alberto rubs his arms lightly in an effort to comfort him while he shoots him a smile. “It was just a nightmare. You’re okay.”
Luca finally exhales a deep breath. His breathing is unsteady and Alberto doesn’t need to feel the brunette's chest to know his heart is probably pounding at his ribcage like an angry zoo animal behind glass, but in the very least he’s awake.
Alberto opens his arms in the way he usually does in this situation and Luca doesn’t miss a beat before tightly wrapping his arms around him, sighing in relief when they make contact and the older boy wraps his arms tightly around him in turn.
He can feel in his friends’ shoulders just how tense and shaken up he is.
Rubbing a reassuring hand on Luca’s back, Alberto decides to ask even if the answer is obvious.
“Are you okay?”
After a moment of pressing his face into a familiar shoulder, Luca lets out an unsteady sigh and unwraps his arms from around him, leaning back down to rest his head on the pillow with an exhaustion better suited to someone who’d just ran a marathon. Alberto keeps one hand on his arm to keep him grounded, just in case.
“Yeah. Sorry I woke you.” What he means is ‘No, I’m definitely not okay’ but Alberto won’t force it out of him. They both know better.
“Don’t be.” He says. “You were really hard to wake up this time though… and you were saying some kinda worrying stuff in your sleep. What were you dreaming about?”
Alberto honestly isn’t sure if he wants to know. It’s one thing for Luca to have nightmares about being sent to the deep and his skin turning see-through or riding a vespa before it starts raining and he falls out of the sky, but whatever tonight’s nightmare had been was surely about Alberto. Does he really want to know exactly what kind of atrocities Luca’s overactive imagination could conjure up about himself?
Luca looks a little reluctant to answer but he does anyway.
“It was, uh... about us. Back on the beach,” He nervously picks at the skin around his nails, scratching at hangnails and old injuries just barely healed until Alberto notices and slips a hand around one of them to stop the self-destructive habit in its tracks. A terrible habit that Luca had told him developed not long after coming to Portorosso whenever he had the urge to twist and squeeze at the end of his tail with his hands.
Pale digits are noticeably cold around Alberto’s own and his palm is clammy from where he had been squeezing the life out of their blanket. “When we fell out before the Portorosso cup.”
Furrowing his brows, Alberto decides not to speak, to let Luca continue even though there’s a lot he wants to say and ask. Luca’s own eyebrows knit together as he sighs again — it gives Alberto the feeling he isn’t sure if he should talk about it or not.
“I was trying to apologise to you.. for not admitting I was a sea monster too. But you were so hurt and no matter how hard or fast I tried to walk over to you, you just kept getting further and further away.”
Alberto’s heart feels heavy.
“I was trying to go to you in the water but it was like walking through quicksand, it just kept pulling me back, and then—“ Luca’s eyes widen as he recalls his dream.
“Then Ercole was there,”
“And he threw his harpoon.”
It doesn’t seem like he can finish his sentence but he doesn’t need to — it’s easy enough to guess what happened given their interaction with the older human earlier.
“It was so red...” Luca says, voice barely above a whisper. He’d said it to himself more than Alberto, going over the dream again and again in his head as if he could change the way it ended if he tried hard enough.
Luca has his eyes pinned to the ceiling and there’s a look on his face that could only be described as a bitter sadness if not a little forlorn. Alberto can feel his smaller hand tighten around his own again and, lacking the right expertise to know how to properly comfort his friend after such a brutal nightmare, he decides to try to reassure the hands’ owner by massaging small circles around pale knuckles with a calloused thumb.
It turns out to only make things worse when Luca’s face grows pink, brown eyes well with tears again and his lip just barely begins to quiver.
“I’m sorry, ‘Beto.”
For a moment Alberto thinks he can hear his own heart shatter into a million pieces but it was actually just the sound of Luca’s voice breaking at the end of his unnecessary apology. His free arm comes up to cover his eyes and the sight makes Alberto want to cry too.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay! It was just a stupid dream. I’m fine, still in one piece.”
When holding his friend's hand with both of his own fails to make him feel any better he decides he needs to rethink his approach to the situation. Alberto wasn’t particularly good at making others feel better without trying to make them laugh and this definitely wasn’t the right time to crack a joke. He briefly wonders if there even is a right way to comfort someone who just had a vivid dream about you being murdered and not being able to do anything about it.
“Luca,” He brings a gentle hand up to the arm Luca is using to cover his eyes. “Look at me.”
The arm doesn’t move by much but it’s enough for Alberto to see his eyes peek out from underneath which is more than he could ask for given how distressed he must be.
“You have nothing to apologise for. Okay? You just had that dumb dream because we got hassled by Ercole earlier. You’re okay and so am I.”
Luca sniffles and rubs at an eye with his fist before he moves to join Alberto in sitting up.
“That’s not true, though.”
Alberto blinks. “Which part?”
Luca looks at him and shrugs before breaking eye contact. “All of it.”
There’s a million different things the older boy could say back but his brain can’t decide what to go with in time before Luca speaks again.
“That day... it still happened.” There’s a smallness to his posture. “I still hurt you the way I did. I can’t take that back. I never even got to apologise properly because I didn’t know how to bring it up again.”
Maybe it had been Ercole’s half-assed insults that brought out Luca’s nightmare but Alberto is beginning to think that this isn’t as spontaneous a nightmare as he’d initially thought. Luca speaks like he’s replayed what happened that day over and over in his head and Alberto wonders exactly how long it had been eating away at him. He’d forgotten it by the next day when he came sprinting up from the bottom of the downhill sheltered by a blue parasol and apparently he’d made a terrible mistake in assuming that Luca had too.
He thought they’d resolved that conflict because Luca hadn’t brought it up again. He came to the tower, he apologised, tried to offer some comfort, and then… Alberto had cut the conversation short by pushing him away. He technically didn’t even accept his friends apology.
The whole thing had been done and dusted for himself. Not for Luca.
He mentally groans at himself. How could he be so…
“Luca.” He puts on a stern expression. “What happened on the beach only happened because I was being a jackass.”
He hates admitting it out loud because while it’s certainly true, it’s also incredibly embarrassing. Acting out of jealousy for the hundredth time, forcing Luca into a dangerous situation that had apparently been haunting him since, and almost ruining everything for all three of them was not a moment he’d consider to be one of his finest.
“That’s not true.”
Oh, Luca. You sweet idiot.
Alberto scoffs. “Uh, yeah, it is. I was trying to force you into doing something you weren’t ready to do yet. Of course you reacted the way you did—“
“That’s not the point though!”
Alberto is taken by surprise when the other raises his voice, Alberto worrying he might’ve pushed it too far, but takes comfort in the fact they’re still holding hands.
“The point is I still hurt you, 'Beto. You looked—“
His voice breaks again as he cuts himself off and he aims his eyes towards the ceiling again as if to will-away any more tears. “You were so upset and I still hate that I did that to you, I wish I’d just admitted I was a sea monster too! Maybe everything would have been okay if I did.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
It’s Luca’s turn to look surprised this time — his brows furrowed as he looks to the older teen, questioning.
Alberto has to inhale a breath of courage before he continues. “You were further from the water and closer to Ercole than I was. It would have been more dangerous for you if he’d heard you admit something like that. He’s had it out for you since day one.”
Alberto takes Luca’s free hand in his own and brings them both close to his chest as he squeezes them tightly.
“It’s okay that you regret the whole thing happened, I do too, but I screwed up, Lu. I’m okay with admitting that. What I’m not okay with is you blaming yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. I put both of us in danger and I kinda hate myself for that every day.”
A short pause.
“And I put you in danger by singling you out all because I was scared.”
“Yeah and if the roles were reversed I would’ve—”
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
Luca hits him with the most deadpan look he can manage and it catches him off-guard once again.
“‘Beto, don’t even try to pretend you would’ve done what I did when you’ve constantly gone out of your way to put yourself between me and a guy who wanted to, maybe still wants to kill us and has ever since we first came here. I don’t believe for a second you wouldn’t have dove into the water head first with me at the first sign of trouble.”
Damn. Okay. Alberto hadn’t been sure that Luca had noticed exactly how protective he was when it came to just about anything that could threaten his safety, he’d never said anything about it or gotten annoyed at him or anything of the sort, but apparently he’d noticed at some point and Alberto honestly feels a little embarrassed and hopes that it was only very, very recently that Luca had realised he had his own personal bodyguard.
“But Luca, I don’t expect you to put yourself in danger for me.”
As soon as it leaves his mouth he knows it was the wrong thing to say.
“That’s the problem! And even if you don’t now, you did back on the beach! I betrayed the trust you had in me and, and I.. You should expect it of me when you’re in trouble. We’re best friends, aren’t we?”
The pitch of his voice raises as he speaks and a look of sadness has returned to those brown eyes Alberto loves so much.
“You can tell me if I’m, y’know... a little useless. It’s fine.”
It was not fine. Of all the things he’d had to hear Luca say about himself so far, that had been the worst. The corners of his mouth are turned upwards but the small smile doesn’t reach his eyes or overwhelm the pain and insecurity present in them and even a blind salmon would be able to see that Luca’s biggest enemy is his own mind and its ability to overthink.
Alberto has no idea how to correctly navigate this conversation and is aware of just how terrible he is at explaining exactly what he means by what he says. Everything makes perfect sense in his head and somewhere along the journey from his brain to his tongue everything just trips over itself and comes out wrong.
Alberto pushes down the urge to let tears fill his own eyes, decides he’ll deal with that feeling later, and gently squeezes the hands still resting in his own and lifts them up to plant a reassuring kiss to soft knuckles. Maybe actions will speak louder than words, even if they’re small.
“Of course we’re best friends, Lu. You’ve never been useless. Not once.”
“Listen, no matter how much you torture yourself over it, neither of us can go back and change what happened. We both fucked around, found out and... hopefully learned something from it. We’ve even.”
That thankfully seems to get through to the shorter boy. Or maybe it had been the kisses he left on his hands, but either way Alberto can’t help the grin of endearment plastered on his own face and Luca pulls his contemplative gaze away from where it had rested on his lap.
“I’m still sorr—“
Alberto doesn’t give him the chance to finish and opts for pulling him in close for a tight, secure hug, Luca’s shoulders and waist fitting between his arms in the way he’s always thought was so perfect, like they were sculpted specifically for each other.
“I’m sorry too, you neurotic idiot.”
He feels the warmth of Luca’s cheek pressed against the side of his neck and that warmth spreads when Luca wraps his arms tightly around Alberto’s waist. If he notices the way Alberto nuzzles his nose into the space between his neck and shoulder he doesn’t say anything about it, giving Alberto the chance to breathe in his friends smell that makes him feel at home no matter where they are.
“..I’m not neurotic.”
The older boy huffs a laugh. Of course he’d take offence to that and not the part where he got called a dumbass.
“You so are.” He doesn’t break the hug, too comfortable in the shared warmth with his favourite neurotic idiot to want to let go. “I wish you’d said something sooner though. Don’t bottle stuff up, okay? I’m always here for you.”
He feels two hands twist into the back of his shirt followed by a quick but confident nod. Alberto doesn’t pester him for a verbal confirmation, mainly because he knows Luca knows there would be hell to pay if he went back on it.
In the short but comfortable moment of silence they share he recalls something the other boy had said earlier.
“And hey,” He rests a hand against the back of his head this time, fingers combing gently through soft, dark curls. “Everything did turn out okay.”
Luca holds on tighter and buries his face into the tan, freckled neck like his life depends on it and if they had been in the water at that moment, his tail would’ve been swaying happily in the current a little.
“Maybe.” Luca says, speech half muffled where his mouth presses against Alberto’s shirt. “I still sometimes wish I was a little more like you, though.”
“How do you mean?” Alberto’s interest is piqued.
Luca shrugs loosely before he responds. “I don’t know. Braver, maybe. Being stronger would help too. Then maybe you wouldn’t have to keep Ercole away so often.”
It’s an endearing thought. The older teen has to try with incredible effort to not let ‘brave’ and ‘strong’ get to his head or inflate his ego, things that weren’t even meant to be a compliment towards him but rather a criticism towards Luca and his less assertive disposition.
Alberto snorts a laugh. “What, so you want to be the brains and the brawns? You don’t wanna leave anything for anyone else?”
The peppering of teasing has Luca laughing, breath warm and welcome on the tanned skin of the boy embracing him. The laugh is strained and tired but it’s also raw and honest and if Alberto had to assign it a colour, it would be yellow like sunshine.
“Okay, maybe not then.”
Alberto offers a reassuring squeeze, just to make sure he knows that he was only poking fun.
"It would still be a nice change, though," Alberto wants to interrupt him but he decides against it. The boy in his arms obviously had a lot to get off of his chest. "I mean... After everything you went through? With.. your dad, how long you were alone on the island for... It's like whatever life throws at you, you just come out stronger. But for me? One bad experience and I just fall apart, and everyone else suffers for it."
Luca sighs into the fabric of the yellow shirt pressed against his face, sounding more emotionally exhausted than Alberto had ever heard him before. A tanned arm moves from the dark, wavy hair his hand had been petting softly and instead moves it to rest on a pale face with warm cheeks and soft skin, pressing against it just enough for Luca to know that Alberto wants to look at his face.
"I only came out stronger because I met you, Luca."
Noticing the way Luca's eyes widen and his pupils dilate, he keeps speaking and hopes he doesn't become light headed from how much blood had rushed to his face or from the way Luca looks at him so earnestly that makes his heart pound and his chest and gut flutter like he'd recently swallowed a small shoal of anchovies.
"If I hadn't, then... honestly? I really don't know what would have happened to me. Everything good that's happened to me only happened because you followed the dumb trail of trinkets I left for you the day we met."
He presses their foreheads together in an attempt to get across a message that wouldn't require him to reveal anything else more embarrassing. He's fairly certain he might actually pass out and die if he did.
“You're way more important than you think you are. You’re perfectly fine just how you are, Lu.” Flaws, insecurities, and all. He means every word of it.
Luca turns his head away for a moment before moving to tightly embrace the taller boy again, bringing some relief to Alberto knowing he's not the only one flushed red like a tomato. He takes a moment to thank God that Giulia isn't there to witness them being a combined mess, he just knows she'd make fun of them both for it.
Sighing again into Alberto's shoulder, this time more in relief than distress, Luca pauses.
"Wait, you left that trail of stuff on purpose?"
Oops. Alberto had been caught red handed, if red handed had ever meant 'literally just confessed to it' at any point in history.
"Uhh... I might have. Don't think too hard about it."
Luca laughs against him. The older boy can only assume his confession would be held against him at some point in the future — he'd never actually planned on telling his best friend about it because when he looks back on that day, he personally finds it far too cringe-worthy knowing he'd lured Luca out of the feeding grounds with a clock, playing cards, and a wrench only to scare the living daylights out of him with a full-body diving suit instead of just swimming up to him and introducing himself like a normal, well-adjusted person would do.
“Also, I don’t mind being a bodyguard when it comes to Ercole.”
“...Are you sure?”
“Yeah, it makes me feel useful. I like protecting you.” Okay, that had been unexpectedly embarrassing to say out loud. He'd failed miserably at his own plan to not humiliate himself any further. “I dunno, maybe it’s a sea monster thing or something. Maybe forget I said that.”
Luca smiles into his shoulder and hums a response, the lack of sleep catching up and robbing him of a response more in-depth and bringing attention to the sting in Alberto’s eyes that he’d ignored up until then. Alberto figures Luca is close to falling asleep where he is and decides it’s time to actually make use of the bed they were sitting on.
“Now,” He says, pulling the two of them back down to rest their heads on the pillow with their arms and legs still awkwardly tangled around one another, a tanned hand still lightly petting Luca’s head. “Let’s try to get some sleep and not have any more nightmares.”
Luca can’t help but giggle as he looks up from where he’s being smothered by the other boys shoulder. “What, like this?”
He’s met with a look from Alberto one could only ever describe as incredulous. “Uh, yeah, like this? I’d like to see another bad dream try to squirm it’s way past my arms.” He says it so matter-of-factly while nuzzling his face into Luca’s hair and only makes the situation more amusing. Luca finds himself thankful for the lighthearted attitude that helps him forget the fact he was having a small breakdown only a few minutes ago.
Chuckling into the soft shirt he’s being squished into, Luca yawns and shuffles closer. They don’t bother pulling the blanket back over them, the warmth from each other’s bodies being more than enough to keep them cozy throughout the rest of the night. The lamp is still switched on and covering the room in a gentle, warm glow but neither of them seem to mind or even notice.
“Goodnight, ‘Beto.”
“Night, Signore Neuroti—”
The sound of a small smack to Alberto’s back is followed by tired laughter from them both. “Stop!”
“Goodnight, Luca.”
