A. N. : I finished 91 Days yesterday and it annihilated me. Apparently the way I cope is by writing character studies, by which I mean slapping headcanons on a character and making others deal with it. Takes place during the original road-trip.

Sitting in the car with Avilio, Nero realizes he doesn't have a type.

He never really paid attention to that before, instead busying himself with work and booze in an effort to keep himself from looking at the men around him with anything but friendly companionship and trust. It worked, most of the time.

It worked, until evening came and he was out drinking with Vanno, joking together and slapping each other's back and wondering how it would feel to kiss this man. This was a fantasy Nero never really got over, not since he was a child marvelling at Vanno's juggling, not since he was fourteen and Vanno simply stood by his side in silence while Nero downed a bottle of moonshine in an attempt to not cry, to not be even more of a disappointment to his father, to not think of the child who died in his mother's arms – Nero never really got over the idea that if he opened up, if he risked it and kissed Vanno without asking for anything else, Vanno wouldn't mind. They'd known each other for as long as he can remember, and Vanno –

Vanno is safe.

Was safe – was, fuck, Vanno is dead and gone and will never again spend the evening drinking with Nero, just sitting side by side and sharing terrible jokes and laughing at how drunk they are.

Vanno was Nero's best friend, the one he could always count on, the one he could share anything with. On the rare days he was self aware enough to wonder about it, Nero knew this was why he kept coming back to thought of kissing him. Kept coming back to the thought of sharing with Vanno the one thing he'd always kept to himself, the one thing the Don's heir could simply not do, not be, no matter how much of an otherwise disgrace he is. Vanno would understand, would not judge, even if he pushed away Nero's embrace, because Vanno is – was – the kind of man who would pray and promise to not stain his hands in sin again in the same breath as he put a bullet in someone's head.

Vanno was broad and muscular and lived like each day would be his last, intensely and passionately, and he had a warmth to him that made him safe to all who stood by his side.

Avilio is short and scrawny, with eyes as sharp and steely as his knife, judging Nero's soul the way he judges everything, in silence and with a cold, cruel bitterness that leaves no space for mistakes. If he hadn't already helped Nero out more than once, Nero wouldn't have been surprised to one day find himself at the end of Avilio's gun. As it is, the only thing Avilio and Vanno have in common is that Nero trusts them.

And yet Nero wants to kiss him just the same, wants to hold him close and share with him the kind of intimacy Nero has only known once, from the woman uncle Ganzo paid for his sixteenth birthday in an effort to make a man out of him. With Avilio, he knows, it would feel good on more than just a physical level.

If he opened up to Avilio, Avilio wouldn't mind. Nero is sure of that. Avilio wouldn't mind that part of Nero, wouldn't stop doing everything he can to make this journey as hard on Nero as possible, would judge him just as coldly as always, with words just as cutting as ever, as cutting as the knife he carries, that he sometimes seems to have become one with.

Nero doesn't have a type so much as he has a deep need to keep his life just the way it always was, with his family and friends by his side, with no judgement passed on the man he is so much as on the things he does. His hands are drenched in as much blood, if not more, as those of everyone in the business, and he feels this blood should weigh more in the balance of his sins than anything else. What he wants – who he wants – matters so little next to the dead body of a child.

He wonders where the next town is, when the next stop will be. They're running low on booze, and Nero's brain can only go so long this way before he breaks from the lack of distraction and does something stupid. Avilio's driving is already awful enough without Nero adding to it by putting a hand on the back of Avilio's neck, caressing his cheek with the other, and leaning in to press their lips together.

Nero isn't in a hurry to die yet, so instead he groans and leans back in his seat, stretching his arms in front of him, as obnoxiously as possible.

When Avilio asks him to stop, Nero sighs in relief, before retaliating with a complaint about the soreness of his ass and the holes in the road Avilio drove into with a determination that makes Nero almost certain it was on purpose.

Verbal sparring should last him until the next stop, and the next bottle.

And then he'll forget about the type he doesn't have and the men he doesn't love.