BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! | ODIS WEFF ONESHOTS

THE LAND OF TAKING & KILLING--PT. II

//shoutout 2 my mom for coming up this sections plot. i should also note that this universe's events are basically the same as m.o.m. but a little different, more fargo-y

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Catanzaro, South Italy: December 31, 1949

A fine New Year's Eve this was--really, it was actually kind of exciting at the moment, before there were people to see. And hopefully never see again. The loneliness of the venture was not lost on Odis. It was that he did not like to leave Emily. "I'll be fine", she'd said, but that seemed to be a mantra of hers, like she'd picked it up from her father somehow: One doesn't tell who shot them. One night she'd said as he drove to the hospital, her feverish with her breath coming short: "I think it'll be okay. People don't die from this." He'd been like, I didn't even realize dying was on the table. The only thing she'd seemed very bothered by was the needle they'd drawn blood with.

"You weren't in Italy, right?" Josto said suddenly, restless in the back of the cab next to him.

It took him a minute to understand what he meant. The war. Of course. "No."

"France, right?"

Odis watched the buildings on his side of the street. Orange, brown, flowers, dirty, children in front... "Yeah," he answered. "The fuck is it t' you?" Nothing particularly mean.

"Just making sure you don't have any--what's it?--hard feelings about the place."

"I don't. Not-Not about anywhere." He lit a cigarette.

Their relationship was a fitful and bizzare one, with weird lulls and sparks of conversation. Sometimes I hate this town, Josto might say one second, with every conviction; then call Odis a dumbass the next. Odis might threaten loosely, jokingly, to shoot him then stop talking when money was handed between them. Business, job, arrangement, position. Neither of them thought much of it when they turned back to their respective lives. Josto to the brass-trimmed, clear, honey-lit house; Odis to the easy, sweet, passion-and-velvet marriage.

Whatever happened, Josto held the power. Josto called him kid, only three or so years older. Odis was expendable, flatly, and that often made him feel like some kind of pet or curiousity. Alternatively, there was still necessity in his position. Not many cops wanted to take bribes from particular Italians. But Odis, being the peculiar sort of 'cop' he was seemed to fit. "He can help us, Pop," Josto had said some three years ago. Under his father, and Odis under him. So the arrangement was Don't get too mouthy, don't cause problems, do what we say: and this is mutually beneficial, you awkward, twitchy, nonsensical cop. We don't want to kill you, but we can. As much as it perhaps should've been, the fact was not an undercurrent.

So when they embarked on the excursion, it was hard not to feel like they were both children trying to appease a schoolteacher. Like they were both damned. Josto was in charge, but he had more to lose at Donatello's hand. Odis recognized the struggle well.

☁︎

"What's all that?" Odis asked, fully aware that he sounded completely clueless. He looked down at the suitcase Josto had showishly tossed down onto the hotel bed. About half of it contained anything one'd normally bring on a trip out of the country. The other half was a mass of folded, harsh paper corners. "You're not selling all that, are ya?"

"I'm selling none of it."

"You..." Was there an additional objective to this trip Odis had been uninformed of? "You're not consuming all a' it, either."

Josto gave a nod, eyes straightforward. "You're here, too."

The plan was to go, stand around, and, with any luck, further business. "I'm not takin' a quarter of a suitcase of drugs, Josto."