and-fredo

[and-fredo]

i know it was you, fredo

The telephone line between New York and Nevada is snowier than a Manhattan January, but Fredo can hear the familiar, dry amusement in his brother’s voice well enough. “Mikey,” he responds, and there’s a glad laugh in his reply. It’s been weeks since they spoke, longer still since they spoke as brothers and not as business partners in the family’s dealings. “How’d you know it was me? Was meant to be from all of us.” 

He impatiently shoos away the cigarette girl who handed over the phone, glances out onto the casino floor one more time to check for Moe. Fredo had ducked into a back office to take the call, and now he can’t shut the door behind him without putting down the phone. Should have told the girl to close it on her way out. Damn. Michael’s name should be enough to make Moe back down if he gets on Fredo’s case for slacking, but he can never predict the man’s moods. Anyway, the coast is clear for now, so he settles down behind the desk cluttered with orders and accounting notes, his legs crossed, free arm splayed out over the arm of his chair. 

“Mikey, I know you. You’re so tied up in Pop’s business these days, you forget to have a good time. Connie and Kay are busy with the kids, Tom’s busy with the business, Pop’s taking it easy. If I didn’t take control and sort out a little something for your birthday, who would?”

Fredo hasn’t seen the cake he had sent to the C.orleone estate, but he can picture it; last month he mailed Nazorine some photos he’d clipped from magazines, hashed out a design and a handsome price with the old baker over the phone. The whole project has been a secret pleasure of his, a little secret to hold over his little brother for once. The entire thing reminds him of the great pantomimes of their childhood on Pop’s birthday every year, when they had sent Pop out of the house on increasingly ridiculous errands while Mom or Tessio or Clemenza or Sonny crept home with a birthday cake for the great man. 

The memory of the old days with their late brother, combined with the sound of Michael’s voice, fills Fredo with deep nostalgia. He’s been expecting the call, knowing Michael will surely call him out of politeness if nothing else. But there’s been a heavy little worry in the back of his mind that Michael mightn’t call at all, or might be cold and short and not Mikey, like he had been during his long-awaited Vegas visit a few months before. “Only wish I could have been there with you, kid. How’s it going over there?”

[and-fredo]

private, independent roleplay of fredo corleone from the godfather, incorporating the films, 1969 novel, and personal headcanons! literate & semi-selective.

CARRD (still a WIP) / RULES

THE THEMES: a very ordinary man in an extraordinary family; pride; loyalty; shortcomings that can never be overcome; family dynamics; resentment; guilt; masculinity; hedonism; regret . . .

The second son, Frederico, called Fred or Fredo, was a child every Italian prayed to the saints for. Dutiful, loyal, always at the service of his father, living with his parents at the age of thirty. […] Despite all these virtues he did not have that personal magnetism, that animal force, so necessary for a leader of men, and he too was not expected to inherit the family business. - The Godfather, Book I

run by bee (she/her, 28, GMT) ☀️

[and-fredo]

What is now the fully developed Las Vegas strip, 1955.

[and-fredo]

i'm entering the next phase of my life: tuesday afternoon