#i just have a doc titled 'untitled alberto angst dump' now haha

[skypied]

MORE before I can change my mind. this time featuring new better dad

In his first few days in the Marcovaldo household after Luca’s and Giulia's departure, Alberto reverts back into a skittish creature. Having two other children in the house gave him places to hide, especially behind Giulia’s boisterous joy and easy entitlement to the house and her papa. He has neither joy or entitlement and certainly not to this strange, human abode and the big, imposing dad human. (But he wants to. He desperately wants to. He bites his lips until they bleed, but it doesn’t ease the starvation.)

He tiptoes around the house, startling Massimo every time he enters a room. He graciously sighs and ruffles his hair to reassure him, but he doesn’t take it, only the little moment of fear before it. He refuses to believe anything but that look in his eyes, the same he used to look at sea monsters before him.

He notices the worried glances Massimo gives him, and they fill him with heated shame. He was hoping Massimo liked him, encouraged by his small smiles and how pleased he was with his fishing efforts. But maybe that’s just the way fathers are. Damn Giulia for giving him false hope. After all the adventures and joy and hope his friends had given him, he was back to being a tool to be used.

But he's determined to not fuck up his second chance at a dad.

So he makes sure to learn what Massimo likes, too. Turns out fathers are different in some ways after all.

He stays quiet and stoic and respectful, emulating the burly man’s nature. He stops running his mouth like a train, thinking Massimo will prefer the silence, just like his father did. But when he stays quiet, the man looks at him with concerned eyes. He doesn’t understand that.

He keeps his head down and does his work - after all, that’s what Massimo asked him to. Stay here, help me fish, and you’ll have food and shelter for as long as you want. He likes it when they get loads of fish and when he does well.

But he also likes this: Alberto devouring his dinner. Alberto curled up with a book stolen from Giulia. Alberto ashamedly asking for help to write letters. Alberto’s grin whenever Luca calls. Alberto’s loss of self-control when he jumps up and down for joy. Alberto dancing to the radio as he helps with the dishes.

Alberto likes none of that. He’s slipping up. He can’t keep slipping up. Massimo will see him for what he is, a dumb, overemotional kid who ruins everything.

He doesn’t understand what Massimo doesn’t like. It’s been weeks, and he doesn’t understand what Massimo doesn’t like. What is it he’s not telling him? Why does he always smile at him? He needs to know what he doesn’t like. He can’t fuck up his second chance at a dad.

Maybe sometimes he shrinks back when Massimo lifts his arm. Maybe sometimes he wishes he would strike him, so he could understand what this relation is. Maybe sometimes he wishes the familiarity of the violence back. Maybe chaos is preferable to confusion.

Massimo clears out the storage room, and he gets a room. It’s just big enough for a bed and a dresser, but he gets a room. Something tugs at his heart and he’s not sure what the emotion is called, it feels too big and too small and too significant too soon.

Rooms are unfamiliar concepts to him. He’s not used to having somewhere that’s only his. He’s not used to not having the endless expanse of sky over his head, or miles to bound and explore. After saying goodnight to Massimo and closing the door, he waits for about an hour, counted out by the too loud ticking of his new alarm clock, before slinking through Giulia’s room and into the treehouse.

Maybe he shivers and curls into a ball to protect his thin human skin as summer bleeds into fall, but it’s preferable to the pressing walls and ticking clock and the soft sounds of Massimo snoring.

Maybe sometimes he sits outside his bedroom door listening and longing in the same way he used to for his father. It makes him feel more and less alone at the same time.

After dinner one day, where he glumly pushes around the potatoes on his plate, secretly salivating at the thought of raw fish, Massimo foregoes his usual attempts at small talk.

“How are you holding up, Alberto? I know this is a big change for you.”

He stutters and wants to hit himself in frustration with how long it takes to get out a simple fine.

“Do you miss Luca and Giulia?”

Maybe if he doesn’t respond, keeps his eyes on the table, he won’t be berated for feeling too much, like he always is.

“I understand that. I miss them too.”

He shyly glances up at Massimo for a moment, finding only gentle patience. He averts his eyes and nods quickly, before he can change his mind.

“You seem… quieter than usual. I hope you know that you can tell me if anything is bothering you. Anything at all.”

He shakes his head. He nods. He frowns and shakes his head again. Why can’t his stupid brain just obey him, stay in control, why does he betray himself.

Massimo gently leans over to put his large hand on his.

It’s too much.

It’s too much.

The budding hope crashes headfirst into the helpless sadness inside him and cracks his ribs open. His brain feels fuzzy and confused as warm, disgusting tears force their way out of him. He can’t do this. He can’t fuck up his second chance at a dad.

Massimo stands.

Oh, that’s it then. He wipes furiously at his nose, hoping to find some composure before he's thrown headfirst out.

But then he is enveloped in strong arms and somehow that’s worse. Strong arms that hold him close and lets him wet his shirt with his disgusting tears. He lets him sob out every disgusting emotion inside him. He lets him be disgusting and needy and starving and still gives him coffee and a slice of buccellato and gently says he can tell him when he’s ready.

Massimo leaves his bedroom door open just a crack that night. Alberto slinks in and gives him a good night hug and it feels okay. He sleeps in his bed for the first time and it feels okay. His heart is aching, but it feels okay.

He hasn’t fucked up his second chance at a dad.

For some reason, this dad seems determined to keep him, even when he’s bad.

you know what, all this asshole dad talk and sad alberto posts on my dash has made me absolutely feral, so here, have a quick page of Alberto and his father i jotted down that probably won't amount to anything more:

He knows he isn’t a good kid. That doesn’t take very long to learn. The lesson sits with him, making his growing bones even more gangly, afraid to take up space even inside his own body. But he tries to be a good kid. He tries very hard to be a good kid. Maybe he fails sometimes, and his father gets angry when he breaks something, or disturbs him, but he tries his best to make up for it by being useful.

He tries to learn what his father likes. Providing food is always a safe bet. He likes it when he catches fish and patiently debones them, although he himself prefers devouring them whole, the crack of their spine sending tingles down his own. (His father doesn’t like that, so he only indulges when he’s alone, squatting at the rocky shore and humming contently as he works his way through the sinewy meat.) He likes it when he picks what little fruit and berries there are to be found on the island, so he learns how to reap them in their prime, and what growths will make his father yell to not put them into his mouth.

Once, he spends all day perched completely still in a tree, his predatory eyes shivering in anticipation until he finally kicks off the branch with a fierce yell and sinks his teeth into a seagull, forgetting the lacking ferality of his human form. He hits the ground with a grunt, but keeps his fierce grip. The bird squawks and struggles, but he skilfully swiftly cracks its neck and glows with pride.

His father doesn’t like that, throwing the bird out the window and yelling at him for not getting proper food.

(He doesn’t dare check his father’s reaction to his rumbling stomach that makes him sneak out at night and silently tear the bird apart and shove it in his mouth. Turns out raw bird isn’t as digestible for monster stomachs as raw fish, and he vomits until he cries and coughs up feathers for days afterwards.)

His father doesn’t like him when he’s too happy. He doesn’t like his fits of unselfconscious joy, when he pumps his fists and jumps and laughs and dances. He really doesn’t like it when he dances.

His father doesn’t even engage with him when he’s sad, offering nothing more than a resigned huff as he walks out the door.

In a twisted way, he likes being angry. That’s when they’re most alike. So whenever being a good kid doesn’t work, he switches strategies. Provoking a frown and a yell is better than no eye contact at all.

He quickly learns that punching and biting is no good at all. They’re alike in that, too.

He’s a loyal kid. When his father leaves, he waves him off and plops down in the sand and sits there, drawing figures in the sand and making pictures with rocks as he waits patiently for him to come home. He rarely moves from that spot, usually digging a little hole in the sand to curl up and fall asleep in.

He beams and eagerly showers him with affection upon his return, even if his father is tired and brushes him aside, he forces joy into his face. He curls up on the floor beside his bed to hear his breathing and feel slightly warmer and safer than when he’s alone. Even when that safety is tinged with an inexplicable heaviness that makes his eyes well up with sadness his head isn’t big enough to wrap around, it’s preferable to loneliness.

He tries so hard, but is unable to see any of his efforts returned, only seeing cold disappointment in his eyes and feeling nothing but hard edges in his body. He tries so hard to translate this into the love he expects, demands, needs, but it’s been twelve years and it’s rarer and rarer he finds a tiny scrap to stitch to his heart that can convince him he’s loved.

He doesn’t understand why he gets none of that back.

He doesn’t understand what makes him so hard to even pretend to love.

What he does understand is that the aching hunger in his heart might never go away.