Chapter Text
Narancia, cradling his injured hand, moved closer; however, it was a slow motion. As he approached the panicked Pannacotta, who was still on the verge of hyperventilating, he spoke softly. “Panna, hey. Can you hear me?”
The crazed look slipped the smallest bit.
“Listen. I’m gonna need you to breathe, okay? Breathe with me.” Demonstrating the motion, he pointed to himself, then, after a few example breaths, pointed to Fugo, who whipped backward at Narancia’s gesture. “Your turn.”
The anger in Fugo’s tone was replaced with exhaustion. “D-Don’t touch me.”
“I won’t. Sorry, I had to wake you up. See?” His hands were raised in the air. “No touching.” Any kind of panic on the Ghirga boy’s end had been replaced with a calm determination; the same flow state he’d enter when in battle. “Now, can you breathe for me, Panna?”
While he flashed his friend a skeptical glare, Fugo relented, taking a couple of deep breaths. The shaking had slowed.
Narancia praised him for the effort. However, before he could go on, he noticed that Fugo had clawed a bit at his upper arms; a defensive gesture. It had drawn a bit of blood.
“Panna, don’t do that. You’re at your apartment. You aren’t…” He’d mentioned something about a professor in his nightmare-addled rambling. “You aren’t back at university; not anymore. You’re safe.”
Fugo’s breathing slowed, evening out.
“Good. Do you know who I am?”
It may have been the smallest bit of moonlight bouncing off of Fugo’s eyes at just the right angle, but… the blank look had begun to dissipate, replaced instead with dull recognition. “...Narancia.”
Hearing his friend say his name, the boy in question got a bit choked up. “Yeah. Good job.”
Fugo repeated his name; this time, with more color in his voice. Narancia nodded in reply, watching as his friend came back to himself. Soon, shame began to wash over the blond’s features. He looked as if he were going to be sick. His breath hitched, eyes wet. Fugo began to shake.
While it broke Narancia’s heart to see Fugo in this state, it seemed that he had finally returned to himself from the dissociative fugue. Still, he wasn’t doing too hot. His upper arms were still bleeding a bit, staining the top of his sleeve. The scratch Fugo had given him hurt like a bitch, but adrenaline had dulled the pain considerably.
After a long moment of silence, the night air only punctured by the sounds of rain pattering against the window and the rumble of distant thunder, Narancia spoke. Still an ample distance away, he asked, “Panna, do you want me to come closer?”
“Narancia? What happened…?’
“A nightmare. A bad one. Likely about University. I had to wake you up.” He averted his gaze from his friend’s, slightly sheepish as he went on. “Sorry, I grabbed your arm; you weren’t waking up otherwise. I didn’t mean to scare you, or… what was the term you used earlier? Trigger?”
Fugo didn’t reply; he started to sniffle. Shaky breaths followed, and tears and sweat mingled on the boy’s cheeks.
Narancia had to do something. So, he offered Fugo an open hand, letting it dangle in the air. “Do you want to take my hand?”
Before Narancia could register what had happened, he found himself tumbling onto the bed. Fugo had yanked him into his arms with a shocking amount of force, clinging to him with all of the strength he could muster in his lanky frame. The blond let out a shuddering sob. He buried his face into Narancia’s shoulder.
Narancia blinked a few times, frozen. But, as soon as his brain had caught up with the situation, he got back to work in helping his friend. Confirming aloud that it was okay to pat Fugo’s back, he hugged back in kind. In response, Fugo practically melted into the friendly contact. It was then that Narancia realized: Fugo did, in fact, like touch; it just had to be on his own terms. Based on the way he was reacting, and the sheer desperation in his every movement, for Fugo, these kind gestures were long-needed. A wished-for oasis, nourishing his parched soul.
He let Fugo cry for a while. Then: “I heard everything,” the boy with night-black hair confessed, hoping that his friend wouldn’t hate him for it. “I… I figured out what you were trying not to tell me earlier.”
Between tears, Fugo choked out a reply: “...Do you think less of me for it?”
“What the fuck? Dude, of course not. What are you on? ” Narancia rubbed circles into his friend’s back, nuzzling closer all the while. “What happened to you sure as hell wasn’t your fault. Holy shit. ”
By this point, the two of them had been hugging for a long while; long enough, in fact, that Narancia’s arms had started to fall asleep. Still, their breathing had synced; slow, calming, grounding.
“If anything, I think a hell of a lot more of you than I already did. You went through hell, and you’re still here.”
Fugo replied, “So did you.”
“It isn’t a competition, but… yeah, we both did, huh.” A humorless laugh. “Do… Do you want to talk about it?”
After a lot of thought, Fugo finally let go, releasing Narancia from the hug. While his eyes were puffy, they glimmered with determination. “Well, it’s not like you don’t know what happened, anyway…”
“I kind of guessed, but… I want to hear it. From the source.”
“Even if it’s awful? Fucked up?”
The Ghirga boy got up, picking up the blankets that had been launched away during the nightmare. He handed each to Fugo, who, feeling better, wrapped the downiest of them around himself like an invulnerable, impenetrable cloak. “Even if it’s awful and fucked up. My dude, we are in the mob. ' Awful and fucked up' shit is, like, what our whole job’s about.”
"Fair." Despite himself, Fugo chuckled, taking Narancia’s hand as his friend returned to the bed, steadying himself as he began to tell his tale. He told him everything—about college, about his parents, about how Bucciarati had given him a chance. It took a while to get the words out, and it wasn't easy; there were moments where he fumbled, emotion overwhelming him. But, Narancia waited, and, when needed, filled the air with inane and distracting questions, as if on cue, and all without Fugo even having to ask. Still, it was freeing to have someone listen. But, it was a miracle to have someone care.
For the first time since he’d met Bucciarati, Pannacotta Fugo shared the burden of his past.
