Chapter Text
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? I can be ready in 20.”
Bruno’s eyes lifted off the page he was reading and squinted at Leone, who was rummaging around one of the drawers in a hurry.
“It's fine. We’re already off by an hour and a half, and I don’t want Giorno and Mista to slice the capos in half when they realize that no one bothered to fucking do something about it.”
“I can assure you that no one will be slicing anyone before going through me,” the man mused, “though I’m pretty close to doing it myself at this point.”
Abbacchio snorted at how lightly Bruno was taking this and picked up a handgun from the desk drawer. Bucciarati signed off on some undisclosed paper and put it into the pile that was quickly forming.
"I can't fucking believe that none of them notified the main house," Leone huffed, "Like Christ, we get that someone ratted you out to the cops but at least tell us so someone else can go out and do your job."
Bruno snorted. “You’d be surprised at how disorganized even the most distinguished officials can be. Even at my age, there was a reason Polpo got himself landed in a cell.”
“Way to stop the impending loop,” the man deadpanned, reading off a few of the names on the list. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of...familiarity with some of the addresses, “The list isn’t too long. I’ll have it done in less than two hours if I go now.”
Bruno nodded absent-mindedly, finally lifting his head up as if he’d thought of something important.
“I don’t like the idea of just sending one of you...anyone you’d like to bring?”
He thought for a moment. Giorno and Mista were hours away at some rep meeting. Fugo had left to go shopping with Trish just a few minutes ago, and Narancia had said something about ‘target practice’ somewhere outside.
He wasn’t dragging Bruno into trivial bullshit today. Not with all the work he was already doing this afternoon.
“Not worth it to grab anyone away from what they’re doing,” he concluded, “And don’t even bother trying to come with me, either. You know what I’m gonna say”
Bruno gave him a wry smile in response. “At least let me ask. It makes me look more responsible, even if I already know the answer.”
Rolling his eyes, Leone snatched a pen from the drawer beside him. “Do your paperwork, bastard.”
Bruno shook his head in amusement, but his expression quickly turned sour once he looked at his own copy of the names.
“Are you sure you’ll be alright going to... that part of town by yourself?”
“What do you mean?” Abbacchio paused, flipping the paper over to reveal the main district. To say that something inside of him dropped would be an understatement.
Shit. Well, then.
“It's fine,” he swallowed his unease because this was supposed to be his goddamn job. He had no choice but to get over it at some point or another, “I’ll be quick.”
“I can send someone else, you kn—” Bruno’s words drifted through empty air as Leone took the last of his stuff and was already halfway down the stairs.
“Too late, capo!” he yelled back, grabbing his keys and coat hanging at the bottom of the stairs, “I’m taking the good car. Give me a few hours, and I’ll do better than all those idiots downtown.”
Bruno sighed and shook his head, letting the pen slip out of his grip.
“I’m not a capo anymore, Leone.”
“You know what the hell I mean.”
He had to get over it at some point, didn’t he? He couldn’t help control Italy if he couldn’t show his face in a part of it. He’d had his hand cut off and his entire body impaled for them to reach heights as high as this—he wasn’t letting the power slip from his hand so easily.
Yet...as he stared at the piece of paper sitting on the dashboard, he couldn’t help the slight dread that formed at his core.
He hadn’t been in the north in a long time. And it must have been even longer since he’d had to visit that neighbourhood again. Not since his sorry ass was picked up out of there, at least.
It was strange. No matter how many times he went out drinking after that or left the rest of the gang in some rage, he never thought about going back there. His mind had a tendency to wander, but it never wandered back to the neighbourhoods that he claimed to watch back then.
The clouds above him started to build up into grey masses, and Abbacchio tried to focus on the road. His hands felt jittery as they gripped the steering wheel but other than that...he seemed fine.
Finer than he thought he would be, at least.
Doing this for Bruno better be worth all this emotional labour. He was sure the last time he walked through these streets he was—
The light turned green. Just drive.
He sighed and stepped on the pedal, slowly driving further into the dragon’s den that he used to call home.
The houses that he walked by looked the same, but he couldn’t say that he recognized many of them anymore. Maybe because he was so eager to get out and forget—or maybe it was just easier now that everything had happened.
After everything that went down earlier this year, he wouldn’t blame being a bit unfamiliar with everything else in his life.
With the list in his hand, he trekked down the winding sidewalks to each address, praying that no one would recognize him. Even if they did, he was sure they wouldn’t say anything for fear of getting in trouble with whatever “higher power” he was working for now.
He swore he could see a twinkle of recognition in some of their faces when he tracked the names down, but any familiarity went out the window the moment he pointed to the list and asked for payment. With more than a handful of envelopes in the lining of his jacket, he was starting to wonder if all this unease was for nothing.
And here I thought this would be hard, he thought to himself, flipping through and crossing off last names that he’d visited. No one was difficult so far, and he only had a few more names to go through before he could finally get home.
And good timing, too—the clouds from earlier seemed to cover the whole sky in a murky gray, and he could see the sun starting to fall a bit below the buildings. With his luck, he might actually get home before the rain even starts.
He turned a corner and made his way up an alleyway. The last three names were a few streets up...if he could get up there quickly, he’d be able to make it back just in time to season the vegetables before Bruno could get his hands on them instead of taking a break. Only three more names and then he could—
“Leone Abbacchio.”
A gritty voice called out from behind him, and he froze as a group of footsteps began walking towards him.
“Never thought I’d see you again.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. Even without the hat and uniform, it was still clear who those bastards were just from the entitled stance they had. He turned himself around and looked at the three men standing just a few feet away, wondering why the hell he hadn’t thought of the possibility of running into the fucking cops.
“You remember us, don’t you?” the first man said, taking an aggressive step closer, “Right? Cause I’m pretty sure we all fucking remember you.”
He felt a shiver up his spine as the three of them attempted to stare him down. If they were trying to intimidate him, it was working. The last thing he wanted to see were these people again.
“Got nothin’ to say for yourself?” the second one teased. Leone felt himself bristle with irritation as the men seemed to step unconsciously closer, yet he stared them down silently. Maybe he’d be fucking left alone if he looked intimidating enough.
“Last time we saw you, you were stumbling around like a fucking lowlife, weren’t you? Didn’t think we’d see you around here again after you—”
“—what the hell do you want, exactly?” His temper quickly got the better of him and probably not for his benefit, but he could hardly care. Anytime one of them opened their mouths, it felt like a shockwave running through him—one that he hadn’t felt in years.
“Hey, hey, hey, we just wanted to talk!” One of the men backed away, his hands pulled back. He was clearly getting a kick out of this, and Leone wanted to smack him. “But if you wanna be an asshole, I guess we’ll have to go about things a bit differently.”
The other men laughed, and Abbacchio gritted his teeth in frustration.
“We’re off duty, you know,” he spat, “but I’m sure the department wouldn’t mind if we roughened you up a bit.”
He wasn’t stupid to know what that meant. Leone stood his ground and reminded himself that he’d been in much worse situations than one like this. Except he wasn’t alone.
The men inched closer, and Abbacchio glared at the one standing in the middle—he looked familiar. It was no secret that Moody Blues wasn’t a fighter, but he would be fine as long as he had his gun.
...where the hell was his gun?
With one hand, he calmly pressed along the lines of his jacket and pants pockets, only to find nothing. His blood froze as he tried to retrace his steps.
Talked to Bruno. Got gun from office. Got into the car. Left car…
The gun was still in the car.
The gun was still in the fucking car, sitting in the passenger seat where he’d left it, thinking he wouldn’t even need it in the first place. Along with— along with his phone. Dammit.
“You’re gettin’ too cocky for someone with blood on his hands,” a grimy voice growled in his ear, and he was being thrust into the alley’s brick wall before he could even react. With a grunt, he tried to break free from their grasp, but it proved to be futile as they each grabbed hold of his arms and pulled them back.
With a few kicks, he was down to his knees, and with a large blow to his back, he could feel his face hitting the dirty concrete in an instant.
“Let’s see what you got here, you bastard,” the main one snickered. He could feel his body being held down by two other pairs of feet as the last man sifted roughly through his jacket. He cursed to himself when a grubby hand grabbed the envelopes.
“What the hell are these?” he asked gruffly. He felt a boot step on the back of his head and push hard —he kept his head down.
“Hey, man...look what I found,” one of the men stepping on him bent down to pick something up. He could hear the three of them talking amongst each other, but his blow to the head was starting to make his body throb.
“Oh man...now this is some priceless shit!” the main one laughed, “Protection money? To think we all thought you were fucking dead! Turns out you're just working for the damn mob, instead!”
The three of them cackled, and the first man bent down to whisper in his ear.
“Killing people for a living is the perfect job for someone like you.”
“Eat shit,” Leone snarled. Turning his head, he spat as close as he could to the first man, which happened to be the edge of his boot.
“You’re gonna regret that, you shit,” the man growled back. Abbacchio bit back a noise of distress as he felt a fat hand grab a clump of his hair and hoist him up by it. The two other men started muttering to each other, and his body was being thrown into the wall again before he could take another breath.
His head was fucking pounding—he heard nothing but a slight ringing in his ears as he was pulled to his feet again, only for a fist to collide with his face. He could feel his body falling and hitting something hard again.
Something wet was dripping from his nose. He could taste copper in his mouth.
Another blow to the gut sent him flying into the wall, winded. He sucked in a breath, and his vision started to blur—any sound besides a faint ringing became obsolete. His body sunk into the wall behind him as jolts of pain hit him with every blow that he could barely detect.
He thought he heard a ripple of laughter clip through his ears before one final blow sent his lights out, and he ceased to feel anything at all.
...
...what the hell?
...why does everything hurt so much?
Abbacchio awoke with a groan and found that he could barely move his body an inch. His head pounded and throbbed with the rest of his body. He tried to blink himself awake but found that it was hard to open up his left eye.
His chest ached as he tried to suck in a breath. It felt like his stomach and ribs had been bashed in—which they probably had.
Opening up his working eye, he tried to scan the rest of his body without causing it to crumble. His right hand had to be broken—a couple of his ribs, too. He ran his good hand up and down his body, trying to rule out any injuries.
No open wounds. No infections.
He winced and tried to sit up a bit. He could eventually shake off any wound, but what he was anxious about was the almost unbearable pain coming from his lower abdomen. He had no idea how much they'd kicked him there, but he knew better than to just assume it was bruising.
The sun had already begun to set in the sky—he wondered how long he’d been there. Clearly, no one bothered to help him. He wouldn’t be surprised if he was mistaken as some kind of drunk or thug passed out in this alley. He probably wouldn’t have done anything, either.
He knew he probably had to get home, but a part of him felt like the cold brick wall behind him was the only thing keeping him upright. That was fine, right? He could probably stay here a bit longer and sleep just a little bit more, right?
He shook that consideration off. Why was he thinking so stupidly right now?
His clouded thoughts were interrupted by a splash of wet on the tip of his nose. Then another one on his wrist. Then one on the back of his neck.
Shit.
The rumble of the clouds above him triggered an onslaught of water droplets, bound to get worse as the time went on. He needed to get out of here.
Feeling around in his coat pocket, he tried to splice together a plan. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was, but if he could just get to the car, then—
His pockets were empty. He had foolishly forgotten about that.
He should have known that if they had taken the envelopes of money in his jacket, that they would have taken the car keys, too. Fuck.
New plan. Stand up, find a phone booth, pray that he has coins, and call one of them to pick him up. Of course, there was the risk of getting jumped again, but he’d rather take his chances than pass out in this alley—especially in this part of town.
...the standing up part was easier said than done.
Hissing in pain, his good hand gripped the wall beside him and he lifted himself up. His head lulled to the side a bit, all sides of his still throbbing mercilessly. His scalp still burned from how they treated his fucking hair—he’d kill them with his bare hands just for that.
With one hand on the wall and the other wrapped around his abdomen, he began to walk. Rain now steadily hit to the ground, and Leone squinted with his good eye as he stumbled towards the end of the alleyway. He could only imagine what his face looked like right now. If he didn’t have a black eye, it was at least bruised to all hell. And his fucking makeup—he’d been using his non-waterproof stuff since the Trish incident and never bothered to buy some more, didn’t he?
A raindrop splashed off one of his eyelashes. That was probably biting him in the ass right about now.
He couldn’t see the sun anymore, and the clouds just made the surroundings darker. A street light flickered on from the corner of his eye, and he continued down the stormy street.
Find a phone booth.
His vision was limited and he knew he couldn’t be thinking straight, but his sights caught a familiar looking structure a few feet away. He tried to ignore the occasional car passing by and dirty looks from across the street as he trudged over to the red booth. Once he entered it, he found himself slumping against the glass, thankful to be out of the rain.
Pray that you have change.
He knew for a fact that those bastards took everything valuable off him, but if he could find one fucking coin to put in there, then his ass would be saved a hell of a lot of trouble.
He checked the lining of his jacket and pockets of his pants one more time before sighing and resting his head against the wall of the phone booth. There was a really good fucking chance that he had a concussion, and but now he was more worried that some kind of shock was setting in.
The world started to spin on a tilt again, and he squinted at the ground to steady it when he noticed something glint despite the murky weather. Bending down, he felt himself cough up something thick and spat out a mouthful of red on the sidewalk beside him.
A coin. Thank god .
Wasting no more time, he shakily pressed the coin into the slot and punched in the number before his wrecked brain could second guess himself. The ring echoed in his ears, and he felt the urge to spit out whatever taste was in his mouth.
He knew that everything would probably be fine, but the lingering worries in his head didn’t stop him from thinking— what if no one picked up?
A few years ago, that would have been the only outcome to something like this. But now—
“Hello?”
—Now things are different.
“I’m sorry, who is this calling?”
“Br—,” he choked on his words. He didn’t know how much his fucking throat hurt until he tried to make himself speak.
“Leone, is that you?”
He seemed to get the message.
Abbacchio could already feel some elements of shock start to reach his brain. His brain forced him to consider that maybe he was completely fine. Maybe staying in this phone booth would be alright.
“You were supposed to be back hours ago. Did something happen?”
Bruno was still trying to reach him on the other line, and he forced himself to say something—
“I fucked up.”
There was silence on the other end, and Abbacchio thought he could hear the man’s keys already jingling.
“Fucked up how?” he asked, “Are you drunk?”
He would have laughed had it not been for the broken ribs that were digging into his chest.
“No, no,” he reassured, though he was sure that the slur in his voice wasn’t that soothing, “I’m just...I got fucking jumped.”
“What?”
His voice went from worried to urgent in a split second. Leone could almost see the facial expression he was making right now.
“Are you injured?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus, where are you injured?”
“...”
Fuck, his ribs hurt. Everything fucking hurt, so he brought his injured hand up to his chest and leaned up against the phone, trying not to pass out.
“We’re coming to get you. Where are you?” the voice on the other end clipped in and out of his ears, and he stared at the rainy surroundings in confusion. Didn’t he know where he was before he got jumped? Why can’t he remember anything?
He barely remembered uttering a few locations around him before Bruno notified him that he was already driving. He vaguely remembered him mentioning something about shock and not moving anywhere, but he didn’t exactly expect himself to go wandering right now.
He held the phone up to his ear even after the three minutes had passed, and slumped further into the booth, watching the headlights pass and waiting for ones that would finally stop.
It was only when he found his eyes starting to close that the sound of tires screeching blinked him awake, and a figure rushed out of the car to greet him.
He had a self-conscious moment where he wondered how stupid he looked right now—he imagined Bruno thinking how Leone could have possibly let this happen—but it all slipped out of his mind the moment he realized how much pain he was in.
“Jesus,” Bruno exclaimed, putting away his umbrella the moment he saw the state he was in, “Jesus Christ, Leone.”
Bucciarati’s hand came towards his shoulder, and Abbacchio felt himself melt into it. He unapologetically slumped forward and let his head rest on something softer than a wall, and he felt a pair of arms wrap around him in return.
“What the hell happened to you?” the man asked gently. Leone tried to respond, but a choked sound was all that came out of his throat. He pulled away and coughed up a concerning amount of red once again.
That couldn't be good.
“Shit,” Bruno hissed through his teeth, and the pair started moving forward, “I’m sorry. Someone should have come with you—this is my fault. I’m sorry.”
Abbacchio mumbled something about it being fine, but he could still feel the guilt ruminating off of Bruno as he guided him towards the car. He thought he saw Fugo in the driver's seat looking terrified, but his vision kept unfocusing too much to tell.
“Let’s talk once we get in the car, alright?”
All he could really do was nod as the rain poured down on them. He thought about making a joke about how this was almost like when they first met—minus the blood leaking from his nose and the blows to the head.
He decided that it wasn’t the time.
“You’re internally bleeding,” Bruno concluded. Trish hummed in sympathy and Narncia rushed into the room with the rest of the first aid supplies. There wasn’t really much point in forcing Abbacchio to climb up a flight of stairs, so they dumped him in the guest room on the main floor until they could figure things out.
“Among other things, I’m guessing?”
“No shit,” Trish snorted. Abbacchio knew she was trying to lighten the mood a bit, but he didn’t think he’d forget the look on her and Narancia’s faces when they finally got home for a while.
“A fractured wrist, black eye, at least three broken ribs, a fucking concussion—” Bruno stopped talking before he presumably freaked himself out, and grabbed an ice pack from the pile of stuff Narancia brought in with him, “The internal bleeding in your abdomen could be a problem. If we didn’t have Giorno with us, the wound could have been fatal in a matter of hours.”
Leone shivered involuntarily as the ice pack was placed over his eye. To think that he considered just staying in that fucking alley…
“Who the hell were these guys, anyway?” Narancia demanded, “I wanna know so we can beat the everloving shit out of them! Whoever messes with our group is gonna getting their fucking eyes gouged out!”
Trish sifted through the first aid pile and pulled out a roll of bandages as Narancia badgered on about his different torture methods, until Abbacchio cleared his throat.
“Fucking cops,” he rasped. Narancia was quiet for a moment before exploding with anger once again.
“Oh, are you fucking KIDDING me?! What, so we can’t even touch them, then?”
“Stop yelling, and go get him some water,” Bruno snapped. In an instant, the kid was heading towards the kitchen, probably eager to have something to do with himself.
“These types of painkillers have a pretty good chance of making the internal bleeding worse,” Bruno bit off the end of one of his nails, and looked at the rest of the supplies they had. He sighed. “I’m going to head out and get some better ones. Trish, will you and Narancia get him some food while I’m out?”
The girl nodded, and made her way over to the kitchen.
“You know this isn’t your fault, right?” Abbacchio said once the two of them remained.
Bruno only gave him a look of guilt before walking out himself.
“I just got off the phone with Giorno,” Fugo slid into the room and stuck his phone on the nightstand, “They’re about an hour away. Though knowing Mista, it’ll probably be more like 30 minutes.”
Abbacchio nodded, and attempted to sip at his drink without breaking his other hand.
“They’re supposed to have the lights off, you know. Does anyone in this house even know how to treat someone with a concussion?” Fugo rolled his eyes and switched off the lights. Whatever incessant pounding he felt lessened a bit.
“Have you seen Bruno perform first aid on himself?” Leone joked, “Half of it’s just zippers and painkillers—he has no idea what he’s doing and he knows it. That man’s an infection waiting to happen.”
“That’s why you got me, I guess,” Fugo said, pushing the pile of supplies aside, “How’s...everything?”
“I’m on no fucking painkillers and feel like I just got run over by a semi-truck. What the hell do you think?”
Fugo laughed, but his expression turned into something more...genuine than he expected of him. It wasn’t like him.
“Can we talk about something?”
The shift in mood was unexpected. Abbacchio would have shrugged but his chest hurt too much to protest, so he nodded instead. Fugo sat himself at the edge of the bed and curled his knees up to his chest.
“I never got to say thank you a couple weeks ago,” he started, “I figured I could just never bring it up again, but that’s never really done shit for me.”
Leone nodded again. Fugo ran a hand through his hair nervously.
“I just—” he paused, “I don’t... get like that anymore. Ever. Not like that. But when I did, you weren’t an asshole about it, which I can say about a lot of people. So thank you.”
“Not a problem.” His voice sounded like shit, but he wasn’t just going to leave him in silence, “And I get it if you never wanna talk about it again. No big deal.”
He thought he saw a hint of a smile under Fugo’s wall of expression, but it was pushed aside as Trish barged into the room.
“Narancia and I burnt something.”
Fugo stood up. “What?”
“Deal with it,” she said, but Fugo was already stomping over to the kitchen, ready to tear Narancia a new one. Trish smirked and shut the door.
“Now that I’ve distracted him for a bit…” She placed a makeup bag on the bedside table, and unzipped it.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“You should listen to your own rule about waterproof makeup, you know.”
He tried to roll his eyes, but with an ice pack on one of them it was a bit hard to do so.
“Bruno cleaned all that blood from your face, but he dutifully forgot to wipe off the eyeliner that’s—well— everywhere.”
He snorted as the girl pressed a wipe to his face, grimacing as she tried to avoid the abomination that was his black eye. As her eyes focused on getting everything off his face, Abbacchio remembered something vital that he had yet to tell any of them.
“The good car’s gone.”
“It’s GONE?” they both spun around and lifted their heads as Narancia blurted that out from his spot in the doorway. Trish looked unimpressed.
“I thought you were supposed to distract Fugo?”
“I thought I told you I’d get bored?” he mimicked, sliding further into the room, “Is it true that the good car’s really gone?”
“Yep,” he rasped. He winced as Trish went over a bruised spot on his face, “They took my keys when they jumped me—thousands of fucking euros, too. Those bastards are gonna have a good time with those envelopes.”
Narancia groaned, face planting himself at the end of the bed. “Can we have a funeral for it? It went everywhere with us...missions, the mall, that one warehouse that Mista and I found…”
“Mcdonalds…” Trish added on, sighing.
“I’d rather have the good car gone than you, though.”
Narancia’s voice was muffled from his face in the blankets. Abbacchio snorted.
“Let’s hope Giorno gets back before I internally bleed to death. Then we can talk.”
He could tell he was starting to get out of it again. He found that he could barely open his mouth when Trish asked if he was alright. He nodded off as his head and chest started pounding again, Trish and Narancia’s idle conversation the only thing in the background.
He groaned as someone lightly shook his shoulder—something was being put in his mouth.
“Painkillers,” Bruno said gently in his ear, “swallow.”
A glass of water tipped into his mouth, and he swallowed that, too. He felt blood in his mouth, but there was no damn way he was gonna risk coughing up the only thing that would make him feel less hellish.
After God knows how long, opened his eyes to a crowd of hushed voices talking around him in the semi-darkness. Before he could move to sit up, a glass of water was being passed to him.
“How are you feeling?” Bruno murmured, “Any of what I gave you kicking in yet?”
He nodded. His chest didn’t hurt as much when he breathed in, and his head had stopped pounding for the time being. Though he’d rather die than move right now.
“We figured you wouldn’t be hungry with all this going on, but there’s food if you want it,” Fugo mentioned. They all nodded.
Abbacchio opened his mouth to say something, when the sound of the front door slamming and a pair of frantic footsteps running towards the guest room cut him off before he could utter a single word.
“Abba!” Mista darted into the room holding two weirdly wrapped packages. He put them on the floor beside him and came up to the side of the bed. “Jeez, you look awful. How do ya feel?”
“Never been better,” he joked, wincing at the awful taste still in his mouth. Giorno rushed in out of breath, taking off his jacket and gloves and dumping them on the floor.
“Show me where you need me to heal,” he said breathlessly. Abbacchio snorted and lifted up his shirt, pointing to the red and purple bruising on his lower abdomen. Giorno grimaced at the sight of it, but that didn’t stop his stand from appearing next to him.
“Is he healed yet??”
“He just started, Narancia,” snapped Fugo.
“Give him time to actually do it,” Trish zipped her makeup bag back up and set it somewhere beside her. Mista frowned.
“Your hands are shaking, Giogio.”
“Well maybe they’d stop shaking if you all shut up and let me do this correctly.”
“He’s right, you know,” Bruno said, “we could probably do with a little peace and quiet.”
Giorno’s stand started to do its work, and Abbacchio could slowly feel the searing pain in his stomach turn into only soreness. The bruising started to subside, and Giorno let out a weary sigh, slumping into the bedframe.
“It’s finished. You’ll be alright.”
It seemed like the room all let out a sigh and an underlying tension broke between them. Abbacchio smirked and ruffled Giorno’s hair.
“You’re a lifesaver kid.”
Giorno just nodded tiredly. “I can’t do much for your ribs. I hope you don’t mind having to live with a bit of chest pain for a couple weeks.”
“God, anything’s better than how I was feeling a couple minutes ago.”
Mista chuckled and rummaged around with the packages on the ground. “We got you some plants!”
Leone raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
“Technically they were gifted to the two of us at the meeting, but we thought you probably deserved them more after what happened today,” Giorno explained. Mista lifted the two plants up and stuck them on top of the dresser.
“This one’s a money tree named Milk cause I spilled milk all over it during one of the meeting breaks,” he explained. Narancia stared at it in awe.
“It looks so cute!”
“It's supposed to bring good luck,” Fugo added.
“Perfect, then!” Mista snickered, pointing to the second one. Green and pink leaves stuck out of its brown stem, “We don’t really know what kinda plant this is, but his name is Giovanni.”
Trish raised an eyebrow. “Giovanni?”
Giorno rolled his eyes and looked away, and Mista giggled. “I named him that because the guy who gave us these kept calling Giorno the wrong name. Every damn time.”
The conversation went on as the pair told them all how the meeting went—spilt milk and wrong names and all, until Narancia snuck over next to Leone and pointed at his chest.
“I think we’d all be hugging you like crazy right now if it wasn’t for your ribs,” he admitted. Abbacchio shook his head in amusement as the rest of them expressed their agreement.
“It’s alright.”
He knew he could be resentful right now. He had every right to whine about it. About having to go into that fucking neighbourhood again. About running into the last people he’d ever want to. About getting beaten and stolen from, left for dead in some alleyway as if he were nothing but pathetic.
He knew he could also bury himself in grief—lament about the way his heart wrenched the moment they mentioned his partner and shut himself out the moment anyone tried to talk to him—he’d done it before.
He knew there were a lot of things that he could feel sorry about, he could spend days and weeks pitying himself over them if he wanted to.
“You guys being here is more than enough.”
But right now, surrounded by everything that he could really call his, he found that he didn’t really care about anything else.