Work Text:
Did he lock the back door?
He was the last one up to bed - he’s always the last one up to bed. He has his nightly ritual - could it even be called a ritual? Perhaps it’s more of a routine. He checks the lock on the back door. He checks the stove is turned off. He checks the front door is locked, and that the big window in the living room is locked and that the curtains are drawn. It’s every single night, he does it every single night, because he’s the last one up to bed, and he needs to make sure that the house is safe. It’s his responsibility. He’s the last one up to bed.
How many months has he been doing the routine for? Back door, stove, front door, window. Back door, stove, front door, window. B͟ac͞k͘ door͠,͡ ͢stov̛e, ̕f͡r͘ont̸ ͢do͏or, ͜win̸do͟w.
Did he lock the back door?
Giorno doesn’t even sigh as he gets out of bed - it’s not like he was really in bed, either, only lying down on the mattress as he stares up at the ceiling - because he knows it would be his fault if he leaves the back door unlocked. An intruder could get in, kill him in his sleep - kill them all in their sleep - and it would be his fault. He could leave the stove on and the house would burn down, roasting each and every one of them to a crisp. Maybe he’d just leave the gas on, and suffocate them all in their sleep. Or perhaps Abbacchio would light a cigarette in the morning and cause a massive explosion, killing him instantly. Bucciarati would never forgive Giorno for killing his husband - and Giorno would never forgive himself either. He has to check - just has to make sure, and then he can go back to bed.
He presses down firmly on the back door handle and it doesn’t move, it doesn’t open. Satisfied, Giorno turns away, about to go over to the stove. He pauses for a moment. The door was locked, but what if he accidentally unlocked it just then? He turns and checks the door again. It’s locked. Still locked. That’s okay. He’s glad he checked, but deep down, he feels a little silly for it. Deeper down, he’s even more glad he checked because what if he had accidentally unlocked the door?
Giorno repeats the process with the stove, checking all of the dials, making sure that they’re all turned off. He holds his hand over the stove top, checking for any heat, and is satisfied to find it icy cold. He opens the door and waves his hand around in there too, just to make sure that it’s turned off in there too. It’s cold as well. He nods to himself, and shuts the oven door, before turning to walk away.
He pauses.
Turns back around.
Double checks all of the knobs and dials. All of them are set to zero. He runs his fingertips across the bumpy numbers, just to make sure that it’s not his eyesight fooling him. The ‘0’ feels like a ‘0’ and it looks like a ‘0’, and the arrow is pointed towards the ‘0’. It’s off. It’s definitely off.
He checks the front door, and the big window. Double checks them. Triple checks them. He goes back and checks the back door again, just to make sure it hasn’t spontaneously unlocked itself while he wasn’t looking (It hasn’t happened yet, but there’s always a chance). It’s still locked. The stove is still off. Giorno turns the downstairs lights off, and trudges up the stairs (Missing the fourth step, a habit that he’s picked up from Mista). He pauses on the landing, glancing up and down the corridor with a frown. He could just go back to bed - but there’s one more thing he needs to check.
Mista always sleeps on his stomach, and Giorno worries for him. He’s sure Mista’s fine - the pistols make enough noise if Mista so much as stubs his toe - but what if he’s suffocated in his sleep? What if he’s dead? The pistols can’t make any noise if their user is dead. He just needs to check.
He’s glad that Mista always leaves his door ajar - it makes it easier for Giorno to check in on him, just in case. Giorno hovers at his bedside. Mista is snoring - the pistols lay on the pillow next to his head, snoring too. It’s kind of cute - especially how Number Five snuggles right up against Mista’s cheek (It can’t possibly be comfortable for either of them).
But Mista is alive - and that’s what’s important. Giorno hovers for a few moments longer, watching as the blankets on Mista rise and fall along with his breaths. Mista is alive, despite his weird sleeping habits. Mista is alive, the doors and the bigt window are locked, and the stove is off, and Giorno can go to sleep.
Except Narancia ate that out of date cereal earlier, and he could be dead.
Giorno doesn’t even consider how ridiculous that thought is until he’s pushing Narancia’s door open, but he quickly remembers how much of a light sleeper the boy is and feels an immense wave of guilt wash over him as Narancia groggily lifts his head up from his pillow, squinting at Giorno through the darkness.
“Gio?” Narancia whispers, still half-asleep, as Giorno hovers nervously in the doorway. “You good?”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry for waking you.” He murmurs in response, hoping Narancia won’t remember this in the morning.
“What’s up?” Narancia yawns, dragging a hand through his wild dark hair (Does he ever brush it? Giorno could never get his own hair get like that).
“It’s nothing. My apologies.” Giorno mumbles, looking down to the floor in shame.
“It’s not nothing if you woke me up at-” Narancia checks the clock on his bedside table, squinting at the red digital numbers. “-Uhhh, 20 past 2. Have you slept?” The boy asks, looking at the awful dark circles framing Giorno’s eyes. No, he hasn’t slept. How can he sleep when someone could break in, kill them all, because Giorno didn’t lock the door. He’s not really sure to explain that to Narancia, the boy already lowering his head back down onto the pillow tiredly, so he just opts to shrug.
“It’s fine. Really.” He assures, and Narancia nods, rubbing at his eyes.
“Alright man, if you’re sure,”
“I’m quite sure. Goodnight, Narancia.”
“Night Gio.”
Giorno departs from Narancia’s room, shutting the door quietly behind him. He sincerely hopes that Narancia won’t mention it in the morning, that would be terribly embarrassing.
He glances down the corridor towards his room, then back up the corridor towards Fugo’s bedroom, and Abbacchio & Bucciarati’s shared room. He’s already checked on Narancia and Mista, he should really check on the others too. Just in case. Always just in case.
There’s light pouring into the hallway from underneath Fugo’s door, and Giorno gives a hesitant knock. Quiet, just two taps on the door. There’s no response, and that only serves to make Giorno more anxious. The light was on, but there’s no response - is he dead? Is that why he hasn’t turned the light off? Because he’s dead?
No longer willing to play a game of Schrödinger's cat regarding Fugo’s mortality status, Giorno opens the door.
Fugo is laying there, eyes closed, a book open on his chest. Oh , Giorno thinks. Silly me, he’s just fallen asleep while reading.
Unless--
Giorno creeps over to Fugo’s bedside, holding a hand just underneath Fugo’s nose. Small puffs of breath come out intermittently, signalling, along with the steady rising and falling of Fugo’s chest, that the boy is in fact alive. Okay. That’s fine, that’s good. He just needs to check on Bucciarati and Abbacchio, and then he can go to bed. It’s fine. It’s okay. He’s just checking. It’s just a routine, it makes him feel better. It’s okay.
Bucciarati and Abbacchio leave their door ajar too, and Giorno is intensely grateful for it - it means that he can sneak in and out quickly and quietly, without disturbing either of the pair. At least, that’s what he hoped would be the case - Giorno instead finds himself freezing just inside the doorway as he realises that Abbacchio is sitting up in bed, arms folded, ametrine eyes glaring at him through the darkness.
“ What the fuck are you doing ?” The man hisses out in a harsh whisper that makes Giorno feel horribly uneasy.
“... Sorry.” Giorno murmurs, unsure of what Abbacchio wants him to say.
“Why are you sneaking around all creepy-like? What are you doing ?”
You’re such a creepy kid, Giorno.
Giorno really wants to leave now. He knows Abbacchio is alive - though now he’s really wishing that he hadn’t bothered to check.
That’s a lie.
He’s glad he checked.
Under the covers next to Abbacchio, Bucciarati shifts, sitting up a little as he scrunches his eyes shut further and yawns, before opening them to peer blearily at his partner next to him.
“What’s wrong?” He mumbles, and Abbacchio nods to Giorno still hovering nervously in the doorway.
Bucciarati looks over to Giorno, blue eyes glinting in the darkness. “Oh.” He rubs his eyes, tiredly, propping himself up on one elbow. “Are you okay, Giorno?”
Giorno nods quickly. “I’m fine. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Did you need something?” Bucciarati asks, sleep evident in his voice. “What are you doing up?”
“I… I just wanted to make sure the two of you were alright.”
He watches as Abbacchio and Bucciarati glance between themselves, both of them looking a little confused, Abbacchio furrowing his brow. Bucciarati offers Giorno a weak smile, as Abbacchio huffs and lays back down, facing away from the door, and pulling the covers up over his head.
“We’re both fine.” Bucciarati assures him, and Giorno nods, though he doesn’t move from the doorway.
The pair hold a stare for a few moments, before Bucciarati speaks up.
“Are you going to go to bed now?”
Giorno shrugs, though he doesn’t quite drop the motion, keeping his shoulders a little hunched. “I will. I... just need to check on something first,”
“What is it?”
“I just need to make sure that I locked up downstairs.”
“Did you not already check?”
“I did, I just… I need to check again.”
Bucciarati narrows his eyes, as Giorno nervously shifts from foot to foot. “I’m sure they won’t have spontaneously unlocked themselves,”
They might’ve! Giorno wants to bite back - they might be unlocked right now, and there might be someone breaking in, coming up the stairs, gun in hand - they might be creeping down the corridor, ready to burst into the room and shoot them all in the head. And it would be his fault. They’d all be dead, and it would be Giorno’s fault.
Maybe there’s a logical part of his mind somewhere that tells him if someone really wanted to kill them, a single locked door wouldn’t stop their would-be-murderer (would-be-assassin? Giorno wonders when you would go from being murdered to assasinated. Something for him to ponder later, he supposes.) - but checking the door is locked lessens his uneasiness, just a little.
Which is why he needs to check. There’s an itching under his skin, and he needs to check, and he can’t quite explain why, he knows it might not be logical, might not be rational, and he hates himself for it (among other things) but he needs to do it. It’s the only thing that stops the awful intrusive thoughts of his gang, his friends, his family being murdered before his very eyes, so he just needs to check.
Oh.
Bucciarati is still staring at him, blue eyes glinting in the darkness with concern and confusion.
“Giorno?” He asks, patiently, and Giorno narrows his lips into a thin line as he tries to think of an explanation, a way to phrase it, that doesn’t make him sound completely fucking crazy.
Eventually, Giorno settles for “I just need to check.”
Bucciarati narrows his eyes for a moment, before throwing the blankets off of himself (Abbacchio immediately claiming them as his own) and gathering himself to his feet.
“We can check together.”
Feeling a little taken aback by the man’s offer, Giorno nervously picks at his fingernails. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” Bucciarati assures him, and Giorno frowns.
“It’s fine. I’ll check.”
“We’ll check together,” Bucciarati reiterates. “Two people checking is better than one, no?”
Giorno opens his mouth to argue, to tell the man that it’s fine, that he should just go back to sleep, but he’s interrupted by an irritated grunt from Abbacchio.
“Jus’ fuckin’ let him check with you. He’s offering. ” He says pointedly, his voice somewhat muffled by the pillow that he’s shoved his face into. Bucciarati gives a soft smile towards his husband, before offering the same expression to Giorno.
“Come on, we’ll go check.”
First on the agenda is to check the backdoor. Giorno tests the handle. It’s locked. Bucciarati checks it too. Definitely locked.
“Okay?” Bucciarati asks, as Giorno stares at the door handle. It’s not okay, but he doesn’t know how to say that. He’s just checked, and Bucciarati has just checked, and he trusts Bucciarati, but Bucciarati doesn’t know his routine, doesn’t know how Giorno does things.
The man takes Giorno’s silence to mean ‘No, it’s really not okay.’ and proceeds to offer him a patient expression as Giorno picks at his nails (they’re in awful condition now. Trish is absolutely going to lecture him the next time she sees them).
“Shall we check again?” The man offers, and it’s all Giorno can do to nod. Bucciarati checks the door handle. “Locked.” He says, firmly.
Giorno narrows his lips, as he too checks the door handle. “Locked.” He confirms, and Bucciarati gives a definite nod of satisfaction.
“Okay. What’s next?”
They check the stove, and the front door, and the big window, and then they check the stove again and then the back door again, just for good measure. Giorno really doesn’t trust that back door.
He’s exhausted by the time he gets back upstairs - he’s sure Bucciarati must be exhausted too, but the man doesn’t mention it. On the landing, Bucciarati turns to him, and Giorno struggles to make eye contact with the man out of shame for wasting so much of his time on such a silly thing.
“Are you feeling any better?”
Hesitantly, Giorno nods. “Yes, thank you. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“You didn’t disturb me. Besides, I’d much rather you wake me up instead of pacing around the house working yourself into more and more of a panic about something that we can easily fix.”
Giorno isn’t quite sure what to say in response to that, so he offers a shaky nod.
“Do you think you’ll be able to sleep?”
Giorno looks up at him, at the man’s tired eyes, and he’s immediately reminded of Bucciarati’s dead eyes, glazed over and glassy, after he was impaled right through his chest. Bucciarati died. Bucciarati could die again. He gets that thought a lot, that horrible, horrible thought of Bucciarati dying in a whole myriad of awful, and terrible ways. Bucciarati with a hole in his chest, Bucciarati burned to a crisp, Bucciarati falling down the stairs, crumpled into an awful heap at the bottom, bones broken, life rapidly fading from his eyes.
The man sees the panic flaring in Giorno’s eyes, and a quiet whisper of his name is enough to break the boy from the awful trance of intrusive thoughts.
“Giorno.”
He snaps his eyes up to look at Bucciarati. “Yes?”
“Do you want to sleep in our room tonight?”
Giorno frowns. “I…” He’s not really sure what to say. “... I don’t want to intrude.” Abbacchio doesn’t like him that much, but he’s not entirely sure of how to phrase to Bucciarati ‘Your husband fucking hates my guts and I don’t want him to hate you too.’
“You’re not intruding. It seems that you’re having a difficult night tonight, and I don’t really want you being all alone.”
He’s not entirely sure what possesses him to agree, but he soon finds himself lying sandwiched in between Bucciarati and Abbacchio, staring up at the ceiling. Despite him checking, despite him getting Bucciarati to check, anxiety and doubt still bubbles under his skin and he’s not entirely sure of how to make it go away.
“Giorno,” Bucciarati murmurs tiredly through the darkness, somehow able to sense the boy’s anxieties. “Are you alright?”
Giorno nods, even though Bucciarati can’t really see him. “Yes.” He responds automatically, and he hears Abbacchio give an audible sigh, on the other side of him. Giorno purses his lips, and curls into himself a little further.
“You locked the door, Giorno.” Bucciarati reassures, as if he can read his mind. “And the stove is off. The window is locked. Everyone is fine. We’re all safe. You’re safe. It’s okay.”
Taking a deep breath, Giorno allows his eyes to shut, and feels as someone drags the blankets up to his chin. He’s safe. They’re all safe. It’s okay.
And he locked the door. Bucciarati made sure he locked the door.