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Fugo had always been one to get lost in thought.
Well, lost may have been an understatement. The winding paths in his mind branched off into too many possibilities, impossible to fully explore without driving himself mad. This was the reason why when the team exited the cafe after finishing their meal, Fugo found himself seated at one of the tables in the outdoor dining area, thinking. The cream between the layers of the cake he ordered to-go was melting in the balmy weather.
He had spent a good portion of their time in the cafe lost in his head, not contributing much to the conversation or reacting to Abbacchio’s tasteless prank. Ever since the day’s math lesson had gone awry, he had been distracted. That was probably the reason why he found himself starting down one of those branching paths in his mind, ruminating on a topic he explored often.
Narancia.
At that moment he was just far away enough that Fugo couldn’t make out his words clearly, gesturing animatedly as he spoke to the newcomer. Quick to trust and quicker to make friends. Eyes narrowing, Fugo speared his fork through the slice of orange garnishing his cake and ate it in one bite.
Narancia was hard to pin down in one word. Innocent was a close approximation, but a little off. Pure-hearted was closer. He was good at his core, despite the world digging its claws into him early, just like Fugo. Granted, other than that detail Fugo found it laughable to compare the two of them. Narancia had come out on the other side of a harsh childhood with his good heart intact, and Fugo never had a good heart to begin with.
Nothing made him rotten. He was born that way.
Any time his thoughts turned to Narancia, there was a particular track his mind would settle into, like a rail car on a set path. It led him to a time when Narancia had been no one but a nameless boy bent in half over the edge of a dumpster, feet dangling off the ground as he dug for something to fill his stomach. Before Fugo knew his favorite snacks or the songs he liked to blast at an ungodly volume, he was just a kid so beaten down by the world that a simple act of kindness made his eyes glimmer with gratitude.
‘Where would he be if we never met that day?’ he wondered. He could never be delusional enough to consider himself as having saved Narancia. He had just made the decision on a whim to lead him to Buccellati, who did all the legwork while Fugo felt good about himself for a day. But in the same vein, he couldn’t fully blame himself for Narancia’s initiation into Passione, either. He had made his own choice. That ‘what-if’ was too nuanced to have a definitive answer no matter how much he pondered it.
He moved on instead to his recollection of their first assignment together. It was a simple information gathering exercise, meant to test the abilities of Narancia’s newly gained stand under Fugo’s observation. Narancia had been outlandishly excited by the prospect, though somewhere along the line they got caught up in a heated debate of whether or not Lil’ Bomber was a stupid name for a stand.
It was stupid. Thankfully when he tossed out Aerosmith as a possibility, Narancia’s expression lit up like a neon sign and it was settled that very instant. Fugo felt he had done the whole team a service.
Naming issues aside, by the end of the day he concluded that Narancia’s stand was well suited for their team. It also suited him surprisingly well. It looked like a toy, small and innocuous, but it would fill you with lead if threatened. Yes, it fit him to a tee.
When Narancia asked what his own stand was like, he had nearly recoiled at the thought of it. Purple Haze was a grotesque caricature of himself: neurotic, vibrating with purposeless rage, indiscriminately violent once it was set off. It repulsed him. He couldn’t remember what excuse he gave, but he knew he didn’t offer up any solid information about it. Narancia whined and needled him about it over some days. When he finally stopped, Fugo presumed it was because their capo had gone ahead and explained it to him in private.
He tried to ignore the sinking of his stomach when he imagined how that conversation went. It was important for the team to know (be warned, rather) about his ability, but in all honesty, his stand was an embarrassment. It was something he kept under lock and key as much as possible. If Purple Haze was out, something was wrong.
That thought brought him to a place where the road forked. A lesser visited memory laid off to one side, more raw than those he had just reminisced on. Apparently he enjoyed rubbing salt in his own wounds, because he dove right in.
The details were much easier to recall than he would’ve liked. A stakeout had dragged on longer than expected, leading to the team needing accommodations for the night. Buccellati had found an unassuming townhouse for rent, sizable enough for each of them to have their own space to sleep. It should have been fine.
Except for Fugo, it turned out to be one of those nights. One of the nights where he relived memories that made his skin crawl, like he was tied to a chair in his own mind, watching home movies of the awful things he had done and had done to him. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
He was used to being alone on nights like that, able to curl in on himself and wait out the ugly consequences of repressing the things that haunted him. But even though he had seen the inevitable breakdown coming, he wasn’t alone, and wouldn’t be until at least the next afternoon. Though they were likely asleep, the possibility of any of his teammates seeing him like that made his stomach turn and set his feet moving. He just needed to get out. He tried to pull on his shoes quietly and creep to the front door without disturbing anyone, but in the state he was in, every sound he made felt deafening in the oppressive silence.
Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. His stomach lurched, his heart jumped into his throat, and for just a moment he was back in another time. In an unfamiliar place, with someone's hand on him, and he wanted it off. Fight or flight kicked in, and the only answer he had ever known was fight.
He barely registered the fact that he had grabbed whoever touched him and whirled around to slam them bodily into the door, forearm pressing hard against their neck, until they spoke.
“Fugo,” Narancia wheezed, voice gravelly both from sleep and from the pressure on his windpipe.
Fugo lessened the force behind his arm immediately, though his heart was still beating out of his chest and pounding in his ears. He couldn’t bring himself to back down further. Not yet. His captive blinked blearily, looking disoriented. He had probably only just woken up.
“What the hell,” Narancia muttered, reaching up to grab the arm still at his throat. It seemed he was gearing up for one of their tiffs when he suddenly stilled, eyes widening as he turned his gaze upwards.
Oh.
He had been so wrapped up in himself that he hadn’t felt Purple Haze’s presence behind him, its breath coming out in agitated huffs. It leaned in far too close, a glob of drool dripping from its open mouth onto Narancia’s shoulder (disgusting). Fugo’s eyes hyper-focused on a bead of nervous sweat rolling down the other’s cheek.
‘It’s only Narancia.’
He needed to calm down.
“Hey,” the other started again, voice small, “it’s all good, Fugo.”
The uncharacteristic tone made Fugo’s chest ache. Squeezing his eyes closed, he used all the willpower he possessed to send his stand away before slowly relinquishing his grip on his friend.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
His own voice sounded like it was coming from miles away, but in perfect clarity his mind hissed ‘you almost killed him.’
Shaking off the repulsive mental image of his stand’s ability, he pushed past Narancia to slip out into the night air, sitting on the stone steps with his face in his hands. His mind was a jumbled mess of jagged lines and tv static. He needed to reign it all in again, lock it back up. Shove the mess in a closet and pretend the house was clean, like always.
Everything was quiet for a few moments, broken by the sound of the door quietly opening and clicking shut. Another pause, and then:
“Gonna sit next to you,” Narancia announced before doing just that. He was close enough that Fugo could feel the warmth radiating off of him, but he didn’t make contact.
“Noticed you were kinda weird today, so I wanted to see where you were going. Guess you weren’t doing so good. Mista said I should just leave it when you get like that.”
Of course he did. Even his own team knew he was a disaster waiting to happen. A liability. How long would it be until Buccellati sat him down with a gentle, sad smile and told him he had to go? What irreversible damage would he do before that happened? Speaking of which...
“Did I hurt you?”
“Nah, that was nothin’,” Narancia replied with a grin. “You just surprised me. Normally I would’ve kicked your ass!”
Liar. The fear and apprehension were apparent in his eyes when he caught sight of Purple Haze. What went through his mind at that moment? Did he think he was going to die?
“Yeah. Good,” he responded quietly, still not having moved from his hunched over position. Through the cage of his fingers, he saw Narancia move to sit on a lower step before twisting around to face him, leaning this way and that in an attempt to get a look at his face. Even if his fingers hadn’t been in the way, it was pointless. A street lamp was shining nearly straight down on them, light hitting Fugo’s back and casting the rest of him in shadow.
In light of the attempt to bring levity to the situation, Fugo conceded defeat, dragging one hand down his cheek tiredly before letting it drop to his lap. With his vision unhindered, he could see more clearly how the street lamp illuminated Narancia’s upturned face, making him look nothing short of angelic.
‘You don’t belong beneath me,’ he thought.
“What the hell are you doing crawling around down there?” was what he settled on actually speaking aloud. His voice was starting to feel a little more like it belonged to him. A bit less white noise was crackling in his head.
“Just lookin’,” came the playful reply. Even in the low light, that impish expression was hard to miss. The tension in Fugo’s shoulders lessened.
“Maybe if you looked this hard at your math worksheets, you’d learn faster.”
That was the most he could give in response to the earnest attempt at easing him back to normal. He couldn’t be open like Narancia was. He couldn’t wear his heart on his sleeve and openly express his sorrow, his happiness, his gratitude. The words would never come out. He couldn’t even offer a real apology for the atrocity he had very nearly committed.
Narancia leaned forward cautiously, crossing his arms over one of Fugo’s knees and resting his chin atop them. The angle he had to crane his neck at to keep eye contact must’ve been uncomfortable, but he seemed content to stay that way. In such close proximity, Fugo’s looming shadow blocked the light from reaching him. It was laughably poetic.
“Can you help me figure some more of that stuff out tomorrow?”
They both knew it was only out of consideration for Fugo’s ego and neuroticism that the attempt to reach out was veiled behind a flimsy veneer. He didn’t deserve Narancia. Didn’t deserve much of anything.
“Yeah,” he answered quietly. “Show me in the morning.”
Fugo had to force himself out of the memory, squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head. Self-reflection was a waste when he only used it to torture himself, and he was getting riled up again. Not nearly as much as that night, but enough to be dangerous. He was dangerous. Since that time, he hadn’t changed at all. No, he was fairly certain his volatile temper had only gotten worse, and the tethers on his self control had worn thin. So what if the team was accustomed to it, or if Narancia had grown to give as good as he got when his impulsive anger reared its ugly head? Did that absolve him of any guilt?
Narancia would’ve still had four ugly holes in his cheek from his most recent outburst, if their new member hadn’t shown off the mysterious power of his stand to do away with the injury once they moved outside.
‘He’s probably still with Giorno.’
Fugo turned his eyes in that direction again, banking on the sight of Narancia grounding him and fizzling out the dangerous tangent his mind was racing off on, but-
He was smiling brightly, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he nodded eagerly at something the blond was saying. Instead of whatever he was expecting, Fugo felt bitter jealousy rise up in his chest like bile. Purple Haze was clawing at the edges of his subconscious like there was something to fight.
‘Look at me like that,’ he thought sharply, countered quickly by ‘what, you think you own him?’
Ever self-deprecating, his inner voice.
‘He’s worse off for having ever met you.’
He had thought before there wasn’t enough information to determine that, but in that moment he somehow knew it to be true. Narancia had been hurt, he had suffered, but he was never ruined by it. Someone less self-serving would’ve helped him eventually, if only Fugo hadn’t come along and snatched him up first. Someone good would’ve seen the light in him. Narancia was kind, he was loyal, and he was grateful. He couldn’t see the truth of who Fugo really was or the selfishness behind everything he did. He wanted Narancia around because he liked him. Because it made him happy. Selfish. Pathetic.
“Fugo?”
Suddenly the subject of his thoughts was standing right in front of him. The unexpected sound of his voice jerked Fugo out of his head, effectively shorting out his impending mental spiral. All that remained were his almost imperceptibly shaking hands and feeling like his mouth was stuffed with cotton.
“What is it?"
“Check these out! Giorno made them with his stand! You ever seen flowers like this before?”
Looking at the flowers held in Narancia’s hands, he bit back the harsh retort that sprung to mind regarding taking something that came from a near stranger’s stand. To those who knew him well, he was as good as transparent. If Narancia had so much as glanced over, then he surely recognized the dark cloud of thoughts forming over Fugo like a bad omen. That was probably why he had come over. It was nearly routine at that point: if Narancia took notice before his thoughts completely enveloped him, he’d do whatever it took to get his mind back in the present.
He was getting pretty good at it.
“Gypsophila paniculata,” Fugo began when he realized the silence had dragged on a little too long, “or baby’s breath. They’re usually an accent piece in bouquets. They represent innocence, purity of heart. Maybe childishness, if you’re being a smartass about it.”
‘They’re a lot like you.’
“Huh. They kinda reminded me of you.” Narancia laid the flowers down on the table and grabbed one of the empty chairs, spinning it around to sit in it backwards with his arms dangling over the back. “Like your hair, you know?”
Fugo let his gaze linger on the bundle of flowers, strands of white falling into his field of vision as he looked down. It was true, it was the same shade as the delicate blossoms nestled together in front of him. Narancia had a way of noticing things that his own mind deemed unimportant and filtered out. Little things that seemed meaningless, but could carry weight if he let them. Only if he let them.
Maybe he could let himself have this. Maybe he could allow a single thread to tether himself to this person he had come to respect and care for.
‘Do I deserve that?’
“Hey! Did you hear me? I said your cake’s melting.”
He shifted his gaze to the abandoned dessert, picking up his fork and cutting it in half in one fluid motion.
“Split it with me.”
Narancia's face lit up with a cheeky grin as he leaned forward, mouth open like a damn baby bird expecting to be fed. He let out a surprised squawk when Fugo stuffed an entire half of the cake into his mouth, and the rest of the dark cloud was dispelled.
Sitting back to enjoy his own half while Narancia took on the monumental task of chewing what was in his mouth, Fugo felt a little lighter.
There had been a time when he felt he had no future. Life felt unchanging and stagnant. But Narancia was a river, an unstoppable force constantly surging ahead for better or worse, and maybe he didn’t mind being swept up in that current. If he kept trying to better himself, where could he be in a week? A month? A year?
Maybe the future did hold something for him, as long as it held Narancia. Maybe he could do better.
‘Maybe,’ he thought, ‘I could be more like you.’