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It begins around one in the morning.
By virtue of Abbacchio being out on a minor intel assignment, and therefore not home to pester him into sleeping, Bucciarati is sorting through reports when he first hears the sound of frantic footsteps stumbling down the hallway. That’s what encourages him to look at the clock for the first time in what must have been hours. Sure enough, it reads 1:14 AM, and this sets off alarm bells in his head: typically, at this hour, most of the house is asleep. To hear someone come down the hall-- nearly bound down the hall, no less--is undeniably unusual.
Bucciarati stands from his desk, peering out into the darkness beyond the entry to his room. Across the hall, a bathroom light is on (in bright contrast to the rest of the house.) Bucciarati slips into the corridor, closing the door on his way out, and pads towards the light. The sight that greets him makes his heart drop; the person responsible for the noise had been Giorno, who now stands bent at the waist, loose hair cascading down his shoulders as he pants over the porcelain, sick as a dog.
It’s unseemly, to say the least. Bucciarati has seen Giorno lose his composure no more than five times since knowing him, and even then, he’s never seen the boy look like this. He raps his knuckles against the doorframe to alert Giorno of his presence, who turns his head slightly in acknowledgement. He looks weak, worn down, out of it, and yet somehow, he appears to be terrified.
“Not feeling well?” Bucciarati’s voice is quiet and soothing as he slips into the room. Giorno shakes his head pitifully, spitting into the water.
Bucciarati reaches into a drawer for a hair tie and pulls golden locks away from Giorno’s face. He jolts at the contact at first, but he doesn’t push the man away. Frankly, he doesn’t quite seem like he’d have the strength even if he’d intended on it. His stomach makes a horrible curdling sound, and Giorno bites back a whimper, squeezing his eyes shut. He grips the toilet seat tighter, tighter until his knuckles turn white.
Once he successfully gets Giorno’s hair tied back into a bun, Bucciarati rests a hand between his shoulder blades, trailing gentle fingertips down his spine. It’s quiet, save for the sounds of ragged panting, before the frame beneath Bucciarati’s touch lurches with a loud, fruitless gag. One of Giorno’s hands shoots up to his mouth, as if he is now deciding that he doesn’t want this and he made a mistake, as if that’ll force the nausea to subside.
Ultimately, his attempts are unsuccessful, and with a heave strong enough to send his knees buckling Giorno coughs up a mouthful of last night’s dinner. Bucciarati guides him to kneel on the ground just in time for him to vomit again.
“You’re alright,” he murmurs, “you’re going to be okay.”
Outside of the bathroom, hinges creak as someone emerges into the hall, though this seems to go reasonably unnoticed by Giorno. Bucciarati hears footsteps, and then a light knock on the door before it creaks open just enough for Fugo to peek his head in. Giorno doesn’t seem to care very much--he’s a bit too busy for that.
“Why are-- oh, dear, ” Fugo blinks, not expecting to walk into the sight before him. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Bucciarati admits, turning as Giorno lurches again to murmur further reassurances in his ear. The blonde shivers beneath his palm.
“Do you, ah,” Fugo looks a little peaky himself, and Bucciarati is unsure if the pause he takes is to swallow back his own queasiness or to gather the words for his sentence. “Do you need anything?”
Bucciarati considers it for a moment. “Water, if you wouldn’t mind grabbing it for him.”
Giorno’s partially conscious of the conversation, because he groans at the idea of putting anything into the same stomach that is violently rejecting what he’s sure to be everything he’s put in it over the course of the past year.
“Yes,” Fugo nods, “alright. I’ll be back.”
Upon stirring awake, Fugo hadn’t registered the odd feeling in his stomach as nausea; maybe he was just too groggy. But now, it’s a very prominent sensation. He’s not much of the sympathy sick type, yet seeing Giorno hunched over the toilet made his own stomach flip in a less-than-pleasant manner. Still, he soldiers on to grab the water as he said he would, taking deep breaths to keep his organs in place.
He takes a cold bottle out of the fridge, and another for himself, and then begins making his way back upstairs and to the bathroom. When he returns, Giorno seems to have stopped heaving for the moment, which is good; however, now that he’s leaning back against the wall and catching his breath, Fugo is able to make the mistake of looking towards the mess in the water.
Fugo turns his head and hands a grateful Bucciarati one of the two bottles, nodding away his thanks and spinning on his heels to get away as quickly as possible. He slinks off to his room, collapsing onto his bed. His stomach turns with a persistent churning quease, and the pain festering there is nearly agonizing; is there a chance that whatever’s ailing Giorno is contagious?
That would be awfully unfortunate. But, Fugo reasons, there’s no way it could spread that fast. There’s an incubation period to worry about.
He takes comfort in that even as his mouth fills with the taste of copper. If he just thinks about anything else, the feeling will have to go away, won’t it? At least for long enough that Bucciarati won’t have to catch him in the act of succumbing to it--he looked tired from caring for Giorno alone, and at this hour, he does not need any further stress.
Still, as the minutes pass with no sign of movement from either of the two in the bathroom beside him, the sensation of bile creeping up his throat becomes more pressing. With shaky hands, Fugo uncaps his water, taking a slow sip of it. The protest from his body is nearly immediate as he’s forced to clamp a hand over his mouth and swallow hard. His eyes dart around the room, searching for a receptacle in hopes of avoiding as much of a mess as possible.
The trash beside his desk looks like the best possible option, and he comes to this conclusion not a moment too late. With far more noise than he’d like to have made, the bucket is hastily clutched to his chest as the water he just drank comes back up, hitting the bottom of the bag with a disgusting splat. He groans lowly, wrapping an arm around his convulsing middle.
Fugo sinks to the ground beside his bed, unable to do anything but give into the nausea and hope to god it passes soon.
Bucciarati swears inwardly as he hears banging and a garbled cough in the room beside Giorno’s in the same moment he manages to get the blonde settled in bed. Luckily, whatever’s ailing him hasn’t come with a debilitating fever; Giorno hears, and reacts, to the noise all the same.
“Is Fugo okay?” He asks, voice hoarse from earlier events.
“I suppose I should go check on that, shouldn’t I?” Bucciarati looks towards the wall in thought for a second, faces Giorno once more. “Are you alright for now?”
Giorno nods, and he does seem to be doing better for the moment, albeit shaken up. “Yes, I am. Thank you.”
“I’ll check up in a moment once I figure out what’s going on with him,” Bucciarati heads for the corridor, but before he steps out of the room fully, he adds, “and you don’t have to thank me. Or apologize.”
Giorno had apologized at least six times in the span of ten minutes, and the genuine guilt in his voice sparked an ache in Bucciarati’s chest. Watching the former bite back what’s certainly another apology and opt instead for a shake of his head in the affirmative, Bucciarati makes his way over to Fugo’s room, giving a firm knock on the wooden door. Hearing only a sickly gurgling in response, he takes it upon himself to enter.
Exactly as he had hoped he wouldn’t be, Fugo sits on the floor with his back to his mattress, hunched over a small trash can. Bucciarati hums his sympathy--similarly to Giorno, Fugo looks terrible, but on top of that he’s shaking like a leaf.
“It must be a bug,” Bucciarati concludes, advancing towards Fugo who shakes his head. He takes a breath as though preparing to speak, but something far more viscous than words spills past his lips. Bucciarati sinks down beside him, carding fingers through his hair and pulling his fringe away from his face. In the same way he had for Giorno, Bucciarati skates his fingertips along Fugo’s spine, cooing soft reassurances between the crude sounds of sickness.
Finally, the heaving tapers off, leaving Fugo taking gasping, ragged breaths. Once he’s relatively sure nothing more will be coming up--as if there could possibly be anything left--Bucciarati coaxes the bucket away from him, figuring the sight of puke will do nothing to calm his digestive turmoil.
There’s quiet between them, for a moment, before Fugo rasps an, “I’m not sick.”
Bucciarati blinks, lets that claim set in for a moment. “No, I’m quite sure you are.”
Fugo shakes his head vehemently, and then grimaces when it makes him dizzy. “I’m not. I think I was just sympathy sick, really.”
Bucciarati narrows his eyes, watching him with a skeptical gaze. It’s not entirely unlikely , nor impossible. But he has a gut feeling that, whether Fugo has caught it or not, whatever caused Giorno grief would also end up spreading to the rest of them eventually. He passes his hand through Fugo’s hair once, twice, and then lingers against his forehead for longer than necessary in hopes of discreetly gaging whether or not he’s running a fever. He feels clammy, but not hot.
“Are you feeling better?”
No, is the real answer, not really.
“Yes, I feel fine now,” is what he says instead, adding, “as fine as someone who just vomited could.”
Bucciarati stares at Fugo skeptically for a moment, but ultimately sighs in resignation. Only time will tell the truth on that matter. Picking up the bucket in one hand, Bucciarati helps Fugo up onto the mattress with the other, making sure he’s settled there.
“I’m going to clean this out. I’ll be back in a moment, alright?”
Fugo watches Bucciarati step out, heaving a long sigh of relief. Even if Bucciarati was skeptical of, and most likely didn’t really believe in, his lie, he still seemed convinced enough to let it go for now. Fugo doesn’t necessarily want to be doted on anyway; as he lets his eyes flutter closed, he decides he wants nothing more than to sleep.
It actually isn’t the ruckus beyond the wall beside him that wakes Mista up. He’s awoken first and foremost by this intense cramping pain right in the middle of his gut, which is significantly more unpleasant than waking up to some noise.
Grabbing a pillow, Mista curls up around it and rolls onto his side, squeezing his eyes back shut in hopes of sleeping off this pain from hell. There’s a weird roiling going on somewhere in there, too, which can only mean bad things. He would like to fall back asleep before those bad things manifest. But now that he’s awake, that distressed-sounding shuffling from Narancia’s bedroom is a contributing factor beyond the pain for why sleep won’t come as easy as he’d like it to.
With a yawn (and a groan,) Mista hauls himself out of bed to investigate whatever the hell it is that Narancia is doing. A glance at the clock tells him it’s just after five in the morning, and there is no good reason for Narancia to be up making a fuss at five in the morning. Except the reason that greets him is valid, and is, additionally, rather concerning.
Narancia’s duvet, wet with... something, has been thrown onto the floor, along with the sheets and one of his pillows. And Narancia himself is also sitting on the ground, curled up into a tight ball and breathing erratically.
“Woah,” Mista kneels down next to Narancia, placing a cautious hand on his trembling back. “What’s goin’ on, buddy?”
Narancia picks his head up, revealing cheeks stained with tears. He sniffles. “Threw up,” he mumbles, leaning his head against Mista’s shoulder.
“Oh, man,” Mista notices now the sour tinge to the air. “Did you just wake up feeling shitty?”
Narancia nods sadly as fresh tears well up in his eyes, streaming down his cheeks. “It’s on everything , Mista. It’s been so long since I felt this bad.”
Mista wraps an arm around the smaller boy’s trembling shoulders, starting to think of damage control. First order of business is getting Narancia cleaned up, and then cleaning up the bed, right? He can do that.
“Tell you what. You’re gonna sit in my room with a bucket, and I’m gonna throw your dirty shit in the wash, ‘kay? You can sleep with me, if you wanna,” Mista glances down at him, thumbing away a stray tear on his cheek. “Sound okay?”
“Okay,” Narancia agrees, and Mista helps him stand up, escorting him along to his room and grabbing the trash from the corner for him.
Ignoring the intense ache in his own middle, Mista wanders off to Bucciarati’s room to ask where he’s keeping their big trash bags. Bucciarati’s fast asleep when he gets down to that end of the hallway, and Mista stops for a minute to consider if he should really wake him. Chances are, if he hears that Narancia’s sick, he’s gonna freak out and start going all mother hen instead of getting any more sleep.
I’ll just tell him I need it for something else if he asks.
“Yo, Bucciarati,” It takes a few firm shakes before blue eyes blink open to stare up at him, reasonably disoriented. The man gives a hum of inquisition. “Where are the trash bags? Like, big ones.”
All of the grogginess seeps out of Bucciarati at the mention of trash bags. “Why? Are you feeling sick, too?”
“Huh? No, it’s not--wait, too? Is somethin’ wrong with you?”
“No, not me,” Bucciarati pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, wiping sleep from his eyes. “Giorno woke up sick around one, and Fugo started throwing up shortly after. He said he was just sympathy sick.”
“Aw, shit,” Mista scratches the back of his neck. “Nah, it’s not me yet. Nara puked on his bed so I put him in my room to clean up.”
“You don’t feel it at all yet?”
Saying no would only be a half-lie, in Mista’s opinion. He’s not on the verge of puking his guts up yet, but he definitely doesn’t feel great. He’d feel really shitty lying to the guy, but Bucciarati looks so tired he’d feel awful to put more on his plate. Three sick kids is three too many.
“Nah, I don’t.”
Bucciarati pauses, gathering his thoughts. “The bags should be in the kitchen, beneath the sink. Do you need help cleaning up?”
“No, no, you lay your ass back down. You look exhausted.”
Bucciarati huffs. “If you need help, I’m more than awake enough to--”
“ No. Chances are it’s gonna hit me next since I’ll be cuddling with Nara. Keep yourself healthy so you survive til’ Abba gets home.” The idea of Bucciarati being out of commission with half the team down already is, honestly, terrifying. This is just as much for his sake as it is for Mista’s.
Bucciarati chews on his lower lip, blinking slowly, before giving in. “You have a point, I suppose. I’m going to check on the others first, though.”
“I’ll do it while I’m up, okay? Don’t worry, I got it under control,” Mista insists, and Bucciarati doesn’t quite feel like arguing this right now. Reluctantly, he gives in, laying back.
“If you need me for anything, don’t hesitate to wake me, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Goodnight. ”
Stopping in to check on Giorno and Fugo is pleasantly uneventful; they’re both fast asleep still, which makes Mista’s job much easier. He watches them both carefully for a good minute just to be sure, and then he slinks downstairs, back on the path of his initial goal. The box he’s looking for is exactly where Bruno had said it would be, beneath the sink, and he takes two bags just in case.
Mista makes quick work of the soiled bedding, pausing to lean against the bedframe and take a breath. He’s not eager to go back downstairs, much less beyond the lower floor and into the cellar for the washing machine. He’s always prided himself on having a pretty iron stomach; it takes a lot for him to get really sick, and while that’s been a blessing, it makes the way that he’s really starting to feel queasy all the more unsettling.
He will get the bedspread cleaned before he’s knocked out by this shitty bug. Mista is committed. He ties off the bag and grabs it, hauling it downstairs and into the cellar with as much haste as he can. He doesn’t want to leave Narancia alone for much longer (and he doesn’t want to be on his feet for much longer, either.) Dumping everything into the wash, Mista lets himself take one more pause, starts the wash cycle, and trudges back upstairs.
Narancia has stopped crying by the time Mista returns, and he also hasn’t been sick again in the time it took. Mista’s grateful for that. He drops down onto the mattress next to Narancia, and the smaller of the two wastes no time in tucking himself into Mista’s side.
“You feelin’ any better?”
“Little bit.”
“Good to hear,” Mista wraps an arm around Narancia, rubbing his back. “You should probably try and get some shut-eye while you can.”
“Yeah.” As if his body is agreeing, Narancia yawns, and he turns to bury his face in Mista’s chest. “I think I’m gonna. G’nite, Mista.”
“Night, Nara.”
It can’t be any more than an hour later when Mista’s woken up again in the most disgusting cold sweat he’s ever found himself disgraced with. Narancia’s out cold against his chest with an arm around Mista’s waist. It’s much more constricting than it probably should be. Mista’s throat burns as his stomach creeps upward, steadily upward, and-- shit, he’s gonna puke.
A fist presses firmly against his lips as he wiggles out of Narancia’s grasp and stumbles out to the bathroom. Mista hardly has a moment to throw the toilet lid up, a hefty wave of last night’s meal reappearing in the porcelain. He groans, grunts out an “oh, fuck,” and then retches again And again. It’s over quick for him, but god, is it gross.
He stands there trembling, letting the copious saliva in his mouth drip into the water, bringing up nothing but fruitless gags and a couple of sick belches. A hand on his back scares him half to death and he nearly shits his pants, which would be twice as bad as the current predicament. He whips around to find that it’s just Bucciarati.
“You were supposed to be sleeping,” Mista rasps.
“I was,” Bucciarati reassures, “I woke up, and I was checking up on everyone when I heard you. You’re loud.”
“Fast n’ furious,” Mista laughs, flushing the toilet and deciding to sit on the bathroom floor. He rests his cheek against the toilet seat, careless about how unsanitary that is, because it’s cool and his face feels hot.
“That’s certainly a way to put it, yes.”
Mista hiccups, swallow thickly. He stares at the toilet, prepared to lurch for it again, but exhales in relief when the need subsides again. “Fuck. That was awful.”
“I don’t think it’s meant to be pleasant,” Bucciarati chuckles, rubbing circles between Mista’s shoulder blades.
Mista wraps his arms around his aching middle, displeased to find that the cramping hasn’t dissipated in the same way the nausea has for now. Outside, the sun is coming up. He assumes a round two for the rest of the gang is coming up pretty soon.
“Is Trish good, or did she get it too?”
“I haven’t seen her all night. I think she narrowly escaped it.”
“Lucky bitch,” Mista shakes his head. “Of course she did. Fugo and Giorno okay?”
“They’re still sleeping, but they don’t seem as peaceful as they did earlier.” Bucciarati’s gathered the same conclusion that the worst is yet to come.
Looking at Bucciarati now, Mista notices that he’s looking a little rough. Paler than usual, for sure. Earlier, he just seemed tired, but now he’s looking a little too sick for comfort. Abbacchio has to be home soon. Otherwise, they might all be in big trouble.
“What about you? You good?”
“Yes,” Bucciarati doesn’t hesitate to respond, though an unsettled gurgle that definitely didn’t come from Mista’s stomach follows the statement. Mista raises his eyebrows accusingly. Bucciarati clears his throat. “I am fine, Mista, I assure you.”
“Oookay. Whatever you say there, Buch.”
From the opposite end of the hall, a door is thrown open. And so round two begins.
It’s about eight in the morning when Abbacchio, blissfully healthy and unaware of the chaos that ensued while he’s been gone, walks through the front door.
The house is eerily silent. Then again, it’s still quite early, so Abbacchio supposes that isn’t very surprising. The only noise he hears is from the kitchen, which... is surprising, because the only other person in the house who can cook is Mista, and Mista usually isn’t downstairs just yet.
Abbacchio hangs his coat, toes off his shoes, and then reluctantly makes his way to the kitchen to investigate. There, he finds Bucciarati, knelt down and gathering multiple trash bags from beneath the sink.
“What are you doing?” Abbacchio leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms.
“Oh, you’re home,” Bucciarati smiles. “I would hug you, but I’m afraid…” he stands and pauses, swallowing thickly. The color abruptly drains from his face, and Abbacchio worries for a second that Bucciarati’s about to pass out; frankly, suddenly pitching over the sink and vomiting isn’t much better, but at least that’s done consciously.
“Jesus christ, Bruno!” Abbacchio grumbles, swooping in beside him to pull back his hair and pat his back. “What happened to you? I leave for one day…”
Bucciarati is too busy burping up his stomach to comment. If he weren’t occupied, he’d take offense to the immediate assumption that this predicament was his own doing. Still, even if he’s grumbling about self-care, Abbacchio’s presence is nice; the hand on his back is nice. Reassuring. Bucciarati runs the tap to wash away the mess, spitting a few times, and then takes a minute to catch his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he presses a hand to his stomach, grimacing. “Feeling a bit under the weather. In fact, just about everyone is.”
“What? What is it? What the hell happened in one day ?”
“Seven hours,” Bucciarati corrects, “a stomach bug, I assume. I was the last to get it. I’m glad you’re home, because I’m not sure I could take ample care of everyone like this.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Abbacchio pulls Bucciarati in to lean against his chest, hoping to provide him with some comfort. “Who got it first?”
“It was Giorno.”
“Goddamn-- of course, it was Giorno,” Abbacchio rolls his eyes. “This is why I hate that kid.”
“You don’t mean that,” Bucciarati laughs, shaking his head. “Speaking of, the bag was for him. Do you mind…?”
Abbacchio pinches the bridge of his nose, but it’s mostly a show of theatrics. Of course he doesn’t mind. Giorno’s like his own, even if he gets on his nerves sometimes. “Yeah, yeah. You’re getting in bed first, though.”
Bucciarati opens his mouth to protest, but some mix of a hiccup and a belch interrupts him, and he takes that as a sign to obey. “ Eugh. Alright. Fine.” He hands Abbacchio the bags he’d been holding, turning off the faucet.
“Who are these all for? Other than Giovanna.”
“Fugo and Mista. The only person who hasn’t caught it is Trish…”
Suddenly, there’s a thud and some scurrying above them.
“...although I may stand corrected.”