Chapter Text
Leone woke up with a hangover.
Though that wasn't a point of pride for him, it wasn't something unfamiliar enough to be weird. The weird part was the voice calling out to him; a kind of high pitched murmur, something like… "Are you awake?" Like those words exactly, but… only the meaning, lodged into his head. …Wait, who was asking? And, where was Leone anyway? He wasn't in his house? Did he have a drunken one-night-stand or something? So irresponsible… Bruno would be so disappointed… He wasn't ready to deal with the consequences of his actions yet; he turned his head over, wanting to go back to sleep.
…But alas, the voice was persistent, and eventually, the covers got pulled up over his head. Leone prepared himself for a rush of cold or a blinding light that never came; there was only a soft ambient glow coming from somewhere off to the side, and the backlit silhouette of someone who definitely wasn't Bruno. Fuck . The two of them had most likely slept together the night before. …Or a few hours ago. Was it day or night? Impossible to tell. It'd been some months since he'd last gotten blackout drunk. He didn't really know what to say, so he just tried not to stare. If the awkward silence was anything to go by, he should just get up and call a taxi home.
Summoning what strength and willpower he had to get himself up, Leone suddenly found out that he was either ridiculously weak, or somehow still drunk as all hell, and could barely balance his ache-riddled body. The mystery person put a hand on his chest and another on his shoulder right away, quick to stabilize and lay him back down. There was no power in Leone to do anything but follow, though he was quite ashamed for being that pathetic.
"Don't move," they said, and the words seemed no less off than before; like the meaning was separated from the sound. "...You were sleeping for three days, it is by luck that you're alive." Staring hazily through his headache at the dim, fuzzy shadow of the person, Leone tried to process what he'd just heard.
"What?"
He got almost startled by how thick the air felt in his throat, and how muted his own voice sounded. A bit more alert then, he looked around him to see only… some very weird walls; uneven as if the room had been made of solid rock. A cave? It was as if the bed Leone was laying onto was at the end of a hallway; the rest of the room hidden behind this… person of unknown identity and morality. Had he been drugged and kidnapped? It wasn't impossible. Shit.
"You fell out of your boat. I found you when you were drowning; you almost died."
He fell out of his boat. He was found when he was drowning. He almost died. So said the weird person, and the very concept of it couldn't fit into Leone's head until, as if on cue, his blurry memories bubbled up, adding waves to his headache. Flashes of himself and Bruno sharing some wine; not too much, only a few glasses to celebrate the day, 'the anniversary of their business collaboration' or however Bruno had called it. Then suddenly it was raining, and they were struggling to pull up the nets. He remembered the relief of almost being done, his trust in Bruno's experience, how he'd wanted to make some tea when they'd get home …and how cold the water had been. Then nothing.
Swears started flowing from his mouth, and though the tension didn't help his head at all, it did help his psyche a bit. "What about Bruno?" Leone asked a moment later, urgent as he could be in such a state, "...he was the other person on the boat; is he okay?"
"I didn't see him, I was focused on helping you. What I know is that there was no other body in the water, not close to you, and that the boat didn't sink." The stranger spoke with his head lowered, a sad tinge to his voice.
Only part of the tension left Leone's body. He was still worried, of course, but it was at least unlikely that Bruno had fallen over too. "I see. Thank you," he said, genuinely grateful, but then… his brain started slowly catching up. There hadn't been any other boats close to them, and they'd been out in the open, far from shore as usual. "How… how exactly did you find me?" The stranger stayed quiet. Leone's stomach went uncomfortably tight. "...You said I've been here for three days. Why didn't you take me to the hospital?" This time it was more of an accusation. The stranger looked slightly to the side, nervously. Something about that motion was off, but Leone couldn't put his finger on it.
"…You weren't breathing when I found you. You would have died before I got you to land, so I brought you here. There was no other choice."
"And for three days you couldn't call an ambulance? Where the hell even is here?! Where are we?" Leone demanded; or at least tried to. The louder his words, the more difficult it was to see and think.
"Please try to stay calm. I mean you no harm; I only did what I had to, to save your life," the stranger said, then paused, seeming to lean into themself. That overall anxiousness didn't help Leone at all. "You weren't breathing, and I couldn't make you breathe, so… I took you to the water with me." Unable to say anything to that, Leone only stared. There was no way he could make sense of that sentence; no matter which way he tried to turn it in his mind it just didn't fit right. "We are not on land," the stranger said, a bit exasperated, "this is not air. It is water." And Leone kept staring.
"Yeah right; and you're supposed to be some kind of mermaid?"
"You can call it that." It was at that point that Leone was just about certain that he'd gotten stuck with some kind of delusional lunatic. "...If I show you, will you be disgusted?" The supposed mermaid asked, sounding weirdly genuine -and, well, just weird in general, he still couldn't quite figure out why. Combatting this level of headache and nonsense at the same time was beyond Leone's capabilities. For a while the only thing he could do was drag his hand up to rub at his temple.
"Why the hell not. Show me." Because what could possibly go wrong? Why not invite the mentally unstable stranger whose mercy he was under to just do whatever the hell ? At least he wouldn't be murdered, Leone thought. Honestly death didn't sound that bad. His head wasn't pounding any less and the amount of bullshit Leone could tolerate was already at maximum.
"... If you want me to," the stranger murmured. A couple moments later, something touched Leone's hand. Despite being hesitant, very reasonably wary, and generally having a dislike of being touched, Leone allowed it. …Maybe because it was just so weird that it distracted him completely. A few seconds later, when he was no longer frozen, he realized that a hand had in fact placed itself under his fingers. That alone would have been weird, but there was also the… texture, he supposed. Forgetting it was even connected to someone, Leone felt it around in his hand, pressed it, stretched out the fingers and tried really hard to find an explanation for the scaly texture on its back, and the membranes connecting the space between each finger. There was this uneven, softer part along a finger pad, and instinctively, Leone started messing with it. The hand twitched away. "That hurts," said the… the what ?
Leone swallowed what was possibly nothing but water. Suddenly, he was very disoriented. There was no way this was real, right? What he touched had to be… Had to be just a… "What was that?"
"My hand."
The person lifted it up next to their head, and though Leone could only make out the silhouette, he could tell that it wasn't normal. Long fingers spread out, and a dark membrane stretched between them, all but the weirdly long thumb. Half a moment later, fins unfolded on each side, from the wrist to the elbow, stretching up towards the hand to fill the general shape of a paddle fin.
"That's not real," Leone said, almost automatically.
"I am real," the person insisted. "…I'll show you." And they reached somewhere behind them, strands of long hair floating along as if unaffected by gravity. Everything was so perplexing that it took getting blinded by a sudden light to bring Leone out of his head. When he blinked through the blindness, and his brain was back to at least partially working again, he was for the first time greeted by the actual sight of a face rather than undefinable blackness.
It was a pretty, youthful face that seemed normal at first, framed by stray locks of long blond hair that gathered back into a long braid flipped over a shoulder. A flat chest decorated with different kinds of long pendants and cains. A different hue and hints of a pattern bleeding onto his shoulders, the sides of his arms, along with the fins there, and his ribs. That was as low as Leone could see, and as his eyes traveled back up again, he noticed more oddness.
Like the fine scales coating the lower part of his arms as they lightly glistened. The many beads, ribbons, rings and hairclips woven into the long braid. The long, fleshy points of his ears, almost like stretched out gum. The stranger's eyes, a bit too large, a bit too round; his pupils too wide, his nose too flat. Looking more carefully, there were even patterns onto his face, a darker color than most of the rest of his skin. Down his forehead fell three locks of hair, looped and tucked into beads and pearls that held them in shape.
It was all right there in front of him. The nonhuman proof, looking down at him expectantly. He averted his eyes, down at the sheet covering half his body, and the many little fishing weights stitched onto its sides to keep it from floating away. He looked at the light source, something like a glowing coral. He looked at the wall next to him, indeed made of rock. There was too much going on to fit in his head; it would have been too much even without the headache, dizziness, exhaustion and all that, as far as he could guess. God, how he wanted to be back home, to Lady Darkness' screaming and his freezer full of ice packets. Shit, who was going to take care of Lady Darkness? Hopefully Bruno was fine. Oh fuck, Bruno didn't even know he was alive- if Bruno himself was alive at all…
"You're disgusted."
It caught him off guard; he'd somehow managed to forget there was someone besides him. He glanced back at the … creature, and its unreadable face. Was it offended? Sad? For what; Leone's shitty opinion? His face scrunched up in annoyance, and he started rubbing at his temple again. "I'm not," he said tiredly, and hoped it'd be enough. With the strain on his mind finally beginning to settle, he was becoming acutely aware of the pain every word brought, as well as all the other pains across his body. Trying to avoid the light, he closed his eyes. Okay… he'd somehow make it through this. One thing at a time, like Bruno said. First…
"...Do you have a name, or something?"
"My name is Giorno. …And yours is?" Something about that name sounded odd, accented, singular; as if it came from a different language, yet weren't they both speaking Italian? Not to say that any one of Giorno's other words didn't sound weird, they were just weird in a different way. Leone sighed; it barely made a sound. He was beginning to realize that his dizziness may be less about his actual head, and more about being underwater.
"Leone Abbacchio," almost begrudgingly, he answered.
"Nice to meet you." There is was, that odd accent-thing again. It was distracting and fucking weird, but by God, Leone had no energy to worry about that too, so he would do his best to just ignore it.
"Yeah, you too," he waved it off. Trying to slow down his breathing only made him more aware that everything around him was heavy, pressurized water. He swallowed. That was water too.
"How the hell am I breathing?"
"You're not." Leone's head whipped to look at Giorno wide-eyed. What the fuck was that supposed to mean?? "I am breathing for both of us," the fucking merman said, as if that made any kind of fucking sense. "As a human you can't feel it, but you are using a part of my life."
"What, like some kind of magic???"
"No. Your magic is fake, this is real," Giorno firmly insisted, as if the very concept had irritated him.
Though it was Leone's first instinct to be skeptical and argue, what was the point? He was stuck in a cave underwater with a merman; did it matter if said fucking merman was magical or not? Leone just couldn't be bothered. "Sure, whatever you say." Turning away from Giorno and the light coming from that general direction, he closed his eyes again. That was better. Everything in his body was heavy and sore.
"...I think you should eat something before you sleep," the merman's odd voice hesitantly informed him. Leone felt almost like a sick child being babied, but Giorno was right. As soon as food in the form of a concept entered his mind, he realized that he very much felt like he hadn't eaten for three days.
"Yeah, that… that sounds good," he managed to answer, glancing at the creature beside him from the corner of his vision. Giorno leaned down and pulled something up from the floor next to the bed. Leone strained to make it out at first. A can. Then another can. Then a jar of …pickles. Never in his life had he thought to wonder what a merman might try to feed a human, but if it had, 'the canned section of a supermarket' would not have been on the list. A bit clumsily, he picked up one of the cans to examine closer. Boiled corn.
"Is that what you want?" Giorno asked, staring at him. Leone didn't quite know what to say, he just stared back. The fins on Giorno's arms flared slightly. "Is it bad? There are different ones, too." His face didn't change almost at all, yet his voice sounded quite anxious. "…Other land food goes bad in water, so these are the only things I have for you; I apologize."
Wordless, Leone looked at the can. It was just some corn. He didn't mind corn, it wasn't a big deal. There were also the pickles, some beans, and… spam that he definitely wouldn't touch, but it wasn't that big of a deal. His first year at the academy hadn't been much better, nutrition-wise. Leone would kill for a pizza, some proper meat, or Bruno's pasta; but he didn't feel like complaining, he was too hungry.
"It's fine," he said passively, and held the can out to Giorno. "Can you open it?" As the merman took and easily opened the can, Leone noticed his fingers again. They were long, darker at their tips and harboring sharp, dark nails -they could be called claws, really. Hesitant to touch any part of that anytime soon, Leone took back the can rather carefully.
…Only to realize that he had to get up to actually be able to eat. Setting it down beside him, he tried to prepare himself, gathering all his willpower. This time, when he struggled and nearly immediately failed to get up, Giorno helped him. "Don't move too fast," he said with worry. It was almost uncanny with what ease Leone got pulled up and positioned; he was no small person. Firmly holding him by the shoulders, the merman kept him steady through the waves of disorientation and dizziness until it became more manageable. Still, Leone had to take a minute for everything to stop being so fuzzy.
Huh. That was odd. From this new perspective he could see a big, long thing-or-other laying on the floor. Or maybe, the ground? The room was indeed more of a hallway …or, the dead end of a cave, he supposed; just a narrowish cave with some kind of mattress shoved onto some rocks to make a bed. Giorno handed him back the can, careful and slow as if it could spill over any moment. As soon as he took it, Leone realized that it very easily could, and did spill over, a few kernels getting caught on the current his motion created. They fell down to the sheet, and he just stared. Giorno said nothing. The thing on the floor shifted. Leone considered the can.
"Do you have a spoon or something?"
"Spoon?" Giorno looked at him curiously.
Of course mermaids wouldn't have cutlery, what did he expect?? He could just… drink it, he supposed. Normally he'd rinse the hell out of anything canned, but in this case it felt like it would only make his …'breathing water' dirtier. So Leone ended up drinking a can of corn. And then a can of beans. And then he had to stop himself, because shocking his stomach any further didn't seem like a good idea. Canned junk or not, food made a big difference. He actually kind of stopped feeling like he was going to drop dead; even his head started doing a bit better. He thanked Giorno, and as the merman gave the typical response, a motion drew Leone's eyes lower again.
He'd been a bit too focused on food to really notice, but there was a pair of fins jutting out of Giorno's body, a bit off from his stomach on each side. They had a shape like bent crescents, and gave a small flutter. Glancing up at Giorno's face, he found two large eyes staring right into his, which then immediately turned away. The merman pulled his arms closer to himself and awkwardly lowered down to try hiding his fins again. The thing on the floor shifted with him. It was then that Leone realized that the 'thing' was in fact Giorno's tail.
It was… a whole lot longer than in any drawings and movies Leone had happened to see. Its shape wasn't that of a fish living in open waters, like the ones mermaids were usually depicted having, but rather that of a bottom feeder; a rock dweller. Suddenly the cave setting fit a whole lot more. The tail flickered, helping Giorno adjust his position further. That whole thing, it must've been close to two meters long, from the bottom of Giorno's stomach all the way to the edge of it. A soft waving fin that ran nearly all the way along the tail's back unfurled, only for a moment, as Giorno curled his tail in slightly. It being all part of the same creature was fascinating, in a way. Almost morbidly so.
"...I understand if you find it off-putting, but I can't do anything about it." Leone stopped staring and awkwardly shifted his position, unsure of what to say or do. It was still difficult to think at all. "You should keep resting," the merman urged, and it was easy to agree; anything to get him out of an awkward silence. Laying back down wasn't as much of an ordeal as getting up. Giorno took his trash and left the room, in what Leonne would call half swimming and half slithering. It was so weird. Unexpectedly bright, the coral-lamp-thing was starting to tire his eyes again, so Leone closed them. Despite having woken up not long ago, falling asleep again seemed inevitable. Maybe it was the food.
Just as his mind was about to surrender to the subconscious, a clinking, shuffling noise brought him back. Through a cracked eye he saw Giorno putting away the coral so the space was dim again, and then just sitting next to the bed like before.
"Do you have to be here?" Ignoring the presence looming over him seemed impossible.
"Yes." The certainty was enough to shut him up. Irritated but tired and unwilling to argue, Leone just turned around and tried his best to go back to sleep.