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Piecing things together isn’t easy. It still feels like so much is lost, but at least it’s been getting better.
Or at least that’s what he likes to think.
The truth is that there’s a whole host of new difficulties that comes with remembering.
It’s not… comfortable, knowing his mind had been messed with to such an extent. To the extent that he hadn’t recognized his friends, his famiglia, or even how he took his coffee.
It creates a hair-raising sensation within his body. More than anything, Leone wishes he could reach inside himself and tear this feeling out and crush it between his fingers until it was no more.
He’s sitting on the floor with his legs crossed. In front of him is a small stack of photos Bruno had handed over to him for him to peruse at his leisure. The goal is to help him remember at his own pace. So far, he’s sorted through the whole lot three times.
It feels surreal to him.
He knows he should remember these people and, here and there, a moment seeps in where he does but it’s gone almost as fast.
Sometimes, the photos help. Sometimes, they make him feel like he’s staring at a stranger wearing his face.
One stranger in a group of strangers.
What sticks out to him the most is how at ease he appears in these photos- Giorno, too, in the photos that include him, which means Bucciarati had at least been honest about the nature of their relationship.
He trusts these people.
Or he had at one point, before strangers messed with his head and made him forget everything that had ever been important to him.
He shakes his head and sits back on his haunches, taking a moment to truly reflect on the bizarre predicament they’re entangled in. They’re taking refuge in a hidden room inside a turtle of all things.
It doesn’t get any stranger than that.
No, he shouldn’t say that. He might accidentally jinx them if he keeps it up and he’d rather avoid doing that. They’ve been through enough without him bringing something else down on their heads.
Although he’s gathered that bizarre is pretty much par for the course for them, it’s different when he can’t remember any of these events.
On the bed next to him lies Giorno, sleeping the way Leone himself should be, but sleep has proved impossible to find so he resigns himself to this.
Even now, it’s difficult to be apart from him for long. He needs to be near him, needs to be able to see for himself that no one has harmed him.
When he takes his eyes off of him, even if only for a few moments, it’s like this fear comes and overtakes him.
He feels suffocated by it.
It’s not just him, he knows: Giorno struggles with being alone too. He casts another glance at the boy in the bed and tries to reconcile the fact that he really is just a boy with all that they’ve learned.
Giorno… The Don of Passione.
It’s a lot to wrap his head around. It’s even more for Giorno to wrap his head around.
That level of responsibility must be completely overwhelming for anyone, let alone a teenager. Leone can’t even imagine.
He’s asleep now, thankfully, but his sleep is far from peaceful. His expression is pinched, even in sleep, and he twitches fitfully.
Before he can help it, he reaches out, smoothing Giorno’s golden curls away from his forehead. Guilt has opened up a pit in his stomach- not only because of his inability to protect him from the people who had kidnapped them, but because of his actions before they had ever been kidnapped in the first place.
He hadn’t been the kindest person, had he? And Vaniglia had taken a sick pleasure in forcing him to remember all of it, one piece at a time. He’s ashamed of his actions now.
More than just disgust, he wonders how Giorno can even stomach being around him after all of that, but captivity does funny things to the mind.
He and Giorno had only had each other inside of hell.
That’s not something either one of them can forget or ignore so easily, but it does make him wish he hadn’t been quite so awful before. And the scars on Giorno’s back… They hadn’t been fresh. If asked, he might have judged them to be at least several years old, but he was no expert on the matter.
They could have been even older.
Which meant… How old had Giorno been when someone decided to beat him badly enough that it scarred?
Leone had been terrified that he might learn he was the cause of them. He doesn’t know what he would have done if that had been the case.
But it hadn’t been.
Somehow, as their memories had returned, Giorno had gleaned what was bothering him and been quick to reassure him. It had been a relief, but only a small one.
Giorno had been vague as to their actual cause, but Leone isn’t stupid. He knows someone inflicted that damage intentionally. It gives him a new direction to focus his rage in- even if he doesn’t know who that person is. When he finds out who it was, he’ll tear them to pieces.
Now that they’re finally free of that place, it’s only become more evident how twisted everything done to them by those men had been.
They had beaten them, used them as leverage against one another, only to turn around and insist that they loved them. Giorno’s desperate pleas for them to leave him alone, even as they dragged him off to be punished are still stuck in his mind.
He’s only sixteen.
That’s still just a child and they had played their mind games with him, made him guess their reasons for punishing him and then punished him worse when he got it wrong.
It disgusts him. It does more than simply disgust him. It makes him angry enough to do something horrible.
He clenches his fists, hard enough that nails bite into the meat of his palm, knowing there’s nothing his anger will do for them now, but being angry is better than the alternative.
There’s a lingering fear still that perhaps things aren’t as over as they appear to be. That Barolo and Vaniglia will come back for them and finish what they started.
It sits just beneath his skin, an itch he can’t scratch and one that makes it hard for him to sleep. If he lets his guard down, what’s to stop them from taking Giorno away from him?
He knows… He knows the rest of the team is working tirelessly to keep them safe and who did this to them. He knows Barolo is dead, dead because Giorno shot him point blank, which is something that never should have happened because Leone should have been the one protecting him, but it did happen and that’s one less person to worry about.
He knows he’s supposed to trust these people, and, so far, Bucciarati has done nothing but make them seem trustworthy, but it doesn’t stop him from worrying that something will happen.
Giorno shifts again in his sleep.
This time, Leone sees a deep set furrow between his brows, indicative of higher levels of distress. He flinches in his sleep and a distressed noise emerges from deep within his throat.
Leone has heard enough.
He scoots closer, reaching out to shake Giorno’s shoulder. He snaps awake immediately, cringing away from the touch and scrambling upright.
His hair hangs limply over his shoulder. He looks so pale. His eyes, wide and fearful, are fixed on Leone’s face.
He relaxes marginally when he recognizes who it is and remembers that they’re safe, shoulders slumping with obvious relief. “Oh…” he breathes.
“You were having a bad dream, kid.” Leone reluctantly lets his hand remain where it is only because he gets the sense that, in Giorno’s current state, it will do more harm than good to try and touch him again.
Giorno nods, running a hand through his messy hair. “Sorry.”
Leone frowns. “Why? You’re not responsible for what happened.” If anything, Leone should be the one apologizing- both for his treatment before and for failing to protect him during their ordeal. Instead, Giorno had been the one protecting him.
Giorno is silent. The only sound is his still labored breathing.
Leone inches closer. “Kid?”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
Leone doesn’t believe him, but he’s not entirely sure how to press the matter without making it worse. Instead, he lets the silence between them lengthen. Maybe that’s a failure on his part, but the truth is that he doesn’t know how to talk about this either.
Giorno doesn’t say anything again for a long while.
When he speaks again, what he says is not at all what Leone had expected him to say. “Do you think I’m someone who would make a good leader?”
It draws him up short.
Truthfully, Leone doesn’t know what to say to that. He knows what he wants to say, but he also knows Giorno will smell any hint of a lie or uncertainty from a mile away.
He thinks back to his conversation from before with Bucciarati. He had leveled some pretty heavy accusations against him, but, according to him, Giorno had become the Don of Passione entirely of his own free will.
Whether or not he believes that is another matter entirely, but, to his surprise, he finds that he does. There had been no deceit in his eyes when he’d explained things to him… and he hadn’t shied away from delivering the hard realities of Leone’s past when asked about it.
He’d looked him in the eyes and delivered it to him straight up.
He can appreciate that now that his emotions have had time to settle down.
“I don’t know,” he says finally, deciding honesty is the best route to take. “Everyone here seems to think so…”
He selects a photo from the pile and studies it. It’s a candid shot- the subjects clearly unaware they’re being photographed.
Narancia is captured in the act of leaping at Fugo, who looks to have been too slow in dodging the attack. An expression of sheer outrage is written across his face, but judging from Narancia’s obvious glee, Leone doesn’t think he cares too much.
“Do you trust their judgment?” His forehead wrinkles. Then he colors. “I shouldn’t be asking that, should I? Not if I’m supposed to lead…”
Leone sighs and sets the photo back down with the rest. “Giorno,” he begins, “this is as strange for me as it is for you, but I’m pretty sure even a leader is allowed to take advice from others.”
Giorno nods, but the crease between his brows doesn’t lessen.
“To answer your question,” he continues, thinking carefully about his response, “I would have told you no before. Now,” he takes a deep breath through his nose, “now, I think the answer might be yes.”
Some of the tension visibly bleeds from Giorno’s posture. “That’s what I was thinking. I just wanted another opinion. That’s all.” Then, his expression morphed into one of panic. “Wait- I didn’t mean to imply…”
Leone cuts him off. “I know you weren’t being conceited, Giorno.”
“Okay.” Giorno’s shoulders slump. He looks so obviously relieved by this that something moves inside of Leone.
He thinks he’s found the correct answer.
“Listen, Giorno,” he says, sitting up straighter, “I still don’t know much about what our life was like before, but I do know this: you didn’t hesitate to protect me from Vaniglia and Barolo, even when I should have been the one protecting you. That’s something a leader does, no?”
Giorno’s head snaps up. He regards Leone shrewdly- he can practically see the gears turning in his head. His lips have thinned and his hands are clasped loosely, hanging between his knees. “I suppose you’re right,” he says, though he still seems troubled.
Leone supposes that that’s to be expected.
He doesn’t know how else one is supposed to feel when they’ve just learned they head the entire mafia at only sixteen years of age.
“Listen, Giorno,” he says. “This lot? They seem to have a lot of faith in you and, not for nothing, but they don’t seem to be the types to just hand that out. So you must have done something to deserve that, right?” He knows he’s right about that at least. “So stop worrying about it.” It’s an absurd thing to demand from someone, he knows, but it does the trick.
Determination burns brightly in Giorno’s eyes when he next meets Leone’s gaze. It’s so different from the frightened teenager he had been in captivity, that he’s taken aback momentarily.
“You’re right. I need to keep my head on straight.” He squares his shoulders and gives Leone a look of gratitude that has Leone’s stomach turning. He doesn’t think he deserves it. “Thank you for being so understanding.”