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Giorno shut the front door loudly behind her, ignoring the responding barks from the hounds as she hurried past the sitting room. She could hear the patter of paws following her down the hallway, but she paid them no mind as she shut herself in the closest bathroom, locking the door even though the only other beings in the house were quadrupedal animals.
She nearly collapsed in front of the toilet, absentmindedly feeling pain shoot in her knees at the fall. She could hardly focus on that, much less anything with the way her stomach twisted in knots as it pushed her breakfast up her esophagus.
The retching burned her throat, and she gagged when she felt it all build up in the back of her throat, finally letting it expel itself from her body and into the water below her. She sobbed when it seemed to end, and the action made her retch again. Nothing came up, though her body didn’t seem to be on the same page, continuing to gag and retch as if something would.
It took far too long, but she eventually flushed the toilet, her clumsy, sweating palm wrapping around the handle and pushing down. She reached blindly for toilet paper, a towel, anything to wipe her face with as she stared blankly down at the swirling mixture of bile and water go down the drain. She found it somehow, swiping it over her lips.
Her mouth felt horrible. The taste was the worst, but the amount of saliva she was producing didn’t help like she thought it would. She had to get up, brush her teeth.
Pushing herself onto shaky feet, she trembled as she straightened up. It was tremendously hard to keep herself upright, stumbling even with her small, careful steps. She watched her hands, as if she was a bystander to her own body, open the mirror cabinet to grab the tube of toothpaste and her toothbrush. She kept the mirror door open. She didn’t want to see herself like this.
The monotonous rhythm of brushing her teeth grounded her, in some strange way. Gave her something to do. She absentmindedly recalled when Narancia suggested she pick up knitting or crocheting for this exact reason, as if they knew that monotonous actions helped her in these moments. They seemed to know much more than she did, when it came to emotional matters.
A whine rang out behind the door, followed by scratches at the wood. The hounds.
“Right,” She muttered to herself, and she could hear her voice cracking with tears. She sniffled as she closed the door to the cabinet, eyes widening at the tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t even realized she was crying.
She sniffled again as she watched her expression crumble at how pathetic she looked. Hair a complete mess with half of it escaping her braid, wide bloodshot eyes filled with tears, a bit of smeared vomit still on her cheek, face flushed an uneven red.
She looked horrible. She felt horrible. Her vision blurred as tears built up, and she sobbed involuntarily.
Another loud whine was muffled by the wooden door, followed by multiple barks.
“M’sorry,” She whined herself, reaching over to open the door as she left her toothbrush on the sink counter. She could put it away later.
The hounds were all gathered around the door, their ears pinned back as they looked up at her teary visage. She let out a wet giggle when even now, even when he wasn’t him, ‘Abbacchio’ was farther away than the rest. Narancia whined loudly, pushing their snout into her hand.
She felt her lips curl into a frown at the hound, cooing as they sniffed her hand, “Thank you, Nara. I’m okay, I swear.”
Fugo and Abbacchio audibly huffed at her words, the former poking his nose into her thigh once, then twice in frustration as the latter stepped closer to the group. Bucciarati and Mista tilted their heads at her. Narancia whined again.
…So maybe the hounds were smarter than she gave them credit for. “...I’m getting there.” She corrected. “It’s just…”
Recalling the entire interaction not even an hour ago, her stomach twisted itself in knots again. “Oh, I’m so stupid.”
The hounds couldn’t do much beside what they already had been doing, huffing, barking, and poking. They had, on some occasions— incredibly gently– bitten her hands and clothes to pull and guide her around the house, but none of them seemed keen on making her go anywhere anytime soon. They weren’t of much help, at any rate.
Though…
They had been alright listeners, so far. They would go away by the time their real counterparts came back, and she wouldn’t have to deal with their judgement.
Sighing, she moved a few steps to lean against the hallway wall and slid down it, giggling when the hounds sniffed as soon as she sat down. Their noses were in her face, in her messy hair, in the crook of her neck, anywhere they could reach. Abbacchio even joined in, in a sense, resting his head on top of hers as the others sniffed away.
“...I saw my mother today.” She started, watching their reactions. The wolves froze, but quickly cuddled up to her, at her feet, her shoulders, warming her up. Bucciarati rested his head on her knee, right in front of her face. She felt like she was talking to him.
“She didn’t ask me much, even though I haven’t spoken to her for two years.” She sniffled, then sighed as tears fell again. “I don’t know what I expected, honestly. She’s never passed up leaving me on my own, why would she stop now?”
Bucciarati’s blue eyes locked with hers. She wiped her tears. “I tried to paint our living situation as strangely as possible. Told her I’d started living with five men and explained nothing else.” She heard one of the hounds huff at her. Bucciarati’s eyes squinted at her. “You’d be disappointed in me for that, I know, but I just wanted her to…”
…And wasn’t that a pathetic thought she was about to confess?
“I just wanted her to care.” Silence met her confession. She cleared her sore throat to try and fix it. “I thought if I told her something like that, insinuate I wasn’t… in the best circumstances, she’d do… something? Anything?”
She sighed. Someone pawed at her hand, and her fingers grasped around it as she held it like she would a hand.
“But she didn’t. She just shrugged it off and asked me for money, since my stepfather was in a rough spot again. Then she walked off when I told her no. And…”
She felt her fangs poke at her lips.
“And as she was walking away, I thought of killing her.”
The whispered confession hung heavy in the air. Bucciarati nuzzled the side of his head into her knee.
“I knew I could do it, even without this new vampirism. I could hear her heartbeat.” She blankly stared at the wall next to Bucciarati’s head as she spoke on autopilot. “They still live in the exact same house that she let him beat me in. Even if they didn’t, she would have told me when she asked me for money.”
A sniffle. “Nobody would miss them. We don’t have any family in Italy, and neither does he. They drove away any family they did have, not to mention their friends. The only friends he has is other addicts.”
And… “And wouldn’t it be a good thing? Bad people dying.”
She tilted her head back, taking Abbacchio with her. “We kill bad people all the time. And I need blood now, it’s food. Doesn’t my wellbeing matter more than theirs at this point?” After a snarl tore its way through the heavy silence above her, she brought her head back down. Abbacchio huffed as he readjusted his head on hers. “It would certainly be payback for how much they kept from me. It would be ironic. The ones who starved me end up feeding me in their last moments.”
Her stomach twisted up in knots at the idea. Her mother screaming for help, begging her to help her, just like she had done all those years ago. Help she would never give to her daughter but then expect from that same little girl. She imagined the light from her mother’s eyes drain under her treatment, and she felt sick all over again.
“But then I felt horrible.” Another sniffle. “Revenge sounds so satisfying, but… I can’t. I can’t make them like me, even if they deserve it.”
One hound sat up– Narancia– and shoved their body into hers, making her wrap her arms around their furry body. She adjusted her sitting position, and they pushed her to the ground when she turned even slightly. When she laid flat on her back, Narancia quickly deposited their entire body weight on her torso, burying their snout in the crook of her neck.
The pressure pushing her down into the hardwood floor felt heavenly. She sighed out in relief she thought she would never feel, wrapping her arms around Narancia and digging her fingers into their fur. They nuzzled themself into her even further.
She kept her eyes squeezed shut, though she heard and felt the hounds circle around the display her and Narancia made. She paid them no mind.
“Thank you.” She sighed out, her breathing calming under the hound’s weight on her chest. Her hand rubbed up and down the hound’s back. “You’re just like Nara, aren’t you? So smart with people.”
The only answer she received was a huff from another hound, probably Fugo or Abbacchio if she were to guess. She figured Narancia would appreciate the compliment when they all got back.