Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Are you busy next week?”

It was an offhanded little question. Like most things Giorno said, it had the gravity of a planet.

The Don was seated at his at his desk, late afternoon pouring through the tall windows behind him. The light emblazoned everything it touched. Giorno looked gilded.

He always knew how to hide within light.

“Not particularly,” Fugo answered. “Why?”

Giorno’s gaze slid across him and out the south-facing windows.

“It’s going to rain,” he said.

The sky was perfectly clear. But given enough time, that statement was always true. Fugo waited for him to gather his thoughts. Whatever he wanted to say must have been important. He wouldn’t pad it with small talk otherwise.

“I’m going to be taking some time off,” Giorno said at last.

“Oh.” Fugo tried not to look too surprised. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Not far. Maddaloni.”

That was less than an hour’s drive. Not far at all.

“That’s not much of a vacation.”

“No, I suppose it’s not.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“I’m not certain yet. A week, I think. It could be longer than that, but I doubt it. I might even return early.”

“I’m sure we can hold things down for a week,” Fugo said, already making plans to delegate Giorno’s usual tasks in his head. “I assume we’ll be able to reach you by phone?”

“Actually, I’m asking you to come with me.”

Odd. Giorno rarely asked for security (he didn’t really need it), and when he did, he usually brought Mista. His skills were clean and precise. Fugo’s, by comparison, were effective, but messy.

Of course, if Giorno wanted him, it was his choice.

“Alright,” Fugo said, accepting his mission. “What should I know?”

He didn’t think he was asking for much—a list of facts, his marching orders. But Giorno frowned. It was as if a curtain had been drawn behind his eyes. When he spoke, his words were so measured, so careful.

“My stepfather is in hospice. I’m going to watch him die.”

--

“Yikes.” Mista drained his shot glass, then drew a breath through his teeth. “I mean, good riddance. But yikes.”

The bartender wordlessly placed another shot next to Mista’s elbow, then retreated to the far end of the bar. His nervousness was insulting, but Fugo appreciated the privacy.

“So,” Mista asked, picking up the second shot glass. “Are you going?”

“Of course I’m going.”

“Damn. That’s crazy.”

“Did you want to go instead?”

“No way. Although I guess it would be interesting to see the bastard.”

Mista downed his second shot while Fugo tore the edges of his paper napkin.

“Why would he ask me?” he complained. “I’m the worst person for this sort of thing.”

“Maybe he wants you to kill him? You’d make it hurt, that’s for sure. He’d deserve every bit of it.”

The thought had crossed his mind. Giorno, who was not shy about anything, had never spoken plainly about his stepfather. Everything Fugo knew about the man came from five years of observation and implication. The negative space formed the shape of a monster. He hated him on principle.

Enough to kill him? If Giorno asked, certainly. But he hadn’t asked.

“He doesn’t need me for that,” Fugo said. “He can do it himself.”

“I guess. I mean, I’d put a bullet in his brain and empty the rest of the chamber for good measure. But you’re right. He should get first dibs on offing the old man.”

Fugo stared into the amber of his untouched drink. A sour, thorny feeling was beginning to twist in his stomach. He didn’t trust himself with alcohol.

“Kinda weird that he’s still alive though, isn’t it?” Mista asked. “It’s not like Giorno hasn’t had the opportunity.”

--

Giorno owned a house in Maddaloni. It was modest compared to his estate in Naples, but still nice. Two bedrooms, each a comfortable size, a full kitchen (someone had pre-stocked it), and a wide terrace that faced the mountains. Conveniently, the house was only a five minute drive from the hospice his stepfather had been admitted to.

Fugo hadn’t known the house existed.

“This is my second time here,” Giorno said as they were bringing their bags inside. There was almost an innocence in the way he said it, as if he were just as surprised by the house as Fugo was. Fugo didn’t believe it, but maybe Giorno did. Maybe he was surprised by the naked walls and barely furnished rooms. It seemed improbable, after all, that this anonymous, empty place belonged to him.

When did you buy this? Why did you buy this? Will you keep it after he dies?

“You can choose which bedroom you’d like,” Giorno offered politely.

It didn’t matter to Fugo—the bedrooms were exactly the same. He chose the one closer to the front door.

Unpacking didn’t take long. Really, Fugo would have preferred to leave his things in his suitcase. He didn’t like the house one bit, and seeing his clothes hanging limp in its closet only lent to his uneasiness. But he didn’t want to meet Giorno’s mother in a wrinkled suit.

“What do you want to do for dinner?” Fugo asked when everything was in its proper place. “I asked around and got some recommendations for restaurants in the area. It’s a bit late, but they should still be open.”

“I can cook,” Giorno said. He was already in the kitchen, opening cupboards.

“Oh. Uh. Are you sure?”

This might have technically been a vacation, but Giorno was still his boss. It seemed like a breach of etiquette for him to cook. If anything, Fugo should have been the one cooking for him, although they’d both regret it if he did.

“I cook for myself all the time,” Giorno said, misunderstanding the question. “And there’s not much of a difference between cooking for one and cooking for two. It won’t be anything elaborate, but I can promise it’ll be edible.”

He wants to play house, Fugo thought wryly. Well, if that was what he wanted. It was Giorno’s stepfather who was dying, after all. He could choose what they did for dinner.

“Alright,” Fugo said. “Do you need help?”

“I don’t like having other people in the kitchen.”

Of course he didn’t.

Fugo made some calls while Giorno bustled about the kitchen. He’d received information that a soldato connected to one of their money laundering operations had been skimming from the top, and he was gathering evidence for and against that accusation. It wasn’t a pressing matter, but it gave him something to do. He liked having a problem with a simple answer—innocent or guilty.

The house was something like a college dormitory, Fugo thought as the scent of garlic, onions, and olive oil floated from the kitchen. Or maybe it had just been a while since he heard the sounds of someone else cooking. Maybe it wasn’t the house, but sharing a living space that made him anxious.

If things had gone differently, Giorno might have been in college now. Fugo buried that thought.

Dinner was, as Giorno had said, nothing elaborate. Whether it was edible remained to be seen.

“Giorno,” Fugo said, looking down at his plate. “What is this?”

“Spaghetti.”

“I can see that, yes. What did you do to it?”

“Do you not like green peppers?”

Giorno sounded genuinely concerned. He was so full of shit.

“What possessed you to cook spaghetti in ketchup?!”

Giorno’s eyes narrowed slightly as he fought back a smile. This was hilarious to him, and for that reason, Fugo couldn’t find it within himself to be truly mad. Still, he had his principles.

“Just think of it as Japanese food,” Giorno said, twining spaghetti around his fork.

“How is this Japanese?”

“Spaghetti Napolitan has been a popular dish in Japan for fifty years.”

“They named it after Naples?!”

“It’s a nostalgic, post-war dish,” Giorno continued. “You should try it, Fugo. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

It was an insult to pasta. But it wasn’t like he could refuse to eat it.

“You have a sick sense of humor,” Fugo said as he raised his fork. Giorno hid his smile behind his napkin.

The ketchup spaghetti was, infuriatingly, fine. It had a slightly sweet flavor, which complemented the peppers, mushrooms, and sausage surprisingly well. He would have preferred a marinara sauce, but for what it was, it wasn’t horrible.

“Well?” Giorno asked.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Fugo said, sidestepping the question.

“It’s a hard dish to ruin. Even a child can make it.”

“False modesty?”

“Not at all.”

“I guess you can’t do much worse to spaghetti once you add ketchup to it.”

(But Fugo did clear his plate.)

“Should we discuss the plan for tomorrow?” he asked as they were cleaning up.

“I don’t think there’s much to discuss,” Giorno said. He’d been drying the same frying pan for a solid minute. “We’ll go to see him in the morning. If he’s asleep, we’ll come back in the afternoon.”

“Alright.”

He hadn’t told him his stepfather’s name. He hadn’t told him his mother’s name.

“My mother…” Giorno began to say, and Fugo nearly dropped the plate he was washing. Giorno couldn’t read minds, he assured himself, no matter how it sometimes seemed.

“She can be…Well.” Giorno had finished drying the pan and was now opening cupboard after cupboard, apparently trying to remember where he’d pulled it from. Finally, he gave up and set the pan on the cold stove. “I wouldn’t take anything she does personally. Whatever happens, it won’t be about you.”

Fugo stared at the water running over his hands.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

It was information, at least. Concerning and non-specific information, but information nonetheless. Fugo rinsed the last of the dishes, placed it in the drying rack, and dried his hands.

Why would Giorno choose to make a nostalgic, post-war Japanese dish? Why would he choose to make that dish tonight? Fugo had so many questions that he thought he might choke on them.

Was that why Giorno had brought him? Because he knew he was the type who’d choke before he asked?

“Where should I hang this?” Giorno asked, holding the damp dish towel with both hands. He glanced between the sink and the stove, looking utterly lost in his own kitchen.

--

There was a long, blond hair in the shower drain. Fugo picked it up and held it to the light. It was like a thread of spun gold—nothing at all like his own straw-colored hair.

Shame clawed up his insides. He cranked the shower faucet as far as it would go, cold water needling his scalp. The hair slid from his finger and down the drain.

What the hell was he doing?!

His brain wasn’t working right. It was as if someone had unspooled it, stuffed it with lint, then crammed it back into his skull. It didn’t help that the shower smelled like Giorno’s soap, his shampoo—heavy, damp, and floral.

Forgetting himself (at least, that’s how he’d rationalize it later), Fugo squeezed a dollop of Giorno’s shampoo into his hand and began to work it into his hair. He’d stolen things before—money, cars, food—but this was a new kind of transgression. His heart had never hammered like this.

He rinsed his hair, then washed it twice more, this time with his own shampoo. He’d hoped to cover the scent, but all he managed was to confuse it.

What did he really know about Giorno?

Five years was a long time. It was a quarter of his life. He thought they’d come to understand each other. Giorno led with his ideals, while Fugo tended to the details. Fugo was driven by emotion, while Giorno kept his feelings close to his chest, choosing to observe and analyze before he reacted. It was not an easy compatibility, but they’d made it work. And it had worked. Under Giorno’s guidance, Passione had come to dominate Italy. They had wealth, power, and influence. Fugo had killed for it. He would have died for it.

Did he actually know anything about Giorno? Anything that mattered?

Did he want to know?

Immediately, his mind presented him with a neat selection of excuses. It would impair their working relationship to know each other personally. It wasn’t his place to know too about his boss’s life. In fact, it was dangerous. It was inconvenient. It wasn’t necessary. Anyhow, you couldn’t really know anyone, so it was a moot point.

All he wanted was to know what he was doing here. Really.

Fugo stepped out of the shower, his hair excessively clean. The mirror above the sink had fogged over and he wiped it with his fist, squinted his eyes at the soggy reflection. Why had Giorno chosen him? No matter how he figured it, Mista was obviously better suited for this kind of thing. He knew how to be around people. Fugo tried, but effort couldn’t beat the genuine thing. So why him? What did Giorno see that he didn’t?

The mirror’s answer was unsatisfying—hair that hung around his ears like wet rope, permanent dark circles, a nose that was too long for his face. He looked like a deep sea fish. He looked like rained-on roadkill.

He frowned (the mirror flung his ugly expression right back at him). This wasn’t a productive exercise. But what if he approached it from a different angle? Giorno had stood in front of this mirror not half an hour ago. What had he seen when he’d looked into it?

This angle was worse, Fugo realized as his imagination immediately hit another wall. Even the sight of Giorno with his blow-dried hair loose around his shoulders had shocked him stupid. How could he begin to understand how Giorno saw himself when he’d barely recognized him?

This was stupid, Fugo thought, squeezing far too much toothpaste onto his toothbrush. Empathy wasn’t supposed to be detective work.

He scrubbed the sweet taste of ketchup from his mouth and refused to look at Giorno’s toothbrush (pink, the bristles still wet). He spat, then washed the foam and blood down the drain.

By the time he was finished with the bathroom, Giorno had turned off the living room lights. There was something unsettling about moving through dark rooms he didn’t know. Still, Fugo didn’t turn on the lights. The house was sleeping, and he didn’t want to wake it.

The kitchen was dark, too. It still smelled of his cooking. Fugo took a glass from the drying rack, filled it with tap water, and drank.

Where was Giorno? Had he already gone to bed?

The veranda light was on. Framed by the sliding door, Giorno looked like a bug under glass. He was standing with his back toward him, his shoulders high, phone held to his ear.

Fugo knew immediately that something was wrong.

He took a step back into a shadow, although he didn’t need to hide. Whoever Giorno was on the phone with had his full attention. And they were talking a lot. Fugo waited nearly a full minute before Giorno said anything. He couldn’t make out his words, but the tenor of his voice disturbed him—soft, yet stiff. It was the voice you used to talk to a snarling dog. It was the voice you used when reasoning with someone holding a gun to your head.

He'd never heard Giorno sound like that before.

He didn’t have to hear it for very long. Giorno got maybe two sentences out before falling silent again. Even at this distance, even behind a pane of glass, Fugo could hear the shrill, tinny voice lunge through the speaker. He flinched. Giorno didn’t. He just lowered the phone from his ear, letting the voice spill out into the night. Slowly, he lifted his face to the moonless sky.

He looked lonely.

Fugo retreated to his room and locked the door behind him. He got into bed, pulled the covers up, and balled his hands into fists to keep them from trembling.

You can’t know anyone, really, his mind told him.

Coward, his heart said. You didn’t even try.

Chapter Text

Fugo slept well, despite everything. Seven hours and no dreams. He woke feeling refreshed, then guilty.

They were going to visit Giorno’s dying stepfather today. How had he gotten a good night’s sleep?

To make matters worse, Giorno had woken up before him. He was sitting at the dining room table, typing something on his laptop. Judging from the empty plate and coffee cup in front of him, he’d been up for some time.

“Good morning, Fugo.”

He glanced up from his screen. God, he looked tired.

“…Morning.”

There was a bowl of fruit on the table. Fugo was pretty sure it hadn’t been there last night. Where had it come from?

“I ground some coffee beans. They’re on the kitchen counter.”

“Thanks.”

Fugo took Giorno’s plate to the kitchen and washed it while the water boiled. Aside from looking tired, he was his usual self, wasn’t he? He hadn’t seemed particularly shaken from last night’s phone call. His fingers hadn’t trembled on the keyboard. Maybe everything was fine?

The theory pleased him, and it only became more convincing as Fugo made his coffee. Giorno’s stepfather was a bad person, and he was dying. He deserved it for whatever it was he’d done to Giorno. Really, he probably deserved much worse. So why shouldn’t Giorno be fine? He should be happy. He’d won.

(This theory, of course, ignored the house, which might have been written off as a safe house but for its maddening proximity to the hospice.)

“Did Gianluca check in with you about Rome?” Giorno asked when Fugo returned to the dining room.

“Yesterday afternoon. It’s handled.”

“Good.”

Giorno continued to type. Fugo sipped his coffee. It was perfect—hot and richly bitter.

“Your capos will appreciate your trust in them to keep things running smoothly.”

“Hm.”

“You are on vacation.”

He didn’t close his laptop, but he did stop typing.

“I suppose.”

Giorno reached toward the bowl of fruit and took an apple from it. He passed it between his hands a few times, then, turning to Fugo, he placed the apple on top of his head.

“William Tell,” he said.

Oh no. Was that a joke? Was he joking? Did he expect him to laugh? But Giorno had said it entirely straight-faced. Maybe it wasn’t a joke, but a riddle? Did he expect Fugo to know the answer? What kind of riddle was “William Tell”?!

“Uh,” Fugo said. “Yeah. The arrow through the apple thing.”

“It’s no easy feat to shoot an arrow through an apple,” Giorno said. “But I don’t think I could balance an apple on my head, either. If I were to let go now, it would fall.”

To demonstrate his point, he briefly let the apple go. Sure enough, it began to fall.

“It’s hard to imagine a child balancing an apple on his head,” he continued, setting the apple on the table. “Especially with a crossbow pointed at him.”

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

“Really? That was the part of the story I thought about most. Most children would be afraid, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t be able to hold still, and the apple would fall.”

Giorno pushed the apple with his index finger. It teetered for a moment, then dropped onto its side.

“Do you think trust is a virtue, Fugo?”

“No.”

“I don’t think so, either.”

Fugo set his coffee cup down and studied Giorno’s face. All the emotion had been smoothed out of it. The thought occurred to him, not for the first time, that Giorno was like a swan in that way. He glided across the surface of things with enough grace that you could forget the dark water churning beneath him.

“I think his son must have been used to having a crossbow pointed at him,” Giorno said. “That’s why he didn’t tremble. That’s how he kept the apple on his head.”

Fugo was starting to understand the nature of this riddle. He didn’t like it.

“But William Tell loved his son,” he said.

What he meant was that love was not compatible with a crossbow. That no one would celebrate a man who’d point a weapon at his son under anything but duress. That there was no weight to William Tell’s legend without love.

Not a ripple crossed Giorno’s face.

“Can you be ready to go in an hour?” he asked, his attention returning to his laptop.

“Sure.”

Giorno nodded. He took a bite of the apple, then frowned.

“Oh. It’s mushy.”

--

The hospice was a homey compound with a gently sloped, green-shingled roof. It lay at the end of a well-paved lane, a line of trees separating it from the main road and dampening the sound of traffic. In the parking lot, an orange cat napped beneath a van bearing the hospice’s logo—two hands pressed together in prayer.

The place was lousy with nuns.

Of course, it made sense for nuns to run a hospice, but Fugo found their presence unsettling. Their faith imbued them with a serenity that seemed vulgar in a house of death. It was inconsiderate to grieving families for the sisters to look so at peace while wiping dining tables and dry mopping the floors. Grandpa pissed into a tube, and they baked cookies, did laundry, said their Hail Marys. Their compassion stank of self-interest. Did steeping themselves in wretchedness give them a holy purpose? Did seeing other poor souls off to their maker soothe their own anxieties about eternal life? Did they really believe in this shit?

Maybe they did. Maybe he was jealous.

“It’s a nice facility,” Fugo said blandly after Giorno signed in at the reception desk. They’d just passed the dining area—very clean, sunlit, but not too bright, with glossy wooden tables each sporting a tasteful floral arrangement.

“It ought to be nice,” Giorno said, heels clicking across the dustless floor. “For what it costs.”

What would Giorno know about hospice costs?

(It was a hypothetical question. Fugo had already guessed the answer, and he hated it.)

Giorno stopped in front of a door. He raised his hand to knock, then lowered it again, and for a moment Fugo hoped that he’d given the whole thing up. He could turn around right now. They could walk out to the parking lot, get in the car, and drive back to the city. They’d be home in time for lunch. It would be the easiest thing in the world.

Giorno opened the door.

“You’re late.”

The woman was small. Even so, she filled up the entire doorway.

“We’ve had this conversation,” Giorno said, stepping around her, and Fugo realized belatedly that they were both speaking in Japanese. Which meant they probably assumed he couldn’t understand them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Fugo had taught himself the language after Giorno had mentioned speaking it a couple summers ago. He’d been too embarrassed to ever use it, especially around Giorno, but apparently he’d retained his listening comprehension.

He couldn’t help but understand them, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

“I told you to come five days ago,” the woman, his mother, said. “You ignored me for five days.”

“I answered every time you called. I did not ignore you.”

The resemblance was an uneasy one. His mother was fair-skinned. She had a slim face, a small, pointed chin, narrow shoulders, and black hair cut just past her ears. They didn’t look alike, and yet the shape of their mouths and eyes were exactly the same. His mother scowled, and Fugo was certain he’d seen Giorno wear that expression while scolding an insubordinate capo.

“You answer, and then you ignore me!” His mother’s voice was rising, rising. “You could have come when I’d asked! It’s only a half-hour drive—you could have been here every night! You should have been here last night!”

“I said I’d be here in the morning.” Giorno spoke slowly, as if this time, this time, she might understand him. “I’m here now.”

“And what if he’d died?”

“He didn’t.”

He was in bed behind Giorno’s mother, propped up by a stack of pillows. Fugo had never seen a body so abandoned by muscle and fat. The man’s face seemed too heavy for his hairless head. Arms sagged awkwardly out of a loose white shirt, the skin dark with a slightly bloodish tint. His eyes were viscous. They were trained on Giorno.

“Hey.” He smiled. His lips were deeply wrinkled. “Long time no see, kid.”

Was that an accusation? Was he taunting him? The stepfather’s voice didn’t seem to hold any malice. It was too weak to hold anything at all.

“It’s been a while, yes,” Giorno said, his words frictionless.

“What’s it been, five years? Six? You’re all grown up.”

“Oh, please,” his mother said. She sat in the chair next to the bed and crossed her legs. Her eyes flicked up at Fugo, and he became painfully aware that he hadn’t been introduced. To her and the stepfather, he was just a stranger who’d walked in with Giorno. They had no context for who he was supposed to be to them.

Oh god, Fugo thought as Giorno’s mother narrowed her eyes. What if they think we’re together?

He could see the assumption filling in the gaps of their knowledge. He felt compelled to correct them, but what would he say? “Giorno and I have a very normal relationship. He’s my boss, and he just so happened to invite me to bear witness to one of the most painful moments of your lives. I’m on the clock, you see”? 

He wished Giorno would say something, but he didn’t. He just stood between him and his parents. He didn’t acknowledge him at all.

His mother began to speak, and Fugo braced himself for whatever ugly thing might come out of her mouth. It’s not personal. Whatever happens, it’s not about me, right?

But the ugly thing did not come. Her attention slid from him back to Giorno. Whatever his relationship to her son was, it apparently didn’t interest her enough to comment on.

“You’re staying, then?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Until the end.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be long. Just look at him.”

They did. The stepfather still had that vacant smile on his face. He didn’t understand Japanese, Fugo realized. He had no idea what his wife had said about him.

“He doesn’t look well,” Giorno said.

“They’re giving him until the end of the week. Did you know he’d stopped paying the premiums for his life insurance? They canceled the policy!”

“You’d mentioned that.”

“Bastard! He didn’t even tell me. I found the cancellation notice when I was clearing out his things. I had to ask my manager to translate it for me. I’ve never felt so humiliated!”

“You’d mentioned that, too.”

Why was there only one chair, Fugo wondered, glancing around the room. It was a private suite, and not small, either. There should have been more chairs. Were he and Giorno supposed to stand for their entire visit? Would the nuns bring chairs if they asked? Maybe he could step out and…

“Turn up the TV, would ‘ya?”

The stepfather was talking to him. Fugo hadn’t even noticed the TV mounted on the wall. There was a game on, and players in bright jerseys silently ran back and forth across an astonishingly green field. Fugo turned up the volume, then placed the remote into the stepfather’s papery hands.

“Thanks.” The stepfather sounded winded. “You a fan of The Blues?”

Fugo glanced at Giorno. He was still fielding his mother’s complaints about the life insurance company.

“Not particularly,” he said.

“More of a Lazio man?”

“I don’t keep up with football.”

“Ah.”

The stepfather’s smile fell. He seemed completely stumped by Fugo’s answer. That was just as well. Whatever Giorno’s reason was for bringing Fugo here, it wasn’t to make small talk. 

“You’re Giorno’s…friend?” the stepfather asked. (Why couldn’t he just watch the game? Why ask him to turn the volume up if he was going to talk?!)

“Something like that,” Fugo said. The stepfather could assume from that what he wanted. It didn’t matter. He was a dead man, anyhow. 

The stepfather nodded. It seemed to take a great effort. “Well, how about that. Giorno never used to have friends, did you?”

At the mention of his name, Giorno’s gaze snapped to his stepfather. He watched him closely even as his mother talked at him about the snakes at the insurance company. But the old man’s attention had already drifted back to Fugo.

“He was always a strange one,” the stepfather continued. “Didn’t get on well with the other kids. Quiet, you know? Preferred to keep to himself. Made his mother and I worry that he’d turn out…well. It’s good to know that he found someone.”

The stepfather pulled his lips back into a grin.

“Thanks for taking care of my boy.”

It was a slap in the face. Shock was the only thing that kept Fugo from lunging at him.

Oh, he thought in the half-second of clarity before the blood rushed to his head. There it is. That’s what I was waiting for.

He was a weak man only days from dying. Killing him would be easy—he wouldn’t even need Purple Haze to do it. He could take one of his pillows and hold it over his face. He could slide the remote out of his hand and pulp his brain with it. Or, he could simply wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze. He’d watch his face turn purple, watch the white spittle gather at the sides of his mouth. When his eyes began to dull, Fugo would loosen his grip, let him take a gulp of air, then squeeze down again, harder this time. He’d feel his life expire beneath his hands. It would feel good.

Fugo marched himself to the window, slid it open, and stuck his head out of it. He breathed deeply, counting the seconds as he inhaled, then exhaled.

It would feel good to kill him, yes. But the old man wasn’t his to kill. If there was any justice in the world, Giorno would be the one to kill his stepfather.

Fugo stood there until the urge passed through him. By the time he shut the window, Giorno’s father was absorbed in the football game and his mother was speaking to someone on her cell phone. Only Giorno was watching him. He didn’t look away when Fugo locked eyes with him. He just kept staring, as if he wanted Fugo to know that he’d seen everything.

--

Giorno’s mother left shortly after they arrived, but not before making it clear that she’d spent enough time sitting at her husband’s death bed, and now it was Giorno’s turn. It wasn’t quite how Fugo understood marriage (not that he had a sophisticated understanding of it to begin with), but he was glad to have her gone. The room was quiet without her. Neither of them took her seat next to the bed.

The rest of the visit was blessedly dull. The stepfather gave up on making conversation and watched TV. The game ended, and middle-aged men in suits began to give their post-game commentary. The stepfather raised his arm and pointed at the jowly man with a slick comb over.

“He doesn’t believe in God,” he said smugly. “He won’t be happy, when the day comes.”

Other than that, no one said anything.

Fugo tried to picture the stepfather a decade younger, flush with health. He imagined firmness and strength back into his body and hair back onto his head. He dressed him in a polo shirt and chinos. The result was an ordinary man—a bit short, a bit paunchy. Unremarkable.

Was that the stepfather who’d cast his shadow over Giorno’s childhood? Was the stepfather watching TV from his hospice bed still that same man?

They stayed until the stepfather fell asleep. By then, it was early afternoon. They found a hole in the wall pizzeria a few blocks from the hospice and split a margherita pizza. It wasn’t good. There wasn’t enough sauce and the cheese had the flavor and consistency of melted plastic. Giorno choked down one slice, then left the rest of the pizza to Fugo. He probably didn’t expect him to finish it, but he did. He felt disgusting, but he did.

“Do you want to go back to the house?” Fugo asked as they got in the car, him in the driver’s seat and Giorno in the back.

“Not yet.”

“Okay.” He didn’t want to go back, either. “What do you want to do?”

“Would you mind driving around for a while? Anywhere is fine.”

He glanced up at the rearview mirror. Giorno was resting his chin on his palm and looking out the window at the street. There was nothing to see out there.

“Sure,” Fugo said, starting the car. “I can drive around.”

He’d always thought he worked best with specific orders, but it felt good to drive without a destination. It had been a while since he’d done that—movement for movement’s sake. He drove three times around the same block, and Giorno said nothing. He watched the same faded apartment complexes slide by with the impassive gaze of a tortoise.

Anywhere was fine when there was nowhere you wanted to be.

“He was right,” Giorno said when they passed the half-dead pine tree for the third time. “I hadn’t seen them in over five years.”

Fugo nodded. He hadn’t seen his own parents in eight years. Almost nine.

“She looks older,” Giorno murmured so quietly that Fugo wasn’t sure he was meant to hear it. “She used to be the most beautiful person in the world. She isn’t anymore.”

Fugo stopped at the intersection. This time, instead of turning right again, he drove straight through it.

“She seemed upset,” he said.

“Him dying has been very inconvenient for her.” Giorno folded his hands in his lap. “She’s worried about money.”

“Does she need to worry?”

“No.”

Fugo’s stomach tightened. The bad cheese, perhaps.

“How much do you give her?”

Their eyes briefly met in the mirror. This time, Giorno looked away first.

“Enough,” he said. “Clearly she doesn’t see it that way.”

“Is she always like that?” Fugo asked.

“How do you mean?”

How indeed? Fugo drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. He was treading in delicate territory, and she was, after all, his mother. Their relationship wasn’t his business. It wasn’t his place. It wasn’t—

“I didn’t like how she spoke to you.”

“Oh.”

Giorno blinked at the back of his seat. After a moment, he turned toward the window. He rested his chin on his palm again, but his expression seemed a bit lighter.

“She’s not always like that, actually,” he said. “She only speaks that way when she wants something.”

“Does she know where the money comes from?”

“As long as she gets it, she doesn’t care to know.”

“Then why give it to her at all if she’s going to treat you that way? Why—”

Fugo knew he shouldn’t ask it. He knew, but it bothered him too much. He couldn’t stop himself.

“Why didn’t you say anything back to her?”

“Hm.”

Giorno’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture calcified. The question expired.

Stupid! You knew this would happen.

Distracted, Fugo had forgotten to keep track of where he was going. At some point he’d turned off the main road, and now they were in a part of town he didn’t recognize. The buildings were older and less dense. He didn’t know how to get back to the house from here.

“You got angry at him,” Giorno said as they passed a dirt football field, empty save for a couple of kids loitering around the goal posts.

“Yeah,” Fugo said, fighting the urge to look at the rearview mirror. “I guess I did.”

“Why?”

“Because he…”

Because he was an asshole? A monster? Could he say that without picking open another wound? Was he even allowed to think that? Giorno had never actually talked about what he’d done, after all. Maybe it was inappropriate to admit that he’d fantasized about strangling his stepfather.

But he’d never felt so angry for another person before.

“Red light.”

Fugo slammed the brakes, and the car screeched to a halt just before the intersection. A horn blared as another car passed in front of them, far too close for comfort.

“Shit! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Giorno said, unbothered by the fact that Fugo had nearly killed them both. “You were saying?”

“I…” His heart was pounding. “I don’t know. It just happened. If I could explain why I get so angry, my life would be a lot simpler.”

“I suppose it would be.”

Was he satisfied with that answer? It didn’t sound like it. Fugo licked his lips nervously.

“I mean, he said some awful things about you,” he said. “Weren’t you angry?”

Giorno was silent. Seconds passed, and the silence only thickened, settling over him like paste. It was unbearable. Finally, he looked up at the mirror, only to find that Giorno was already watching him through it. A shadow of a smile sat on his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Is that how I should have felt?”

Chapter Text

Fugo was working in the living room when he heard the glass shatter. The adrenaline hit his bloodstream and he was up before he knew it, vaulting over the arm of the couch in his rush to the kitchen.

Shards of glass winked like stars across the linoleum. Giorno was on his knees, eyes wide, holding his right hand to his chest. He’d sliced his fingers, and a piece of glass was firmly buried in his palm. Blood ran down his wrist. It was the color of candy apples, Fugo thought stupidly.

“Are you…”

A clump of fear caught suddenly in his throat. Why? There was nothing to be afraid of. There was no break-in or assassination attempt. It was just a broken cup.

“Are you okay?”

Giorno blinked at him. His hand trembled. The rest of him remained frozen in place.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding. A lot.”

“Oh.”

They both looked at the wound grinning out of his palm. Giorno must have closed his hand on the glass shard by accident. (Was it by accident?) It looked terribly painful.

“Can you fix it?”

“No. It’s broken.”

“I was talking about your hand.”

“Oh.” Blood was starting to get onto the floor now. “Yes. Of course.”

The glass warped into new flesh, sealing the very wound it had caused. Giorno tried to wipe the blood from his hand. He only managed to smear it.

“What happened?” Fugo asked.

“I was careless. I dropped it.”

Giorno’s voice wasn’t loud, but it froze Fugo where he stood. Something viscous and sour bubbled in it, like hot tar or stomach acid. When Giorno looked up again, his eyes were narrowed.

“Why did you run?”

You could calculate a liquid’s exact bubble point, Fugo thought uselessly. It was a relationship between temperature and pressure. He’d known the formula once.

“What?”

“I believe you heard me.”

“I…” What was that formula again? “I heard the glass shatter.”

“But you didn’t need to run. The whole house shook. It felt like an earthquake.”

Giorno’s words were inoffensive, but they were dripping with contempt. Fugo’s indignation drew back like a fist. He was angry at him for running. He was angry at him?! For running?!

“I thought something might have happened,” Fugo said. He fought to keep his voice steady, but already he could feel it rising. “I thought you might have been hurt, and you were.”

“It was nothing.”

“How was I supposed to know that? You know who you are, don’t you? Someone’s going to take a shot at you through a window one of these days! When that day comes, do you really want me to assume that the sound of broken glass is nothing?!”

Giorno ignored him. He looked at the glass scattered across the floor and sighed.

“This is a mess,” he said.

He was avoiding the question. But he was right—it was a mess, and a hazardous one. It needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

“I’ll get a broom,” Fugo offered.

He wasn’t even sure the house had a broom, but he’d seen a closet in the hallway. Maybe—

“No.”

“No?”

“I broke it,” Giorno said flatly. “I’ll handle it.”

He touched one of the shards, no larger than a clipped fingernail, and it morphed into a blade of grass. He plucked the de-fanged thing from the floor and held it in his formerly injured palm. There must have been at least a hundred pieces of glass left.

“You can’t be serious,” Fugo said. Again, Giorno ignored him. He turned another shard into grass. He wouldn’t even look at him.

“Jesus Christ,” Fugo muttered. “Fine. Do what you want.”

He stormed off to his room. He was so mad his teeth were chattering, but once the door was closed behind him, all that fury melted into shame. It was an awfully adolescent thing to do—throwing up his hands and walking out like he had nothing to do with it. He wasn’t a child anymore.

(In fact, you’re older than him. That’s embarrassing.)

Calm down. It’s not about you.

He tried to breathe deeply without gulping air like a beached fish. Giorno had gotten angry at him. So what? His stepfather was dying. It wasn’t fair to expect his emotions to be convenient to him. Fugo, of all people, should have known that. He’d snapped over far less, and Giorno hadn’t walked out on him. Giorno had never abandoned him.

(Except for once.)

No, that doesn’t count. Stop that. Calm down.

Giorno was allowed to get angry. They both were. He’d walked out, but—(not the first time). Stop that. But stepping away wasn’t a bad response to anger, especially in his case. It was safer to put a little distance between them. He needed to cool off and think.

Why did I get so angry?

(Just who you are.)

Fugo sat on the side of the bed. The mattress was softer than was his preference.

Calm down. Think.

Anger was not some mystical affliction cast upon him by the gods. It was an emotion like any other. The cause was not divine, which meant it could be understood. Once he understood his anger, it wouldn’t rule him.

Here, the reason seemed simple enough. He’d gotten angry at Giorno because Giorno had gotten angry at him. The feeling was reflexive and defensive. (Childish.) Had he wanted Giorno to treat him gently? Yes, he supposed he had. (Embarrassing.) Perhaps, but it was an understandable reaction. No one enjoyed being the target of someone else’s anger.

So why had Giorno been angry at him? It couldn’t really have been about the running, could it? Well, maybe he shouldn’t rule it out. Giorno could keep his cool under pressure that would crush anyone else, but he wasn’t immune from pettiness. There were plenty of small things that irritated him—having to repeat himself, arriving late to any appointment, people walking slowly. Maybe running indoors was another pet peeve to add to the list.

No, that doesn’t feel right. It was more than irritation. He’s never reacted that way before.

(How can you be so sure?)

But if not that, then what was it? Fugo replayed the kitchen scene in his mind. He tried to recall every word exchanged, the intonation of each syllable, the way a shadow had hung across Giorno’s face even beneath the fluorescent lights. Analyzing it didn’t help. He didn’t understand him at all.

(It’s happening again. You understand that at least, don’t you, Mr. Genius?)

Stop.

(You didn’t understand him, either.)

Stop.

(You were surprised when he chose to betray the old boss. You thought he’d lost his mind. Did you think he was content with money and status just because you were? Three years, and you didn’t even realize how he felt. You knew what kind of music he liked, but you didn’t know his heart. You didn’t care to. And then you lost him.)

No. It wasn’t like that.

It wasn’t like that. Bucciarati hadn’t—

(Oh, you want to logic this one out? You think that big, smart brain of yours can solve this? Fine. Then ask yourself—between these two situations, what’s the common denominator?)

False equivalence fallacy.

(Is it?)

I should know better than this.

(You’re going to lose him. And then what will you be?)

I swear to god, if you don’t stop, I’ll—

There was a knock at the door so quiet that Fugo almost missed it. He stood up from the bed and noticed that his back ached. How long had he been sitting there? The clock on the nightstand read 12:33 a.m. Shit.

Giorno stood in the hallway, hugging his arms across his ribs. He was still dressed.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “Your light was on.”

“Uh. Yeah. Is it bothering you?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay.”

So why was he here? What did he want?

“Do you want to come in?” Fugo asked before remembering the only place to sit was on the bed. Giorno glanced at his face, then over Fugo’s shoulder.

“I’m fine here.”

The relief was less than Fugo thought it would be. Giorno had spared him some awkwardness, but he was still caught in the doorway, neither in the room, nor quite outside of it. It was a bad place for a conversation, if that was in fact what they were having.

“About tomorrow,” Giorno said after a moment. “My mother will be there in the morning, so we’ll go in the afternoon.”

Fugo nodded. Giorno had told him that already.

“Understood,” he said. “Do you want to shower first, or should I?”

“I want to apologize.”

Oh. He hadn’t expected that. Fugo didn’t trust himself to say anything intelligent, so he said nothing at all. His silence buzzed behind his teeth.

“I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you,” Giorno said. “It was inappropriate. I heard you running and the sound startled me, but that’s not an excuse. I’m the one who made a mistake. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

It was deeply, uncomfortably satisfying to hear him say that. He wanted to bask in that feeling. He could have made a meal of it for days. But no—he couldn’t let Giorno spoil him.

“You don’t have to apologize for being angry,” Fugo said. “It just happened. It’s like that sometimes. You handled yourself better than I did.”

Giorno shook his head, his lips tightening into a hard line. He glanced down and shifted his weight from one leg to the other.

“I know I’m not very good to be around. Especially now.”

“That’s not—”

Not true? Maybe it was a little bit, as much as he wanted to deny it. Giorno made him feel seen. Consequently, he made him feel judged. It was exhausting. As much as Fugo respected Giorno, he found it easier to be with almost anyone else. And yet, it seemed he rarely chose to be.

Well. “Easy” wasn’t everything.

“You can be off-putting,” Fugo admitted. “You’re difficult to read, and I don’t know what you’re thinking most of the time, which makes things awkward. But I’m here, aren’t I?”

“I asked you to come.”

“And I did.”

“I’m your boss.”

“You’re a year younger than me. I’ve seen you drink piss out of a cup.”

Giorno wouldn’t quite look at him. He kept his face very still.

“Anyhow,” Fugo said, suddenly feeling stupid. “I’m not great to be around, either.”

“I disagree.”

“Thanks.”

“You think I’m difficult to read?”

“Sometimes.”

But not right now. Now, he was clearly embarrassed. His expression remained fixed as ever, but the tips of his ears were pink.

“I have a few calls to make,” Giorno said, turning abruptly. “You can have the shower first.”

“Giorno.”

“Yes?”

It was strange—their conversation had been awkward and uncomfortable, but once Giorno had started to leave, he’d felt anxious. He’d wanted to call out to him, and he’d felt a truly embarrassing sense of relief when Giorno had stopped at the sound of his name. But now that he had his attention, Fugo didn’t know what to do with it.

“Are you, um, alright?” he asked, fumbling for something to say. “It looked like you cut your hand pretty badly.”

“Thank you for asking,” Giorno said. “But it’s fine. I fixed it.”

“It doesn’t still hurt?”

Fugo had benefited from Giorno’s “healing” ability before, and he knew the pain of the original injury remained even after new flesh had been grafted over the wound. It was a reasonable question. So why was Giorno looking at him like he was speaking in tongues?

“I already said that I fixed it. Please, Fugo, I don’t like repeating myself.”

--

The stepfather was just finishing his lunch when they arrived. Frowning, he pushed the tray away from him, the pasta and chicken cutlet almost untouched.

“The food here’s awful. It’s dry and they don’t salt anything. I should be allowed as much salt as I want! They can give me some wine, too, while they’re at it. And a fat cigar. Giorno, you can bust me outta here, can’t you? I wanna die in my own bed!”

Thankfully, the stepfather’s complaining wore him out. He was asleep within half an hour. His mouth hung open in his sleep, and Fugo could see his pink, dry tongue. He looked already dead.

Giorno stood and turned the TV off. He placed the remote on top of the dresser, out of the stepfather’s reach.

“Let’s take a walk,” he said.

The hospice, however, was not built with ambulatory patients in mind. They quickly exhausted the hallways and wound up inevitably in front of the small chapel behind the main compound. It was a white, roundish building that seemed to be made more of glass than stone. The lights were off, but when Giorno tried the door, it was unlocked.

“You want to go in?” Fugo asked.

“We haven’t been in here yet,” was Giorno’s answer. “Are you uncomfortable?”

He was, though it was embarrassing to admit. Fugo didn’t have a problem with breaking and entering, but churches made him queasy.

“It doesn’t feel right to intrude on a place like this.”

“If it’s truly a house of God, then it should be open to everyone. Especially to nonbelievers.”

The chapel was a few rows of pews, an aisle, and an altar. It was entirely unremarkable, save for the tall panels of stained glass on either side of the cross. The panels didn’t depict any image of Christ or the apostles, or any image at all. Instead, they were composed of scales of plain color. Sunlight filtered through the glass, dappling the front of the church in green, purple, blue, and yellow. It was a beautiful effect.

Giorno walked up the aisle and sat on the front pew. Blue and green light fell across his face. After a moment’s hesitation, Fugo joined him.

“It’s quiet,” Giorno said.

Everywhere in the hospice was quiet. But the quiet here was deeper, cooler. It felt like they were at the bottom of a very still sea. Giorno closed his eyes, and Fugo wondered if he was going to fall asleep on the pew. It would be good for him if he did. He’d seemed tired today.

“I could fix him.”

Giorno’s voice was hushed and almost reverent. His eyes remained closed as he spoke, so Fugo risked staring at his face. There was a faint freckle by the corner of his left eye. He hadn’t noticed it before.

“I could grow him new organs,” Giorno continued. “I could replace all the sick cells in his body with healthy ones. I could remake his brain and sever the connections in his prefrontal cortex. I could make him sweet and docile. Harmless. He’d be happy that way. Happier than he’s ever been, in fact. It wouldn’t be hard.”

He folded his hands in a patch of blue on his lap.

“But I won’t.”

“You could kill him, too,” Fugo said. “It would be even easier than saving him.”

“Hm.”

Giorno opened his eyes and stared directly at Fugo. Fugo stared back.

“Do you want to know something awful?” Giorno asked.

No.

“Tell me.”

Giorno faced forward again. He blinked once, very slowly. His eyelashes seemed impossibly fair.

“I never hated him,” he confessed. “It wasn’t a matter of virtue. I just didn’t have the courage to hate him. No matter what he did, I didn’t have it in me to get angry at him.”

Giono was right—this was awful to know. Heat prickled at the back of Fugo’s throat. He forced it down, sending the needling feeling straight to his stomach.

“I used to wish for him to die all the time. It wasn’t hatred. It was just that only way I could imagine that he’d stop. I’d fantasize about him getting hit by a car or falling down a flight of stairs. I’d have settled for him just breaking his leg, since then he wouldn’t be able to chase after me.

Then at some point, I started to believe that if I kept wishing harm on him, he’d find out and I’d get in trouble. It was nonsense, of course, but I was a child. Does any of this make sense to you?”

Fugo nodded. It made sense, but he couldn’t imagine Giorno as someone who’d once thought that way. He hated even thinking about it.

“I stopped wishing for anything. I didn’t let myself believe that he’d stop. I didn’t believe that anything would change. But I knew that one day he’d be old and weak, and then he’d die. So I promised myself that, if I survived him, I would watch.”

He drew a deep breath.

“I didn’t think the opportunity would present itself so soon.”

Was there hesitance in Giorno’s voice, or was he just listening for what he least wanted to hear? It must have been the latter, he assured himself. Giorno didn’t hesitate.

(Then what do you call all this waiting around?)

“But things did change,” Fugo pointed out. Then, pressing his luck, “You can do anything you want now.”

“I could.”

Giorno looked up at the cross, frowned, then lowered his eyes.

“He wore his crucifix all the time. He still wears it. To him, there was nothing inconsistent between what he believed and what he did. But there’s no holiness to be found in suffering. You have to sanctify it, otherwise no one would accept it happening to them.”

“And you still won’t kill him?” Fugo asked. “After all that?”

“No,” Giorno said. “I won’t kill him. But I will let him die.”

Well. If that was what he wanted. It was his choice, after all. And maybe it was better this way. Maybe he would suffer more from a lingering death than a quick, decisive one. Maybe the punishment fit the crime.

He still didn’t know what that crime was.

(Do you want to know?)

No. But I should.

“Giorno,” Fugo said slowly. He leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “What did he do to you?”

“What did he…? Oh.”

For the first time since they entered the chapel, surprise colored Giorno’s voice. He squinted at Fugo for a moment, his lips slightly parted.

“He used to beat me up when I was a kid. Did I not mention that?”

It was about what Fugo had suspected. He hadn’t been prepared to hear Giorno say it.

“No. You hadn’t told me.”

His stomach had leapt into his throat. How angry would the nuns be if he threw up in their chapel? Surely they were used to cleaning up such messes, except he wasn’t dying. He didn’t have a good excuse.

Giorno’s hand was suddenly on his back. He could feel the warmth of his palm through his clothes.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Please don’t talk to me so gently. Please don’t be kind to me right now.

“I’m fine,” Fugo said through clenched teeth. “Thank you. I’m fine.”

Chapter Text

“It’s not so bad.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“It’s true.”

Fugo glowered at his plate. The sauce for the salmon was lumpy. The eggplant was raw in the middle. The pasta, to his horror, was slightly crunchy, but it was too late to throw it back into the pot.

The salad had turned out okay, though. At least he hadn’t ruined that.

“I don’t know how this happened. I’m sure I followed the recipe.”

Giorno cut around the raw center of his eggplant. “The recipe may have underestimated a few things.”

Fugo had found it online. It had claimed to be “simple” and “perfect for beginners.” Either that was a cruel joke, or his skills were even more lacking than he’d realized. It was probably the latter, if he was being completely honest with himself.

“We can go out to eat,” Fugo suggested.

“It would be a shame to waste this. The salmon’s actually quite good.”

“Quite good” seemed like an obvious exaggeration, but Giorno wasn’t the type to exaggerate. He wasn’t the type to lie to spare someone’s feelings, either. In that case, was he actually enjoying his failed attempt at dinner?

Weird.

Watching him eat, Fugo wondered at Giorno’s undiscerning palate. He presented himself with an air of sophistication, at least professionally, but Fugo had grown up around truly sophisticated (i.e. snobbish) people. Unlike them, Giorno had never mocked a restaurant for the grade of its balsamic vinegar. He’d never pretended to care about a wine’s terroir. He didn’t try to leverage his good taste for social status. In fact, he rarely expressed an opinion on food at all.

“You don’t cook much,” Giorno observed, not unkindly.

“I don’t,” Fugo admitted. “I never really learned how.”

Cooking hadn’t been encouraged in his parents’ house. That was a job suited for other people, and no son of theirs would smell of garlic. Ironically, he hadn’t had much opportunity to cook when they’d kicked him out, either.

“I thought I’d at least be able to follow instructions,” Fugo said. “Apparently not.”

“There’s more to cooking than that.”

Fugo nodded. “It’s a matter of mētis, not techne.”

Giorno stopped chewing, and Fugo realized, embarrassed, that he had no idea what he was talking about.

“They’re Greek conceptions of knowledge,” he explained. “Mētis is practical knowledge gained by experience. Techne is technical, formal knowledge. The kind that’s suitable for codification. Math, for example. ‘Book learning.’”

His education had consisted mainly of techne —highly advanced and entirely impractical.

“Hm.” Giorno took another bite of salmon. “That’s an interesting way of thinking about it.”

“My grandmother never used recipes,” Fugo continued, embarrassment pushing him to speak beyond his better judgment. “She’d cooked the same dishes all her life, and she could have made them in her sleep. She knew exactly what they needed.”

And when she’d died, so had those dishes. He hadn’t been able to learn them from her, and since she hadn’t left any recipes behind, he couldn’t even approximate them.

“You hadn’t spoken about your grandmother before.”

Why would he have?

“She never came up.”

Giorno put down his fork. He’d cleaned the majority of his plate, save for the completely inedible bits. Fugo had hardly touched his own food.

“My mother didn’t use recipes, either,” Giorno said. “Or maybe she tried to, but couldn’t follow them. Either way, she never quite figured out how to make Italian food.”

Well, if her idea of “Italian food” was ketchup on spaghetti…

“She’d try to make Japanese food, too,” he continued. “She was better at that, but it was difficult for her to find the right ingredients in stores. Her food never tasted the way she wanted it to, and that made her incredibly angry. She’d have these episodes where she’d dump everything on the stove into the trash, then stop cooking for weeks at a time. She wouldn’t buy groceries, either.”

He’d only met his mother once, but it was all too easy to imagine.

“I’m guessing your stepfather didn’t cook?”

“He didn’t.” A smile ghosted across his lips. “He didn’t know how to handle her when she got like that. She’d scream at him and tear up the apartment, and he’d just stand there dumbfounded. Sometimes, when she was mad at him, she’d cook dinner only for herself and all he could do was watch her eat it.”

“What about you?”

“I made do,” Giorno said coolly. “I learned how to cook. It wasn’t easy—I gave myself severe food poisoning the first time I made chicken. But I didn’t make that mistake again. I suppose that’s ‘mētis’?”

“That would describe it.”

Giorno sipped his wine thoughtfully.

“I also got very good at stealing wallets,” he said. “It helped to have cash on hand when I didn’t feel like cooking my own meals.”

“I mostly dined and dashed.”

Giorno smiled broadly at that. It was unexpected, like a flower bud popping open at the exact moment you looked at it. Fugo couldn’t help but grin back.

“It’s an art,” Giorno said.

“It certainly is.”

--

Fugo had assumed that they wouldn’t run into Giorno’s mother again until the stepfather passed. She’d seemed resentful of having to spend time at the hospice at all, but she and Giorno had worked out something of a schedule—she’d visit in the morning, and they’d go in the afternoon. They were both surprised when she arrived at the hospice after lunch.

“I didn’t feel like finishing my shift,” was all she said about it. Giorno didn’t ask any further questions, so Fugo didn’t either. She didn’t know that he’d understood her, anyhow.

Her presence made the visit worse. The stepfather was medicated and drowsy that afternoon, and Fugo had been enjoying the peace and quiet. Giorno’s mother, however, did not share his appreciation. She immediately began to complain to Giorno about her neighbors (their teenage daughter was learning the trumpet), her landlady (a greedy bitch), and her coworkers (lazy, entitled gossips who couldn’t be trusted with any real responsibilities). She was not at all deterred by Giorno’s monosyllabic responses. If anything, they encouraged her to talk for the both of them. She steamrolled ahead, crushing them beneath her onslaught of self-pity.

She didn’t ask a single question about Giorno’s life. She talked at him the way one might talk at a pet or a doll. It didn’t matter whether he was there or not.

After an hour, Fugo had had enough.

“I’m going to stretch my legs,” he told Giorno before removing himself from the room. It probably made him a bad bodyguard to leave his boss like that, but his hands were starting to shake. He needed to clear his head.

Outside, it was sunny. Obscenely bright. The grass was newly cut, and the air smelled green. Fugo breathed deeply, focusing on the expansion of his lungs and the heat on his skin, the sensations proof that he existed as more than a hyperactive amygdala. With each exhale he released a bit of irritation and replaced it with fresh, clean air. After a few minutes, his brain itched less. He felt pleasantly empty. A crow landed on a laurel tree at the other end of the parking lot, its sleek body bobbing in the high branches. Its voice was like rust.

Heels clicked on the pavement behind him.

Giorno’s mother cast him a sidelong glance as she fished a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. It was the first time that she’d acknowledged him all day.

“I hate this stupid law,” she muttered as she shook a cigarette out of the pack. “I should be able to smoke wherever I want. It’s a matter of personal liberty.”

It sounded like someone had been scolded by the nuns. The thought pleased him. Maybe the nuns were alright after all.

She tried to toss her cigarettes back into her purse, but missed. The pack fell to the ground, and Fugo stooped to pick it up.

“Thanks,” she said as he handed it to her.

“You’re welcome,” he replied in Japanese.

She burst into laughter and nearly dropped her cigarettes again.

“What was that? German?”

The blood rushed to his face. Sure, he hadn’t had the opportunity to practice his conversational Japanese with anyone, but his pronunciation couldn’t be that bad.

“That’s hilarious. Italian’s supposed to be a romance language, but you foreigners love trying to speak Japanese. You’re into sushi, samurai, geisha—all that crap. I don’t get it.”

She grinned, and it was uncanny to see Giorno’s smile in someone else’s face.

Fugo opened his mouth, then closed it. Why should he have to defend himself to a stranger in a language that wasn’t his own? He didn’t owe her an explanation, especially if she was going to mock the accent it was delivered in. Anyhow, had she even assumed that he’d understood her? Did she care?

It’s not about you, he reminded himself. Each day he understood Giorno’s warning a little better. But the more he repeated that mantra, the more it seemed meant to absolve her. Maybe it wasn’t about him, but it couldn’t always be about her, either.

Giorno’s mother lit her cigarette and drew deeply from it. Her lipstick clung to the paper.

“I really should quit,” she said. “Given everything. I’d save a bit of money, at least.”

She took another drag, then released the smoke in a heavy sigh. The air was beginning to stink of tar.

He should just leave, Fugo thought. He’d only come out to get away from her in the first place, so there was no point in staying now that she was here. The problem was his pride. He didn’t want her to think he was avoiding her (even though he was). He didn’t want her to think that she bothered him (even though she did). So he was going to stand right here in total silence until she finished her cigarette and went back inside.

“He didn’t like that I smoked,” she said. “They had a lesson on the side-effects of smoking in school, and he came home all distressed about secondhand smoke and COPD. Seriously, I don’t know why they have to scare kids like that. I remember him clinging to my skirt and begging me to quit. He was so serious about it that I couldn’t help but tease him. I was actually kind of sad when he gave up.”

She smiled at the memory. Somehow, Fugo doubted it was as fond for Giorno.

“He was such a cute kid. Super clingy, but cute. He took after me, I guess.”

Her smile crumbled. She tapped the ashes from the end of her cigarette.

“I don’t know what happened. We used to be so close, and then he abandoned me. He doesn’t even want to talk to me now.”

She sounded unhappy, and maybe that was how she genuinely felt. But how had Giorno “abandoned” her when he was paying her bills and had come when she’d called?

“He changed,” she sighed, dropping her cigarette and stamping it out beneath her shoe. “Well, all children grow up, I suppose. I just thought I’d done a better job than that.”

You didn’t protect him! You didn’t even feed him!

Fugo watched as she pulled a compact from her purse and touched up her lipstick. Giorno had said that she’d once been the most beautiful person in the world. He couldn’t see it.

“Never get married,” she said. “‘Until death do us part’ is such bullshit. Everyone leaves.”

She snapped her compact shut, turned, and walked back into the hospice. Fugo was alone again. It was sunny. The grass was newly cut. The crow watched him from the top of the laurel tree, holding its laughter in its throat.

Fugo tried to breathe deeply. The air smelled awful.

--

“Did she say something to you?” Giorno asked once they were in the car. He looked tired. Worse, he looked worried.

Fugo pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road.

“Nothing important,” he said.

--

Mista’s phone rang until it went to voicemail. The electronic tone pissed Fugo off. It wasn’t that late—just past 10:00 p.m. Mista should’ve been able to take his call.

“Call me back, stupid,” he growled.

“That was quick,” Giorno said as Fugo came in from the veranda. He sat cross-legged on the couch, freshly showered, his computer on his lap and a half-folded newspaper on the cushion next to him.

“He didn’t pick up,” Fugo explained. He was growing used to seeing Giorno with his hair down. He tried not to think about it.

“Hm.” Giorno glanced at the clock. “It’s taking longer than I thought.”

“What is?”

His phone buzzed.

“Perhaps not,” Giorno said cryptically.

“Hey,” Fugo said, stepping back outside.

“Hey, asshole.” Mista’s voice sounded distant and grainy. “This better be important.”

“Do you have me on speaker?”

“I’m literally working right now, dude.”

“Then why did you call me?”

“You said to call you, and you sounded grumpy about it! So is it important or not?”

Selfishly, he wanted to insist that it was. Of course it was. Would he have called if it wasn’t important? Would he waste their time for nothing?

“It can wait,” Fugo said, attempting to marshal his disappointment. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Wait, hold on.”

There was rustling on the other end of the line followed by a minute of ambient quiet. Fugo waited and shivered. It wasn’t a particularly cold night, but there was a breeze, and he was standing out here in sandals and cotton pants. Maybe he’d call back tomorrow, after all. This was getting a little too inconvenient for both of them, and—

A gunshot jolted Fugo from his thoughts.

“Got ‘em,” Mista said. “Okay, I can talk now.”

“Who did you shoot?”

“Nobody who’ll be missed. What’s up?”

“Are you sure you can talk? Don’t you need to get out of there?”

“I’m working on it now.” Mista’s breath sounded clipped, as if he were walking very quickly.

“Really, I can call another time.”

“Nah, let’s talk. I’m just gonna be driving around for a while anyway. Hold on, I’m getting in the car.”

The sound of the car door closing, then the snarl of the engine.

“Alright. What’s up? How’s the vacation?”

“I’m not on vacation.”

“And neither is Giorno, by the look of it. Can you get him to lay off the 3:00 a.m. emails?”

“The wh—” Fugo stopped himself. He wasn’t really surprised. It was obvious that Giorno hadn’t been sleeping well. “How many 3:00 a.m. emails is he sending?”

“I’ve gotten a few. I bet the capos are getting them, too.”

How had he not noticed that Giorno was waking up that early (or going to sleep that late)? The wall between their bedrooms wasn’t thick. Was he just that oblivious?

“You have to make sure he sleeps,” Mista explained as if Fugo had never heard of the circadian cycle before. “Like, you have to visibly confirm that he goes to bed.”

“How am I supposed to do that? Just stand in his bedroom door?”

“Whatever works. Hey, you know what he said to me once? He said that staying awake all night feels nice. Like getting drunk without the effort.”

Mista probably expected him to find that troubling, but Fugo was acquainted with the feeling. He wouldn’t have described it as “nice,” though.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him drunk.”

“I don’t think he’s ever let himself get drunk.”

That sounded about right.

“Hey,” Fugo said, looking over his shoulder. Through the glass door, he could see Giorno sitting on the couch, exactly where he’d left him. “You’re done with work, yeah? Could you maybe drive out here and stay for a day or two?”

He knew it was an admission of inadequacy. Giorno had chosen him for this, but he couldn’t meet his expectations. He still didn’t know what his expectations were. He felt pathetic, and Mista’s silence only made it worse.

“Sorry,” Mista said after a moment. “It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with you, but I can’t just drive out there. I’m in Florence.”

“Florence?!”

“Yeah.”

“I thought that wasn’t until next month?”

“Giorno wanted it done today. It was one of his 3:00 a.m. emails. Actually, that one was a phone call.”

“Christ.”

“You didn’t know?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“Oh.” He could hear the ticking of Mista’s turn signal. “Maybe he thought you’d advise against it?”

“I would have advised him not to make such an important decision in the middle of the night. Not that he’d listen to me.”

“He listens to you.”

“Yeah. He just doesn’t agree.”

Immediately, he felt childish for saying that. Giorno welcomed his advice, but he didn’t need it, and he certainly didn’t need to agree with him. Giorno’s judgment was his own, and it was often sound. Why should that upset him? Where was his head at tonight?

“It’s handled, at least,” Fugo said hurriedly. “If there are consequences, we’ll deal with them.”

“Sure.”

But they both knew it was Mista who would deal with any fallout. Mista was the one in Florence. Mista was the one Giorno had entrusted this mission to.

“So,” Mista said. “How’s it going over there? Not great, I guess, since you asked me to swoop in to save the day. Or do you just miss me that much?”

“Shut up.” He did miss him. “It’s…Yeah, it isn’t great. It’s weird, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Wow. And you’re not usually short on words, either.”

“Hey.”

“What? It’s a neutral statement. I just mean that you talk, is all. You don’t clam up like Giorno.”

“Okay.”

But did Giorno “clam up”? He was certainly quiet, and he did tend to retreat into himself when he was upset. But he talked. Over the last few days, he’d said a lot of things that Fugo hadn’t been prepared to hear.

“How’s he holding up?” Mista asked.

“Better than I would be, in his shoes. You know how he’s pretty strange?”

It wasn’t a controversial statement, but it was met with a long silence. Fugo thought he heard Mista suck a breath through his teeth.

“Yeah,” he answered.

It was amazing how one word could carry so much judgment. Fugo narrowed his eyes.

“Do you disagree?”

“Nope.”

“Then do you want to elaborate?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” Fugo said, moving past his reticence. “He’s actually well-adjusted, considering.”

“They’re that bad?”

“They’re worse than I thought they would be. But also not, in a way. Does that make sense?”

“Not really. Is he going to kill him?”

“He says he won’t.”

“Really?! Why?”

“It’s his choice.”

“I mean, yeah, but…” He could practically see the look on Mista’s face—his brows bunched up and his mouth twisted into a frown. “You think he should, too, right? You sounded disappointed.”

“No, I…” Fugo gripped the wrought iron railing with his free hand. The metal was pleasantly cold. “I don’t know how to feel about it.”

“Okay, so that doesn’t make sense. Why would you need to ‘know’ how to feel about something? You’re gonna feel what you’re gonna feel.”

“Hm.”

It was a very Mista-like answer—simple and to the point. But Fugo knew better. There were definitely right and wrong ways to feel.

“How do you feel?” Mista asked.

“What does it matter?”

“You wouldn’t have called me if it didn’t matter.”

Fugo looked back toward the living room again. Giorno was gone. He’d left the light on for him, and the brightness pushed up against the glass door. He couldn’t see his reflection in it.

“I’m angry,” he said. “You probably could have guessed. I’m so angry, although I know I don’t have the right to be.”

“Why not?”

Why not? The night seemed to tug at the hem of his clothes. How could he even ask that?

“You know what my anger’s like.” Like a bomb. Like a storm. A corrosive, ravenous thing that would consume them all if he gave its leash any slack. “He doesn’t need me to impose that on him. He’s dealing with enough as it is.”

“Now you’re really losing me. What’s wrong with getting mad because someone was treated shitty? That’s the most important kind of anger there is. Like, that’s the point of it.”

He hated how tinny and small Mista’s voice sounded. He hated that Florence was hours and hours away.

“I want to kill his stepdad,” Fugo admitted. “I want him to never speak to his mom again. I want her to disappear from his life. I don’t think he wants any of that, but I do. Isn’t that wrong?”

“It’s not wrong,” Mista said. “Fugo, that’s absolutely normal.”

Chapter Text

Two turquoise studs sat next to the bathroom sink. They looked like crumbs of sky against the marble—small, round, and smooth, with gold backings. Fugo held them in his palm. They weighed nothing.

Whose earrings were these?

He remembered how, the first time he’d met Giorno, his eyes had been drawn to the turquoise in his ears. They wore the same earrings, and that realization had startled Fugo more than the boy’s sudden integration into their group. It was odd, almost spooky, to see something familiar in a complete stranger. Irrationally, he’d felt like Giorno had taken something from him.

But they were just earrings, and who cared that they were the same? It was a petty observation unworthy of remark. And yet, that was his first impression of Giorno—a cautious boy in nice clothes, wearing the same earrings as him.

Fugo scowled at his open palm. How could he not recognize his own earrings? He’d worn them every day for the last five years.

“Giorno, are these yours?”

Giorno looked up from his breakfast. There were dark circles under his eyes again. His ears, Fugo noticed, were bare.

“Where did you find them?” Giorno asked, taking the earrings from him.

“They were on the bathroom counter.”

“Hm.”

Giorno inspected the earrings, holding them in a patch of sunlight that fell across the table. His fingers were slender, Fugo noticed. He could’ve made a good pianist.

After a few seconds, Giorno returned the earrings to him.

“They’re mine,” he confirmed. “But you can wear them.”

--

Unfortunately, the stepfather was alert when they visited him that afternoon. The TV was on, but his attention kept slipping back to Giorno.

“The nurse is a mean old bitch,” the stepfather told him. “She pinches me on purpose and she likes doing it. Nuns are cruel, you know. It’s because they’ve never been fucked.”

Giorno stared out the window past the stepfather and said nothing. Fugo hoped the nuns were pinching him on purpose. He hoped they did enjoy it. He wanted the stepfather to know what it was like to be helpless.

“Oh God, I’m gonna die,” the stepfather wailed. His eyeballs bulged with anguish and his breath came in quick, wet gulps. They watched him until he settled down, his gasps becoming throaty groans. He closed his eyes and rolled his head back and forth on the pillow.

“I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna. All I have are regrets.”

“Would you like me to call a priest?” Giorno asked.

“All those years working, and for what? I never even got to start drawing my pension. If I’d’ve known, I would’ve enjoyed myself more. More wine, more women. I would’ve traveled again, maybe to Thailand.”

Fugo watched the side of Giorno’s face. He was waiting for a sign—a frown, a sigh, a knowing glance in his direction that would tell him he was needed. (Needed for what?) But no such sign came. Giorno’s expression sat stiff on his face like a mask carved from stone.

“It’s all regret now,” the stepfather said. “I always wanted a son. I would’ve named him Nico after my old school buddy. He lived down the street and was hit by a car riding his bike to the movies. But your mom didn’t want kids.”

Jesus Christ, Fugo thought. Giorno didn’t even blink.

“Your mom doesn’t like me anymore. You don’t have to deny it—I know what she tells you about me. She wishes I was dead already, and God, I’d do it myself, if that would make her happy. But then she wouldn’t get the insurance money.”

“The policy lapsed,” Giorno said. The stepfather didn’t seem to hear him.

“Maybe the nurse’ll do it for me. She’d love that. Nuns are cruel, you know, ‘cause they’ve never been fucked.”

Mercifully, the stepfather stopped to catch his breath. He lookedvery dog-like, panting with his mouth open. Fugo imagined his tongue falling out onto the sheets.

“We were in love once, can you believe that? She really liked me. Said I was handsome. A beautiful girl like her! Don’t know how I got her to follow me back here. I should’ve made a better life for her. God, what a waste!”

Suddenly possessed with feverish energy, the stepfather lunged forward and grabbed Giorno’s hand. His eyes flashed with dark electricity and his face was dry meat. Spittle dotted the corners of his mouth.

It was the first time he’d seen him touch Giorno. Fugo wanted to rip his hands off.

“You’ll take care of her for me, won’t you, Giorno?” he asked, wringing his hand. Giorno’s expression remained unchanged, but his arm had gone limp. It hung between him and the stepfather like a dead snake.

“I will.”

Giorno spoke so quietly his lips barely seemed to part. Disgust coiled in Fugo’s gut. He hoped that was a lie. He needed it to be a lie.

“Attaboy.”

The stepfather patted the back of his hand, then sank back into the pillows. At least he wasn’t touching him anymore.

“You turned out alright,” the stepfather wheezed. “It took some doing, but you toughened up and made something of yourself. Who would’ve thought? Little Giorno, all grown up! You’ve become a reliable man.”

The stepfather’s eyes were watery. He looked like he might burst into tears.

“I’m proud of you, kid.”

The screech of his chair split the room. Fugo was standing over the bed, still, but only just, the last threads of his better judgment fraying fast. Magma ran thin and fast beneath his skin. In his head, the braying of hounds.

The thing lying in that bed was not human. It wore human skin, but it was not human. He knew a wolf when he saw one.

He should die. He should die. He should die. He should just DIE.

The air around his hands shivered as Purple Haze began to peel away from him. It was a sick relief, like tearing off a scab and watching fresh blood well up over the wound. The Stand, not fully materialized, hung like a specter over the stepfather. One punch would cave his face in, brains like strawberry jam across the pillow. Or he could push a virus capsule into his open mouth and let him swallow it like he would any pill. Let the coating dissolve in his stomach. Let the virus eat him from the inside out. He would die in unimaginable agony.

But then the virus might touch Giorno.

He glanced at Giorno and saw that he’d finally gotten his attention. Giorno was watching him with the same quiet interest he’d shown the first time they’d come here. He knew, certainly, what Fugo wanted. All he had to do was nod, stand up, take a step back, anything, and Fugo would do it.

You can still watch him die. You don’t have to do it because I will do it for you. I will do it gladly.

But Giorno did nothing. He remained at the stepfather’s bedside, hands folded neatly in his lap.

Fugo’s rage broke like a dead branch.

Purple Haze dissolved. Fugo righted his toppled chair, sat in it, then clasped his hands so tightly his joints hurt. The stepfather’s jaundiced eyes slid over him, his gaze empty of all intelligence. He may have known he was close to dying, but he had no idea how close he’d been to being killed. Fugo envied his ignorance.

No. I’m not any better. I don’t know anything.

Wordlessly, Giorno took Fugo’s hands in his. He began to unlock his fingers, and Fugo let him. His skin was cool, he thought, gulping down his shame. He didn’t want to be comforted. He hated that it felt good.

“Giorno,” the stepfather rasped. “Water.”

Giorno laid his hand over Fugo’s. He squeezed once, then let go.

“Water,” the stepfather said again. “C’mon, kid. Don’t make me ask twice.”

Giorno took the pitcher from the stepfather’s nightstand and poured the thinnest stream of water into a plastic cup. The stepfather squirmed under the covers, smacking his papery lips restlessly. When the cup was finally full, Giorno raised it to the stepfather’s mouth, tilting it very slightly.

“Drink slowly,” he instructed as water dripped down the stepfather’s chin. “Or you’ll drown.”

--

“I’m sorry,” Fugo said as soon as they were outside.

“Please don’t be.”

Balloon-like, Giorno’s words floated over the parking lot. That lightness was intolerable. Fugo wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake it out of him, but Giorno would kill him if he tried that. At least, Fugo hoped he would.

They got into the car, and Giorno took the passenger seat. Fugo glanced at him, but said nothing. He wasn’t going to tell him where to sit.

“I’d like to see the aqueduct,” Giorno said.

“Now?” It was already mid-afternoon.

“Yes.”

“Alright.” Fugo started the car. “I don’t know how to get there, though.”

“I’ll guide you,” Giorno said, taking a paper map from the glove compartment.

The aqueduct spanned the valley like a leviathan’s spinal cord. Commissioned by Charles of Bourbon during his reign in Naples, its arched design invoked the legacy and might of the Romans. Over two hundred years later, the aqueduct still dominated the landscape.

They parked on the side of the road and tromped up a hill overgrown with tall, coarse grass and  shrubs like gnarled fists. From the hill, they could see the undersides of the arches, late afternoon light cutting sharp shadows across the stone. It was an impressive view, but less so than Fugo had expected. Up close, the aqueduct’s grand sense of scale was lost. He could see where pale lichen splotched the limestone, which had blackened over centuries of rain. The aqueduct held, but like its Roman predecessors, time would take its toll.

“Would you say these are ruins?” Giorno asked.

“It’s too new,” Fugo said. Bits of dried grass had gotten into his shoes and they poked the soft bottoms of his feet. “This aqueduct isn’t particularly old, and structurally, it’s still in good shape. So no, I wouldn’t call it that.”

It was a half-assed answer, but Giorno nodded as if his archaeological opinion had weight.

“He thought these were Roman ruins,” Giorno said. “We drove out here once—I must have been about seven—and that’s what he told me. Even then, I don’t think I believed him. He liked anything that had to do with the Romans, but he often got his history wrong. I wonder if he’d have cared about this aqueduct if knew who really built it?”

“Your stepfather brought you here?” Fugo asked. There was no one else he could have meant, but he couldn’t imagine the man in the hospice bed, the man who, in Giorno’s own words, had “beat him up when he was a kid,” driving him out here on a day trip.

“He did,” Giorno said. “It was supposed to make me appreciate ‘Italian heritage.’ He wanted me to be as taken with it as he was, I think. I couldn’t have cared less about heritage, but I had a good time. I saw a grass snake. It’s a nice memory.”

Fugo didn’t say anything, but Giorno noticed his frown.

“I’m not saying that to defend him,” he clarified. “The truth neither defends nor accuses—it simply is. And the truth is that it wasn’t always bad. It wasn’t a good situation, but it wasn’t only suffering. I have nice memories from that time. I have my name because of him.”

“You’re kidding,” Fugo said. “He picked it?”

“He wanted me to have an Italian name, and my mother didn’t care either way.”

“And what about you?”

“I was four. I didn’t get to choose.” Giorno’s words weren’t bitter, but his smile lacked joy. “I did hate it, at first. I’m sure he picked ‘Giorno’ as a joke, since he always complained that I was too gloomy. But I love it now. It feels like me.”

“What was your name before?”

Giorno blinked at him, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that he might ask.

“Haruno,” he said when the surprise had worn off. The word was clumsy on his tongue.

“As in ‘spring’?”  

“Perhaps. I was born in April, so that would make sense, but I never learned how to write it. I don’t know what characters it used.”

“Haruno” was a pretty name with a pleasing lightness, but it was too delicate, Fugo decided, to suit him. “Giorno” was better. It was stronger, brighter. The stepfather had stumbled into a good choice, but Fugo hated to give him credit for it. Giorno was the one who’d grown into his name, after all. He’d made himself into the person he was in spite of the stepfather, not because of him.

“Why do you choose to go by your family name?” Giorno asked.

Fugo could felt himself go red from his neck to his ears.

“I…I wouldn’t say that I ‘choose’ to go by it. It’s just what people started calling me. It stuck.”

“But you might have corrected them if you didn’t like it. You’re not close with your family, either.”

Either. What a satisfying word that was.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Fugo said. “Not one bit. My parents would hate to know that I’m using the family name, so that’s a good reason as any to keep using it. And, well…I guess my first name is a little embarrassing.”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed of. It’s very charming.”

“It’s really not.”

“Pannacotta.”

“Giorno, please.”

But he couldn’t be mad at how easily Giorno said his name, at how his face has relaxed into a grin, if only for a moment. He would have let him say his name a hundred times. He would have let him call him anything he wanted.

“Forgive me,” Giorno said, not at all sorry. “I only meant to say was that good things can come from unexpected places. He didn’t give me much, but he did give me my name. It’s the only thing from him that I liked.”

They watched as a car passed beneath the aqueduct on the road below. It didn’t slow, and no one craned their neck out a window to gawk at the historic arches. Maybe the driver was used to passing through the shadow of that old, looming structure. Maybe it was just part of their commute.

“Why does he talk to you like that?” Fugo asked. Giorno’s eyes remained fixed on the road.

“Like what?”

“Like everything’s fine. Like he didn’t do all the things he did.”

“Is that why you nearly killed him today?”

“He shouldn’t get to say that he’s proud of you. It’s an insult, coming from him.”

“He didn’t mean it that way.”

“I suppose that’s just the ‘truth,’ too.”

“Yes.”

Giorno turned his face toward him. Holding his gaze was like staring into a deep, clear lake. The light seemed to pass right through him.

“He talks to me as if everything’s fine because in his view, it is,” Giorno explained. “The way he treated me and the way he thinks of our relationship now are not inconsistent to him. He doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. I doubt the thought has ever crossed his mind.”

His words were mild with acceptance, and Fugo hated it. The Giorno he knew had never resigned himself to anything.

“He hurt you,” Fugo said. “He did it because he’s a coward and knew you couldn’t fight back.”

“He thought of it as punishment. He thought I deserved it.”

“But you didn’t. What he did was wrong. You know that, right?”

“I do now, yes.”

Hearing him say that was like having his chest split open.

I shouldn’t have hesitated. I should have just done it. He deserves it. No, he deserves even worse.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Giorno said. “I’m not defending him. But I understand him. I had to, to survive in that house. He wasn’t driven by the same necessity. He’s never known me, he’s never even tried, but I know him better than anyone else. I know him better than I—”

Giorno bit down on his words so fiercely that Fugo heard his teeth clack. Uncertainty furrowed his brow, but he banished it before it could settle there.

“Anyhow. It wasn’t an insult. He’s not smart enough for that. And even if it were meant that way, I wouldn’t care. Nothing he can do can hurt me now.”

If that were true, then why were they standing knee-deep in grass next to a centuries-old aqueduct? Why did Giorno disappear into himself every time they stepped foot into that hospice room? Why hadn’t he come here alone?

A chill wind passed through the aqueduct’s high arches. Fugo took a deep breath.

“Why am I here, Giorno?”

It was the question that had been gnawing at him all week, yet it was met with almost deliberate disinterest.

“Because I asked you to come,” Giorno said coolly.

“But you could have asked anyone,” Fugo pressed. “Nobody would have refused you. So why ask me? You must have known that I’d be the worst person for this.”

“Do you really want to know?”

Giorno’s offering him an out was as generous as it was humiliating. Did he really think he was that much of a coward? Well, perhaps he was. Even now, a not insubstantial part of him wanted to get into the car, drive back to Naples, and pretend the last week hadn’t happened. It would be easier not to know the things he did about Giorno. He hadn’t asked to be trusted with this knowledge, with this responsibility.

But he couldn’t keep running from it, either.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know,” Fugo said, hoping it was true.

“Very well,” Giorno said. But the answer was not forthcoming. Instead, his attention drifted back to the aqueduct, as if the answer would reveal itself there. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t. They stood in silence for what felt like a solid minute. Fugo’s ankles were beginning to itch. He really hoped there weren’t ticks out here.

“You’re a careful person, Fugo,” Giorno said at last. “But you’re terribly easy to read. You feel emotions deeply, and they end up writ large upon your face. I know that’s caused problems for you before, but I suppose I envy it a little. I wanted to make use of it. Does that upset you?”

“How could it? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Fugo struggled to keep his voice even, but it was a losing battle. A useless one, too, if he was as easy to read as Giorno said. “You always do this. You always make me guess at what you’re thinking instead of just telling me. Once, just once, I wish you’d say what you mean.”

Giorno’s entire body went rigid. He did not glare at him, but his eyes were like ice.

“Then I’ll speak plainly,” he said. “You’re here because I thought it would be interesting if you tried to kill my stepfather. And I wanted to find out if I would stop you.”

Chapter Text

“You’re here because I thought it would be interesting if you tried to kill my stepfather. And I wanted to find out if I would stop you.”

Giorno could have punched him in the nose and stunned him less.

Reeling, Fugo was met with a face empty of human warmth. He knew that face. Giorno reserved it for those foolish enough to displease him beyond anger, and each time Fugo had seen it, it had frozen the air in his lungs. He had never, never thought Giorno would turn that face on him.

Well. First time for everything.

Rage had wrecked Fugo’s life, but he still preferred it to its cold twin. Rabbits must feel this way, he thought blearily as panic closed its talons around his throat.

He’d fucked it up. He’d wanted too much. Giorno had given him the chance to reconsider his question, but he’d asked it anyway, and now he was looking at him the same way he looked at scum. Like he had no more use for him.

Suddenly, the grass, the sky, the stones of the aqueduct seemed far too bright. Fugo tried to blink the brightness back, but there were shards of light behind his eyelids. It was all a test, and he’d failed decisively.

He hadn’t understood him.

He was going to lose him after all.

He was going to lose him.

He was—

(“Pannacotta,” Giorno had said, and the smile that followed had been pure sunlight.)

The memory gave Fugo just enough purchase to gather his wits. Something didn’t add up. Giorno regarded him coldly now, but he’d smiled for him not ten minutes ago. Had that been a lie? Which side of him was true?

All knowledge was built upon a foundation of belief. Fugo may have been a genius, but before he could know anything, he had to believe something.

Giorno’s turquoise studs burned in his ears.

He chose to believe his smile.

Fugo wrenched panic’s grip from his neck and willed his pulse to slow. He hadn’t lost him yet. He wouldn’t lose him. This time, he’d hold on even if the skin tore from his hands.

Think! What is he actually trying to say?

Giorno had admitted to manipulating him, which was a decidedly poor manipulation tactic. He wasn’t that careless. He must have known saying that would push him away, or else he would have phrased it less cruelly. So, it seemed reasonable to assume that pushing him away was the point. He’d said exactly what he knew would upset him, and it had almost worked.

But why?

Misdirection.

Misdirection from what?

Something he didn’t want him to touch.

Is that it? After everything, that’s it?!

Fugo sighed so loudly that Giorno flinched. Now that the panic had passed, he was starting to get angry.

“When you said you’d speak plainly, I assumed you wouldn’t lie.”

Giorno’s hardened expression immediately shattered into shock, then embarrassment. Under different circumstances, Fugo would have savored his achievement. He’d never put Giorno on the back foot before. He took no pleasure in doing so now.

“I’m not lying,” Giorno said unconvincingly.

“But you’re not telling the whole truth, either. If you really wanted to know if you’d stop me from killing your stepfather, then you could have just ordered me to kill him and intervened if the spirit moved you. You didn’t have to wait until I snapped on my own. And if you wanted to test my loyalty, there are a hundred better ways to do it, like ordering my to kill my own parents. Of course I’d kill your shitty stepfather for you! But you’re smart enough to know all that, so there must be more to this than you’re telling me.”

Giorno frowned and crossed his arms. He didn’t deny it, but he didn’t admit it, either.

Stubborn, Fugo thought. Of course, he knew all about that.

“I’m sure it works on other people,” he said. “But don’t pull that bullshit with me. I’ve known you for five years, Giorno. Five years. You might be difficult to read, but even I can tell when you’re hiding something. You aren’t very good at it.”

“Room for improvement, I suppose.”

“That can’t be your takeaway from this.”

“What do you want from me, Fugo?”

“For you to speak plainly. You said you would.”

“When I spoke plainly before, you nearly threw up in a church.”

“A chapel, technically.”

Giorno was not someone prone to interpersonal violence, but in that moment, he looked like he wanted to throttle him.

“It doesn’t matter, I guess,” Fugo admitted. “But who cares if I throw up? That doesn’t matter, either.”

“I think it does.”

“You think I’m not prepared to hear it?”

“You wouldn’t be satisfied. I know I wouldn’t be.”

“Giorno, that’s not the—”

“Yes it is,” Giorno snapped. “Your desire for knowledge is really a desire for satisfaction. But what if I can’t give that to you? What if I were to say that there was no reason for you to be here? That I had no plan when I asked you to come with me? What if I told you that I don’t know why I make the choices I do and I know even less how I should feel about them? Could you be satisfied with that? Would you even believe me?”

A rare, desperate heat had entered Giorno‘s voice. Fugo had seen him remain calm even in the face of death, and it felt deeply wrong to see him now with his hackles raised like some cornered animal.

“I would believe you,” Fugo said carefully, at the risk of being bitten. “If that’s what you told me. Is that what you’ve told me?”

Giorno turned his face away. It wasn’t an answer, but it might as well have been.

“Then would you believe me if I told you that my father was a vampire?” he asked quietly. “My real father, I mean.”

Fugo’s thoughts immediately flew to apples and arrows. “Is that a metaphor?”

“It can be, if that’s easier. ‘There was once a boy witch named after the springtime. His mother was a wood nymph, and his father was—’”

“A vampire. Alright, I believe you.”

Fugo didn’t particularly want to, but everything else that had happened to them had been just as unbelievable. Really, vampires existing wasn’t any stranger than a French ghost haunting a magical turtle, and at least the former had mythological precedent. So, Giorno’s biological father was a vampire. Sure, why not? He could unpack the ramifications of that later, preferably when Giorno wasn’t so distressed.

“He was an evil man,” Giorno continued. “He killed scores of people and ruined countless lives in the pursuit of his own desires. That his blood runs through my veins disgusts me. And yet, it’s simple, in a way. My father was a literal blood-sucking monster. He was a real person who did real harm, but he also isn’t. Not to me, at least.”

A dull creaking caught Fugo’s attention. He looked toward the sound and saw kudzu vines pushing through the hard, packed earth. They were growing so quickly he could hear them, Fugo realized, xylem cracking and reassembling under the vines’ expanding mass. If plants could feel pain, it would have sounded painful, yet the kudzu grew voraciously. They coiled thick around Giorno’s ankles, but he didn’t seem to notice. He kept his gaze fixed on an empty spot of air and gripped his arms so tightly his sleeves wrinkled under his fingertips.

“My stepfather is objectively  less evil than my father. He’s never killed anyone, to my knowledge. He hurt me, but there are plenty of people who would have done worse in his shoes. I was fortunate in that respect. In the end, even his cruelty was disappointingly average.”

The kudzu had grown past Giorno’s knees now, its tendrils tugging at his pants legs.

“I could never forgive either of them, but I find my father’s deeds easier to swallow than my stepfather’s. Isn’t that selfish?”

“No,” Fugo said immediately.

“He made an orphan of many, many children.”

“What do you want me to say, Giorno? Yes?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not going to judge you.”

“You already have by saying no.”

God, he was impossible. Giorno wanted self-flagellation, not judgment. It was an impulse Fugo was embarrassingly familiar with, and if that’s what he’d set his mind to, he knew there was little he could do to stop him. But he would not be made into Giorno’s whip. That would be selfish of him, and Fugo wasn’t going to let him be right about that.

“Whatever your father’s crimes were, they had nothing to do with you,” he said. “Your stepfather might have been less evil, but he hurt you. You’re allowed to be angry about that!”

“I don’t know that I am. Not anymore.”

“What does that even mean?”

“He doesn’t have much time left,” Giorno said. “I could feel it when he touched me. He has less than a day.”

Oh. So it was really happening. Of course it was—they wouldn’t be here otherwise. But the stepfather had been so obnoxious this past week that Fugo had managed to forgot he was actually dying. And now it was about to happen.

If that was the case, Giorno didn’t have much time left, either.

“You should kill him,” Fugo said.

Giorno inhaled sharply, and the kudzu withered as suddenly as it had grown.

“No.”

“Why not?” Fugo demanded. “You’ve never been shy about killing before. Why should he be any different from the rest of the trash you’ve taken out? He deserves it, you deserve it, and he’s going to die anyway. Make him die on your terms.”

Giorno kicked the dead, gray vines away from his ankles.

“You’re right, Fugo. I’m not shy about killing, provided that it’s necessary or deserved. When someone harms another, they invite that same harm in return. An eye for an eye is crude justice, but it is still justice. I truly believe that. So when that belief manifested through Gold Experience, I wasn’t surprised. I was glad it was able to protect the life it created.”

That had been Gold Experience’s fiercest and gentlest power, and one that Fugo couldn’t help but envy. Gold Experience had developed from a place of great pain, but so had Purple Haze, and there was nothing gentle about his Stand. After everything Giorno had been through, a fundamental part of himself had decided that no child should experience what he had. His power was an extension of that.

Giorno didn’t seem glad for his power now.

“Do you know what I did to the old boss?” he asked.

Fugo stiffened. That wasn’t something he ever talked about.

“I think I know,” he said. “Mista explained it as best he could.”

“Mista is a good friend. I’m afraid he would have softened it for you. Basically, Fugo, I created Hell.”

It took Fugo a second to understand that this wasn’t a metaphor, either. Giorno was speaking plainly.

“When Gold Experience became Requiem, it took my belief in just punishment and turned it into…something else. Requiem made an infinity out of the boss’s death. I killed him five years ago, and he’s still dying now. He will continue to suffer long after we are gone. Even when the sun burns out, he will suffer still. Pain like that defies human comprehension, and I have the power to inflict it as I please. What am I to make of that?”

“You did what you had to,” Fugo insisted, although he had not been there. “He would have killed you otherwise.”

“Then all Requiem had to do was kill him first,” Giorno replied. “There was nothing necessary or proportionate about what it did. There’s no justifying it.”

“You didn’t know it would turn out that way.”

“Didn’t I? And if I didn’t know, didn’t I wish for it? If a Stand reflects the self, then isn’t that what my desire is, at bottom? Isn’t that the truth of me?”

“Your Stand isn’t all that you are.”

“But they are a part of us, aren’t they?”

“You aren’t like me,” Fugo said. He’d meant it in the kindest way possible, but Giorno shook his head. He looked exhausted.

“Sometimes, I wonder if I was born with poison inside me,” he said. “Is that why they treated me the way they did? Or did the poison get in because they put it there? Maybe it doesn’t matter either way. The fact is that it’s there, and it would spread if I let it. But I won’t let it. I don’t want it touching anyone else.”

Not even me? Fugo wondered bitterly. Even though I’ve let mine touch you?

“So you’ll just hold it inside of yourself for the rest of your life,” he said instead. “And then what?”

“I’ll survive it. I always have.”

“Purge it. Kill him.”

“Is it really him you want me to kill?”

Maybe Fugo would throw up after all. Even his bones felt like they would turn to bile. He must have looked awful, because Giorno’s expression softened. Thankfully, he did not try to comfort him. Fugo would never forgive himself if he threw up on his shoes.

“Killing him wouldn’t be enough,” Giorno said, his voice quiet and certain. “When she confronted her father, Trish spoke not just of killing him, but of overcoming him. She was right, of course. Only I thought that I had done it already. That was the point of becoming who…becoming what I am. I am the head of Passione and the holder of the arrow. I am the worst enemy anyone could make. I should be over it.”

A tremble passed through Giorno’s shoulders. He hugged himself tighter.

“Coming here, I’m ashamed find that I’m not.”

So, this was what shame looked like on Passione’s young Don. Fugo couldn’t deny that he’d been curious, but now that he’d seen it, he knew he hated it. Giorno stripped of his pride was like a butterfly stripped of its wings. Just looking at him felt like a cruelty.

“You’ll get there,” Fugo said. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

Giorno nodded, then sighed.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’ve disappointed you.”

“This isn’t about me.”

A flock of birds cut across the gold-shot sky. Around them, the song of insects shook the grass.

“How will you know that you’ve done it?” Fugo asked. “When you overcome him, what do you think it’ll feel like?”

“I don’t know,” Giorno said. “Maybe it won’t feel like anything at all. But I hope it does. I want to know that it mattered. That it wasn’t nothing.”

I would tell you that it mattered. I would tell you that it wasn’t nothing.

“When you find out, let me know what it’s like,” Fugo said.

“I don’t think you’ll need me to do that. But thank you.”

The sun sank behind the hill, and Giorno shivered. For someone whose father was a creature of the night, he was unusually sensitive to the cold.

“It’s late,” he said. “I shouldn’t have asked you to drive us here. It was an unreasonable request, and the aqueduct wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.”

“That’s alright,” Fugo said. “You haven’t made a reasonable request of me in five years.”

Giorno’s smile was small, but uncomplicated.

“You may be right.”

They returned to the car, and Giorno again took the passenger’s seat. He seemed intent on making it a habit, and, troublingly, Fugo found himself minding less and less. It would be very awkward to explain when they were back home.

“Why did you ask me why you’re here?” Giorno asked while they sat in traffic.

Fugo’s grip on the steering wheel tightened as he fought the urge to run from the question. The answer made him seem terribly pathetic, and Giorno had seen enough of that side of him lately. But he’d spoken plainly with him. The least he could do was return the favor.

“I guess it was vanity,” Fugo admitted. “It’s stupid, I know, but I wanted to think I could be useful somehow. Or rather, I wanted to hear you say that I was. I know how much you hate useless things.”

He stopped at the light, and, glancing at the mirror, caught Giorno staring at him again. Fugo hated the way he felt under his scrutiny. It was like his skin were made of glass, betraying every gross, damp part of him. Whatever Giorno found so interesting there, he didn’t see it.

Fugo pulled his eyes from the mirror and returned his gaze. Seen in the raw, Giorno’s expression was bruised. Why? After everything that had happened, how was this the thing that hurt him?

“I don’t hate you, Fugo,” he said. “I don’t think I could.”

--

The phone was ringing.

Fugo reached blindly for the nightstand. When he felt only air, he remembered that he wasn’t in his apartment.

The phone was still ringing.

Strange. There was a phone in the living room, but it hadn’t rang once during their whole stay. He and Giorno had taken all their calls on their cell phones. Who would even have the house’s number?

…Shit.

Fugo tore himself from his bed.

The living room was dark save for a smudge of moonlight that fell upon the ringing phone. It was like he’d stumbled into a bad theater production. Later, Fugo would wonder why he hadn’t just turned on the lights. As ridiculous as it was, maybe he’d wanted it to be a bad theater production.

He picked up the phone.

“H—”

“Why didn’t you answer your cell phone?! Do you know how long I’ve been trying to reach you?!”

She was screaming so loudly Fugo was surprised her voice could fit inside the phone.

“It’s happening. You need to get here now!”

She hung up before he could say anything, which was just as well. The message had come through loud and clear.

Walking to Giorno’s bedroom was like walking through glass. Everything in the house seemed heavy and hushed. He didn’t bother knocking. The walls were thin, and there was no way he was asleep.

“Giorno.”

No response. No movement. Fugo walked through the dark room, which he knew was a mirror of his own, and turned on the bedside lamp.

Giorno lay with his back turned to him, golden hair splayed across the pillow. His cell phone lay face-down on the nightstand, its battery noticeably absent.

“That was your mother,” Fugo said. “It’s time.”

The blankets stirred as Giorno turned further away from him.

“You’ll miss it.”

Giorno said nothing. He did not get up.

Fugo waited. When a minute passed and Giorno still had not moved, he turned off the lamp. Then he walked out to the living room and ripped the phone out of the wall. This time, when he returned to Giorno’s bedroom, he didn’t bother with the light.

He slid into bed and tucked his face against the back of Giorno’s neck. His scent was warm, floral, and overwhelmingly familiar. He would have known him in any dark bedroom in any strange house, Fugo thought. He was certain of it.

“Was she very angry?” Giorno asked quietly.

“Don’t worry about it.” He found Giorno’s hand under the covers and squeezed. “Get some sleep.”

Chapter Text

The morning was warm. In a few weeks, the weather would be hot enough to make early risers of all but the most determined sleepers. The beaches would bloat with tourists, and the air would smell of sweat and sun tan lotion. But for now, the summer was young, and the mornings came gently.

Fugo watched the light press against the cream-colored curtains. Next to him, Giorno slept with his head tucked against his shoulder, his breath warming his sleeve. In the five years since he’d taken over Passione, Giorno hadn’t once slept in. Fugo didn’t want to wake him now.

Drowsily, he wondered if he should be worried about this closeness. A line had been crossed last night, and things might be different now. Even so, he was too comfortable to be anxious about it. It felt like the morning after a storm. The world outside was upturned and broken, but the howling winds had not touched this room. They were safe here, and Giorno could dream a little longer.

An hour passed. Fugo dozed, woke, then dozed again. He savored the weight of Giorno’s head against his shoulder, the steadiness of breathing, and the way his heat bled into sheets. He would have liked to hold everything still. He would have lassoed the sun to keep it from crossing the sky, if he could.

Giorno opened his eyes.

“Good morning,” Fugo said.

“Mm.”

“You can go back to sleep, if you want.”

“No, I’m awake,” Giorno said as he closed his eyes again. “The bed’s warmer with you in it.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No. It’s just different. I hadn’t slept with someone before.”

“Never?”

He felt Giorno shake his head against his shoulder. Then he sighed.

“I should get up.”

“Alright.”

Neither of them moved. They lay quietly, but the spell was dissolving. The sound of traffic seeped through the woodwork. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a child shrieked. In play, perhaps.

“It happened, then,” Giorno said. “He’s dead.”

They hadn’t seen the body yet, but there was no room for question in his voice.

“I guess he is,” Fugo said. “How do you feel?”

“Rested.” Giorno stretched, his spine clicking softly. “I don’t usually sleep that long. I must have needed it.”

“You should make a habit of that.”

“Of my stepfather dying?”

“Of getting a full night’s rest,” Fugo said. “Please tell me you don’t have any more dying stepfathers. I’d rather not do this again.”

“I don’t. Not yet.”

Giorno probably meant it as a joke, but the words turned to ash on his tongue. He pushed himself up on his elbow and looked past Fugo to the nightstand, where his cell phone lay disassembled.

“I ignored her,” he said. “She’ll be mad.”

“Then you might as well ignore her a little longer,” Fugo suggested. “She’ll be mad anyway.”

The worry didn’t leave Giorno’s face, but it did recede a bit. He lay down again and rubbed his eyes.

“I have some calls to make,” he said, all business. “Can I borrow your phone?”

“Sure. Unless it’s something I can take care of?”

“I’m not going to ask you to plan his funeral, Fugo.”

But he would have done it, if that’s what Giorno had wanted. He would have made it a miserable little affair.

“You’re doing that already?” he asked instead.

“It’s mostly done. I just have to let the mortuary know he’s dead. They should have him ready by tomorrow.”

“You should have let her handle it,” he said. “You’ve done everything else, and he was her husband.”

 A thin smile flickered across Giorno’s lips. “But I’m used to planning funerals.”

Fugo thought about the morticians’ numbers saved in his own phone. There was very little joy in their lives.

“There’s no need to be upset,” Giorno continued. “I did it myself because I want it over with, and she would have only put it off. That’s the kind of person she is, and I decided long ago that I wouldn’t wait for her anymore.”

He wouldn’t wait for her, but he would still come when she called. Until last night.

Suddenly, Fugo was beset with a pride that wasn’t his to feel—a bright, molten thing that made his ribs ache. He wanted to pull Giorno close as he had the night before, but he’d been braver under cover of night. Instead, he bumped his forehead against Giorno’s and was glad when he didn’t flinch away. He hoped he felt it, too. He wanted him to know that this ache was because of him.

“What are you going to do with this house?” Fugo asked.

“Hm.” Giorno’s breath washed across his face. “What indeed?”

It was as Fugo had suspected, then. He hadn’t thought it through.

“We could use it as a safehouse?” Giorno suggested.

“We have a safehouse twenty-five minutes from here.”

“But someone might be able to use it.”

“Who?”

Giorno didn’t answer that. He moved his face away from his just enough to look him in the eye.

“You don’t want me to keep it.”

“You don’t need it.”

There was something turbulent in Giorno’s silence. He was not usually this indecisive.

“It’s served its purpose,” he said at last. “I’ll sell it. Though I’m embarrassed to admit that we’ll lose money. This place was on the market for ages, but I bought it for more than it’s worth to expedite the sale.”

“I’d think it would fetch a good price, with the right realtor. It’s in good shape, and the location’s decent.”

“Yes, but the double murder really depresses the price.”

“The double murder?!”

“It was while ago.”

“A while.”

“A few years.”

Well. He was far past being bothered by that sort of thing, but he could see how it might spook civilians. Fugo tried to remember if he’d seen any odd stains on the walls or floors. There was a dark spot on the bathroom ceiling, but that was probably just mold.

“Is the house insured?” he asked.

“Yes,” Giorno said. “You’re not thinking—”

“Burn it down and collect the insurance payout.”

Giorno’s grin was unguarded and toothy. He had a dimple in his right cheek, Fugo noticed.  

“Thank you for your counsel,” Giorno said. “I’ll sell it.”

Then his smile dried up. His brow tightened, and he closed his eyes.

“I want to go home.”

The confession was hardly more than a whisper. It shattered him.

Carefully, as if his touching a wound, Fugo placed a hand on Giorno’s head. Giorno shivered. His hair was so much softer than his own.

“I’ll bring you there,” he promised. “Soon.”

Giorno nodded. He didn’t open his eyes. Fugo allowed his hand to linger on his hair for a moment longer. Then he got up.

“I’ll make coffee,” he said.

--

“He looked stupid, all made up just to be put in the ground. Our whole marriage I couldn’t get him to put on a suit, and that’s the first thing he wears when he dies.”

Fugo thought the mortician had done a good job. If anything, the stepfather had looked too dignified.

“When you plan mine, make sure I’m cremated. I couldn’t stand to look stupid.”

His mother looked like a knife in her black sheath dress and stilettos. Her beauty may have been less vibrant than it once was, but she still wielded it formidably, even when there was no one to impress. Only the three of them had attended the service.

Giorno said nothing. He’d said very little all day, and even less to her. He stared at the headstone, at the freshly turned earth.

His mother took a cigarette from her pocketbook and lit it. Fugo briefly wondered if it was disrespectful to smoke in front of a grave before deciding that it wasn’t. But he didn’t like her smoking in front of Giorno.

“You must be relieved,” she said. “You never cared for him.”

Her eyes were red, despite herself. A smudge of mascara sat below her left eye.

“Did you know?” Giorno asked.

His mother took a long pull from her cigarette and exhaled slowly. The smoke curled like a claw around her face.

“Know what?”

--

They cleaned the house before they left. Giorno insisted on it. Fugo had never seen him clean before—he had people who did that for him—but he was good at it. He more than made up for Fugo’s own lack of experience. Apparently, he’d been using brooms sub-optimally his entire life.

Stripped of their personal effects, the house felt hollow. Closing his bedroom door behind him, Fugo thought of the double murder. The more he thought about it, the stranger it was that people should be skittish about the house. The extent of the violence that had occurred here was exceptional, but the fact of it was not. Most houses were haunted, he figured, regardless of whether there’d been a death in them.

Still, he would not miss this house.

“I can drive us back,” Giorno offered when they’d packed everything into the car.

“I told you I’d bring you home,” Fugo said, opening the passenger’s door for him. “And you know you’re not allowed to drive.”

Giorno scoffed, but he got into the car.

“I don’t know what Mista’s told you,” he said as he strapped himself in. “But I’m actually a better driver than he is.”

“That’s not a high bar.”

“He mentioned that you’ve crashed a car, too.”

“Only because he fell on it!”

He started the car, and the house disappeared from the rearview mirror for the last time. They pulled onto the highway, and Giorno turned the radio on low. The music was lush and bouncy—not to either of their tastes, but inoffensive. Traffic was light. They’d make it home in good time.

“I think I’d also prefer to be cremated,” Giorno said suddenly.

“Okay.” Fugo changed lanes and passed an elderly driver. “You should tell that to someone else, then. You’re going to outlive me.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You started it.”

“Even so.”

Giorno leaned his head against his window. A song about summer love began to play. The lyrics were trite, but somehow that made them realistic.

“She still loved him,” he said. “I didn’t know. I don’t think he knew, either. I suppose I’d hoped that…”

Fugo waited for Giorno to finish his thought, but he shook his head and folded his arms across his chest.

“Funerals are more for the living than the dead,” he said. “But I don’t think any funeral has given me closure.”

Fugo was inclined to agree. If a funeral were all it took, he’d be over it by now.

“But it’s better to have them,” he decided. “It might not be closure, but it’s something, isn’t it? You have to at least acknowledge that it happened. You can’t move forward otherwise.”

“You’re probably right.”

Giorno rolled down his window. Wind and gasoline stench whipped through the car. It wasn’t fresh air, but it felt good in a stinging sort of way.

“Maybe I did hate him,” Giorno said.

“You don’t sound certain.”

“I’m not. But I wanted to know what saying it would feel like.”

“And what did it feel like?”

“Like I’d get in trouble if I said it again. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

The wind pulled at his voice. He was trying too hard.

“Then say it again.”

“Fugo…”

“I mean it. Say it again. Prove that it’s ridiculous.”

Giorno’s sigh was dismissive, but Fugo didn’t miss the tremor in it.

“I hated him,” Giorno said. “And I’m glad he’s dead.”

Nothing happened. His mother did not call to scream at him. His stepfather’s ghost did not appear. Their car sped down the highway, and there was no one to punish them.

“I guess it was ridiculous,” Fugo said.

Giorno smiled. He looked nauseous.

“It seems so.”

Rain spattered the windshield, and Giorno rolled up his window right as the sky broke open. Water fell upon the car like fists, pummeling the windshield wipers into submission. Outside was white spray, white rain. Then all of a sudden they were on the other side of it. The sun sat in a scrubbed-clean sky, and the road before them gleamed like crushed diamonds.

“This was a bad vacation,” Giorno said.

“It was a really bad vacation,” Fugo agreed.

“I did like having you cook for me, though.”

“Respectfully, Giorno, you have bad taste.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having bad taste, so long as I enjoy it.”

“But you could do better,” Fugo insisted. “You of all people shouldn’t have to settle on burnt salmon during your time off. The next time we go on a vacation, we’re going to do it properly!”

It took a moment for Fugo to notice his mistake. When he did, he nearly swerved off the road.

Idiot! What are you talking about?!

Despite the near miss with the median barrier, Giorno was upsettingly quiet. Maybe he’d be kind enough to pretend Fugo hadn’t said that. Maybe he could summon Requiem and make it so he hadn’t.

“I don’t think I can afford to take another vacation anytime soon,” Giorno finally said. “I don’t want anyone to think I’m eager to abandon my duties. But when I do, I wouldn’t mind you choosing where we go.”

Fugo tightened his grip on the steering wheel. His palms were hazardously sweaty.

“Yeah,” he said. “I could do that.”

 “You know, Fugo, I think you have pretty bad taste yourself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that, right?”

Giorno turned his face toward the window.

“Thank you,” he said. “For being here.”

Fugo glanced at him. The tips of his ears were pink. He was wearing his earrings.

“You don’t have to thank me. I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”