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Spring, 1894
At dawn, Giorno’s complaints of feeling unwell had started off innocently enough with a scratchy throat and no appetite for breakfast. By afternoon, it had progressed with full-fledged nausea and dizziness, rendering him bedridden. When it grew dark, the fever began to set, building like a rising heat.
The doctor they’d summoned from in-town was of little use, unable to solve the mystery in spite of the plethora of symptoms presenting itself. It was too early to confidently determine anything, and aside from the concerning reading of the thermometer, he tried to broach the worried parents with the hopeful idea that it would be a mild ailment that would simply pass. Diego nearly let out an inhuman snarl at that, dissatisfied with the lame effort. He very nearly threw the man out of the house in frustration – alongside the fistful of dollars for due payment – and resorted to obtaining different opinions.
He’d roused Silver Bullet from her stable, calming down enough to pet her mane and murmur an apology for the demanding journey he was about to task her with; it had been three years since her retirement from proper racing, and now, without warning, Diego was going to ask her to run with speed comparable to those competitive days. However, this was not to obtain a trophy, but to the next town over, and the town after that, to grab the best doctors from each and bring them back to the property. To her credit, Silver Bullet dashed with the ferocity of a lightning strike, moving about as if she’d never had a hiatus from her racing years. It was as if she could understand all of Diego’s words, although a better case could be made that she could sense his barely concealed distress.
Unfortunately, despite this momentous effort on her part, it proved fruitless. The second and the third doctor that Diego had grabbed were equally useless. In spite of their alleged professionalism and certificates stating qualifications, both of them were stumped by a three year old boy’s mystery case. By the time the third doctor provided no certain diagnosis, even Hot Pants found herself losing her patience, which did not bode well for the man, since she was usually the voice of reason compared to Diego. All three doctors were unceremoniously kicked out of the house, and all three wisely kept their mouths shut about being underpaid for their services.
Meanwhile, Diego and Hot Pants were each doing their best not to spiral from terror.
Little Giorno had no rash to speak of, no signs of measles or the pox, no typical illnesses that struck so viciously in childhood. His temperature climbed higher and higher though, as though there were a fire burning within. The poor boy was hot to the touch, yet he shivered as though afflicted with chills. No amount of wet cloths draped over him could cool him down. He hardly slept despite his eyes being squeezed shut, his breathing growing quick and shallow, and he bounced back and forth between periods of laying still or moving fitfully. Hot Pants had some medical knowledge from her years spent at the covenant – having volunteered at one point to work in hospitals in Italy – and began to reasonably fear for her eldest succumbing to a seizure. So she had him moved to their bedroom where she could keep an eye on him, hardly ever leaving the room unless Diego were also present to temporarily take watch.
“If it is a fever, it should break by the third day.” She recited knowledge that had been bestowed to her by her superiors from that volunteer period. Her voice wavered, fraught with emotions and exhaustion. Theoretically, she was speaking to her husband, but she didn’t dare tear her eyes away from the sight of their son. Giorno was back to one of those quiet periods where he hardly moved a muscle and his breathing slowed, to the point where she was carefully watching the rise and fall pattern of his chest just to be sure. “One more night. He just needs to make it through one more night.”
At this point it was difficult to tell if she was trying to persuade Diego or herself with this information.
Diego nodded numbly, unable to speak. He didn’t trust himself, he felt that his stress was going to boil over into him acting stupid through one of two ways; either another pointless meltdown or succumbing to the agony, weeping over the sight of his son suffering. He couldn’t break, he wouldn’t let himself be so pathetic after having already failed his family enough times today. Besides, at the moment, he needed to physically keep it together because he was holding their other, still-healthy son. Donatello was just a babe, about half a year old, and unusually quiet. Normally he was in bright spirits, arguably an even happier baby than his older brother had been. But he, too, seemed to sense the air of distress in the room. He kept looking over to his father with wide, curious eyes. Pudgy little hands gently grasped at the fresh bandaids on his marked mouth – the stress had gotten so bad, Diego had nearly transformed entirely, and it took great effort to revert back since no doctor would be willing to accompany a monstrous raptor – and at least that prompted a ghost of a smile on Diego’s face.
“You should stay with him in the nursery.” Hot Pants suddenly broke the silence that had settled into the room once more. Diego turned to her and now, at this lighting, could see the exhaustion settled into her features; she hadn’t slept in two days and judging by the state of things, it seemed she had zero intention of sleeping on this third night either.
Diego shook his head in disagreement, frowning. “No, you need a break. Take Donnie, get some rest. I’ve got Giorno.”
Hot Pants brushed back some of the sweat-coated, golden curls that stuck to Giorno’s face. She dabbed a cool cloth over his reddened face once more, hoping to provide a little comfort for him. “I can’t. We don’t know what this is but I’ve been around him for too long. He’s barely able to stand it, and if Donnie gets it too, he’ll–”
Her voice cracked and she sucked in a breath.
She did not need to finish that terrible sentence. Diego’s hold on Donatello unconsciously tightened. Giorno was three years old and barely hanging on. Their little one wouldn’t even last the night if he were subjected to these same symptoms.
He silently cursed. The years it had taken for him to begin to feel peace and at ease with this world was being burned away in seconds. All of his hatred towards everyone around him and the world came flooding back like a familiar poison. It wasn’t fair. He felt as painfully useless as he was when he was a child helplessly watching his mother deteriorate. It was bad enough for a son to be unable to help his mother, but for a father to stand by so idly as his son suffered through battles which no child should have to fight–
Donatello made a slight sound of distress, quickly snapping Diego out of it. He controlled his breathing and resituated his hold on the baby, bouncing him lightly to prevent the start of crying. He hastily whispered incoherent apologies, feeling so frazzled.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Hot Pants was clasping her cross and some rosary beads; she rarely took off the former in spite of leaving the covenant, and he hadn’t seen the latter since the morning hour of contemplation she’d felt prior to their wedding. The beads had been carefully put away in a delicate jewelry box, despite them having little monetary value. Diego certainly didn’t believe in god – and if the man upstairs was in fact real then he had some choice words to say to him, none of them were nice – but he always bit his tongue whenever his wife would resort to small prayers. He didn’t protest about the boys being baptized either, aside from a worried remark that their lives would be harder as Catholics as opposed to Protestants. He always knew that religion still brought great comfort to her, that there were some parts of that life she could never fully discard, even if she’d all but physically ran out of the covenant in hopes that no one would perceive the passage of time between that and Giorno’s imminent birth.
Right now, her hands were shaking. For the most part, she covered the trembling up well. But Diego’s vision was always too precise. He noticed the way that she leaned in prayer over their son was not just a sign of submission and devotion, but to conceal the fresh tears that threatened to burst from her.
Dammit. He was close to crying himself.
“I’ll be in the nursery.” he forced himself to say, swallowing down the sob that threatened to rise out from him. “I’ll um– just shout if you need me. I won’t be sleeping much either.”
His wife did not respond in any way to indicate that she’d heard him, although he was sure that she did. He knew better than to linger; there was nothing he could do, nothing he could offer. He was as bloody useless as those three alleged university-educated doctors combined. He couldn’t provide comfort as a husband and he felt like an even worse father; one son was suffering and the other was suffering from the effects of essentially being neglected.
It was going to be a long, miserable night.
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At some point, Hot Pants had stopped praying out loud. Her throat was dry, her lips cracked and parched from thirst. Her voice lowered to a murmur and then after an hour of that, down to a sliver of a whisper. When her jaw began to ache, she continued the prayers in her head. But even after some time those felt incoherent as well. It had turned from formal prayers that she had painstakingly memorized off the top of her head into despondent pleas for mercy.
She prayed to god and all the saints for mercy on her son’s soul. She prayed to her brother, offering up countless apologies once more, and then had the nerve to ask him to speak to the lord in favor of the nephew he’d never met. Please, she had asked countless times as tears still ran down her face. He is just a boy. But her brother had been one too, and perhaps the higher judgment felt that proper payment should be conducted for the injustice she’d inflicted.
At one point, Giorno made tiny mewling sounds, like a newborn kitten trying to cry. The sound alone was heart wrenching. Hot Pants began to change her prayers into bargaining, offering up her own life to suffer in his place. She would endure, she promised, she would even be willing to die if that was the price to ensure that he recovered.
Forgive me, she then thought of Diego, knowing that her hypothetical death would not bode well for him. Perhaps it would certify to him that there was nothing redeemable in this world, that all happiness was temporary, and that not even the love of their two sons would be enough to stop him from straying down the dark path he’d nearly flung himself fully into before.
The two days of complete deprivation finally caught up to her; she had not slept, she last ate bits of toast only on the first morning, and she wouldn’t dare leave the room to even get a glass of water. Diego was in the nursery, having promised that he would come if she hollered. But the hour was late, she did not want to burden him for any reason. She kept telling herself over and over that she was fine – in fact, she would be downright selfish for voicing any complaints, especially when compared to Giorno’s state – and she only had to endure for one more night anyway. Her son’s condition at the moment was tentatively stable, but that was always subject to change. She would not risk leaving, she would not risk tearing her eyes away for one second.
She kneeled down, her forehead knocking against her clasped hands, beginning to pray once more. Her eyelids were growing heavy when she’d closed them once more. Her lips were moving ever so slightly to recite words but her head felt empty.
Without intending it – and despite doing her very best to fight it off – sleep had captured her in seconds.
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Diego hadn’t meant to fall asleep either. In fact, his intentions had been to put only Donatello back to sleep. He was just on the verge of sleeping through entire nights, but again the stress surrounding Giorno’s situation had left everything in a jumbled, chaotic mess. And so he kept waking up, active and alert. Once more, Diego silently cursed, blaming himself and all his frazzled noise-making whilst pacing around for causing it. He’d picked the baby up and sat down on the rocking chair, trying to lull him back to sleep. To hell with anyone who said this was only a woman’s work; his spiteful determination to outdo his worthless father in every manner included doubling down on participation with parenting. Diego was not ashamed in the slightest for the hands-on approach he took with his children, in fact, the innate nature of his reptilian counterpart urged him to be constant and caring around his young.
What that meant was that this was not his first time doing this. Which meant he should have garnered enough experience to fight off the temptation to fall asleep as well. But the calming effect intended for Donatello only worked too well. About two minutes passed between the moment he got up, put the now-asleep infant back in his crib, sat back down on said rocking chair and nodded off.
He had meant to rest his eyes, nothing more.
He woke, hours later, at the break of dawn to a bone-chilling scream from Hot Pants.
Never before had he bolted through a shut door at such a speed, it splintered into pieces. Poor little Donatello would abruptly wake up from the thunderous sound and start crying, but he was left behind in the dust as Diego raced down the hall to the bedroom. Heart hammering in his chest, bile rising in his throat, terror held a vice grip on him. He didn’t dare think about it, but what if…
The sight which greeted him – after nearly bursting through a second door, barely remembering to stop and open it properly albeit with haste – wasn’t what he’d feared.
Nor was it what he’d ever anticipated.
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A warm wind blew down on her face, stirring her from her sleep. Hot Pants was only just coming to when she felt it again, this time directly on her face. The strange wind blasting on her face was a mystery to her. Even if she’d somehow left a window open, it was still only early April. The weather had yet to reach nice temperatures at such an early hour.
Her eyes flew open at the implication, registering with horror that she’d succumbed to sleep. Paralyzed with fright, she couldn’t move a muscle for a moment. The thought that she’d left Giorno unattended for the rest of the night, ignorant to his cries and needs…
She felt something nudge her head. She couldn’t register what it was but it came from the direction of where Giorno lay, which surely meant he had broken his fever after all and regained strength. Joy replaced her fear and renewed her strength. With a beaming smile on her face, she lifted her head to greet her son.
But Giorno was not what stood in front of her.
She was face to face with a raptor, one that wasn’t Scary Monsters. This one was smaller, significantly smaller, with larger eyes. All of the colors were wrong; the body was predominantly yellow, a golden hue to be precise, with varying shades of dark orange and violet spread on the legs and the spine. The spikes jutting alongside the back were a yellowish-green color. Just because it was smaller didn’t mean it was harmless, the claws and teeth were razor sharp as always. The tail swung back and forth, reminiscent of an excited puppy, and the head tilted to one side as it regarded her with a chirr.
And, again, Giorno was nowhere to be seen.
God forgive her, for the rest of her life this moment and her silly reaction would haunt her; but at the time she couldn’t connect the dots. She hadn’t even taken the time to look carefully and notice the detail of the stripes laid over its body. Diego’s form had his nickname displayed all over. This one’s was GIOGIO.
Hot Pants screamed at the top of her lungs, jumping back and crashing against the floor in shock and horror.
The little raptor made a distressed sound, sounding both upset and startled. It was skittish and awkward, as if barely understanding how to control its own body. It moved with the awkward gait of a newborn deer still struggling to figure out how to walk. It tried to move but also fell backwards, tumbling onto the bed and tangling itself in the sheets. In sheer panic, it couldn’t break free right away and resorted to using the claws to break free from the blankets and pillows. Soon, a mess of feathers were flying everywhere.
By the time Diego nearly kicked the door down, shouting her name, this was the scene he stumbled upon. His own emotions had been welling up, bordering on out-of-control, which meant he was showing signs of a stress-induced transformation as well. The hand gripping the doorknob was shifting into a clawed one, causing the brass doorknob to be dented from the strength of his grip.
Hot Pants was still laying on the floor in shock with a hand over her chest, as if to still her wildly beating heart. Whatever lingering tiredness in her body remained had evaporated entirely. This hit like a jolt which no caffeine could ever give her. The thinking part of her head reactivated, registering everything that she just saw, and only then did it piece together what this all was.
Oh.
Suddenly it all started to make sense. The explanation was coming together. But her brain short circuited, as if unsure where to even begin.
“Diego!” she only managed to say her husband’s name, staring up dumbly at him.
Diego didn’t know where to look. Hot Pants seemed okay, physically speaking, aside from being on the floor after screaming her lungs out. There were feathers flying everywhere in the room for some absurd reason. When he sniffed the air, his enhanced senses caught wind of something, a scent which reminded him of himself. But that made absolutely no sense. He’d kept his emotions under control, he hadn’t done anything reckless like a full-fledged transformation inside the house for a long time. So how could–
His train of thought was interrupted by the rustling sound of blankets. A weighty little thing was frantically moving in the center of the bed, a place where his son was notably absent. From the center of a pile of ripped blankets and destroyed pillows, a head popped up.
A little yellow raptor, its big eyes blinking up at him, chirping away excitedly.
His ears pricked at the sound of it, somehow understanding it instantaneously.
Papa! It kept calling out to him over and over. Papa! Papa! Papa!
Instinct kicked in immediately.
It was a miracle that Diego’s jaw didn’t unhinge and crash into the ground. He rubbed his eyes, trying to ensure that what he was seeing was correct.
“Jesus Christ.” he gaped. Astounded didn’t even begin to cover the range of emotions he was feeling at the moment.
Hot Pants had picked herself up off the floor by then, too stunned by everything that had happened to remind him that she hated having the lord’s name taken in vain. Frankly, though she would never admit this, it was a warranted reaction.
“Is… is that…” she started to say, almost too afraid to finish her sentence.
Diego didn’t respond. He slowly walked towards the bed, carefully peeling back the mess of ruined fabrics to help free the little raptor. It was so tiny compared to his own form, it probably measured to the size of a baby goat if he had to wager a guess. He didn’t need to see the name on the stripe pattern nor did he need to be able to understand the constant chirping it was speaking. Scent alone confirmed what instinct was telling him from the second he locked eyes.
“You’re alright.” he murmured with a softness that was reserved only for those that he loved. He gingerly began to pet and stroke the little raptor, which nuzzled itself up against his body. He shushed it just as he had with a fussy Donatello last night, hoping that soothing the riled up creature would make him revert back. “It’s alright, Giorno. Don’t worry. Mummy’s ok, you just gave her a scare.”
Diego turned his head to the side ever so slightly, careful not to move the rest of his body. He made a gesture, indicative for Hot Pants to come over. They did not exchange a single word but communication between their eyes said enough. Now she understood. She didn’t waste a second further before coming to his side, petting and cradling the little creature that was a transformed Giorno.
The little raptor began to calm down. All the rush and excitement before had made it impossible for it to focus properly. And with this being a first time transformation, Diego imagined that this was an overwhelming experience. Within seconds, he could feel the shift before the change was visible.
Before long, there was a little three year old boy with golden locks and big, bluish-green eyes staring up at his parents. In place of a tail wrapping itself around Diego’s waist, there was a pair of little arms hugging him.
“I’m all better Mama!” Giorno announced gleefully, flashing a toothy smile.
Hot Pants let out a sound that was a cross between a sigh of relief and a sob. The smile she was intending to greet him with earlier that morning returned. She swept him up into her arms and began to frantically kiss him, relishing his giggles and then unintentionally ignoring his protests for her to stop when they became too ticklish. All the while she kept silently thanking God over and over.
Because she was distracted with a miraculously recovered Giorno, she had no time to notice Diego’s eyes suddenly go wide with realization. She never noticed him dart out of the room in a panic. It wouldn’t have mattered if she did anyway since he returned seconds later with baby Donatello in his arms, cradling him close and murmuring words of affection to him to make up for the fright he must’ve put him through earlier. Luckily, the pleasant mood of this morning was infectious and the baby didn’t seem to mind all that much.
The little family of four came together in embrace, relishing the joy and the morning sunshine.
“I’m like you, Papa!” Giorno declared gleefully to his father.
“So it seems,” Diego conceded, smiling tiredly. He’d easily take that over some incurable, undiagnosable illness taking his son away in the middle of the night. It seems the fever was some sort of physical preparation his body was undergoing before the first official transformation.
His eyes found Hot Pants, who seemed mildly embarrassed.
“I suppose we should have thought about that being a possibility.” she murmured, surprised at even herself for never once thinking that through. The origins of their powers were strange, to say the least, but somehow it flew over their heads that they could also be passed down to their children.
“There are worse ways to learn about it.” Diego shrugged.
Like biting one of the doctors’ faces off, a thought which he personally found to be hilarious. However, he kept that note of dark humor to himself.
Balancing Donatello in one arm, he used his free hand to tussle some of Giorno’s curly locks. “Looks like you’ll be getting horse riding lessons and dino lessons.”
Giorno giggled, utterly delighted at the prospect. He pointed to his baby brother and shouted; “Donnie too! Donnie too!”
“Donnie’s still a baby, Giorno. He has to learn to walk first before we can even put him on a horse.” Hot Pants gently reminded her son.
“Not horsey,” the little boy shook his head, correcting his parents. He spoke with all the refined seriousness a three year old can manage as he pointed to his brother once more. “Dino.”
Both Hot Pants and Diego looked to one another, brows furrowing. The cryptic remark had brought about the same exact thought. They looked from their oldest to their youngest son now, studying him. Donatello was completely oblivious to the situation or why both parents were staring at him, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Giorno,” Diego tried again. “Are you trying to say your little brother’s going to be like you too?”
“Mhm.” the boy responded, nodding affirmatively.
And then proceeded to not elaborate in the slightest.
Again, the back and forth silent staring contest ensued. Diego turned towards his youngest son and even went as far as to carefully sniff him; aside from needing a morning change, there was nothing off about him. Nothing to indicate any sort of imminent change whatsoever, let alone the kind reserved for his transformations.
Somehow, a gut feeling still told him that what Giorno was saying would come true.
He and Hot Pants looked at each other once more, both of them trying to envision a household filled with the rambunctious activities of two toddlers. Two reptilian toddlers scurrying around the house, clumsily smashing into walls and barely managing their teeth or claws.
They needed to find sturdier furniture and fast.
fin.