Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Nara, come on.” 

Narancia, ever being quiet, is a terrifying notion in Mista’s mind. 

It has an eerie, unnaturalness to it. Out of them all, Narancia has always been the loudest wherever he goes. A voice that echoes. A voice that feels as if it travels for miles. It’s a comfort, especially after April. To Mista, it’s odd without it. Yet, there are days when there’s only a piercing silence reflected from him. They’re days that Mista hates the most. 

Ones where Narancia simply doesn’t talk and barely blinks. He sits so still with dull eyes, a passive face towards anyone who approaches him and his breathing is so still that someone will have to grab his wrist to check his pulse point for the sanity of their own minds. No matter their attempts, none of their words register in his mind. Proven by the unwavering look. Proven when Narancia will sit in the same spot, dissociated for hours.

From Mista’s perspective, it’s wrong. He’s not supposed to be like that.

Mista adores the bright and cheerful Narancia. The one that will talk for hours, switching topics at light speed for what calls his attention at the moment. The one who dances around the house and storms into Mista’s room like he owns it solely because he wants to be near him. Whether that’s to show him a new song he’s discovered, a dance he’s made up, sharp–shooting skills, pranks, anything that his mind can come up with as his mind craves attention, and Mista gives it easily via laughing and smiling at every joke and trick. 

A treatment that the others receive just the same. Giorno and Trish are learning just how deep his personality truly runs, while Abbacchio, Bucciarati, and Fugo are lucky if there isn’t a day where Narancia isn’t in their peripheral vision.

Narancia is the embodiment of sunshine. Luminous with a burn. It’s a sentiment they all can agree with; whether that brightness and warmth is welcome or becomes irritating, it feels wrong without it to a group of people who can’t survive with its disappearance. A belief Mista has held since he’s met him. 

Mista wishes it could be like that tonight. That Narancia would be loud and abrasive. Offer him a familiar sight. While the quiet days are sparse, they scare him all the same. With a tendency to stick in his mind with a crawling sense of wrongness plaguing him. 

It’s the same tonight.

Narancia sits at the kitchen table at nearly 3 A.M. with a pensively blank face. His nails dig into the wood of the table, tapping lightly when his fingers twitch on their own. His legs eerily swing slowly back and forth, and the sounds of Aerosmith’s radar fill the air. The beeps are slow, and even with the scanner in front of him, Narancia pays no mind. Unaware. A scenery that Mista believes can’t become any more ominous, but he finds himself wrong when from time–to–time there’s a low hum that comes from the back of Narancia’s throat before it cuts out. 

Through it all, Mista tries to get through to him on his own. Desperate to will away the fog that keeps him trapped in his mind.

“Narancia. Talk to me, please.” Mista has to resort to begging, he finds, as pathetic as that makes him sound. His tone is damn near desperate as he sits with his head in his hands. His chair kept rather close to Narancia. “What’s in your head?” 

He repeats what his own father would say to him in similar moments where he himself was like this. Just without the playful knock to the head or the ruffle of the hair. He doesn’t want to startle Narancia when he doesn’t seem aware of his presence. Nor does he want to alert Aerosmith and have the others of the household awake to gunfire rained down upon him all in the name of protecting its user. The plane already circles Narancia rather protectively. 

The dissociative state puts the Stand at unease with the thought of a threat they can’t see or detect. As such, they treat everyone as a threat. As if the unaware state of Narancia’s mind affects them itself and warps their perspective of the others. Proven when the beeps grow as if to tell anyone to stay away from him, but Mista doesn’t move from his chair to grant that. 

Even when the beeps grow rapid, like a yappy little dog’s bark, he stays settled. A glare on his face anytime the plane tries to force him from the chair. 

“I’m trying to help him.” He hisses lowly. “You know me.” 

No response, as he would expect. None of their Stands speak like his. Though the small pilot gives up to put his sole focus back on circling Narancia’s rigid figure. It puts distance between the two.

There’s a sudden blink from the younger teen that has Mista perking up. The hum cuts back in. Low and quiet. A meaningless tune that holds no structure.

“Nara.” He says softly again. An attempt to gain some of his attention. 

The blinks grow faster as Narancia begins to pull himself back to the present. His hand taps stronger against the wood of the table when his fingers twitch from the static hold placed on the muscles. His eyebrows furrow and he chews on his bottom lip as he tries to take in his surroundings. The hum grows louder, reverberating through the room.

Mista, ever so methodically and slowly, takes another opportunity when he reaches his hand forward to lightly tap Narancia’s.

Narancia jumps. His head swings around. Finally, he looks at him. Finally, he’s aware of his presence for the first time this evening. With another blink of purple eyes, he glances around, confused. His hum cuts in and out in a choppy fragment before finally it settles. The foggy film clears.

“How long have I been here?” He asks softly. Voice not above a whisper when it painfully croaks from disuse. 

“Since midnight.” Mista answers easily. He’s been here the whole time.

“Oh.” 

Is all that Narancia can say. His eyes darted away once more. From the sparse spot of purple that Mista can still see, they threaten to go dull once again. His face wavers, trying to pull into that stony, pensive one it had held before. Mista can see the clear intent to slip back into his mind, but he doesn’t let him.

Gently, he takes Narancia’s hand into his own. He knows physical touch helps to ground him between the space of awareness and drifting. “Come on, dude, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong. I hate to see you like this.” He squeezes his hand. 

There’s another rapid beep from Aerosmith. To his relief, the shrill noise has Narancia blinking back. He gazes at his stand in quiet confusion over its appearance he doesn’t remember giving. 

Mista smiles slightly. “Thought you need protecting. Nearly shot me when I sat by you. Guess Aerosmith also hates seeing you like this.”

It wasn’t the intention when there’s a look of guilt that flashes over him. He sighs. Narancia turns in his chair to scoot closer to Mista, his hand kept in a strong grip. With that, sensing that his user is safe, Aerosmith comes to rest in his arms like he’s nothing more than a stuffed animal of a plane. 

For a moment, Narancia merely stares at Mista. An inner struggle on how to begin.

“Talk.” Comes the command.

Then comes the answer. “My dad wrote me a letter.” One that Mista didn’t expect.

His eyebrows shoot up, before all too quickly they furrow when his expression alights with one of anger. That bastard. He’s always hated Narancia’s father. His veins burn each time he thinks of him. He knows well enough about that man to paint a clear picture when Narancia never felt the need to hide his past.

He was open. As much as he could find himself to be. A boy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

He told Mista of the effects that the neglect and abandonment had on him. The impact had cut him deep. Yet, on some rough nights, Narancia would play the game of what ifs. Questions reserved to the back of his mind with a lock and key, but always found a way to come out. It would start with the wonder of how his father was. A simple question that had only gone deeper. Such as a wonder if he missed him. A wonder if he could change.

If he had changed. Did he learn to regret? Then spurred the question if he was looking for him. His only child. Someone he should care for more than life itself. Someone who promised his wife that he would do anything for their son when her time had come for her too quickly. Yet, he failed. 

Through the remembrance of that promise came the wonder of what if he kept that? If he cared for him. If he ever did care for him.

It would always be the final thought. By that point, Narancia’s voice was heaving with too much gasps to speak properly as tears rolled down his cheeks. At that point, Mista would always pull him into his arms. With a sad look that would be reflected just the same as when Fugo and Giorno would find themselves like this over their own parents in various degrees. 

On the roughest nights, where Narancia’s gasps turned into howling sobs, he would alert Bruno or Fugo, who would come in a heartbeat. Some nights, Abbacchio would overhear them and make his presence known. The care they have for him runs deep that Mista wondered why the what ifs mattered. 

Though, truthfully, all children yearn for their parents' love, Bruno would tell him, but the truth about their parents had only burned Mista’s soul.

“What the hell could he want–?” Mista seethes. How could he have found them?

“To see me.” Narancia cuts off and Mista’s mind goes blank. Narancia’s eyes go cloudy once more, but it maintains a certain glimmer in them all the same. They go soft and half–lidded. Hope. “He said wants to see me. Said that he misses me, Mista. That he wants me back.” His expression cracks. A content smile begins to grow. His hand trembles from where it grip’s Mista’s. His nerves buzz to life with different emotions. “He finally wants me.”

He’s only heard a couple of sentences, and Mista already wants to kill the bastard. He doesn’t want that man anywhere near Narancia. It’s a ploy, his mind yells at him, but Narancia can’t see it when he looks so hopeful. Though there’s still that edge of self–consciousness at the same time, if Mista can get through to him–

“He said he loved me.” Narancia whispers.

Oh. Oh. Oh no. Mista’s heart cracks.

The voice that used to hold such contempt for how his father was now edges into one of longing. There’s a sparkle in his eyes, like his dreams have come true. In a way they have, but it’s a fantasy sort. Mista knows it. Though he doesn’t make his cynical thoughts known. Not yet. This isn’t about his feelings. As such, he puts his focus into what brings them here. What had caused this.

“Show me the letter.” 

Narancia’s compliant. He pulls his hand from his to reach in order to pull the envelope from the pocket of his hoodie. He hands it over with a smile. Bright and sunny, the way Mista’s used to, but it burns in a moment such as this. It’s the truth about the sun. The contents are just as he said. Even so, Mista can’t bring himself to play along with what it says.

“He’s lying.” Is all that he says in a clipped tone. Simple. Yet, it still hurts to see Narancia’s face fall.

He blinks. “What–?” 

Can he truly not see?

“He wants something, Narancia. This–...This isn’t sincere!” He tries to keep his tone soft, knowing it will fare better to get through to Narancia, but he finds it hard with the letter burning into the flesh of his palm. “Don’t tell me that you believe him. Not when he left you on the streets. Left you in jail. Hell, left you in the hospital!” 

“He could have changed!” Narancia fights back immediately. Voice high–pitched and desperate. From his arms, Aerosmith goes to whirl back into motion at the distress emitted from its user. Mista knew that common sense was lacking for the boy, but Jesus Christ, can he really not see?

“He’s had seven years. Why would he reach out after Bucciarati became Don, and you are viewed as one of his top men? Narancia, Bucciarati is a socialite. Everyone knows him, especially in Naples. By extension, they know of us too. It doesn’t take much to put together what his intentions are.” 

Narancia’s head shakes rapidly. “You think he’s only reaching out for money?” He sneers. His eyes heated from where they stared furiously into Mista’s frame. “No–” He stutters. “He could have changed– Maybe…I just hoped–” He’s trying to grapple with any hope he can find for what he believes. “He said…”

Mista stares with a heavy heart.

For a mere second, he wants to get Bucciarati or Abbacchio. This would be all the more easy with them here. Bruno can gently talk sense into Narancia. With sweet words and soft touches that Narancia has always yearned for. He would help him get through the confusing feelings and the tough grief over this. Abbacchio would lead with a more stern hand, but with a soft enough spot towards Narancia that would get him to listen. Though Mista remains sitting.

“Look.” He says softly. “I know you hold out hope for him that he would come around, but it’s not sincere. He’s had so much time and chances, and he’s never taken it. He won’t this time either.” 

Narancia sits frozen. His eyes lose their light. His Adam’s apple bobs as if he’s trying to suppress a wounded noise. For a moment, Mista’s scared that the fog has called him back to the entrapment of his mind. It’s sudden when he stands with a slamming bang on the table, the chair clattering to the floor. He snatches the letter from Mista’s hand and jams it back into his pocket.

“Fuck you.” He spits. “You could have just been happy for me.” His voice quivers painfully. 

“Nara–” Mista stands, reaching out, but Aerosmith cuts off any and all access. 

Shrill beeps ring out, and the force the plane flies between them has Mista backing up. Before he can regain his balance, Narancia is storming from the room and down the hall. His bedroom door closes with a loud slam and Mista can hear the hits to the wall and kicks to the door afterwards.

Play along. Mista tells himself when the days pass and Narancia gives him the cold shoulder. Play along for his sake because you don’t want to push him away.

If Narancia takes this as his chance to see his father again, then he’ll need someone to fall back on. It needs to be him. He finds himself the only one suitable out of them all.

Fugo and Abbacchio would be the ‘I told you so,’ person. Even if they have the right intentions, they would berate Narancia for ignoring their warnings for a choice that they find foolish. It would break Narancia to hear and would close him off to them all.

Giorno would be awkward and Trish may not know exactly what to say. Both of them are still rather new. In the midst of becoming used to what a family like theirs entails. Neither knows what Narancia has gone through, even if he’s adamant that he and Trish are one in the same. 

Bucciarati would be perfect, Mista can concede, more perfect than him.

What with an all too good nature and calming features. Yet when Mista debates on a way to tell him, he catches a glimpse of the calendar framed in his office. It’s easy to decide against it. With the title of Don comes countless meetings and stacks of paperwork. Not to mention missions he is still adamant to join. He may not have the energy to put the proper care into this, nor does Mista want to add weight to his shoulder.

It leaves only him left. He just needs to simply play along so as to not make himself appear as an enemy to Narancia’s eyes. It kills him, but it will be worth it to have someone by Narancia’s side.

“Do you plan to visit him?” He asks when he leans against the frame of Narancia’s door.

He’s turned away from him, headphones nearby if he decides to tune Mista out. His eyes are pinned to the paper of a homework packet, eraser marks taking up most of the page as he anxiously taps his pencil against the desk. 

The sight brings another aspect that makes Mista furious. Narancia’s father was so negligent that Narancia’s education paid a price. Though he can’t be surprised when something as important as Narancia’s health was at the bottom of the list. It leaves the boy half blind in one eye and still rather underweight from the lack of food security through the years, even if the muscles act as an illusion.

How does that man think he can fix everything he has done? The damage is laid deep. The wounds have been left open for years. Does he truly believe that a sweet letter that has everything that Narancia wants to hear will make it all up? 

It seems so.

“Why do you care?” Narancia’s voice is kept rather monotone, but Mista can hear the wobble reflected. The hurt over the doubt cast on his hope. He doesn’t look at Mista.

“You seemed excited by the letter, is all.” He tries to keep his tone nonchalant. Easy and light. He doesn’t want to start another argument. His face is open, and he tries to be approachable so as to not close Narancia off from him.

“So?” 

“So, I thought you would take the opportunity. I wanted to join you.” 

Narancia pauses at that. Hesitantly, he turns to eye him rather suspiciously. It makes Mista sigh quietly before he walks further into the room.

“Look.” He says softly while sitting on the bed. “I’m sorry for the way I reacted. It was uncalled for, I just…Narancia, in the years we’ve known one another; I watched the impact that man had on you. I heard it from you yourself. He hurt you. Consistently. I just don’t want him to have that opportunity again.” 

Narancia sniffs. “He’s changed.” He defends weakly. His voice is nearly a beg, and Mista has to wonder if deep down Narancia truly believes that? He nods, however.

“He may have. Which is why you can take this opportunity to see him again. It’s an open door. One that’s your choice.” 

Narancia falls silent again. Then, without a word, he pulls his phone from his skirt pocket. He hands it over to Mista, the screen already a light, and a conversation pulled up when Mista glances down. A day, a time, and a confirmation. Mista had gotten here just in time.

Ignoring the way his heart drops at the bold text on the screen, he plasters on a smile. “Care if I join? Moral support, man.” 

Narancia stares at him. It’s nearly similar to the way Giorno tries to read through him. An unwavering purple that Mista feels he can’t turn away from, but no longer makes his skin crawl. He’s learned from Giorno that it’s a way to protect oneself. He doesn’t let any ulterior motives slip. Just a friendly presence is all that he portrays, and truthfully, all that he is. Mista merely wants to be by Narancia’s side, no matter the way this pans out.

Finally, a small smile pulls. A light begins to return. A small glimmer that makes Mista smile himself. 

“Are you sure?” Narancia whispers. He scoots his chair closer, a private bubble as if they’re sharing a secret between them. “You don’t exactly like him. I can do this on my own.” 

Mista shakes his head. “I’m not doing this for him. I’m doing this for you.” 

The smile grows. Big, bright, and dazzling. A return of the sun, even if for a moment, he thinks. Mista knows that he has played this right.

It’s how Mista finds himself a week later sitting on a falling apart couch in the living room with a pissed off expression. Narancia talks to his father in the kitchen. Any words that he can hear are limited by the closed door presenting a barrier. He had been told to wait separately as the father and son have their own private conversation.

Mista is left alone. It only serves to make him grow more furious by the second. He had come here with a calm head, knowing that it would be for the best, but there are certain aspects that grab his eyes and make them burn bright.

There’s not a photo of Narancia anywhere in this house. Not one. For a man who claims that he misses his son, Mista finds that sarcastically odd. Nothing here screams that Narancia has ever lived here. Not with the barren walls. All the while, their house sure as hell does with clear reflections.

He’s in photos all throughout; placed on walls, kept on the mantel, bedrooms. Fugo has a whole photo album with him and Narancia taking up most of the pages. Bucciarati has a plethora in his office. There’s been an increased need for pictures of each other when they’re more than aware of the way someone can be taken from you in an instance. It’s a comfort. Especially after April.

The present reminders are just as important. His CDs, homework packets, and magazines can be found scattered on the living room table. His shoes left as a heap by the door that they have to avoid and kick to the side. With his voice loud and noticeable, it matches the way his boombox is in constant rotation from where it sits in his room until Bucciarati knocks on his door to signal it to turn down or off for the night. Energetic and wild. You can’t miss him.

With a huff, Mista stands. He paces around the room, his eyebrows knitted together and arms crossed. His footsteps are kept light so as to not distract them from their conversation in the next room. It’s tempting to send a Sex Pistol through the crack of the door, but Narancia would more than notice.

The barren walls make him curious. He wonders how Narancia’s room looks. Is it still intact, just frozen from the last time he was there in 1998? Maybe even before that, when he had begun to live in the streets in ‘94. Or is it all cleared out? Sold or in storage? A lightbulb brightens in his mind at the thought.

With a smirk, Mista turns to quietly sneak up the stairs. Not in the direction of the rooms, but of the attic. A plan in mind.

“Jackpot.” 

He’s happy to find that it works. It’s not Narancia’s items he set his sights on, but something better. Box in hand, he stares down at the valuables of his late mother. Jewelry, photos, letters, anything of hers is stored directly in this box, and it makes Mista’s heart soar. 

Although there’s another tug of anger. 

“Che pezzo di merda,” He hisses to himself in a low breath. Narancia had received none of this. There’s only one photo in his room of her that has been taped more times than he can count and Narancia can remember due to the amount of time he lived on the streets. Narancia told him that everything else of hers had been sold to keep them afloat. A lie. A Goddamn lie. The man was keeping it for himself, with no consideration for his son. Selfish to harbour it all, but not for any longer. 

Mista grabs the box. Along with any stray items. No doubt or regret. Not a further thought when he places it all in his car. A sense of satisfaction and a trip outside that made him blind to the raised voices coming from the kitchen. Just as he shuts the trunk, gunfire rings from the inside.

A muddled mix of screams and shouts that are muffled in Mista’s mind when he rushes back in. Grabbing his own gun, he summons the Sex Pistols when he throws open the door. 

Narancia stands over his father, chest heaving, arms extended from where he called for Aerosmith. Below him, his father writhes on the floor. Groans of pain slip from him as he weakly clutches his leg, blood streaming through the cracks between his fingers and pooling to the floor. 

“Bugiardo! You said–” Narancia screams go indistinguishable from the amount of emotion and tears that stream freely. 

Mista knew what would happen. He knew it would amount to nothing good. Nonetheless, his heart hurts all the same from watching his friend break like this. Gently, he comes forward to pull Narancia by his arm, intent on leading him out as the other begins to kick at the fallen form. 

“Money–” He hears Narancia choke out. “He just wanted–” 

Mista doesn’t hesitate to shoot the other leg after that. 

“Stay the hell away from him.” He spits. “You’ve already hurt him enough. Why do you keep doing it?” 

Why do it at all? He wonders. This is his son, after all. No answer will ever make it up, he knows. So, without a further glance, he leads Narancia out of his childhood home for the last time. 

“Why did you have to be right?” Narancia sobs into his hands when Mista helps him into the passenger seat of the car. Mista doesn’t take any offense.

Narancia needs someone to be mad at. To point the blame of his heartache. It’s a natural response to people, even if it’s not directed to the correct person and instead someone in the crossfire they find easier. Mista will gladly be that person.

“He lied–” He cuts himself off when he chokes on a sob. His knees pull up to hide his face. 

Silently, Mista puts the car in motion. 

“Narancia.” He murmurs when the minutes of the dashboard tick by, and the sobbing is reduced to small hiccuping cries. “After the way he treated you, why did you want him back in your life?” 

There’s another sob at the question. Narancia’s figure shakes against the leather. 

“He was the one family member I had left.” He breathes. “The only connection left from mama. She wanted us to be there for each other. She made him promise her. To her, we would be the only thing we would have.” He refuses to look at Mista, fearing an ‘I told you so,’ look. “He never kept his promise. No matter how much I begged him. Then…Then this letter came in, and it was everything I ever wanted and I just hoped that he remembered his promise. That he intended to keep it for once. I was fucking stupid.” 

The tears continue to fall. The words, the reassurance Mista tries to give fall on deaf ears as Narancia shields himself away when curling tighter into a ball. With a sigh, Mista focuses on the road. There’s a hope that the box in the trunk can brighten the mood, even just by a fraction. It won’t make up for his father’s lack of love, but it offers him a reassurance over his mother’s.

He stays in the house just long enough to carry Narancia in to lay him on his bed, before he is rushing out once more. He grabs the box as quickly and gently as he can before he is running back in. Nerves alight with a hope to make Narancia smile. Mista nearly collides with Trish in the process, who shouts at him with a swipe to his shoulder, but Mista pays no attention to her when he enters the room and kicks the door shut behind him.

“Nara.” He says, sitting next to him. “Look.” 

Narancia wipes at his tears when he slowly sits up. He looks confused at the box as Mista flips the lid open and begins to pull the items out. His jaw drops with a quiet gasp when he leans closer, snatching the photo from Mista’s hand.

“Mama?” He says quietly, swiping at the dust to see her more clearly without rips and tears in the way like the one sitting on his dresser. 

Mista continues pulling out the contents. All the jewellery, the headbands, the multitude of photos, even Narancia’s baby book. 

“There are letters written in here. Many in advance. Until you turned 18, at least,” Mista says gently as he flips to a page and hands it to him. “They’re not the only ones. There’s more in here, even her diary. He kept it in the attic. I got you everything that I could find.”

Narancia sits there, stunned. With a smile, Mista pulls out the final item. He places the teddy bear that belonged to the other teen’s mother into Narancia’s lap. It’s in near perfect condition from spending its life on the shelf then into the safety of a box. Albeit rather dusty. The fur remains soft under Narancia’s fingertips. He grips the stuffed animal tightly, his throat jumping as tiny, overwhelmed noises leave him as he tries to prevent more sobs from escaping through.

Mista smiles, nonetheless, watching his reaction. Scooting closer, he pulls Narancia into his arms to lean against him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” Narancia whispers. The tears are a constant stream down his face. His heart feels like it’s both breaking and trying to mend itself together, but it’s warm with Mista’s care.

Mista hums lightly. “You wanted your father. That’s not a crime, Nara. I wish I was wrong for your sake. That he meant what he said. That he did change, but we can’t choose the way other people act or the way they hurt us. It sucks. It’s bullshit. I’ll be here though.” 

“You’re always here.” 

“Someone has to be. You and Fugo would have killed each other otherwise. Or you yourself with your dumbass ideas.” 

“Hey!” Narancia barks with a huff, kicking him in the shin, though it holds no weight in their positions and Mista only laughs. 

The time passes on. The two dip into silence. Mista shuffles them until his back is against the wall, Narancia practically in his lap when he refuses to detach himself. Not as if Mista minds when he keeps him firmly in his hold for his own sake to instill comfort. Silently, Narancia flips through the baby book his mother had created for him. Done with such care and dedication. In his younger years, it wasn’t just her handwriting, but his father's too. 

“Think her love for him died? If she's watching from above the way the preacher always says?” 

Mista glances down when he hears the quiet murmur. Narancia’s eyes are sleep–ridden, his head droops further in the crook of his neck. His eyes kept on the book, with his fingers picking at the edge of a photo clipped to the page.

“Any mother would.” 

He knows that if this was him; his mother would come back to haunt his father over the treatment he inflicted on their child. 

“You think he loved me?” 

Mista sucks in a harsh breath. At a glance, Narancia flips the page. There is an affirmation section. What you want your child to know before they come into this world. Hopes, fears, dreams, reactions, anything you can think of. Both parents write the letter, but Narancia focuses on the one in his father’s handwriting. How does one respond? He can’t avoid the question when Narancia’s silence remains waiting. Desperate to hear. So, he tries.

“I think his ability to love died alongside her.” 

It’s the easiest one to give.

Narancia nods. The book slips shut, moved to the side when Narancia isn’t ready to read more. “Glad that wasn’t a useless hope, either.” He sighs. “He…used to stare at me like I was his world. Both mama and I. We were enough for him.”

“Grief changes people.” Mista murmurs. “Sometimes in the most horrifying way.” 

“It doesn’t make sense.” 

“It doesn’t need to. It just is.” 

“You think Bucciarati could understand?” 

“More than anything.” 

The silence is somber, but it’s comfortable in the midst of one another.

Hours pass. The two nearly drift off, but Mista’s head lifts from where it rested against Narancia’s when he hears a knock on the door before it opens. Bruno pokes his head through, a question already forming on his lips, but he brings himself to a pause when he takes in the sight of Narancia’s curled up form and the dried tear tracks still present. Quietly, Bruno fully enters. Mista watches the door click shut behind him as he approaches. 

“Everything alright?” He asks softly while he sits on the edge of bed, reaching out to brush Narancia’s tangled hair back with a worried face. Mista believes they always come up with something to make the man worry about them all. 

Mista sighs quietly. He shifts Narancia ever so gently into Bruno’s arms, who cradles him immediately. He reaches for the blanket when Mista stands to wrap Narancia in it. Careful to not dislodge the teddy bear kept snuggly held in his arms. The grip is tight with a fear of losing it. A comforting reminder of his mother.

Mista walks over to the messy desk to snatch the letter. The words kept concealed feel as if they burn into the palm of his hand. He hands it to Bruno before his anger can come back and he storms out of the house with his gun to finish what’s left of the man writhing on the floor.

Bruno goes pale the moment he reads it. There’s a faint curse underneath his breath, a tremble of his chest when he holds Narancia close and murmurs an apology into his ear. Narancia stirs, though only slightly to press closer to Bruno’s warmth. Despite it all, it draws a smile from the both of them.

“I was just about to get you.” Mista shrugs, feigning indifference to cool himself. “It’s already been taken care of.” 

Bruno looks up, a confused expression before it clicks. “You went–?” 

“He was insistent.” Mista says gently. “He–...He truly believed that his dad had changed. Nothing could convince him. I was with him. I didn’t want him to be alone, so I played along. It went just as bad as you could expect, but there was something good that I believe came from it, you know?” He gestures towards the keepsake box he stole for Narancia’s sake. Only then does Bruno smile.

Though it still comes off guilty. A twisted expression of liability. Mista tilts his head when he moves closer to urge Bucciarati on. Bruno takes notice as he reaches out to gently pull him to sit on the bed once more. Both teens kept close to him. 

“I’ve intercepted so many letters these past weeks.” He confesses in a quiet tone. “I knew that in a way, it needed to be Narancia’s choice. That I had no right to take such a thing from him, but I couldn’t bear to see him get his hopes up over it all, only for them to fall. The letters, the words, they were never–...” 

“Sincere?” Mista offers when the other falls short. His eyes threaten to go foggy. There’s a sense of vulnerability he allows himself to show his subordinates. It’s rare, Mista thinks, when Bruno always tries to uphold the high image they hold of him.

Bruno nods. “Not in the slightest. I ran into him by mistake. I went to strike a deal with his boss; non–mafia related, the man is a good friend of mine that I was inclined to help. His father recognized me from the last time we had talked. The day I offered to pay for Narancia’s surgery to save him from the infection. He wondered about Narancia, knowing he was with me. He spoke, I listened, however, I could tell exactly what he wanted, and it wasn’t his son.” 

“So could I.” Mista sighs. “He wanted your money.” 

“He did.” Bruno could see it as clear as day. Those eyes were hungry. He wanted what his son was attached to, looking over him as always. “The letters came in shortly after our talk. One that I assumed had made it clear that he needed to stay away from our Nara. I burned every one that came in, but it seems that I missed this one.” His face goes guilty again, and Mista launches to reassure his Don.

“You’re busy.” He says easily. “It’s not all on you.” 

“I know, but I can’t quite help the guilt, especially when it comes to seeing him like this.” He smiles sadly, though his eyes glimmer when he looks back towards Mista. “That man…Every time I think of him, my heart hurts for Narancia. I can only think of him in his weakest moments and who was the direct cause of them. He let his own son live on the streets, drop out of school, all without a care. Let him rot in jail on false charges. Let him fear in the hospital. Twice.” 

He sighs, thinking back on it, and Mista sits there patiently. Nearly enraptured when Bruno can command an audience easily over the simplest of things.

“Did you know that they called him after everything with Diavolo? That man hung up. His own son had been impaled, had died, bore the extreme pain to come from an unknowingly resurrection, and he hung up.” At the slip of a weepy tone, he clears his throat, steadying himself. “After I learned that, nothing could keep me from his bedside. Not even my own injuries and shut down organs. He needed someone, and just the way it always has been, I was intent to be there.” 

Mista remembers. So many times, he would watch as the nurses would have to urge Bruno back to his own room, and he would be the witness to many hushed arguments between him and Abbacchio when the older would try to convince his partner to allow himself the chance to rest. Bruno had always refused.

In his brief moments of lucidness, Narancia would call out for him. 

Bruno had wanted to be there every time. Even when in great pain, he would look at Narancia with a gentle smile as he called out and gripped his arms as tight as he could to keep him near him. He would stare at Bruno through fever–stricken eyes filled with pain, confused over how their mission had ended. Bruno would merely brush his hair back, out of his eyes, and murmur sweetly to him in comfort.

“He has you to lean back on.” Mista’s voice brings him back to the present. His voice is sincere. Quiet and soft to let this slip of vulnerability out. Quite different from his usual boisterous personality. His eyes spell of trust, gazing at Bruno with deep admiration. “He won’t be alone.” 

Bruno’s smile grows. Reaching out, he squeezes the other's shoulder. Another soft look shared between them. “Of course.” He nods. “I would never leave him or any of you to hurt on your own.” 

“I know. You always–” 

The door is thrown open before Mista can continue. Effectively cutting off the tender moment with a bang. Abbacchio, hands on hips and eyebrow raised, stands in the doorway, pointedly looking at Bruno, who innocently smiles at his own distraction from his assigned task. 

“Which of the little shits is helping me with dinner?” He asks gruffly, with a huff. Though, just like Bruno, his expression dips when he spots Narancia. Even when in Bruno’s warm hold, he edges on a miserable look from the events of the day. It’s more than understandable, and both Mista and Bruno don’t expect him to bounce back right away when he awakes. 

Without an argument, Mista stands to volunteer himself. Narancia can owe him for it later, but he’ll graciously take his turn. There’s a smirk at the idea, but Bruno tsks in the background. 

“Go easy on him.” He teases, but Mista only jokingly scoffs.

“He owes me for so many chores. He’ll be lucky if I don’t add this to the list.” 

He nudges himself and Abbacchio out into the hallway. The man hesitates, his eyes flickering once more towards Narancia, but ultimately decides that he can talk to him later when he’s not asleep and Abbacchio can do something besides watching his sleeping figure. 

“Mista.” Bruno calls out, waiting for him to stop. “Thank you.” 

Mista beams at the praise.

“Nothing off of my back, Bucciarati. He’s my friend.” 

More like family, but Mista’s been too sappy enough today. He can tell that Bruno can see through him, nonetheless.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, Mista believes that they forget the type of life they lead. Forgetful of the darkness that the mafia inevitably entails. 

It’s something that the media plays up as a glimmering and grand type of life. An illusion through the rich mansions, the fancy clothes, the sparkling jewellery, and most of all; the sense of control. The air of power that these types of people command through their sense of status alone. It steers itself far from the truth. It neglects the fear. The warped sense that comes as a direct effect from the bloodshed. The type of wretched nature that comes with the violence.

Mista believes that they are just as bad with this fantasy. Not any better than the movies.

Blame it on the desensitization. Throughout the job, they had become used to it. Blind and numb to it all. Especially when they are caught up in their downtime. The bliss of pretending as if they’re normal. It drifts away from them all, granting a sense of relief that loosens their shoulders. A sense of ease that doesn’t stay for long. It never can when there comes hard hitting reminders to set them straight. To keep them aware of the life they live. 

From the gun–violence to the Stand fights. The clean–up of bodies and wiping the blood off their hands that they know will always be permanent in a figurative sense. Missions, and the disintegration of the drug trade. All of it that only continues to grow. Their lives are constantly on the line. Their eyes poised over their shoulders to watch their backs.

A useful notion, though other times it’s a mere reminder of a sense of paranoia that each of them have gotten used to that only continues to dig deeper at the knowledge that you can’t be overly cautious. One slip of your guard can easily be the end.

It continues from there. Growing. Festering. With an outward force towards them. The inward aspect comes from what they do. The missions, the fights, and the bodies. How they feel. The way they rationalise it all. Then comes what’s directed at them that, of course, combine together. Enemy Stand users, ambushes, kidnapping, ransom, torture. 

With all the above, describing the current notion for Fugo.

He never opened the door. He never answered the phone. His bed and office were empty. His voice was absent, and his presence was missing. As if he vanished into thin air.

It didn’t take long to put together the reason, even more so when there came the letter of demand for a set amount of money. It was odd. Mista would have assumed that they would have eagerly gone after the Don or his heir to leverage, but they went for the one directly in charge of the financial section of Passione. 

Smart or a half–assed plan? Mista wondered, but another thought took over when he was curious if they had merely wanted to make a harsher impact on Bucciarati.

Former Passione members that had gone traitors with the new reign. They’ve been here for as long as Bucciarati. They were well–aware of the start of his team, they knew who his first member was. The subsequent bond that Bucciarati and Fugo shared together. Perhaps it was partially to hit him where they knew it would hurt the most. Retribution for the forced reform and a way to earn at the same time. 

Though, unlike them, Mista gets a close glance at the personal effects. 

Through the bad and the ugly. The sleepless nights, the countless nights. The false leads and the false ends from trying to work underneath the table while the demands change from above as Bucciarati tries to fake a negotiation. They are spun in countless different directions and circles that prove irritating and heartbreaking when all they want is Fugo. Home and relatively safe.

Through it all, Mista tries to keep it together. Partially for the others and because he finds it better that way for his own sanity. Even if it’s admittedly born from an admittedly selfish desire to shut off his brain and turn a blind eye. He tries not to think of the dreaded what if’s and focuses on the tasks given and the ones still around him.

It pays off, he believes.

The under the radar actions don’t amount to anything. Then comes the playing along. It brings them to now; in a shoddy warehouse with an ambush of their own to put into action.

Bruno walks ahead of him. His hand is on his gun and with Sticky Fingers already by his side. Their steps echo against the concrete, the sound of the fight drifts from behind them.

Mista would have thought to stay behind, with someone else taking his place with Bruno to track down and retrieve their missing member, but Bruno had sought out the order of someone watching his back. Narancia and Abbacchio could objectively handle the main gun work alongside Giorno’s Gold Experience being a tremendous help. Sentiments that left Bruno confident.  

As such, Mista follows his lead with no objections. He keeps a close eye on the area around them and pushes doors open on one side of the hall while Bruno takes the other.

His nerves grow by the second. This is the part that he dreads the most. The unawareness over the state you will find your loved one in. With the wonder if it’s another miracle survival that their team keeps pulling off, or if it's their time to finally succumb to the weight of the mafia life. It’s a terrifying thought. He can see that it’s just the same for Bucciarati if the tension in his shoulders and the way he holds his breath has anything to say towards Mista’s catching eyes. 

There’s a want he has over reaching out towards him. 

He wants to reassure him to soothe that tension even if by a fragment, but he knows better. Bruno wouldn’t want to hear it. He would snap at him to focus on their mission. That he knows not to give false reassurances of a promise that he may not be able to keep. It would kill the others around him if he spoke with a reassurance of Fugo’s well–being when there’s a steep chance of him being dead.

As such, he stays quiet.

Down the hall, they continue in tense silence. Each door clicks open, one right after another, with increasing desperation, until the fight’s sounds overwhelm the banging wood; silence becomes irrelevant. Finally, there’s a noise of recognition that breaks through the cacophony of the sound of the fight echoing around them. A small gasp from Bruno before he disappears from his sightline into an adjacent room.

Mista follows after him. Nerves further on fire, and the sight has him freezing in the doorway.

Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised over the state that they find him in. Maybe he should be used to it. After all, who hasn’t this happened to? The results are always the same. Beaten, bloody bodies with broken bones and unrecognizable features. With kidnapping always comes torture. An easy way to garner submission, and more than guaranteed in a life of crime like theirs. Yet, he can’t help the way his eyes widen.

Curled listlessly against the cold floor, Fugo lies in the middle. Brutally beaten. Surrounded in a pool of his own blood. Bruises cover his face, prominent around his broken bones, and trailing down the expanse of his body.

His suit jacket is so terribly torn that it barely stays on him. It only further shows the collection of the deep bruises on his stomach and chest. Alongside the bruises are an accumulation of cuts. Deep lacerations. A majority spread to the length of his back that are caused by what Mista believes are lashes from a belt. His neck, wrists, and ankles have rope burns that become deeper with their presence still around his joints to keep them bonded together. They cut into his fair skin until Bruno carefully unties them.

His soft murmurs are indistinguishable from where Mista stands. A supposed comfort in the midst of horror.

Strangulation bruises accompanied the burn on his neck. With red and purple dots around his face. Broken fingers, torn off nails, a swollen knee with a lead pipe nearby to paint the picture. The list of injuries only goes on and Mista feels bile rise.

“Is he?” He tries to ask, but Bruno clicks his tongue. He doesn’t turn to him. All his focus is kept rightfully on Fugo.

“Eyes forward. Watch my back.” 

Obediently, Mista nods. Turning forward once more, he tries to will away the image. He listens to the gunfire that rings down the hall from further in the building.  Screams and shouts, the clear sounds a fight that joins though the words remain too faint to properly be heard. 

Some of his tension eases at Bruno’s words, nonetheless, despite the injuries. He’s doing it to not just cover himself, but to spare Fugo’s dignity. He wouldn’t need to do such a thing if the boy was dead.

The sound of zippers ring from behind him. Darting his eyes over his shoulder, he watches as Bruno begins to zip the worst of the wounds before they can get to Giorno. Having been at the end of those zippers before, he knows that it’s not a painless transaction, but Fugo doesn’t move. Mista can’t tell if he’s unconscious, or disassociated from his predicament, but he gets an answer soon enough.

When the touch on his shoulder settles in his mind, Fugo jerks back violently. He pushes himself up, ignoring the pain that ripples through his beaten body as he tries to drag himself away. At the knowledge of his body free and when hands go to reach out, Fugo tries to swing. 

“Get away from me–!” His screams are raspy. Could barely be called that when they struggle to rise in volume. The strangulation having done severe damage to his throat. He remains unaware of who is truly there when his focus is majorly on getting away and defending himself when he now has the chance. 

Bruno can easily move back from the swing of the sluggish fist. His face remains passive and soft. “It’s just me, Panna.” He whispers gently. 

Fugo calms considerably at the sound of his voice. His breathing is heavy and comes out in wheezes. He tries to clear his vision. To open his swollen, injured eyes more. One of them is black around the ring. Both have bursted blood vessels. Bruno has to choke back any outward reaction.

“Bu…Bucciarati?” Fugo whispers. He goes to shuffle closer on instinct, but stops himself with a jerk. His breath hitches. “Real?” He demands. It holds no heat. Mere fear of a trick. "Are you real?"

Bruno smiles. He places his hand between them as an offer. “I’m here, promise.” 

Shakily, Fugo reaches out. He brushes his fingertips against the others' before that paranoid part of his brain lights up once more and he draws back. Painfully, he doesn’t look convinced. Not when he’s had a dream such as this before and worse. His captors hadn’t hesitated to use Bruno against him. 

He looks down. His harsh swallow is painful. “What did you get me?" He grits. A want to appear strong. "When I first moved in, you got me a gift to welcome me. I never told the others.” 

The man’s eyes light up. He glances back towards Mista, who has remained respectfully silent, before he leans closer to create a personal bubble between the two. “A book, of course. The Secret Garden. You felt it was far too childish for someone such as yourself, but you read it every night. You still have it. On some nights when you can’t sleep–” 

“I get it!” Fugo snaps before he can reveal anymore, his face flushed. The weary, cautious features drop, and his hand falls directly into Bruno’s. His body goes to crumple in on itself. Bruno shifts closer, catching his eyes.

“Allow me to help.” He orders. A sense of pride ripples through him when the boy nods.

Mista stays silent the whole time. He’s unsure if Fugo’s aware of his presence, and his mouth goes dry to keep him from interrupting their moment. He watches as Bruno cares for him.

He peels off the tattered coat of the suit jack that was just barely clinging on, immediately compensating for the cold and the fear that flashes in Fugo’s eyes at being half bare as he tugs his coat off to slip over the lithe figure of the teen. He murmurs once more when he notices the shaking as he clicks the buttons together.

“It’s over.” Mista catches him say. “You’re coming home. We found you.” He wonders if he’s saying that to calm Fugo or himself. More than likely both.

Gently, he adjusts Fugo’s arms to hang over his shoulders before he slides his hand beneath his thighs to steady him as he stands with him in his arms. Fugo grumbles, but doesn’t argue when it’s clear of his inability to walk. 

“Clear?” Bruno’s attention turns back to Mista. 

He takes a peek over the door frame. The fight had fallen silent at some point of their stay in here. He waits with bated breath for any more that falls into relief when his phone buzzes in his pocket. “Clear.” 

Mista doesn’t expect to see Fugo for the rest of the night when they return and all watch as Bruno helps him up the stairs. Each of them are given an order of what to prepare or an item to bring for the injuries that Gold Experience cannot heal. It’s clear they need to keep their distance. A crowd around Fugo will bring nothing good despite them all wanting to be by him.

Mista isn’t surprised. He knows that out of everyone here, Fugo would always prefer to seek comfort from their leader.

Yet, he finds himself surprised when hours later, just after midnight; there’s a quiet knock on his door. At the sound of recognition, Fugo shuffles in. Adorned by a plethora of bandages wrapped around him in various places. The cuts have all healed via Giorno, but the deep bruises stay. Along with a limp and limited vision. There’s a sleeping bag underneath his arm.

Mista raises an eyebrow over his book. “Thought you would be with Bucciarati.” He states what he believes is the obvious. 

Fugo shakes his head lightly, wincing when it pulls at a tender muscle in his neck.

“Stifling.” He croaks painfully. Slowly, he goes to sit himself on the other side of the room and Mista has to bite his tongue and stiffen his muscles to keep from launching up to help him when he sees how unsteady his footing is through the pain.

Instead, Mista hums, laying rigidly. It’s not that surprising, he’ll admit. There’s been times like this before when Fugo would seek him out. 

Bucciarati means well. Truly, he does, and Mista knows that they all care for him deeply for the way he treats them like a real family. The support he has always given them freely. However, his care can become thick with guilt that seeps off of him in crashing waves. He blames himself for the worst, because he brought them here. No one blames him, but he tends to get too stuck in his head over the notion.

Fugo is far from the proper headspace to bear it. Abbacchio must have noticed when he stayed silent as his eyes cracked opened as he watched Fugo slip from their bed. 

“Do you think we should talk to him about it?” Mista wonders out loud. 

Fugo scoffs. “He’s human too.”

Mista nods, knowing better than to try to explain his point of what he meant. Fugo tends to overprotect the man with what he perceives as slights against him. Stemed from a deep respect, and the notion that Bruno was the first person to ever be on Fugo’s side. Cold in the beginning, but it was different from his parents with enough kindness shown through. 

Through the years, the connection grew and Fugo saw different sides to him. Stern and a force to be reckoned with. A tone that never left room for arguments. Caring and gracious. With soft words of reassurance in their worst and fearful moments. Tender and protective. Always with the way he would hug them, pat them on the shoulder, or put himself in front of them for whatever means he felt necessary.

Maybe it was odd for him to take on such a prominent guiding figure role, especially given his age and when it went above the average leadership. Mista could only hope he reminds himself that he too is human. 

It’s similar for Fugo, who has watched Bruno put his heart into everything he gives them. 

Throughout his childhood, Fugo wondered if he was capable of love when he felt nothing but contempt for his parents, even in their best moments. Anyone he had gotten to tentatively know had never made an impact unless it was for negative reasons. Then he was recruited. At first, it was the same. He felt nothing for Bruno. Then came respect, then came trust, and finally there was that spark of love that many feel towards friends and family. The longer they knew each other, the bigger it grew until it threatened to swallow him whole. 

He tried to keep it under wraps, scared of it being used against him. After all, the moment he tentatively began to care for his professor, he used it to his advantage. He feared it would be another trap that he could fall through. Though Bruno could see through him when he wanted to be near him on their downtime, and that closed off attitude began to settle. 

“Stay as long as you like,” Mista whispers. “We’re glad we found you.”

Fugo doesn’t respond. The room dips into silence. Mista focuses back on his book and Fugo merely sits stiffly on that sleeping bag. Back straight. Posture rigid. Quiet with a stony face. Something’s on his mind. Kept on the tip of his tongue, but he stays silent. Unsure of how to word it or if he should speak it. Mista waits patiently, letting him choose when to speak.

Maybe that’s why Fugo seeks him out. He doesn’t push.

The others mean well, of course they do, but they unknowingly put a type of pressure on Fugo. Narancia is loud and demanding. He never leaves well enough alone.

Giorno and Bucciarati are always looking for solutions. They act as if everything can be fixed. However, there are times that Fugo isn’t looking for that and is put on edge with the feeling of something broken in him.

It extends.

Trish and Abbacchio are too monotone with advice. Acting as if he’s dull. Then it makes him wonder if he blew it out of proportion and is viewed as pathetic. Especially when Abbacchio used to be more strict on what a mafioso has to act like. 

Each way has its moment and time, but neither work for tonight. He’s looking for Mista. Collected, non–judgemental. With an air of whatever he says doesn’t leave this room nor change his perception of him. Someone who merely wants to listen, but how he reacts and what he says remains in Fugo’s control with his signals.

“They made a game of it.” Fugo finally speaks. Tone so soft and quiet. 

Mista glances up. His full attention is given once again. He waits.

“Touch.” Fugo breathes the answer. His knees slowly, and painfully pull up to his chest to hide the most vulnerable part of himself. His muscles pull tense to hide the shaking. “I’m going to need to work on my poker face with Abbacchio again.” He tries to joke, but his lip wobbles too much to form into a proper smile and his chuckle sounds dead.

“Do you?” Mista asks quietly, sitting up. Engaging by questions such as this gets Fugo to continue talking more than mindless reassurances do. It creates a more open space between them.

Fugo nods. “They saw the way it affected me. Even if it was just hits. They knew what I was afraid of. They threatened me that they would do it. That it might make me speak faster. They made it into this sick fucking game. They knew it would break my resolve faster. I need to work on controlling myself. Curbing those reactions.” 

“That’s not how it works.” Mista says softly. “The way the body reacts is out of your control. Didn’t you once say that to me–?” 

“I want to be in control!” Fugo screams, standing in rightful fury. The pain doesn’t register. When Mista stays silent, and doesn’t give in to the fight, his face drops. He looks away. “It’s–...It’s just not fair, Mista. Why do humans always resort to this?” The physical violence. In more ways than one. 

Mista looks away himself. “I don’t know–...It’s the power. They get pleasure from the power because of the pain they inflict.”

“Degrade you. Make you feel less than. With what they say. What they do. Not a person. Your body is just theirs.” Fugo grits. His figure comes to curl into itself as his arms cross around his chest. His hands desperately gripped the fabric as if to glue it to his skin. A quick glance shows that the drawstrings of his pajama pants are pulled so tight they dig into his pale, battered skin. They cut off the rise of his stomach and irritate the bruises. A series of multiple complicated knots ties the strings together. 

Mista’s seen it all before. It doesn’t surprise him. Fugo had tried to explain it once. It brought more security. A hope that they, an invisible force born from trauma and paranoia telling him that anyone would hurt him would…give up when the strings wouldn’t come undone. A habit they’ve been desperate for him to break when the skin around his waist would constantly need to be cared for with the lacerations that would come from the dig in his skin.

With a sorrowful sigh, Fugo collapses to the floor. His anger gone. “I wish I could have another body. One more clean.” 

Mista’s swallow is thick. “I know you do.” He whispers. It hurts when it feels like there’s nothing else he can give when there’s nothing that can take away the pain. 

They fall into heavy silence after that. Fugo reflects over the weight of what he has revealed over his time in captivity. Unsure if it was the correct motion, or if he was ready to. He can’t take it back. His arms wrap tighter around his chest as if to shield himself. His face wavers with a look of relief and regret at the same time. He glances back towards Mista, who keeps his expression open. There’s something more.

“You can tell me.” He reassures him lightly. “It won’t leave this room, if that’s your decision.” 

Fugo swallows. His mind wavers, but ultimately he speaks before he can think. “There was a night that I was convinced I was going to die…or, well, not convinced when I nearly did.” He admits. His stomach falling like a stone.

Mista’s is just the same. 

“Did your life flash before your eyes?” He ponders curiously, somehow assuming that’s where it will go. Another moment of Fugo’s past. He's not that far off.

“No. It was more like…You get to be in a memory. Just one. I guess one that’s significant. Or close to the date of your death, however many years ago the memory was. I was in our old townhouse. At the dining table. It was someone’s birthday. The strange thing is, you’re the only one in the memory. Of course, you hear it playing out. The voices, the words, all the background noise that comes with it, but no one is truly there but you. I guess it’s supposed to be serene. It actually made me mad. I knew that I was dead, or at least dying, and it felt like it was bullshit that I couldn’t see you all one last time.” 

Mista stares in quiet awe. He’s been shot a plethora of times before. Close to death himself, yet he never experienced such a sight. In a way, it fascinates him despite the cold chill it brings.

“It didn’t feel fair. After that feeling of rage, I just bided my time.” He shrugs. “There was nothing I could do. So, I just started saying anything I could. I told Bucciarati who Giorno was. How the boss was truly like. I apologized to Narancia for leaving him alone the way I did. I know it hurt him the most. I told Abbacchio that they’ll leave him alone on the beach of Sardinia. That he should insist on having someone watch his back.” He falls silent. His eyes bore into Mista’s frame.

“What did you tell me?” 

“To drag me on the boat. That when given the choice, I won't get on. I’ll be too scared to move. You should drag me on.” 

Mista sighs. “You still feel guilty.” He points out. “We told you–”

“Not all of it was about the boss and the mission. My guilt was just an extension. I said anything that I could come up with. I didn’t know what would come next, I didn’t want to leave anything unsaid. I didn’t know what was meant to come after. Darkness? I just cease to exist? Is there any type of afterlife? I’m unsure. I never got an answer. He used his Stand to pull me back from the edge. To heal me. He needed me alive, after all, for the ransom. It was just another sick game at the same time.” 

Mista’s breath catches in his throat through it all. It nearly feels as if it chokes him.

“He teetered me on the edge relentlessly. For fun.” 

“I’m sorry.” Mista whispers. “I’m so sorry, Fugo–” 

“For what? You didn’t do it.”

“I don’t think we did enough. We shouldn’t have let you go alone, we shouldn’t have waited so long, we shouldn’t–”

“Mista.” Fugo cuts him off. His eyes are gentle. “You did just enough.”

He sucks in a harsh breath, unable to look at his friend’s beaten face. “You believe so?” 

“I know so.”

The two share a smile between them. Silently, Fugo scoots on the floor and points to the open side of his sleeping bag. A non-verbal request that Mista listens to when he sinks onto the floor and settles beside him.

“Can you tell me about them?” Fugo whispers suddenly when there's a long lull of silence. Both of their backs are pressed against the wall, and Mista glances at his face; his eyes have slipped shut, though his eyebrows remain furrow.

“What do you want to know?” Mista whispers back, a small smile pulling. “You practically know everything now.” 

“Anything.” He responds back. Just short of a plea. “Just anything that can stop the buzzing of my mind. Tell me how they met.” 

“Alright.” 

Fugo loves to hear stories about his family more than anyone should, but Mista never minds. It gives him a chance to talk about memories, and it gives Fugo a glimpse of a relatively normal family. One that he had yearned for himself. It brings him peace to know how Mista grew up, even if he resides in Passione currently. Even if he ended up just the same as them.

It gives him the sweetest smile. One that Mista will do anything to see because it’s better than the furrow in his brows and the permanent frown. Or the twist of ugly anger, the pinch of fear, and the scrunch of hatred towards himself. It’s better than any of that. So, he tells him how they met.

It’s some sappy story that would give Mista second hand embarrassment when his dad would tell him with a smile on his weary face. The way he fumbled his way through a date had been painful to hear, but Mista would be stifling his laughs all the same. He tells Fugo specific memories, anything he can remember, and he knows that it’s working the way he hopes when that sweet smile appears and Fugo’s face goes sleepy, but peaceful.

“–He got her one of those pink stones…Rose Quartz! That’s what it was. It means love like you would expect. A protective shield, in a spiritual sense. Connected to the heart chakra. It was perfect for them.” 

He smiles to himself. His childhood has its less than perfect moments.

The balance between being the oldest was muddled in certain moments. Days where his parents viewed him as an extra caretaker of the house. It burned him out. Caused a strained. Though there had been a try for growth. They had been apologetic and tried to make amends. To take the weight off his shoulders with a relization that he shouldn't bear it. It’s just that there were stumbles.

That’s the way life is. No one can ever be perfect, but damn if it didn't burn. In his final year he lived there, it had been more violative. Always with a hope they could come back from it, but Mista feared returning home some nights. A disappearance that had stretched on all in the name to avoid his parents.

He never got to go home when he was incarcerated. 

That had been another feat to come back from. Months of silence before it hit a year, and was only ended when in the aftermath after April; Mista flew off the radar. Call him pathetic for running to his parents, but he just needed them. After all, he was just barely 18. It’s a relationship trying to become better.

“You know any other gemstones’ meanings?” Fugo asks quietly in the lull of silence found from Mista’s reminiscing. A smile still on his face. “Without knowing, both Bucciarati and Abbacchio want to get each other promise rings. They want me to help. To come shopping with them. You could tell me what to look for.”

Mista smiles. A strong warmth in his chest. “That’s fast.”

Fugo shrugs. “It’s a promise ring. Not an engagement one. Besides, they’ve been together for nearly three years.” His smile dips slightly. “I think that they’re scared of losing one another.” 

Mista can’t blame them.

“When did they meet?” He asks instead.

“May, but they got together in January.”

Mista hums. “Heard you were partially behind that.”

“Their flirting was annoying. The way they danced around one another was painful. Sue me for telling them to get a move on, Bucciarati’s lecture over appropriate behavior be damned.”

Mista laughs lightly. “Well, Emerald is the stone for May. It’s supposed to symbolize rebirth and renewal, though it goes more personal with its symbol of devotion and harmony. Then there’s Garnet for January. It symbolizes love, passion, all that comes with, you know? Trust, commitment. You lose a few points with it’s symbolizing friendship at the same time.” 

“All those meanings, just to have it symbolize that you’re great friends?” Fugo scoffs at the oddity. “What would you suggest, then?”

“Well, there’s Amethyst–” 

“That’s my birthstone. Don’t you fucking dare.”

Mista has to bite his tongue to hold back that laugh. If he needs a way to ruin Fugo’s life in the upcoming weeks, then he knows how. He calms the shaking of his shoulders from the suppressed laughs. 

Fugo rolls his eyes, holding back his own chuckle. The air is light between them. It settles over Fugo. It’s better than the tense atmosphere congealing in Bucciarati and Abbacchio’s room. The stiff hands that helped to wash away the dirt of captivity and bandage the harsher injuries had only been attached to a look of guilt that Bruno tried to keep at bay. Even though he smiled every time he and Fugo locked eyes, Fugo wasn’t blind. He saw it as clear as day. 

“Moonstone.” Mista breaks through his thoughts with an earnest tone. “Suggest Moonstone.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. I mean, for couples, it’s a symbol for a deep connection. All that sappy love shit that Bucciarati will eat up. Abbacchio too, but he won’t ever admit to it. Emotional balance, harmony, unity, love, it has it all. Giorno showed it to me once.” 

Fugo hums, taking it all in mind. “You better not be bullshitting me.” 

“In your condition? I’ll wait a week or two before I piss you off. Narancia won’t be that kind, though.” 

Fugo rolls his eyes, though a smile is still on his face. He doesn’t say anything more when he shifts to lie down. Mista could call it the night right there. Take a page from Fugo’s book, and stand to return to his bed with the prospect of sleep, but he stays seated. 

He stares down at Fugo’s frame and decides that he doesn’t want to leave anything unsaid on a night like this. Much like Fugo had said earlier.

“I’m proud of you.” He whispers ever so softly. A wispy sort of breath that he wonders over if it is understandable. Nonetheless, it makes Fugo crack an eye open. 

“For what?” He croaks, trying to stifle a yawn. Mista nearly has to laugh at how dense he can be. For what? Can’t Fugo see? It’s clear as day, at least to him.

“You came to me. For help. You knew you didn’t want to be alone. So, I’m proud of you.” He has to be when they have spent years trying to drill it into his head to not hide from them. To not bottle up anything. Now it pays off.

“Mista–” 

“It’s not just tonight that I’m talking about. Maybe you haven't realized it, but you’ve been reaching out more.”

Fugo pauses. “I’ve been trying. It’s just…hard, some days. Like my brain can’t force myself to move. It’s because it’s scared of the reactions, I think.”

“It is. Hard too.” Mista concedes. “But it’s worth it. You look more calm.” His eyes have this light in them.

Fugo looks away. His eyebrows scrunch once more. He’s always struggled with being viewed positively. 

“They would love you.” He blurts.

It stirs a look of confusion over Fugo. “Who?”

“My mama and papa. They would love you so much. The others too.”

Fugo stiffens. “No.” He breathes. “They wouldn’t. They would hate everything about me.”

Mista shakes his head. “They would love you.” He repeats firmly. “They would look at you as their own. They’re getting better.”

The sound that comes out of Fugo can only be described as utterly heartbroken and devastated. A small, quiet noise that may have gone unnoticed, but Mista has always tried his best to catch everything about the others. There’s no tears, but Fugo looks as if he’s been punched.

“You look at yourself way too harshly, man.” 

“Someone has to. You all remain blind.” Fugo shudders.

“No. That’s you.” Mista laughs quietly, though it's far from funny. “You view yourself as something awful when it’s not true.”

“My anger–”

Here they go again.

“–Only makes up a small fragment of yourself. Can you give yourself some credit? It wouldn’t kill you, you know–” Ah shit. That’s not the correct phrase to have been used. 

He goes to fix his error when he’s surprised at the loud laugh that echoes. Fugo’s eyes glimmer entirely. 

“I don’t know how you consistently do that; pick the worst words in these moments.” He laughs. “If I say I believe you, will you end it here?”

“Only if you promise you do actually believe me.”

Fugo huffs with a light roll of his eyes. “Swear on my life.” He drawls dryly, that it has Mista hitting his leg lightly.

“Enough of that! No more life or death talk!”

Fugo draws a hand up to cover his mouth to hide the laughs that are continuing to bubble out. God, it means everything to Mista to hear that laugh and see that smile once again.

“Goodnight, Mista.” Fugo says softly. Another shift to lie down that has Mista taking his cue when he rises to return to his bed.

“Goodnight.” 

Of course, there’s nothing more for them to say. Fugo’s breaths even out, and Mista’s eyes flutter themself when his muscles relax against the soft throw of his mattress and Fugo has been in desperate need of sleep for a week. His body crashed out the minute his eyes closed. The events of the day weigh heavily on each of them in different weights.

A shuffle has his eyes crack open. It’s followed by an uncomfortable noise. Not from him. Glancing over, Mista can tell that Fugo isn’t comfortable where he lies. Too soon to be a nightmare, but another reason makes sense in Mista’s mind. 

With a war waging in his head, he sits back up. He stares down at Fugo’s form, curled tightly together, knees pressed to his chest despite his injuries and light puffs of air escaping him. Nearly wheezes. There’s a scrunch in his face, however, proving the uncomfortable feeling the floor has; especially against his injuries. 

Truthfully, Mista should know better, but before he can stop himself; he’s swinging his legs over the edge of his bed.

Silently, he crouches down. Then, like many nights before, he slowly inches Fugo into his arms to lift him up bridal style. There’s a slight jerk. His legs kick out and his head lulls back. Strong enough that Mista nearly lets him go and leaves this alone. Though all too quickly, he settles once more. Mista waits. Only when there’s no outward reaction of fear towards the touch does he shuffle back towards the bed.

The softness of the mattress has Fugo sighing. He curls into the warmth, even more so when Mista adjusts the blankets over him. Internally, he cheers that the plan worked out. Turning on his heels, he settles himself into the sleeping bag left behind. The twinge in his back is more than worth it when Fugo looks at peace.

Chapter Text

“GioGio?” He calls out.

The hallway feels cold in the wait for a response. A chill that seeps deep into his bones when there’s nothing. Just silence despite the noises given not even a second ago.

With a furrow of his eyebrows, he goes to twist the knob open. It gives by a crack, but that fragment slams to a forceful shut when someone forces it back. Mista by extension when he stumbles.

Before he can react, vines come from beneath the sliver of the door, blocking off any type of entrance when the foliage weaves together across the wood and wraps around the knob to keep its movements limited. Thorns grow in an extra layer of protection.

A sight that he has seen before, but only in the midst of battle when Giorno had gone to shield himself from an enemy blow. Does Giorno see him as much of the same? A threat? That burns his heart.

When there had been choking breaths that had nearly bordered into sobs that flowed down the hallway as if it was a haunted sort of melody, Mista had grown concerned. It had been as if a ghost had been calling out in sorrowful pain.

Ultimately, it’s not a rare sound. With the way they have all grown up, the memories have an unsavory way of becoming the most horrifying nightmares. A range between cries echoing through the rooms, screams piercing from down the hall, or a mere click of a bedroom light that follows with eerie silence and sleepless eyes in the early morning light when breakfast comes. It never fails to spark that glint of worry in Mista’s heart every time he hears a sound out of the ordinary. 

You never know the state that you'll find them in on a rough night. He's seen it all.

From Fugo's self-harm towards himself. To Trish needing time to collect her thoughts. To Narancia lashing out physically when he mistakes one of his family members as someone else in the midst of the nightmare. Even to Abbacchio sitting dissociated or drinking himself to sickness to escape it all. 

Then there's Bucciarati, who will never admit that there is anything wrong with him. The strained smile, and puffy eyes will say enough, but anything further will receive Mista a snap and his boss hiding behind a closed, locked office door. 

He doesn’t need to guess over who it is with the closeness of the sounds. With two bedrooms downstairs, and two more located in another hallway opposite of his own. The sound can travel, but not in such a way as this. It leaves only one person left. The only person who had been quick to claim the room closest to Mista.

Mista never imagined a best friend such as Giorno.

Someone who is so quiet, nearly subdued in a way. Blank face and emotionless. Boarding on cold if you don’t know his tellings well enough. In the beginning, he had found him odd. His silence. His icy green eyes that feel like a cold drip of water down your back when he pierces you with his gaze. There was only that silent determination he could see. Someone who was only focused on their mission. 

All of it was odd compared to the others.

None of them walk on eggshells. Yet, it’s all that Giorno knows how to do. He tries to make himself small and that notion unnoticeable, and at first; Mista couldn’t notice those strange behaviors. Not when Giorno had seem so perfect. However, there always remains tells. A guard to be let down that proved Giorno was more than emotionless.

When the dust of Diavolo settled; Mista only had Trish and Giorno left by his side. None of them were the same. That much was clear. Especially Mista, who felt as if he lost himself and his voice in that final moment inside of the colosseum. He could only stand there static when his breath felt as if it was stolen from him. Everything felt as if it was stolen from him. Merely numb. 

Through it all, Giorno had tried to be there. The quietness in his voice was gentle. It eased the buzz in Mista’s mind at least by a fraction. It brought back some feeling. Though, he had still run to his childhood home when push came to shove and he needed a reprieve. An escape. 

Even then, in the days that he was gone; it was Giorno who had come to find him. Without a trace of judgment. With no view that his upcoming right–hand man was pathetic. Unwilling of a high position in Passione. 

Giorno always proved to be there. 

Speaking to him calmly from where he sat in Mista’s childhood bedroom, while the other surely looked like a mess. It wasn’t to urge him to return to Passione at once, but to grant him an option. He could easily provide him a leave. Mista didn’t take it.

He stayed. Promised his loyalty to both Bucciarati and Giorno as they upheld the highest positions. Took his role as bodyguard very seriously. Even when Giorno had to heal him from every injury he sustained in their job, he had reassured him that it was never a bother when Mista had muttered about being a casualty. 

He had even gone so far as to mediate for his fear of the number four. To keep any mention of it away from him. If Mista was about to be the fourth person, Giorno would take his place. Items never came in groups of fours. The odd fear was never a tease from him.

He's done so much for him. As such, Mista doesn’t hesitate to stand from his bed to be there for him.

His footsteps are light against the floorboards. His knock on the bedroom door is soft. Though, all at once, the noises fall into a deathly silence. He waits, but there’s no response.

It brings him back to now, staring at the vines that twist around the wooden frame.

“Come on, Giorno. I know it was you. I just want to help.” He tries to plead, but the silence only continues. Any type of previously choked breathing is muffled. “Can you let me in?” 

Another interlude of silence, and Mista has to wonder if there was a better way to phrase it all. To go about this. Maybe play pretend. Maybe if he would have made it seem as if he was the one who had a problem when he knows well enough that Giorno would open the door in an instance to check on him. 

Yet, he knows better than to lie when switching the tables on Giorno can lead to a whole other problem. There’s a line that he has to toe when it comes to his best friend. Mista knows that if he pushes too far, then he risks being iced out. That the tentative way Giorno has already slowly opened up will shut back down. He can’t risk it, so he tries to stay patient.

Even when it feels like he waits forever and a part of him dies at the strong hesitation.

“Should I get Bucciarati?” He tries instead. His voice is quiet. He tries to keep the disheartened tone from his infliction when he’s aware of the bond between Bucciarati and Giorno. If Giorno feels safer with him, then so be it, and Mista will accept it. As long as Giorno has someone, he finds that’s all he wants.

However, Giorno must view it as a threat when the vines triple in growth over the door. As if that can keep zippers away.

“I’m not getting him.” Mista tries to amend right away. “It’s only if you want me to. I…I just know that something’s wrong, Giorno, and I don’t want you to be alone.” 

Truthfully, Mista can never understand the stubbornness. The caution that he held towards them when he had people waiting for him. To offer care towards him in each of their own ways. More than shown by the warm way they talk to him or the caring way they look at him. 

He had hoped it could count. That it was visible to see. 

Though he also couldn’t begrudge Giorno for being wary of them. He’s hurt. That much is clear on its own. He’s unable to distinguish over what is genuine. As such, he grows more fearful over their attempts. A fear of it all being turned against him if he accepts. 

It’s all so visible to Mista, but Giorno continues to push it all to the side and pretend as if everything is normal. That he’s okay even when they all witness tired eyes from sleepless nights, the shake of his hunched shoulders when he pushes himself too far for the work of Passione, or the way he flinches at a sudden motion, but it’s followed by rigid posture as if to brace himself for a strike.

He only brushes them all off with a small smile that is merely strained.

Just as Mista goes to accept that tonight won’t be the night where Giorno accepts the offered help, the vines drop to the floor. They shrivel into themselves before they wither away or crumble into dead pieces. However so, it is access that is given to Mista. With a ray of hope flickering in his eyes and a lighted up heart, Mista goes to open the door.

Inside, Giorno lies on the floor. A crumbled position that has him turned to his side. His hand twists into the strands of the carpet as his body shakes pitifully against it. His legs twitch out with uncontrolled kicks, and his back arches away from a phantom touch. From behind him, Gold Experience sits next to him. A gentle hand on the small of his back as if to steady him.

Mista watches in silence, gauging the situation before he intends to help. He knows better than to make a guess and stress Giorno out with a ton of questions. Instead, he waits for context clues and decides to narrow down his list of questions from there. 

Gold Experience is trying to heal him, he realizes. The gentle hand is trying to force life force energy to heal whatever injury the Stand believes that Giorno has, despite the lack of physical evidence. The Stand looks stressed from watching their user in such pain. They try to press closer, but Giorno only shifts away with a small shake of his head. 

“It won’t work like that, Gold–” He whispers. His voice is a painful croak before it cuts off with a strangled noise as his eyes clenched shut and his teeth grit together at the rippling of pain. There’s a heartbroken noise from Gold Experience as they watch him. 

Silently, the door clicks shut. While Giorno doesn’t move, Gold Experience snaps their head at the noise. Their expression goes into pleading, desperate for him to help their user. For a moment, he wonders if it was truly Giorno who caved in and let the vines drop, or if Gold Experience did it themselves while he was distracted. 

Regardless, Mista comes to sit next to him. 

He waits until Giorno opens his eyes. When the moment passes, he’s met with a green fog that struggles to remain steady on him. He shifts to allow his face to become more visible. Despite what he tries to conceal, Mista can see how puffy his eyes are. Red–rimmed with held back tears he will never admit to. Matched with the gasping breaths that he tries to hide by the clench of his jaw. 

His hand tightens further against the carpet before slowly, Mista pries it away to let him hold his. Giorno jerks, but doesn’t pull away. 

“Your scars hurting again?” He asks in a low murmur, as if he speaks to a spooked animal when Giorno very much reminds him of one at times. 

Giorno continues to stare at him. Whatever emotion he held previously on his face is long gone when it turns itself to stone. He steals himself in front of Mista’s very eyes, despite the way he can see the pain clearly reflected. Mista doesn’t back away, though. He stays silent. His eyes intent on Giorno’s fallen frame. He knows how to play this game if he just waits long enough. If he stays patient, then–

“They burn.” 

He’s right. He played his cards just right by mere silence, a stare, and a warm hand clutching Giorno’s. Despite the wall he tried to gather, his resolve had slipped by an inch when he had given in with a nod and two quiet words. A voice that tries to remain strong, but Mista can hear the wobble of it. 

“I can’t get my shirt off. I can barely lift my arms.”

Mista hums at the honesty with a small smile and a squeeze to Giorno’s hand. The boy tries to give one back himself, but it’s weaker when it doesn’t last for long before going slack once more with the exhaustion that runs through his veins. Giorno had never said it, but it was clear that he yearned for affection. Craved it. Mista can give him that. Even if he doesn’t say it.

However, the answer makes another question grow in his mind. “Why didn’t you go to Bucciarati so he could get the salve on?” He wonders if he tried, seeing as he seemingly fell from his bed. 

Giorno stays quiet. Which, in a way, Mista had already expected.

He's seen the raised, rough texture that runs in jagged lines down his back, some that cross over older ones. They’re pale, and slightly faded, but always there. The phantom pain always feels as if they’re their once fresh and angry red lines that dripped with hot blood to stain the floor.

Scars that were done by the hands of his step–father with the use of a belt or a cable cord. Giorno was sure the man had painfully used anything he could get his hands on against him.

They weren’t meant to know. It makes Giorno sick that they do.

It had been a fluke. Giorno had been unconscious after a mission, and Bucciarati had been intent on closing his wounds with the use of Sticky Fingers. Time had been more than valuable when the wounds covered nearly every inch of him. As such, Bruno hadn’t hesitated to roll him over to his stomach to check on the ones that were surely done to his back.

His eyes had originally glanced over the marred scarring. His only focus was on the fresh wounds covering Giorno and his well–being. It wasn’t until Narancia and Trish had let out noises of surprise that he realized.

Though no one could bring themselves to speak.

Especially when Fugo and Abbacchio had taken it upon themselves to cover Giorno from view as Bruno worked. The two knew that the boy wouldn’t have wanted them to be seen, though it had already been far too late.

Much like it was too late to not mention them. 

When Giorno had awoken, and his injuries had come up in conversation, all he had to do was take one look at Bruno before he knew. It was all out in the open now. No one knew how that private conversation started, but they knew how it ended when Giorno had uncharacteristically stormed out of his room and out the back door to his garden despite his injuries. 

Bruno was left sitting on the empty bed with his head in his hands when Mista had caught a glimpse in the aftermath of the argument. His face was questioning, but Bruno had merely shaken his head before standing to move past him. He was never able to ask when they both remained so cold about the topic.

However, in the weeks of silence and at Abbacchio’s intervention; there had been an understanding between each other. An agreement when the discovery had made certain things come to realization.

The pain that Giorno would experience and the limited range of muscle movements during a flare–up. Sometimes, much like tonight, he can’t lift his arms. Other times, he can barely walk. Forced to writhe on the floor in pain unless he calls for help. Most of the time, he doesn’t. Instead, he forces himself to stay silent with the self–conscious belief towards any type of help or care they want to give towards him.

Exactly what tonight is. Mista can already tell.

“You know that he doesn’t like to see you in pain.” Mista whispers the helpful reminder.

The deal was that when there was a flare–up upcoming, then Bruno would have a salve for him to ease the pain for him. It falls on Giorno to come to him. Tonight, he doesn’t. Once again.

“I tried.” Giorno confirms quietly. “Then my knees buckled, and…Bucciarati is tired.” He finally sighs after a brief silence of being unable to speak. Unsure of what to say. How to explain himself. His voice nearly spooks Mista when it keeps that same wispy infliction it’s always in. 

Mista stares at him incredulously. Seriously? That’s the excuse? The thoughts must be reflected on his face when Giorno sighs and forces himself to continue on in explanation.

“I cannot keep bothering him with this, Guido. As the Don, he is exhausted with the responsibilities he bears for our organization, and a large fraction of the country. After that meeting today, I do not wish to wake him when he has finally gotten the rest that he needs.” Giorno’s eyes dart away. The ‘I don’t want to be a bother’ kept silent.

Even so, Mista hears it and he scoffs. “It only bothers him more when you bottle this shit up and refuse to tell him anything.” 

He wonders if that was a poor choice of words when Giorno’s eyes flash with guilt. His face doesn’t drop, nor does it truly reflect that notion. It keeps itself stone, but Mista sees the tension in his shoulders all the same. He squeezes his hand tighter.

“I didn’t mean–” He tries.

“I know.” Giorno brushes him away. His voice is just as cold.

They fall into a lull of silence. There’s a prickle of irritation that comes over Mista that he bites his tongue to keep down. 

If this were anyone else, it would be easy.

Mista doesn’t know where Giorno falls on the spectrum in confidence. He never does. There’s a belief that he has learned to read Giorno quite well, but there are so many nights where any type of emotion is kept firmly under a lock and key. Nights where he feels like he’s a thousand miles away from Giorno and knows nothing about him.

It’s a notion that annoys him the most, and usually he can grit his teeth easily and remind himself to take this at Giorno’s discretion, but tonight something he thinks slips from between his lips.

“Why do you never show your emotions?” 

Giorno freezes immediately. His posture pulls more rigidly. His body curls in on itself, and he tears his hand away from Mista. 

“I can assure you–” 

“Don’t,” Mista murmurs his shut down easily with a solemn shake of his head. “You know what I mean. You know that I’m right, GioGio. You say that you show enough, that the words you say matter the most than what’s on your face, but it’s not true. Not when you hide. It’s only a mask. You hide because you’re scared. Because you don’t want to be hurt again, but you don’t realize that we would never do anything to hurt you. You won’t allow yourself to believe it.” 

Giorno shudders. His eyes refuse to look at Mista’s. The words look as if they’re painful to Mista. They feel even more so to Giorno.

“Even Gold Experience knows.” Mista gestures towards his Stand, who has remained by his side the whole time with heartbroken features over the way their user hides. 

Giorno clenches his eyes shut at that. His eyebrows scrunching together. Another wave of pain that runs through him, but Mista knows that it’s followed by something else. A deeper set of emotions that he tries not to allow himself to acknowledge. 

“I know.” He finally croaks. His voice kept terribly strained, and it feels like it had left him before he could allow it the chance. Sparing some vulnerability, even if Giorno looks like a part of himself dies. “Yet it doesn’t make it any easier, Guido.” 

“Maybe…especially when you won’t take that step.” 

Giorno cracks his eyes open with a heated glare. Gold Experience goes rigid. Now Mista stands too close to the line. He has to choose his words carefully, lest Gold Experience turns against him for making their user uncomfortable and insulting them.

“You know that I’m right. You’re just making excuses. You always do; ‘Bucciarati’s tired,’, ‘Panna is busy,’, ‘Trish doesn’t want to hear it,’, ‘Mista just feels obligated as a bodyguard,’. All of those are excuses that you have said at one point or another–”

“If you only intend to analyze me at this moment, I would prefer you to leave.”

Mista’s jaw snaps closed. He knows that he means it. The last time Fugo had tried to speak to him like this, he had gone too far, and got dragged out of his office by vines. Mista doesn’t feel like adorning the same fate.

They come to a standstill. Both of them are silent. Each of them are set in their own ways. Mista wishes to ease this, but it’s not in the way that he wants. He teeters over the line, but braces himself that he won’t land the way he intends. So, he takes a step back. He tries this a different approach. One that is more entailed to Giorno than a mere dissection of the core of his behavior.

“Can you walk?” Mista asks suddenly. He uses context clues. Giorno’s knees may have buckled to send him sprawling, but he was still intent on going to Bucciarati until his cynical thoughts got to him.

He proves himself right when Giorno silently nods. 

Mista smiles. “Want to go to the garden?”

The garden is purely Giorno’s and everyone knows it from the amount of care and attention that he puts into it. Lush and grand, it remains his pride and joy. It’s not rare to see Giorno out there with his tools, or lounging with Bucciarati on the outdoor furniture that the man had bought for him.

Mista, admittedly, loves to join him. To hear him discuss his love for plants and animals. To hear him give fun facts over the abundance of wildlife. There’s a light in his eyes. A special kind of passion that lights his.

An enjoyment that tends to decrease when Giorno orders him into manual work, and Mista has half the mind to beg Bucciarati to stop buying him supplies and furniture in the means to spoil him when Mista will have to be the one to carry it all.

Giorno goes there for many reasons, and sometimes it can be when he’s overwhelmed.

The way Giorno perks up tries to be kept subdued. Much like the rest of him. However, Mista sees it all the same and lights up himself.

“Here, let me help you.” He shifts forward with the intent to pull Giorno up, but the boy practically shrinks away. Mista levels him a look. “GioGio.” He murmurs. “Let me help.” 

The two maintain a stare down. So much so that Mista nearly goes to look at Gold Experience to have them help when, silently, Giorno nods. 

Mista keeps a hold of his hand as they walk downstairs. The pace kept slow to keep Giorno upright. He can tell that Giorno has his own thoughts on it, but he keeps silent with a clench of his jaw and lets Mista fill the quiet while they walk. When he opens the backdoor, he keeps his eyes on Giorno to see his reaction. It’s always a welcomed sight.

The way the tension in his body leaves him at the fresh breeze against his features. Cool against his skin with the blonde strands of his hair flowing gently behind him. The way his eyes slowly have that glimmer return to them at the sight of what he works so hard to maintain. With the vibrant palette of colours reflected in the flowers and the low buzz of the cicadas off in the distance. His one escape from the life of the mafia and the harsh memories of his childhood.

It’s always been this way, Mista reminds himself.

There had been one evening where the two had sat together on the stone bench when Mista had asked what sparked the interest in gardening when Gold Experience can easily grow any plant that Giorno wants. Regardless of season, location, and to a degree, climate restrictions. He wouldn’t have to wait for them to bloom.

Giorno had fallen silent. A gentle breeze surrounded them that felt as if they were in their own bubble that was far away from the rest. Up close, Mista could see the emotions that flickered through Giorno. The quiet thought process. Then he spoke, even if it was just a small fragment.

A neighbor with a beautiful garden. Someone who had given a small portion of kindness towards him that his mother and step–father couldn’t give.

Another notion that only burns. His parents. 

Giorno had never needed to go into detail over them. Not a single word would need to be said about them for their group to know. It’s so apparent. A clear picture painted of his childhood.

To Fugo and Narancia, who had been neglected themselves. To Mista, who had to grow up early himself. To Abbacchio, who had grown used to the countless heartbreaking cases of child abuse during his time in the police force. He knew what signs to look for, no matter how hidden, and he had seen them all in Giorno the longer they lived together. Even to Bruno, who had seen the effects of each of their childhoods and knew that Giorno was very much the same, despite the perfect persona he tries to display.

It serves as a branch of anger.

“I kind of want to kill your parents,” Mista says suddenly in a cool tone that has Giorno snapping his head towards him to see if he’s heard correctly. 

“Excuse me?” He tilts his head as he comes back towards Mista, having moved forward with the want to roam between the flower beds, although his knees buckle once more. As always, Mista comes closer to steady him on his feet. His hands are gentle from where they cup his elbows to help. A feathery light touch that can be retracted should it become too much for Giorno. 

“It’s just…I know that you’re scared to think of it, but I’m seeing the aftermath. Everything they left behind, and it nearly feels as if it kills me. Holding this back, refusing our help, it’s going to kill you. There’s nothing wrong when it comes to vulnerability, you know? We all show it in one way or another. Even Abbacchio’s grumpy ass.” 

Giorno stares at him blankly. Yet, his expression is pinched. In such a way that lets Mista know that there’s a fraction of his words that are beginning to get to him when everything is far too much for the night. He’s on edge and Mista keeps pushing.

There’s a small shudder before he darts his gaze away towards the stones of the pavement, willing to pull himself back together. To not appear weak. To not appear pathetic.

Even though Mista’s words are urging for the opposite and reassuring him that there’s nothing wrong with letting himself go. So, he takes a further step. All with good intentions. To release the tension in Giorno’s figure.

“You can let go with us,” He says easily. His voice still kept quiet. A spooked animal, he tells himself. He can urge himself to have patience. “We’ll be here.” 

For a moment, Giorno only continues to stare at him. Then slowly, ever so slowly, Mista can see the way the emotions desperate to come out begin to fill his eyes.

The pain. The restlessness. All shown by the want for relief. Or the need for sleep. To finally rest.

His shoulders shake. His chest jumps as the tears begin to well. Even then, Giorno still tries to fight himself. He blinks them back repeatedly, but they still continue to come back, and before he can stop himself; there’s a sliver of a drop that runs down his pale cheek, reflected in the moonlight.

Giorno gasps quietly to himself at the feeling. Shakily, he reaches a hand up to touch his cheek. As if he’s surprised. For what? Mista doesn’t quite know. Is it because he let go? Allowed himself that want of release and vulnerability? Even if by a small fraction? Or is it that he can even cry? Used to suppressing his emotions for so long that he forgot what the human body is meant to show? 

Whatever it may be. Whatever he is thinking, Mista smiles encouragingly. “There you go.” 

It’s eerie to watch someone cry with a relatively blank face. To see the way that one solo tear travels down his cheek with no scrunch in his features, tremble of his lips, or pinch of his eyebrows. As if he’s a corpse. As if he’s just learning how to feel. In the end, maybe he is.

A heartbreaking thought to think further into, but Mista only has a look of pride attached to him.

Silently, Giorno comes closer to him. A clear request that he can’t bear to articulate, though Mista sees it all the same when he doesn’t hesitate to pull him close.

Then, the dam breaks. Everything that he held back for years finally releases. It starts with a soft sob. Then they turn into howls that become muffled when Giorno buries his face into his shoulder. The anguish is still audible. He presses closer to Mista, clutching him like a lifeline. As if he’ll float away without holding him through the storm. 

The craving for affection had always been noticeable. He could never ask, though he had his tells. 

He would light up when someone got close enough. 

When Bruno would sit next to him on the patio sofa. Warmth radiating off of him through a sunny voice and a glimmer in his eyes as he allowed himself to rest whilst gently nudging Giorno to fill the silence for him with his talks over his garden.

Moments where he and Abbacchio would sit in comfortable silence in either the living room or makeshift library. A book in each of their hands.

Even when he and Fugo would sit side–by–side, their bodies nearly pressing together as one will silently listen to the other passionately explain an interest. The two growing closer to one another in an instance.

He would preen at touch, just as much, despite being fearful to seek it out on his own. The others made up for it. 

Narancia would hold his hand. Sometimes pull him against him. All whilst talking excitedly to him, a chitter of noise that never seems to bother Giorno when he listens with genuine patience and interest.

Trish is nearly the same when she would lean against him on days where she is tired, her head on his shoulder. Coinciding with how she would care for his hair or nails.

All the while, Mista wouldn’t hesitate to sling his arm over Giorno’s shoulder, beaming when he wouldn’t be shoved away with Giorno’s quite scolding of how he’s supposed to appear respectable in public. In the privacy of their home, it was a free game.

So, just the same, Mista allows him that want when he keeps him steady. Pulled snug against him with quiet murmurs gentle in his ear, filling the night air.

“I’ve got you, GioGio.”

The sound that comes from Giorno is nothing short of wounded.

“I– I hate them so m–much–!” Giorno chokes out through the waves of sobs. “What they did to me–” His words are broken down between choked and breathless gasps.

The scars paint a thousand pictures. Giorno could never rid them from his skin, no matter how strongly Gold Experience was intent on healing them. 

He may feel pathetic. Like this isn’t the way a gangster, a consigliere, or heir to Don should act, for fuck’s sake, but he neglects the fact that he is only 15–years–old. Mista reminds him all the same.

“We’re not like them.” Mista reassures him. “You don’t have to fear us. Or hide. Shove everything down until it feels like it chokes you. Aren’t you tired of all the masks?”

Giorno pulls away. As if he burns; wiping at his face, practically clawing at his cheeks to rid the evidence. “I’m supposed to be–” 

“–With us, you’re just supposed to be Giorno.” Silence falls. “That’s it. That’s all we need you to be. You can let go. You can rely on us, because we’re your friends; your family, whichever way you are ready to look at us.” 

Giorno has heard those words before. When his mother had married, and he had stood off to the side while the photographer ushered them to pose. He held himself the way his mother had taught. The usual phrase goes that children should be seen, not heard, but for Giorno it was both. He stayed quiet and kept himself in the summer shadows. Only for that man; his new father, his mother would remind him, to approach him with the same sentiment that he viewed him as family. That they were a unit now.

Giorno had believed him. With shiny eyes, he thought that he was finally cared for. That maybe his new father could make his mother love him if he himself did. 

Yet, the rug was pulled from underneath him. They sneered at him for believing such a thing. Love wasn't an intended basis for Giorno. He was never fit for it.

Why should Giorno proceed to get his hopes up again? 

His face pulls into one of stone. His eyes are heated. All the progress Mista made is pushed away when Giorno still can’t allow himself the notion of believing him, despite the tears lingering in his eyes, the tracks against his cheeks, and the puffiness of his eyes that already have shown too much. 

“Why?” He whispers in the most bitter voice that Mista has ever heard. “What do you get out of it?” To use against him? To sneer or laugh? Prove him weak and have a riot that he was naïve.

Mista shrugs. He doesn’t look put off. Instead, he looks honest in all of what he says, but so did his step–father. “Nothing. You just do so when you love someone.” 

Giorno pauses. Love? He’s…loved? 

“Out of anyone here, you should know.” 

He does. He would do anything for this family he has tentatively allowed himself to grow closer to, even though he feels as if he’s on the sidelines to no fault of their own. It just feels that their kindness is an obligation to him and born merely from respect for his position and the Stand he holds. 

"Love?" He croaks out. His shoulders shake. More tears fall. 

Mista smiles slightly, watching the thousands of emotions flicker through him. Confusion. Shock. Fear. Then, finally, there’s a small glimpse of warmth that has a small smile form. 

"Yes. Love." 

Giorno stares. Mouth agape. Tears flowing like a flood. The first time he's ever been told something like this. He sobs. Mista pulls him back into his arms. 

"What's a flower that means love?" Mista asks. His eyes falling on the garden. 

Giorno chuckles wetly. "There are so many. Though they say that Pink Verbena symbolizes family union." 

"I'll take it." 

They fall into a lull of silence with the outdoors creating it's own ambiance that could lure them to sleep if they so choose, but Mista knows that Bucciarati would lecture them for the notion of sleeping outside if he found them on the patio furniture once again. The reminder of the man brings another step he wants to nudge Giorno to take.

“Now,” Mista speaks as he levels him with a soft look. “Will you allow yourself to go to Bucciarati?”

Giorno hesitates once more, so much so that Mista has to bite back a curse that he may have pushed too soon. That the mask was only partially pulled away, but still easily within grasp. However, the tension seeps from him when the boy nods, albeit shy, and he outstretches his hand in a silent request.

Mista can give him that easily.

He has Mista knock on the bedroom door, unable to bring himself too with the amount of nerves still coursing through his veins. Giorno shakes the whole wait, fighting with himself to stay in place and keep the notion concealed. Mista’s face softens as he watches. He squeezes his hand, letting him grip as tightly as he needs to. 

When the door opens to reveal Abbacchio, Giorno only pales further. Of course, he too tries to keep the reaction all under wraps with his normal, cold exterior. 

“What the hell do you want?” Leone groans, his voice thick with sleep. “It’s midnight, for fuck’s sakes, don’t you bother us enough during the day?” 

It’s said in his normal tone. Gruff and monotone, but without any real bite. However, it makes Giorno practically regress in his steps when he pulls his hand from Mista’s and turns to leave back down the hallway. Neither let him. Mista reaches out, and Leone steps to his side to move in front of him in a way to prevent him.

“Something’s wrong.” Leone answers for himself. The evidence was visible. He gazes down at Giorno with piercing eyes and a raised eyebrow. “Talk, kid.” 

Giorno doesn’t, so Mista does for him.

“His scars are hurting again.” Giorno gives him a look of betrayal that he pays no mind to. “He said that they burn, and he wasn’t able to lift his arms.” 

Abbacchio hums. He goes to speak, but Giorno cuts him off.

“The pain seems as if it has subsided.” He lies. His back burns horribly. “I believe–”

“Cut it.” Leone motions for him to zip his lips. Giorno’s jaw clicks shut, looking slightly miffed with a huff that Leone pays no mind to besides with a well–meaning glare. 

Mista leans closer to speak in his ear. “Don’t clam up now, Giorno.” 

Giorno lowers his head in defeat, no longer trying to pull away. Leone nods to neither in particular. 

“Alright, you know the drill. Salve, and you’ll stay the night with us.” 

There’s a movement of protest, always the notion on his lips that he doesn’t want to be a bother, but it never comes when Leone’s gaze gets heated at being questioned.

“You know how Bruno is. Better yet, you know how you are. If the pain worsens, you won’t come to us again; you’ll try to tough it out, and that’s not going to work here. I don’t want to hear another argument, understand?”

A nod.

“Good.” 

Mista smiles when Giorno finally allows Abbacchio to lead him into the older men’s bedroom. He stays in the doorway, silently watching for his own reassurance. 

Bucciarati groggily sits up at the noise. Mista can see the exhaustion reflected that Giorno had previously mentioned. There’s dark, heavy circles underneath his eyes and it looks as if it’s a fight to wake himself up fully. However, instead of an expression of annoyance, his face goes soft at the sight of Giorno as he ushers him close while Abbacchio moves towards the in–suite bathroom for what they need.

“I’m sorry.” Giorno whispers as he stands at the bedside. 

Bruno only shushes him gently as he tugs him to sit on the bed and lean against him while careful of the scars. “You can’t control it.” He murmurs. “It’s not a bother in the slightest, Giorno, just what you do for your family. It’ll be quick, then we can all return to sleep. Now, what’s the pain scale?” 

“5.” Giorno says automatically. His eyes averted easily as his head rests against Bruno’s shoulder. He melts into the touch when his fingers run through the long curls. 

Bruno hums with a knowing smile. “So 7.” 

Mista knows that he’s in good hands as he turns to leave them be. When he passes by the room on his way from the kitchen after a midnight snack, he hears a breathy laugh escape from Giorno while Bruno quietly talks him through the pain. It’s then that Mista can find sleep easy tonight.

Chapter Text

The door cracks open shortly after the clock ticks midnight. A faint shadow cast against the rather frayed wallpaper. The gaudy, dull patterns covered with various posters and polaroid photos that have a green glow cast over them from the illuminating alarm clock numbers. A shadow that is joined by the outlines of the billow of the curtains from the open window next to his bed. With a summer breeze that creates a soft, repeated ambiance of the rustle of the wind and the fabric lightly hitting the wall with a dull thump before lifting up once more. 

It all falls silent with the sudden slam of the windowsill.

The cool air is cut off in an instance, letting the heat thicken in the room once again; the stifling smell of sickness joining. Nearly unbearable. A stumble of footsteps comes closer to the bed. Their knees almost buckling at the speed.

“Mista.” 

They grasp with a sudden shake of his shoulder that makes him groan. It should be worrisome, startling even, with the amount of noise and the sudden touch that followed from frantic movements. 

He doesn’t know who it is in his room at this time of night, nor does he truly care, his muddled mind tells him. He’s finally just fallen asleep after the back–to–back restless nights he has experienced. The long hours spent tossing uncomfortably, with the want of nothing more than to be able to sleep, but unable to with the wired feeling of pain coursing through him that only deteriorates his body further. 

Whoever this is; fuck them. Even if that says anything over his self–preservation skills considering the occupation he’s found himself in that relies solely on intuition for survival.

The voice is familiar, as such, a level of alarm doesn’t quite register. His mind slow to process, it slips past him. Or tries to, at least, though sharp nails dig into the skin of his shoulder, careful to avoid the bandaged wound. 

With a huff, he tries to shoo the person away when he sluggishly grasps his pillow and flings it back to hit the looming body.

The pillow is yanked from his hand and thrown to the floor with a stomp. The bed creaks with a sudden pressure. There’s another shake of his shoulder.

“Please–” 

The desperate tone that nearly borders into a plea should be the moment where his mind snaps alive to alert him, truth be told. Especially when there’s a faint voice in the back of his head that tells him that this is a voice that has never once begged with that amount of panic. 

It remains a fight to wake himself up. To allow the sense of urgency to cut through the haze. It’s been this way since the last mission, and ultimately he has to curse the strength of the painkillers when he places the blame solely on them. 

Everything around him remains so sluggish. An effect that he hates the most, but Bucciarati was insistant over the medication to the point he ended his speech with a straight–forwarded threat that he would shove them down Mista’s throat himself if he didn’t see the two placed on the tray gone by the time he came back from a meeting. 

“Mista, for fuck’s sake; wake up!”

There’s a hit delivered to his upper arm. A sudden burst of bright pain against the healing wound that has him jerk. Finally, the tone begins to try to register as he cracks his eyes open. He groans in annoyance, listening to the voice as he slowly shifts to sit up in his bed.

“Finally–”

His brain kicks to life as that pleading voice reflects the pure fear in the previous words and the call of his name. The choked sound of holding back followed by a hushed whisper as if to not be caught. Blinking, he clears the fog as the burst of blurry pink that sits in his vision settles. 

At the sight of Trish, he jerks. Everything clears at once. 

“What’s wrong?” He demands, immediately on edge.

Uncharacteristically, she shakes in front of him. Her eyes are wide, her pupils dilated, and they constantly glance back towards the tightly shut door. Her chest is heaving at a rapid pace that her breaths nearly come out as wheezes with the speed. He’s surprised that her legs can bear to hold her weight with the force of the full–body tremors. It’s quite eerie, in retrospect, and doesn’t help soothe him from the edge he finds himself on.

It’s not common for him to see her in such a state. 

Her strength has always impressed him. From the moment she had chosen to stay with them and the longer he’s gotten to know her, he has seen how deep that strong–willed nature has gone. Though, as much as Trish trusts him, there are moment of weaknesses that she tends to keep hidden from him. 

In the beginning, Mista had thought she was similar in a way to Narancia; someone who found it easy to talk about their problems over whatever troubled them. A difference from someone such as Fugo and Giorno, who you had to spend hours prying into for them to admit a mere sliver of what’s wrong. He found that she was a mix between them. That it depended on the size of the problem.

Something she deemed small? Easy. Even better if she knows it’s something that they can relate to. Something she deems is on the larger scale and a deeper look into herself that she fears they won’t understand? God help him, and good luck. 

Only Bucciarati has seen those moments to a degree. Mista never knows how the man does it. 

“Trish.” He calls out softly when she doesn’t answer.

She tries to. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out. She flinches at an invisible force, causing him to scoot to the edge of the bed to come closer in order to catch her attention. For him to be the sole grasp of it. It works when her eyes snap back to him with a newfound focus. 

“There’s someone in the house.” She whispers rather fearfully. 

If he wasn’t awake before, he is now with that icy feeling that washes over him. 

Mista curses. 

Of course, this has to happen when they’re the only ones home. With the others attending some sort of grand party for Passione, that Mista was too injured to attend. An excuse he was rather quick to give. Anything to avoid that stuffy suit still hung up on the handle of his closet door and the forced mingling he would have been forced to endure the whole evening.

He never quite got Trish’s reasoning for staying back. Kept entailed behind a closed door through hushed whispers with Bucciarati and Giorno. It left the two of them alone, and a quick glance at the bedside clock shows that it’s only been a couple of hours since Trish had originally left his room after their hang out to drift off early. 

“I just, I felt– I keep hearing–” 

Mista pays no mind to the jumbled stutters when he stands, shuffling his whole weight on one leg with a grit of his teeth and a sickening swirl of his stomach. A mission gone wrong that left him severely injured in multiple areas to the point he found himself unable to walk for a long period of time, but it’s a pain that he wills away as he reaches for his gun. 

“Stay here.” He orders. Even if it would be better to have someone by his side. Let her try to regain her bearings, is the reasoning that he gives himself; even if it’s partially for himself to not have to worry over her being hurt. He’ll call her if he truly does need her help, but for now, he believes that it’s fine for just him and the Sex Pistols. She knows where the extra gun is kept to offer a safety tool besides her Stand.

He waits for the responding nod. For once, Trish doesn’t argue about coming along in a misguided way to prove herself. Mista slips from the room; as always, the adrenaline keeps the pain rather bearable and out of the forefront of his mind as he staggers down the hall, readying himself.

Except…it’s clear. The whole damn house is clear.

Mista stands aimlessly in the middle of the living room. He sent the Sex Pistols out to cover every inch simultaneously, and there’s nothing. Even on the third check. Everything’s the same; nothing’s broken, he’s checked underneath beds and inside of closets; no one’s hiding. Windows shut. Doors locked. It’s quiet. He waits. It all remains the same. 

“What the fuck?” He murmurs, glancing around once more. 

Mista may not have Narancia’s ability to track breathing, nor Giorno’s ablitiy to sense life, but if someone was surely around; they would have used his weakened position to strike him down in an instance. He knows how this life works; injuries make you an easy target. Especially when he played it up. Enemies would have become arrogant, and believed their mission to be easy with the sight of the longer it became to hold himself up and the buckle of his knees every couple of minutes when staggering forward to recheck another room. 

There’s nothing. Not even outside, when the Sex Pistols check the property lines. With a hang of his head, he pulls the curtain shut with a screech of the metal rod against the rings. 

He wishes that he can say that he’s annoyed, but there’s only another cause of concern for him about this all. This isn’t Trish playing a prank on him. He can tell when she’s bullshitting him for her own amusement. Always a glint in her eye, but that had been replaced with the pinpricks of fear. That terror was clear. It was pure. An emotion as strong as that cannot easily be faked.

There’s an explanation here somewhere, and he’s inclined to figure it out as he turns on his heels back towards the stairs.

Trish paces the room. Her eyes are foggy and unfocused as she tightly grips the spare gun that Mista keeps in the drawer. Her breathing has slowed, but only as if to hide her presence. Her mind is a jumbled mess of spiraling images and terrifying thoughts of how this night could go one way or another. 

This time, it’s she who lets the voice from behind her slip past.

It’s sudden when there’s a firm pressure around his wrist. It doesn’t hurt, but she jerks regardless. Her heart jumps and there’s a spike to her breathing. The pressure doesn’t let up, and another hand comes forward to slowly pull the gun from her hand. A breath of air escapes her. Not quite a gasp with the lack of strength and the tremble in her lips.

She tries to keep a hold of it, her free hand clenching itself into a fist to ready herself to strike the way that Abbacchio has taught her, but the hand around her wrist moves to her pressure point to loosen her grip further.

“It’s okay.” 

She lets the quiet murmur register. She tries to latch onto the familiarity with a swallow of the noise of fear that threatens to leave her when the weapon is finally pulled from her hand. When she turns around, Mista comes back into her field of vision. His hands held high with the palms facing open, both guns tucked into the waistband of his pajamas. 

He smiles sheepishly. He knows in retrospect, the correct motion would have been to provide her space and not a sudden touch, but the gun in her hand had brought complications that made him override what would have been his first choice in order to avoid the chances of either of them being harmed. Mista won’t say it without further questions, but he believes he knows what this is.

A moment of silence between the two before he quietly sighs, and lowers his hands. 

“There’s no one here.” 

Trish snaps out of her lucid state instantly. She blinks. “What?” She chokes out. “No.” With a shake of her head, she forces herself to remain steady. “I felt–” 

“I checked the house. Three times throughout. There’s no one here, and nothing’s out of place. No forced entry, no one hiding, no sense of an enemy Stand nearby. It’s clear.” 

She continues to shake her head. “I know what I felt, someone was there!” Trish says in a hushed voice, the anger seeping through prominently over not being believed. 

Mista raises an eyebrow. ‘Felt’. The wording is odd to him. “What did you feel?” He asks, matching her wording regardless. Though his mind buzzes with further questions. Did she see anyone? Hear anything? Or is this all based on feeling alone?

“I just– It was a presence; watching eyes, that cold chill you get when you sense someone is there.” Someone who means you harm, her mind hisses. She swallows harshly. It became something more, that voice in her head continues, it grew. “A figure in the corner of my eye, slams like there was a door opening or closing, footsteps, muffled…voices…downstairs.” Her voice goes slow when the list continues. She pauses.

Trish looks back at Mista. His expression open as he waits. 

“It wasn’t real.” She breathes in sudden realization. “It was all in my head again, wasn’t it?”

Mista’s silence says it all. 

She looks at the floor. Desolate and defeated. She should have known. It should have been a realization that came to her when she sat up in her bed with a beating heart and a piercing feeling of needing to escape. Shakily, Trish nods. Her shoulders tremble even as her posture hunches together and her arms wrap tightly around herself. There’s a slight burn in her eyes that she is quick to blink away. Pathetic. Of her to act like this. Of her to breakdown in front of Mista.

“Sorry.” She whispers because it’s all that she give. All that she can manage in a moment such as this when she feels a sense of shame well up inside of her. She goes to move past him to leave, unable to bear another second under his gaze, but Mista blocks off her path.

“Come on, Trishie, you can stay.” He smiles brightly, biting back a chuckle when she scowls at the nickname he uses solely to annoy her. “The sleepover offer still stands.” A scowl that turns into a scoff and a roll of the eyes.

“I doubt you want someone crazy in here while you’re injured and trying to rest.” She’s already ruined the minimum sleep he’s finally gotten, and appeared in such a way. God, she’d rather sink to the floor of her own bedroom in embarrassment. “Just forget this happened, Mista. I’ll go back to my room and leave you alone.” 

“Nah.” Mista shakes his head, ignoring the self–doubt that clearly eats at her when he keeps a warm smile of reassurance. He switches tactics, knowing to watch the way he pushes this. “You’ll laugh, but I don’t really like to be alone when I’m injured. You’ll make me feel better if you stay.” 

It’s not a total lie, and she knows it. A tie between Narancia and Giorno over who stays with him the most when he’s like this. As such, she pauses. Her expression conflicted, but Mista knows that he’s won when she allows herself to come closer. 

Though it doesn’t feel as if it’s a win when there’s an uncomfortable silence that settles over them and Trish just looks so haunted from where she sits against the bed frame. Even though she stays, it’s not the real her when she remains so far away. Trapped in her own mind. The tension doesn’t ease from her. Her shoulders held so tight together. 

This isn’t anything new.

The paranoia. The thought that someone bears her harm. In the beginning, the lack of trust she held towards them had more than made sense. With the loss of her mother, and suddenly being thrusted into the hands of a mafia team that her father ran with little no choice. Add that to her father believing her life a harm to his own, and how easy of a choice it was to make to dispose of her; Mista would be on guard himself. 

Though even in the aftermath when the dust settled, it only continued to grow. In a different way that appeared almost confusing.

While trust has begun to build, it could always regress in a matter of an eye. As if she was two completely different people. Some days, she’ll smile bright at them, engaging with witty remarks that will make them laugh. Other days, she’ll be cold and distant. With on edge actions, as if there’s an invisible force telling her that someone intends to bring her harm. Whether it’s them or someone unknown. It’s always based on feeling. Even if their actions are innocent, she tries to read into them. Each day is different, and it’s a roll of the dice each time the sun rises. 

It’s eerily similar to Diavolo, but Mista would never dare to say it out loud.

He can tell that the actions are not purposeful. Just as much as it hurts them, it hurts her to feel such a way with no control over it. He can never tell what causes them, however. How deep these thoughts truly run.

Mista never bore the brunt of it. Only Bucciarati knows, and in a way; Bucciarati can be easy to read if only by a split second. It’s in those first few moments when he left her room, or she left his office. Their faces could hold a thousand of emotions, but wipe blank in a mere second if need be. Fast enough that Mista can’t piece it together in its entirety.

He never pushed. He just watched in silence. The aftermath always remained the same. With the need to hide, though, she doesn’t get it tonight.

Instead, her posture remains hunched together with her eyes pinned to the floor, as if afraid to meet Mista’s own, and her hands come up to run through her already frazzled hair, squeezing her skull together lightly like she can rid the thoughts that way.

“I hate this.” She whispers.

It’s an open vulnerability. The same concealed fear that he’s learned to read into. Just the same for Fugo and Giorno when they feel too guilty to admit to their thoughts. He’s seen it before, memorably, when she visited Bucciarati in the hospital. Her face was kept passively blank, but her eyes held that guilt, anguish, and fear when Bucciarati’s eyes had looked upon her. A fear that it was her fault. Her apology given in the same tone as tonight, even if its different circumstances.

Mista glances over with a deep breath. “I know you do.” He whispers.

The way she hid said so. The way she kept quiet confirmed it. Willing to continue to hurt herself than to reach out for help. 

It’s not a surprise that his words must confirm something to her. That there truly is something wrong with her in the worst possible way that they shouldn’t bear. It has her curling in on herself more. Her knees draw to her chest. Mista watches closely. He should have remembered that she reads into looks and remarks poorly with another sense of paranoia that they must look down on her.

“Trish–” He goes to speak first, but she doesn’t allow him to. 

“I’m going to be just the same as him.” She blurts. A sudden urge to jump over the mental roadblock that lights up Mista’s heart. Though it’s quick to crash down over him what she means.

“Are you kidding?” Are the first words out of his mouth. “You’re nowhere like him. You never will be.” 

Trish scoffs. Unwilling to believe. “The paranoia; it’s all him. I’m fated to be just like my father. Bucciarati says that I’m still rather young. That it may be on–set symptoms for something more that will become more apparent when I’m older. What if–...What if I go down the same route as him from it?” 

She feels as if she’s already on that path. She keeps that part silent. Unable to say it out loud, as if it will speak it into truth, and her world will crash around her. To Mista, the thought isn’t surprising.

Admittedly, he knows. She’s not the only one, and she knows that. He’s overheard her and Giorno speak before over the fears they both hold towards their fathers. Son of God. Daughter of the Devil. A nearly poetic sort of connection between them that Mista had at first found beautiful, then tragic when he watched the toll it had taken on them. Both are born from evil men. One they share the burdens of their sins. 

The conversation always goes quiet when he enters. Though, Mista knows how heavily it affects them both.

Giorno tries to act as if it doesn’t bother him. With his head held high and a rather rigid posture, he pretends that it’s not there. That his father doesn’t exist. That the actions that Polnareff told him he committed are from someone else he bore no connection to; that there’s not a chance that he will be just the same.

Trish is the opposite. She internalizes her father so deeply that he’s become a majority of her thoughts for the past few months, even if she won’t admit to them. 

A fear towards him only grows to a fear towards herself. 

“There’s a difference when it comes to you and him, Trish, trust me. None of us have ever seen you as the same–” 

“Forget it.” Trish snaps. Her jaw clenched together when she realizes what she has admitted to. Thoughts and feelings that can easily be used against her when they see the opportunity to strike her down. Her hands tighten their grip around her knees, her nails digging into her skin, leaving crescent shape marks. Red and burning.

“No, come on–”

“I said forget it!”

There’s no way that he is right. She knows what she believes is the truth. Maybe they’re too blind to see it. Maybe they’re lying as a meaningless comfort to her. To not provoke her suspicions. In any way that she looks at it, she comes to the same conclusion that they’re lying. 

“Where’s the sleeping bag? The one that Giorno uses when he stays with you?” She deflects instead. 

For a moment, it’s silent. In a way that nearly has her breaking out in a cold chill, though she still doesn’t look at Mista. Thankfully, there’s a sigh. She deflates in relief when he stands to walk towards the closet. 

She knows that it’s not over, however. That Mista won’t just leave well enough alone, and the upcoming morning would only create another sense of dread all the same. Though she finds a bout of luck on her side when it’s avoided with Giorno’s late appearance, joining them in the night that creates another opportunity for her to hide and ignore the problems that lie beneath her.

Trish goes on like normal. As if nothing happened. She never stormed into his room in a frantic panic. She never believed the delusions given to her. The paranoia in it all ignored. Their conversation voided. 

Mista can’t bring it up. He’d tried before. Trish had only brushed him off in a cold manner. No amount of pushing could amount to anything when Trish would only snap and begin to ignore him. The others take notice, of course they do, but Mista knows better than to tell any of them what has happened when Trish looks terrified at the prospect. Especially when Bucciarati turns questioning.

“Mista.” He says one evening as the two sit outside in the garden. A brief moment of alone time between them when Giorno had gone in with the intention of grabbing something. Mista’s sure that it was planned and purposeful.

He hums, intentionally sounding nonchalant and avoiding his gaze. His eyes kept on his book, though he doesn’t see any of the words. He goes to turn another page in his wait, but Bucciarati’s calm hand rests on his wrist. There’s a beat. Mista knows what the man wants, but is unsure if he can give it.

Though, he proves himself wrong by always being obedient. His eyes lift up.

Bruno may smile at him, but it doesn’t quite ease the nerves.

“What happened?” He doesn’t beat around the question.

However, Mista plays dumb. “What do you mean–?”

“Guido.” Bruno silences him with a raised eyebrow. “Please, don’t.”

Mista tensed underneath his grip.

“I’ve noticed a tension between you and Trish. Ever since the night of the party. Did something happen?” Bruno asks him rather softly. Voice quiet as if anyone can overhear when it’s just them in their own private bubble. His eyes are sincere, and the warmth of his palm is a comforting weight. “Just as you all have sworn deep loyalty and even devotion to me, I have done the same with each of you. As your Capo, I was there, and it remains just the same as your Don. I do not wish for you to hide anything from me when I am more than willing to listen and provide you with anything from what ails you. You just have to talk to me.”

Mista nods. His muscles relaxing with that soothing voice. “I know. I trust you more than anything.”

Bruno’s smile grows at that. “Then talk to me.”

“I don’t know how to word it.” Mista admits with a sigh. "I don’t know if I can. You know her, Bucciarati. It’s hard for her to admit when anything’s wrong, and when she does; she comes to you and it’s only if she’s ready.”

“You feel as if it would be betrayal if you spoke on her behalf.” Bruno muses. His eyes flicker with understanding.

Mista does. While it was sparse in the moment, it was still a confession. Trish would never confide in him again if she believes he’ll only run to Bucciarati and spill whatever she had the courage to admit. 

Each friendship is different. It holds its own knowledge between one another. Mista knows things about each of them that Bucciarati doesn’t know. The secrecy never stemmed from a distrust towards Bucciarati, but more so to build trust in the relationships between one another. Surely, Bucciarati understands that. Aspects of himself that he has only shared with Abbacchio, Giorno, or Fugo. 

So, Mista nods. “I’m handling it.” He reassures him. “I know that it doesn’t look that way, with her ignoring me, and everything; but if you give it time and I remain patient, then she’ll feel safe enough to come back to me. I’m sure of it.”

Bruno hums. “As much as you trust me, I trust you.” He reminds. “I know that I can’t mediate everything between everyone, but it never hurts to offer my help to keep us together as a team.”

Mista smiles back. His heart warm. The backdoor creaks open, finishing their conversation as Giorno creeps back out.

He’d meant everything he said, but he forgot just how stubborn Trish can be. Even more so when it involves her father. The prospect of who makes DNA and the fear of what she can inherit from him always makes her shut down. Mista has a hunch on why, but never a semblance of an answer to confirm it.

It remains disheartening, but he does as he says. He remains open and patient, playing her game and acting as if nothing has happened.

In a way, however, he fears as if he waited too long when the house was awakened by a crash in the night and a commotion downstairs. By the time Mista has stumbled down the stairs; a scene has already played out and finished, but through the aftermath he can put the pieces together. 

With Fugo’s sprawled body in the entryway, and Bruno kneeled down next to him, pressing a tissue against the lower half of his face. Mista can’t see him from how he’s angled as he stands behind on the steps, but he can see the blood begin to stain the tissue and the residue on Fugo’s hand. The front door is opened, having been slammed with enough force that the photo frame on the wall had fallen with a shatter. It’s glass frame pieces scattered across the floor. 

Giorno and Narancia stand at the entrance of the back hallway, watching in silence, before they’re abruptly forced to the side when Abbacchio flits past them with an icepack in one hand, and a first aid kit in another to join Bruno and Fugo. 

There’s one missing. No one needs to tell Mista for him to make the correct guess.

“Where did she go?”

No one turns to look at him, but he can tell that they all heard him. Not as if they had a choice to ignore him when the room was kept in stifling silence. Even so, no one answers. Abbacchio and Bucciarati trades looks with one another. A silent conversation that finishes with a nod before Abbacchio takes Bucciarati’s place in propping Fugo up. 

“You took worse hits, kid.” The man chuckles, ignoring the scowl that Fugo gives.

Bucciarati stands, moving towards the door and blindly reaching out for his coat. Mista doesn’t let him get that far.

“Bucciarati.” He calls. He steps forward to join him near the front door. “Let me.” Comes his quiet request. Nothing more of an explanation.

Bucciarati pauses, eyes flickering towards him. Someone has to go. They know better than to let Trish be by herself in a middle of a mindset such as this one. They’ll fear for her otherwise. Maybe it’s a stifling atmosphere, one that might make her stand more on edge, but they do it for her safety. To reassure her that no one is truly out to get her, despite what she feels. Sometimes what she sees or hears. Hallucinations are rare, the delusions via paranoia more prominent. 

Silently, Bucciarati nods. Knowing that it’s for the best. “Very well. However, you will take your phone to be able to reach out if you need any of us. Understood?” 

Mista nods right away, turning towards Narancia expectantly. He’s not going all the way back up the stairs for his own. With a blink, Narancia catches on as he pulls his from his pocket to toss forward.

Ultimately, she didn’t get far. A feat made easy when he sends out the Sex Pistols to scatter themselves around the property. Not by a longshot as he discovers, though Mista has to curse when he needs to climb the lattice to get to the section of the roof she’s on.

“Are you fucking serious?” 

Trish jumps at the voice that comes from behind her. Her head whips around with an audible snap as she sees Mista. His expression is heavily concealed, but Trish can still see the traces of anger and has heard it very much reflected in his voice. She stutters before she looks down as Mista approaches. 

“Do you know how worried the others are? Do you know how dangerous it is to run away during…” 

An episode? He nearly wants to say, but stops himself short. He knows better than to put it into technical terms when Trish will only spiral deeper with it. 

Trish blanches. There’s not a way to defend herself or make a good enough case to be believed. Ultimately, she’s merely surprised that it’s Mista who went after her and not Bucciarati, although Bucciarati would have been more nerve–wracking and devastating to face.

“I–” She tries to say something just to put anything out there, but her voice dies in her throat and she can only click her mouth shut. She surprises even herself when she finds herself flinching the closer Mista approaches. 

It makes him pause when he catches onto it. A tiny sigh leaves him. “I’m not going to hurt you, Trish.” He says quietly. “You just scared me, is all.” 

God, did she.

He waits for her shoulders to relax. Silently, she gives a small nod, and Mista takes that as permission for him to come closer. He sits down next to her. The wind howls around them. The trees swaying with its branches too close for his liking. Mista can see why she comes out to this spot. It’s secluded, but keeps her close to home. 

The only reason she had been found was by Number Five tearfully calling out her name from above Mista, that served to alert him. 

Even now, Number Five remains clinging to Trish, resting in a part of her hair. If it bothers her, she doesn’t make it known. Nor does Mista even believe so when he’s noticed that she’s always held a soft spot for the Pistol.

“What happened?” He asks. Voice open without a trace of judgement.

Trish breathes in deeply. Her face angled away from him. “I woke up, went for some tea.” A rough night. Maybe not only for her. 

“Fugo was behind me.” She never heard his bedroom door open, but she heard his footsteps directly behind her. 

“I don’t–...I don’t know why, I knew it was him,” He greeted her. Sounded happy and relieved that he wouldn’t be alone.

“But I just got this sudden thought that he would hurt me, and I swung.” 

She cringes at the remembrance of the crack that had echoed. The sudden thud of Fugo falling to the floor with a painful shout. There had been a need to leave when the horror had dawned on her and two different thoughts pulled terribly at her mind. Guilt for striking him in the first place, and fear that he would retaliate via Purple Haze.

It’s why she hadn’t hesitated to run, but something had mentally kept her from leaving the property.

Mista hums. “Was it always like this?” He asks. When Trish freezes from beside him, Mista levels her a look. “Come on, Trish, I don’t care what the answer is the way you believe that I will. I want to help, not look down on you.” 

Trish refuses to look at him. Her eyes kept pinned on the night sky. She wishes that he could leave well enough alone. She never preferred the serious side of him. It should be easy for him to leave. It should be easy for her to ask for him to leave as a way of avoidance. Though she remains silent.

It’s easy for Mista to wait. 

“There were…signs.” Trish finally admits. “When I was younger. I had a hard time making friends. They viewed me as cold and standoffish, and I–...I believed they would hurt me.” Just the same as she does now. A thought process that never changes.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” She muses. “It just felt as if they would.” A feeling that she still can’t shake. “It…I love my mama more than I can ever make known, but it was always a point of tension between us. She always wondered why I couldn’t be like the others. I tried to shove it down for her. Especially when she became sick. She worried enough about me, I didn’t want to add more.” 

Like how her trusted mother slowly became an enemy to her mind when she viewed her sickness as a betrayal. She always felt sick after that thought.

“Mista.” She calls out quietly. “My whole life I’ve always had this pattern of distrust and suspicion towards everyone. As if everyone meant me harm. Some days are better, but God, I always feel like the ones I am trying to trust will only end up deceiving me. That’s why it’s so hard to open up. I fear that it will be used against me.” 

She sighs.

“I used to never know why I was this way. It would eat me alive just wondering. Then, I learned. I found out who my father was, the way he thought. The way he feared. It gave me an answer, and everything became clear, but it grew into a fear that I would be just like him. That because he's a part of me, I will be just the same. It's scares me the most. I don't want to be anything like him, but I don't think I get a choice in that matter when, if it was up to me, I wouldn't share his DNA at all.” 

A weight feels as if it has been lifted from her shoulders by a mere fragment. However, she still can’t bear to look at him. Fearing what expression she will find reflected on him. 

“Will you accept help?” Mista asks. Her head whips towards him.

“What?” She breathes.

Mista comes closer. “Will you accept help?” He repeats. 

“I don’t–” 

“You don’t want to be like him. You’re scared of it.” He states the obvious. “But if you accept the help we’ve been trying to give you, you’ll break from that cycle. Because, unlike him, you’ll allow us into your bubble. You won’t have to fear us. It’s hard, but if you talk to us and explain it as you’ve done now, we can find ways to ease this for you. You’ll learn to live with this, and some day; it won’t rule your life.”

Trish stares. Her eyes burn, and before she knows it; a sob burst from her throat.

For a second, Mista watches her shake with those choking cries, before silently he scoots closer to her side to pull her ever so gently into his arms. His grip kept light for her to slip from easily if she so needs to.

“We’re here for you, Trishie. We want to help as we care for you so much. You just have to let us in, even if by a fragment.” 

“S–Stop calling me that stupid nickname.” She says between cries. A light chuckle escaping her before she nods. She doesn't say anything, but Mista doesn't need her to.

Mista smiles, his grip tightening when her arms wrap around him in a bone–crushing grip.

As the two enter the house, neither of them should be surprised to see Bucciarati waiting up for them. Fugo leaned up against him with his eyes closed and nose bandaged, but Mista can tell that he’s not actually asleep. Proven when he shifts at the sound of the door closing, and his eyes crack open when Bucciarati goes to speak.

“Trish–” He starts.

“We need to talk.” She finishes for him. As both a guess over his words, and as a request for herself. “I…I want to talk.” She clarifies in a quiet voice before her eyes shift towards Fugo. He stays silent.

Silently, Bucciarati nods. “Of course.” He rises from the couch, catching the glance between Fugo and Trish. “I’ll give you both a moment. I’ll wait in your room.” 

He goes to leave them, though, pausing in front of Mista with a soft smile and squeeze to his shoulder. His expression is akin to pride that always lights up Mista’s heart to receive. 

“Thank you.” Bucciarati murmurs.

 Mista nods with a silent thought that it’s nothing off his back before he joins him in the hall.

Slowly, Trish comes forward to sit next to Fugo. Her eyes kept on the bandages, and before she realizes; her hand comes up to gently press her fingers into the bone. Checking. There’s an internal sense of relief when he doesn’t flinch the way her mind told her he would. That he would have a right to fear her, though it slips past her that he’s seen, done, and felt worse.

“It’s not broken.” Fugo mutters. Eyes darting away under her gaze. Hesitantly, he reaches to take her hand. Not to pull it away, but to hold it. “I’ve had worse hits.” He steals Abbacchio’s joke, trying for a smile, but Trish only deflates. 

“I’m sorry–” 

“It’s fine.” He cuts off right away, squeezing her hand. “You’ve been through a lot. Thoughts aren’t always rational. You’ve seen how I am, Trish, I lash out physically myself. Sometimes due to my anger, other times because I’m scared. It’s not always right, but we’ll learn to work through it even if our problems are not the same.” 

Trish stares with wide eyes, an argument on her tongue, but Fugo levels her a further look. She drops it.

Fugo glances back towards the hallway. A smile pulls at his lips.

“He’s nice to confide in, isn’t he? Mista.” 

Trish laughs quietly. “He’s not a total dumbass like I thought when we met.” 

Fugo smiles wider. “He does anything in the name of family.” 

That he does.

Chapter Text

The slam of the upstairs door makes them all flinch. 

A suffocating silence rings out. The tension is more than palpable around the kitchen table. With held breaths, and eyes stealing glances at one another before they all turn simultaneously towards Bucciarati. Waiting to see what he has to say. It remains quiet. He continues to stare blankly past them at the wall, his fork moving absentmindedly around the plate. Seemingly oblivious to the explosive reaction that his lover just had before storming out. 

It’s a notion that they have come to notice more that it’s become a new sense of normal for them these past few weeks; it creates a sense of worry that goes ignored. 

Abbacchio is increasingly irritated, more so than he normally would be and differing from his typical sarcastic or dry witty remarks to poke fun at them. He snaps at them over the smallest of reasons or outright avoids them. All the while, Bucciarati spaces out, with dull eyes and a blank stare that puts them all on edge. Always shown through a fading mask at the end of the day once the business of Passione is done.

It makes them all concerned. However, expressing it proves to be a difficulty in its own way. They all talk amongst themselves. Speculating in low whispers to not draw attention or suspicion from the two older men.

A clang of the fork turns their eyes back from each other. They watch in further silence as Bucciarati stands.

“Excuse me.” 

No one says a word when he leaves the room. The thump of his steps are slow against the stairs. 

They bite their tongues for tonight, but they’ve desperately tried before. Always meet with an excuse or silence that had turned into stern voices to leave well enough alone. Mista knows that they should follow that order. To not pry anymore, but when the days have remained relatively the same, he finds that he can’t. 

“There’s just something off with them. Don’t you see?” Mista asks while he paces the room. Brainstorming ways to approach had turned into seeking out the thoughts of the others. 

He’d thought that if anyone would have reasonable sound advice, then it would be Fugo or Giorno. Finding the two of them together had been a perfect opportunity for himself to ask, though he can see the way that Fugo seethes in the background over his peaceful time with Giorno being interrupted. A burning glare that he notices from the corner of his eye that Mista tries to avoid glancing at for too long. 

Fugo rolls his eyes. “It’s hard not to notice, Mista.” He murmurs, leaning over Giorno’s desk chair to switch the radio station they had previously on, grimacing at the song with a mutter under his breath.

Giorno hums, flipping a page of his book as he doesn’t look up from where he sits on his bed. “Abbacchio is agitated. More so than we are used to.” 

“And Bucciarati is checked out.” Fugo finishes for him.

“None of that worries you?!” Mista spins on his feet mid–step, throwing his hands up in the air. Overdramatic, and they both wince at the volume.

Giorno sighs, looking rather apologetic. He doesn’t mean to brush off Mista’s concerns. He glances up at him, his eyes soft. “It’s not that we aren’t worried, or that we don’t care, Mista. I’ve tried before with Bucciarati. He never answers me straight–forward. He claims that he is fine; that there’s no cause for concern, but it’s clear that it’s not built on honesty.”

Mista deflates, although he can’t be surprised, and Fugo must share his thoughts when he speaks them out loud.

“It’s the same response every time. No matter how many times we ask, or the way we do it; it doesn’t change.” He says. “It’s no use to ask Abbacchio, in a way, when he’s only looking for a fight. Nothing that would lead to a productive conversation.” Fugo adds. “I get it, though. We’re all worried, it’s just…not like them.” His voice takes an odd tone to it towards the end.

The statement feels dishonest. There have been moments such as this before. When Passione grew to be too much, when they were still under Diavolo’s reign and Bucciarati had forced himself on auto–pilot mode. Dissociating while carrying out orders the way he was expected to with dull, haunted eyes. Meanwhile, Abbacchio had always lashed out more when his mental health had begun to steadily decline once more. Whether it was from depression, his past addiction, or recently the pain in his scars.

There had been unspoken rules over the years. For Bucciarati, you offer a silent presence. For Abbacchio, you steer clear from him and wait for it to blow over. Wait for him. Though they know that he will always go to Bucciarati. It’s how it’s always been, although they have their own thoughts over it.

To Mista, however, the cause of concern comes from the unknown. Even if they never offered words, they could relatively tell what was wrong. Now they’re left in the dark and it bothers Mista more than he can make known. 

The two older men have always been there for them. Mista wonders if they know that they could be there for them just the same.

“It might be better to wait for them to come around.” Fugo’s voice snaps him back to the present. 

A wait that sounds tortuous, but before Mista can say anything; Fugo levels him a further look to signal for him to not interrupt.

“The waiting sucks, and all of us want to help them, but badgering them on it is just going to push them away further. The way it always does.”

Mista can concede with the logical point. Though he doesn’t admit that out loud. Fugo continues with a sigh, letting his head fall into his hands, his white hair curtaining his face from them.

“When it was just us- Bucciarati and I-; I noticed it rather quick. I tried to help, wanting to give back just a small portion of what he had given me. The care. Although I was out of depth. Only 13, we barely knew each other, though that never stopped him. It felt strange when I was technically his subordinate and I wondered if I was allowed the questions I asked, no matter how basic they may be. I tried, however. Got frustrated when he avoided it all.” 

He clenches his eyes shut at the remembrance of a certain night. 

“Ended in raised voices and slammed doors. It just became silent knowledge to leave him be. Then the same had extended to Abbacchio.”  

The silence reflected is disheartening. He doesn’t know what to say when they’re right, though he doesn’t want to proceed in this way any longer.

"I'll take your word and wait." He sighs quietly.

For tonight, Mista lets it rest. In the morning, he watches the men with a close eye, hoping for a moment even as the days stretch by.

Without their knowledge, they give him one.

Mista doesn’t tend to drink with Bucciarati and Abbacchio regularly.

A nearly nightly tradition between the two men to unwind together that he’s been invited to join before, though Mista didn’t want to intrude on their sparse alone time together when he knows that they look forward to it at the end of the day. Not that he’s ever been the biggest fan of wine in the first place. Practically the only option when it comes to them. They have better luck of having Giorno join in their company than him.

Yet tonight had been different. 

Giorno had gone to bed early; intent on having an actual sleep schedule even if it was just for the night to avoid another argument with Bucciarati over his sleepless eyes that he tries to hide from them all. Nothing new, but they’ve learned to read through him perfectly. All the while; Fugo, Narancia, and Trish had gone to relax in Fugo’s room for the rest of the evening together. Their voices trailing down the hallway of the downstairs bedrooms. 

Mista had been torn between options. Whether to join the three, less appealing when he would make the fourth person in the room, or take a page from Giorno’s book– which sounded more than boring when he wasn’t tired. He supposes it would be easy to sneak Narancia’s Gameboy from his empty room to entertain himself. 

Ultimately, it was an option that he didn’t have to think of for long.

“Guido.” 

He turned away from Narancia’s door with an innocent expression, hand flung away from the doorknob to behind his back when Bucciarati had called out to him. The man standing at the end hallway. An empty, third wine glass held up as a silent offer framed with a raised eyebrow. Mista can imagine Abbacchio waiting for them in the living room.

It had made Mista pause. Thinking back to the conversation with Fugo and Giorno. How the odd behaviors persist in the two older men with no clue of what is wrong. He knows that he said he would wait for them to come around, but he realizes immediately that this is an opportunity lying in wait for him. One that he couldn’t let slip away.

As such, Mista hadn’t seen a reason to decline this time.

It had started out normal enough. Better than it has been. Nearly the way it used to be. Catching up from the day, sharing stories and jokes between the three of them. Framed by laughs and smiles. It’s a peaceful, warm atmosphere that was further created by the glow cast from the fireplace in the relatively dim–lit room. An ambience of the crackle in the wood and the pops of the fire. Ultimately, it had served to relax Mista.

He could nearly fool himself that everything is fine despite how the last few weeks have gone for them. Though he knew better than to believe that. He’s well aware of a mask a person can hold to hide the deeper emotions behind it. The problems they strive to go through alone. He’s seen everyone’s.

From Giorno’s cool and collected one. A perfectly placed stoic complexion that he struggles to let slip by a fragment. From Fugo’s self–righteous mask. Used to hide the emotions he deems weak or a hindrance. His violent anger or the fears he feels. To Trish’s cold and snappy one that’s placed to hide the paranoia. Even Narancia’s manic happy one. With an all too bright smile that doesn’t hold for long when it always breaks at a single question. 

As the night went on, a quiet had taken over. Silence that should have been content with the moment they’ve created, but it was then that Mista had begun to notice that the little things had slowly come back.

Shown through the shaking in Bucciarati’s hand as he tightly gripped the stem of his glass. With the wine rippling from the movements. The way that Abbacchio was downing back–to–back glasses in fast succession. Even abruptly leaving to bring in a second bottle when the first had already practically been solely for him. Bruno was only on his second glass, and Mista was still on his first.

It was concerning motions, but Bucciarati had remained silent. As if nothing was off. He didn’t call Abbacchio out with a subtle motion that he was indulging too much like how he usually would. Always bearing the reminder of his struggle with alcohol. 

The masks have begun to slip once more. Bucciarati’s haunted face begins to take its place, along with Abbacchio’s practically permanently scowl taking on burning eyes filled with an unknown hurt. 

It had made Mista’s eyebrows furrow. His face pinched together with concern as he watched Abbacchio once again pour himself another glass. Mista’s eyes glance towards Bucciarati, as if to silently implore him, though the man’s own gaze remains downcast at his book. Oblivious to Mista’s stare and the surplus of alcohol that his lover consumes directly next to him.

Mista knows better than to believe that he’s seeing any of those words on the pages. Not when his eyes are foggy and glazed over. He’s seen him checked out before, but this is different from what he has seen before. 

He believes that in the bout of silence that followed, they have forgotten that he was there.

Restlessly, Mista shifts in the arm–chair opposite of the two of them on the couch. He swirls the untouched wine in his own glass. He decides that he can’t handle it anymore. 

“How was the meeting?” He asks. His previous thought is proven correct when their eyes snap back towards him, and they both look subtly surprised before it’s wiped away in an instance.

Abbacchio snorts humorlessly with a shake of his head, throwing back the rest of his glass and immediately reaching for the bottle, but this time Bucciarati catches him. He clasps his hand mid–air before it can touch the bottle, squeezing in a silent reminder before he drops it. With a roll of his eyes, Abbacchio sits back against the couch. Both Mista and Bucciarati are aware of the rhythmic tapping signalling the further irritation that builds up. 

“It went well.” Is all that Bucciarati says, but Mista remains suspicious.

This time, Abbacchio scoffs. A small notion, as if to keep hidden, though it catches Mista’s attention all the same.

“It was shit.” The man mutters bitterly.

Bucciarati throws him an admonishing glance. His lips pursed and eyebrows knitted together. Despite the heat behind it, Abbacchio merely shrugs, as if questioning him if there’s anything to truly argue over when they both had seen how that meeting went. 

“Did we not make the deal?” Mista questions, once again reminding them of his presence. He tries not to sound too suspicious with his question. Knowing that he has to choose his words carefully before they shut him down.

Bucciarati sighs, placing his book down against his knee where his leg is crossed over the other. He pinches the bridge of his nose. As if willing off a headache. Somehow Mista watches him grow more exhausted. Though the mask, and its cracked fragments, try to keep themselves perfectly placed. It’s a saddening sight in Mista’s perspective. He doesn’t want Bucciarati to feel as if he’s closed off from them. 

“No, we did. We’ll have a further conversation regarding the details of how to proceed in the initial phase. Another meeting in a week or so.” Is all that Bucciarati says. Sparse words in a clipped tone. 

Mista hums. He keeps his face open, though mentally the gears turn in his head on how to proceed when he can see the stiffening of Bucciarati’s shoulders and the further pinch in Abbacchio’s face that makes him aware that they’re beginning to close off even if he hasn’t asked much.

He can’t be surprised. It all goes back to the beginning. The bare bones that they have always noticed.

Abbacchio has always been this way with them. There’s only small moments of the man allowing himself to open up, and it’s usually only used to comfort them to not make them feel as if they’re alone. Even then, its sparse details used as an example and nothing more. 

Bucciarati, on the other hand, has perceived notions of what a good leader must look like. It doesn’t include acting in a way that he views as weak. It’s rather strange; to see the man claim that there is no weakness when it comes to seeking out help, but doesn’t take his own advice nor lead by example. 

It would have frustrated Mista more than it already has if it wasn’t a cause of concern. The worry out weighs the irritation. 

If they are more than just a team, more than Bucciarati’s subordinates; friends, family, a mix of both, then they too should be able to come to them. They’re more than willing to carry any type of burden their leader bears. Yet if they try; he closes off with a stern voice that silently tells them not to continue for their own good. 

Mista can see the start of it now, so he leaves it be for the time–being with a nod. 

“That’s great!” He smiles as he leans back in the armchair, taking a sip of the wine. “If you need us to, Giorno and I could take over the next meeting.” He shrugs nonchalantly.

Mista means nothing by it other than just a helpful offer, seeing as the meeting didn’t go well the way Bucciarati tries to pretend. His thought process being that if it is just him and Giorno, then it’s one last thing that Bucciarati and Abbacchio have to worry about. 

A break can do them good. Perhaps that’s what they need and they’ve been looking in the wrong direction, assuming that it’s something more when it could be the work suffocating them whole. 

However, he finds himself wrong with that thought.

“Are you insinuating something?” Abbacchio snaps at him. His expression is sharp.

It makes Mista stiffen in an instance. Caught off guard by the flaming fury he sees reflected in the man’s eyes that practically cut into him. An anger further framed by the clench of his jaw and the strong grip tight against the wine glass. 

“What?” Is all that Mista can manage. His voice is slow and unsure. Though Abbacchio stares at him as if he's dull for making him explain.

“You believe that they’ll take you and Giovanna more seriously?” He continues.

A sentence that only confuses Mista even more. What does that mean?

“That’s not what I said–” Mista tries, but he falls silent when the wine glass clinks heavily onto the table with a slam and Abbacchio leans forward across the expanse of the wood, staring at him seriously.

“Don’t bullshit me, Mista.” Abbacchio sneers. “Go ahead and say–” 

“That’s enough!” Both of them fall silent when Bucciarati snaps at the both of them, even if Mista has done no wrong. His book falls onto the table with a loud thump next to the glass. “Conduct yourself.” He scolds, though his eyes barely hold on either of them.

Abbacchio scowls, and truly; Mista doesn’t know what has just happened. What exactly he’s done. He’s not the usual target of Abbacchio’s ire, and it takes him back over the way his simple words were taken. It confirms there’s something more. 

The silence grows tense. Awkward in a way that makes Mista wish that he had just snatched Narancia’s Gameboy and gone to entertain himself. That he took Fugo’s words, left well enough alone, and waited for the men to come around on their own. Despite the fire blazing behind him, the room feels nothing but cold. The previous light–heartedness fading away with snappy words and exhausted tension. 

It’s clear that something’s wrong. Something that pertains to the meeting, but Mista’s unsure how to proceed. He’s never once been the one to comfort them, solely as they would never allow for it. It should feel awkward, but Mista will do anything in order to try. To give back what they’ve given him countless times, and show that they’re not alone in anything when they have a team willing to be there.

He thinks back to the start of the week where they had discussed the meeting with a few prominent capos. Mista had stood by Giorno’s side as the younger offered his own opinion. No one had made any objections known at the time. No one gave any concerns. It was straight–forward and simple in Mista’s eyes. Bucciarati and Abbacchio had looked calm during the conversation. He wonders what could have changed that in a way that Abbacchio somehow believes he and Giorno view themselves as superior. 

What has been changing that? It’s not just this one meeting.

When Abbacchio goes to reach towards the bottle once more, and Bucciarati has spaced out, Mista takes matters into his own hands when he leans over to snatch the bottle from out of reach. He places it down by the leg of his chair, behind his foot to place a further barrier to deter him. 

When he glances back up, he’s met with Abbacchio’s narrowed eyes piercing into his figure. Sharper than before that have a strain to them, and Mista nearly winces under that heated gaze. He doesn’t fold, however. His face remains passive, staring back at Abbacchio as if nothing had happened. Nearly daring him to point it out and make a scene. 

Though Abbacchio doesn’t make a move to stand and reach for the bottle, or retrieve a new one from the cabinet. Instead, he sinks back against the cushion of the sofa, looking defeated, but in the angriest way possible. Mista’s sure that he’s burning him in his mind and wishing him ill, but he’ll take it if it means the man won’t have another drop of wine. Or yell at Mista just yet.

“Something’s wrong.” He finally says. Unable to let this go on for any longer than it has. His tone is even, and his eyes are more than sincere. “Care to tell?” 

Abbacchio scowls with a mutter underneath his breath. Bucciarati’s eyes lift back towards him, blinking wildly. They both remain silent. Processing his words, perhaps trying to come up with a different deflection that’s not just a repeat of what has already been said. 

With their attention relatively on him, Mista takes a moment to further look at them. It goes deeper than what he had originally thought. Slouched postures, with dark circles underneath their eyes, followed by heavy bags. The practically permanent foggy eyes, and the shaky hands. All of it was hidden behind anger and blank stares. Parts begin to click more. 

“Shit, you both haven’t been sleeping, have you?” He asks quietly. 

He knows that he’s correct when Bucciarati sighs, and Abbacchio averts his eyes; his hair acting as a curtain. Mista waits, hoping, but they don’t tell and it makes him sigh.

“We’ve…noticed, you know? For more things than one. We’re worried.”

He can see how Bucciarati wavers for a split second. He harshly swallows. Just the same as Mista has noticed, so has he. Bruno has seen the glances between one another. He’s heard the whispers. 

“It’s none of your concern.” He whispers the same line of thought that he would tell himself.

Mista throws him a look. “We know how you would react if this were any of us.” 

It feels as if it’s a low blow, no matter how true it is, especially when Bucciarati throws him a look akin to scolding, but it doesn’t have enough energy behind it to hold for long before it falls into the one of exhaustion from before. He’s heard it used before. From Fugo when he was younger.

The same night that Fugo had told Mista of, though it didn’t have much details. Bruno’s response was much more of a vocal snap. Voice hot and steady, that only continued to raise when the two continued to go back and forth. Fugo didn’t appreciate what he viewed as secrecy, but what Bruno had viewed as protection. 

It is never on them to carry the weight that pulls at him. Not when he is the leader. The Don. It’s his job to be there for his men. When it comes to him, he’s made his peace that he was on his own when he needed to uphold a certain professionalism. A weaker leader gets no respect. No trust. These are men who follow his every word and order, knowing full well that it could and has put their life at risk. Bruno can repay that by being their listening ear. Appearing as nothing but strong for them. 

“The capos don’t believe that Bruno makes a fitting Don. Some still prefer how Diavolo has run this organization. It was more than apparent in today’s meeting.” 

Bruno whirls his head around, staring at Leone with wide, betrayed eyes over being thrown underneath the bus like that. Though his love pays him no mind as he stares straight–forward. Avoiding both Mista and Bruno’s eyes still.

The information makes Mista’s mind buzz. Though another aspect clicks in his head. The anger Abbacchio felt was hurt on his partner’s behalf that had gone in a misguided way. 

Mista is aware that he doesn’t know what happens behind closed doors when it’s just the two of them. Perhaps Abbacchio had already attempted this conversation, only to be shut down time and time again. From there, the irritation grew upon perceiving his partner being walked on and allowing it. Then there were more meetings. More run–ins with the capos. More complaints and begrudging acceptance. More of Bucciarati brushing it off, and that emotion had continued to grow. 

He can reason with the feeling of frustration. Abbacchio had seen the silent toll that it had taken. It morphed, and either they were all caught in the cross–fire or Abbacchio had gritted his teeth despite the flame burning brightly in himself.

Mista grows angry himself when hearing those opinions towards Bucciarati. A man who has given them his all and has set out to better this organization. He takes a steadying breath, going to speak, though Bucciarati cuts him off to continue himself. 

“The drug trade had made a substantial amount of profit for certain sections of the organization. It makes sense that some would want to keep it. Money is the most important aspect of life for many. As such, I had expected a push back immediately when I sought to close that fraction. It is nothing more than that. Certainly nothing to make a big deal over.” 

Leone subtly rolls his eyes. “I’m aware, I’ve heard it before, but you can’t deny that it has taken its toll on you, Bruno.” 

“Drinking in my hurt, then?” Bruno shoots back before Leone can reveal too much.

“You admitted it!” Mista cuts in with an all too wide smile and small compensating cheer when he only feels the need to step in before the two’s back-and-forth takes a turn. Although he knows immediately that he should have picked his words better when Bruno turns to glare at him. He stares back with a sheepish expression.

Bucciarati deflates, leaning forward to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I apologize if I brought you any concern, Mista. That was never my intention, and I shouldn’t have made it visible enough to worry you. It’s not on you to ask these questions, nor do I expect you to ask anymore when I fail to see how this is any of your business.” 

“Because we’re a team.” Mista states easily the words Bucciarati has given him countless amounts of time. “It’s just…you’re always there for us. I want to repay that and show that we can be here for you. Both of you. You just have to let us.”

“It is not your job.” Bucciarati remains stubborn, and Mista can see the way that he is getting to him when he clenches his eyes shut. The stress is more than noticeable over being called out like this, his shoulders shaking before he forces himself to still them. 

It makes Mista feel bad to push it this way, though he only shakes his head. He continues despite the look. “I believe it is. You have led by example for countless things, but this. Is it weak to ask for help?” 

“That’s not–” 

“The same? It kind of is, Bucciarati, even if you don’t say it; it’s shown. Or do you still mean that you’re different? Because that still doesn’t hold up quite well. You feel that because you are the Don, you can’t ask the same from us, but when we’re here, alone, you can drop the weight of that title and just let yourself be. God, it’s like Giorno and what he says about being a consigliere.” 

Bucciarati falls silent. Not knowing what to say when Mista makes a good point, and the finishing statement connecting him to Giorno strikes something in him. Not quite guilt, but the beginning sparks of understanding. 

“Don’t let your words be in vain.” Mista adds quietly.

Bruno clicks his tongue. “You make good points.” He admits. “Though I find that it is not as easy as you say.” 

“It is if you allow yourself. If you don’t hold back, that is.” Mista takes a sip of his wine, ignoring Bucciarati’s look of annoyance over the topic not being dropped. Though it makes him grow softer in his approach. 

He sits back up, leaning forward to capture more of Bucciarati’s gaze. “We care about you. Seeing you in this way; with a blank stare, haunted expression, nearly hollow, hurts. We know that something is up, but we can’t help you because you won’t let us. Then we feel as if we failed you. We want to help, Bucciarati, we don’t want to be shut out like this and feel as if all we do is take from you.” 

Bucciarati falls silent once more. Looking conflicted. They feel this strongly over what has become second–nature to him? They feel as if all they do is take from him? 

Out of the corner of his eye, Mista sees Abbacchio smirk. It doesn’t hold much heat behind it, and solely there from the relief he feels over Bruno finally having sense talked into him when he’s been trying for weeks. Perhaps having the teens speak up will finally have him be able to open up. However, he finds that Mista turns fully towards him.

“It’s not just him. It’s you too.” 

Abbacchio’s face falls, his eyebrow quirks up. “Excuse me?” 

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Mista tilts his head. “It’s not just this meeting, or the ones before it. There’s something else that’s been there for weeks.” 

Bucciarati’s face scrunches in further exasperation. He huffs. This analysis that Mista is persistent in proves to be nothing but frustrating. “Mista, I believe that’s enough.” 

“You both haven’t been sleeping.” He repeats what he started. Although it’s not phrased as a question this time. He glances towards the scars on each of their chests. They follow his eyes, and he watches as each of them stiffens over where they fall.

Bucciarati stares with pursed lips. Forcibly keeping himself closed off and refusing to speak. Subtly shaking his head to warn Mista to drop it now. Abbacchio is much the same when he’s become included in this once again, instead of the focus being solely on Bucciarati previously. He turns his head to the side. Hiding himself once again.

“Oh, come on.” Mista urges with a huff, his head rolling back as he fights the desire to scream when he feels as if the sparse progress he made is beginning to recede. It doesn’t sink in that he may be pushing this too fast. “You don’t have to hide it, you know? You get nowhere by shutting us out, especially when you’re hurting.” 

“I could say the same when it comes to your self–sacrificial behaviour recently.” 

Mista falls silent when Bucciarati innocently muses. His eyes back to dull, though the dry smirk holds something troublesome. There’s no way in hell this got turned around onto him. 

“What–?” Mista swallows harshly.

“Don’t even try to deny it. We saw what played out in our last mission. The force of that gun nearly tore your arm off, and you could hardly walk afterward. All because you disobeyed orders and stepped in where you shouldn’t have.” 

“Giorno was–” 

“In the way? Only from your perspective. Giorno put himself in that position for a reason. I had him more than covered. I know you know that from the plan we made beforehand. Why did you feel the need to protect him at that moment?”

‘Because the plan was stupid. Not well–thought of. It’s like you wanted him to–’ Mista cuts off that thought and keeps it to himself via biting the inside of his cheek. 

He remembers the mission clearly. Seeing Giorno step out directly where he could be hit had made his heart stutter. Seeing the gun aimed, and a finger moved to the trigger even more so. Logically, he knew that Giorno could handle himself. He’s always been in the front row, right by his side, watching what he does to enemies. Likewise, he knew Bucciarati was close by, lying in wait to cover him. Yet, the logic never settled as he pushed him out of the way and took those bullets before anyone could blink. 

He doesn’t know what to say. A conversation that he knew was coming, but he always pushed it off. Bucciarati stands from the couch in the wait, wandering over towards the fireplace that’s slowly dying out. Mista flinches at the series of loud crackles when another piece of wood is thrown in. His figure tense when Bucciarati practically stands directly behind him. Abbacchio stays silent himself to let this play out. Their eyes feel like icy daggers piercing into him.

“Mista. I asked a question.” Just like he didn’t give them any time, he doesn’t extend that courtesy to Mista.

He can’t believe this, and the anger burns bright against his will. This is bullshit. He was supposed to help them. Now it feels as if they had played up an act only to interrogate him. 

Logically, he knows that it isn’t true, but there have always been moments when he found it hard to be rational. Moments where something simple is taken as a threat and it makes a certain anger bubble up in him that serves as a warning to create distance. Similar to both Trish and Fugo in a way, and it’s why he always found it so easy to speak to them and offer comfort. 

“This isn’t about me.” Mista scoffs. “You can’t just turn it around to have me to hide behind.” He tries to defend, but he curses when his voice shakes at the end, betraying the way they are getting to him.

“You want to interrogate us? Claim that we preach what we don’t follow? Share something about yourself.” Abbacchio can’t help but sneer at him. “Prove those words. You hide just as much as us, kid.” 

Mista glares. The armchair screeches against the wood of the floor as he goes to stand with the sudden feeling of needing to leave. The wine bottle by the leg tips over, falling and its contents staining the rug red. Mista doesn’t notice. Not when the room has become too suffocating for him to bear to stay. God, he should have listened to Fugo. His glass drops to the floor with a shatter, slipping from his grip when he forgets it’s in his hand. 

He goes to make his way towards the entrance, though he’s forced to a stop when Sticky Fingers pulls him back.

As Abbacchio goes to guard the door, Bucciarati comes to stand in front of him when he’s whirled around by the Stand before it disappears for the time–being. 

“Guido.” Bruno whispers. His face going soft, and eyes flickering apologetically, but it’s useless following his next words. “I’m not doing this to upset you. I’m doing this because it has gone on for too long.”

He’s compensating, and Mista knows it. The attention on him had been unbearable, and he seeks to remedy it. Abbacchio just follows that notion. Now Mista is the focus and he can feel the way his chest tightens and his stomach sinks with a prominent sickness that has him fighting the urge to throw up.

He shakes his head repeatedly. “It’s fine.” He whispers, voice breathless. “Don’t turn this into something that is bigger than it is. I made a mistake. Though I knew what I would be signing up for when you offered me this…when my role became bodyguard. It’s in the job description.” 

Bruno shakes his head. “That’s not what you are doing, however. We are all aware of the injuries that come with Passione, but we don’t play it recklessly the way that you have. You constantly shield us and the others, and ignore what we have agreed on. I want to know why.” 

The concern is real. Of course it is. Bucciarati always worries over them, but it’s expressed wrongly. The whiplash in conversations makes his mind spin.

“Their lives are more important.” He says what was meant to be kept as a thought. The ‘than mine’ remains silent, but it’s so clearly there. Bucciarati and Abbacchio hear it all the same when their faces fall.

It brings the room to a standstill. Breaths are held and bodies are frozen where they stand. Mista’s eyes widen when he realizes what he has said. How it can be taken. What it means. He feels the way he goes pale, and the shaking of his shoulders.

“I–” He rushes his mind to find something to fix this, but there’s nothing. He can’t take this back, he can’t find an excuse, or clarify it when there is nothing he can say that will make this better.

Bruno stares with wide eyes. “What do you mean by that?” 

“Nothing.” Mista says quickly, even if it’s useless. His breath is rushed with his heart beating rapidly. He can hear Abbacchio scoff in the background, calling his obvious bullshit.

“Mista, just be honest with us–” 

“I’m not talking about this!” Mista yells. His voice raises in volume without his knowledge until he hears the echo in the room.

As the room falls deadly silent, so does the house. There’s a door that opens down the hall. Footsteps that approach, and Mista feels his irritation and panic grow, followed by a dropped heart when Fugo peeks his head inside the living room, looking confused. Mista can only imagine Trish and Narancia lingering in the hall in equal wait.

“What’s going on?” Fugo tries to ask, but Mista is quick to push past him, slipping by Abbacchio easily when the two older men had remained distracted. 

He can hear his name being called, but he pays no mind to it. He rushes up the stairs and slams his bedroom door shut behind him. The lock quickly follows in its place. Staggering, he falls to the floor.

Chapter Text

Staggering, Mista falls to the floor.

His eyes are clenched shut through the persistent burn. His heart beats wildly, and he has to fight the urge to dry heave through the deep sickness swirling in him.

“Fuck.” He mutters, his hands tighten their grip on the strands of the carpet, tugging at them lightly. It’s a better option than pulling at his curls when he feels the need for his hands to do something. 

He had expected a push–back against his help. Mista had known exactly the type of challenge that Bucciarati and Abbacchio would put up to maintain their dignified personas they felt the need to strongly uphold. Yet, he never expected it to play out the way it did and end in such a way. To be turned against him, and worse of all; Bucciarati wasn’t even wrong in the words he spoke.

He wasn’t wrong that it wasn’t just a one–time mistake he made in their last mission. It was multiple, calculated decisions that have added up against him and caught their attention. Mista had known it was only a matter of time before someone had pointed it out and demanded an explanation that he was too fearful to give.

He didn’t know how to explain it. How to make it make sense without appearing weak or paranoid. He had tried to deal with it on his own, trying to talk that sense into himself. To let himself pause for a minute to breathe. Allow his brain to rest and think through logically.

Yet, each mission that consistent buzz that he got used to that had managed to dull in sound would become a piercing ring and his body would move without his knowledge. Rushing to put himself in the way between danger towards his friends.

The very people who have become another family to him over the past few years. It’s a rather short amount of time between them knowing each other, but Mista has always believed that a strong bond isn’t determined by the length of time. It’s delegated by how you feel towards someone. The first thoughts in your mind when you think of them, and ultimately what you would do for them. Even if it’s only been a few months.

A bond that’s strengthened when you go through multiple life or death situations, even if it’s an unsaid, but more than heard rule of the mafia to not get attached. It can all be ripped away in an instance. It’s a bleak notion for Mista to realize. Sometimes he wishes for them to still be together in a more normal life, though he doesn’t allow himself to think about that for long. He finds himself in Passione. Nothing will change that.

For Mista, he would give them his life, as dramatic as that may sound at first glance. Though he knows the others are just the same. There are always moments where they put the other’s well–being over their own. Where they take hits.

Fugo and Narancia fight nearly every day with one another, but they constantly protect each other. Moving around perfectly when teamed up on a mission, though, they’ll take blows for one another, knowing that the other has their back, in a way that appears nearly graceful despite the risk. As if it was all part of a plan only the two of them knew of. Despite the lectures that they’ll get. 

Though, it’s not as if they hold weight.

It’s sparse, but Bucciarati and Abbacchio are just as graceful in their movements with one another. Like a well–rehearsed dance, maneuvering the other to avoid a blow in the knick of time or creating a distraction through themselves. Even if it will land them in the cross–fire. So much in tune with one another, although Mista has always been surprised with how rare it is despite them being lovers.

The importance they hold towards each other in every way possible. It’s calculated. As their leader, Bucciarati can’t give too much away and Abbacchio follows his lead and orders without so much as an opinion shown in the moment. 

Then there is him and Giorno. He’s always remained surprised at how fast and well they worked together. A fast connection. At first, he thought it could solely be that before Giorno, he was the newest member. The stand–out between the duos already formed, though they never once excluded him. Then, the aftermath fell upon them. Giorno was all he had left for the time–being.

Trish, as well. An unlikely bond when he felt she was too stuck–up, and she thought he was brash in the worst way possible in the beginning. Personalities that should have clashed together, but they found they clicked. 

It can go in so many different ways. He has protected Fugo. Narancia has protected Abbacchio. The list goes on, and it’s what makes a team. He would and has done anything for them.

Yet, not as graceful as the others it seems. Not as thought out as them. He over–estimates, more so than anyone else, as proven recently. Somewhere along the way, Mista had twisted that in a way that would be harmful for himself. It was only a matter of time before he was called out.

He just hadn’t meant for it to go on for so long.

When there’s a creak on the stairs and the voices drift up, indistinguishable; Mista pulls himself up. He knows that if they truly want to enter his bedroom, they can. The locks won’t stop them. Not when there are copies of keys for every room, Bucciarati can create a zipper down the length of the door, or Giorno can turn it into a damn bird if he wants to. 

The aspect of privacy is truly nothing but imaginary, though no one tends to override it unless there is danger presented.

Mista can’t believe that they would let him hide after what he has said. 

So, without pausing to truly think it through; he stumbles over to the window, pulling it up as fast as he can so that he can slip through the opening, reaching towards the lattice on the side to climb down. 

Though as he wanders aimlessly down the streets, with no place in mind, he can understand why Narancia feels relief from his repeated runaway acts. From getting away and escaping into the outside from it all. While it happens less frequently these days, it had been mentioned that in the beginning, shortly after moving in; Narancia would disappear for hours on end when he felt overwhelmed. When the security he was given felt as if it was too much, and the care threatened to swallow him whole.

Mista believes that he can relate to that feeling right now. There had come a fear over what he had revealed. The reactions each person would have, and the words they will want to say. Yet, at the same time, comes a guilty, burning sensation over the way he knows they will try to comfort him.

Their eyes will be reflected with that gentle care, and their voices soft all while trying to urge him to talk. He knows because he’s seen it. He’s been at the end of it before for countless reasons, but this feels bigger than the rest.

He can’t handle that. Not tonight, at least. He knows that eventually, he’ll have to turn around and return home to where they’ll be waiting. Though, for now, he continues walking down the road until the sun begins to rise over the horizon. Only then, when he knows that their days have begun with countless tasks to complete for Passione, does he sneak back in the way he came out.

As expected, the house is silent. He has a hundred of missed calls and messages on his phone, but he pays them no mind when he collapses into his bed. He’s lucky that he has the day off. 

The tables turn.

He takes on the act that he had set out to remedy for Bucciarati and Abbacchio. The withdrawal they experience. The avoidance they created. With snappy words, if anyone gets too close and presses too hard. He knows that it won’t last long. That he can’t keep up the act forever. There will have to be a give because he knows better than to expect the others will let it go.

Still, he refuses to confront that thought head on. He’ll bide his time as long as he can. Though he finds that it ultimately won’t be for long, like that cynical whisper in his mind hissed.

In the following days, there’s a mission. He’s sure that the others would have wanted to leave him behind, deem him as a risk when he hadn’t spoken over the obvious problem and continued to ignore them. Though they found that they couldn’t afford a smaller segment of the team for this type of mission, even if it was only one person.

After all, this will and has always remained the mafia. Their jobs come first when it’s their living.

Even so, Mista sees Narancia stealing glances at him as the two are paired together. His face is rather unsettlingly expressionless that Mista finds that he can’t tell what he thinks the way he usually could, but he knows him well enough to make a guess. A guess that he doesn’t want to confirm, which is why he continuously gives him silencing glares every time he sees Narancia open his mouth. 

He doesn’t get a single thing he wants as he’s learning.

“You’re worrying them.” Narancia whispers as they sneak around the warehouse, their steps carefully concealed and bodies kept in the shadows and between boxes.

Mista huffs. “I don’t give a shit right now. Focus on the mission before you get us caught.” He hisses. Not sparing a further glance as they cross a further fraction, cutting across an aisle of shipments.

Voices echo around them, nearly lost in the ambiance of the outside; the waves of the ocean and calls of the sea birds. Bucciarati and Giorno. Somewhere around here, Fugo and Abbacchio hide like them, though Mista doesn’t catch a glimpse of either of their snow white hair.

He crouches down behind a crate, shuffling to make room as Narancia follows his movements. His hand bracing against Mista’s shoulder for balance as he crouches while looking through his scanner.

“I’m just saying.” Narancia continues when no one suspicious or fast approaching is located from around them.

Mista growls, nearly wanting to bang his head into the wood. “Focus. Dumbass.” If their plan was to get on his nerves, they were succeeding. 

Narancia glares. “The dumbass is the one who won’t just talk to us.” 

He says it like it’s easy. Mista stays silent. His eyes staring straight–forward, pointed towards the grimy ground of the warehouse floor. Narancia’s hand tightens its grip for a mere second before it releases. There’s a small sigh, and he can imagine the slight defeat on Narancia’s face. It should fill him with victory, but he feels a pang of guilt instead.

“We care about you.” Is all that Narancia says after. Soft and caring. 

Even so, Mista doesn’t respond. Not when a shout rings out that makes them stand from their hiding place with their own guns ready. Just as easy as it’s always been, they slip back into that mafioso role.

Of course, there has to be a fight. No enemy ever makes it easy for them. Teams change around them. Gunfire rings out. Their plans commence. Abbacchio and Giorno sneak away in lull of the distraction, Mista catching their running figures out of the corner of his eye. Just as planned. As such, Fugo switches to Bucciarati, covering him. His remains the same. Narancia alongside him. 

A good portion remains a blur around him. An aspect that he’s become accustomed to with Passione. Yet there are always moments that slow his surroundings. Certain things that he zones in on. Tonight is just the same.

When he glances at Narancia, he takes notice of a hunched figure behind him. Trying to keep hidden. The younger remains unaware. When a gun rises, Mista feels his breathing stop. His body feels as if he’s weighted down to the ground as he watches in practically slow motion movements as a finger moves towards the trigger. 

Without a thought, he lunges forward. Even though Narancia goes to turn with his own gun raised and there’s a familiar whirl of an engine moving directly behind the enemy, it doesn’t stop Mista from slamming into his side to knock him to the ground. Narancia’s gun clatters next to him as he loses his grip. The responding fire of gunshots are loud. Echoing in the interior. Mista practically feels the force as he stumbles back. There’s a pause, then a twitch of his body.

He knows better than to believe the sound was solely just Narancia’s gun accidentally firing nor was it his own.

He’s been shot before. His torso was once littered with bullet holes in practically every inch of skin. That gunshot to his head. Numerous times that he can no longer count and keep track of. This shouldn’t mean anything when he glances down at his chest. The blood rapidly stains his sweater. 

Just as Aerosmith fires at the enemy, everything feels as if it speeds up when he heaves violently.

He feels his breath become caught in his throat. The wild thump of his heart as it hammers painfully against his chest. A combination of fear and adrenaline. There’s a surge of burning pain before it fades into a tingle. Then a horrifying numbness.

He continues to stumble backwards, as if his body is fighting everything to keep himself upright. It’s not the same as in the movies when a person would immediately drop to the floor when the slow motion effects cease and time catches up. 

Mista falls back against someone’s chest, their arms coming up to steady him without hesitation. Their voice when they speak is quiet, as if to stay calm for him and to not betray the panic clearly there when Mista can feel that fast pace of their heart against his back.

“Sit.” 

One simple word that Mista doesn’t have a choice over when his legs are a second from buckling. A lurch and a stumble that has the arms slowly lowering him to the floor in help. His head lulls back against the other’s shoulder. His mouth is dry, and a cloth pressed against his chest. Voices swirl around him, but none truly settles to register in his mind. 

“Bucciarati–?” Mista calls out weakly. As if it’s second nature to him when his mind hadn’t caught up that his lips moved until the name had already been called.

The figure behind him shifts. “Right here.” Comes the gruff response, and Mista realizes that it was Bucciarati the whole time who had steadied him. Who remains behind him to press the cloth to his wound. 

He’s been shot before, yet tonight is different in not just pain. His legs twitch and kick out, his breath heaving, and chest jumping. Maybe he would have handled it better if he were able to sleep. Maybe he would have handled it better if he wasn’t still recovering from a previous injury. His leg is scared and still numb in some areas. Especially when he put more pressure than he was supposed to in order to keep moving in his day–to–day life.

Perhaps if he listened to the others’ concerns, took better care of himself, and stopped playing it so recklessly, he wouldn’t find himself shutting down. 

He tells himself he’s being over–dramatic.

He’ll be fine. He’ll recover, and it will all go back to normal. A difficult night, but it will all be swept under the rug in the way that he has become used to. Mista has taken hits before. This one bullet will mean nothing, despite what the amount of blood has to say.

“Giorno–?” He hears someone call out frantically. Fugo.

Muffled replies, then a cacophony of shocked voices when a new set of footsteps approach. Mista tries to lift his head when he feels Bucciarati stiffen.

“Unconscious.” He hears Abbacchio’s gruff voice. Strained, more so from anger than anything else. The man standing with Giorno in his arms and staring down at Mista with piercing eyes that don’t quite reflect the fear and care he truly feels when he can only be frustrated that this has happened once again. 

Mista doesn’t have to bear that look for any longer when his blinks become longer before his head falls back once again and his body goes slack. Joining Giorno in unconsciousness.

The house is silent that night. Mista and Giorno are moved to their rooms.

It’s a blur of movements and motions. Fugo hurried to finish his administration of first aid when he could only do so much on site with the sparse items they had, and Bucciarati’s zippers. In the meantime, Bucciarati focused on Giorno. Dressing his wounds with a tight face that visibly relaxed when he saw that they had been relatively shallow. The only concern being the injury to his head as he carefully cleaned the blood that had begun to mat his hair together. All the while, Trish moved between each of their rooms. Items in hand and listening to any orders either of them had given her.

Through it all, Narancia and Abbacchio had remained relatively useless. Standing around, watching in the door frames, had felt pointless when they only hovered over Bucciarati and Fugo. Making them nervous under their watchful eyes until Fugo snapped with a command to leave.

There was nothing more they could bring when Trish would already have it at the first word. As such, rather disgruntling, they opted to wait in the living room. A wait just as agonizing as they had imagined.

Though Abbacchio believes that it’s better this way when it lets Narancia have a clearly much needed moment for himself.

“Goddammit!” Narancia yells. “I had it! I knew the enemy was there, I knew what he planned to do! I was waiting for him to get nearer so that Aerosmith could sneak up on him when he thought that I was distracted, and Mista fucking blew it by putting himself in the middle!” 

Abbacchio watches his explosive reaction in silence. Letting him have his moment as the boy paces around the room. 

“Why the fuck–?!”

“He didn’t want you to get shot. It was an aim for the head for you.” Abbacchio cuts in gruffly. His leg bounces up and down uncharacteristically as the anxious feeling flows through him. The aftermath of how this damn mission has gone. “The same reason that he’s been doing this. It’s all self–sacrificial for our benefits.”

He knows better than to expect that to soothe Narancia. Especially when Narancia suddenly kicks at the armchair, knocking it over with a thump. His mannerisms are similar to Fugo’s as he yells out a string of curses with repeated kicks to the wood. Abbacchio waits until he falls silent and is relatively calm before he speaks again.

“Come here.” He mutters, shuffling on the couch.

Narancia breathes heavily, listening when the rushing blood in his ears falls silent. He comes forward, practically collapsing next to him. Abbacchio pulls him against him, smiling slightly when he feels the tension fade from Narancia as he melts into him. Neither of them speaks. 

The stairs thump from behind them, Bruno and Fugo walking down, their voices low with one another. They draw the two others’ eyes towards them with held breaths.

“Giorno has woken up.” Bruno starts quietly. “He’s sore, but I gave him a painkiller that should kick in soon and help him sleep through most of the night. Trish is with him currently.”

They all listen without interruption. It’s better to start with what is relatively good, even if they’re anxiously awaiting the bad. There’s relief over Giorno, but the tension and steady fear over Mista remains. Narancia makes that known. 

“Mista?” He asks shakily. The compensating anger is gone, and his full fear is on display. “Will he be okay?”

A beat. Then Bruno sucks in a harsh breath.

“From what we can tell, he’ll be fine.” He says before he turns towards Fugo, who had crossed the room to silently pick up the armchair to seat himself in. Bruno gives him the floor in use of a detailed explanation. 

Fugo nods, brushing his bangs away from his face to buy himself time as he takes a steadying breath before clearing his throat. “I managed to pull the bullet, and it came back clean as not having any suspicious traces of anything on it. Our main concern was his right lung possibly being punctured, but as of now his breathing is steady and doesn’t seem as if it’s dropping, nor as if either his heart or lungs were badly damaged from the expected impact of the shrapnel. More than likely, the severe bleeding, combined with other stress and fatigue on the body, made him go into shock. That’s why it looked worse than it was.” 

It’s too good of news that Abbacchio and Narancia’s eyes narrow in suspicion. Fugo goes on.

“However, his ribs and blood vessels were damaged.” There it is. “We’ve taped his ribs, and we’ll be keeping watch over the internal bleeding and possible hemorrhages.” 

Everyone stays silent. Unsure of what words they can even say. 

“Right now, we’re looking at lasting nerve damage and general scarring. I’ll keep watch on any further damage that may become more apparent later on, along with any further traces of bullet fragments.” He finishes. There’s a beat before he stands once more to watch over Mista. His steps quiet against the stairs. 

With an equally quiet sigh, Bucciarati glances over at Abbacchio and Narancia. The two still have nothing to say. Silently, Narancia presses closer to Abbacchio with a sullen face. Skin pale as if he’ll be sick. Abbacchio is not much better, but he keeps his face bitter as to not betray that worry. When neither speaks, Bruno takes the other side of Abbacchio, leaning his head against his shoulder and allowing himself some vulnerability when he crumples. 

“He’s going to make my hair turn grey.” 

Abbacchio huffs a laugh. “None of them have already?”

Night falls steadily. The early morning is just as silent. When Mista comes to, Fugo is cleaning his wound after reapplying the stitches.

His expression is cold, even before he notices that Mista is awake. He focuses on the motions of his hands, wiping carefully around the stitches. It’s silent in the room. The atmosphere smells of sickness in a way that he has long since gotten used to. The antiseptic burns, and when Fugo digs the cloth deeper against the area, he can’t suppress a small hiss of pain.

Fugo’s eyes snap towards him. Red meeting dark brown. Somehow that expression goes even colder, and Mista watches him purse his lips together in an attempt to prevent any ill intent words he wants to say from leaving him. He looks away.

Mista decides to push his luck. 

“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” He croaks, low in volume. Voice dry and strained.

Fugo rips himself away from him. The bottle of antiseptic is launched at the wall, landing with a large thump of the plastic and splatters when it tips to the floor. At least it makes up for the smell of sickness, even if the smell akin to bleach sparks a sense of nausea. The wastebasket tips over when Fugo kicks at it. He breathes heavily.

“Of course I’m mad when you’re a fucking idiot!” Fugo yells as he whirls around. 

Mista winces at the volume. God, he wishes that he just kept his mouth shut, though he knows that it was inevitable, always speaking before his mind catches up to him over the effect it will have on others. Fugo will be just one of six people to react like this.

Fugo runs his hand through his hair, tugging lightly at the strands. “Stepping into the middle, pushing him out of the way like that–” 

“Would you rather have me or Narancia shot?” Mista asks, believing he knows the answer. Of all their missions that have gone wrong, he’s seen how rough the nights can be for Fugo when it’s Narancia in this position. “I was protecting him.”

“You didn’t need to!” Fugo shoots back, storming forward. “He was more than aware of his surroundings, Mista, he had himself covered, and you knew that.” He squeezes his eyes shut, willing away the headache from the stress and anger. “You always do this. Ignore what we have agreed upon, and go with what you want, which is half–assed plans that hold no logic or are well–thought out, and you get hurt as a result!” 

Mista doesn’t know how to respond, so he decides that it’s better to not acknowledge it at all.

“How long have I been out?” He doesn’t look at Fugo when he asks, but he can imagine the way he deflates from the huff that comes across the room by his ignorance.

“Not long. Only for the night.” The other whispers when the anger is so prevalent he’s afraid that any louder it will be a further yell. “You lost a lot of blood, which led to general weakness. You were awake off and on, just out of it. Luckily, there was no fever, but there was a fear of an infection.” 

Mista nods, glancing down at the stitches. “Gold Experience–?”

“Giorno was also hurt.” His voice goes softer this time. Empathetic when he stares at Mista through sincere eyes. “We only knew when Abbacchio came back carrying him.”

Mista feels the air leave his body. He sits up, nearly going to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, though Fugo comes over to rest a hand on his shoulder to keep him seated.

“He’s fine.” The younger amends right away. “He was just unconscious at the time that we had to rely on Bucciarati’s zipper and standard first aid for the both of you. Giorno woke up before you, but likewise, his body experienced too much stress placed upon it that we worried over the effects it would have if he used Gold Experience. By that point, I had already extracted the bullet from you anyway and declared the damage sparse.” 

He keeps it at that. Not wanting to worry Mista anymore about the details and descriptions of his injuries. Though it doesn’t prove to work.

“Fuck, I should–...I could have watched over him, taken Abbacchio’s place, maybe both could have been avoided–” 

“Shut up!” Fugo snaps. Loud and strong. “What you did was stupid, but it wasn’t your fault. Focus on yourself. Stop putting others ahead of your own life.”

Another lull of silence. Mista doesn’t know what to say when objectively, Fugo is right just the same as the others have been, but he’s still not ready to confront that just yet despite the severity it has taken.

Fugo sighs. “When will it be enough? How many more times do you need to be shot for it to sink in that what you’re doing is not right?” 

Only one out of the countless interrogations that he will go through, even if to Mista’s mind it’s useless when Fugo said himself the injury wasn’t that deep. Yet,

“I don’t know.” Mista answers honestly. It’s the first time that he has admitted that he’s in the wrong even if it’s only by three words and nothing more.

Fugo purses his lips together. He gives a shallow nod before moving to clean the medical supplies to place back in the first aid kit. It closes with a snap, echoing around the room same as the plastic creaking under Fugo’s grip. He takes it in his hand, walking to the wall that faced a hit as he reaches for the spilled bottle.

“Then figure it out. We’re done waiting, Mista.” He grits before turning on his heels and leaving the room with a slamming bang.

Disappointedly, he continues to deflect. It’s the only thing that he does now, and he finds it hard to be able to break from the habit that has ingrained itself into him. He stays silent, compensating with sleep. Pretending just to avoid talking. 

Though Fugo was right. They’re done waiting, and they’ll do anything to get him to talk.

Mista wakes to the sound of a zipper coming down the length of the door. He stiffens, lifting his head up as his heart skips a beat at the thought of Bucciarati entering his room.

He wishes that he could say he breathed in relief when it wasn’t him. Except that it wouldn’t be true. Not when his stomach drops instead at the sight of Giorno entering through that zipper with a nod of thanks to Bucciarati. Mentally, Mista sends a thousand curses his bosses’ way when he knows that Bucciarati is aware of what he’s doing by sending in Giorno. 

He and Abbacchio had gotten nowhere a week before, expected it to be the same here, but they knew that Giorno could get him to break. It’s unfair. Especially the way he physically looks when he enters. 

Giorno’s covered in bruises. One eye is nearly swollen shut, framed with a busted lip and more bruises around his jaw. A splint has been placed on his nose. His leg trembles, but the clothing hides how it looks. Mista can only guess when Sticky Fingers has followed Giorno into the room to help him enter through the gap and stays by his side to help further steady him until Giorno nods in confirmation. He mutters words underneath his breath that Mista doesn’t catch, though it’s shown when the Stand is gone in a blink, taking the zipper with them.

Giorno glances towards him. Face rather expressionless the way that it always is. Though Mista can see through him with what is reflected in his eyes. Frustration, anger, sadness, but most of all a soft kind of compassion despite what Mista has put him through.  

He comes closer. With a limp, Mista takes notice, and he feels his face deflate further.

“What the hell did they do to you?” He whispers.

“Don’t.” Giorno shakes his head, holding out his hand. His eyes narrow. Despite his pain, he keeps himself upright when he’s determined to speak sense into Mista through words that are no longer sugar–coated. He feels that it is the only way for him to get through to him.

“You’re a hypocrite, you know?” 

Fuck. Just as Mista had expected. He can’t look at Giorno. 

“All this time, you told me repeatedly to care for myself. To ask for help. To know that I am not alone. Yet, you couldn’t follow your own advice.” His voice is stern. Despite his harsh words, his face remains soft. He comes closer to sit beside him on the bed. “I feel as if I have followed a liar.” 

Mista flinches. “It’s not the same.” He tries to say. “It’s different, GioGio.”

“Is it?” Giorno muses sarcastically. “I can’t see how that can be true. Or at least, I can’t understand it. None of us can. However, we want to. More than anything, though, you avoid us. Tell me, Mista, what keeps you from telling us?” 

“I–” He can't answer.

“You told Bucciarati that our lives matter more. Though you said it in terms of mafia business. The missions and investigations that we go through. It goes farther than just missions, doesn’t it?”

The clock ticks on. Mista doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s nothing, Giorno.” He curses mentally, anything would have been better than that.

“It’s everything to me.” Giorno shoots back, looking genuinely hurt. “I want the truth. An honest look at how you feel and think. There’s no judgement in anything that you say. Haven’t you said that to me before, Guido? That as my best friend, you wouldn’t judge anything that I would say no matter how weak I thought of myself? Apply that to yourself, or every little bit of comfort you’ve given me has been meaningless. Each word I should spare no thought towards, much less believe, when you can’t even believe them for yourself.”

He feels himself crumple. Giorno is connecting both of their well–beings together, and he finds it hard to keep up that wall when his best friend stares at him with so much care, all while calling him a hypocrite. 

“I don’t want to go through it again.” Mista finally whispers, even if it’s not a lot. It’s a start.

“Go through what again?” Giorno, of course, asks. His head tilted back, eyebrow raised. 

“Losing them while I stand off to the side, watching. Not doing anything. We let Bucciarati go into that church alone. We should have watched over Abbacchio, and we only took our eyes off of Narancia for a second, but even that was more than enough for us to lose him.” He swallows, trying to will those flashes of that week away. “Can you blame me for that, Giorno?” 

Giorno falls silent, and it’s not every day that Mista renders him speechless. The clock goes on. Uncomfortable ticks that fill the room that goes further desolate in atmosphere alone the more the time passes them by. Finally, a sigh.

“No. I can’t blame you.” Giorno says honestly. “It’s a fear that we both share. However, treating them as if they’re fragile, as if they’re already dead, helps nobody here. Especially not you. It’s not the way for a team can work together. Certainly not a family, either.”

Mista can see his point.

“I can’t stop myself. I know it’s a problem, that I’ve never been right in this thought process, but every time I tell myself that it’s enough; that I need to stop, I can’t. I’m once again throwing myself in the way to save another.”

“You can,” Giorno replies back as if it’s an easy fix. “You just have to extend more trust to us and yourself. That’s the problem here. You don’t trust ourselves with our own well–being, nor do you trust yourself to allow yourself that aspect.”

Mista sighs. “I know. It’s just…hard. I want to give you that trust.” He’s sure he looks pitiful. Especially when Giorno scoots closer. “I wasn’t always like this.” 

Giorno hums. “You can give it.” He reaffirms his position. “I know that you can, you just have to talk to us. Allow us inside your head and to talk through your thoughts. Especially to Bucciarati. As the Don, I’m sure that you are aware that he plans to talk to you over this, regardless. You have a choice to make; continue to drag this out, or speak to find a solution as you are doing now.”

Mista already knows that the latter is preferred. That it’s better, so slowly he nods.

“Okay.” He whispers, believing that it’s the end of it, but he finds himself surprised when he begins shaking and his eyes burn. Though it’s hidden when Giorno pulls him into a hug, allowing Mista to hide his face in his shoulder.

“It’s okay.” Giorno says softly, and the dam bursts. He feels his sleep–shirt becoming wet, but he says nothing, nor does he mind. He only tightens his grip.

After his conversation with Giorno, Mista knows better than to expect any amount of privacy. Proven when the following night, Narancia lays asleep against his side, his arms wrapped tightly around him in a grip that doesn’t loosen in the slightest. Not as if Mista minds. They both get the reassurance that the other is okay with an additional warmth and comfort. As such, it’s easy for him to keep his arms around Narancia and let him curl as close as he wants. 

The extent of their conversation had been Narancia staring at him from against the door as if he was a ghost before quietly whispering; “Please, stop.” No anger, no yelling despite what Abbacchio had borne witness to. Just a quiet plea that hit deeper than the yelling could have.

Though it does lead to a boring moment when Narancia drifts off and Mista can’t move to grab for a book. Nor does he want to follow him into sleep when that’s all he’s been doing throughout the day. It’s why he breathes a breath of relief when the door cracks open. It wouldn’t have mattered who, but his eyes light up when Trish walks in. 

“Oh, thank God.” He beams. “I was about to die of boredom, Trishie.” 

Trish huffs, closing the door behind her. “You could easily move him off of you.” 

Mista shrugs. “He takes any movement away from him as a personal insult.”

Trish can’t argue that point when it’s true. She comes closer to the bed, sitting on the edge when there’s just enough space left for her, surprisingly considering Narancia and Mista sprawl out and practically take the whole bed. The countless sleepover nights they’ve had together alongside Giorno and Fugo had proved it. 

She stares down at Mista and he can already guess what will happen when her eyes narrow. 

“You’re so fucking stupid, do you know that?” She asks, and despite himself, Mista grins.

“Fugo already gave me this lecture. Giorno too.” When that doesn’t elicit much of a response past a blank stare, Mista sobers up. “I’m sorry, Trish. I got into my own head and over–compensated for what I felt as if I needed to do for you guys. The fear I had if I didn’t.” 

It’s honesty that shocks Trish though she sighs. “It’s just hard to watch you all leave on a mission, and I’m already preparing myself to expect another injury.” She rests her chin on the palm of her hand. “Despite not looking so, I worry every time all of you leave.”

Mista knows. Every time they return, she sits in the living room, waiting. No matter how late or how tired she is. Always with the first aid kit ready at her side. It’s not just in the wait during a mission when it’s gone further, he’s noticed the books in her room. The medical ones. How to care for injuries. Gunshot, stab wounds, so much more that she prepares herself the knowledge of in case she needs to put it to use.

“I know you do.” Mista whispers. The words are reminiscent of another night the two found themselves like this.

“This isn’t about me,” Trish says in a shaky voice. “I’m telling you this for you. Not for myself. Not to seek out comfort. To let you know the way I look at you, and the fears I hold when it comes to you. You can’t continue like this.”

“I don’t plan to.” Mista says honestly. The talk with Giorno had made that notion clear.

“Good, because a team is supposed to share equal weight. Not rely on just one. You have to trust that the ones around you know what they are doing. It’s hard, but you only make it harder when you already view everyone as corpses who can’t defend themselves.”

Mista sucks in a harsh breath. Trish hit closer to home than he would have liked. She must see it when she lets it go, sure that he understands now as he has admitted.

“Mind if I stay?” She asks quietly.

Mista shakes his head. “Please.” 

Trish shuffles to settle down on the other side of him, resting her head on his shoulder, smiling slightly when Narancia shifts in his sleep. They lay in silence before Trish suddenly chuckles. 

He looks over, eyebrow raised. “What?” He asks, a small smile on his lips.

She lifts her head slightly, her smile grows. “I told them to go easy on you. Bucciarati and Abbacchio. Do you think they’ll listen?”

Mista snorts. “Not a chance in hell.” 

Trish hums, placing her head back and looping her arms with his, holding it close. “You deserve it.” Scared them half to death, and he does. 

A couple of days later, once his recovery is deemed relatively good in progress that he regains most of his movement and any lingering effects have a low chance, he finds himself sitting in Bucciarati’s office. The very man sitting at his desk with Abbacchio at his side. Both of their faces are stoic.

“You were right.” Is the first thing that Mista says. He looks them straight in the eyes. Face sincere and apologetic to show that he means it.

The cold faces of the two expecting another argument drop upon hearing those words. They soften.

Bruno sighs, his eyes slipping shut with a strained expression as he cradles his head, trying not to run hands through his hair. “So were you.” He admits. “I shouldn’t have brought up my concerns the way that I did. You were just trying to help us, and I became defensive. It wasn’t the correct way to handle it.”

Mista nods, appreciating it when the ambush was less than desirable and only heightened his panic and need to hide.

“Watching you both…die like that, not even having a chance to say goodbye…” Mista murmurs, admitting the problem without them having to ask. “It’s the mafia, I know, but it plays in my mind repeatedly. What could have been, where we would be now if you both died then, it made my mind go into overdrive and I wanted to prevent that from happening again. Putting myself in the way lets me. It gave me a sense of control.” 

The two men look at one another, silent thoughts exchanged through mere looks.

“I’m sorry.” Mista whispers when they stay quiet.

“Did you mean it?” Leone speaks this time. “That our lives are more important than yours?” He walks around the desk to lean on its side as he stares Mista down, calculating. “You know how that sounds, don’t you?” 

“I do.” He tries not to sound numb.

“Then explain what you meant by it.” 

In a way, Mista feels as if he already has. The previous words were a skewed point of how he felt, and he’s sure that they know that. They want a deeper explanation to rule anything else out, and he tries to expand it.

“I don’t want to die.” He says simply. “I know what it sounded like, but believe me when I say I didn’t mean it like that. I just panicked.” 

“It doesn’t just mean that you want to die,” Leone snaps. It wasn’t what he wanted. “No one wants to despite their occupation, but I can tell it’s not just over–confidence or done to prove yourself the way that Giovanna plays his self–sacrificial bullshit.” 

Mista groans. “I don’t know what I can give you other than what I already have!”

Before the argument grows, and walls are built up once more, Bruno raises the palm in his hand to signal for them to listen when he had watched the small back–and–forth through silence. They do. Always obedient. 

“Deep down, Mista, do you feel as if we hold more importance than you?” He asks softly, bringing them back to his starting question. Mista looks down.

“I– I don’t know? I mean, I’m just the bodyguard. All of your roles mean more; you’re the Don, Giorno the consigliere, Abbacchio and Fugo are each your second–in–commands, the ones you go to for second opinions, and Narancia may be a bodyguard himself, but with Aerosmith he means more. Then there’s me with just a gun with a Stand that just uses them as soccer balls and not much else. Not to mention, I get shot more times by the target than my bullets feel as if they hit them. I guess I thought because of that, it’s easier for me to go because it’s a part of the job.”

“A title doesn’t matter.” Bruno says sternly. “Especially when they are only brand–new. Our dynamic has never changed from what it was before I became Don. It’s only become closer as the time moves on, and I would never take any of you for granted. Don’t take your own life for granted, nor your Stand, Mista for what you believe is a strict hierarchy latter. Your ability is just as useful as any of the others, and has routinely come to save us throughout missions. Understand?” 

“Yes.” Mista responds on command, his face twisted regardless, betraying his thoughts.

“You don’t believe me?” 

“I do. I just need time.” 

Bruno hums. “That’s understandable, and with us, you get that time. You get those reminders. Just talk to us, don’t push us to the side, and put yourself in harm’s way. We care about you. More than anything.”

Silently, Mista nods. This time there’s a smile. It’s not a perfect fix, no one had expected that, but the problem is revealed and with that comes help offered. 

“We’ll both do better.”

Mista believes him.