Chapter Text
Watching Narancia wither and starve was something Fugo never would have thought he’d do twice in his lifetime—it was not only the peak of wrong, seeing someone once so vibrant now reduced to a shivering ghost buried in every blanket they could find, it was also agonizing for all involved, but especially for Narancia’s closest friend.
Fugo had been there, years ago, had stared down at the brunet as he scavenged through a dumpster in search of something edible, had felt his heart clench at the sight of prominent ribs and jutting cheekbones and the saliva dripping from the other boy’s mouth as he found a decaying pizza crust under the layers of refuse. No one should live like this, he’d thought then, and now, seeing that same boy—that boy who had scarfed down anything and everything he and Bruno provided, who guarded his food like a stray dog, who had slowly but surely put a healthy amount of meat on his bones—being reduced to… to… this?
It was enough to break him. To make Fugo willing, for the first time in months, to sic his Stand on someone–on the bastard that had done this. None of their Stands could seem to touch Hungry Like the Wolf, so that mode of combat was out, but that only meant a whole lot more suffering was in store for Ficatolla whenever Fugo could get his hands on him.
“I had to make a choice every day!” the man had screamed at them from a distance, the canid form of his Stand already digging its way into Narancia’s stomach. “The choice to either keep myself or my brother from starving! Now it’s your turn to do the same.”
They’d tried catching the bastard as he made a run for it, the coward that he was, but by then he’d vanished from sight and their focus had turned, naturally, to their teammate, who was screaming and falling to his knees and gripping his stomach. The way he just… sagged to the ground, as if there was no strength left in his body, was an image Fugo would not soon forget.
“I don’t feel so good,” Nara had moaned as they carried him to the van. He curled up on the seat where they set him, shuddering and panting and whining, clutching his abdomen which had gone abnormally concave. Based on this behavior, and what Ficatolla had said, it was easy to guess the Stand’s power: starvation. They needed to get some nutrients into him, and quickly.
And they had—only for Narancia to immediately throw aside the rest of his toast and nearly vomit all over Trish. Getting the wastebasket under him in time was a borderline miracle on her part. She’d rubbed his back as he heaved and whined; his arms promptly gave out beneath him and Fugo had to rush forward and hold him up.
Every attempt at feeding him ended that way. Whether it be soup, bread, protein shakes or even a few cautious sips of water, everything that passed Narancia’s lips was always quick to come right back out.
Not only had the Stand emptied his system of its existing nutrients—it was preventing him from taking any in, too.
If they didn’t take out the user quickly, their friend was going to starve to death.
The news settled heavily on the group like an oppressive fog. Bruno and Trish busied themselves with making the smallest gangster as comfortable as they could, catering to his every whim—normally he’d take full advantage of the opportunity and ask for ridiculous things, like the collector’s edition of a new action figure he’d had his eye on, but now that all but his consciousness had been stolen from him, Narancia’s requests were limited to the same, dazed mantra: blanket… water… med’cine.
(But of course there were no medicines to make his suffering stop, there was nothing they could really do for him, they were useless-)
Meanwhile, Fugo had joined Mista, Giorno, and Abbacchio in the ‘focusing only on killing Francesco Ficatolla’ group, throwing himself into the search for the elusive man that was slowly stealing Narancia from them. Their first stop was the courtyard where it all began. Abbacchio pursed his lips and had Moody Blues find the trail of their query, and they followed the bastard down several city blocks before coming to a stop at a street corner, where Ficatolla climbed into a cab and disappeared. He’d left no pieces of himself behind for Gold Experience to give life to. For now, they were stuck.
Desperation overtook Fugo then. His best friend was running out of time—it was obvious in the way his shivers had died down to nothing more than the occasional twitch, the way his head lolled on his overly-fluffy pillow, the way his eyelids fluttered but never stayed fully open. He’d stopped speaking hours ago, Bruno said grimly. All that was left in him were grunts of pain, sometimes a sob.
It had only been eight hours and Narancia was already on death’s doorstep.
Desperation was the first to flood Fugo’s mind, followed by determination. The theory that had been drifting through his head suddenly gained traction— I had to make a choice, the Stand user had said. Now it’s your turn to do the same.
A choice…
Watching wasn’t what had tormented Ficatolla the most. It was the act of choosing who starved.
If that was the case…
Late that night, when everyone was exhausted, Fugo took Trish’s place at Narancia’s bedside so the girl could get some much-needed rest. Bruno was asleep in the other chair, Narancia’s hand clasped loosely in his.
Fugo leaned over his best friend when he was sure they wouldn’t be overheard, shaking his shoulder gently.
“Nara,” he whispered, “Nara!”
“Mmmmmm….” Narancia moaned in response, cracking his eyes open just slightly. They were bloodshot and bleary, but there was just enough recognition there to show that he was listening. Fugo swallowed thickly.
“Give it to me.”
Narancia blinked slowly. “Mmm?”
“Just trust me, okay? This’ll save you. It’s the only way. Give it to me.”
Were he in any clearer a state of mind, Fugo knew Narancia would never agree to this; his friends were the people he valued most in life, and he’d die before he would willingly put one of them in harm’s way.
But in this state of mind—groggy and hardly comprehending, rotting from the inside-out, in untold agony that nothing could alleviate—Narancia locked onto the promise in his words instead of the implied consequences. He let out a weak sigh and licked his chapped lips, lifting his fingers from their resting place on the thick duvet. There was a bandage wrapped around his hand from one of many failed IV attempts.
Seeing the intention in those dull eyes, Fugo buried his sense of self-preservation and took Narancia’s hand in both of his, willing Hungry Like the Wolf to latch onto its new prey.
Consciousness came back to him slowly after that; the next thing he knew, he was curled up tightly on the ground with Bruno kneeling beside him, panicking.
“Can you hear me? Fugo! What happened?”
Fugo shoved his probing hands away. “Get Nara food!” he cried as his stomach collapsed in on itself. “He can eat now- hurry and get him some food!”
Abbacchio and Mista set to work slowly reintroducing Narancia to the concept of eating while Bruno switched between scolding Fugo for his recklessness and coddling him like he was still a traumatized thirteen-year-old. Giorno sat at his bedside with a rueful look constantly in place.
“I can’t neutralize it,” the blond explained, rubbing the bridge of his nose as though a headache was coming on. “I’ve tried several times, but it winds too tightly around your organs for Gold Experience to safely extract it.”
That was all kinds of reassuring, Fugo thought as he held back another groan. He’d severely underestimated the absolute agony that starvation brought with it—it wasn’t just a strong feeling of hunger. In fact, it wasn’t a feeling of hunger at all. He was so hungry he was past the point of feeling hungry. He just felt empty. Like there was nothing filling his insides at all, nothing for his cells to feed on besides each other. If it was possible to feel oneself withering away, in the same way he’d watched Narancia fade, then he was definitely feeling it now—like each muscle cell being broken down for energy (and wasn’t that funny, considering he had absolutely no energy at all) was directly attached to his nervous system, screaming out in pain as the biological teeth sank in and tore off chunks.
At least Nara’s gonna be okay.
That was about the only thing keeping Fugo sane. If he focused on his relief that Narancia was now eating, now talking again, then he could keep his anxiety at bay as the hours wore on.
His stomach did a particularly painful barrel-roll and a grimace pulled at his lips. Giorno winced in sympathy at the display, awkwardly adjusting Fugo’s blanket to rest under his chin.
Bruno looked pained himself, even as he tried to remain on the bright side.
“The good news is that we now know it can be passed from person to person, meaning we can split the burden. Hopefully we’ll have tracked Ficatolla down before anyone else needs to step in, but it’s good to have a plan to fall back on.”
He wouldn’t outright praise Fugo for being self-sacrificing, but the teen could see the reluctant gratitude in those navy eyes all the same.
Fugo was on fire even as he felt like he was freezing over. For a while his own existence became blurry to him, right on the edge of complete obliviousness to the world around him, broken only by the occasional spasm of his shrunken stomach or a light touch on his forehead, coaxing him into wakefulness so Trish or Mista could judge how much he’d deteriorated. His eyes could barely focus on their faces, but they never looked pleased with what they found.
There came a point where he had to make the choice to stop responding; when Mista shook his shoulder with increasing urgency, begging him to wake up, Fugo kept his eyes shut and his face slack. He was running out of fuel, and fast—he needed to preserve his energy. All he could do was listen passively.
Narancia came to visit later that night. As hard as it was, Fugo refused to wake for him, either.
“Dude, please! I know it’s bad, but don’t give up yet!”
God, was it hard.
“Fugo! Fugo! Hey!”
The sound of labored panting met his ears; the hands gripping his sweat-soaked shirt began to tremble. Narancia was no doubt straining his recovering body in his desperation.
And then: “Give it back to me! Fugo! I know you can hear me—give it back!”
Not a chance, Fugo thought.
“No way,” Mista snapped. “You’re too weak, dude.”
“Someone has to! He’s dying! We can’t just… ya hear me, Fugo? You bastard! You can’t just trade your life for mine! Mista, we have to do something!”
“Calm down, Nara—” Trish was saying, sounding close to tears herself.
I can make it, Fugo thought, and shivered.
At some point he stopped hearing them entirely.
In the depths of frigid water, a warm hand took hold of his, causing Fugo’s stagnant thoughts to stir.
Give it to me, Fugo.
Give what?
You’ll feel better. Give it to me. I can take it.
Better. Was better even possible? Wasn’t his corpse mangled beyond repair? It had been hollowed out, left to rot—he just happened to still be inhabiting it.
Panna. Give it to me. Everything’s gonna be okay.
It was a voice he trusted, if not one his muddled brain could recognize. And its words sounded so sweet… Better, it promised.
What did he have to lose?
His skeletal arms were wrapped around the dog—the dog that was crushing him, consuming him. With the last vestiges of his resolve fading alongside the energy left in him to breathe, Fugo released it.
He woke up to the feeling of steam on his face, lifting the scent of chicken broth to his nose. It made his stomach clench painfully. Fugo cracked open his eyes.
“Oh thank God,” Trish cried, eyes red-rimmed and puffy. She pulled the bowl of soup back, giving Abbacchio room to sit Fugo up and stuff some more pillows behind him. Fugo could barely process what was happening from then on; he only knew to swallow the tiny spoonfuls of soup Trish poured into his mouth, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite as his brain desperately tried to catch up.
I can eat now. Nara’s hurting me. It’s fine.
The crushing weight of his friend sleeping on his legs was just comforting enough to justify putting up with. His body heat at least somewhat lessened the pain of the hunger pangs—a feeling Fugo was both thankful to have again and ready to be rid of.
What happened? he wondered sleepily. They didn’t catch the guy, did they?
His stomach clenched at a particularly large mouthful of soup.
Mista was on the floor… oh god, Mista!
That familiar voice. The one asking him to sic the Stand on him. Fugo had been hoping to hold out until the user was caught, but instead he’d had to forfeit, and now his friend was going through that—that hell!
He slammed his eyes shut, fighting to hold onto the little food he’d eaten.
Guilt quickly turned to resolve, dampened by frailty though it may have been, to see Ficatolla caught. As soon as he was able to sit upright on his own again, Fugo called for Bucciarati to sit with him, and together they tried to come up with a plan in hushed whispers—Narancia, refusing to leave Fugo’s side, simply slumbered on.
There wasn’t much to go on. Depressingly sparse information, especially considering next to nothing had been gleaned by Bruno and Abbacchio’s outing while he was down for the count. Their eyes and ears throughout the city had yet to report any sightings of the man.
“He can’t have gone far,” Bruno asserted, crossing his arms over his chest. “A Stand this strong can’t have that much range.”
Fugo nodded, not so much in agreement but in deep thought. “Normal starvation can take weeks to kill you, while Hungry Like the Wolf does it in less than a day. Under normal circumstances, that amount of energy usage plus the distance would be nearly fatal to the user. However, if it’s a remote-controlled Stand, that wouldn’t be an issue.” And then, because nobody liked to just talk about it without being prompted first, he asked, “How’s Mista doing?”
A complicated swirl of emotion overtook Bruno’s face and he bit the inside of his lip, angry and concerned and afraid and so many other things.
“He’s holding steady… for now. Although he doesn’t have the strength to make jokes anymore.”
A tragic concept, indeed. Fugo’s chest grew tight with an anxiety that he tried desperately to hide.
“Can I go see him?” I owe him that much.
“No.”
Surprised, he gaped at his capo. “... No?”
“No,” Bruno reiterated firmly. “You and Narancia are forbidden from seeing him until the user is caught—or until the Stand is passed to someone else. Both of you are still delicate as is, and I’m not risking you making the idiotic decision to take it back.”
I wouldn’t, Fugo wanted to argue, could feel the words at the back of his throat, but faltered.
I would, if it would protect you all.
Bruno, Abbacchio, Trish and Giorno hadn’t felt this misery yet, and he desperately wanted to spare them—especially Bruno, who would no doubt insist he go next. Getting their bleeding-heart boss to then inflict that suffering on someone else? Unlikely.
They were running out of time. Mista only had a few hours left before he’d have to give it up.
Fugo clenched his teeth. “Get the others in here.”
All able-bodied team members had gathered in Fugo’s room—all, that is, except for Trish, who was monitoring Mista, and Giorno, who was simply nowhere to be found.
Commenting on the latter turned out to be a mistake, as it then set Abbacchio off on what was probably not his first rant on the topic: “That brat keeps going off on his own for hours and coming back empty-handed. He’s always gone when it’s time to give the Stand to someone else—haven’t you noticed, Bruno? In and out all day, but conveniently gone when he could actually be of use. The coward.”
Anger simmered in Fugo’s gut, but he kept his lips pressed together because, as much as he wanted to defend his friend, starting a fight would only waste the precious time they had left.
Bucciarati, though, was more than willing to rise to the challenge. He glared at the goth venomously. “You’re saying you want Giorno to take it? It’s our fault we weren’t here to stop Fugo and Mista from taking it, and now you’re saying you want another one of the kids to starve?”
“Tha’s fucked up, Abba,” Narancia commented sleepily, stretching his back. When he realized he was still lying against Fugo, he gave a shit-eating grin and proceeded to scooch closer, invading whatever was left of Fugo’s personal space. The blond rolled his eyes, too caught up in his anger on Giorno’s behalf to do much else.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Abbacchio retorted, having the presence of mind to backtrack for once. “It’s the principle of the matter. All of us are supposed to work as a team and be willing to make sacrifices for the mission, and he’s flaking out on us. How am I supposed to trust that going forward?”
“This isn’t—” the front door opening and shutting cut Bruno off momentarily. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice, hissing, “This isn’t a normal mission and you know it. If you give him any trouble over this, Leone, I swear—”
A haggard form appeared in the doorway, leaning slightly against the frame. Tired green eyes studied them.
“Sorry I’m late,” Giorno murmured, looking slightly abashed. Without ceremony or any of his usual grace he plopped onto the bed at Fugo and Narancia’s feet, crossing his arms over his ribs in a way that almost looked like he was hugging himself. “We’re discussing a plan of action, I assume?”
The bed’s other occupants shared a loaded glance. He looks like shit.
What had he been up to out there?
“We were,” Abbacchio huffed under his breath. Giorno wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Bruno scowled in warning, earning an equally grumpy scowl in return, before catching Giorno up: “We’re trying to think of how else we could track Ficatolla. Now that Mista’s taken the Stand—” Giorno’s eyes widened slightly at that, “—we have more time to work with, but only a little. Did you come across anything while you were out?”
“No.” And Fugo could tell that it really, really bothered him that he hadn’t. What was he expecting, though? Going out on his own was hardly a good plan in a situation like this.
It reeked of desperation.
They all were desperate. When it came down to it, when push came to shove, there was only one thing that mattered to each of them, buried amongst the other unspoken truths that had long ago become cemented: they needed to protect each other. Without Team Bucciarati, for most of them, there was nothing, and because there was nothing else to lose, they were willing to throw their entire beings on the line to try and keep alive that semblance of family they’d somehow pieced together. It was all they had, so they had to guard it fiercely.
And right now all of them were failing miserably. Each transfer of the Stand was both the carrying out and the failing of this unspoken mission.
As such, maybe it was understandable that Abbacchio was angrier than usual, and maybe it made sense that he’d lash out at someone who was an easy scapegoat.
The goth sneered in contempt and crossed his arms. “Maybe if you’d stop running off when you’re needed, we’d be at the bottom of this already.” Bruno’s head snapped in his direction and he glared again, but it did little to deter the man whose guilt made him say regrettable things. “Seriously, what’s the point of you going off on your own if you’re gonna come back empty-handed? We’ve already established that you’re not gonna be able to solve this by yourself, but you keep running away whenever shit gets tough. It’s fucking ridic—”
“That’s enough!” Fugo snapped, causing Narancia to jolt and the others to stare at him in surprise. He didn’t even care; he was sick of it. “This isn’t solving anything! Stop blaming everything on Giorno! Mista’s running out of time and we need to figure this out. Now—Abba,” he said, staring right into sunset eyes and daring him to disagree, “tell me everything you saw when you searched the docks.”
Pointless. It’s all pointless. That was all Fugo could think when he woke up a few hours later, at some godforsaken hour of the night, to find Narancia curled up at his feet, tears in his eyes and rage barely suppressed in his tightly-coiled shoulders. Having had longer to recover, the older boy was unsteadily back on his feet while Fugo still couldn’t even dream of getting out of his bed, and he’d apparently left the room at some point, only to come back now, shaken to his core and angry at the world.
“Bucciarati took it,” he whispered hoarsely.
That, more than anything else before, felt like the beginning of the end.
Bruno tried his hardest to hide the effects from them; he sat up in his bed, brushed wrinkles from his pajamas, held steady conversations, and even found the energy to fake a laugh at a half-hearted joke Narancia made. Nevermind the harsh shadows cutting into his cheeks or the way his hands trembled—he was perfectly fine!
Not that anyone bought it, of course. If anything, this made them crowd even closer around him, work even harder to try and alleviate his pain. He would shoo Trish away, only to have her return moments later with a pillowcase of warm rice to rest on his spasming stomach. All of his efforts to get Narancia to rest, short of claiming to need a nap himself, were met with stubborn refusal. Fugo stayed rooted to his spot beside his mentor, reading aloud from his book whenever conversation grew sparse. Anything to distract.
Giorno, as had become his habit, was in and out throughout the day, although when he was home he was almost always at Bruno’s side, awkwardly trying to help.
Similarly, Abbacchio became the exact kind of teammate he supposedly couldn’t trust, leaving the house for hours and returning periodically to check in before heading right back out. If he had seemed desperate before, he was absolutely frenzied now. The need for Ficatolla’s blood grew stronger with each passing moment that ticked away at Bruno’s life.
The pressure became too much for their remaining teammates to bear. More than once, Fugo swore he heard angry, whispered words being exchanged in the hall—it seemed like any time Giorno and Abbacchio’s paths crossed, it produced sparks that were getting closer and closer to becoming a full-blown bonfire. Something had to change.
That change came riding in on Trish’s choked voice as she said into the phone, “Abba… he’s barely breathing… please…”
Abbacchio obviously broke many laws to get back as quickly as he did. Within minutes he was crouched by Bucciarati’s side as the younger man fought for every breath, all pretence long forgotten.
He said the words nobody believed would work.
“Bruno, give it to me.”
Whether it was his unflinching loyalty, the strong faith Bruno had in him, or an act of sheer desperation that caused it, Abbacchio’s efforts were rewarded with the instant loss of strength in his legs and a feeling of emptiness Fugo had learned to identify by the choked keening sound that escaped him. It took Fugo and Narancia’s combined strength to keep him from hitting the floor and bruising his knees; with shaking limbs they struggled to carry him out of the room so Trish could start the reintroduction protocol with Bucciarati.
Winded and aching all over, Fugo dropped the man less-than-gently into his own bed and tried not to wince in sympathy as Abbacchio silently curled into the fetal position. You don’t deserve this, he thought, but aloud he only said, “Hang in there, Abba,” and covered him with his threadbare duvet. Narancia pursed his lips and left, returning with his own blanket in hand.
“Shit gets cold,” he said simply, tucking it around the goth who had yet to even acknowledge their presence. Abbacchio only curled further into its depths and groaned.
Tamping down on his worry, Fugo settled in on the mattress beside the man who had spent many a night doing the same for him. Just as Abbacchio would make himself a barrier against nightmares (that were really just memories in disguise), Fugo would try to stave off his friend’s misery as much as he could with his presence alone.
He just hoped it would make a difference.
It was three in the morning when Fugo’s phone started ringing, startling the two of them into various stages of alertness. He answered it, and upon hearing Giorno’s voice, decided to put the phone on speaker.
“I think I’m getting close to finding Ficatolla—I found a friend of his and I’m going to convince him to talk to me. How are things on your end?”
Abbacchio snorted—maybe at Giorno’s confidence, or maybe at the implication that things could possibly be going well at home. Thankfully, though, he didn’t say anything.
Not that he had been saying much of anything lately.
Fugo ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Abbacchio convinced Bruno to give it to him. It’s been rough on him right out of the gate, though. I don’t think he’ll last as long.”
A disgusted sound floated out of Abbacchio’s nest of blankets.
“I see,” Giorno said, and was quiet for a few tense moments. Fugo would give anything to know what he was thinking. Then, finally, he murmured, “I guess it can’t be avoided, then.” And something in Fugo’s chest tightened at the emotions hidden in the other teen’s voice, underneath his resigned cadence. Giorno was afraid.
I wish you weren’t our only option left, Fugo lamented. I wish you didn’t have to do this.
“You don’t have to do this, Giogio,” he found himself saying, immediately wanting to hit himself for spouting such an obvious lie.
“The alternative is one of you taking it again or giving it to Trish, which I’m not going to allow. I’ll be home soon.”
And with that he hung up, leaving Fugo with an even grumpier Abbacchio and a feeling of dread in his gut that he couldn’t quite understand.
It seemed Leone had been saving his energy for this very moment, because, after hours of staying in exactly the same spot, doing little else but moaning pitifully and occasionally curling up tighter when the pain hit, he was miraculously able to sit up and speak as soon as Giorno returned, two hours after the phone call.
And of course, being that this was Leone Abbacchio, he had been waiting and biding his time solely to be a contrarian.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he spat, “and just kill the damn bastard already. You found a lead, right? Follow it. Get out of my room.”
Giorno, standing as far from the bed as he could while still being in the room, crossed his arms, looking more and more weary. “That will take more time than you have left—I have a general location to search, but doing so by myself won’t be fast enough. Give the Stand to me now so you’ll still have energy to finish the job.” As he spoke, he slowly approached, putting what Fugo recognized as a deliberate effort into making his expression as open as possible—as though Abbacchio was some sort of mistrustful child.
Actually, yeah, he kinda is.
The goth sneered at him. With deceptively steady hands he pulled Narancia’s blanket tighter around himself.
“What makes you think we’ll have enough time to save your scrawny ass?”
Giorno smiled and it was entirely fake. “I can go much longer than most people without eating. You’ll have at least twelve hours to find him.”
“You can’t—” Fugo started, at the same time that Abbacchio snapped, “What, is that your tragic backstory? You went a long time without eating? So did Narancia, and look where that’s gotten him. Fuck off.”
“I don’t get it,” Giorno suddenly said, sitting forcefully on the end of the bed and ignoring the way Abbacchio recoiled from the closeness. His green eyes were burning, tired ashes catching flame once more. “For three days you’ve been angry at me for not taking the Stand, and now that I volunteer, you get angrier.”
Fugo knew the reason. He also knew Abbacchio would punch him if he said it aloud.
“Why’d you wait to be last, huh?” Abbacchio challenged instead of answering. It was obvious he didn’t actually care, but the need to deflect was written all over his face—without the energy to even bother hiding them, his thoughts and emotions were easy to read.
Giorno reigned in his indignation and brought his braid over his shoulder to fiddle with, looking away in favor of studying the wall. The shadows under his eyes, compounded by days of exhaustive searching and worrying, seemed to grow darker as he considered something, and when he finally spoke, it was the most earnest he’d been thus far: “I wanted to take it. This entire time, I’ve fought with myself over whether it would be worth the danger, and it was difficult to stay away. You have my apologies for making the rest of you go through this, but it’s safest for me to go last.”
Safest? Worth the danger? It was hard to reconcile that phrasing with a simple fear of experiencing what was obviously a painful Stand. Fugo chewed the inside of his lip, wondering just what could make it so dangerous for Giorno to take it.
Something in the atmosphere suddenly made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Nobody had moved, no words had filled the cavernous silence, but something had changed.
Abbacchio seemed to sense it too. His eyes widened a fraction before he forced them back to the usual bored half-mast, but by then he had started trembling with the exertion of sitting upright and all hopes of looking casual were shot.
“I’m not gonna give it to you, kid,” he said, and as sternly as he said it, the loathing was gone from his voice.
Giorno’s eyes narrowed in determination. “You need to,” he replied. “If you keep it for much longer, it’ll take you days to recover. We don’t have that kind of time.”
“I still think it’s highly unlikely you would last that long,” Abbacchio countered. “I don’t know if you’re just that cocky or if this is some savior-complex bullshit, but it’s not worth the risk.”
Finally seeming to key into what the man was actually saying, deep in the heart of all those abrasive words, Giorno’s expression softened and he met Abbacchio’s eyes imploringly.
“I can, and I’m asking you to trust me—just as I’m trusting you to find Ficatolla in time.”
And for several suffocating minutes, all was quiet. Fugo didn’t dare to so much as breathe too loudly, afraid he’d break the spell slowly being woven. The fact that Abba hadn’t outright objected to the statement—and was pursing his lips in a way that would look to anyone else like disgust, but was actually him genuinely thinking the words over—was telling.
Finally, he heaved a deep sigh.
“Bruno’s gonna kill me.”