A/N: I wrote this fic in December 2014, and recently dug it up to do some editing. It still needs work, tbh, but I've been sitting on it for long enough, so here it is.
...Ngl, it's p much just detailed hand zipping with a dollop of whump and a dash of BruAbba for added flavor.
Warning for blood and mild gore herein.
Hold Fast
By the time they make it back to the safe-house, Abbacchio isn't quite sure how he's still alive. He can't stay fully conscious for more than a few minutes at a time. His mind flits in and out, and he's only aware enough to feel pain and get dizzy and acknowledge that this is not a good state to be in.
Somehow, he's able to get out of the car and to his feet – albeit helped immensely by Fugo and Giorno. He's leaning on them a lot, he knows, and the arm that isn't wrapped and clutched close to his chest is tightly around Fugo's shoulders now.
Abbacchio's knees keep buckling under his own weight. Fugo stumbles in turn. "Giorno, go get Buccellati."
And then Giorno is gone, and Abbacchio is sagging against the car. Fugo is trying his best to keep him upright, and to keep his arm elevated above his heart. Abbacchio fights off unconsciousness and stands as straight as he can – the adrenaline is finally starting to leave him but he wishes it would come back, because the pain wasn't so bad then.
"Abbacchio! Fugo!" Buccellati rushes from the house, Giorno trailing behind him, and Abbacchio's sluggish gaze follows them.
"What happened?" Buccellati asks, once he's closer. His eyes give Abbacchio a thorough once over, noting immediately that he is obviously not okay. Fugo gets briefly examined as well, looking scraped up but otherwise unharmed.
Fugo is about to answer when Giorno pulls a bag out of the car – a bag that contains Abbacchio's hand as well as ice that they'd picked up on the way back.
"Oh," Buccellati takes a step back, "God…." He looks at Abbacchio again, focusing on the blood soaked cloth that he now knows is covering the area where a hand should be. "Let's get him inside."
It's slightly smoother sailing with Buccellati helping. Abbacchio stays as steady as he can, but a good amount of his weight still rests with Fugo and Buccellati – his legs feel like lead (which is worrying if he's being honest). Giorno follows behind, bringing the hand along with him.
"The kitchen," Buccellati orders, and luckily it isn't far.
Unluckily, they run into Narancia on the way. His face goes pale, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline. "Abbacchio, what did you do?"
Abbacchio can't even muster the energy for a proper glare in response to such an obvious question; his features are already set in something of a grimace, so he supposes that will suffice.
"Narancia, can you get the door?" Buccellati asks, and Narancia scrambles to comply. He watches worriedly as the group makes their way into the kitchen.
Abbacchio is lowered into a chair at the table, and he slumps gratefully down, breathing erratic and heartrate fluttering. He's well and truly exhausted, but he responds to prompting when Fugo once again urges him to hold his arm up higher.
"Is Mista still with Trish?" Buccellati asks, voice steady as usual.
"Y-yeah." Narancia answers, sure, but he's halfway preoccupied. He's looking at Abbacchio's severed hand where Giorno has placed it on the kitchen table, and his eyes are wide.
"Narancia," Buccellati says, his tone soft but commanding, and Narancia's gaze flickers towards him instead. "Please go and patch up Fugo for me. I'll take care of Abbacchio."
"Sure, Buccellati." Narancia nods, although doesn't make any move to leave. He hesitates, dancing on his toes with concern plastered across his face, until Fugo sighs and grips his elbow.
"Come on," Fugo urges, and all but drags Narancia out of the room. "He'll be fine."
Once they're gone, Buccellati busies himself with gathering dish towels and addresses Giorno without looking in his direction. "Did you get the key?"
"Yes."
"Good. Hold onto it for now and keep it safe for me." Buccellati piles two towels on the table, and runs a smaller one under warm water. "Will you go let Mista know you're all back? I've got things covered here, now."
Giorno clears out then, tactful and quick, and Buccellati sits down across from Abbacchio. The bag containing his hand is between them, and Buccellati moves it aside for the time being.
"Give me your arm," he says, reaching forward until Abbacchio complies – albeit shaky and slow. The sleeve (and most of Abbacchio's shirt, for that matter) is soaked through with blood, a lot of it dry by now, but plenty of it fresh. The cloth wrapped tightly around it is red as well, and Buccellati begins to remove it. Being as careful as he can, he uses the wet towel to ease fabric away from where it sticks to the wound.
Abbacchio sucks in a breath and holds it, his other arm pressed across his chest, knuckles white where they grip his shirt. When the cloth is fully removed, more blood drips down and Abbacchio's breath rushes out and hisses back in rapidly. His head falls back, eyes squeezed shut.
At the sight of the jagged wound, Buccellati goes pale. He's seen terrible injuries before, severed limbs and appendages included – he's even used severed limbs during combat. Of course, what his stand creates are clean edges, easily zipped back together and meant for easy reattachment. This, though…it's roughly done, and must have hurt like hell, and now he has to attempt to piece it together, and it's Abbacchio.
He thinks he might be sick.
He swallows it down, sure that Abbacchio is faring far worse.
As careful as he's ever done anything, he pushes the sleeve up and away from Abbacchio's wrist and folds it over to ensure it stays out of the way. Then he braces the hand-less forearm with a folded towel under it, Abbacchio trembling all the while.
You'll be alright, he wants to say, wants to reassure him, but Abbacchio's tipped his head up a bit, and opened blank, glassy eyes that flash with pain. He's sure actions would be appreciated over words at a time like this.
So Buccellati says nothing, only reaches for the bag and pulls out Abbacchio's hand. It's cold, but not too stiff just yet, and it's going to be okay because Abbacchio has to be okay.
He holds the severed hand in his own left, and reaches to steady Abbacchio's still-trembling arm with his right. The skin on the other man's wrist is wet with blood and he can feel the heat of the injury as it throbs, more blood leaking out and staining Buccellati's sleeve. Abbacchio flinches in his grip and grunts. It's the first sound Buccellati has heard him make since he arrived, and even though it's pained, he takes it as a good sign. At least Abbacchio is still with him.
Sticky Fingers appears, hovering next to Buccellati and gripping Abbacchio's arm in tandem with his user, helping to line up the crassly cut flesh. Once contact is made, Buccellati lets go, leaving Sticky Fingers to hold arm and hand in place for him as he cleans up the blood along the connecting seam. He wills his hands not to tremble.
Abbacchio had made a choked noise when his wrist was reconnected, his breathing quick and shallow. His intact hand moves to squeeze at his opposite shoulder so hard his knuckles go white again. He seems to be trying to avoid looking at his injury now, though his eyes keep drifting back towards it.
"Abbacchio, steady," Buccellati reminds him, "breathe deeper."
At Buccellati's prompting, Abbacchio sucks in a measured, deep breath in an attempt to level his breathing, his eyes closing over tears. He's still shaking, and a bead of sweat rolls down his temple.
Sticky Fingers gets to work then – everything seems lined up well enough, as far as Buccellati can tell, so a zipper slowly begins to appear. He wants to make sure the hand stays in place well and straight enough to heal, so he adds smaller zippers inside as well, connecting bone and muscle and tissue and veins.
It's a delicate process, and judging by how much paler Abbacchio's gotten, it must be a painful one as well. He holds his breath behind firmly closed lips until he buries his face in his own shoulder and drops muffled curse words there, hair falling limply to shield him. His fingers maintain their white-knuckled grip on the shoulder of his injured arm.
Unwilling to move his hands and disturb the careful work his stand is doing, Buccellati presses his knees in on either side of one of Abbacchio's legs, sandwiching the calf between both of his own. "Just a bit more," he murmurs, and Abbacchio whimpers in return when a wave of pain travels up his arm.
Several tense minutes later, Sticky Fingers finishes its work and fades out of sight. Buccellati holds the newly attached hand in one of his own, lifting the arm experimentally with the other, and Abbacchio cries out in a mixture of pain and shock. Buccellati offers a quiet "Shhh," as he examines the gleaming gold zipper that shines in place of the bloody edges.
The wound has stopped bleeding, and he hopes that blood is now circulating through the hand as it should be, instead of dripping uselessly onto the table. He rubs chilled fingers between his own warmer ones, trying to jump-start the process.
Abbacchio is panting as he gingerly reclaims his arm and sits up straighter, bracing himself against the table with his good hand. He sniffles a bit as he looks over Sticky Fingers' handiwork, and Buccellati notices how his pale blue eyes are still tight around the edges with pain. "Damn…" he says, voice so quiet and hoarse that Buccellati almost doesn't hear.
"Try moving your fingers, and your hand itself, if you can." He hates having to do this, but he wants to be sure he's done his job right before the damage starts to fully heal.
Long, bloodstained fingers twitch a little as Abbacchio gasps and winces, pressing his healthy palm to his forehead and breathing carefully. "Yeah it-it moves," he says, hand sliding down to cover his eyes, "it just…hurts."
"As long as it moves, you'll be alright." Buccellati says around a sigh of what might be relief. That business out of the way, he's free to move on to another issue: "Why did you do that, Leone?!"
Abbacchio rubs at his face for a moment before dropping his hand to pull the folded towel closer to himself, resting his injured arm on it. He's paler than usual and still trembling, but his breathing has calmed and his sweat is drying. His eyes have more presence. "I did what I had to, just like always," he says. "You would've done the same."
"I –"
"Giorno didn't go along with it, of course," Abbacchio continues, talking over Buccellati and refusing to meet his eyes. "I had to use a piece of glass, and it hurt like a bitch," he shudders all over with the memory, wincing and grunting when it jostles his wrist, "…to be honest I wasn't expecting to be alive to feel it for long."
"Don't say that," Buccellati responds without thinking, the words tumbling out of his mouth on reflex. Gently, he places his hand over Abbacchio's zipped wrist. "I'm glad you made it back," he pauses to take a deep breath, "you had me worried."
Abbacchio shakes his head minutely and a small frown graces his features. He's still not looking at Buccellati. "Please don't," is all he says, lips barely twitching on the word as he pulls his arm away.
"Stop acting like your life can be easily thrown away." It feels like the millionth time Buccellati's had to say this. Under the table, Abbacchio's leg shrinks away from where it's still tucked between his.
"Well," Abbacchio snaps, "life is a fragile thing. If I had died it would have been with purpose."
Buccellati is exhausted. This is an old and tired argument, and one he never gets any closer to winning – but that doesn't mean he's willing to let Abbacchio gain any ground either. "I would miss you if you were gone, Leone."
Abbacchio looks at him and his eyes seem softer, even if they're still clouded over with pain. "I know." He looks almost sorry. Almost.
'Do you?' Buccellati wants to ask - wants to hold him until he understands. Until he does know. But he's long since learned that nothing he says or does will convince Abbacchio to stop pursuing his missions to the point of death; nothing he says or does will convince Abbacchio that there are people who genuinely worry about him.
Tired as they both are, Buccellati acquiesces to drop the subject for now. "Give me your hand," he says instead, "I'll clean it up a bit more."
Obedient to orders as ever, Abbacchio does as asked, and Buccellati gets to work. Gently, he massages bloodstains off of pale skin with a clean spot on the wet towel, trying to bury himself so far in his task that he stops thinking of how Abbacchio doesn't care that he almost died.
It's hard to maintain focus, however, when Abbacchio reaches his good hand across the table and cups Buccellati's cheek with it.
"I'm sorry, Bruno." The voice is quiet, although steady in a way that it hasn't been in a long while. It's accompanied by a thumb stroking the skin under his eye, and Buccellati refuses to cry, but his eyes sting regardless.
Dropping the towel back onto the table, he presses his palm over the hand on his cheek and gives it a gentle squeeze. "No you're not," he whispers.
Abbacchio breathes out what might be a laugh, damn him.
There's a brief silence after that, during which Buccellati seeks eye contact and Abbacchio graces him with it. Something like an apology is clearly present in his eyes, now, although the longer Buccellati looks, the more it resembles regret. For what, he isn't sure – Abbacchio himself might not even know.
Fingers curling around Abbacchio's hand, Buccellati coaxes it away from his cheek so he can press a kiss onto its palm. That finally gets some color back into Abbacchio's face, pink flaring over his cheekbones.
"Thank you…" Abbacchio says, as his eyes shift away and he hesitates. Buccellati has known him long enough to catch the unspoken 'for caring about me' that's dangling on the tip of his tongue.
Gently, Buccellati places his free hand over the shining zipper on Abbacchio's wrist. "Of course."
A/N: Vento Aureo anime when...
Thanks for reading.