Author Note: Chapter 5 is posted! I had so much fun writing it. I hope you have fun with it, too. Chapter 6 will take a while as real life interferes with my fanfic writer gig :P I'll post some little cookies that I have in progress while we're all waiting for the next mug of this story to brew. I promise it will be complete someday, I do know how it ends.

This is the continuation of a previously posted "backstory" collection, which you can find through my author page. You'll find some non-canon motivations and occasionally abilities in here, which are best explained in my stories "Master of Puppets" and "Living on a Prayer." You'll also notice Bucciarati, Abbacchio, and Fugo are a little older in my version; Giorno might feel younger, but I am using his canon age of 15. Ships and character development can be found in my stories "Like a Hurricane," "Bad Name," and "Sweet Child of Mine." You can also find some plot hooks developed in "Burning Down the House," a longer work-in-progress set during the team's early years.

Trigger warning - we've got some mentions of self-harm / SI ahead and several characters are abuse survivors. Mentions only, nothing graphic on those themes will appear here. Otherwise, just the fantasy violence level of canon JoJo.

Enjoy & stay safe out there!

Hold Back the River

(Bucciarati)

The waves glittered under the May sun. I was thinking how I liked them better than diamonds, as I walked the length of the small yacht. Narancia's music drifted over the chatter of Fugo and Giorno speculating about the diversity of stands. If we never made landfall, I'd be a happier man. A brisk wind filled the sails; we were racing toward a future I had no desire to meet. Good thing I'd set a long, looping course to Capri. At this rate, I'd have another hour before reality pulled me under again.

"Leone?"

As I reached the stern, I found him staring down into the wake the boat left behind, looking pale and despondent and very irritated by the restless wind whipping his hair across his face. Best not to surprise him in a mood like that. I leaned on the railing and edged toward him until I was sure I was in his peripheral vision.

"Leone. You feeling sick?"

"It's no concern of yours."

He gave every impression of addressing the ocean. That was fine; more aquiline profile view for me.

"Seasick or hung over?"

"Why do you bother asking these things?" he snapped. "I'm a disappointment to you either way. And you absolutely know it's both. So why ask?"

"You're not a disappointment." I located bottled water and aspirin on my person – tucked away in some zipper spaces – and handed them to him.

He took the aspirin dry, then chugged the water and whipped the empty bottle into the waves.

"Christ, what did that fish ever do to you?"

Still refusing to look at me. Okay. But that cloud of silky, silvery hair; I remembered it twisted around my fingers, the curve of his neck beneath it; I remembered the scent of it curtaining my face. How was it that I couldn't touch it now? Not even to tie it back out of his eyes? Three years apart and still. Still.

I wrapped my hands around the railing so they wouldn't wander. "I didn't kiss him, if that's what's bothering you."

"Yet."

"No plans to."

Leone gathered his hair in a twist and tucked it down his collar. Hunched his shoulders against – what? The sun, the breeze, the waves? The world, I supposed.

"I already told you," he said, "it's just salt in the wound when you lie about it."

"I haven't lied to you since February of last year."

"…Okay. I'll bite. What'd you lie about a year ago?"

I smiled, not that he saw it. "Told you I had no plans when you invited me on one of your all-night-in-the-rain 'something on my mind' walks. I was actually canceling a date for you. That's all."

"Why the hell would you remember that?"

"Because it's the last time you told me a suicide plan?"

He gave me a long look before dropping his gaze back into the ocean.

"Your selective memory let that one slip through?"

I winced, then rallied. "Yeah, my memory's terrible, we found that out. I know. So I keep a diary now. And after we argued last night about adding Giorno to the team, I checked it, and that's the last time I lied to you. I don't plan to start now. Got it?"

He shook his head. "Bruno, it doesn't really matter what you say. You may even believe yourself right now, but I can see the way you look at him."

"I'm not looking at him any special way."

"You are. Like he's the morning sun after a damn long night. Like you can't even look away."

You don't know this, but when I was fourteen, I lived in Rome, working under the worst mafioso I ever met. He didn't let me see daylight for a little over a year. Kept me in a locked closet, only took me out at night for thieving and other sordid activities. I was a secret; whatever, you get the picture. The day that my stand first materialized is the day I got back the sun.

Leone knows this. I met his beautiful eyes and I saw that he'd chosen his words with care, quite possibly after distilling them all night. He was not happy but he was satisfied to see how they went straight to my head. There was no denying it now; yes, Giorno was the promise of a new day. My heart ached for the first ray of light.

"It's not about a relationship," I said, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

"God, Bruno, sometimes it's like you've never met yourself."

I buried my face in my arms. He wasn't wrong. But– "I really, really wanted to make my life about you again, Leone."

"What do you mean, 'again?' Besides. You asked and I told you what it'd take. I've never been unclear about that. I'm not the one that's stopping you."

Ignore it, I told myself, pressing my eyes shut. He's right and there's no point fighting about it. The past is already lost ground. The only way to win is to prove him wrong in the future. Tough decisions to make and all that.

I raised my head and fell in love all over again at the sight of him. I strove for better.

"It's not a relationship. I told you I'm done looking beyond you and that's true, I'm done. I didn't invite Giorno onto the team because I'm pursuing him; I've never put my lovers on the team, I wouldn't risk our team on my fickle heart. You know that. Giorno is here because he's talented and resourceful, and because he shares the ideals that this team upholds. Or should I say, the ideals we used to uphold?"

Leone's stunningly beautiful eyes snapped to mine and I knew I'd hit the wrong nerve. But fuck, that was the whole damn reason why we'd reached this point! Why shouldn't I say it aloud?

"You know exactly why we stopped those projects." Leone's words were quick little cuts. "You agreed. Given the current climate in our fine organization, we agreed to place the team's safety above our integrity until conditions improve."

"Which they won't."

"Narancia and Mista are seventeen. One more year and you can make them free agents; they'll be able to choose their own way within Passione. If they want to risk their lives to ease your conscience at that point, fine. Until then, you need to hold their patronage so that someone worse doesn't."

"You know I never wanted patronage over anyone," I snapped. "After the ways my patron profited off me?"

"You need to hold their patronage so that someone worse doesn't," Leone repeated. "And that means, no more idiotic risks. For either of us."

"Any of us. Don't forget Fugo."

"I have never once in my life forgotten Fugo."

Ouch. That's a reference to the time I sped to Leone's aid as he fought a losing battle for Narancia's life and freedom – and I completely left Fugo behind, alone and in harm's way. It's Fugo, so he pulled through valiantly, but no thanks to me.

Listen. I am very good at what I do and everyone who ever doubted it is dead, but there's a kind of tunnel vision that sets in when I feel the horrors of the past closing in on me. And Leone knows this, too, but he was right to remind me just how close we came to losing everything. Everyone.

"You're right," I said quietly.

"I am. I don't like it either, you know."

An understatement. Leone didn't use to try to kill himself, before we set our mission aside.

"How can you stand it?" I demanded. "All we're doing now is tightening Passione's chokehold on Italy – the drugs, the prostitution, the political takeover. There's nothing left for everyday people. That's not how you wanted to use your life."

He shrugged and glowered gorgeously at the sea.

"They'll kill us someday," I said. "You know that."

That was the nightmare that woke me, sometimes more than once a night. How we'd find them, Narancia laid out in sections, Fugo dead of horror. Or how it would happen, losing slice after slice of myself while Leone looked on, frantic, helpless – struggling against the chains until he strangled or bled out. Different actors, always the same scene. Sometimes it overlapped with the original nightmare where I believe I've woken in a coffin under six feet of heavy earth. There is only darkness and splinters, no room to turn around. I use my stand sometimes to escape, but the dirt falls in on me and fills my mouth, eventually my lungs.

There are no screams in my nightmares. Everything is so inevitable. Why scream about realities I've lived with since I was twelve? Nothing wakes me.

Burying my head in some other lover's embrace let me hide from the nightmares for a while, but it's impossible to see eye-to-eye with someone who's never lived these horrors. Sooner or later, I came to pieces on every one of them – and then I'd come back to Leone, worse every time. His courage is like the light of the full moon, hardly blazing but endless, permeating, perfect for hunting shadows. That's how I remembered it, at least, but it had been a long time since he'd been his better self.

"Every day, I feel like I'm digging our graves deeper," I said into his silence and the quiet hiss of waves. "You know exactly what I mean. How can you accept one more year of this? Even one more day?"

"It's easier when I think that I'm already dead."

"That's terrible."

"You asked."

"Leone, we can't live this way."

"Maybe in a year," he said, shrugging and looking away.

"Maybe now! Now, with Polpo's fortune and Giorno's fresh talents and, and your brilliance! My RESOLVE! We'll make it happen, Leone! Before they know what's coming–"

"Shh. Don't say such nonsense aloud. If they take you away, if they hurt you – Bruno, I can't stand to think of it."

The catch in his velvet voice, the storm clouds in his eyes – after all, he'd been the one to replay their deaths, to identify their killer. Not that anyone managed to exact vengeance on that one. Not even Risotto Nero in all his fury could lay a blade to him. So the nightmares had pursued us.

Well, I, for one, was sick of it.

"Who's to hear?" I demanded. "We're in the middle of the ocean!"

"Yes, along with several other people. Bruno, how well do you know Giorno?"

I hesitated, because the honest answer was not at all. "He's an ally. He holds the same convictions–"

"That's not an answer."

"Alright. Alright, Leone. I met him yesterday. All I know is what I saw and what he said. I don't know anything about his past – his family, his affiliations, his motivations – only what he told me himself. Is that enough truth for you?"

There was a little dash of contempt in the glance Leone threw my way. Maybe I deserved it. Leone is careful as clockwork when it comes to the team's safety – my safety; he doesn't have a firepower stand to rely on if it all goes south. And I'd been careless.

"He's a high school freshman at an elite boarding school," Leone said. A sour smile played across his fine face, seeing my astonishment. "So no, I'm not concerned that you'd take up with him. Not really, once you found that out. It still stings that you were considering it – a week after you told me you're going for broke to make us happen again. Sure, Bruno. You can 'put whatever you want in his mouth?' Really? And that, in public."

"You replayed our fight."

Of course he had. He'd background checked the rest of the team when they joined. Moody Blues wouldn't let him rest otherwise. He'd probably been up all night tracking Giorno back and forth across the city – across the years. Why had I thought he wouldn't replay that fight?

"Of course I did. What, did you expect less of me? You're right about his stand. He has undeniable potential. But Bruno, he also has no hesitations about taking your life. He spared you on a fucking whim. Because you might prove useful. Is that where you want to stand with your newest team member?"

"It's not like that. I saw it in his eyes – you must have missed it. He's chasing the same dream, Leone. He spared me because we share a common cause."

"Are you really buying the shit he is selling? This is not a particularly scrupulous young man!"

"What are you talking about? Of course he is!"

Leone narrowed his eyes at me – he is lovely when he's angry – and he began counting on his graceful fingers. "He killed Luca over a small dispute – money and pride, nothing more. He cons tourists out of their belongings as part of his 'taxi service.' He is attending an overpriced boarding school and wasting his parents' investment to go out and play at being a street kid instead. His fight with you – he would have killed you, carelessly, without mercy, except for that impulse to use you instead–"

"Leone! It's not–"

"'Like that?' Bruno, he watched a thirteen-year-old die at your hands and his comment was that the child was a drug user – and what this told him about you. The part you'd play in his plans. That's what a child's death meant to him."

"That child died? I thought for certain I'd made a clean exit."

"You didn't bother to check whether you'd taken a child's life. You walked away, arm in arm with your opponent, and you didn't even check."

That was a hard truth to swallow.

"That's not… like me. At least, that's not how I aspire to live."

"It's not like you, normally, no." Leone's cool voice cast right and wrong into stark contrasts. "You're head over heels, Bruno. Maybe not for the boy, but for the dream. His precious, golden dream–"

"Napoli without the drug trade," I murmured, tracing the beautiful vision in my mind. "A life without sin. Leone, do you think–?"

"No. I do not! Look at you! Everything I just said, and this is what you focus on? Do you remember a word of what we just talked about?"

"Of course I do! My memory's fine when life's not fucking unbearable." But because it's Leone and for eight years, he's started every morning by recapping the plot for me, I sighed and gave him the summary to prove his words weren't lost on me. "You don't trust Giorno worth a damn because he almost killed me and he didn't care when that boy died. And because he killed Luca for nothing. Because he's a rich schoolboy playing con games with tourists, and what the hell does he want with our shitty underworld lives, anyway?"

"So you can see everything that I see, and you still want to trust this asshole?"

"Leone, whether you trust Giorno or not is a moot point, as long as we can control him. But tell me honestly, when someone reminds you that there is a better life just waiting to happen – one where children aren't dying of narcotics or at the hands of careless mafiosos – one where we can be proud of how we've treated our city – can you turn your back on that future? Any more than I can?"

He looked at me so sadly, with that otherworldly misery in his eyes. It never left them anymore. Damn but I wanted him back the way he'd been – confident as a midnight cat, ardent as a storm wind. Before, before, before.

"'Deserters are traitors, and traitors can't be saved,'" he quoted. "Bruno, you know that better than anyone. If I thought we could walk away – or if I thought we could realistically change Passione's operations at this point – you know I'd jump at the chance. You know I would. This isn't that. You're chasing someone else's knockoff dream. All that glitters isn't gold. You don't have a plan, you haven't considered the consequences – you want to risk our team's lives, and for what? For what?"

"Leone… What if it's the only way?"

"Why? Why should it be?"

"The only way we'll ever act! We'll wait for Narancia and Mista to come of age, sure, but then we'll wait for our allies to come around, won't we? We'll wait while we gather information. We'll wait for the right opportunity."

"Effective action takes time to prepare. You know that."

"How long did they take to prepare a double murder? What do you think? Was that nightmare two years in the making?"

Leone gave me no answer, only a world-weary sigh.

I tried to rein in my anger. "I'm sorry. I won't disrespect their memory; I'm just saying that it was quick and obviously effective. Our allies turned away, the in-fighting began, and we gave up. We gave up, Leone!"

"Bruno – if you only knew–"

And there it was, I'd pushed him too far again. Leone's hands were tangling in his hair. He looked like a distraught poet. I knew that look. If I didn't back off, he'd lose his words soon and I'd get nothing from him but silence.

"I just…" I struggled to cage my anger. "Why can't our tactics be quick and effective? That's all I'm asking!"

I watched Leone pull himself together. I wanted to reach for him, to soothe him with my hands; old habits die hard. The way his eyes flickered to the right – he was listening to Blues, probably reciting the reasons he stays in this world. Keeping Narancia safe is the top of the list. I don't know the rest, but Fugo does.

"You know where I stand," he said at last, "and I know you'll go against my best judgment. Your mind's already made up, isn't it?"

"Leone, I just can't stand feeling trapped in this life any longer."

"I know. You know I'm desperate for a way out, too. But Bruno, I'm begging you, don't place your trust in Giorno. Even if his 'dream' is in earnest, what happens to you if he succeeds?"

I hadn't thought about it. The journey called to me so intensely, I hadn't considered the destination. I frowned into the waves, considering.

"You don't think you'll keep your status over him, do you?"

"No," I said. "Not with the ambitions he's advertising. That's unrealistic."

"So he'll rise above us. Has anyone above us ever treated us well before?"

That was worth a laugh.

"Exactly," Leone said. "You don't want to know what it took to wrestle the least dignities from Polpo."

"You'll tell me someday. I have some guesses and I'm eternally grateful. I do see your point, Leone."

"Do you? You're thinking about our place in the aftermath of whatever crazy scheme this turns into, but let me ask you this. Do you think Giorno is committed to your survival? No, don't just say yes. Really think about it. Why should he be?"

I liked Giorno. That was the trouble. Knowing his age killed the little crush I'd been nursing along, but just the same, his face was lovely, earnest, and there was something in his manner that drew people to him. I saw how the team all looked at him – they wanted to trust him, just as I did. Everyone except Leone.

Leone, who'd seen far too much of the moments when people thought they were alone. Leone, whose stand was as close to a mind-reader as any method actor could be.

"I don't know," I said finally. "Giorno has no reason to protect any of us if we're no longer useful, but my gut feeling is to trust him. Yours is the opposite. Will you tell me what Blues makes of him?"

Leone hesitated. Strange, always, how he and Moody Blues can hold conflicting opinions. Fugo and Purple Haze are like that, too. Disconnected. Nothing like Sticky Fingers or Aerosmith, who are essentially extensions of our bodies.

"You'll tell me the truth," I said quietly. It wasn't an order – not to Leone, not ever. It was a reassurance, proof against his hesitations.

"Blues is giving me mixed readings," he said finally. "Giorno is exactly what he seems: an arrogant, naïve kid out to make a name for himself. But there's a second level – this cruelty that comes and goes. I see it in his fights. That's why… when you brought him to the restaurant, Bruno, I tried to provoke him. Just enough to bring out his stand."

"Oh? Did you really need a reason to piss in his tea?"

Leone scowled. "Fugo told you?"

"No one had to tell me. It's all the guys talked about, all the way to the marina! They're pretending your stand turns other liquids into piss and that we call you the Piss Lord all the time. What were you listening to with Blues, anyway?"

"It'd only make you sad. Never mind their nonsense. I didn't get to observe Giorno's stand, but that's Blues' conclusion."

"What is? Tell me precisely."

Again, Leone was loath to put Blues' effervescent thoughts into words. "That… that the boy is trustworthy – which I firmly disagree with – but his stand is something malign."

I contemplated. Yes, that fit what I'd seen, in fact. Blues' intuitions are just that little bit keener. Giorno, golden and floating like a summer breeze; everything about him whispering better tomorrows. But that stand. Yes, I should be on my guard.

"There you are!" Mista yelped, skidding toward us. "Abbacchio, Bucciarati – quick, Narancia's gone!"

"Gone?" I grabbed his shoulder. "What do you mean, gone?"

"Disappeared! Vanished! I turned around and he wasn't there!"

Leone was already stalking past me, Blues' power crackling around him. The lightning was back in his eyes – the look I loved best.

"I'll keep Fugo out of the way," I told him, matching his stride. "I have that immunity thing, remember."

"Keep Giorno out of my way," he snarled. "If this was his doing–"

"Don't worry. I'll kill him myself if that's the case."

He met my eyes and finally, I could feel the trust humming between us again. Without a thought I reached for him, but he swung away – throwing Blues at the last spot we'd seen Narancia, there. The boombox had fallen silent.

"Mista, guard Abbacchio," I said, spotting Fugo where he was emerging from below deck, springing up the ladder with frantic haste.

"Narancia? Narancia!" Fugo yelled. He dashed to check over the side of the boat.

Opposite, Giorno crouched, examining – what? A shoe. Narancia's shoe, of all things. In Leone's replay, Narancia rocked and bopped to some crappy pop song from the radio – until, with a static hiss, the music cut out.

From behind me, none of Sex Pistols' excited chatter. No answer at all.

"Mista?" I spun on my heel – no Mista.

No splash, no scuffle, no slamming door. He was simply gone.

"There's an enemy on board!" I shouted, raising Sticky Fingers to hover within me. "Mista just disappeared – did anyone see it happen?"

A cry from Fugo – I turned, but he was gone, too.

"There," Leone said, freezing Blues' replay.

I smacked his shoulder. "Pull your stand back! You're wide open!"

He glared at me. "You've got me covered, right?"

How? Exactly how could I guard both his vulnerable bodies, meters apart, from an unknown enemy attacking from random locations? That was Mista's job, with his ranged and multiple stand!

Giorno swung himself up to the sun deck and crouched by Leone's prone stand. I lunged into defending range, but Giorno only poked at the strange, flattened balloon of skin that represented Narancia's fate.

"This must be the work of an enemy stand," Giorno said, glancing up at me. "Look, he's been rubberized and deflated. There's even a hole."

"Don't. Touch." Leone had eased up the stairs to glower over us.

Giorno shrank back. "My apologies! Then this must be – this is your stand? But I thought–"

"Whose else would it be?"

"Fugo, I assumed." Giorno glanced up and down the boat. "Oh."

"'Oh.'" Leone crossed his arms; he didn't withdraw his stand, but I caught the glint of steel between his fingers. "Now that it's just us, newbie, let's have a little heart-to-heart."

Fast as a snake, he grabbed Giorno's wrist. Giorno yelped and pulled away, but Leone's grip is as inescapable as handcuffs.

"Who are you working with?" Leone demanded, raising Giorno's wrist so he could clearly see the knife blade pressed against it.

"We don't have time for this!" Giorno said. "Bucciarati, we're all in danger! We have to identify the enemy before–"

I shook my head. I was standing guard over them, using Sticky Fingers to watch the other direction – surveilling the entire yacht. If Leone's intuition was correct, the enemy might emerge to aid Giorno.

"Answer the question," Leone growled.

Giorno's eyes widened. "What?"

"Who are you working with?"

"Not that." Impudent kid – I had to admire his nerve. "What did you… just do?"

Leone back-handed him right across the face. "We can do this all day, or you can answer my question!"

"Giorno," I said quietly, "you need to understand that I view Narancia as my own child. When I took him onto this team, Leone and I vowed to protect him – the way his father should have. Fugo, too – he's the best friend either of us has in this world. If you have anything to do with the way they just disappeared, this is your last chance to come clean. If you did this and you lie to us, we will kill you. That is absolute."

Giorno watched me speak with evident wonder. I began to question if he'd taken in a single word. This happens sometimes during Leone's lightning speed interrogations. Most subjects crumble under his hands, as if hours of tension had been condensed into mere seconds. But others do what Giorno was doing now: asking interrupted questions with their eyes darting about or fixing on the movement of my lips with incredulity.

"How…?" Giorno began.

Leone gripped his wrist so tight, Giorno squeaked. A trickle of blood emerged between Leone's fingers. Giorno's stand rose behind him.

Leone narrowed his eyes at it. "Only answer the question, or we will be here all day."

"I'm not working with anyone," Giorno said, his voice quiet but level. "I don't have a friend in the world. My own mother wouldn't care if you killed me, right here, right now. Gold's the only one who's ever had my back. Until I met you, yesterday, Bucciarati – and I thought things would be different, I thought it meant something–" he glanced between me and Leone– "but I guess not, after all."

"Not if you're a threat to my team," I said, reaching to tilt his chin up so I could look straight into his face.

He met my eyes steadily. So young and not so much as a tremor. His fist was clenched against the pain of Leone's blade, but he didn't shake. He didn't threaten. He didn't beg. Behind him, his stand leaned forward avidly; in fact, the way his eyes flicked toward it, it seemed the main force of his will was channeled into keeping his stand under control.

True; even two-on-one with a blade to its user's vein, Gold Experience might be able to take control of this situation. Leone's stand was pinned in replay mode. Mine was raised but facing away. If Gold Experience slid forward through Giorno, transformed the knife into, say, a scorpion; if Leone dropped it in surprise, while Gold Experience lunged at me with that dissociating punch before I could get Sticky Fingers around to block; it would all come down to Leone's poise in disposing of Giorno's creation without damaging it, then planting a knee in Giorno's face before Gold Experience finished with me.

Of course, everyone underestimates Leone. The impressive thing was really Giorno's wisdom in restraining his ambitious stand. Hyperbolic power and a cool head – if he wasn't actively trying to kill me, I very badly needed Giorno for my team. Without our allies, there was no other way to resume those certain projects of ours.

"I believe you, Giorno," I said. "And I believe in your dream. Leone, let him go."

Leone's eyes opened wide. "If he's with the enemy – if he overheard our conversation earlier, Bruno!"

"I'll take that chance. The enemy already has Narancia, Fugo, and Mista. We need to end this, now."

"If they've killed Narancia–" Leone hissed, chilling my blood.

"Narancia's alive," Giorno said with perfect calm.

"And how the fuck would you know that, newbie?"

"See that fly?" Giorno pointed with his other hand, the one not trapped in Leone's knife-edged fist. "I used my stand ability to transform Narancia's shoe into that fly. It's been circling the same area this whole time, trying to reunite with its original owner. That means that not only is Narancia alive, he's somewhere near that spot."

I moved to strike the floor with Sticky Fingers – to open up the enemy's hiding place before he had a chance to move away – but Leone released Giorno to intercept me.

"Bruno! It's a trap!"

"The fuck it is!" I disentangled myself and launched my fist.

A zipper peeled open, revealing… nothing. The passage to the water closets below deck, totally empty.

"He got away," I snapped. "No thanks to you!"

"He was never there!" Leone released Blues and recast it in the cramped space below. "The last person there was Fugo, searching for Narancia just now. Before that…"

Blues flickered out of Fugo's form and the timer on its forehead ran and ran.

"Days ago," I said.

"No one there for days!" Leone snarled. "Giorno is lying to distract us, and we're losing precious time!"

"I'm not lying," Giorno said, licking his thumb and swiping it across the thin red cut on his wrist. "Sooner or later, Abbacchio, you'll see that we're on the same side. I, Giorno Giovanna, have a dream, and I'm prepared to risk everything for it!"

With that, he took a running leap at the bulkhead where the fly was now hovering. A pang in my leg – I looked down to see a spiked green arm stabbing me with a dagger. I stumbled, grabbing at the deck, but the fiberglass surface and wood struts below only zipped apart under my touch.

"Bruno!" Leone seized my arms as the air went out of me.

For an instant, everything stopped. My eyes were riveted to his face, my hands were locked in his, even as the enemy stand pulled me away. I was suspended motionless between them. It was one of those soundless, timeless moments where in days past, I might have gotten lost in Leone's eyes and the dreams they held. Seeing the pain in them now, I wanted to look anywhere else – find anything else to pull me from this disaster – but I found that I couldn't look away.

A twitch in Leone's finger and everything moved again. I slid from his grip.

"Damn," he murmured. "Lost it!"

Did he mean he'd lost me? I wanted to ask, but there was no air left in my lungs and I was sliding into a darkness too profound for words. My thoughts lapsed into an old, familiar terror. I sank in my own depths and was lost.

(Abbacchio)

The enemy was gone as quickly as he'd come, taking Bruno with him. I rounded on Giorno, ready to kill him.

"Did you–?"

Blues' insights hit me like a lightning strike, knocking me to my knees.

I can't stand losing Bruno. I'm blinded by panic. Look beyond that. Giorno did not see this coming. Look at the shock on his face. Behind the mask of arrogance, notice the fear. Without Bruno to protect him, he understands that I will definitely kill him unless he proves himself worthy. We can use that.

Whether I trust Giorno or not is a moot point, as long as I can control him.

I staggered to my feet against the ship's relentless rise and plunge. Bruno's zippers still fringed the hole he'd opened in the floor boards. My heart resumed beating; wherever he was, he was alive.

"Giorno. Your stand turns objects into living things. I want the entire floor gone – no more hiding places. Can you do it?"

His face registered surprise, then RESOLVE. "Gold Experience!"

While that stand's fists were otherwise occupied, I retrieved Moody Blues and set it onto Bruno's trail, fast-forwarding.

There was nothing to see. The floor peeled away in a flight of doves, and yet the deflated Blues was pulled into an unseen space right before our eyes.

I realized my hands were in my hair again and brought them to my sides in fists instead. I fought the nausea of the boat's movement, the fizzing in my vision that losing hold of Bruno always provoked.

"Where did it go?" Giorno asked, balancing on one of the pipes that crossed beneath the removed floor.

I gave him my best glare. "If you know the answer, now would be a very good time to speak up, upstart."

He blanched, despite his carefully constructed expression.

"I swear to you, Abbacchio, I have no idea. But it's your stand – you must know where it is, right?"

Why should I answer? Let him stew a little. I frowned at the invisible space where Blues continued existing. My fast-forward had caught up to Bruno's present. I was tracking him at a half-second delay now, my stand comfortably overlapping his body since he was no longer in motion. He wasn't moving, no breath, no heartbeat, but Blues can only track the living, so I was reassured. But how – how would I get him back from that space removed from space? How could I fight an enemy who operated on – whatever this was – a different plane of existence? Was it like Bruno's zipper voids, a pocket within our world? Or was it more like Illuso's mirror realm, a world apart?

Damn, if only I had a ranged ability like Risotto's Metallica to reach within that space, assemble particles into lethal weapons… But I had entered my stand into that space. Blues was reporting nothing back because there was nothing to report – blank darkness, only the sickening motion of the waves, only the same sounds I heard.

Gold Experience steadied Giorno by the arm, its stance wide across two perpendicular pipes. Its eyeless, insectoid face was fixed on me. That minute head-tilt. It was talking to Giorno, wasn't it, silently in his head? I agreed with Blues on this: that stand was dangerous.

Control Giorno, use him to my advantage if possible. Counter the enemy. Get Bruno back.

Blues sent me another pulse of insight – the enemy's footsteps drawing near, the desire to fight.

"Giorno! Take this ship apart! I want nothing left but the outer shell – just enough to float! Do you understand?"

"Got it!"

Gold Experience turned away from me reluctantly, tugged into action by Giorno's will. That would keep them busy while I worked with Blues. I hit our secret pause feature for extra time to think. I had all the time I wanted, as long as neither Blues nor I moved a single muscle.

I hadn't sent Blues with any weapons. It isn't a very strong stand and its abilities provide no useful attacks. It's also basically defenseless; one hit to Blues can easily knock me out of combat. There is almost no stand in the world that Blues can take on hand-to-hand. However, Blues makes up for its weaknesses with dexterity, intelligence, and a degree of independence that few stands possess.

Dreamlike, Blues sent me images, sensations, intentions – wordless and richly detailed.

Plenty of weapons lying around for the taking. Bruno carries a small arsenal in his zipper voids. Unconscious, requires Sticky Fingers… Mista's gun. Narancia keeps a knife in his shoe – the right shoe, right-handed, not the shoe left behind. Fugo's tie, a garrote, easy.

No, I thought; move and we're dead. What's close at hand?

Close at hand – Bruno's hand had closed on a fistful of splinters. One of them was a proper wooden shiv, maybe five centimeters long, a good point to it.

Fistful of splinters to the face? I asked myself. Is this really our plan to overcome an interdimensional enemy holding the entire team hostage?

Blues sent a wave of urgency, frustration, a mocking edge: Did I have any better ideas?

I had to admit to myself that I did not. I rubbed a hand through my hair and the boat resumed its terrible rocking motion.

"Lure him out," Giorno said out of nowhere, oblivious to the pause. "He's hiding somewhere we can't reach him, so we need to make him come to us."

I turned slowly to give him a look. "I think the man can hear us, Giorno."

Giorno glanced at Gold Experience, then nodded. "It doesn't matter. If we sink the ship, he'll have to come out. Then it will be a fair fight."

"Giorno. In case you haven't noticed, he isn't hiding on the ship. He's in some kind of extra dimension – there's a few stands that can make those. All the stand dimensions I've ever seen were watertight. So you're basically proposing to drown us to no effect."

Giorno shook his head. "Look here. There are slits where he cut through into our world. Gold's been noticing them as we do transformations. There are still several left, we worked around them. They're quite long. The water would flow in easily."

Giorno traced a seam on the wall of the boat's shell. Now that I saw one seam, it was easy to spot others – some of them in places where no one had been kidnapped. The enemy had been spying on us, apparently. I was shocked that Blues and I had missed it, even operating on no sleep and a hangover-turned-migraine. Well, mercy wasn't an option, then.

"Have you tried climbing through?" I asked Giorno.

"And take a dagger to the face? No, thank you."

I briefly considered ordering him to do it anyway, but it wasn't a good time to fight Gold Experience one-on-one without my stand. Save Bruno first, die later – my usual philosophy.

That's when the enemy spoke up – a mocking voice coming from near where Blues was co-existing with Bruno.

"You've lost already, Abbacchio. Stop and recognize your situation. One false move and I kill them all."

Blues' hatred for our attacker rose through me like cold fog. If he stepped any closer to Bruno, Blues was definitely going to smash his face full of splinters.

"Sink the ship," I told Giorno.

"I wouldn't do that," the enemy's voice whined. "You really want all these cute young men to drown?"

"You will drown," I said. "Your hostages are not breathing, therefore they won't start drowning until you're finished and your stand effect ends. Unless you'd like to release them first and face the fury of Team Bucciarati while drowning?"

"I would not," the voice said. "Take this yacht safely to Capri and I'll release Bucciarati to you. After he retrieves Polpo's fortune for me, you can have the rest of your team back. If you don't make any mistakes, they'll have all their bits. Capisce?"

Silence has a power all its own. Sometimes I wield it and sometimes it overcomes me. I gestured to Giorno to proceed.

"Already done," Giorno said. Gold Experience glared at me, water pouring over its feet.

"You'd better come out now," I called to the enemy, as the boat tipped and began to slowly spin in place.

"Gold, give us something to grip," Giorno said.

Under a volley of fists, the remaining materials inside the boat's shell – pipes, railings, support beams – transformed into a thick mat of vines. Giorno and I scrambled to the highest point at the back of the boat, as its entire front point dipped underwater.

"Damn," I muttered to Giorno. "If he decides to go down with the ship, we are seriously screwed."

"I saw how his stand moved," Giorno whispered back. "He's a coward through and through. Besides, like you said, his dimension trick will end as soon as he passes out. We'll get the guys back, and then we're in swimming range of Capri."

That was actually a sound analysis. I cast a sideways glance at my young and untrusted companion.

"How do you know we're anywhere close?"

"Look at this kelp." He pointed at a clump of green-brown seaweed floating near us as the boat spun. "Cystoseira foeniculacea, a brown algae restricted to protected gravel shores. It must have been swept loose in last night's rain. The current here isn't that fast, so Capri must be just over the horizon. I guess that's a long swim. Gold can make a kelp raft and some dolphins or something to get us there."

I frowned. "Why the hell do you know about seaweed species?"

"When I can't sleep, I read taxonomy textbooks. It helps with Gold's repertoire."

For a second, I thought the pang in my chest was just my abject fear of the ocean taking hold. Riding a sinking ship down was a lot to ask of myself, after all; Blues was already submerged in saltwater. But I tried to take a deep breath and found my air rushing out instead of in. The enemy had me.

As the enemy's stand pulled me away, I gripped Giorno's shoulder and mouthed, "Don't give in."

"How about you, youngster?" the enemy said from right by my ear. "Are you also determined to drown off the coast of Capri? We've all heard the rumor that Abbacchio's unstable, but you're a fresh young face – you have so much to live for! Restore this yacht and you have my word: you'll get Bucciarati back when we land and the others when he hands over the fortune."

The last thing I heard as water and darkness closed around me was Giorno saying, "I follow orders."

I didn't hear him say, when they make sense, but I inferred it.

(Giorno)

Why are we wasting time? Gold asked me.

"You're right," I said. "Go for it."

I dove into the playful waves and Gold got busy with his fists, transforming the rest of the boat's hull into shoals of whiting and bream. As I treaded water, I wondered if the whirling silver fish would attract sharks. Silkies, blues, coppers, makos, dogfish. Maybe a huge hammerhead snaking through the sunlit water…

When there was nothing left of the boat, Gold dropped back into my head.

Huh, he said. I thought for certain that fool would have drowned by now.

"We're really in trouble if we just lost the entire team."

Are we, though? Bucciarati got us into the mafia. We can find another way up the ranks.

"Gold, that's no way to talk about a friend."

You've never had a friend, so it makes sense that you don't know what that word means.

Gold reached through my hands and turned some of the water into a thick mat of Taonia pseudociliata for me to rest on. The kelp's air bladders buoyed me up easily.

I think we should start swimming, Gold said.

"Hm."

I was about to agree when out of nowhere, an identical copy of the yacht we'd just dismembered surged up to the surface.

"What the hell?"

Gold thinks fast. He found a handhold as the boat pushed up past us and swung me up onto the rising deck. I didn't land gracefully, but I stumbled to my feet in time to dodge as the enemy's hideous stand rushed at me. A graceless, spiky, green monster of a thing – what kind of person has an awful stand like that?

Gold transformed the deck so that the stand's next step plunged it down into a mess of rose brambles. The enemy shrieked as thorns scoured his stand.

"Don't struggle," I advised, walking toward the man. "If you break those branches, the damage will reflect onto you."

Behind him on the boat's prow, my new companions were laid out in a row, their deflated bodies contorted as if they had no bones. This basic disrespect for vertebrate anatomy reminded me to be angry.

"Kneel," I suggested.

The man laughed, an incredulous giggle that turned into a deep, boastful belly laugh. "Kneel? Little boy, I don't think you understand the situation. Allow me to clarify."

His stand disappeared from Gold's new rose garden and a moment later reappeared at his side, exactly as Gold rejoined me. The stand scooped up Abbacchio like a rag doll and touched its dagger to his chest, well to the left of the heart.

I gave my enemy a disappointed frown. Still, a pierced lung is no laughing matter, either.

Bluff, Gold suggested.

"Why would I care about Abbacchio?" I asked airily. "You're not convincing me."

Gold hit the floor and lassoed a tough liana vine around Narancia's foot, yanking him to safety in one smooth motion.

Scowling, the man let Abbacchio slip from his stand's hands as he stooped over Bucciarati's body – and received a fistful of splinters to the face! He dropped to his knees and clawed at his eyes, howling.

What? Gold and I stood motionless in surprise.

Abbacchio's mauve stand rose up from Bucciarati's body like a ghost. Mellow Yellow, the team had called it, presumably for the liquid transformations ability that I had unpleasantly experienced that morning.

Heedless of its unconscious user, the rogue stand caught the enemy in a chokehold and lifted him off his feet, pressing a metallic jointed finger to each of his eyes. Holding its hostage, Mellow Yellow backed away from the enemy's stand, toward me and Gold.

The enemy's stand froze, attuned to its user's distress. Its dagger twitched toward Mellow Yellow and instantly the enemy yelped; Yellow had increased the pressure against his eyes.

"How is Abbacchio doing that?" I whispered to Gold.

It shouldn't be possible, Gold answered. The stand depends on the user for energy. Unless… I can tell that this is a very weak stand, barely stronger than a human. Perhaps it draws such a thin thread of energy that Abbacchio can power it while unconscious?

"But it's moving intelligently on its own! Do you have that kind of autonomy?"

Don't insult me.

I grinned at my stand. Gold flashed a plan through my head, clear as day, and we both leapt into action.

Gold planted a fist in the enemy stand user's face. He went stiff and helpless in Mellow Yellow's arms as his senses reeled. His stand went for Bucciarati, lying just inches from its own feet, but the stand was moving in slow motion due to Gold's effect.

I closed the distance in three easy strides and pulled Bucciarati from under the dagger with seconds to spare. The stand plunged its dagger into the material of the deck – the linoleum or whatever. Air rushed from the slit ominously. The deck sagged underfoot like a leaking air mattress.

"What do we do if he deflates the boat?" I asked Gold.

Nothing? Do we really need a boat?

"True."

We still had almost thirty seconds to work. Gold's abilities are such luxury. Plenty of time to deal with the stand user – or so I thought.

"Drop him," I told Abbacchio's stand, gesturing at the man it still choke-held.

The stand tilted its head at me, faceless and blank. The screen on its forehead blinked 00:00:00:00. Come to think of it, why did Mellow Yellow have a timer? Perhaps it measured the remaining duration of its transformations?

I walked right up to the enigmatic stand, wondering how to make myself understood.

"Let go! Just let go!" I grabbed the enemy's arm and pulled, but Yellow stood fast. Clearly my strength was no match for even a particularly weak stand.

Oh, for fuck's sake. As time ran out, Gold struck the man's stupid spiked shirt and it erupted into a swarm of biting ants, Myrmica rubra.

The man shuddered back into action. His movement enraged the ants, which began their attack. Even Mellow Yellow twitched as the ants, imbued with stand power, bit its fingers with their fiery venom.

"How dare you – fucking upstart – what is this – oh, God!"

The man thrashed, finally escaping from Mellow Yellow's grasp as the ants swarmed its hands. Rather than face us, the enemy raced to the edge of the boat and plunged into the water, quenching the ants' attack.

Perfect, Gold intoned in my head.

In his desperation, the enemy seemed to have released not only his stand, but its effect. The boat re-inflated. Bucciarati and his team roused where they lay on the deck.

Gold and I strode past them to look overboard. The enemy was not a very good swimmer. He was thrashing around ineffectively, trying to find a grip on the boat.

My eyes fell on the life raft cinched to the side of the yacht. Gold's wicked thoughts glinted in my head, irresistible.

"Sure, we could do that."

A touch of Gold's fingers and the buckles securing the raft became moths, floating away. I hefted the life raft onto the railing, noticing the confusion and gratitude on my enemy's face.

"Hammerhead or blacktip?" I asked Gold.

Blacktip, Gold said, striking with his fist. The raft began to squirm and I dropped it quickly overboard. It has to be some type of requiem shark. It's thematic.

"It is?"

The team were making happy sounds of relief and reunion behind us, but Gold and I lingered until there was only blood in the water. It's poetic, to see an animal fulfilling its natural role – that moment when form becomes function, when adaptations become actions.

"We should have saved him for the information," Mista said, resting his arms on the railing beside me. "Besides, Bucciarati doesn't like killing people unnecessarily."

I shrugged. "I don't think he was supposed to overhear Bucciarati's conversation earlier. Besides, it keeps Gold happy."

Gold sighed back into the regular flow of my thoughts and the life raft bobbed to the surface, brilliant orange against the azure waves.

(Abbacchio)

I awoke to find my stand impersonating me – a younger me, to be precise, reclined on the deck with Bruno's head resting on its lap, fingers playing in his hair. The memory hit me like cold ocean spray: a beach in autumn, too cold for swimming, no tourists around, just Bruno and a canteen of sweet sangria. Long before everything that happened.

Bruno's eyes were closed, but he smiled and let go of my stand's hand when he heard me stirring.

"Not fair," I told him, finding the aches in my back as I tried to get up.

Sticky Fingers materialized and pulled me to my feet, not even leaving zippers on my hands. I noticed Bruno had at least moved me to the shaded side of the boat and pillowed my head with his jacket – which left him shirtless, of course – before curling up with my very uninhibited stand.

I crossed my arms. "What have you two been up to?"

"Just sitting here, waiting for you to wake up. Capri's in sight, but I thought," he shrugged, "what's the rush? You didn't sleep last night, did you?"

My stand whirred innocently and gave me a fast-forwarded mental playback of how Giorno and Gold Experience defeated the enemy.

"Why the hell was there a second boat?"

"No idea."

"Huh. Giorno really came through."

"Not bad for a newbie."

"We still need to keep an eye on him. And that stand. Find some leverage, considering you've already told him enough to get us all killed."

"You'll trust him as far as you can throw him?"

"Yeah, that's about right. But I will acknowledge his RESOLVE and his abilities. And I'll forgive you for adding a new person to the team. You know I hate new people. I'm sorry I gave you so much trouble about it."

Bruno reached for my hand, hope dancing in his eyes again as he looked up at me.

Blues reverted to its own form and made a small, pained noise as I forced myself to remember:

all the midnight fights

the nausea of swallowing back my own feelings to make room for his

feeling guilty for feeling selfish when I comforted him when I wanted to be comforted

the ache of his absence every time I really needed him

the dagger twisting in my heart when I realized where he'd been instead – of course, of fucking course

and finally, always,

the lethal despair of knowing I'd never be enough for him

"No," I said.

The light went out of his eyes and it almost killed me to see it, but the other option wasn't an option. I tossed him his jacket, ignoring the tight curves of his chest under those delicate tattoos.

"You're gonna make capo today, remember?"

"That isn't what I wanted," he said quietly.

I hesitated over what I wanted to say next. The risks were stupid, incredibly stupid. But the bitter patience biting at Bruno's face convinced me. That, and Giorno's solid performance today.

"If you make capo, we're back in the game. Right? You've been a pawn; let's make you a queen."

"Is that… an obscure chess rule?"

I sighed. "Yes, it is. More importantly…"

Bruno looked up from buttoning the jacket. "You mean you're in?"

"Yes."

"Patronages be damned?"

"If you're a capo, you can overrule the age requirement, right?"

He smiled. "And the allies?"

"They'll come back or they won't. With Giorno – as long as we can control him–"

"I'm glad you see what I see."

"The risks–"

"Worth it." He laid a hand carefully on my shoulder. "Just think of what they did. You know better than anyone why it's worth it."

I nodded. The thing is, I knew Sorbet and Gelato before any of this began. Before Bruno stole me from Risotto's team. I was junior to them and they were kind to me. They helped me survive. And then, the way they died – it was unspeakable. What it did to all of us was unspeakable, too. There was only one right answer to that kind of violation, and we had all waited too long already to deliver it.

"When do we tell the team?" I asked.

Bruno chewed his lip – his painful compromises face, too familiar in those days.

"I don't like to lie to them, but six people can't keep a secret. We'll tell them at the moment when there's no turning back."

"Fugo will be so mad."

"But you agree?"

"Yes." I held out my hand. "Partners in crime?"

Bruno gave me the saddest possible smile and shook my hand firmly. "Always. There's no one I'd rather have on my side."