That sharp feeling of disbelief, of the fear of what that secret conversation meant, that lingered deep in Mista's bones long into the night. It seemed to haunt his steps, to cling to the seams of his clothes and whisper in his ear despite his best attempts to ignore them.
He shouldn't have heard them. He shouldn't have stayed and listened, he should've left, or should've just gone outside, shouldn't have let his curiosity consume him. Why was that always such a big problem? He always seemed to get himself involved in stuff that was none of his damn business in the first place. That was how he'd gone to prison - not that he regretted it, no, he'd been able to help that girl. It was worth it.
But how could he help Bucciarati if the guy wouldn't even talk to him?
And now he knew more than the others but less than those two and being in this weird gray middle area was driving him fucking crazy.
When he'd gotten back to the office, taking probably considerably longer than it should have as he dragged his feet along, Giorno looked like he was just finishing up with Fugo's thigh.
Narancia had moved, now standing at Fugo's side while clasping the younger boy's hand tightly in his own. Mista wondered whose choice that had been. Fugo himself looked sick, that white pallor that had settled into his skin now tinging on green as he swallowed heavily. They all looked up when Mista came into the room, Fugo giving him a weak grin.
"Doesn't feel great," he acquiesced and Mista nodded. He hadn't felt all that sick, just in pain, but it seemed different than everyone. Plus that particular wound had looked way too deep, despite Fugo's insistence that it just needed to be glued together - which Bucciarati had done when he'd tried to patch the guy up best he could.
Mista figured Giorno probably also used some of the glue to heal it and he moved closer to see where the gash had been. It looked healed for the most part, but there was some uneven skin patched together into a faint scar that looked pink against the white skin surrounding it.
"It was deeper than most things I've done before," Giorno explained softly. "I have them too, Fugo, around my arms. I imagine I'll get better with time, but…"
"No, it's fine," Fugo rasped with a wave of hand. "Scars are manly, right?"
Giorno gave him a weak smile in response just as Bucciarati appeared in the doorway. They looked at him and Mista noticed the way Fugo's hand seemed to tighten in Narancia's grip. Mista was shocked to see Narancia immediately turn back to Fugo to start whispering in his ear, acting like Bucciarati wasn't there at all. Probably to try to distract him.
"Are you ready?" Bucciarati asked, but the question was as much for Fugo as it was for Giorno.
After a quick glance at his patient and a sharp, jerky nod from Fugo, Giorno nodded in agreement. Gold Experience appeared at his side as Sticky Fingers emerged from Bucciarati, the two Stands brushing against each other as they both reached out to Fugo at the same time.
There was a sharp intake of breath from Fugo as his jaw clenched so tight it looked like it might snap off and then Sticky Fingers grabbed the end of the zipper and pulled.
Mista had never heard Fugo scream like that before.
It cut off almost immediately, Giorno shoving something towards them - a piece of leather, Mista realized - and Narancia pushed it into Fugo's mouth.
The blond bit down, white teeth streaked with blood looking like they'd sever the coarse leather in half. As a small bead of blood rolled down Fugo's chin, Mista realized he must've bit his lip or his cheek or something, and that was why Giorno gave him the leather.
Bucciarati nodded at them and left the room as soon as the zipper was gone. Mista knew he probably wanted to stay, but he needed to get back to Abbacchio. To finish their talk. …Mista kind of wanted to follow him.
He forced himself to look back at Fugo instead and almost gagged.
Normally, when one of them got hurt, Bucciarati's zippers fixed them up enough for the body to start healing on its own. That was how it was with Abbacchio's hand, although Mista had noticed the way the skin had looked strange when the zipper had finally come off, sort of pillowy and white, but he hadn't really thought much of it.
But none of them had been injured like that before. Fugo would have died from that without the zipper. That zipper was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out or dying of shock or from his ruptured organs, whichever would've come first.
Now that the zipper was gone, all that was left was the curving incision that stretched across his entire abdomen, the jagged edges from where he'd ripped it open further moving and fighting a dead gray color beneath the dark blood staining them. Mista was pretty sure you weren't supposed to see what someone's insides looked like when they were still alive, yet he could make out shapes within the mangled hole and the strange glint of white that he recognized as rib bone.
He'd had no idea it was that bad. Neither Fugo nor Bucciarati had even let him look, let alone help with the patching up.
Now he knew why.
Giorno was working quickly, grabbing bits and pieces of the green cloth that was continually ripped away to reveal more and more of the wound. The skin must've been pulled so taut across his chest, Mista thought vaguely, because there was no way that wound should be so wide, so deep, with the way the zipper had looked.
"You shouldn't have kept moving," Giorno admonished through gritted teeth, eyes not leaving from where his hands were slowly knitting torn muscle and blood vessels back together. "You should have let Bucciarati and Mista move you. You should have immediately told me; no one said it was this bad."
Mista could hear the regret, the fear in Giorno's voice, and he winced. If he had known it was like that, if they had said something, he would've said something! Instead, he'd sat out on the porch with Giorno and had fucking flirted and had the guy heal him - heal stuff that looked like papercuts or some shit compared to this.
Narancia looked like he was gonna cry but he stayed perfectly still, face set in stoney silence aside from his watery eyes as he held Fugo's hand, his own fingers looking white from how hard the blond was squeezing it.
The wound was slowly mending, being closed up by Giorno and Gold Experience, growing smaller and smaller from the inside out as the blond moved along and Mista was struck with the sense that this whole scene was wrong.
Here Giorno was, a fifteen-year-old kid who'd probably never dealt with anything worse than a couple scrapes or broken bones, now repairing a mutilated stab wound for a guy that wasn't even a year older than him.
What the fuck?
The world was fucked, he decided, shaking his head in disgust as he dropped to his knees beside Giorno and wordlessly began producing more strips of fabric and metal buttons from Fugo's clothing to pass to Giorno.
By the time it was finished, Mista felt like a whole fucking year had passed them by. It had probably only been a few minutes, but he could only imagine how excruciating those minutes had to have felt, how long they must've lasted for Fugo if it felt that long to him.
Giorno pulled back with a soft exhale, his hands visibly shaking as Gold Experience disappeared back inside him. He swallowed thickly and looked up at Fugo, who had spat out the piece of leather the second they were finished and was now breathing heavily like he was trying to keep from-
Fugo leaned over to one side and vomited all over the floor.
Yeah, looked like he was trying not to do that.
Mista winced as the stomach bile mixed with blood hit the wooden planks, pulling back to keep from getting splashed by it. It didn't really work, since he was the one closest to it, but luckily it was just from the few chunks that flew a little too far.
"Sorry," Fugo rasped weakly and Mista instantly felt bad for pulling back.
"It's fine, dude," he answered, wincing at how shaky his own voice was. "It happens."
"I'm sorry." This time it came from Giorno and Mista looked at him with surprise as the blond looked guiltily at Fugo. "I don't have a lot of practice, I should have tried to go faster but I wanted to get it right; I haven't seen what the- what insides look like so it was more intuitive but-"
"Stop," Fugo said, reaching up to wipe the trail of blood from his chin. "You… you did fine. I feel- I feel shitty but. But a normal shitty. Not a dying shitty."
Giorno just nodded in response but he didn't look like he felt any better. In fact, all of them looked sick, even though Fugo was really the only one who had any right to look that particular shade of green and white. Mista figured he probably didn't look much better though.
"We should go upstairs," he said, louder than he needed to but. But he did need to. "And go to bed. I'm sure we're all ready to crash, yeah?"
Narancia, who had been quiet up until that point, nodded rapidly in agreement. "Y-Yeah! Come on Fugo, I'll show you my room! There's another bed, so you can sleep with me! And I have so much to tell you still, a-and I need you to catch me up on math and, um, I want to tell you about what Mista and I were arguing about and…"
"I know," Fugo agreed when Narancia trailed off awkwardly. They'd all heard the forced cheer in his voice, and Mista thought it was oddly mature of him to try to help bring up the mood in the room. "I think you'll have to help me though."
Narancia nodded, not letting go of Fugo's hand for a single second even as the blond staggered to his feet and had to grip the back of the chair to keep from toppling over. He put his arm over Narancia's shoulder, the brunette pulling it so that it was wrapped steadily across him before grabbing Fugo's waist with his free arm.
"It might take a while," Fugo murmured quietly, already looking like he might throw up again, but Narancia just shook his head.
"We can go slow! It'll be fun!" he insisted. "Like a three legged race or something!"
"We'll clean up in here," Mista offered and when Giorno nodded in agreement, Fugo and Narancia set off towards the bedrooms. It took them slow, careful steps to reach the door and Narancia repositioning Fugo uncharacteristically cautiously before he could open it, but then they were gone, the sound of the footsteps gone the moment the heavy office door slid shut.
Mista stared after them for a few seconds before looking back at Giorno. "Know where the cleaning supplies are?"
Giorno started a little, as if he wasn't expecting Mista to speak, but gave him a quick nod and hurried out into the hall. A few seconds later, he returned with a bright yellow bucket of soapy water and a pile of towels.
"I was expecting this," he explained when Mista gave him a funny look at the mountain of stuff he'd brought back. "Well, not this exactly, but I was concerned that… that it wouldn't go as well as I hoped it would. I'm simply glad it's just vomit and not…"
Mista didn't need him to elaborate; he knew what the guy meant.
They worked in tandem, using some of the towels to mop up the puke - which, thank God, was mostly liquid - and then used the rest to clean off the floor itself, the soap helping to replace the stench of vomit and blood with a fresh citrusy scent.
"…You know it's not your fault, right?"
Giorno looked surprised that Mista had spoken, his green gaze flicking from where he was scrubbing up a particularly stubborn blood stain to meet Mista's. The way they immediately went down again gave Mista the answer he needed.
"Hey," he said, tossing the towel down to stare directly at the blond. "You did great. He's gonna be fine; Fugo's a tough bastard, he-"
"Don't you dare tell me he's had worse," Giorno interrupted, scowling at Mista as he paused his own cleaning.
Mista put his hands up in surrender.
"-he would come back from worse," he finished, glad he hadn't been about to say what Giorno thought he was. For his part, the blond looked a bit embarrassed that he'd been wrong. "Listen Giorno, we never had a guy like you on the team. One of us got banged up? Zippers and first aid were the best they were getting. And that ain't always gonna work, we just got lucky up til now, that's all."
Giorno didn't look convinced, so Mista tried a different approach. "Instead of thinking about what you could've done, you should think about what you did do."
"That's… quite insightful."
"Bucciarati used to tell me that a lot, back when I first started," Mista explained. "I made a lotta mistakes, y'know? And it was hard watching the guys pay for it just because I fucked up a mission or made too much noise or gave us away or something. But Bucciarati always told me to think about all the shit I did right and that I'd learn more that way."
"For someone like you, I can see how that would work," Giorno mused. "You seem the type to… how to put this. Not think?"
Mista snorted. "You should tell Fugo that later, he'd love that."
"Was that rude? I didn't mean to-"
"Nah, it's fine, you're right," Mista waved off. "I didn't ever really get what I shoulda done, even if they told me, so Bucciarati was definitely right. If it worked for me, maybe it'll work for you? If I don't think, you think too much."
"How ironic, when I told you that just an hour ago."
"Guess our thoughts're just all over the place then," Mista chuckled. "When I think too little, you think too much. Man, put us together and we'd be perfect."
Giorno stared at him for a few seconds and then Mista realized how that sounded. "I-I just meant our brains, y'know?" he stammered in embarrassment. "N-Not, um, that we should-"
"I don't know, Mista," Giorno interrupted him coyly. "I think we're quite the pair regardless."
Mista felt his face heat even more, but as he reached to grab his towel, he noticed out of the corner of his eye as a small grin crossed Giorno's face. So he'd succeeded, just at the cost of making a fool of himself. Oh well, not like he didn't do that all the time anyway.
They went back to work in silence, but the atmosphere wasn't as heavy as before, an air of companionship settling into the room. By the time they'd finished, there was no sign of the blood and vomit that had covered that part of the office.
Mista imagined that was sort of the point of this kind of soundproof room anyway - although meant for their enemies, not their own.
"I told Bucciarati to leave the new clothes he'd bought for Fugo out in the sitting room," Giorno said to him as they left the office. "Although I doubt neither Fugo nor Narancia noticed it. We'll have to bring it up to them."
"I'll grab them," Mista offered, veering off towards the room Giorno had mentioned. He grabbed the bag that Bucciarati had carried inside the house, taking a peek inside. All he could make out was the vivid pink fabric and he couldn't help but grimace.
Well, if Fugo liked wearing lime green, he probably wouldn't have a problem with fuschia.
