Si Dolce È'l Tormento | A BruAbba Story

Giorno

Giorno opened his eyes with a gasp, the ceiling swimming above him. The same dusty rafters, the same single weak bulb. The basement. But he couldn't feel the restraints against his wrists anymore, or the chair pressing into his spine. His heart was racing at a sick, dizzy pace, but he pushed himself up to his knees. The room tilted on its axis. The hand in front of him on the ground was unfamiliar – wide, rough palms, painted nails. Mista.

Beside him, someone groaned. The golden-eyed woman – the body he'd spent two days in – sat up, holding her head. "Fuck, what happened?"

Trish stirred on the ground and then sat up quickly, wincing as dizziness or pain caught up with her. "Swapped again... who..."

"Fugo," the woman answered, looking to him.

Giorno tried to speak over the ringing in his ears. "Giorno."

"Bucciarati," Trish's voice said, her eyes falling on Fugo. "That must be..."

There was a dull thud through the ceiling above them. Giorno only assumed it was outside his own head because Fugo and Bucciarati looked up, and the latter's expression sharpened.

"Abbacchio." Bucciarati pulled himself to his feet, stumbling slightly. "I have to –"

He darted for the stairs before Giorno could piece together what was going on or if he was supposed to follow. Fugo scrambled to his feet after him. Muffled, shouting voices drifted through the walls. Giorno couldn't tell where they were coming from, or if they were even real.

Fuck. He forced himself to his feet, leaning against the heater. The air felt thin in his lungs, and the smell of exhaust, the one he had been choking on for two days, fought its way down the back of his throat, turning his stomach. The blurry image of Mista and Trish standing above him, her lipstick smeared across the corner of his mouth, burned before his eyes like a ghostly afterimage.

He had to get out of here.

Giorno pushed away from the heater, stumbling for the stairs. Footsteps above him blurred together with the pounding of his heart. He could hear shouting again, not imagined this time, but he yanked open the basement door and cut through the entryway for the front door, ignoring all of it.

Cool night air enveloped him as he staggered through the doorway. Giorno stood for a minute, gasping in the fresh air. The dizziness faded but didn't disappear.

"Giorno!"

The darkened house blurred when he turned. Through the open door, he could make out Abbacchio at the top of the stairs, Narancia a step behind him. Or more likely Mista and Trish, judging from their expressions.

Giorno turned back to the sea of moonlit grass. He took a step, and then another. Then he shoved down the remaining lightheadedness and ran. His limbs felt wrong, but the rush of the cool air down his throat was soothing.

"Giorno, wait!"

He snatched a glance over his shoulder. They were racing down the front steps after him. Giorno pushed this unfamiliar body to go faster. Like hell he was going to wait. He'd been waiting for two fucking days down there in the dark, barely able to breathe.

The dry grass hit his legs with a hiss as he ran. He stumbled, barely regaining his balance in time to keep from falling. The sounds of the house died down behind him, drowned out by the rush of the wind.

"Giorno!"

The voice sounded closer this time. Giorno gritted his teeth, but a wave of exhaustion hit him when he pushed himself to go faster. The lightheadedness he had forcibly ignored was returning with a vengeance. The sound of his own heartbeat rose up in his ears until it was a roar.

"Please, you have to stop!"

His footsteps faltered, but Giorno forced himself to keep going, stumbling now. The sea of grass swayed before him, partly the movement of the wind, partly his blurry eyesight. What the hell was happening to him?

"Giorno."

He started at how close it sounded – maybe ten feet. Giorno whirled, almost losing his balance, to see Mista and Trish approaching slowly through the grass. The concern on their faces made him want to turn and keep running.

"If you go out of its range –" It was Abbacchio's voice, but something about the expression was vaguely Trish-like. Or maybe he was just hallucinating.

"Stay the hell back," Giorno snarled. He half-expected them to ignore him, but they stopped where they were. "Now you're going to come get me? After 48 hours down there?"

Mista looked like he'd been struck. He took a step forward. "Please, just stay where you are –"

"Don't," Giorno warned, taking a matching step back. He felt only loosely connected to the body standing in the field of grass, like he was staring down at it from above. His thoughts were drifting apart too fast to hold onto a feeling of alarm about that. He took another step back, and his tenuous grip on the moonlit field and their faces and the fading feeling in his fingers slid away from him. He heard someone shout his name as if from underwater, and then the black rose up to devour him.

suuuper later update cause I've been busy wallowing in misery over summer internship applications this week :))) whoever invented cover letters deserves a long and painful death.

 - Wesley H.