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"while you remained oblivious, everyone died."
giorno's voice is sickly sweet, all honey and sunlight like the color of his hair, syrupy and falling down in rolling waves. he's smiling, smiling like he always does, shapely lips curling upwards and lighting his face. always brilliant, that's giorno, and he leans in and says it again, a smooth tenor whistling next to fugo's ear,
"they all died, and where were you?"
there's pity there, brows turned downwards and smiles turning into sneers, as giorno takes fugo's chin and tilts it up, running one finger up his neck (nails scratching just against the adam's apple) like a cautionary sign with a surgical precision. where were you, he asks again, though this time it's silent and it's a threat, eyes bluer than the sky in venezia clouded with barely-concealed anger, distaste, disgust. giorno is looking at fugo in a way similar to how angels herald the apocalypse, radiant features clouded with the shadow of judgment, ready to strike down upon the little lamb, lost, shepherded, led to slaughter.
fugo opens his mouth to speak, but there's only terror and fear and regret. his eyes are open wide and staring into the space where giorno's eyes should be, though all he can see is an abyss that leads directly into his own heart, two mirrors reflecting upon himself. he's crying, but they're silent tears, rolling down his cheeks in eddies that won't dry anytime soon, because giorno is coaxing them, tracing one wet thumb over the line of fugo's jaw and smearing his misery over his skin.
"did you do what you thought was right, fugo?"
and there's no answer, and giorno isn't expecting an answer, and there's a sigh and a chuckle and then a laugh, a derisive laugh that echoes through fugo's mind as he remains wide-eyed and frozen, always frozen, frozen in time and space and regret. giorno lets go and stands up and turns away, wiping his hand on his shirt as he leaves, his dry footsteps reverberating against the empty halls of fugo's consciousness.
where would fugo be, a day, a week, a month, a year from now?
he thinks he knows the answer, and it's only then that he tries to open his mouth again to call out, to say something, to ask for forgiveness, but by then, even giorno's shadow is gone and fugo is left there, stranded in the middle a desert of his own creation, yelling and yelling into nothing.
***
Fugo wakes up to sweat-soaked sheets, an aching head, and his phone ringing just inches next to his ear. Getting up is a slow process, and even with the urgency that the call sounds incite within him, Fugo is hard-pressed to pick up-- he can feel water in his eyes and he wipes his face with his sleeve, trying to shake off the residual tremors of a nightmare, like severe aftershocks after an earthquake. He hasn't had that dream in a while, he thinks, though in reality it's probably only been a few weeks or so. Time is a strange concept to him recently, a strange limbo, and he's still trying to get a good handle on where he is.
Sometimes he feels like he's suspended. This is one of those times.
He nearly forgets that his phone is still going off, and after a long intake of breath, he flips it open and closes his eyes, steadying his voice to answer with a soft: "pronto?" The first word is always the most difficult to speak, but the syllables come out satisfactorily, solid and smooth and unwavering.
(He tries not to think about the fact that it's the first word he's uttered since his dream, because his dream should be nowhere in the continuity between last night and this morning, and he wonders why he even needs to bother analyzing that.
He knows he thinks too much for his own good.)
A breath of silence, and then: a steady stream of Italian, notes rendered into words by a familiar voice, all honey and sunlight and smooth tenor. It's Giorno, and Fugo should have expected as much, since his new 'boss' is really the only one who ever calls him anymore, aside from the occasional texts from Mista and Trish. Fugo listens, his mind caught between the sinister smile of his dreams and the patient greetings on the other end of the call, his consciousness swimming back and forth in the past and present. He can't figure out if Giorno is the first breaking of dawn or the last rays of twilight, and he knows it's absurd because he had such a clear conviction of where his loyalties lay last night, before he closed his eyes and his dream whispered to him, reminded him of his fears.
"...Fugo?"
He's brought back to reality when Giorno calls his name, and Fugo apologizes, trying to focus once again on the real Giorno, the Giorno who's reaching to him on the other side of town, Giorno who's given him another chance after everything. After his own nothing.
"Fugo, are you alright?"
Giorno sounds somewhat exasperated, but the words are punctuated by a short breath, a breeze of air that may or may not be Giorno laughing on the other end. Somehow, in some way, this makes Fugo slump down, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, eyes closed and brows furrowed, lips fixed into a smile that he can't really figure out the meaning of. It's the right kind of laugh, Giorno's laugh, like the first breeze of spring that brings with it reassurance and courage.
Fugo doesn't know whether to be relieved or whether to feel guilty or whether this is all just a continuation of his dream, but for the time being, he thinks he has his certainties back, no matter how transient they may be, no matter how many times they waver.
Fugo, in all his paranoia, with all his ghosts, lifts his head and speaks.
"I'm fine. Thanks, Giorno."