[pudding fugo you are the only bitch on this peninsula he respects anymore]
the overall conditions are about to get very crowded.
as to the rest, i haven't gotten started. money is a concern, as are general resources (food, clothing, etc) and staff shortage. a lot of minutiae stemming from a sudden influx of residents.
[A lot of humans are going to die; more than what's necessary to feed a Monster, or even a group of Monsters. Specifically, humans with children. Giorno doesn't have a specific number yet, which means it's an ongoing problem.
Well, that's a mess.]
The best place to start would be providing those general resources and the immediate short-term needs. The money will come later; let's discuss our funding options in person once we've figured these things out.
Send me the address of the orphanage and I will reach out to a local grocer to negotiate a larger scale purchase of food. When we drop the order off, we can assess if there will be enough toiletries and bedding for the anticipated influx of residents.
If we know where these children are coming from (addresses in particular would be helpful) I think it would be comforting to them to bring their clothes from home. I assume they were brought there unexpectedly. Otherwise, we should visit secondhand stores and purchase clothing for a range of ages.
Finally, reach out to Harrington. If he's available and willing, he's good with children and very non-threatening. I think he would act as a liaison between us and the human staff.
[For the first time in two days, Giorno breathes out.]
thank you. this is exactly what i was hoping for. thank you.
i've already made contact with staff and done my best to be nonthreatening, but they've received a number of threats already and they're understandably skittish. no one's scared of steve, though.
[He sends the address, and . . . hesitates.]
i need to be transparent about my other two concerns, although you might already be guessing both of them. the first is that these children will all have experienced at least two forms of severe trauma upon being brought to the orphanage, and we have a truly critical shortage of support on that front. i don't know what to do about that. i think there might not be anything that we can do about that.
the other is that eventually these children, who are a strain on the infrastructure of the orphanage, will be turned out, or that the orphanage itself will collapse. at which point there's the street.
i know that's long-term and we need to start with the things you've listed. that's why i asked for your help. because i can't stop thinking about what will be a year from now. but i wanted to . . . be honest, i suppose. about where my head is.
[Reading this, Fugo's chest feels tight with a pain he doesn't entirely understand. Giorno's right: although he hadn't exactly pinned down these anxieties, he could sense the shape of them in the shadow of Giorno's blunt statement. This decision to take on the orphanage, to bear the burden of these children, and make their wellbeing his direct priority, is the purest distillation of his dream. This is Giorno Giovanna's life's work.]
This is work I have experience with. I am glad, always, to lend these skills to you.
I ... cannot speak on help of that nature. I'm not sure where to begin with how to look for it. The best answer I can provide is that, perhaps, the first step of closing those wounds is to give them a safe, comfortable place to live and grow. That is something I believe you have the ability to see through.
Because that "eventually" won't happen. We will not allow it to happen. [Not "you": we. Giorno and Fugo and anyone else Giorno trusts with these children. Whatever obstacles are in front of them will be dismantled.] If there is a strain on the infrastructure, if it begins to fail, we will either shore it up, rebuild it, or create our own. It will sustain itself.
They will never have to face the streets.
[Fugo rarely speaks in certainties. He's no good at faith. But he believes in Giorno. His dream, whatever shape it might take in this strange and awful world, was and is his future. Whatever pain these children have suffered, the worst of it is now behind them. That is the future they need to build.]
Thank you for being honest with me. Even if you cannot stop thinking about a year from now, we can think on it together.
[Giorno doesn't answer for some time, because he's crying.]
[It's a release he didn't realize he needed until the third time he read through this message, when the tears came and came and refused to stop. It's been nearly a week since he first heard the rumors and knew where they came from, two days since he confronted Riley and learned that the missing piece he hoped was there had not been considered, and ever since he's had his chest clenched up so tightly with wild-eyed, panicked determination that he simply forgot to breathe. Or feel. Or anything.]
[So he puts his head down on his desk and cries, gut-wrenching full-body silent sobs for the children who won't get the chance to exact their own vengeance, to live in their own homes, to make their own peace in their own way. For Riley, whose involvement in this he can nearly understand if not for that crucial error in logic; for the parents, whose deaths would be satisfying to him if not for the collateral consequences; for the freedom he can almost see in the choices Riley's making if only—]
[If only, if only, if only.]
[He cries for Riley and for the children whose parents she's murdering, because in the end, they're one and the same.]
[It's about twenty minutes and a glass of very cold water later that he finally gets back to responding.]
i hope you know exactly how much you mean to me. not just for the practicalities, although those are invaluable. but because you believe in me. even here, when i've been here for so long without finding a way out. it nags at me. but even when i forget what i'm capable of, you don't.
that's half a step, isn't it? that's what you do for me every day. remind me to remember.
if they can rely on each other, that will make a difference, too, won't it. all of them together, however many it ends up being.
[In those twenty minutes, Fugo gets to work. He's very tired: he knows he can't get all he wants to accomplish done at once. But he begins. He retrieves a phone book and his personal map of Bavan. After marking the location of Persephone's orphanage on the map, he begins to narrow down nearby grocery stores from the retail directory of the yellow page sections. It's in the middle of this work that he receives Giorno's next message, which--
It does and doesn't catch him by surprise. Something that isn't quite pain slides between his ribs as he reads it. The truth is, practicalities are easier to wrap his head around. His whole life has been ruled by his practical usefulness: what he can do, not who he is. Because who he is-- well. That's awful, isn't it? What he could not accept that morning in November, as he sat across the table from Giorno in that empty restaurant, unable to hold back his tears at how unfair it was that he survived and the others did not, is that Giorno first held his hand out to him for who he was.
Half of a step. What Giorno needs, more than anything-- is a friend. To not be alone with the grief that's too heavy for either of them to carry alone.]
I will always believe in you. No matter what sort of path you might walk, I will always follow you. That's what the promise I made to you means to me.
It's difficult, sometimes. Even just to think about. It feels like I have chosen to believe the sky is orange instead of blue. But even when it's difficult, you don't let me forget. That is what the promise you made to me means to me.
I think so, yes. No matter what happens, how difficult it might be to work through it, they won't be alone.
[He hesitates, before he sends this last message. But only for a moment. He doesn't let himself think too much about it.]
If you are at the house and would like the company, my door is open. I'll be awake for a while longer, working on this.
[Sometimes he wondered if his other self asked Fugo back, in part, so that he could have that cornerstone of belief. So that when he flagged, when life snuck hooks into his skin and pulled, someone would be there to gently, unfailingly unhook them. In a way, it makes him miss Mista; in a way it doesn't, because the way the two of them express this same idea couldn't be more different. Mista is familiar, playful, factual. Fugo is venerent, subdued, subjective. Funny that sometimes Fugo's perspective is the most biased, where Mista can see the truth of the world. Funny.]
[He needs them both. It hurts that that's an impossibility. But right now, he needs Fugo.]
we won't let each other forget. yes.
[Even if it's difficult. Even if it's exhausting. Even if they have to be reminded every day—]
[Even then.]
[He chews his lip, hesitant, before finally responding.]
i do. want company, i mean. it's just
[Have you ever known someone you cared for like family, trusted like blood, only to have them betray the most basic core of values that you shared?]
[He catches himself just in time, breath snagging in his throat and making his eyes wet. Slamming his laptop closed, he takes his glass of ice water and stalks stiffly down to Fugo's room, where he raps lightly on the door before letting himself in.]
Sorry. Hello. Are . . . you sure I won't be disturbing you? [A weak smile.] From the things I asked you to do so late.
[Giorno doesn't finish his message. Rather than leaving a reply that will inevitably get missed until morning, Fugo closes his laptop and sets it aside. Then he twists around in place, trying to find the right angle where he can face the door and his new legs don't take up quite so much space and there's enough room for Giorno. He smiles, wan and twitchy, at Giorno's entrance and subsequent less-than-polished greeting.]
Buona sera, Giogio. [He gestures towards the bed, wordlessly offering it as a place to sit. The strange magic that powers Ryslig's translation is convenient, but most of the time, maybe because of how pseudo-American Bavan looks and feels, Fugo finds himself defaulting to English. But when he speaks to Giorno, Trish, or Bucciarati-- it's always Italian.] Not at all. You can help keep me honest and from going overboard.
[And by that he means, if Giorno's here, he's less likely to work until dawn pinning the location of every grocery store in the city. They really only need the close ones. And even then, two to five locations is more than enough.]
[It's always Italian. Under this hill, between these walls, in each of their individual rooms, it's always Italian. It makes Giorno feel better than he can explain, like stepping into air conditioning after walking around a desert all day. They default automatically to Italian, because if they can't be home, this is at least a little closer.]
[He can't tell if Fugo's sad or tired or simply worried about him. Regardless, he does as directed, fingers curled carefully around the condensating water glass, which he doesn't put down on the side table without a coaster. Naturally.]
In that case, I'll definitely have to stay.
[They'll keep each other honest. Fugo with his bedtime routine or whatnot, and Giorno with . . . not repeating what happened a few months ago.]
[Toeing his shoes off the edge of the bed, he tucks his legs under him and clutches the water to his chest. Then he sighs.]
[When Giorno Giovanna enters the room, you can feel it. He just has this energy about him that catches the eye; a certain magnetism that catches and then holds the attention of anyone in front of him. Not tonight. Tonight, Giorno shifts quietly into the room and folds himself up tight. For all his creeping and twisting roots, he takes up very little space on the bed.]
Yes, I do. She's your friend. She ties her hair back with a ribbon. I last spoke to her at that Halloween party.
[Normally a harpy, occasionally a tiger-based manticore. When they first met on the beach, the second time he washed up on Ryslig's shore, she was missing a wing. Fugo has seen her in passing a few times since, enough to know that she and Trish have hit it off and that she and Giorno are close. No, it's more than that: Riley Williams is one of Giorno's people. He trusts her, in a way that he trusts no one else. Usually, when Riley's involved, there's a smile tugging at the corner of Giorno's mouth.
But not tonight. Tonight, Giorno's face is as smooth and still as a sheet of glass. As a mirror. And the vine on his back have wound tight in on themselves, deceptively small.]
[Fugo notices everything. That's part of why Giorno reached out to him, specifically. There is no one else better equipped to spot finnicky holes in a plan and able to neatly stitch them up the way that Fugo is.]
[That's the trouble here. Riley is the knife that ripped the fabric, and Riley is the needle. If he doesn't provide the truth, he doesn't know if Fugo will be equipped to help him at all.]
. . . I thought I might not explain. It's very personal to her, but at the same time all of this starts with her. So I'll do my best to balance . . . her privacy, and the children's needs.
[He doesn't need to say anything out loud, so he doesn't; just taps his claws uncertainly on his glass. If worst comes to worst, Riley will not be top priority. Not over children. Once upon a time, he would have thought she'd understand that instinctively. Now he really doesn't know.]
We've spoken a great deal about many very personal subjects. [His fingers still, as if frozen; his gaze flickers up to meet Fugo's.] You may have noticed some similarities between us, with what happened a few months back. Those are the sorts of things we talked about. Things that were and what we are now.
[The same, and the same. Or that's what he thought. Now he really doesn't know.]
She fell asleep. She experienced something. I knew it would be bad when she woke up. But . . .
[The surface of the water, which he's gone back to staring into, is interrupted every few moments by his own breathing. This reminds him that he's present and affecting the world around him in one small, meaningless way. As hopeless as all of this feels, he's not entirely paralyzed.]
Two weeks ago, Persephone Orphanage had three staff and ten children. Every night, Riley is murdering a parent she has hand-selected, then taking their child — or children — to the orphanage, where she threatens those three staff with death if they don't take appropriate care of them.
She is showing no sign of stopping. In fact, if she stops on her own, I'll be shocked.
[Yakitori. Meat impaled on sharp little sticks. That is what his mind first zeroes in on, because that is the piece of information that Giorno chose to share with him. Will choose to share with him, someday, if they ever find a way to slip out of the fog's grasp and return to their Napoli.
They say it helped me to grow, but that's hard to see. Can you sympathize at all?]
[They haven't spoken about Haruno. But Fugo hasn't forgotten him. He doesn't think he'll ever forget Haruno or the impassive child who would one day answer to Reira. Or Riley. His memory of her in the bathroom, eyes wet with unshed tears and jaw tight with the effort to keep quiet as she struggled to wrap up half-a-dozen pinprick wounds on her arm, is very clear.
None of them chose to share that pain with him. He hasn't forgotten, but he won't poke and prod at old pain-- things that were in comparison to what we are now. He will not ask for further context, unless it is offered freely. What Giorno has given him in this conversation and what he saw that week is all he truly needs to understand the shape of the situation.]
[Through this explanation, Fugo watches Giorno with a sharp, canny expression. His fingers curl under his chin and he frowns. When he needs a moment, Fugo waits for him to continue; looks down to give Giorno a moment of privacy before he begins again. And after all is said and done, he takes a moment of his own to think. To slide the pieces together. He doesn't have the complete picture, but he has enough to understand the shape of it.]
I see.
[Riley Williams, a girl who learned not to cry because help would never come, now has the power to make the people who choose to hurt children in their care pay. The pattern is immediately, glaringly obvious. Although the incident as a whole was precipitated by whatever she experienced while asleep, the sheer scale of it implies months of planning, stalking, and imagining how it might go.]
So she's living out a fantasy.
[As Monsters, they all need to kill to survive. That's just the nature of this world. There's no getting around it. But this is not killing to eat. It's excessive. No matter what her justifications might be, it's killing for her own satisfaction; to ease a pain that just won't pass.]
How divorced is she from reality? Given what we've discussed so far, it seems she either doesn't want to-- or can't-- consider the farther-reaching consequences of this spree.
[For one of the first times in his life, Giorno feels the same level of uncomfortable scrutiny that most feel under his stare. Fugo's attention is precise and intent. It's attention he asked for, but nonetheless uncomfortable. For a few moments he wrestles with this, unsure why it feels so strange — but in the end, it's not so complicated. He doesn't feel that canniness taking him apart; he feels Riley being dismantled, examined, and put back together again, and that's what's uncomfortable. He is supposed to protect her. And Fugo won't hurt her, but this is . . .]
[He knows she'd hate this. That's what it is. Just as he expected, he feels guilty. But even now, he doesn't know what other choice he could possibly have.]
[The question makes him wince. It's the right question to ask. He just hates the answer he has to give.]
. . . I can't give an objective answer on that. The biased answer I have to give is that she isn't as out of touch with reality as you might expect. Riley . . . snaps. This isn't snapping. She made a plan that she thought was sufficient to protect the children she is trying to save. If she were truly delusional, she would have killed the parents and left, or perhaps killed the parents and spoken to the children at a stretch. She wouldn't have taken them anywhere. She wouldn't have even considered the immediate consequences.
[It's . . . unkind, what he's about to say. It is. He knows that. But he's also becoming increasingly sure that it's true. Lifting his gaze to meet Fugo's, his discomfort and frustration are equally palpable.]
I don't think it's entirely a matter of lucidity, Fugo. I think she has simply never been in a position of experiencing a lack of physical resources. She thinks by solving the problem of emotional neglect, she has removed the greatest threat, and doesn't have the personal experience or . . . perspective to understand the very real physical threats she may be creating for these children's future.
She was surprised when I brought up what might happen in the next six months. She was shocked. I really . . . didn't expect that from her. But in hindsight, it makes a certain kind of sense.
[Giorno's answer isn't particularly kind. But in this situation, in these particular circumstances, he has very little room to be kind. Not about this. Not when it involves someone as close to his heart as Riley is. His kindness has been spent in the consideration of her privacy in how to tell this story, which cannot be told without without showing at least some of her deepest hurts. Showing even this much, talking about her in this way, is obviously painful for him.]
You are not obligated to be objective. Not about this. Not with me.
[He means that sincerely. It is not an exaggeration to say that Fugo would follow Giorno to the end of the earth and back again; he's also capable of making up his own mind about the situation. But, more than that, is this: Lucid or not, planned or impulsive, the devastating aftermath of Riley's actions in the past two weeks remains the same.]
Earlier, you said that I might have noticed some similarities between the two of you. But this is one of the ways in which you are different. She was shocked, but you are angry. Because, by bringing them to a facility that is not equipped to handle such a large increase in residents, she has likely introduced more danger and insecurity into the lives of the children she wanted to save.
[So far, Fugo has only caught a glimpse of it. A flickering shadow that stretches across the hall from another room, just solid enough for him to make out what Giorno has trusted him with. Giorno is angry with Riley because, despite what they have shared, even though he cares so much for her, she did not consider what things might look like six months from now. What after might look like wasn't as important as the now, when the after should have been the first thing she thought about.]
[Back home, it has barely been a month since the last time he saw Fugo. Even with so little time past, people already whisper about him. They whisper, some of them, sometimes, when they think he doesn't hear: Fugo is a traitor. Fugo betrayed the boss. A messy, twisted lens through which to see reality, but one that is becoming frustratingly pervasive.]
[Although from a practical perspective, from a logical and hierarchical perspective, this might be true, Giorno has never felt betrayed by Fugo. Fugo would never have had to prove himself, he believes, if Fugo had not so desperately needed to prove loyalty to himself. Fugo has never, ever done something that has caused Giorno to lose faith in him.]
[As he listens, Giorno realizes . . . the same can no longer be said for Riley.]
[That's the basic problem here, isn't it? This is something Fugo would never do. Trish wouldn't. Mista wouldn't. Of course Bruno wouldn't. He would never in a thousand years have thought something like this would come from anyone he cares about, but if it had, not Riley. Never Riley. Not Riley, who understands what it's like to feel so helpless and so small that existence is terrifying. Surely she would put herself in the position to imagine what such a thing would feel like for her, if she were the child shoved into a strange place and not the righteous avenger punishing the world for her hurts.]
[He was wrong.]
. . . She said she didn't know me very well after all.
[His voice is hoarse, his knuckles pale where he grips his glass of water. Its surface tremors. After too many too-long seconds, he realizes it's because he's shaking. With great care, he wraps a vine around the glass and sets it on Fugo's bedside table. His hands end up bunched in loose fists on his lap.]
But we've talked about everything. There is almost nothing she doesn't know about me. She knows what's most important to me. She's told me what she most fears about herself and I told her that those things don't frighten me, because they don't. It never occurred to me that she would do something like this. That she would be this careless with children. Use them as props in this — pageantry. She clearly cares about them, but not enough to do this right, and that's not good enough.
[It's not. It's not acceptable. His throat is dry, knuckles white again, eyes wide and voice soft. Fugo is right: he's angry. This is his anger in its purest form, undiluted by grief or shock. Anything but this, anything at all, he could tolerate.]
I'm rarely wrong about people. But I'm beginning to think I put too much faith in Riley.
[From someone like him, who uses his own resolve as a guiding star, it's a condemnation. Of Riley, yes, but of himself, too. He trusted too much this time, it seems.]
[Fugo listens. He tries not to stare, to give Giorno the time and the space he needs to work through what he wants to say. He doesn't push. Once he has finished speaking, even though a part of him wants to fill the unhappy silence, he waits for Giorno to be ready to speak on his own terms. Because it's difficult, isn't it? Even for someone like Giorno, usually so certain and eloquent. To find the words to describe this sort of rejection.
Trust doesn't come easily for people like them. It is always a choice, rather than an instinct; one made with the implicit knowledge that trust is synonymous with vulnerability, because to trust is to allow another close enough to hurt. Giorno trusted Riley. Not just with some things, but as with as much of himself as he could. Obviously her rejection hurt him; Fugo can hear that pain in the hoarseness of his voice, see it in the tremor of his shoulders. All of his moments are so precise. So careful. Because if he doesn't take care, he will break something.
But what Giorno cannot wrap his mind around, what makes him so angry that he can't trust himself to hold onto his glass of water for fear of it inevitably cracking and shattering in his white-knuckled grip, is how Riley couldn't see how this spiral of violence she's thrown herself into runs contrary to everything Giorno stands for as a person. Everything he has ever fought and killed and bled for. She is too caught up in the spectacle of it, blinded by her own desire to play the heroine.]
[So, the question is this. Was it wrong of Giorno to trust Riley? To believe they were the same, that she shared his convictions? And where does he go from here?]
Do you think... it's possible to know someone too well?
[It's an odd question to pose. And Fugo knows it, before he even says it. But it's the only way that he knows how to begin. He's spent his whole life trying to know, really know, the people around him. So he can guess at what they want, what they need-- what he can give them that no one else can. So he can stay one step ahead. So he can always be ready for what happens next. But that's not how it works, is it?]
What I mean to say is... sometimes, even when you understand someone as well as two people can possibly know each other, you can still be blindsided by them. Maybe it's even easier, because you think you already know how they will act.
[Fugo shakes his head, then presses his mouth together. He won't bring it up here. But when Bucciarati first emerged from the basilica with Trish unconscious in his arms, Fugo knows that his first emotion in that moment was shock. That he just couldn't believe it. Even though he had known Bucciarati was hiding something from him, from all of them, the scope of it was unimaginable.]
I don't think you were wrong to trust her. But you aren't wrong to be angry with her either. She has chosen a path that you can't and won't ever follow her down.
[Giorno isn't sure that Riley can stop herself. But she is the only one who can end this. Just like trust, if Riley wants to have a relationship with Giorno and the children, she must choose to give this up. She has to put the children before her own anger, her own pain.]
What will matter most, what will say the most about her, is what she chooses to do next.
[Now that Giorno has made Riley look, forced her to acknowledge her own blind spot, will she be able to bring herself to stop? What will she do to protect and provide for the children whose lives she has thrust herself into? Giorno has already made up his mind what he wants to do. Hopefully, when the worst of whatever maelstrom that swallowed Riley whole passes, she will be able to meet him halfway.]
[It's a strange question, certainly. But it's one that makes Giorno sit up straighter, gaze sharp and intent, because — it's not one he's ever considered. How could he have, when until this past year he's never let anyone know him?]
[Even when you understand someone as close to perfectly as possible, they can still blindside you. Maybe it's even easier, because you're so certain about that mutual understanding. Because you grow complacent.]
[The words he uses in the privacy of his own mind are sharper, more condemning, but that's only because he sees it now. He sees the pattern, or at least the beginning of it, the very end of that thread. He grabs onto it with both hands, ties one end around his wrist, and refuses to let go. This, he needs to keep. He needs to focus on this. He thinks this is where the answers are.]
[They are so, so similar, he and Riley. It shocked him — shocked them both — to find such a kindred spirit in the other. That's exactly what Fugo means. They're not the same person, they're only similar. He's made the assumption that they understand each other perfectly, but that's impossible. And both of them are such vicious perfectionists—]
[No wonder.]
. . . No wonder.
[His voice is quiet, almost breathless. Still angry, without a doubt, but hyperfocused now on what feels like a source of all of this wrongness, a way to possibly correct — if she'll let him. If.]
[That's such a qualifier, isn't it.]
[Glancing up at Fugo, he can practically feel how exhausted he looks. But there's gratitude there, too, underneath the tiredness and frustration. He doesn't know how Fugo can feel the way he does about himself when there is so much in his heart, given out for free like it's nothing.]
I think she's angry with me, too. Betrayed. Because I told her I would always stand by her. But I . . . assumed she understood. This is where the line is drawn. Causing pain and suffering to the most vulnerable people in this world is something I just can't allow.
[Something like laughter slips out through his teeth, now. He presses a palm to his forehead, fangs showing in a sharp, rueful smile.]
Because . . . the first people I ever shared anything with believed in just that. Automatically. So I thought she must understand. She felt . . . just the same. Like family. So that was my mistake . . .
[That was it.]
[And now, all he can do is wait.]
[With a sharp exhale, he lets his hand fall to his lap and shakes his head. Plainly:] All I know how to do with other people is fly blind. But sometimes, it gets very tiring . . . hitting windows.
[The air in the room is heavy. No, not heavy: taut. Taut with tension, not between them, but winding tighter and tighter from Giorno. He's so focused. And then it clicks. No wonder, is what Giorno says, as a piece of the puzzle slides into place.
And yet ... there's no real release. This realization is painful. He laughs, but it's all teeth and bitter sharp edges. There's something around the edges that seems lighter, but that's just a brief break in the clouds. When Giorno reaches to touch his forehead, to hide his eyes behind his fingers and palm, he moves as if his own limbs are impossibly heavy. There is so much yet to do, but he is already exhausted. His own shoulders twinge in sympathetic, familiar pain.]
I don't ...
[What happens next isn't something Fugo intends. Not exactly. It's just that the legs, the change he's been dreading for months, that are a part of his body but don't feel like his at all-- he doesn't quite have a handle on them yet. When they move, he either has to think about what he wants to do. Or they move on their own, reaching to catch and balance him when he stumbles. In this moment he thinks, Giorno is so far away, and, he looks so alone.
Before he can catch himself, stop it before it happens, one of the upper legs stretches out and just sort of. Rests? On Giorno's taut shoulder, in what has to be the world's strangest "hand" on the shoulder.]
-- really-- know ... anything else. Either. [Oh, no. There are things he wants to say, to help the best he can, but they've gotten all mixed up in his own discombobulation over what his own stupid legs are up to. He thinks: lift up and it does, a little, hovering awkwardly around Giorno's ear. He doesn't pull entirely away, worried a little about moving too quickly and accidentally running into Giorno on his way back out.] Sorry, they ... I'm still getting used to them.
[All of this is terribly complicated. But Fugo . . . well, it's not that he's simple. But he provides something simpler. The ill-mannered behavior of his wayward limbs, an automatic gesture of comfort that Fugo can't catch quick enough to talk himself out of it. The heaviness on Giorno's face lifts instantly at the touch to his shoulder and flies away as though nothing's been wrong all along when he turns to see Fugo's spider-paw resting solemnly upon it.]
[He doesn't have time to rest his own hand atop it before Fugo pulls it away, so he takes it between his hands instead. He doesn't want it to go any farther.]
It's okay. I don't mind.
[The opposite, if anything. He desperately needs comfort, and he doesn't care which of Fugo's limbs it comes from, thanks. If anything, he's just grateful to the leg for letting him know what would help.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i'm going to stop doing the < username > thing because i am lazy
the overall conditions are about to get very crowded.
as to the rest, i haven't gotten started. money is a concern, as are general resources (food, clothing, etc) and staff shortage. a lot of minutiae stemming from a sudden influx of residents.
no subject
[A lot of humans are going to die; more than what's necessary to feed a Monster, or even a group of Monsters. Specifically, humans with children. Giorno doesn't have a specific number yet, which means it's an ongoing problem.
Well, that's a mess.]
The best place to start would be providing those general resources and the immediate short-term needs. The money will come later; let's discuss our funding options in person once we've figured these things out.
Send me the address of the orphanage and I will reach out to a local grocer to negotiate a larger scale purchase of food. When we drop the order off, we can assess if there will be enough toiletries and bedding for the anticipated influx of residents.
If we know where these children are coming from (addresses in particular would be helpful) I think it would be comforting to them to bring their clothes from home. I assume they were brought there unexpectedly. Otherwise, we should visit secondhand stores and purchase clothing for a range of ages.
Finally, reach out to Harrington. If he's available and willing, he's good with children and very non-threatening. I think he would act as a liaison between us and the human staff.
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[For the first time in two days, Giorno breathes out.]
thank you. this is exactly what i was hoping for. thank you.
i've already made contact with staff and done my best to be nonthreatening, but they've received a number of threats already and they're understandably skittish. no one's scared of steve, though.
[He sends the address, and . . . hesitates.]
i need to be transparent about my other two concerns, although you might already be guessing both of them. the first is that these children will all have experienced at least two forms of severe trauma upon being brought to the orphanage, and we have a truly critical shortage of support on that front. i don't know what to do about that. i think there might not be anything that we can do about that.
the other is
that eventually these children, who are a strain on the infrastructure of the orphanage, will be turned out, or that the orphanage itself will collapse. at which point there's the street.
i know that's long-term and we need to start with the things you've listed. that's why i asked for your help. because i can't stop thinking about what will be a year from now. but i wanted to . . . be honest, i suppose. about where my head is.
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This is work I have experience with. I am glad, always, to lend these skills to you.
I ... cannot speak on help of that nature. I'm not sure where to begin with how to look for it. The best answer I can provide is that, perhaps, the first step of closing those wounds is to give them a safe, comfortable place to live and grow. That is something I believe you have the ability to see through.
Because that "eventually" won't happen. We will not allow it to happen. [Not "you": we. Giorno and Fugo and anyone else Giorno trusts with these children. Whatever obstacles are in front of them will be dismantled.] If there is a strain on the infrastructure, if it begins to fail, we will either shore it up, rebuild it, or create our own. It will sustain itself.
They will never have to face the streets.
[Fugo rarely speaks in certainties. He's no good at faith. But he believes in Giorno. His dream, whatever shape it might take in this strange and awful world, was and is his future. Whatever pain these children have suffered, the worst of it is now behind them. That is the future they need to build.]
Thank you for being honest with me. Even if you cannot stop thinking about a year from now, we can think on it together.
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[It's a release he didn't realize he needed until the third time he read through this message, when the tears came and came and refused to stop. It's been nearly a week since he first heard the rumors and knew where they came from, two days since he confronted Riley and learned that the missing piece he hoped was there had not been considered, and ever since he's had his chest clenched up so tightly with wild-eyed, panicked determination that he simply forgot to breathe. Or feel. Or anything.]
[So he puts his head down on his desk and cries, gut-wrenching full-body silent sobs for the children who won't get the chance to exact their own vengeance, to live in their own homes, to make their own peace in their own way. For Riley, whose involvement in this he can nearly understand if not for that crucial error in logic; for the parents, whose deaths would be satisfying to him if not for the collateral consequences; for the freedom he can almost see in the choices Riley's making if only—]
[If only, if only, if only.]
[He cries for Riley and for the children whose parents she's murdering, because in the end, they're one and the same.]
[It's about twenty minutes and a glass of very cold water later that he finally gets back to responding.]
i hope you know exactly how much you mean to me. not just for the practicalities, although those are invaluable. but because you believe in me. even here, when i've been here for so long without finding a way out. it nags at me. but even when i forget what i'm capable of, you don't.
that's half a step, isn't it? that's what you do for me every day. remind me to remember.
if they can rely on each other, that will make a difference, too, won't it. all of them together, however many it ends up being.
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It does and doesn't catch him by surprise. Something that isn't quite pain slides between his ribs as he reads it. The truth is, practicalities are easier to wrap his head around. His whole life has been ruled by his practical usefulness: what he can do, not who he is. Because who he is-- well. That's awful, isn't it? What he could not accept that morning in November, as he sat across the table from Giorno in that empty restaurant, unable to hold back his tears at how unfair it was that he survived and the others did not, is that Giorno first held his hand out to him for who he was.
Half of a step. What Giorno needs, more than anything-- is a friend. To not be alone with the grief that's too heavy for either of them to carry alone.]
I will always believe in you. No matter what sort of path you might walk, I will always follow you. That's what the promise I made to you means to me.
It's difficult, sometimes. Even just to think about. It feels like I have chosen to believe the sky is orange instead of blue. But even when it's difficult, you don't let me forget. That is what the promise you made to me means to me.
I think so, yes. No matter what happens, how difficult it might be to work through it, they won't be alone.
[He hesitates, before he sends this last message. But only for a moment. He doesn't let himself think too much about it.]
If you are at the house and would like the company, my door is open. I'll be awake for a while longer, working on this.
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[He needs them both. It hurts that that's an impossibility. But right now, he needs Fugo.]
we won't let each other forget. yes.
[Even if it's difficult. Even if it's exhausting. Even if they have to be reminded every day—]
[Even then.]
[He chews his lip, hesitant, before finally responding.]
i do. want company, i mean. it's just
[Have you ever known someone you cared for like family, trusted like blood, only to have them betray the most basic core of values that you shared?]
[He catches himself just in time, breath snagging in his throat and making his eyes wet. Slamming his laptop closed, he takes his glass of ice water and stalks stiffly down to Fugo's room, where he raps lightly on the door before letting himself in.]
Sorry. Hello. Are . . . you sure I won't be disturbing you? [A weak smile.] From the things I asked you to do so late.
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Buona sera, Giogio. [He gestures towards the bed, wordlessly offering it as a place to sit. The strange magic that powers Ryslig's translation is convenient, but most of the time, maybe because of how pseudo-American Bavan looks and feels, Fugo finds himself defaulting to English. But when he speaks to Giorno, Trish, or Bucciarati-- it's always Italian.] Not at all. You can help keep me honest and from going overboard.
[And by that he means, if Giorno's here, he's less likely to work until dawn pinning the location of every grocery store in the city. They really only need the close ones. And even then, two to five locations is more than enough.]
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[He can't tell if Fugo's sad or tired or simply worried about him. Regardless, he does as directed, fingers curled carefully around the condensating water glass, which he doesn't put down on the side table without a coaster. Naturally.]
In that case, I'll definitely have to stay.
[They'll keep each other honest. Fugo with his bedtime routine or whatnot, and Giorno with . . . not repeating what happened a few months ago.]
[Toeing his shoes off the edge of the bed, he tucks his legs under him and clutches the water to his chest. Then he sighs.]
You remember Riley, don't you?
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Yes, I do. She's your friend. She ties her hair back with a ribbon. I last spoke to her at that Halloween party.
[Normally a harpy, occasionally a tiger-based manticore. When they first met on the beach, the second time he washed up on Ryslig's shore, she was missing a wing. Fugo has seen her in passing a few times since, enough to know that she and Trish have hit it off and that she and Giorno are close. No, it's more than that: Riley Williams is one of Giorno's people. He trusts her, in a way that he trusts no one else. Usually, when Riley's involved, there's a smile tugging at the corner of Giorno's mouth.
But not tonight. Tonight, Giorno's face is as smooth and still as a sheet of glass. As a mirror. And the vine on his back have wound tight in on themselves, deceptively small.]
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[That's the trouble here. Riley is the knife that ripped the fabric, and Riley is the needle. If he doesn't provide the truth, he doesn't know if Fugo will be equipped to help him at all.]
. . . I thought I might not explain. It's very personal to her, but at the same time all of this starts with her. So I'll do my best to balance . . . her privacy, and the children's needs.
[He doesn't need to say anything out loud, so he doesn't; just taps his claws uncertainly on his glass. If worst comes to worst, Riley will not be top priority. Not over children. Once upon a time, he would have thought she'd understand that instinctively. Now he really doesn't know.]
We've spoken a great deal about many very personal subjects. [His fingers still, as if frozen; his gaze flickers up to meet Fugo's.] You may have noticed some similarities between us, with what happened a few months back. Those are the sorts of things we talked about. Things that were and what we are now.
[The same, and the same. Or that's what he thought. Now he really doesn't know.]
She fell asleep. She experienced something. I knew it would be bad when she woke up. But . . .
[The surface of the water, which he's gone back to staring into, is interrupted every few moments by his own breathing. This reminds him that he's present and affecting the world around him in one small, meaningless way. As hopeless as all of this feels, he's not entirely paralyzed.]
Two weeks ago, Persephone Orphanage had three staff and ten children. Every night, Riley is murdering a parent she has hand-selected, then taking their child — or children — to the orphanage, where she threatens those three staff with death if they don't take appropriate care of them.
She is showing no sign of stopping. In fact, if she stops on her own, I'll be shocked.
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They say it helped me to grow, but that's hard to see. Can you sympathize at all?]
[They haven't spoken about Haruno. But Fugo hasn't forgotten him. He doesn't think he'll ever forget Haruno or the impassive child who would one day answer to Reira. Or Riley. His memory of her in the bathroom, eyes wet with unshed tears and jaw tight with the effort to keep quiet as she struggled to wrap up half-a-dozen pinprick wounds on her arm, is very clear.
None of them chose to share that pain with him. He hasn't forgotten, but he won't poke and prod at old pain-- things that were in comparison to what we are now. He will not ask for further context, unless it is offered freely. What Giorno has given him in this conversation and what he saw that week is all he truly needs to understand the shape of the situation.]
[Through this explanation, Fugo watches Giorno with a sharp, canny expression. His fingers curl under his chin and he frowns. When he needs a moment, Fugo waits for him to continue; looks down to give Giorno a moment of privacy before he begins again. And after all is said and done, he takes a moment of his own to think. To slide the pieces together. He doesn't have the complete picture, but he has enough to understand the shape of it.]
I see.
[Riley Williams, a girl who learned not to cry because help would never come, now has the power to make the people who choose to hurt children in their care pay. The pattern is immediately, glaringly obvious. Although the incident as a whole was precipitated by whatever she experienced while asleep, the sheer scale of it implies months of planning, stalking, and imagining how it might go.]
So she's living out a fantasy.
[As Monsters, they all need to kill to survive. That's just the nature of this world. There's no getting around it. But this is not killing to eat. It's excessive. No matter what her justifications might be, it's killing for her own satisfaction; to ease a pain that just won't pass.]
How divorced is she from reality? Given what we've discussed so far, it seems she either doesn't want to-- or can't-- consider the farther-reaching consequences of this spree.
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[He knows she'd hate this. That's what it is. Just as he expected, he feels guilty. But even now, he doesn't know what other choice he could possibly have.]
[The question makes him wince. It's the right question to ask. He just hates the answer he has to give.]
. . . I can't give an objective answer on that. The biased answer I have to give is that she isn't as out of touch with reality as you might expect. Riley . . . snaps. This isn't snapping. She made a plan that she thought was sufficient to protect the children she is trying to save. If she were truly delusional, she would have killed the parents and left, or perhaps killed the parents and spoken to the children at a stretch. She wouldn't have taken them anywhere. She wouldn't have even considered the immediate consequences.
[It's . . . unkind, what he's about to say. It is. He knows that. But he's also becoming increasingly sure that it's true. Lifting his gaze to meet Fugo's, his discomfort and frustration are equally palpable.]
I don't think it's entirely a matter of lucidity, Fugo. I think she has simply never been in a position of experiencing a lack of physical resources. She thinks by solving the problem of emotional neglect, she has removed the greatest threat, and doesn't have the personal experience or . . . perspective to understand the very real physical threats she may be creating for these children's future.
She was surprised when I brought up what might happen in the next six months. She was shocked. I really . . . didn't expect that from her. But in hindsight, it makes a certain kind of sense.
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You are not obligated to be objective. Not about this. Not with me.
[He means that sincerely. It is not an exaggeration to say that Fugo would follow Giorno to the end of the earth and back again; he's also capable of making up his own mind about the situation. But, more than that, is this: Lucid or not, planned or impulsive, the devastating aftermath of Riley's actions in the past two weeks remains the same.]
Earlier, you said that I might have noticed some similarities between the two of you. But this is one of the ways in which you are different. She was shocked, but you are angry. Because, by bringing them to a facility that is not equipped to handle such a large increase in residents, she has likely introduced more danger and insecurity into the lives of the children she wanted to save.
[So far, Fugo has only caught a glimpse of it. A flickering shadow that stretches across the hall from another room, just solid enough for him to make out what Giorno has trusted him with. Giorno is angry with Riley because, despite what they have shared, even though he cares so much for her, she did not consider what things might look like six months from now. What after might look like wasn't as important as the now, when the after should have been the first thing she thought about.]
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[Although from a practical perspective, from a logical and hierarchical perspective, this might be true, Giorno has never felt betrayed by Fugo. Fugo would never have had to prove himself, he believes, if Fugo had not so desperately needed to prove loyalty to himself. Fugo has never, ever done something that has caused Giorno to lose faith in him.]
[As he listens, Giorno realizes . . . the same can no longer be said for Riley.]
[That's the basic problem here, isn't it? This is something Fugo would never do. Trish wouldn't. Mista wouldn't. Of course Bruno wouldn't. He would never in a thousand years have thought something like this would come from anyone he cares about, but if it had, not Riley. Never Riley. Not Riley, who understands what it's like to feel so helpless and so small that existence is terrifying. Surely she would put herself in the position to imagine what such a thing would feel like for her, if she were the child shoved into a strange place and not the righteous avenger punishing the world for her hurts.]
[He was wrong.]
. . . She said she didn't know me very well after all.
[His voice is hoarse, his knuckles pale where he grips his glass of water. Its surface tremors. After too many too-long seconds, he realizes it's because he's shaking. With great care, he wraps a vine around the glass and sets it on Fugo's bedside table. His hands end up bunched in loose fists on his lap.]
But we've talked about everything. There is almost nothing she doesn't know about me. She knows what's most important to me. She's told me what she most fears about herself and I told her that those things don't frighten me, because they don't. It never occurred to me that she would do something like this. That she would be this careless with children. Use them as props in this — pageantry. She clearly cares about them, but not enough to do this right, and that's not good enough.
[It's not. It's not acceptable. His throat is dry, knuckles white again, eyes wide and voice soft. Fugo is right: he's angry. This is his anger in its purest form, undiluted by grief or shock. Anything but this, anything at all, he could tolerate.]
I'm rarely wrong about people. But I'm beginning to think I put too much faith in Riley.
[From someone like him, who uses his own resolve as a guiding star, it's a condemnation. Of Riley, yes, but of himself, too. He trusted too much this time, it seems.]
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Trust doesn't come easily for people like them. It is always a choice, rather than an instinct; one made with the implicit knowledge that trust is synonymous with vulnerability, because to trust is to allow another close enough to hurt. Giorno trusted Riley. Not just with some things, but as with as much of himself as he could. Obviously her rejection hurt him; Fugo can hear that pain in the hoarseness of his voice, see it in the tremor of his shoulders. All of his moments are so precise. So careful. Because if he doesn't take care, he will break something.
But what Giorno cannot wrap his mind around, what makes him so angry that he can't trust himself to hold onto his glass of water for fear of it inevitably cracking and shattering in his white-knuckled grip, is how Riley couldn't see how this spiral of violence she's thrown herself into runs contrary to everything Giorno stands for as a person. Everything he has ever fought and killed and bled for. She is too caught up in the spectacle of it, blinded by her own desire to play the heroine.]
[So, the question is this. Was it wrong of Giorno to trust Riley? To believe they were the same, that she shared his convictions? And where does he go from here?]
Do you think... it's possible to know someone too well?
[It's an odd question to pose. And Fugo knows it, before he even says it. But it's the only way that he knows how to begin. He's spent his whole life trying to know, really know, the people around him. So he can guess at what they want, what they need-- what he can give them that no one else can. So he can stay one step ahead. So he can always be ready for what happens next. But that's not how it works, is it?]
What I mean to say is... sometimes, even when you understand someone as well as two people can possibly know each other, you can still be blindsided by them. Maybe it's even easier, because you think you already know how they will act.
[Fugo shakes his head, then presses his mouth together. He won't bring it up here. But when Bucciarati first emerged from the basilica with Trish unconscious in his arms, Fugo knows that his first emotion in that moment was shock. That he just couldn't believe it. Even though he had known Bucciarati was hiding something from him, from all of them, the scope of it was unimaginable.]
I don't think you were wrong to trust her. But you aren't wrong to be angry with her either. She has chosen a path that you can't and won't ever follow her down.
[Giorno isn't sure that Riley can stop herself. But she is the only one who can end this. Just like trust, if Riley wants to have a relationship with Giorno and the children, she must choose to give this up. She has to put the children before her own anger, her own pain.]
What will matter most, what will say the most about her, is what she chooses to do next.
[Now that Giorno has made Riley look, forced her to acknowledge her own blind spot, will she be able to bring herself to stop? What will she do to protect and provide for the children whose lives she has thrust herself into? Giorno has already made up his mind what he wants to do. Hopefully, when the worst of whatever maelstrom that swallowed Riley whole passes, she will be able to meet him halfway.]
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[Even when you understand someone as close to perfectly as possible, they can still blindside you. Maybe it's even easier, because you're so certain about that mutual understanding. Because you grow complacent.]
[The words he uses in the privacy of his own mind are sharper, more condemning, but that's only because he sees it now. He sees the pattern, or at least the beginning of it, the very end of that thread. He grabs onto it with both hands, ties one end around his wrist, and refuses to let go. This, he needs to keep. He needs to focus on this. He thinks this is where the answers are.]
[They are so, so similar, he and Riley. It shocked him — shocked them both — to find such a kindred spirit in the other. That's exactly what Fugo means. They're not the same person, they're only similar. He's made the assumption that they understand each other perfectly, but that's impossible. And both of them are such vicious perfectionists—]
[No wonder.]
. . . No wonder.
[His voice is quiet, almost breathless. Still angry, without a doubt, but hyperfocused now on what feels like a source of all of this wrongness, a way to possibly correct — if she'll let him. If.]
[That's such a qualifier, isn't it.]
[Glancing up at Fugo, he can practically feel how exhausted he looks. But there's gratitude there, too, underneath the tiredness and frustration. He doesn't know how Fugo can feel the way he does about himself when there is so much in his heart, given out for free like it's nothing.]
I think she's angry with me, too. Betrayed. Because I told her I would always stand by her. But I . . . assumed she understood. This is where the line is drawn. Causing pain and suffering to the most vulnerable people in this world is something I just can't allow.
[Something like laughter slips out through his teeth, now. He presses a palm to his forehead, fangs showing in a sharp, rueful smile.]
Because . . . the first people I ever shared anything with believed in just that. Automatically. So I thought she must understand. She felt . . . just the same. Like family. So that was my mistake . . .
[That was it.]
[And now, all he can do is wait.]
[With a sharp exhale, he lets his hand fall to his lap and shakes his head. Plainly:] All I know how to do with other people is fly blind. But sometimes, it gets very tiring . . . hitting windows.
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And yet ... there's no real release. This realization is painful. He laughs, but it's all teeth and bitter sharp edges. There's something around the edges that seems lighter, but that's just a brief break in the clouds. When Giorno reaches to touch his forehead, to hide his eyes behind his fingers and palm, he moves as if his own limbs are impossibly heavy. There is so much yet to do, but he is already exhausted. His own shoulders twinge in sympathetic, familiar pain.]
I don't ...
[What happens next isn't something Fugo intends. Not exactly. It's just that the legs, the change he's been dreading for months, that are a part of his body but don't feel like his at all-- he doesn't quite have a handle on them yet. When they move, he either has to think about what he wants to do. Or they move on their own, reaching to catch and balance him when he stumbles. In this moment he thinks, Giorno is so far away, and, he looks so alone.
Before he can catch himself, stop it before it happens, one of the upper legs stretches out and just sort of. Rests? On Giorno's taut shoulder, in what has to be the world's strangest "hand" on the shoulder.]
-- really-- know ... anything else. Either. [Oh, no. There are things he wants to say, to help the best he can, but they've gotten all mixed up in his own discombobulation over what his own stupid legs are up to. He thinks: lift up and it does, a little, hovering awkwardly around Giorno's ear. He doesn't pull entirely away, worried a little about moving too quickly and accidentally running into Giorno on his way back out.] Sorry, they ... I'm still getting used to them.
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[He doesn't have time to rest his own hand atop it before Fugo pulls it away, so he takes it between his hands instead. He doesn't want it to go any farther.]
It's okay. I don't mind.
[The opposite, if anything. He desperately needs comfort, and he doesn't care which of Fugo's limbs it comes from, thanks. If anything, he's just grateful to the leg for letting him know what would help.]
Can you come sit with me? Please.