[There is no one anywhere. Or at least there seems not to be. There's something humming in the ground, but it doesn't feel like feet, not even Giorno's off-brand amalgamation of roots masquerading as feet. Nature moves around Fugo as he monitors, slightly tentative but beginning to return to normal, as though something unusual happened an hour or two ago and the creatures in the undergrowth are still recalibrating.]
[Something moves in the earth. Slightly. Barely perceptible. But Fugo will feel it. Growing.]
[In the end, Fugo will find him not far from where he's parked. Giorno is by the lake, but behind the treeline, close enough that he can watch the moon off the surface of the water but far enough that he can disappear before anyone approaching sees him.]
[They would know he'd been there, though. Not immediately, but they would stumble into the knowledge eventually. Fugo won't, but it's a lucky thing. If he were less attentive or in the body of a less precise monster, he might walk right into the muck — a slurry of liquid and solid barely perceptible in the dark, swampy and copper-smelling and fetid. The air seems to cling here, hanging uncomfortably off one's skin; the trees bend in too close, brushing limbs against elbows and fingertips, moving when they shouldn't, when the night is so still.]
[The ground squishes underfoot.]
[It's easy math, and Fugo is good at math. There's no sign of the body. It smells like a person pulled inside out. Everything is wet and squelching except for the occasional soft spot, something that gives instead of sucks the foot in. Slippery.]
[Flesh.]
[And Giorno — who ripped the corpse to shreds with teeth and claws, whose roots have spread deep into the earth and woven in and out of the detritus that used to be a person, who even in this moment is taking it all in, one with the castoff waste that human and monster garbage creates, whose connection to the earth is so deep in this moment that his legs have sunk down almost to the knee — he sits at the base of a maple tree, lashed in blood top to toe, back against the trunk and his eyes trained on Fugo's expression. As the arachne picks his way amongst the scraps of flesh, he, dull-eyed, lifts a hand in blank greeting.]
. . . Buona sera. Sorry for the mess.
[Odd. There was fury here, and now there's nothing. He's empty. Or wearing a very good mask.]
[It is so quiet here. It is so still. Even the trees seem tense; beyond the message Giorno sent earlier, this is the surest sign of his presence. If Fugo was any other monster, it might have taken hours to find him. As an arachne, Fugo lifts himself up and off of his human feet to stand fully on the long legs attached to his back: he flips the hood of his jacket up to block his lateral eyes, closes the rest, and holds his hands over his ears. He allows himself a full minute, sixty seconds, to focus solely on his sense of vibration.
He does not sense footsteps. He senses a pulse. A deep, underground throbbing. It's faint from where he stands now, but he knows what it is; he knows that he isn't far from where he needs to be.
Fugo turns back to the car. He pulls out a duffel bag, shoulders it, and sets out.]
[It takes time to find Giorno. Fugo isn't exactly sure how long. Only that he walks forward-- pauses to feel the vibrations-- adjusts his course as he gets closer-- moves on. The night is clear to him, so he doesn't stumble even as he moves away from the shore and into the treeline. But even without the night vision that comes part and parcel of being an arachne, Fugo would be able to be able to smell it.
Sickly sweet, metallic, and foul. Not just blood, not just earth, but the rank smell of shredded intestines. He knows this smell. It's what was left behind after Purple Haze killed someone.]
Buona sera, Giogio.
[With Giorno, it's always Italian. Always.]
[Fugo mildly surveys the scattered remains of what was once a body and mentally acknowledges that, more or less, there is little left worth salvaging. Perhaps some of the bones; even broken, they can still extract the marrow for Steve. There is no sense of disgust about him. While he doesn't know the exact why this person wound up torn to pieces, he has a few guesses. But between his three years in Passione, his own Stand, and the work of butchering he is starting to become quite good at-- Fugo finds himself largely numb to the violence that happened here.
Before he moves, Fugo takes a moment to mildly survey the muck. But when he moves through the waste, it's as if he doesn't care about the mess. It's not that he doesn't see it. He sees through it and steps into it anyway. What's important is getting to Giorno's side as quickly as possible, while avoiding stepping on any of his roots. His footsteps echo wetly, except for one that crunches when his weight comes down on a section of ribcage, in the quiet until he makes it to the tree. Once there, he reaches into the bag and retrieves a bottle of water. He untwists the cap, then offers it to Giorno.]
Here. Drink this. [If Giorno accepts the offer, he will find that the water is still chill from the refrigerator; condensation has beaded on its side during the trip from the Hill House to his hand.]
[Watching Fugo come his way feels like watching a film through a telescope. There's some part of him that's touched at how efficiently Fugo moves towards him, another that feels guilt for making him deal with all of this. Fugo likes neatness, after all, and this is not neat. Having to walk through the slush of human refuse that he's left behind, that's not fair to him. It's not fair to ask these things of him. And yet Fugo does them, without a second thought.]
[Giorno feels guilt and tenderness and empathy from the space of a light-year, a space that only slightly contracts as Fugo comes closer to him. Even when Fugo stands right in front of him, he still feels separated by the space of a stadium. Six months and over a year and one whole space of humanity is what separates them. The two of them, from two different worlds that happen to be the same one.]
[And still, Fugo is the only person he trusted to come here. To see him this way, and to understand, without a word needing to be said by either of them.]
[Staring up at him, hair hanging messy and lank in its dissolving braid over one shoulder, Giorno parts his lips as though to speak. Nothing comes out. There's only air. He doesn't want to drink the water. He wants to say something. The only trouble is, he doesn't know what it is that he wants to say. Would it even matter if he said it? Almost certainly not.]
[In the end, he reaches out with numb fingers to take the bottle. Obedient and on automatic, he drinks. He doesn't put the bottle down until it's empty, or Fugo tells him to stop, fingers digging so hard into the plastic that it makes a sound like ice sheets breaking.]
[When Fugo hands Giorno the water bottle, the heel of Giorno's hand blindly brushes up against his knuckles. Blood, dry enough to be unpleasantly tacky but still more than wet enough to transfer, smears across the back of his hand.
Fugo, who was trained to hate mess as soon as he was old enough to understand the concept, doesn't flinch away from it. He holds on to the bottle until he's sure Giorno has a good grip on it, then wordlessly watches him drink.]
[He doesn't tell him to stop. A whole bottle in one go would be too much, he thinks, for anyone but a nymph or a mer. But who knows how long it's been since Giorno had something to drink? Giorno needs water, just the same as he needs sun and needs blood. The cold, too, should help. Physical sensations almost always do, in moments like these. He doesn't speak, not to explain what they need to do next or ask Giorno what happened. He simply watches and waits for him to finish; then holds his hand out for the empty bottle, which he neatly tucks back away. One set of eyes glances down into the open mouth of the bag, so he doesn't have to blindly search for what he needs next.
Fugo pulls out a second bottle of water and a washcloth. Like the first, he untwists the cap; but rather than drinking it himself or offering it to Giorno, he uses about half of it to wet the cloth. And then, finally, while he twists the cap back on and then puts the bottle away again, he speaks. His voice is soft, but it seems to echo in the silence between them.]
May I?
[Giorno is covered in blood. Fugo knows, from experience, how miserable of an experience it is. How it sticks and it clings. How even when one scrubs under hot, soapy water, it doesn't like to come off. It will probably take Giorno a long, long while before he gets it all out of his hair.
There isn't much Fugo can do for him out here. But he at least has enough to help Giorno wash his face and hands. To take care of him in this small way, if Giorno wants him to, before they work to clean the rest of it up.]
[About sixty percent of an adult human's body is made of water. Logically speaking, he shouldn't be dehydrated. He shouldn't need this water. If he was thinking, he'd likely have pointed this out to Fugo before even taking the water in the first place. But because he isn't, because he doesn't, he feels the crisp cold of the water sliding down his throat, reminding him that his body is something he's attached to, whether he likes it or not.]
[Once he's done, pulling back off the mouth of the bottle with a gasp, he lifts his face to Fugo again, at once more conscious than before and excruciatingly aware of how exhausted he is. His muscles burn from the exertion of destroying the body that lies in pieces around them, and his roots ache from the nutrients he's forced them to absorb in so little time. In the darkness, his eyes are dim and emotionless.]
[May I?]
[For long seconds, he blinks, parsing but very slowly, the gears in his head turning at quarter-speed. A cloth, water, Fugo's hand outstretched, a request for permission. What is it that Fugo wants to do for him? He wants to help, but what—]
[Fugo's hands holding the damp cloth are pale, long-fingered, and clean. In slow motion, he looks down at his own. Red, tacky, stinking. Looking back up at Fugo, he feels the stretch and pull of drying blood across the skin of his face.]
[Oh.]
[Something complex flashes across his expression. Even so, he nods wordless acquiescence. Holds one hand out for Fugo to take, if he likes. There is some feeling welling up in his throat, making his chest clench. He doesn't know what it is, but he wishes he didn't have to hold it.]
[Fugo takes Giorno's hand. He will always take Giorno's hand.]
[His palm slides beneath Giorno's, shoring it up, fingers curling around the side to hold it in place in the still night air. He looks down at their hands, expression settling into something profoundly melancholy; feels the chill of Giorno's fingertips, the pulsing warmth of the life he consumed thrumming through his veins. He brushes his thumb over the top of Giorno's knuckles, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, before carefully turning it to be palm-up.]
I'm sorry. It's probably going to be cold. [He should have thought to bring a bottle of lukewarm water, or warm one of them in the microwave while he prepared the rest of his supplies.] I'll be careful.
[And then he begins. Working in small circles, one section at a time, Fugo washes the blood from Giorno's hands. He starts with the palm, working his way out from the center over the heel and the meat of his thumb until just beyond the wrist. Next are the fingers, beginning with the thumb and ending with the pinky; he has no nail brush on hand to clean underneath his claws, but he does his best to get the worst of it out. Finally, he turns it over to attend to the knuckles and the back of the hand. When the work is complete, as best as he can manage it, he rinses Giorno's skin with more water from the bottle. Cool and clean. And then he begins again, repeating the exact same process from start to finish, with Giorno's other hand.
It takes time. To Fugo, it doesn't feel like too long. This time is vitally necessary, to help Giorno come back to himself. He knows how uncomfortable it is. He knows how exhausting it is. How awful it feels, to reinhabit a body that was left behind because the world it existed in was too miserable to bear.]
[Fugo's thumb is a metronome, slow and steady as it strikes a beat across his knuckles. The sensation is so intimate that he, in his distant state, can barely feel it. He sees it, though, and seeing it makes it real. This is something Fugo is doing to comfort him, but also to comfort himself. The look on Fugo's face is complicated, but part of that complicated is sad. He's made Fugo sad, doing this. Being this way. Losing control.]
[This makes him sad, too. Distantly. It seems like a terribly unfair thing to do to someone who already hurts so much. His lips part as though to speak, to conjure an apology with words he's sure must exist; but then he's interrupted by Fugo's reassurance. I'll be careful, he says, and it's something that would ordinarily make Giorno smile. Unnecessary. Fugo is always careful — with everything, but especially with him.]
[The muscles in his face don't form a smile. After a few seconds, he forgets about the feeling that should make a smile happen, one that feels already as though it happened a thousand years ago. Instead, he watches Fugo work: methodical, rhythmic, practiced. As though he's done this a hundred times before. On his own hands. Perhaps on Narancia's.]
[Something lurches sharply in his chest, strong as a living thing; his thumb twitches, but otherwise he doesn't move.]
[Methodical, rhythmic, practiced. Like striking the keys. Not rough, but firm. Small circles. The lines in his palm lose their new coloring, like rivers flowing in reverse. Fugo pays attention to every groove, every cuticle, as though every millimeter of his skin is significant enough to require his attention.]
[He feels conflicted about this. Somehow, he can't imagine that it's true. Not when he's made so many mistakes — when he's trusted too freely in the quest to trust at all. He's done so much so wrong. And here is Fugo, who came to the woods in the middle of the night at his call, who is before him now washing the drying blood off his hands.]
[He should tell him to go.]
[His mouth stays closed. The whole time, he doesn't say a word. Reluctantly and with some resistance, he begins to feel the cling of his skin to his body again; the sensation of his roots buried deep in the earth; his own fullness; the tension in his shoulders and back from all the violence he's done tonight; the heaviness of shame where it drips from his lips and eyes and every unclean inch of his body. Fugo wipes it away, but he can't keep up even if he wanted to. As quickly as it washes away, it begins to grow back.]
[For now, his hands are clean. For now, they anchor him to this world one gentle swipe at a time. He doesn't want to be here, but he knows he has to. He's grateful, but it hurts. And the whole time he doesn't say anything, not anything, doesn't make a sound or move a muscle.]
[A single saline drop falling from his blurry vision to the heel of Fugo's busy hand — that's not something he can stop. He doesn't even realize tears are forming until it's too late to blink them away.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cw gore, dismemberment, unreality, dissociation, body horror when feeding
[There is no one anywhere. Or at least there seems not to be. There's something humming in the ground, but it doesn't feel like feet, not even Giorno's off-brand amalgamation of roots masquerading as feet. Nature moves around Fugo as he monitors, slightly tentative but beginning to return to normal, as though something unusual happened an hour or two ago and the creatures in the undergrowth are still recalibrating.]
[Something moves in the earth. Slightly. Barely perceptible. But Fugo will feel it. Growing.]
[In the end, Fugo will find him not far from where he's parked. Giorno is by the lake, but behind the treeline, close enough that he can watch the moon off the surface of the water but far enough that he can disappear before anyone approaching sees him.]
[They would know he'd been there, though. Not immediately, but they would stumble into the knowledge eventually. Fugo won't, but it's a lucky thing. If he were less attentive or in the body of a less precise monster, he might walk right into the muck — a slurry of liquid and solid barely perceptible in the dark, swampy and copper-smelling and fetid. The air seems to cling here, hanging uncomfortably off one's skin; the trees bend in too close, brushing limbs against elbows and fingertips, moving when they shouldn't, when the night is so still.]
[The ground squishes underfoot.]
[It's easy math, and Fugo is good at math. There's no sign of the body. It smells like a person pulled inside out. Everything is wet and squelching except for the occasional soft spot, something that gives instead of sucks the foot in. Slippery.]
[Flesh.]
[And Giorno — who ripped the corpse to shreds with teeth and claws, whose roots have spread deep into the earth and woven in and out of the detritus that used to be a person, who even in this moment is taking it all in, one with the castoff waste that human and monster garbage creates, whose connection to the earth is so deep in this moment that his legs have sunk down almost to the knee — he sits at the base of a maple tree, lashed in blood top to toe, back against the trunk and his eyes trained on Fugo's expression. As the arachne picks his way amongst the scraps of flesh, he, dull-eyed, lifts a hand in blank greeting.]
. . . Buona sera. Sorry for the mess.
[Odd. There was fury here, and now there's nothing. He's empty. Or wearing a very good mask.]
cw: gore
He does not sense footsteps. He senses a pulse. A deep, underground throbbing. It's faint from where he stands now, but he knows what it is; he knows that he isn't far from where he needs to be.
Fugo turns back to the car. He pulls out a duffel bag, shoulders it, and sets out.]
[It takes time to find Giorno. Fugo isn't exactly sure how long. Only that he walks forward-- pauses to feel the vibrations-- adjusts his course as he gets closer-- moves on. The night is clear to him, so he doesn't stumble even as he moves away from the shore and into the treeline. But even without the night vision that comes part and parcel of being an arachne, Fugo would be able to be able to smell it.
Sickly sweet, metallic, and foul. Not just blood, not just earth, but the rank smell of shredded intestines. He knows this smell. It's what was left behind after Purple Haze killed someone.]
Buona sera, Giogio.
[With Giorno, it's always Italian. Always.]
[Fugo mildly surveys the scattered remains of what was once a body and mentally acknowledges that, more or less, there is little left worth salvaging. Perhaps some of the bones; even broken, they can still extract the marrow for Steve. There is no sense of disgust about him. While he doesn't know the exact why this person wound up torn to pieces, he has a few guesses. But between his three years in Passione, his own Stand, and the work of butchering he is starting to become quite good at-- Fugo finds himself largely numb to the violence that happened here.
Before he moves, Fugo takes a moment to mildly survey the muck. But when he moves through the waste, it's as if he doesn't care about the mess. It's not that he doesn't see it. He sees through it and steps into it anyway. What's important is getting to Giorno's side as quickly as possible, while avoiding stepping on any of his roots. His footsteps echo wetly, except for one that crunches when his weight comes down on a section of ribcage, in the quiet until he makes it to the tree. Once there, he reaches into the bag and retrieves a bottle of water. He untwists the cap, then offers it to Giorno.]
Here. Drink this. [If Giorno accepts the offer, he will find that the water is still chill from the refrigerator; condensation has beaded on its side during the trip from the Hill House to his hand.]
cw dissociation
[Giorno feels guilt and tenderness and empathy from the space of a light-year, a space that only slightly contracts as Fugo comes closer to him. Even when Fugo stands right in front of him, he still feels separated by the space of a stadium. Six months and over a year and one whole space of humanity is what separates them. The two of them, from two different worlds that happen to be the same one.]
[And still, Fugo is the only person he trusted to come here. To see him this way, and to understand, without a word needing to be said by either of them.]
[Staring up at him, hair hanging messy and lank in its dissolving braid over one shoulder, Giorno parts his lips as though to speak. Nothing comes out. There's only air. He doesn't want to drink the water. He wants to say something. The only trouble is, he doesn't know what it is that he wants to say. Would it even matter if he said it? Almost certainly not.]
[In the end, he reaches out with numb fingers to take the bottle. Obedient and on automatic, he drinks. He doesn't put the bottle down until it's empty, or Fugo tells him to stop, fingers digging so hard into the plastic that it makes a sound like ice sheets breaking.]
no subject
Fugo, who was trained to hate mess as soon as he was old enough to understand the concept, doesn't flinch away from it. He holds on to the bottle until he's sure Giorno has a good grip on it, then wordlessly watches him drink.]
[He doesn't tell him to stop. A whole bottle in one go would be too much, he thinks, for anyone but a nymph or a mer. But who knows how long it's been since Giorno had something to drink? Giorno needs water, just the same as he needs sun and needs blood. The cold, too, should help. Physical sensations almost always do, in moments like these. He doesn't speak, not to explain what they need to do next or ask Giorno what happened. He simply watches and waits for him to finish; then holds his hand out for the empty bottle, which he neatly tucks back away. One set of eyes glances down into the open mouth of the bag, so he doesn't have to blindly search for what he needs next.
Fugo pulls out a second bottle of water and a washcloth. Like the first, he untwists the cap; but rather than drinking it himself or offering it to Giorno, he uses about half of it to wet the cloth. And then, finally, while he twists the cap back on and then puts the bottle away again, he speaks. His voice is soft, but it seems to echo in the silence between them.]
May I?
[Giorno is covered in blood. Fugo knows, from experience, how miserable of an experience it is. How it sticks and it clings. How even when one scrubs under hot, soapy water, it doesn't like to come off. It will probably take Giorno a long, long while before he gets it all out of his hair.
There isn't much Fugo can do for him out here. But he at least has enough to help Giorno wash his face and hands. To take care of him in this small way, if Giorno wants him to, before they work to clean the rest of it up.]
cw hint of disordered eating
[Once he's done, pulling back off the mouth of the bottle with a gasp, he lifts his face to Fugo again, at once more conscious than before and excruciatingly aware of how exhausted he is. His muscles burn from the exertion of destroying the body that lies in pieces around them, and his roots ache from the nutrients he's forced them to absorb in so little time. In the darkness, his eyes are dim and emotionless.]
[May I?]
[For long seconds, he blinks, parsing but very slowly, the gears in his head turning at quarter-speed. A cloth, water, Fugo's hand outstretched, a request for permission. What is it that Fugo wants to do for him? He wants to help, but what—]
[Fugo's hands holding the damp cloth are pale, long-fingered, and clean. In slow motion, he looks down at his own. Red, tacky, stinking. Looking back up at Fugo, he feels the stretch and pull of drying blood across the skin of his face.]
[Oh.]
[Something complex flashes across his expression. Even so, he nods wordless acquiescence. Holds one hand out for Fugo to take, if he likes. There is some feeling welling up in his throat, making his chest clench. He doesn't know what it is, but he wishes he didn't have to hold it.]
no subject
[His palm slides beneath Giorno's, shoring it up, fingers curling around the side to hold it in place in the still night air. He looks down at their hands, expression settling into something profoundly melancholy; feels the chill of Giorno's fingertips, the pulsing warmth of the life he consumed thrumming through his veins. He brushes his thumb over the top of Giorno's knuckles, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, before carefully turning it to be palm-up.]
I'm sorry. It's probably going to be cold. [He should have thought to bring a bottle of lukewarm water, or warm one of them in the microwave while he prepared the rest of his supplies.] I'll be careful.
[And then he begins. Working in small circles, one section at a time, Fugo washes the blood from Giorno's hands. He starts with the palm, working his way out from the center over the heel and the meat of his thumb until just beyond the wrist. Next are the fingers, beginning with the thumb and ending with the pinky; he has no nail brush on hand to clean underneath his claws, but he does his best to get the worst of it out. Finally, he turns it over to attend to the knuckles and the back of the hand. When the work is complete, as best as he can manage it, he rinses Giorno's skin with more water from the bottle. Cool and clean. And then he begins again, repeating the exact same process from start to finish, with Giorno's other hand.
It takes time. To Fugo, it doesn't feel like too long. This time is vitally necessary, to help Giorno come back to himself. He knows how uncomfortable it is. He knows how exhausting it is. How awful it feels, to reinhabit a body that was left behind because the world it existed in was too miserable to bear.]
cw dissociation again
[This makes him sad, too. Distantly. It seems like a terribly unfair thing to do to someone who already hurts so much. His lips part as though to speak, to conjure an apology with words he's sure must exist; but then he's interrupted by Fugo's reassurance. I'll be careful, he says, and it's something that would ordinarily make Giorno smile. Unnecessary. Fugo is always careful — with everything, but especially with him.]
[The muscles in his face don't form a smile. After a few seconds, he forgets about the feeling that should make a smile happen, one that feels already as though it happened a thousand years ago. Instead, he watches Fugo work: methodical, rhythmic, practiced. As though he's done this a hundred times before. On his own hands. Perhaps on Narancia's.]
[Something lurches sharply in his chest, strong as a living thing; his thumb twitches, but otherwise he doesn't move.]
[Methodical, rhythmic, practiced. Like striking the keys. Not rough, but firm. Small circles. The lines in his palm lose their new coloring, like rivers flowing in reverse. Fugo pays attention to every groove, every cuticle, as though every millimeter of his skin is significant enough to require his attention.]
[He feels conflicted about this. Somehow, he can't imagine that it's true. Not when he's made so many mistakes — when he's trusted too freely in the quest to trust at all. He's done so much so wrong. And here is Fugo, who came to the woods in the middle of the night at his call, who is before him now washing the drying blood off his hands.]
[He should tell him to go.]
[His mouth stays closed. The whole time, he doesn't say a word. Reluctantly and with some resistance, he begins to feel the cling of his skin to his body again; the sensation of his roots buried deep in the earth; his own fullness; the tension in his shoulders and back from all the violence he's done tonight; the heaviness of shame where it drips from his lips and eyes and every unclean inch of his body. Fugo wipes it away, but he can't keep up even if he wanted to. As quickly as it washes away, it begins to grow back.]
[For now, his hands are clean. For now, they anchor him to this world one gentle swipe at a time. He doesn't want to be here, but he knows he has to. He's grateful, but it hurts. And the whole time he doesn't say anything, not anything, doesn't make a sound or move a muscle.]
[A single saline drop falling from his blurry vision to the heel of Fugo's busy hand — that's not something he can stop. He doesn't even realize tears are forming until it's too late to blink them away.]