F. I. N. E.

      “Wood does, in fact, conduct electricity.” Ozpin interjects, worry still in his tone. Oh gods what is this kid trying to accomplish? The older man approaches the wires, hands in the air in front of him in a gentle ‘don’t do this’ gesture. “You would need heavy duty rubber gloves to avoid getting ‘shocked’.” Does he not recognize the amount of power that must be flowing through these things? On a more disturbing note: do others? Certainly not everyone’s world can work the same or impart the same lessons, but he would think and hope this would be universal.        “That or an actual wire cutting tool- and I would still caution to wear gloves. This sort of thing can kill you if you’re not careful.” The headmaster continues his warning, but is the other even listening? “Ah, my name is Ozpin by the way.” Introductions might make this easier.

  well, that’s whack. the little about science he remembered from primary school was, in fact, a fucking lie. narancia’s expression scrunches up at the idea of wearing big gloves and ruining his entire aesthetic to avoid a little electrical shock. fuck all of that, frankly, he’ll take the mild burns and the vaguely blurry vision.

  ( or, y’know, whatever happens when you get shocked. )

fate is truly bizarre, unable to be understood by anyone. once it had already given him a second chance, before he finally ascended into the skies. now, he’s brought to this foreign world, confused about his whereabouts.

to make matters stranger, he stands right in front of a familiar face, one he had watch die before his eyes. his mind goes blank as he stares. his heart feels constrained by his tightening chest. 

in a whispered, pained voice, he says the name of the person he would never think he would see walking again. 

“narancia…” 

a slow step brings him closer, a hand reaches for the person standing there – alive. 

eyes pinch shut, tears escaping against bucciarati’s iron will. he retracts his arm and uses it to swipe away the runaway tears. he forces himself to contain his emotions; a leader at his core. he smiles and calmly says, “it’s good to see you again, narancia.”

                       @volarecielo​   ( s. c )

  giorno, fugo, and...

  narancia could collapse right now, frankly. his legs feel like they’re about to give out on him, every part of his body shaking as he tries not to make every feeling that’s washing over him so obvious.

  ( but narancia has never done well at hiding his emotions. panic, regret, sorrow-- it’s all showing on his face. )

  he hates to hear bucciarati sound and look like this no matter how fast he pulls himself together. it makes narancia’s eyes sting worse to the point where the world is a watery blur and bucciarati only manages to stand out because that’s his focus. 

  there’s an answer caught in his throat, coming out as a choked sob. he desperately scrubs at his face, giving up after a couple of futile attempts and moves. his legs go out from him and narancia practically dives into bucciarati’s chest, burying his face and letting out a loud sob.

        There’s—he’s felt worse before than this, he’s sure. It hurts, to have Narancia gripping on like his life depends on it and to sink under both weight and nails and waves of tears and not know what to do about it, yes—but Fugo’s handled worse. And he’s not bleeding out from this; so, as much as he can’t find a solution other than closing his eyes and gritting his teeth, that’s better than if he actually were.

        It ends quickly enough, anyways: one step and Narancia’s standing next to him, still a mess but less than before. It’s starting to feel the same as it was just days before, except they’re in another city and his eyes are still horribly red from crying. Without any need to focus on a weight over his shoulders, Fugo shifts his weight back to the edges of his heels, his arms crossed under his chest.

        “Yeah,” he nods, “Fibonacci. I visited it earlier, but…”

        But, well, a lot. The obvious search for an exit or explanation aside, it’s odd to have a room of that quality again, or to specifically share the entire house with people that are more strangers than anything else. The sudden shift is going to take more than a few days to get adjusted to, he’s sure.

        ( He can’t wander the streets forever? That’s rich—with how things were going back in Napoli, he might’ve had to resign to that. )

        “I figured I’d look around for a while. It’s not like I can think of anything else to do here anyways, and I know how to get back when I need to.”

  “ ... a - all right, good, ” he mumbles, scrubbing more at his eyes. god, he probably looks like a complete wreck right now. a terrible way to reunite with his friend, but it doesn’t seem fugo cares much for that part over just wanting to move away from it. 

  narancia doesn’t want to think about his own sobbing either, so he sniffles, gives a hiccup, and does his best to quiet himself. he moves his head a bit, choosing to focus anywhere aside from fugo’s face, specifically eyeing his free hand. his fingers twitch and shift a touch closer, ultimately drawing back and shoving the hand into his pocket. “ haven’t really been in that area... show me later, okay? ”

  ( it’s not for curiosity nor exploration reasons, certainly not. it’s for when he needs a bit of home to return to on the days when he misses it most. )

narancia’s fast on the draw, blowing a raspberry at fugo for spoiling the mood almost instantly by being a snooty worrywart. still, despite the reaction, he listens and is gentle with the boxes when they’re in his grasp. as much of a shake as he wants to give solely to piss fugo off, he can’t bring himself to go through with it at the moment.

the macarons are eye-catching and he lets out a soft ‘ooo’ while sorting through all the colors. food with such unnatural colors wouldn’t normally interest him since it doesn’t look like it’d taste good, but he’s willing to put some faith into fugo’s taste. 

he listens to fugo talk and blinks, expression shifting from jovial excitement to something much softer. narancia sets the presents aside and steps forward, pulling fugo into a hug. it’s not a tight squeeze, but one that’s light as he leans his head on the taller’s shoulder.

  oh, fuck, it’s his birthday?

  embarrassing as it is, narancia hadn’t looked much at the date since talking to fugo about how long he’s been here. he moves a bit as if to take the food out of giorno’s hands, stopped only by the wrapped box. narancia blinks and tears off the wrapping paper, gasping a bit at the shoe box and cracking it open and investigating them a bit. the wheels catch his sight and he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet.

  “ hoooooooooooly shit, giorno! these shoes got wheels for ‘em?! ” he exclaims, very much ready to kick off his current pair and throw these on. the grin on his face is bright enough to reflect the sun rays almost, shoes stuffed haphazardly back in the box before narancia grabs giorno’s free wrist.

  “ oh FUCK yeah!!! ”

        ❝Sounds like you’re a real pizza connoisseur!❞

Nodding her assent, Aqua couldn’t help but wonder what else she might have missed out on, given the life she’d led so far. Apparently in worlds like this, people Ven’s age learned to drive cars…

          ❝I think I heard of a place in Archimedes Ward called the Star Trail. It’s supposed to have a lot of food vendors… Maybe we can try looking there?❞

  “ what kinda italian would i be if i wasn’t? ”

  narancia listens and nods along, pulling out his phone and trying to find a map. it’s weird to have a phone he can use past communication, so learning how to use it was a good time waster.

      ❝How did I– What?❞

Guess she should have expected this kind of reaction, given how often pizza is talked about around here.

       ❝I mean… I might as well. It has to be good, if everyone likes it so much?❞

  “ everyone can like it, yeah, but that doesn’t mean they have good taste. ”

  for what it’s worth, narancia’s never had pizza outside of italian restaurants he has never had problems with. the standards had to be different everywhere, right? 

        ❝Can I be honest? I’ve never had this ‘pizza’ stuff you guys talk about sometimes…❞

Let’s be real, the food options in the Land of Departure aren’t as varied as one would think.

  “ how the hell’re you still alive? ”

  was that a rude way to word his surprise? yeah. is he gonna apologize? no.

Nemophila Menziesii ( Baby Blue-Eyes )

        “…A month?”

        He can’t bring himself to comment further. After all, this doesn’t make sense. None of it does.

        The longer he tries to take hold of reason, the harder it is to stop it from slipping. How does time work here? Certainly not in the way that it does back home—Fugo has no possible explanation for how four days can turn into thirty. Words fail as he watches Narancia’s hand lift and lower until it grasps harder at his clothes, and he cranes his head further only to see a mess of black and orange. It’s clear that there aren’t any more questions to ask, not when the situation has turned to this.

        As if it hadn’t been obvious enough already, Fugo comes to terms with the fact that he cannot do anything at all to help him. This has only ever happened before with others in the vicinity—other acquaintances who knew what to do and when. But here, still all alone in this vast city, he doesn’t know what to do: that knowledge has never been bequeathed to him, no matter what he’s tried.

        It feels awful, really, to see Narancia in a state like this for so long. But how is he meant to help? ( And would it really help at all? )

        “…Alright. We’re going.” It takes a few more of Narancia’s sniffles to do anything. Shakier from holding him up for so long, Fugo sighs and takes a step forward. Anything to shake away the senselessness of this city, even though the sun pours rays of it down and over their heads. “We can’t stay here,” he says, and it’s a lackluster excuse to find somewhere else that’ll comfort him more than here. “…Did you have anywhere that you were going before this?”

  ... two months. 

  it takes a couple extra minutes for it to hit that the second month of wandering this city is coming soon. he swears his nails have started to jab into fugo’s flesh by this point, but narancia can’t find the words enough to apologize for say anything about his newest realization. 

  ( somewhere, vaguely, narancia recognizes this is the most he’s panicked since arriving. it’s not the uncertainty of this city, but of how to actually navigate a conversation when an uncomfortable rift as formed. )

  narancia makes a noise when fugo moves, lifting his head finally with still watery eyes. “ w - wait, hold on... ” he mumbles, slowly unlatching himself from fugo’s back and standing back on his own two feet. he scrubs furiously at his face to get rid of any stray tears that fell with his focus going to other movement. 

Maybe if the guilt he felt still wasn’t a hard lump in his throat, Giorno would have let out the softest of chuckles at Narancia’s words. Their time as a team may have been cut so painfully brief, but, it was still time spent that Giorno treasured. Did Narancia feel the same? He had to, right? Why else did he follow Bruno along with almost everyone else? Giorno remembered it well, how furiously Narancia swam to catch up to their boat, how he cried that Trish and he were the same…

He doesn’t want to let go, neither does Narancia; they didn’t have to, there was no real reason to, not yet at least. Giorno sniffled, taking a moment to swallow the lump in his throat. He wiped at his face as well, wiping the sweat from his cheeks. He would prefer for no one to see him in such a state, but, right now Narancia was an exception. Giorno assumed that Narancia must feel similarly, especially with how he continued to hide his own expression.

At Narancia’s words, Giorno forced out a brief chuckle.

“How could I ignore you?”

“If I had let you be, you would have beat up that stall owner.”

Giorno tried to match his tone with Narancia’s; he did not think Narancia was at fault for causing a scene, but, knew how easily the other teenager’s anger could escalate. Besides, food was serious business, so how could he ever blame Narancia?

“Ehe… say, was the gelato that bad?”

Maybe a change in topic was what they needed to help both of their moods; Giorno supposed he could at least try.

  narancia would hate to admit how much of a one-track mind he has at times. for so much sorrow that’s weighing down on his thoughts and shoulders, the change in topic that giorno provides wills him away from putting anymore brainpower to the matter at the moment.

  “ i sure as hell would’ve!! can you believe it? tryin’ to sell that shit like it was authentic... guy could’ve stabbed me and i still would have socked him for the gelato over the attack! ” narancia proclaims, shifting his head finally to rest his chin in giorno’s shoulder and peer at him. a lucky shot that he got positioned in a way that lets him actually see the guy.

  “ it was, giorno! i’d tell ya to get some so you can see what i mean but i don’t think you deserve to suffer like that, ” narancia answers, bottom lip jutting out in a pout. is it childish to throw a tantrum over gelato that’s not up to your hometown’s standard? definitely.

  is it justified? fuck yeah it is!!!

  it could’ve been much worse, so the guy can’t complain! sure, he doesn’t have either of his loved switchblades on him to start swinging about with reckless abandon, but narancia has two fists and enough lean muscle to bring out some blood!

        Remember when Trish used his suit as a handkerchief?

        Well, the memory rushes back now, feeling far too recent for Fugo’s liking. The tears start as soon as he speaks, and they grow, and grow, and grow, and grow. He wishes he had one of those handkerchiefs Trish had so quickly requested during that fateful mission—anything to comfort Narancia more than a cold and riddled suit can do.

        “I…” Fugo’s always used to being the voice of reason, to stowing his emotions aside and steadying his voice. It would be no different here if the intensity of the conversation wasn’t unexpected; he’s always known that a reunion, in spite of its unlikelihood and as few as the days between his departure and it might be, would be emotional on Narancia’s end, but this…

        ( If Fugo lacked any sensitivity, he might’ve focused his attention on that instead. But he doesn’t; and maybe he’s senseless for leaving them all behind, but he can’t bring himself to do that again. )

        “Alright,” he obliges, because all the panic seeping through Narancia’s disjointed words is enough to overpower his childishness. “I don’t… know why. I just woke up near the center of this city today.”

        ( He wishes he had an answer; maybe that would soothe Narancia more than he can, now. But, then again… )

        “Hold on,” Fugo matches Narancia’s gaze, not with a glare of his own, but narrowed eyes and caution. “What do you mean, ‘first’? How long have you been here?”

        ( Isn’t he supposed to be somewhere in Venezia? How did he get here, and why? )

  “ ... same here, ” narancia mumbles in return, rubbing his face back into fugo’s blazer. he has to get a grip at some point; this is going far past embarrassing. yeah, he’s been seen in far worse states before by the other boy, but that doesn’t much excuse how hard it is to stop choking on his own tears.

  fugo’s question gives pause however, mouth slightly open before his eyebrows scrunch. he knows he’s seen a calendar since coming here, has kept track like a prison counting down his days until freedom, but his mind is blanking on how to answer. narancia turns his gaze from fugo and moves his hands, fingers out and muttering as if trying to count his way through this.

  “ a month...? ”

  how fucked up is that? going an entire month and not realizing how much time has passed? narancia’s hand doesn’t stop being splayed out as he stares at his palm in some sort of horror as all the passed time washes over him. his arm eventually drops and he only clings harder, fully unable to look towards fugo now.

“The way to impress someone is to ■■■■■■ and then ■■■■, once you’re done you also should ■■■■■■■…”

        The only difference between this city and Napoli is the name.

        Spirale. Toss the name aside and the circumstances remain the same: here he is roaming the streets alone, without any shred of credibility to his name. Fugo’s been thrown out into another world again and nobody bats an eye at him more than the clothes on his back.

        What’s the point of being here? Fugo can’t find logic in the answer let alone an answer at all no matter what he tries; a growing sense of irritation is all he gets for his thoughts. It festers and swells, so much that he hardly notices the steps sprinting behind him until it’s too late. He turns too slow and there is the reason for the noise: orange and black and violet splashing against the light of the island around him and yelling his name inches from his ear with a voice that already feels too estranged to be familiar. But…

        That can’t be right. Because Fugo saw this boy days ago set off to leave Venice with his heart beating fast and steady, and he shouldn’t be here—never mind that Fugo doesn’t know how he got here in the first place, himself—and…

        The sudden weight around him throws any thought of moving towards the sea. Fugo sinks slightly under his weight and he can’t help but wonder what prompted something so ridiculous in their abrupt reunion; he shakes and he sobs and he clings so tightly to him that he’s not sure if he’ll ever let go.

        ( If pushing him and watching a memory of him soar away is the alternative, though, Fugo thinks it won’t hurt to let him hold on a while more. )

        In another world, Fugo might’ve tried to defend himself—thrown him off, veered away from passersby, anything to guard from a stranger. But those first and following cries ring out again and again despite their frailty, and all he can do is cough and turn his head and watch.

        “…Shouldn’t I be asking that to you?” His voice stays low, hesitant. He can’t help but wonder the reason for every action, and he wants to help him, somehow, but nothing comes to mind. “…Narancia.”

        For now, all he can do is keep his own weight up.

  if it helps, narancia’s also not entirely sure if he’ll release fugo within the next hour. 

  it’s comfortable, nostalgic in the way that warms his chest and only serves to suffocate him further past his crying. he’s certain fugo can feel the tears break past the the fabric of his shirt (narancia’s thankful the guy hasn’t cleaved holes at the top of his shoulders), but it’s impossible to stop them for now.

  he’ll cling and sniffle, choking up every couple of seconds and make futile attempts at catching his breath. hearing fugo speak again almost makes him breakdown right back to the start of this, like an illusion is broken down further despite the very obvious physical contact going on in the moment.

  ( why did their last encounter have to be at san giorgio maggiore? couldn’t he have been granted one goodbye to a guy that helped drag him out of hell? )

  “ i - i asked first...! i was here first too, so... ya gotta a... answer me, ” he retorts, grip tightening a bit as he shifts his head to narrow his eyes at fugo. it’s much less of a glare than he intends, eyes still far too watery and nose running enough that he looks more like a petulant child. 

  where have you been? what’ve you been doing?

Giorno would normally never show such emotion, so much of his true feelings in front of others, even those he had come to trust. There were only a few fleeting exceptions, the death of the teenager before him one of them. As he watched Narancia, whose own emotions were clearly and quickly overcoming him, a feeling of immense guilt bloomed in his chest. It was so heavy and painful, enough so to make Giorno feel as if he might tumble downward because of it.

His own hands twitched at his side, now that both were free. What was he supposed to do with them? The same hands that had failed to keep Narancia safe before; the same hands whose owner had failed to save Bruno Bucciarati and Leone Abbacchio? What could he even do with them now?

“I’m sorry,” Giorno says, using one of his hands to cover his own face. “I couldn’t…”

The words would not leave him, perhaps because he did not wish to think of them in the first place. The guilt that had been born in his soul since that day had never left him; it was something he could live with, but never forget.

“If I had been quicker, I could’ve…” I could’ve saved you. You could have lived. You should have lived!

Instead of forcing himself to try and speak, Giorno reached out towards Narancia. He pulled the thinner teenager into a tight embrace, one that was perhaps uncharacteristic of him– yet, as he held on tightly, Giorno wondered why he hadn’t hugged Narancia sooner. How else could he both validate that he was truly real, and comfort him at the same time? It was painful for Giorno, yes, but he knew that Narancia must be hurting as well.

Inhaling sharply, Giorno tried to focus on the positive of this situation; even if this was some cruel joke, something conjured up by a stand or not, the fact that he could see his comrade again was something he ought to be grateful for. The guilt he felt over Narancia’s death only caused Giorno to hug him tighter.

“No, it’s like you said… I’m so happy to see you again.”

  “ s... shut the hell up, giorno, ” narancia manages, fingers curling into the back of giorno’s top. there’s grit to his words as if struggling to speak them past the watery tone that’s still leaking into the syllables. 

  how fast could the guy have moved? one second narancia was keeping an eye on his radar and the next there was a flash of indescribable pain, a bird’s eye view of the ground, and he was gone. if the boss’ stand had to do with time shit, then... what could anyone have really done?

  ( except win at the end, narancia guesses. )

  “ ... it ain’t your fault. we couldn’t even find where the bastard was hiding, ” he continues, trying not to give the blond room to object. if anyone’s gonna be at fault for anything, it’d be...

  narancia doesn’t want to think about abbacchio’s death. how aerosmith with manipulated into shooting someone (the leader of la squadra? the guy they had tried to track and failed back in sardinia?) and how bucciarati and him left abbacchio alone when he’d be defenseless--

  he swallows the blame back down and shakes his head. there’s no intention to step away from giorno despite how much he’d love to reach up and squish the kids face and tell him with the stern face he learned from bucciarati that if giorno tries to blame himself for this again he’ll punch him, but the fire isn’t there.

  for now, he’ll deal with being simmering coals. when all of his strength comes back, he’ll let giorno have it should he try to shoulder all the guilt again.