Chapter Text
Trish couldn’t summon her stand. No matter how hard she tried, all she was doing was completely draining her energy as she tried to free herself from the darkness. There was something suffocating about it, feeling completely helpless as she waited for something to change- she knew she was just trying the same thing over and over, trying to keep the panic from rising in her throat as she began to struggle.
As the feeling began to crawl back through her, throbbing as the darkness shallowed, she realized that she wasn’t staring into endless space. There was just something dark, close to her face. Fabric, over her head, blinding her as she came to.
She had seen enough action movies to see what kind of situation this was. There was something digging into her wrists, a harsh, spiky texture binding her against something, and she could already tell that there was also rope around her ankles.
But what she didn’t expect was to feel a weight pressed against her back, not cold or solid enough to be metal, but definitely there. And it… felt like a person. Her eyes widened, breath growing unsteady and she pried her hands apart behind her back, searching for the hands of the other.
Please be alive, please be alive- She knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of this alone. With her stand, maybe, but completely isolated, tied up, and unable to even see ? She was incredibly doubtful.
But Trish could hear breathing. She finally found the pair of hands that she was bound to, clutching them tightly and praying that whoever this was had woken up as well.
“...Hello?” She called out, voice hoarse and soft. “Who- Who is this?” Her voice, though muffled by the bag over her head, echoed slightly, like she was surrounded by tight metal walls.
The weight leaning against her shifted, a familiar voice ringing out from over her shoulder. “Oh, Trish, it’s you!”
Trish’s head fell back with relief and she exhaled, squeezing the other’s hand. “Mista, thank god. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, what about you?”
Trish pressed her eyes shut, hoping that she could at least adjust to seeing the inside of the bag. “I think so. Do you know where we are?”
Mista shrugged. “Uhh… no clue, I’ve only been awake for like fifteen minutes.”
“Fif- what did you do in those fifteen minutes? Did you not try to wake me up?” Trish frowned, trying to turn her head over her shoulder.
“I dunno man, you’re super light and breathe really quietly I guess, I didn’t even know you were here-”
Trish scoffed, turning her attention back toward the ropes around her wrists. “Goddammit, okay. Well, I can’t summon Spice Girl, the ropes are too tight. Do you think you’d be able to get the Pistols to help us?”
“Yeah, let me try!” Mista replied, wrestling against the rope for a moment. He managed to free one of his wrists, pulling it away and a moment later, she heard the familiar high pitched yelling of the Sex Pistols.
“Meesta!” One of them yelled, already begging to tear at the rest of the ropes. “You got kidnapped, c’mon, we gotta get out!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know ,” Mista replied. “Help us get out, please, I’m not gonna sit here forever! Here, Number Three, can you at least get the bags off? They fucking suck.”
With the stand’s help, Trish finally managed to pull the bag off her head, eyes adjusting to her surroundings. Sure enough, Mista was leaning against her, sweat already soaking through his cashmere sweater. Gross.
What was even more gross was that Trish found herself filthy as well, a thick layer of dirt coating her skin like the self help books on Fugo’s dresser.
She was sitting against a cold, damp ground, an odd clanking sound echoing somewhere above her. As she had guessed, they were in a small metal room, like one of those giant industrial freezers but without the actual cold part. It was incredibly unpleasant, and she wanted nothing more than to get up, go home, and take a hot shower. But clearly that wasn’t going to happen.
Hands finally free, she reached down to untie the ropes around her legs, rubbing the marks they had left with distaste. Finally, she got to her feet, throwing the bag on the ground and kicking it across the room for good measure.
Then, as smelly and disgusting as he was, she turned to Mista and hugged him. He seemed caught off guard, but returned the gesture anyway, the Pistols flickering out of sight once more.
“Thank you, Mista, I’m just- glad I didn’t get stuck here alone.”
Mista blinked. “Oh! Yeah, me neither, the Pistols are good company, but goddamn, are they annoying. You’re a lot less… loud and greedy, a lot better for kidnapping situations.”
“Thanks. Now,” Trish pulled away, wiping down her skirt. “Let’s find a way to get out of here.”
The two of them decided to split up to explore the area. Trish found herself wandering through rusting hallways and along metal catwalks, leaking pipes running along the walls. It felt like the inside of a factory from what she could find, using Spice Girl to keep herself from getting stabbed by any of the low hanging chains or protruding nails. She really didn’t need tetanus on top of all of the other issues she had been presented with.
She was exploring one of the smaller rooms, one of dozens broken off from the hall, when she spotted a round shape on one of the walls. Figuring a window might be useful in figuring out where they actually were, she hurried over to it, finding that it was smeared with rust and filth.
Lifting the end of her skirt to scrub away some of the dirt (it would need to be washed a thousand times anyway, what was a little more?), she was able to confirm that it was glass, peering out through the gap she had created. And right along the center of the window, lapping against the window, was water. It was a porthole.
Pressing her forehead to the glass, she tried to get a glimpse of what was outside- based on the light, it looked like the late afternoon, the sun beginning to lower in the sky, but otherwise, the rust obstructed much of her vision. She stepped away, curling her hands into fists. She needed to find Mista and tell him.
She found the gunslinger standing at the top of a staircase, footsteps clanging on the metal floor as she ran up behind him.
“Trish, you’re back! Find anything?” He asked, turning around.
Trish caught her breath, nodding. “Yeah, Mista, we’re on a boat. ”
“Oh!” Mista’s face lit up. “Well, I was gonna say that I thought I found an exit, but this staircase goes down, so it’s probably not our best bet if that’s the case.” He nodded for Trish to follow him, leading her down a hall to the foot of another set of stairs.
“Those look a lot more promising.”
The two hurried up the stairs, finally navigating their way to the deck, meeting the sunlight that flooded the surface of the empty ship.
“Dude, where are we?!” Mista asked, turning to stare at her confusedly.
Trish crept forward, looking around the ship. It was huge, massive crates stacked around them, all painted with rust that crawled along the seams and spread across the deck.
It was docked, anchored and tethered to a small, rickety pier that didn’t at all match the ship’s size. She could see buildings not too far away, so they weren’t completely stranded. It just definitely wasn’t Naples.
“I don’t know…” She frowned, searching for a way to get off safely. There didn’t seem to be any sign of a ramp or walkway down, so it looked like they might have to jump.
“Do you have a phone or anything?” Mista asked, walking up behind her.
Trish shook her head. “Nothing, they took everything from my knife to the buckle on my necklace. Whoever captured us must’ve taken it. Do- do you have your gun?”
Mista grinned. “They took the one on my belt, but…” He reached down, pulling another revolver out of his boot. “They didn’t confiscate this one.”
He spun it triumphantly and shoved it in his belt again, looking around. “So, any way to get off this damn thing?”
Trish, running her hand along one of the railings, frowned at the pier beneath them. It looked like a long way down. “...We might have to jump.”
Mista’s eyes widened. “Hell yeah!”
Trish nodded. “I can go down first and land in the water, then soften the pier enough for you to land there safely. Sound good?”
“Yeah! I didn’t actually have a plan at all, it’s probably good that you’re here to stop me from just fucking… jumping off.” Mista replied, staring over the edge beside her.
Trish scoffed, swinging a leg over the railing and aiming for the water. Taking a deep breath to prepare herself, her heart leapt as she dropped from the edge of the boat, falling, falling…
Then she hit the water. It was freezing cold, the taste of salt creeping into her mouth. Bubbles rising around her, she swam back up to the surface as soon as she could, keeping her eyes pressed shut, and finally found her grasp falling against the algae coated pier.
Forcing her eyes open and crawling onto the planks, she caught her breath and stared back up at the boat. Mista was leaning over the edge, waving to her.
“Okay?” He yelled.
“Yeah!”
“Yell when you’re ready!”
Trish nodded, summoning Spice Girl and kneeling to change the wood beneath her. She stepped away, cupping her hands to her mouth, and began counting down from three.
“Go!” She yelled, and Mista fell after her, bracing himself for the impact of the deck, which buckled and folded beneath his weight. Then, it steadied out, bouncing him back to his feet and allowing him to stumble forward to solid ground.
Trish, brushing soaking wet hair out her face, helped him to his feet, already beginning to shiver as she turned toward where she had seen the buildings.
“Ugh.” She frowned, wrapping her arms around her chest. “Jumping in the water was not a good idea, I think I should’ve taken my chances with softening the ground right before I hit it.”
“And if you messed it up? Then you would’ve just had broken legs and I’d still be stuck up there!” Mista reasoned, setting a hand on her shoulder.
Trish rolled her eyes, wringing out her hair. “Fine, fine.” She paused, watching the water drip onto the ground beneath her. “Dammit.” She swore under her breath, the gravity of the situation finally hitting her.
“Mista, we- we have no guide, idea where we are or even what day it is, money or tickets to get back to anywhere we know!” She stared back at him, the salt water stinging her eyes.
Mista frowned at the ground. He appeared lost in thought for a moment, which was fair, as he was probably a stranger there. “Well, there’s a solution to all of those, we can get everything from one thing!”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“We mug someone, and take it from them!”
Trish pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaling shakily. “I- I don’t think that’s a good idea-”
Mista shrugged, already reaching for his gun. “I’m in the mafia, I can do whatever I want, right? You stay here, and I’ll be back soon hopefully without any blood on me.”
And, before Trish could say anymore, he had waved and sprinted off toward the town.
An hour later, Mista met Trish back at the pier, gun slipped back into his boot and digging something out of his pocket. Trish, who had been waiting cross-legged beside the boat, got to her feet, eyes widening.
“Did you do it?”
Mista nodded, hurrying over to hand her a wallet. Trish unfolded it, flicking through about six hundred Euro. Even though they didn’t know how far from home they were, she could only hope it would be enough.
“Hell yeah, and guess what? I managed to get close to another pier, which means boats! And-” He unfolded another two slips of paper from his pocket enthusiastically. “I found us a way home.”
Bonifacio to Porto Cervo
Couple’s Ticket
€80
Departure 10pm
17/4/01
Cagliari to Naples
Couple’s Ticket
€460
Departure 6am
18/4/01
Trish was tired. She had fallen asleep on the boat ride to Naples, which thankfully, was actually quite luxurious, as well as fourteen hours long . Sure, it may have been relaxing for the person Mista had stolen the tickets from, but the sluggishness of the cruise only served to make her more anxious. Now, she was aching all over, the effects of being kidnapped kicking in as she found a place to sit down on the metro back in Naples, Mista beside her.
It was beyond relieving to finally be back in a city that she knew, knowing that she wasn’t far from home. She wasn’t far from Giorno, who she hadn’t been able to meet up with for… a week, Mista had said. And honestly, she was scared. She didn’t know what kind of state they had left Giorno in, and whether he could handle everything.
The team hadn’t had time to explore the limits of his new stand, as half of them had been dead when he got it, and Giorno immediately occupied himself with trying to bring the rest of them back.
But it wasn’t exactly the power aspect that Trish was worried about. Giorno had been left in a house full of people toeing the line between life and death, with nobody else who had truly survived the attack to help him, and she could only imagine how brutal that must have been.
She wanted to see him again. She wanted to be sure that he was okay, and that he was helping the others recover without tearing himself apart in the process. Really, she had missed him.
The train ride was crowded and loud, people returning from their late shifts to return home as the rails raced beneath them. Mista was lucky enough to find a seat beside her, rubbing his eyes exhaustedly. He seemed to share the sentiment about getting back to Giorno and the others.
“Almost home…” Mista adjusted his hat, leaning back in his seat.
“Yeah. God, I’ve always wanted to go to Corsica, but that was… not the way I expected to get there. Maybe we can go back sometime.”
“Hey, I’d be up for that!” Mista agreed. “Same trip, but we actually do it legally this time, so without the stolen car, stolen tickets, pretending to date each other to be able to use the couple’s ticket, the mugging, the-”
Trish turned to glare at him. “Mista, we’re in public.”
Mista stopped, looking around the train sheepishly. “Oops.”
“It’s fine.” Trish waved her hand. “Really, though, I can't wait to get home and see everyone again. You think they’re all doing okay?”
Mista frowned, tracing the pattern on the seat beside him. “I think so, they were all chill when we last saw them, right? As long as Giorno kept treating them while we were gone?”
Trish wanted to bring up her concern. She wanted to ask if he thought their kidnapping was arranged specifically to damage Giorno while he was already weak, to break him. And more importantly, she wanted to know if it worked.
But there wasn’t anything they would be able to do about it now other than wait and hope the train went faster, and she didn’t want Mista to stress. So she exhaled, sinking back in her seat.
“Yeah.”
I hope we get home soon. I hope when we get there the fire’s lit and everyone’s been waiting for us. And Giorno? I hope you’re okay.
Giorno wasn’t okay.
His team had been completely demolished, torn to pieces by greed, stupidity, and uselessness. And he was the Don of all of it. Mourning wasn’t even an option for him. He didn’t deserve to mourn, he deserved to suffer as payment for what he had done.
It had started out fine. After they all had returned from Rome, he had healed Trish and Mista’s wounds, then locked himself in his room for days, training with his new stand. He had only one goal, and that was to fix what he had broken. He didn’t need the bodies. He didn’t need anything for their souls to fill anymore. He just needed time, practice…
And then there were three unconscious teammates on the floor of the living room. He was slightly bitter with himself that he couldn’t fix them immediately, but more than their bodies had been damaged. He was forced to keep his stand activated at all times, a virtual life support for the trio, keeping them breathing while their bodies could finish catching up to the resting souls within them.
Mista and Trish had been overjoyed, if not mildly terrified at his new capabilities, supporting him while he discovered more of his own stand. They would check up on the others for him when he was tired, Mista would cook dinner every evening, always making an extra serving and storing it in a container in the fridge so that if anyone, especially Bucciarati, Abbacchio, or Narancia, woke up and was hungry, they would have a meal prepared.
They would watch TV shows together when there wasn’t anything left they could do, sitting on the couch late into the night until Mista would fall asleep on Giorno’s shoulder and Trish’s head had folded over a pillow, eyes shut.
Then Mista and Trish vanished.
There was no sign of them anywhere, and Abbacchio wasn’t awake to use Moody Blues. Giorno had been taking for granted everything that they had done for him, because his work was ten times harder without them around. As selfish as it was, he ended up constantly wondering why they had gone.
Maybe they just needed time. Maybe they were tired of him and needed a break from dealing with him every day, especially after a week of being led into battle after reckless battle and barely making it out alive. He could understand that, it was alright. He needed a break from himself sometimes too. He would just have to take care of his three recovering teammates while they were gone, and maybe when they returned he would be able to surprise them by having everyone else awake and happy and okay .
So Giorno increased the strength of his stand, though it drained him. It didn’t matter that every morning he was also trying to revive Trish and Mista in case they, too, had been killed. It never worked, he would just sit there, flooded with light, grasping for souls that were out of reach, until he collapsed from exhaustion. He stopped being able to visit Narancia, who had been waking up every few days, though lethargic and barely able to tell where he was. It didn’t matter that he ran out of energy to do anything else besides check on the bodies lying in their beds, forming a cycle based on the order of their rooms.
Bucciarati, Abbacchio, Narancia. Bucciarati, Abbacchio, Narancia. Pulse, pulse, pulse. Heartbeat, heartbeat, heartbeat. It was okay, it was okay,
Everything was okay.
It was a mantra that he wouldn’t let go of, every time he checked on another teammate, every time he accidentally called out to Mista or Trish for help, only to remember that they weren’t there. Sleep became a luxury. Alone in the silent house, he would occasionally let himself cry. He knew nobody could hear him, and he wasn’t sure if it was relieving or pathetic. Crying was for when you wanted people to pay attention to you, and he was the last person who needed attention right now.
What needed attention was the rest of Passione, still wondering what had happened to Diavolo and who the mysterious young Don was, who had led three assassins to their death and taken over after only a week. What needed attention were his three slowly withering teammates, including Narancia, who had stopped waking up at all.
Giorno wondered what was lonelier, waking up knowing that Giorno was going to check that he had a pulse then leave before any conversation could be initiated, or not even having hope that he would have company when he came to. What needed attention were Mista and Trish, the mission to figure out where they were and why they left when Giorno was already struggling.
Well, he hadn’t told them that he was struggling. He couldn’t do that, not when they were relying on him. Who wanted to hear that he ‘might need to slow down the healing process for the sake of his own health’ when it was their friends he was sacrificing? Why did his health matter when they were the ones who were dying , and he was the one who killed them? That would make him selfish . And Giorno had been too much of that lately.
He should have known, he should have known that selfish people were useless , and they were punished for it. He hadn’t been doing everything he couldn’t to make sure that he repaired his mistakes. Maybe nothing could have repaired his mistakes, or maybe his best wasn’t enough, but it didn’t matter.
Because one morning Giorno woke up, checked his own pulse, got dressed, stepped outside, and then...
And then there was nothing.
And then there were three closed doors, no pulses, no heartbeats.
There was only his own breathing, trying desperately to fill the enormous house all by itself. It was almost a relief to be able to let his stand fully withdraw, to release the grips on the three people he was trying to drag back from the abyss.
He let them fall.
He couldn’t do it. It was all so sudden, but Giorno couldn’t trust anything anymore. He wondered how long it had taken him to realize he was in a house full of corpses. He couldn’t even go inside and face their bodies, instead going about his days running the mafia like they didn’t exist and never had.
Not even sleep was safe for him, constantly tormented by nightmares of the shores of Sardinia, the Colosseum, and the empty halls of the house once buzzing with the chatter of a team.
At night, he rested amongst the pieces of a family, two missing, one left behind, and three dead. None ever allowed to mourn for each other, or given more than a week to ever process what happened or even accept Giorno’s arrival.
And what he hated was that there had been hope. Narancia had woken up at one point before Trish and Mista had disappeared, too delirious to speak coherently, but his skin was warm and he could move enough to pull toward the presence of another. His eyes were glazed over and movements weak, but he had exhaled with relief when Giorno had set a hand on his shoulder, promising it would be okay. He had gone back to sleep only a few minutes after, but it had filled Giorno with faith. That he had wasted.
It would have been easier if he never tried to revive them. Now, when Mista and Trish came back, he wouldn’t have a smiling team to greet them. No, would have three bodies he had left to rot and nothing to say for himself.
Everything had been ruined, and it was all at the hands of Giorno Giovanna.