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The fight or flight response is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, it prepares the animal for fighting or fleeing. It starts like this: A threat is perceived. Another animal, a human, something unknown. This time its a professor, walking into a closed room with a child inside.
Then the brain processes the signal, and hormones facilitate the immediate reaction associated with violent muscular action. This time, the child’s muscles tense long before the first hand is laid on his shoulder, legs ready to bolt.
Fugo is afraid , yet he willingly drowns out the flight reaction in his body. He controls his breathing before it goes out of control, and ignores his wild beating heart inside his chest. Mouth dry, muscles taught, he proceeds with the usual social niceties.
The flight response is activated, inside his head, there’s a voice screaming at him to run. The energy is there, being released so his legs could use it at any moment. Fugo knows this, his body is screaming for it, yet he remains.
“Behave, Pannacotta,” his parents would say, tight grip on his wrist. He drowns out the first, visceral reaction that tells him to run and scream.
But there would be no good outcome from that, nothing but troubles for him when the rumors of Fugo’s terrified form running out of campus. What would his parents do to him? What would the professor do to him, if he did that? The boy must control himself, as he’s done many times before, and instead of listening to what his instincts scream, he must have composure.
Even when the second hand has landed on his other shoulder, placing grounding weight on his body, even when the foul breath of the professor reaches his nose and he starts cold sweating.
“Please excuse me,” he says, swiftly turning away towards the door. He’s almost free, he’s almost out.
“I could tell you what’s coming on the next exam,” the man says.
And then—. And then he stops.
Fugo must’ve been born angry.
There’s no other explanation, he thinks, he must’ve been born that way. It was anger that stopped him dead in his tracks, so close to the door. Always such an angry child, always so aggressive.
With anger comes indignation. Fugo is not a prideful person, but when it comes to this man, it may be everything he has left. He’s nothing without his intellect because the world around him has made it so, prodigies are only worth what they know. Fugo is only worth his grades, a thirteen-year-old in university is only worth it if he can show that he can put in the work if he can handle everything thrown at him.
The book felt heavy, a comfortable weight even on his small hands. Fugo can’t handle this, it makes him angrier because he shouldn’t have to.
Another hand rests on his shoulder, and the metaphorical thread that kept his mouth shut and his anger at bay snaps. It breaks beautifully, soundlessly, and cleanly, and it turns the flight into fight.
He really meant it, when he said he looked up to his professor.
The sound of the book hitting flesh is satisfying, it's a dull thud accompanied with pained whimpers, but Fugo is not satisfied. He’s yelling, but he can’t bring himself to care, he brings the book back down again and again and again, hitting flesh and until it’s red until it breaks until it bleeds.
Fugo is creative with his violence, he uses the body of the book and the sharp edges, he angles his hand to create maximum pain. The face, the arms, the legs, he hits everywhere. All the places he’s felt the professor’s gross hands on his body becomes a victim of his assault, and he feels good.
It feels good, to deliver pain, its payback. Its divine retribution and Fugo’s unrestrained anger and inner violence making itself known. And when he’s done, bloodied hands and sore fingers from gripping onto the book too tightly, regret doesn’t pass through his mind, not even once.
He looks at the professor, almost but not quite dead, and then at the university directives, and the court and his parents with the same deadpan expression even after he’s expelled and disowned because something’s broken inside him and the violent urges that have been living inside him since he was a smaller child have been set free.
Fugo had always been a violent child, an angry child.
There’s no reason as to why, at least, not a reason anyone’s bothered to check for.
Now, his parents didn’t know to what extent, mostly because they couldn’t be bothered to raise their child, but his nannies had been painfully aware of his habits.
Broken plates and cups, bites, and red hand marks that stood against the skin of his caretakers. A large sum of money and a replacement were the usual outcomes of such outbursts, if the nanny was particularly resilient then maybe she’d last for a raise or two before giving up.
“These things are normal,” a close family friend had told his parents, “find something for him to do and you’ll be fine.”
That’s how they found his natural academic dispositions, by flooding their child with every stimulus imaginable. But mental stimulation came expectations, and instead of an angry kid, his parents found themselves with an angry pre-teen, who learned to suppress the natural response to his anger with a mask.
It’s not that Fugo thinks violence is a healthy response to anger, it’s just the one that comes easiest to him. Anger that warms up under his skin until its boiling over, that leads his mind into making the next logical step: aggression.
But with freedom in front of him, expectations are left behind. He’s just thirteen and alone, and he allows himself expression. The streets give him more mental stimulus than he’d ever think possible, and he thrives in it. The times where he’s let himself go are few, but they exist, and Fugp revels in the rush of adrenaline that comes with letting his emotions run amok, letting a primal part of his brain take over and break someone’s arm, or leg, or orbital bone.
It’s exhilarating, up until he meets Purple Haze.
It’s big and ugly, Fugo feels like he’s meeting a manifestation of his emotions. And well, given Bruno’s explanation of Stands, it probably is. It growls and snarls at nothing, sewn mouth overflowing with saliva.
Instinctively, he knows Purple Haze kills. But denial is not just a river in Egypt, Fugo feigns ignorance of his stand’s nature until he can’t. It’s a standard interrogation, not Fugo’s first under Bruno’s guidance, but even with Bruno’s physical and mental torture the guy’s not giving them enough information, and Fugo’s patience is running thin.
To say he can remember would be a lie, he only really remembers Bruno’s scream of “No!” before being pulled away from what used to be their captive. Purple Haze looms over the corpse, fist missing one capsule, as Bruno and Fugo cower away from the stand, breathing heavily.
“What the fuck?” he hears, whispered. “Fugo, what the fuck is that?”
Fugo swallows audibly.
“A virus. It’s a flesh-eating virus.” He pauses, “we need to open the fucking curtains now .”
Quickly, the sun comes through the curtains of the room, and Purple Haze phases back into Fugo with a shiver.
“Fuck…” Bruno says, eyes trained on where a human used to be. “Did you know it did that ?”
“No.” he lies.
Up close Purple Haze is uglier than imagined.
In the dead of the night, Fugo goes near it with a pounding heart and a screaming mind to run. How stupid he feels at the sight of it too, his own stands activated his innate response to life-threatening events. Purple Haze curls in on itself, rumbling coming from his throat that makes him want to reach for a glass of water.
He’s angry at it just for existing, but that’s the thing that got him where he is now, isn’t it? Anger and violence have been the ruling factors of his life from the moment of his birth, haven’t they? And now they’ve left him stuck with a monster.
What does it say about him, to think of it Purple Haze as it? There’s probably something to be noted about self-hatred or something, but he doesn’t really care even if he’s faintly aware of it.
If Fugo were a writer or a poet he’d find the words to describe his stand, but he isn’t, and he’s left at a loss as to how to proceed. The words don’t flow well, inside his brain, when it comes to emotions. Give him math, literature, and law at any moment. Place him in charge of payments and logistics, and he’ll thrive.
In front of the physical iteration of his own emotions, everything quiets.
“I hate you,” he tells it, and it does nothing but drool on the floor. “You’re as ugly as sin.”
His imagination had always been slightly stunted, no art or flowery words would come from his hands, but he’d always been able to perfectly envision aggression. Where to hit and how hard, where to stab, and with what. And if threats could be spoken art then his were cantatas worthy of being performed all around the world.
His hands shake because if he spoke, nobody but him would hear. And if he hit and hurt, then nobody would feel the pain but him. He can almost feel it, his hands on Purple Haze’s neck, twin pressure on his own. He can imagine it so vividly and clearly, senses drowned out by visions of pain.
It kills, it poisons and eats away at flesh and bone, and Fugo’s stomach revolts at the sight of his stand. Losing control of it, it would mean death for more than just one. He can barely just hear, Bruno’s agonizing screams as the virus eats away at his body.
The creature howls, saliva dripping down into its leg, and Fugo quickly banishes it from his sight. It dissolves back into his own skin, and he shudders.
“Disgusting.”
Freedom feels like a cage all in itself, with a thing like Purple Haze under your skin.
There’s a betrayal, who is the betrayer he cannot tell, then there’s a chance at redemption, or maybe his ticket to certain death.
Purple Haze changes, he’s feels different than before in ways Fugo’s clumsy mouth still can’t explain correctly, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Fugo’s still the same person as before albeit with slightly more trauma and scars.
Giorno’s a good boss, but there are wrinkles to be pressed still. Some people still won’t bow their heads to the golden boy, and even if they do it’s purely for show. Giorno needs the capos, and the capos need Passione as a whole, it’s a power game of who has more power then who.
This particular capo smells positively foul, and his lips might as well be a paper cut on his face, but he’s in charge of a large territory housing 40% of Passione’s private clubs. To lose him and the people working under him would be detrimental to the organization.
Giorno sits at his usual desk, all ornate decorations and dark-colored wood. He’s perfectly calm, eyes trained on the annoying and frankly, stupid, capo in front of him. Fugo stands near, though he’s not an official bodyguard of Giorno’s, he’s often called into the meetings to stand as one.
“It’s the intimidation factor your scrawny ass brings,” Sheila commented once, “everyone is afraid of Purple Haze.”
Fugo agrees, because Giovanna is not just anyone who could be lumped with everyone. Everyone but Giorno is afraid of Purple Haze. To be truly unafraid of what is essentially himself, Fugo would love to know how it feels.
He’s tuned out the conversation, it’s been going on for two hours already, and while Giorno would subtly manipulate the capos and politicians into agreeing with him within forty minutes or so, this particular man is too stupid to understand the subtleties of Giorno’s methods.
“Capo, I understand the financial situation, but—.”
“HA! Don’t make me laugh. Don’t overestimate your understanding of our needs.”
Too stupid and too fucking disrespectful.
Truly, Fugo has better control of himself. All those years biting his tongue, fighting his instincts, shaping his thoughts into something akin to normal human thoughts have prepared him to deal with someone like this. But his eyebrow twitches and his fists tighten, every time this ugly piece of shit insults his boss and Giorno just sits there and takes it.
Briefly, before he sends composure to hell, he thinks he would’ve made a terrible lawyer.
“Show some proper respect,” he says, eyes trained on the man sitting before Giorno. “That’s the boss you’re talking to.”
“Hah?” the man smirks. “Your attack dog speaks, don Giovanna.”
Giorno looks in between Fugo and the capo, eyes calculating. But Fugo ignores him, familiar warmth under his skin already heating up, ready to turn into the boiling fury he knows.
“I said,” he grits out, “show proper respect, Capo.”
The man leans forward, eyes past Giorno, and drilling into Fugo. “Aren’t you Bucciarati’s traitor?”
Fugo stops, like hell frozen over. The man smirks.
“You are, aren’t you?” he laughs, “God, no wonder you ran out on him, he could never properly train you, could he?”
The fight or flight response is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, it prepares the animal for fighting or fleeing. The pupils dilate, and the heart rate increases, the pituitary gland releases adrenaline and cortisol to prepare for violent muscular action.
Both responses happen inside Fugo and the Capo, only one is sitting down and trembling, and the other has started mouthing off, gripping a switchblade with excessive force.
“Mention him, again.” Fugo hisses, an animalistic smile on his lips. “I dare you, you fucking pig. Mention Bruno again and I’ll make sure you wake up tomorrow with your bladder in your hand.”
Fugo raises his hand, eyes poised on the man’s thigh, a perfect place to bury a blade in. And then—.
And then, Giorno’s hand gently removes the blade from his hand.
“There’s no need for that, Fugo,” he says, he gives a soft push with his hands to move Fugo off his desk. “Why don’t you take a breather, yes?”
Fugo knows an order when he hears it, heart still beating loudly, he makes his way to the door.
Giorno’s garden feels more like a jungle, or a forest. It’s thick and lush, a perfect hiding place for Fugo.
He’s not quite sure if its the residual anger or the shame that continue burn inside him, but the feeling is there as he hides under the shade of a tree. He’s lost control, and maybe he’s cost them a large chunk of their income.
It’s not losing control in front of Giorno what bothers him, as he’s done it many times before, but never as the other boy acted as boss. Never in front of outsiders, soon they’d hear the rumors, the whispers of Giorno’s lack of control on his subordinates.
Maybe he’d cost them more than income, he could’ve just cost them Giorno’s safety and stability as boss.
Groaning, he hides his face in between his arms, shielding himself from the outside world until Mista or Sheila come to take him to his, possibly very real, grave. Footsteps approach and he braces himself for impact.
“Here you are,” Giorno says, “I may have gotten over my head with this place. It was very hard to find your signature.”
He gives himself whiplash when he looks up. Giorno’s face is as it always is, pleasantly blank and neutral. Fugo feels the heat rushing to his cheeks and he groans again.
“I’m sorry, Giogio.” he moans, “I fucked up so bad, did you come to tell me we just lost 40% of the organization’s clubs?”
Giorno laughs, a quiet but pleasant sound. “No, you didn’t. I took care of it.”
Fugo raises an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
Giorno smiles. “I broke his hand four times, among other things.”
The words take a moment to register inside Fugo’s brain. He repeats them again and again, but they simply don’t make sense. Giorno sits in front of him, legs crossed.
“You… broke his hand?”
Giorno nods. “Four times.”
“But you seemed so calm!” he cries, hands gripping the grass around him.
That seems to make him pause, “Ah. I wasn’t.” he shugs. “He was so dense and annoying.”
“You didn’t show it at all,” he says, awed. “I knew you had a poker face but I seriously thought you didn’t feel anything.”
Giorno rests his chin on his hands, he looks towards Fugo with thick lashes. If he here literally anyone else, he’d think the boy looked pouty.
“Emotion, that’s your forte, not mine,” he replies, picking at one of his nails. “I wish Capos would notice when they annoy me more often, maybe they’d learn not to waste my time.”
Fugo laughs, both at Giorno’s tone and the irony of the situation. Emotions have alluded Fugo since the moment he learned what frustration was, he can’t express them properly, he can’t deal with them properly.
The boy with his heart on his sleeve and the boy with the ice mask sit one in front of the other and talk about feelings. It sounds so flowery and stupid inside his head that Fugo’s actually impressed with his train of thought for once.
“I wish I could control myself better, like you,” he confesses, looking anywhere but Giorno.
There’s rustling, Giorno scoots closer to him. Unafraid and certain of his moves. “You can learn that, just like you can learn how to use Purple Haze.”
“I already did that.”
“And you almost died, I’d say that’s probably not your peak.” he laughs again, hands inching closer to Fugo’s, even tho said boy keeps looking away. “Say what, I can help you with both.”
“What?” he turns, mouth agape and eyes wide.
“I can help you, I am immune to Purple Haze so there’s no way you could hurt me,” Giorno replies, then he holds up one finger. “But I have one request.”
“W— What is it?” he stutters.
His face is flushed, and his heart is beating, his pupils must be dilated even though this feels nothing like any other moment in his life before.
“You’ll have to help me express myself better.” he gestures to himself.
“Giogio, I know nothing but anger and then violent anger.” he gestures to himself.
Boldly, Giorno takes his hand. His eyes are so earnest like he knows he’s speaking the truth because the gods themselves whispered them into his ears.
“But you do! You know pride, and happiness, and sorrow, and grief. I’ve seen them in you. Directed at Narancia and Bruno and even Mista.”
“Are you sure you didn’t just see me screaming at them?”
“If yelling is how you express yourself, who am I to tell you it’s wrong.”
Fugo’s face is burning, but he kind of wants to smile anyways. “Alright.”
“What was that?” Giorno leans forward, so close he can smell the honey shampoo he must use for his hair.
“I’ll help you, and you’ll help me,” he says, leaning backward in fear that his heart is loud enough to be heard outside his body. The other has not let go of his hand yet and he’s starting to feel a little clammy.
“Perfect,” Giorno replies, letting go and standing up in one fluid motion. “I better go, and you better return to your duties, but how about we start this Friday night? Say, at eight?”
“Okay, I’ll be ready.”
Giorno smiles down at Fugo once more. “Great, then it’s a date.”
And then the blonde scurries off, leaving Fugo dazed and slightly confused.
“Yeah, it’s date…” he whispers. Then the words register in his brain.
“Wait, is it?!” he yells after his boss, another show of unprofessionalism won’t hurt. “Giogio, please answer me!”
Giorno stops, turning around with a blank face in place again, but clear amusement shining in his eyes.
“It’s a good bargain, isn’t it?” he asks, picture of perfect innocence Fugo knows he is not. “See you inside, Fugo.”
“See you inside.” he waves, heart pounding in his ears and adrenaline rushing through his veins for a good reason for the first time since he can remember.