Chapter Text
“You took longer than I thought,” Abbacchio says, and that’s the only thing that distracts Giorno from his game of cards with Mista and Fugo. He’s winning, like he always does. He’s just too good at cards.
“I met a cool guy,” gushes Narancia, grabbing for Giorno’s cards like an animal. He does not let them, an elbow pressing into their sternum to keep them away. This is a very serious game, and he doesn’t appreciate their intrusion.
“Twos.”
Mista squints at him, for a long moment, and then: “Go fish.”
Drat. That’s a shame. He pulls a two right out of the middle pile and immediately matches it, humming in satisfaction.
“Oh, fuck you,” says Fugo, throwing down his cards. “I hate playing cards with you, GioGio.”
“He’s a lucky boy,” Mista says, affectionately, like he wasn’t just brandishing the Sex Pistols at Giorno for winning the last game not five minutes ago. “It’s in his nature.”
“I’d be convinced he was cheating if Abbacchio wasn’t watching.” Abbacchio may be nose-deep in a book, but they all know that he isn’t above pulling out Moody Blues to humiliate a cheater in front of the whole gang, and he’s got a nose for a sneak. The man of the hour doesn’t respond, just turning another page, but Giorno’s fully aware he’s paying attention. He always is.
“Yeah,” snickers Mista, “Giorno wouldn’t dare cheat in front of Abbacchio.”
“ ‘cause he’d kick his ass?” asks Narancia, their arms around Giorno’s shoulders.
“Because I don’t cheat,” sniffs Giorno, acting miffed. He isn’t upset - everyone cheats at cards, that’s half the fun of playing cards - but come on, this is Go Fish. he isn’t going to cheat at Go Fish when it carries with it the threat of Moody Blues-based humiliation.
“Nah,” say Mista and Narancia at the same time.
Giorno begins gathering up the cards, because Fugo has effectively ruined the nice, neat setup, and Narancia being there means he has to go out again anyway. No matter. He’ll get some reading done and come back into Coco Jumbo later, for shifts. Narancia gladly takes the cards from him (“We’re playing Mao!” “Auuuggghhhh, I hate that game”) and Giorno gets a smooch goodbye on the cheek. Narancia loves calling kisses “smooches” like he’s an old woman. It is, he admits, quite funny.
Coco Jumbo is given two pieces of lettuce Giorno forms out of paper towels, and he ensures there’s nothing in his special carry-on bag before setting him inside and snapping the closures shut. Coco Jumbo can breathe fine, the bag was designed just for that, but Giorno knows he’ll be checking on him every so often anyway. It’s just who he is as a person.
Bruno is writing, papers spread out over the little table on back of the seat in front of him. It’s coded, so it’s probably actual work. Giorno considers telling him not to do that right now, but it’s not like anyone but Bruno can read it. He just rests a hand on Bucciarati’s shoulder to gain his attentions.
“Narancia’s gone back to their seat,” he says. “I’ll be by you until he wants to look out the windows again.”
“Mmh. His neighbor must be pleased,” says Bruno, and it’s clearly with difficulty that he didn’t kiss the back of Giorno’s hand. He’s sleepy. Sweet thing.
“I wouldn’t know.” He lets his hand rest there a little longer, feeling bare without his heavy rings (they’re incognito, don’t need it right now) before slipping off to the other side of the aisle. The seatbelt is tangled together, because of course it is. Ah, the little inconveniences of public transport.
Should he be investing more into easing public transport in Napoli? He’s got his fingers in that pie, of course, but is it enough? He’ll give it some consideration.
He buckles his seatbelt (no need to tempt fate, even if it’s nearly impossible for him to die at this point) and settles in his chair.
It doesn’t take time to realize that there are eyes on him. He knows from the beginning that the man beside him is watching him, but Giorno puts it up to absent curiosity. The eyes just don’t leave him, which is where things become an issue.
Giorno pops open a book, steadfastly ignoring the man beside him. It isn’t very good - he stole it from an airport convenience store by turning it into a rat snake and having it slither up his sleeve - but it does involve werewolves, and… yeah, okay, this book’s trash.
“... Your boyfriends are nice.” The soft voice draws Giorno from his focus on the bad shapeshifting mechanics in this awful piece of fiction, and back into the fiction he’s fabricated, where he is a normal man and not the Don of Passione, and definitely not easily surprised.
“I.” Giorno doesn’t let his distress show on his face. He’s practiced at bottling surprise, so much so that he barely feels it. “Beg your pardon?”
“... My husband and wife are the same,” he says, casually, his voice low enough that they won’t be overheard. Giorno’s heart-rate spikes. “Susanetta is always corralling us, when we actually see each other.”
Oh.
Oh, he’s - he’s the same.
There’s something glowing in Giorno’s chest as he realizes it, as it clicks that this man is just trying to resonate with him. There’s no danger. He’s just - letting Giorno know he’s not alone. He probably thinks he feels alone, and, well, Giorno would if he didn’t have such reliance on his family. (His family that he’s dragging to Japan on moment’s notice - is he being too selfish? Is this too much? He’s on the plane already but the worries still plague him.) Queers do tend to find each other.
The man doesn’t seem to begrudge that Giorno doesn’t have the words to respond. “The skinny one - does he eat well? He ate my peanuts.”
Narancia… “I am so sorry for that,” Giorno says, attempting not to be extremely amused by the idea of Narancia stealing this random man’s peanuts and shoveling them into their mouth while Bruno watches in horror across the aisle. “They get excited on planes.”
“I noticed. I can’t share the sentiment,” he says, and proceeds to regale Giorno with a story about how his lover has been in five plane crashes that is not in any way believable. Giorno chuckles through it anyway, because - that’s hilarious. He’s done worse things than entertain an eccentric man with pretty birthmarks for a few hours.
At no time is Giorno pressed to share - a fact he doesn’t realize he’s relieved for until they’re neck-deep in what amounts to a humblebrag about how very tall and strong this man’s husband is.
It amuses Giorno to note that his lovers are spoken of differently. The husband, a man named JoJo, is at the same time a competent, endearing man with nothing but kindness in his heart and a complete buffoon of an ape pretending to be a human being. Perhaps if Abbacchio were just that slight bit less goth about everything, this is how he would speak of Giorno. With clear care and barely-hidden rivalry. The wife, however - the birthmarks around his eyes crinkle with pure joy as he speaks of her. Giorno notes it all down like he’s going to write an essay on it. This is what love looks like for people like his family - perhaps they will look like this, when they get older. Perhaps they will talk like this. It’s a thought he shelters from the sun, a little afraid of what it will look like if examined.
He doesn’t have to think about it. He can just… talk, with someone who understands. And he isn’t pushed to share, so Giorno finds himself offering the occasional detail - Narancia’s success after going back to school, Mista’s protectiveness, the way Abbacchio didn’t like him at first, the simple things that make their arrangement what it is.
(“And that’s how many in your polycule?” asks the man, whose name, Giorno finds, is Caesar.
“More, perhaps, than is wise.”
“I’ll fucking say.”)
As they’re two well-dressed queers on a plane, inevitably, the conversation turns to their form of dress.
“I do love the banding,” Giorno notes. “Bold pattern.”
“Oh,” laughs Caesar, a little looser due to their long-spun conversation, “god, yeah. It’s basically vintage at this point, but the cloth holds up well. My JoJo buys me a new one every time it gets lost. I once showed up not wearing it and he nearly had a panic attack.”
Giorno laughs a little, just two breath’s worth of amusement, the socially acceptable amount that would show he was, in fact, amused, but not incredibly so.
He wonders what would happen if he showed up without his hair done when everything else was the same. Probably about the same from Fugo or Mista. “People can be very strange about the things they consider emblematic of you.”
“I’ll say.” He sighs. “Walk around covered in soap for your formative adult years and everyone calls you bubbles.”
A pause.
“... Excuse me?”
“It’s a long story,” Caesar says, waving it off. “Do you often wear such shirts?”
Giorno looks down at his shirt - a bit of a sheer, flowy thing over his long-sleeved turtleneck (also open to the navel.) It’s nice. Not his usual colors - a nice orange over muted peach. His slacks are pretty light, too, unpatterned. They were tailored for comfort, which is why he picked them for a long time sitting in a plane.
He picks at it, noting a loose thread. He plucks it, expertly, with his rather sharp nails. Mista always complains about them, but they’re one of the only things Abbacchio has openly complimented about him, so he’s not going to trim them anytime soon. They’re too useful.
“No,” he admits. “I’m more comfortable in suits.”
“At your age?” Caesar raises a brow. “I grew up when it was the fashion to wear a suit any time you left the house, and I still didn’t do it. I can’t understand the appeal.”
“I like the look,” Giorno shrugs.
His mind is occupied on other things. For instance, this guy looks like he was born, at maximum, in the late fifties. Either he aged really well or that was a really weird thing to say.
Whichever option it is, it doesn’t matter to Giorno in the long run. He’ll never see this man again.
But Giorno is a little ferret of a person, and he’s going to have an absolutely fantastic time dissecting everything he can about some idiot who was dumb enough to talk to him. And Bruno can watch.