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This wasn’t the first time Mista had been shot and it definitely wasn’t the worst he had received, but Giorno could say with some degree of certainty that this was the first time the man had elected to go to the hospital by himself. Giorno volunteered to take him, trying to suppress his underlying concern by telling himself that this was a wound that should probably be allowed to heal on its own without interference from Gold Experience. He had offered to treat Mista’s wound but the older man had complained that if he wanted things poking and prodding at the gaping hole that he’d go to the ER and have it done by people with significantly more medical experience than the teenager. The jab was well-meaning and playful, spoken through a half-smirk and teeth that were gritted in pain, but it still made Giorno’s eyebrows furrow in a slight show of apprehension. The man had a point though, as much as Giorno was loathe to admit it, and that was how he ended up currently sitting in the general hospital’s waiting room with one leg crossed over the other as he flipped through an old copy of Italian Vogue .
He tapped his foot idly against the air and glanced at the clock. Mista had stumbled behind a nurse into the examination room, telling godawful jokes to hide the pain he was clearly in (Giorno really pitied that nurse, Mista was damn near insufferable when he was injured) nearly two and a half hours ago. Giorno, upon his brief and surface-level inspection of the open wound, had determined that it hadn’t gone deep enough to hit anything major and the fact that there wasn’t a surplus of blood gushing out in time with the man’s heartbeat meant that no arteries or veins had been hit. It was a pretty routine injury, if gunshots could ever be called such, but Mista had been insistent and Giorno had a hard time refusing the face he made when he wanted something. The man was like a child sometimes and this was coming from Giorno, who was two years his junior.
Giorno closed the magazine when he saw the same nurse who had taken Mista back approaching him with a clipboard grasped in her hands, uncrossing his legs and setting the magazine back on the table to the side of his chair. She looked like she had aged no less than a few years in the hours that she had been stuck with the other member of Passione, but Giorno couldn’t see the olive-skinned man trailing behind her. He raised an eyebrow up at her and she unceremoniously flumped down in the seat next to him.
“The wound wasn’t that deep, luckily, just barely deep enough to penetrate the muscle. It also stayed relatively intact so we were able to pull out the larger shards pretty easily. There’s still some smaller shrapnel in there, but it’ll heal over with only minor scarring in a couple weeks. I know better than to ask how he got it in the first place, but I want him to take it easy for a couple days. No heavy exercise, no galavanting around with the revolver he was so keen to show me, figurative or otherwise.” She pauses her barrage of information to look up at Giorno, who had been listening patiently, and shoves the clipboard into his hands. “Sign and date at the bottom. He was prescribed antibiotics and pain medicine, make sure he at least takes the antibiotics. You’re free to take his bandages off tonight, as long as there doesn’t look like any infection is present. We loaded him up with intravenous painkillers to remove the bullet, so he’ll be out of it for a few hours, but by tomorrow he’ll be back to normal. Any problems, give us a call.”
Giorno signs and dates as he’s told and hands the clipboard back to the nurse with a nod. She stands and he follows her lead, then a ruckus behind the door leading back to the examination room draws both of their attentions to it. The door swings open and Mista all but falls through, only prevented from falling on his face by the two nurses that are frantically trying to wrangle him back grabbing his arms. Giorno resists the urge to let out a groan and the nurse next to him sighs.
“He’s all yours. Have a nice day, you two.”
“Thanks,” Giorno mumbles quietly, eyes locked on Mista, who was trying and failing to shrug the steadying hands off his shoulders. “Mista, let’s go.”
Mista’s eyes turn to him and a dopey grin spreads across his face as he takes a few unsure steps towards his squadmate. Giorno’s eyes momentarily drop down to the exposed skin below the end of his sweater and sees the tight wrap of stark white bandages wrapping around the man’s midsection to keep pressure on the wound. Mista eventually makes his way to Giorno, who loops an arm around the taller man’s back to help him stay on his feet, while the nurses that had been helping him all retreat into the back. Lucky them, Giorno was going to be stuck with Mista for the entire car ride back to the Passione safehouse the Bucciarati squad was staying at for the time being.
“Giorno! Beautiful Giorno,” Mista sing-songs and Giorno finally lets out a groan. This was really not the time, but drugged-up Mista was similar to drunk Mista, who got incredibly affectionate. Not that Giorno minded necessarily, the two had finally agreed to something resembling dating (or at least as much as their profession would allow for), but Giorno was of the firm belief that there was a time and place for everything. Now was not the time and especially not the place. “Perfect Giorno. I missed you, bello .”
“We were apart for a total of two hours, Mista.” Giorno half-drags his boyfriend to the door of the waiting room, pushing it open with his shoulder and maneuvering Mista through to the best of his ability. This would be a lot easier if the man was capable of cooperating, but something in Giorno’s heart couldn’t help but feel the strong surge of affection that came from the soft, breathy laughs that vibrated through Mista’s chest when his feet stumbled on nothing.
“And I missed you every second.”
Christ, this was horrible. A fierce blush spread across Giorno’s cheeks and he bit his lip to stay quiet, helping Mista into the elevator and making sure the man stayed upright on the short ride down to the lobby. Mista seemed entirely too focused on trying to sloppily suck bruises onto Giorno’s neck to even pretend to care that he was practically slumping all his weight onto the shorter man and Giorno called out Gold Experience to help keep them from collapsing into a heap on the elevator floor. Mista wasn’t even that heavy, but his uncooperative, dead-weight body was like trying to drag around a sack of bricks.
Eventually, Giorno managed to load the drugged-up gunman into the passenger seat of his rental car and ignored the pathetic whine he made when Giorno closed the door. He let a sigh out through his nose and recalled Gold Experience, pulling the keys out of his pants pocket and opening the driver side door. He had to fight Mista’s grabby hands off as he slipped down into the seat, sticking the key into the ignition as Mista’s fingers brushed against his upper arm.
“Giorno?” Mista’s eyes were slipping shut and his face was scrunched up into something resembling a childlike expression of distaste. It made Giorno’s heart flutter, as annoying as this whole situation was, and he looked over to his passenger quietly. “My ass itches.”
Giorno shook his head and a sigh of annoyance involuntarily escaped his nose. God, next time he was going to ignore Mista’s protests and just use Gold Experience to fix him up so he didn’t have to suffer through this again. Or he’d make Bucciarati or Fugo drive Mista to the hospital so they could deal with this horseshit.
“Giorno!” Mista whines and Giorno grips the steering wheel as he throws the gear stick into reverse and twists his neck to look behind the car as he starts pulling out of the parking space. “My ass . It itches .”
“Then scratch it.”
“That’s impolite.” Mista slumps down further in his seat, patting his thighs with his hands passively. “Can I hum-huble… Humbly ask you to get it for me?”
“You want me to scratch your ass?” Giorno throws the car into drive with an unamused glance over at Mista and begins pulling away from the parking lot.
“Yeah,” Mista hums in agreement and looks out the window of the car. “Oh, fuck. Giorno, I left my fucking teeth there.”
“What?”
“My teeth,” Mista explains, as if he’s explaining something simple to a child. “I can’t feel ‘em. I think I left them with those cute nurses. They weren’t as cute as you though. Hm, can you be my nurse next time? Sexy nurse, sexily pulling some unsexy bullets out of me.”
“Mista?” Giorno’s grip on the steering wheel is turning his knuckles white.
Mista hums and sleepily looks over at his boyfriend.
“Be quiet until we get to the safehouse.” Giorno is relieved that the firm tone of his voice seems to coerce Mista into cooperation and the car is filled with blissful silence for all of about three minutes before the man’s head lolls to the side.
“Giorno?”
“What?”
“I love you. Thanks for driving me.”
Giorno’s expression softens but he keeps his eyes on the road. “I love you, too.”
There’s another beat of silence.
“Mista?”
“Hmm?”
“You didn’t forget your teeth. I wouldn’t let that happen.”
For the rest of the ride Mista was quiet, but a sleepy grin had affixed itself to his soft-looking lips and Giorno made a mental note to kiss him later when the man finally passed out.