Chapter Text
"I did NOT become the boss of the second largest Family in Italy to spend my entire adult life chained up in this villa," Giorno sighed. He rarely complained openly - he worked hard, and ruling Passione was his life's work - but he was still a human being, and sometimes it just got to be too much. Giorno had been up since 5 in the morning (Mista would not let him out of bed at 4, when he actually awoke) trying to concentrate on some of the most frustratingly obtuse intelligence reporting he had ever seen. He needed to tell Bietola to clean up his damn reports and hire a secretary who could type. Additionally, the villa's AC had blown and Italy was in the grip of a particularly warm, muggy summer; the nights never quite cooled down, and the office was windowless.
Mista, Giorno's best friend and personal everything, looked up from the purple snub nose revolver he'd been cleaning and nodded. He was a tall, swarthy man in a checker-patterned hat, matching black and white cashmere croptop sweater and monochrome tiger-stripe pants. "Getting kinda stuffy in here, yeah?"
"It is." Giorno agreed, only half-hearing his bodyguard. He abandoned the intelligence - he'd been trying to read it for ten minutes at that point, and he knew he wasn't going to be able to absorb it just then. He stared into the middle distance, not at Mista, not even at the wall, not really looking at anything. He slumped his chin into his left hand with a huff, leaning his weight into his elbow, and toyed with the pen in his right hand in an aimless, inattentive manner. His life-giving Stand, Gold Experience, rose up from within him in response to his unfocused frustrations.
A glitter of yellow light shimmered from Giorno's fingers and ran the length of the pen. In an instant the pen began to wriggle and writhe, elongating and transforming into a delicate, immature garter snake. Giorno played with the snake in his hand, turning his fingers, manipulating the little black reptile to encourage it to wind its cold, lithe body around him.
Mista cleared his throat as loudly as possible. His own Stand, a colony of bullet refracting imps called Sex Pistols, buzzed beneath his skin as he sensed the emergence of Gold Experience; they were keyed to each other, since they had to be ready to fight at any moment. Stand users called to each other, and Stands called to Stands; that was an immutable law of the world they lived in. When Stand users met there was also often fighting involved. It was also a pain in the butt when Gio's mind wandered and he called up his powerful Stand without paying full attention to it.
"Uh, boss? You're making snakes again."
Giorno blinked, blue eyes opening wide as he refocused and found himself with a hand covered in gently hissing reptile. "So I am." He cancelled his Stand immediately. The harmless snake folded back into itself, returning to being a simple pen, and Giorno set it down gently on top of the desk, as if the writing instrument was still a living thing. "All right, I give up. I'll route this to Polnareff and let him tell me the highlights. I can't sit here reading any more." Giorno rubbed briefly at his eyes. "Let's get some fresh air, Mista."
Mista reloaded his pistol, as he was done cleaning it, and tucked it in his waistband at his back. "Coffee?"
Giorno nodded. "Breakfast. Outside. I need sfogliatella and at least three wallets to feel like a person again." He circled out from behind the desk, barefoot; he was still wearing his sleeping clothes, a comfortable pair of loose silk pants in pale coral and an oversized cream-white silk shirt that slid off his shoulders. His lean neck and the dark red five-pointed star birthmark on his left shoulder were exposed. His shoulder-length golden hair was loosely braided, unfussed and a little sloppy, and he had left the front uncurled, instead lazily having swept it up and back, the longer sections tucked behind his ears, away from his eyes. He looked rumpled and untidy, a little bleary eyed, and without his foundation to cover them, a dusting of freckles showed on his cheeks.
Mista thought he looked perfect, but then, he thought, it was impossible for Giorno Giovanna to ever actually look bad. Mista thought Gio could spend a week sleeping in a dumpster and still look like he'd walked off the floor of the MANN. At 15 the boy king had been pretty, but lean and a little gangly, a little too narrow in the arms and thighs from a lifetime of not quite having enough food to ever be truly full and the restless energy of incompletion, a soul that needed to never stop moving; at 18, as one of a handful of the most powerful men in Italy, with access to the best of everything, Giorno Giovanna had become almost unreasonably beautiful, dipped in gold and strong in mind and body alike.
Mista thought Giorno was so hot looking at him was like trying to look directly at the sun, and he kept getting seared every time he tried. He didn't exactly avert his gaze, but he found himself staring at Giorno's neck and shoulder, the birthmark he still didn't really know the story of, rather than into Giorno's face. If he actually looked at Giorno's eyes they definitely wouldn't get out of the office today, probably no further than the bedroom.
"I don't think I've ever seen you lift a wallet before," he said, teasing, as he loped across the room to join Giorno.
The Don looked amused, and shot Mista a sunbeam grin, melting the poor gunman's heart on the spot. He could die for that smile, and almost had on a number of occasions. But then, Giorno had almost died for him too, so, fair enough.
"You won't see me when I do it today, either. Where did I put my loafers again? The Ferragamos?"
Mista gestured loosely toward the door at the back of the office, trying to breathe, staring at the hollow of Giorno's neck. "Under the dresser, I think?"
"Good," Giorno replied, and slipped his arm around Mista's. His mood was improving immensely the farther he got away from his desk. An impish light gleamed in his eyes as he looked sideways to the other man.
"Help me pick out something inspiring to go with them."
---
Giorno had his makeup routine down to a science, and with Gold Experience's help, his hair was pulled back and up, tightly braided, his signature forehead curls created with the slight abuse of his Stand's two extra hands in addition to his own. Because Mista loved him in green, Giorno wore green that day- a dark forest-green variant of his signature jacket with pink and gold ladybug pin accents, and matching suit bottom pants. Gold filigree thread embroideries formed thick vines and leaf motifs that twined around his calves and the arms of his jacket. His lipstick and fingernails matched his pins in pink, and his cheeks were accented by a Marc Jacobs highlighter that smelled of coconut and flashed starlit in the dawn.
He was damn near stopping traffic every few feet as he and Mista roamed, as the locals converged on him once they knew he was out and around; each hoping for a favor from the boy king, who was known to be generous, patient and interested in almost everything.
He received his basket of fresh bread and baked goods from one of the restauranteurs whose business had been recently 'liberated' into Passione from the oppressive grip of a rival Family (Giorno, aware that the restauranteur's mother was aging and had received a bone cancer diagnosis, had reduced his protection fee to a weekly delivery of goodies to the villa; the restaurant was harmless, popular, and well connected to the Catholics in Rome, so their good will was worth far more than mere cash). He stopped to help a little girl rescue a stuffed toy that a cruel older sibling had thrown high out of reach; he traded pleasantries - and some discreetly palmed euros - with several policemen, some of whom sounded as if they had known Giorno for years. The city sat in the palm of his hand, and the boy king reigned with peace and tranquility, seeing his realm was in good order.
At first Mista was enjoying himself. He was walking proudly beside the most beautiful man in Napoli, knowing that of all Giorno's many, many admirers, not one of them would ever know what it felt like to wake up with a disheveled, sleepy-eyed, sex-scented Giorno nuzzling into them before the sun rose. Mista carried the basket of goodies and idly nibbled on a particularly delicious tarallo, amused by the resemblance to Giorno's curled forelocks.
He allowed the Pistols to emerge while he ate. The tiny imps bickered and swarmed, tearing off chunks of the sweet bread for themselves and fighting over bits of crust; number 5 flitted toward Giorno, perched on the top of his left ear, and proceeded to happily sit there, gnawing on a thumbnail-sized chunk of bread. "Hi, Giorno! Your hair smells really nice!"
Giorno sensed this, and chuckled, willing to tolerate the Pistols' antics, as he was well used to them. "Hello, number five, grazie," he greeted the Stand, "Now. I don't mind you parking on me, but please sit quietly and kindly refrain from kicking my ear with your feet like you did on Friday. And no yelling, please. I don't need the distraction."
Number Five went 'awwww' but obeyed, folding its legs around the curve of Giorno's ear and sitting contentedly like the world's strangest earring. Five looked around excitedly with its strange, wide white eyes.
However, after a while of it, Mista found himself growing tense. Giorno kept being pulled this way and that, and awareness that Mista couldn't shake, the grim foreknowledge of a bloodied combat veteran, kept warning him that actually, this was probably a terrible idea, and that these strangers approaching Giorno might not all be doing so with the best of intentions. They could be easily attacked by enemies who mistook their openness for vulnerability. And it wouldn't even necessarily have to be a Stand user - all it would take was one sniper with good aim, for even Gold Experience Requiem wasn't fast enough to stop a bullet it couldn't see coming.
Mista remembered how he, the gang and Bruno had used to make these kinds of tours, but the context wasn't the same: Bucciarati wasn't the capo dei capi, and Giorno now controlled the west coast of Italy from Matera almost to Rome. Even though Mista was an easy going kind of guy, he still felt a nagging thread of growing concern. He wished Giorno had invited Lattuga and Cetriolo along; their Stands were powerful defenses and having extra bodies around them would make them look more intimidating, discouraging low-level losers from taking a crack at them.
But Giorno looked happy - radiant, even, and relaxed - so Mista just hardened his resolve. After all, protecting Giorno was undeniably his job; he wasn't there to look cute, was he? Mista scattered the Sex Pistols, directing 5 to leave Giorno's ear and move to the top of his head to watch for incoming shots, and fanning out the others to keep an eye on things from angles he couldn't see himself. He tried not to get too bogged down in worry. Instead, he thought to narrow the venue, give them all a controllable space to manage. "Weren't we going to get coffee?" he prodded. "Let's go sit down somewhere. This is too much exercise for my lazy ass."
Giorno's brow lifted, a subtle change of expression - oh, are you telling me what to do now, Mista? - that was mostly amused. He received the underlying message loud and clear, though. "Yes, of course." He stopped, tapped his chin, glanced around. They were about three blocks from Sfogliatella Maria; very acceptable option, and Giorno's stomach chose that moment to rumble menacingly. "I suppose we've done sufficient goodwill for the morning, and I did promise coffee. Let's hit up Maria's."
"Awesome! Can't beat their frolla."
---
Giorno and Mista settled down at a table outside Maria's and were soon chattering away about nothing and everything while tucking eagerly into their cinnamon pastries and warm, strong espressos. A curious progression of moths and butterflies flitted around the table and landed in Giorno's lap, expanding and exploding into paper euros and dollar bills. Giorno grinned and showed Mista his prizes under the edge of the table - he'd stolen several wallets and was proud of his catches. Neither of them needed the money, of course, but Giorno felt it was good practice to keep his fingers nimble and clever, just in case. He grinned and handed the fat sheaf of hunk of currency to Mista, who looked a little starstruck. Once he got the reaction from Mista he wanted, Giorno transformed the cashless wallets into rats, and sent them toward a police station just at the very edge of Gold Experience's range; that way the items would return to normal and find their way back to their owners through the police.
It felt like a date, almost, and Mista wondered if that had been Giorno's intention all along. Certainly, although they spent most of their waking and sleeping hours together, there was a certain... efficiency to their lives. Giorno was often busy, distracted, concentrating on the heavy load he'd assigned himself of managing Passione; schmoozing and politics were his job and he had personnel to manage 24 hours a day. Mista never wanted to distract Giorno from his work for silly things like affection when they spent plenty of time cuddled up together at night anyway.
He also never wanted to think that his relationship with Giorno was just another of the 'assets' that Giorno had to manage. No, that definitely wasn't true, and it was unfair to even think, so he banished the thought immediately. That wasn't really what was eating at him anyway; nothing was wrong between him and Giorno, personally. No, Mista's feeling of unease was more nebulous, and that made it more irritating - an instinct of pressure from something he couldn't define, like an itch under his eyelids he had no way to scratch.
He found himself looking for signs, for clues. Counting the number of pastries on abandoned plates, reading license plates, noting a nearby clock, wary of the curse of four. Nothing coherent materialized. Damn it.
The city moved around them: people walking, kids skateboarding, cars flowing with traffic, all gradually accelerating in intensity as the morning deepened and the city woke up and went to work. Giorno watched them, and his thoughts were veiled, but he seemed to still be relaxed. "It's good to get away, isn't it, Mista?"
The Pistols, perched here and there, reported that they didn't see anything, but Mista remained tense. He tried to keep the tension away from his voice, for Giorno's sake, affecting an air of lazy satisfaction he didn't quite feel. "Sure is."
But Giorno reached out and placed his hand on top of Mista's. "Something's bothering you."
Shit, he'd seen. Gio always saw. "What is it, Mista?" Those blue eyes were now laser focused on him, studying his face with intensity, as if the blond could divine the future in the twitch of a jawline. Once Giorno had awareness of a problem he turned into a single-minded piranha in his resolve to fix it.
Mista finally sighed. "I keep feeling something bad's gonna happen, but I can't find a sign and there's nothing wrong, so I don't know if I'm just being a paranoid dipshit, or what." He shrugged a little, feeling helpless, as Giorno continued to study him carefully without saying anything immediately in answer.
Finally Gio hummed, thoughtful. Giorno kept his hand on Mista's, pressing down slightly, and finally lifted his gaze to send his attention around them again. "I suppose it's been a while since we ate outside, hasn't it?" he began, his tone light but something grim underneath as he swept his attention around the street. "Are you thinking about Clash and Talking Heads and the like?" The past never left them, though the war with Diavolo was long over. It wasn't as if Giorno hadn't occasionally still awoke damp with sweat from vicious nightmares to bury his face in Mista's shoulder and bite down shivers he couldn't control.
Mista felt angry, and helpless, and weirdly defensive about it, and he shrugged his shoulders. But he felt Giorno's warmth still through his hand. "I dunno. Maybe? I just... shit, Gio. If something ever happens to you, I... we're all that's left, you know? And you're fourth, and I get so fucking anxious."
Giorno sat back a moment, something like clarity entering his eyes. For an instant, he looked ... vulnerable, Mista decided, vulnerable and distressed. But only for an instant, it was gone so quickly anyone else would have missed it. When he spoke it was with a cool, gentle detachment. "Do you trust me, Guido Mista?" Giorno asked.
"I... what?" Mista blinked. "Of course I do, Gio..."
Giorno lifted his other hand, motioning for Mista to let him finish his thought. "No, I mean it. This is important. Do you trust me?"
Mista didn't hesitate. He nodded as quickly as he could, feeling like the breath had been knocked out of him.
"Because I trust you, Mista. I trust you absolutely. I trust that you will never, ever allow anything to harm me as long as it's within your power to prevent it. I believe that with all my heart and all my soul. So when I say, 'do you trust me', I want to know that you trust in me as well - to know in your heart of hearts that I will never, ever allow anything to happen to you."
He summoned Gold Experience Requiem, and just let the hard-eyed Stand loom over his shoulder, and both of them spoke at the same time, with a single voice. "No one who stands against my desires can ever succeed, Mista. You may trust in that from me for as long as I shall live."
The Stand broke away as Giorno dismissed it. He moved his free hand and then lifted Mista's hand into his, rubbing his thumb gently into the gunslinger's palm. His intense gaze lowered, and he studied the lines in Mista's skin as he touched them. "So ... it's going to be okay," Giorno finished, sounding almost jarringly human and uncertain all at once, his delicate cheeks flaring with a slight rush of pink from his surge of feeling. "Right? It's going to be fine. Trust me."
Mista exhaled hard. "Shit, Giogio." Words felt entirely inadequate to the moment, and his blood throbbed and thrummed just from the briefest exposure to a sliver of a thumbnail of Gold Experience Requiem's tranquil ferocity, its absolute negation of any intentions other than Giorno's. He felt like he'd gotten the bends just from looking at it.
And then Giorno leaned hard across the table and kissed him with an almost frantic needfulness, pressing his hands to Mista's face.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Mista was aware of the Pistols squealing with delight from their rooftop vantages, but he just didn't want to think about anything at all then. Only how warm and good it felt to kiss Gio, right there on the street in front of God and everybody, and who was going to stop them? Who'd fucking dare to? Yeah, fuck yeah, nobody could possibly stop them. His fears evaporated in the face of Giorno's adamant resolve, and when Giorno pulled his head back with his pink lips glimmering and his eyes hopeful, Mista quickly closed the gap again, kissed him again. No, fuck it. Fuck everything. Giorno promised, and he believed in that promise.
He trusted that nothing could defeat them.