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4 October, 2001
So, Narancia is pretty sure he knows what kind of person Giorno is.
He’s cool, collected. He’s got his shit together. When there’s a problem, Narancia can depend on him to come up with a solution—he’s great at that, he really is.
But there’s a lot that Narancia doesn’t know about Giorno, too. Where he’s from, what he likes, what his parents are like…and that’s okay, though he’s curious. The guy is a walking mystery, but Narancia doesn’t try to pry. Giorno can keep his secrets. They’ve only known each other for a couple months, anyway, and he’s certain that Giorno can be trusted. That’s good enough. He wonders sometimes, but he doesn’t really need to know.
Well, actually…there are some things that Narancia would absolutely definitely rather not know. Like whatever the fuck is going on between Giorno and Mista, for example. That horrifying bench scene is imprinted in his brain, despite all his attempts to take the image and violently destroy it with a chainsaw—sometimes it flashes before his eyes when he sees Giorno get unnecessarily close to Mista, at which point they stop being unnecessarily close to each other because they’re distracted by Narancia trying and failing to surreptitiously flee the room. Honestly, the fact that they’re together, or…fucking, or whatever the hell it is they’re doing, is totally fine with Narancia. He’s happy when his friends are happy. So, they’re getting their rocks off—good for them.
But, holy fuck, he does not need to know about it.
So, when Narancia walks through the door one afternoon to find Giorno slumped on the couch, giggling to himself, he really hopes he doesn’t have to suffer through a drunken monologue about Mista.
Naturally, that’s precisely what happens. “And he’s just…” Giorno waves a hand in the air, smiling dazedly. “His hair is so thick and curly, it’s so luscious, Narancia. And when he laughs it bounces a little sometimes. You have no idea the lengths I had to go to in order…oh, and the way he talks to the Pistols is so sweet. You know what I mean?”
Narancia looks at him and nods wearily before turning to hiss at Abbacchio over the phone once more. “I’m gonna tell Bucciarati about this.”
“What’s there to tell?” drawls Abbacchio. “Giorno agreed to our little drinking contest.” He laughs sharply. “Or is his state so pathetic that Bucciarati needs to be informed of it? What, is he still lying there chuckling to himself like an idiot?”
Narancia’s eyes widen. “Oh, now I get it,” he says slowly. “Blackmail.”
“You bet.”
Giorno tilts his head. “Blackmail?”
“Uh…” Narancia grins at him awkwardly, scratches his head and looks away once more. “Oh, c’mon, Abbacchio. Giorno’s been around for months now. You should go a little easier on him.”
“Nope.” The smirk on Abbacchio’s face is audible in his voice. “Anyway, have fun dealing with his mess. I’ve got actual work to do. Bye.”
When he hangs up, Narancia raises his phone to hurl it at a wall because holy fuck he’s gonna murder Abbacchio, but Giorno looks at him innocently and Narancia somehow finds it in his twitchy self to abstain from violence.
He sighs; walking over, he leans forward to talk to Giorno. “Look, I get it, Mista’s an amazing person. And also hot. Apparently.” He rolls his eyes. “You really don’t have to keep telling me that. Now, you’re drunk as hell, so I’m gonna give you a glass of water and you’re gonna drink it, okay?”
Giorno squints at him. Narancia raises an eyebrow, his eyes darting from Giorno’s unfocused expression to his wrinkled jacket to the strands of blond hair that are falling from the loosening curls at his hairline, and takes a moment to marvel at how drunk Giorno is the polar opposite of normal Giorno. “But I’m not drunk,” whines Giorno, and, well…holy fuck, Giorno does not whine. “I can’t be drunk. I did…” His hand swipes through the air in the vague direction of his mouth. “I did the jellyfish trick. I only actually drank four shots. That shouldn’t be…”
Then he pauses.
“Well,” he says mildly, “I guess Mista did say four is unlucky.”
Narancia chuckles; he gets to his feet, heads to the kitchen and pours Giorno a glass of water. “Guess you should’ve listened to your boyfriend,” he says when he returns, handing Giorno the glass and dropping himself onto the sofa beside him. “His four thing comes true when you least expect it, huh?”
He leans back and props his feet on the coffee table, and is beginning to relax when he realises with a start that Giorno is staring at him. Confused, he turns; Giorno hasn’t touched his water at all, and there is a blank look on his face. Narancia jerks his chin in the direction of the glass. “Dude, drink up now. You’re gonna regret it if you don’t.”
Silence.
Then Giorno says, “Uh...I have a boyfriend?”
Narancia blinks.
“Yes…?” Giorno is still staring at him, so he continues, “You’re dating Mista...right?”
Giorno frowns. “No?”
Narancia’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds before the obvious answer slaps him in the face. “Oh, okay, so you’re just fuckbuddies,” he declares. The moment the words come out of his mouth, he knows he shouldn’t have said them—Giorno instantly turns wide-eyed and red-faced, and Narancia himself is assaulted by horrifying mental images that he tries vainly to fight off by waving his hands around his head. “Sorry!” he exclaims. “Fuck, I did not need to say that.” He groans. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. My lips are sealed.” Narancia mimes zipping them. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Silence.
Then Giorno swallows and says, “We, uh…” He reddens further, avoiding Narancia’s eyes. “We aren’t sleeping together, either.”
Narancia is suddenly seized by the urge to flip the table.
“Whaaaaaat?” he exclaims instead. Leaping to his feet, he begins to pace. “Wait, so that time after that Ghiaccio fight, you weren’t—I mean, okay, I did wonder if you were just healing him, so I guess that makes sense...but what about everything else?” He throws up his hands. “The knowing looks? The random hand-touching? That time you shoved your fingers down his pants for no good reason?”
“Wh…I was just steadying his aim!”
Narancia whirls around, pointing an accusatory finger at Giorno, who is sitting there looking utterly mystified. “Are you seriously not with him? I mean, who the fuck does that? Why would you...ugh, fine! Whatever. But you definitely have a crush on him, right? Because none of this makes sense if you don’t.”
Giorno shakes his head immediately. “I don’t.” His gaze is fixed on a random point on the wall. “I’m straight. Sure, Mista is handsome and funny, and sometimes when he looks at me I feel kind of strange, and I seem to relax more when he’s by my side…” He frowns and pauses for a moment, clearly attempting to force logical thought through the channels of his sluggish brain. “Uh, and...I mean, I guess I do randomly touch him sometimes. I don’t really know why? I just want to for some reason...so I do. And he makes me happy, and—well,” he says quietly, “we aren’t sleeping together, but hypothetically, I mean, I guess I…”
Narancia sees the exact moment that it hits Giorno.
“Oh.” Giorno lowers his head to look at his hands. “Oh. That…isn’t very straight, is it?”
“I—well—yeah,” says Narancia, desperately trying to control his twitching facial muscles. Normally, he’d just laugh in Giorno’s face, but there’s a vulnerability about him, maybe in his expression or his posture, that Narancia has never seen Giorno display before; sympathy wells up in him, and so he decides to be nice about this. “Well, I’m glad you figured it out. Don’t stress too much about it, ‘kay? Just drink your water,” he says, gesturing, “and you can think about it slowly when you’re sober.”
And so Giorno drinks his water with an uncharacteristic meekness as Narancia turns on the radio, sits beside him once more, and pats him lightly on the shoulder.
19 February, 2007
Giorno’s been a little quiet recently.
He’s always been a pretty reserved person, of course, but Narancia notices it and figures he might as well check on him. Maybe it has something to do with Mista? Lately, it seems like Mista has actually begun to reciprocate Giorno’s crush, since Narancia definitely caught him checking him out once or twice—that should be a good thing, so Giorno’s reaction makes absolutely no sense.
Narancia asks him about it in a pocket of free time. “So,” he says, settling in a chair in Giorno’s room after being invited in, “I noticed you’ve been kinda quiet lately. Everything okay?”
Giorno, standing by the door, stiffens.
“I mean,” continues Narancia, “you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, obviously! But, like…” He shrugs. “If you need a listening ear, or whatever.”
His words hang between them for a few moments.
Then Giorno’s footsteps ring on the floor as he moves to sit on his bed; he takes a breath, his head slightly bowed, his hands laced tightly together. “Well…” He pauses. There’s a chance that he won’t actually tell Narancia anything, though over the years Giorno has actually told Narancia a lot about himself. “I just…” He sighs. “Well, there’s just something I’ve been wondering lately.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“I…” Giorno hesitates. “I mean, I guess…well, recently I’ve been wondering if I’m actually completely straight.”
Whatever Narancia had been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been that.
“You—” He stares at Giorno, incredulous, because what the flying fuck, you had that epiphany in 2001. “Oh my god. Did you actually forget?”
Giorno’s head shoots up. “Forget?”
“Oh, fuck it, never mind.” Narancia groans. “I mean, okay, you might not be straight. That bother you or something?”
“I can’t be with a man,” says Giorno, looking away. “It just doesn’t fit into my future. I’ll take over as the Don when I’m twenty-five, and I’ll either stay single or marry a woman whose background will benefit Passione.” He stares at the floor. “Well, I suppose it shouldn’t bother me. I am attracted to women, so…it’s not like I’m gay, and have no choice.”
“But it bothers you anyway.”
Giorno takes a deep breath, and doesn’t respond.
Narancia leans forward. “Hey, Gio,” he says, “what if the man you’re with isn’t just…like, any random dude?”
“What do you mean?” asks Giorno, frowning.
“Yeah, you’d probably have to keep it secret and stuff, but…I mean, if it was Mista? If Mista asked you out?” Narancia grins. “Would you reject him just ‘cause dating another guy doesn’t fit into your life plan?”
Giorno is silent for a long moment. He sits there, his body tense, various emotions flickering in his eyes; eventually, he says quietly, “No. No, I don’t think I could.”
Then something seems to occur to him. “Wait, how did you know that I…”
“Dude, you are really fucking obvious.” Narancia laughs. “Anyway, so, if Mista asks you out…”
Giorno swallows, hard. “Yeah.” His face is slightly red. “I’d accept.”
Upon leaving Giorno’s room a few minutes later, Narancia triumphantly declares Step One of the GuiGior (couple name subject to review) Plan achieved. He rewards himself with a fist pump. Then he embarks on Step Two immediately by calling Mista, who should be on his way back from a mission.
Mista picks up on the second ring. “Hey, dude. Mission went well.”
Narancia closes the door to his room and throws himself on the bed. “Great! So, I have a question for you.”
“Sure, shoot.”
“You ever consider dating Giorno?”
There’s a brief moment of silence.
Then Mista says, “Huh. Never thought about it.” The line goes quiet for a few seconds. “But, y’know, now that you mention it…I mean, Giorno’s gorgeous, obviously, and there’s this kinda mischievous side to him that I really like, and he really listens to me, and…”
“And…?”
Mista chuckles. “Guess I’m not straight after all. Yeah, I’d date the fuck outta him.”
“Wow,” says Narancia. He hadn’t expected Mista to take as long as Giorno to come to terms with his sexuality, but, holy fuck, that was instant. Ten seconds compared to…what, five whole years? The duality of man. “Wanna ask him out? Who knows, he might be into you.”
“Dang. Well, I’ll think about it. Thanks, Narancia.”
Click.
And, with that, the GuiGior (he really should think of another couple name) Plan is complete.
6 June, 2018
“So,” says Giorno over the phone, “I proposed yesterday. We’re now engaged.”
Narancia’s face breaks into a wide grin. “Holy shit, congrats!” Then he pauses. “Wait, like, are you gonna be legally married, or…”
“Not legally, no,” replies Giorno. “But when has legality mattered to us?”
They laugh together at that, breezily. “Anyway,” says Narancia, “you’re gonna dedicate your speeches to me, right?”
“Oh?” Giorno’s voice is warm. “You want us to?”
“Hey, I basically got you two together!” exclaims Narancia. “I somehow facilitated both of you figuring out your sexualities. Seriously. I should get a medal.”
Giorno laughs. “All right,” he says. “Admittedly, I really can’t thank you enough. I think we’d have spent a few more years dancing around our feelings if not for you.”
“Aww, thanks,” replies Narancia.
They talk for ten more minutes or so; then Giorno hangs up, and Narancia is left to contemplate the magnitude of his achievement. He grins. Making his friends happy really is the best feeling in the world. And he’s so good at romantic advice; maybe he should quit Passione and become a couples counsellor. A counsellor specifically for Passione. He could call it Passione’s Passion Project, and Giorno and Mista could give him good reviews, and Bucciarati and Abbacchio could come in for a session because Jesus fuck those two need help, and then…
The mental image makes Narancia laugh till his stomach hurts.
And so he lies in bed, giggling to himself, as time ticks on and he slowly surrenders to the call of sleep.
fin.