Chapter Text
“Telling Giorno?”
The moment Fugo shifts the Mercedes into park, Trish pops the handle and kicks the door open with a wide grin. “Don’t tell me you wanted to?”
He opens his driver’s side door, “Not as much as you want to, I’m sure.”
Trish flashes him an award-winning smile as she gets out of the car, “Don’t wait up, swiss cheese.”
She catches Fugo rolling his eyes at her newest pet name for him, then he’s calling after her about going over Marcelli’s financial report before dinner this evening. She waves him some fast acknowledgement and pledge as she reaches the top stair and front door.
She catches Mista in the kitchen, gets that Giorno is up in the west drawing room, thanks him and hurries off.
A twist of the knob and Trish throws the door open to the drawing room with a flourish of her scarf like it’s a cape on her arm, “Guess who got Marcelli’s gang to suck it!”
Giorno’s at the long mahogany desk by the leftmost window, everything on his side of the room shrouded by heavy red velvet drapes. He looks up from his writing and she watches him shove his exhaustion down to give her a smile like a sunrise. It’s the kindest thing he could do for her, it feels like a thick needle in her chest.
“Really?” There’s eagerness on his face as he asks, “You confiscated their boats successfully?”
Trish pretends to be interested in the trim of an armchair, tracing it with a nail as she shrugs and shakes her head, “Oh, just every boat in the Port down to the canoes.”
“And they agreed to their assigned operation?”
She struts to the desk, runs a hand through her moussed hair. Her stilettos clunk on the rug, pushing her up by four inches. The tight stitching on her pencil skirt catches the sun sharply, shoulders of her blazer pointed at the tops of her skyscraper form. Cascading triangles hang from her ears, clink as she sways and comes to a stop in front of the desk, puts a hand on her hip to complete her catwalk over. “Guess I’m just that terrifying.” She manages to hold her pose a split-second before breaking into a laugh.
He’d been caught up in watching her, like her show was a joy to watch and he matches her giggle with his own small chuckle, “I’m sure you were. Really.” He pulls back from the desk, takes his cane to shove himself up and over to her.
Giorno’s been needing a cane for the past week and half now. That’s how bad it’s gotten.
He gives her a smile, cheekbones cutting her deeper now that they’re sharper. “You never cease to amaze me, Trish.” Kisses her hand. His hands and lips are cold. Always cold.
She does her best to upkeep the smile—she’s liked to think she’s gotten better at masks—as she walks behind him. He’s shed his shawl, loose green wool laced with gold thread hanging on the same wood chair he keeps draping it on, saying he doesn’t need it.
Gently she wraps the shawl on his shoulders. “I mean, it wasn’t that hard.”
He gives her a look.
“Alright, it was stupid hard. I almost got poisoned and died. But that’s unimportant. Important part is we finally got Marcelli under our belt.” She leans on the desk. “And I got him onboard to steal the Croatian gang’s tuna. Like you said. Even though the guy gave me this tragic look like he wanted his start in Passione to be cooler than stealing stinking fish money.”
Giorno huffs a grin at that. “It’s understandable. His work is going to be grueling and much less glamorous than their usual plane smuggling. Though, it will keep him out of his usual circles of human trafficking.”
“For now,” Trish groans, crossing her arms. “Guy was gross. I was so tempted to just melt him on the spot. There’s no way he’d stay out of that work when it looked like he was a customer himself.”
Giorno sends her a sidelong look.
It pokes a grin from her, “You knew?”
He breaks a bit, a grin peering through his all-business expression as he clears his throat. “Marcelli will be useful as chaos for the Croatian gang, in a couple weeks he’ll have realized he can hijack the fishing boats, sell the tuna at shore as agreed, but then also utilize the massive cargo bays for moving people better than what he had before. Though, unknown to him, every ship will be marked and watched, and the buyers and victims will be found by the Croatian police when we give them the paper trail.”
“So, after you’re done using him, we get to bust a couple trafficking rings and Marcelli gets a kick in the ass?”
“A good one,” Giorno nods, retrieving a paper from his stack of files. “Already picked out the replacement.”
Trish takes the paper, looks it over. “Amanti? Old Uncle Aldo?”
“He’s content with his current position as capo, and I figured he would enjoy the boost of manpower Marcelli’s headless squad would give him, as a gift of thanks.” Giorno lowers himself back in the chair with a relaxed sigh. “We’ll be taking over the Croatian gang without a direct invasion. With Amanti running the Adriatic Sea, the Croatians will have a hard time with their ships unless they have our say-so. And as that’s their main form of trade and transportation, the gang will have no choice but to do as we say. All that’s left now is to wait for the white flag, and then we set up the meeting for the changeover of power.”
Trish smiles at how pleased he looks with himself, finishes, “So Amanti will scare the shit out of the gang leader in a meeting personally and then we’ll have free tickets to do whatever we want in the gang’s territory. Like a manhunt.”
Giorno nods, “Like a manhunt.”
With a last look at the paper, a picture of Amanti paperclipped to the corner, Trish thinks of how close they are. Find and capture Ugo, be done with the Speedwagon Foundation breathing down their necks. Maybe then real time could be put into researching how to get Giorno better, without the Foundation and their hidden agendas. She glances back to him as he seems to submerge back into the papers in front of him––swimming, always swimming and never giving the time to think about how soon he might drown.
Trish puts the paper back down on his stack, careful to not disrupt the pile, before she lifts her tone back to feathery, “Yeah, I’m pretty good at this stuff. Frankly, I don’t know why I’m not getting paid more.”
Giorno grunts in amusement, her heart lifting as she manages to earn a small upturn of his lips. Folding his fingers, he leans forward to address her formally, “What’s the compensation you think you deserve?”
“A kiss, possibly?”
Giorno’s brows furrow. “You got one of those yesterday.”
“Then a new purse,” she switches gracefully. “The one at the mall I pointed at this weekend and you didn’t acknowledge whatsoever.”
Giorno hums with a shrug, “I think you’ll find what’s on your desk later to be satisfactory then.”
Trish nearly kicks her feet in delight but restrains her tone to flat, diplomatic, “Well, I expect as much. But, Giogio,” light as a leaf she lays across the desk sideways to face him, “what’s a girl to do with a purse and no dress to match it with?”
She gets a chuckle out of Giorno before his grin softens. His thumb meeting her cheek kindly, he leans in to place a soft kiss on her with the words, “Whatever you wish, bella.”
Her chest fills with helium, and Trish sighs into him like she’s made of flowery warm ponds reflecting clouds. She opens her eyes to find him gazing at her warmly.
Giorno cocks his head to the right to match her sideways one. “Was that fair compensation?”
She blinks dreamily. “I think I’ll need a bonus soon.”
A last chuckle escapes him and he kisses her again before returning to the papers with a soft, “We’ll see about that bonus later.”
With a satisfied smile, she raises herself back up to a sitting position on the desk, sighs, “Though, I guess I shouldn’t complain. I’m more fortunate than some. I don’t think Fugo’s gotten a raise in five years.”
Giorno shakes his head, “I’ve tried to talk to him about it, his own house, whatever he wants. Though he says he’s happy how he is.”
“He deserves whatever,” Trish says. “I couldn’t have done that meeting without Fugo, honestly.” Though when she looks to see Giorno respond with some tease or other, it’s to see a small shadow creep up behind his face like weeds.
Almost hurriedly Trish shoves off the desk, goes to pull back the curtains while lifting her tone again, “Well, as a celebratory thing, why don’t we go for a walk?” A push and the middle window panes are alight with the midday sun. “It’s genuinely a gorgeous day. We can go check on those turtledoves roosting in the big olive tree you like. How about it?”
“Trish, I can’t go outside.”
She huffs, walks off to pull the next duo of curtains back, “Don’t be dramatic. You can take a small break from work and I’ll get you one of my sunhats if your eyes are gonna hurt again so—”
“Trish.”
When she finds Giorno, he’s standing by the edge of the sunrays pouring into the middle of the room. Stretching his hand out.
“Don’t freak out,” he says.
“What are you—?”
The moment sunlight hits his hand, skin crisps. Turns black, then grey. Pain flashes over Giorno and he yanks his hand back while crushing a grunt between his teeth.
“Jesus Christ,” Trish mutters.
“Yeah,” Giorno says as he inspects the blackened skin, “seems like I’ll need more than a sunhat from now on.”
“But, yesterday you were outside...” Trish says, “When did you—?”
“This morning. I was barefoot in the hallway on the way to make coffee and nearly lost my foot from an open window.” Giorno slips his shoe off, showcasing the strange scar around freshly stitched skin. “It's still not fully done healing. Not like it was missed too much anyway.” He shoves his foot back in the shoe. Crushes his fingers together into a fist, the blackened ones crinkling a bit like paper, crumbling charcoal for bones.
How he won’t be gardening anytime soon... it sinks in her stomach.
They need to tell Mista and Fugo. Polnareff knows as of last week, she wasn’t sure if Giorno told him or the Foundation but... but soon after he went on some mission for some family friend. Not many things are hard to get out of the Frenchman, but he didn’t give Trish a straight answer on his feelings about Giorno’s state before he left. He refused to give her more than a sad look and that they must be there for him. Must watch him closely as time goes on.
As his shadow lengthens, growing fangs to devour him soon, too soon.
“Did Mista see you?”
“No.”
“So you’ve been holed up in here all day?”
And he’s quiet.
Trish huffs with a false smile, traces the leaves on the oak watching her from the other side of the window pane.
She says, “You know they wouldn’t hate you.”
The chair wheels creak as he lowers himself back into the desk chair, rolling up to return to work.
“Also,” she adds, “I’ve talked to him, and believe it or not, Polnareff doesn’t hate you either.”
Giorno nods as he submerges himself in reading a packet, “I know. He’s told me that too.”
But he’s still not going to tell the others.
She shakes her head in disbelief before making her way over. With a small hop, she sits on the edge of the desk. He pretends to be consumed in whatever paper he’s reading.
“I want to ask a question,” she starts, swinging her crossed ankles delicately.
“I will do my best to provide an answer.”
Trish leans—half-lays across the table in front of him like how she saw on a Vogue last week— and asks, “Are we in love?”
Giorno smiles a bit, “Well, if you finding a way to shove me halfway off the bed every night can be called love, then yes, we’re in love.”
“So you take my advice to heart?”
He hesitates, but it doesn’t get a rise out of her. Not really. She just wants to watch the rock sink for a moment before her next question.
“I value your advice greatly, Trish,” is delivered plainly, formally.
“So, if I were to ask you to stop being a stubborn tight-ass for your own sake, would you at least think about it?”
It cracks an amused noise from Giorno and, though it’s reluctant, he melts a bit. She likes to think it’s because she’s smiling at him.
His tone lightens back to teasing, “I’ll try to think about not being so stubborn.”
“And not a tight-ass?”
“We’re not all perfect, Trish.”
“You’ll reach perfection, you always do.” She pecks a kiss on his forehead. “And maybe eat something for Christ’s sake.”
A chuckle falls out of him, and he rubs his eyes, leans into his hand. “I’m not so sure about that one.”
When Giorno leans, she can see down his flowing shirt. Clear-cut clavicle, sternum and ribs, his neck thin.
He hasn’t eaten in a week. It’s been an IV she plugs him into every morning since his stomach started refusing everything. Whenever his form relaxes, he hunches a bit from the effort to hold himself up, his frame verging on tree-like under layers of winter clothes.
He’s not built for food anymore, but he can still starve himself.
Trish pulls herself up to sitting. “Giorno.”
His shoulders sour at what’s coming and he dismisses, “Trish, I do need to get back to this.”
“Why can’t you just try it?”
Giorno starts writing notes on a report, says quietly, “It’s unnecessary. Now please, leave me.”
With a quick glance at the closed door, Trish pushes off the desk. Yanks her sleeve up and holds her wrist out.
His look up to her is a knife on her throat. “ No.”
“I’m offering . That’s different than taking. It’s different , Giorno . You won’t be giving in.”
“Please pull your sleeve back down, Trish.”
It stings and clenches deep under her ribs like left needles in tangled thread and she blurts, “Can’t you see how much this fucking hurts to watch—?!”
“I said no!” He stands on instinct. Pain shoots through him and he stumbles forward to catch himself on the desk, knocking over the inkwell.
Trish had put her hands out to be ready to catch him. Hands he now swipes away and growls, “Don't.”
“It’s not because I’m pitying you or some shit— I just want to help!” She says.
He has to readjust his right foot to put weight on it, but slowly, he straightens up to bring his head an inch above hers to say, “Leave.”
Trish clenches her jaw, feels her anger rise high, feels pain thud in her forehead and decides she’d rather just avoid the migraine from dealing with him when he’s like this. So she blinks it all back and pivots, heels thudding towards the door. When her hand hits the knob though, she forces herself to still. Slowly, she says to the door, “Giorno, if you don’t trust anyone now, how’s that going to work when you can’t trust yourself anymore?”
He says nothing. When she does look back, she sees a shadowed figure glaring at the floor, his hair meticulously braided up today despite how no one will ever see it, despite how he can’t leave this room until its covered in curtain shade. His darker hand crumbling against the desk in a twisted fist.
He’s furious. He hates it all more than anyone.
Forcibly she eases her grip on the doorknob, sighing long. “Can I get you anything?”
Shaking his head, Giorno grunts, “No, thank you,” and lowers himself back into the desk chair.
She opens the door, “I’ll set up tea in an hour. The east parlor. And I’ll be back in a minute to close the curtains.”
Giorno nods, sighs and rubs his eyes, “I’d appreciate that very much, Trish. Thank you.”
---
While the kettle heats up, Trish wanders out of the kitchen.
Piano fills the foyer, it’s that beautiful haze in the evening after sunset when Fugo believes everyone is too busy to be in the east side of the house, when he plays the old hymns and sonatas he doesn’t like to talk about.
Trish comes to wait on the parlor threshold. It can take up to a minute for Fugo to notice the outside world when he’s like this, and she doesn’t mind watching him.
Though, it’s when he starts up the next song that she minds.
Somber notes that sigh like embers, glowing warm enough that she can almost smell the ashy fireplace. The pine needles.
Her Nonna’s voice singing over the pattering rain outside. That ancient Sardinian cottage by the water. Somehow it could weather any storm, despite how lopsided it looked at a certain angle, the cream plaster on the outside cracked and the bricks exposed. The way the bricks bled with bullet holes—
“Oh, Trish— G-Good evening,” Fugo notices her and stops.
The wool rug under her and high tray ceilings with gold-encrusted chandeliers remind her where she is now. Collecting herself, she comes to sit by him on the bench, stretches her hand over the keys. It feels like a millennia ago, but her fingers seem to pick the tune up on their own.
“You know that one?”
Quieter than the keys, “My Nonna taught me it.”
After a soft nod in response, Fugo watches her, lets her hear it on her side before he brings up his own hands again, begins playing a harmony.
Wordlessly, they play through the rest, Trish stumbling a couple parts, but Fugo is patient and picks up wherever she starts again. It’s nice.
When the last notes push through, she smiles with a soft, “Thanks for that. I hadn’t heard it in years.”
Fugo seems to think, to hold himself back but then decides he can’t stop himself, “Can I ask a question?”
Trish hums.
“Why did you come back?”
“Here?”
Fugo nods, “You escaped all of this, had a chance to live a normal life and... You were only gone for the better half of a decade.”
She remembers playing piano, guitar, writing music, talking radio contracts and her agent’s excitement at her wanting to tour again in the future. Going to bed under moon crescents like drooping eyes. She watched the moon fall asleep without her. Stayed up with a buzzing threaded through her bones. The only happy dreams she had were those while awake. When she remembered the in-betweens. Narancia’s stupid jokes to get her to smile while she was changing out his bandages. How she made fun of Mista for holding a fork and got Fugo to join her. Abbacchio sharing his headphones with her just for her to learn he hated the Beach Boys too.
Here sang home to her far more than any empty penthouse or villa on the water. Where she could play piano with someone who needed the notes in the same ways she did.
“I missed you guys, I guess.”
Fugo huffs, “I highly doubt that.”
“Don’t make fun of me, I mean it.”
“You missed him. Just be more specific.”
“...Didn’t you?”
The question takes Fugo by surprise and he seems to get lost dusting off the lowest key. “It was different, he didn’t send Mista to hunt you down at gunpoint.”
She chuckles a bit, “Yeah, I guess it was. Different ways of catching fish.”
“What was the lure that snagged you, then?”
When she was saying goodbyes at the train station, Giorno had hugged her. His hair smelled like lavender, his smile kind as he told her to stay the hell away. Go live, for Abbacchio and Narancia, for Bruno.
On the days when she woke at dawn, the sun’s rays warm on her, she could’ve sworn her pillow smelled like lavender.
“He told me to stay away.”
“Reverse psychology, then?”
She smiles, “Something like that.”
Fugo’s look sinks into solemn, and Trish notices.
“Don’t do that.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be ok.”
Pressure has built between his eyes and behind them as he says, “You don’t know that. No one can guarantee anything. Not a single damn thing except that at this rate—!”
“Hey.” Trish squeezes his shoulder.
Fugo glares at the piano keys, at his lap, clenches his fists but she watches him count, watches it leave in a harsh sigh. “Sorry. I just. I’d rather know what it is so I could at least do something about it instead of just watch like a helpless idiot.”
Trish’s heart sinks low. Buries in the ground and she stares at it. “I wish I could help too.”
It’s quiet for too long. She thinks she can hear Fugo’s brain whirling, weighing calling her bluff or just flat out calling her a liar, until he settles on a soft and simple, “What the hell is happening to him, Trish?”
When he looks at her with that hope, that want, it’s a chisel poised against her marble face. The smallest knock and she might crack and tell him everything. But with how things are going, how Giorno is progressing—she can’t afford even a hairline fracture.
“I don’t know. I wish I knew.”
It sits sour on Fugo’s ears. She knows. She sees. But at least he knows prodding won’t do any good and so sighs, resigning to flipping open the color-coded binder of music sheets. Paper crackles as he places a couple on the music desk and starts playing softly. It’s a delicate thing, but something new Fugo has recently mastered, so he plays it in a relaxing and lighter tone than maybe it was meant for.
“How is being his consigliere going for you then?” No hint of anger or jealousy, just a bland tone that Trish has come to recognize as his way of moving forward, of showing kindness.
So she obliges, “You mean besides when he withholds important information you need for negotiations?”
“Like who he gifted the Salerno Casino to last Wednesday?”
“Oh hell, you heard that phone call?” She feigned ignorance, playing into it so he could properly give her the gift.
“I was in the armchair by the door, remember? You looked up with the fear of God in your eyes, thinking Marcelo was trying to undermine us, and Giorno just met the look and nodded that oh yeah, he actually did recall gifting him the Casino.”
“Like— he could’ve at least told me sooner so we didn’t look like an actual joke over the phone!” Trish whines. “I swear that guy spikes my blood pressure for fun.”
“I know the feeling.” Fugo gives an amused huff. “I apologize, my question wasn’t what I really meant to ask though.”
Trish parks her gaze on him, an impish glint there. “You were asking how we are?”
“It’s a fair question for a friend to ask.”
“But that would mean, you’re asking how we are not as boss and consigliere?”
“...Yes.”
“You can’t even say the word, can you?”
“It’s a juvenile title. I don’t have to use it if I don’t want to. And you can’t make me.”
“It’s juvenile on who? Me? His girlfriend?”
He flinches on a key, repeats the chord and it earns a stifled giggle from her.
“You know he can have a girlfriend.” She offers, “It doesn’t make him any less of a god to you.”
Fugo stutters over two keys and stills, sighs, “He’s not a god, he’s just, not someone who would have a—” he gestures helplessly in the air at her.
“Ohhhh, so it’s me that makes it juvenile?”
“What? No—”
“So if it was some fancy lady from the north or something you would just call her ‘his mistress’ and there’d be no problems?”
“No, Trish— You’re twisting my words— It’s fine that he likes you!”
“Fine?” She snorts over a grin.
“Yes! It’s just not what I would call you or him! Like I wouldn’t call you my ‘girlfriend’ just as much as I wouldn’t call him my ‘boyfriend!’”
“You wouldn't call me your boyfriend?”
Giorno’s in the doorway, and Fugo’s face pales to arctic white. “I-I-I—”
Trish snorts and then it’s a hearty laugh, Giorno breaking to smile and chuckle behind his hand. Fugo resigns to holding his head in his hands, once again weighing the thought of ditching this unbearable couple and buying his own apartment and piano hidden in Mt Vesuvius somewhere so he can just play in peace.
Beside Fugo, Trish enjoys seeing Giorno’s smile. Knowing by how it sits afterwards that he’s savoring the taste as though it all won’t last much longer.
So, they’re close now to the end then. And she’s the net for when he finally falls off the edge.
He can’t afford to stay up on the tightrope if the net leaves him. Not when the audience is Mista and Fugo, Polnareff.
It’s going to be all-hands-on-deck this weekend. The Principe di Savoia the chosen hotel and the rooftop lunch the perfect opportunity for her to open the gates to Croatia, capture Ugo’s evil ass, and start an actual recovery for Giorno and his smile.
The nag in the back of her head sings alongside hers, also all too excited for the weekend plans.