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1. a kiss on the lips
The first time it happened was also the first job Mista ever went on paired with only Fugo. They hadn’t hung out much in their free time by then, so Mista didn’t have a very good read on his teammate yet. All Mista really knew was that Fugo was scarily smart, sharper than the pristine tailoring on his weirdly slutty little hole-filled suits and with a sharp tongue to match.
Mista paced back and forth in the dingy living room of their mark, lamenting once again that the asshole didn’t own a TV or even a goddamn radio so he could put on something to help pass the time. It wasn’t surprising since the apartment’s owner was a man who had just run out of chances paying back money he’d borrowed from Passione lenders so their capo now wanted the interest paid in blood. From the looks of his place he’d already pawned or hidden all of his valuables. Buccellati wasn’t even certain the man would come back here after Abbacchio used Moody Blues to flush him out of hiding.
All of Mista’s waiting could be for nothing! He groaned as he turned away from the doorway into the kitchenette and back into the living area again.
This time Fugo looked up from the trashy mystery novel he’d picked up off a side table. “Stop that. You’re not going to make time pass any faster.”
“What else is there to do? This fuckin’ sucks!” Mista stopped in the middle of the room and threw his arms up in defeat. “We don’t even know if our guy’s gonna show. It’s a nice night. I could be out at the movies. Fugo, think about it. We could be out picking up girls right now, but you’re sitting on an old-ass sofa reading a shitty paperback instead.”
“I already figured out who the killer is after the first chapter,” Fugo admitted, frowning down at the book in his hands as he flipped from his spot in the middle to the end to check if he was right. He nodded when he found the right spot and shifted his frown to Mista, expression a touch quizzical. “I don’t see how picking up girls would be any better than this though.”
“Are you serious?!” Mista’s eyebrows shot up so fast they nearly escaped under his hat. “Are you telling me you’ve never been on a date before? You’ve never made out in a dark theater?”
“No?” The furrow between Fugo’s brows deepened as he frowned harder.
Mista rushed over to his side and plopped down on the couch next to him. “Is it because you’re shy? I can help you. I’m a fucking awesome wingman!”
“Why would I want to make out with some girl?” Fugo put the book back down on the side table he’d gotten it from and turned back to face his teammate. “I don’t see what’s so great about kissing anyway.”
“Fugo, you can’t mean that! You’re breaking my heart here.” Was there really not an ounce of romance in the boy before Mista? How could that be possible? They were Italian; it was in their very blood! “Fuck, I wish I could just show you.”
Fugo considered this, considered Mista for a few long moments. A sweet pink flush spread across his fair cheeks before he looked away muttering, “I don’t see why you can’t show me now.”
Oh.
So it was like that.
Mista watched Fugo’s profile for a moment as he digested his new information. He wasn’t a stranger to fucking around with other guys of course. It was just something to be careful about since asking the wrong guy could result in a black eye or worse. Fugo had never given Mista the vibe he’d be safe to flirt with but then again he didn’t not give that kind of energy either. So far Fugo seemed mostly like a locked safe Mista had no idea how to get inside.
But fuck it, if Fugo was down then Mista was down too. He scooted closer, reaching to gently cup Fugo’s face in his hand and coax it to turn back towards him. When Fugo obliged the move, Mista could see that his pupils were blown so wide his red irises were barely visible for a moment before they fluttered closed as Mista slowly leaned in to close the gap.
At first Fugo kept his lips a little too rigid, but Mista was patient. He slowly kissed Fugo, working on his top lip and his bottom one before Fugo relaxed enough to start mirroring his movements. As their lips moved together the magic really started. It was like a dance, made more heady by the scent of the tasteful amount of cologne Fugo had dabbed on his collarbones, by Fugo’s gentle sighs, and the soft feel of his wavy hair as Mista let his hand slide up the back of Fugo’s neck to cradle his head. A slight angle change and Fugo let his mouth fall open with a gasp so Mista could deepen the kiss, let taste join the list of his senses all tied up in Fugo.
A door opened in the kitchen, and Mista automatically reached into his boot for his revolver. He had his gun aimed before the man who owned the place walked into the living room, almost before he pulled away from kissing Fugo.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?!” The man shouted as he noticed the two teenagers sitting on his couch before letting out a pained cry as he fell clutching his right leg. “You shot me!”
“Good job. I think you nicked his femoral artery,” Fugo’s voice was all business again as he stood over the man writing in pain on the ground before them, but his lips were so pink and kiss-swollen that Mista couldn’t look at him. “Help me get him into the shower. We can take our proof and dissolve the rest of the body there.”
“Body?” Their victim whined. “I’m not fuckin’ dead yet! Call an ambulance. Help! Help! I’m being murdered in here!”
Mista kicked him in the side of the head to daze him so he’d stop yelling before kneeling down to smirk in his face. “Don’t worry. You will be soon. We’re just gonna let you bleed out a little first, okay?”
---
2. a kiss on the cheek
If you had asked Mista when he got arrested if he thought everything would work out in the end, he probably wouldn’t have given a very hopeful answer. Now, stretched out people watching at table outside a trendy little cafe, Msita realized that it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Gang life suited him like nothing else ever had. There was no set schedule, and he got paid for roughing up whatever assholes ended up on Buccellati’s bad list. Easy shit! It left plenty of time to hang out around the city he loved with guys who had proven over the last several months to be excellent company.
Mista couldn’t ask for better than that.
“Ahh! That was great!” Narancia stood up, pushing his chair back as he brushed pastry crumbs off of his shirt “I’ve gotta go. See you later!”
“See ya, man,” Mista reached up to give the hand Narancia used to squeeze his shoulder a friendly tap. He smiled as he watched his friend head towards the street before he realized something: they hadn’t paid yet. “Hey, wait a minute! Get back here, Ghirga. I’m not fucking treating you again!”
This just made Narancia hustle away faster, grinning over his shoulder as he shouted back, “Sorry I don’t have any cash. I’ll pay you back!”
“No, you won’t! You never pay me back!” That little liar! If Mista didn’t like Narancia so much he would just shoot him in the ankle or something. It would be so easy to stop him from running away.
“It’s not like you ever pay him back for anything either,” Fugo cut in before Mista could stand and give chase. “But don’t worry about it. I’ve got his share.”
“Oh?” Mista settled back down now that he was off the hook for Narancia’s ridiculously big pastry order and picked up his coffee cup. He let a sly smirk play across his lips as he swept his legs back under the table, gently nudging Fugo’s ankle with the toe of his boot.
This was great too of course.
Fugo had approached Mista after they’d wrapped up the job when they shared their first kiss to say he was interested in more. They developed a whole secret language of touches and looks to let each other know they were in the mood to fool around: a hand on a waist for a little unnecessary steadying as one shuffled around the other, a soft glance cast over a shoulder, a brush of fingers as they walked side by side. None of it meant anything to anyone else watching, but they both knew.
Fugo looked down for a moment, slight flush betraying his feelings before met Mista’s eyes with a matching playful grin. “I’m the one who sorts our finances on Buccellati’s behalf. I’ll just pay myself back from his share of his next job. That’ll teach him not to spend all his pay on CDs.”
Mista threw back his head and laughed.
“Anyway,” Fugo continued with a suspicious casualness, “I know you don’t have any work today. Any plans?”
This was the closest Fugo had ever gotten to outright propositioning him in public. He matched the tone by finishing off his cup before he answered, “Not really. You got something for me?”
“Maybe.” Fugo let his foot slowly slide up Mista’s leg to the calf before abruptly pulling away to cross his legs. “Maybe not. I have some paperwork to do, but after that I’m free for the whole evening. We could hang out.”
“Sounds good to me.” Mista stood and stretched before taking a few bills out of his pocket and placing them on the table. He watched his friend with benefits fidget with a napkin for a moment before walking around to Fugo’s side of the table and lean in like he was about to share a secret, dropping his voice appropriately low to say, “Come to my place when you’re done. I’ve got whatever you need, baby.”
Just to really seal the deal, Mista planted a furtive little kiss on Fugo’s cheek. He watched in amusement as Fugo’s whole face went as bright red as his suit.
“Get out of here.” Fugo flapped a dismissive hand at him to shoo him away, refusing to meet his eyes. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Yes!
Despite the excitement bubbling inside him, Mista just nodded and stuffed his hands in his pocket, whistling to himself as he wandered away. It was a date! Or as close to one as they allowed themselves anyway. Mista wondered if there would ever come a day where they’d decide to be exclusive with each other or if they’d develop feelings they’d want to clue the rest of the team in on. As it stood, right now he was happy to follow whatever pace Fugo was comfortable with, trading lazy kisses and occasionally reveling in the feel of Fugo’s soft hands exploring under his sweater when things got a little hot and heavy.
Mista really had the best life. Whatever God was out there pulling the strings really smiled down on him.
---
3. blowing a kiss
Abbacchio helped up a spluttering Narancia out of the canal, and Mista looked up, half expecting Fugo to be following right after him. He wasn’t there. The water remained undisturbed by anything but their boat gliding away from the Boss and life as they knew it. Fugo stood watching them as a solitary figure on the shore.
This might be the last time Mista ever saw Fugo. The realization hit like a bullet to the heart, sudden and piercing. He might not ever get to tease Fugo again, say stupid shit on purpose to make him laugh despite himself, kiss him breathless, and trace the shape of his sharp jawline as the sunset washed them both with color. This pillar in his life, an ever-present ally he’d come to depend on, would just be gone soon, maybe forever. Mista had to say goodbye somehow.
As the others were talking quietly among themselves and settling back into the turtle, Mista leaned towards the shore and blew a kiss to the boy who could have become his lover if the circumstances had been right.
Slowly, jerkily like a puppet on a string, Fugo raised a hand to catch the kiss and bring it to his lips where it belonged. Their bittersweet fate was sealed.
It was all over before it ever started.
---
x. a kiss on the forehead
After the fifth time Mista checked his watch, Giorno went silent.
“Sorry, what?” Mista rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. Whatever question he was supposed to answer he totally didn’t hear at all. It was just that there was something important on his mind.
“Go to him,” Giorno said simply, folding his elegant hands in front of him on top of his new fancy desk.
“What? I mean, who are you talking about?” Mista laughed nervously. Was he really that easy to read?
Giorno just gave him a look, a real Buccellati-coded look that made Mista’s heart ache, before his face split into an absolutely beatific smile. “We don’t need to sift through these accounts tonight. Go to Fugo. I’ll heal him soon, and then he can help us finish this.”
“Say less!” Mista hopped up out of his seat and started for the door, pausing just before he crossed the threshold to Giorno’s office because wait, what? How did Giorno know? “Hey, so not to make you repeat yourself or anything but why?”
“Mista…” Giorno chuckled as he got up to stride over to Mista’s side. He placed one warm hand on Mista’s shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. “Fugo passed his test. He needed to learn to trust himself and finally deal with the tangled web of his own suppressed emotions, but there was a test for you in all of this. You needed to know that you could still trust him, right? You needed the risk of losing him too to remember how much you love him. I wish he hadn’t destroyed his own esophagus to learn how to use his Stand, but everything was pretty neatly tied up in the end.”
“That’s Fugo for you. He’s always been an overachiever.” Mista laughed a little too before he thanked Giorno and left.
Giorno’s words replayed in his head as he moved faster and faster until he was outright sprinting for his car.
You needed the risk of losing him too to remember how much you love him. Fuck, Giorno was right. Giorno was always right. Mista loved Fugo. He loved that shithead who was smart enough to come up with a complex cipher to write his personal journals in just for fun but too emotionally stupid to realize that their final stand against the Boss hadn’t just been about some girl but about creating the kind of life, the kind of world they could all live in proudly.
Mista drove like a demon all the way to the hospital, laying on the horn nearly the whole way to make people get the fuck out of his way. Once he got there he threatened and sweet-talked the staff in turns to make them give up Fugo’s room number. (No fours in it luckily or he would have demanded they move him immediately.) He was almost there. One foot in front of the other and he was standing alone beside Fugo’s hospital bed as his heart beat wildly in his own chest.
Fugo looked so small and so much paler than normal hooked up to all the tubes and wires that were keeping him stable and fed. Mista trusted that Giorno knew what he was doing but couldn’t imagine that Fugo would be able to get up to meet his new boss in a restaurant even if the plan was to heal his injuries there.
You needed the risk of losing him too to remember how much you love him.
Mista really could have lost him. How had he been so ready to give Fugo up without a fight just because he took Buccellati’s offer to save himself?
“I –” Mista choked on his confession, his eyes filling with tears as he bent over Fugo. “I’m so sorry I was so fucking cold to you the first time I saw you again. You could have died in Syracuse. Purple Haze’s virus could have turned you to dust and I…” With the others there had at least been a body to bury, to weep over to seek some closure. With Fugo there would have been nothing.
Mista had almost been to proud to accept Fugo back. Too fucking stupid. Hell, he’d been lucky Fugo had stayed behind. There was no way that Fugo would have survived through the final battle when none of the others did. Fugo wasn’t lucky like Mista; he didn’t know how to go with the flow of the universe, how to follow the luck and avoid bad omens that warned of danger. If Mista had lost Fugo that would have made four of the original team dead. He was sure that something substantial within him would have died too. There was a pool of grief settled somewhere in his belly, of course, but it wasn’t too late for Fugo. Mista still had time to cherish and love him like he deserved, like they both deserved.
“Mmrgh?” Fugo let out a pained, confused grunt when one of Mista’s teardrops pattered onto his forehead.
“Sorry,” Mista pushed back Fugo’s limp bangs to kiss the spot. “It’s just me, Pannacotta. Go back to sleep.”
“M-mis–” Fugo tried to say Mista’s name but his voice came out as a hoarse croak.
“Shh, baby, it’s okay,” Mista kissed Fugo’s forehead again because he liked the cute way Fugo wrinkled his nose in confusion and looked up at him almost cross-eyed. “We’ll talk when you’re all better, I promise.”
---
5. a kiss on the hand
Mista was really tired of waiting for his boyfriend to quit fucking typing already. It was great whenever Fugo handed him personally annotated folders of intel and neatly organized itineraries with travel tickets and accommodations included every time he had to go out of town on a job for Giorno, but sometimes Mista didn’t want to track Fugo down and physically drag him home at night. Today was Fugo’s birthday for fuck’s sake! He shouldn’t have been working at all!
“Pannacotta,” Mista paused to perch on the edge of Fugo’s desk in a way he hoped was sexy and tempting. He smirked as Fugo glanced up at him and then down at the long line of his legs in his tight pants. Mission fucking accomplished! He snatched Fugo’s hand and pressed his lips against the palm while Fugo was distracted. “Baby, are you almost done? I got reservations at that French place you like.”
“Oh?” Fugo turned his chair towards Mista with a smile. “What’s the occasion?”
“What’s the occasion?” Mista asked incredulously. When Fugo’s politely curious expression didn’t change, he realized his lover really wasn’t fucking with him. “No. Don’t tell me it’s true. You didn’t forget your own birthday. I thought Murolo was fucking with me.”
“That’s why he filled my apartment with balloons while I was sleeping!” Fugo gently took his hand out of Mista’s grip so he could smack it against his forehead in realization. He stood abruptly and started to pace beside his desk. “Sheila E gave me a weird look when she brought me lunch. And GioGio! He gave me these flowers! I’m so fucking oblivious!”
Mista couldn’t help but smile as Fugo gestured at the beautiful flower arrangement currently occupying the small table in the little corner Fugo set aside in his office for Mista to hang out in when Fugo honestly couldn’t be distracted. He’d had to move the stack of books and magazines Mista usually kept there to the comfy chair by the window to make room for the ornate vase.
“Okay but now you know, so let’s get going. I don’t want to break my five year streak celebrating your special day.” Mista got up off of the desk as well and took Fugo’s hand again so he could drag him to the door.
When Fugo didn’t budge, Mista looked back to see a weird expression on his face. It was a sort of sad little smile, very bittersweet. It made Mista halt in his tracks. There was no way Fugo wanted to work that badly.
“I appreciate that you always treat me on my birthday, but you know you don’t have to, right?” Fugo asked. When Mista frowned in confusion and opened his mouth to argue that actually it was a joy and a privilege, Fugo continued talking over him. “No, really! It’s okay! I’m glad you accepted me back into your life, Mista. I, um, I’m sure you know I’m in love with you. I haven’t really tried to hide it. I’m happy you’ve humored me all these years and haven’t held it against me. I just, uh, I mean, you know you don’t have to spend so much time with me if there’s someone else you’d rather be with. You don’t have to waste so much effort on me. I’d still sleep with you if you asked. You’re so handsome, Mista. You have to have a girlfriend or something who misses you. You–”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Mista’s voice came out more shrill than he’d intended out of shock. He cleared his throat to give himself a moment to calm down before he stepped closer to Fugo. “Panna, you’re my girlfriend, er, I mean my boyfriend. Now you’ve got me saying some nonsense too.”
“What?!” Fugo’s eyes went wide.
“Why are you so surprised?” Now Mista was starting to get a little hysterical. This couldn’t really be happening could it? “We had a party for our fifth anniversary last year!”
“That was our anniversary?” Fugo stared at Mista for a long moment before asking. “Is that why you were so weird and protective the year before?”
“It was our fourth year together! That’s bad luck. You can’t be too careful about shit like that, but we got through it okay even though you broke your leg in Milan.” Mista shivered just thinking about how relatively easy they’d made it through that year despite the bad omen hanging over their heads. He toyed with Fugo’s long fingers for a moment before he realized something else that didn’t make any sense. “What did you think I meant all those times I’ve told you I love you? Why did you think I kept asking if you were ready to move in together yet?”
This time Fugo flushed bright red and refused to meet Mista’s piercing gaze. “I, I thought you meant it as a friend! I didn’t know you meant you were in love with me! I thought you wanted to move in for practicality since we spend so much time together anyway. I thought you were trying to be efficient since I live closer to Giorno’s villa.”
“Pannacotta,” Mista brought Fugo’s hand to his mouth so he could kiss the palm, trail delicate kisses up to his fingertips to try to press his sincerity into his lover’s skin. “There is no were. I am in love with you. There’s no one else I wanna be with.”
Fugo shook off Mista’s grip again, but before Mista could be disappointed he threw himself forward to wrap his arms around Mista’s neck and capture his lips in a desperate, passionate kiss. Surprised at first, Mista quickly got with the program and kissed back, letting his own arms wind around Fugo’s trim waist. When they broke apart for air, Fugo laughed and slumped down a little to press his forehead against Mista’s neck like he was too tired from their whiplash of emotions to keep himself upright anymore.
“Guido,” Fugo whispered against his skin, pressing a kiss to Mista’s jaw before he drew back enough to rest his head on Mista’s shoulder and look up at him through his fan of white eyelashes. “Take me to dinner? I want my boyfriend to take me home and make love to me.”
Mista grinned down at him. “Anything for your birthday, baby.”
They left the room hand in hand. In the end they were almost late for their reservation because they kept pausing to catch each other’s lips in sweet kisses that left them laughing in each other’s arms as they chastised each other for wasting so much time. They were as giddy as teenagers. Every kiss was just a good as the first they’d ever shared, even better now that they were both on the same page.
Even after so many years together it felt like the beginning all over again, and Mista couldn’t be mad about it. If he had to spend the rest of his life convincing Fugo how deep his love ran he would gladly do it a hundred times over.