Work Text:
“Is it weird,” asks Giorno, “if I sometimes feel like quitting?”
Mista looks up from polishing his revolver, oily cloth in his grip, hands stilled over the barrel. “I don’t think so,” he answers, playing it as safe as he can. “It’s natural to feel tired.”
Seated across him behind a wide mahogany desk he still doesn’t look quite at home at, Giorno ponders Mista’s words with his chin tucked in his hands.
Mista waits for his Boss to speak up, but he puts the gun away.
Giorno sighs.
“I’ve wanted this for a long time,” he says. “But now that I have it, it doesn’t quite feel the same.”
In Mista’s mind, he immediately likens this to that craving for pizza he gets sometimes at unholy hours of the morning. When the craving strikes, he usually rolls around on his bed for several minutes, lusting after hot pineapples and pepperoni layered generously on crust dripping with cheese before finally caving in, dragging his ass off the mattress, and fumbling around in the dark for his phone and the quick-dial he has saved to the nearest 24-hour pizza place in the city.
The wait for it to get here is always the worst. Mista tends to pace anxiously in the front hall without rest, telling the guards to let in anyone who’s here on pizza delivery, the image of the pizza in his mind growing more golden-brown by the second.
This goes on until the deliveryman finally arrives at the mansion and Mista has to deal with that same dumb awestruck look everyone has while standing on the front doorstep. But he shoves the money at the man, takes his pizza, and shuts the door with practiced speed.
In the end, the pizza smells great and tastes like a juicy slice of heaven - sometimes he shares it with Sex Pistols, if they’re awake. But after making his way through one, Mista finds that the grandeur of its golden sparkle has worn down, the aroma dissipated, his craving satisfied.
And it no longer feels the same.
Mista relays the analogy to Giorno, whom he’s glad to see crack an amused smile at the comparison.
“Like they say, the thrill’s in the chase,” he finishes.
Giorno chuckles softly. “Do all dreams grow old like this?”
“You mean like pizza?”
“I mean in general, Mista.”
“Oh, that.” The sharpshooter pauses, scratching the underside of his chin in thought. It’s not like he’s not had those moments where all he wanted to do was to lie on the rooftop of some building and sunbathe, instead of actually doing any people-killing.
“In a sense, yeah, I think so,” he decides at last. Despite slacking on the job, it’s still what Mista’s used to doing. It’s his life.
Giorno, at his desk, looks utterly impassive. The sunlight streaming through the window behind him sets his curled hair ablaze with golden fire. There’s something Mista finds fascinating about Giorno’s boyishly good looks - it’s not just the set of his jaw or the sharp trim of his suit, but something else in the way his blue eyes seem to gaze unwaveringly ahead at a future that only he can see.
Giorno, the golden boy who brings change and breathes life.
“But you have the right to rest,” Mista continues, “even Buccellati had his moments.”
“Probably rested in secret when no one was looking, knowing him.”
“Aren’t you the same?”
“Not yet.” Giorno seems to have given this some serious thought. “Everyone loved and respected him, that’s what makes him such a great leader. Most just fear me.”
“That’s because you’re young, top brass, and ridiculously strong, isn’t it? Or is it the flowers?”
“Mista.”
The sharpshooter laughs. “They’ll get used to it. And you have to admit, the flowers are a really nice touch.”
Giorno all but rolls his eyes. Mista shoots him one of his ‘oh come on’ looks, serves him right.
“For the record, I’m not scared of you.”
“Really?” His young boss’ expression is the perfect picture of angelic innocence. “What about that time when -”
“No, I don’t remember that time,” interrupts Mista.
“You were screaming so loudly.” Giorno’s lips pull up slightly in a mixture of nostalgia and amusement. “‘God, not there’, ‘please be gentle’, ‘aah, no’.”
Either Giorno’s just dense or he’s truly a devil in disguise, Mista isn’t sure which of the two it is anymore.
“I was scared of the pain,” he clarifies, in his last attempt to protect his men’s pride.
But Giorno just looks at him and Mista feels something inside him wither away. Goddamn it, Giorno. He sighs, defeated, and throws his gaze to the ceiling, not wanting to risk more eye contact with the boy.
“Anyway. What’s the point of worrying? Just because you’re some hotshot gangster - I mean, gangstar now, doesn’t immediately make everything else all nice and okay, right?
“You’ve still got a long way to go, don’t you?”
Mista knows for sure that there’s a ring of truth in his words. If everything were peaceful the minute Giorno succeeded Diavolo, then the both of them wouldn’t need to be as busy as they currently are. There’s always going to be trouble, new problems, and Giorno’s the one who has to fix it all. His dream, if anything, is only just beginning.
“Your dream hasn’t ended yet, idiot,” chides Mista. “And I’ll be by your side all the way.”
For a split second, he swears Giorno actually looks touched, and feels a little creeped out by that. But that expression is fleeting, gone with the ticking of the old grandfather clock’s second hand, and Mista lets the moment pass. It still takes some time for Giorno to dust off his silence.
“Mista,” he starts, but Mista is one step ahead this time.
He raises a hand, returning the silence back to Giorno.
“I just don’t have anything better to do with my talent,” he says. Can’t go down saying mushy shit without a fight, he thinks. Men’s pride.
He still hopes that Giorno somehow gets the message. True feelings are hard to convey, and while Mista makes it a point to be overbearingly honest, Giorno also possesses the extraordinary ability to get the words stuck in his throat.
He almost heaves a sigh of relief when Giorno smiles. It’s a good expression that suits him.
“Alright then,” says the blond, “if you’re so free, I have some work for you.”
Mista gawks. “Get out, give me a break!”
“I need a man of your talents, don’t I?”
Mista clears his throat awkwardly. He’s certain that Giorno is leering at him by this point.
“Obviously you do,” he says at last. Taking the bait.
Giorno nods and gets to his feet. “Then that’s enough moping from me.”
He extends a hand in Mista’s direction.
“Come on, Mista,” Giorno says. The hints of a smile dance across his pale lips. “I’ve got a dream to expand on.”
That took you long enough.
Following his boss’ lead, Mista stands as well, and laughs.
“That’s more like it.”