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The first time Giorno kisses Mista is at the funeral.
It's the last funeral — Bruno's. Except everyone calls him Buccellati, and in such grave tones. Not because he's dead (or not just because he's dead), but because his sacrifice is so worthy of respect. This is Giorno's first public appearance — admittedly not terribly public, but this is where he must start, he knows, small and solemn, a memorial for the capo di tutti capi's most prized, his bravest lieutenant.
Let the rumors start, Polnareff had told him as he sat numb, knees folded under him in the windowseat of the palazzo, shoulders slumped, as if in prayer even though his hands were clutched tight to a pillow in his lap rather than pressed together and pointed to God. Let the rumors start, that the boss has come out of hiding after so long, just to pay his respects.
It's sensible. Giorno would know this even without Polnareff's advice, invaluable as it is — Polnareff who is a veteran of grief and guilt, an expert now at surviving, technically dead as he is. It seems as though Giorno is always surrounded by those who are technically dead, until the wheel of time turns and technicalities become realities.
He is sure that Polnareff will leave him.
There are so many people here. So many. There were no people at Narancia's funeral, or Abbacchio's, except for the four of them: him, Mista, Trish, Polnareff, a solemn line of three with the nonsensical afterthought of a turtle tucked under Trish's right arm as her left hand grips so tight onto Giorno's that it hurts. Some grip you've got, he thinks of murmuring to her, but he doesn't, because if he opened his mouth to speak, all that'd come out would be a hoarse rattle. They are drowning in a sea of strangers who loved Bruno, who loved Buccellati, and never knew who he was, or else knew him better than the four of them ever did.
"Four is the unluckiest number there is," Mista says later, as he's taking his gun apart, cleaning it, putting it back together, starting over again. Giorno is the only one now who recognizes it as a nervous tic; Trish hasn't known him for long enough, and Polnareff certainly hasn't. Mista's equipment is always in perfect condition, because he is a professional, because if he takes one thing seriously in the world it's protecting the people who are not able to protect themselves. That and the belief in luck, good and bad, in the unerring hand of God guiding him as long as he knows to watch his step, hop over cracks in the sidewalk, avoid the number four.
Usually Giorno would chide him for that. He always has before. It's seemed so stupid, so ridiculous; he's never believed in luck or in God, because if he did then there would be no point in striving. If he doesn't push himself every day, he'll simply cease to function. But the drive home had passed in silence, a protracted gasp before a shuddering sob; he'd lost track of time, thinking about Narancia at rest in his hometown and Abbacchio's funeral, which the man himself surely would never have wanted.
"Do you want to know something funny?"
His voice sounds strange even to his own ears, numb and distant like it's being heard through a tunnel. He's looking at his hands, curled up in the windowseat again; out of one side of his vision he can see the ocean through the window, past the garden. On the other side, in his periphery, he sees Mista straighten up.
Surely no one can know him so well so quickly. Not even Mista, who is practically magical. No one's ever known him that well, so of course it's impossible. But Mista slides the last piece into place and sets his gun carefully down on the table, leans back in his chair like he's just had a full meal and is finally satisfied, ready to turn all of his attention to Giorno. As if it isn't always anyhow.
"Shoot," he says, which makes Giorno smile, kind of, crookedly.
"I was born in April," he says, letting his head fall back against the wall with a light thump. It hurts just a little, in a way that feels reassuring. "My birthday is just a few days from now. April sixteenth. Four, then four times four. That's as unlucky a day as there is, really. Isn't that funny?"
Mista doesn't move. He's still, not like a mountain but like a creature so old and vast and wise that it takes eons between breaths, so many years that each inhale and exhale is incomprehensible to human beings. And then he's up and moving, rapid and fluid, not like a predator towards prey but a predator towards a peer, gently curious in recognizing its kin. And then his dirty fingers are cupping Giorno's chin and tipping it up so that their eyes meet, not like anything at all (in any world at any time) but Guido Mista. Only him.
Giorno can feel his heart flutter as he breathes out, as Mista breathes him in.
"Nah," Mista says, all casual, like nothing's happening. "You're good luck, boss. You've always been good luck. You maybe just look at things differently than other people do. But that's what makes you — you know."
And then he hesitates. Will it be good or bad, Giorno wonders, when it comes out? But Mista grins a little crookedly, suddenly overcome by self-consciousness, like his own awareness has caught up to him.
"Amazing," Mista finishes, confidently. And Giorno watches his mouth move. It's late in the day now. When did it get to be nearly evening? Time isn't passing like it ought to.
"You need to shave," he says softly, an embarrassing non-sequitur, but it's less of a rebuke than it might be. His fingers drift up to brush against the stubble along Mista's jaw. It's fascinating.
Mista coughs. "Yeah, I, uh." He lets go of Giorno's chin, which feels like the end of the world, and runs his fingers through his hair. He's taken his tie off, but the hat's still off, too. It's jarring. He doesn't look like himself, or maybe he looks like even more of himself. "I didn't sleep last night. Didn't wanna shave too close, my hands weren't . . . all that steady."
Which makes sense. Of course it does. Mista's suffering as much as he is. More, maybe. Or maybe they shouldn't compare and contrast suffering at all. Maybe they should just be content to be sad together, rather than alone.
"It's all right," he finds himself saying, dreamy and distant. "I like it."
And Mista's eyes widen as he curls his fingers around the back of his neck and pull him close, as their lips slide together like it's the easiest, the most natural, the most perfect thing in the world. He kisses Mista in clusters of three, one and two and three and a pause for breath, and after a while one of them starts crying — he doesn't know which one — and then that stops. One of them laughs, soft and breathless and a little hysterical — he doesn't know who did that, either. Mista's hands are in his hair, which was taken down at some point, and his chest is tight, lashes damp, breath caught behind his teeth as he memorizes the sensation of lips and tongue and teeth and belonging somewhere, finally.
"It's all right," he insists, tucking his head under Mista's jaw, clinging to the front of his shirt as arms wrap tight around his shoulders, as both of them shake with rage and exhaustion. It's a lie, but it's also not. It isn't all right — nothing is all right today. But someday, Giorno thinks with hazy determination, turning his face up like a flower to the sun for another kiss, it will be.
♛
The first time Giorno kisses Trish is at the beach.
He works too hard, she says, and Mista agrees. Mista agrees with almost everything Trish says, except when he's teasing her, and usually she can get him to agree with her even then if she bullies him enough. Giorno loves her for everything she is, but all the same he wishes she would just bully Mista and leave him alone. He has so much to do and so little time to do it in. So much pain and destruction to make up for.
She insists that they go for a walk every Sunday, in the morning. "You need to see the sun," she tells him, and he makes a joke about how he doesn't need to see the sun when he is the sun, and she slaps his shoulder and gives him a look that lets him know she knows she's won.
It's not a bad thing, really. It's a nice, quiet time; they take a basket and a blanket and set it out on the part of the beach that belongs to Passione, to them, sit in the sun and drink strong coffee from thermoses and munch on cornettos for breakfast.
It wouldn't be bad at all if he wasn't losing time. He can't stand to lose time anymore. Time is so important, and it always rushes past him far too quickly. How many people are dying, neglected and hopeless, while he sits on the beach and drinks strong coffee and eats a cornetto, looking at a pretty girl with flinty eyes and the sun warming her hair?
One Saturday evening he sees Mista and Trish talking after dinner, when Mista's usually off doing his normal rounds at the bars. It takes a lot to keep him from his weekend work kicking pushy guys' asses, which is why Giorno notices, but he's too foggy and tired to pay too much attention to what they're saying. They're probably flirting. It's cute when they do that; he likes it, when Mista gets confused and overwhelmed, unsure how to respond, and Trish laughs in triumph and shoots Giorno a grin.
Except the next morning Trish brings a little umbrella to the beach, the kind you can stick in the sand and leave. When they get to their breakfast spot, she sets it up behind the blanket and hands him his cornetto and coffee, takes out her own. They chat, just like usual. And then she curls up cross-legged and pats her lap.
"Put your head down, let me mess with your hair," she tells him, in that tone that he knows means there's no point arguing. He doesn't really want to anyway; she's gentle but firm when she plays with his hair, fingercombing it out of its confines with a briskness that's impossible to place as comforting or just plain delightful. It might be both. So he curls up and puts his head in her lap and closes his eyes as she pulls out pins and elastic, as she works tangles free and her nails scratch a light but insistent tattoo on his scalp: relax, relax.
When he opens his eyes again, the sun has changed positions, and Trish has a book resting on his shoulder. No, a magazine, he realizes as he shifts slightly — the spring edition of Vogue, he can tell by the cover.
"Trish?" he mumbles, only it comes out more as trsh, which isn't a name at all. He struggles to sit up, only to have her push his sleep-addled form back down by the shoulders. Her nails are so nice, he notes, distracted by the sun and the surf and the smell of her perfume. Pink and a little sharp. "You let me sleep . . ."
She smirks at nothing much and turns a page in her magazine. Then, with precision, she pronounces a single word.
"Decaf."
Giorno keens and buries his face against her knee.
"You needed it, you know," she adds sharply, in that other Trish tone that means sit up and take notice. "You work yourself too hard. When's the last time you slept a whole eight hours? Or six, or four? Go on, tell me."
His face is hidden in her skirt, but he can feel his ears going red. How does she know—
"Don't ask how I know." Now she just sounds tired. He feels like the worst person in the world. "We pay attention, Giorno. Don't you know that? We worry about you. You're so careless with yourself, you make us worry about you all the damn time."
This gives him pause. After a moment, very tentatively, he pokes his head up and over the edge of her knee. She rolls her eyes and wipes a smudge of mascara off his cheek with her thumb.
"Why?" he asks, and she freezes. Just for a second. Maybe two. Her expression crumbles, not tired but crushed, like her heart's squeezed in a vice.
Then she shoves him, rolls him off the blanket and into the sand, and flicks him on the nose.
"You're such a stupid boy," she snarls, which is the worst insult in Trish Una's repertoire. It doesn't sound as vicious as it might, though, Giorno thinks as he goes over it in his mind, trying to figure out why the tone and the words don't match up. He looks over her expression from where she's hidden in the shade of the umbrella still, the brightness of her hair startling in contrast to her sunglasses, until she pushes them up and rests them on top of her head. Which complicates things.
This is all quite complicated.
"Oh," he says, and he says it stupidly, because Trish is always right. "You love me."
She drops the magazine on the blanket with an audible thump. "Yes, Giogio. You absolute idiot. We love you. What the hell did you think?"
"Hm." He draws an indeterminate shape in the hot sand with his finger, thinking about how much nicer it was under the umbrella, in the shade, with her. "I don't know. But I probably should have thought that."
"Probably."
With a motion that, to his chagrin, is more jerky than graceful, he pushes himself up off the sand and crawls back onto the blanket, coming to rest next to her. He nudges her with his shoulder, gives her a soft, quirked smile of apology.
"Sorry I'm such a stupid boy, Trish."
Her teeth are so bright in the shade when she grins at him. "I forgive you."
"Thank you, Trish." He leans against her, a little too heavily on purpose; she makes a brief, half-hearted noise of complaint. "I love you too," he adds, and she stops complaining and starts carding her fingers through his hair again. He wishes he could purr. It feels like the kind of thing that one should purr about.
"Maybe you're not so stupid," Trish muses thoughtfully.
"You're very generous, Trish," he says, "if you don't mind me stating the obvious." And then he says, "You smell really good," and she laughs at him and pulls his hair, and he kisses her, and she kisses him back. Her lips are soft and taste a little like vanilla from whatever she's wearing, but after a while they don't taste like anything but Trish, which is better than anything else Giorno could think of in a million years.
He has to limp home barefoot, because while they were kissing he managed to stick his toes out from under the umbrella into the sun, while Trish, who is perfect in every way, stayed curled up in a delightfully contained Trish shape and just got freckly. He can't take his eyes off of her, and neither can Mista, and it makes him breathless with loving them both.
♛
The first time Giorno kisses Fugo is a morning, too. He notices this only after the fact, his tendency to see mornings as prime opportunities for new beginnings, for the start of something beautiful. Everything in life is cycles of beginning and ending, birth and destruction and death and rebirth, spring to winter and back to spring again, day into night into morning.
Trish says Fugo isn't sleeping. This isn't too terribly surprising. Giorno knows why. It's the same reason he leaves doors open behind him, the same reason he likes to be in open spaces over closed-up rooms. But it's more than that, too, which Trish points out to him in hushed tones as he paints delicate pastel-yellow flowers on her hot pink nails, the cool of the fresh polish making her shiver.
"He feels like he should be dead, Giogio," she hums, this honesty barely vocalized, more a vibration in the air between them than actual words. He dots her nails with tiny individual seeds; she murmurs admiringly, then adds, "You know. Instead of them. You know, don't you?"
He gives her a look that's soft and hard and sharp and exhausted all at once, and she nods. Of course he knows. They both know. Mista, who is in the corner cleaning his gun over and over, Mista who is on edge, knows it too.
Trish blows on her nails and glances over her shoulder at Mista, who avoids her eyes, furiously wiping down the barrel as she lets something else slide out: "Mista thinks he doesn't get to feel like that." And Giorno glances at him, cool and questioning, not judgmental but a touch uncertain.
Mista puts the barrel down on the table and wipes his hands, takes his hat off, folds it, runs his fingers roughly through his hair twice, three times. Stops. "Yeah, I did say that." A beat, which hurts the inside of Giorno's rib cage. "But I only said that once. I'm not saying it now."
Giorno smiles at him and gets up to kiss him so quickly that he knocks over the bottle of polish. Trish catches it before it spills all over the table and complains loudly, but Giorno is pressing forgiveness against Mista's lips and doesn't notice, not until she sits herself down in Mista's lap insistently, and then they're tangled up in the way they get to be sometimes, Mista's nose buried in her hair and Giorno cupping her cheeks and kissing her and pronouncing her flawless. She acknowledges this attention, this tribute, this correct observation, and allows it to continue.
Fugo isn't sleeping. Trish reminds Giorno a few times, and Mista is a little more on edge and irritable than usual — and of course, it's noticeable because it's Mista, who's only irritable on the twenty-ninth of February once every four years. It's sweet that they're worried, but when he says as much out loud Fugo shrugs it off.
"Nothing's wrong," he says, rolling his eyes, and won't meet Giorno's bright, insistent, piercing gaze or turn to look at him at the gentlest touch of two fingers on the back of his hand.
He will talk about other things, though. They talk about a hundred, then a thousand things into the night, rolling out words like a red carpet, discussing everything except the one big thing that matters. Perhaps this is because Giorno thinks it's Fugo and (he suspects, anyway) Fugo thinks it's Giorno. There is such a balance to be struck with devotion. He worries so often, with such fervor, about getting it wrong.
Fugo's room is surprisingly austere, considering the rest of the palazzo, which is extravagant to the point of absurdity. Giorno took care to assign Fugo a suite with an open floor plan, wide windows, which stay open all year, even in storms and the worst heat of summer. They're open tonight, too, and the sound of the waves a few hundred meters away makes him drowsy. He fights to stay awake until he realizes Fugo's head is drooping, too, but at that point . . . there's nothing shameful at all about surrender. And he can surrender first, he thinks. Half a step and all that.
He flops down on Fugo's bed and curls up with his head on the pillow, doing that thing he does where he puts himself somewhere and it immediately becomes his. It's deliberate, too, and he watches through eyes slitted by the force of a yawn as Fugo stiffens and then approaches, slow and cautious like he's creeping up on a highly volatile apex predator.
"Do you want me to—"
"Come here, Fugo, I don't want to sit up anymore." His voice is a soft whine, childish and sleepy. It's honest, but it also isn't. He doesn't want to sit up anymore, but more specifically, he wants Fugo to lie down.
And he does. He hesitates, but he does it in the end. Their conversation resumes: slower and sleepier this time, staccato with interruptions, yawns and pauses to let themselves sink into restfulness. Fugo is still anxious to sleep; it's clear from the tension in his shoulders, the occasional darting of his eyes as if to catch barely-seen movement in the corner of the room. But it gets better, slowly but surely — never perfect, but a little bit better.
After a while, when their pauses have stretched long enough that they've had to ask each other a few times what they were talking about in the first place, Giorno curls close and tucks his head under Fugo's chin. He senses more than feels Fugo flushing, some aspect of his living warmth ambient in the air and tangible to Gold Experience. Even so, a moment later, tentative fingers reach for his and lock in, not tight but insistent after a bit of fidgeting.
"I hate this part," Fugo says, as if to himself.
Giorno hums, breathing in deeply. Fugo smells like metal and thread. He's warmer than expected from someone who can be so cold. Appearances are really worthless, aren't they. "The part where you have to close your eyes and sleep?"
"Yes." But then: "No." Fugo shakes his head, careful not to dislodge Giorno. "The part where I have to let go."
"Ah." That makes sense. He squeezes Fugo's hand gently, bumps his head against his jaw. "You don't have to this time. Not entirely. Not of me, I mean."
The sound Fugo makes is difficult to describe. Strangled, certainly. Probably not bad, though.
"You're so embarrassing, Giogio." It's a surprisingly good-natured grumble.
"I know," Giorno says smugly, and goes to sleep.
(In the middle of the night, he wakes up to whimpering. For a moment he doesn't understand where it's coming from; when that moment ends, he panics, because he isn't in his bed but his arms are empty, and the bedspread is a dark and cool color but the light is on, which means it's Fugo's room. He jolts half-upright and sees Fugo, turned away and curled in tight on himself, away from Giorno, away from the door, face to the open window. Instinct. He's crying out in his sleep — not just crying out, but crying, a few tears slipping haphazardly down his cheeks. He keeps saying one word, and Giorno knows what it is even before he scoots close enough to hear it: dispiace, dispiace.
He wraps his arms around Fugo's middle, pulls him close, holds him tight. After a few moments, he sings something — not a proper song the way Trish would sing, but something soft and airy and nonsensical, not really words at all. Fugo tenses, thin and strung out as a worn wire, then sags, his whimpers turning to wordless questions, sounds that turn up at the edges. They all sound like is it okay? to Giorno, in some way that he can't explain, so he answers each one with yes, deliberately enunciated into Fugo's hair.)
It doesn't storm that night, but the morning feels like the morning after a storm, warm and safe. Looks like it, too, Giorno realizes when he opens his eyes to the sensation of lips brushing against his forehead — because of the sun in the cloudless sky, of course, but also because of Trish, standing beside the bed with a cup of coffee in her hands and a crooked smile on her lips. She's radiant. Mista is Mista, on the other hand, laid sideways at the foot of the bed with his feet propped up on the post.
"I love you," he tells them both first and foremost, because he always says that first and foremost, and then notes the two extra coffees, still steaming, one on Fugo's side table and one on his own. "I love you so much," he amends fervently, because coffee is so important, so important.
"Yeah," Mista says airily, "we're pretty great," and lets his legs fall sideways in a dramatic arc until they collapse on Fugo with a pronounced thump.
Fugo sits bolt upright with a yelp, eyes bright and feverish and angry, ready to fight. His fingers have a death grip in the sheets, but once he's kicked Mista's feet off and realized what's happening, who is here, that it's morning, how much he's slept, he manages to blanch and go red at the same time.
"Oh no," Giorno says with woeful softness, "he's cute," and Fugo covers his face with both hands. This leaves him defenseless against the onslaught of Mista's feet, which nudge at his elbows until he slaps them away. This leaves his face uncovered, so Trish swoops down and kisses his cheek.
"You're all terrible!" Still, Fugo manages to reach out with one hand and grab his coffee cup. He must still be so exhausted, Giorno thinks; one night's sleep won't make up for all of what he's lost, or all of that fear, not in the least.
"Sure." Mista nods, agreeable. "But we're your terrible people, so I mean. Maybe you should reevaluate your life choices, huh?"
Scoffing, Trish perches on the edge of the bed, one leg bent under her. "Please. He loves us." Giorno clinks mugs solemnly with her.
"I never said that," Fugo insists hotly, letting his other hand fall so he can take a sip. The irritation on his face makes it clear that the coffee is perfect. This makes sense, because Trish made it.
Once, Fugo told Giorno that he has a laugh like bells. He took it back immediately, insisted that it was stupid, he was just tired, he didn't mean to say it. But every time Giorno's laughed like that since, he's gone sort of distant with a crooked, unfocused smile, so Giorno knows better. They all do.
He laughs like that now, and Fugo looks down at the steaming coffee in his hands.
"You didn't have to." He presses the heel of his hand gently against the middle of Fugo's forehead and pushes him back just a few inches, so he has to look up to regain his balance. When he does, Giorno catches his gaze, locks it in, holds it close and tight. Fugo's eyes are wide and bottomless, the bags under them just slightly lighter than they were yesterday. Or maybe that's wishful thinking. "Because—"
"—he's psychic," Mista deadpans.
"—you're obvious," Trish drawls.
"Don't," Fugo breathes.
"—we love you," Giorno sings out, serene, beatific. But he doesn't lean in yet. Not yet. He waits. Because Fugo is the most fragile out of any of them.
Well. Any of them but him.
So Fugo shudders, exhales. He looks a bit like he did last night, when he was dreaming, when he was crying. Giorno reaches up and brushes his bangs out of his face, traces the shape of his eyebrows. He can't help himself, even though Fugo gives him a bit of a helpless look.
"Why?"
That's the question that comes out, after Fugo remembers how to breathe again. Giorno feels his heart sag. He glances at Trish, rueful, and she mouths see? Yes, he sees; it's horrible.
It's Mista who pipes up before anyone else does, funnily enough. Or not so funnily. Giorno has his suspicions, but why voice them now? There's time. There's so much time, now. "Because you sure aren't doing it yourself." He pokes Fugo in the chest with his big toe, and Fugo slaps his ankle, which makes him laugh.
"Because I need someone besides Mista to boss around," Trish adds thoughtfully. "He's starting to get wise to my tricks." A beat, and then, under her breath: "Even I don't buy that."
"No, that's terrible reasoning," Giorno agrees, sitting up a little straighter. "There's not a reason for love, Fugo. It's just . . . " He waves his hands vaguely, narrowly avoiding spilling his coffee all over the bedspread. "It's just . . ."
Stymied, he pauses.
"Wow. He's speechless," Trish observes, and leans in to kiss him. This doesn't help, and has Fugo a little pink around the ears again.
". . . I was saying," Giorno manages, a little vaguely, tasting vanilla gloss on his lips. "It's just . . . good luck. And you know it when you see it. Don't you think? I knew it when I saw you. All of you."
Mista's grinning at him, crooked and enchanted, but Trish rolls her eyes. "Love at first sight isn't real. Sometimes I can't believe you're real, the way you talk."
"You're proving his point, aren't you?" Now it's Trish's knee Mista pokes with his toe. "Two unbelievable things cancel each other out. Giorno makes anything possible."
She groans, but it's Fugo who interrupts this time, quiet and thoughtful. Like he's been mulling it over for days, weeks, months. And maybe — probably — he has.
"Second sight."
They all look at him. He blinks fiercely for a moment, obviously startled that he's spoken aloud at all, then attempts to hide behind his coffee cup.
"Love at second sight," he mumbles. "And third, and—"
"Don't," Mista begs.
"—and so on. Isn't that . . ." Fugo hesitates, not looking at Giorno, not looking at anyone. "More realistic? And better. That you fall in love . . . slowly, and more and more, forever. An exponential increase. No happy ending, no ending at all, just—"
Which is when Giorno kisses him. And Fugo does spill his coffee, not much but a couple of drops; they land on the bedspread, but he doesn't notice, because Mista's caught the cup as it falls from his numb fingers, and Trish is laughing, but it doesn't matter, because Fugo's gasped into Giorno's mouth and is kissing him back, as fierce and possessive as he is shy and uncertain, which suits just fine. Fugo can take what he wants, in Giorno's opinion. They all can.
They deserve it.
It isn't until after noon, when lunch is over and suddenly he's being presented with an absurdly ostentatious and frankly ugly cake that's exactly his taste, that he remembers: it's April sixteenth.