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The ride from Sardegna to Roma is nearly silent apart from the wind whipping at Mista’s hat and the boat’s motor as it tears through the ocean waves. Mista is perpetually frowning, tight-lipped as he grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are white.
Narancia sits in the seat behind him, holding the turtle in his lap and looking half-dead. His eyes are smudged with red. He finally stopped crying a few minutes ago. For a while there, Mista thought he never would.
Things feel too real all of a sudden. He looks older in some ways but strikingly immature in others. His hair is tangled from the wind and there’s a mostly-faded hickey on his neck. Mista gave it to him sometime shortly after the incident with the stapler, after they left Capri. It’s crazy how much has happened in the past couple days. He misses playing around.
He’s tired of the quiet and the unbearable feeling of not knowing if his best friend is okay.
“Narancia,” he says.
Narancia looks up like a dog being called. Sniffling, he swipes a hand beneath his nose. “Yeah?” His voice cracks from the crying, and he’s too tired to even look embarrassed about it.
Mista looks at him softly. “Hey, are you okay?”
His heart squeezes painfully when Narancia tries to smile. His eyes crinkle too forcefully, looking dull. He nods and gives a half-hearted, “M-hm!”
Keeping one hand on the controls, Mista twists around in his seat to look properly at Narancia. He tilts his head and holds an arm out toward him. “Dude, come here.”
Wordlessly, Narancia stands and wobbles forward, caught off guard by the boat’s speed. Mista scoots over to make a little extra room on the seat, but Narancia simply plops down onto his thigh instead. Mista’s arm curls protectively around his waist, and he feels him lean against him, still cradling the turtle in his arms.
For a few minutes, he just sits and stays quiet, which is beyond weird. Mista has never heard him go more than three minutes without talking, and they’re approaching eight before there’s finally a sound.
A wet, dragging sniff. Narancia shifts slightly against Mista; one hand comes up to rub at his eyes.
Mista pats his side. “You okay?”
It’s enough to make Narancia burst into tears all over again. It comes on all at once, like he’s been trying to hold it back, fish tank glass suddenly bursting and sending water spilling all over the floor. His breath comes in frantic hiccups as he tries to stop himself, hands flying to cover his face.
Doing his best to keep steering at the same time, Mista uses one arm to ease the turtle from Narancia’s lap and set it on the floor between his own feet. He pulls Narancia close to him and buries his nose in his hair. “I got you, dude,” he murmurs. “Seriously. It’s gonna be okay.”
Against his shoulder comes a barking, cracked sob. “Abbacchio is dead,” Narancia spits bitterly. He scrubs furiously at his eyes. “It’s a big fucking deal.”
“I know,” Mista quickly assures, heart sinking. “I know, it’s fuckin’— I don’t know how to handle it either. But we’re gonna be okay. We need to stay on our feet right now. We all gotta support each other.”
Narancia only cries. He wraps his arms around Mista from the side like a monkey, buries his face in his neck, and cries like a fucking baby. Mista hasn’t seen him like this before and never wants to see him this way again. Narancia is tough, spunky, not this.
His breath shudders and trips him up as he speaks. “I can’t believe we left him all alone. That was so mean,” Narancia sobs, voice nothing but snotty blubbering by now. He sounds like a little kid.
Mista doesn’t know what to say. He rubs Narancia’s side over and over, like it will somehow lull him back to peace and make everything that’s happened in the past hour go away.
A few more minutes pass; the waves get choppier and then settle back down after a few minutes. The tiny Roma in the distance begins to get a bit bigger. Narancia’s sobbing lessens, and soon he’s not crying so much anymore, just all watery. His breath still trembles and his nose still runs, but at least he’s breathing properly.
When he speaks up again, he sounds defeated. “It’s like— like Bucciarati didn’t even care, I mean—“ Narancia’s entire body shakes harshly. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It was like he didn’t even care about Abbacchio.”
“Hey,” Mista says. He pulls away a little so he can look at Narancia properly. “You know how much Bucciarati cares about him. But he was right; we needed to keep moving. He’s staying strong for you, Narancia. He’s doing it for us.”
Narancia sniffles. His swampy eyes meet Mista’s, red-ringed and looking horrible.
“He knows if he loses motivation, we all will. So he has to keep going. That’s why.”
It’s the truth, but Mista knows it’s hard to accept. Narancia looks down at his hands in his lap, stroking his thumbs over each other for comfort. “I thought we were all gonna be together forever,” he mumbles, voice wobbling.
Mista holds him tighter. “No, you didn’t,” he says quietly. “You knew dying’s part of the job.”
Narancia swallows thickly. He lays his head on Mista’s shoulder, too tired for any more crying.
They ride the majority of the remaining way in silence. Mista can’t stop thinking, which kinda sucks; he just wants to shut it all off and make things real simple. He doesn’t want to think about Abbacchio lying in the setting sun right now, sand in his wounds, probably crowded by police officers and tourists who crawl over him like ants. He doesn’t want to think about Narancia hyperventilating and Bucciarati’s pale face, the way he tries to hide shit from the others so they’ll keeping going. He doesn’t want to think about Fugo staying behind and Trish’s dad trying to kill her, and he doesn’t want to think about what else they’re gonna face in the next couple days. He doesn’t know how much more they all can take.
“Hey, Narancia,” he says eventually, when he can see the semi-faint outline of the dock they’ll be landing at, licked by gentle waves as they crash and break against the wood.
“Hmm,” comes his weak response.
“Can I say one more thing? I mean, something cheesy?”
“Sure.”
Mista pauses, tries his best to figure out how to tread; it’s tricky to put into words, and anyway, he doesn’t want to make Narancia cry again. “Listen,” he says, and licks his lips uncertainly. “I know it sucks to lose people. I mean, it fucking blows.” He snorts a tired laugh. “And it’s not even fuckin’ funny, sorry. But I just need you to know that you’re never gonna lose me, okay? I— I love you, dude, really. You’re my best friend.” He swallows past an embarrassing lump in his throat. “We’re gonna stick together.”
Narancia breathes in slowly, evenly. “Okay,” he says, and there’s just the slightest hint of a smile in his voice. It’s enough for Mista to relax a little.
He pulls his arm from around Narancia and places both hands on the wheel so he can maneuver the boat into the docking area. Narancia bends to pick up the turtle from between Mista’s feet. With a deep breath, they prepare themselves to enter Roma. It’s all they can do to remind themselves that this will all be over soon.
After they leave Capri with the boss’s daughter in tow, Bucciarati finds them an isolated safehouse and a borrowed car. It’s a four-bedroom house — just Mista’s luck. But at least it means he gets to share a room with Narancia.
As soon as they step into the house, he ambles toward one of the two bedrooms on the lower floor, ready for some much-needed rest. He gingerly lowers himself onto the bed. Even his most careful movements manage to jostle the wounds across his abdomen.
“Fuuuuck, dude, what the hell,” he groans to no one in particular. He tucks his face into the pillow and soaks in the silence for a total of twenty-three seconds.
Quick, clacking footsteps hurry down the hall before pausing at the doorway. Someone’s already come to bother him, and he knows who it is from the sound. Mista looks over his shoulder at Narancia, who is peeking at him shyly, as if waiting for permission.
“You can come in,” Mista yawns. “’M not gonna nap or anything.”
With a grin, Narancia kicks off his shoes and shuts the door behind him before he runs over. He flops into bed so hard the springs screech. Mista yelps as pain ripples across his stomach.
“Sorry!” Narancia quickly apologizes, before his attention is stolen by a more pressing issue. “Hey, get your shoes out of the bed,” he teases. “Frickin’ gross as hell.”
“Injured,” Mista grumbles.
“Here.” Narancia sits up and scoots down the bed. He heaves Mista’s legs into his lap and tugs his boots off. He makes an exaggerated gagging sound before shoving Mista’s socked feet back onto the bed and dropping his shoes on the floor.
“Okay? Thanks, I guess.” Mista rolls his eyes and lowers his face back into the pillow.
Narancia lies back down beside him. “Are you feeling okay?” he asks, considerate enough to keep his voice lower than usual.
Mista grimaces into the pillowcase. “I’ll live.”
Narancia reaches out a hand to toy with Mista’s hat. “I’m sorry,” he says sympathetically. “The staples hurt?”
“Yeah, they fucking hurt. I’m gonna have Fugo arrested for medical malpractice.” Mista lies as still as he can, trying not to focus on the pain — or the warmth radiating from Narancia as he lies beside him. Risking a glance up from the pillow, Mista quietly takes in Narancia’s side profile, from the bump of his nose to the rosy swell of his lips. He smells of sweat and seawater. Which should be unpleasant, but… ugh. Mista cuts off his thoughts then and there.
Bored, Narancia rolls back up into a sitting position. “Hey,” he says suddenly. “Sit up. I’ll make you feel better.”
Mista gives a lighthearted scoff but obeys, rolling onto his back and pushing himself up. He raises an eyebrow. “Are you gonna kiss it better?” he says, without thinking much of it, and then mentally bites his tongue. You fucking fag, he thinks to himself.
Narancia gives him a long look, as if he’s considering something, all dark eyelashes and catlike curiosity. He leans his chin onto his hand. “You want me to?” he grins.
Mista falters, suddenly uncertain of what’s joke and what’s an actual question. He tries to smile and play it off. “Be my guest,” he says with a casual wave of his hand, like he doesn’t care, even as his heart begins to kick at the walls of his chest.
“Mm.” Narancia hums in some response that Mista can’t decipher, at least until he leans forward and reaches up a hand to cup the side of Mista’s face. Oh, shit.
The air gets heavy and warm and Mista’s stomach drops — not out of dread, of course, but nervous anticipation. He almost doesn’t believe what’s about to happen to him, but Narancia wastes no time, and before Mista knows it, he’s pressed his lips against his. His heart rate spikes. Narancia holds that pressure for a long time, lips softer than expected, and it actually feels like he knows what he’s doing.
Their lips make a little sucking sound as Narancia pulls away and opens his eyes expectantly, looking pleased with himself. Mista doesn’t know what to say. He coughs and looks down at the floor. His heart pounds.
“That’s not where the staples are, stupid,” he manages to say, stumbling slightly over the words.
Narancia smiles at him through his lashes, looking stupidly cute, like something out of a romcom. “Oh, sorry. Should I try again?”
There’s no way this is happening. Sweating, Mista swallows and nods.
“Lay down.” Narancia pushes on his chest. Mista wordlesly obeys, sinking down to lie on his back. Narancia scoots down a little and bends over Mista. Gently, he presses a kiss to the stapled wound. It just barely hurts. He inches over, giving little kisses all along the line of staples. And then he continues to move across Mista’s stomach. He kisses all over; soft, quick presses that have Mista’s heart fluttering.
As Narancia moves up, he starts to kiss longer and harder, sucking lightly and using his tongue. Mista shudders and wraps his arms around him. “Dude,” he breathes.
Narancia smiles against his skin. He places a few quick kisses up his neck and then he’s back at his mouth. Mista is expecting another gentle pucker, and that’s what he gets at first, dry lips pressing softly against each other. But after half a minute or so, he feels Narancia’s tongue poke at his lips. He quickly opens up for him. They begin to mouth at each other more freely. Their tongues prod at each other a couple times until their timidness fades and they slide over each other easily. Little wet noises and hums echo in the quiet room.
Pretty quickly, Mista stops feeling nervous. They fall into a comfortable, easy rhythm. He allows his hands to wander freely, sliding over Narancia’s waist and back. This is the first makeout he’s had in ages and undeniably the best he’s ever experienced. It puts pressure on his wounds and he barely even notices. In fact, the pain starts to tangle together with everything else and feel nice.
He pulls off of Narancia’s mouth. Groaning his name, Mista clings to his shoulders and rolls over, putting himself on top. He’s half hard and getting more frantic now. When he goes back in for the kiss, it’s messy. Narancia matches his energy. They tongue greedily at each other’s mouths, slipping over each other and getting spit all over their faces.
Mista feels one hand come to clutch at the back of his hat, the other rubbing clumsily at his exposed hip. His body feels so natural cuddled against Narancia’s and he just wants things to stay like this forever.
He moves over and sucks at Narancia’s chin, then dips down to his neck, leaving messy kisses there. Narancia gives a high, thin grunt that encourages Mista to keep going, a bit further down to the bony curve where his neck meets his shoulder.
He gets into it, kisses and sucks more intensely than he ever has, fueled on whenever Narancia makes a noise or squeezes the back of his head. It doesn’t take long for him to get sloppy, until he gets to the point where he’s sort of just slobbering all over Narancia’s chest. But he doesn’t seem to mind; his hand slips beneath Mista’s hat and his fingernails scratch gently through his hair.
Mista’s just started to move a little lower down Narancia’s chest when a solid knock at the door startles them both so much their foreheads crash into each other. They freeze and both heads turn toward the door, listening.
“Hey, Narancia?” Fugo calls through the wood. “Could you run some errands for us? I have a list. We need a couple necessities and some things for Trish, too.”
A couple moments pass as Narancia catches his breath. “Um, yeah,” he calls back, hurriedly wiping at his mouth. “G-Gimme, like, five minutes.”
“Okay.”
They wait for Fugo’s steps to fade down the hall before they move. Slowly, Mista extracts himself from the warm tangle of limbs they’ve become. He watches Narancia climb out of bed, looking a little dizzy. They look at each other and start giggling at the same time, faces hot. Mista feels giddy like he never has, stomach floating with a mix of disbelief and gratitude at what just happened to him.
“Okay,” Narancia says. “Um. I’m gonna go to the store, I guess.”
Mista folds his legs up on the bed with a nod. “Have fun,” he says, eyes teasing as he looks over Narancia’s rumpled clothes.
“Okay.” Narancia smiles and turns away, straightening his bandana as he walks toward the small attached bathroom. He disappears inside and flips on the light.
A moment later his horrified voice cries out, bouncing off the tile floor and walls. “Oh, dude! Look at my neck!”
“He’s already gone,” Giorno says. Returned to his own body, he holds onto Narancia’s wrist. Or, the wrist of the shell of Narancia.
For a moment, everything screeches to a halt. All sound, all thought. A moment to process. And then the world comes crashing down around Mista.
He can’t move. He vaguely hears himself screaming Narancia’s name — his voice is unfamiliar, climbing into the shrill octaves of Trish’s voice, as he wraps her thin arms around himself. He gulps in air, eyes wide and frantic.
Narancia looks so unlike himself, soft and quiet. Just a shell. His eyes are wide open and blank, looking dumb and empty like a goldfish’s. And Mista can still see that stupid hickey. Tears are spilling over before he can even process it all. He folds into himself, ragdoll weak and floppy, all his willpower collapsing like a tent in a storm.
There are distant voices, motion around him, a hand on his shoulder. Mista blinks his eyes hard to clear them.
He swings around frantically. He looks to Trish and sees his own horrified expression staring back at him, pale and damp and brushed with shadow. He looks sick.
He looks to Giorno and feels a nauseous rage wash over him. Fix him! Fix him, goddamnit, fix him! It’s your one fucking job and you couldn’t fix him!
Blindly and with tears streaming down his face, he grits his teeth and lashes out at Giorno, throwing a loose punch that manages to strike the kid in the face. Giorno stumbles back, reaching for his jaw. But when his eyes meet Mista’s, they’re full of sympathy.
A pair of arms locks around Mista from the back. He shrieks and gives a panicked kick. When he whips his head behind him to look, he sees rippling, tattooed muscles, dark mesh clothing, dalmatian-spotted hair. His heart rate picks up immediately and he yells out again.
The arms tighten around him. “Stop it! Mista!”
And he does freeze. The voice may be the boss’s, but that tone he would know anywhere. After a few stiff moments of heavy breathing, he finally goes limp. His head lolls onto Bucciarati’s shoulder.
Bucciarati holds him tightly. He speaks quietly beside his ear. “Mista, I know. I know.” He rubs his back.
Mista turns to the side so he can get to him better, can’t help but cling to him, as hiccuping sobs crawl up through him and bounce into the quiet air of the coliseum. He buries his face in the crook of Bucciarati’s neck.
Bucciarati reaches up and ruffles the mess of pink hair that now belongs to Mista. “I know, but we have to keep moving,” he murmurs. “We don’t know where the boss is yet.”
Mista’s chest heaves for air. He raises his face from Bucciarati’s damp neck and looks up. Trish and Giorno watch him with worried eyes. Giorno’s still holding Narancia in his lap. Mista takes another look at his still body, and a shaky breath leaves him. His fingers tighten in the back of Bucciarati’s top.
“Breathe, Mista.” The hand in his hair gives one more scratch before pulling away. “You’ve got to stand up now. We’re going to finish this.” Sharp green eyes meet Mista’s, familiar determination brewing in them.
Air stutters from Mista’s lungs in another choked breath, but he nods. For Bucciarati. He can keep moving for him. He gets his shaky legs beneath him and allows Bucciarati to help him to his feet, clutching his arms for support.
“There you go. Now, Polnareff, please repeat what you were saying,” Bucciarati says, and that’s Mista’s cue to tune out. He struggles to pay attention as Polnareff explains some theory about a double personality. He silently follows the group, wobbling slightly but staying on his feet.
Trish offers him a hand to hold. He takes it and squeezes tight. He looks back over his shoulder to see Narancia one more time, but Giorno’s covered him with a shield of vines and flowers.
This is almost the worst case scenario. There are few ways it could get worse than this, and that, along with Trish’s steady grip, is Mista’s sole motivation. As much as he wants to break down and cry for the rest of today and well into tomorrow, he knows they need to keep moving. Swallowing, he turns forward, steels himself, and follows his capo further into the coliseum.
With trembling hands, Mista plucks a thumbtack from the wall, and then another, and two more. He carefully takes down the Mista Grimm poster tacked to the wall and tucks it into a large cardboard box, amidst the other things from Narancia’s wall. He can barely look in the box; it steals the air from out of his chest.
He wants to leave everything untouched and keep it the way Narancia had it. But he needs to clean the room out and make space. Mista and Narancia have shared this apartment for the past few months. Now it’s half-empty, and Trish needs somewhere to stay for a while.
Giorno said it was probably better for Mista anyway. He wanted to be mad, but he knew he was right. So Trish can have Narancia’s room. Mista just needs these last few minutes with it.
He clears out his CD collection, built up over months of accompanying Bucciarati to his favorite record store. Mista flips through each album and breathes in the sound and smell of the plastic cases as they clack against each other. When his fingers pass over Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle, he has to pause for a moment as his stomach sinks with some weird feeling. Underneath it all is the instinctive irritation he feels when he sees the album, developed from all the times Narancia forced him to listen to this. But layered on top of that is some awful sense of knowing. Knowing that he’ll never be able to see Narancia jerk his head along to the beat again. The two feelings conflict and twist together, along with a little guilt, until he feels like he might actually throw up.
Tears bead in his eyes. He gives a few hard blinks and hastily shoves the CD into the cardboard box. He scoops up the rest of the collection and dumps it inside, immediately cringing as he remembers how gently Narancia insisted on treating these. They’re his prized possessions.
Mista puts away kiddie comic books, crumpled worksheets, a nice pocketknife, a couple little toys and action figures. The picture frames hit him so hard they damn near fold him in half. He studies each one before he puts it away — Narancia and Fugo on the beach, Narancia nestled between Bucciarati and Abbacchio on the couch, Narancia all covered in ice cream melting faster than he can eat it. And a much-debated photo — Narancia’s favorite, Mista’s least favorite — of Mista after he got his wisdom teeth removed, cheeks chipmunk-puffy and eyes loopy.
Movement from behind Mista startles him into dropping the last frame, which he fumbles to catch before it hits the ground. He jerks his head back over his shoulder and sees Trish carefully approaching him.
“Hi, Mista,” she says softly.
He packs the photo away and wipes at his eyes. “Hey, Trish, what’s up?”
“I just wanted to come check on you.” She sits on the floor beside him, folding her legs beneath her. “You need any help packing all this stuff up? Or dusting, or anything?”
Mista looks at her and manages to stitch his mouth into a smile. “Nah, I’m almost done. I just need to clean out the dresser.”
“Okay.” Trish watches his face for a moment, chewing on her lip. She picks at her thumbnail.
“What?” he says.
“I don’t want you to pretend to smile,” she murmurs, tilting her head at him. “You’re going through some tough stuff. If you need help, it’s okay. If you want to be alone, that’s okay too. But please don’t force yourself to act a certain way. Jesus Christ, it’s been less than a week since all that stuff happened. You need to let yourself grieve.”
For a moment, Mista’s instinctive reaction is to think, What do you know? You didn’t lose all your family. You didn’t watch people you love die. Don’t tell me what I need. Mind your own damn business.
But, actually, that isn’t fair. Trish did lose her mom, and then she lost hope of reuniting with her dad, and then she saw Abbacchio and Narancia and Bucciarati die because of her, in a way. She went through a bunch of shit too. So maybe she really could understand.
She watches him, and he can tell she followed his whole thought process. She gives him a small smile. “Is it okay if I hug you?” she asks.
Mista sniffs. “Yeah,” he says. “Shit, I think that’s exactly what I need.”
Trish opens her arms for him. Mista leans in and carefully folds around her, tucking his chin over her shoulder. She wraps her arms tight and he squeezes his eyes shut, soaking in the warmth and security of her embrace. Shit. He’s started crying before he even realizes it. Tears roll silently down his face.
She rubs at his back. “You’re gonna be okay,” she whispers. “I’m here for you. Giorno’s here for you. Everything’s gonna be alright in the end.”
A little sob escapes Mista, like a bubble popping, and he grabs onto her tighter, one hand clutching the back of her head and one twisting into the strap of her top. She lets him cry all over her until he doesn’t have the energy to go on. And then they just stay there and breathe against each other until Mista starts to think he might doze off.
He pulls away from Trish and sweeps his sleeve across his face. “Dude, thank you,” he mumbles. His hat is crooked on his head, and he just takes it off. He uses it to wipe his eyes.
Trish shakes her head and smiles at him. “Any time.” She holds out a pinky. A genuine grin breaks across Mista’s face as he hooks his own into hers and they shake.
Trish helps him pack up the rest of Narancia’s things. She listens as Mista tells her about each one. Most of his belongings have at least some story behind them, ranging from short to long, funny to sentimental. And, weirdly enough, Mista doesn’t feel that upset anymore. The clothes and things make him nostalgic, but he doesn’t feel like crying as he puts them away. Within thirty minutes they’ve finished packing and Mista is ready to tape up the box and drag it down to the hall closet.
“Now you have to help me unload all my stuff,” Trish jokes as Mista gives the box one final kick to stuff it into the closet.
“Okay,” he laughs. He looks down at the box, a smile lingering on his face, and his stomach flutters. He is really gonna miss this stuff. But he knows it’s better to put it away. If he ever needs any of these things, he can easily come get it.
Feeling a weight slip off his shoulders, Mista slides the closet door shut. He turns and follows Trish to get her things. Together they can fill this place up, make it feel like home again, until one day they can both look back on this awful time and remember there were good parts too.
“Hurry up and pick, will you?”
“I’m trying.” Narancia’s knees are in the front passenger seat, but he’s twisted all the way around, digging through the bin of CDs on the floor of the backseat. Little puffs of dust raise off the cases as he goes through each one.
“Narancia. Man. I’m giving you ’til the count of three,” Mista says, tapping the steering wheel impatiently.
Narancia continues to rifle through the selection. “Shut up.”
“One…”
Skinny arms flailing, Narancia whips back around in his seat with a grin. “Got it,” he says as he clicks his seatbelt into place. Mista impatiently starts the car.
He listens as Narancia pops the CD case open and extracts the disc with a gentleness reserved only for his music. Carefully, he slides it into the CD player. After a moment of quiet whirring, the car is filled with the splashing noises that Mista recognizes to be the beginning of the first track of Doggystyle.
Mista groans. “Dude, I love you, but I can’t listen to this shit anymore.”
Narancia overreacts immediately — he always does when his music is on the line. “Well, too bad, so fucking sad!” he yells, shooting up in his seat and slamming a hand down on the dashboard. “Passenger gets to pick the music! It’s the rules!”
Mista sighs dramatically and stretches his hands open in surrender on the wheel, thumbs still looped through. “I know, I know. We’ll listen to Snoop again. Jesus.”
“Good.” Narancia flops low into his seat and crosses his arms, turning his head toward the window in an exaggerated display. After a moment, he breaks character and can’t help but smile. He glances at Mista out of the corner of his eye. “And I love you too.”