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Almost a decade into Giorno’s reign, and people still ask Mista questions about his schedule. They look at Giorno, and they see how hard he works, how he’s always busy, and they imagine that he as a routine, that his life is regimented and surveilled, every day carved out into pieces of duty and obligation. In short, they imagine that being the Boss is like being a salaryman, and they assign Mista the role of dutiful wife. Everytime he goes out by himself he inevitably gets winks and nods and little comments- “what’s the boss up to today, hmm?” No one ever believes him when he says he doesn’t know, but Mista doesn’t hold it against them. They don’t know Giorno like he does.
They weren’t there when Giorno arrived like lightning at the Passione warehouse, scattering expectations with every word he said. Giorno goes where he wants, when he wants, and departs like a bullet, destroying anything unfortunate enough to block his path. The Boss does not make appointments. The Boss arrives, and everyone else scatters to make way. Usually, if Mista is being honest, he’s there when Giorno arrives, standing at his back- not, as people think, for Giorno’s protection, but their own. People are a little less stupid when Mista’s got his gun on them. But Mista’s no schedule planner, and he never knows the destination until Giorno shows up at his apartment at 4AM with a pair of train tickets and a dangerous grin, saying “We’re going to Milan.” Sometimes it’s not Milan: sometimes it’s Naples, or Vienna, or Rome, or Switzerland. Sometimes it’s a pair of movie tickets left on the table and a handwritten note instructing Mista to take a few days off.
So, when Mista doesn’t see Giorno for a few days, he doesn’t worry. He checks the news now and then through people’s living room windows, idly scanning for news of explosions or miracles, but Giorno doesn’t make himself known. Mista doesn’t sweat it. What could hurt Giorno? Even people who don’t know who he is can see the divinity in his face; he’s like a piece of light.
So, on the first day of Giorno’s absence Mista doesn’t worry, and on the second day of Giorno’s absence Mista doesn’t worry, but on the third day a call comes to his room at the Villa. It’s Polnareff, and he wants to know where Giorno is.
“How should I know?” Mista asks, balancing the phone with his shoulder and a slice of pizza in the other. It’s early evening, and the Pistols are enjoying their pre-dinner snack before they all settle down for a siesta. Mista’s already stripped down to his boxers and his gun and his cross in preparation for his nap, and his half-naked reflection glares at him blearily from the bathroom mirror.
“I’ve already called everyone who usually knows,” Polnareff says, and he sounds worried . It’s not like Polnareff to worry; usually he makes jokes or makes plans. Worrying is a helpless emotion, and Polnareff is rarely helpless, but here he is, calling Mista like the last resort it is.
“He missed a dinner date with Trish,” Polnareff continues, and Mista sighs and puts down the pizza, leaving the Pistols to squabble over it.
“What's his last known location?” he asks, and within half an hour he’s in a taxi and headed to Venice.
.
Giorno’s last known location is a warehouse halfway to nowhere. Mista lets himself in through a side entrance and advances slowly between crates higher than his head, his pistol at the ready. It’s dim and dark. Mista feels a dim kick of unease- there’s something about the warehouse that’s wrong, different in some significant way from his memories, but he’s not sure what. His only option is to advance, and so he does, picking his way between tall-stacked palettes of diluted olive oil and knock-off perfumes with his gun held high and bullets in his mouth, his nerves jangling like a fire alarm. At last it occurs to him to look up.
The ceiling is wall to wall with bright, writhing shapes, alarmingly organic. It takes time for Mista’s eyes to resolve the patterns and movement into a series of shapes, and when the picture comes together at last he yelps and steps backwards, but there’s nowhere safe to run. The roof’s been transformed into a mass of poisonous snakes and vines. Giorno’s done something serious here, sure as a signature. But what, and why? Mista stares into the impossible sky and tries to think like Giorno. What is the poisonous mass above him, or what could it be? A warning, an alarm, a shield against the clear glass of the sky, a curtain against being seen.
“Giorno!” Mista shouts. His voice hits nothing but empty. “GIORNO!” Above, the snakes continue their mute, peculiar movements, like words in a language that Mista doesn’t know. He shouts Giorno’s name, and in the subsequent silence there’s a distant sound, like metal scraping across the floor, like a door being opened. The roof shudders. The ceiling uncurls and reforms, leaves and branches becoming railings and steps, revealing a staircase running along the far side of the warehouse.
On the far side of the room, a door opens, and Giorno steps out.
“Guido?” he says, and his voice is a rasp. “Is that you?” Mista breaks into a run. He takes the steps two at a time and crashes onto the landing. Giorno looks terrible. His curls have come loose and are cascading over his forehead and eyes. He peers at Mista through a curtain of blond hair, and his expression jolts Mista back to the days when they were young and feral and only first beginning to understand each other’s shape.
“What happened?” Mista demands. The pistols are clambering for action, ready to do their best against whatever enemy has left Giorno so disheveled and exhausted. Giorno stares at Mista like he can’t understand what he’s seeing, and then a yawn splits his face.
“Why are you here?” he asks, and his voice is a rasp. “Is something wrong?”
“Something wrong?” Mista repeats disbelievingly. “You’ve been missing for three days .”
“Three days? I just lay down to take a nap…” Giorno says. There’s a pink flush on his cheeks and a fine sheen of sweat on his skin, and he’s leaning on Gold Experience like he might not be able to stand otherwise.
“Giorno,” Mista says slowly. “I think you’re sick.”
“Sick?” Giorno repeats. “No, I’m fine.” He takes a single halting step forward, then his knees wobble and he drops like a stone. Mista runs to catch him, his arms hooking under Giorno’s shoulders and supporting his weight. He’s so light. All that energy, all that charisma, all those crazy ideas, all held in 65 kilos of blood and bone. Giorno’s skin is damp with sweat and the smell of his illness, but the true measure of his exhaustion is that he just rests after coming to fit in Mista’s arms.
Mista takes stock of the situation. One, Giorno urgently needs several things: water, medicine, food, somewhere to sleep that isn’t on two crates. Two: Giorno isn’t going anywhere on his own. Three: Mista sneaking in and out of the villa won’t attract much attention, but Mista carrying a near-comatose Giorno will. Therefore: food and water and medicine will have to come to Giorno.
“Stay here,” Mista says, and Giorno nods, but Mista can’t be sure how much he’s really listening. He repeats it a few times for good measure, then dashes down the stairs and sprints to the nearest pharmacy. There’s so many medicines! Mista doesn’t know what kind of cough Giorno has or whether it’s a cold or a fever or and infection or what, so after a few minutes of desperate haggling with the pharmacist he throws a couple of hundred euro bills down on the table and declares his intention to buy them all.
The pharmacist does what she’s told, whether out of fear of Mista’s gun or greed for his money, and Mista leaves the store with a bag full of medicine, several bottles of mineral water, and some premade sandwiches. He returns to find Giorno sprawled out on a pair of crates with a tarp drawn over them, his head propped up on his stand’s knees, eyes closed, breath wheezing with every inhale. He doesn’t say anything to Mista, only takes the big water bottle and chugs until he’s finished it all, then wipes his mouth and takes the next one.
“Damn,” Mista says, and takes a seat next to him. Giorno finishes the second bottle and lets it clatter to the floor.
“I could use a little more before you go,” he says quietly.
“Before I go?” Mista repeats dubiously. “I’m not going anywhere unless you’re coming with me. I was thinking we could sneak out to a hotel tonight.” Giorno considers Mista for a little bit, and then, surprisingly, he smiles and looks down.
“Sneak out to a hotel,” he says softly. “Won’t you get sick, Mista?”
“I dunno, I doubt I’ll get any sicker than you are now,” Mista says. “Besides, by then you should be good and then you can take care of me.” Mista feels a chill as Gold Experience’s fingers pass through his hair and trace the curve of his spine.
“Take care of someone,” Giorno says wonderingly. “I don’t know if I’ve done that before.”
“Go to sleep,” Mista tells him, slightly amused at this new, loopy Giorno, but Giorno shakes his head.
“I’ve been sleeping. Besides, my throat hurts.” Mista remembers the medicine he bought and scrambles for the bag, and he and Giorno spend an hour puzzling through the tiny, complicated text before admitting defeat and giving Giorno a small dose of one of the ones that says it reduces fever and aches.
Giorno bites down on the pill with a horrifying crunch, then makes a face.
“You’re supposed to swallow it whole!” Mista exclaims.
“That explains the taste,” Giorno says, and chugs down the last of their water.
“You are so weird,” Mista says. “Haven’t you ever taken a pill before?”
“No.”
“Never? Didn’t you ever get sick as a kid?” Giorno shrugs, and it’s the kind of shrug that could mean anything: that he was rich and never got sick, or poor and never had medicine, or a million things inbetween. Giorno doesn’t talk about himself much, and Mista doesn’t ask. What’s the point in asking about things that Giorno doesn’t want to talk about?
“Lucky,” he says instead. “Well, I been sick before, I’m an expert. You gotta sleep a lot, drink lotsa water… drink tea made from sage leaves with lemon, and don’t eat any bread or rice. Instead, you have to eat chicken soup, and watch daytime tv. It’s bad, so you’ll get better faster just to avoid it.”
Giorno looks faintly skeptical at this, and then he rolls over onto his side, his legs in Mista’s lap. It’s been a while since they’ve sat like this, limbs tangled accidentally together in a kind of affection Mista learned in street slums where there’s not enough space for everyone to have their own bed. He wonders where Giorno learned it, or if he ever only tolerated it for Mista’s sake. He lies with his eyes closed, breath coming hard, and just when Mista thinks he’s finally fallen asleep, he speaks.
“We don’t have a TV, Mista.”
“We’ll have one at the hotel,” Mista assures him, although he doesn’t even know what hotel they’re going to or what it’ll have. Giorno laughs, but it turns into a hacking cough that shakes his shoulders.
“Giorno-”
“What hotel are we going to?” he asks. Mista can’t think of a name off the top of his head; they’re halfway to nowhere. There might not even be a hotel here. Giorno smirks at his uncertainty. “I’ll be fine here.”
“On some crates?” Mista says skeptically. “Come on, Giornello.”
“Don’t call me that, Guiduccio ,” Giorno retaliates. “We’ve had worse.”
“You sound like you’ve smoked a cigarette a day for fifty years,” Mista says, and presses a hand to Giorno’s forehead. “Listen to me.”
“Because you’re an expert in being sick?” Giorno says.
“Because I can pick you up and carry around.”
“You wouldn’t,” Giorno says suspiciously.
“But I could,” Mista says.
“No, you couldn’t,” Giorno says, and tips his head back against the crates with a long weary exhale. Mista leaves him there looking like a statue draped in faded Gucci, his legs out om the crate, chest going up and down, and goes to look for a hotel. When he returns, some six hours later when the sun is all the way down and most people are well past asleep, Giorno is still in the same place, in the same position. He barely stirs even when Mista picks him up.
“I told you I could do it,” he says to Giorno’s sleeping body, but Giorno is silent. After that, it’s fast- taxi, hotel, reception, bedroom. Giorno stirs slightly when they’ve flopped on the bed, then turns towards Mista.
“You’re dependable,” he says, with a little sleep-slur in his voice.
“What, you didn’t notice before?” Mista asks, amused.
“I did,” Giorno says. He closes his eyes and reaches out to Mista tracing the edges of his face. “I just forgot. But it’s been ten years, hasn’t it, Mista?” His hand drops back to the sheets, and he doesn’t speak again.
Mista waits a moment. The moon is a little past full tonight, and it casts silver line through the shitty hotel blinds, turning Giorno’s gold to silver. He’s not the little thing Mista used to know, and Mista’s not the slim kid he used to be. He sits in the moonlight and tries to remember, for a bit, whether he ever wanted a life different than this. He doesn’t think he did. He thought that by now he’d be dead. It never occurred to him that one day, without warning, immortality would walk into his life and announce its presence with an enigmatic smile and a ladybug brooch.
Giorno’s breath has evened out into sleep, and Mista’s body is tired, exhausted from the stress of the long day, the conversations with hotel owners, the taxi, the bus- but he doesn’t want to sleep. Not yet. He lies awake long into the night, his body held between his capo and the sightlines of any ambitious assassins, until at last, in the early hours of morning, sleep casts him down and he falls asleep with the faint wheezing of Giorno’s breath in his ears.
+
Mista comes awake with a jolt, startled into awakeness, and grabs his gun and scans the room. Giorno is asleep in the hotel bed, curled up with pillow under his head and another in his arms, his breath slow and even. Check. Main objective secured, Mista rolls out of bed. He lands with a thump on the hotel floorboards and Gold Experience flickers into being like a disapproving schoolteacher and surveys him with flat disinterest before vanishing. Mista’s heart is thumping. There’s something about Gold Experience that always sets his blood racing: he doesn’t forget what happened to Diavolo, or to Polnareff. Requiem Stands are dangerous, and lucky as Mista was to be there when the whole world was turned on its axis, he still had nightmares afterward.
But for all that Gold Experience unnerves him, Mista knows Giorno would never hurt him without cause; he’d trust Giorno to press a gun against his spine, or a knife to his throat. Even as his eyes scan the room, looking for any sign of something out of place, his gaze returns again and again to the steadiest thing in his life- Giorno’s sleeping form. It’s been a while since Mista really looked at him. Time has added several inches to Giorno’s frame since Mista met him, and now his gold-crowned head rides a few centimeters higher than Mista’s. Mista remembers how Giorno had laughed on the day when he was finally taller than Mista; he’d put his arms around the older boy and stood next to him in the mirror.
“See, Guido, you’re finally free,” he’d said. “You can’t be my bodyguard anymore now that I’m taller than you. What use is a bodyguard you can’t hide behind?” But that had been years ago, and despite everything, Mista was still in the same slot. He could leave, maybe. Trish thinks so. She comes by sometimes and sings in his ear and talks to him about the outside. Life there suits her; she’s brighter with every year. Mista’s happy for her, but he has no interest in that life. His dream is here. His dream is lying on the bed, his breath making little wheezing sounds as he sleeps.
Mista gets breakfast from downstairs and brings it up on a platter, and by the time he’s gotten everything set up and put down Giorno is awake again. Gold Experience brings him the food, and he takes one bite, frowns, and then continues.
“You don’t have to eat it if you’re nauseous,” Mista says, and Giorno shakes his head.
“I have to get better,” he says, as if he can hold off nausea with determination alone. After fifteen minutes of stoic, miserable chewing, Mista takes pity on him and flops down on the bed next to him to steal his food.
“Hey- Mista!” Giorno snaps. Gold Experience appears, illustrating Giorno’s commitment to making himself nauseous via hotel breakfast, but it doesn’t have much effect. Gold Experience has two hands, but the pistols have twelve, and they’re very good at wiggling out of Giorno’s grip. There’s something a little strange about the feeling of Gold Experience touching his stand, but Mista ignores it in favor of chewing.
“Give me that back,” Giorno demands, using his boss voice.
“Wha da yah want,” Mista says, but it comes out muffled by the fact that he’s just crammed an entire hard boiled egg into his mouth. Giorno shoves him and starts to laugh. If it’s been a while since Mista watched Giorno sleep, it’s been even longer since he saw him laugh like this. Eventually his chuckles turn into coughs, and Mista has to take the tray away to avoid it being knocked over. He hands Giorno a cup of tea, and Giorno downs it in one go before staggering to the bathroom. There’s the distant sound of him throwing up what little he’s eaten.
“Gross,” Mista says. He goes downstairs and grabs a pot of tea from the kitchen, giving Giorno time to compose himself. When he returns, Giorno’s back in the bed, his face flushed, stubbornly trying to eat again. Mista sighs and approaches, mentally calculating how much food he can fit in his mouth, and Gold Experience appears between him and Giorno.
“You’ll just throw it up again,” Mista tells him.
“I won’t overdo it this time,” Giorno says stubbornly.
“You always overdo it,” Mista complains, but he allows Giorno to pick through his food, nibble by nibble, until at last he’s eaten everything he wants. It’s not much. Afterwards, he sends the tray away with Gold Experience, and sinks down into the bed. He looks a little lost, like he’s not sure what to do with himself, and then he notices the telephone and perks up.
“I should call Polnareff,” he says brightly.
“You do that,” Mista says, crawling back into bed and flipping on the television. There’s nothing but old, musty italian daytime television on- the kind where everyone has a twin sister and a secret lover and a stolen inheritance. Perfect. Mista sits and watches with Sex Pistols while Giorno runs his empire over the phone. At lunch, they take a break for pizza, and in the evening, when the serious TV comes on, Mista turns the news on real low and does a sweep of the block while Giorno sleeps.
It’s almost midnight when Giorno finally sits back up in bed and gestures for Mista to bring him the bag of medicine. All the talking has completely taken away his voice. He examines the pills, then downs one with a shitty cup of hotel tea.
“You’re going to get sick too,” Giorno says, only it’s not Giorno. His lips don’t move. His eyes are still shut, his head leaning wearily against Gold Experience’s shoulder. He’s speaking through Gold Experience, and Gold Experience has no mouth, but Mista hears the words. He shrugs.
“I’ve been sick before,” he says.
“I could have fixed you, then,” Giorno says, and there’s a sleepy little slur behind the words. “But you want to be human, don’t you, Mista?”
“I don’t think I have much of a choice in the matter,” Mista says frankly.
“That’s not true,” Giorno says. He opens his eyes and fixes them on Mista. “I could make you something else.” Mista considers this. He has a good life, a steady life, one balanced between standing at Giorno’s side and the rest of the world. Every year he’s a little slower and a little wiser, and the trade-off seems natural to him. He doesn’t aspire to Giorno’s magnificent divinity, or to a life without problems or worries. It’s enough for him to see the seasons turn and know that he’s given his best.
“Are you going to?” Mista asks, half-teasing and half-serious, and Giorno kicks him lightly with one foot from underneath the shitty hotel blankets.
“Be serious,” he says. “It’s your life!”
“Am I being silly?” Mista says, and pins Giorno’s foot to the bed through the blankets to avoid being kicked again.
“Guido,” Giorno says, and sighs. “It’s been ten years. Are you really waiting for me to tell you the answer?” Mista’s not entirely sure what they’re talking about. But whether it's sickness or health, mortality or immortality, better or worse, Mista's already decided what the shape of his life will be. He just needs to convey that to Giorno.
“I have my own resolve,” Mista says, “and I resolved to stay with you as long as I can. I’m gonna see what we’re doing through to the end. Were you waiting for me to change my mind?”
Giorno is silent for a moment, and just when Mista thinks that Giorno’s finally gotten whatever’s been bothering him out of his system, Giorno slithers out of his grasp and stands. Backlit by the hotel lamplight, he looks like a statue, like a dream come to life. His feet are bare on the hotel carpet as he pads softly across the few steps necessary to stand before Mista. He regards Mista a long moment, and then his hand grasps the edge of Mista’s jaw, tilting his face up.
Mista thinks he might have had a dream like this once, but he’s not sure. All of the certainty he’s won over the years has evaporated at Giorno’s touch, along with most of his thoughts. His hand traces the faint curve of Giorno’s arm, and he finds himself wanting to say- something. He’s not sure what. It seems to him that there’s a question about to be answered.
“Yes,” Mista says, and Giorno kisses him. It’s a slow, telegraphed kiss, as if Giorno is giving him space to react, to say no, when Mista’s only ever wanted to say yes, over and over. His last image is the the gold of Giorno’s eyelashes, so close, and then his eyes close and there’s no sound, nothing but the soft press of Giorno’s mouth against his own. This time, when Giorno speaks, it’s soft and low, and Mista can feel the fluttered exhale against his skin.
“I was,” Giorno whispers. “I was waiting for you.”
“Well, you can stop now,” Mista tells him. Giorno’s mouth curves upwards. They move together in silence, Giorno climbing into Mista’s lap, his legs spread around Mista’s sides, back held steady by Mista’s hands.
“I should have known,” Giorno murmurs. “You never kept any of those girlfriends.” Mista kisses him in response, a real kiss, soft and long enough to feel Giorno’s entire body settle into it. Mista is certainly going to catch Giorno's cold, but that’s a problem for tomorrow’s Mista.
“I was practicing for you, Giornello,” Mista says quietly. “I couldn’t let you kiss someone who wasn’t good at it.”
“How considerate,” Giorno says, laying his forehead against Mista’s. It’s late and dim, time and exhaustion weighing down Mista’s reactions to this soft-lit room, sleep beginning to press on him. But Giorno is luminous in the late-night light of the shitty hotel lamp, and in the moment when the light catches his fire, Mista feels- caught, suspended in a place that has nothing to do with time, as if everything before and everything after were arranged around this one moment, and the whole world organized so that Giorno’s hand would fit into his.