#ibyf

Once, when Murolo was taking them out for dinner, he’d said, “I don’t know how many people actually believe that Giovanna was always the boss. You hear things about the day at the Colosseum, you know? We know something happened that should have never happened.”

He heard similar whispers when he got sent out on missions. People feared Giorno in this awe-stricken sort of way that never failed to make Fugo feel contemplative and uncomfortable. He’d seen Giorno with and without the Requiem arrow, and while he always had the potential to be something to fear, Fugo himself had never feared him, had never even wanted to.

“Giorno,” Fugo said. He was sitting, cross-legged, on Giorno’s bed while Giorno sorted through his closet, looking for a good suit for the function they were planning on crashing tonight. Giorno glanced back at him, curious. “Do you know what you did to Diavalo?”

Giorno blinked, and then his eyes went unfocused in a way that Fugo was beginning to recognize. He offered Fugo a bland, small smile. “Do you care?”

“I think I should.”

Giorno slowly turned back to his closet, examining a green suit with a gold embroidered floral pattern. “Wielding the Requiem arrow always means you must choose a select few details to process. Otherwise, it is much too overwhelming.”

Fugo knew this. He’d seen this.

“What I did to Diavalo…” Giorno trailed off, skimming a thumb over one of the suit lapels. “I know it in bits and pieces.”

Sometimes, that was how Fugo felt like he knew Giorno, too. He shifted in discomfort at the thought and climbed down from the bed so that he could approach Giorno. He hesitated to touch him, instead leaning against the closet door. “I didn’t mean to force you to think about it.”

Giorno shook his head. “You didn’t force me.”

“I just…”

Giorno arched an eyebrow, leaning against the closet to mirror him better. “What?”

“I just feel like I’m… out of the joke? Sometimes?”

“What joke?” Giorno said, expression going cold.

“Metaphorical joke,” Fugo said, scrambling to correct himself. “Uh, like, I know I don’t really have a right to the full story, but someday, I’d like to hear it. Maybe when I deserve it.”

The lines in Giorno’s face softened, and he idly reached out to tug at Fugo’s sleeve. Fugo drifted closer. “I want to give it to you. You should hear it all.”

Fugo sagged inward, a little bit, in relief.

“But, Fugo, I don’t think I know it.”

Fugo tilted his head. “That’s okay,” he made himself say. “You don’t have to.”

Giorno tugged at his sleeve, more insistently, and Fugo got the message, pulling Giorno into his arms. “It hid it from me,” Giorno said into his shoulder, muffled.

“The Requiem arrow?”

Giorno nodded. “Sometimes I choose what to understand, but sometimes it chooses. Fugo, it’s exhausting.”

“Do you think it’s trying to protect you?”

“Maybe.” Giorno turned his head, pressing his face into the crook of Fugo’s neck. He let out a gusty breath. “I did something to Diavalo. Something wrong. It broke things.”

Fugo ran a hand down Giorno’s back, not sure how to respond. It seemed appropriate that this, too, was fragmented. He inhaled deeply. “It’s okay.”

“I know people fear it. I fear it, too.”

“I don’t,” Fugo said, and Giorno pulled away to look at him in surprise. Fugo shrugged. “I’ve never been scared of you in my life.”

The smile that greeted him in return was blinding in its relief, in its sadness, and in its quiet fear, too. “Foolish.”

Fugo offered a tentative, wobbly smile in response. “I think it’s cute of me.”

“The duality of man,” Giorno deadpanned, and Fugo’s smile widened. “If you want to know anything else, I will tell you to the best of my ability.”

“Okay,” Fugo said. “I want to know what you think I should wear tonight.”

Giorno shook his head in wonder. “That caped suit Trish bought you.”

It had been what he was planning on wearing anyway. “Wise.”

“I mean it, Fugo. I’m not being reticent out of unwillingness to share. I promise.”

“I know,” Fugo said. “But maybe it’s a story best told in pieces.”

Giorno furrowed his brows. “Why?”

“It’s overwhelming for me, too.”

Something in Giorno’s expression cleared, and he grabbed Fugo’s hand, giving it a little squeeze. His hands formed the signs for, I understand, and Fugo nodded. “I know what you’re going to say,” he began, and then he withdrew, taking two suits out of his closet, “but which one?”

Fugo pointed at the green suit with the gold embroidery.

“You are so predictable,” Giorno teased.

“I try.”

Giorno leaned in, offering him a kiss on the cheek. “Now that that’s done, let’s go bother Bruno in the garden.”

Fugo laughed. “If you insist.”

The bullet grazed his arm (at the height where Giorno’s head had been), and Abbacchio’s heart worked to pound out of his chest. He was standing before the warehouse where they were supposed to meet the district attorney and he was in a nameless shop watching his partner bleed out and—

Giorno was on the ground, disoriented from Abbacchio shoving him out of the line of fire, and he snapped into action at the dazed, confused look Giorno offered him. The stranger who’d crawled under the fence, the shooter on the roof of the warehouse, had realized he’d lost his chance and was sprinting away, but Abbacchio wasn’t about to let him.

He broke into a run for the building, and before he reached it, vines grew upwards in an unmistakable ladder that would let him climb to the roof, and Abbacchio spared a silent thanks to Giorno before launching himself into the pursuit.

He returned to the ground less than ten minutes later, breathing heavily, alone. Giorno was sitting on the ground, growing flowers through crumbling patches of concrete. “He escaped?”

“Died,” Abbacchio amended, curt, and sat down heavily next to Giorno. His mind was on the roof, but as he watched Giorno hypnotically make flower after flower, his heartrate slowly calmed down.

“I take it the district attorney got cold feet,” Giorno finally said into the silence, shooting Abbacchio a wry smile.

Abbacchio blinked, and before he entirely knew it, he had started to laugh, a mean, half-hysterical thing that had Giorno staring at him in blank mild fascination and horror. Abbacchio bumped his shoulder roughly against Giorno’s and said “ow” when he recalled his graze.

Giorno shook his head, bewildered. “You got blood on my suit,” he complained.

“You’re wearing red.”

Giorno narrowed his eyes. “Not the same shade.”

“Well, that’s our afternoon cleared, I guess,” Abbacchio said, and he sounded deceptively cheerful to his own ears.

“We should really do something about the district attorney. I cannot have someone believe they can simply kill me,” Giorno muttered, turning a bit of concrete into a ladybug and then back to concrete over and over again.

“Let me handle it, Boss,” Abbacchio said, and internally, he thought, What the hell am I doing. “He did shoot me, after all.”

Giorno tilted his head, looking up at him oddly. “Did you save my life?”

“No,” Abbacchio said, and then he stopped and blinked a few times. “Huh.”

Leone Abbacchio hated Giorno Giovanna. Everyone knew that. It was a fact that made Bruno endlessly irritated and Narancia uncomfortable and Mista wary and Trish upset. It was an axiom of his new existence in Passione. It was the reason he’d allowed himself to stay, really. He would never die for someone who he hated, and he didn’t want to die.

“I could have died,” Abbacchio said out loud, and Giorno rolled his eyes.

“Stop being dramatic.”

Practically, he’d only been grazed by the would-be assassin’s bullet, but Abbacchio’s sense had fully been eclipsed by the need to push Giorno out of the way, safe from danger. Cold horror began to crawl up his limbs, and he wrapped his arms around himself. God. He’d have to quiet Passione, now. What the fuck was he going to do? The only thing he’d ever been good at was this.

Giorno poked his arm just above the graze, and they both frowned down at it. “This seems too minor to make Gold Experience heal,” Giorno said.

“It is shallow,” Abbacchio agreed, faint.

Giorno shrugged, reaching down to grab a chunk of broken concrete, which he pressed to the wound as a small bit of flesh. Abbacchio winced, watching the scar tissue form. “Abbacchio,” Giorno said, and then cut himself off, frowning.

“What.”

Giorno looked at him out of the corner of his eye, and it hit Abbacchio all over again that he was fifteen. “Thanks.”

Abbacchio felt an unwelcome spike of unadulterated fondness, and he thought, No no no, in his dawning, inevitable terror. “Uh,” he managed. “Whatever. It’s my job.”

“I hate you,” Giorno sighed, climbing to his feet, but the assertion seemed weaker than usual, and Abbacchio wanted to tear at his hair in frustration. They weren’t meant to care about each other—that was why they worked so well together—they didn’t care.

Abbacchio groaned, rising to stand, already penning his letter of resignation in his head. He had to get away from the dreadful warmth in his chest at the sight of Giorno brushing dirt off his slacks with a distasteful pull to his mouth. “Come on, kid, let’s go back to the mansion. I’ll make us lunch,” he said, entirely without his own permission.

Giorno nodded. “I’m driving,” he said because clearly he hated Abbacchio and wanted to make his life miserable by depriving him of driving the sports car at every opportunity.

Abbacchio rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said, and he wasn’t even that irritated, what the fuck.

Giorno shoved his hands into his pockets and led the way to the car, and Abbacchio hung back, thinking of all the ways that the capacity to care could creep into someone’s life like roots clawing their way through slabs of concrete until there was nothing left but a crumbling foundation, and he said, “I’ll make spaghetti parmesan.”

“Alright,” Giorno agreed with a shrug.

Fugo and Giorno paused, and their gazes zeroed in on her. “I don’t know,” Giorno said, puzzled. “Why does anyone do anything?”

Sheila E frowned at him. Her hero worship of Giorno was a slow thing to wear off, but it was statements like these that really helped the process along. “This feels like a date,” she said, rather bravely, she thought.

Giorno blinked at her, and Fugo tried to hide a bark of laughter on her other side. “Sheila E, I thought you knew that Fugo and I were dating.”

“Oh my god,” she said, nearly whining. “Not that. You and Fugo having a date, and me sitting in between you. What the hell is up with that?”

“Huh. We do do that, don’t we?” Fugo said sheepishly.

“Absurd,” Giorno said, but Sheila E could see the wheels turning in his head, and doubt flickered into his expression. “I suppose our business meetings are not typically strictly-business, though.”

Sheila E stood up, turning to face them both. “What if you two had your not-strictly-business meetings alone. Say, at a candlelit restaurant, while I eat dinner at the shitty pizza place near the mansion.”

Fugo and Giorno exchanged a glance. “We didn’t think of that,” Giorno admitted, but Sheila E could see him warming to the idea.

“That can’t be good for our reputations, though,” Fugo muttered.

“We knew your traitorous image could only last so long,” Giorno offered. “Perhaps it’s time.”

“I meant your reputation. You can’t be seen with attachments.”

Giorno frowned. “I think I’ll be fine.”

“Maybe you two could figure out the details over this nice dinner,” Sheila E suggested, sounding annoyed despite herself.

She got twin scowls as a reward. “You really hate spending time with us that much?” Fugo demanded, and Sheila E warily catalogued the beginnings of a temper flare.

Good thing she wasn’t fucking scared of him anymore. “No, idiot. I hate third wheeling on your literal dates. I love you both, and I think you’re good for each other. I just don’t think I need to chaperone your entire relationship.”

“You love us?” Fugo echoed, and any trace of anger drained from his body.

She rolled her eyes. “I take it back now.”

Giorno stood from the bench, and Fugo followed. “You’re right. I should have taken this into consideration once we started dating. That is my fault, and I apologize.”

Sheila E shifted in discomfort. “It’s not a big deal.”

Fugo rolled his eyes and shoved her, lightly. She kicked him in the shin, hard. Fugo winced, but he said, “I offer you a piggy-back ride to the car as reparations.”

“Deal,” she said, much-too quickly, immediately launching herself at Fugo’s back. He stumbled with the momentum, and Giorno gave a quiet little laugh, eyes alight. “Also. Bring me some take-out home from this fancy restaurant.”

“Sure,” Giorno agreed.

“And give me the day off tomorrow. I want to take Fugo to the soccer game.”

“I can come to that, surely,” Giorno protested.

“I think Sheila E wants it to be a BFF outing,” Fugo commented, shifting his grip on Sheila E’s legs. “No boyfriends allowed.”

“Aw,” Giorno complained, pouting.

“Back up, dude. Did you just call our plans tomorrow a BFF outing?”

“Is that not what it is?”

“Well,” she sputtered, “I have never expected those words to come out of your stupid mouth.”

“I can be surprising!”

Giorno coughed to hide a laugh, and Sheila E watched Fugo shoot him a little glare without any heat. “You have the day off, both of you,” he said to them, voice thick with amusement. “I’ll just sub in Abbacchio.”

“Thank you, Giorno,” Sheila E said quietly, voice coming out much more serious than she had intended.

Giorno’s expression softened visibly. “Of course.”

“I went to high school, unlike the rest of you.”

“I went to high school,” Fugo protested. He was staring at Mista, wide-eyed. “Have you understood all of my—”

“Gross, no,” Mista said. “I try and block out your weird Shakespeare flirting, but we’re getting off topic. Autolycus, Giorno?”

“He has some beautiful lines of dialogue,” Giorno said defensively. His gaze flicked to Fugo in a wordless plea for help, but Fugo appeared to be stuck on the fact that Mista had read Shakespeare at all.

“Dude, that line was a lie, too, meant to manipulate that Shepherd guy. The Shepherd didn’t actually do anything wrong. Like, sure, the words are pretty, but this guy,” Mista said, gesturing towards the unconscious traitor, “doesn’t deserve to be the recipient of that sort of language. He actually sucks.”

Giorno narrowed his eyes in annoyance. “How do you know that scene so well?”

“Had to memorize it for a school project,” Mista said dismissively.

“You had to memorize the longest scene in Shakespeare’s canon,” Fugo said in flat incredulity.

“Part of it, anyway.” Mista tilted his head. “I’m not done, also. I resent any implication that you and Autolycus have a single thing in common.”

“My quoting this line was not meant to have any—”

But Mista was on a roll, evidently. “Autolycus is, like, the master of disguises in a play about disguises. And he sucks. You two are nothing alike.”

“Who do you think would be a better comparison, then?” Fugo asked, looking annoyed but also weirdly intrigued.

Mista laughed. “Easy. Obviously, Perdita.”

“Oh, come on,” Giorno said, and he did not pout.

Mista nodded. “Perdita,” he pointed at Giorno. “Florizel,” he pointed at Fugo and grinned.

Fugo blinked, stunned. At that, Giorno smiled. “Oh. That’s okay, then.”

“And I,” he began, spreading his hands magnanimously, “am the Clown.”

“Why the hell would you want to be the Clown?” Fugo asked in fascination.

“He’s funny and gets to see a dude get eaten by a bear.“

Giorno sighed. “Fine. I retract my Autolycus quote.”

“Thank you.”

“Out of curiosity,” Fugo began after a slight pause, “Which other plays have you read?”

Mista’s eyes lit up. “I’m not telling. You’re just gonna have to live in suspense.”

Fugo shot Giorno a vaguely panicked look, and Giorno shook his head. It was fine. They couldn’t live their whole lives only quoting Shakespeare. Perhaps, they could find another book to read together.

Giorno patted Mista on the shoulder. “Wake him up,” he said, nodding to the traitor, “and then take a break. I will finish this.”

“Oh. Hello,” Giorno said, feeling an ungodly level of awkwardness descend upon him. “How are you?”

Jolyne mumbled something rendered unintelligible by the phone’s speakers, and Kujo said, “Speak up.”

“But dad---”

“I’m not doing it for you.”

There was a long moment of silence, which thankfully allowed Giorno to get his bearings a little bit. He stood up and turned to face the window. He could see Bruno and Mista in the garden, and it was, objectively, a beautiful day. He felt himself relax a little bit.

Finally, Jolyne seemed to collect herself enough to say, “Uncle Giorno, are you coming to Morioh this summer?”

“Morioh?” he repeated.

“The Joestar reunion usually happens there,” Kujo added helpfully. “I sent the email yesterday.”

“Ah,” Giorno said, nodding. “I rarely check my email. I don’t understand it. What are the dates?”

“He said dates,” Jolyne whispered like it was something scandalous.

“Uh. First weekend in June. Plus the preceding Friday and following Monday.”

Four days, several months from now. It was enough notice that Giorno could probably pretty safely prepare for that sort of extended absence. Maybe he could even---

He cut off his line of thought, genuinely shocked that he was seriously considering attending this family reunion. “I’m not sure if I can confirm my attendance,” he said carefully.

“You’re not coming?” Jolyne demanded, sounding genuinely distressed.

“Um---”

“Giorno, don’t feel pressured to come. Jolyne just wanted to ask you.”

“No, feel pressure! I want to learn how you do your braid. Dad sucks at it.”

“I do not suck,” Kujo said, sounding kind of laughably offended.

Giorno rubbed the back of his neck. “Would I---would I be able to bring a plus one?”

“You can bring a plus six for all I care. My old man’s paying for hotel rooms.”

Giorno frowned. “I think I would only need a plus one. No extra rooms.”

“Does that mean you’re coming?” Jolyne demanded in excitement.

“Tentatively. Maybe.”

“What’s tentatively?”

Kujo explained the meaning of the word as best as he could, and Giorno hid a little smile. The door to his office opened, and Fugo stepped inside, tilting his head in curiosity when Giorno held up a finger, telling him to wait.

“Braids aren’t difficult, once you master them,” Giorno added once Jolyne was satisfied with her new definition. “I can teach your father how to do them for you.”

“Teach us both,” Kujo said. “Just in case I’m gone when she wants one.”

“Where are you going?” Jolyne asked rather accusatorily.

“Nowhere. I meant just in case.”

Jolyne huffed. “Uncle Giorno, who are you bringing?”

Giorno reached out a hand, and Fugo walked over, grabbing it reflexively. “My boyfriend, if he wants to come.” Fugo furrowed his brows, looking wary. Giorno squeezed his hand.

“You have a boyfriend?” Jolyne asked.

“Jolyne.”

“Yes,” Giorno said.

“Cool. Bring Trish, too!”

“I’ll see if she’s available,” Giorno said doubtfully.

“Okay. Bye, Uncle Giorno!”

“Bye, Jolyne.”

Kujo audibly took the phone off speaker. “Sorry,” he said, switching to Japanese.

“No need to apologize. It’s very nice that she remembers me.”

Kujo gave a noncommittal hum. “Well, RSVP to the email at your discretion.” There was a conspicuous beat of hesitation. “The rest of the family is---uh---well, they’re good, but they’re a lot to handle. I understand if---”

Giorno closed his eyes, and Fugo tugged at his hand in concern. “I should probably meet them,” he said slowly, warily. “Right?”

He could almost hear Kujo’s frown. “I will not dictate the level of involvement you should have in our lives. It’s your decision. For what it’s worth, though, I think they’ll like you.”

Thrown, Giorno said, “Thank you.”

“Anyway. Jolyne’s running outside without shoes, which I think is my cue to hang up.”

Giorno was startled into a laugh. “Go catch her.”

“Good grief,” Kujo muttered, and the line disconnected.

“What was that all about?” Fugo asked, grabbing Giorno’s other hand.

“Family reunion in Japan this summer,” Giorno said. “Do you think we should go?”

“We?” Fugo echoed, amused.

Giorno shrugged. “I can go alone, I guess.”

“I’m only teasing. Do you want to go?”

“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Nodding, Fugo said, “Well, we don’t have to decide right now.”

Giorno’s lips quirked upwards. “We?”

“Shut up,” Fugo said, smiling. “Have lunch with me. We can talk about it more over some food.”