Pairing(s): GioMis or Giorno & Mista (Platonic or Pre-Relationship)
Summary: “All of them,” Giorno breathes the words in a near rush of panic. His stomach turns at merely hearing the list. His resolve crumbles in an instant, and it’s only worsened when he makes the mistake of looking down at his hands, clasped together in his lap. He picks idly at the cuticle of one thumb with the nail of the other in a desperate attempt to keep himself calm. The more worked up he gets, the worse the cramps are, and they’re already rolling through him too often to be ignored.
Notes: Trigger Warnings: Dysphoria; Gio experiences quite a bit of it, and it's not very nice.
Guess who had a period from hell.
Trigger Warnings: Gender dysphoria! Giorno struggles with it quite a bit throughout the fic.
1. Bucci's also trans, 2. Polnareff is alive (so is everyone else for that matter.), and 3. Bruno being trans is not a secret/Mista isn't actually outing him here.
-
“I would like to rearrange a few meetings,” Giorno says, choosing his words carefully, so he can gauge Polnareff’s reaction.
Without missing a beat, Polnareff answers, “Of course. Which were you interested in moving? There’s the two after lunch, the one with Dura at three, and Abba-”
“All of them,” Giorno breathes the words in a near rush of panic. His stomach turns at merely hearing the list. His resolve crumbles in an instant, and it’s only worsened when he makes the mistake of looking down at his hands, clasped together in his lap. He picks idly at the cuticle of one thumb with the nail of the other in a desperate attempt to keep himself calm. The more worked up he gets, the worse the cramps are, and they’re already rolling through him too often to be ignored.
Polnareff looks momentarily surprised, but he schools his expression quickly and reaches underneath his chair to where he keeps a notebook safely tucked away. He pulls his pen from the spiral binding and looks to Giorno with sheer determination.
“Any-- preferences? On when I reschedule these to?”
“Two or three days from now at the earliest,” Giorno knows it’s risky. A bad idea at best and a great way to destroy several very fragile relationships at worst, but he’s reaching a breaking point. His eyes are already burning, and he can’t ignore the hopeless feeling gripping him any more than he can ignore the way blood continues to fill the pad he’s wearing. He’s too hyper-aware of both, and there’s nothing worse than showing weakness in front of a pack of dogs, most of whom were raised by the streets in some form or fashion. With the exception, of course, of the nepotistic sort, though Giorno doesn’t generally think much of them. They’re certainly not the threat that the others can be when left unchecked.
Polnareff, to his credit, only nods and makes a note of the request. He pauses a moment, clearly chewing something over in his mind, and it’s likely only their close relationship that allows him to ask, “Are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine,” which is a non-answer, but it’s the best Polnareff is getting from him when he feels like this: weak, vulnerable. Disgusting. Wrong. If he could tear the skin off his body, he would.
Polnareff nods again. There’s a lingering look in his good eye that Giorno thinks might be concern. Possibly displeasure at being blatantly left in the dark when it’s Polnareff’s job to be as informed as possible, though the man says nothing of it and simply wishes Giorno well before departing from the office altogether. He uses Chariot to open the door for him and wheels away without any actual protest.
It’s all Giorno can do to hold his breath until the moment the door clicks shut, and he deflates immediately over the edge of his desk. He slumps forward on the wood and tries hard to bite back the quiet, senseless sobs that bubble up in his chest. It’s ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous. He should be able to handle this, even if it has been awhile. He can’t fall apart the moment his period decides to rear its ugly head as one of the worst reminders of what he isn’t. What he fails to be. Yet here he is, crying over his desk like a child, though his sobs are silent. Even now, years later, he hasn’t shaken that habit.
______
Mista startles out of his light doze thanks to a text. He flails about uselessly, arms smacking into the side door of the car before he remembers where he is (and who he’s with, if the short-tempered, “Watch it!”, is anything to go by). It takes him another moment to figure out where he left his phone, and it’s only because of Five that he finds it at all.
“Thanks, buddy,” he says as he pulls the screen up for the last message he received. He blinks in surprise at the body of the first text.
Meetings are canceled.
Under any other circumstance, Mista would be hooping and hollering in delight. Meetings being canceled means that Mista doesn’t have to stand around pointlessly for hours while some morons try to talk circles around Giorno of all people, but there’s a gnawing worry that grows in his gut. Giorno doesn’t cancel meetings unless he’s physically unable to be there. Usually when a mission has carried over and kept them from home for too long. The next text does little to quail his anxiety.
You should check in on him anyway.
Mista doesn’t need to be told who ‘him’ is, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s already planning on it once they get back to the mansion.
______
Giorno extracts himself from his desk after a few more minutes of self-pity. There’s only so much of it he can stand at any given time. More importantly, he doesn’t want anyone to happen by before he has a chance to compose himself, which is exactly what he does. He pulls a small mirror from his desk and grimaces at the red, puffy eyes that look back at him.
He’s part way through fixing his hair when another cramp hits. Sharp and agonizing with the way it pierces through his middle and spreads outwards, toward his hips. He doubles over with his arms hugging around his middle. It’s instinct more than anything. God knows it doesn’t help alleviate the pain any.
It takes him a solid sixty seconds before he can work up the courage to unravel. He half expects the next wave to roll through him the moment he does, but there’s a blessed lack of follow up. For the time being. He doesn’t expect that to last. It never does.
His chest aches with the effort that it takes to keep his breathing even. The binder isn’t helping, but he’s not about to try to wiggle out of it in his office. His only option is to get himself up and back to his bedroom, but that sounds like a momentous task on it’s own. Somehow he has to get there without being brought to his knees by cramps or hit with another wave of despair or-- well, being perceived at all. One look at his face will give him away. Maybe they won’t know why, but they’ll know that something is wrong, and that’s bad enough.
He finally manages to get his hair to a presentable level again when someone knocks on the door to his office, and his heart drops down to his stomach. He glances back at the mirror one more time before shoving it in his desk. His eyes are definitely still puffy, though some of the redness has dissipated.
“Giorno?” Mista asks, poking the door open slightly when Giorno doesn’t immediately respond. It’s only then that Giorno realizes that his voice is caught in his throat, and he gets a second, far more concerned call of his name for his hesitance.
“I’m fine,” he says quickly. Too quickly. Mista might not read people as well as Bucciarati, but he’s still acutely aware of certain details (the ones that matter! Mista’s voice echoes in his head.)
“Uh,” Mista starts, a little lamely, but he quickly shakes off any reserves he has about being direct if his next words are anything to go by, “No offense, but you look like shit, so I’m pretty sure you’re not. Actually.”
Giorno falters slightly. He should have texted Mista after Polnareff left. Should have explained the situation in the vaguest possible terms. And definitely should have come up with an excuse. But he had done none of those things, and now he’s stuck with the repercussions of his own actions. Or inactions.
“It’s not important,” he tries. Pathetic as it is.
“You canceled all your meetings for today,” and Giorno supposes he set himself up for that. He hasn’t come up with an excuse yet, especially not one that adequately explains away his behavior.
Silence stretches between them. Giorno for lack of an answer, and Mista because he seems to expect Giorno to cave. To the Don’s great horror, he does just that.
“It really isn’t that big of a deal. I’m just--” only, before he can finish speaking, another cramp grabs hold and twists mercilessly until he’s gasping and leaning forward with both hands clenching at the edge of his desk. He closes his eyes, as if to shut out the pain, or possibly the reality of the situation as it registers in the back of his mind.
“Giorno!” Mista calls, loud and panicked. He lunges forward to close the gap between them, though he hesitates once he’s within touching distance. “Giorno?”
“I’m fine, just-- cramps,” Giorno confesses, grinding his teeth together as the next one rips through him. Equally as painful as the last and as impossible to ignore. He feels his cheeks burn the way his eyes are once again, and all he wants is to crawl under his desk and hide away from the world. It’s not often that he wishes he could be nobody again, but now is certainly one of those times.
“Cramps?” Mista asks with confusion evident in his voice, but then his eyes go wide. He scans Giorno over, as if that might give him the affirmative he needs. “Like Bucci’s?”
Giorno doesn’t actually know what that means, but he nods anyway. Close enough, and it means he doesn’t have to explain anything else.
“Okay, okay, shit--!” Mista sounds a bit more panicked now. More like how Giorno feels being flayed open like this in front of one of the people he actually cares about. Whose opinion actually means something to him. “God, he hasn’t had them in so long. Fuck, uh? Heat. Oh, and we should probably get you into something more comfortable. Have you taken anything?”
What?
Giorno’s mind skips and stutters into a complete stall. He’s not sure what Bucciarati has to do with anything, but he’s suddenly sure that the answer is more closely linked than he had originally thought.
“Gio?”
“Yes,” Giorno grinds out, because he did, though he’s nearing the end of the four hour period before he can take the next dose, and he’s tempted to swallow as much as he can fit into his fist. The damage is something he can deal with later. With his Stand, but he knows it won’t help. The efficacy of such medication is limited, but it hurts. It hurts, and he’s just outed himself to one of his closest friends with no warning. No preparation. Anxiety works its way up his throat, and he thinks, for a moment, that he might be sick.
“C’mon, let’s get you out of here,” Mista says, bringing Giorno back out of his thoughts and back into reality. He tugs gently at Giorno’s upper arm.
Giorno lets himself be pulled up to his feet with a sort of numbness spreading through him. For all the panic that’s coursing through his veins, there is one, lucid thought: Mista isn’t upset. He’s taken the news and simply rolled with it like it means nothing. Like it doesn’t change anything, and Giorno doesn’t know how to handle that, so he just lets himself be pulled along. Out from behind his desk and toward the office entrance.
From there it’s a long, impossible trek to Giorno’s bedroom. One that requires breaks for the cramps that won’t let him off so easily. For a moment, he wishes it were a bullet tearing apart his insides. That, at least, he could do something about, but cramps are something else entirely. Using GE won’t get him anywhere. In fact, he’s pretty sure it’s made it worse in the past, when he’s tried out of pure desperation.
“I’m going to go grab a heating pad,” Mista starts once they reach Giorno’s bedroom, “You should get changed into something less-- tight. Got any stretchy pants?”
“My pajamas,” Giorno answers, more because it seems expected of him than because he’s actually paying attention.
“Perfect! I’ll be back in a minute.”
Giorno’s left standing there, a bit lost for what to do with himself, but the next shock of pain comes and fresh tears burn at the corners of his eyes, reminding him of the fact that he really doesn’t want to be in the middle of the hall, visibly crying for all to see. There’s a logical part of him that knows he wouldn’t be judged for it, but there’s a much louder part that reminds him that crying has never gotten him anywhere in life other than alone and miserable.
He turns the knob on his door and pushes it open after the agony subsides enough to allow him to move again. The first thing he does upon entering his room is seek out the pill bottle from earlier. A few minutes won’t make a difference, and he’s rapidly approaching the end of his rope. He can’t handle the pain on top of everything else.
Changing is a whole other problem. One that he hadn’t thought of as a problem until he’s standing there with his sleep clothes in hand and staring down at himself, realizing he’ll have to undress in order to redress (and is it really worth the effort? Worth seeing himself and his hips and his chest and--).
He peels out of his suit despite himself. He doesn’t want Mista to come back and push the subject. Then there’s the risk that Mista might not leave, which means Giorno will have to deal with an audience on top of having to suffer through his own self-hatred.
The binder stays on. Regardless of how uncomfortable and hot and painful he already is. He can’t handle the idea of taking it off right now, so he suffers for the little bit of mental peace that it brings him. The flattened chest makes up for the curve of his hips, though he finds himself flattening his hands over his waist anyway. Unable to stop himself from picking at every flaw when he’s already hormonal and all around having one of the worst days he’s had in awhile.
The knock at his door startles him into action, and he finishes getting dressed with a quick, “Hold on!”
A moment later has him opening the door to Mista’s grinning face.
“Found it,” Mista says as he holds up the box with a product image on it. Giorno doesn’t get a chance to observe more than the fact that it’s maroon before Mista drops it back down to his side and nods toward Giorno’s room.
Giorno steps out of the way to allow his (technically uninvited) guest in. Mista’s rambling on about something. Giorno isn’t sure what, though he catches ‘Bucciarati’ and ‘Trish’ in there somewhere, and there’s something about Abbacchio being unhelpful and half a dozen other things that fall on deaf ears.
“Oh, and you got changed, good,” Mista finishes with another one of his goofy smiles. The corners of his eyes pull oddly, giving away something else that he’s trying to hide under all the babbling and warmth. Worry persists, despite knowing the truth. Giorno can’t understand why. Cramps aren’t that big of a deal; even if he’s made them out to be in his own head.
“Yeah, it’s helping a little, thanks,” Giorno says when Mista looks at him with some sort of expectation in his eyes. Giorno’s usually better at reading people than this, but he feels like he’s moving in water. Too slow and with too much drag. He can’t keep up with the world around him, and it’s all overwhelming pressure and not enough time. Time to process, time to breathe. He loops back around to the fact that he came out to someone on the Team no more than ten minutes ago, yet Mista is unflinching and unconcerned. He hasn’t brought it back up, since he learned about it, in fact. Hell, he’s acting like all of this is completely normal, despite Giorno being almost completely certain that Mista is cis.
“Earth to Giorno,” Mista calls, voice soft with that same worry now seeping into his tone.
“Sorry,” Giorno says quickly, “I was--”
“Off in lala land?”
“Something like that,” though he thinks that sounds substantially more pleasant than all the thoughts racing through his mind.
Mista watches him for a long, uncomfortable moment. It’s times like these where Giorno gets reminded of just how much Mista likes to play dumb, when he’s anything but. He might not have the book smarts that Fugo has, but Mista is brilliant in so many other ways. Ways that are working against Giorno right now.
“You know, if you want to talk about it…”
“I-” Giorno cuts off and groans. He quickly takes a seat on the edge of his bed and sticks his head down between his knees, folding himself in half in an attempt to apply enough pressure to alleviate some of the pain.
“Oh, shit, here,” Mista moves to find an outlet and digs out the heating pad from its box. He hooks it up quickly and hands it to Giorno. The fabric of its exterior is surprisingly soft in Giorno’s hands, and he’s quick to tuck it between his abdomen and his thighs.
“Thank you,” he breathes out after several seconds pass and heat finally starts to spread across the pad.
“No problem,” Mista says quietly. More subdued than he typically is. He moves to sit on the bed beside Giorno and places a hesitant hand on his back, where he rubs gentle circles until he can feel some of the tension ease out of his Don’s muscles.
It’s quiet for a long while. Giorno basks in the relief the pad and pain killers offer. It’s the first time in over an hour that he’s been able to simply breathe through the worst of the cramps each time they hit. Though his chest continues to ache, the change is nonetheless a welcomed one. The sensation of heat spreading across his abdomen is enough of a distraction to keep him out of his own head. For a short while, at least.
“Earlier, you said something about Bucciarati,” Giorno starts, nervous and unsure of how to broach the topic.
“Oh yeah, Bucci used to get cramps real bad, too,” Mista says without hesitation. Without any hint whatsoever that he finds what he’s said to be unusual.
“Is he--?”
“Oh, shit,” Mista’s hand stills on his back, and Giorno gnaws suddenly at his lip, afraid he’s somehow messed with something he shouldn’t have. “Uh, technically that’s probably not my place to say? But he’s not exactly hiding it, Gio. He’s got scars and everything.”
Scars? Oh.
Oh.
Giorno feels his face flush, this time out of a different sort of embarrassment. Sure, he had seen the scars before, but they were light. Old and well healed, probably through the help of Sticky Fingers, and it’s not as though Bucciarati isn’t covered in dozens of others. Most of them silver from age, but there all the same. It had never once occurred to Giorno that the two on his chest, which peek out just a bit underneath the classic lingerie that Bucciarati always wears, are anything purposeful.
“I didn’t realize,” Giorno admits after a moment, when that little fact is probably very obvious and unnecessarily verbalized, but he doesn’t know what else to say to fill the silence. His own head is much louder. Full of racing thoughts and flashes of memories.
“Maybe you should talk to him about it sometime?” Particularly in moments like these; Mista spares his emotions by keeping that part to himself, but Giorno’s thinking it all the same.
To imagine that he’s been doing all of this in silence since meeting Bucciarati and his Team. To think that he could be so dense as to dismiss the signs that he isn’t alone. He only wishes he had realized sooner, even if he isn’t sure what it would have changed. He’s not sure he could have broached the subject then. He’s not sure he could do it now. Mista only found out because of circumstance.
Still. There’s someone just like him, and they live under the same roof. “I should,” he agrees, because he really should, hang-ups aside.
“Hey, you wanna try laying out? ‘Cause, no offense, man, but that looks super uncomfortable.” Mista asks after a beat of silence. He’s never one to let it go on for too long, and he’s rarely deterred by any uncomfortableness that might be lingering.
Giorno nods his head after a moment and slowly sits up. He moves his hands to hold the heating pad against his abdomen and breathes a small sigh of relief when the pain doesn’t immediately crowd in on him again. He carefully stretches himself out across the bed, despite how painfully aware of Mista’s presence he is. It’s weird to be laying out, so physically vulnerable, and it makes him acutely aware of all the things he wishes he could forget. (Is the outline of his binder visible? What about the shape of his hips? Does lying down like this make it that much more obvious how slight Giorno is?)
Once he’s lying back fully, he lets go of the pad, allowing it to rest on top of him on its own. The next wave of pain is far more manageable than the last several have been, and he merely winces in response.
“Those must suck, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
“I really don’t,” Mista agrees, “Though Trish and Bucci make it out to be pretty shitty, so.”
“I think I prefer being stabbed.”
Mista winces at the thought, “For what it’s worth, I’d rather you weren’t.”
Giorno lets out a startled laugh, but he gets Mista’s point. He kind of wishes his bodyguard weren’t so prone to being shot with multiple bullets on a regular basis. Unfortunately for both of them, they can’t always get what they want.
The quiet that settles over them this time is much more peaceful. Giorno closes his eyes and relaxes into the mattress. It’s the best he’s felt all day. Physically, anyway. There’s plenty for him to work through otherwise, but he doesn’t want to think about that right now. Instead, he focuses on the lessening cramps until they’ve all but died off entirely. Exhaustion takes hold of him then. It’s still far too early in the day to sleep, but a nap is beginning to sound like a good idea.
Before he can think about drifting off fully, he cracks his eyes open to peek at Mista, “Thank you.”
Mista beams at him from where he’s gone and laid out next to Giorno, “Anytime, GioGio. Anytime.”
