Chapter Text
Sixteen years old.
The realization hadn’t quite hit Giorno until he sat down, birthday cake in front of him, everyone’s eyes on him as they cheerfully sang happy birthday at the top of their lungs.
He was sixteen years old.
To be completely honest, he wasn’t quite sure how to process this information. In theory he had known, even before meeting Bruno Buccellati, that his birthday was approaching. Still, that fateful week and everything after it had gone by so quickly – so frantically – it was a little hard to believe. Sometimes it felt like it hadn’t happened at all, and everything was so new and disorienting it almost hurt. Sometimes it felt like he had never known anything else at all. Like there was something ancient and tired in his bones.
Still, here he was. Not a hopeful yet aimless fifteen years old, or a jaded grown man who’d always known the weight of the world on his shoulders. Just a sixteen years old sitting on a couch inside a turtle, trying not to look too awkward.
The cake had been courtesy of Mista and Bruno, who had gladly taken the chance to keep himself busy by baking. Giorno could only imagine how hard it was for him to adjust to the loss of his senses, but at least the muscle memory and others’ help were there to back him up in things like this. Then its decoration, from what he understood, had been Trish’s work; you could see the care she had put into carefully writing each colorful letter on the cake. Narancia and Abbacchio with the house’s decorations, everyone pitching in for the groceries and other things… Somehow, everyone had gotten together to make Giorno’s birthday a special day.
It was disorienting and wonderful all the same.
“What are you waiting for?” Trish’s smile was dazzling. “Make a wish!”
Giorno blinked. “What?”
“Make a wish!” It was Narancia who piped in this time. He had one arm lazily resting around Mista’s shoulders. “Y’know, when you blow the candles?”
“Oh.” Giorno’s voice was barely above a whisper. He stared down at the lit candles on the birthday cake. “I apologize, I didn’t know. I’ve never done this before.”
Mista looked scandalized. “What do you mean, never?”
Something about revealing that he didn’t know such a seemingly basic thing made Giorno severely uncomfortable. Despite this, he remained composed. “My mother got me chocolates sometimes, for my birthdays. That would be the extent of my knowledge on birthday celebrations.”
Well. At least, out of all the emotions clearly written on everyone’s faces, not a single one of them was pity. Small mercies, he supposed. Giorno tried not to focus on how exposed he felt.
After a second of awkward silence, it was Mista who spoke up. “Oh. Oh man.” He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but before he knew it, Giorno was being swept up in the older teenager’s arms. “I- Giorno, I swear, now that you’re with us we’re going to be giving you the best birthday celebrations. I promise.”
All around the table, people nodded emphatically. Giorno felt his throat closed up.
Looking at his birthday candles, Giorno knew what his wish would be.
I wish for things to always stay like this.
---
By the time the party ended, everyone was tired, but happy all the same. Trish, Narancia and Mista were gone now – Trish had important places to be soon, as an aspiring star, and the boys wanted to make sure she would get home safe. Bruno and Polnareff, armchair next to wheelchair, were having an amicable conversation. While Buccellati could sense what people were saying in his own way despite the lack of hearing, they had decided it would be productive to try to learn deaf-blind sign language, for his sake. Because of this, he and the older man were now practicing together, Polnareff’s hand gently but firmly set on Bruno’s wrist. This left Giorno and Abbacchio to quietly put things away together.
It was a nice, quiet moment. Giorno felt as though the leftovers of the warmth his new friends had provided would burrow neatly into his heart forever. It was just… good.
A loud crashing noise shook him out of his thoughts. Under him, scattered all over the ground were the shards of the glass he’d been holding just a second ago. Giorno blinked, shocked. He couldn’t – he didn’t remember letting go.
“Are you okay?” Polnareff’s look of concern contrasted the one of exasperation on Abbacchio’s face.
“I’m alright,” Giorno said. “I apologize.”
Something is wrong, Giorno thought.
---
The truth of the situation didn’t dawn on Giorno until days after, when Narancia complained about a completely random lisp he’d been getting.
“It’s so weird,” he said, and through the lightness of his tone Giorno could tell he was at least a little concerned about it. “Like, every now and then my tongue just… goes numb. It’s a huge pain, honestly.”
Giorno thought of the way his hands would suddenly stop working, of the spots that every now and again clouded his vision.
Thick, hot guilt started pooling itself in his chest. He gave Narancia what he hoped was a blank look.
“That’s odd,” he said. “You said the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with you?”
Narancia shrugged. Giorno nodded.
“That… Is a problem. I will try to look into it myself. Later.” The promise felt empty on his lips. He made it all the same.
Narancia smiled at me. “Thanks, man. But – hey, don’t push yourself. It’s not anything urgent and I don’t want you overworking yourself any more than you are just because you want to check in on me.”
Giorno smiled. “I will do my best.”
---
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Giorno couldn’t believe how foolish he had been.
It made sense, really – it only made sense. He had never truly tested the limits of Gold Experience’s life-giving abilities. Most of the beings he created were there for utility, to be turned back to their original forms soon after their births, and then other times they were little creatures he let go of when they inevitably walked away. He’d never– he’d never–.
He’d never stopped to think about how little they might last.
And now here he was, voice dying and arms tensing themselves up at the strangest of times. Here he was, with spots on his right eye’s vision and a constant feeling of sickening warmth. Here he was, a victim to the limits of his own ability, feeling the life he’d infused himself with slowly fade away.
Here he was, dooming not only himself but the people he was supposed to be caring for, all because he couldn’t do this one thing right.
He wondered if there was some sort of justice to this – maybe he had danced with fate a little too much, and now it was back with a vengeance to take at least one of the lives he’d kept away from death’s embrace. Maybe this was the way things were meant to be. Maybe he wasn’t meant to last.
Giorno was far too stubborn to let fate win like that.
Alone in his rooms private bathroom, Giorno geared himself up to once again go through one of the most painful things he had ever had to experience. The replacement of body parts was painful, with his power – recreating nerves and connections and flesh was no easy feat, neither for Gold Experience nor for the body trying to process it.
As he extended his right arm, there was a hint of something he did not quite understand in Gold Experience Requiem’s watchful eyes. He tried not to think too much about it – had little opportunity to think too much about it. Couldn’t let himself think too much about it.
He had a duty to fulfill and a mafia to watch over and friends to protect and by God, he was going to make this last.
---
“This is going to hurt for a moment,” said Giorno.
Narancia rolled his eyes. “I can handle it, man, I’m in the mafia. I just want to actually taste my pizza when I’m eating it.”
Giorno’s hand hovered on the air, hesitating. “You said the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong?”
Narancia nodded.
Giorno sighed, guilt burning his chest from the inside, and fixed him.
---
There was a little abandoned church at the edge of Napoli.
Not many people knew about it. As far as Giorno was aware, the small community around it had fallen apart a long time ago, people running away or falling victim to a series of unexplainable crimes until there was nothing really left. Many of the houses in the area had fallen along with their history. Somehow, the church had stayed.
Giorno always wondered what had motivated Diavolo to make it into a place of execution.
He wondered many things about Diavolo, more than he would like to admit. What was going through his head when he did the things he did, hurt the people he hurt. He wondered what had happened to him, what Gold Experience Requiem had done. He wondered, he wondered, he wondered…
The church was no longer any kind of official execution site, but it was still surprisingly well maintained and used more frequently than he would like. It seemed like, for every devout catholic in Passione, there was at least one other person too in love with the drama to want to go somewhere else. Something about the stained glass and the intimidation factor, the aesthetic of blood on the stone. That one he tried not to think about too much.
There were so many things he tried not to think about, and still he had been finding himself sitting on the pews of the church lately, thinking about them anyways.
He never knew if his mother was a religious woman, but she had definitely never been around to take him to church. (It’d been a few weeks since the last time he replaced his rotting flesh.) His stepfather, a believer, never liked to take him anywhere too much, either. (It was hot and unsettling, but maybe the worst part was that it didn’t hurt, it just was.) He didn’t regret this fact too much, honestly, but it was a little sad that he hadn’t been able to observe the art that filled them before. (Soon his voice would start failing again; he had to replace his throat soon. Can’t have the Don go sporadically mute during negotiations. Can’t have the Don fall apart, not visibly, not mentally.) The stained glass and intricately painted statues, though faded with time and a lack of maintenance, were a sight to behold.
… The last person to use the church hadn’t cleaned the floor correctly.
What a mess.
“Giorno?”
The sound of his own name made him freeze. It echoed gently, bouncing against the stone walls like every other sound did inside the building. He did not turn around; he had recognized the voice as Bruno’s and, hopefully, if he stayed quiet enough, he would not be found. He was not in the mood to talk to anyone.
He heard the footsteps before he finally turned around and saw Bruno, with a service dog walking at his feet and a floating Gold Experience Requiem holding his hand, guiding him towards Giorno.
He gave the stand a mean look. As always, he received an owlish blank stare in response. Traitor.
Giorno reached out for Bruno’s hand, trying his best not to startle the man as he took it and signed. <I’m here.>
Bruno smiled just slightly, face pointed towards nothing. “You’re a little far from home, aren’t you?”
<It’s quiet here. I like that.> Giorno took a moment, studying Buccellati’s serene expression. <Why are you here?>
“Pomi wanted to walk.” The small dog at his feet perked up at the sound of her name. Despite himself, Giorno smiled at her. “I guess I didn’t realize where she was taking me until we were already here and a ghostly hand was asking me to come inside.” A pause, then a tilt of his head. “That was weird, by the way. Please ask Gold Experience to stop doing that.”
Giorno couldn’t bring himself to say that he didn’t have any real control over the stand’s actions, that it liked to sort of do its own thing. So he said nothing.
Bruno ran his free hand through the back of the pew in front of them. “So. We’re in a church?”
<It’s the one Diavolo used.> What an odd string of words to use; the Devil’s church. <The one we still use. For terminations.>
“Oh.”
Neither of them said anything more, simply letting themselves process everything. Except Giorno had never been very good at fully processing anything, and now that Bruno had intruded on what was meant to be a moment of solitude, the silence was deafening.
<I think I’m dying.>
Bruno gasped. “What?”
Giorno’s hand shook against the man’s. <Gold Experience does not work right. I have to keep replacing…> He hesitated, trying to find the words. There were none. <I’m tired of remaking. I want things to stay.>
“We can’t always keep what we want.” Bruno’s voice was far too soft for the harshness of his words.
Giorno frowned. <You’re rotting too. Do you not care?>
“All that lives must die, Giorno. I was at peace with it in Roma. I am at peace with it now.”
<I’m not.>
Bruno’s smile was cold. “You better learn, then.”
---
Giorno tried his hardest to stall as much as he could between body part replacements.
Truth be told, he hated doing it. It was a horribly painful process, and having to stare at Gold Experience Requiem’s face through all of it did not help in the slightest. It always just… looked at him in a way that he couldn’t quite pin down but it was uncomfortable . He wanted it to stop. Not having the power to make it stop scared him to no end.
He was walking towards his room now, small rocks in his hands, mentally preparing to go through all of that again. The most important part was to be clean about it – generally he didn’t need to… remove anything, but this one time he’d accidentally opened a wound and it was so messy–
His arms twitched. The rocks were all on the floor now. Disheartened, Giorno went to pick them up. Gold Experience Requiem was looking at him.
Giorno frowned. “What do you want?”
Gold Experience Requiem was looking at him.
The stones felt uncomfortable on his skin as he hugged them close to his chest. “You could help, you know. If you’re just going to stand there.”
Gold Experience Requiem was looking at him.
Giorno grabbed one of the rocks with his right hand, holding it so tight he feared something in his skin might break. He didn’t care. “I fucking hate you.” His knuckles would have turned white by now, had there been enough blood flowing through his arms in the first place.
Gold Experience Requiem was looking at him.
It wasn’t until he threw the stone at it that he realized his mistake – because then the stand had dematerialized, and Abbacchio was leaning to the side, head just a little bit to the left of where it would have hit him.
“Okay, what the fuck?”
Giorno gulped.
---
Most of the time, Giorno liked to pretend he wasn’t aware of the considerable size difference between him and Abbacchio. Sure, the man was a giant, but that didn’t have to mean anything. Giorno was his boss. Giorno was a powerful and imposing individual in his own right, and he had no need to be particularly tall for that.
Except right now they were both sitting on his bed together, the larger man manspreading and glaring at him, and for the first time in a while Giorno felt very, very small.
“You are an idiot,” Abbacchio declared.
Giorno frowned. “What?”
“You heard me.” His scowl deepened. “Literally, what the fuck is wrong with you? You’re falling apart, Giovanna, and you weren’t going to tell anyone about it?”
Giorno tried not to react to the increasingly aggressive tone in Abbacchio’s voice. “I was going to say something. Eventually.”
Abbacchio arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
For once in his life, Giorno made purposeful eye contact. “Narancia deserves an explanation. About what’s happening with his tongue. You deserve to – to understand what’s probably happening to you, too. Buccellati already knows what’s happening, but the rest of you… you deserve to know what’s going on.”
“You.” Abbacchio pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are unbelievable. You can’t just–!” In a sudden movement, he turned around and grabbed Giorno by the shoulder. Giorno did not flinch. “Giorno. Giorno, listen to me.”
Giorno blinked. “I’m listening.”
“No you’re not.” Abbacchio shook his head. “But I’m going to make you. Because you have to understand – the fact you think you can just get away with anything as long as you’re the only one who gets hurt? Is complete. And utter. Bullshit.”
“I have a duty–” Giorno tried.
“Yes you do. You took over the fucking mafia. You’re our boss now, Giorno. You are not expandable.” Giorno’s breath caught in his throat. Abbacchio continued. “Do you even have any clue of how many lives are in your hands?”
He did, actually. Or he had an idea, at least.
Giorno crossed his arms and looked pointedly away from Abbacchio. “I’ll figure something out,” he said. His voice nearly failed him, for a moment, but for now his voice box was holding on. “Even if I have to keep remaking my body forever. I’m not going to let this fall apart. I’m going to make this last.”
Abbacchio’s hand slid off Giorno’s shoulder. There was something in his eyes – far too close to recognition – that made Giorno severely uncomfortable. He found that he did not want to hear anything else from him.
“For now, let me fix you.” He turned towards Abbacchio and put his hands on the man’s stomach. Shockingly (thankfully) he did not resist.
He barely even reacted to the pain.
“I’ll figure this out,” Giorno promised.
He almost believed it.