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Mista cries at the movies.
He watches romcoms, horror thrillers, movies that try too hard to be poignant and end up just being tragedy after tragedy. He watches them all, and sometimes Giorno will go with him – this is how he knows that Mista will cry at just about anything if he has a popcorn bucket in one hand and a giant glowing screen in front of him.
It’s become something of a tradition in recent years. They get off from work at the same time on Friday nights, ambiguously late because they don’t work nine-to-fives and Giorno is the Don of the largest crime organization in this side of Italy. Sometimes it’ll be too late and even the supposedly 24-hour theater will be closed, and that means it’s time for a drink instead.
But most of the time the theater is open, and they’re generous enough patrons that the theater will always be playing one of Mista’s favorites. Tonight, it’s Pretty Woman, and Mista is wiping at his cheeks as Vivian kisses Edward passionately on-screen.
Giorno watches him sniffle out of the corner of his eye, mostly focused on appearing as though he hasn’t been watching Mista this entire time. He pays enough attention to know the basic plot and the character’s names, but the smaller details are lost to him while he studies the minute changes in expression that Mista’s face goes through.
Pretty Woman isn’t bad. It’s a good movie, hitting all the right plot points and conflicts to make for an interesting story. It’s just an unfortunate truth that Giorno doesn’t see much appeal in watching movies that he’s already seen a dozen times over, driving all the way to a theater instead of watching it in the comfort of his own home.
Still, he’s here now. He drove them downtown to watch a movie because Mista still doesn’t like driving even after all this time. He bought a large popcorn for Mista and a flat soda for himself, swilling the liquid around in his mouth when he can feel himself becoming drowsy.
Giorno thinks: if he kissed Mista right now, he would taste like buttered popcorn, greasy and artificial.
If he kissed Mista, Mista would kiss him back for a moment before turning back to the movie, unwilling to pull away from the rapture of the moving colors onscreen. Maybe he would settle a hand on Giorno’s on the middle divider, squeezing it to keep him pacified until the credits roll.
Giorno is greedy with everything he has. He wants all of this, and more. He wants Mista to look at him, tearing his eyes away from Vivian’s inner turmoil. He wants Mista to keep watching the movie, unaware of Giorno watching him. He wants this movie to be over already so he can drag Mista out of the theater and into the car where nobody will be able to see them tangle together through the tinted windows.
But first and foremost, he wants to wipe the tears on Mista’s cheeks away. And because that is the easiest desire to fulfill, he does so, reaching over with his silk handkerchief to rub at Mista’s face.
Mista doesn’t flinch away, or even react aside from taking Giorno’s hand in his and cradling his own face with it.
“Isn’t it romantic?” Mista whispers, fresh tears caught by the dampening cloth.
“Yes,” Giorno says back, taking the ambiguity of the statement for what it is. It is romantic, that Edward gave up his pride to be with his love. It is romantic, wiping the tears off his lover’s face before they can fall.
“I fucking love this movie,” Mista says wetly, and Giorno loves that about him, how he wears his emotions on his sleeve and cries over movies and can love these things so genuinely. Giorno cannot say the same about himself; he loves so little, so sparingly, everything else consumed in the name of his dream.
Mista has always told him that he didn’t have any grand plans for the future. He said it wryly, rubbing the back of his head as he confessed his carelessness, but Giorno doesn’t see it that way. In the absence of a dream, Mista has filled his life with good food and music, movies and laughter and love.
Giorno loves that about him because he will never be able to have it the same way. His dream has only grown larger, spilling out of his brain in great floods from his eyes, nose, mouth. He will need several lifetime’s worth of time to keep it, more hours in a day than there can possibly be.
But in that endless flood, amongst the churning waves, there is a small island. On that island resides everything Giorno has held dear to himself over the years, few as they may be. The ladybug on the windowsill in his old house. His botanical garden in the back of the manor. Mista and Fugo and Trish, and maybe even Sheila if she keeps finding excuses to stick around in his office after he gives her orders.
Then, bobbing along the waves, are the things that he likes. Pudding, from the grocery store near his former school. Expensive clothing, textiles that feel good on his bare skin. Keeping his hair long, changing the style every once in a while. These, he could go without – but has no need to, because simple luxuries are nothing if not plentiful for the Don of Passione.
Still, he knows he will never profess his love for a particular delicious salad, or a tailor-made wool suit. Not in the way Mista does every day, as if it’s an easy thing to do. And Giorno is alright with that.
He lives vicariously through Mista, sends him off with missions and listens to the stories he brings back while Giorno heals him of whatever injuries he’s accrued this time. He watches Mista cry over movies and exclaim with joy over a mouthful of tripe, sure and steady in his pursuit of his own happiness.
And then, even though he hates greasy food, he leans over the divide to kiss Mista just as the credits begin to roll, feels Mista smile against his mouth and open his lips to allow Giorno to taste the remnants of the popcorn and the salt from his tears: his love that Giorno feels echoed in his own chest, his heart swelling with the orchestral music of the end of it all.