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“Sheila,” Fugo stage whispers urgently, huddled into the corner of his bedroom on his phone. “Sheila, I’m being serious. Stop laughing. Sheila.”
Eventually, the snickers on the other side of the line die out. “Lover boy,” Sheila says fondly, “I am going to kill you.”
Fugo spins in his desk chair and kicks absently at the scarf Giorno had left tumbling over the edge of his desk. “I don’t understand this reaction. Is it because I’m asking you for fashion advice when you've worn the same pants every day for the last two years?”
“Could be,” Sheila replies, “though it’s more because you're asking me for fashion advice for your ‘first date’.”
The air quotes around that phrase are plain as day even though Fugo can’t see her make the hand motions right now. “It is a first date,” he replies, irritation leaking into his faux patient tone. “Giorno asked me out on a date for the first time, and now we are going. On a date. The first one.”
“The first one,” Sheila echoes, “despite the fact that you've been dating for three years?”
“What?” Fugo asks, straightening in his chair. “We have not.”
Sheila sighs. “Buy me a ticket home. I need to be there personally to beat your ass.”
“What you need is to answer my question,” Fugo replies stubbornly. “Would it be too much to wear floral? Giogio likes floral, but that means I run the risk of both of us accidentally wearing floral.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Is floral too gay?”
“Fugo, for the last time, everything you wear is gay,” Sheila intones dryly. “You’re gay.”
Clearly, he is getting nowhere with Sheila. After hanging up and considering his remaining options, Fugo makes a grave error: he goes to Mista.
“Floral print is fine,” Mista says, hand on his chin as he eyes Fugo’s wardrobe critically, “but what are you wearing with it? What’s the plan?”
Fugo’s supply of patience has been on a steady decline since Sheila called his nice loafers “overstated clogs” this morning; he feels it take a sharp dive down when Mista licks a finger before flipping through his shirts the way he does novels with pages that stick. He sighs, takes a deep breath. He had quite literally asked for this. “Well, Giorno hasn't said where he wants to go, so I assumed I should wear a suit — ”
Mista waves a flippant hand. “Not what I meant,” he specifies. “I mean, are you thinking stripes? Paisley?” Hangers clack against each other as Mista shoves them roughly aside. “Maybe a nice houndstooth?”
Houndstooth? The beginnings of a headache throb between Fugo’s eyes. “Floral,” he repeats slowly and with intent. “I’m wearing floral.”
Truth be told, he doesn't know if he’s wearing floral — how embarrassing would it be, for Giorno and himself to show up in different, clashing florals? It would absolutely ruin the evening, which Fugo can’t allow to happen. He’d only considered it in the first place because of Giorno’s characteristic flower motif; there is something oddly, enticingly possessive about putting that on his body. Fugo’s been carrying Giorno’s flag and wearing his colors since he was sixteen, but to do so in a literal sense feels different, somehow. He does it every chance he has.
Somehow, Mista’s persistence in pushing him toward other patterns is only strengthening his resolve. “That’s not what I mean,” Mista clarifies. “Unless you're planning on wearing just one pattern. But that’s, you know. Boring.”
Horror strikes deep in Fugo’s heart. He takes one long sweeping look over Mista’s outfit, observes the snake print pants and cheetah print tie, and shoos him out of his closet before permanent damage can be done.
With a heavy heart, he dials the one number he knows he should never call without a damn good reason. His flip phone rings five, six times, its shrill cry like an admonishment echoing in his ears. Eventually, a reluctant, groggy voice answers: “Hello?”
“Trish,” Fugo rushes, “sorry to call on your day off. I need your help.”
—
Giorno picks him up at eight, as promised, in a sleek black town car just straddling the line between discreet and decadent. He cocks an eye at Fugo's more-thoughtful-than-usual attire (in the end, the only floral he'd gone with was his tie, to minimize risk), but doesn't comment. Even when Fugo hands him a rose, red and dark and perfectly matching the bud pinned to Fugo's lapel, he merely smiles, takes it, and says in a low, vaguely amused voice, "Thank you."
For the majority of their drive, Giorno leans his head on his hand and stares quietly out the window. It's his usual pose for traveling, and it's not that Fugo had expected special treatment, really, but, well — it is their first date, isn't it? It seems strange to not hold his hand or even command his attention.
As much as he'd try to deny it, Fugo is a romantic, and so when the chauffeur pulls to a stop, car at the curb, Fugo expects to step out and see a fancy restaurant, or a rose garden, or some equally traditional place to go on a first date with the love of your life. Instead, his heel touches the curb, his head turns up, and he sees only an abandoned, decrepit warehouse.
He glances around the equally unimpressive block, pauses uncertainly. "Giogio — " he starts, beginning to turn around; but Giorno is already walking toward the doors with zero hesitation, rose left in the backseat.
It's work, because it's always work. Fugo doesn't pay attention enough to know why Giorno had to be there personally and to be honest he doesn't care to know; on the drive home, he alternates between copying Giorno's stony posture and staring helplessly at the sliver of the expression he can see on his face.
The answer doesn't come in their little black town car, or on the steps to Fugo's flat, or in the doorway, when he reaches for his keys and finds Giorno already holding them out for him.
He pats his empty pocket absently even as he reaches for the keys with his other hand. "How did you get those?"
Giorno shrugs, leaning casually against the wall as Fugo jangles his door open. Fugo has already passed from shock to hurt to embarrassment: embarrassment that he'd overthought this, that he'd flatter himself with the idea of Giorno spending an evening on him, that he'd been upset when it hadn't happened. Of course it hadn't happened; he can't expect to monopolize the boy king of Naples so easily. Of course.
But tonight, something about the furrow to Giorno's brow makes him look less like a boy king and more like a boy. Slowly, he pulls his other hand out from behind his back.
The rose Fugo had given him just a few hours before rests in Giorno's hold, blood red, petals already falling limp. "Can I come in?" he asks, twirling the thornless stem in his delicate fingers. "I'd like to put this in water."
Fugo swallows the lump in his throat. "Of course," he replies, voice hoarse for reasons he can't fully understand. "You're always welcome here, Giogio."
Half a smile dances across Giorno's face as he steps carefully inside, pausing as old habit to discard his shoes at the door. Fugo reaches for the flower, "I can take that" halfway out of his lips, but Giorno holds it carefully away as he toes his shoes off.
"I'll get it," he replies, flush dusting his cheeks, eyes darting to the rose, and then he's wisping away to the kitchen, out of reach yet again. "Where are your vases?"
Fugo trails after him helplessly like a dog on a leash. "I just have the one, for the flowers you got me for my birthday last year," he supplies. "It's in the top cabinet, above the plates."
He finds himself thinking about what Trish had told him: not just about the floral print (good in moderation; don't smother it) but about Giorno. "He's gun-shy," she'd said. "It must have taken a lot for him to put it into words, even with how long you two have been together. I'm sure this is important to him, too."
"We're not dating," Fugo had protested, and when Trish had given him a very unconvinced mmhmmm in response, he'd continued, exasperated, "He's never asked."
"You've never asked either, dummy," she'd said, "so how would you know?"
How indeed, Fugo thinks dryly as he watches Giorno kick the step stool (Fugo had gotten it for Giorno; he doesn't need it, not with his gangly limbs) out from the side of the fridge, as he reaches up for the vase (from Giorno — two dozen red camellias, far too big for Giorno's single rose), from just above the matching, hand painted coffee mugs they'd picked out together two Christmases ago (sunflowers, for Giorno, who is so beautiful and so warm and who makes Fugo's heart sing just to look at).
"It's a lovely rose," Giorno calls out, back to Fugo, as he fusses over adding sugar and apple cider vinegar to the water in the vase. "Thank you."
"I'm glad you like it," Fugo replies after a moment, feeling strangely displaced. He lets himself watch Giorno's back just a second longer before he finally sets to removing his coat. He's thankful, suddenly, that he hadn't broken out his favorite for this: dark grey and heavy and wool, embroidered flowers dancing up the breast. It would hardly have been worth the occasion.
Giorno turns suddenly, leaning back against the counter. "A single red rose is usually used to convey a message of love."
At the coat rack, Fugo pauses. "Is that so?" he asks mock casually, trying to keep his hands moving like normal.
"Yes," Giorno replies, eyes alight. "It's a lovely rose."
It's a quiet sort of night; Giorno steals Fugo's pajamas and makes french toast for dinner. Fugo watches him tap powdered sugar over his food across the table, white flecks getting onto the dark sleeves of Fugo's shirt that fall down over Giorno's knuckles, too much fabric on too small of a body.
"Was this a date?" Fugo asks suddenly, kicking his slippers on and off restlessly under the table.
Across from him, Giorno pauses his fork for only a second before popping a strawberry into his mouth. The time it takes for him to chew and swallow feels both lightning fast and endless. "Is it?" he asks eventually, frustratingly.
Fugo puts his fork down and squints at Giorno. "You called it one," he replies, almost an accusation. "This morning, right after your meeting. You said, 'Fugo, would you like to go out with me?'"
Giorno blinks at him. "Yes, out with me. Out to the warehouse, with me."
Like a pin to a balloon, Fugo deflates. Of course. "Oh," he starts, "I -- I must have missed that part of the conversation. Apologies."
There's a pause. Giorno knocks his sock-clad ankle to Fugo's. "Dinner was good," he tries haltingly.
Fugo laughs; the sound is damp with disappointment. "Of course it was," he mumbles. "You made it."
"Right," Giorno agrees, hesitates. Opens his mouth, closes it again.
"You looked nice," he starts again eventually, eyes averted. "I like that tie."
The laugh that falls out of Fugo's mouth this time is a touch more genuine. "You like every tie," he replies, leaning back into his seat. When he tilts his head, his bangs fall halfway into his eyes; they almost obscure the guilty flush of Giorno's ears.
"It might look nice with that coat you got in Florence," Giorno answers, seemingly focused on stabbing his food to death with his tiny dessert fork. "The grey one, with the flowers."
It's impossible to stay mad at him: Giorno, who is so beautiful and so warm and who makes Fugo's heart sing just to look at. Something in his throat stings; something in his chest defrosts. "Do you think so?" he asks quietly, leaning his elbows onto the table.
Giorno nods. "We should find someplace to wear it," Giorno says, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear, "and go. Together."
Behind him, in the kitchen, Fugo can just make out Giorno's favorite tea, tucked into a corner on his counter. On his wrist is Fugo's hair tie, swiped from his bathroom so long ago that Fugo can't even remember. In the bedroom, Giorno's scarf lies half on, half off his desk.
"Together," Fugo repeats quietly. "I like together."
Pushed to the far end of the table by the open window, the rose rests between them; too big in its vase, it sways back and forth with the night breeze.