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The second time, on a corner in Naples: Fugo is looking through a shop window at a display of Valentine’s Day bouquets, all pink roses and baby’s breath, gaudy vases with painted hearts. Giorno considers him for a moment, though he can’t see his face; there’s that familiar uncertainty to his posture, like his feet are stuck in place, like he couldn't move if he wanted to.
“Fugo?” Giorno calls out, and Fugo jolts like he’s been shocked. Giorno cocks his head to the side, curious, and points a finger toward a restaurant across the street. “Mista’s waiting for us in there.”
“Of course, Giogio,” Fugo breathes, and steps forward, feet unstuck. He doesn't look back to the shop window even once, like it hardly matters anymore, like it’s disregardable.
Giorno, on the other hand, lingers — looks back at the pink roses and baby’s breath and painted hearts, and considers.
The third time, and it’s spring. They’re at some local function in a civilian’s backyard, luscious and teeming with flowers. Fugo keeps glancing over his glass at the hyacinths, dotting pink and white and purple across the garden. And Giorno keeps glancing at him glancing at them.
The gardener scuttles away like a beetle when Giorno and Fugo walk through the gardens later. It’s not an insult, really; Giorno likes beetles. There is a strange mix of satisfaction and discomfort in his heart, as there always is when he is made aware just how separate he’s become from the common man.
“You like them,” Giorno supplies, not as much a question as he was hoping. At his side, Fugo doesn't jump, just tilts his head to the side and turns his attention from the hyacinths to Giorno.
“They’re fine,” he answers, reaching a hand up to risk a brush against Giorno’s hair. “I think we should get back to the party.”
The fourth — it’s Fugo’s birthday, and Giorno wakes up with his forehead to his desk, still wearing the clothes he’d had on the night before. He rubs the heel of his hand into his eye and summons just enough brain power to think: oh no.
It’s a last minute gift, an impulsive buy. Fugo deserves the world but his fine mix of self-deprecating confusion and watery enthusiasm over most gestures of kindness Giorno makes in his direction make it increasingly hard to give to him. And, if he’s being honest, Giorno had been distracted; work is a consistent weight on his back and a strain on Fugo’s, and he knows he pours too much of himself into it sometimes. He would stop, if only it were enough.
“Camellias,” he explains quietly, half hiding his face behind the hurried bouquet. “Twelve of them.” He pauses, sleep-deprived brain whirring. “I thought they’d look nice in your kitchen.”
Fugo is silent, which is ominous. But his touch is gentle as he pulls the vase from Giorno’s hands, fingertips warm as they brush over the backs of Giorno’s hands.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, and it’s quiet, so quiet — and there’s wonder in his voice.
(The first time: Fugo is at his feet in royal purples, the crushed velvet of his suit and the dark under his eyes. Giorno is struck with the realization, suddenly, that he would wipe it away if he could, reach forward and brush his finger across the ridge of Fugo’s cheekbone, the bridge of his nose, the soft line of his eyelid as if he could fit Fugo’s grief on the tip of his finger.
On the table, fresh cut stems of white violet, their petals going limp and barely visible against the creamy off-white of the table cloth. It is, Giorno knows, a hopeful flower: a “dance with me”, or a “let’s take a chance on this, on us, on happiness”. From its center bleeds yellow and purple, deep as a bruise.
His hand in Fugo’s is clutched so tight it nearly hurts. He sees his prior words set alight in Fugo — sees, in his eyes, the feeble light of a star.
When they leave, they leave the flowers, too; Giorno feels an itch in his fingers and then the violets are butterflies, small and jewel-bright. They weren't for Fugo explicitly, but if one of them settles into Fugo’s hair like a gift, Giorno doesn't wave it off.)
There is time after that, and time after that. It’s rare for Giorno to be up earlier than Fugo, but when he turns on this particular morning, Fugo’s birds nest of a hairstyle is still nestled in the pillows. He slips out of the covers silently, shivering at the press of the cold floor on his bare feet, and grabs Fugo’s sweater off the back of his desk chair to pull on over his head.
The apartment is dimmed, saturation turned down in the way where he can tell that it’s still dark out, even with all the curtains closed. When he turns the coffee machine on, he parts a curtain in the kitchen: too light with early morning for any stars to show, too dark for anyone to be out yet. Giorno leans a hip against the counter and wishes he’d put more clothes on before venturing out, hands grumpily latched onto his elbows.
As he pours his cup, Giorno can feel the fabric of Fugo’s sweater pull raw at the spot where Fugo had bitten him the night before, just next to his birthmark. He takes a long sip and stares at the dishes from french toast last night still in the sink, at the single rose standing alone in the vase. One of its petals has fallen off since Giorno had placed it there.
Giorno taps a foot, takes another sip. Grabs a bundle of plastic straws from Fugo’s pantry, and seats himself at the table.
Fugo finds him there not too long later, peeking around the corner with wide eyes and ruffled hair. “Hey,” he greets in half a whisper, as if though anyone else were in this apartment besides them. There’s a breathy, relieved edge to his voice, and Giorno wonders if he’d been worried to wake up and find Giorno not there.
With careful intensity, Giorno places the next straw-turned-rose in the vase. “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
There’s a thunk as Fugo leans his weight against the doorframe. “I slept fine,” he says, crossing his arms across his bare chest as if though he’s only now felt the morning chill. “Are you… making roses out of my drinking straws?”
Giorno hums a noise low in his throat. “Maybe some baby’s breath, too,” he adds, idly spinning a straw in his fingers. “This vase is so big; I thought your rose could use company.”
A silent moment passes as Fugo seems to consider him. Giorno tucks his hair behind his ear, clears his throat. “Do you like them?” he asks eventually.
“They’re beautiful,” Fugo praises, soft and dripping with sincerity. “They look just like the one I gave you. I can’t even tell them apart.”
Giorno places the last rose in the vase, eleven plus the original, and stands to kiss Fugo’s cheek. “There is a difference,” he promises. “Yours has no thorns.”
Fugo kisses his hair, just above his ear. “Thank you,” he murmurs lowly. “They’re lovely roses.”
A laugh starts to rise in Giorno’s throat at the repetition of his own words back at him, and he swallows it down. “Let’s wash the dishes,” he says, taking Fugo’s hand.
There’s not many, and it doesn't take long; Giorno scrubs the hardened sugar from the plates, and Fugo takes up the important task of designating space in the dishwasher. It’s a finicky old thing; the top level tilts wrong and gets stuck unless the weight is distributed just so. Giorno has offered to have a new one installed for him a million times, and Fugo always waves it off as unnecessary. Giorno suspects that he just likes it, owning this testy little machine that only works when you know its very small, specific ticks. Fugo is good at ticks.
When they're done, Fugo gets both of them another cup of coffee while Giorno huddles for warmth on the couch. He wrinkles his nose when Fugo makes up his own — a dollop of cream, a spoon of sugar — and Fugo laughs in return when he sees the blanket bundle Giorno has buried himself in.
“You could have just put more clothes on, if you're that cold,” Fugo reminds, setting the mugs down gently on the coffee table before shuffling under the blanket with him. The bottoms of them clink, catching Giorno’s attention — and he realizes they're the ones he likes, with the sunflowers.
“I didn't want to wake you,” Giorno murmurs, reaching for his coffee.
Fugo hums and skirts a foot up Giorno’s bare thigh, up under his sweater to the crest of his hip. “You should at least put underwear on,” he chastises, though the look on his face is not entirely critical. “It’s the middle of winter.”
“We need to get better insulation in here, somehow,” Giorno grumbles, the bitter aftertaste of black coffee on his tongue. “One can’t be expected to live like this.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Fugo replies dryly. Giorno squints at him, then shoves his cold toes under the hem of Fugo’s shirt, onto his bare stomach.
Fugo shrieks; a chase is had. A few minutes later and two rooms away, Giorno’s fingers curl into Fugo’s bedspread, stomach aching from laughing. “Enough, enough,” he wheezes, “I’m sorry.”
There’s an intentional pause before Fugo props himself on an elbow, expression doubtful. “You are not.”
Giorno smiles, reaching forward to brush his finger across the ridge of Fugo’s cheekbone, the bridge of his nose, the soft line of his eyelid. “I’m not,” he agrees warmly, and leans up to kiss him.
In the kitchen, the dishwasher whirrs from one setting to the next, top drawer unbalanced and stuck. On Fugo’s nightstand, the alarm to signal the start of their day finally goes off.