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Guido’s entire body aches.This is to be expected, he supposes. Even all the Stand ability in the world can’t erase what his spinning head and pounding heart insist was a much-nearer-to-death-than-he’d-like experience in the span of a few breaths, and he’s hardly in a position to complain about whatever Giorno is doing to him to push that result at least a little and hopefully a lot farther off than it is right now. When he’s had time to catch his breath and to tally up the array of blessings that he has been granted over the last few hours of his life, he’s sure he’ll be on his knees offering every gratitude he can find to the young man presently leaning over his bullet-battered body.That doesn’t make Giorno’s touch hurt any less, though.“Ow,” Guido yelps again, as Giorno’s delicate fingers slide up under his bloodstained sweater to press deeper into one of the remaining bullet holes than any part of Guido’s mind is comfortable acknowledging. Something shifts inside him, lead altering its form to ease its weight and soften its exterior as the source of his wound transmutes into the remedy for it under the urging of Gold Experience’s fingers. Guido is glad that he’s not bleeding out anymore, and gladder for it with every pint of blood that Giorno’s work replaces in his increasingly unbroken body, but that doesn’t make the sensation of his wounds knitting themselves back together anything other than deeply, nauseatingly painful. “Shit.”“Please hold still,” Giorno says, his voice as level and calm as Guido has ever heard it. Gone is the shrill edge of panic that shattered through the predawn darkness over the Venetian canal; even Giorno’s expression is level now, returned to the mask of composure that makes him look wise well beyond his years and as untouchably beautiful as a sculpture. Guido would normally be happy to appreciate that -- he’s been sneaking appreciation of the newest member of the gang since Giorno walked in the door of that restaurant with hair like gold and eyes brighter than the prettiest jewels Guido’s ever seen -- but right now Giorno’s steady fingers are working around his ribcage to dig in against a slow-seeping bullet wound that fit itself between two of Guido’s ribs, and appreciation is taking a back seat to the agony that has Guido thrashing on the bench as if his wounds were at Giorno’s hands instead of the result of his own. When Gold Experience flickers into existence in the morning light Guido jerks against the pressure at his side so hard that he almost throws himself off the bench entirely before Giorno’s other hand comes out to seize at his shoulder and shove him back down. There’s shocking strength in the other’s arm -- Guido would never have guessed at such power from someone built along such artistic delicacy as Giorno -- and Giorno couples the force with the sideways slant of eyes made brilliant in the dawn as he looks to Guido’s sweat-streaked face. “This will hurt more if you’re struggling.”“Oh,” Guido gasps, fighting for breath enough to speak around the tension of hurt in his chest. “Is that all, why didn’t you--” and Gold Experience’s touch brushes against the shape of the bullet lodged against his back, and Guido’s desperate attempt at sarcasm disintegrates into a groan of pain only saved from being an outright scream by his lack of breath to give it voice. His body shifts, muscle flexing uncomfortably as bone strains and alters, and then some pressure gives way and he’s left gasping, all the tension in his body unraveled with relief from the pain that eclipsed the whole of his self-awareness for a brief moment of blinding agony.“Sorry,” Giorno says, sounding not sorry at all. “I think that one cracked a rib on its way in. That was more complicated than I expected.” His fingers are still against Guido’s back, pressing close against the blood-stained surface of the other’s skin, but the ache is well within Guido’s body, now, and fading from immediacy to memory as quickly as Giorno’s fingers trace to check against the lines where transformation has met existing skin. Guido lets his lungs empty the last of the air not spent in that half-voiced shriek, blinks hard to bring his vision back into focus around the tears of pain and sun-blind bright that have swallowed his sight, and gulps air of surprising sweetness into a chest that aches less with each breath he takes. It’s only a matter of time before the next rush of pain, he’s sure, but in the moment it’s enough that he’s breathing, and his thoughts are clear, and he’s too tired to tense against whatever may come next.Guido isn’t paying attention to the passage of time. He faded out of consciousness entirely for a few seconds there, awareness spilling free from his grip as his blood splashed onto the pavement and across Giorno’s outstretched arms; it’s been hard to lay claim to the span of seconds since, with his thoughts dizzy on blood loss and his body occupied as much by spasms of pain as by the instinctive action of beating heart and flexing lungs. With Gold Experience pressing against his torn body existence became a rhythm of agony and relief, brief moments of gasping awareness punctuated by long, endless spans of sharp-edged hurt, and Guido was too interested in collecting himself during the former for the next of the latter to bother with measuring the seconds they cover. It’s only as he lies still on the bench and feels his chest working on breath after breath of uninterrupted ease, as his heart finally begins to slow itself from the frantic race of pain that has held him in such a vice grip, that Guido finally realizes how long it’s been since the last jolt of healing pain from Gold Experience’s touch. Giorno’s hands are still against him, sliding across his chest and pressing up to fit under the span of his shoulder, but there’s no pain coming with them now, nothing but the simple warmth of a human touch tracing gentle pressure across trembling muscles.Guido presses his lips together and swallows in an attempt to smooth the worst of the rasp from his voice. “Giorno?” The worst, maybe; by no means all, judging from the grate of the other’s name on his tongue. Guido tips his chin down in an attempt to see what Giorno is looking at, his first conscious attempt at motion in what feels like a lifetime of agonizing healing. It hurts less than he expected it to. “What are you waiting for?”Giorno shakes his gold head without lifting his gaze to Guido looking down at him. “Nothing,” he says. His fingers spread wide over Guido’s chest under the torn-through edges of the other’s sweater before he slides his palm down. “I think that was the last of them.”Guido’s breath catches. “Are you serious?” Giorno ducks his head in what might be a nod but Guido isn’t waiting for a response. “I’m all fixed up?” He braces his elbow against the bench under him and pushes himself towards upright; and every muscle in his body protests, his entire chest breaking into what feels like a single unified spasm of pain. His eyes open wide, his mouth drops open, and when he falls back to the bench the impact of his landing against his shoulders is enough to send a second wave of hurt cascading down the full length of his spine.“Please hold still,” Giorno says again, pressing one hand with force against Guido’s bare stomach to underline his words. There’s pink-smeared blood across Guido’s skin, and sticky against the tips of Giorno’s long fingers, but the wounds that spilled that same remain entirely healed, absent even the edges of a scar to mark the injuries that peppered Guido’s body not fifteen minutes ago. “Your body is still adjusting to the new additions. You should remain still for as long as you can while the healing completes.”“Right,” Guido says, without any attempt this time at hiding the breathlessness on his voice. “I gotcha.” He supposes his attempt at sitting was less painful than shooting himself full of dozens of bullet wounds -- at least reasonably, that must be true -- but the effect of adrenaline and his own resolve in the moment proved a strong anesthetic, and with the renewed expectation of survival comes a sharp protest to the associated pain of that. Besides, Giorno is still leaning over him, pressing both hands close against Guido’s body as he slides his palms over the other’s back and along the dip of his hip as if he’s a sculptor forming the shape of a whole human form under his touch, and there is something inherently comforting to that contact that hums warmth out into Guido’s veins to fill his brand-new blood with long-familiar contentment. He shuts his eyes to the glare of sunlight at the horizon, letting the heat of the dawn and the friction of Giorno’s touch both glow idle sensation out into his body while his thoughts wander wide.He doesn’t react, at first, when Giorno’s fingertip skims against the top edge of his pants. The other has been sliding his palms along the unbroken smooth of Guido’s healed body like he’s checking for errors in his efforts, or maybe appreciating the fruits of his labors, and Guido is happy to lie still and reap the simple comfort that comes of human contact working against muscles still tense and taut with the too-close memory of pain. Giorno’s touch is steady, his hands gentle and graceful, and in the first wide pass of his hand sliding against Guido’s body the catch of his little finger against Guido’s waistband seems incidental, of no more note than the drag of the fingertips pressing to the curve of the other’s spine. Guido doesn’t shift for it by any means, even when Giorno’s other hand at his hip draws sideways and a thumb skims the lowest line of his stomach; he’s wandering through the calm of increasing comfort, as his body eases from the expectation of pain and the agony of healing gives way to the relief of being whole once more. Giorno’s palm at his back draws across again, smoothing over the curve of Guido’s spine as if checking to be sure the shape is just as it was; but this time the contact comes with a pair of fingers, pinky and ring together dipping far enough inside Guido’s pants to prickle self-consciousness up his spine with the intimacy of the friction. He shifts his foot at the bench, flexing his thigh slightly in an effort to hold back the stirring of instinctive response to accidental contact, and then Giorno’s other hand presses in against his stomach with no indication of accident at all to dip all four fingers a full inch past the waistband of Guido’s pants, and Guido’s eyes come open at once as his shoulders strain to urge him off the bench again without consideration for Giorno’s command.“Woah,” he blurts, and throws out a hand to catch against the graceful angle of Giorno’s wrist and stall the reach of those fingers before they wander too close to that same instinctive response, rising with sharply increasing heat as if Guido’s efforts to unravel it have been encouragement instead. “That’s. I’m fine.”Giorno turns that absolutely clear green gaze on him. There’s no color in his cheeks, no embarrassment at his mouth; he looks as steady as a rock, as level in his consideration now with one hand pressing to the base of Guido’s spine and the other halfway down the other’s pants as he did urging his patient back to the bench that he has made a hospital bed. “You were shot in multiple places in your thighs and calves,” he says, still with that voice as level as if they’re discussing literature rather than the prospect of graceful fingers sliding into the pants that Guido has never found to fit quite so tightly as they do now. “I’d like to make sure I healed all of your injuries.”“That’s alright,” Guido says, his voice brittle in a desperate effort to keep it from trembling. His face feels hot, burning with a heat completely separate from the pain that was spiking through him with Giorno’s earlier efforts. “You don’t have to put your hands down my pants for that, anyway.”Giorno doesn’t so much as bat an eye. “I’ve already had my hands inside your clothes so I could heal you.”“What?” Guido blurts. “You did?” He can recall it now, if he reaches for it; some babbled protest at his lips, Giorno’s touch steady-certain against his body as the other’s fingers worked inside the clinging weight of his pants; and then pain, a burst of agony so keen Guido’s back had arched and his vision had hazed and he had entirely given up concerns of decency in exchange for the immediate, overwhelming distraction of pain. The intimacy of Giorno’s touch was much less of a concern at the time than the sharp hurt that came with it; but the pain is fading fast now, and when Guido’s mind recalls the press of Giorno’s palms to his thighs and fingers curving in around his hips he finds his reflexive response of a very different kind of heat than the pain that he felt before.“I did.” Giorno isn’t even blushing; if there’s color at his face it’s only the sun-kissed warmth of the dawn playing across his cheekbones to grant the artistic beauty of his features a perfect seeming of humanity. His lashes dip shadow over his gaze but his focus on Guido’s face doesn’t waver any more than the line of his wrist in the other’s grip shifts. Giorno’s head cants very slightly to the left, his lips shift to part around an exhale of consideration. “Do you not want me to touch you, Mista?”Guido’s face flames. His fingers at Giorno’s wrist flex tighter, clenching for a moment of uncertainty as he tries to steady himself against the stability of the other’s position before him. Giorno’s lashes don’t so much as waver. “I don’t--” Guido starts, and stops, and shakes his head hard to cut off his words. “You patched me up great, Giorno. I’m fine.”“I didn’t ask if you were hurt” and there is something heavy in Giorno’s voice, a weird weight under the syllables that Guido has never heard there before. Giorno still sounds like himself, gentle and polite and polished to his usual perfect composure, but there’s something else there, now, a supernatural intention that holds Guido still on the bench and keeps his eyes open wide and staring at Giorno before him. Guido doesn’t see Giorno move to lean in closer; it seems to be a function of the world itself shifting around them, as if Giorno might simply be increasing in size, as if the intensity of his presence is forcing aside the distance between them to carry his intent to Guido the more clearly. “I asked if you didn’t want me to touch you.”Guido’s throat works, giving up a weird, whimpering note from the span of his chest, where his heart is beating double-time speed. Giorno is very close; Guido can’t see anything else but the details of the other’s face, all the light reaching his eyes is filtering through the gold of Giorno’s hair to become as preternaturally warm as the fingers still skimming the lowest inch of Guido’s stomach, past the flat of his belly and dipping under the cover of his pants. Guido’s gaze slides over Giorno’s face, retreating from the force of that green stare to trace the narrow line of his nose, the height of his cheekbones, the set certainty of his jaw before it trips over the soft weight of Giorno’s mouth and tangles itself there to press to the part of the other’s pouting-soft lips.“I will stop,” Giorno says, careful and clear on the words. “If you want me to. I’ll do anything you want me to, Mista.” He’s getting closer again, or more real again, in that way he seemed to before, and Guido is having trouble breathing for how soft the curve of Giorno’s mouth looks, for how warm the glow of his skin feels. When Giorno breathes out Guido can taste the heat of it on his tongue.“But I want to touch you,” Giorno says, and when he leans closer Guido’s lashes fall as if dipped in the same gilding that seems to touch every strand of Giorno’s hair, that fires glinting bright in the focus of his eyes. Guido’s mouth goes soft, his lips ease on expectation, and Giorno’s mouth finds his with seamless grace, falling into place against Guido’s with as much perfect ease as they find synchronicity in the adrenaline of combat. Guido groans something against Giorno’s mouth -- encouragement, maybe, or appreciation, or just some voice for the raw heat shuddering through his veins -- and Giorno licks in past his lips to seek out the source of it and claim that for his own as much as his fingers have already inlaid his presence into the rest of Guido’s body. Giorno works deep into Guido’s mouth, slow-savoring appreciation in every shift of his soft-pouting lips, and Guido opens his mouth, and lifts his hand, and does what he has wanted to do since Giorno walked in the door of that restaurant, and feathers his fingers in against the gold waves of the other’s hair. They look like metal, as much a part of cold-sculpted perfection as all the rest of Giorno’s presence, but the locks are soft to Guido’s touch, as ready to surrender to his curiosity as the shift of the lips that he has spent longer than he should gazing at, and Guido lets himself sink into this unexpected surrender with a relief that runs as deep through him as the healing proof of Giorno’s efforts to save his life.Guido loses track of the details of his body against the fit of Giorno’s lips to his own. He has a hand against soft hair, his fingers curling in against the tousled plait of Giorno’s golden locks, and he’s lying more-or-less flat against the support of the bench where Giorno laid him, but beyond those most general facts he’s adrift, unwound from the mundane details of a physical existence and elevated into something greater, grander than he attained alone. Maybe this is how Giorno feels all the time, separate and almost above the basic realities of life around him; maybe this is where his self-assurance comes from, that composure that he bears with such grace in everything he does. Maybe Guido is becoming a part of Giorno, granted this greater life by the press of the other’s lips as certainly as his body was given back its own existence under the work of Giorno’s reaching fingers; the idea is pleasant more than alarming, dizzying only for the heat it glows through Guido’s body in answer. Guido’s fingers are going slack against Giorno’s wrist, easing to a caress instead of a brace, and when Giorno’s arm shifts Guido’s hand draws up in kind, his palm urging the sleeve of Giorno’s coat up across his forearm by an inch to bare more of his skin to the glow of the sunlight. Giorno’s fingers work down, Guido’s hips buck up with pliant instinct, and then there’s a surge of heat, friction spilling strain up Guido’s spine, and his mouth breaks away from Giorno’s lips with a gasp unraveled to a moan by the grip of Giorno’s fingers closing around his cock.“Ah,” Guido hears himself say, his voice jumping high enough to tense his shoulders with self-consciousness against the potential exposure of the open air around them. “Giorno.”Giorno gusts an exhale past heat-parted lips. The sound is rougher than Guido is used to hearing it; it takes him a moment to place the friction on it as desire, and another to bring his gaze into focus on Giorno’s face. The other’s lips are soft and barely open, like he’s too distracted to remember to close his mouth, and flushed redder than Guido has ever before seen them; Giorno’s cheeks are darker too, gaining petal-soft shading as his lashes dip heavy with newfound weight.“I’ve thought about this before,” he says. His gaze is cast downward, his lashes slanting to tilt his attention towards the line of his arm leading down to his fingers inside Guido’s pants; Guido doesn’t duck his head to look. The sensation of Giorno’s grip around him is already enough, the focus of Giorno’s gaze drinking in the sight of him too much; if he actually sees Giorno’s fingers wrapped around the dark flush of his cock he thinks he might come on the spot. Giorno’s lips press together for a moment; his throat flexes over a deliberate swallow. “You’re even more beautiful than I expected you to be, Mista.”Guido groans some sound: shock, maybe, that Giorno’s steady gaze has been turned to the question of stripping Guido’s clothes off of his bare skin. Disbelief, that someone who looks so much like a work of art could apply the word beautiful to him. Mostly appreciation, after all, that Giorno’s grip is on him, that Giorno’s fingers fit so well against his shaft, that Giorno’s wrist is -- and a breeze whispers over Guido’s body and ruffles against the curls of Giorno’s hair at his forehead, and Guido drags an inhale into his lungs and seizes speech for himself with desperate haste.“We can’t,” he blurts, trying to find certainty for his voice when there is none at all in his body. He’s proud of the steadiness of his hands, pleased with how certain-sure his fingers are under even the most critical of situations, but his grip on Giorno’s arm now is weak, trembling until he thinks the grasp of his fingers must feel more like an attempt for him to ground himself against the other than any kind of force to stop the drag of Giorno’s hold on him. He’s not certain which of the two options it really is in fact. “This is a public street, someone will see.”“They won’t,” Giorno says, still with his head turned so his gaze can follow the slide of his fingers. When his wrist works to slide his palm up Guido has to fight to keep his head from angling back, has to grit his jaw to keep a moan from spilling to full heat in the glowing bright of the dawn. “It’s barely past sunrise, no one’s out on the street yet.”“They will be,” Guido says, and lifts his hand from Giorno’s forearm to reach for the other’s shoulder instead, to try to form a persuasion from the slide of fingers against dark fabric. He doesn’t know how well his efforts succeed, but he does draw Giorno’s emerald gaze back to his face, although that grip against him remains as steady as ever. There’s something dark in Giorno’s eyes on Guido’s face, a consideration that makes Guido feel more naked than he has ever felt in the whole of his life; he can’t be sure it hasn’t been there all this time, can’t be sure it wasn’t there the first moment Giorno met his gaze with all the steel-strong resolve that has become only the more clear with the passing days. Guido presses his lips together and swallows with some measure of effort. “We can’t...you can’t jerk me off on a public bench, there’s no time.” He lets his breath go in a rush, tasting the bitter of resignation on the back of his tongue warring with the sweet Giorno’s lips left printed there. “We’ll have to wait for another chance.”Giorno’s lashes don’t so much as flutter. “We might not get another chance,” he says, his voice shockingly level for a statement of such weight, and Guido can feel his whole body shiver with the reality of that, as if he can feel the effect of Gold Experience’s efforts to piece him back together in every inch of new-formed health.Guido’s breath spills from his lips with force enough that it takes on the shape of a whimper, as if Giorno’s words have slapped him full across the face, and if Giorno is strong enough to hold Guido’s gaze Guido is not, or at least lacks the right kind of strength to stare down his mortality with as much composure. He drops his eyes, ducking free of the force of Giorno’s stare so he can fix his attention at the back edge of the bench instead. “I know,” he says, and the softness of his tone doesn’t keep the words from grating at the back of his throat. “That doesn’t change the facts, though.”Guido can feel Giorno’s gaze lingering on him, marking the details of his features as if studying the structure of his face, as if seeing through the surface of his outward appearance and to whatever lies beneath, the depths that even Guido has never been able to see, however long he stares at the dark eyes and set mouth in his reflection. He doesn’t know what it is Giorno is looking for, doesn’t know what Giorno is seeing; but he can hear the breath Giorno draws, can parse the determination on it even before the other speaks.“It’s the time that you’re worried about,” Giorno says. “That we might be seen before we finish?”Guido’s face heats in spite of himself, his imagination spilling out to flush that bland statement vivid with all the color of the specifics weighting fingerprints against the line of his hip, but the question is straightforward enough that he can answer it with no more than a dip of his head into a nod. “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he says, and shrugs admission. “I’m not completely sure that I didn’t actually die and that this isn’t Heaven.”The corner of Giorno’s mouth catches on a smile. “We wouldn’t be worrying about time at all if this were Heaven,” he says. “Still, as long as that’s your only objection.” His free hand comes up to catch at the back of Guido’s head; his fingers are as strong as they are gentle, his grip tight enough to hold Guido in place even one-handed. His gaze is level, a perfect calm entirely at odds with their present situation and the color flushing his cheeks, but there’s something of suggestion at his lips, a softness to the curve of his mouth that Guido can see like an invitation to heat, to seduction, to pleasure enough to sweep aside all concerns of privacy wholesale. When Giorno leans in Guido can feel his heart pick up speed in his chest, can feel his shoulders tense on adrenaline too keen for him to recognize it as hope or dread either one. If Giorno means to kiss him out of his objections Guido is sure he will surrender, will capitulate as bonelessly as he collapsed into the other’s hold with the spill of daybreak over the distant horizon, and as Giorno tips in Guido’s lashes dip in expectation, persuaded by desire before rationality has even heard the argument. His vision is hazing, his attention sliding free, and so it is that when the impact against his cheek comes he doesn’t realize what it is, even after the weight of fingers have pressed a gentle mockery of a slap against the line of his jaw.Guido blinks hard, startled by this force from such an unexpected source. It didn’t hurt -- there was hardly any weight to the blow, and less intent to harm -- but it’s still not the kiss he was expecting, not the weight of lips soft and sultry against his own. Giorno is still leaning in towards him when he looks up, his lashes dipped to shadow his eyes with focused intention, but there’s a glitter of gold in the corner of Giorno’s gaze, illumination catching on the presence of something far less human hovering over the back of the bench. Guido looks up to see Gold Experience gazing down at him with those inscrutable metallic eyes and the constant almost-frown of a pout on lips the same shape and set as Giorno’s own, but even Guido’s sometimes consideration of what it would feel like to kiss Giorno’s Stand is absent in the surprise that came with the blow of the hand Gold Experience is only just drawing back from his face.“What?” Guido blurts. “Why did you hit me?” He wonders if Gold Experience is acting on his own, if this action was an independent instead of a conscious one; but Giorno doesn’t look surprised, when Guido looks back at him. He’s rocking back instead, drawing away with syrup-slow delay as he shifts his weight over his knees instead of against his hold at Guido’s head, and when his lashes dip it’s to cast his gaze down towards his other hand instead, where his fingers are still bracing around Guido’s length. Guido follows his attention, tracking Giorno’s motion before he can call back the dangerous indulgence of that focal point, and it’s as he sees the shape of his body -- still sprawling over the bench, still stretched out across the support instead of sitting up in answer to the shock of Gold Experience’s blow against his face -- that he realizes what has happened to him, what the Stand’s touch has done to the connection between his consciousness and his physical body.It’s strange to see himself as he really is, without the inverting effect of a mirror to swap the left and right halves of his face, and stranger to have the whole of his existence visible at once. Guido frowns at himself, unsettled by being confronted with all the casual details of his presence that usually go unnoticed: his hair is slipping free at the back of his off-center hat, his mouth is set into a grimace that looks more like pain than the pleasure he knows it to be. His pants are low on his hips, dipping farther even than they usually sit to give a good inch of indecent exposure at the base of his spine, and the way he’s arching up towards Giorno’s palm looks desperate even at a glance, until Guido thinks anyone who saw so much as the angle of the foot currently braced against the support beneath his body would know at once what they are doing. But he doesn’t have overlong to linger in judgment over the picture his speeding consciousness makes of his much-slower body, because Giorno is still moving too, with that slow deliberation Guido’s current perception makes of real-time action, and as his fingers tighten against the other’s length Guido finds all his attention to anything else scattered as thoroughly as dandelion seeds caught in a sudden gust of wind.It feels incredible. Giorno is hardly moving, his actions so delayed by Guido’s current state that they seem more like the drawn-out motion of some experimental dance; but if Guido’s body is moving more slowly than his consciousness the sensation spilling from it is keeping time with his thoughts, and he can feel every shift of skin against his with absolute, crystalline precision in his accelerated state. The ridges at Giorno’s thumbprint catch against Guido as the other moves his hand; when his wrist moves Guido can feel the tension shift in Giorno’s palm to press closer against his length and urge greater sensation up his spine. Guido shudders with the feel of it, his awareness flickering to heat in answer to the surge of friction, but his body remains all but still, only just starting to act to push himself upward in answer to his first instinctive jolt of action. The feeling is limited to the span of his own mind, to the electric flicker of want and heat and pleasure sparking to life amidst the shadows of his thoughts. Guido groans with the slide of Giorno’s fingers, sensation peaking to a height that he has never had the distance to notice before; but Giorno is still moving, oblivious to the tremor of response caught in the space of Guido’s consciousness, and Guido can read his intention from the angle of the other’s head as Giorno rocks in towards the shift of his hand.“Oh God,” Guido groans, his words going unvoiced by his slow-motion body, offered up instead as an involuntary plea to some far-distant divinity. “Giorno, you can’t.” But Giorno can, and is, as his fingers work through another one of those agonizingly erotic strokes that seem to print the whole shape of his hand close against the length of Guido’s cock, and Guido can’t possibly watch but he can’t look away, not with the soft of Giorno’s lips parting on the promise of heat. Guido’s whole consciousness flickers into want, burning with such intensity he feels for a moment that he might come entirely apart, that he might break free of Gold Experience’s effect by simply ceasing to have anything in him beyond the immediate physicality of arousal peaking too high to be contained, but still his awareness lingers in some space above and distant from his body, his attention still clings to the shift of Giorno’s mouth coming open as a gold head ducks in and over Guido’s hips. Giorno’s grip slides down, dragging unbearable pleasure against Guido’s cock as his fingers slide to brace at the base and steady the heat of the other’s length, and when he tips in his lips brush feather-light at the curve of Guido’s cockhead. Guido’s entire existence tightens, as if every part of his incorporeal form is flexing against the pressure of anticipation, is curving up to meet the silk-soft of those lips parting against him, dragging with agonizing slowness across his skin, and then Giorno’s mouth shifts, humid heat ripples out and over Guido’s length, and Guido’s conscious mind fractures and dissolves under the slide of Giorno’s tongue pressing flush against the head of his cock. There’s a breath of sensation, of heat and friction drawn impossibly long under the drag of motion working across him, and then Guido loses his grasp on the present, and himself, and everything at all beyond the waves of heat rushing up and over him to wash him out of himself.He’s curled in around Giorno’s head when he comes back to the present. His motion to sit up brought his shoulders off the flat of the bench under him before reflex overrode the rest of his time-delayed action; the convulsion of his orgasm curved his shoulders in and stretched his fingers out, so when Guido gasps and finds himself back in his own body it’s with a hand tangled into the bright of golden curls. Guido’s whole body is trembling, quivering with aftershocks of the strongest orgasm he’s has ever experienced; he feels dizzy, like he wasn’t breathing for long seconds, as if the force of pleasure was nearly enough to send him back out of his recently-renewed grip on life. His hold on Giorno is the only steady thing he has left, in the grip of his fingers struggling for purchase against the other; but he could pick worse choices for a foundation, after all. Giorno is utterly unruffled, with no more sign of their mutual indulgence than what effect Guido’s unthinking hold is having on the smooth of his hair; as Guido gasps for air Giorno’s hands urge his pants back into place around his hips and smooth across the front of them to ease away any trace of what they were just doing. Guido jerks and hisses with the friction of Giorno palming against the sensitive ache of his recently-spent arousal, but Giorno just draws his hand down to rest at the inside of Guido’s thigh before tipping his head to look up at the other next to him.“There,” he says, still sounding entirely calm. There’s not so much as a shred of self-satisfaction on his tone, although from the way Guido’s heart is racing in his chest he thinks Giorno deserves at least a little. The only hint of such is in the dark of his eyes, cast into a somewhat deeper green than what they were before, and Guido has never been able to read through all the depths of possibility that rest behind Giorno’s heavy lashes. “That was quick enough for your concerns, surely.”Guido groans an exhale. It might be agreement, maybe. Mostly it’s just the heat trapped in his throat from the orgasm that knocked him from himself, that spent itself against Giorno’s lips in the span of a few seconds drawn to exquisitely intimate length by the touch of a golden hand against Guido’s face. It takes him deliberate effort to recollect himself, and more to turn his head away from the focus of Giorno’s gaze to look around them. “No one saw us?”Giorno shakes his head. “Not a soul,” he says.Guido heaves a sigh. It’s true that the pavement around them is utterly absent any trace of passersby; even when he strains to listen he can’t make out any suggestion of an audience. They are as alone now as they were in the midst of their fight for their lives an hour hence, with no one the wiser what has just passed between them but each other. Guido can feel his face heat with the thought, his cheeks glowing sunburn-red with the awareness of Giorno’s attention on him. It’s only the knowledge that Giorno is watching him that gets him to look back, and that just because it’s easier to face the attention in the other’s eyes than to imagine what he might be thinking as he gazes at Guido’s flush.Giorno is smiling. It’s barely there, a curve against his lower lip so soft it could be mistaken for a pout to someone else; but Guido knows the shape of Giorno’s mouth, now, his lips are still aching with the near memory of the print of those lips against his own, and he can see the tension at the corner of Giorno’s lips to form the tell of pleasure against the other’s mouth. Giorno’s gaze remains as unchanged as ever, still clear and calm and certain, but the shift of his mouth softens what was untouchable marble into human warmth. His hair looks softer rumpled by the press of Guido’s fingers, his cheeks warmer with the color of satisfaction glowing across them, and when Guido looks to him Giorno’s mouth twitches onto a wider smile before he can manage to pull it back to his usual restraint.“So,” Giorno says, and clears his throat with intention enough to color Guido’s cheeks with self-consciousness. “We ought to meet up with the rest of the group soon.”Guido nods. “Yeah,” he says. He reaches to brace at the back of the bench so he can pull himself fully upright; Giorno reaches out to catch his hold under Guido’s elbow as well, steadying the other’s motion as he comes up. Guido’s head spins for a moment as he straightens and his body fights to accustom itself to having a reasonable supply of blood more-or-less where it ought to be, but even once he’s blinked himself back into focus Giorno’s hold is still steady at his arm, and when he brings his legs around to swing over the edge of the bench Giorno is rising to his feet, unfolding to stand before Guido. The sun catches at his hair again, backlighting him into a halo of illumination, but when he extends his hand Guido can see the offer clearly enough to reach out and clasp his grip around Giorno’s forearm. Guido braces, and Giorno pulls, and when he comes to his feet it’s with Giorno standing right in front of him, so close the front of their shirts are brushing each other. Giorno shifts his weight back onto his heels, rocking like he means to pull away, but Guido tightens his hold on Giorno’s arm to hold him still and urge Giorno’s gaze up to meet the force of his own.“I owe you,” Guido says, speaking low and with his gaze fixed on Giorno’s so his words will carry the implication he intends to put there. Giorno’s lashes flutter over his gaze, his cheeks tinge faintly pink, but he doesn’t look away, and he doesn’t pull to free his hold from Guido’s. “I don’t know when I’ll have the chance for it but I’m going to make sure I pay you back, Giorno.”Giorno’s chin comes up, his features catch the light. For a moment he looks haughty, regal as a prince on a throne. “It’s not a debt,” he says, sounding very nearly angry; then he drops his chin, and dips his lashes, and his gaze goes so sultry Guido feels a shuddering aftershock flicker down his spine even before Giorno speaks. “I’m looking forward to it.”The sunlight is flickering into Guido’s eyes, stealing fragments of his vision and glowing against his new-healed skin, but he can see the suggestion of a smile curving at Giorno’s so-soft lips, and that’s all he needs to trust in a future for them both.