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Chapter Text

The air tasted sweet. The sun descended gently in the distance behind a thick cover of trees. The sky was swirls of pinks and oranges competing to be the most beautiful. The ground was soft and it sank under his feet as he walked. The bark of the trees he leaned on for support was rough and grating on his skin, with millions of insects squirming and buzzing beneath. Outreaching branches and tall bushes scratched at his skin, leaving thin marks as he continued ever further. It smelled like moss, earth, and blood. He could hear his heartbeat in his ear, pumping steadily. He was much too tired for a fast heart rate.

He was alone.

He clutched his side as a branch poked his sloppily wrapped wound.

It had been his fault this had happened, all his fault. What had he been thinking, coming to the woods when everybody had warned him of the wolves? He’d escaped but now he was adrift in the woods like a log in the ocean, his map lost to the jaws of vicious feral creatures.

He was going to die, wasn’t he?

He clenched his teeth as he stretched his legs over a log, feeling the ragged edges of skin around his wound scream in protest, the maimed muscles beneath groaning. He rested for a second after that hurdle, feeling the scratchy bark through layers of hair and clothes. He took deep haggard breaths, trying to build up the energy and the will to get up again and continue on. Somehow somewhere there must be someone in these woods with a map, or else something that would point him to civilization, like a river, and he was going to find it or them. He was Dio dammit. The best of the best at everything he had ever put his mind to. If this would be the grand finale of his life, the reward for all he had suffered through, all the discipline and scheming he had applied, then why was he ever even born?

No. He… he was made for great things, molded from earth with a grandiose destiny. And so, no matter what he would not be dying here today. Even if he had to cheat death itself, he would live. He would survive. He would continue forward as he always had.

A rustle in the bushes violently brought him out of his thoughts. A bolt of fear went through him. He wouldn’t be running from anything in this condition. He considered praying to some god that it would not be a bear or the wolves come to finish the job, but his prayers had a tendency to not be answered. He gritted his teeth and clawed at the bark of the tree he was resting on, pulling himself up by his fingertips. He would not meet this threat leaning on a tree, waiting for death. He would stand and he would either run or fight, whatever he felt he could do.

More rustles from the bushes, Dio tensed, waiting. Then a man came out, black haired, pale skinned and blue eyed. He brushed the leaves and sticks that stuck to him off with a sigh. “I knew that would be a bad idea.”

The stranger hadn’t seen him yet for Dio was behind the tree he had rested on from the perspective of the other. For a second, Dio’s heart stilled and then it beat ever more vigorously than he ever remembered it beating. This was his chance at salvation.

He pushed himself away from the tree, stumbling a bit to the other but stopping just out of arm’s reach. The man didn’t look very surprised at his arrival, just cautious.

“I was injured by one of the wolves here. Do you… have a map I could use, or even better, do you know the way to a town?”

The stranger looked him up and down. “No maps here. I don’t usually use them and just follow the paths I set for myself, but then I caught sight of a rare white fox and traveled deeper into these woods than I’m used to. So I’m lost too.”

Dio felt like screaming at the stranger for his thoughtlessness, but that would be blatant hypocrisy. “Do you have any method for getting out of here then?”

“I was planning on finding a river. I’ve only been lost for about an hour anyways. I could take you with me. You look like you need a change of bandages.”

Dio was immediately suspicious of the stranger’s desire to help. “What will you get out of going out of your way to give me medical care? Wouldn’t it be easier and faster to just go alone?”

The stranger blinked, seemed to consider that and then nodded. “You’re right. I should go.”

Dio was dumbfounded. Why would he offer to help just to go anyway? Was it because of what he said?  But there was no way that he wouldn’t have known that taking him along would make things take longer. Was he offended by the implication of the question? Whatever it was, suspicious intent or not, he couldn’t let this person just leave him here. Who knew if anybody else would come before he died?

“Wait, you can’t just leave me here!”

“I very much can, but please enlighten me. Why shouldn’t I?”

Dio’s mind was moving a mile a minute. What would this person want? He was good at knowing others' desires, taking advantage of them, and twisting them against the other person. But he didn’t have time to think about all of that. He just needed to know what the other man wanted from him and of that, what he was willing to give.

“I’m actually a very accomplished man. If… if you take me home I have access to a large amount of funds I could give you. $10,000 at minimum,” Some could say the first sin was greed. Most people would lose their right minds to the lure of money.

“I’m not interested in your money, even tens of thousands of it. I’m more than comfortable with the funds I have.”

“Prestige then? I’m very well known around the world. If you help me I’ll tell everyone of this favor.”

“I’ve never had any interest in prestige.”

“What do you want then? I don’t want to play this song and dance with you. What could you possibly want that I could give?”

“Nothing. I just wanted you to stop fighting against my offer to help. I hate arguing with people in order to help them. It’s much more efficient for both of us if you just admit that you need my help, no matter what my intentions may be.”

Dio hated that the stranger was right. He grudgingly held back an insult for the blue eyed stranger playing him like he had. “Alright, not that I’ve admitted it, could you hurry up and make yourself useful?” Dio felt woozy, like he might fall over at any time. He was losing blood even while he spoke. “I’m going to die while you keep chattering on.”

The stranger approached, and gingerly put his hands around his back and the other on his opposite hip. “Lower yourself to the ground slowly. I will make sure you don’t fall.”

Dio did as instructed. He was laid flat by the stranger, hair tangling in the sticks on the ground, and head making an imprint in the soft dirt. The stranger’s hands immediately went to the wound. “My name is Straizo, what’s yours?”

“Dio,” He grunted. The pain was sharp and came in waves.

“Hm.” Straizo took out a large pair of scissors and cut the bottom portion of his shirt. “Yes, this will probably get infected with how long it’s been exposed to the open air and unsterilized bandages.”

Dio wanted to groan at the sound of that. Even if he managed to make it until they got to town, it would still not be over. Straizo took out a bunch of medical supplies from his pockets. He gave Dio several extra-strength pain relievers and antibiotics. He got out some alcohol and cleaned the wound with it. He acquired a roll of clean bandages from his ridiculously deep pockets in his tunic and started to wrap it around the wound on his stomach and the small of his back, lifting Dio by his mid back every time he had to wrap it around. When he was done, he lifted Dio’s upper body and then propped him up against a nearby tree.

“Have you had anything to eat or drink recently?”

“No, not for hours. I haven’t found any rivers or lakes and I’m not desperate enough to try any of the local foliage.”

“Very smart of you. If you aren’t properly trained in foraging, you could pick the wrong type of fruit or the right type at the wrong time and end up with debilitating illnesses or the worst debilitating illness: death. Lucky for you, I have not eaten any of my rations yet.”

Straizo produced a sachet of water and several energy bars. He handed them to Dio to eat and drink and then stood up. “Can you walk?”

Dio tested his muscles. A sharp pain hit him. It hurt to even breathe deeply, the adrenaline having run out and the painkillers draining his energy. “No,” He admitted.

“Thought so,” Straizo hummed. “Well, I’ll just have to carry you then.”

Dio looked at Straizo’s slim lithe form doubtfully. If he was as strong as he looked then he’d snap like a toothpick at Dio’s weight. Straizo followed Dio’s gaze with his eyes and looked into his eyes. “I’m much stronger than I look,” he said blandly.

Chapter Text

||*||*||*|| DIO ||*||*||*||

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=ayq1LISnWx8

It turned out that Straizo was indeed stronger than he looked. Much much stronger than he looked. His thick blue tunic covered much of his body and allowed no silhouette to show through, but from Dio's current degrading position, splayed across Straizo's back like a broken marionette, he could feel the solid field of muscle his savior sported easily taking his weight. Straizo’s hands held his thighs too, keeping him upright.

The ride wasn’t as bumpy as he expected it would be. It seemed that Straizo had some experience with carrying people through wooded land. All he could feel was the gentle back-and-forth motion one experienced when being carried as well as the soft brush of Straizo’s hair on his face. He didn’t know whether to be upset that all of this seemed so easy and almost routine for the other or glad that he wasn’t stuck with some novice who would irritate his wound with every step. He almost wanted this to be difficult, if only because he hated being seen in such a vulnerable state.

“Are you comfortable? I hope I’m not moving too fast,” Straizo said.

“Silence,” Dio growled, fighting back, perhaps foolishly, at his ego being slowly crushed like a grape.

“Mn,” Straizo sighed. “Are you still in pain?”

“I thought I told you to be quiet.”

“I can’t do that. I need to keep you talking so that I know that you’re still conscious. Falling asleep while I’m unable to properly monitor you could be dangerous.”

“And what if I just don’t respond?”

“Well, if you wish to die in your sleep, go ahead. I’ll make sure that you get a proper burial.”

“You are a worm. You are a worthless bastard frog-faced worm.”

“And you can’t walk, so I’d suggest being less hostile.”

“Why don’t you stop bothering me first?” Dio gritted out.

“Alright, your choice. What do you want to talk about?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“How about we talk about you? You mentioned having a lot of money and prestige before. But I’ve never heard of you.”

Dio instantly felt affronted. He didn’t graduate valedictorian at law school in half the time it usually took and start one of the most quickly growing law firms in the world to have someone open their fucking frog mouth and say that they had never heard of him. “Of course you’ve never heard of me before. You probably live in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere. Worse than living under a rock.”

“Oh, are you important or something?” Straizo shot back.

“You’re trying to make me keep talking by taking hits at my ego,” Dio suddenly realized.

“Yes, is it working? You can insult me again if you want. I’ll ignore it. Then I’ll come up with something else to talk about. And rinse and repeat until we reach civilization. OR, you can tell me about yourself and we pass the time in relative harmony. Your call.”

Dio’s eyes flared with rage. But he choked back the flurry of insults he wanted to throw. He was acting childishly. He wasn’t normally like this. He liked to think that he had conquered his anger. Clearly not, though. This injury, this vulnerability, had unbalanced him, and he had resorted to being as antagonistic as possible in order to find his balance again, which was stupid, weak, useless. He needed Straizo. 

He needed this stranger to take him to a town, no matter how he felt about it, and insulting him was just going to increase the chance he might get left to die. His legs were not about to support his weight again, he could tell. And despite how much he hated everything and everyone connected with his current situation, he hated the thought of dying such a stupid miserable death even more. So he bit his tongue and found as much inner peace as he could before responding.

“You’re right. My outbursts were unnecessary and self-defeating. What do you want to know?”

“Well-” Before Straizo could get a question out, a loud growl sounded through the forest glades. Straizo instantly snapped his head to the right, dropped him beside the twisted trunk of an old deciduous tree, and kicked aside an open snarling mouth with a loud thwack.

“The wolves here are too used to humans, especially those of the tourist variety. They’ve probably eaten some before as well, which makes this entire place incredibly dangerous. But I’m sure you were warned of that before you decided to come here.”

“What’s your point,” Dio gritted out. Despite how smoothly he was set down, the motion still aggravated his wound.

Straizo diligently looked left and right while the wolf recovered from the kick to its jaw. “It’s just in case you were curious why I didn’t choose to do something like instruct you to wave your arms around while on my back to make them think that we were a bigger creature than we are. That strategy would not work here.”

“It had crossed my mind. I thought you were just an asshole.”

A pack of other wolves came stalking out of the trees, growling and snarling. On all fours they came up to Straizo’s sternum. The wolf that was kicked backed up into line with its brethren and the pack began to make a circle around them.

“Mn. Not this time. Stay near the tree. I will make sure that they do not approach.”

“You’d fight off wolves for a stranger?”

“It’s no hardship and you’d die if I didn’t.” A wolf lunged forward and was rewarded with a punishing kick to the throat. It had airtime for a few seconds before landing 5 meters away and twitching limply.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Why shouldn’t I care so much?” The other wolves looked at their fallen family member and then back at Straizo, snapping their heads back and forth. Dio could almost hear their minds trying to determine if another try would be worth it. Straizo didn’t allow them to make the decision, immediately lunging forward and crushing a wolf’s head with a hard stomp. The animal was dead immediately. The others whined at the sight and ran away.

 Straizo turned back to him with a sigh, a hand on his hip as he walked back to him.

“You’d do this for just anyone who came across your path?”

“Yes, why not? I’d at least try to help.” Straizo lifted him up again, just as easily as he had before. He took a second to adjust his hold and then began walking again in the same direction. “But additionally, I see something in you, something valuable and impressive. So I’m going to provide assistance until you no longer need my help.”

Dio stayed silent for a moment. He was pleased that the stranger could identify his intrinsic value, but it was odd to have it just noticed. Oftentimes he had to make people see his worth, make it inignorable. And to be honest, he didn’t feel like anything he had done in this stranger’s presence would make any of his intrinsic value noticeable. So, why was this stranger so adamant about helping? The more he found out the more suspicious he became.

“So about my question from before…”

Straizo kept him talking for hours until they found a river. Then once they found the river, he walked along its banks and kept asking questions. Dio’s mind slightly wandered as he spoke. The river was beautiful. It meandered like a liquid silk ribbon, winding through the forest bathed in golden warmth. Soft, ochre-colored dirt lined the riverbank, its texture crumbling yet compact, occasionally dotted with fallen leaves and tiny roots that weaved through the soil like delicate veins.

Warmth permeated everything. The air felt thick and heavy, carrying so many scents it was almost overwhelming: rich, damp earth with its mustiness; the sweet, green fragrance of moss clinging to half-submerged logs; a hint of sun-warmed pine resin drifting from nearby trees.

Looking down at the water he knew it would be cool against the warm air. If he were to touch it, the river would flow with a silken touch as it slid between his fingers. Small fish darted beneath the surface, their silver bodies flashing like quicksilver before disappearing into the depths. Tiny water striders danced across the surface tension, delicate legs creating microscopic ripples that caught and fragmented the sunlight.

This was what he’d come out here for, what he’d wanted to experience in these godforsaken woods, not pain and strife and embarrassment but the simplicity of nature married to its complexities. After at least another hour of talking and walking, he and Straizo finally spotted the chimney of an old brick house. They had found a town, and hopefully, someone in it would have a phone that he could use to call for someone to help him home.

Straizo walked closer to the town but Dio clenched his arm. Straizo turned his head to look at him better. “What is it?”

“You can’t carry me into town. I’m fine now mostly, just let me lean on you.”

“Your pride will be the death of you. You weren’t able to stand with the wolves, you won’t be able to stand now.”

“I said I’ve recovered a bit.”

“Have you really?”

“Just let me down!”

Straizo sighed but allowed him to get down. It was a bit awkward being set down on his feet and he had to lean on Straizo again immediately as his legs felt set to buckle. He held off on the feeling though, simply putting more of his weight on the arm resting on Straizo’s opposite shoulder. Straizo put his right hand on his right side where he was uninjured to stabilize him.

“Tell me when you feel a sharp pain and I’ll go a bit slower.”

“Just go.”

Straizo gave him an admonishing stare and then did just that, timing his steps to Dio’s, and taking more and less of his weight rhythmically as they walked. In approximately 70 steps, Dio felt a sharp pain bloom in his side and then down his legs. His knees buckled and Straizo had to lift him back up before he fell onto the ground. Annoyingly, he slowed down some. Dio tried to speed up again but Straizo held him back and forced him to keep a steady measured pace. He felt his temper rise at this, but let it go. He needed patience, peace of mind, and a lack of fear. He needed to kill his fear. He needed to reverse his thinking. 

This wasn’t embarrassing. Being carried like this wasn’t due to any lack on his part. It was simply the universe giving him a break. Of course, he would be granted a servant able and willing to help him in his time of need. Didn’t he deserve such? He did. He ought to take advantage of what Straizo was willing to do for him. He felt his muscles untense and his mood lighten.

“When we get to town, just tell them that you’re my friend and that we got into an incident with the wolves of the forest.”

“Alright,” Straizo agreed. “Anything else?”

With his shifted perspective, he was actually quite pleased with how proactive and dutiful the other man was. “Yes. Ask if there’s a phone anywhere as well. I have people that can take me home as soon as I regain contact with them.”

“Okay, will do.”

10 minutes later they made it to the outskirts of the town. An unpleasant feeling was building in his chest and the back of his throat was irritated. The town was very modest with hardly more than 30 houses. As they walked in they gained more and more attention. People turned their heads and stared them down as they moved further in.

“Is there a doctor’s office nearby?” Straizo called out.

A tall heavyset woman pointed toward a moderately busy cobblestone road. “Marlina runs a small office that way. It’s straight down for about 5 minutes and then you take a left at the big apple tree in Rosemite park.”

“Thank you. Are there any phones in this town? My friend needs to contact someone.”

“Oh no. We don’t get any cell service here. We’re off the grid.”

“I see. Thank you.”

They moved in the direction the woman mentioned. He was annoyed that he’d not be able to call anyone but he trusted his fate. If this was how things were going then it must mean that there was some benefit to staying in this town until he could heal enough to walk to the next town over. He could feel his fear dying with every step. A sense of calm was settling over him.

They made it to the apple tree in about 20 minutes. Since it was spring, the tree was a cloud of delicate white and pink blossoms. The apple tree stood sentinel beside an old, weathered clapboard house with faded blue paint and a sagging front porch. Its white wooden rocking chair, seemingly bleached by countless summers, sat slightly askew, catching fallen apple blossoms until it was wreathed in white and pink. A narrow cobblestone path wound from the street, bordered by wild lavender and overgrown clover that swayed in the breeze, occasionally brushing against the tree's lowest branches.

Across the street, an abandoned general store leaned precariously, its windows clouded with decades of dust. A rusted mailbox tilted at an angle near the tree's base, its red paint chipped but still visible, bearing the faded name "Henderson" in barely legible white letters. A small patch of garden surrounded the tree, a riot of wildflowers and untamed grass that danced between dandelions and patches of soft moss.

An old bicycle leaned against the tree's trunk—a vintage model with a slightly bent wheel, its red paint faded to a soft coral, presumably after years of sun and rain. It was a quiet and peaceful scene and he appreciated it before turning with Straizo’s assistance like the woman from before described and walking until they reached a sign that said, “The Office of Doctor Marlina Rochelle” over the front of a small building sharing walls with a sewing materials shop and a tailoring shop.

They moved over to the plain hardwood door and Straizo knocked three times. They were loud powerful knocks that sounded through the street. They waited for about a minute before the door was yanked open. “Goodness you’re loud,” a woman said as she stepped through the doorway. She was short and of average weight with shaggy blonde hair and hazel-colored eyes. She looked at the two of them and her smile turned complicated. “You must have strong arms,” She said turning around. “Come on in. I assume you’re here about that wound and not to talk over a cup of tea.”

“You would be correct,” Straizo said humorlessly. Then he moved forward to follow her inside the building. The office smelled of chemicals but not as strongly as a hospital. It was even somewhat faint, hidden a bit under the scent of homemade candles and oils. They followed the doctor to a small room with a sizeable bed.

“This is the biggest bed I have, so you’ll have to put him there.”

“Alright.”

The bed was soft at least and just barely big enough to be comfortable. As Straizo moved aside the doctor stepped forward. “Whoever wrapped these bandages did a great job. A pity I’m going to have to unwrap them.” She started doing so, fingers brisk and pressing too hard at times. Dio ignored it, going back to his sense of peace. He was above complaining about things like pain. When she finished unwrapping the wound she whistled. “Would you look at that? They got you good. That’ll scar up nicely.”

“I’d prefer it didn’t scar at all.”

“Yeah, well I’m a doctor, not a miracle worker, honey. I’ll do my best but don’t expect much.”

Dio ignored the doctor’s rudeness yet again and tamped down on the fleeting urge to kill her. “I see. I’ll do something about it when I get home then.”

“You do that,” She said, as she examined the wound. She took her time asking questions about his condition and cleaning/rewrapping the wound. When she was done she stood up from the side of the bed.

“Yeah, I’m going to prescribe you some more antibiotics and painkillers but by the looks of that wound and the symptoms you’ve described to me, you’re gonna get real sick real soon, so brace for impact. It’ll probably take a few days to fight the illness and maybe about a month before you can walk again without pain.”

Dio observed the rising frustration within himself and pushed it down again. He was getting a better handle on his temper with every minute he spent in civilization. “Okay then,” he responded. He’d figure something out. He always came out on top, no matter the situation.

“I’ve got a nurse who usually helps with the day to day care of my patients, but unfortunately he’s part-time right now, and off helping his sister move her things back home, so you might have to wait a bit for any requests to be fulfilled while I get some of my other work done.”

“There’s no need for that,” Straizo cut in. “As his friend, I should take care of him.”

“Oh, well, if you want to. No sweat off my back. I’ll give you some instructions and as long as you follow them, your friend here will get well again in no time.”

“Thank you,” Straizo said, bowing.

“You two sure are a strange lot,” the doctor said as she left.

Dio turned his gaze to Straizo, suspicious again of his motives. But maybe he was just like Vanilla Ice? The man had acted similarly when they first met. But then again, Dio had been purposefully manipulating him and he hadn’t had the opportunity to pull himself together enough to do so with Straizo. He’d never had someone be so eager to assist him without first manipulating them or spending quite a bit of time with them. It was a new experience, but he was finding it somewhat pleasant.

Straizo turned to look at him, eyes blank and mouth in a firm line. “I’m leaving for now but I’ll be back soon. I need to find some sort of housing situation in the town. I don’t know if a town this small and secluded would even have a motel or hostel but I’m sure I’ll find something. I’ll also bring back a shirt for you, since I cut the one you’re wearing. Til later then,” he said, and then he left. Dio was once again alone with his thoughts, alone with nothing but time to contemplate how he’d found himself in this situation.

He had decided to take a two-month vacation from his duties at his company and left things for Enyaba to handle while he was gone. He’d planned to spend some time in some American national parks, then stay in Brazil for a week, go see some sights in Europe for another, relax on the African coast for two weeks, and then end his vacation in Singapore and Japan before flying home. But now all his plans were bust while he was stuck in some backwater redneck hodunk village with only the residents of said village and some near stranger for company. Things always happened when he wanted to travel.

He sighed. Things could always be worse though. He could be dead right now if he hadn’t been found. And at the end of the day, he was Dio. What was a little setback like this to someone like him? When he got back home he’d forget about this whole incident in a month and be back to winning at life in every way. He smiled. The only thing to do then was to enjoy his vacation even in this unfortunate circumstance.

Straizo came back while he was thinking. He had a few folded button-up shirts in his left hand. He put them down on the nightstand next to the bed. “Did anything begin to feel worse or better while I was gone?”

“Everything is as it was,” he answered. He thought to himself, he didn’t need to manipulate Straizo in order to make him useful, but why not try and gain the added benefit of strengthened loyalty? To achieve this he started paying much more attention to his mannerisms and voice. It was a bit difficult with his throat feeling a bit scratchy and a mind fog threatening to wash over him, but like he’d let that stop him.

“Good. Do you need anything then, or should I leave you be?”

“I’d like a book,” he said with a deeper drawling tone. “Do you think this place has a library with anything good?”

“Mm. I can check,” Straizo said, face and voice totally unaffected. “What kinds of books do you like?”

“Philosophy, math, science, history. You’d be better off asking what kinds of books I don’t like.” Dio continued, with a tempting tone.

“I see. I’ll use my best judgement then,” Straizo said monotonously before turning away and leaving again.

Dio blinked and then fell back on the bed’s pillow with a huff. Was he losing his touch or was this guy just a robot? He was like Vanilla Ice 2.0 except worse because Vanilla sometimes displayed emotions while Straizo’s only emotions seemed to be mild annoyance and indifference. At least he’d gone to get him a book without a hassle. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be something brain-dead.

Straizo came back about 25 minutes later with three books. One was about Calculus, one was about the Byzantine Empire, and the last was a trashy romance novel about a woman falling for a vampire. Obviously, he chose to read the novel, only God knew how many times he’d read about the Byzantine Empire and he’d taken Calculus during his university years. Straizo left after he began reading and he continued reading until nightfall, when he went to bed.

The next day he woke up feeling like hell warmed over. It hurt to swallow, but he couldn’t stop coughing every 2 minutes. He had a pounding headache, and when the doctor came over she measured his temperature at 103 degrees.

“Yup, you got yourself an infection, and it’s come over and hit your pretty face like a truck.”

Dio felt like killing everyone in the room and then himself. But he held off, partly because he could barely move his body at all. Straizo stood stiffly near the door with a small frown. “Well, I’ve got another patient, so I won’t be able to check up on you too much. Thankfully, your friend here volunteered yesterday and I’ve gone ahead and given him all the instructions he needs so I’m sure you’ll survive. Give me a yell if he’s choking you out or something though,” she joked as she left.

It was very quiet when she left. Dio could hear nothing but the sounds of birds chirping, leaves rustling, squirrels skittering over thin branches, and blood pumping in his ears. He felt like he could feel all the blood pumping in his body pulsing in rhythm with his heart. It was inignorable and unfathomably annoying. He turned to Straizo in his exasperation.

“Why are you so quiet? Don’t you have anything to say?”

“No I don’t. Why would I?”

“You are deathly boring. I think I will perish simply from being in your presence.”

“I assumed you would like some quiet. You’ve complained of headaches quite a lot today.”

“The doctor talks loudly but you don’t, so you should speak so I don’t die of boredom.”

“I see. What do you wish to talk about?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trapped in this bed all morning. Haven’t you done anything of interest while in the town?”

“Well, I got to know the town’s people a bit better. One lady was telling me about her Sherpard’s pie recipe that’s apparently the talk of the town.”

“Goodness. Were you just born boring? What do I care about a pie?” A wracking cough hit him just then. Straizo left and came back with a glass of water.

“I don’t think I’m boring. I think you’re just stressed and looking for someone to blame. I don’t particularly care, though it is a bit annoying.”

Dio sighed. “Don’t you have anything to talk about?”

“Mm. I can tell a story or two if you’re willing to listen. Stories my great-grandmother used to tell me back when she was alive and I lived in Tibet.”

“Alright, that doesn’t sound too miserable. Go ahead.”

Straizo started to recount the story then. It was a story about a so-called frugal woman who was worshipped by the people in her land for having foresight. He didn’t find the story itself all that interesting but he found that he surprisingly liked the way Straizo narrated it. The other man had a habit of speaking in a gentle monotone voice that extruded apathy in every syllable. 

However, his calm and steady voice as he narrated was appreciable and he was able to infuse his voice and mannerisms with just enough subtle emotion to send the message of the folktale through. A few sentences in and he was able to forget about being sick and weak for a moment and just imagine the story he was being told.

When it ended he felt a bit disappointed. Instantly, he subconsciously tried to reject the notion but then stopped himself. It made sense. This sort of interaction was partly why he liked to travel so much, learning about different cultures, different ways of doing things, and different folktales and traditions was half the point of traveling. 

And he was sure that he wouldn’t get to do any of that, wouldn’t get to expand his horizons at all. But somehow he had. Perhaps it was because he was Dio, the universe’s favorite. Or perhaps not. What he knew for sure was that he definitely wanted to hear another story. He was about to ask when his stomach growled.

He looked at Straizo who looked blankly back at him. “Do you think this place is a bed AND breakfast?” He asked.

“Dr. Rochelle mentioned making breakfast about an hour ago. I could go check and see if she’s started.”

“Hm. Sounds good.”

Straizo left and then came back in about 15 minutes. “She says that she’s almost done and that breakfast will be done in about 10 more minutes.”

“In the meantime, tell me another story Straizo. I like the way you say the words, how they leave your lips.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Is that it? Nothing else to say?”

“Is there anything else to say?”

“Hm. I guess not.”

Straizo sat down in the armchair next to the bed. “What about my voice did you like?” He asked, face still blank and yet oddly intense.

Dio saw his chance and took it. He pushed all symptoms of being sick as death to the far corners of his mind and moved his hand to gently brush against Straizo’s fingertips, making eye contact as he did so. “You know a voice can tell you a lot about a person. Did you know that?”

“No, not really.”

“Oh, it’s just my theory but I think subconsciously most people decide what kind of person they are when they near adulthood and then their voices grow to fit that subconscious understanding of themselves. I think that’s why so many annoying women have fast high-pitched voices and so many stupid men have low slow ones. Subconsciously they know that they’re annoying or stupid and the body falls in line to fit the mold.”

“Interesting. And what does that have to do with my voice?”

“Your voice really speaks to me. It’s gentle but it isn’t meek, like one could say that you’re passive but you aren’t weak. It’s confident but it isn’t loud, like one could say denotes a quiet strength. And it’s steady, it’s very steady, dutiful, dependable, and I can definitely see thoses traits within you as well.”

“Alright. And so what does it say when your voice is slippery, flirtatious, manipulative, and yet straining at the seams with exhaustion?”

Dio smiled a bit. His game had been caught, but somehow he didn’t mind. “It means I’m someone you shouldn’t trust, and yet also someone very ill and vulnerable. You could probably try and kill me right now and I’d have no recourse against you.”

Straizo gave him a passive and patient look.

“Mm. But you won’t, because you want something from me.” Dio moved his hand again, from where he’d been resting it on the bed to Straizo’s arm again, tickling his skin with a gentle touch as his fingers creeped up the other man’s arm. “You need something from me, and you haven’t yet gotten it.” He could feel his smile turning into a simply awful grin. 

Straizo closed a firm hand around his hand, neither affectionate nor cruel. “Whatever could you want from me? Whatever would you want from me? Whatever it is, I’m likely to give it, if you’d be a very good friend to me.”

“I don’t know why you continue to play these games, Dio, especially when you know that I won’t fall for them.”

“Why does it have to be a game? Why can’t I be dead serious?”

“Because you don’t like me, or trust me, or care about me at all. We’re strangers and to me your manipulative nature is obvious. Even if I were to be tempted, I’m almost certain that any arrangement that starts off with you huskily whispering to me is going to be to my detriment. Simply put, I don’t trust you one bit, Dio, and I don’t think that you want anything more than to manipulate me to your own benefit.”

“Hah. If you think so poorly of me, then why bother helping?”

“I don’t think poorly of you. I’m simply saying the truth. I like you well enough as you are,” Straizo shot back.

Now Dio was confused again, entirely caught off balance. He couldn’t parse Straizo at all. His words and actions seemed contradictory even with themselves and his real motivations were unknowable. He’d never met a person like him before and he was yet again having a hard time deciding what he felt about about it. What he definitely didn’t like was how easily the man could see through him. Was it just because he was sick and off his game? Was it something else? He could feel his frustration mounting but he pushed it down and found his place of peace.

Everything was fine. He was sure of it. Everything was fine because he was Dio and things always went right for him in the end, even if at first he got a raw deal. He was Dio and he always prevailed, got better, succeeded, and ended up on top. He sighed. Fear was a rotten liar and a thief of peace and he would kill it as brutally and methodically as he killed anything else.

He was about to speak again when the door opened. “Hey you lot! Breakfast’s ready! Come and get it!”

Straizo turned his head and the atmosphere around them dissolved. “I’ll go get a plate for you. Do you want big portions or small ones?”

“A big one. I haven’t eaten a proper meal since lunchtime yesterday.”

“Alright. I’ll be back soon.”

Straizo left and came back 10 minutes later with an interesting looking way to die. It was a plate of burnt oatmeal with shredded meat chunks, topped with gooey overripe strawberries and doused with milk. Dio felt a bit sick looking at it but Straizo went ahead and took an even spoonful of his own plate of food after setting the second one down on Dio’s lap with its tray. He chewed, swallowed, and seemed to ruminate on the taste.

“How is it?”

“Oh quite bad. Horrible really. I wouldn’t feed this to a dog. The only sugar is from the overripe strawberries, the milk is basically water, the burntness does not add to the flavor, and the venison is dry and bland.”

Dio looked at the tray with his food and put it away on the nightstand with annoyance. So it prevailed that hospital food was just terrible. “Well, what am I going to eat then?”

Straizo looked up in thought for a moment before shrugging. “I can cook. And I’m sure I can convince the doctor to let me.”

“Would you say you’re a good cook?”

“I’d say I’m decent. I don’t cook for people very often.”

“Well, decent is better than that monstrosity. Do what you can and we’ll both hope and pray its edible.”

Straizo nodded and left again with the inedible food. He stayed gone for a long while. So long that Dio got bored of waiting and started up on that book on the Byzantine Empire. He was halfway through the fourth chapter of the textbook when something began to smell good. The smell teased him for a good 10 minutes, making his stomach twist when Straizo finally returned. He came bearing trays of intensely appetizing food. The tray set before him was nothing like the food he’d almost cursed his tastebuds with beforehand. 

First of all, the main dish was a shepherd’s pie, but the meat smelled spicy and there was mozzarella cheese melting from under the soft buttery potatoes. Beside the shepherd’s pie, there was a small plate of rice topped with a spicy spinach and pepper stew. For a drink, he was given a cup of what looked like milk but smelled like green tea mixed with milk tea and honey. He looked at the food almost in awe, stomach growling like a caged beast. The first bite of the shepherd’s pie as it melted on his tongue felt like pure unadulterated bliss. His eyes rolled to the back of his head in pleasure and he couldn’t help but let out a pleased sigh.

“You like it then.” Dio almost jumped, entirely forgetting himself and the fact that he had an audience of one. Straizo was staring intensely at him, face seeming almost displeased in his focus.

“You’re much better than just decent, Straizo. You sold yourself short.” Dio looked down at heaven in a wooden lunch tray. “Woefully short.”

“I see. I’m glad you like it. I could cook from now-”

“Yes. Do so. It would definitely please me if you would.”

“I see. I’ll make some adjustments to my routine so that I can cook regularly.”

“What routine? We’ve hardly spent a day here.”

“I spent some time before bed last night crafting a routine to follow while I care for you in this town.”

Dio scoffed. “Of course you would craft routines in your free time.”

“You don’t craft routines?”

“I let my routines form naturally.”

“I guess that is a way to do things, but I prefer to plan ahead.”

“You’re so tightly wound and robotic, I wonder if I’d find an actual stick in your ass if I searched.”

“What crass yet evocative imagery. I wonder why you think me robotic for something as simple as setting up routines in advance.”

“I don’t think that you’re robotic for doing that. I think that you doing that is a symptom of your stiff personality.”

“Huh… I see. We’d best eat before the food gets cold. Though it is always fascinating to talk to you and see what you think of me. I’d like to talk more after we eat.”

He dove back into the food, just barely holding onto his manners. Manners separated man from beast after all and despite his unusual (read nonexistent) moral profile, he did not consider himself a beast. Once he was done eating, Straizo took the tray from him and left again. When he came back he sat down at the armchair again and propped his head on his hand.

“Hey Dio. Do you think you have the strength to sit up?”

Dio blinked at him a few times and then rolled his eyes. “Of course I do. I’m not that tired. I just sat up to eat.”

“Yes but could you sit up for a substantial amount of time?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Well you need to take a bath don’t you? I’m going to go out and collect some water from the pump in the back in a bit but I need to know whether you’ll need further assistance once you’re in the bathtub.”

“If there’s a bathtub, couldn’t I just turn on the faucet and be done with it?”

“Oh no. This place doesn’t have direct water access. To get water the doctor or I either need to take some from the jugs in the ice box or haul water back in a bucket from the pump.”

“What kind of backwards way of living is that?”

“It’s the way these people choose to live. I respect people having the ability to commit to an ideology.”

“Ugh, people can be so strange. To give up modern comforts for self-imposed struggle.”

Straizo shrugged.

“Wait! How are you going to heat the water then? Don’t tell me you’re going to use the stove.”

“Of course not. I’m going to make a campsite fire and boil the bathwater like that, bucket by bucket.”

Dio stared at Straizo blankly. Then he sighed. “I can’t wait until I’m out of this wasteland.”

“Do you want me to help you to the bath when the water is slightly hot or just warm?”

“Depends on what your definition of slightly hot is.”

“Hot springs hot.”

“Alright. That doesn’t sound bad.”

“What scents do you like? The doctor has a lot of oils and soaps.”

“Roses, chocolate, honey. Anything sweet and sultry honestly.”

“Alright, I’ll see to that.”

Straizo left again and Dio was once again allowed to bask in his thoughts. He supposed that it would be normal to feel embarrassed at being helped to the bath, even more so at the thought of having an eye kept on him, but he was always the type who liked to take baths with others. Perhaps he’d ask Straizo to join him instead of watching over him like a hawk-eyed nurse.

Straizo came back about an hour later. The sleeves of his tunic were slightly damp and his fingers as he held Dio’s hand to help him up were very warm. Usually, they were quite cool. The other hand around his waist was not just warm but slightly wet as well. 

They walked slowly out of the patient room and into the hallway, where Straizo navigated them to an open door. As they stepped inside, Dio instantly felt the cold of the stone flooring through his toes. It was unpleasant but he didn’t say anything. Straizo took him to a heavy-looking wooden chair and sat him down.

“If you wish, I can leave while you undress.”

“No no, stay. In fact, you should bathe with me. There’s more than enough room in the tub.”

The tub was a massive metal basin that would come up to his thighs, were he standing up, and had enough space to fit a bed. It was probably made for communal bathing purposes. Straizo looked over to the basin and then back to him.

“You’re right. I was planning to take my own bath after you, but sharing it would be more efficient. And it would allow me to assist without issue. I’ll undress as well then.”

Straizo then began to quickly and efficiently take off his clothes. He started off with the thick cape that was buckled to his neck. Then he was on to his thick shirt, choosing to lift it off from the bottom. Dio stared as more and more milky white skin and toned muscles were exposed. Straizo’s abdominals were well-defined and his waist was small, having a slight curve when moving up to his moderately large chest and down his slightly pronounced hips. 

His biceps and thighs were full but appeared a bit lean until he unconsciously flexed when moving. All in all, Dio was very interested and a bit disappointed that his earlier attempts to manipulate him hadn’t worked. They could be sleeping together right now if it had. Straizo turned back to look at him once he was done, but then his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

“Aren’t you going to undress?” He asked. Dio then noticed that he’d neglected to undress himself while he was getting an eyeful of Straizo’s unintentional strip tease. He smiled flirtatiously as he began to take his clothes off as well. The button-up came off easily enough, but he went slowly, partly to put on a show and partly because he was still feeling fatigued. 

His shoes, pants, and underwear also came off uneventfully. Where his problem lay was with his choker. It was thin and flat so it didn’t get in the way of much but he was finding it impossible to find the presence of mind to angle his fingers in a way that would allow him to open it from the back. He struggled with it for about 3 minutes before Straizo came to his side, moving aside his fingers to open the choker for him and then putting it with the rest of his clothes.

Straizo then resumed his support position as he helped him stand up and walk to the basin. This position while they were both naked felt entirely different than the same one while clothed. It felt somehow exciting. Like he was drugged instead of sick and was being taken to be ravaged in the bath, especially with Straizo’s hand on his waist. He pushed those thoughts away. He’d not be able to explain away a boner in this situation.

The water smelled like roses, honey, and roasted oakwood. The first step inside was hot, but not enough to feel uncomfortable. Settling in he felt the tenseness in his muscles melt away. Straizo handed him a bar of soap and a cloth and he began to slowly scrub all the grime and stress of the previous two days away. It was perfect, heavenly even, to the point where he struggled to keep his eyes open. He leaned his head against the lip of the basin, almost falling asleep. He was shocked out of his bliss by the feeling of hands in his hair. He looked to the side and saw Straizo pushing his shoulder and head to the side for better access.

“You normally shouldn’t sleep in the bath. That’s exactly how you end up drowning. But since I’m here, I’d say it’s not as dangerous. Feel free to get some sleep while I help you wash your hair.”

Dio didn’t respond, just leaned back and let his eyes shut. Every so often he’d open his eyes again, to the satisfying feeling of blunt nails scrubbing soap deeper into his hair, to the warm feeling of heated water washing the soap out, to the unusual feeling of his hair being brushed before the cycle repeated. All until he suddenly snapped awake and found himself on the bed again, a heavy weight on his back. He was about to push against it when a gentle shushing noise came.

“Be calm. It’s just me,” Straizo whispered. “Massages are good for blood flow and relaxation. So if you want, I could give you a massage after every bath to promote faster healing.”

“How about you give me some warning next time you make a decision concerning my health?”

“Mn. Noted. Do I have your permission now though?”

“Mm. I’ve never been opposed to massages. Are you any good at it?”

“I’d say I’m decent.”

“Go ahead then.”

He relaxed back into the mattress. Straizo skated his soft warm fingers across the hills and valleys of his back, but when he reversed the motion, it was with substantial force, fingers diving into gaps and crevices and encouraging the muscles in Dio’s back to move the way they already wanted to. Straizo’s fingers moved first in a back-and-forth motion over his back but then moved up to his shoulders, where he placed a hand on either shoulder and kneaded his thumbs deep into the muscles there. Straizo did this for a time, sparing a few moments to cover his hands with oil that smelled like the nutty jojoba and almond oil Dio’s masseuse back home favored. Then Straizo was back to it, the oil making his fingers glide smoothly and pleasureably.

When Straizo seemed done with his shoulders he used the press-and-release technique to massage along Dio’s neck, all the way to his hairline, keeping his hands on either side of the spine. Doing the method properly meant that one would press their fingertips firmly into the subject’s flesh before quickly releasing the pressure, which when done in such a way encouraged the brain to release a rush of pleasurable chemicals. Straizo did the same technique to the flesh of Dio’s back, working his way up and down. The oil was warm and buttery smooth as Straizo used his thumbs to engage with the tops of the shoulders and up the back of the neck, using the same press-and-release method as before. 

Then, slowly, Straizo placed the palm of each of his hands on either side of Dio’s spine and worked his way up, keeping his hands parallel to one another. When he reached the top of Dio’s back, he fanned his hands outwards across the shoulders, as if outlining the top of a heart. Then he returned to Dio’s lower back and used a kneading motion to work the large muscles on either side of his spine. Then, he used the press-and-release technique to work his way up his back again.

At this point, Dio’s eyes were all but closed as he melted into the mattress and fell headlong into another nap.

||*||*||*|| Straizo ||*||*||*||

[Playlist] Dark romance 🖤 - YouTube Music

He stopped about 10 minutes after Dio fell asleep. He looked down at him for a while, probably much too long. He didn’t care. It was dark in the room. The curtains were thick and they blocked the light of the midday better than most. Only a single ray of light trespassed, making a strip of light so luminescent it burned his eyes to look at it, and yet look he did. 

He turned back to Dio. He’d saved him partly because of the light he’d seen in him. It wasn’t light that one would consider good. It was like the light of battery acid leaking from its container, the light of the red light districts in Japan, the light of a lightning strike as it hit someone, enveloping them in fatal vibrance. The light of the darkness was what it was, however dirtied and dimmed by the struggle to survive it was. 

Dio was dangerous. Perhaps not now, but Straizo knew that given the chance to right himself and once again hide his vulnerabilities like a coiled snake, the man beneath him could be the death of him. That was partly the appeal, he supposed, however selfish it was to think about death when he had so many responsibilities. He was a selfish man. He was a cruel man. He was a monster just as bad as the one beneath him. He supposed that he should care more than he did. It was a flaw of his birth that he was unable to, only able to pretend even to himself that he did.

He got up, put on his shirt, and draped a blanket over Dio’s back. Then he left the room where Dio was sleeping. While he had some time to himself, he supposed he’d better start preparations to begin cooking lunch. The doctor had given him full permission to use all her ingredients as long as he made meals for everyone in the office in addition to his and Dio’s. He agreed as it wasn’t much of a hassle for him. He liked to keep busy. He couldn’t stand being alone with his thoughts. He’d rather work 16 hours every day than go on vacation. Unfortunately for him, his coworkers had other thoughts and forced him on this vacation. At the very least he’d gotten to meet someone very interesting.

He got into the office’s kitchen but met the doctor’s eye. Almost immediately a mask of civility settled onto his face and he slightly smiled in greeting. It was small and generic, but the best that he could do even after years of observing the people around him and trying to get better at copying them. Whenever he tried to smile wider, or frown harsher than normal, people found it “disturbing” which was counterproductive to his goals so he pretended to be much more passive than he really was.

“Hello, Dr. Rochelle. It’s good to see you,” he greeted. He felt nothing for Dr. Rochelle but it gave better benefits to pretend than to be honest. To that end, even though he was a terrible actor, he was a phenomenal liar.

“Oh, hello there you! Any difficulty dealing with our beautiful yet grumpy patient?”

The doctor had come to call Dio “their” patient. Straizo let the smile on his face drop into a more contemplative expression. “No problems. He’s become much more cooperative.”

“Oh how lucky. I guess he just needed a moment to get settled in. Lots of men like him are like that ya know. They get tangled in their egos so thoroughly that helping them is harder than fist-fighting a horse.”

Straizo blinked slowly at her. He didn’t know what to say to that. “Alright,” he eventually settled on. “I’ve come to cook lunch. Any requests?”

“Oh noth’n, dear. I think we all know that I’m perhaps not quite qualified to give culinary advice.” She spoke quickly and seemed eager to talk quite a lot. “You know my husband, I partly married him because he was such a good cook. I was just plain tired of eating biohazards daily. You should meet him. He’s such a sweetheart and I think that he’d be plain delighted to learn that chivalry is indeed not dead. Look at you, doing all you’re doing to help your friend. I’ve seen men and women who wouldn’t do 1/10 as much for their spouses. Now along that line of thinking, are you two gay? Not that it’d be a problem really, not with me or hubby, but I really don’t know much about you, and that’s such a shame because you seem like a real stand-up guy you know, and-”

She kept on talking. Straizo wasn’t particularly bothered by it. Many people liked to use him as some sort of human diary. He supposed that he had a nonjudgmental face. He just listened, responded as necessary, and let them enjoy the sound of their own voices. He got on with the cooking as Dr. Rochelle continued to talk rapid-fire at him.

“-nd you know little miss Suzy was such a nice girl but then she just had to leave and follow her big dreams in the big city, and nobody was left to take care of that big old Maine Coon she’d begged her father for. You know her father was the one who got himself killed falling off a cliff 8 years ago. So you know like usual, the town busybodies cycled through everyone until they got to me, and you’ve got to understand I’m just the very definition of a bleeding heart, and also considered the resident cat lady, so I ended up taking in old jerry, and now he lives in my house with me and my equally soggy-hearted husband. And- Oh dear you’re done already? Either I talk a lot more than I think I do or you cook very fast, young man.”

“Mn. I like to do things efficiently so I can get more things done.”

“Oh well, good on you. It’s good to see a hardworker around. I wonder just what you’ve concocted today.”

“I made an apple cider beef stew with garlic bread and a stuffed sweet potato on the side.”

“Goodness that sounds delicious. You don’t mind if I take some back home to my husband, do ya?”

“It’s food from your kitchen, help yourself.”

“Yeah, I know, but you made it so… felt only considerate to ask permission. Thanks a bunch. My husband’s come down with something so he can’t make me the lunches he usually does. I thought with the combination of my nurse and my husband being out of commission me and all my patients would surely starve. But just when you don’t expect it, God performs miracles.”

“Mn. Thank you for the company. I’ll be bringing Dio his food now,” he responded. Then he left. As soon as he did, the pleasant expression on his face fell away, and he once again became the apathetic creature he was born as. He brought the food to Dio’s temporary room, opening the door to find his charge awake and reading a book.

In the darkness, Dio’s eyes glowed for a moment with malicious intent before dimming as he too donned a mask of civility, entirely for his own benefit. “What a perfect nursemaid you are Straizo. I don’t even have to ask anymore.”

Straizo ignored the joke and set the tray with Dio’s food down on the man’s lap. Then he sat down on the armchair next to the bed. All of this sleeping, sitting, and laying down, while good for healing and fighting off the infection that had taken hold of him, was no good for his muscles. If he were to remain basically bedbound for the full month the doctor estimated, his muscles might begin to atrophy. Plus the lack of exercise might lead to unhealthy weight gain. For Dio’s health, he should come up with some excuse to make him walk around each day. Probably it wouldn’t take too much. Already, he seemed a bit stir-crazy being forced to stay put for extended periods of time each day. He might enjoy a daily trip to the library for instance. 

But the trouble would be taking the noose of ego away from his neck. Would he agree to go to the library knowing that people would see him struggling to walk and depending on someone smaller and slighter than him? And if he did agree, would the subsequent downturn of his mood do more to harm his health than improve it? There were so many things that he had to think about and consider. Since he had taken on the responsibility for Dio’s health by deciding to help him, he couldn’t back out midway or allow himself to do a subpar job. It just wasn’t how he was wired. It was one part of the morality he’d given himself, as thin and incomplete as it was.

He observed Dio eating for a moment. He ate very regally, like someone born in the upper echelons of society would. Straizo knew that he was not born in the upper echelons of society though, which made it all the more technically impressive. How did he gain such knowledge? Did someone teach him? Did he teach himself? Why had he learned in the first place? Why had he decided to retain the knowledge? There were so many questions that he could ask, but he remained quiet because of his sense of responsibility. 

He should not try to get closer to a monster. He should not try to flirt with death, with destruction and chaos. He had committed himself to many things and his thin bleedthrough moral code did not need any more holes. He surrendered himself to the quiet, to the unknowing, unwishing, unhappy part of himself, the part of himself that caged all the rest and made of him something of beauty in the eyes of the masses, something that could be loved and valued and remembered instead of feared and scorned. 

He made of himself a beautiful silent liar.

Chapter Text

A dark atmospheric playlist about walking in the woods at night

Dio flexed his muscles, hands holding his feet together as he arched his back and stretched. He sighed and released his hold on himself, allowing the tension to dissolve instantly. It had been a month already, a month since he had first come to this boring little village in the middle of nowhere. His wound had pretty much stopped bothering him yesterday and today after breakfast, he and Straizo would make the trek to the closest town with cell service seeing as nobody in the village had cars.

He looked around the room he had been calling his own for quite a bit longer than he ever wanted to. It was cluttered with books, notes, and writing utensils. He had actually come up with a few interesting ideas to add to his philosophy on life since he first started staying. And he was of course eager to share what he had found with his “ friends ” back in his home city. The thought of it made him abuzz with energy. However, there was one thing dampening his mood.

He left “his room” to go to the small makeshift lunchroom in the office. It was right next to the kitchen where Straizo was finishing up breakfast. Today it was buttermilk pancakes with honey instead of syrup. He moved silently to an open chair while nobody was looking and suppressed a smile when the doctor jumped at his sudden appearance. He ignored her and focused on Straizo, who still hadn’t turned to see him.

“So, how long do you think the walk will be?”

Straizo stilled and then turned his head to look at him over his shoulder, hair glinting from the sunlight from the open window. His gaze, as always, was just slightly off from what one could consider normal. Dio stared back at him. Straizo turned back to the pan of pancakes. “It’ll most likely be a 6 or 7 hour walk.”

“How long would it take to run?”

“Depends on how fast you can run. I haven’t seen you run yet so I’d have no way to calculate the length.”

“And there’s no way I could convince you to come home with me?”

Straizo stopped again, like a clockwork robot stuck on a snag, before continuing to cook. “No. I have my own life to live.”

“Hm. Not even for a week or something?”

“You’d try and make me stay longer… so no.”

Dio smiled at that, slow and mean. Sometimes he wished he wasn’t so transparent to the other man. But then, having someone who partly understood how his mind worked was something special. “You’re too paranoid, Strai~zo.”

Dio turned away from Straizo. He really wanted the man to come home with him. Perhaps if he wasn’t cautious about fighting an opponent whose full capabilities remained yet unknown to him, he would have risked trying to force him. But he’d just healed and he wasn’t stupid enough to take such a risk so far from his territory. So he’d give it up… just this time. 

This whole encounter would probably fall away from his mind given enough time. He’d never met a man like Straizo before, but that was only because he’d not known that a man like him existed. Given enough time he’d find another person just like him and then he’d break them open and study just what went on inside their head. Metaphorically, of course.

He grinned as he turned to face the doctor. She was observing him nervously. About 14 days after he first arrived, he noticed her getting quieter and more cautious around him. She was her regular rowdy self when it was just her, Straizo, and her nurse, but when he walked in suddenly there was a tension in her face that grew and grew the longer he stayed. That was how he knew he’d regained his edge, settled back into the version of himself that had been unsettled by his near death experience. 

Honestly, he loved it. He found the fear in her eyes delightful. But he was also trying to hide his sharp edges, because people were often more useful when they weren’t blinded by fear. He liked to be loved, admired, and adored more than he loved being feared as it made people so much easier to manipulate. After all, who fought against love? Courage guarded against fear and it was fed by love, fed by one’s own ideas or delusions of love.

That was why he didn’t believe in fear and he barely believed in love. Both were mostly just tools of manipulation and signals of the leftover animal brain. Love did not get in the way of peace of mind, which was the only reason he did not entirely strike it from his life. He knew also that one must manipulate even themselves in order to get to a fruit called trust. And that fruit called trust could bloom after one’s death and allow metaphorical immortality. If done right then perhaps even physical immortality.

He blinked, letting his thoughts settle again, and softening the intensity of his gaze. He was scaring her again, the doctor. He bet she regretted ever taking him in. He smiled at the thought. Too late for that. Much much too late.

“Hey, all!” Dio was broken from his thoughts again by the entrance of the nurse. “I smelled something delightful.” The nurse was a skinny freckle-faced man with a head full of bouncy auburn curls. He wore a yellow shirt under light pink overalls and had large brown boots. When he spoke one could see flashes of a stud piercing in his tongue.

Dio stared at him but the nurse avoided his eyes and pretended he wasn’t even there. Which was fair, see no evil and all that. The nurse sat down at the table and immediately struck up a conversation with the doctor. Dio ignored it and took a book on anatomy down from a nearby bookshelf. Straizo brought the finished pancakes over, setting a plate down in front of everyone at the table, including himself.

“Ah, if Alan had just stayed for 5 days longer with his broken leg, he would have been able to eat these pancakes. He loves pancakes ya know, just can’t get enough of them. One time the town did a pancake eating contest to replace the regular cake eating contest because it was giving people stomach aches, but that was the only year they ever did it because Alan ate 80% of the pancakes by himself. On second thought, maybe it’s better that he wasn’t here,” the nurse prattled on to Straizo. Straizo nodded agreeably as he always did. The doctor seemed to be half listening, half nervously staring. “Where did you learn how to cook though? Did you learn professionally or was your mom just really good at teaching?”

Straizo ignored that statement entirely and began to eat. Dio ignored the chatter throughout his meal and when he finished he left the table. Straizo followed after him after saying his goodbyes. “Thank you for your help this month.” He put a golden necklace on the counter. “I haven’t been able to find my paper money, but I hope this is enough to pay for our stay.”

“Oh, but we weren’t expecting any money!” The doctor shouted after them. Straizo said nothing back. He simply kept on moving like he hadn’t heard anything at all. There was no second shout.

Straizo had a bag of supplies already packed and in his left hand. He brought out a map once they were 5 minutes away from the office. He pointed to a point on the map. “This is the closest town that they are aware of having cell service. I’m going to be holding the map so I’d appreciate it if you would stay close to me.”

“Mm,” he halfheartedly answered. He would do what he wanted to do, full stop.

The walk from the town and into the woods was mostly smooth. The woods were just as hot and musty as he remembered them being. The dirt was also just as soft. His legs hurt by the 20th mile, but Straizo looked none the worse for wear, attention fully on the map and the landmarks around them, so he wouldn’t stop either. By the 30th though, he had to take a break.

“Good to know I could outrun you if you ever decided to chase after me.”

Dio chuckled. Straizo didn’t often joke around but it wasn’t like he didn’t have a sense of humor. Dio liked seeing moments when he wasn’t as serious and robotic. “You have more stamina, sure, but who knows if you have more speed?”

“I guess you’re right. I’d like to not test that.”

Dio chuckled again, lowly as he stood up from the mossy log he’d sat down on. When they finally spotted the town Dio sped up, he took Straizo by the arm and pulled him forward faster. Straizo let himself be led without complaint. They had made it a few hours ahead of schedule. In the town, they went to the police office and Dio was calling home in no time.

The phone rang once before, “Hello?” was heard through the device. “Brando residence, Telence speaking. Listen, if you’re here about DIO-”

“Hello Telence, long time no see.”

There was silence on the other side of the phone before suddenly Telence was speaking quickly, elated and crying. “DIO? Lord DIO, is that you? It’s been a month since we lost contact! We thought… we honestly were beginning to think-”

“Nonsense. Don’t you all have any faith in me? What did you think could be the end of me?”

“I- we- we’re sorry for doubting you Lord DIO. I will tell everyone of the great news!”

“Before you do that, could you be a dear and arrange for someone to pick me up? I’m in the only police station in this old washed up town called Parlington. Track this phone and find it. I expect to be home before nightfall.”

“Of course, Lord DIO. It would be my pleasure. Is there anything else you need?”

“No. I’ll call you again if anything changes so keep close to a phone.”

“Of course!”

With that, DIO hung up the phone. A police officer gave him a strange look where she was observing him from the opposite wall. Straizo was sitting beside him.

“Do you need to call anyone?” He asked him.

“No. I’m slightly familiar with this area actually. I know exactly how to get home.”

“Alright. Well then, officer, that’s all we needed.”

“Mn hn. You have a lot of faith in your friends. Are you sure they can get here before nightfall?”

“Oh, no. I plan to be home before nightfall. If they know what’s good for them, they’ll get here before noon.”

The police officer raised an eyebrow but then shrugged and went back to her paperwork. DIO turned back to Straizo, still bothered by the reality of things between them. “Are you sure that I can’t convince you to come with me? What if we never meet again?”

Straizo looked at him blankly. “You just want more time to manipulate me into becoming the perfect little obedient servant for you. I don’t think that you respect or care about me one bit outside of that. So why on earth would I follow you?”

DIO huffed. “You didn’t have to say it like that. It’s not like I hate you. And if you feel that way, why did you follow me around in the first place?”

“You were at risk of death or a slowed recovery if I didn’t follow you before. Now that is no longer a pertinent risk, so there is no point for me to follow you. This is all like asking why a firefighter would carry a woman out of a burning building but not go home with her. I’ve done my duty, I’ve fulfilled my responsibility, and now we must part ways. Do not take this to mean that I dislike you. This is simply the necessary final outcome of our relationship. Thank you for making this month interesting for me.” Then Straizo stood up, bowed, and left.

Dio stared after him with a displeased frown. Then he sighed and rolled his eyes. He’d get over it. As he waited to be picked up he continued reading the book on anatomy he’d taken from the doctor’s office. About 2 hours later some people came charging into the waiting room and knelt down before him. It was Vanilla Ice, Mariah, and Middler.

“Lord DIO! We have deeply transgressed against you,” Vanilla Ice stated, gritting his teeth. “If it could ease you in any way from the troubles our failure to serve you caused, I would offer you my head to be-”

“Now now, Vanilla. No need for that. You all came quite quickly. I wasn’t expecting you until a little before noon. It’s just 10:47 am right now.”

“We did absolutely everything we could to be here as quickly as possible,” Mariah explained.

“Absolutely everything,” Middler repeated.

DIO smiled. “How good you all are to me. Such loyal friends I have.” Dio stood up and left the book he’d been reading behind. “Well then… time to take me home, yes?”

His “friends” bowed from their various prone positions and then stood. They surrounded him as he walked out of the police office waiting room. Outside was one of his cars, a 23-foot-long armored Rolls Royce Phantom Stretch Limo. Vanilla opened the car door and Dio slipped in, caressing his servant’s chin as he did. He could feel the shiver run down the other man’s spine. It made him smile. He was entirely back in his element. The girls got in after him and took places beside him while Vanilla Ice came in last and shut the door. The car began to move, quickly picking up speed, but so smoothly that it barely felt like it.

“Who’s driving?”

“ZZ is, Lord DIO!” Middler answered, her trickster’s face creased in open delight. Dio smiled back at her. He’d missed this, this submissiveness and eagerness to please him, getting to do whatever the hell he wanted. He cupped Middler’s chin and slowly pressed his lips to hers, trapping her in between the seat chairs and his arms. She didn’t dare presume to have been given permission to touch him in return but her hands rolled and twisted beside her as she enjoyed the favor granted unto her by her master. He ended the kiss, leaving Middler breathless.

“L-Lord DIO.”

“When we get home, I want you in my bed. You, Mariah, Vanilla, and Telence. I want all four of you in my bed.”

Middler’s face began to pink before she smiled widely. “It would be our honor, Lord DIO. However, there’s been a whole welcome party prepared for you. We’ve all missed you. All of us. You’re the light of our lives and when you disappeared… it felt like we all died. Could you… would you be so kind as to attend it, Lord DIO?”

DIO thought it over. He’d been thinking of releasing all the negative energy he had accumulated in the throes of passion, but if his silly little servants wanted a chance to each show their dedication, then who was he to obstruct or deny them? “Very well then. I will attend.”

Middler’s face brightened in delight. He possessively rubbed her head like she was a silly little girl. Then he turned back to Mariah who was obediently waiting for her turn to be noticed. She wasn’t often the obedient type, but she always was for him. He took her hand, and yanked her into his embrace. He kissed her and licked into her mouth, humming lowly when she began to reciprocate. His good little servants, his adorable little friends, how he’d missed them.

When he separated from Mariah he gave Vanilla Ice a dirty desiring look, and the other man obediently switched places with Mariah. He began to kiss Vanilla and Middler made her way to the mini bar. “Would you like a drink, Lord DIO?”

DIO separated from Vanilla for a second to respond. “Yes. A Bloody Mary if you will, extra bloody.” Then he dove back in. Mariah came over to his other side and he wrapped an arm around her and made her sit comfortably in his lap, facing him while he kissed Vanilla. Then he went back and forth kissing the two of them while Middler mixed drinks for all of them.

Soon Middler was done with the mixing and she tapped his knee. “Your Bloody Mary’s done, Lord. And it’s extra bloody, just like you like it.”

DIO disengaged from Mariah and Vanilla to smile at Middler. She was just a jem. He took the extra bloody Bloody Mary from her, subtly brushing a finger against her newly bandaged wrist.

“There’s also a whiskey for Mariah and Vanilla.”

The two of them took their identical drinks.

“And a margarita for me!” Middler finished before sitting back down beside DIO again.

DIO smiled at her enthusiasm and then took his first sip of his deliciously bloody Bloody Mary. They drank and kissed and touched each other all over during the ride. Then did the same once they were able to get onto DIO’s private jet which flew them to their city of residence. Then rinse and repeat on the car ride back to the mansion.

Stepping out of the open car door, DIO was almost drunk, but he had done a decent job at limiting his alcohol intake. He’d at least done a better job than Middler who was stumbling and giggling and hanging off of Mariah, who made sure that she was okay. He was great at hiding his levels of intoxication though. He walked in a confident straight line to the front door of the mansion and let Vanilla open it for him, revealing… the Joestars?

He was tackled immediately and had all the air squeezed out of his lungs. “DIO! You really are alive!”

“What on earth are you doing here, Jojo?!”

“DIO, I know we’re pretty much estranged at this point, but you don’t respond to me in two weeks, I come over here to see you in person and apparently nobody had seen you in a month?! I was so worried! I came over as soon as I heard that you were coming home.”

“Jojo, why were you worried?”

“Well, we’re brothers, DIO.”

“We disowned each other and nearly killed each other in highschool.”

“Yes, but we made up.”

“You mean, I went to juvie, you went to the hospital and survived somehow and we all just acted like it didn’t happen when I returned?”

“C’mon, DIO. Don’t be like that. I was just worried about you.”

“Good for you, Jojo,” DIO sighed. “But did you have to bring your cousins?”

“You mean Joseph and Jotaro. Of course, I had to. They were worried too.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.” DIO turned to Jotaro. “What do you want and why are you in my house?”

“I told you I wouldn’t stop bugging you until you let Kakyoin out of your weird sex cult mafia thing.”

“Who’s holding him here? Did I tie him down somewhere? He’s free to come and go as he pleases. Why don’t you talk to him outside of my house? You are not welcome here.”

“You’ve brainwashed him. I can’t get through to him.”

“Tough nuts then. I want the two of you out of my house.”

“Wait, DIO. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring stress to you when you just came back from being missing. We’ll leave and I’ll call you later. Alright?”

DIO rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

The Joestars rolled out, Joseph giving him a salute that turned into a middle finger as he left. DIO blankly ignored the childish gesture and went looking for the servants who were supposed to have made a welcome home party for him. Unsurprisingly, he found them groaning in pain on the ground. Whenever Jotaro and Joseph came over, his servants ended up beaten up and out of commission. 

He’d love to kill the miserable sacks of flesh that called themselves his cousins but that would break his truce with Jonathan and he was honestly sick and tired of fighting with him. It was enough already that he spent his senior year in highschool in juvie because of it, spending most of that time in solitary confinement as well, he wasn’t about to waste his adult life for it. He was done with jail. He was done with fighting Jonathan. 

Honestly, he respected Jonathan and liked to think that despite the things he said, they had gotten closer over the years. If only Jonathan could stop trying to include the whole family in their making up, things would be perfect.

“Alright everyone, welcome party’s cancelled. Get yourselves fixed up, you all look pathetic,” he said as he left to go upstairs. There was a lot of grumbling and complaints that he shut off with the slam of his bedroom door. His good mood had been entirely spoiled. He picked a book from a shelf in his bedroom and began to read.

Several days passed and things seemed to be going back to normal. He was still on vacation so he normally woke up pretty late in the day, and crawled out of his crowded bed, letting the stragglers decide when they wanted to get up. Many of the most important servants in his house were also his employees in Heaven Corp. His business was mainly a law firm, but it had plans to expand exponentially in a few years. 

To that end, he needed and wanted employees that were smart and loyal to the death for him, so he didn’t have to work like death to keep an eye on everything. So why not recruit his college buddies? They’d all reached an understanding when he came onto campus, an understanding of his infinite worth, and their duty to serve him up to and well past death. So as he expanded the front end of his success, the legitimate valuable business he’d made with blood sweat and tears, he also expanded the back end of his success, the shady backroom deals, the blackmail, the increase of his illicit forces, and the “cultish behavior” his adorable friends were accused of. And it was all still made with blood, sweat, and tears. Perhaps not his own, but still.

Jonathan knew nothing about the back end of his business. Him knowing would probably provoke another war between them, which was why Jotaro and Joseph, who both couldn’t care less as long as he didn’t go after people they cared about, wisely kept their mouths shut about it all. Usually.

After getting out of bed, he often lounged around his mansion, seeing what his friends were up to and what they could do to entertain him for a bit. Sometimes, he went out to parties. Usually they were the sort made for elites who were tired of going to parties where other elites just bragged about how much money they had and nothing else. So these parties had it all, sex, drugs, and upper crust crime out the wazoo.

Then he’d come home with a pretty little thing or two (or three) on his arm and show them the wonders the world had kept from them, all the sensations they had never felt before. He gave them a high they’d never be able to achieve again without him, and in that way, even without drugging them, he became like a drug to them, irresistible and undeniable. And when withdrawal ran down their spines and made their fingers quake and shake, they’d come running back at his feet, begging and crying and pleading to be let into his embrace. And he embraced them forever.

Which was why Kakyoin had come back.

Now he had to admit. Kakyoin was a risky reacquisition. The boy had betrayed him once already, and though he was the type to forgive, he’d be hard pressed to forget. Plus, Jotaro and Joseph kept breathing down his neck about “keeping him” despite the fact that the boy had come back on his own, seeking reprieve from the demons in his mind, demons that DIO had partly given him yes, but there were plenty that he hadn’t. He’d come to DIO looking for salvation and salvation DIO had granted. And the boy would remain content for as long as he remained under the thumb, an obedient and good friend.

DIO was a friend to all, all who would come and seek him. He was also above all, all who ever lived or would ever live. He could and would surpass them. DIO was content with himself, content with his continuous self-improvement, which was why people flocked to him. What anxious being would not flock to one that was not? In an anxious world, buzzing with fraught energy, which stable and calm being would not be followed? It was the law of opposites, magnets with their invisible charges, attracted and repulsed at a base level, puppeteered by something greater than them. DIO was what one should aspire to be. He aspired to be what one should aspire to be.

And yet he was the king of lies.

And he was lying to himself… yet again.

He was not content, he was miserable. Who cared about his daily routine? Who cared about what happened to the pretty little things he crushed in his palms? He was not content. His equilibrium was disturbed. Something inside of him was NOT BALANCED. He felt like ripping someone’s hair out, tearing their scalp from their skull. He felt like killing someone, felt like tearing out their spine through their throat to watch them gurgle uselessly as they died. 

He wanted something. He wanted something badly, but he just couldn’t articulate or express, even to himself, what it was. It was some miserable unknown floating desire that killed him deep, that killed something deep inside of him. And he felt like he was going crazy, crazier than he ever was before, a mad king before his crazy court. The court of the crimson king. A damn liar, a goddamned fucking liar. He felt like he just might scream.

A phone rang.

He took a breath. He pushed the pressure down. He could be crazy by himself and he could be crazy with his little friends, but the world needn’t know what lay behind his pretty face. He picked up the phone.

“What do you want, Jojo?” He said, speaking easily, charmingly even.

“Oh well, I just realized that we never did have our chat, DIO. However did you go missing?”

“I was attacked by wolves and had to go off the trail.”

“Oh, my, that sounds harrowing. Did anyone help you?”

“Yes, I received help from a very strange and remarkable man. He kept me safe from the wolves and nursed me right back to health.”

“Oh how wonderful! I’m glad to see you make another friend, DIO!”

“Yes, well, he wasn’t quite a friend to me. I will probably never see him again, after all.”

“Oh…” The line was quiet for a little bit. “You sound sad DIO, and you never sound sad. Was he very special to you? He must have been, right? Sorry for the obvious question.”

DIO blinked. He hadn’t noticed he’d sounded sad. He went to refute that he could ever be sad, but then stopped himself. He obviously wasn’t sad, but he couldn’t deny any longer that he was disappointed. He still had so many questions buzzing around his head, so many answers he’d have liked to get from Straizo. Answers that a person that was just similar to him would not be able to answer. He was going crazy, perhaps, because he’d reached a mystery he’d been disallowed to solve. And nobody had the right to disallow him anything. Nobody had the right to stand in the way when he wanted something. And he wanted, desperately he wanted… answers.

“Hello, DIO, are you still there?”

DIO blinked out of his thoughts. “Yes. I am here. I was not sad, simply disappointed.”

“I see.”

“I had hoped that Straizo would have been willing to keep in contact with me.”

“Wait, Straizo?!”

“Yes, that is his name. What is it?”

“Is this Straizo Tibetan with long dark hair and light blue eyes?”

“Jojo, how do you know Straizo?”

“Ignoring the way you said you like an insult. I know Straizo because we went to high school together. And you did too! He was an exchange student from China who stuck around for half the year. Plus he’s an instructor in my martial arts classes. DIO, he lives in the same city as us.”

DIO felt like spitting up blood. So not only had the man who’d been troubling his thoughts for days been living in the same city as him for years, the snake bastard had known of him for years as well and just neglected to mention that when he was leaving. That fucking bitch.

“Jojo.”

“Uh, yeah? You sound kinda mad.”

“Jojo, we’re meeting up. Come to my house. Do NOT bring your cousins. We must discuss this matter.”

“Oh well, I’d be happy to hang out for a little bit. How does after work sound?”

“As soon as you can sounds great.”

“Fabulous. Then that’s when I’ll be there. I never would have thought that you’d be interested in someone like Straizo, he’s so quiet. But then again, he is very dependable. See you at 6:30!”

DIO hung up the phone. He turned back to his lunch. Suddenly, it wasn’t as appetizing as before. It was a bowl of thick vegetable soup with the water having been replaced with blood. It was Vanilla’s blood this time and the man had eagerly offered it up when the time came. And now he felt a bit bad as he didn’t know if he had the stomach for it right then. He was a bundle of nerves. He could feel himself unwinding. But he didn’t want to waste it either. He valued each and every one of the sacrifices given to him, especially ones from a friend as good and loyal as Vanilla Ice. So what was he to do?

Then he had an idea. He’d put it into the fridge and instruct Telence to make it into a smoothie later. Problem solved. He sighed contently as he did just that. Later on, as 6:30 neared he left his dollroom, where he went when he just wanted to relax in peace, and waited for his brother in the parlor. The doll room was a room full of his living dolls. They were kept in a perpetually content euphoric headspace with drugs, by their own request, and they were always happy to see him. They were always happy to see anyone at all.

 Telence visited the place regularly, and kept a doll or two in his room. None of the Joestars knew about the doll room, even the Joestars who thought they knew a lot about the skeletons in his closet had much shallower understandings than they thought, and he’d love to keep it that way. So he waited for his dearly beloved brother in the parlor.

6:30 came and a knock sounded at his door. Telence quickly went to answer it, then he brought Jonathan over to where he was waiting. He greeted his brother with a smile and a hug. “Jojo. I see you haven’t brought those nuisances with you.”

“They’re your family too DIO. And yes, I understand I was wrong to do so last time. I tried to stop them from hurting your servants, but they were just convinced that they were all evil.”

“Mm. And so you see why I like to keep my distance from them. I have people I have to protect too, Jojo, and I can’t have your cousins hurting them.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about Straizo, the mystery man who saved my life and has been a large part of yours.”

“He’s not much of a mystery to me. I know him quite well.”

“Start with that then,” DIO said, leading Jonathan to sit on a couch. “Tell me what you know about him.”

“Well he’s sometimes quite quiet but he’s a very confident and capable man. He’s also very dependable and takes his responsibilities seriously. He’s the type of guy who wouldn’t hesitate to run into a burning building to save someone’s life and he wouldn’t expect anything back for it either, not even a thank you! He’s a very calm, methodical, and patient man, perhaps the most patient I’ve ever seen. I quite like him and I’d say that we’re good friends.”

“I see.” DIO took in the information. It was nothing he didn’t already know and yet his mind took to it like a man in a desert. He was eager to sit and listen and learn more. It was unusual. It was disturbing. And yet his mind was the king of him, and he lived under its heel. “Anything else?”

“Oh, well he’s a very athletic and very skilled martial artist. Seriously, even though he sometimes says I’m the most talented martial artist he’s ever seen, I can't help but look up to him a little. Maybe it’s because he was one of my first instructors, right behind Mister Zeppeli and Mister Dire. I think that he’s also really understanding. I feel like I can tell him anything and he’d at least try to understand, you know. Did you ever get that feeling from him?”

“I didn’t like him or trust him in the beginning. He seemed too eager to help me.”

“Oh, DIO, that’s very… unique of you. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. What interests you about him?”

“I… he’s confusing. He confuses me. I can’t understand him… I hate that…” The words came out and they wouldn’t stop coming out, like he was confessing his sins to a priest, or understanding a bit of his own feelings for the first time. “I hate that I don’t understand him. I hate that he’s gotten one over me in a way. I can’t… just like how you were confusing, how I just couldn’t get you. I feel like… people I can’t understand are… special. I feel like he’s rare. I want to understand him and strip that rarity from him. I want him to stop being a snag in my philosophy, in my methodology. I want him to make sense, and then I want to forget about him.”

Jonathan stared at him, conflicted. “That’s… wow. I can’t tell if you hate him or love him.”

“I don’t love him, Jojo. You can be assured of that. I don’t love anyone.”

“I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s just been so long since you’ve acknowledged it so you don’t know what it feels like anymore.”

DIO rolled his eyes. “I’m not a toddler, Jojo. I know what emotions are supposed to feel like and I don’t love anyone. Perhaps when I was young I loved my mother, but even she is just a spectre of the past.”

Jonathan looked sad at that. It was a look of pity and he hated it. “Anyway! We’re not here to talk about me. I want to see him again, but he doesn’t want to see me. I want you to arrange a meeting.”

“Um… I don’t think that’s quite how it works, DIO.”

“Well, I know you can do it Jojo. You’re much more persuasive than you think.”

“Maybe but shouldn’t he want to see you before you meet up again?” 

“Just get me a meeting with him, just one face-to-face meeting, and I can convince him to want to see me again, I assure you.”

“Alright DIO. I’ll see what I can do. Please don’t be nasty to him though. I really like him as a friend and I don’t want him to start avoiding me because you said something unhinged.”

“I won’t make him avoid you, Jojo. You can count on that.”

Jonathan seemed mildly bothered by that but then shrugged. “I have faith in Straizo. I think that he can handle almost anyone, so if you do mess with him, be prepared for blowback.”

DIO smiled at Jonathan. “I am nothing if not cautious brother dear. Do not worry your silly little head. Beyond that, do you want some tea? It has been ages since we’ve had a good sit-down talk. Tell me about your boring little life.”

Jonathan beamed, entirely ignoring the insult and started off on a tangent about how the past year since they’d had a good talk had been. DIO sat down there listening to Jonathan talk for hours until 9 pm rolled around and he had to remind his silly idiot brother that he had a wife to go home to. Poor little Erina. Sometimes he felt sorry for that wench, married to a veritable fool like his brother. But then again, Jonathan was also much more than she deserved, in his opinion. Contradictory thoughts. When he was with his brother he couldn’t help but think contradictory thoughts.

He bade his hated beloved brother farewell and spent the rest of the day thinking distantly, dreamily, his mind dancing in pretty little storm clouds. The very next day as he drank up that blood smoothie he’d asked Telence to make, he received a text from Jonathan stating that he’d managed to convince Straizo to meet him at a low key cafe where they could have a bit of privacy to talk while still being in public. DIO would have preferred somewhere not as public so that if necessary stealing him away would be easier, but oh well, he’d live.

Now all that was left to do was figure out just what he was going to wear to this fateful reunion.

Chapter Text

Songs that make you feel like the villain in the story 🔥

It was Saturday, the usual day people had off from work. For the meeting later in the day, DIO settled on a sheer black shoulderless long-sleeve jumpsuit that was more jewel than cloth and pooled widely around his 5-inch heels. But even after finding an outfit that spoke to him, he was terribly uncertain about what he was going to say during the meeting he’d managed to acquire. To that end, he called Pucci and asked him to come over. Pucci didn’t live in his mansion, as a high schooler he still lived with his parents, but they didn’t pay enough attention to his whereabouts to wonder where he went for hours on end through the week.

Pucci was the only one in the world he genuinely considered to be a friend. Their bond was special and all it required was a mutual drive to seek the truth and show that truth to others.

“I don’t know exactly what I want from him, Pucci. My mind keeps changing and twisting. The only coherent thing I can think of wanting from him are answers and even that… isn’t the whole story. I have a deep hate for how we left things. How do I prevent myself from signing off on his death after our meeting?”

“Why don’t you talk to him first, DIO, before deciding if you want to kill him? I think you’re experiencing so many conflicting emotions because you’re trying to decide how you feel about him without actually seeing him again. I think you need to see him again and you need to not let him leave until he answers your questions to your satisfaction.”

“You really think so?”

“Of course. Don’t be violent, but make him know that there will be no resolution between you two until he can take off the mask and be honest with you. You are power and magnificence itself DIO. Demand your answers.”

DIO smiled, stood up, and put a hand on Pucci’s shoulder. “I knew you would put my mind at ease.”

Pucci touched the hand on his shoulder with a smile. “What are friends for?”

DIO grinned. “Many things, but true friends help grant peace of mind.”

DIO left the mansion. In Jonathan’s message, he said that he was supposed to see Straizo at 10 am at the Kipo cafe, a small sit-down coffee and tea shop that served a small number of customers each day and was perfect for a private chat. He walked into the shop at 9:52, expecting to have to wait for at least 8 minutes, when he spotted him.

Explaining the perception of time slowing down was hard. It was the sudden awareness of a thousand things the brain had made itself ignore suddenly coming to the forefront of consciousness. It was being dead and waking up from death and remembering the last moments before the death, and seeing your limbs move too slow, and your breaths take forever to complete, and even the time it took to blink was monumental. It was scanning the subject of focus up and down, and forward and backward, and inside and out, an imaginary perception that was more real than the time-dilated reality.

And then you snap out of it and realize that you were staring, stock still and still holding the door open for the other half of your body. But the eyes of the ignorant masses fail to even register as you walk toward the object of the oddest obsession of your life. You came here to solve the most puzzling mystery of your life. You came here to bring back your peace. You smile at him and his face is blank.

DIO stopped smiling, and sat down in the most secluded booth in the cafe, in front of the man he had come here to meet. He met the blue-eyed stare of the near stranger with his own.

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew me?” He started, face as blank as the one he was staring down.

Straizo slumped forward slightly, putting his chin in the palm of his hand as his stare turned sharp. “I wanted to disappear, from your sight, from your life, from your mind. We are on opposite sides and that is where we should remain. I came here to convince you to leave me be.”

DIO tilted his head to the side. “Answer my questions then, wholly, fully, and without your lies. I want to know who you are. Who are you?”

Straizo looked down and seemed to ruminate on the question. “I am… what one might call… evil that has not manifested… or perhaps goodness with a shadow.”

“No metaphors. Explain yourself. Why were you so persistent in your efforts to help when you found me in the woods?”

“I helped you because I believed that Jonathan would be distraught if you were to die. I have never met a man like your brother. His unlikely existence had a hold on me and I believed that I had a duty and a responsibility to aid the people he cared about.”

“That is-”

“That isn’t the entire truth though, and you wanted the entire truth. I am a wicked liar but for today I’ll redeem myself and tell the unfettered truth. If you attempt to tell anyone else what I tell you today, I will deny it with such vehemence that you will doubt yourself and question your own memories.”

“As long as I know the truth it doesn’t matter if you deny it.”

“Okay, well then, I guess I’d better start from the beginning. As you see me today, you think that I am a normal person if a bit offputting at times and one with seemingly contradictory motives. But my motives are perfectly comprehensible. I personally just look at the world, the reality we all live in, as one might see a story or a stage play. This world is real and I know this, but this world is also fake and I know this.” 

“Since the day I was born I felt that I could sense the unreality of reality and sometimes I could see it, could see where the fabric of our reality stretched thin enough to be translucent. Think of the eyes, the windows to the souls. Think of doorways, gateways, paths to different places. Some might call it insanity and I would agree. I know that I am not alright in the head. And yet this insanity is all I’ve ever known.”

“When I was young I used to play with danger. I used to dance with death. And people would see me, would see how dead I was behind the eyes and they would shrink away, because they knew that I was not like them. They knew that I was a wrongness, a knot in the fabric of reality. When I was born I did not cry. My parents said I faced my birth with open eyes, and a flat expressionless face. From the ages of 0 to 4, I was a lonely child, unloved by all, cared for by none, a means to an end, a means to continue a bloodline that should have ended. I was the warning to give up and go back, the universe’s warning.” 

“One day, the universe spoke to me. It spoke to me in a dance of death. I was carried away by a natural disaster, by winds with no will of their own, by fate itself. I was carried away, knocked out by a flying vase, and awoken in a field of flowers, to the rising of the sun, to the earth in disarray, and yet I was unharmed, not even a broken bone to show of it. I walked all the way back home. I walked miles through heavy woodlands, and up the thin-aired mountains, and past all manner of man and beast, and I made it back home, with a message in my heart and a knowledge in my soul. That was my correspondence with fate.”

“After that, I think I fell in love for the first time. I fell in love with that natural disaster. I fell in love with fate. I fell in love with the wrongness of the universe and began to personify it even more. But then a series of events happened. My great-grandmother began to love me like one would a child of their blood, and not the monster all my family believed that I was, after that brush with fate. And I cared for her deeply. But then she died when I was a boy of just 8 years.” 

“She died slowly, and in pain, and stripped of her noble dignity. She died in the most horrid, most ugly way, and I was there to see it all, watching, as the universes’s vessel to experience itself. And I was sickened, sickened by the preamble of a fate that could occur to me, and I knew then that I could not allow myself to live to old age. My grandmother was 96 when she died and I knew that I could not allow myself to make it to half that age. I contemplated which way would be the most beautiful way to die. I contemplated my mother’s western blades, and the sharp drops off of the roof of my home, and the tightly bound ropes meant to handle yaks.”

“But in the end, I was still the universe's way of experiencing itself, and I had hardly experienced anything. I was a boy of 10, my mind running amok and eating itself from the inside. But then, I spoke again with fate, and I saw a man of the persuasion of marial arts. He inspired me to follow the same path. It would not delay my aging, but it would perhaps lead to a more eventful life with which I could satisfy the buzzing, wanting, desiring things in my mind that cried for beauty, for destruction and creation.” 

“But as I followed in his footsteps I quickly learned that there was no room for darkness in the path of light. I resolved myself to leave the beauties of destruction behind and chase after only the rebellious passions of creation, what one would call light, even though I was a creature that weaved between creation and destruction.” 

“Meeting Jonathan only solidified this position. He was the most beautiful man of light I had ever seen. One who embodied the ever-struggling avatar of man. That was, I saw him embody that position the more he fought with you, his polar opposite. I tried my best to ignore you, for you were pandora’s box in my eyes, and I aspired to not make her mistake. I knew that you would be the downfall of all that I had tried to make of myself. Because you see, darkness does not necessarily exclude light like light tries to exclude darkness. Light tries to banish darkness but darkness accepts light.” 

“That is to say that you’d be hard-pressed to find someone being ostracized for being too good of a person. And my ideas of good and evil do not even align with the natural consensus, or rather the most common understanding, and yet to make a life in the presence of those called light, one must embody their morals. I have already made a place for myself in the faction of light and I have accepted their morals into my consciousness. I do not want to start over.” 

“And so, when I insisted on taking care of you when we were lost it was because I was tempted by you. Not by the person you were, weak and alone, but the person I saw in your eyes, the person I knew that you could be. You scared me, your potential for destruction and chaos and insanity scared me, but I hungered for that fear. I wanted to feed my soul stories about the hero’s journey, but I was always a child who hungered for variety, and I could not leave the stories of the macabre and the natural disasters be. I convinced myself even that I saved you for Jonathan’s sake, but I’ve always been a selfish bastard.” 

“I saved you because I knew that you had the potential to be the most beautiful force of destruction and change the world has ever known and I wanted to see it. I wanted to see what you would make of the world, even if it were horrifying, terrifying, blood-chilling, I couldn’t die without having seen what you could do. My greatest wish in the world, DIO, is to die after having seen or experienced the pinnacle of beauty. I believe that you have the key to a heaven of imagination, and that is why we must cut off contact here… so that this moral decay can end.”

DIO stared silently as Straizo ended his monologue. For once his expression was very easy to read. He was tired and yet excited and yet scared. His expression of nothingness was an expression of everything superimposed until it returned to a gray null space. DIO’s mind was for once quiet. It felt like all the buzzing, desiring, screaming voices in his mind calmed down at having met their match, or perhaps, having been understood. He reached out for Straizo’s hand on the other side of the table and squeezed his wrist tightly.

“Why waste your life burning out like a dying star when you were always meant to become the night sky and live forever?”

“I don’t need to live forever. I don’t want to live forever. I want to be the observer of beauty.”

“Why not become the beauty you wish to observe?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to-”

“Shut up. No you’ve not. You’ve been hiding away, trying your best to not step a toe out of line because you care about being liked, you care about being loved, but being loved by the people you’ve chosen to dedicate your life to means killing a part of yourself. And maybe you found it worth it because that part of yourself was one that the people around you always described as worthless, but I think that you’re an idiot for being so selfless. Stop trying to be good and start trying to be happy. We only get one life and if you waste it trying to make others happy, nobody’s giving you another chance.”

Straizo’s hand began to shake. His perfect mask of elegance and confidence was slipping off. Understanding of this creature before him flowed into him, filling him with power. And yet… and yet… it wasn’t enough. The void inside of him was filling up not only with a sense of power but also something else. It was warm and heavy and it tickled the underside of his flesh.

“I feel like it would be foolish to ask you if you believe in gravity. Even if you aren’t familiar with the term, I know that you instinctively have the belief.”

“And… what is gravity?”

“The force of fate that brings people together. Gravity is what attracts people to their fate and to other people of a similar closeness to fate. Gravity is what brings people to those hidden ‘knots in reality’ as you called them. Gravity is what fate’s correspondence to you was.”

“I see.”

“I’ve never met a person who was familiar with gravity almost from birth. You’re the perfect next step for my understanding of the spiritual. This must be why I couldn’t move on from the thought of you. We were fated to meet and perhaps in other worlds we’ve met before. And from a thousand near misses, perhaps Gravity was ready to insist this time. What’s special about this time, nobody knows, but I can feel that there was a reason for this. Straizo, you must know that there’s no chance I’ll be letting you go, right?”

“I knew this meeting was a bad idea.”

“Did you?”

Straizo looked down. “No.”

“Straizo, beyond gravity, how come I was always so transparent to you, even when I regained my edge?”

“I simply paid attention to you. I am horrible at expressing emotion, but I can easily identify them in others. That made it easier to see through your lies and also easier to know when you were disguising your truths. Also, your actions tell a story. Don’t take me the wrong way when I say, your body is very honest. It’s just what makes the most sense. And when you think that nobody is watching, you behave very differently. It’s very easy to see through you when one knows what to look for.”

DIO dragged Straizo’s hand over to his mouth and gently kissed his palm. “And what does this say about me?”

Straizo’s face was blank, and yet somehow he could see the yearning. “How can I know, when you don’t even know?”

It was like the flip of a switch, or no, that was the wrong analogy, it was… it was like a candle, or a fireplace, or a forest, suddenly bursting into flame. It was internal heat, something suppressed and now allowed to rage and roar and dance within him. Every nerve stood at attention, as sensitive as a busted lip, as he felt like he was suddenly melting from the inside. The hand holding Straizo’s hand felt like it was someone else’s. It felt numb and suffocated, but he couldn’t imagine letting go. He tried to speak but his lips just faintly trembled. He, DIO, born with a silver tongue, couldn’t speak.

“You look feverish,” Straizo stated, bringing his other hand over to DIO’s cheek.

But all he could focus on was Straizo’s soft looking lips, twisting and morphing to say words to him that were heard but not processed. Then up to the lines of his straight nose, the roundness of his cheeks against the sharpness of his jaw giving him a look of androgyny. He stared at Straizo’s long dark lashes, thick and full at the top and yet spidery thin on the bottom. The way his glacier blue eyes caught the light and looked white at times, and how his eyes swirled with passion, depression, sadness, and yearning, how they seemed to see all and yet be blind.

Was this the effect of understanding? He knew what it was to have a person put your mind at ease. He knew what friendship was. But what was this? What was this fiery upstart emotion born from understanding, born from being understood for the first time? Nobody in his life had ever understood him before, not his mother, or his brother, or his servants, or his single solitary friend. None had tasted the same lake of insanity he’d been forced to drink from after years of solitary confinement. 

What was this pleasure, this rush of unknown unnamable emotion? He felt like he was alive for the first time and like he’d die to feel this forever. He wanted to push aside this emotion. He wanted to run from it. He wanted to kill it dead. And yet it filled him with a joy the likes of which no drug could replicate.

 Someone saw him. Someone saw him despite the thousands of layers he had put up to prevent that. Someone saw him and knew him and understood him. Someone could comprehend him and relate to him, and see behind even the lies he told himself. He felt like he was high, more than high, but he’d not taken a single drug today. He was sober. And yet, euphoria, what was pumping in his veins was not blood but euphoria, washing him clean inside and out.

DIO pulled Straizo forward by his trapped hand, put a hand on the back of his head, and kissed him. He let the feeling of bliss wash over him as his lips melded perfectly with Straizo’s, his lips and hands feeling like they were on fire where they touched him. He pulled away, just so that he wouldn’t get lost in the throes of passion and devour the other man in public. He licked his lips, knowing that he wouldn’t find the taste of him on his lips but doing so anyway just at the thought of it. He couldn’t be here anymore. He had to leave or else he wouldn’t be able to control himself anymore. Who knew a closed-mouth kiss could be so undoing?

“Your contact infomation. Now. We will see each other again, next week, same day.”

Straizo blinked in disorientation before kittenishly looking up at him and writing down his information on a napkin. He slid the napkin over. DIO confirmed that it was actually his on the spot, like hell he’d let him get away at this point, and then Straizo stood up, bowed, and left without a word. DIO watched him leave. He waited for some other emotion to take over, like lust, the intense sexual attraction he’d felt watching him strip in the bathroom. But no, it was all just overshadowed by this dominating new emotion that had a chokehold on him. He wanted to chase after Straizo. He gripped the edge of the table to stop himself. 

He was screwed, entirely irredeemably fucked.

His first words to Pucci when he walked into his bedroom and found the teenager still there were, “Can you discover new emotions in adulthood?”

Pucci looked up from his Bible to give DIO a confused stare. “What new emotion do you think you’ve discovered?”

“I don’t know,” he said back, gravely.

Pucci huffed a little. “Okay well, what does it feel like?”

“Like I’m on fire… but in a good way?”

“That sounds like sexual attraction-”

“But it’s not! I wouldn’t be confused if it were just that. I didn’t feel aroused at all during the encounter. I felt normal and then suddenly a switch flipped and I was drowning in this feeling. It was like colors were brighter, and smells were sweeter, and sounds were, you get the idea. Everything was just better, especially concerning the person that triggered these emotions, I… I just don’t know what…”

Pucci had a contemplative look on his face, thumb pressing on his lips before he snapped. “I got it.”

“What is it?”

“You’re in love DIO. Romantic love.”

DIO instantly started to come up with reasons Pucci was wrong. But then he stopped himself. It… didn’t sound inaccurate to what the poets described. He’d always thought that they were old coots or young fucks overexaggerating the effects of sexual attraction and making it more palpable for the pearl-clutching masses. He’d never believed that romantic love actually existed. Apparently, it did and this was what it felt like. “If this is romantic love, then why have I never felt it before now?”

Pucci shrugged. “Probably, you’re not wired to fall in love easily. Maybe because of your general cynicism, or maybe because you’re really passionate and falling in love easily would be detrimental to you. Congratulations on discovering a new part of yourself.”

“Have you ever felt this way before?”

“Mm, kinda? I had like one or two crushes when I was in middle school, back before I decided to devote my life to God. It definitely wasn’t as intense as what you’re describing though.”

“Do you think it’s normal that I feel mad that this emotion was just locked away from me until now, that a whole part of the general human experience was just not there, that I never really knew what all those poems, and books, and songs about love were about until now?”

“I think that’s incredibly normal, more normal than you usually are in fact.”

“Pucci?”

“Yeah?”

“What am I going to do?”

“Enjoy it? This doesn’t have to be a problem to solve or anything. You can just date him.”

“He thinks liking me is a moral failing.”

Pucci shrugged. “Convince him otherwise. You’re persuasive.”

DIO put his head in his hands. “Not with him I’m not. He can see right through me. It’s partly why I… fell for him in the first place.”

Pucci nodded. “I see. That does make things difficult. You’ll figure it out, though. You always do.”

DIO sighed. Pucci was right. He did always figure things out. He had to trust in his fate, in gravity. Fate wouldn’t have brought them together if Straizo slipping from his fingers was a certainty. He was DIO and he got what he wanted, no matter what. Straizo would just be another goal, another step in his ascension. A dearly beloved step but still. 

He’d win Straizo’s heart, his body, and his mind.

There was no room for any other outcome.

Chapter Text

[Playlist] he is obsessed with you - YouTube

DIO’s vacation ended on the Sunday after his meeting with Straizo. So on Monday, he went back to work, which included meetings, meetings, conferences, and more meetings. Enyaba had handled things decently in his absence. At the very least, nothing was on fire.

The first time he drifted off into thought, he was in a casual meeting with some business partners of his. They were some of the people he planned to engage in expanding Heaven Corp with. It was a legit business venture, but everyone there also had ties to the back end of DIO’s ventures, so the meeting was held in a private booth in a strip club that DIO loosely owned.

When they noticed DIO’s lack of attention they smiled knowingly. “DIO sir, I see you’re thinking about something. By the look on your face it’s a special someone,” one especially bold one spoke up. He was a moderately handsome man with side-swept hair and gray-green eyes.

DIO considered the other’s words as he spun the neck of his third martini between his fingers. “What makes you say that?”

The other man shrugged. “You’ve got the look of man who’s fallen for something pretty. So anything lucky happen lately?”

DIO smiled a bit wider. “I’ve started dating.”

The other man blinked in confusion. “But… what about those boys and girls I always see on your arm? You weren’t dating them?”

“Oh no. Those were friends not potential partners. I haven’t had a real lover since high school. And even then… this one’s special.”

“I see. Congratulations sir, and don’t let them get away!”

“Oh, wouldn’t dream of it.”

The second time he drifted off into thoughts about the object of his oddly tenderhearted feelings, he was off by himself at one of the parties he liked attending, nursing a simple glass of white wine, and replaying the memories of the first days of his and Straizo’s meeting with an entirely different context in mind. He was thinking about Straizo carrying him through the forest for hours without complaint, cooking meals for him, stripping in the bath, washing his hair for him, and massaging him with good-smelling oil. 

His mind was overloaded with memories he hadn’t thought much about even just a week ago. His face felt warm as he imagined kissing him again, trapping him against a wall, and doing whatever he wanted. He imagined sliding a hand down his chest, his thin yet muscular waist, his hips, and then grabbing a firm handful of his ass. He imagined kissing up his neck, over his jaw, kissing his cheeks, and his forehead. He imagined hugging him and what that would feel like, the hidden cords of muscle beneath the flowy articles of clothing he wore and also the soft suppleness of his skin.

He was broken from these thoughts by a girl suddenly plopping into his lap. He recognized her immediately. She was one of the girls he’d almost taken home during the last party he’d attended. He held off because she seemed too hesitant and he didn’t want to have to work on breaking her down. If her actions and the pleading look in her eyes was anything to go by she seemed to have gotten over her reservations. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) for her, he wasn’t quite interested in getting another friend right now, not while his mind was full of thoughts of Straizo. So he coldly pushed her off of him and stood up.

“Wait, DIO! I’m ready now! I’m ready to be your friend! Everything’s just gone down in flames in my life and, and you said that I was welcome if I changed my-”

“You know my address. If you want to join that badly, go there, and someone will take you in.” Then he left to go and get himself a stronger drink.

The third time he was caught drifting off into thought, he was spending time with Jonathan again.

“Um, did something good happen recently, DIO?” Jonathan asked, breaking him out of his thoughts. He smiled with pure joy and then sighed wistfully.

“Well, yes and no.”

“Oh?”

“I got myself a date with Straizo.”

“Really?” Jonathan looked baffled. “I thought it was just another meeting.”

“No. It’s a date. But I’m a bit upset because I set it for such a long time after the initial meeting. And now it’s Wednesday and I still have 2 more days of waiting to do.”

“I see. The meeting went really well then.”

“Oh wonderfully. Straizo and I have reached an unearthly understanding. I dearly wish I had met him sooner.”

“I uh don’t think you two would have gotten along in high school.”

DIO gave him a look.

“Well, maybe you would have! Nothing’s impossible. But I just mean… well you know how you were.”

DIO rolled his eyes. “Yes, I do know how I was.” DIO hated that Jonathan was right. He needed to mature quite a bit from the person he was in his boyhood to be a good match for Straizo. He wondered also, if he would have had the spiritual sensitivity to feel something off about Straizo if they had met back when they attended high school together. Probably not. No, their meeting was fated and perfectly timed.

What was not perfectly timed was the loud pounding knocks on his front door just as he was about to defend his indefensible position regarding Straizo to Jonathan. He looked at Jonathan in confusion and suspicion.

“I didn’t invite anyone! Promise!”

DIO huffed. “Well, you’re not a liar so I believe you, but if I find your damn cousins on my doorstep, someone’s getting beaten up.” He waited for Telence to go to the door and open it.

“Who is it, Telence,” he called out.

“The Joestars,” Telence called back miserably.

DIO slammed his teacup down, letting spiderweb cracks form and began marching to the door. Jonathan followed after him, trying to convince him to not fight “family” and to calm down before confronting them. He ignored it and Telence quickly got out of his way as he replaced him at the door.

Joseph and Jotaro stared at him and he stared back at them. “Why do the two of you want to die so badly?”

“Why do you want to hang onto Kakyoin so badly? He’s our friend and we want him back and out of your shitty cult,” Joseph shot back.

“I thought I told you, I’m not forcing him to stay here.”

“But you’re not forcing him to leave either.”

“You think being forced to leave the one place that’s always accepted him entirely as he is, good, bad, and broken, would be best for him?”

“It’s better than staying for 5 years, realizing why he left in the first place, and running away with 5 more years worth of trauma to deal with. You did wonders with 3 months. I can’t imagine giving you any more time to hurt him. Today you’re either going to give him to us or we’re going to fight you for him.”

DIO rolled his eyes. He was honestly sick and tired of this. “Fine, if you want him back so bad you can have him. But don’t come crying to me if he’s too unstable for your doctors to handle. I was just getting a handle on stablizing him again. If you want to break him out of the process straight in the middle, and potentially wreck him more than I ever have, be my guests. I’ve got something more important to think about.”

Joseph and Jotaro looked at each other in confusion. “That’s it? No fight?”

“As I said before, I have something more important to think about right now. I’d love to put a fist in your punchable faces but then you’d just come back and if a single boy is all it takes to get you out of my hair, so be it.” He was also entirely looking forward to how badly them taking Kakyoin away in this very very delicate point of his conditioning would go, such that he didn’t feel the need to punch them. 

They didn’t believe him when he said that their doctors couldn’t handle what had been done, let them reap the consequences. And when Kakyoin came back as he always did, he’d point to this as the reason he wouldn’t be giving him back. In fact, letting Kakyoin go, be retraumatized by the aspects of the world he was trying to escape from in the first place, and then come to him again, would probably strengthen his hold. As always, he was two steps ahead.

“Telence, go and get him.” Telence left immediately after a bow. “If I give him to you, you’ll promise to leave me be?”

“Uh… yes.” Joseph was looking at him sideways, like he was suspicious. “And hey DIO, little question, why is this time so sensitive for Kakyoin?”

“Find out for yourselves.”

“DIO, what is all this about Kakyoin? You always say that he’s your friend, but every time you talk to our cousins about it, it sounds like a hostage situation.”

“It is far from a hostage situation, Jojo. The boy is here willingly. But he will be forced to leave at the exceedingly annoying request of your cousins.”

“That doesn’t sound… this is all confusing. I always feel like I’m missing something vital in conversations with the three of you.”

DIO shrugged. “We all feel like that sometimes.”

While he spoke, Kakyoin was brought by Telence. He was smiling, dressed in green and red silk geisha robes with his red hair done up in a shimada hairstyle. It had been allowed to grow in the years the boy had stayed with him, making the hairstyle possible. He walked gracefully, all the lessons on etiquette firmly engraved in his mind. 

DIO had worked tirelessly on making him the perfect little doll and now he’d be gone for a bit. He wasn’t too broken up about it. Now he had another project to work on. He wondered what Straizo would think of this boy he was turning into a doll, not like the dolls of the doll room, made by drugs and loneliness, but a perfect one fit entirely to his preferences, and made almost from the ground up.

He took Kakyoin by the hand and casually dropped the bomb. “Do you remember these two?” Kakyoin squinted his eyes slightly, before eventually nodding his jewelry-laden head. “You’re going to be leaving with them.”

It was interesting, seeing the boy’s eyes flash wide open, before a look of dread overcame him. “But Master! I-I can’t, I barely even remember what my life was like before and I don’t want to go and-”

“You’ll figure it out with them. Everything will be alright.”

“Why are you abandoning me, Master?” Kakyoin fell to his knees, the derangement that DIO had fed into his mind preparing to rear its ugly head. “Did I do something wrong? Was I not pretty enough? Was I not graceful enough? Did I bore you? What can I do to make you keep me? I can’t go back. I can’t bare to go back. The nightmares, the thoughts, th-the urges will eat me alive. I’ll do something I’ll regret. I know I will. I’m not fit for the outside world, that’s what you told me. But you said that I’d always be welcome with you. Was that a lie Master? What did I do wrong? Was I too disgusting, even for you, Master? Was I too wrong even for you? Please, please tell me what I did-”

“You did nothing wrong!” Jotaro interrupted. “What the fuck did you do to him? He wasn’t like this the last time I saw him.”

“Correction, you didn’t see this side of him the last time you saw him. And I didn’t do much to him, just gave him a place where he would be accepted, rotten bits and all. Now I just wonder if you can be as accepting. If not, you can always bring him back.”

“Like hell we’d do that!”

“DIO, are you sure you didn’t do anything to Kakyoin?” Jonathan asked, looking entirely unconvinced.

“I was mentoring him Jojo. Nothing more and nothing less. I was mentoring him to become as confident, calm, and happy as I am. Yes, that means pushing him in ways that might leave him vulnerable and unstable, but he knew about and accepted all the terms of my mentorship the second time he decided to come here. It is your cousins forcing me to make him leave that has made him into this. You must understand Jojo. I am very close to my friends and they are close to me and each other. For them, being forced to leave the friendship behind is like getting a divorce in a happy marriage. Not many positive emotions.”

“I… I see? I will be asking Kakyoin what he thinks about all of this once he’s back with Jotaro and Joseph, though.”

“Please, feel free. He’d tell you the same thing.” All his friends had training on what to say to outsiders, especially the pets, and the dolls, and the helpers. That was what helped keep the authorities out of his business.

Kakyoin sobbed as he was taken away, clawing and fighting the whole time. He had no doubt that being taken away like this would make him feel unloveable. He wondered how much time it would take the boy to return this time. The last time it took about a year. Jonathan stayed behind him with a conflicted look on his face. Then he turned to him.

“Can I meet the rest of your friends, DIO?”

DIO put a hand on his smart but stupid brother’s shoulder. “If it would make you feel better I’ll spend the rest of the evening introducing you to my friends.”

“Yeah, yeah that would. Jotaro and Joseph keep calling this place a cult and well… it makes one wonder sometimes.”

“I get it. I’ve got charm enough to inspire millions, perhaps even billions. So it’d be easy to think people following my philosophy on life and staying in my home for a sense of community sorely lacking in the modern world would be followers of mine in a shadowy organization.”

“Well, when you say it like that, it does sound a bit silly. But you were always good at getting the kids at school to do what you wanted in high school. And I heard that they had to keep you locked up away from everyone else in juvie because weird things kept happening around you.”

“Hah. They kept me locked up in solitary confinement because the other kids were scared of me, not because I was brainwashing them.”

“That doesn’t give me much confidence, DIO.”

“You have to stop letting Jotaro and Joseph’s exaggerations get to you. They’re making you as paranoid as them. Look, here’s N’doul. He’ll set you straight on what goes on in here.”

**2**

On the day of reckoning, the Saturday DIO was supposed to go out with Straizo, he agonized on what clothes he should wear. They were going to a museum and he wondered if he should dress accordingly or how he usually dressed. After all, Straizo hadn’t seemed like he had noticed the scandalous outfit DIO had worn to their meeting. But then with 2 hours before he was set to meet Straizo at the Milio Museum at 10 am he just decided to go with whatever he felt like.

He settled on a sheer embroidered shirt with pure black slacks, black loafers, and a thick overhanging coat with a high collar that ended an inch above the ground with more golden embroidery. He paired the clothes with several gold rings, chunky golden hoop earrings, and some black lace gloves.

He arrived at the Milio Museum at 9:45 and saw Straizo waiting at the entrance immediately. He was breathtaking. He wore a similar sheer long-sleeved embroidered shirt with a deeply plunging neckline that was tucked into a large gold and leather belt. His pants were also tucked into the belt. They were slightly baggy embroidered slacks that folded elegantly over his black red-bottom flats. His golden earrings were shaped like bleeding flowers and had dangling rubies as the dripping blood. In his hair there were hundreds of intricate golden chains running alongside the inky black strands coming from his head. And to complete the outfit he wore a large weimao or “veiled hat” that obscured his face from view. The only reason DIO knew it was him, was the glimpse of haunting icy blue he saw when Straizo turned his head.

When he walked over, Straizo held out his hand, intense ice cold gaze still piercing through the shroud he’d made for himself. DIO happily accepted the hand and with that they entered the museum.

“We’re matching,” Straizo noted.

“I’d say that predicts good things for our union.”

“You make it sound like a marriage.”

DIO turned back to the low lights of the museum, smiled to himself, and held the hand in his gloved one tighter. They walked through countless displays, paintings, statues, and dresses. DIO pointed out the history of the ones he knew. Straizo pointed out some that he knew. They took turns reading out the descriptions of pieces they weren’t familiar with in low tones. DIO loved his voice, but he was equally pleased to listen when it was Straizo’s turn to talk. They attracted a lot of stares, but to DIO, used to drawing the air out of any room he walked into, it was barely noticeable.

“Would you say, Straizo, that there is energy in these pieces? And if so, how would you say the energy got there? Was it from the artists working tirelessly on perfecting their craft and making a masterpiece with energy and a life all its own, or was it from the thousands of people who come and see these pieces, believing in their hearts and souls about the certainty of these pieces having an energy and thus bringing the wish to life?”

“Why not both?”

“Both?”

“I’d say many masters could have imbued their pieces with energy just from how masterful their work was. I have seen pieces in markets all around the world, in Nepal, Thailand, Ecuador, Luxembourg, Kenya, and more where I knew that that was the case. But in other cases, I have been to many museums where the pieces did not speak to me, but the rooms still felt charged. It was the energy and life of belief which flowed through pieces thought to have been meaningful.”

“And what is the difference in craftsmanship between a piece that was born with energy and one that had it imbued with belief?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for a while now. It seems so random at times, but there is always a pattern, even in randomness.”

“What patterns have you seen in randomness, Straizo?”

“Do you know of tasseography, DIO?”

“The practice of interpreting patterns in tea leaves?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m very familiar with it.”

“Nor am I, but I have been in circles where it is done and strongly believed in. I once met a boy of 7 who very much acted his age, so when he asked if I wanted a tea leaf divination, I said yes just to humor him. However, as soon as he began to interpret his disposition became serious. He told me that he could not read my future and he told me that my past was endless. I asked him what he meant by that and he started whispering my great-grandmother’s name. I had never spoken my great-grandmother’s since the day she died, neither did I have it written down anywhere. But he knew it and said that a fate like mine couldn’t have come from a woman like her. He said that I was not a person in the normal sense of the word. Then he gave me back the money I gave him for the divination and walked off in a daze.”

DIO listened to Straizo end the story with rapt attention. “Do you have many stories like this?”

“Very many. I have traveled to many places and seen many things. And everywhere in the world is different, and everywhere in the world is the same. You get bored and endlessly entertained at the same time.”

“I have a good friend who I often have discussions like this with. I should introduce you two.”

“That sounds interesting. I would like that.”

Suddenly, they saw a woman walk past, eating a Mynci Cristo sandwich and DIO noticed that he was hungry. “Straizo, would you be opposed to taking our date to a restaurant?”

“No, that’s fine with me.”

They left the Milio Museum and DIO took Straizo to a restaurant he liked that was a short walk away. The front doors were made of glass and were entirely oversized, 10 meters tall and 5 meters wide. The valet opened the door with a bow and DIO pulled his adorable little date along to the receptionist where he made mention of his eternally reserved private booth and was quickly led to it. In the booth his favored wine of the month was already sitting on the table, dripping with condensation. “Do you drink?” He asked as the waiter who stood by the side poured him a drink.

“I do not,” Straizo replied. The waiter put the bottle down after pouring the single drink.

“Might you make an exception for me?”

“No thanks.”

DIO chuckled a little. “Oh, goodness, you’re breaking my heart, you know.”

“Am I?” Straizo asked with an unimpressed tone as he put his veiled sunhat on the seat beside him.

“Terribly,” DIO said, leaning in with a grin.

Straizo leaned away, turning his head away almost demurely. “What should we eat? Does this place have a menu?” He looked over to the waiter who immediately gave them both menus. “There are no prices.”

“Yes, a good rule of thumb for places like these are if you have to ask for the price, you shouldn’t be buying from here. Don’t worry though, it’s my treat.”

“What should I get though? There are no pictures either.”

 “Ah yes. That is a stylistic choice that I don’t agree with. If you need a default, I like the creamy shrimp fettuccine from here so I get that pretty often.”

“I see. I’ll get that then.”

“Hear that, waiter? That order goes for both of us.”

“Yes sir.”

“For dessert, I’ll take the lemon truffles and the Russian honey cakes,” DIO added.

“I think I’ll take the chestnut mousse, the milk tart, and the milk pudding. For the drink I’d like a hazelnut mocha.”

“Seems you quite like milk.”

“Mn. It tastes like home you could say. I ate many dairy products daily growing up.”

“Will that be all sirs?”

“No, instead of the usual, I want the loaded mashed potato balls as the appetizer.”

“What filling?”

“Make one mozzarella and beef and the other one shrimp soaked in soy sauce.”

“Of course, sir. Will that be all?”

DIO nodded before waving the waiter off. “So tell me another one of your stories, Straizo. What else have you been up to?” He asked once the waiter was gone.

“What do you want to know about?”

“What was it like for you, growing up? When did you firmly realize that you were different?”

Straizo looked down, eyes blank. “I have memories dating back to my birth.”

DIO blinked, looking at Straizo with a bit of surprise. “So, you knew since then?”

“No. I knew when I first began to reason. For the first year and a half of my life, I just learned everything I could about the world like a soulless robot. I realized my difference to others, most especially other children of my age when I was 2, almost 3 years old. It was when a servant corrected me, saying that my name was not ‘demon’, and that I must never say that word. Apparently, my parents and the other villagers of my hometown were so perturbed by me that I had earned the nickname ‘demon’ before I could understand what that meant. Before that, I simply had an inkling as the servants and the other people of the village would shrink away from me when they saw me, but didn’t in the presence of other children.”

“I see. That’s depressing. Is your entire childhood depressing?”

“Only ages 0-4 and 8-10.”

DIO chuckled a little. “Despite your disposition you’re an admirably positive thinking person.”

“Really? I haven’t noticed that.”

“Mm hm. It’s hard to properly know yourself. That is why one builds relationships. If one relates the mind to one’s face then interpersonal relationships are like mirrors or other reflective surfaces with which one can use to see what is there in actuality. Though, I’d say that most of these ‘reflective surfaces’ are rather cloudy and it’s ridiculously hard to find a clear one.”

“I see. So I guess, you’re my mirror and I am yours, and we’re just polishing each other until we can understand ourselves through each other?”

“You took the words straight out of my mouth.”

Straizo moved his face to rest his cheek on his knuckles. “And what happens when we can see ourselves crystal clear and memorize our appearance?” DIO blinked in surprise at the question. “What happens when there is no more reason to polish, when we’ve gotten everything we need from each other?”

DIO tilted his head back in thought. He’d never been asked that question before. When he leaned back in toward Straizo it was to pin him with his own glowing stare. “Have you ever reached a point where you memorized your appearance and thought that you were done for life?”

Straizo’s lips curled into a frown at the question. “...No.”

“And why is that?”

“I might… oh.”

“Right. You might change your appearance tomorrow. There is no constant state of the mind, just like there is no constant state of the face and body. We are always shifting, evolving, changing. Even when we believe that we have stopped changing, that is but an illusion as your brain gets used to the feeling of change itself. The only constant in the universe is change, and we as humans are a microcosm of that fundamental law.”

Straizo was leaned in just as far as he was, eyes glowing with interest and passion even as his lips failed to smile. DIO felt his eyes linger on the other man’s lips. He leaned in to kiss him when the waiter suddenly appeared with an announcement of his presence. “Your orders are ready sirs!”

DIO felt shock run down his spine as he turned his face in a millisecond to face the waiter. “Ah… uh… sorry sirs for uh… interrupting? I have a bad habit of doing that.”

DIO pushed the desire to kill the man down. He couldn’t commit murder in broad daylight. But he also couldn’t trust himself to speak without snarling so he gestured for the food to be put down as he stared the waiter down. Maybe if his mood improved by the end of their meal, he wouldn’t order a hit on the idiot.

The food they had ordered was delicious. Straizo ended up trying DIO’s desserts and just a sip of his wine. They stayed there until 1:30 pm and then left, thoroughly stuffed. However, DIO felt reluctant to let the day end so he mentioned an art exhibit he had been meaning to attend.

“Are you sure DIO? I’m a bit particular about the kind of art I like,” Straizo asked as he walked beside him.

“Of course. I think you’ll love this exhibit.”

He had heard from Mariah, who loved everything beautiful, that the exhibit felt “oppressive” and “complex” but that she’d surprisingly enjoyed it and hinted at him that she’d like to go with him, so he had good reason to believe that Straizo would like it. When they got to the exhibit, DIO opened the door for his adorable date and let him walk through first, before walking in after him and sliding a hand around his waist. Straizo cutely bristled like a cat at the touch, but after sending DIO a glare, he chose to remain in the loose hold.

The art in the exhibit was all giant, 3 meters tall at the minimum, and the largest piece they’d found was 15 meters tall. His hunch was right as well. Straizo did like the exhibit. He seemed mesmerized by many of the artworks.

“Can you feel any energy coming off of this painting?” He asked Straizo, arm still wrapped around his waist.

“No. It has no energy at all.”

“And yet you’ve been staring at it for 20 minutes.”

“Has it been that long?” Straizo asked, almost dreamily.

DIO leaned into his ear. “Yes. Now tell me, what attracts you to this painting?”

The painting in question was 12 meters tall. It depicted a great wall of water washing over a city, but from the perspective of one of the pedestrians. The angle was neck-crackingly extreme but it captured a feeling of being unfathomably small and unfathomably fucked.

“When I look at this painting, I feel the way one does when hearing vivid stories about the apocalypse. I feel insignificant but also like the most important thing to ever exist, to have been blessed to see such a beautiful thing before death. If there is an afterlife, my heaven would be to experience moments like the one depicted in this painting until the end of time.”

DIO looked from the painting to Straizo, who stared at the painting with the first grin he had ever seen on his face. It looked truly vicious, but also contagiously impassioned, like the man he was holding might spontaneously combust on the spot. DIO smiled and held him tighter.

“You’re the opposite of me then. I like it, because I see myself in the oncoming disaster.”

The sun was almost ready to start setting when they finally left the art exhibit. The two of them walked aimlessly down the bustling city streets. They ignored the eyes on them, talking with exuberance about art, philosophy, history, and the ways the world could work if human beings weren’t so averse to change. And they asked each other if there would be a need for them to meet in each of those worlds. They asked each other, in each of those seperate universes, how would they have met? Would they have met as kings of separate kingdoms in a medievel world? Would they have met as vampire and hunter in a world that danced more intimately with the supernatural? Would they have met as conqueror and rebel in a world lost to the stars? There was no way to know and no point in knowing and yet it brought them joy to wonder.

Then they eventually found themselves walking into a wooded area, an area left to nature for the purposes of giving the people of the city some greenery. There was a special feeling of familiarity in the smell of moss, bark, and wildflowers. It was hard to call it romantic, but it stirred a place inside of him that was stuck on the way he and Straizo had met. It made him feel playful and he let out the energy by turning and spinning with his lovely date, interlocking fingers, picking him up by the waist, and falling backward into a field of ripe dandelions. As Straizo lay on his chest and the dandelion fuzz flew everywhere, he heard the other man faintly chuckling.

“DIO you’re horrible. Why did you do that? I’m going to be finding dandelion seeds in my hair for months.”

DIO sat up with him with a grin. “Don’t be dramatic,” he teased. “I’ll pick them out of your hair right now.”

He began doing so, propping himself up on an elbow and letting Straizo’s knees rest in the grass as the other man sat in his lap. It was quiet between them as he worked, diving between inky black strands and clinking golden chains to find little pieces of fuzz and remove them. Soon, Straizo leaned forward to rest his weight on him fully. When Straizo pushed his fingers into DIO’s hair and pulled his head backward with his unyeilding grip, DIO felt his pants instantly feel tighter and his arms felt like jelly and dropped the both of them.

DIO took a second to breathe as the drop had stolen the breath from his lungs, but Straizo’s face was in his hair, breathing it in. “You smell really nice DIO.”

DIO took in what was happening for a second before he laughed. “Was that your attempt at flirting?”

Straizo buried his face deeper into DIO’s hair. His face felt delightfully hot.

“I’m sorry. I’m bad at this. I don’t know what to do.”

“I guess that makes two of us.”

“But you’re so experienced-”

“At manipulating people. That’s my specialty. I don’t… know what it means to do this properly. I’ve never been in love before.”

Straizo sat up, sitting on DIO’s stomach. His gaze was blank but half-lidded. “Do you want to come to my house?”

DIO smiled. It was far from his perfect ones. It was a smile that caught him off guard, but he leaned into it. “I’d like nothing more.”

Straizo led the way this time, his grip on DIO’s hand, painfully tight but grounding. They got to a mid-sized city house. Straizo opened the door with one hand. Straizo pulled him in with him and closed the door, and then seconds later a sound he never thought that he would hear bounced quietly off the walls of the house.

“Baba…” A small child called out meekly as she peered around a corner.

DIO looked down, eyes nearly bulging as he saw a young girl walk quickly into the entryway. She walked up to Straizo and made a hand sign while bowing with a serious expression on her face. Then when Straizo dropped to one knee with his arms open the girl ran into them. He lifted her up and began to walk away with her. “Were you good for the nanny?”

“Yes, Baba. I behaved.”

“Good. I will check with the nanny to be sure though.”

“Yes Baba. She’ll tell you the same thing. I’m sure of it.”

A woman quietly came out of further in the house. “Oh, you’re done with your date already, Mister Straizo?”

“Actually, we stayed out for much longer than I thought we would.”

“Oh, someone with the power to get in the way of Mister Straizo’s schedules? They must be special indeed.”

“I’d say so.”

“I’ll be leaving then, if you’ll be staying home for the rest of the night.”

“Yes, thank you. The payment will be given through the usual channels.”

The lady left, giving DIO a smile as he stared dumbfounded after her and then back at Straizo with the 5-6 year old balanced on his hip. “What is happening?!”

Straizo tilted his head. “What’s wrong?”

“You have a child?”

“Yeah. Jonathan didn’t tell you?”

“No. Why didn’t you mention that? In fact, how were you away from your child for a month?”

“I don’t know why you’re confused. It never came up so I didn’t mention it and I travel a lot so the nanny cares for her for long periods sometimes. It’s perfectly normal.”

“Where and when did you get a child?”

“When I was 25, Jonathan saved her from a wreck and I adopted her.”

“Just out of nowhere?”

“It felt like a good time to have a child.” DIO felt absolutely bewildered and it must have shown on his face because Straizo addressed it. “Does me having a child pose a problem?”

“No, but I’m confused on why you invited me back home with you when you knew your child was here.”

“What do you mean? After the initial connection, the next step in romantic relationships is meeting family right? I already know your brother, cousins, and adopted father so I thought I should show you my family.”

“Have you only seen romantic relationships on the television?”

Straizo shrugged. “People don’t like having their lives closely observed and studied.”

DIO sighed and then came closer. “I was expecting something very different when I agreed to come home with you.”

“What were you expecting?”

“Getting the chance to rail you.”

Straizo gave him an unimpressed look.

“Baba, what’s railing? Do you do it with a train?”

“It’s a word that needs adult context and you’re too young.”

“I wish I was older already so I would understand.”

“Every stage in life has its merit. You know this.” The little girl nodded sheepishly. “Now go to your room and play with your toys.”

“But it’s math lessons time, Baba.”

“Oh, that’s right. Go ahead and do your independent assignments then.”

“Alright, Baba!”

DIO gave Straizo another strange look as the little girl left. “What is it, DIO?”

“What little girl wants to do assignments?”

“One that is enriched and allowed to use her natural curiosity to aid in her learning. I have read many many books on child rearing.”

“Those books mention leaving your child alone for a month?”

“I gave the nanny a 200 page document on how Elizabeth is to be taken care of in my absence.”

DIO squinted at him. “You are a psycho.”

Straizo shrugged apathetically. “I’ll take her on my travels when she’s a bit older so it won’t do much damage.”

“Straizo, did you really think I came here to meet your kid?”

“No. I was lying.”

“Sometimes you really annoy me.”

“Can’t make things too easy for you.”

DIO laughed. “Now, how are we to do actions that require adult context with your crotch goblin in the house?”

“She’s not my crotch goblin. I adopted her remember?”

“Alright, how are we going to have sex with your stolen fuck trophy in the house?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t call her that.”

“And I’d prefer you in a bed, face down ass up but we don’t all get what we want, do we?”

Straizo shrugged. “My walls are all soundproofed from when I was training Elizabeth to hit a button that made sound instead of screaming when she was a baby.”

“Do you take pride in how unhinged you are?”

Straizo looked off to the side. “Sometimes.”

“Good to know. Will we actually be screwing today?”

Straizo stared at him and then left. “I was planning on making dinner. Are you hungry?”

DIO caught him by the arm, wrestled him down to the ground, and pinned him down. “Straizo.” Straizo’s face was red while he looked off to the side and his lips were in a pout. “Are we sleeping together today or not?”

“I’ve never done anything like that before. I don’t know what to do.”

“No worries. I have experience enough for the both of us.”

“DIO… I don’t go and do things in ignorance. I want to know how it goes before I experience it.”

“Wait, have you never watched porn before?”

“No. I had no need to.”

“God, you are a robot. Of course, I fall for the one true virgin. So what, you want to watch porn first?”

“Not really. Those are artistic renditions of the real thing and often not realistic.”

“So what? You want to sit in my bedroom and take notes while I fuck people?”

“Would that not work?”

DIO sighed and rolled off of Straizo. “I’ve done weirder things, sure. But you have to meet my friends first.”

“Alright, that works.”

“So what are we going to do tonight?”

“Cook dinner, eat dinner, cuddle to sleep?”

“Sounds good.”

Dinner was interesting. Elizabeth ate with a straight back and very proper manners. She politely asked to be passed the butter or the soup dumplings and ate slowly with small bites. The only impolite thing she did was stare at him like he was an alien when he kissed Straizo on the cheek. He did it again just to see the look on her face. Little children could be very entertaining. 

But he did wonder how Straizo expected to raise her in a developmentally appropriate way while dating him, who he knew was evil itself. Was he just going to keep them apart with an exception made for this meeting, like having a day life and a night life? 

In some ways, it wasn’t too different from how DIO lived his life. He kept Jonathan and many elements of his “real” life separate. But would that work? He wanted to live with Straizo and he wasn’t willing to wait very long. Pucci, his one and only platonic friend, already lived away from him and it displeased him greatly. He wanted to be able to spontaneously see the people he cared about, not have to schedule things all the time.

When dinner was over, Straizo left with a sleepy Elizabeth on his hip. DIO followed them when Straizo didn’t come back in a few minutes. He found the man telling a bedtime story to his daughter. DIO watched him from the doorway and took his hand when he was done. Elizabeth had fallen asleep in the middle of the story. Straizo showed him where his bedroom was and they shed their clothes and crawled in the bed together. Straizo fell asleep quickly, burying his face into DIO’s neck and wrapping his legs around DIO’s waist. DIO drifted off while stroking his lover’s silky black hair.