Chapter Text
Giorno was still in shock over whatever Dio and Abbacchio had done at the picnic table, and truly the only person who had any chance of understanding the absolute nightmare that witnessing that was Trish. To be more accurate, Trish had gone through a lot with her dad, and sure, it was him trying to kill her, but Giorno did not want to go to anyone else in the group about how he saw his biological dad pretty much making out with his lame little step dad figure. She knew for a fact that any member in the group outside of Trish would probably act as if she was overreacting or that the situation was funny.
He scooted his sleeping bag besides hers in the corner of the chilly basement and glancing over at her before whispering as to not wake anyone up, “Can we talk a bit before you go to bed?” Giorno rubbed his eyes a bit, and began working on undoing his braid as he patiently waited for Trish to reply.
Trish nodded, “Sure, what happened?” She sounded about as tired as Giorno felt, and as she turned towards him, she looked almost more vulnerable than normal. All her makeup was off and her hair was loose, her bangs tucked behind her ears to keep them out of her face. They had both spent a while in the shower getting their hairspray out, and by the time most of the group were done taking their showers to get the hairspray out, the hot water was all out, which was highly unfortunate for poor Narancia who was last in, due to getting distracted by talking with Fugo.
Giorno let out a soft sigh between his somewhat pursed lips before even remotely attempting to explain. “I was down here later because I was helping Pucci with the dishes, and I glanced out the back window into the garden to see how Dio’s lawnmowing was going. I doubted it would go well, because the sod was pretty much down to the dirt, but I didn’t really think that anything other than him being loud on his mower would happen. But when I looked, I saw, well, Dio and Abbacchio kissing but it was oddly passionate and bloody.” He paused a bit to get over the horrible feelings he had from hearing those words out loud, as if they confirmed what had happened. “How did you handle dealing with your dad when... that happened a week ago?” Giorno did not know how to remotely explain the whole Diavolo trying to murder Trish thing and hoped that his words were clear enough for Trish to understand.
Quite understandably, Trish looked rather shellshocked at most of this, as if today hadn’t been bizarre enough, the entire thing with her dad trying to murder her and going from being stuck with these strangers to being close enough to feel like they were family was actually a lot to be comprehending. She sat there for a minute, biting the inside of her lip as she thought through what to say.
Trish started slow, “I understand how that feels, it took me a while to come to terms with what happened.” She paused once again before trying to continue after seeing Giorno nod encouragingly. “Even though I never really got the chance to properly know him, I had an idea of him in my head that just was so far from what I got when he instantly tried… to kill me. I wanted to know him and have him in my life, and how it turned out was so different than I imagined. But as time passed and my mom was the only one who really was there for me for so long, I felt it was never going to happen and that he simply didn’t care enough about me to ever even send something as simple as a birthday card or call once. But of course, he never reached out or even cared about my existence, or didn’t until my mom got really sick.” Trish reached over and got a drink of water before continuing.
“She went on such an effort to find him right before she died... but it was fruitless, and honestly, I kind of didn’t want to meet him some of the time. I went for pretty much all of my life without him there and my mom was the best mom I could ask for. There wasn’t really a lot that he could bring into my life, other than potentially bringing closure to the question that I had for years of who my father even was and why he had not been there for all this time. It felt like he just wanted to be involved after things were going to be a problem for him and that I didn’t really factor into the equation other than a pawn in his game.” She took a deep breath and smiled over at Giorno a bit hesitantly, not meaning to let all of that spill out, but it had been building up for years.
Giorno honestly didn’t realize just how much he and Trish shared in common with this whole experience, but she really had put it into words that they never could. “That’s how it feels with this too, I think he just wants someone to carry on his legacy of being really evil or something. But also it feels like he’s tossing me, Rikiel, and Donatello to the side in exchange for Abbacchio. It feels like he just called us here for no reason and then got sidetracked by some guy that he met the same day.” He sighed and leaned his head against the wall. It was honestly such a mess that he had to not only meet his dad who he honestly had barely heard anything of, as his mom never brought him up, especially after she got remarried, but to also see someone who he assumed hated his guts kiss his biological father.
Trish hesitantly reached out, almost in the same way Bruno had done a week ago in that elevator, and rested her hand on top of Giorno’s in an attempt to spread some comfort. “But things got a bit better when I started to feel comfortable around all of you and I have a new family now that’s here.” She said softly, hoping that could help Giorno feel a bit better about thinking he had one dad and instead gained six new parents. “Things hopefully will calm down eventually.”
Giorno nodded, “I’ll just try to ignore it for now, because there is no way that Abbacchio of all people is interested in Dio, it’s probably just some way to push my buttons. Although, it’s weird he isn’t down here,” He glanced around the open room one more time to check that he wasn’t there, “But thank you, Trish.” Giorno smiled over at her and stood up, unrolling his sleeping bag in the most empty area that he could find, hoping that the morning to come would be better.
~~~
The next morning, Giorno pulled his hair into a low ponytail and tucked his bangs behind his ears, not mentally ready for whatever he was sure to walk into when he headed upstairs. The way that last night had ended was very awkward and Giorno hoped for nothing more than to avoid Dio and Abbacchio completely.
Giorno’s wish was not granted as instead of even seeing just one of them, or even both of them separate, instead he had gotten the worst possible scenario. Abbacchio’s legs were draped across Dio’s lap and his arms were loosely draped around his neck. It was just such a strange scene that Giorno had to close his eyes for a moment to make sure that it was actually really happening. They were still cuddling by the time Giorno reopened his eyes and he simply was not going to deal with them doing this in the art gallery of all places, so he headed into the dining room.
The dining room was empty, except for Vanilla Ice and Mariah, who were currently in the process of dying Vanilla’s brown hair into a deep purple while Vanilla sobbed quietly, talking about something that sounded like ‘he left me for some toothpick thin goth…” Giorno had no idea what was going on, but was absolutely not staying around to find out.
He headed into the kitchen, seeing that a lot of the gang was standing around in the kitchen and joking around as if it was a normal morning at the base, and not that they were in Egypt, thousands of miles away from home. Things felt off, for more than one reason (the absolutely horrible developments of this morning included in those reasons), and Giorno just quietly got himself a bit of bread and spread some strawberry jam on it, hoping that lunch and dinner were how they were in Italy, with them being larger meals.
The peace was soon broken by Dio heading right into the kitchen, with Abbacchio clinging onto his beefy arm. The next words out of Abbacchio’s mouth made Giorno want to shove his head into a lake and never bring it back out. “So, studlicious, what are we doing in the kitchen instead of back in our bedroom and canoodling?”
Saying that brought Leone about as much pain as it did to literally everyone in the room, as he was just playing all of this up to upset Giorno and the rest of the group, but calling anyone that or even doing this much PDA made him actually want to never talk again and just bury himself in Bruno’s neck, that is, if Bruno didn’t hate him after this whole stunt. They didn't have a chance to really talk about it last night, and Leone wasn’t too sure when they would be able to, since Dio had been monopolizing all of his time.
Dio just simply grinned before replying, “To celebrate our new boyfriend,” he paused as he heard Vanilla Ice let out a loud sob, “we’ll have a family meeting after everyone has finished breakfast.” He mimed sticking his fingers into Abbacchio’s neck with a cheeky little smirk before scooping him up and heading into the parlor.
Giorno glanced over at everyone else, trying to gauge their reactions to all of this happening. If this was happening this early in the day, he had confidence that it simply would continue to escalate and get worse as the day went on. The rest of the gang was in varying states of shock, although Bruno looked absolutely fuming and Trish was just looking over at Giorno, almost as if she was making sure he was doing ok. Giorno was not doing ok.
About 30 minutes later, everyone was gathered in the living room, most everyone in the polycule surrounding Dio on their very long couch, and Bruno along with the rest of the gang was scattered on the various armchairs opposite the couch.
Dio had called them to a meeting for a couple reasons- first, to officially introduce the new member of the polycule, and second, to announce their trip out. The polycule normally just let Dio go out, despite him being the most likely to run someone over, but he wanted to make it a family trip in order to prove to Bruno that he could be a good dad, thus tricking him into the polycule. He hadn’t tried this strategy before, as the rest of the polycule came willingly, or even purposefully sought him out, but it was worth a shot.
He cleared his throat and patted Leone’s lap, as the smaller man was seated on him, “This is the newest member of our polycule, Leone…” He trailed off, realizing he did not know his surname. “He’s pitiful, so don’t treat him like Nukesaku, we don’t need two pitiful short people here.”
Dio then abruptly switched onto the next conversation topic without a single transition word or phrase, “And in an hour, we’ll all go to our local craft store as a group and get suncatchers and paint for them. Then, we’ll have a family time painting them. Giorno, is there any craft you want to do?”
“Tie-dye, maybe?” Giorno sounded uncertain.
Dio nodded, jotting that down on his small slip of paper that he promptly slid in between his turtleneck and neck, knowing that it would stay in place perfectly, as he always stored his receipts there. “Get ready and come back here in an hour.” He stood up and grabbed Leone by the thighs and carried him upstairs without a second word.
The rest of the polycule slowly trickled out, going their own separate ways, leaving only Bruno’s group and Giorno’s other siblings in the parlor. Almost in unison, they got up and headed to the basement, and went off to separate areas to get ready, as most everyone was in their pajamas and bedhead. It was yet another time where Giorno was so perplexed on how Dio had this massive castle yet they were all down in the basement and the only room down here minus the large one everyone was staying was the bathroom. Said bathroom was currently packed to the brim with people doing their hair and makeup, and Giorno was not even going to try and get into there until the levels of hairspray in the air got a bit less toxic.
If he was honest, Giorno was still a bit confused over how Dio had singled him out with what he wanted to do, and a little worried that his other siblings would think he had some form of favoritism. If it was favoritism, it wasn’t necessarily surprising but it hadn’t been this blatant before. He pondered for a moment more before changing into a somewhat more casual outfit than he normally wore, a pair of navy blue jeans and a magenta t-shirt, something that would be ok to get messy as they didn’t bring any backup outfits for their fancy clothes.
The bathroom appeared to have cleared out a little bit in terms of the fumes, so Giorno went in and began styling his hair, focusing so intently on that that he was able to just get his mind off of all that had happened in the past day. They were a bit in disbelief that this had all been not even 24 hours of them there and that all this had already happened. Even things during the week that they had been taking Trish to find her dad hadn’t happened this quickly, which was not an event Giorno wanted a repeat of. Maybe it was her mistake for assuming this trip would be laid back and that Dio wouldn’t be as over the top as Jotaro had described him.
A little bit later, everyone was gathered by the entryway when Dio realized there was not enough room in his spicy compact little convertible for all seventeen (including him) people. “Well, I don’t think a lot of you could fit on my riding mower, but I’ll call some taxis here and you can ride in those.” He announced, grabbing the members of his polycule he cared about the most by their collars and walked towards the convertible. Dio did not elaborate on who it was exactly he cared about the most and peeled out of the driveway before anyone could ask or even see who all had left. He had not even called anyone taxi wise, so it was up to Giorno, who was the only one who had his phone on him.
Once everyone was crammed into 3 different taxis, they followed Dio’s hard to miss cherry red convertible to where (hopefully) the craft store was. The car ahead of them kept making U-turns so it really seemed that Dio did not know where the store was either or was making U-turns really violently to make someone in the car sick. Both options seemed pretty plausible to Giorno, as Dio did definitely not seem like the kind of guy to knit or anything like that and did seem like the kind of guy to do things a bit over the top on purpose.
It took about an hour longer than it should have to arrive, as the cab drivers knew where they would need to go, but Dio would insist his car had to be leading them and refused to listen to any instructions. The trip had felt so much longer though, as the combined feeling of being squished between two over 6 foot tall men in the backseat and how hot the taxi was did not contribute any joy to Giorno’s mood. In fact, it was about as bad as any trip in that rickety van a month ago except they were actually given some room to breathe in that.
The group walking into this small craft store was something that would embarrass a normal person but not Dio, who strutted through the front door on his stolen legs and a boy toy on each arm and the rest of them following right behind him. He didn’t care much if the cashier stared at his tight black tank top, because he knew that he looked good and respectable today. Dio always dressed up when he left the house because the last time he wore his see through mesh shorts, he had to kill an entire police station because it ‘wasn’t an appropriate thing to wear out’ and he was not paying for his release. He would do it again too, other than the fact that Terence had examined him a bit too closely after he had walked into the mansion and dripped blood all over their neon green carpet.
Dio let the smallest of the polycule, his favorite pitiful member, Nukesaku, lead them through the craft store with an expertise that rivaled any employee. He wasn’t sure why he knew this store so well, other than he kept mysteriously disappearing during the afternoon and coming back with arms full of yarn. Until now, Dio was pretty positive that Nukesaku was just stealing sheep and making yarn himself, but the store made the most sense. They arrived at the small corner of the store that sold suncatchers, and Dio made sure everyone picked one out. Although the gathering of multiple people over 180 cm that were all pretty broad in this tiny aisle was resulting in any movement knocking over the whole shelf, they did eventually get the tiny basket that Pucci was holding. He was crammed right into the corner along with a lot of the kids since the larger people were kind of crowded into the front.
Next stop was the place where the tie-dye kits were, and this was one thing Nukesaku did not know where they were, so Giorno had to flag down an employee and ask where they were, since it was his project. They obviously had to get some clothing items along with it, because they couldn’t just dye their normal clothes, especially if it would backfire.
Dio did not care too much about the tie-dye, other than to dote on his favorite child, his priority was making these suncatchers. If he could have each of the polycule and his children make a suncatcher, he could hang it in the window to make sure his neighbors knew he had a ton of kids and boytoys. That was his entire reason for doing this, to make sure his neighbors knew he had more partners and kids than they did. But the tie-dye could be good for the fact that he could potentially bond a bit with his kids and show Bruno that he was a good dad. He had to do what he had to do in order to prove to the Italian that he would be good boyfriend material.
“So, my Italian stallion, would you like if I wore a tie-dyed crop top for you?” Dio purred, staring at Bruno directly. He figured that Bruno would like if he was more forward, and Bruno was certainly a handsome Italian.
It took about a minute for Bruno to grab Narancia’s knife from his skirt pocket and point it at Dio. Dio was very unaware of the danger (despite being unzipped the night before) but was much more enraptured by the mafioso’s eyes. He couldn’t help but be intrigued by how often the small human resorted to violence, thus fully allowed Bruno to slice at him, creating a large slit down his skin tight black turtleneck. Despite Dio being a vampire, this did cause a little blood to drip on the beige craft store’s floor. No one particularly seemed to care about the mess, as the fact that this small human, not even 180 cm, had slashed at Dio was more than enough of a shock.
“Now, baby angel, if you wanted to see me shirtless you could have just asked.” Dio teased, easily dodging Bruno’s next knife jab and grabbing his wrist in his hand. “We can have a proper knife fight at home, darling.”
Giorno had just been standing there, holding the tie dye kit and watching all of this with about the most horrified expression that he could muster. It wasn’t as if the amount of sappiness that Bruno treated Abbacchio with when they were at home wasn’t bad enough, but seeing Dio of all people treat Bruno like he was this small cat that he had graciously allowed to scratch him was another level of pain. Bruno was not necessarily the most rational or level headed person, and quite honestly, Giorno had nothing but respect for how calmly he was handling Dio’s advances. Actually, calmly might not have been the word Giorno should have used, as Bruno looked probably the most mad that Giorno had ever seen him, even more than when he had found out the old boss’ plan for Trish. Dio was simply an expert at pushing every single one of his buttons and Giorno was not going to get involved in whatever this situation was, Bruno could handle himself and Dio wasn’t entirely someone Giorno cared about if he got hurt.
Dio simply was enjoying this as Bruno was waiflike compared to him and he could easily pick the man up with one hand, so it wasn’t remotely a fair fight. Last night hadn’t been one either, but Dio had the disadvantage then, due to being so comfortable on Leone. He leaned down a bit to get onto Bruno’s level, and gave him a friendly smile. “Now, darling, I don’t think you want to embarrass yourself in front of your son. We can continue this tussle at home.” He spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. Dio could be an ASMR pro if he was given the opportunity to do so, but it was 2001 and Youtube did not exist yet so he could not fulfill his dreams.
Bruno didn’t stop giving Dio a dirty look but nodded, not wanting to get into this likely life ending fight in the middle of this craft store. He had had more than enough public property damage charges from their journey with Trish that he had no desire to rack up more, especially when his main desire was zipping up Dio into the zipper dimension and never letting him out. His primary worry was Giorno, as it was relatively clear to him that Giorno was pretty uncomfortable in the whole situation, and not just around Dio (and his million partners), but being away from the mafia. La Squadra Esecuzioni was most certainly handling being in charge well, but with them just eliminating the boss and pretty much running off to Egypt a week later was not a very reassuring thing. He was pretty certain that most of Passione wasn’t aware that they had killed Diavolo and just assumed that the boss finally started caring about the hitman team. They had just begun getting used to each other as a group of coworkers and potentially friends, but things were still rocky. This trip to reconnect with Giorno’s dad was not doing much to help them get closer, simply because everyone was busy with all the new people.
Bruno got out of Dio’s grip and walked to stand beside Giorno, asking him a simple question to try and defuse the tension a bit. “Is that all we needed to get?” He assumed Giorno knew how to tie dye and had a mental list of the supplies they would need, as Giorno was relatively responsible with things.
Giorno turned the tie dye tub over to its back, reading the instructions before grabbing a package of rubber gloves and putting them in the basket that Vanilla Ice was in charge of. It seemed like they were all prepared, so the group made the way to the register, where the poor cashier looked rather intimidated of the multiple massive people.
Dio was not waiting for this cashier to check them out, so simply used his stand to pause time and scan the items as well as pay. Honestly, he did not know how to use the conveyor or checkout counter so he had to keep using The World to pause time again and get it right. It would have probably been quicker to let the cashier do their job and have everyone but the relatively not intimidating (externally at least) fifteen year old leave, but Dio would never admit that. Of course, he, Dio, would make life easier for them with his stand to prove that he would be a good father (which was mainly to get Bruno to join his polycule).
The ride back home was about as awkward as the ride there, with everyone crammed into different vehicles and Dio breaking about seven traffic laws (which was noticeably less than what he had broken on the way there). But the worst part of the day was about to come, when Dio saw a very familiar figure waiting at his door. There was no way that it was him, he would have been over 500 by now. Dio swerved his car into the driveway and parked as violently as he could, strutting up to the front door to get a better look at the visitor. Unfortunately for Dio, it was in fact one of his many exes, but this was one that had been pre-beheading. The man’s long and dark hair swirled around his legs as he turned to face Dio, confirming that this was in fact Bruford.
This was about the last person that Dio expected to be alive, especially after what Jonathan had done to him, but he wasn’t going to question it at this point. “Nice see-” Dio started before Bruford cut him off.
“I know that you have my sword and if you don’t give it back, I’ll kill you.” He said very calmly, although his massive stature did not make the experience a less concerning one.
Dio paused for a moment, trying to remember exactly what Bruford was referring to. It had been over one hundred years ago, and he really had been more occupied with other things as of late. “Oh, that rusty old thing? It’s somewhere in the basement.” He sidestepped around Bruford and unlocked the door, purposefully shutting it right in the other’s face.
Unfortunately, Dio did not have time to lock the door and Bruford simply followed him inside. “You let it get rusty?” His voice had a fair mix of malice and very ill disguised rage as Dio led him to the sitting room and gestured to the couch.
“It’s been a long time,” Dio shrugged, “Stay here and I’ll have Ice fetch it.” As always, Vanilla Ice followed behind him like a shadow, so it wasn’t that long of a wait for his partner to listen to him and head into the basement.
The main problem was that minus the area where the new people were sleeping, the basement was a mess. Vanilla had no idea at all where this sword would be, or even what it looked like. After all, Lord Dio had the habit of taking things from the people he had killed, so the basement closets were pretty much stuffed full of items, and Vanilla hadn’t been there with him when this had happened, so he was going in blind.
Meanwhile, Dio was awkwardly sitting there with Bruford, as pretty much everyone else had gone off to prepare the weapons room for their craft hours. It was about a half hour of just very uncomfortable silence outside of Dio calling Ice and asking what was taking so long. After that very short phone call where Dio had to try and explain what the sword looked like, Bruford just very bluntly stated, “Your boyfriends are flimsy and pathetic, Dio. You downgraded.”
Dio was about two seconds from throttling Bruford, especially when he proceeded to laugh in Dio’s face, but Ice had returned with the sword by then. And naturally, the way Dio would hand the sword back was to stab it right through Bruford’s armor and walk away. He wasn’t dealing with the consequences of his actions, plus he had to make sure that his weapon room wasn’t getting ruined as he waited.
Bruford simply stood there as Vanilla Ice ushered him out of the house, and they were finally alone, or without this one surprise guest. It was, for better or for worse, time for Dio and his fucked up family to make some suncatchers.