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Dio makes the offer four times. Once in the aftermath of Cairo, his hand buried in Pucci's chest while Dio's skull knits back together, the stink of blood surrounding them. Again on his twentieth birthday, the two of them dancing together in the ballroom, the world brought utterly and completely to its knees before them. Once more at thirty, after a night of fine dining and wine and entertainment, Dio whispering his offer against Pucci's skin over and over again. And one last time at forty, in the aftermath of a celebration that went on for too long and became too wild. Dio has boundless energy, but Pucci has grown older and even less interested in pushing himself to his limits than he was when he was still young. He retires early, and Dio comes to him as he always does at night, once he's sated his other desires.
Among the silken sheets of their bed, Dio gathers himself over Pucci and kisses his face and cheeks, whispering to him. "Let me give you the gift, my love. Let me breathe eternal life into your lungs. Let me peel back your humanity and reveal you, fresh and sweet as the dew that gathers on the blades of grass."
His tongue is as golden as ever, painting Pucci promises that he knows Dio can keep. Like a thirsty man, Pucci drinks them in. He lets Dio worship him as he does, and he feels those fingers stroke into his flesh, easily parting his skin and muscle, making way for Dio's hands. There's venom in those fingers, so powerful it would kill him and revive him in the same motion. He's seen it done before to others, watched them rise stronger, faster, more beautiful and terrible.
"I love you," Pucci says. The same answer he's given every time. The same answer he'll always give. He draws Dio into a proper kiss, mouth to mouth, and he expresses his love with all the passion he can. God, he loves him. Even now, after all this time, he feels his heart beat faster when he lays his eyes on Dio. He'll spend the rest of his life in love with him, loving him again and again, again and again, until the day he dies.
Dio breaks the kiss and he sets his other hand on Pucci's face, coaxing him to look straight at him, to not distract Dio with kisses as he's done before. Before, it's been a gentle coaxing offer and the promise of better things. This time, Dio's direct. "Pucci. Let me turn you."
"No." A firm answer for a pointed question. He turns his face and kisses Dio's hand. "Thank you, but my answer is the same."
"You're growing old. I see it in your face, Pucci. I hear it in your body." The hand lifts from his cheek, settling on Pucci's chest instead. The fingers in his skin move, dragging back and forth in his throat, caressing the parts of him that only Dio can reach. "I hear your heart. I hear the sounds of your body. I can heal you, for now. I can pluck the growing cancers from your lungs and flesh, and I can tear out tumors, and I can reshape you again and again to fix the bones as they wear, to smooth the wrinkles from your eyes, but if you die-"
"Then I die forever." Pucci knows this. Like every mortal, he lives with the knowledge that at any moment, he could be killed. It could be on purpose, but more than likely, it will be an accident - a car swerving onto a sidewalk that catches him head-long in its grill, or a fall that breaks his spine in half, or an allergen mixed into his meal, or any of a million other ways life could deal him one last final, cruel cut. Pucci would prefer not to die away from Dio. He hopes he'll die in his arms, old and content and fading into the darkness while Dio speaks soft words of comfort to him.
But he will die, sooner or later. Everyone does.
"Think of all you'll miss," Dio tempts him, just as he has before. His fingers sink further down Pucci's body, dragging through him like he's nothing more than water. The pain is familiar as it is electric and he arches and sighs, his eyes fluttering shut. Dio just keeps speaking, his honeyed voice so soothing that Pucci has no choice but to relax. "Think of the places you'll never see, the songs you'll never hear. Think of the dinners we'll have. Think of the night sky, and the books that will be unread. Think of humanity, and what you won't see."
The first time he made the offer, they had barely won. Pucci had waited during the battle, terrified but determined, and when the moment came, he took it. He had almost been too late. Time had stopped - he knows it had, because Jotaro moved in the blink of an eye and the blows that hit Pucci were only felt, not seen. He remembers the snapping of bones, the sudden pain, the screaming-
And Whitesnake fighting through it, Whitesnake positioned perfectly, his hand cutting through Jotaro's skull in the instant after time resumed. The discs had come out vertically, falling from the tear Pucci made in his face. He remembers it only through Whitesnake's eyes, because Pucci had been turned away, his face scraping the ground. He thought he was dead. Pucci's never said it, but sometimes he thinks he might have been, because he remembers seeing himself from the outside, so small and crumpled on the street, and Jotaro's body falling to his knees, and Dio, covered in blood and barely able to stand with that head wound.
He had watched Dio crawl towards him, and he felt so sad, and so relieved, too, knowing that Dio would live. That was all that mattered. He knew he should turn then and leave. Maybe higher up, he would hear Perla, and he could see her and apologize.
But he had lingered, not wanting to look away from Dio just yet. That was how he saw it happen - the way Dio plunged his hand into Pucci's chest, the flexing that traveled up his wrist. The first squeeze shook him. The second tore him out of the sky. The third brought him to life, his heart forced to pump by Dio's hand. There was so much pain and he had cried out, but Dio had been there to soothe him and heal him and stitch Pucci back together.
"Live, Pucci," he had demanded, and his hand squeezed Pucci's heart. "I am not done with you. If you won't come, I'll bring you back. I'll fill you with venom."
"D-don't," Pucci had begged, and his hands had grabbed onto Dio, holding onto him. Dio's hand loosened his grip, and Pucci's heart beat again, soft but steady once more. He had collapsed in Dio's arms, and the two of them had sat like that for a long time, both so wrecked from the battle. Pucci doesn't remember much of that night, but they moved eventually. He thinks he remembers Dio drinking from Jotaro. He remembers Dio setting his arm, healing the bones and restoring Pucci. And he remembers kissing him, tasting blood and dust, and salt water.
They won. He lived. They thrived. The world had fallen before them, yielding to Dio in every way it could.
And here he is, a lifetime later, Dio's hand in his chest one more. It grazes over his heart, those cold fingers brushing against the surface every time it beats. Pucci just raises his hands and buries them in Dio's hair, loosely running his fingers through them. "All the more reason to treasure what I have here on earth before I depart for the Heavenly Kingdom."
He expects more temptations from Dio. But Dio is silent, and his hand remains in Pucci's chest. The pain is minimal, and the weight is comforting in a way it shouldn't be. But after years of this, it's become a familiar experience to have Dio caress his insides. No doctor could ever know the insides of someone as intimately as Dio knows what lies inside Pucci. And no one knows Dio's mind like Pucci does. His fingers rub along Dio's skull. He could easily coax his disc out, if he wished. He doesn't tonight, content to just run through golden hair and over bloodless flesh.
"Don't leave me alone, Enrico." A plea. Dio does not beg. But tonight, he seems as if he might. "Stay with me forever. Don't let me spend a single day bereft of you."
Oh, Dio. Pucci drops a hand to Dio's wrist. With care, he draws it out of him and brings it to his mouth, and he kisses each finger and knuckle, tasting his own blood and fluids on Dio's skin. Immortality is tempting. He could live with Dio - not forever, but for a long time. They could rule this world and any others. He could be young again, twenty-two or thirty, or any age he likes. Or he could be comfortably forty forever. He likes his age now, even if his body has grown a little stiffer, a little slower. It wouldn't be a terrible fate to spend night after night at Dio's side, a hundred more years ahead of him, or perhaps even a thousand.
But-
There's only one way to Heaven, and he can't enter if he never dies. He loves Dio so much, but he doesn't want this for eternity. He needs the peace of mind that Heaven brings - and try as they might, they couldn't ever bring Heaven to earth. Pucci has mourned and accepted it, but he needs more than this. His life has been happy but forever uncertain. An eternity of that uncertainty is torture, even if he has Dio to soothe the worst of it.
"I'll see you when you join me,” he promises Dio, and he draws him in to kiss him again. "When we meet in Heaven, we'll have so much more to tell each other."
"And if there's no Heaven?" It's not the first time he's asked this. Dio is a man of no faith in anything except himself - and except in Pucci.
Pucci has considered it from time to time. How couldn't he? When they failed to bring about Heaven on Earth, he had fallen into a depression for some time. He was not the first man to have a crisis of faith, nor will he be the last, but his had lingered long and weighed heavily on his mind. When he emerged after weeks of mourning, it was with a resolution. He could choose to spend his life believing there was nothing waiting for him. Or he could believe, and in believing, he knows in his heart that he'll see Perla one more time.
In believing, he can know that he'll see Dio again, no matter what happens to him.
"Then we should treasure what we have here and now." He still longs to know the future, just as he longs to see his sister once again. But until the day comes when his worries are forever put to rest, he will spend his days in the present and think no further ahead.