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It was a rumor, just a small rumor from someone who had passed along to him the info that someone who looked strikingly like Dio was somewhere in Florida. And what little trickle of information he received from his informant inside the Speedwagon foundation said that someone had shown up, asking for what they knew about Dio. They had been subsequently turned away, that information deemed too dangerous to be given. For Pucci, it was dangerous to keep a man inside that foundation, as he did not want anyone to know of his presence at all, however a man disc’d into feeding him the occasional tidbit and who would not even know he was doing so felt safe enough. And he was glad for it. He hadn’t felt such exhilaration in years.
At first he hadn’t thought too much of someone asking about Dio, it was odd, but many people had known of him, and maybe simply wanted to know more. But now this news that a tall, blond, and strikingly beautiful man was seen traveling around Florida gripped at Pucci’s heart. These two occurrences so close to each other couldn’t be a coincidence.
He had no real evidence though. The rumors that the people passed to him were hardly more than ‘he said’ and ‘she saw’ and seemed vague at best. He needed to be certain, he needed to know if he could actually allow hope for this into his heart, and had sent out a few people to comb for information. It felt almost torturous this way however, as he desperately wanted to search himself. But he knew he could wait. If he really existed, and was not somehow a figment of people’s imaginations, then fate, eventually, would draw them together.
He believed in gravity.
--
He stood, out on a crowed street late in the day in Orlando, feeling as if his heart was going to stop. He could see, in glimpses through the tourists, golden hair that was unmistakable to him. Perhaps ironically, it felt to him as if time as stopped.
Certainly it had stopped for him, maybe even was rewinding as memories suddenly showed themselves to him, memories he hadn't thought on in such a long time. Of taking that hair between his hands, and letting it fall near his face. Of watching it blow in the gently night breeze on a balcony looking out at Egyptian skies.
The man the hair belonged to in front of him now was slowly turning. He couldn’t move at all, all he could do was wait to see his face. The sun reflected off the buildings, seeming to bathe the man in light as he turned to him, and it was...
It was so close, it was so very nearly him, those lips and those eyes, and yet it wasn’t. It was so similar, so very close, and yet; it was not him. He felt a bitterness rise up in him, but at the same time he could not help the tears that had sprung to his eyes.
The man who was not Dio met his eyes, and Pucci felt from them the same sort of quiet intensity that Dio’s used to have. Pucci felt his legs weaken, and moving off quickly to the edge of the sidewalk sat himself on a bench, and watched the man approach him. He walked to the edge of the bench, and stood observing the Father who seemed to be collecting himself before looking up at him. They stared at each other for a moment before the man who wasn’t Dio broke the silence.
“Do you know me?”
“No,” Pucci paused to take him in better, noticing that he had a slight Italian accent, and that he had his hair in three large golden curls and was wearing a suit with ladybugs pinned to it. “No, I don’t know you. But I did know someone like you.”
“Then, you knew Dio?”
Pucci stared hard into his eyes, feeling as if he was seeming himself reflected back at him in them.
“Yes,” He said softly, letting the word hang between them. “Yes, I knew him well.”
The man smiled, and Pucci almost felt it odd to see such genuine warmth from a face that was so very similar to Dio’s.
“My name is Giorno, Giorno Giovanna. I am his son.”
A light felt like it went off in Pucci’s head. His son. Of course. Of course he would have had children. Of course they would look like him. So very like him.
“Please, it is a pleasure to meet you, I have been searching for anyone who knew my father.” Giorno said. Pucci could not bring himself to tear his eyes from his face, even though he knew definitely now that this was not Dio, that this was only his son, he still wanted to drink in the sight of him. It was hard enough to force himself to speak.
“Pucci, my name is Enrico Pucci, I am a Father.” Pucci said finally.
“Father Pucci,” Giorno said slowly, almost testing the words out on his lips. “I wish for you to tell me more about my father. Would you accompany me for dinner?”
Pucci nodded, and tried to stand, but found his legs still too weak to hold his weight. Giorno held out his hand, smiling again that almost angelic smile, and said to him words he had heard spoken nearly twenty years prior.
“Let’s be friends, Father Pucci”