Chapter Text
The move to Italy had been a hard decision. Moving to a country where neither of them spoke the language, being so far away from Jonathan’s family, and the difficulties of relocating a toddler had all made it hard to convince Jonathan to agree to it.
“Jonathan, they’re offering me a six figure salary, stock options, and they’re offering to cover my costs to relocate. Turning down an opportunity like this would be madness.” Dio pleaded as Jonathan was cooking dinner.
“You’ve told me these things, but it seems a bit suspicious to me.” His husband sighed. “If it’s too good to be true, it most likely is.”
While the other man made a great point, Dio wasn’t ready to give up. He hardly ever was. “Jojo, even with that in mind, I don’t think staying here in Britain is a good idea.”
Jonathan frowned. “What do you mean?”
Dio snorted. “Are you blind? Have you been paying attention to any of the news? This country is becoming hostile towards trans people.” It was certainly below the belt to use Jonathan’s vulnerable status as an argumentative tool, but he really didn’t want to back down. This job, the money, the chance to gain more power…it was far too appealing.
Jonathan sighed and let his head fall back. “It’s not that bad yet. Things could change for the better.”
“Your faith in humanity is going to be the death of you, you know that?” Dio kissed the man’s cheek.
“And your greed will be the death of you.” His husband grumbled as he stirred the stew he’d been working on. “It’s not like they can do much to me. I’ve had top surgery, I get testosterone through private insurance rather than the NHS. I’ve been on testosterone for over ten years now and I have enough muscle mass that even if it was legally taken from me, going off of hormones wouldn’t have much of an effect on my body.”
Dio wrapped his arms around Jonathan. “They could do far worse than that.” While it had been an argumentative tool, this was a genuine concern Dio felt. He really didn’t like having to protect his trans husband on what was quickly becoming terf island. “We have the opportunity to go somewhere safer, and we could even get a house there.”
“You’re the one who demanded we live in London because of your work.”
“Precisely, and now work can allow us to have more space than this shoebox of an apartment. It’s in Naples, a house there would be far more affordable.”
“Giorno shouldn’t be moved so drastically, my father and Erina are going to be upset that they won’t be able to see him as often.”
Giorno, who’d been playing with some stuffed animals on the floor, held up a ladybug stuffed animal. “Ladybug? Gift ladybug.” Giorno, despite being three years old, didn’t have much of a vocabulary. He pretty much was stuck on basic requests and giving random objects as gifts, so this was his way of acknowledging his name being spoken.
Dio took the Ladybug, then ruffled Giorno’s curly blonde hair. “Yes Giorno, thank you. With the money I’ll be making, we can easily fly the man to Naples whenever he wants. And if anything, moving the boy now would be better than waiting until later. This way he’ll have time to learn Italian.”
Jonathan sighed and finally looked over at him. “You really planned all this out, haven’t you?”
Dio grinned. “Yes, and as a result the plan is foolproof! There isn’t a reason for me not to take the job!”
Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “You took the job already, didn’t you?”
Dio nodded. “I did. I couldn’t allow destiny to slip through my fingers!”
His husband didn’t seem to receive that explanation well. He scowled at Dio. “Why do you always do this? You make these big decisions without bothering to ask me first.”
“Jojo…an opportunity like this is rare, I can’t let it pass me by.”
“Why do you concern yourself with opportunities? Aren’t you happy as we are now? You married your childhood friend, you have a great job, you have a son. Why do you always need more?” Jonathan grit his teeth.
Dio shook his head. “This is enough for you? This tiny apartment?” He took Jonathan’s face in his hands. “You don’t think Giorno wants to be able to play outside without having to walk to some park? Think about how happy he’ll be having a backyard to find bugs in.”
Jonathan closed his eyes, leaning into his husband’s touch. “I don’t doubt that, although you and I both know he’ll try to bring those bugs and whatever other creatures he finds into the house.”
“Even so, being in Italy would also be a good opportunity for you as well once you begin working again. Italy is one of the cradles of civilization! Think of Rome! Pompeii! Whatever other ancient things are there!”
Jonathan sighed. “I can’t believe I’m letting you get away with this…” He pulled Dio into a hug, leaning his forehead on his husband’s shoulder.
Dio kissed Jonathan’s head. “Because you love me. And you know I’m right.”
“I don’t, but I do love you.” Jonathan mumbled into his neck.
Dio felt Giorno wrapping his tiny arms around his two fathers’ legs and looked down at the boy, smiling. When Jonathan had suggested they have a baby, he had ended up having a shouting match with him that had woken up the neighbors. He had lashed out, told Jonathan he was crazy for being a man who wanted to carry a child. Told him it would be “abhorrent.” Jonathan had left their apartment and spent a few days with Erina, and Dio had felt terrified that his husband was going to cheat on him with her. Jonathan would never even dream of doing something like that, but Dio still felt afraid.
He had realized that he wasn’t angry out of transphobia. He was angry out of fear. Fear at the prospect of being a father. Despite being a successful lawyer living in an expensive London apartment and happily married to the man he’d loved since he was a teenager bouncing around the foster care system, he still felt afraid of ending up like his bastard father.
Now, he regretted ever thinking that his son was abhorrent. He had a naturally kind and loving soul, just like Jonathan. He had Dio’s hair and face shape, and Jonathan’s eyes and nose. He was the most adorable thing on earth and Dio would have murdered a thousand people to keep his child safe and happy.
He bent down, picking the boy up. “Didn’t like being left out?”
“Hm-mm.” Giorno replied, leaning on Dio’s shoulder.
Jonathan pulled away. “Let me finish up with dinner and we can start packing.”
---
Dio found himself regretting one thing about moving all the way to southern Italy: he and Jonathan didn’t have any friends to help them move into their new house. It was a lovely little home on the outskirts of the city in a quiet neighborhood.
Giorno was currently helping by carrying in his stuffed animals one by one. Very diligent. He and Jonathan carried a lot of things together, but Jonathan was able to carry a lot of the bigger stuff himself. Bodybuilding to combat gender dysphoria paid off, it seemed. At least Dio could enjoy the show of watching his husband flex his big muscles and get all sweaty.
Dio finally collapsed on their couch when it was set in the living room haphazardly. “How much more do we have to move?”
Jonathan chuckled. “Just a few more boxes.”
Giorno returned from where he’d been stashing his stuffed animals in his mostly empty bedroom, then stood in front of Jonathan. He put his arms up, making grabbing motions with his hands. “Papa! Up!”
Jonathan huffed out a breath. “Okay, if you insist…” He picked the boy up, fast enough to gain momentum to toss Giorno into the air. He grinned as his son screamed with laughter, squirming in his grasp. Giorno absolutely loved doing this, Jonathan had once managed to continue doing it for a full fifteen minutes before Giorno became too dizzy.
However, this time Jonathan could only do it twice before running out of steam. “Okay, go to Dad.” He gently pushed the toddler towards Dio.
Giorno obeyed, although he wobbled a bit as he walked due to being a bit dizzy. He giggled to himself the entire time, only stopping when he crawled into Dio’s lap. “If you think I’m doing uppies, you are mistaken.” Dio booped Giorno’s nose.
Giorno grinned and hugged him instead of asking for uppies, and Dio’s heart melted. He rubbed the boy’s back. As much as he wanted to stay like this forever, Jonathan had been doing most of the heavy lifting. He was incredibly tempted to leave the remaining boxes to him, and he knew Jonathan would have no protests or resentment if he did. But he knew how easy it was for people to take advantage of Jonathan’s kindness, and it infuriated him when Jonathan just let it happen, so he tended to avoid doing it. “I can get the rest if you don’t mind ordering some pizza.” He stood up, still holding Giorno.
Jonathan nodded, out of breath. “Sounds good.”
Dio left the house, heading back to the moving truck. When he got to the truck, he put his son down and stepped inside to grab a box. It seemed relatively easy enough, it was a few boxes of odds and ends that wouldn’t be heavy.
Physical strain was not going to be his problem.
He had figured Giorno would be fine if he went into the truck. The boy wasn’t one to wander off, and he wouldn’t take very long to grab a box and come back. He was incorrect in this assumption.
When he came out of the truck, Giorno had disappeared. Immediately he felt adrenaline pulse through his system. Where had the little shit gone? He couldn’t have gotten far, he was tiny. Dio’s eyes roamed around the street.
He managed to hear his son before seeing him. “I’m over there.”
“You moved in?” Another child’s voice replied. “Daddy, can he sleep over?”
“No.” An adult’s voice replied. “Where did you even come from?”
Dio ran over to his neighbor’s car, where a man and what appeared to be his daughter were unloading groceries. “Giorno! Don’t scare me like that!” He picked his son up. He smiled at his new neighbor. “Sorry, I was in the moving truck for two seconds and he managed to wander off.”
The pink-haired man sneered. “You shouldn’t leave your kid unattended like that.” He took his grocery bags from his car trunk. “C’mon Trish, let’s go inside.”
“Nooo!” Trish stomped her tiny foot. “I wanna play with him! Pleeeeaasse?”
The man scowled down at her. Both parties seemed to have a silent battle of wills before the man sighed. “Fine.” He glared at Dio. “I’m Diavolo, this is Trish. If you want, your kid can come over and stay for dinner.”
He didn’t like how this man was judging him for accidentally letting Giorno wander off. He prided himself on being a good father. Not to mention this man looked like some asshole who never grew out of being a teenage punk. “Dio, and that really isn’t necessary. My husband and I are almost done unloading the truck.”
“Yeah, but you’ll need time to unpack the essentials. I wouldn’t turn down a chance to focus on that if I were you. Doesn’t seem like you have enough attention span to do that and watch the kid at the same time anyway.”
Dio felt the overwhelming urge to smash this man’s head against his own hatchback. “Giorno is usually very reserved and doesn’t wander off like this, so it wouldn’t be a problem. It seemed your daughter lured him over here.”
“I didn’t do that! He came over here!” Trish insisted.
Dio was about to berate a little girl before he felt a tug on his shirt. “Dad, I wanna play.” He looked at his son and those big blue puppy eyes doomed him. He had not only inherited Jonathan’s eyes, but his puppy eyes and their sway over Dio’s will as well.
Dio sighed. “Alright, fine.” He put his son down. “Have him back by seven.”
“Yayyy!” Trish clapped her hands, then went to Giorno and grabbed his. “I’m gonna show you my dolls!” She pulled the boy along as she marched back to her house.
As she went into the house, another man came out. Somehow, he managed to look even more of a punk than this Diavolo fellow. Silver hair, weird contact lenses. A black beanie paired with what looked like some metal band t-shirt and black and white striped skinny jeans. A face full of piercings. “Where’d the new kid come from?” He asked as he approached Diavolo.
“Neighbors,” The pink-haired man replied gruffly.
“Dio Brando.” Dio held out his hand to shake.
The emo man did not take his hand. “Risotto.”
“And you are…?”
“His boyfriend.” Risotto motioned to Diavolo. “Is that a problem?”
It seemed the man was misinterpreting Dio’s disapproval as homophobia. That was very much not the case. “No, not at all.” He smiled tightly. “I hope you don’t mind my Giorno having a playdate with…Diavolo’s daughter.”
Risotto shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to it since she moved in after Diavolo’s ex passed.” He headed back into Diavolo’s home without any further explanation. So Diavolo being an involved parent was new? Oh god, Dio shouldn’t have said yes to this.
Diavolo handed Risotto one of the grocery bags, then closed the trunk of his car. “He’ll be back by seven. Next time, maybe keep the kid in the house when you’re emptying the truck.” He walked towards his own house, leaving Dio to debate whether or not he wanted to risk legal recourse by tackling the man and wringing his stupid neck.
He stalked back into his own home, mumbling to himself the entire time. “What an insufferable punk! Useless, useless, useless…”
Jonathan had begun unpacking the dishes when Dio found him in their kitchen. Jonathan’s eyes widened. “Where’s Giorno?”
“He made a friend with the neighbor. It seems like they have a little girl who’s around his age.”
Jonathan smiled. “Oh, that’s excellent! Giorno really needs to start socializing more.”
Dio sneered. “Yes, excellent…”
Jonathan looked over at him from the cabinets. “You don’t seem to think it’s excellent.”
“That’s because the girl’s father is a massive fucking prick!” Dio hissed as he came over to help Jonathan unpack.
Jonathan pushed the box of dishes away from him. “How so?”
“He’s this arrogant punk who tried to tell me off about letting Giorno wander off when I was in the moving truck!”
“Well…he had a point. You should have left Giorno with me.”
“NO I SHOULDN’T HAVE JOJO!” Dio slammed his fist on the counter.
Jonathan held out his hands, as if trying to tame a wild animal. “Okay! Okay. Let’s just relax. I can tell that you’re upset.”
“I’m angry that some punk with long pink hair and some emo boy toy had the gall to look down on me .” Dio growled.
“Oh, the neighbor is LGBTQ as well? That’s lovely.” Jonathan smiled. “I was afraid we were going to have trouble fitting in.”
“ No Jojo! This isn’t a friend! This is an enemy !” Dio grabbed Jonathan’s shoulders and shook him a bit.
Jonathan blinked. “How so?”
“He’s-He’s…” Dio floundered. It should have been obvious to Jonathan that this man was not a friend. “He’s a degenerate punk!”
Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “You know, twenty years ago, we would have been considered degenerates by most people. I still am. I don’t really like this ‘one of the good ones’ mentality you’re developing.”
Dio loved Jonathan to death, but when the man used morals against him he wanted to throw his husband out the goddamn window. “Even so, apparently he only recently got this little girl after his ex passed away!”
“Aw, that’s sad. Poor little thing, losing her parent like that. I hope that our neighbor wasn’t a total stranger to her.”
Dio could only make a frustrated screech as he gripped Jonathan’s shoulders.
Jonathan smiled and took Dio’s hands off his shoulders. “Dio, I think you might be blowing this out of proportion a bit. It’s wonderful that Giorno just arrived here and he’s already having his first playdate.”
Dio huffed and pulled his hands away from his husband, going over to one of the boxes stacked up full of kitchen supplies and opening it. “I can’t believe you’re just trusting them like this!”
“I’m not going to change your mind on this man, am I?” Jonathan mumbled, sighing. “The pizza will be here in around twenty minutes, by the way.”
---
Diavolo nearly bumped into the neighbor kid while he was making dinner.
The kid had opened one of the cabinet doors, grinning wide.
Diavolo held his bowl of washed vegetables in his hands and stared down at the kid. “What are you doing?”
“Hiding!” He replied, giggling.
“No, you can’t hide in there, it’s not safe.” Diavolo closed the cabinet door. “Go find somewhere else.”
The boy whined and tried to open the cabinet again, but Diavolo held it shut. Diavolo braced for impact of a possible temper tantrum, Trish usually began kicking and screaming at this point. But it didn’t come. Instead, Giorno began looking around, pouting. He went to the fridge and pointed at it. “Hide here?”
Diavolo shook his head. “Not safe there either. No hiding in the kitchen.”
Giorno groaned and left. “Wow, I didn't expect the kid to take that so well...” He mumbled to himself once the toddler was gone.
“It’s ‘cause he isn’t a spoiled princess like yours is.” Risotto replied.
“If the kid’s got any of that asshole’s genes in him, I sincerely doubt that.” Diavolo mumbled as he went to the cutting board to begin chopping up the vegetables. He decided to let the spoiled comment slide. For now. Despite only knowing Trish for a year or so and having zero experience raising children, he already was extremely protective of her.
He didn’t really consider that that might be why she was quickly becoming a spoiled princess, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that if anyone hurt her, he easily could make them disappear as one of the biggest mafia bosses in southern Italy.
Risotto snorted. “You really don’t like that guy, huh?”
Diavolo growled. “Son of a bitch thinks he’s such hot shit when he couldn’t even keep his kid from wandering into the goddamn street. Why’d you mention Trish only recently started living with me? Did you see the way he looked when you said that?”
“Not really, no.”
Diavolo grit his teeth as he began to chop vegetables at a punishing pace. “Civilian motherfucker thinking he’s so much better than me. He’s married to a guy, did you hear that?”
“I didn’t.” Risotto’s tone was one of utter apathy.
“Yeah, he thinks he’s so great and has it all together.”
“You want me to get rid of him?”
Diavolo sighed. “As tempting as that sounds, a hit so close to my location would be far too conspicuous. Not to mention it seems like Trish has become friends with their spawn, so she’d probably be upset with me if we did.”
Risotto shrugged. “Fair enough, I thought I’d offer. I haven’t had much action lately, I thought it would be fun to try and make it look like an accident.”
That had been Diavolo’s fault. He hadn’t really been letting Risotto get any jobs because he enjoyed having the man around. The hitman still got paid, but he didn’t really do anything. But he wasn’t going to admit that to him. The two weren’t really great at admitting feelings, period. Their entire relationship had started off as a series of booty calls and evolved into…whatever it was they had going on now.
“Thanks.” Diavolo mumbled.
Trish came wandering into the kitchen. “Did Giorno come in here?”
“Yep,” Diavolo replied.
“Where’d he go?”
“The living room.”
Trish nodded and headed off in the direction of the living room.
“You’re just letting her cheat like that?” Risotto said, smiling a bit.
Diavolo shrugged. “She’s not cheating, she’s being resourceful. I didn’t tell her exactly where the little brat was hidden, anyway. You picked up my suit from the dry cleaners today, right?”
Risotto nodded, chuckling quietly to himself. “It’s in the closet.”
“Good. I hate wearing that stupid thing, but I need it for tomorrow when I meet with this new lawyer.”