Chapter Text
“Three rules before you go in,” Giorno says. “Are you listening, Mista?”
“Yeah, I’m listening.”
“Rule number one. Don’t speak unless he speaks to you first. And only if it’s a question that you have to answer. Rule number two. Don’t let him know you have a Stand. It should be fine even if he finds out, but he’ll notice you less if he thinks you can’t see his Stand.”
A brief pause; Giorno smoothing his hair down in an absent gesture.
“And? The third?” Mista prompts.
Giorno grimaces. Mista has never seen him this out of sorts before. “Rule number three,” he says reluctantly, sounding the words out. “Don’t ever, under any circumstance, tell him how we met.”
>>
Mista thinks that even if he got his head bashed in he would remember how he met Giorno Giovanna.
Knife in his gut. Hot blood pouring down his lips, salty and metallic. Wrenching his head up to look at the stars and thinking, this is it.
Of course, that was all before Giorno actually came onto the scene, shining bright and golden. Mista doesn’t remember all of it, hazy and confused with the surety of his impending death, but he does remember this: screams echoing in the alley, a forest of flowers and vines sprouting from the cobblestone, and Giorno’s melodic voice in his ear as he ordered, “Hold still.”
Then: shocking, blinding pain, even worse than when the knife entered his side and twisted. It was over in an instant, but Mista will never forget that moment – the first time Giorno ever healed him, even if wasn’t the last. He’d thought it was some freaking angel that had come to deliver him to heaven or something. Not that he thinks he’ll go to heaven, but he still goes to church so that should count for something.
But the moment ended quickly because there were more people on the way to finish him off and Giorno (not that he knew his name at the time) informed him that he could not let a single one of them leave the scene alive. He couldn’t let his face be seen, he said. Claimed that everything would be ruined if that happened.
So Mista, like any self-respecting guy who’d just had his literal life saved by a mysterious golden stranger, reloaded his revolver and promised to help the stranger in his mission. Temporarily, at least. And then that temporarily got extended to an indefinitely and now it’s looking more like a forever.
Now that’s a frightening thought. Forever. Until he dies, at least, and as long as he sticks around Giorno that’s looking to be decades longer than he’d thought it would be. Forever means something concrete, something he can’t stroll away from when it gets too bothersome.
Forever means hanging out at Giorno’s cushy apartment up in Vomero more often than his own, taking naps in Giorno’s king-size bed while the man himself takes phones calls from his various contacts all day. Forever means actually staying the night and making freaking eggs for a sleepy-eyed Giorno in the morning. Forever means dressing up in a suit that doesn’t expose his midriff to meet Giorno’s psycho British dad and hopefully gaining his approval.
Giorno’s dad, whose name is apparently god and who also has a Stand that can actually stop time. Like, full on stop it, and move within that stopped time to do whatever he wants. And oh yeah, also, he’s an immortal vampire who’s been alive for well over a century.
All of this Giorno told him last week completely straight-faced, sitting across the dinner table with his penne untouched. Mista thought he was joking until Giorno told him (for the millionth time, the irony) that he doesn’t like repeating himself and that this was serious.
But, well, it’s not that hard to believe vampires exist in a world where he has six thumb-sized creatures living in his revolver that come out when he shoots. Especially not in a world where a man like Giorno can sprout flowers and frogs from glass paperweights – something he’s fond of doing when he’s calling somebody and wants to occupy his hands.
So sure. Giorno’s father is a vampire, born in the 17th century. Surprisingly, this has not lead to him being disgusted by the idea of his own son being with another man, but Giorno has assured him that his father is old-fashioned in a great deal of other ways.
Thus: the rules.
There were at least fifty when Giorno started instructing him on how the interaction should go, but they’ve managed to wheedle it down to the main three. Don’t talk. Don’t take out the Sex Pistols. And the really important one: don’t let it slip how he met Giorno while the latter was actively hunting down his own father’s operatives and healing his father’s enemies.
Not that Mista’s any real threat to the criminal empire Giorno’s father has built here in Italy. He’s just a lowly grunt, a man halfway good with a gun who gets paid every Saturday with a stack of cash pulled from the depths of Bucciarati’s white suit. He hasn’t even told Bucciarati who Giorno is – just that he’s been seeing someone and it’s getting kind of serious – which feels strange because he doesn’t really keep stuff from Bucciarati.
Sooner or later the time will come when worlds collide, but he and Giorno both agreed to knock down the largest tree first. He’s fairly sure that whatever reaction Bucciarati will have with him dating the son of their boss’s biggest rival will pale in comparison to Giorno’s father finding out that his son is dating a bum.
Not that Giorno called him that, but Mista got the gist of it from the tight line of his mouth. When he said his father was old-fashioned, he meant aristocracy, antique mansions and rubbing shoulders with kings and queens. Rich and noble bloodline and all that, which meant that Giorno’s father also wanted his son to get hitched with somebody of equal social standing.
Of which Mista is clearly not. He had a nice, respectable pa until cancer got to him, and his ma works as a hair stylist somewhere in Genoa now. He calls home a couple times a year for the holidays, and his family still thinks he spends his days mooching off of his girlfriends and not finding a proper job. He’s fine with them thinking that and he’s fine with his family in general, but they’re not what you’d call nobility.
Giorno lets him know, in the gentlest way possible, that his father will probably call him a dirty-blooded tramp. Mista takes this all in stride, because he’s a laid-back guy and his family not being particularly well-off is not an insecurity he really dwells on. What makes it more important is the fact that it’s going to be Giorno’s dad who’s going to be judging him, and if he decides that Mista is unsuited for his son he’ll probably kill Mista. Or something.
But Mista’s never been one to write off an experience before it’s even happened, and he actually does really like Giorno so he’s resolved to meet Giorno’s weird dad. That kind of thing is important, usually, and for all of Mista’s admittedly many quirks he still believes in tradition. The way they met might have been unconventional, but he likes Giorno and he’s never been in a relationship serious enough to bring up parents. He wants to do it right the first time around.
How exactly to do that he isn’t sure of, but these rules seem like a good start. If he just keeps them in mind, everything will be fine and Giorno’s father will be patting his back and calling him son by the end of the night. Never mind the fact that Giorno told him this probably wouldn’t go well and that he was going to keep seeing Mista even if his father forbade it.
Mista’s armpits are sweating. The suit is too constricting and it’s making him overheat, the stiff fabric plastered to his skin. He’s been waiting outside for ten minutes which is five more than Giorno said it would take while he went in first to assess the situation.
Assess the situation. Like his father is a shootout they’re scoping out. He might as well be, with how Giorno talks about him. Mista had hoped that Giorno was just blowing it out of proportion as most people tend to do when introducing their boyfriend/girlfriends to their parents, but then he has to amend that thought with a silent apology to Giorno when the door swings open again to reveal Giorno and his father standing side-by-side.
Both golden-haired, arms crossed over their chests. One is a fucking behemoth, towering over his son and practically the height of the door itself. Mista not a small man by any means, but Giorno’s father literally dwarfs him both in physique and height. It would have been intimidating even if he hadn’t known about the other stuff, and as it is now it just kind of makes Mista want to turn on his heel and run away.
Of course, if he did that then Giorno would kill him and his terrifying father would probably be right on his heels, so Mista stays rooted to the spot, willing a weak smile to his lips. He opens his mouth to introduce himself before he remembers the first rule (don’t speak) and shuts it again so fast his teeth click against each other.
He absolutely does not jump when Giorno’s father speaks, a deep baritone that Mista can feel in his bones.
“This is your boy?” Dio Brando says to Giorno, every word dripping with scorn. Mista does not say that he’s actually twenty-three years old and not a boy at all; everybody must seem like a child when you’re over a hundred.
“This is Guido Mista, Father,” Giorno says, frowning. He looks a whole lot like his dad when he’s displeased, Mista realizes. It’s in the brows and mouth, but Mista has a feeling Giorno wouldn’t be too happy if this fact were pointed out to him.
“Guido Mista,” Dio repeats, lingering on the ‘s’. Mista sees his abnormally sharp canines flashing when he opens his mouth and decides to never distrust Giorno ever again.
“I’ve told you about him,” Giorno says irritably. “Don’t make him stand out here pretending you aren’t aware of who he is already.”
Dio laughs, a short bark of amusement. “You’re right, Giorno. That was rude of me. Come in,” he says and then turns back into the opulent front hall without another word.
Giorno shoots Mista a look, the one he wears when he wants to communicate the depths of his annoyance without wrinkling the smooth lines of his face. Mista gives Giorno a look too, one that he hopes is conveying the endless stream of what the fuck am I supposed to do in his head properly.
Giorno only sighs and settles a hand on Mista’s back to propel his reluctant body into the hall – the entrance to the den of a monster the likes of which he has never seen before.