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“These belong to you, now.”
Giorno watched as Dr. Kujo unlocked the reinforced carrying case. So, this is the man who killed my father. He found himself feeling no emotion save a vague disappointment. Sure, he was a bit imposing when he first walked through the door, a full 20 cm taller than him and built like a brick wall. But once he got closer, the illusion of strength faded - the tattered sweater, the jacket pocket full of ballpoint pens, the ragged hat covered with buttons and charms, as if he were a fourteen year old girl. Was that a papercut on his hand? The great Jotaro Kujo, allegedly the master of the world’s strongest Stand, was really more of a stodgy professor type.
The case held jewelry - a necklace, a collection of chunky bracelets and rings, all far too large for him. He was definitely a Shiobana when it came to body type; despite the birthmark and the blond hair, he had the average height and slender build of his mother’s brothers. No matter, his tastes fell more towards the subtle. From what he’d seen of his Joestar relatives - Dr. Kujo here, photos of Joseph and Jonathan - everything about them was larger than life, including their sartorial choices. And they were perfectly understated compared to the man named Dio Brando.
“There’s some books as well, they’re arriving via standard post.” When he’d turned eighteen, the Speedwagon Foundation had contacted him about some articles that had belonged to his father, items of little research interest that had been collecting dust in one of their warehouses for the past fifteen years. This was his inheritance from a father he’d never met, whose presence in his life amounted to a single photograph and the occasional uncomfortable drunken reminiscence from his mother.
“Thank you,” he said, idly rummaging through the pieces. Funny that they’d only now considered him responsible enough to take custody of them, he’d been running the entire Italian organized crime syndicate for three years now. But there was always bureaucracy to deal with, even in the mob.
“I’ll take the sample, then, and be out of your way.”
Giorno saw Mista stir out of the corner of his eye when Dr. Kujo unzipped the medical bag and pulled out the syringe; he nodded okay, this man is not a threat. The SPW was incredibly interested in his genetic structure: he was a chimera. Stable X chromosome, and two competing Y chromosomes, surging back and forth in control of his body. It was no wonder the Shiobana genes took precedence with the constant battle in his DNA between his two fathers. Every year, they sent someone to take a blood sample and every year the sequencing process produced a different result; his first year’s sample had actually changed since the first time it was analyzed.
He rolled up his sleeve, stayed stoic through the sharp pinch of the needle entering his vein. “Any physiological changes, medical issues?” Giorno shook his head. Nothing since the Hair Incident. Except-
[Guido slices salami for Sex Pistols’ lunch, yells to Giorno, “You want anything?”
“Nah, I had a sandwich earlier.”
“You sure? There’s plenty of- OW!”
“You all right?”
“Yeah, just nicked my fucking finger.”
And just before he puts a napkin to the wound to stanch the flow of blood, Giorno sees the flash of ruby on his hand, warm and inviting, filling his vision, he needs to taste it, he’s suddenly trembling inside, hungry, need...]
“No, nothing.”
“Good. Let us know about any new developments.” Dr. Kujo withdrew the needle, transferred the blood sample to a small vial, held it up to the light and squinted, as if he could see any microscopic impurities. And then, suddenly, Star Platinum was there, studying alongside him. Shit. Mista’s gasp could be heard from across the room; Dr. Kujo might be less impressive in person than his reputation would imply, but his Stand was fucking terrifying. The raw power, the strength, the menace, and here he was, using it as a glorified microscope. Giorno had to admit to himself that he was impressed.
“All right.” The gigantic Stand faded back out of existence as Dr. Kujo packed up his things. “I’m finished here, where’s Polnareff?” Right, he was the one Polnareff described as his “best friend”, as unlikely as that seemed. But it was almost certainly a friendship by default, a camaraderie built by shared experiences that no one else could possibly understand. Like Giorno and Guido, two survivors of an uncanny massacre three years ago, a young mob boss and his trusted bodyguard/confidant/right hand man. His closest companion, familiar and dependable and delicious…
No.
“Back down the hall, closest room to the staircase.” Dr. Kujo nodded and made his way to the door. And stopped there, hand on the knob.
“You’re a lot less like him than I thought you’d be.” No need to explain who “him” was. He’d been thinking about Dio quite a bit lately.
“What was my father like?”
He’d joined Polnareff in the turtle that evening, long after Dr. Kujo had left. When he was in that strange interior room, he was more relaxed, casual, an older brother instead of an adviser. Which was what Giorno wanted right now, this wasn’t business. This was a question he wanted answered by a man who’d been there. Who actually understood.
“I knew him for maybe an hour, tops, when he didn’t have a mind control tentacle stuck in my head, and half that time, he was trying to kill me.” Polnareff shrugged. “He was an asshole.”
“I know that.” It was the common thread through the transcripts of the oral histories he’d gotten from the Speedwagon foundation. Vicious. Evil. Unusually cruel. One Erina Pendleton Joestar called him the “worst man who had ever walked the earth”; the founder, Mr. Speedwagon himself, said that his malevolence radiated outwards from him, you could almost smell it. Giorno was trying to find something more, another dimension to the shadowy figure who’d given him life. Or rather, he didn’t particularly need a better picture of Dio; he’d never had much use for fathers as a concept. He needed some answers about himself.
“Hm. I don’t know what else to tell you, then.” Polnareff stretched out on the couch, hands clasped behind his head. He’d been in an unusually good mood since the visit; maybe Dr. Kujo could be convinced to come by more often, now that he’d actually met Giorno. No threats here. We’re all family.
“Then, what do you know about vampires.” The question half-stuck in his throat, as if he was asking something enormously taboo. But it couldn’t be unsaid, he had made it that much more real, unavoidable.
“Not much there, either; I specialized more in arrows than the mask.” What was- ah, right, there was a stone mask that started this whole thing, that made it possible for Giorno to have a great-grandnephew of sorts who was older than him. “Besides, there haven’t been a lot of vampires to study, anyway, pretty much just Dio in the past fifty years. And, uh.”
“What?”
“You probably don’t want to hear this, because you’re gonna figure out who said it pretty easily.” Giorno narrowed it down immediately; there were, after all, few known living people who’d met the man, and even fewer that he himself knew.
“I don’t care about my mother.” He felt almost as disconnected from her as from the man in question.
“Right, so, apparently being bitten? Feels really good. Really good.” Oh. “People get off on it, apparently. Sorry,” he added, noticing the grimace on Giorno’s face. He may not have particularly cared about what his mother was up to, but he still didn’t want to think about the messy details of the act that had created him. And besides, if he bit Guido, which he was absolutely not going to do (even though he couldn’t stop thinking about that ruby bead of blood, how his best friend might taste, the need), would it being a turn-on be better or worse than it just being feeding? Giorno had never thought about him in that way. He definitely hadn’t even thought of him as a snack.
“Jojo says it’s an adaptation that keeps prey close by and agreeable,” continued Polnareff, “but he also says that he’s not an evolutionary biologist that I shouldn’t take his theories too seriously. I mostly just zone out when he starts talking science, anyway, it’s way over my head. Like, this one time, in Switzerland-”
Polnareff launched into a rambling story involving him and Jotaro and a zookeeper in Basel, which Giorno only half listened to. For the first time, he wished he had a father to give him The Talk. Not about sex, which he’d largely figured out on his own, but about the other, more obscure urge. Was vampirism hereditary, or was he just going a little crazy? How do you deal with the hunger? How do you cope during the day when you’re kept awake every night with the urgent realization that you want to pin your best friend down and bite, drink, devour..
“I apologize,” he said abruptly, standing from his chair and squinting towards the turtle’s exit. “I should get to bed, we have a busy day tomorrow.” “Tomorrow” was a neutral-ground meeting in a border town hotel with Kartoffel, the head of the Austrian organized crime syndicate, to discuss territory and the transnational drug trade.
“Hmph.” Polnareff sat up, slipping into his role as mob boss’s aide. “Be careful. I still think it’s a trap.”
“Oh, it’s almost definitely a trap.” No one would be stupid enough to believe that Giorno would make any sort of compromise when it came to drugs, and he was annoyed that Kartoffel apparently found him stupid enough not to be immediately suspicious of the whole thing. “Don’t worry, Mista will be with me.”
He could handle this. Guido’s hand wasn’t even bandaged any more, there was just a little spot of new pink skin where the wound had been. He was sitting there in the passenger seat as he always did on these trips, gazing lazily out the window, occasionally changing the radio station. They were friends and coworkers and definitely not predator and prey; Giorno had just been letting his imagination run away with him. For instance, the idea of Guido smelling especially good today was just that: an idea, offered by Giorno’s mind as a reasonable explanation for why his mouth was watering. He smelled like sweat and cologne, as he always did.
And besides, he was out in the sunlight with no ill effects, he was eating regular food. The idea of him having inherited some form of vampirism was foolish. Guido was his friend, nothing more, and it was because of and not despite that fact that if Giorno were to feed on a person, he’d want him to be his first. No. Not happening. Focus on driving. Don’t look at the slight throb of Guido’s pulse on the side of his neck.
“Damn!” Mista shouted. Giorno squeezed the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “You see that woman in the green dress?”
“No,” Giorno mumbled. “Wasn’t paying attention.” His vision had narrowed, almost dizzyingly so. Drive. Eyes on the road.
“Legs for days!”
He spent maybe too much time at the mirror in their hotel room, but there was a certain benefit to looking Right on this sort of occasion. Suit unwrinkled, lines clean, not a hair out of place. His first impression should be one of perfection, of immovability. And, more importantly, he should distract attention from Guido, who’d be nearby casing the room, ready to shoot if necessary. There, probably as perfect as he was going to be. Time to go to work.
They descended the grand staircase into the lobby, Guido a respectful three steps behind, towards a pasty and slightly disheveled man who couldn’t possibly stand out more amongst the luxurious decor. Definitely their man. Giorno raised his arms in greeting and addressed the man in English, the international language of both colleagues and criminals. “Herr Kartoffel, is it? How nice to finally meet you. I trust your drive was all right?”
“Yeah, no problems,” said the man, scratching the side of his neck. He’s nervous, Giorno thought. Guido, be ready. Fortunately, he didn’t need to betray himself by even glancing at his companion; Guido Mista was a professional and wouldn’t let him down. His job right now was to appear oblivious, to keep all eyes on him.
“Excellent, so glad to hear it.” What kind of fool did they take him for? He might be young, but he’d seen through ruses more elaborate than this. “Have you had lunch yet? There’s an excellent trattoria just-”
“Down,” Guido hissed, and he ducked out of the way just in time as a bullet whizzed past where his head had just been. Guido stepped between him and a spot on the second floor balcony, fired without even having to aim - Sex Pistols always hit its target. There was a scream and another shot, and Giorno took advantage of the confusion to hook his arm around Kartoffel’s legs and yank, bringing him to the floor with a heavy thud. From there, it was an easy step to bring the rose pattern on the carpet to life, securing the man with a writhing network of vines and thorns.
Giorno stood and dusted off his lapels. Resting a boot on Kartoffel’s thick neck, bringing his struggling to a frightened halt, he surveyed the scene. Sniper slumped against the balcony railing, solitary receptionist in shock, no other person in sight. A clean incident. Pity they had to drive so far for something so ultimately trivial.
“Useless,” he muttered at the adversary under his foot. “I wouldn’t have believed that the head of the Austrian crime family was this useless.” Guido moved back behind him, leveled his pistol at Kartoffel’s head.
“I’m not Kartoffel!” the man spat in desperation. “He sent me here, I’m just following orders, please don’t kill me.”
Giorno laughed. “Oh, that is good news! I thought the entire country was pathetic, but it’s just you and your friend on the balcony, isn’t it? Well, of course I’ll let you live.” He savored the moment of nervous laughter, the scrap of hope the man was scrabbling at. “After all, someone has to go crawling back and tell Kartoffel not to pull that kind of shit again. Mista,” he turned with a smile, “I’d really like him to crawl.”
Two shots, one in each leg. Giorno tuned out the screaming as he approached the reception desk, said, “Sorry for the trouble,” a little louder than usual to the poor man cowering behind it and handed him a large amount of cash. It was amazing how money made everything acceptable - the corpse of the sniper would just “disappear” somewhere and Kartoffel would be cut out of the carpet and sent on his way, no suspicions aroused. A decent job, overall. He wasn’t much feeling like getting back in the car quite yet, though, maybe there was something good on tv back in the room.
Halfway down the hall on their way back, he heard an audible wince from Guido, who had kept his three-paces distance even though they were done with work for the day. He turned, and felt instantly dizzy. Red. Guido’s hand on his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers, staining his shirt. Wet. Warm. Red. So much of it.
“Sniper got me with that second shot,” he said, with a weak grin of apology.
“Shit.” He doubled back to Guido, braced him with an arm around his waist, tried not to look at the blood even though he could smell it, just got to get back to the room and he could fix him like nothing ever happened, don’t look-
“Geez, don’t worry, I’ll be fine,” said Guido, mistaking Giorno’s anxiety for concern. “Just Gold Experience a sock into me or something.” They stumbled through the door of their room; Guido tossed his gun on the table, fell heavily against a chair and gingerly peeled off his shirt. There was a nasty chunk taken out of his right shoulder, thankfully bullet-free but bleeding heavily. So much blood. Giorno’s hand shook as he pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket, he could do this.
“Hold still.” He stood in front of Guido, ready to patch him up like he’d done countless times before, transmute the square of cloth in his hand into living flesh, and- he couldn’t stop himself. With one palm braced against Guido’s good shoulder, he leaned forward and touched his lips to the wound.
Bliss. Everything in him was saying YES and urging him to move forward, he opened his mouth just enough to allow the tip of his tongue to taste and YES he wanted more, mouth open wider YES tasting more and he needed to drink, he needed to bite but where were his fangs, but it didn’t matter because the vein was open anyway. He pressed his lips harder against Guido’s warm skin, trying to create a tight seal, he needed to get a good suction going, and-
Shit. What the hell was he doing?
“Sorry,” he gasped, pulling back, hand clapped over his mouth. His breath came in quick ragged pants, he shouldn’t have stopped, he needed this-
“GioGio?” said Guido, staring up at him, eyes wide with surprise.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, at a loss for words. Absentmindedly, he licked the corner of his mouth, there was a small bit of blood there and oh god it tasted incredible. He needed more of it, needed to climb on top of Guido and drink himself full YES MORE FEED YES No. This was Guido Mista, his best friend. They played pool together every Thursday. They both liked watching action movies, two thirds of the way back in the theater, where the sound was best and the screen filled their vision. Guido was the only one who had ever heard him sing along with the radio.
Guido closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was trembling slightly, what had Giorno done? He’d have to promote someone else to second in command, he’d- And then Guido spoke, perplexed and shaky, “That felt really good.”
Oh no. He liked it. Now there wasn’t any reason to stop. “Do you want me to,” he started, words quickly tumbling out his mouth and fuck it, he couldn’t hold back any more, he lunged forward and started to feed.
So good, so satisfying. So warm and perfect. Salt and metal and life, flowing into him. God, yes, this was everything he needed. Yes. The obscene wet rhythmic smack of his drinking was nearly obliterated by the sound coming out of Guido: a loud, keening moan, full of pain and confusion and arousal. More. He pulled Guido closer, gathered him in both arms, half-climbed onto the chair. The body beneath him went obediently limp and pliant. His. Feed.
Each swallow was better than the last. How could he have been worried about this? He’d never felt better in his life, hell, they were both enjoying it. Even if his body wasn’t quite right for the task - no fangs, and he needed tentacles to deliver the blood directly to his own veins, to poke around inside Guido’s mind if he started to struggle - it was still wonderful. Delicious. But. He was going to drain him if he kept going. He didn’t want to lose his chance to do this again.
Reluctantly, he pulled back. He had straddled Guido at some point, poor Guido who slumped there beneath him, eyes half-lidded and breath irregular. The wound was still there, tantalizing him, but it had stopped bleeding as much, and now that Giorno had stopped feeding, he realized that he was sated almost to the point of being overfull; this was an appetite he hadn’t the faintest idea how to control. A sigh like a purr escaped his lips, a soft “wrrryyyyyyyy” of contentment. He could be more comfortable, though, he was sitting on Guido’s gun. Giorno didn’t know why he insisted on shoving it down the front of his pants like-
Oh. His gun was on the table. This was definitely not his gun. “People get off on it” flashed through Giorno’s head as Guido groaned and shifted, raised his face to Giorno’s and kissed him. Not bad. Pretty nice, actually, and the human side of him was starting to respond, arousal kindling in his stomach and at the base of his spine. His need for blood had been fulfilled, but another need, one just as primal, was beginning to grow.
“God,” Guido whispered, breaking out of the kiss. He stared up at Giorno in awe, a smear of his own blood across his lips, and then unsteadily stood, arms wrapped around Giorno’s ass, and stumbled both of them over to the bed. His face was pale, he was dazed by lust and loss of blood, but he was almost as driven by his desire as Giorno had just been. But he shouldn’t be on top. Prey doesn’t get to be on top. Giorno panicked internally as he easily flipped Guido over, he felt impossibly strong, no- powerful. Not prey, Guido. Don’t bite him. Don’t bite. He leaned down to kiss him on the neck instead, reached between them to unbutton Guido’s pants, sat up and removed his own shirt.
“Damn,” said Guido, impatiently rocking his hips up. Giorno cupped his cheek in one hand and he nuzzled against it, eager, ready for whatever Giorno would give him. “How- where did all this come from?” It was sudden, in all the years they’d known each other, there hadn’t been so much as a spark between them.
Giorno looked down at the tasty conquest. “I think I take after my father.”