Chapter Text
A baby’s cry.
That’s what caught his attention. He stepped over the woman’s mangled body on the floor with a wide stride to seek out the location of the wailing infant. An excessively large man stepped under the arch of the small kitchenette, leaving behind bloody footsteps on the carpet as he strode to the next room. Evidently, the small apartment was not as empty as he had initially assumed. Boredom had struck him earlier that night, but then he recalled a loose end he had neglected to tie months prior. The loose end was a stray, tying it involved her disposal. Obviously.
As the man stood in the doorway of what could only be assumed to be a bedroom, what with the lack of any source of light, he had located the tiny interruption. He slowly approached it without difficulty despite the darkness and clutter below his feet, he was well accustomed to darkness by now. It was a crib, but the wails were coming from whatever was squirming beneath a sheet that had clearly been thrown haphazardly over the crib. In peeling the sheet upwards, the man lay eyes on the culprit. A tiny, red-faced infant that looked like it was going to burst if it didn’t calm down. He watched the creature wiggle helplessly for a minute (still screaming). He had never had an issue with collateral damage before; however, the fact that this was a baby did unsettle him a small bit, but it couldn’t be helped and this thing wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He raised his already blood-stained hand slowly, sharpened, and with only a minuscule stutter of hesitation began to plunge it at the infant. Then, the baby opened its eyes, tear-stained, but wide. The man suddenly stopped. A breath caught in his throat, hand hovering right above disaster.
He knew those eyes. God, he wished he could forget them.
The man was about to retract his monstrous hand; but before he could do anything, a tiny hand reached out, wrapping its even tinier fingers around the adult's digit. And for a moment it felt as though time really stood still. Staring intensely at the infant, his face was unreadable. And the infant stared right back – those large, blue eyes were an unnerving sight after all this time. There was certainly something there within the man, something incredibly stupefied. The baby stared back in between hard blinks, not quite crying but its small quick gasps hitched in its throat and its tiny hands did not let go of his finger. The large man’s hand twitched.
He could not break away, he couldn’t move. The young, teary eyes that were locked on his own were flooding his mind with old memories he had long ago disowned. Unsought and undesired memories.
“Jonathan.” Dio exhaled.
15 years later.
Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Naples
The crisp sound of a page turning echoed softly through the nave. The slender legs of a young boy stuck, bent at the knees, out the back of a pew. He was sitting the wrong way around; his head lay resting on the wooden beam at the back of the pew - his cheek smushed and his arms rather awkwardly splayed around the beam (and his own head) so as he could see the book he was holding. To say he was reading it would be a generous statement. He sat, twisted, with his eyes glazed over as they skimmed past words without putting any semblance of meaning to them. He was deeply plunged in thought which had nothing to do with the book he was holding whatsoever. He could just hear the birds begin to sound from the outside, so faintly that they almost weren’t even there. When his breath stopped creating faint clouds from his nostrils at every exhale, he knew it was almost time. The cathedral was terribly cold at night this time of year. He sat there for a few moments more before he could hear distant echo of familiar footsteps which came from way beyond the alter behind him, the small inconspicuous door hidden among arches in the ambulatory lay open; the boy assumed anyways since he could hear the footsteps beyond moving down a stairway long before they reached the door to the body of the cathedral. The boy rested the book down on the pew beside him and stretched his arms upward, half-heartedly stifling a yawn. He didn’t turn as he heard the footsteps approach from the other side of the small doorframe. They halted purposely before they reached the opening. This he could tell from the sound of shoes on old wood and not yet on tile. He sighed.
The voice of the footsteps bellowed out from the tiny door past the alter.
“Giorno,” It said tersely, “come.”
The boy untangled his legs from the back of the pew and swung around to face the alter. He rose to his feet.
“Yes, Father.”
The break of dawn had always meant lights out, ironically. Giorno had never know it any other way. He was allowed to roam the interior of the cathedral during the dark, ungodly hours of the morning, for some measly bit of stimulation. His father always disappeared during roaming hours, but without fail, would return before sunrise with time to spare. Giorno fondly recalls a time when he lacked an awareness of his scarce company. He used to skip without rhythm through the many chapels, greeting his friends (paintings) and family (sculptures) when he was younger, but now he was far too big and far too mature to still believe these inanimate objects had thoughts and feelings too. Well at least that’s what he tells himself. But he cannot ignore the sharp stab of guilt he feels whenever he passes by them these days and doesn’t so much as give a nod of acknowledgment in their direction. He hopes they don’t feel betrayed. That is,if they can feel.
Giorno trudges up the small creaky steps that lay beyond the door from the ambulatory. His father trails behind him, crouching down uncomfortably, delayed from locking the small door and taking the key. The dark and narrow stairway was comforting. The distant sound of an off-duty priest pushing open the grand entrance was familiar.
The musty attic Giorno shuffled into was his home and the cathedral, his entire world.
As Giorno made his way over to a small bed, his father closed the creaky door behind him. The sound of a key turning in the door signalling the end of roaming hours – Giorno was forbidden from venturing down to the body of the cathedral during the day. His father had made it very clear that it was no place for him if not empty and shrouded in darkness. The large man was no longer crouching as despite this place being a slightly cramped and less than ideal church attic, the ceiling rose incredibly high, wooden beams stood splayed across the length of the ceiling as it all came to reach a high arch. His father lengthened himself to his full stature and Giorno could hear a few dull cracks as the man stretched his arms high and twisted his neck to each side to relieve some aches, the tips of his fingers could probably reach the first wooden beam on the ceiling if he tried, Giorno thought, a feat he himself could never achieve with all his mighty efforts.
Giorno threw himself down onto his bed and he yawned again, this time letting it loose, his father strode over and pulled out the chair that sat tucked into their old wooden table. Giorno brushed his fingers over his sheets and before another yawn came, decided to crawl underneath them. While he lay cosy in his little corner, he nuzzled himself and his tatty duvet closer to the wall.
Giorno's bed remained tucked into one of the corners of this attic; and right above where his mattress met the wall there was a layer of shoddy wooden planks that served as a shutter, nailed into the wall. There was a small window of sorts beyond that makeshift shutter. And Giorno, for as long as he can remember, loved to idly pick at the edge of one of the rotten wooden planks. It was right at his head level when lying there and what else was there to do while waiting for sleep to claim him other than think, and Giorno did enough of that already. In the past few months of Giorno's little scraping habit, a small chunk had come loose on the edge of one of the planks and tonight while he lay in bed hidden beneath the secrecy of his duvet, he carefully wiggled the chunk loose and then as quietly as he could, snapped it off. The only other sounds in their room were the rhythmic scratching of his father writing something over at the table and the attic was dimly illuminated by candle light. Giorno waited for a moment to see if the sound of his father writing would stop to inquire what Giorno had just done, but no. Giorno softly nuzzled himself closer to the penny-sized hole that he had created and pressed his face up to it, hogging the pinhole of light from the rest of his duvet cocoon.
Dawn.
Sunrise.
The boy squinted, dumbstruck at the warm pallet of colours that painted the sky. He didn’t quite know what to feel. He contained a combination of automatic awe at the rare sight and also a rumbling discomfort nagging him deep within just because of the sheer overwhelming sight it was. Because of the relatively steep slant of the ceiling the boy couldn’t see the vast expanse of the city below him, only sky. Century old paintings were never this bright - that unsettled him. Giorno figured he would listen to his gut feeling and gently jammed the small wooden chunk back into place. Leaving the small cubby Giorno had created between his duvet and the wall in darkness again. He pulled his duvet down from over his head and shifted down further into the bed so that his head now lay on his single, worn-out pillow. He still remained facing away from the rest of the room though. Back turned towards his father who continued to write by candlelight. His face inches away from the crumbling old wall of the gothic cathedral. Giorno's eyes remained open as he lay there, examining the small cracks within the stonework that he knew like the back of his hand. Maybe with a little more time and scraping, he could get a better view of the world below. The world he had never known.
The scratching sound of his father writing was a great comfort to him. His old sheets with fading colours that he’s owned for as long as he can remember was a home. Familiarity soothed him. Change didn’t.
As Giorno lay there, unable to find sleep, his mind wandered to the book he had been reading that night. He couldn’t figure out exactly what the book was about, but he did take a liking to the illustrations of children playing, he assumed from that and the words he could understand, that it was a children’s book. A rather difficult one though. Giorno had been taught some Italian at a young age from his father and a man whose last name was Pucci. The boy didn’t recall his first name, that is, if he had ever been told it in the first place. But he used to see that man a lot more than he does now. When he was younger the man used to knock on their door, bring food for Giorno and stay to tutor him from children’s books and papers. He thinks back fondly of those interactions. At some point though, the man’s attire changed from what Giorno remembers as a long but simple Alb to a grand purple cloak. He had told him what the meaning of the cloak was when Giorno first saw it, but yet again Giorno can’t recall. Ever since then he only ever sees Pucci when he delivers trays of food at the door – he never stays long.
Giorno’s Italian vocabulary started to slowly dwindle with age as he just never needed it. He and his father conversed in English and well – his father was the only one he ever converses with. Something about the subconscious trail of thought he had gotten lost in again stung him and it snapped him towards alertness. He couldn’t tell which part – he was only reminiscing? Anyway, he was alert now and suddenly aware of his father’s presence again. Giorno listened to the sound of pen on paper and the occasional page turn.
And for reasons he doesn’t know, he spoke.
“……. Father?”
The writing didn’t stop.
“I thought you were asleep”.
“……no.”
“clearly”
“….”
“what’s the matter?”
Giorno suddenly felt like a fool because he didn’t fully know why he called for his father in the first place. He began to dawdle.
“I.…was reading a book today.”
He didn’t respond, so Giorno continued.
“…I think it was a children’s book.”
“You think?”
“It…. was Italian. So, I'm not entirely sure what it was about” The boy sighed to himself. “The only books I can find now are in Italian...”
He could hear his father turn a page and resume writing. Giorno considered just dropping it and returning to his pre-sleep haze. But he was bored and wanted to talk to someone. Even if it was the only person, he had ever really had a conversation with his entire life. It was better than the deafening silence that would consume him otherwise.
“There were a lot of illustrations of people together, dressed in large dresses and suits- like yours, father”.
“Is that so.” The man commented, the quiet scribbles of his pen on paper filling the silence between pauses in speech.
Giorno quietly hummed in response, a delicate, pale hand lifting from under his sheets to carefully itch his cheek while he chose his next words.
“They all seemed to be having a lot of fun together”.
Giorno continued, thinking back to the pages of the book he had been reading about thirty minutes prior. He received a disinterested grunt from his father, and once more the quiet scribbling was the only thing that filled the silence in the room. But as the sun rose outside their dark room, familiar, yet foreign sounds were able to be heard buzzing from the awakening city below.
After a few moments of silence, Giorno spoke up again.
“Father?”
A quiet sigh.
“Yes, Giorno?”
“…. It’s lonely up here.”
A beat after the words left his lips the room was noticeably more silent than it had been this entire time. The grate of rough pen strokes that was previously filling the void had come to a sudden halt - it was unbearable. The silence entirely too loud for Giorno’s liking. He had said something stupid again, hadn’t he? Giorno was deliberating whether to rescind his previous statement or leave it there and never speak again for the rest of his pathetic life when he heard the chair scrape against the floor. He had definitely said something stupid and now he was going to hear about it, and most likely, regret it. But as the ancient floorboards creaked near him, signalling the man’s arrival by Giorno’s bedside, there were no words exchanged. Giorno considered for a moment if he had actually succeeded in falling asleep and just dreamt the last few minutes because that would explain the abnormal behaviour on his father’s behalf. Giorno lay there, still as one of the statues adorning the cathedral below, feeling incredibly watched. He had closed his eyes when he heard the chair move earlier, so he didn’t notice when the shadow that loomed over him shifted slightly. He held his breath. Then, the mattress shifted with foreign weight. He still didn’t say anything – neither of them did.
Giorno felt the body on the mattress stir after a few moments of feeling incredibly watched, even with his eyes shut. A comforting weight settled softly on where his shoulder was from over the duvet.
“Giorno?”
He sounded…apprehensive?
Giorno gave a wary hum, not daring to move.
“Can I see your face?”
The weight - which Giorno now discovered upon opening his eyes - was his father’s large hand, lifted from his duvet to allow him to turn in his direction.
“Sit up please”.
Giorno obeyed, propping himself up on his elbows and then his bottom. He sat with his pillow squished closer to the headboard. He lowered his eyes waiting for the silence to break.
“Giorno, look at me”.
He lifted his gaze from the wrinkles in his sheet to meet his father’s. Giorno considered that the man’s face might be unreadable if it wasn’t for the slight furrow of his brow giving way to an expression Giorno had rarely seen his father make. Giorno thought about how his father's gaze in these kinds of situations normally felt heavy and oppressive but right now it felt changed somehow - Giorno didn’t like change.
His father gave a lengthy inhale.
“Giorno…. how would you like to see the city tomorrow night, with me?”
Giorno stared. He waited for his father to burst out laughing and say he was just joking. No matter how wildly out of character that would have been for the man it was still far more likely than him genuinely meaning what he had just asked him.
“…”
“…Well?”
Oh. He’s serious. He’s actually proposing this. Giorno’s head was racing with far too many questions, far too quickly. Why now? Had Giorno said something that his father had perceived differently? What about the dangers of the city he had been warned about his entire life? Was he just old enough to fend them off now? Maybe that’s why his father can leave but he was never allowed to? Or maybe he’ll be safe because his father said he would be with him? Too many questions. Rather than spend a moment longer gawking like an idiot or trying to get his mouth and brain to work together to ask one of them, he settled for the only thing his body seemed to want to let leave his lips.
“Yes.” the tension dissipated “…I would love to”.
The furrow in his father’s brow, which Giorno hadn’t realised got more intense during the period he was silent swamped in his head, relaxed upon hearing his reply. The boy didn’t understand what that implied exactly. His father cleared his throat and broke the eye contact they seemed both locked into.
“Alright then.” He said as he rose from the side of the bed. “Tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night.” His son repeated after him.
His father turned and began his return to the table and chair he had left earlier. Giorno sank back down under the covers slowly and nuzzled his face against his pillow, his mind was both so full and yet so incredibly vacant at the same time. This was going to be a restless day’s sleep he could already tell. Giorno lay there beneath the sheets, staring up at the old ceiling, thoughts of what the following night may bring drifting through his mind. Would it be scary? Surely not. He knew his father would protect him. It’s what he had been doing for him ever since he was born.
The man descended back into his chair and closed the book he had been occupied with earlier. He stole a glance over at the lump under duvet in the corner of the attic. He watched the lump twist and nestle. A soft sigh left him as he reached forward to grab the candle that illuminated their home. Bringing it to his lips and gently blowing, the room was plunged into darkness once more.
“Sleep well, Son” He whispered. Although the day outside had only just begun, he knew the night would soon be on them once again - Dio knew better than anyone just how fast time can fly.