these are applicable to all humans.

diego was not a servant. that much he made clear. the idea of being some fanciful right hand of a vampire overlord was a little too novel even for him, tempting him to laugh any time it came to mind. his brother’s actual underlings were pitifully singleminded in their purpose. the nepotistic respect diego was shown, if it could even be called that, was often begrudging or impersonal—a far cry from the depravedly wholehearted affection thrown at their lord dio.

depraved affection from depraved followers who still only seemed to fail. the stand users sent after those joestars were dropping like flies. although diego had no business with it, so adverse to company that few even knew he existed, he surmised that the girl in front of him was one of the fallen assassins. he rose a brow from his casual slouch in the armchair, one ankle propped on his knee. he had lowered his book from his nose to peer at her with narrowed eyes, blue ice and bad news to dio’s golden honey and wanton invitation.

“... what are you talking about?” he tiredly broke the silence once her voice caught in her throat. it was not up to diego to pardon his brother’s sheep. “if you’re looking for dio, he’s probably monologuing about god knows what to his obnoxious choir boy.”

@iramdie said: ’ sun ' for a good morning starter! mini starter call.  /  accepting.

ㅤ ㅤ The moment before dawn was the last remnant of that phantom existence. Nothing more than a slim figure moving around the corners, steps so light that hardly seemed to touch the ground, always fleeing from the presence of the living. The only noise was the rustling of the turning pages, a romance novel being eagerly devoured, her faithful companion from the dead hour. Silence that spread through the rooms like fog enveloped her in a cozy way, just because she knew it wouldn’t last long. It was still early, even for the group’s early bird. Reimi was more of a night owl, two hours of quiet rest was enough since she couldn’t sleep anymore. That was also her reason for taking over the kitchen, in the eternal urge to justify her presence by being useful whenever she could — or simply pleasant, because a little fresh air always came in handy when things got almost too heavy to support. Waking up in the morning with the delicious smell of her father’s favorite coffee always helped to improve her mood, maybe it had the same effect on them too.

ㅤ ㅤ Entertained with her own thoughts, an old song hummed under her breath, hands working nimbly with the sole intention of not making more noise than necessary. However, years of living with the ghostly hands sharpened her sixth sense — the weight of the gaze on her back making her turn around before he could get away. Diego watched her from the door and for some reason it sent a shiver down her spine, like a kind of foreboding. ❝ Good morning. ❞ Her tone masked the surprise, but Reimi couldn’t help the half-shy smile that lit up her face. Giorno’s uncle was still a mystery, letting himself be known through details that disappeared quickly before she could take a good look. Luckily for her, one of the tips rested on the warm mug in her hands. ❝ There’s enough coffee for two— Do you want some? ❞ Normally she would choose green tea, but today it seemed that something wiser whispered another option in her ear. Better that way, he wouldn’t have to wait any longer. ❝ I just started, suggestions are welcome. ❞ The Italian way was too sweet for her customs, but the culinary evolution was clearly visible.

the job demanded diego at variable hours, often the crooked ones that swallowed passione’s secrets into the dark. in more ways than one, his share of duties would rob the average man of sleep, but thankfully enough he needed little of it. efficient and effective, he completed his affairs as usual.

dawn would soon roll over the horizon. having regarded the time, he had decided to forgo the trip home entirely. he would go to his office and get his report over with first—pesky paperwork still essential to the grind. the villa came into sight before long. emerging from the shadows, only half human, diego vaulted the gates and scaled the brick wall. there was one window he could always slip through with laughable ease. it entered into a hallway that rounded a corner and presented an array of doors. to his curiosity, one was cracked open. a sliver of light trickled from it, and although he had not smelled a person nearby, he had caught the waft of coffee from the moment he had opened the window. brisk italian roast flooded his senses, leading him to pad toward its source with clawed feet. a matching hand soundlessly nudged the door inward, giving way to one of the grander rooms furnished with kitchen fixtures, a break table, and cabinets storing the beans being brewed.

letting himself tip against the doorframe, diego folded his arms and observed. it dawned upon him why he had failed to sniff out any human presence alongside the coffee. reimi sugimoto, if he recalled correctly, was another otherworldly phenomenon. with vampires and dinosaurs running amok, it had not taken much for diego to accept the existence of ghosts. initially he had bristled at her connection to that great-great nephew of his, the one who came to cairo, but giorno’s trust in her was enough for him to regard her with the mundane indifference he gave everybody else. more importantly now was that coffee. his feathered tail flicked idly behind him, the only other anomaly besides his saurian hands and feet.

“good morning,” he returned curtly. at her beckon, his inscrutable gaze fell to the mug in her hands. a beat passed before diego answered, “i’d like a cup, if you don’t mind.”

with that he pushed himself off the doorframe and strode into the room. the blue scales along his palms and wrists dissipated to flesh as he grabbed the handle of the refrigerator. “i’ll take mine black or however else, as long as it’s not too diluted.”

After his confirmation, his gaze falls to his cup, he falls silent. It’s not the first time he hears those words, but every time he meets them with what he’s learned to recognize as a moment of quiet mourning. For a mind like his, always looking ahead, constantly planning, scheming and speculating, he has an awful habit of getting lost in the could-have-beens. For someone who refuses to believe in powers greater than he can aspire to be—in Heaven or Hell or anything in between—he sure spends a lot of time thinking of the already dead.

He’s killed men for way less than what he’s been told his father did during his lifetime, and called it justice.

Then why…?

He doesn’t take pleasure in taking lives, not even those of the wicked and corrupt. In any case, it’s frustration he feels, for all the wrongdoings allowed before he got a chance to intervene.

But when he thinks of his father, it’s a different kind of bitterness.

“It’s what I’ve been doing all this time. It’s what I do best.” He looks around, gesturing at what was just a small part of what he had earned. The villa is admittedly impressive, as it should be. It’s even convenient that Giorno had inherited it from his predecessor, and not built it himself. He would have never gone for something so ostentatious.

But he prides himself in his ability to read people’s intentions, and can tell Diego is being honest with him. He doesn’t need to sound so defensive.

It’s something the boy has been working on for quite a while now—peel off many layers of hurt and distrust, leaving his most vulnerable parts exposed. In doing so, he’s gained close friends, and healed a few scars. But this, he recognizes, is unexplored territory still. Not that he had ever expected to meet his own blood (Giorno has yet to decide if he can even count Jotaro Kujo as such).

“I met the man who killed Dio,” he speaks, and his eyes pierce Diego’s. “Do you resent him?” continues, and this time, takes especial care to keep his tone impersonal. “Did my father deserve to die?”

every once in a while, diego would dream again of the mansion. its heavy front doors swung into the foyer with checkered floors, candlelit chandeliers, and a line of ceremonious red carpet. the carpet rolled forward and up a grand staircase before splitting into two wings. flanking the right of the staircase was a statue, the depiction of a woman holding an urn. on the wall of fine art behind her, a single piece among them stood out: an unsettling stone mask. then all of it went to hellfire, and diego would wake up.

the villa they sat in now showcased a similar wealth, if not greater. diego wondered how dio might have fancied it before remembering that nothing was ever good enough for dio, not really; not that mansion they had grown up in, not the family that had accepted them, not even the world as it was. do you believe in heaven?

other times, he would dream of that night in cairo. six intruders had entered dio’s lair, but their numbers were halved by the time they defeated him. diego too had fallen before sunrise, barely suspended on the frays of life. it was more misfortune than not to have survived. he had nothing and no one waiting for him, no home or purpose to return to—all over a feud that had slumbered, but carried across one hundred years. the fuss from that birthmark had always been beyond him. even now it may be beyond him.

diego meets giorno’s stare, holding it for some time before answering, “i do.”

it had been the grandson; that much he knew. jotaro kujo—a high schooler back then, though by now he was probably pushing thirty. knowing the family’s dogmatic sense of justice, diego quickly surmised giorno’s meeting with him had been all business. surely he had suspected giorno on the grounds of being dio’s son. diego shelves the thought for the time being and tries not to scoff.

“but dio had it coming. couldn’t leave well enough alone,” a bitter current runs through his voice, hand gesturing vaguely. “he killed and ate people, but it wasn’t as simple as that.”

the posh turtleneck was still kind to him. despite its snug collar, the corduroy kept breathable as he narrowly wove through another right hook. buccellati had missed diego’s knee just as promptly, much to diego’s disdain and simultaneously his taste. his face had not begun to split just yet, but there was no doubt in his mind that he would be transforming by the end of their match. a heel stomps, kicks the rest of himself backward and puts a healthy step between them.

but he bides his time. only after slinking out the door does he allow his nose to wrinkle.

the venue is a mess of mingling inebriety, cocktails of clashing colognes and the occasional shrill of a slot machine. diego ignores that brief pandemonium on his senses, sticking to the walls and pacing down a new corridor tapering off from the hubbub of the casino. soon enough his path cuts through a dingy door, into a stairwell. deserted—save one other man in a finely cut suit.

wedged between his ear and shoulder, the phone rumbles with a voice that fills diego’s heart almost unbearably full. but bear it he does, because he is diego brando, ice king extraordinaire, dicing another peeled potato over their shared cutting board. he raises his knife again; it starts to come down as bruno pipes back up. i miss you horribly—

the sentence is punctuated by diego’s next chop, which lands heavier on the wood than he had intended, uncharacteristically clumsy from the sudden staccato of his heart. one of the potato cubes launches from his blade and onto the sparkling floor.

“shit,” he grumbles, just in time for a critter curled around his foot to snap its serrated jaws around the scrap. he supposes if he’d tried hard enough, had the proper clarity for it, he could have willed the lesothosaurus not to eat it. it doesn’t matter now. the stagger in his tempo must have been apparent, because bruno makes a curious noise from the other end of the line.

“no, it’s nothing. i’m in the kitchen,” diego pulls himself together, giving a stir to a pot with his free hand and rolling his eyes at the innocent chirp he hears below him. he realizes he might have done better to put bruno on speakerphone or whatever the kids called it, but too little too late. besides, he rather yearns for hearing bruno in his ear, all to himself, but bruno can wait until he’s home to hear all of that. diego sets aside the kitchen knife, done with the thing for now. “just preparing some stew.”

so you can come straight home is a sentiment left hanging in the air like a holiday ornament, but ten cities, ten countries apart could not keep bruno from understanding that language they speak. what they do not say is just as loud as what they do.

“and...” he slows, wiping his hands on a checkered cloth. because sometimes, they can say what they mean anyway. diego’s voice lowers to something unfairly sincere. “... i miss you, too. awfully so, you could say. don’t act too recklessly and hurry home to me.”

even the music was shitty. he’d file a complaint to the party hosts if he weren’t one hundred percent sure that the neighbors would beat him to it. instead he aggrieves the next best culprit he can, the rotten influence who’d dragged him to this dump and had the steel balls to ditch him for most of the night.

          it’ll be fun, zeppeli had said. loosen up a little, zeppeli had said. fuck off, zeppeli. diego didn’t know a single person in the room save gyro, and every time diego threw a glance his way, he’d been holding two different drinks in his hands with two different girls under his arms. one of those arms eventually slung around diego, too, after a good hour when gyro had finally sauntered back over to him. (diego notes that the other hand is still definitely nursing a drink. at least it isn’t another tittering nursing student.)

          chummy as ever. his eyes answer with a dramatic roll, though they do follow gyro’s grubby finger point over diego’s shoulder. the gesture was a bit tactless, undoubtedly childish, but the floor was too rowdy and lighting too low for any shitfaced guests to mind their gossiping. perhaps just as inconsequential was the fact that diego had never seen the man in question before. he looked remarkably unremarkable—at least gyro was right about that.

          diego snorts.  "is that how you pick your lays? well, have at it. i’m not interested in whatever he’s got.”

          even if he is painfully bored. maybe that’s why diego doesn’t pry his only friend off of him just yet. he considers pouring himself another shot when his gaze wanders, and by chance, it lands on a table—less crowded than when he had last looked, clear enough now for diego to spot the playing cards scattered among beer cans. some lot had tried to win at poker. evidently they had failed.