like ripples in a pond

[madimpossibledreamer]

Happy New Year's Eve.  May the new year be better than the old one.
~Dreamer~

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Summary: Mista receives some unexpected answers about the visitors.  Giorno reflects on the past.  (There's not near enough 'reacts to new knowledge' in jojo's.)
Word Count: 1845
Spoilers for the end of Vento Aureo/Golden Wind.  Like canon, ambiguously shippy, though less than the others (mostly because Mista still has no idea he's actually in love with Giorno. he's a bit oblivious that way)

         Mista’s actually a little shocked when he realizes Giorno plans to leave his guests to wander around freely.  He doesn’t even trust his own capos that much.  But then, if they’re not Passione, maybe they don’t have their own agenda, and they’re family, somehow, so—
         Maybe they married in, or something?  He could see that.  Those bonds can be just as strong, particularly if the blood bonds are not so worthwhile.
         He joins Giorno, who is both waiting for him and seems a little nervous.  He’s staring out of one of the windows like he’s a beautiful marble statue, generally frozen in place except for his hand.  He’s grabbed one of his golden pens, a gift from a capo, and is playing with it, turning it into a snake, back, snake, back. 
         “Giorno, everything’s going to be fine,” he insists.  Usually, he wouldn’t dare, but in any case where Giovanna needs him, he can overcome even his own fears.  (Well, usually.  He’ll have to power past his fear of four, but even then…Giorno’s given him a path to do so.  Four is bad luck for their enemies, for after all, even if he tries not to think about it, Giorno’s birthday is 4/16, and he’s nothing but good luck.  Despite what the blond might think, in his own private moments, about what happened to Bucciarati and…and the others, Mista fervently believes that Giorno’s is a golden touch.)  He reaches out and squeezes one tense shoulder.  As usual, Giorno doesn’t seem entirely comfortable with the touch, but he turns a little to meet Mista’s gaze.
         “Yes, thank you, Mista.  I just…”  He exhales, breathy and embarrassed.  “I’ve never talked about this with anyone before.  I’ve only mentioned a few things to Trish.”
         Being a straightforward guy, Mista’s pretty aware of his own feelings, and that slight darkness roiling in his gut is jealousy.  It takes him a little by surprise, because he wouldn’t have predicted it, but it’s there.  “Trish, huh?”
         With that sharp look, Giorno heard that emotion in his voice, and is both disapproving and slightly confused by it.  “She needed reassurance after learning Diavolo wanted her dead.”  There’s something helpless about the look in his eyes as he says this, and—
         Madonna, he hadn’t really considered Giorno’s background, had he?  He’d joked around, once, when they’d all been alive, that Bucciarati’s boys were all misfits in life, but they’d found family together.  Maybe he’d been more right than he thought.  But then, it’s probably part of Giorno’s carefully constructed image, the same image that had faltered during the fight with White Album.  He’d been trying to hide it, the fact that he wasn’t perfect, but even with those flaws, he was perfect all the same.
         “Why don’t we talk about this in the garden?” he suggests, because he’s seen how much his golden friend blooms in the presence of plants and animals and he needs to help Giorno calm, just a little.  The grateful look he gets in response makes all the jealousy in his gut evaporate.
         Together they walk to the garden in relative silence, but it’s not uncomfortable.  Mista honestly wouldn’t mind just hanging out in Giorno’s presence forever, even if they didn’t talk, because sometimes it seems like they don’t need words.
         Giorno’s certainly more relaxed when he sits on the bench in that familiar pose he gets, legs crossed.  Honestly, maybe Mista should’ve been supporting him more emotionally.
         “I’m not actually Italian,” Giogio states calmly after a long moment, staring at a tree.  “My father, I learned…well, this is complicated, but we’ll get to that later.  I’m part English and part Japanese.”  On the outside he’s calm, but on the inside…
         Mista reaches out and places a hand on Giorno’s, which startles him a little, but he seems more relaxed at the same time.  Like he’s not used to it, is scared of touch, but at the same time he likes it.  “You definitely look Italian.”  It explains why he doesn’t use gestures, though, why he seems so subdued.  If he’s not actually Italian, he didn’t grow up using his hands as well as his mouth to talk.  “Well, aside from these,” he laughs, poking at the curled donut-things Giorno carefully adds with the other hand.  The one that isn’t now stealthily turning to hold the Don’s hand.  Giovanna doesn’t seem to even notice, though of course, it’s a mistake to assume he didn’t notice something.  Doesn’t hurt to point it out, if it’s something he actually wants the Don to notice, because double checking is never a bad precaution, but usually Giorno’s a lot more perceptive than anyone gives him credit for.  The hair bounces a little, and Giorno leans away.  Birds chirp.
         “My hair wasn’t always blond.  It just turned that way one day.”  Mista eyes him, trying to imagine it—but no, he kind of can’t.  “I was teased—no, bullied really—because I was obviously not Italian, and I was always quiet because I was always trying to read people, find out what they wanted from me.  Because everyone always wanted something.”
         Mista’s kind of alarmed to hear the slight shakiness to Giorno’s voice, but then, this isn’t going to be easy and he’d realized that.  That’s why he had them come out here to what is, even more than the villa, Giogio’s safe space.  Giorno’s eyes follow a butterfly as it flutters by in search of a flower.
         “They wanted something, but they didn’t need it.  Didn’t need me.  My mother would abandon me at home when I was a child; my stepfather beat me.  Until one day, I saved a gangster, and in the end, he saved me.  Looked out for me, the way I’m trying to have Passione do for the citizens now.”  Giorno’s other hand, the one that isn’t being held, is clenched tight.  It’s taking everything in Mista to avoid doing the same.  He really wants to go shoot that stepfather in the head—no, the leg, because he needs to live with the pain, cry out for mercy, live with what he’s done.  But no, Giorno’s the Don of Passione now; if he wanted his stepfather to live with that fear, he would’ve ordered something by now, wouldn’t he?  And the rest he can imagine, ruthless, kind-hearted Giorno, with his noble goals and hungry ambition. 
         “Do you want to scare him?” he bursts out, incapable of remaining silent.  Not when it’s clear this memory still haunts him, not when it’s clear this is why touch is so rare, so fragile, so delicate a thing for Giorno, not when the thought of Giorno scared is so abhorrent and unnatural as the sky turning yellow (even when, or maybe because, his memory can present him with pictures of what Giovanna’s fear looks like).
         That’s one of the reasons he really likes Giorno as the Boss—Giorno listens, really listens, and doesn’t dismiss his ideas out of hand like Trish.  He actually thinks about what Mista says and takes it into consideration.
         He does that now, and eventually, one corner of his mouth twitches upward.  Smile.  Success!  “Perhaps just a small visit to tell him that that kind of behavior is not tolerated in my Napoli.”  He pauses, then continues, posture more honestly confident, rather than just an image he’s projecting.  “When I was young, I discovered a picture of my true father.  I knew him to be the one, because he had the star.”  At the glance of confusion, he unzips part of his outfit (part of Mista’s panicking, though he has no idea why) and shows…
         That’s a star, between his neck and shoulder.  It looks like a tattoo.  Nonchalantly, Giorno zips his shirt right back up, as if it hadn’t been a big deal in the first place.  (Why was it a big deal again?)
         “Dottoressa di Ricerca Kujo says every Joestar has this birthmark.  And for a while, I placed all my hopes on the man in the photo.  I thought he was a good man, a good father, that eventually he would come and save me…”  He squeezes Mista’s hand, so yes, he’d noticed.  “It turns out, he was worse than Diavolo.  Which is why I told Trish some of this.  He wanted power over the whole world, and didn’t care who he hurt.  And he was a vampire, apparently.”  There’s a distance as he says this, so he’s only been told and can’t quite comprehend it.  Not that Mista does, either.  “His name was Dio Brando.”
         Mista frowns.  “That’s not Joestar, though…”
         Giorno nods, hair flowing in the breeze like one of the romance novels Mista definitely hasn’t read.  In the distance, they hear the church bells ringing.  “Apparently he stole the body of a man called Jonathan Joestar.  Jonathan is more the father I pictured when I was young.  Kind, sensitive, would’ve been a good father if Dio hadn’t killed him and stolen his body.  Dio was the blond.  He probably would have wanted me dead, as well.  According to Signor Polnareff, who’d heard about that secondhand himself, I have traits of them both.”  It all sounds pretty surreal, but they’ve seen a lot of weird things, so Mista can believe all of it.  Particularly if he doesn’t think too much about it.  But his heart aches a little at Giorno hearing all of this and thinking he has to be the Don, thinking he has to deal with the pain and horror on his own, only ever bringing it up to make Trish feel better about her own situation and hopefully being able to move on.  He’s gotta make Giovanna realize he’s there until the bitter end, for good or bad.  Now’s as good a time to start as any.
         Mista brings the hand in his own to his lips, kissing it gently.  “You made my life and Italy better.  You might have his darkness, but you use them only in good ways in pursuit of your golden dream, and I would swear allegiance to no other.”
         Giorno blushes the color of the flowers in that patch over there, but he looks pleased.  “Thank you, Mista.”  Those are probably tears in his eyes, but Mista does him the service of ignoring them, just as Giorno does for him.  He pulls himself together, stronger before, and that, too, is a gift.  “Professore Kujo is Jonathan’s great-great grandson, and Josuke is Jonathan’s great grandson.  I’m not sure how to address them really.”  He hadn’t been kidding about the family tree, had he?
         “By the way, you said Kujo had a Dottoressa di Ricerca.  What did he get it in?”  Mista doesn’t know a lot about that kind of thing, but he is kind of curious.
         That’s definitely a smile on Giorno’s face.  “He’s a world-famous marine biologist.”
         Mista whistles.  Perhaps there's more than one reason why Don Giovanna has an interest in this particular relative.  "You two have a lot to talk about."
         By this point, Giorno's practically beaming, and it's almost blinding.  "I plan to."