Chapter Text

Dio has been staring down the stairs at Polnareff longer than he has BEEN on the stairs. Outside of frozen time, Polnareff is freaking out about suddenly appearing lower down the staircase. In frozen time, this is far less elegant – Dio has been standing as still as he can for effect and moving Polnareff down manually with za warudo. He wonders if Polnareff will ever figure it out while he has a shitfit on his stairs. He is the fifth person Dio has done this to. Dio would’ve gotten bored if it wasn’t for the faces he gets every time, and the different reactions that happen once the victim processes their surroundings a little closer. What he doesn’t predict is how unique Polnareff reaction is.

An overwhelming diminutive feeling settles in his pectoral muscles, and the sensation of an ice cube being rubbed on him only partially describes the shivers. His mind is scattered, and the first time he met with Dio paints a vivid image of the afterlife. If it exists. Well, his subconscious blurts, if we are going to die then we may as well do something fun. The rest of his mind is panicking too much to care, so Polnareff finds himself not really sure how to hold himself as his subconscious begins picking up the designated Bargain For Your Life™ cards. But these cards fall all over the floor and any well-rehearsed prices for his life go with them. His subconscious recognises that this is about to end awfully, and picks a handful of cards at random.

Polnareff has been silent for a few seconds, waiting to say something. And finally, he throws the words up like a mother bird feeding her young. But Dio is not a small bird, and if you told him you were going to vomit down his throat you would find yourself instantly impaled on the nearest blunt object. But Polnareff gave him no choice here, and frantically recalls what he said to get such a strange, defeated glare from him to work out how much pain his execution will be.

“I’ll make you a LASAGNA!” are the words that echo in a French accent behind his knitted eyebrows. He has heard many mortals beg for their lives, and the strangest thing he has heard before now was something to do with a large shipment of pure gold in Zimbabwe. But at least Dio knew what that was. Luckily for Polnareff, Dio has no idea what lasagne is. It never really popped up in the 19th century, and no one really cares for lasagne in Cairo. Being in a coffin at the bottom of the sea also doesn’t help. No lasagne there, for the past hundred years and more. So Dio has no idea what he is signing up for when he smiles down the stairs, as Polnareff suddenly remembers his lasagne promise.

“Alright, Polnareff.” Polnareff doesn’t remember when Dio got to his side, and supresses a scared burp. “Make me… A lasagne…” Polnareff realises that Dio either doesn’t know what a lasagne is or is secretly Garfield when he hears ‘lasagne’ said so both erotically and menacingly.

~*~

“Then he just let me walk away. Just like that. I’m still questioning how it is possible to say ‘lasagne’ so-“

“Polnareff.”

“You think I’m lying? Wel-“

“No, Polnareff, do you realise what this MEANS?” Kakyoin didn’t really know the answer to his own question here and was hoping that Polnareff did. Joseph sighed a trademark ‘oh my god’ two meters to the left, leaning on a wall and covering his face with the rim of his hat. Polnareff’s facial features move as he breathes in to ask a question which he never thought he would ask.

“…Do you think we should make him one?” Kakyoin thinks of an argument, and realises that it is a good point.

“If what you said about vanilla ice is true, it’s going to be impossible to defeat Dio! Nothing except light killed him, not even a sword to the head. Maybe we should make him a lasagne to give us enough time till morning. The sun is going down anyway, and he’s probably impossible to kill otherwise.” Polnareff didn’t know Kakyoin just thought of this, and realises how true it is.

They stay outside the entrance for quite a while, initially discussing why Dio would be swayed with a lasagne. But then the discussion takes a tangent out to the time when Polnareff was an 8 year old and he dropped his sandwich down an elevator shaft and cried – not before covering other strange conversations. They don’t even notice the sun set. They do notice, however, when Dio nearly breaks his own door down a few meters behind Joseph, who nearly shits himself. In their little circle they had talked for a full 15 minutes. No one had ever had an idea of what to do other than make Dio a lasagne, and they had prattled until the sun had set.

“I heard you talking outside, so I came down. Are we making a lasagne now?” Dio looked great, which means pretty dressed down in Dio standards. He only had his trademark unzipped trousers and a black t-shirt - a contrast to the usual black leotard. Even his headband was missing. He would have looked very casual if he wasn’t 2 meters tall and built like a sculpture. The gang had never been so glad to know Dio does, in fact, have underwear. The usual hole exposing his junk for the world to see was still (not very) decent. If anyone worked up the courage to stare at his dick, they would notice the slight difference between the black of his underwear and the black of his shirt - but the gang hasn’t even processed his words yet, never mind his choice of underwear.

“Yu- Yes. Let’s. Go.” Polnareff looked like a 6 year old lying to a teacher. “Should we rent a kitchen or something? Is that even a thing?” Polnareff begged with his eyes that someone else had an idea. But Dio, thankfully, made a distraction.

“A kitchen? Just what is a lasagne?”

“An Italian dish. It’s layered sheets of pasta with beef. Good Grief™.” Jotaro was too busy looking at the waxing moon to be edgy to realise how dangerous this could’ve been.

“You wanted me to spare your life for food? You realise I don’t eat food, right?” Dio was too dumbfound to be angry. Polnareff realised that Dio was not going to be happy, but would probably kill him if he just gave a plain ‘yes’.

“It’s really GOOD food, and I make a mean lasagne.”

“It’d better be great enough to save your life.”

“m- Yeah, it’s pretty good!” Polnareff was internally sobbing in the foetal position. Dio sighed, and this became loud wailing.

“I can clear out a restaurant or something for you.” As soon as he finished saying this is sighing, he began walking. The gang knew they needed to follow, and didn’t really want to ask what he meant by ‘clear out’.

~*~

But they found out anyway. They stood awkwardly outside the rich-looking, slightly secluded restaurant. And it was a good job it was secluded, because ten meters closer to civilians and police would have been called on the screaming.

Joseph flinched back as the torso of a small woman slammed the window, with intesting slapping a second behind. It left a big red patch that dribbled down, following her ungraceful flop to the floor. She was sobbing, but her deep sobs were drowned out by Dio’s laughter. It can’t be THAT funny, Kakyoin reasoned.

The screaming was only one person now, and their wailing stopped being muffled by the big, expensive window as Dio walked out the door. He held the blood-dripping, shaky-eyed human under one arm, and a dead cat attached to its tail in a balled up fist in the other.

“Want to see something?” Something it sure was. He bit the head off the cat, which didn’t move or even mind due to its recent death. The man, with his strange hipster glasses nearly fallen off, did mind and let out a small yelp. This was going to be a scream, but was cut off when Dio ripped his head off, too. He swiftly jammed the cat body onto his head before he died, and Dio bit his finger to rub his blood between the two components. He threw his creation to the floor, and the cat-man made a noise that could only be described as a ‘uh’ except filled with the terror of a man who wished he was dead instead of watching his own body be ripped away and replaced with a cat. His back arched up, and he prepared to bolt.

Dio wasn’t going to have that, and no one saw when he reached towards the man-cat. But they did suddenly see him hold his monstrosity by the tail while he beamed like a child with their first caught fish.

Except Dio is not a small child. He is also covered head to toe in blood of others, and the ‘fish’ in this case is still alive, and about as far from a fish as one can be. The only real parallel to a child with a fish is his smile and posture, and how he looks at his audience while waiting for approval.

Joseph has new nightmare material to replace the fading memories of cutting off Stroheim’s leg for the next month, Polnareff looks to be in an existential crisis, and Kakyoin is practising his acid reflux control against his will. Jotaro has already thrown up in his mouth, but will be damned if he vomits so uncooly. He spits out the vomit to the left. Noticing everyone’s negative reaction, he almost begins to cry. He did try his best. Dio slumps a little, and throws the cat-man to the floor, where it lands in the puddle of blood from the man’s body. It makes a satisfying splash before Dio suddenly flashes with his foot inside the head of this thing. He grinds a few last bit of cartilage against his heel before turning to walk back in. He needs to bob back out a second time to remind everyone to enter, and doesn’t even notice them tip-toeing around the piles of body on the floor. Needless to say, no one else is going to be eating Polnareff’s lasagne.

The gang is even less likely to eat the lasagne as they tour the previously beige restaurant. An ugly man in the corner is trying to crawl to the front of the shop, and flinches when he notices Dio. His leg is missing, which is not only the reason he is crawling but also the reason he is going to bleed out in a minute or so. Joseph grimaces at him, and the nightmares total to two months.

~*~

Polnareff is stressed. To put it weakly, that is. Even after cleaning the surfaces he figured he’d need to make a lasagne, he ended up finding a semi-alive man wearing a chef’s outfit jammed in the oven, with limbs that didn’t abide to the normal rules of limbs. Polnareff had seen only a small portion of red fabric before realising what it was, backing off and asking Dio to remove it. He didn’t know why the oven was necessary or what it even was, but he recognised Polnareff was about to collapse fighting. Dio had been raised on the grimy streets of victorian London and had not known peace since. He really did not understand why anyone would be disgusted at guts and gore, as that reflex had died with his mother. As he dragged out the once fairly stocky man as mess of limbs, Polnareff tried to return to making a nice lasagne.

~*~

Sat on the curb of a dusty and unused road, Dio prodded the back (or stomach?) of the apron-donned man. Wait, maybe this was their side? It was like looking at a limb-based rubix cube. The clothes were too messed up and red to get any help on this.

He tucked his feet a little closer in a cross-legged position, and leant on his hand. The other hand reached forward and grabbed something. A crunch, and a squelch as Dio prodded around his organs in the soft glow of the moon. The man’s life signs had lasted quite a long while, but they were gone now and rigamortis was here.

Still playing with some random, squishy organ beneath his fingertips he glared up at the night. The road curled around a few mounds to the left and right – presumably back to the city they had walked from that blared from a few hundred meters away. On the side facing Dio, a desert rolled away. But Dio cared more about the stars above.

Living in England, a clear sky is a myth. As a child, he had loved to watch the stars when possible. He would lean out of his window and wonder if they watched back. It became a habit, but after staring up through clouds of smog and a black eye so many times he felt the stars didn’t love him back. He would close the window to keep the cold out and hope his father didn’t notice a cold draft and blacken the other eye. But that was years ago, and is irrelevant. Dio ignores the voice that points out he’s lying, and stares at the celestial frogspawn sprawled out across black.

Inside, Polnareff wonders why Dio is so patient. He pins it to living in a coffin for 100 years and being bored out his mind. Only partially true. Outside, sat next to a wooden crate, some other junk items, and a trail of blood leading to the dead chef, Dio has gotten lost in time, and lost in general. His scowl is gone and he almost looks up softly to space.

Inside the building, the gang minus Polnareff and dead comrades are holed up in the staffroom. With no exit to the outside, the staff were forced to run out the only door that lead into the dining area and pray that the screams weren’t going to be the cause of their own demises. Such prayers were not answered, but luckily this left a clean and unbloodied room for everyone to try and ignore the knowledge there was a pile of dead bodies in the next room. Unknowingly, Jotaro had joined Dio in looking up at the sky when he leaned to the small, high, window and stared up. He didn’t have the same view, but it was something.

Polnareff walks out onto the broken roadside just outside the kitchen and immediately thanks life that it is dark out, and that his eyes haven’t adjusted yet to the low light when he sees the crumpled mess in front of a large figure that is presumably Dio.

“Lasagne’s… ready.” He doesn’t see Dio flinch.

He stands off the pavement with cold legs in the stifled desert air. He rubs his face and steps inside with heavy feet, across the square of light spilling out the shadow of the door frame.

A few adjustments and intact decorations stole from neighbouring tables later, and Dio was smirking in his seat. While Polnareff walked over, lasagne in hands, he leant forward a little. He kept his arms and legs crossed in a typical ‘I’m Dio and I will kill you’ pose. Polnareff set the lasagne down on the table mat in front of Dio and joined the rest of the gang in realising this was just delaying their deaths. They braced, but also sighed.

But their breaths catch when Dio picks up the lasagne, like a sandwich. He grins and goes in to bite a chunk off, but Joseph quietly screams a trademark ‘oh my god’ and he pauses. Dio looks confused, especially so when you consider the lasagne falling apart in his hands.

“You’re meant to use a knife and fork.” Kakyoin takes a brave stand over this foolish way to eat a lasagne. Dio looks slowly to the lasagne and another chunk of beef falls off.

“Oh.” In his defence, it did resemble a sandwich. He placed it back, then rubbed his hands on something hidden under the tablecloth. It wheezed. He kicked it, like hitting a mute button on a loud ad. It made a satisfying thud and he went back to the task at hand – or rather, hopefully at knife and fork this time.

He cuts off a huge chunk, and somehow ends up with half the entire portion of lasagne in his mouth at once. He chews with an unamused glare, but at one point he starts chewing a little faster and the glare turns into sheer shock. He swallows, but stays in the position he was while chewing, and his eyes soften. They well up slightly. He lets out a choked sob from a slightly red lasagne-stained mouth. Everyone feels awkward, but more confused.

“Wh-Why is mortal food this good?” Dio sobs a little more.

“Dio, are you feeling alright?” Polnareff breaks the ice with the question everyone wants to ask. He takes another second to choke back more sobbing.

“It’s-“ Sniff. “It’s just so good.” Dio jams his fork into the remaining half and somehow gets it all in his mouth again. His tears begin to fall out his eyes and he chews down another mouthful. No one is even sure how he picked up the lasagne, balanced with a knife and fork, so easily and cleanly. But what they are even less sure of is the outcome of this situation.

A minute passes. He swallows the last bit. He’s still crying, and many tears have fallen into his bowl in the duration of this. Another rolls down the path formed by others on his cheek and lands in the near-flat bowl with a slight ‘splap’ noise. Everyone is mystified by Dio, and Dio is mystified by this plate of angels directly from heaven. He lowers his face into the slightly messy plate of what was once a lasagne and continues crying. With his vision obstructed, the gang considers sneaking out while he isn’t looking. Joseph is already tiptoeing around a table when his phone goes off. He yelps, looks around the room, and picks it up.

“H-Hello?”

“No, the phone startled me is all.”

“Excuse me? What was that?”

“That’s ridiculous! No way.”

“… You do sound fine.”

“… I’ll tell the others.”

He brought his phone to his face, tapped it, and slid it in his pocket.

“Holly is healthy again. She called me just now to say that her fever went a minute ago.” Everyone turns to Dio, still inadvertently rubbing his face in lasagne and crying a little quieter now.

“Polnareff, I think you broke Dio’s curse by feeding him lasagne.” Yep, saying it aloud made no more sense than how it sounded in his head. This entire situation made no sense, to be fair; they were stood around an approximately 120-year old vampire with another power that they hadn’t even seen yet, who was sobbing while lasagne was smeared on his face.

~*~

They dragged him back to his house after someone had seen inside and screamed. They presumed police would come, and it was a miracle no one saw up till then. But there was almost something poetic about the police sirens blaring down the road the other side of a mound while they held the man they had set out to kill. They had brought him upstairs and set him down on his own bed. They didn’t really want to just leave him here. (Not only was there the chance he would try and track them down later for leaving him, they also felt slightly bad for him.)

By now, Dio was just sitting calmly on the bed. Kakyoin decided to answer burning questions everyone had.

“Why did you cry over lasagne?”

“… It was really good.” Dio sighs the last part, like talking about a long lost lover.

“But you sobbed and got lasagne all over your face.” It was a good job Dio was no longer a huge threat to them.

“I got emotional.” At this, Kakyoin realises that this was the best answer he would probably get from him.

~*~

He wore a jacket on top of last night’s clothing. The speedwagon foundation had negotiated a truce with him – a ‘don’t bother me and I won’t bother you’ situation. They had took a plane at night so that Dio could wave goodbye, and he did not miss the opportunity to be the only man alive that could pick up a Joestar unassisted. Jotaro had only given him an angry glare at being picked up around the waist, but Joseph complained he was too old. Dio just said ‘I am far older than you’ and continued crushing his ribcage. Great Uncle Dio (or grunkle Dio for short) reminded them to visit sometime as a holiday. Polnareff especially was making plans to come back already, just to feed him ten times more lasagne. Dio also offered to come around, and they put aside their fear of their families being devoured and welcomed him with open, shaking arms. The effect a single lasagne had on Dio’s outlook of life had changed fate entirely,

The walk back to his own house brought him an emotion he had repressed for a very long time: loneliness. A local store doesn’t even bother his when they see him walking in, taking their entire stock of pre-made lasagnes and walking out again – with a dreamy look in his eyes and a month’s worth of lasagne. They would have stopped him, but he looked so happy. And they also valued their lives.

~*~

As everything continued in Dio’s life, the local stores had gotten used to seeing him and putting out lasagnes. If a store didn’t have at least five lasagnes, he would drink the blood out of whoever was behind the counter. They learnt fast. Even locals would leave out lasagnes on their doorsteps – a reverse santa who takes lasagne and gives nothing. They didn’t have to, but it was a fun community thing of ‘appease the huge greek god of a man who walks around in the dark hours stealing lasagnes and smiling.'