Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/3614073.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      ジョジョの奇妙な冒険_|_JoJo_no_Kimyou_na_Bouken_|_JoJo's_Bizarre_Adventure
  Relationship:
      Dio_Brando/Enrico_Pucci
  Character:
      Mariah_(Jojo)
  Additional Tags:
      First_Time, Catholic_Guilt, Blow_Jobs, Vampires, Facials, Riding, using
      Stands_during_sex_hooray
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-03-25 Completed: 2015-05-13 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 13022
****** Here I Go Again ******
by TrashCat
Summary
     Why do people meet each other? His belief couldn't be heretical if
     God had planted it in his head. And hadn't God made him love Dio, in
     a way that extended beyond friendship or lust, maybe even surpassed
     the bond of a man and a woman? The distraught mother who had taken
     Wes, the thief who had stolen Pearla's purse, Dio sleeping in the
     charnel that day—people were drawn to each other by a divine gravity.
Notes
     My roommate and I went through the entire Dio/Pucci tag and decided
     it was criminally lacking in Catholic guilt, so I have tapped into my
     heritage to fill that void
     and I have titled it after a Whitesnake song that is only
     tangentially related to the topic of the fic
     Also: In Stone Ocean, Pucci's shown as already studying to become a
     priest when he's only fifteen and still living at home. However, most
     seminarians don't enter a seminary until they've already got a
     college degree. Apparently it is possible to become a seminarian
     early with the approval of a bishop, so I guess we'll just assume
     Pucci's a special case and way, way younger than his classmates. (No
     pressure, Pucci.) Also-also, I'm not sure if the whole Wes & Pearla
     debacle had a set time for when it happened, so I just kinda
     arbitrarily put it in the summer and set this in the fall, so,
     Pucci's first semester at an official seminary, and a few months into
     him and Dio's friendship.
***** Adoration *****
Enrico Pucci tried to think of Jesus.
The chapel was dim and smoky with incense, and for the moment, silent except
for the occasional shifting or cough. Eucharistic Adoration was a feature of
life in the seminary, and even before he had come here, he had attended at his
church back home. For as long as he had been old enough to know what was going
on, he had felt comfort in the smell of incense, the echoes of a nearly empty
church, the presence of the exposed Body of Christ.
The exposed Body of Christ. He really hated that phrase.
Even looking down at his clasped hands, he could feel the eye of Christ boring
into his skull. That was how he had always thought of the Host in the
monstrance, like a blazing eye surrounded by a sun of gold. From the moment he
had walked into the chapel an hour ago, he had felt that presence. He could
always feel the presence of the Host when it was around, his soul resonating
with that miracle, but right now, he felt like his soul was cowering, being
condemned. He couldn't hide from the eye of God. He had come willingly to be
judged.
He chewed on his dry lip and wished he had brought something to meditate on. Or
maybe a rosary? All the prayers he had memorized had left him. He tried not to
think about the phrase the exposed Body of Christ. Behind the altar where the
monstrance was perched, a life-sized model of Jesus hung from a cross of
polished wood, splayed out naked and defenseless with only a scrap of white
cloth clinging between His legs. Pucci tried not to look.
Maybe he would try not to think of Jesus.
Just this afternoon, Confession had been held in this chapel, in preparation
for this same Adoration, but he hadn't gone. He had been asleep. And his dreams
had been so innocent and inconsequential. And then he had opened his eyes and
he had seen himself and he had seen Dio, their bodies overlapping and
intertwined. And even though panic had spiked in him he'd known already that
that panic had more to do with what time is it? than what have I done? because
Dio's breath was soft against his bare skin and his sleeping face was as pure
and perfect as a Bernini sculpture. It wasn't until he had bid farewell to Dio
completely and stepped outside into the sun that his knees had weakened under
the weight of what he had done. He had stumbled back home to the seminary and
changed into his robes in a daze, trying not to relive the night before, trying
not to think about going to Adoration with his soul filthy with sin.
And of all the sins, thissin. He had already sinned enough for a lifetime and
he was only sixteen. Wes, Pearla—he tried not to think about them. He had been
forgiven and so he could wake up and try to put his sister out of mind, even
with the pain of her death still fresh, but this new sin burned on his soul as
if he had been branded.
How could he have stayed vigilant when Dio was so radiant? When he spoke with
that clear and sure voice, when he was so confident and so thoughtful, and when
his eyes shone like that, like the golden eye of the Lord in the monstrance?
Lucifer was bright and beautiful too, he told himself, and then he snapped back
at his own thoughts, I know.
But Lucifer could never put a soul at ease like Dio did. Dio seemed more like a
strange and burning saint.
Pucci knew he needed to stop thinking about Dio like that, after last night.
Dio had tempted him with sins of the flesh and he had given in. Dio was
unapologetic about his love of the carnal and seemed to flaunt it, a man who
despised shirts and wore lipstick, aggressively masculine and feminine at the
same time. Shouldn't he have known from the start to avoid a man like that?
But he couldn't possibly have done that. Fate, gravity, the will of God.
Something had pushed them together.
He didn't want to admit it even to himself, but he thought it was the will of
God.
Maybe God had wanted him and Dio to meet. Maybe it was as a trial, I'll give
you this man that's everything you ever wanted and he will walk by your side
but keep him at arm's length—was that too cruel? Was that something God would
do? Pucci didn't know. God's thoughts were not his thoughts. They were as far
from him as heaven itself was.
He knew that Dio's hands on him had been comforting, even as they had slowly
worked him out of his clothes.
He knew that when Dio had embraced him, he had wrapped his legs around him as
well as his arms, as if to keep Dio from leaving, like he had wanted him to
stay there forever. And he had thought, in the past, that God had set him apart
to never love another person, that his path to the priesthood would be simple
because there was nothing in the secular world he'd miss. He had never felt
called to love a woman. Romance was something other people did.
But he loved holding Dio's hand, and Dio's touch always felt natural, like he
was an extension of his own body.
Last night they had been laying together, not in the Biblical sense, not at
first, just laying on the bed of the room Dio was staying in. Pucci had been
resting his head against Dio's leg, and some time ago Dio had started stroking
his hair, without permission or saying a word. Pucci was reading for homework.
“You saw the woman I had in here, right?” Dio said. “She left just a minute
before you came in. You had to have passed her.”
“Yes,” Pucci said. The woman had been young and beautiful and struggling to fix
her hair as she walked away.
“You must have known what we were doing in here. On this same bed, too.”
“I'm not naive, Dio.” Pucci put his book down and tilted his head back to meet
Dio's eyes. “Yes, I knew.”
“And? Doesn't that offend you? You believe sex is to be reserved for marriage,
don't you?”
“Yes. It's a sacred act.”
“And I desecrate it nightly,” Dio said. “I've been with more women than I can
count. I don't even remember most of their faces. And not just women—men too.”
Dio didn't seem to be trying to provoke him, but Pucci could tell, even looking
at Dio's face upside down, that he was enjoying saying this. “Yesterday, before
I left to visit you here, I fucked a man into the mattress until he was in
tears. Does that bother you?”
“Are you trying to shock me?” Pucci asked.
Dio grinned, flashing his pointed teeth. “Are you shocked?”
“No.” Pucci shrugged and returned to his reading.
Dio laughed, and started absentmindedly stroking Pucci's hair again.
Pucci tried to parse through the dense text, but every stroke of Dio's fingers
just set him back to the top of the page again, and so he put his book to the
side. “I'm not some tyrannical old bishop, you know. I don't believe in
condemning a whole person for just one aspect of their character.”
“Oh?” Dio looked down into Pucci's eyes.
Pucci looked back into Dio's; those eyes were deep, long tunnels, and Dio's
soul was not at the end of them.
“So you'll forgive me for being an unrepentant fornicator? A consumnate
hedonist? An absolute slut, if you will?”
“It's not my forgiveness to give,” Pucci said. He sighed, and the words “I
completely believe you when you say you're a hundred years old” left his mouth,
but Dio spoke over them.
“Enrico, do you believe in love between men?”
“What?” Pucci frowned a little.
“Do you believe a man can love another man in the holy way a man loves a woman?
I'm not asking about your church, I'm asking you.”
Pucci found his mouth dry. “Well...Homosexual acts are closed to the gift of
life. A man and a man can't create a child together, so...no.”
Dio's face fell. “Is that what you really think?”
Pucci wasn't sure why he wished he could take the words back. Maybe he just
hated seeing the light leave Dio's eyes. “I can't say I've put much thought
into it.”
“Really? Not even when you think about me?”
Pucci rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows. “What are you trying to
say? Don't talk around it, Dio.” He prompted him. “You know I won't shirk
away.” They'd talked before about free will, wondered together whether God was
kind or harsh, even debated the truth of the Bible. Dio had always been
entertained by his wealth of knowledge, and he had loved Dio's biting
irreverence, and no matter what Dio said next, it would be nothing too
outlandish for him.
“Enrico, do you want to know love before you take your vows?”
Pucci's heart leapt in his chest, with a surge of exhilaration and nausea.
“Whose love? Yours?” He smiled, wryly, or so he hoped.
Dio smiled back, and laid beside him. “If you'll have it.” He leaned closer.
“I'd be honored to give it to you. You're a rare man.”
“I accept it, then. Your friendship.” Pucci grasped Dio's hand as it crept
closer, and held it.
Dio pouted, and wrenched his hand away, and rested it on Pucci's chest. “Can't
you feel your own heart beating? I can hear it. You can't hide it from me.” His
voice got lower, almost dangerous. “You love to learn, don't you? Do you really
want to shut yourself away from a world of experiences, like a cloistered nun?
At your age? You can collect all the memory discs you want, but that's not
living for yourself, is it?”
“I'm not living for myself. My life is for something higher than that.” Pucci
tried again to pull Dio's hand away, but Dio was pushing him onto his back and
he felt as if righting himself was impossible when he caught sight of Dio's
burning eyes.
Dio knelt over him, and then, on all fours like a ravenous animal, he dipped
his head to Pucci's and their noses touched, Dio's skin was cool and then he
was whispering the closest thing to a plea Pucci had heard from him. “But
surely God is gracious enough to share you with me?”
And in the wave of fondness that overtook him, Pucci let his guard down, and
then Dio was kissing him. And any thought of protesting flew away. Dio kissed
like an expert, someone who had been through the motions enough times to know
how to make it new again, and for Pucci it was new, and he let Dio lead him
through it, and he wrapped his arms and his legs around Dio as if his body was
afraid it would be torn away from him. And when Dio slipped his hands under his
shirt, pushing it up, it was fine, because this small room with all its shades
drawn seemed too warm to bear. And when Dio's hand crept into his pants, he
turned his head away and tried to open his mouth to speak, but he couldn't
think of anything to say.
Why do people meet each other? His belief couldn't be heretical if God had
planted it in his head. And hadn't God made him love Dio, in a way that
extended beyond friendship or lust, maybe even surpassed the bond of a man and
a woman? The distraught mother who had taken Wes, the thief who had stolen
Pearla's purse, Dio sleeping in the charnel that day—people were drawn to each
other by a divine gravity.
He could ask those questions here in Adoration all he wanted, but no divine
lightning bolt would come down and strike him like Saul on his horse. Instead,
he just offered his beliefs and excuses up like a prayer, with his mouth dry
and his heart racing and his hands clasping each other, tight enough to hurt.
 
 
***** Vesting Room *****
Chapter Notes
     First of all, I just wanna say thank you to everyone who left kudos
     and comments on the first chapter!! I'm really glad you like it!
     I kind of arbitrarily put Pucci in Alabama because I don't think it
     was ever specified what state he was from. I'm not even sure if
     there's a seminary in Alabama, or where it would be if there was, but
     I figure that much research is more than this fic requires...
     I was a good two-thirds of the way through this chapter by the time I
     realized that Dio's a vampire and presumably has no body
     heat...everyone just suspend your disbelief and believe that slightly
     chilly blowjobs would actually be enjoyable
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Dio was coming to visit him at the seminary tonight, Monday night. At first
he'd wanted to come visit on Sunday, but Pucci had convinced him to postpone,
even though he wanted to see him again just as badly. Trying to concentrate on
prayer with the heady buzz of guilt around him was hard enough already. Mass
had been awful too, the first time that an hour had ever seemed so long, with
the paranoia lurking in the back of his mind that all of his classmates could
somehow see what he had done. He knew that he shouldn't take Communion with an
unforgiven mortal sin on his soul, but what would everyone think if he stayed
in the pew? In the end, he held the Host in his mouth for the entire rest of
Mass, running through every prime number he could think of in his head, and
afterwards, he spit it out in the bathroom trash, knowing that was just as bad.
Sunday night he talked on the phone with Dio in a hushed voice, afraid someone
would catch a hint of the conversation and immediately know what he was doing.
“I'll be at evening prayer after sunset, though,” Pucci was saying. Since
befriending Dio, he'd become aware of the time the sun set every day, knowing
that his evening was Dio's morning and as he was getting ready for bed Dio was
crawling out of twisted bedsheets, pulling on his high-heeled boots and
applying some kind of shiny makeup. He thought about Dio's choice in makeup way
too much.
“I'll wait for you outside the church,” Dio said. “I can scope out the other
young faithful while I'm waiting for you.”
“Please don't,” Pucci groaned. Dio laughed.
“Don't worry, Enrico, I'm sure none of them look as good in that dog collar as
you do.”
“Dio, I mean it.”
Dio sighed and the huff of breath crackled through the phone. “You really
underestimate me, Enrico. Do you really think I, DIO, would be caught skulking
around a church like a lost streetwalker? No one will see me. And I will see
only you.”
Silence hung on the line between them before Pucci spoke again. “What are you
doing right now?”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
Pucci felt his face heat up. “What are you doing? Where are you? What are you
wearing? I just” he tried to speak even more quietly, “want to see you.”
Dio was quiet for a second before he started speaking, and Pucci thought he
knew what kind of face he was making: that slightly smug, satisfied smile. “I'm
laying in bed in my hotel room. And at the moment, I'm not wearing much of
anything. I just woke up, after all. And I'm talking on the phone with you.”
Pucci bit back a smile.
“Oh, and I'm also reading this 'TV Guide'. I think it's outdated, but the
articles are still interesting enough.”
Pucci laughed at that.
“I'm well aware 'TV Guide' is not high literature, thank you,” Dio said
peevishly.
Pucci glanced around the empty hallway; he knew he hadn't been on the phone for
long, but he still didn't want to bar anyone else from using it, and he
especially didn't want anyone else to hear this conversation. “I should
probably go. But I'll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes. I'm looking forward to it, Enrico.”
“Yeah.” Pucci couldn't think of anything more eloquent to say, so he just
mumbled out “See you then.”
“Indeed.” And Dio hung up without a warning or a goodbye. He still hadn't
gotten the hang of the unspoken ritual of phone conversations and Pucci
couldn't stop himself from smiling as he put the phone on the hook and headed
back to his room; he was smiling way too much lately for someone who could
barely breathe every time he saw a crucifix.
                                       –
Monday's prayers and classes passed in a blur of impatience and nausea. If
there had been a clock in the church, Pucci would have glanced at it every
other minute, but thankfully there was none and instead he could bide his time
during evening prayers by trying not to meet the eyes of the saints in the
stained glass. You're all just people, he told them in his head. Only God can
judge me. And God was all-knowing, and He knew the whole range of human
weakness, and how many other people across the whole history of the Church had
waited impatiently for their prayers to be done? God forgave sins that were
much more shocking.
Pucci himself had committed sins much more shocking.
He remembered a genial middle-aged priest who had talked to the teenagers of
his church back home, about vocations and the importance of marriage and of
staying pure until then. And Pucci had barely paid attention, already knowing
that he would be a priest and he would never have to navigate the maze of
confused teenage dating, but somehow he still remembered one thing that priest
had said: that after a young couple gave into their lust, their nights out
would hold no excitement anymore; they would always already know how it would
end. As if lust stopped being exciting after the first time. As if people in
love were mindless animals, unable to make a decision or stop or change their
minds. For the first time, remembering that well-meaning and smiling man, Pucci
felt just a little offended.
He hadn't been intending to fall right back into Dio's arms. They wouldn't even
be going back to his room tonight. There was no reason to accuse him of giving
into sin again by wanting to see Dio.
After he finished his prayers, he hung back until everyone else had left the
church, bowing his head and pretending to continue on his own. When the still
air of the church was all that echoed around his ears, he rose and crossed
himself, and left with his hands clasped.
He only had to wait on the steps of the church for a moment before Dio
appeared—literally appeared, in the space between blinks. He laughed at the
look of surprise that crossed Pucci's face for a second. “I told you no one
would see me, Enrico.”
“So this is the elusive secret of your Stand, then? It's invisibility?” Pucci
asked, playfully. It was a game between them, Dio refusing to tell what exactly
he could do, Pucci trying to guess.
“No, that's not it either,” Dio said. “I could just tell you, Enrico. I trust
you enough.”
“No, I want to guess,” Pucci said. “I'm sure I can get it.”
“It's not particularly obscure. Your own ability is much more bizarre than
mine.”
“I'll figure it out eventually,” he insisted.
Dio stepped ahead of him and opened the heavy wooden door of the church. “Let's
go in, shall we?”
Pucci trailed in after him. Dio's pointed boots met the dull red carpet just
inside the door and Pucci felt the strange dissonance of his worlds
colliding—though he told himself he shouldn't. He knew he only lived in one
world, and even when he left the seminary, God left with him.
But when he walked in, he still felt as if he was presenting Dio to the Christ
on the crucifix, the Blessed Mother and Joseph in their alcoves, and the saints
in the windows. He wondered what they thought of him.
“So this is where you live,” Dio said.
“You know I live across the street,” Pucci said with a roll of his eyes, though
he knew Dio was smiling.
Dio strode over to the holy water font and dipped his fingers in. “Still
doesn't hurt,” he said dryly, and flicked the drops off his nails at Pucci.
Pucci flinched. “So, Enrico, I had a little adventure last night.”
“Oh? I hope it's appropriate to talk about in a church.”
“It's nothing like that.” Dio waved his hand dismissively and started strutting
around the edge of the church, leisurely glancing up at the stained glass
windows and the Stations of the Cross. “I just went out to meet a man. I'd
heard he'd do anything for money, and he's got an excellent reputation among a
certain set of people.”
“Dio...”
“He's a hitman.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Named Hol Horse.”
Pucci snorted. “You're kidding.”
“Or that's what he calls himself anyway. Who am I, DIO, to question that?” Dio
grinned. “Anyway, he's a Stand user. I was looking to hire him. I think I
convinced him well enough.”
“A Stand user? Around here?” Pucci was intrigued; how many Stand users were
there here in Alabama, just blending in with the unaware masses? “What kind of
person is he?”
“A tacky cowboy type. I had to go to the most disgusting bar to meet him. He
was wearing a hat indoors.” Dio wrinkled his nose, still looking up at the
wooden carving depicting the tenth Station of the Cross. “He hardly seemed to
think highly of me til I started waving bills around. I can't understand why he
had women fawning over him like that. I don't think he's brushed his teeth in a
week.” Dio moved on to the next Station, or rather, the previous one; he was
going through them backwards. “I really can't understand why some people get
Stands.”
“God gives everyone talents. It's in our own hands to figure out what to do
with them.” Pucci walked over to join Dio. “And Mr. 'Hol Horse' is choosing to
use his talents for evil.”
“Well, if I were God, I wouldn't give tasteless lowlifes any talents so
useful.”
“You're not God, though.”
“Not yet, anyway.” Dio flashed Pucci a dazzling smile and then spoke, loudly,
in the direction of the altar. “But when I am, I won't have to share Enrico
with anybody.”
“Dio...” Pucci grasped Dio's arm. The tips of his ears were heating up. Thank
God no one—no one human—was around.
“Come now. You know I'm not shy about the depths of my ambition.” Dio passed
the rest of the Stations on this side of the church without a glance, and,
still holding his arm, Pucci followed him until they stood before the altar.
“You know, I have a little book where I write down all my findings. And I think
I've very nearly found the key.” Dio's arm snaked around Pucci's waist, and he
whispered in his ear. “Soon and very soon, within the next year, I think. I'll
have it. I'll be able to climb the stairway to heaven.”
Pucci thrilled at that, even as his blood ran cold, maybe because it ran cold.
The most holy saints had seen visions of Heaven. He wanted to see it, he wanted
to see it so badly, and when Dio spoke about Heaven he wanted to believe, even
as blasphemous as it was, that someone like Dio could strut past Saint Peter in
his skintight leggings and neon jacket, wearing glittering eyeshadow and green
lipstick, and stand before the eyes of God.
He wanted to see that.
“When you manage to do it,” he whispered back, “will you take me with you?”
“Of course I will,” Dio said, as if the idea of going without him was
personally offensive. “I need you.”
Pucci cast his eyes down and Dio just pulled him closer to his side, still
gazing up at the altar, inspecting it in silence. Pucci stayed pressed to Dio's
side for a moment before worming away and stepping back an arm's length. “What
are you thinking about?”
“I'm trying to pin down what it is I like about churches,” Dio said. “Maybe
it's that they don't look much different than they did a century ago. Sometimes
the culture shock catches up to me, you know.”
“Really? I can't imagine you missing the eighteen-eighties.”
“Oh, trust me. Most of the time I don't. But every now and then I remember that
Jojo's been dead for a hundred years and his grandson's old enough to be your
grandfather.” Dio shook his head and smiled. “Or maybe I like the theatricality
of all of this.” He gestured around at the church. “Just like how I like the
theatricality of this generation.”
Pucci nodded.
“Will you take me backstage?” Dio asked suddenly.
“Hm?” Pucci frowned. “You mean, to the vesting room?”
“Is that what it's called? I guess you would know better than I.”
“I guess I can, but it's not very exciting. It's kind of a glorified closet.”
Pucci began walking to the unobtrusive, closed door to the right of the altar,
and lifted up a nearby candlestick to retrieve the key underneath.
“So you've been in here before?” Dio asked as Pucci unlocked the door and
fumbled for the light switch in the dark room.
“Plenty of times. I serve as an altar boy about once a month.”
“That's adorable,” Dio chuckled.
“I was one at my church at home too,” Pucci said. He found the light switch and
it flickered weakly to life, revealing a dim room lined with wardrobes and with
a Bible resting on a secondhand table in the middle. Dio followed him, and
closed the door behind them.
“Sometimes I forget just how young you are,” Dio murmured. He opened one of the
wardrobes, the one containing the vestments for Lent and Easter. “Which ones do
you wear?”
“Not the ones in there. Mine are in here.” Pucci tapped the wardrobe at the
back of the room.
“Hmm.” Dio skirted the table and wrapped his arms around Pucci from behind.
“You know, I've heard some very nasty stories about altar boys.”
“Don't start,” Pucci groaned.
“Oh? So you get comments about it a lot?”
“No, just off-color, tired jokes.”
Dio's hand crept down to the waist of Pucci's pants. “I can't stop thinking
about Friday night.”
“Me neither.” Pucci rested his hands on top of Dio's. “I wanted to talk to you
about that, actually.”
“Don't tell me I tempted you away from your holy path.” Dio kissed Pucci's
neck, then bit at it gently, and Pucci flinched. “I'd feel just awful if I did
that.”
“You didn't.” Pucci tried to extricate himself from Dio's arms, so he could
turn to face him, but Dio's arms were too strong for him to escape.
“I haven't shaken your convictions at all?”
“No.” Dio's hands under his were cool, just cool enough to not be human and not
so cold that he could pretend Dio was anything natural or alive.
Dio's mouth trailed up to Pucci's ear and he bit at it with sharp teeth. “I'm
glad. Honestly.”
“Careful,” Pucci murmured. He knew he wasn't saying “stop.”
“How many people are like you? So young and yet so dedicated? You're a rare
kind of person.” Dio slipped one of his cool hands down into Pucci's pants and
Pucci shivered. “I knew that about you from the moment I saw you.”
“Same here,” Pucci said. “You were asleep under a table, after all.” He put his
hand on Dio's wrist. “Let me turn around, you're pressing my face into the
wardrobe.”
“Sorry,” Dio said, and whipped him around before pinning him against the
wardrobe door again, with a deep kiss.
Pucci's hands moved as if he had rehearsed it. He almost felt as if he'd done
it all before, a sense of deja vu flooding him as he wrapped his arms around
Dio and slipped his hands up the back of his shirt, working it off slowly,
exposing the pale, cold skin. As if he'd kissed a vampire in a dim vesting room
before. As if he had any memories that could compare to Dio parting his legs a
little with one muscular thigh, the force of his eagerness lifting Pucci off
the floor for a moment before his toes found solid ground again. Around him,
the smell of dust and laundry detergent and, faintly, mold, hung heavy and
familiar, the smell of so many minutes before Mass. Dio ducked away for a
moment to let Pucci pull his shirt over his head, and then he kissed him again
just as hungrily. It's just a kiss, Pucci told himself. Just a kiss, that's
all. He opened his mouth and let Dio into it. There were no barriers between
their souls, or their bodies, now. When Dio's hand grasped his cock suddenly he
had to pull away to gasp. Saliva dripped from his mouth and he wiped it on
Dio's bare shoulder, then kept clinging there.
“You're so precious,” Dio whispered incredulously. “You know it's okay to touch
me too?”
“Sorry,” Pucci whispered back, his face heating up. “I don't know what to do.”
“Don't you ever touch yourself?”
“Masturbation is a sin.”
Dio laughed, and then his hand between Pucci's legs began moving, stroking him
evenly, the same way he had done it on Friday night, such a long time ago. Only
a few days ago. And Pucci kissed at where Dio's neck met his shoulder and
wondered how something so simple and physical could be a sin. His teachers had
built up such a mystique around self-pleasure; but it was a laughably
meaningless act after all. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scent of
Dio's skin and just enjoyed it, the touch, because that was all this was,
touch. The old fathers of the church had outlawed touch.
“Don't stop,” Pucci mumbled.
“I won't,” Dio promised.
But he did take his hand away, and instead Pucci felt something hard and
clothed rubbing against him. Heat flooded his face. He had been so surprised
last time, the first time he'd felt Dio's length against his skin, and he still
wasn't used to it. No wonder sodomy was deemed unnatural. If God had really
intended for something like Dio's cock to fit inside such a tight orifice, He
had a lot more faith in homosexuals than his people did.
“We're not going to do that again, are we?” Pucci said.
“God, no. That was very poor thinking on my part. I value your ass too much to
destroy it like that,” Dio said, and the way he said it made Pucci laugh
despite himself.
“It didn't really kick in right away. But Saturday morning I worried I'd be
walking with a limp all day,” Pucci admitted. The fear had been real, for a few
hours at least. “I was so afraid everyone would know.”
“I'd wait a few more days, just to be safe.” Dio rubbed the dripping head of
Pucci's cock with his thumb, and Pucci gasped in thanks. Then Dio stopped his
attention for a moment. “...You did enjoy it, didn't you? You weren't just
humoring me?”
“I did.” Pucci kissed Dio on the lips. “I felt like...well, I felt like I was
in the cleansing fires of Purgatory.”
“What?”
“Being prepared to go to Heaven.”
Dio laughed and held him and pressed their hips together and Pucci could feel
his desire pulsing against his skin, and that was vulgar, but it was also
human. Humans were crude creatures of the earth and if the way their bodies
showed need was just as crude, then that was perfect for them. All was as it
should be. He relayed his thought to Dio between labored breaths and Dio
nodded, smiled at the thought.
“But if you were anyone else comparing me, DIO, to a human, I'd rip the head
from your shoulders.”
Then Dio paused, stepped away. And before Pucci could even feel deprived, he
was trailing his hands down Pucci's chest as he sank to his knees, and knelt in
front of him.
Dio's perfect lips met and kissed the very human thing in front of him.
“Dio...you don't have to do that...” Pucci said.
“Are you going to tell me I can't?”
Pucci abandoned the idea of saying anything in response and instead just closed
his eyes as Dio's tongue ran along the underside of his cock, caressing it.
When he opened his eyes, somehow his gaze was on the ceiling. His legs shook as
Dio licked him again and again, and he shivered. The inside of Dio's mouth
wasn't warm, but he had his own vitality. It didn't feel unpleasant. And it
didn't feel human.
This couldn't be compared to the carnal acts of the Bible, then, could it? Dio
had lived over a hundred years and was climbing the stairway to heaven. Maybe
even though he acted like humans did the rules didn't apply to him. What did
the Bible say about vampires? Did the Church teach anything about them? Dio
seemed perfectly at ease around holy items. Maybe he was immune to the laws of
the church—no, that was ridiculous. Even demons had obeyed the commands of
Jesus. So maybe you should stop trying to make excuses for yourself, Pucci
thought.
Dio coaxed sounds from Pucci's throat that he couldn't hold back, and those
sounds spurred Dio on, so that Pucci couldn't really feel embarrassed about
them. No one could hear them. No one would be in the church at this time in the
evening, right? He wasn't really sure. He brought a hand down to touch Dio's
face, trying to show appreciation without forming words. His eyes traced the
cracks and water stains on the ceiling.
“Why won't you look at me?” Dio murmured, only pausing long enough to say that
before kissing him again.
“Um...” Because he was afraid he'd feel ashamed seeing Dio on his knees. It
would feel like an invasion of privacy.
“I want you to,” Dio said. “Look at me. Watch me. I don't do this for just
anyone, Enrico.”
Tentatively Pucci looked down, and met the full force of Dio's eyes.
Dio's face was full of confidence and satisfaction and his lips were so
perfect, why hadn't Pucci ever realized how perfect they were? And he had freed
his cock from his tight pants and was touching himself without his attention
wavering. Even doing that he exuded sublime calm.
Heat rushed to Pucci's face, and to his shame, to the place that Dio was
ministering to. Dio must have felt the throbbing, because he smirked, and then
took Pucci's cock into his mouth completely. Pucci grimaced, but it didn't feel
bad. It felt new and strange and it was Dio. Nothing could feel bad if it was
Dio.
Dio was good at maneuvering around his sharp teeth, and though he had said he
didn't do this for just anyone, he seemed to have done it enough to know how to
ignore the gag reflex. Pucci wanted to ask Dio if this was really alright, but
Dio couldn't speak; he was too busy letting Pucci's cock further into his
mouth, til it scraped against the back of his throat, and Pucci took the name
of the Lord in vain for the first time as he felt that. It didn't matter that
there was no heat. This faint chill was just as good, better. He couldn't
imagine it any other way, and he tried to keep from thrusting further into
Dio's mouth because he didn't want to hurt him but then it was Dio and maybe it
wouldn't faze him at all—he whispered “sorry” and gently tugged on Dio's hair
to try to pull him closer. Dio slid nearer much faster than Pucci had intended.
A shiver ran through Pucci's whole body: he'd never felt anything like that
before, he'd never even masturbated, so how was he supposed to—he wasn't even
sure how his body knew how to respond to something like this. But it did know.
“Dio...careful...I think I'm going to...”
Dio pulled away, but didn't break eye contact. “Cum?”
Pucci nodded, ashamed that he couldn't say the word.
“Good.” Dio smiled. “I want you to cum all over my face, Enrico.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. You're my dearest friend.”
Pucci wanted to say he didn't understand, but then Dio stroked him one more
time with the hint of sharp fingernails, and Pucci shuddered, and came.
He tried to avert his eyes from Dio's face, sullied with bodily fluids like
that, the white clinging almost like snow to his hair and his eyelashes and
dripping down into his slightly-open mouth. Dio licked his lips deliberately,
and then started wiping the rest of the cum off his face, with one taloned
finger, and licking it off.
He's a demon.The thought entered Pucci's head without him consciously thinking
it. He shakily put his damp cock back in his pants and zipped them up, wishing
he could stop watching but unable to tear his eyes away. Just like the first
time he and Dio had done this, but more quickly, shame flooded him. It stung.
“I like you,” Dio said slowly, as he sucked his finger for the last time. “I
really like you.”
“I really like you too,” Pucci said, reflexively.
“I know. But...I feel like I haven't made that clear enough. Have I?” Dio
crawled across the floor on his hands and knees a half-step, until he was
practically between Pucci's legs. Pucci noticed that Dio had come too, though
he hadn't noticed when. How had he missed that?
Still exposed, with flecks of cum in his hair still, and with his lipstick
smeared around the edges, Dio wrapped his arms around Pucci's legs and gazed up
into his eyes.
“I hope you'll forgive me for desecrating a holy space?”
“I've told you before, Dio, forgiveness isn't mine to give,” Pucci said, and
tentatively, he reached a hand down to touch Dio's golden hair.
“Enrico, you're the only creature in Heaven or Hell or on Earth whose
forgiveness I care about. I hope you aren't taking that for granted.”
Pucci bit back a smile at Dio's tinge of displeasure. “Trust me, Dio. I'm not.”
Enrico Pucci wondered who would forgive him.
 
Chapter End Notes
     Why do I let myself write blowjobs
     Next time: Pucci goes to confession and it's as awkward as you would
     expect
***** Confessional *****
Chapter Notes
     Chapter 3, feat. Pucci's Teenage Feelings
     Wow I was super busy this week so this chapter is shorter than the
     last one and not much happens...next chapter (last chapter!) I hope
     will be a more satisfying read :P
     I haven't gone to Confession in three years
See the end of the chapter for more notes
On Saturday of that week, Pucci took a bus to the outskirts of the city. It was
a grey day, and he thought, as he watched the run-down brick buildings roll by,
that it would have been grim even on a sunnier afternoon. He had never ventured
this far away from the seminary before, not in the few months since he'd moved
away from home.
He rode the bus to the end of the line, then walked with hunched shoulders for
blocks and blocks, as the buildings gave way to empty concrete lots, and he
prayed he wouldn't run into anybody on the desolate street before he reached
his destination, a place that he only vaguely knew the location of. When he
began to find buildings again they were closer together and smaller. A long
time ago this had been a small town, before it was absorbed by the larger one.
It still had its own church. It was in the same parish, but Pucci hoped it
would be far enough away: he needed to go to confession.
The priests that gave confession at his church were his teachers. They knew his
voice, and he had a reputation—the youngest member of his class by far, a
thoughtful and pleasant person, an excellent student. He confessed to them
every week, and even through the confessional's screen, even though no names
were said, they knew it was him. None of his teachers ever mentioned it, but
they were impressed by his piety.
On Wednesday, Dio had returned to Egypt. Pucci had hoped that the distance
between them would dampen the affection that he felt, but now, knowing that Dio
was so far away made him think about him more. What time was it in Cairo? Was
Dio asleep or awake? Was he reading, was he studying, was he drinking blood,
was he having sex? With who? Another man? An attractive man?
Not that the idea bothered him. Dio would do what he did no matter what: there
was no changing him or holding him back, and Pucci didn't want to. He just
wanted to be there. He just wanted to see him, talk to him. Before now, he had
always thought that when people talked about a heavy heart it was a figure of
speech. But he had to stop walking now and then, because of the weight on his
chest. The loneliness of the past few days was constricting him.
The loneliness, or the guilt. One thing that Dio's absence had done was give
him even more time to feel guilty. He knew he couldn't take another Sunday with
this stain on his soul. So now—like a pilgrim to the Holy Land, he thought—here
he was, on this long journey to a church he had never seen, contemplating his
own self-pity, so he could spew out his torrid affairs to a total stranger. Dio
would find this little adventure completely hilarious. Even more hilarious if
he knew how relieved Pucci was when he finally reached the church, after
wondering with increasing panic for several blocks if he had taken a wrong turn
somewhere.
The sign by its door said “ST JOHN THE BAPTIST CATHOLIC CHURCH” and at first
Pucci worried no one was there. When he tried the door, he was actually
surprised it opened.
It was small, plain, and mostly wooden. The crucifix over the altar was chipped
and looked at least a century old: it was crudely painted and the Lord's wounds
were garish red. Pucci stood near the doorway uncertainly for a moment before
he saw the confessional, just a screen set up in one corner of the church. A
shadow moved behind it when it heard the heavy door close behind him. Pucci
approached gratefully and sat on the small stool beside the screen. He guessed
it made sense for such a tiny church to not have a real confessional, but what
if someone came in? His back was to the door and what if someone saw him?
“Welcome,” said the voice on the other side of the screen. It sounded old, but
warm. Pucci wondered how friendly it would sound after he had confessed.
Pucci clasped his hands and dipped his head. “Forgive me, Father, for I have
sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession.” After a moment of
forgetting, he hastily crossed himself.
“Welcome back,” the voice said. “Are you a regular confessor, then?”
“Not at this church,” Pucci said. He could feel his blood surging through his
head, making him dizzy. He tried to remember the prime number that came after
seventeen, but it wasn't coming to him.
“Well, God must be happy to have such a loyal visitor,” the voice said. It
sounded so kindly. Pucci felt like he was being tortured. “What's on your
mind?”
His mouth was dry and the words wouldn't come. How would he even say this? He
had tried so hard not to think about it before he came here. “I'm a
seminarian,” he managed to get out, and then, after a long moment when he
couldn't say anything, “and I have committed a mortal sin.”
“God is forgiving. He loves us even when we feel we don't deserve it. It's
impossible to fall so far that you're beyond God's grace,” the voice reassured.
“I,” Pucci said, “I have, um...” Why couldn't he say it? Why couldn't he just
get it out? It was like the devil was holding his tongue still.
Behind the screen, the voice was silent, but Pucci felt serenity radiating out
from it. Thank God he couldn't see the priest's face. He couldn't bear to see
the reaction of a good and God-fearing man to what he was about to say. He
started from the number one again. Nothing higher than seventeen was springing
to mind right now.
“I, I'm sorry,” Pucci stuttered.
“Take your time,” the voice said.
Thirteen, seventeen. He took a deep, shuddering breath. “I have been unchaste.
I gave into temptations of the flesh. Twice, since my last confession.”
“I see,” the priest said carefully. “Even for someone on a holy path,
especially at your age, desire can be hard to manage. But God understands that.
He's the one who made man and woman drawn to each other, after all. Are you
truly sorry for this sin?”
Pucci closed his eyes. Why did the voice have to say that? He'd hoped he'd be
able to get by being as vague as possible. He couldn't withhold the nature of
the sin, that was a sin in itself. When had he started sweating?
“It—it wasn't a woman, Father. It was a man. A—a close friend.”
“Not much of a friend, if he led you down such a path,” the voice said.
A cold spike of anger ran through Pucci and was gone just as fast. “No, he—the
fault was mine. I gave into my...curiosity.”
“Twice,” the voice said.
“I know that, Father,” Pucci said. “I just felt that...he's so...he's not like
other men. If you met him you would know. He walks on his own path but I know
it's a path that leads to Heaven.”
“There's only one path to Heaven,” the voice said. “But luckily it's never too
late to get on it.” The voice grew even more horrifyingly kind. “Can you tell
me more about this friend?”
Pucci clasped and unclasped his hands. Somehow his eyes had ended up trained on
the toe of one of his shoes. It had a scuff on it. “He's...eccentric. He's a
different kind of man from what you think of when you think of a brilliant man,
but he's a visionary. I really believe that, he's just...most people wouldn't
understand him.”
“But you understand him?” the voice asked.
“Most of the time I think so,” Pucci said. “He's, well...he's my dearest
friend. I can say without shame that I love him.”
“I would question whether he loves you in turn.”
“You don't even know him,” Pucci snapped. He took a deep breath. “I-I'm sorry,
Father.”
“It's alright,” the voice said.
Pucci tugged at his collar, trying to get some fresh air into his shirt.
“You're a good man, and it's good that you recognize what you've done. I can
see that this is a tough subject for you.”
“Y-yes,” Pucci said.
“But you are truly sorry for your actions. You understand the nature of your
offense.”
“Yes,” Pucci said. “God didn't intend for...he didn't intend for man and man
to...” He licked his lips nervously. “And I've dedicated my life to God. As a
future priest, I...” He trailed off and left his sentence there.
“Then ask the Lord for forgiveness,” the voice prompted.
Pucci unclasped his hands and then clasped them again. “My God, I am sorry for
my offense—um. Sorry.” Somehow he'd managed to forget the beginning of a prayer
he had known by rote since he was a child. His own voice was weirdly loud in
his ears. Was it the acoustics in the small church? “My God, I am sorry for my
sins with all my heart. In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have
sinned against You whom I should love above all things. I firmly intend, with
Your help, to do penance, to sinno more, and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.
Amen.”
“For your penance,” the voice said, “pray the Rosary several times over the
next few weeks. Reflect deeply on the life of Christ, and of his Blessed
Mother. When you feel tempted to think sinful thoughts, consider praying to
Saint Augustine.”
“Y-yes. Thank you, Father,” Pucci said.
“I also think it would be best that you break off your relationship with this
friend, to avoid further temptations and distractions from your study.”
Pucci felt as if a heavy weight had been dropped into his stomach. “Yes,
Father.”
In an assured tone and at a quick pace, the voice spoke. “God, the Father of
mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has reconciled the
world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.
Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I
absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit.”
Pucci crossed himself as the voice finished his words, and then let out a shaky
breath. So that was all? So with those recited words, he was forgiven? The
sense of peace that usually flooded him after confession didn't come. He
thanked the priest and then escaped as quickly as he could into the grey day
outside.
It had all gone by so fast. He kind of worried whether it had counted. The sin
had been so big, and yet in just a few minutes it was forgiven. The penance
too. Rosaries? He prayed those every week. He had half expected the priest to
stop the confession and call the bishop over to kick him out of the seminary
personally.
“In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good.” What a strange phrase to have
in the Act of Contrition. He didn't think he had failed to do any more good
than usual since he had met Dio. Maybe he had chosen to do wrong. He definitely
still regretted spitting the Host into the trash last week. Maybe he should
have confessed that.
He walked blocks and blocks to the bus stop, trying not to...if he was honest,
trying not to get offended. Did the old priest really think being with Dio
would drive him away from God? If anything, the things Dio told him made him
feel like he understood God more. A month or two ago Dio had read through the
entire Qur’an and they'd compared notes on the teachings in that book and in
the Bible, and he'd been so excited to hear about how other people wrote about
the same God that he prayed to every day. And Dio had given him a Stand, a
power he'd barely started to scratch the surface of. Who knew what kind of good
he'd be able to accomplish with a tool like that? He'd never even have guessed
something so miraculous could exist. And then, even before that, the first time
they had met, Dio had healed his crooked foot. He almost wanted to go back to
the church and tell all that to the priest behind the screen. How could God be
offended by any of the things Dio had done for one of his faithful?
If anything was keeping him from God it was this damned shame he was feeling.
If he could just shake the feeling that he was being silently judged for the
things he and Dio did behind closed doors, he'd be able to concentrate much
better on his prayers and his studies. Okay, he probably shouldn't have let Dio
coax him into doing those things in the vesting room the other day, and he
understood if God was offended by that. But was the rest of it so bad? If
masturbation was just touch, then what made it different if someone else was
there? They couldn't conceive a child and so they weren't wasting any seed. It
wasn't as if his relationship with Dio revolved around sex, either. They had
known each other and loved each other long before that. Twenty-three, twenty-
nine, thirty-one, thirty-seven. Pucci tried to rein in his internal ranting. He
couldn't remember the last time he had felt this angry about anything, and he
wasn't even sure who he was angry with.
Because it wasn't God. He knew, because the Qur'an's rules had been different
from the Bible's, and both faith's prayers went up to the same God. God didn't
set any rules so tiny and arbitrary, right? He was too big for that.
Pucci really wished he could make himself believe that. If he could just get
that thought into his head, he'd be able to sleep much easier.
He rode the bus back to his own church, and then he received Confession again.
It would be strange if he missed it, after all. He confessed his misadventure
with the Host, and glossed over the cause as best he could, and then, he
confessed that he had doubted God's mercy. The Father assured him warmly that
the Lord's thoughts were so far above human thoughts that even comprehending
them was impossible. Pucci heartily agreed, and felt a weird savage joy in it.
He and his teacher were agreeing, but they weren't thinking about the same
thing.
And after this second Confession, the inner peace he had always gotten from the
sacrament finally washed over him. Coming out of the confessional, he could
barely keep from smiling.
Before the buzz wore off, maybe he'd call Dio.
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     Next time: Pucci hangs out with Dio in Egypt and a conclusion of some
     kind is reached
***** Egypt *****
Chapter Notes
     HAHA FINALLY THE LAST CHAPTER I gotta apologize for it being so late!
     Finals happened and then my first week home from school was pretty
     hectic too. But it's here now!
     I faked my way through another sex scene, peace
See the end of the chapter for more notes
Even if he was nervous about it, Pucci would gladly leave the country alone for
the first time in his life to see Dio. It was winter break, and he'd told his
family and his teachers at the seminary that he was going to the Holy Land.
Well, he was geographically close enough that it wasn't a complete lie. As the
airplane touched down at the Cairo airport, he had to swallow down his
excitement. Just him and Dio in a country where no one knew him—he wouldn't
have to hide anything. He wouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing him. They
could do whatever they wanted.
Of course, first he'd have to get to Dio's house, and that meant he'd have to
find Dio's messenger. Dio had told him to look for a woman in a red hood, and
that seemed distinctive enough, but what if he found the wrong woman? He wasn't
confident that the phrasebook in his pocket would be enough to get him through
that awkward situation. As he fought through the crowd of people at the airport
to claim his luggage, he just prayed he'd somehow be able to reach his
destination without having to say anything.
When he looked up, suitcases in hand, he caught a glimpse of a woman smoking
against a pillar, near the entrance, wearing a red hood pulled low over her
eyes. Even if she hadn't been wearing that she would have stood out: in a sea
of men and women wearing long robes, she was wearing a miniskirt. Looking at
her confident, nonchalant posture, Pucci was sure she had to be the one Dio
sent.
He struggled over to her, and she glanced up when he approached. She coolly
looked him up and down.
“Enrico Pucci?”
He nodded.
“I'm Mariah.” She blew out a long trail of smoke, then grinned in a way that
made Pucci uncomfortable, though he couldn't place why. It was too knowing, or
too hungry. “I'll get you to Lord Dio. Just don't get lost in the crowd,
alright? I'm not about to go looking for you.”
“Alright,” he said. “Thank you.”
She turned and set off for the doors without warning, and he followed her. The
setting sun cast slanting shadows across the streets, and he was thankful again
that she was dressed so distinctively. If he did fall behind, she would still
be hard to lose track of.
“Are we not going to get a taxi?” he asked.
She glanced disdainfully back at him. “As if I'd take any pathetic taxi driver
to the front gates of Lord Dio's house. You're not so scrawny that you can't
carry your stuff, are you?”
“Sorry...” He couldn't tell if her answer was truthful or if she was just
antagonizing him—this wasn't some kind of test, was it?
They walked for blocks in silence before she looked back at him again and took
her cigarette from her lips. “So who are you, anyway? What does Lord Dio want
with you?” She flicked her cigarette to the pavement and ground it under a high
heel.
He nearly collided with her. “I-I'm his friend.”
“Just his friend? Terrence asked Lord Dio what room he should prepare for you
and Lord Dio said there wasn't a need for one. You're sleeping with him?”
“What?”
“Or do you not sleep?”
Pucci seriously considered telling her that he didn't sleep. “That's a personal
question.”
Mariah's eyes were cold. “How old are you, anyway? Eighteen?”
“Sixteen,” he muttered.
“Damn. Well, come on.” She started walking again, just as abruptly as when
she'd stopped. Pucci followed, trying to focus on the fluttering of her red
hood and not the rhythmic sway of her hips. She wasn't walking like that on
purpose, was she?
The sun had sunk behind the skyline by the time they finally reached their
destination, after twisting through back alleys and reappearing on main
streets, taking what seemed like countless detours until they finally surfaced
on a well-off residential street. Mariah stopped in front of a large house with
a tall wall around it, like a fortress. She touched the metal gate and it swung
open.
As Pucci entered the yard of the house a shadow swooped in front of him to land
on Mariah's shoulder. He jumped. Mariah smirked at him.
“Hello, Pet Shop,” she crooned to the falcon that had perched on her. “Don't
worry about this kid here. He's Lord Dio's friend, isn't that right? He's
allowed to come in.”
Pucci nodded woodenly, though the bird probably didn't know or care what that
meant.
Mariah knocked on the front door and waited until a man with brightly dyed hair
and gaudy gold earrings opened it. He introduced himself as the butler and took
Pucci's things from him, and Pucci found himself mute. This really was Dio's
world he was entering. Dio had managed to carve out a small, dark space for him
and the people like him.
Pet Shop flapped onto Pucci's shoulder, and he looked around to find that
Mariah had already melted away into the shadows.
 
                                       –
                                        
“I hope no one has frightened you yet. There are plenty of strange types around
this house.”
“No, not at all. It's just...I don't know...culture shock?”
Pucci was unpacking his things, hanging his clothes right next to Dio's, and
Dio was watching, bored. Dio's room was spacious and very clean, but also very
dark, without any windows. He seemed to prefer candles for illumination. Pucci
couldn't say he minded it exactly, but it was hard to see. He had to feel for
empty hangers in the closet, and over the course of the past fifteen minutes he
was sure he'd touched every article of clothing Dio had ever worn.
Dio laughed. “I suppose this is the furthest one can get from a seminary, isn't
it? And yet it too is a house of God.”
“You couldn't walk into any church wearing this,” Pucci said, pulling on
something tight and black that was hanging from one of the many hangers.
“Icould, and I will,” Dio said.
Pucci hung up the last of his clothes, his sensible slacks and sweaters right
next to Dio's neon vinyl and spandex, and took a step back, then another, until
the murky dimness of the room blended his belongings and Dio's as if they had
hung together for years. He took another step backwards and Dio's manicured
hand grabbed him and guided him backwards onto the bed.
Pucci looked up at Dio, and a smile rose to his face. He couldn't help it. The
proud pale noble face he had missed for so long was pouting down at him, and
finally he could pull it closer to him. For a few days at least, he could let
his guard down.
He hugged Dio, and for a second he could tell he had taken Dio by surprise.
Only a second, though; he quickly regained composure and stroked his long nails
through Pucci's close-cut hair, kissing him on the forehead, as confidently as
if he had initiated this contact. Pucci kissed his cheek in response, and took
one of Dio's hands in his. He'd almost forgotten what the coolness of his skin
felt like, how completely different it was from touching anyone else.
“I missed you,” he said.
“And I've looked forward to this visit,” Dio said. He kissed Pucci again, on
the lips. “I've already ensured no one will disturb us. Vanilla is stationed
right outside the door. He wouldn't let anyone past even if the city was on
fire.”
Pucci automatically glanced at the door as if he could see through it. Vanilla
was a well-built, long-haired man wearing even less clothing than Dio. The idea
of him right outside the door didn't sit right with him.
“But don't worry about that,” Dio purred. “Alright? Enrico?”
He kissed Pucci's neck and Pucci sighed. Of course for Dio something like this
was completely normal. “Alright.”
Dio kissed him again, and Pucci closed his eyes, letting Dio deepen the kiss,
opening his mouth, accepting the cold wicked tongue that still made him gag.
The sheets of Dio's bed were silk and he felt it cool and smooth against his
skin as he and Dio worked together to tug his shirt off, then his pants. Pucci
fought down the twinge of guilt as Dio laid his hands on his bare skin—I
decided already that this was okay. No, Irealizedthat this was okay. Remember?
With Dio's kisses, he tried to suffocate the part of him that hadn't
remembered. Hadn't he already said enough prayers to be sure he was right? He
pressed Dio's cold hands to his burning skin and guided him to touch his face,
his chest. But Dio had his own plans, trailing his lips down Pucci's chest, all
the way to the boxers Pucci still wasn't bold enough to remove. Pucci
remembered their misadventure in the vesting room and his face burned even
hotter. Dio laughed.
“I can hear your blood surging to your face,” he said in a low, teasing voice.
“That's...that doesn't help at all,” Pucci murmured.
“And that's not where I want your blood going anyway,” Dio said. He put his
mouth over the front of Pucci's boxers, where he was half-hard despite the
shame he was still fighting off.
“Dio...” Pucci bit back a grin or a grimace as Dio started to tease at his cock
and balls through the thin damp fabric, pushing his hips up, offering himself
to Dio's mouth.
“Cute,” Dio breathed, muffled by the skin and cloth. He gently ran his pointed
teeth down Pucci's clothed erection, then nuzzled it with his cheek. “I'd find
this so infuriating from anyone else.”
“What's 'this'?” Pucci screwed his eyes shut as Dio peeled his boxers back and
exposed his cock.
“Your religious shame,” Dio said. He licked the precum from Pucci's cock,
cleaned it with his tongue from the head to the base. “Say. You cleaned your
ass before you came here, didn't you?”
“Yes,” Pucci admitted.
“Good.”
As Pucci tried to replay all his actions of the past few minutes, looking for
any obvious giveaways of religious shame, Dio parted his ass with a firm grip,
and then Pucci felt something cold and wet there. He couldn't help it—he
yelped. Dio laughed.
“If you don't like it, say so,” he said.
“N-no, I was just surprised,” Pucci said. His breath hitched as Dio licked
around his opening. It was a foreign feeling. “It's embarrassing.”
“I suppose so. It doesn't get much more intimate than this, does it, now?” Dio
said dryly.
Pucci laughed, then screwed his eyes shut again. “Aah—”
Dio paused. Pucci reached out and put a hand on his head, grasping a handful of
soft blonde hair, gently tugging to goad him. Words had left him for a minute,
or maybe he just wanted to touch Dio even more. He just knew that he wanted to
think about this and not think about it at the same time, wanted Dio to touch
him in all the most private ways, but didn't want to think about how disgusting
it was. Well, maybe it wasn't disgusting if he had cleaned himself earlier—and
when he had been cleaning himself, hadn't he been imagining Dio touching him
there anyway? Don't think about that, don't think about anything. Don't even
count primes.
Dio kissed Pucci's thighs, and Pucci stroked his hair in thanks. And when Dio's
mouth wrapped around his cock again, he twisted his face to the side, trying to
hide it in the sheets. Dio looked up, then crawled over top of Pucci.
“Do you remember the last time we did this?” He put one long-nailed hand on
Pucci's chin, and tilted his face away from the silk sheets. “And I told you to
look at me?”
“Yes,” Pucci sighed.
“I want your eyes on me, Enrico. Is that so hard to understand?” Almost
imperceptibly, at first, he started grinding against him. “I just feel so
underappreciated when you're not watching.”
“You know that's not true,” Pucci said, with a grin, and Dio grinned devilishly
back.
“Maybe not, but would you want to risk it?” Dio said. He shifted, and started
grinding with his ass, and all at once Pucci realized just how tightly his
spandex bodysuit clung to his form. He tried not to let out a noise, but
couldn't hold it back.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“Don't apologize,” Dio said. “Do you want to put it in?”
“In?”
Still grinding, Dio leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “Yes, in my—”
“A-alright, I know what you mean,” Pucci said, gently pushing Dio back.
“So do you want to?” Dio toyed with the top of his leotard, as if to pull it
off.
“I wouldn't know what to do...”
“I'll worry about that,” Dio said. And before Pucci's eyes, without him even
blinking, Dio's low-hanging-pants and pointed shoes were off, and he was only
wearing the leotard, and even that he was stripping off, peeling it from his
muscular form.
“Does it have to do with time?” Pucci said.
“Hmm?” Dio blinked down at him.
“That was your Stand, right? It has something to do with time?”
Dio smiled wide, and, leotard half-off, leaned down to kiss Pucci again.
“You're so perceptive, Enrico.”
In another instant, there was a tube in Dio's hand, and the cap was already
off.
“And thanks to my Stand, I don't have to interrupt the mood to get things like
this. It's a wildly convenient ability, and I look forward to experimenting
with it even more...” He applied some of the lube to his hand and then started
stroking Pucci with a sure, confident hand.
“So this is how you impress all your partners?” Pucci said.
“By this point they're usually already impressed,” Dio said.
Pucci rolled his eyes. Dio smirked. Then, again without any warning, time
seemed to jump forward like a movie missing a few frames, and his leotard was
hanging from a long, clawed finger. He flicked his hand and dropped it on the
floor.
“Are you ready?” Dio asked.
“Are you?”
“I prepared myself in the stopped time. It doesn't take very long...so come on,
don't keep me waiting, Enrico...”
“A-alright...what do I have to do?”
“Just hold yourself still and I'll ease onto you.”
Pucci nodded, and took his cock in his hand and nervously watched as Dio
positioned himself, then lowered himself down onto it. The lube was cold and
Pucci had never felt anything as strange as this before, but it felt good, not
so much like he was invading a foreign space, but like he was entering
someplace that had been made for him, and he had never known before what that
was supposed to feel like. His cock throbbed against the tight walls. “God—“ he
hissed, then covered his mouth with his hand. Dio laughed.
“Would you like to keep going?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Pucci said.
Dio lifted himself up, almost far enough that Pucci's tip slid out, then forced
himself back down. Pucci stifled an exclamation.
“Feel alright?” Dio asked.
“Yeah...”
He felt more than alright. Dio was pressing in around him and Dio was on top of
him, cool and strong and heavy with muscle and gleaming like a marble statue in
the dark, and Pucci could see the glint of his white teeth as he opened his
mouth to pant, and as Dio clutched his shoulders his sharp nails dug in, and
Pucci didn't even think Dio realized how strong he was in the moment, but it
was flattering in a bizarre way to think that he could make someone else lose
track of themselves like that. Dio rode him hard and fast, like he had been
craving this and knew exactly what he wanted, and even as good as it felt Pucci
could only lay on his back and between pulses of pleasure he was dazed by the
thought that Dio wanted him, and here he was with Dio, the greatest man he had
ever known. The closest friend he had ever had.
He closed his eyes as Dio scored lines in his skin, and thought about heaven.
One way or another, with Dio's method or his, they would go to heaven, wouldn't
they?
For the last time, he needed that nagging thought to go away.
“Should I be...I shouldn't be helping you or something, should I?” Pucci asked,
trying not to look at Dio's neglected cock.
“I'm doing fine for myself, Enrico,” Dio laughed. “If you don't want to dirty
your immortal soul any more, I understand.”
Pucci nodded.
“What's on that wonderful mind of yours?” Dio shifted his angle, trying to push
Pucci's cock deeper into him. For whose pleasure Pucci wasn't sure.
“Nagging thoughts,” Pucci said.
Dio stopped moving. “And I haven't managed to push them from your mind?” His
red eyes looked curiously into Pucci's, and a drop of icy cold sweat fell from
his hair onto the sheets beside Pucci's face.
“No, I'm sorry—it's nothing about you, I promise. Your company is so important
to me. I'm really, really happy to be here.” Pucci summoned the most genuine
smile he could, touched Dio's cheek, and sat up to kiss him on the lips. Dio
didn't reciprocate, didn't try to turn the kiss into something more lewd. He
touched the hand that had touched him.
“This is exactly why you're going to heaven, Enrico.”
“Huh?”
Dio gently pried Pucci's hand off his face. “The more I'm with you, the more I
know I was right about you. Of course, it doesn't surprise me that I, DIO, have
such excellent taste in friends.”
“But why do you say I'm going to heaven?”
“Can that wait?”
“Of course.”
Dio lowered himself again, with a satisfied noise. When he started moving, it
was with a more savage pace than before. He pinned Pucci's shoulders down
ruthlessly, and Pucci reached his hands up and tangled them in Dio's golden
hair. He was deep inside him. He was deep inside Dio and Dio's embrace was all
around him, he was swathed in this dark house and though Cairo was bustling
outside its thick walls, this room had no windows. Thank God no light could
come in here. He wanted to eject the disk of his own memories, so that all he
knew was Dio and God was just a faint warm happiness in the distance instead of
a burning sun. He was going to cum and what could he do about it but tug on
Dio's hair to let him know, and in return Dio took the hands that pulled his
hair and held them, and Pucci tightened his grip, everything tightened, and
then with a deep sigh everything released, and a wave of warmth washed over
him.
“Ah—Oh God—“
In the dizziness that followed, he felt cool kisses on his overheated skin. He
looked up and Dio was crouched over him, trying to hold his limp cock in one
hand.
“When did you...you didn't mess with time again just now, did you?” Pucci
asked.
“I don't want to reveal all my secrets,” Dio said. He laid down on his side,
next to Pucci on the huge bed.
“It's alright...if I, um, finish too quick...you can tell me,” Pucci said.
“You finish exactly when you need to, Enrico.”
Pucci grimaced.
“Don't be like that. I enjoyed it thoroughly.” Dio moved closer. “Do you know
what I enjoy about sex with you the most?”
“No idea.”
“When you say 'oh my God' you mean it. More than anyone else I've ever met.
You're crying out to a higher power in earnest. That's what I mean when I say
you're going to heaven.”
Pucci didn't see a hint of a smile on Dio's face, but then, the lighting was
too low.
“By the way, what were you thinking about?” Dio propped himself up on one
elbow. “What could possibly be more interesting than me?”
Pucci shook his head with a sheepish smile. “Something stupid. I was worrying.”
“Do tell me about it.”
Pucci rubbed his eyes. “No matter what I do, I can't put it out of my mind...I
want to serve God on earth and then go to Heaven. But I can't speak to God. I
can pray, but no one can ever know God's thoughts. When I die someday...” He
sighed. “I want to trust my own convictions better. I want to have faith that I
won't go to Hell, is what I'm saying.”
“I could tell you over and over to trust your instincts better, but that won't
do a thing, will it?”
“I don't know. I'm just tired of having to think about it. There are so many
things I'd rather think about, you know?”
Dio nodded and stared thoughtfully at the distant ceiling. “I do know.” After a
moment, he sat up. “I've been wanting to ask you...that is, I have a
proposition for you.”
“What?” Pucci sat up too, and absently started feeling around for his discarded
boxers.
“You know that I'm not restricted by human limits. And that includes a human
lifespan.”
Pucci nodded.
“I have plans to live for centuries and centuries. And the lives of ordinary
humans are much shorter than mine. I will outlive every one of my followers,
barring a few. Those few I will gift with eternal life so they can stay by my
side. Vanilla Ice, for example.” Dio's eyes flicked to Pucci's, trying to gauge
his expression. “Although, in Vanilla's case I didn't ask first.”
“You're asking me if I want that?”
“Yes.”
Pucci found his boxers and pulled them on. “That's defying God's law even more
than sleeping with you, don't you think?”
“If you're going to be a bad Catholic, you might as well go all the way.”
Pucci smiled without humor.
“Don't just turn me down like that...” Dio wrapped his arms around Pucci and
pulled him into his lap. “Humor me. It's not as if you'll never be able to
die...there are far too many things that can kill a vampire. Even if I am
trying to get rid of most of them.”
“I don't know how well being a vampire would mesh with being a priest,” Pucci
said.
“There's no need to do it now. You could complete your schooling and see how
you feel...try a few years of...whatever priests do,” Dio said dismissively.
“All I ask is that you consider.”
Pucci laid his head back on Dio's shoulder. There was something fundamentally
wrong about a human controlling the length of his own lifespan. But then, he
had always felt that there was something fundamentally wrong about almost
everything Dio had done since he'd met him. But the more he'd thought about it,
and the more he and Dio had talked, it hadn't felt so bad. Dio could surely
rationalize this too, while he was here in Egypt. “I'll think about it.”
“Good,” Dio said.
Pucci tried to reach for his shirt, but it was too far away from him.
“You're not trying to get away, are you?”
“You're kind of chilly.”
Dio let him go without a word.
Pucci gathered his shirt, then his pants. “You've got a library, right?”
“But of course. It's huge. I've also got a fine garden, not to mention the
artifacts I've borrowed from the back rooms of local museums.”
“You're kidding.”
“Why would I joke about that?”
Pucci shook his head in disbelief, a smile sneaking across his face. “I feel
bad for admitting it, but I want to see them.”
“Come on then.” Dio briskly put on his pants from where they laid on the floor,
and, wearing nothing else, headed for the door. Pucci followed. He felt like a
kid on a playdate. Of course Dio wouldn't be able to live in the heart of Cairo
without collecting its history. Of course he'd steal from museums without a
care, just because he felt entitled to it.
Thank God for Dio. No, more than that, thank God for gravity. Dio would
accomplish great things, and Pucci would be beside him. He couldn't wait for
the new worlds Dio would bring him into, the years of thought and discovery and
companionship that stretched ahead, as the year of 1989 approached, and with it
the first step of the long staircase to Dio's heaven. He couldn't wait to see
it, whether it came soon—or maybe, maybe, he decided, centuries and centuries
in the future.
 
Chapter End Notes
     IT'S OVER I'M NEVER WRITING MULTICHAPTER FICS AGAIN
     But...I hope I managed to fill up the Catholic-guilt shaped hole in
     the DioPucci tag! Thank you for all your support and positive
     comments! I'm glad I could write something that people liked!
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
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