I blame this on Derek plotbunnies
tfw drawing and uploading something is too much work so you write instead.
What if Dio wasn’t a morning person?
or
There’s No Garlic Bread In The Ocean
---
“Hurry up, it’s almost night!” “I’m working as fast as-”
The casket creaked open. The ‘law-abiding’ scavengers stared into its depths.
“...did we do all that work for a freaking corpse?”
And then the body moved. And groaned.
The groan ran on for far longer than seemed possible, ringing out across the otherwise quiet night as the corpse’s arm reached up and grabbed the lid. One could almost, if they tried, make out words:
“UUUUGGGGHHHHHFIVEEEEEEUUGHMOOOOREMONTHSSSSSAAAAAAUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH”
The lid slammed shut.
The pirates, as one, looked at each other in disbelief.
---
For the first time in a century, Dio’s brain kicked into gear.
“I,” he thought groggily, “would kill a man for some garlic toast.”
He didn’t really register the muffled words “Customs check,” nor the bickering that broke out immediately after. Caramelized, fragrant, crusty garlic bread was far more engrossing.
He tried to take a step and bumped into something wooden. Box. Right. He reached forward and pushed.
Something rattled faintly, before a snap rang out and all resistance faded, and he shoved the lid off. Carelessly stepping over the chains, he left his prison for the first time in a hundred years and blearily looked around.
In one direction, the dark flatness of the ocean. In the other, city lights.
His path was clear.
---
It was through the fifth piece of toast that Dio realized that the burning in his mouth, and then throat, was not a matter of temperature.
“Oh, right. Vampire.”
His reddened eyes narrowed as he mulled this piece of information over. Still chewing, he shrugged. “Fuck it.”
Licking a bit of salt off his lips, he remembered another vital point.
“I have no fucking money.”
He groaned through his fangs. True, he could murder anyone who tried to stop him from leaving but. Effort. If only the servers and other diners could have the decency to ignore everything he did for like thirty seconds, so he could dash out.
The low murmur of conversation cut off, the clinking of tableware and dishes suddenly silent. Dio raised his head to look around.
Everything was frozen.
Well. Okay then.
---
“...do you even go here?”
Dio’s eyes narrowed under the sunglasses as he took a long pull of his Starbucks cup. The student next to him could smell vodka.
“...what was the question?”
---
Dio’s head hurt like the dickens, and some fuckwad had the gall to be loudly proclaiming at him. Give an undead monster a fucking second to recover from involuntary dimensional travel, would you?
“Arise, my other self! Ari- what the fuck are you wearing.”
Dio grunted and managed to rise into a sort-of-crouching position. Loud Proclaimer was... a familiar-looking blond dude. With the dumbest outfit he had ever seen, and the most annoyed expression Dio had seen outside of a mirror.
“Clothes? What the fuck are you supposed to be?”
“I am your alternate, and apparently superior, self, and- I can’t take you seriously when you’re crunched up like a little bug on the floor. Stand the fuck up.”
Dio flipped him off. He would have taken a pull of his coffee, but apparently his host wasn’t considerate enough to have teleported it along with him.
“Here, let me help.” Some actual goddamn cowboy reached out to him; Dio considered his hand before sighing and allowing himself to be hauled upright, almost colliding with the man because he really couldn’t be arsed to engage his own muscles.
“Thanks,” he said, looking up into the cowboy’s eyes. He didn’t see said cowboy turn red and start spluttering because Loud was yelling again.
“You are a travesty. Is that a sweatsuit? Did you dig that out of the garbage? And for God’s sake stand up straight, we’re not a teenager anymore!”
“You,” Dio said slowly, as he straightened up to his full height, “are really demanding, you know that.”
Loud Dio shook his head. “Just... be quiet and watch, all right?” He gestured at what looked like a CCTV screen. “Behold-”
“Is that Joseph?” Dio asked, finally interested in the proceedings.
Loudy blinked. “Yes! You know him?” He grinned evilly. “Have you already killed or turned him in your universe?”
“...he thought I was a hobo.”
Loud Dio pointedly let his eyes travel up the: $300 golden Oxfords, sick-day (every-day) ratty pink sweatpants, matching sweatshirt, perennial aviators, messy-ass overgrown hair. “For once I agree with the man.”
No one had to see Dio’s eyes to tell that he was rolling them as hard as possible. “He tried to adopt me and bought me sushi. I think he thinks we’re friends. His grandkid- Jotaro? - he’s okay.”
Loud stared at him, openmouthed, for at least twenty seconds.
“YOU’RE FRIENDS!?”