Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5050558.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con,
      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/Jonathan_Joestar
  Character:
      Dio_Brando, Jonathan_Joestar
  Additional Tags:
      Obsession, Possessive_Behavior, Jealousy, Concurrent_Timelines,
      Doppelganger, Instantaneous_Ignition, False_Equivalency
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-10-22 Updated: 2016-04-06 Chapters: 29/? Words: 96986
****** Unsustainable Though This May Be ******
by j7j
Summary
     For the man who has no chance of entering Heaven, he loses nothing in
     making his own. But an isolated Heaven is no Heaven at all. It goes
     without saying: the hand that crafted Heaven is the same hand that
     molded Hell.
Notes
     It's a mélange of mechanics from Jorge Joestar, Eyes of Heaven, All
     Star Battle, and Over Heaven. In other words, it's all over the
     place.
     There's a decent chance of retconning and rewriting, especially of
     the earlier chapters. Still uncertain where I want this thing to
     go...
***** we were once children *****
He wakes to the bars of a birdcage and it takes him a moment to register that
he is inside it looking out.
A candlelit room lies beyond the curlequed bars. Seated at the same level as
his cage is an unfamiliar man.
Although the man's speech is understandable, he cannot make sense of what he is
saying. He's talking too fast and moving too close; with gleaming red eyes he
stalks towards the cage, wrapping his fingers about the bars.
An uncomfortableness seeps into him when he sees the bars of his cage bent to
the side. He instinctively recoils when the hands close in on his face, but
finds himself unable to move.
He's pulled through the cage and lifted. Lifted to be cradled.
And there it is, a second time. In trying to stop the unwarranted contact, he
finds he cannot. He cannot push away or tense or even shiver.
The sensation of being held tight shakes him out of his stupor.
It is in the sensation -- or lack thereof -- which makes him realize the
wrongness of the scene. He is unable to run or struggle or even touch the cage
bars because -- beneath his neck -- there's nothing.
Nothing.
No chest, no lungs, no shoulders, no spine. No arms much less hands and no legs
much less feet.
His mind and memories feel equally incomplete.
He can recognize things and he knows enough to differentiate should from is -
- but when he tries to focus on the details -- who, what, when, where, why --
Nothing.
The cogs in his head grind against one another. They might as well be spinning
in dead air, for all the answers he can provide.
The man who holds him quiets down and he feels himself -- well, what was left
of himself -- gently lifted up again.
Raised at an upwards angle, he watches the man watch him.
"Jojo," the man speaks, "You're awfully quiet."
The direct eye contact leaves no doubt that the man is addressing him and that
Jojo is his name. But the string of syllables might as well be onomotopoeia for
all the familiarity it inspires.
While he is thinking of an appropriate response, the man lowers him slightly
and crosses to the other side of the room. He feels his head -- well, all of
himself -- set down on a cushion. The man places the cushion on a table before
he himself sits down.
"Soon," he says, "I'll make you whole again."
Soon.
-
Dio, conversely, wakes in absolute darkness. The panic sets in when he tries to
rub the sleep from his eyes and feels his elbows knocking against the coffin
cover.
He is sinking, and sinking at a steady rate. Had the people onboard the ship
believed him to be a corpse? How did he even end up in the coffin?
A natural claustrophobia sets in and he begins to bang his fists on the too-low
ceiling. He must be screaming too, for he feels his throat going hoarse.
There's a chilling crack followed by a blinding burst of light. In wanting
nothing more than to be free of the cramped prison, he doesn't even notice the
glass shards embedded in his hands.
He hits the ground on hands and knees, blindly reaching for the remains of his
confinement. Even before his eyes have adjusted, he realizes his container was
not a coffin but rather a glass case. The panic was due to a lack of air rather
than light and the lightheadedness now was courtesy of his newly cut-and-
bleeding palms and not the unexpected freedom.
As soon as he can see, he scrambles to his feet, trying to make sense of his
surroundings. While his surroundings are lit, the light is not blindingly
bright. He cannot make out the source of said light, only that it seems to be
coming from an angle, yet everywhere at once. Furthermore, there is a second
holding container, identical to his own, and someone else trapped inside it.
As if possessed, he steps toward it and toward the boy inside. Thick dark hair,
an already muscular build, and the beginnings of a strong jawline. The boy
inspires a sting of familiarity, yet he cannot even recall a name.
Without meaning to, Dio presses his palms up against the glass. His breath
obscures his vision and he is prepared to knock against the container.
The opportunity passes as he feels a presence manifest itself behind him. From
the ethereal lightness, a hand settles against his shoulder.
"So," the being behind him booms, "You're awake."
What could one say, to a statement like that?
Thankfully, the other does not wait for a response, continuing with: "I'm not
surprised, of course. He was always a heavy sleeper."
The hand on his shoulder retreats but before he can work up the nerve to turn
around, he's grabbed by the waist and lifted up into the other's lap. Had there
been a seat? He can't remember one.
"You're shivering," his master notes. Dio frowns then, frustrated with how
naturally the title came. He is unable to protest when the other wraps him in a
thick towel nor can he stop the surge of contentment when the other begins to
comb his hair. Yes, his whole being seemed to say: this was his master and it
was only natural that he should be cared for this way.
His master peels his wet garments away with practiced ease. The difference in
their sizes means Dio need only lift his hips. He's stripped bare without
ceremony and set in a heap of towels soon after.
Although the other's touch never lingers, he finds himself leaning in while the
towels are patted against his naked form. If his master notices this, he takes
no note, wrapping the towel about Dio shoulders and going back to combing his
hair.
"Master," Dio says as his wrists are seized and his master presses his mouth to
the fresh wounds. Coming from him, the word sounds most unnatural.
"Mm?"
Of all the questions to ask, he somehow feels the most pressing one to be --
"Who is he?"
Although the 'he' is obvious, he still finds it necessary to point.
His choice of question elicits a rumble of laughter, one which he can feel in
his own chest.
"That is your brother," his master answers, setting the comb aside to push a
lock of hair behind his ear, "But he is not like you."
While waiting for the rest of the answer, Dio allows the other to lick his
hands clean, shifting his own legs to permit easier access. Just as his own
compliancy was beginning to irritate him (for he was his own master and no
other had claim to the title), his wrists are gently placed in his own lap. Dio
turns his head then, and is not at all surprised to see himself. He sees
himself smile and then follows the other's gaze down to the second container.
"He is not whole, you see." Dio nods, though he cannot see. "But now that you
are here, you will make him whole."
"You will," his master adds, "Won't you?"
Dio nods again and in nodding, remembers what it was like to hate. Ice-cold
lips press against the nape of his neck as he hears himself make that
reverberating chuckle a second time.
"Very good," his master praises, and the hand through his hair sends a shiver
down his spine. "Good boy."
***** made of mud and stars *****
The time he spends at his master's side seems like an eternity. In this place
of his own creation, there is no day and therefore, no night. Everything is
always doused in that sickeningly soft light and nothing ever changes. In the
vast expanse filled with white and light and little else, there are traitorous
moments where Dio thinks the closed-off tank preferable. At least his coffin
had clear constraints; in this place where he's able to run until his legs give
out yet never stray farther than a stone's throw away from the other boy's
container, his limbs might as well be nailed to the floor for all the freedom
they could provide him.
"To think is enough," his grander self replies, when Dio had asked for a place
to sleep. The other him is seated on his throne now. There are times when the
man vanishes, throne and all, and does not return no matter how many times Dio
calls out.
Deliberating over the vague statement, he pushes himself to his feet and tries
to imagine a bed. His subconscious supplies him with a particular one and he
does not question it. When he opens his eyes, the bed of years past has
manifested before him. He stretches out a hand so that his fingers skirt the
edges of the quilt and comforter.
There's a rumble of amused laughter as his master descends from his throne,
ruffling Dio's hair and changing his dayclothes into nightwear with but a
touch. He points to the bed's headboard, where a photograph of an unfamiliar
woman is nestled in the center of the wood, before lifting Dio up and laying
them both on the bed.
"Who is she?" he asks, when his other self has made the mattress into a second
throne. Dio rests his weight in the older man's lap, tilting his head to the
side to allow ease of access. While his blood is being sucked, he tries to
place the woman in his own hazy memories. She couldn't be his mother for he
still remembered her, and he cannot see himself taking on a wife.
"Someone very special to him," his master replies, pressing a cold kiss to the
new bite mark.
"His wife?" Dio asks. The woman looked twice his age and he cannot explain the
irritableness he suddenly feels, knowing the other boy had been married.
And there it is, that chuckle.
"His mother." Like usual, his master loosens his tongue when speaking of the
absentee presence, "She died when he was a boy. He only knows her from
photographs."
The irritation subsides as he tilts his head back, closing his eyes in
anticipation of the kiss. It is a strange sensation, but not at all unpleasant.
There is a jarring chasteness to his other self's touch, and Dio is left to lie
alone on the grand bed, dangling somewhere between second favorite pet and
equal.
He says second favorite because his master unquestionably places the still-
sleeping boy above him.
-
Once, in a fit of weakness, he had tried to smash the second container. His
master had manifested before his fist made contact with the glass, crushing his
wrist in a vicegrip. Dio had bit his bottom lip bloody to silence his own
scream.
While waiting for either reprimand or explanation (neither of which come), Dio
feels his wrist released as the man crouches down to his level. He reaches in
front to cup Dio's chin, cradling the top and bottom of his head. With a
gentleness he can't recall having possessed, his head is slowly craned upwards
until he's looking right at the other boy's peaceful visage.
"Suppose each complete soul has a value of ten," his master conversationally
begins, "What would you appraise his soul as?"
"Zero."
"And yourself?"
"...Seven. Maybe eight."
"And me?"
"Ten." This answer he can give without hesitation.
"Hmm..." his master lets go and stands up, making his way back to the throne.
"You may be right. And then again..." he seats himself and pats his knee and
Dio obediently climbs into his lap.
"Let me tell you something else," he hears when his master is enjoying his
blood, "Of these ten points, each point may be 'good' or 'bad'. Knowing that
points cannot be both good and bad and that each must must be one or other...
how would you evaluate Mother?"
Dio does not need to think.
"Ten good."
"And Father?"
"Ten bad." Even thinking of the man makes him want to vomit.
"And me?"
It's a loaded question, one with no right answer, and it's the sort of question
he would ask. Dio swallows, suddenly aware of their difference in abilities,
and wonders -- not for the first time -- if his other self had woken him to
feed.
"Well?" The prompt is followed by fingers in his neck. His artery is stroked
with a lazy indulgence and it is the action, rather than the sensation, that
brings a second sting of familiarity.
"Ten bad," he repeats.
Rather than being bled dry, his master seems pleased with his answer,
extracting his fingers and kissing Dio's neck.
"Yes," he hears, "That is true too. Which brings us to the current predicament,
why are you here? I've only asked for him and yet, here you are."
"Where is here?" he woozily asks. But this is a loaded question too, and the
answer he receives is no surprise.
"This is ⸢Heaven⸥, of course," his master tells him.
He disagrees, but knows better than to say so.
-
"See this boy?" his master tells him before he's sent off. Dio nods.
"Ingratiate yourself with him. And then, when I give the order, kill him and
bring me his ⸢Memory Disc⸥."
Three fingers are pressed to his forehead and he feels an influx of energy. All
of a sudden, the command makes sense. He nods again.
"Bring him to his knees if you must but do not repeat your mistakes. Do not
kill him prematurely."
"I understand," he says. At the moment, he cannot recognize his own
anticipation. Mistakes it to be an eagerness to please.
His master does not bid him farewell. Only manifests a door with a flick of his
wrist. He can't even be bothered to hold it open. Dio opens it himself and
steps through it and the door disappears.
Left alone with the hallowed-out shell of his nemesis, Dio -- now and always a
god -- laughs.
-
The door leads to the main compartment of a moving stagecoach and Dio steps
through the walls and comes face-to-face with his own doppelgänger, also twelve
years of age.
"What the -- " he hears himself say.
He puts up a good fight for a child, Dio thinks, but there is a gulf of
difference between being caught off-guard and being ready to kill. He slits his
own throat with his own stolen dagger, nothing fancy, and retrieves his own
⸢Memory Disc⸥ before the boy breathes his last. Then he uses his own voice to
ask the driver to stop. He slits the man's throat too; the less witnesses the
better after all.
The pair of bodies are tossed gracelessly over the next bridge; he makes sure
to remove any traces of identification before helping himself to his own
garments.
Reinserting his own ⸢Memory Disc⸥ feels stranger still, and he is suddenly
reminded of the value of a complete soul. With his dead self's disc, old
memories rush back: his childhood in the slums, his father's hand in his
mother's death, his own hand in his father's death, and a deep-seated hatred
for the fools who had thought themselves indebted to his good-for-nothing
father of all people.
He ditches three of the four horses along with the stagecoach, hopping onto the
lead stallion and quickly spurring it into a gallop. He combs through his
newfound memories during the long ride and is amused to discover that he had
been planning something similar: show the Joestar heir up at every chance, chip
away at his spirit, tormenting him so he'd be pushed to the brink of psychosis.
Of course, the Dio of this world had money not murder on his mind (though he is
pleased to uncover plots in-place to effortlessly inherit the Joestar fortune),
but he would hardly call himself a spree killer.
He is only made aware of this in a later world, but Jonathan Joestar's first
meeting with Erina Pendleton had been hours before Dio Brando's expected
arrival. His seizure of the carriage and dismantling of the horse team meant he
arrived at the Joestar manor a day ahead of schedule.
Lord Joestar is surprised at his early arrival, but welcomes him with open arms
and believes his lies as easily as a child might. He welcomes Dio to the manor,
reiterates his state of debt to the deceased Dario Brando, and calls for his
son to come down and greet his new brother.
Jonathan Joestar, alive and awake and in the flesh, is a disappointment through
and through. After his other self's obsession with the boy, Dio had been
expecting, well, something more. What he gets is a boy no taller than himself,
with a ruddy complexion to boot, and looking every bit the spoiled country
bumpkin the dead boy had suspected him to be.
-
After a week in the Joestar manor, Dio has outperformed Jonathan in every
manner imaginable. Even the boy's father has told him to "be more like Dio".
Rather than being satisfied however, he feels restless and irritated, as if
Jonathan's very existence were an affront to him.
After mulling it over, he realizes that he is annoyed at his adopted brother's
incompetence. Well, not his incompetence so much as the boy's inherent value;
it didn't matter how shoddily he studied or how sloppily he ate, his father
would still love him and he would never have to work a day in his life. More
than the Joestar fortune, Dio's irritation is stoked knowing that this was the
boy -- a piece of him, at least -- that he had been requested to retrieve.
Why he would ever want anything to do with Jonathan, much less revive the
idiot, he hasn't a clue.
The irritation festers for a week as he awaits further instruction. But when
nothing comes, he recalls his master's parting words and flippantly decides:
well, if the boy would be dying by his hand, he might as well crush his spirit
past the point of return.
-
After two weeks in the manor, these are things Dio has taken: Lord Joestar's
praise and attention, leadership position amongst the village boys, and an
uncontested first in the boxing ring. To add insult to injury, Jonathan's mutt
-- dumb though it was -- clearly had better taste than his master and was now
nipping along Dio's heels.
When his brother has been sent to bed hungry for the third night in a row on
account of truly atrocious table manners, Dio makes his first advance.
Two weeks in and the manor staff are firmly under his thumb.
"Oh yes," the chef gladly says, piling leftovers onto a plate, "How kind of
you, Master Dio, to bring your brother his dinner."
Dio smiles in thanks, certain that his good deeds will be passed back to Lord
Joestar, before taking the tray upstairs.
He enters without knocking and sees the other boy lying face-down on a very
familiar bed. Jonathan turns at the creak of the door, face streaked with
freshly-cried tears, and naturally asks:
"What are you doing here?" He looks to the tray and wrinkles his nose, "Is that
for me?"
Dio sets the tray down so it is outside the other boy's reach and then pulls a
chair over so he can sit by the bedside. He raises an eyebrow at the woman's
portrait and watches Jonathan trace his gaze.
"Did you know her?" he asks.
"Not really, no," Jonathan answers. "Well, I mean, that's my mother, but she
died when I was a child. I don't really remember her."
"Do you miss her?" Was it possible to miss the unknown, he wonders.
"Sometimes." Jonathan's eyes dart to the tray but he doesn't question his luck.
He hesitates before adding: "But I'm sure I'll see her in Heaven."
Dio laughs outright then.
"What's so funny about that?"
"You think Heaven will let someone like you in?" Dio sniggers, "Don't fool
yourself."
Jonathan turns over and sits up, frowning. "Father said so long as I was a
gentleman..."
His retort only makes Dio laugh harder, "And you -- " he chokes out, "You think
you're a gentleman? You eat with your hands! You spend your free time in the
fields, not the library! Your dog -- "
"Stop it!" Jonathan shouts, covering his ears.
But Dio persists: "Your dog would make a gentler man than you!"
The other boy is tearing up again and he fights to keep an even tone.
"Why did you come up here Dio?" Jonathan asks. And then, before Dio can answer,
he adds: "Take your food. I'm not so hungry that I'll be insulted for scraps!"
Jonathan's pride is as charming as an obstacle can be. Dio laughs and leans
forward to whisper into his adopted brother's ear:
"Is it an insult if it's true?"
He's pushed away with a weak-yet-furious roar.
"It's not true!" Jonathan howls, "It's not true so take it back and go away!"
He throws a pillow and Dio bats it to the side.
When the outburst has subsided and Dio remains unmoved, he curls his lips and
continues with: "You're absolutely pathetic. Being sent to your bed hungry by
your own father of all people. Do you think he enjoys seeing you suffer? Do you
think he's a cruel man?"
"Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop -- "
"I've seen his expression when he hits you. He doesn't enjoy it and -- "
"I know!" Jonathan sobs, curling forward and crying into his elbows and knees,
"I know it's for my own good!"
"Then why don't you?" Dio presses. He's aware of his own shortness of breath;
Jonathan's pain is the surest ambrosia.
"Because -- "
"I'll tell you why," Dio interrupts, seizing the other boy's chin and forcing
him to make eye contact, "It's because you're a hopeless miserable pathetic
child who cannot do anything right. You're lucky your mother is dead because
she'd be ashamed to have a son as uncivilised as you."
Dio can see himself in Jonathan's wide blue eyes. He releases his hold to watch
the other mutely shake his head.
"No," Jonathan whispers, "No, that's not true."
"Oh but it is," Dio stands up and sidles closer, "But you are very lucky,
Jonathan Joestar, because I am here."
"Lucky?" Jonathan repeats, failing to blink the tears from his eyes, "How am I
lucky?"
"If it were just you, your family name would be lost. But because I have been
adopted, I can continue the Joestar line."
"No. No, Father would never -- "
"He's already said so."
"No! You're lying! Father would never -- "
"Would you like to ask him?" Dio counters, gesturing to the clock. "I'm sure
he'd appreciate being woken for this sort of thing."
While Jonathan is crying anew, Dio moves the tray from the dresser to the
bedside table. The cook has been most generous, giving Jonathan a full shank of
lamb along with a freshly baked potato.
With impeccable grace, Dio separates the meat from the bone, cutting the potato
into bite-sized bits.
"What are you doing?" Jonathan asks again.
This time, Dio answers.
"Feeding you." To demonstrate, he spears a cut of lamb and dangles it,
enticing.
Jonathan predictably bats it away. The fork clatters to the floor and Dio
frowns.
"I don't need to be fed."
"Yes, you do."
"No I don't."
"Yes," Dio sets the plate aside and grabs the photo, "You do."
"Don't -- !"
"Pick up the fork," he commands, tone harsh.
Jonathan's chest is heaving. His nostrils are flared in disbelief.
"What?"
"Don't make me repeat myself."
His adopted brother gives him a scathing look before crawling off the bed and
retrieving said utensil. Dio accepts the offering before ripping the
photograph's edge and chucking the fork to the other side of the room. Jonathan
cries out, louder than if he had been hit.
"What are you doing!"
"Pick up the fork," Dio repeats. Jonathan takes a swing at him; he dodges and
rips more of the corner.
"Stop!" Jonathan scrambles off the bed, "Just -- just stop!"
"I am the greatest," Dio drawls, accepting the fork a second time, "Number one.
No one is allowed to look down on me."
"But I haven't -- "
"To refuse my kindness is the same as insolence," he curls his upper lip and
drops the fork onto the tray, "I was planning on treating you like a brother,
but I think you'd be better suited as a dog." He rips Mrs. Joestar's photograph
from its frame and crumples it. Then he throws the wad to the floor then takes
a fistful of food and shoves it before Jonathan's face.
"Either you eat it," he starts, "Or I tell Father how you ripped your mother's
photo to spite me."
"What!"
"Eat." He opens his palm and presses it closer, "Didn't I tell you not to make
me repeat myself?"
Despite the slop on his hands, he can feel Jonathan's tears prickling at his
skin. The boy is a natural at eating messily however and he even licks Dio's
hand clean without additional prompting.
"I'm full," Jonathan cries.
"No you're not. Eat."
By the time the plate is finished, Jonathan has stopped and started crying
twice. Dio praises him for finishing up and climbs onto the bed after drying
his hands.
"Here," he says, motioning to his own lap, "Sit here."
"I don't -- "
"Jonathan."
When the other boy is cradled in his lap, Dio stokes his hair and wipes the
tears from his face.
"If you do exactly as I say," he murmurs, "Father will stop scolding you."
(I will make you into a gentleman, he promises, and I will grant you entry into
Heaven, Jonathan hears.)
***** your efforts then were futile; *****
Despite trying very hard to put the incident behind him, Jonathan is a mess the
following day. He skips breakfast to run through the fields and avoids Dio like
the plague.
For the rest of the day, Dio aids him in propping up the charade, pretending he
had not threatened the manor Lord's only son with servitude. They sit side-by-
side for lessons and Dio is as amenable as ever. Lord Joestar catches his son
trying to scoot to the edge of the table and strikes the back of his hand,
chastising him for his "childish jealousies". There is the ever-present
reproach of 'why can't you be more like Dio' in his tone. After lessons, Dio
coops himself up in the study while Jonathan finds solace in the great
outdoors. He is alone in his adventures however, as Danny chooses to remain by
Dio's feet for a couple choice scraps, and soon tires of playing as a one-man
army.
Dinner is not much better: Danny takes his spot underneath Dio's seat and
Jonathan's attempts to coax him out are rewarded with a reprimand from his
father. If Dio weren't watching the scene unfold, he would have never believed
anyone could have a dog as their best friend. But it is the loss of his
faithless mutt that seems to hit Jonathan the hardest. He keeps his thoughts to
himself, dropping shavings of meat from his plate and sneaking glances to his
adopted brother. Every time he looks, Jonathan refuses to meet his gaze. Even
with absolute concentration on his meal, Jonathan is still a fundamentally
messy eater. He's not sent to his room at least, though Dio suspects there's
more of the meal outside his stomach than in it.
After dinner, he asks for a private conversation with Lord Joestar, expressing
his growing concern over Jonathan's progress in their studies. Lord Joestar is
self-conscious enough to be abashed, clearing his throat and thrum-humming. He
gives the usual excuses of an affectionate parent, excuses Dio acknowledges
before dismissing.
When Dio proposes additional tutoring -- under his supervision -- Lord Joestar
is surprised at least. He tries to deflect responsibility, that Dio should
concentrate on his own studies, but Dio persists. His impromptu speech on the
importance of fraternal affection (and how, after two weeks of living in the
manor, he already thought it to be home) is what persuades Lord Joestar. Dio
lets himself be pulled into an embrace, thinking all the while: how pathetic
could this father-and-son pair be?
-
Jonathan has made an effort of keeping him out. A poor effort, but an attempt
nonetheless. Dio unlocks the double-bolt with the butler's master key and kicks
the chair out from its wedge between the doorjam and wall.
"What are you doing here?" Jonathan demands, looking just as he had the
previous night.
"Making good on my promise," Dio replies. He locks the door and seats himself
at the escritoire. The maids have stocked the drawers with writing utensils out
of obligation; goodness knows Jonathan never used them.
"What promise?" the other scrambles out of bed to look over Dio's shoulder.
"If you listen to me, Father won't be cross with you," Dio reiterates,
finishing the first line and starting the second.
"I don't need your help," Jonathan scowls. "And don't think I've forgiven you
for last night."
As Dio is slow to respond, the two of them remain in their positions. The clock
ticks and ticks until he's finished the first draft of his passage. He blows on
the ink, places the quill back in its holder.
"Forgiven me?" Dio stands up to scoff, "I've done nothing that warrants
offence. If anything you should be thanking me."
"Why would I -- "
"Here," he thrusts the finished paper into Jonathan's hands, "Read this and
memorize it."
"What the -- "
"Father," Dio lets the title hang in the air, thrilling in how Jonathan's
breath caught, "Has said it would be most kind of me if I helped you in your
studies. And everything else, of course."
"I don't need your help," Jonathan repeats, attempting to hand the paper back.
Dio takes the paper, grabs the other boy's hand, and twists it hard enough to
hurt.
"Jonathan," he sighs, "Jonathan, Jonathan, Jonathan. Now what did I say about
insolence?"
There's a newly-stoked fire in the Joestar boy's eyes, one that Dio is looking
forward to douse.
"I won't be your dog," Jonathan spits, "And you're no brother of mine." He
wrenches his hand free and takes a step back, "You may have fooled Father, but
you'll never fool me."
Dio sighs and sets the paper aside. He rolls up his sleeves and calmly says: "I
don't like your tone," before jabbing a fist at the other boy's face. Jonathan
guards, as expected, but he's too slow to block Dio's kick. Dio grabs him by
the collar, knees him in the stomach, feels spittle splatter on his face, and
punches him in the same spot.
He stops his assault when Jonathan is literally beneath him and he steps
forward, placing his foot atop other boy's chest.
"Apologise," he commands, pressing his heel down.
"No! I won't -- " his dissent is interrupted with a stomp.
"You were insolent last night and now you are insolent again. Apologise."
"I have my pride!" Jonathan hisses from the floor, "Do what you will, I won't
be under your thumb!"
Dio laughs, charmed still by the other's naïveté.
"I can't have that," he says in good faith, "But there are other ways to hurt."
He removes his foot and pretends to inspect his hands.
"I killed my own father, you know?" he says, as if they were engaging in small
conversation. Still flat on the floor, Jonathan tenses. Well, Dio hadn't
actually killed this father of his, but the Dio of this world had. "He was more
useful to me dead than alive."
"You..."
"Don't you want to know how I did it?"
"You're lying! That's -- "
"I gave him poison instead of medicine." It was pretty clever, he has to admit,
"So he thought he was being cured when, in reality," he laughs outright here,
"He was being killed!"
But the cogs in Jonathan's head are slow to turn. He tries to get up, and Dio
forces him back down.
"Why -- why are you telling me this?" the pressure on his chest makes him sound
breathless. Dio likes the scene before him very much.
"Your father has some brandy by his bedside," Dio smiles.
Jonathan turns ashen.
"You wouldn't -- "
"Apologise."
He tries to make a break for it; Dio doesn't even let him get up. Sprawled
against the floor, he impotently thrashes his limbs, tears of frustration
spilling forth once more.
"I don't understand," he rages, "Why are you doing this? What did I ever do to
you?!"
"How many times must I repeat myself?"
"I'm sorry!" Jonathan spits, "I'm -- I'm sorry for my insolence!"
"Very good," Dio purrs, removing his foot and stooping to a crouch. He helps
Jonathan to his feet and presses his palm against the small of his back. "I
don't like dogs," he admits, "But I'll mold you into a most obedient one."
Jonathan looks fit to vomit as Dio eases him into the seat. He taps the edge of
the parchment and repeats his previous command.
With their positions reversed, Dio watches the other stare at his impeccable
longhand.
"It helps to read aloud," he suggests.
"I can't," Jonathan whispers.
"...What?"
"I can't read this."
"You're twelve years old!" Nearly thirteen, really.
"It's longhand!" Jonathan's cheeks are bright red again, "I never -- Father was
never -- I don't know how to read it."
"We will remedy this later," Dio promises, taking the paper back and copying
his own words into printscript. He pushes the infant-friendly passage back and
Jonathan frowns.
"Surely you can read that?" He tightens his grip on the other boy's shoulder
and leans forward: "Then read it."
Caged but not yet cowed, Jonathan begins to read.
"I am pathetic. I am useless, helpless, and worthless. I cannot -- " he chokes
here and Dio lackadaisically brushes some stray tears away, " -- do anything
right. I am not a gentleman, I do not deserve to..."
Despite Dio's efforts, the paper is splotched with tears. Jonathan takes a deep
breath.
"I can't read this."
"You can and you will."
"I do not deserve to sit at the table. I should be confined to the study and
made to make up for lost work."
"There," Dio praises, wiping away the excess of emotion, "Now you know what it
says." He tugs the paper out of Jonathan's clenched hand and exchanges it for a
quill. Then he pulls out a fresh sheet and clasps his own fingers about the
other boy's.
"Now copy it."
"I don't -- " Jonathan tries to look at the clock. Dio grabs his chin and
forces him to look at the passage.
"It's late enough," he says, "Don't be distracted."
"I'm tired," Jonathan tries, "I can't memorise when I'm tired...!"
"And yet Father instructed me to keep you up as necessary."
"Father would never -- "
"Oh?" Dio smiles with teeth, "Who do you think wrote the first draft of this
piece?"
Jonathan swallows and tries to shake his head. Dio maintains his grip however,
and when he hiccoughs, his shoulders nearly leap forward.
"I recommended he tone it down somewhat, of course. That's why there's no
mention of your mother, you understand."
Although Jonathan fails to bite back his tears, he nonetheless begins to
transcribe. But his handwriting is sloppy as well and when he finishes, Dio
rips the paper in half, crumples it, and throws it to the floor. Then he pulls
out a second fresh sheet and lays it out.
"That's illegible. Write it again."
Jonathan rewrites it and Dio rips and crumples it again.
"Still unreadable," he says, "Again."
Jonathan is made to copy the paragraph five times. He's run out of tears to cry
by the time the clock strikes midnight and only then is Dio satisfied with his
penmanship. His face is as it was last night and he needs Dio's help to walk
from the desk to the bed.
"I can't," he whispers.
"You can," Dio insists. He lifts the other boy's nightshirt and applies a
liberal amount salve to the still-mottling bruises on his midsection. After
he's done as much as he can, he tucks Jonathan in and strokes his hair.
"Tell me what you wrote."
Jonathan squeezes his eyes shut and covers his ears. The words heed little
however; they bubble up and spill over and so, he speaks.
"I am pathetic. I am useless, helpless, and worthless. I cannot do anything
right. I am not a gentleman, I do not deserve to sit at the table. I should be
confined to the study and made to make up for lost work."
If it weren't for the tremors, Jonathan's voice might pass as pleasant. But the
other boy has suffered enough for one evening so he praises him again, kissing
his forehead and covering his eyes.
"See?" he adds, "All that may be true right now, but soon it'll be a lie."
"I'm not any of those things," Jonathan blubbers.
"Yes you are. You're all of those things. But if you work hard, you might
improve. Now all you need to do is listen to me."
-
In the meantime, Dio explores the extent of his unusual power. That this was
not normal went without saying; that this was not his was more difficult to
explain. He hadn't understood ⸢Memory Discs⸥ until after he had been given the
power to extract them. And yet, the act of extracting the discs is second
nature to him.
Thinking back to his other self -- the one who looked nothing like him, that
is, not the waterlogged corpse that was still drifting downriver -- there were
many questions he hadn't bothered to answer. If it were a question about
Jonathan, the answers were easier, but anything pertaining to the perpetually-
lit world or the extent of his (of their) powers was always met with silence.
In the body and life of his twelve-year-old self, the idea of incomprehensible
concepts does not disturb him. But the Dio he had first been acquainted with...
there is a sense of timelessness, of absolute eternity, pervading the other
man's domain. That he would live forever is a great comfort marred only with
the knowledge that his grander self somehow had need of Jonathan of all people.
He's left, therefore, with the unsavoury impression that his other self has
failed somehow. How this was possible when he was the one ruling ⸢Heaven⸥, he
does not understand. Still, he is determined to follow through with his own
orders -- who else to execute his own plans, after all -- and reconvene in that
place.
Which brings him back to the limitations of his current power. Later, he'll
discover that the ⸢Discs⸥ came in two types: Stand and Memory. The former's
ability is what was gifted to him, the latter is what he has been asked to
retrieve. ⸢Stands⸥, his master will explain, are useful to a point. Ultimately,
they are a means of harnessing power beyond human comprehension.
In bypassing the Stand and grasping the raw power... Dio doesn't know it then,
but he's been allowed a stronger hold on ⸢Whitesnake⸥'s ability than the Stand
itself.
What he does discover, after experimenting with the manor's maids, is that
Memory Discs can be ejected and re-inserted. A servant who had the disc taken
out would function as an automaton; placing the disc back would cause them to
have no memory of the incident. Furthermore, he discovers it possible to
selectively erase portions of memory. A maid delivers three new bedsheets after
Dio resets her memory twice.
Why, then, would he be given such an overpowered ability? Save for Jonathan,
the fools in the manor think him incapable of manslaughter, to say nothing of
mind-control. Was he expected to use the Discs to subdue Jonathan without
struggling? He had already confirmed that removing the disc was not enough to
kill. The thought of needing something like this in order to subjugate the
other boy is downright insulting.
Unwilling to consider the obvious explanation, Dio snuffs the light out and
goes to sleep.
-
Following an uneventful breakfast, he announces Jonathan has something worth
showing off after their lesson hours are over. Lord Joestar raises his eyebrows
but allows the unusual request.
And so it is that Jonathan is made to recite his newly-memorised passage while
his father and adopted brother stand by. He's breathing hard, stammering and
stumbling and making a mess of himself, but he finishes his little speech and
only then does Dio reinsert his new father's disc.
"Splendid!" Lord Joestar praises, mistaking the expectant expression on
Jonathan's face as one looking for praise, "I'm so happy you're applying
yourself more diligently now!"
He does not understand why his son runs away crying.
"He worked hard to memorise those psalms," Dio explains, "I'm sure he's tired."
He follows his adopted brother at a leisurely pace, drinking in the sound of
his sorrow. He's disappointed in what he sees. Boy and mutt must have
reconciled in the wake of the former's emotional outburst.
Jonathan is a pitiful sight -- curled against his dog, sniffling and sobbing.
He doesn't understand, he tells the braindead beast, he doesn't understand
anything anymore.
Dio watches the scene for a while before closing the door. The dog's fidelity
is a minor hitch, one that he will smooth over accordingly.
-
Dogs are easier killed than swayed.
And boys, especially bumbling idiots like Jonathan Joestar, are easier broken
than kept brittle.
When the three of them return from church, Dio takes the liberty of removing
Danny's disc. He is pleased to see the dog's body matching its mind; the great
beast rests on its haunches without so much as a sound and cannot be made to
chase the ball no matter how many times Jonathan throws it. He will not roll
over or stand up and will not eat, even when the food bowl is pressed to his
snout.
But Jonathan Joestar is the hopeful sort and he believes his dog will recover.
And Dio enjoys himself, watching the other boy's optimism crumble over the next
week.
The manor's servants are most sympathetic, cleaning up the comatose dog's
spills, but after a week, even Lord Joestar begins to speak of putting an end
to the poor creature's misery.
Like a true friend, Jonathan has taken to sneaking over to the doghouse,
combing and petting and otherwise reassuring his now-soulless hound. Dio
watches the exchange from the hallway windows, pushing back the curtains with a
satisfied smile.
In the midnight between Saturday and Sunday, Jonathan tiptoes outside the house
only to come face-to-face with his adopted brother casually brandishing a
knife.
He muffles his own shout of surprise and grabs Dio by the shoulder.
"Dio! What are you doing?!"
"Don't you have anything better to ask?" Dio sneers. The moon casts his dagger
in a versed light and Jonathan traces his gaze.
With a cry, the other boy knocks the blade from his grasp and tackles him,
hard, to the floor. Exchanging defence for offence, Dio cannot stop the
onslaught of blows.
Jonathan is screaming something. Some variation of 'how dare you', he suspects.
The pummel of fists, curled fingers and bruised knuckles, bring him -- Dio -
- to the brink of tears.
"Stop," he actually does say. "Stop -- !"
But Jonathan does not stop. He does not stop until they're both in tears, until
Dio cannot feel his face, until it hurts to open his mouth, until he thinks his
ribcage has caved in.
Was this why he had been given the ability? Would he have to rely on it in
order to best Jonathan in a real fight?
He's a thought away from extracting the other boy's disc before his own senses
return. Instead of taking anything, he reaches up and cups Jonathan's face. The
exquisite pain that's caused by so small a motion -- he laughs like a madman
and the sounds brings Jonathan back to his senses.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the lights in the manor turned on. The
servants will soon be looking for them, he knows.
"Jonathan," he sighs, and even sighing hurts his chest, "I am not your enemy.
You're wasting your time fighting me."
He sees the other boy's pupils contract as he tries to make sense of Dio's
declaration.
"Really," he presses, "I only want what's best for you."
"No," Jonathan gasps, "No you don't. You're a liar and you're lying and -- "
Every twist and turn hurts but he somehow manages to crawl out from underneath
the other. On his hands and knees, he reaches out and clasps the knife handle.
Then he stands up, turns around, and ignores his own cuts and bruises to pull
Jonathan up.
"See here," he says, wrapping Jonathan's fingers about the handle, "As a show
of good faith, I'll have you do the honours."
"No," Jonathan repeats. Begins to wail. "No, Dio, I don't want to -- "
"Jonathan," Dio chastises, squeezing his wrists, "Isn't this your best friend?
Would you abandon him in his time of need?"
"He is suffering and you know it," he continues. "You remember how Danny used
to be. It's a sickness of the mind and there is no cure."
And then: "Yes. Yes, Jonathan, easy does it."
Jonathan's sharp breaths even out after he makes the first cut. By the time the
maids think to search the doghouse, they find two black and blue boys and the
corpse of a dog.
***** I will be your pen and bars *****
He sleeps in rapture that night, the image of Jonathan putting an end to his
own dog seared in his eyelids. Had Jonathan always had the capacity for murder?
Would he even consider it as such? Dio wouldn't; even if the mutt were in
perfect health he wouldn't have called it a murder. And then there is Jonathan,
so manic and yet so morose. The first wound had been made out of duty and the
later stabs stemming from an excess of emotion rather than perceived madness.
He had not been able to make out much underneath the moonlight, but when they
are brought back into the manor, Jonathan's green eyes contrast nicely with the
redness of the blood splatters.
When he finally drifts to sleep, he is not surprised to find himself dreaming
of Jonathan. Not this Jonathan and not even the Jonathan who was zero-for-ten,
but the Jonathan that had trapped him -- well, another him -- in that coffin in
the first place. Now there was a man he had admired; there was a man he wanted
to see consumed with hatred and bloodlust. But Jonathan had been a terrible
chess piece then, he failed to die, he failed to mind his own business, he
failed to turn into a zombie and towards the end, he had even failed to live.
The memories are confusing enough by themselves; the sentiments they inspire
are wholly alien.
And then he realises: this is not his dream.
The realisation changes nothing and he watches the slideshow of scenes unfold
before him. And then, all of a sudden, darkness. He initially thinks the dream
to be over, but as he is still capable of moving his limbs --
This is the coffin. This is his grave.
The onset of fear is his own creation. Dio wakes with a start at the ringing of
church bells. At some point in the night, he had thrown his sheets to the floor
and then seized his pillow in a stranglehold. He is perspiring and his stomach
feels two feet under. His chest is heaving and he can hear the blood rushing
back to his head. As soon as he has himself under control, he lets himself give
a quiet, controlled chuckle. If things continued like this, he might end up
more brittle than Jonathan!
-
He dresses warmly and goes for an early morning ride to clear his mind. Had he
always been scared of the dark? Or enclosed spaces? He recalls a time when he
had hated horseback riding. The rush of cold air, his own uncombed hair
obstructing his view, the muscles of the stallion underneath him... he breathes
the scene in and forces himself to relax.
At the moment, it does not matter whose dream that was, or if it had meaning in
the first place. He still needed to conquer the Jonathan of this world and he
was already halfway done.
Upon returning to the manor, his plans for funeral preparations, church
attendance, and longhand writing practice, are tossed to the side. He would
laugh if it weren't such an inconvenience; of course even this Jonathan -
- alone and half-mad -- would put up a kicking screaming fight.
Dear Father, the note on the empty unused bed reads, I'm running away. Thank
you for everything and I'm sorry for disappointing you again.
-
This is why he had been gifted such an ability, he thinks, pocketing Jonathan's
original note and writing one of his own. The second letter is just as brief
and speaks of needing time to himself in order to properly grieve.
Dio miscalculates here by underestimating Jonathan's resolve. The other is a
spoiled child who had been served on hand and foot since birth. Who would think
him capable of surviving for a day outside the manor, much less a week?
But a week passes and there is still no sign of his adopted brother and Dio
needs to selectively remove Lord Joestar's memories again, replacing one forged
letter with another, this one saying that both of them were going up to London
to visit Westminster Abbey with the local prebendary.
Thinking back, he should have just removed Lord Joestar's disc.
The ride from the manor to the train station stands in stark contrast to the
early-morning ride from one week earlier. Gone is the thrill, the enjoyment; he
brushes the hair from his eyes with excessive force before spurning his horse
forward. He arrives at the station in breakneck speed looking fit to kill and
does not bother with his usual pleasantries.
A glance through the station attendant's memories confirms that Jonathan had
bought a one-way ticket for the 6:15 to Paddington. The attendant has not seen
him since. Dio buys a one-way ticket as well, double-checking his own
inventory. He had brought his dagger, enough money to buy out a brothel, and
little else.
There is always the chance Jonathan is already dead of course. Would he be
blamed then, for not keeping the boy alive? His master had wanted this one's
memory disc and he couldn't very well get one from a corpse. Furthermore, how
would he even communicate with himself?
Being himself, his uncertainties do not give way to despair. He sets them aside
while boarding the train, promising that if Jonathan were not yet dead, he
would live to regret it.
-
Although Dio rightly considers Jonathan to be farmfolk, he has been to London
before. On multiple occasions to boot. There are some distant relatives in the
great city, and he's even seen the boat races on the Thames a couple times.
Those were happy memories however and try as he might, he cannot conjure them
at the present.
It goes without saying that Jonathan is not in the right state of mind to
travel much less work following Danny's death. But for reasons which made sense
then, this is all he can think of to do. Danny had been the last bastion he had
against Dio; it was only because Danny had been there that he could bear his
own father falling under the older boy's thrall. And the thing is: nothing has
been the same since Dio's arrival. His Father had never complained about his
table manners, much less his academic record, and he had never been hit or sent
to bed hungry. But as he is also unable to explain the sudden changes (short of
witchcraft and devilry), he has a half-baked plot to ask around the London
apothecaries, for someone to come and take a look around the manor.
The station attendant recognises him when he asks to buy a train ticket. The
older man is surprised to see him alone and at this hour; Jonathan gives some
lie or another. He can't tell if the other has been convinced; can't even
remember what had been said. But he gets his ticket and his first-class stall
so he doesn't press the matter.
In retrospect, he should have saved his money. It was such a knee-jerk
reaction, to buy the very best without regard for future expenditures, but he
hadn't taken very much with him and he knows prices in the city are many times
higher than their country equivalents. Furthermore, the otherwise-empty stall
means that he is left with his own thoughts.
Jonathan Joestar does not think himself a thankless individual and he knows
he's lucky to live in such conditions. But he cannot stop the sting of jealousy
which bubbles up from meeting anyone who had known their mother. His mother is
a spectre who exists in Father's tear-tinged stories and old photographs. The
boys of the village can run home to their mothers' cooking, their mothers'
praise, their mothers' comforts. His father had been the one to carve a niche
in his headboard for the late Lady Joestar's portrait in an attempt to
alleviate some of his frustrations and now Dio had taken even that.
Dio is everything his father wanted in a son and everything Jonathan would've
have been happy to be. He had memories of his mother, he had a loving family,
he was quick-witted and fleet-footed and, well, an up-and-coming gentleman in
everything but temperament. If Jonathan were blessed with Dio's talents, he is
certain he would be happier -- happier than the other boy, certainly.
But instead of being happy, Dio had --
He had confessed to killing his own father, threatened to kill Jonathan's
father, and would have surely killed Danny if Jonathan hadn't beaten him to the
chase.
Memories of the prior night surface and he tastes regret-come-bile in the back
of his mouth.
Danny was already dead, but as for his father --
Maybe, he thinks, maybe he really is all the horrible things Dio had made him
memorise. What sort of gentleman, no, what sort of son, would abandon his
father in a time of need? What sort of person would be overcome by his own
grief and not stay to properly mourn?
It's pathetic to cry again, but he does it nonetheless, curling into himself
and resting against the carriage's outer wall. What if Dio had already killed
his father? What if he had faked Jonathan's death somehow and was now en-route
to inheriting the estate?
If Jonathan were the kind of person he wanted to be, he would have arrived at
Paddington Station and purchased the next available return ticket to the
southern countryside. He would have travelled back to the Joestar manor and
confronted Dio over his threats. He would have attended Danny's funeral and
guaranteed the safety of his own father.
But he is a coward, not a gentleman, and if he closes his eyes, he can still
see Danny's prone form framed by his own bloodstained hands.
-
Upon exiting the station, he wanders. He had pawned off his nameday watch for
an additional two crowns and four shillings; he hasn't a clue how long the
loose change will last him.
So he walks. Walks and walks and walks. London is different from what he had
remembered and two different boroughs might as well be two different worlds.
The throngs of people jostle him left and right; there are beggars and peddlers
and harlots and harlequins. This pocket of the city has more people than the
whole village.
To distract himself, he devises a game, asking himself whether such-and-such
were a gentleman. The game lasts less than two blocks before he's brusquely
told to mind his own business and keep his gaze to himself.
The chapel he walks into isn't Westminster; he has enough shame to keep from
going there. It's not even a cathedral, just a homely church tucked between the
criss-crossed streets and innumerable tenements. Despite giving alms and
praying in earnest, God is as unresponsive as ever and Jonathan exits emptier
than he had entered.
His thoughtless feet plod forward. Innately, he knows London is not like the
countryside, that he is unaccounted for the city cares little for her own and
even less for outsiders. Common sense tells him not to enter the unmarked
underground den. But then, if he were to listen to that, he would have never
left the manor.
No, instead of turning back, he marches forward, down an unkept and unlit
staircase and towards the inexplicable din.
He steps at the edge of an ocean of spectators, whistling and cheering and
screaming and swearing. They reek of blood and alcohol and the familiarity of
the scent sends him to his knees. Someone catches his fall, he hears them say:
"this isn't a place for children" and he pushes them aside and forces himself
forward.
What did he expect to find in this chamber of sin? Human kindness or anything
approaching rationality?
It had been sick curiosity, plain and simple, which led him to shove the crowd
aside. It's a good thing his stomach is empty, for he would have surely emptied
it otherwise.
The men of London are crowded around a cramped little ring. In the ring are two
dogs and some five dozen rats. There isn't anything in the ring that isn't
bleeding and the closest spectators sport wounds of their own.
"Hey!" someone shouts.
"Hey, what are you -- "
He is a helpless fool with an untenable desire to be a hero.
-
Neither Dio nor Jonathan immediately recognises the other when they chance upon
each other a week and a half later.
Short on time and patience, Dio stoops to the other boy's level, yanking on a
fistful of hair.
"Jonathan," he growls, reversing the order of question-and-answer, "What are
you doing here?"
In seeing him for the first time as the lesser of two evils, Jonathan's face
twists with agony before he throws himself onto his adopted brother.
If he hadn't been pushed to the brink himself, terrified of the consequences of
stumbling upon his mark's corpse, Dio would have felt robbed on an opportunity.
He had wanted to break Jonathan by himself, without the use of his ability much
less the whole city of London. But Jonathan is here, before him and pressed up
against him and he is sound in body if not in mind.
In the cobblestone and come alleyways of the poorer parts of London, he wraps
his arms around the other, reciting the age-old reassurances his own mother had
told him.
But because he never asks, Jonathan never tells him.
"Father is so worried," Dio says instead, stroking unwashed and matted hair,
"Do you know how long you've been gone for?"
Jonathan shakes his head and holds tighter still. He's wearing next to nothing
and the cuts and bruises from their last tussle seem to have multiplied.
His adopted brother is most bearable like this, stuck so close one might
mistake him to be an additional appendage, a shadow. Had this been the end
goal? Would his other self ask for Jonathan's disc now? Although their chance
encounter feels like a turning point (if not a full stop), time continues to
tick by.
Dio scoots slightly so that his back rested against the brickwork. Jonathan
gives no indication of releasing his hold. And so they remain: caught in an
embrace fit to suffocate while their shadows bled into the walls. They could
die like this, Dio morbidly muses, though whether it would be courtesy of the
elements or the renegades was anyone's guess. The Jonathan of his other self's
memories had always been larger than life, a cat when it came to landing on the
correct moral axis and someone unbidden by the evils of the world.
Ever since their first meeting, Dio has assumed this Jonathan to be elementary
version of the former. This turns out to be his second miscalculation.
"Dio," Jonathan whispers. He's stopped shivering at least.
"Mm?"
"Is it true... that you killed your father?"
"Yes." This was one death he would never feel guilty over.
Rather than tensing at the shameless confession, Jonathan relaxes. He breathes
out, sounding almost relieved, and then makes Dio an offer he can't refuse.
"Anything," the boy promises, "I'll... I'll do anything you ask of me if you
help me kill someone."
Suddenly breathless himself, he moves to rub Jonathan's back before asking:
"How many?"
Jonathan turns his head so that his lips are pressed against Dio's jugular.
"Two. Maybe more."
His lips are wet when Dio swallows.
"Anything," he repeats.
"Anything," Jonathan mimes.
Who is he, to lock the door at the knocking of opportunity?
Dio relaxes fully as well, smiling and moving to comb his fingers through the
other boy's hair.
"Of course," he says, releasing his hold. Jonathan does the same and Dio stands
up. "Can you stand?" he asks, holding out an outstretched arm. Jonathan takes
his hand, clasping their fingers, and allows himself to be pulled up. He
refuses to let go however, even when Dio is shrugging off his coat and draping
it over the other boy. He presses his lips to Jonathan's brow -- a gesture of
comfort more than ownership -- and with their hands still held together, says:
"Lead the way."
-
And so Jonathan leads the way back to the rat-baiting ring. They're in the
middle of another match but the doorman seems to know Jonathan. He lets them
through without question at least.
"Who do you want dead?" Dio whispers into Jonathan's ear, "Everyone here?"
Jonathan looks nearly reverent then. "Can you?" he asks in a timid voice, "Can
you kill everyone here?"
Dio smiles again and squeezes his hand.
"Of course," he promises. "Would you like me to?"
It would be child's play actually. Set the entrance on fire and watch the
degenerate spectators burn. But Jonathan, even vengeful, fails to carry his
penchant for cruelty. He shakes his head and squeezes back.
"Not everyone," he whispers, "Just those two." With his free hand, he points at
the two men seated comfortably on the outer edges of the ring.
"The pit boss and the bookmaker. Good choice."
As Dio stalks his way over to the ringleaders, Jonathan breaks away to hide
amongst the crowd. The thought of killing to satisfy the other boy's whims is
more thrilling than he had imagined. What crimes had these men committed, for
someone like Jonathan to deem them worthy of death? If he were given more time,
he might have sifted through their memories. However, there is a 9:20 train out
of Paddington that he wants to catch.
Therefore, he wastes no time in extracting both their memory discs and neatly
slitting their throats. The additional bloodshed sends the rats of the ring
into a frenzy; it'll be some time before the spectators discover the source.
Jonathan is waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. Dio wipes his blade on
an old rag before sheathing and pocketing it. Yet again, he holds his hand out.
Jonathan takes it and they exit the den together.
-
Between the two of them, they have enough money left over to buy a whole cabin
in the first-class carriage on the train ride home. Jonathan is content to sit
in his lap, head cocked forward so that his forehead was resting against the
other boy's shoulder.
With his unclasped hand, Dio traces an uncreased brow.
"Fear not," he murmurs, though Jonathan is likely asleep, "For I, Dio, take
good care of my things."
-
These are things Jonathan had promised on the carriage ride from the train
station back to the manor.
"I will be the master and you will be the dog."
"Yes."
"And we shall play this game until I tire of it."
"Yes."
"You are not allowed to question my orders. To question my kindness is the same
as insolence and I will not tolerate such behavior."
"Yes."
"My, Jonathan," Dio chastises, loosely embracing the other boy, "You are lucky
I plan to be a kind master. To promise anything... you realise you're now an
accomplice for murder?"
Wrapped in his arms, Dio feels the other swallow.
"I already was," he whispers.
His confession is enough; Dio does not pry further.
***** for the one wrapped in greed *****
In the place with no real way in or out, Dio lifts his old nemesis' head from
its perch. Stripped of his body below the neck, Jonathan Joestar can only
blink. He cradles the familiar face, tracing the lower lip with his thumb and
reaches for his own green lipstick on a whim.
Jonathan furrows his brow, pursing his lips and trying to squirm as best as he
can. But Dio maintains his hold and though the color smears at the corners, he
manages to cover both upper and lower lip with his signature shade of bright
green.
"There," he says, capping the lipstick and setting it aside. He pulls out a
hand mirror so Jonathan could look at himself, and adds: "It suits you well."
What was left of the other man grinds his jaw. There's a challenge in his gaze,
the sort of look Dio hasn't seen in, well, a hundred years, and the look raises
his spirits. So much so that he leans forward leave an imprint of his own lips.
"i should have had everything," he starts, laying the mirror down before
lifting the head again. "Things were different then. Your birthright was your
burnt-out shack; is it so difficult to believe mine was to be the world?"
The other can hear him. If he could speak, he would. In another time, he might
have enjoyed the chance to monologue at length before his rival but at the
moment --
Dio frowns, trying to remember his own goals. ⸢Heaven⸥, yes. He had wanted to
enter the eternal kingdom. No, more than that, he wanted to control the
afterlife too.
Jonathan's head is placed in the shadows of the drapes. He settles fully
against the dozen-odd pillows, picking up an unfinished book. The scar on his
neck throbs; he palms the join line but otherwise ignores it.
"Is it painful, Jojo?" he asks after finishing the book? "To be so close?"
The other's eyes are closed and he's either pretending or actually asleep. Even
if he were awake however, there's no satisfactory answer for him to give.
The jangle of jewelry and girlish giggles pull his attention away. In this new
world where everything was provided for him -- where meals threw their lives
away for the chance to be in his presence, it seems that Jonathan and his
tiresome descendents are the only ones in his way. If he were to do away with
them, starting with the defenseless head...
The women call for him and he pulls his hand back, slipping out of bed and
baring his fangs in preparation for the feast.
-
Lord Joestar greets them with open arms, asking if they enjoyed the impromptu
trip to London and whether the cathedral was as splendid as it had been on
Christmas day. Jonathan embraces him then, pressing his face into his father's
side.
"Did you miss me so?" he asks, ruffling his son's hair. "You were gone for less
than two weeks!"
Jonathan doesn't answer, only shakes his head and squeezes all the tighter.
He is well-meaning but mistakened, thinking his son was still grieving the loss
of his dog. When he looks at Dio (his other son, he self-corrects), the other
boy is nearly glaring. Again, he mistakes this to be fatigue. He reaches an arm
over to pull Dio close, thanking him for keeping Jonathan in-line in addition
to suggesting the trip.
Dinner that night is unusual to say the least, for both boys are seated side-
by-side (as opposed to across each other) and Jonathan has turned his chair to
Dio.
"Dio," he begins when the older boy is cutting his son's food for him, "I
understand Jonathan's table manners leave something to be desired, but..."
When Dio pauses to shoot him a scathing look, his jaw nearly slackens with
disbelief. The absurdity of the scene before him mounts and mounts as he
watches Jonathan obediently open his mouth, watches as Dio feeds him as one
might feed a babe. Jonathan was twelve years old, nearly thirteen, to oversee
such a scene was disgraceful.
Unfortunately, Lord Joestar gives both boys the benefit of the doubt. On one
hand, he did want them to be friends, and on the other hand, he did not think
it proper for Jonathan to be so dependent on anyone else, much less his own
brother.
He holds his tongue and waits for the maids to clear the dishes before calling
Dio to the study.
George Joestar takes one look at the boy and feels a pang of guilt at the
timing. Neither of the boys had even washed yet and here he was, prepared to
lecture on propriety? Was it any wonder Dio had glared at him, or that he was
so sullen now?
"I'm sorry for keeping you," he immediately says, "We can talk about this at a
later time, I'm sure you'd like a bath now."
With his left cheek still dusted in soot, Dio twists his lips into a smile and
soundly closes the door.
"On the contrary, Father," he replies, "I believe now is the perfect time to
talk."
-
Jonathan is seated outside the washroom, waiting for the maid to run the bath,
when Dio makes his way up the grand staircase. He makes room for the other boy
to sit and fidgets in the silence. This is the price for human life, he knows.
And really, he's getting a bargain: trading one life for two. Having his father
watch Dio feed him however, is a different experience altogether.
If he is honest with himself, being fed is not an unpleasant experience. The
portions were small enough to chew and he got to really sample the flavours of
the meal. Dio is as impeccable with Jonathan's supper as he is with himself and
he's sure the other boy will grow bored of the responsibility in time.
In reality, these are shallow justifications for an incredible situation. He
should be ashamed, he knows. Should be ashamed of so many things, really. But
he can still taste the recitation at the back of his throat and the insults
seem truer than ever.
Jonathan is pulled from his reverie with the reappearance of the maid, who
informs them that his bath has been drawn and would Master Dio please wait as
they would prepare a second tub for him.
"No need," Dio smoothly replies, "I'll wash with my brother."
Surprised at the sudden closeness, the maid looks to Jonathan for confirmation.
Though his stomach twists and turns, he forces a smile up.
"It's been a long day," he adds, "Besides, we're both boys."
"As you wish," the maid curtsies.
"After you," Dio says.
"I thought dogs were meant to follow after their masters?" He must be madder
than he thought, to be capable of making light of the situation.
"And I thought dogs were meant to be seen not heard," Dio shrugs, closing the
door and stripping out of his clothes. Jonathan moves to do the same; he's
unsurprised when Dio catches his hand.
"No," the other boy says, stepping out of his pants and tossing them to the
side, "Let me."
The servants had insisted on a change of clothes before supper. As a result,
Jonathan is wearing more than he had all week.
Without meaning to, he takes a step back. Dio catches his arm, keeping him at
bay, and undoes the front buttons with one hand. There is something improper
about all this, Jonathan knows, in the way he's being undressed -- unwrapped,
practically -- and in the way Dio's gaze skirts and catches, and in how Dio's
hands linger in certain places. There was a time when the servants needed to
wrestle him into the baths, a time when the maids would play rock-paper-
scissors for the loser would inevitably need to wash her whole uniform. But
that was years ago, back when he wore dresses rather than trousers, and even
the physician has not seen his fully naked form since.
Some of his uncertainty must resonate for Dio soon tones down his gaze,
removing Jonathan's slacks and undergarments with clinical coldness.
Dio stands up, tossing Jonathan's clothes to the side too. Jonathan fights to
keep the flush from his face. Would the maid report back to his father? Was
there any chance someone else would see? It was unusual enough for them to
bathe together at their age, to say nothing of standing in solemn silence,
stripped bare!
"Uhm," he tries, "Dio..."
"What is it?"
"The..." he struggles for the words, "The water... it'll be cold soon."
Something like amusement skirts the other boy's expression. It lasts a moment -
- well, perhaps it lasted longer, a split second was all Jonathan saw. He is
pushed backwards and his knees buckle against the tub. He gives a surprised
shout that's nearly drowned out by the outpouring of water.
"Dio!" he protests, only for his adopted brother to join him in the tub. "What
was that for?!"
"You're too stupid to have such a serious expression," Dio flippantly says.
Jonathan would have protested further if the other hadn't grabbed the bar of
soap off the tray and working it into a lather.
"Come here," Dio says, rising to his knees. The movement causes more water to
slosh over the tub's sides. "No, not like that, face the other way you idiot."
Jonathan does as told and Dio presses his lather-covered hands into the other
boy's hair.
"Ow!"
"Quiet."
"But it -- ow! -- Could you be a little gentler...!"
"No." Well, so he says, but he still eases up. Jonathan's hair is impossible to
work through, though Dio makes a valiant attempt. He manages to untangle most
of the knots and comb out the matted parts, at least.
Now that they're stripped bare, the differences in their bodies are all the
more apparent. Despite having roughly the same height and build, Jonathan's
neck and back and shoulders are marred with black and blue splotches. Dio, on
the other hand, is only sporting bruises from their row two weeks prior. As his
hands scrub lower and lower, Jonathan grows tenser and tenser. The urge to ask
-- something, anything, the obvious -- has not lessened. But the people who did
this are dead and their deaths were as graceless as their lives.
"Sit back down," he instructs, "Now lift your legs." He moves so that he rested
perpendicular to the other boy and got to work scraping the blood and mud from
his ankles and calves.
"That tickles," Jonathan complains, wedged at an awful angle.
"I'll clean the rest later," Dio declares, dropping the left leg and turning so
that his back faced Jonathan.
"Uh," Jonathan intelligently asks.
"What?"
"What am I supposed to do?"
"Wash my hair, isn't it obvious?" Dio points at the soap, "And hurry up, the
water's already lukewarm."
Jonathan works the soap to a lather before gingerly kneading at the other boy's
scalp.
"Just your hair?"
"Mm."
With the two of them in the bathtub like this, Jonathan feels more like a
brother than a dog. The boys in the village must have washed like this -- those
with brothers, at least.
Dio relaxes considerably under his ministrations, almost leaning back against
him. Between the scrubbing and the splashing, Jonathan swears he hears
something like --
"Dio?" he asks, "Is that you?"
"...What?"
"That sound."
"No," the other straightens up, "And that's enough."
"If you say so..."
They crawl out of the tub and stand underneath the shower head, taking turns to
wash the suds off.
Afterwards, when they're wrapped in towels and dripping over the hallway
carpet, Jonathan pauses, shooting Dio a questioning look.
"Either one," Dio shrugs.
Jonathan purses his lips before closing the door to his room. His father would
be more forgiving if they were found in Dio's room the next morning, assuming
he hadn't already taken action over their dinner session.
As if reading his mind, Dio chuckles and says: "I've already spoken to Father,
you needn't worry."
Jonathan looks at him, incredulous. He follows him back to his room however and
obediently sits at the foot of the bed.
"You didn't -- " he starts, unable to precisely accuse.
"Oh no," Dio laughs, "Of course not. You've been most compliant today, I was
actually planning on rewarding you."
But then -- "
"Come here," he pats the head of the armchair, "Sit down. Good boy." He
brandishes a comb and renews his efforts at untangling the other boy's hair.
"Surely Father --"
"Won't approve? You'd be surprised."
"What did you tell him?" The thought of Dio telling his father what had
happened, even what he knew of what happened, in London makes him sick with
fear.
"Nothing much. No, don't turn your head. Stay still, yes, like that." Dio works
through the final tangle and triumphantly brushes through Jonathan's dark
locks.
"What did you say."
"Nothing that concerns you."
"That's my father."
"And you are mine."
It is Dio's tone that causes Jonathan to clench his jaw, chomping on the bit of
indignation.
Dio finishes up, motions for Jonathan to stand, then seats himself down and
presses the comb into the other boy's hand.
"I don't think this is how pets are to be treated," Jonathan points out,
rearranging his own towels before dutifully combing the water from Dio's hair.
"It's a good thing your opinion is inconsequential, hm?" Dio tilts his head
back, eyes lidding from pleasure, and shrugs his shoulders to allow for better
access.
Uncertain what to say, Jonathan keeps quiet. He finishes combing within
minutes; Dio's hair was in leagues better condition than his. It was free of
tangles and knots and after the wash, scrubbed free of the London smog and
soot.
Dio lets him dress himself at least, though he has to borrow a nightshirt, and
the two of them crawl underneath the sheets.
"I liked seeing that side of you," Jonathan hears, a soft and heady whisper
right against the shell of his ear. He shivers and tries very hard to keep from
scooting away.
"Oh?"
"Yes," Dio pulls him close, too close for brothers much less master-and-dog,
"And I'll have you show it off again."
"Not in front of Father," Jonathan whispers back.
"Hmmm," Dio's hand moves to stroke the covered curve of his waist, "We'll see."
"Dio," he had known the weight of his request, was aware of the promises he had
made. But this is a concession he will never make.
The grip on his waist tightens in warning before returning to a lazy petting.
"I don't like your tone," Dio drawls, "But you've been very good for the whole
of today."
"Dio, please."
But Dio feigns deafness and continues with: "I've thought of a pet name for
you. Jonathan is far too nominal to be wasted on a dog."
"Dio...!"
He digs his nails in, smiling. "Don't you want to hear it? Your new name?"
Jonathan squirms, breath catching, but he keeps from complaining and Dio can
feel him nod.
"Yes," he says to the darkness, "Yes, please tell me."
"Jojo," Dio replies, lifting his hand only to trace Jonathan's side with the
whole of his palm, "It's a fitting name, don't you think?"
Jonathan repeats it, molding it against his tongue.
"Yes," he lies, "I like it. Thank you."
Despite the lighting, Dio manages to kiss his brow.
"Good boy," he praises again, "Now sleep."
***** from the one made to lie low *****
Like a child who's just been gifted with a brand new toy, Dio is eager to make
a spectacle of his newly-acquired dog. And what better opportunity to show off
than with the boys from the village, seeing as how Lord Joestar had just
departed on an impromptu business trip, leaving the two boys with free reign
over the manor.
The importance of kept promises and the weight of human life, however wicked,
being taken becomes a mantra to Jonathan. Dio is his master and he must play
along, even when they are outside the manor.
The other boys nearly wet themselves laughing at the sight of the Joestar heir
reduced to wearing a leash and collar. They clap and cackle around their newly-
made leader, delighted that someone from their ranks managed to reduce a
nobleman's son to this.
"Jojo," Dio instructs, "Sit."
Jonathan purses his lips but sits on the grass without complaint.
This overt display of authority only excites the other boys further.
"You've called him Jojo?" One of them sniggers.
"What a good boy he is!" Another guffaws, "Sitting at his master's command!"
"And what shall we call you?" a third one asks, looking at Dio, "Lord Dio?"
"Master Dio, surely," the final youth sybillates.
Dio smiles. The easy praise combined with the title please him greatly, but
Jonathan's surprising compliance is what pleases him the most. He hasn't even
needed to browbeat the other boy yet, much less actually punish him. Already,
they were making good progress on reading and writing the longhand script,
though he insists on feeding and bathing the other. In fact, he is almost -
- but then, only almost -- disappointed that the other didn't put up more of a
fight.
"Master Dio!" the boys chorus.
"We're in the middle of having a race," the eldest boy says, "Would you be the
judge?"
"Of course," Dio graciously replies, "Is it a footrace or...?"
"We've only feet," the other boy laughs, "Not like your dog over here!"
Jonathan closes his eyes and clenches his jaw. The other boys poke fun at him
for a couple more moments before they're made to line up. Of course the race is
another opportunity for Dio to display his own superiority; of course Dio would
tie the end of his leash to a tree branch and ruffle his hair before joining
the other boys.
The worst part is: this isn't as bad as it could be. This isn't as bad as it
has been. His adopted brother's wickedness is indolent at the strangest times;
there had been no let-up from the rat-baiting ringmasters. Sleeping with Dio
staves the worst nightmares off, though he's still in the habit of waking
drenched in cold sweat. He is unspeakably grateful in those nights, for someone
to hold him, to listen to his poorly-worded confessions. It shouldn't come as a
surprise, but it is one nonetheless: Dio is warm and even he is capable of a
comforting embrace. They never speak of it in morning and it's already been a
week. When Dio grew bored, would the nightmares have subsided? Or would they
just return? Jonathan wonders, but does not dare ask. A week in and Dio has yet
to grow bored.
Case in point, he watches while tied to the tree as Dio takes the mantle of
leadership, announcing the start of the first heat. Three more heats follow and
the overall winner -- the second youngest boy -- is announced. Dio casts a
couple glances his way, but he's in no hurry to finish. He is confident,
practically smug, that Jonathan would not run off. For why else would he
organise a group outing now?
The other boy has enough kindness to place him in a bearable spot. The grass
here is cool but not moist and the tree branch is low enough so that his neck
is not chafed by the collar. The tree leaves provide enough shadow so that the
rays of the noon sun are warm rather than scalding and if he lets his mind
drift, he can cease to concentrate on the other boys' cheers and jeers.
In a disturbing turn of events, he's forced to admit Dio is a better match of
tutor than his own father. Yes, the other boy still made him recite self-
loathing passages and yes, he was as liberal with corporal punishment as
Jonathan might expect, but he was surprisingly patient as well. In less than
seven days, the longhand which had been an indecipherable up-and-down of
curlequed scribbles are shaping up into letters and words. As Dio had joked the
night before, "at this rate, you might be literate yet".
Furthermore, after a week of swallowing his own pride, he's found the taste
bearable and not at all bitter. The servants have somehow fallen in-step with
the other boy's pace and they no longer bat an eye at their extraordinarily
intimate antics.
It is only the other boys that remind him of how low he's sunk, or what he's
sworn away.
"Jojo, is it?" the winner of the race calls, grabbing his hair and pulling him
from near-slumber.
"Jojo! Jojo!"
"Master Dio, have your dog bark for us!"
"No, no, have him play fetch!"
"You should have him catch you a rabbit or two, it's what they're bred to do."
Jonathan can feel his cheeks heat up as the suggestions become progressively
more demeaning. But of course they'd have lewd and vulgar ideas -- they were
adolescent countryside boys raised on cityfolk vices!
He's unable to ignore their jeers when the race winner grabs onto the middle of
the leash, yanking hard enough to make him choke.
"Wait -- " he helplessly splutters as the boys only point and laugh.
"Now, now," Dio chides -- without making obvious who he was scolding, "I
expect, above all things, absolute obedience." The winner of the race lets go
and steps aside, allowing Dio to cut Jonathan more slack while untying the
leash.
"Look at him!"
"So obedient!"
"I bet you had his balls chopped, huh?"
"It's the only way to get hounds to listen!"
"Jojo," Dio drawls, and the unaffected tone of his voice makes the other boys
quiet, "Stand."
Jonathan does as told.
Dio reaches up to pet at his hair again.
"Good boy," he praises (earning another poorly-muffled snicker from the village
boys). "As a treat, do you see Willis over there?" he jabs a thumb at the
second-youngest.
Jonathan nods.
"You may fight him."
There's a lapse in conversation as both Jonathan and Willis comprehend Dio's
offer. Jonathan stiffens and his brows furrow; Willis' face splits into grin as
he rolls up his sleeves.
"By all means," he crows, spitting his prize -- a mouthful of tobacco -- to the
ground. "C'mon then Jojo, bark up your best!"
"Ooh, Willis," the youngest boy teases, "You've just bested us and now you're
going to challenge a dog?"
"It'll be a good cooldown, won't it?"
"Pff, he can just grab the mutt's chain if he wants an easy win!"
Willis chances a wary glance at Dio when the last suggestion is voiced, but as
Dio says nothing to the contrary, he readies himself to grab at the leash.
Jonathan, on the other hand, doesn't even roll up his sleeves or put up his
fists.
"On your mark -- " the eldest boy announces.
"Get set -- "
"What's the matter?" Dio asks, "Passing up an opportunity?"
Perhaps Jonathan might have explained. He doesn't get to say anything more than
"I -- " however, as the other boys declare match start.
It is Dio, then, who takes everyone by surprise -- Jonathan most of all -- by
sidestepping in front of the other boy and giving Willis a solid punch to the
face.
"What the -- " is all Willis gets out before he's kicked and pummeled to the
floor. Three punches and an unblocked kick are all it takes. The other three
boys are up-in-arms, but not nearly suicidal enough to take Dio on, even when
fighting three-to-one.
"Brando!" the eldest growls, "What the fuck was that for?!"
"I thought I told you," Dio airily replies, kneeling down to wipe the blood
from his knuckles on the curled-up boy's suspenders, "Of all the things I
expect, absolute obedience is the greatest virtue. Jojo here has been most
obedient, but as for Willis..." He stands up, grabs Jonathan's leash, and yanks
it forward, cupping the other boy's jaw so that his thumb was wedged between
his teeth. Jonathan gives a sharp grunt of surprise, but nothing else.
Even Willis staves off the urge to run home to continue watching. Watching as
Dio pulled on the leash, tighter and tigher until Jonathan's teeth were biting
hard enough to draw blood, until Jonathan's eyes were spinning back --
"Brando, you're not seriously going to -- "
"No," Dio replies, releasing his hold with an equivalent amount of abruptness.
He quickly moves his hand to wrap around Jonathan's shoulder, steadying him.
"But I want to make this very clear: I am number one. Jojo, being my dog, is
number two. He does not answer to the likes of you and, if anything, you should
look forward to answering to him." He shifts Jonathan to the side in order to
kick at the boy on the floor. "Do you hear that, Willis?"
"Nnrgh -- yes."
Dio looks up at the other three boys, amused at their blatantly horrified
expressions.
"Understand?" he presses.
"Y-Yes!"
"Yessir."
"Good. And furthermore," he extracts his bleeding thumb to play with the end of
the leash, "No one is permitted to call him Jojo. That is my pet name for him,
not yours. Is this clear?"
And then, without waiting for an answer, he grabs the leash and drags a still-
woozy Jonathan along.
-
Following the afternoon race, Jonathan realises two things: first, Dio
considered fear a better commodity than respect, and second, that there was
something wrong in him, to end up aroused as a result of said episode.
Was the knowledge of being owned? Or simply the feeling of powerlessness?
Either way, his cheeks are flushed and his blood runs cold for entirely
different reasons that afternoon.
Dio catches on immediately. Jonathan never bothers to ask, but he suspects his
own reaction had been the main reason Willis escaped free of broken bones.
"Jojo," the other boy purrs, still enough of a sadist to force the two of them
through dinner before dragging his pet upstairs and shoving him onto the bed.
With Jonathan flat on his back, he openly admires the most obvious indication
of his state of mind.
More than breathless or lusty, Jonathan is, well, confused.
For him, it is as if he's blinked and ended up shifting from the meadow to the
bedroom. He blinks a couple more times, pupils still notable diluted, and tries
to close his legs.
"What a strange dog," Dio muses, stroking his cheek before licking the bite
mark on his own thumb. "To enjoy something like that..."
Jonathan opens his mouth and tries to articulate. But Dio is straddling him,
forcing his legs fully apart and pressing up against his erection, so all that
comes out is an incomprehensible moan.
He hears his pet name called as Dio reaches into his trousers to stroke at his
prick.
Mind blanking, he grinds his hips back against the mattress in an attempt to
reduce contact. Dio retaliates by ripping the buttons off of his shirt and
pressing his two fingers to the skin above his heart.
When one nipple is squeezed, then playfully flicked, he tosses his head and
cries out in confused frustration.
He bucks his hips up but doesn't manage to see Dio's equally unguarded
expression.
"Dio," he moans, "Dio."
With no other hints, the other boy somehow understands, grabbing the middle of
the leash with one hand and Jonathan's dick with the other. He presses himself
close, arching his back and grinding his hips, and Jonathan's moans almost
drown out the one-sided conversation.
"Poor Jojo," Dio sighs, pulling the leash tighter, "Only a week and you're
already my little bitch."
While seeing stars, Jonathan digs his fingers into the other boy's shoulders.
"I bet you don't even know what you're doing, look at you," Dio leans in closer
and traces the lobe of his ear, eliciting another hitched gasp from Jonathan.
"Dripping wet and fit to breed. My perfect purebred bitch."
He punctuates each other with a jerk from both wrists. Jonathan climaxes at the
sound of his pet name. He really does look like a dog then, Dio thinks, with
his mouth open and tongue lolling and his prick stirring like a tail. He lets
go of the leash but continues his ministrations otherwise, watching the boy
beneath him ride out his orgasm.
Jonathan needs to be helped to the bathroom to vomit; he staggers against the
sink and empties his stomach and needs to crawl back to the bed. Dio undresses
him fully, wipes him clean, then helps him into his nightshirt. He washes
Jonathan's mouth out as best he can before changing into his own sleeping
clothes and slipping into bed.
The other boy is shaking, sweating, and shivering. He tries to close his legs
when Dio reaches underneath the hem of his shirt, but Dio is insistent. A
softest sound of discontent is enough for Jonathan to part his legs, allowing
Dio access.
Dio traces the other boy's inner thigh before retracting his hand. Then he
wedges an arm underneath Jonathan's waist and pushes up.
"Come here," he commands. "Yes, on top of me, good." He spreads Jonathan's legs
and pets the small of his back.
"Was that the first time you were touched there?" he asks.
Still speechless, Jonathan dutifully nods.
"And here?" with his hurt thumb, he touches Jonathan's lower lip.
Again, Jonathan nods.
"Good boy." Dio licks at the nape of his neck, fingers trailing lower until
they reached the backside. He shifts the cotton cloth up and strokes at the
crack.
With his cheeks still-flushed, Jonathan clenches up, making an embarrassed
noise.
"See this hole here?" Dio asks, circling the uncovered entrance, "I'm going to
fill it with my seed someday. Not today of course," unfortunately, it wouldn't
be anytime soon; it seemed Jonathan had arrived at the start of sexual maturity
before him in this world, "But someday."
Jonathan squeezes his eyes shut, burying his face in Dio's shoulder.
"Don't fret," Dio reassures, "By then your body will be begging for it." He
tugs the nightshirt back down and goes back to stroking the other boy's hair.
"I meant what I said in the meadow," he adds, reaching over to snuff out the
candle, "You are allowed to be second to no one else. I will make you
splendid."
When Dio's unclasping the collar, Jonathan has stopped shivering. The smell of
fear lingers however, and he relishes in the scent.
***** I shall be your coeur and chorus *****
In reigning unchallenged, Dio's authority becomes absolute. To maintain control
over Lord Joestar and his servants and son is a matter of fact and the other
provincial boys fall neatly into the same parcel.
Despite this reality, Dio takes special pleasure in seeing Jonathan squirm.
Jojo tries to give his first orgasm the same treatment as his week in London
and his recurring nightmares. Which is to say he tries to ignore it. Dio would
have turned a blind eye to his feigned ignorance too, if he weren't so easy to
arouse.
He is looking for a crime to punish and Jonathan unwittingly supplies him with
one within a day.
After breakfast, Dio leads Jonathan into the study where they review the
longhand script before moving on to double-digit multiplication. Dio is
surprised to discover his adopted brother has a good head for finances, seeing
as how he was someone who would never need to know the subject.
The two of them sit side-by-side, as close as they've become accustomed to, and
Jonathan turns pink whenever Dio so much as grazes him.
When the lesson is over and Jonathan, surprisingly, has taught him a shortcut
for multidigit sums, Dio raises the tension by palming the back of Jonathan's
neck.
"That was very good, Jojo," he praises, "And here I thought I would be doing
all the teaching."
"Thank you," Jonathan stammers, eyes flicking to meet Dio's before dropping
down.
Dio digs his fingers in and traces Jojo's chin with his thumb. Judging by
Jonathan's caught breath and momentary fidgeting, the similarness of the
gesture does not go unnoticed.
Then he removes his hand and strokes Jojo's hair, mostly fraternal yet again.
He takes the leash and tugs gently.
"Come," he says, "We've not had lunch and we've been cooped inside all day."
The implication that they would be playing outside causes Jonathan to tense. He
keeps quiet up until the dishes are being cleared, then cautiously asks:
"Will the others..."
"What of them?"
"Will they -- " he fails to voice his thoughts, mumbling a quick "Nevermind"
before falling silent.
"Will they join us, you mean?" Dio guesses, dabbing at the edge of the other
boy's mouth. "No. I don't think they will."
Like an open book, Jonathan gives a quiet sigh of relief.
"Are you scared of them?" Dio asks, raising an eyebrow.
Jonathan shakes his head, no.
"It would be foolish if you were," he chuckles, "If anything, they should be
scared of you."
The implications of his statement make Jonathan uncomfortable again but again,
he holds his tongue. Once Dio deems them tidied up, he leads Jonathan from the
dining room to the ground floor washroom and from there into the drawing room
and out the front door.
There are a variety of activities in the great outdoors reserved for the two of
them, in part because the other boys couldn't afford horses and hounds. As the
weather is nice, Dio decides to partake in a pair of classical athletic
pursuits: discus throwing and wrestling.
As is befitting Jonathan's subtly-maturing stature, he throws a good twenty
yards farther than Dio on the final toss. Losing to his dog is particularly
demeaning (especially as there was no one to bear witness) but Dio is a sore
loser regardless. He demands they both strip down to their undergarments for
wrestling and probably would have commanded nudity had the makeshift ring not
been made in broad daylight. As it is, he tosses his outer clothes to the side
and watching Jonathan grudgingly do the same.
"On my count," Dio orders, shrugging his shoulders and flexing his arms,
"Three, two, one."
In the face of their small but noticeable differences in height and weight, Dio
manages to overpower Jonathan, locking his left arm against his back and
shoving him face-forward into the grass.
"Jojo," he chides, letting up and helping Jonathan up, "That was too easy."
Dio waits for Jonathan to rub the dirt from his face before restarting the
countdown. Although Jonathan actually dashes forward this time and certainly
fights with more gusto, Dio has him pinned down within minutes yet again.
"Is wrestling that much different from boxing?" Dio asks. For a Londoner like
himself, both sports were integral in surviving fistfights.
"No," Jonathan admits, pushing himself up and straightening out his spine.
"They're not."
"Come at me like you mean it then," Dio commands, snapping his fingers and
counting down a third time.
Six matches through mean six resounding defeats. By the seventh, they're both
sweating and panting from exertion and Jonathan's back is pressed up against
the ground. He's been hard since the fourth match and Dio has had an
opportunity to press his knee against the other boy's groin since the fifth
match.
"I'm bored," he announces after catching his breath, wiping the sweat from his
brow and pulling Jonathan into a sitting position. He keeps from smiling at the
other boy's cringe; he can only imagine how painful it must be to nurse an
erection for so long. "And it's late. Let's head back."
Jonathan gives a strained 'alright' before shakily suiting up. Unsteady on his
feet yet again, Dio forsakes reattaching the collar in favour of wrapping an
arm about the younger boy's waist and helping him hobble back to the manor.
Supper, if it were possible, is even more excrutiating than the night prior and
Dio can see it in the other boy's eyes, how he's begging to be touched.
After eating, he refastens the collar and leads them to his bedroom. Jonathan
falls back against the bed, spreading his legs, and Dio pointedly ignores him,
walking over to the bookshelves and perusing the handsome handbound volumes.
If Jonathan were truly a dog, he might have whined. Might even have tugged on
Dio's sleeve in begging for attention. But Jojo is still a nobleman's son in
the end and he has some remaining pride. He swallows hard and shuts his legs,
sitting up and ignoring the discomfort, and reaches for the book on the
nightstand. His movements cause the leash to jangle and Dio glances in his
direction.
"Is something the matter?" he lies.
Jonathan looks like a child caught red-handed on Christmas Eve.
"No," he lamely replies, "It's nothing."
"Alright," Dio shrugs, returning to the books.
His eyes gloss over the titles as Jonathan begins to truly squirm, shifting his
weight from left to right, then scrabbling at the bedsheets, and finally loudly
turning the pages of his own book.
He's become master to a truly needy dog, he thinks while smirking.
Right when Jonathan's worked up the courage to say something, he pretends to
have remembered something.
"Oh yes," he explains, striding to the door, "There's a book I've been meaning
to read."
It's isn't a complete lie, actually. There is indeed a book he's been meaning
to read and from the family library no less. He can't imagine the straight-
laced Lord Joestar reading this sort of smut, much less the crumpled-up Lady
Joestar, but the book is a part of their library. He takes his time in the
library and lazily meanders up the staircase and through the hallway.
He doesn't bother with knocking and opens the door to the sight of Jonathan
with his trousers and pants tossed to the floor, legs spread and fingers
wrapped tight about his prick.
Jojo freezes, flushed face turning pale. He has enough sense to understand he's
done something wrong.
Dio, in turn, has enough courtesy to close the door, though he clicks his
tongue when striding over and presses hard against the other boy's exposed
inner thigh.
"Dio, I..." Jonathan starts, only to trail off. He tries to even out his
breaths, tries to close his legs. "I'm sorry," he lamely says, unsure what he
was apologising for.
Dio purses his lips. The temptation to squeeze, to strike, is great. He keeps
himself in check and merely strokes at the expanse of flesh. The boy underneath
his palm trembles.
"Jojo," he addresses, flicking his gaze up, "What did you promise me, after I
killed those two who wronged you?"
Jonathan licks his lips and swallows, unknowingly jutting his hips towards the
other boy's touch.
"You said -- "
"You said -- " Dio corrects.
"I said that I would -- " he takes a gulp of air, "Be your pet."
"Yes," Dio patiently nods, "And those were the terms you agreed to." He pushes
Jonathan's shirt up and traces his stomach, ignoring the ensuing needy
breathless whine.
"Isn't that how it is?"
Jonathan nods, thrusting his hips.
"Who, then," Dio continuess, "Do you belong to?"
"You."
"Mm," he thumbs the well-defined hipbone, trailing tantalisingly close. Rather
than satisfy Jonathan however, he touches the inner thigh again. "Knowing that,
who does this belong to?"
"You."
Dio slips his hand underneath the shirt, thumbing a nipple to hardness.
"And this?"
"You."
"And this?"
"You...!" Jonathan thrashes, actually bucking forward and moaning, "Dio,
please...!"
"It seems you still know your place," Dio acquiesces, carefully tracing the
edges of the foreskin, "Then you understand why punishment is necessary."
Jonathan might have protested, but Dio kisses him hard then, stealing the air
from his lungs and crushing him between mattress and master.
"Like you said," Dio agrees, "This -- and this -- and this -- and this -- they
are all mine. Everything that was yours is no longer yours." He flicks the
exposed cockhead and chuckles at the subsequent squeal, "And you have no
business with it."
To prove his point, he squeezes. Jonathan rolls his eyes back in pained
pleasure, overstrung cock somehow swelling further.
"Do you understand, Jojo?"
Jonathan cannot keep his eyes open much less focused. He gasps three times and
nods once.
"Arms up," Dio commands, "Yes, like that." He removes the other boy's shirt and
reaches into the drawer, pulling out a half-dozen strips of fabric.
"I want you to remember," he explains, as he's tying Jonathan's hands, "That I
alone can give you pleasure."
He needs to refer to the book twice on how to secure the other bonds. After
memorising the setup, he has Jonathan rearrange his legs so that his knees were
nearly touching his chest. In said position, Dio threads a strip underneath his
neck, tying it loosely. He ties each individual ankle, and then connects the
two, so that two strips of fabric were trailing from Jonathan's neck to his
feet.
He kisses Jonathan's forehead and slides between his raised and parted legs.
"There," Dio says. And then, when Jonathan tries to relax his legs: "Careful.
You wouldn't want to suffocate now."
Jonathan coughs and splutters, trying to keep his trembling knees steady before
giving a low and plaintive whine.
"Dio -- " he begs, except his knees crook forward and he ends up cutting
himself off. "Dio...!"
Dio hums, pretending not to hear, as he towers over Jonathan, hand hovering
over his cock. At an achingly slow pace, he closes his fingers around it,
tracing the most prominent vein and smearing the precome over the head. He
reaches over to touch Jonathan's face, to stroke his hair and tweak his ear.
"You're beautiful like this," he whispers, "And I bet I can make you finish
without touching you -- here."
Jonathan wriggles his hips and repeats his master's name a couple more times.
His legs have yet to lock up from the strain and Dio pityingly slips his own
shoulders underneath the knees.
Pressed closer than before, he can feel the tautness of the other boy's form.
"Shh," he hushes, slowly working his hands into a pumping motion. "It'll be
over soon."
In a moment of poor instinct, Jonathan tries to kick out with his right foot.
Dio catches his bound ankle but not before he nearly strangles himself.
"Shhh," Dio repeats, gently lowering said ankle before repositioning his own
hand. "You won't be able to breathe if you keep fighting."
With an abruptness that surprises them both, Jonathan arches his back at the
reassurance, hips snapping forward and ejaculate splattering between the two of
them.
In the candlelight, the thin strips of come seem almost translucent, dribbled
between Jonathan's exposed stomach and bound-up thighs. Jonathan cants his hips
and sticks his tongue out and Dio leans forward even further. He does not
release his hold on the other boy's softening erection, but traces his
fingertips along Jonathan's clenched-up abdominal muscles before raising the
come-coated digits to Jonathan's mouth.
He doesn't even need to command at this point -- just presses his fingers
against Jojo's tongue and the other boy licks them clean, moaning all the
while. Dio then slips his licked-clean fingers underneath the fabric of the
makeshift collar, pressing in a curve against the space in Jonathan's
collarbone. With his other hand, he begins to palm and stroke Jonathan's dick,
brutally working him up to a second orgasm.
"I can't imagine how you'd treat yourself," Dio murmurs, pressing open mouth to
open mouth. He drinks in Jonathan's moans and curves his own spine towards the
mattress as the boy beneath him is forced over the edge a second time.
He's almost disappointed that Jonathan doesn't pass out, but not cruel enough
to try for a third time. Instead, he unworks the knots on both ankles before
scooting backwards and slipping his shoulders out from underneath.
Jonathan straightens his legs with a gasp, eyes snapping open and chest
heaving. He looks Dio in the eye when the ropes about his wrists are being
undone, and despite being dazed and disoriented, manages to say:
"I'm sorry."
Like the well-trained beast Dio always knew he would become.
"I was at fault too," Dio offers, replacing the fake collar with the real one,
"I should not have been blind to your needs."
Entirely unbidden, Jonathan crawls up on all fours and makes to rest in his
master's lap. And then it is Dio who makes a soft noise of contentment, carding
his fingers through damp and sweaty locks. He permits Jonathan to kiss him and
postpones cleaning the other up.
-
Afterwards, when the bonds have been undone and Jonathan is even more spent
than the previous night, Dio forces the other boy's legs apart and rips one of
the leftover strips in half resulting in two thinner fabric strips.
Although it is finally limp, Jonathan's cock is still leaking. Dio carefully
positions the fabric so that his balls were cupped before looping it around the
base twice then criss-crossing along the shaft. He ties a knot at the edge of
the foreskin and there's enough leftover fabric to tie a loose bow.
Jonathan shifts his hips and whines and Dio thinks of him in the later days,
filled with seed and made entirely his.
"Good boy," he repeats, sliding the hem down and pulling the blankets over them
both.
-
Some time after, Jonathan disobeys him a second time. The reasons are lost on
him now, his own retaliation not so much.
Jojo immediately apologises and Dio accepts it and so his pet thinks the
situation smoothed over. But the irritation festers within him for the whole
weekend and the need to possess -- unconditionally, uncontestably, irrevocably
-- becomes an all-consuming sentiment.
Always and only, it is Jonathan who makes him mad with emotion.
And so Dio places an order to the ironsmiths in London. It takes a week to
place the order and three days for the express-mailed package to arrive.
Jonathan is understandably antsy when Dio speaks of a punishment over supper.
His mistake is thinking Dio's penchant for cruelty is overridden by his duties
as a master. Well, that and: a fuck, however pleasant, was worth less than a
human life.
This is what Dio thought, at least.
Up until this point, he had been planning on tormenting the boy to the brink of
insanity then taking his memory disc and blessing him with a quick death.
He therefore sees no harm in branding fresh corpses.
Jonathan's eyes grow wide when the contents of the order are revealed. Dio has
commissioned a single slim tong with his given name carved on the end. In other
words: a brand.
He stares and stares and stares at the innocuous monogram, less than length of
his shortest finger, and cannot stop the tremor of fear.
"Jojo," Dio cradles his cheek, holding the brand over the candle, "This is for
your own good, you understand."
Jonathan shakes his head. Perhaps he even begs and cries. But Dio is absolute
and in his absolution, he is unflinching. Although branding had recently been
outlawed, most branding was done to military men and therefore done with
gunpowder instead of cast iron.
"No," Dio hears, "No, Dio, please -- "
He kisses the other boy before working his bare legs apart. Dio's great mistake
lies in forgetting to gag Jonathan. When the red-hot iron makes contact with
the inner thigh, Jonathan screams murder. He kicks out, falls back, and
collapses to the floor in a wretched heap.
"Master Dio! Are you alright?" the butler demands, rapping sharply on his door.
"Perfectly fine," Dio calls back, tossing the poker to the side and pressing a
wet towel to the scald. He presses a finger to his lips and pardons Jonathan's
glare.
"And Master Jonathan?"
"He's fine too. Only a nightmare."
"I see." Dio can see the old man pulling his mustache and furrowing his brows.
But what could a mere servant do, when both father and son were under his
thumb? "Good night then, my apologies for the interruption."
"Think nothing of it." Even before the sound of retreating footsteps can be
heard, Dio lifts the towel to check the wound, earning a hiss from Jonathan. He
sits down on the floor too and pulls Jonathan into his lap. After he's reversed
the towel then folded it onto itself twice, he extracts himself and holds a
hand out.
"Can you stand?"
Jonathan takes the proffered hand and pulls himself up. He glares something
fierce, another indiscretion Dio graciously ignores, and sits on the bed with
the twice-folded wet towel pressed to his newly-branded thigh. Dio smears salve
over the burn mark before wrapping it in bandages. Even when he's helping Jojo
into his undergarments however, the glare does not cease.
"Here," he suggests, placing a pillow between the other's legs, "This will
help."
On the brink of tears again, Jonathan continues to glare.
"This is the mark of a slave," he snarls. For someone like him, pride is a
sorer subject than skin.
Dio laughs.
"Jojo," he chastises, "You are my dog. If anything, you're worse than a slave."
"But you said I would be second to one."
"Yes," Dio shrugs, "That is true."
-
As Dio said, the pain lessens overnight and the bandages can be removed within
days. The mark is most flattering and he makes sure to compliment it often, but
Jonathan's feathers are undeniably ruffled and after a week of cold glares and
underhanded conversations, Dio thinks he might strangle the other for
insolence.
"You are my dog," he repeats, "And you should be grateful to any punishment I
choose to gift you."
"I hate you," Jonathan spits.
-
He could kill him. But he cannot. And so, he makes a grand concession of his
own, ordering a matching poker for the other boy and presenting it to him.
"What is this?" Jonathan asks, staring at the metal rod Dio's placed in his
hands.
"A gift, if you will," Dio shrugs.
"I don't want this."
"But I do."
He strips down to the underclothes, presenting himself fully, and presses up
against his unbearably procacious pet.
Dio does not remember what he said to incite the other, only that he was unable
to look away when the second poker was turned red-hot and the skin at the base
of his neck was seared with his dog's pet name.
Although he's grit his teeth, he still manages to seeth at the pain. It makes
his head spin, dizzying to the point of distraction.
Jonathan drops the brand in surprise, burning his name into the floor in the
process. He recovers before his master at least and runs for a wet towel and
bandages. Lying face-down against his bed, Dio feels his own burn mark attended
to. At the end of it, the sloppy swathe of bandages feels like a new collar.
"I -- " Jonathan begins, shyly twining their fingers. Dio squeezes back before
pushing himself up.
"It's alright," he pardons, reversing their positions and easing himself to the
floor. He noses against Jojo's crotch, hot mouth and hotter breaths coaxing the
other to hardness. He removes the binds with his tongue and teeth, kissing and
sucking up and down the shaft. With his cheek pressed against the imprint of
his own name, he sucks Jojo off, feeling semen spurt into his mouth, dribbling
up and over his lips. He swallows without a second thought and laves his tongue
against the cockhead, prolonging the other boy's climax.
The blatant concession leaves them both sated. Dio pushes himself up and allows
Jonathan to burrow up against him under the sheets.
His mistake is in relaxing for he knows then that the ownership has turned
anticipation into dread. Jonathan will still die by his hand; it was only a
matter of when and how.
***** if you will be my gold tomorrow *****
For Jonathan, the essential question has never been 'who is the dreamer and who
is the dream?' so much as 'if I am the frog in the well, how far is the sky?'.
He starts to think in such philosophical terms after Dio's arrival and his own
misfortunate circumstances. The world is far greater than he had ever imagined
and he had foolishly thought that he might traverse farther by seeking shelter
beneath his adopted brother's wing.
The world, however, and their roles in it, is far greater than even Dio could
explain.
-
Everything changes on the eve of his thirteenth birthday. His father has
returned from another business trip and his carriage overflows with oriental
treasures. The three of them have been invited to a gala celebrating the start
of the Holy Week.
Jonathan fiddles with his collar, watching Dio suit up. The soreness of the
brand has long passed, though his skin has been permanently marked. He cannot
understand the source of his own pleasure, except to say that it exists, to see
his pet name emblazoned on the other boy's neck.
It speaks volumes for the human spirit, he thinks, for how easily it could
adapt. He's naked save for the collar, with his legs dangling off the edge of
the bed, and when Dio fastens his cufflinks, he spreads his legs as if
commanded to do so.
Dio hums, admiring his own reflection, before turning to attend to his pet. His
gaze falls to the collar, the one which Jonathan is still toying with, and he
sets the leash back on the table.
"Does it embarrass you?" Dio asks, "To be paraded around like that?"
Poor Jojo had thought he would grow tired of the game. It's been over a month
and Dio's felt no such thing.
Jonathan knows better than to speak his thoughts, though he still flushes as if
it were the first week, not the fifth.
Dio chuckles, wrapping his fingers about the offending wrist and gently pulling
Jojo's fingers away.
"Shall I make you an offer?" he teases, stroking at the brand.
"What?"
He leans in to whisper and Jonathan nearly snaps his eyes shut.
"But that's...!"
"It's your choice," Dio smiles, tracing the more intimate bindings.
Jonathan swallows before nodding once.
"Hm?"
"I -- I accept." Dio has changed him, he knows. The eleven year old Jonathan
would have never agreed to this sort of exchange. The eleven year old Jonathan
would have sooner died than be branded with another man's name.
He watches as the other boy's eyes cloud over with lust. Is he imagining a
previous night, or the current one? Jonathan tilts his head up, unable to quell
his own tremor when Dio's hands reach behind his neck. His collar is undone and
placed next to the leash. Without meaning to, he rubs at his neck, feeling
strangely naked without it.
Dio catches him and laughs, kissing him chastely.
"You'll have opportunity yet to be disappointed," he promises, pulling Jonathan
to his feet, "Now come, let's get you dressed."
-
They meet up with Lord Joestar on the ground floor and proceed into the waiting
carriage as a family. The ride is uneventful and his father is quickly dragged
away upon arrival, leaving the two of them to be shuffled into the children's
corridors.
As per Dio's instructions, Jonathan feigns newcomer status, politely asking for
a second round of introductions and pretending to forget the names of his old
playmates. He remains glued at the hip with his adopted brother, perpetually
deferential in an attempt to dissuade overt gestures of ownership.
It is only at his father's urging that he partakes in a dance. Dio takes his
partner for the next round and holds her flush-close for the second waltz.
Trapped on the sidelines, Jonathan feels his discomfort mount, not at all
helped by the wicked mirth in the other boy's gaze.
Although the girl is their senior by three years, he wouldn't be surprised if
she were besotted. Dio, of course, doesn't spare her flushed and breathless
face a second glance, extracting his hand at the end of the song and striding
to the outer rings of the gala. Uncaring of who saw or what gossips would
inevitably say, he grabs the other boy's hand, dragging him from the ballroom
with their fingers unmistakably twined.
"Dio...!" Jonathan winces, flushing again, "Dio, I'm sorry. I wouldn't have,
but Father insisted and..." he shuts himself up at the other's visible ire and
pushes his own spurt of jealousy to the the side.
With his hand caught in a vicegrip, Jonathan is half-led half-hauled into an
unlocked side room. From the escritoire and library, it seems to be private
study.
"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I won't do it again."
Dio closes the door before pulling off his gloves.
"I'll have to burn these," he tersely notes, "And because of you, my hands now
reek of whore."
He knows better and yet, he still flinches. A flinch is all Dio needs; he
throws himself upon the chair and barks a cold laugh.
"Tell me Jojo," he taunts, "Has your heart been pierced after one dance? Will
you go defend every wench's honor after a single song?"
Jonathan shakes his head.
"No," he defends, "I wasn't. I won't. I'm not." He lowers his eyes and quietly
adds: "I would have danced with you before dancing with her."
His latter declaration seems to soothe his master's temper at least. Dio lets
out a long breath before raising his hands palm-up.
"Come here," he says. Jojo does as asked.
"Lick my hands clean."
Jonathan does this too, starting with the left palm and tracing each digit. He
repeats the motion with the right hand and Dio turns his hands around. With the
palms turned down, Jonathan takes four fingers in his mouth, sucking but not
nibbling, and leaves a strand of saliva when he pulls back.
"I want you to clean each finger," Dio instructs, spreading them. Jonathan
redoes the right hand and the shuffle of costume'd fabric is punctuated by five
and five wet pops.
When he is done and Dio looks satisfied, he tries to stand up only for a a wet
palm to be pressed against his shoulder.
"No," Dio says, "Stay there."
He wipes his hands before going to lock the door.
"Now, stand." Jonathan does so and Dio stands behind him, tracing his sides
from chest to waist. He tilts his head to whisper in Jonathan's ear: "Do you
remember my offer?"
"Yes."
"I would like to see your end of it."
"Here?" Jonathan squeaks, looking at the clearly private room. "Now?"
"Yes," Dio helps undo his trousers, slipping his hand inside the other boy's
pants and giving his half-erect member a teasing squeeze. "Here and now."
"Unless," he licks Jonathan's earlobe here, "You would like me to put your
collar back on?"
Jonathan is quick to shake his head. No, his wide eyes say, anything but that.
"But what if..." he looks around for some napkins or a towel, "I get dirty?"
Dio laughs, stepping back. "If it comes to that, I'll lick you clean myself."
Dio has done that -- and worse -- and still, Jonathan flushes scarlet, up to
his ears. He takes a deep breath, trying to maintain calm in the situation, and
gives a quick yet fervent prayer that no one catch them (well, him) in the act.
He fully exposes his erection then, warily looking about the room. Needless to
say, the study had nothing titillating.
"May I...?" he asks, gesturing to the table.
Dio laughs, suddenly in good spirits once more. "Of course. You'll give me a
spectacle, won't you Jojo?"
The overarching offer is still etched in his mind.
Bring yourself to completion without touching what's mine.
It's not so different from their usual fare, if he's honest. He hasn't touched
himself there since; probably wouldn't even know what to do. As it is, he's
trying to finish off of external stimulation alone -- and doing a poor job of
it.
Rutting against the table edge excites him further but chafing soon follows.
Even with the loosely-tied ribbon, the friction of wood against skin is too
much to bear. He sinks to the floor with a frustrated heave, irritated all the
more at Dio's sudden silence.
Dio watches him wallow in comical anguish for a couple minutes more before
standing up and crouching next to him.
"Jojo," he tucks a wayward lock back, "Shall I lend a hand?"
Too aroused to hold his tongue, Jonathan bites back with: "I thought you'd
never ask."
The other boy laughs before reaching over and hooking his thumbs onto the edges
of both waistbands. With some delicacy, he pushes the garments down, past the
knees and ankles. Jonathan lifts one left and then the other. If it were
possible, he would have flushed deeper at the knowledge of exposing himself
fully in the study of a family friend. Right now, the realization only makes
his dick twitch.
"Spread your legs. Mm, good. Now lean forward... more, more -- " and then, when
Jonathan shoots a perplexed look, "You didn't think I would break your end of
the bargain, did you?"
"I thought it was just for me to not -- " Jonathan does not get to finish his
protest as Dio reaches between his thighs, delicately tracing the letters of
his own name.
"Beautiful," the other boy praises. He's drowned out by Jonathan's moan.
"Because it's your birthday tomorrow," Dio murmurs, fingering Jonathan's
puckered entrance, "I'll show you something new." He massages the outer ring of
muscle, keeping a steady hand on Jojo's waist, and eventually slips his index
finger in. The unexpected intrusion causes Jonathan to clench up. Dio is
undeterred at his reaction, pressing deeper and deeper still.
"Dio -- " Jonathan whimpers.
"Shhh," Dio hushes. He only stops because of his knuckle, drawing circles with
his index finger afterwards.
"Dio, that -- tha -- ah!" Jonathan buries his face in the carpet, fingernails
scraping at the exposed floor.
"It feels good, doesn't it?" Dio asks, swirling first clockwise then
counterclockwise.
Jonathan gives a strangled groan.
"It's only biology," he calmly explains, "And not at all unusual. And it does
feel good, doesn't it? Hm?"
His pet is too far gone at this point; Dio doesn't even get to insert a second
finger before Jojo comes all over the carpet. Like usual, he continues his
ministrations up to and after the climax. His efforts are rewarded with a
couple weaker spurts. It is only when Jonathan's been milked dry, when his
thighs are so spread that his hips are fully on the floor, that Dio extracts
his finger, wiping it off before turning Jojo around.
As expected, the carpet is a mess. The top of his suit is ruined too, all
wrinkled and streaked with drying bits of come.
"I can't let you go back to the party looking like that," Dio tsks, though he's
already taking the effort to clean his dog up. Jonathan's chest is heaving,
eyes predictably out of focus. He needs to be helped into his trousers; he
needs to be pulled to his feet.
Standing upright, Jonathan makes like a fish, opening and closing his mouth.
"I don't understand," he finally whispers, "Why would you... no, why would
I..." he looks at Dio, more than a little mad, and Dio surprises him with an
embrace.
"You agreed to this," Dio reiterates. "And you wanted this. Why, you ask? I'm
sure you already know the answer. It's because you're -- "
"Useless, helpless, and worthless."
"Mm, that's it. And you -- "
"Cannot do anything right."
"My clever dog," Dio praises, petting his hair, "How quickly you learn." He
releases Jonathan only to twine their fingers and flashes the same mad smile.
"More than that, however, you want to be owned. The thought of becoming my
sweet purebred bitch stirs your tail like nothing else and worry not Jojo -- "
he touches shoulder-to-shoulder, "I'll make you feel bred."
For someone so straight-laced in public, Dio has no issue using vulgarities in
public. He had planned to make good of his promise too, was even tempted to
parade his debauched brother before the other gala attendees. His plans for the
future are for naught -- when he unlocks the door, it no longer leads to the
hallway. Instead of the electric lights, a softer yet sickeningly familiar
light radiates from the entrance and Jonathan clutches on tight, stepping
behind him.
"Dio," the other boy starts, "What is that?"
His own master is calling for him, Dio knows. He's asking for the ⸢Memory Disc⸥
and the boy's life. These are the things he, Dio, desires.
Although he has not used his odd ability since rewriting Lord Joestar's
memories -- and has had even less opportunity for such heavyhanded tactics
around Jonathan -- he knows what must be done and how to do it.
He thinks of the Jonathan in ⸢Heaven⸥, whose eyes were still closed, whose
expression was still lifeless. Whose expression was still confined to a tank.
And he turns and looks at the Jonathan beside him, with his wide green eyes and
wary expression. With his absurd ability to hold Dio in the highest confidence
even after their repeated altercations. Whose petname was seared permanently
into his skin.
This Jonathan, he's known for less than a year. When the one in Heaven wakes,
he is confident he can mold him as he molded the boy before him. The two of
them were cut from the same cloth, after all.
"Dio?" Jonathan asks, still entirely unguarded even as his face was being
touched.
"I can't," Dio admits, pulling back both hands. He combs his bangs from his
eyes and tilts his head back, laughing. "I can't believe this!"
Jonathan furrows his brow, becoming the portrait of a perplexed dog, and looks
from his brother to the doorway.
Dio takes a breath, calming himself down. Then he pushes the other boy away.
"This is good-bye," he declares.
"What!"
"Marry whichever wench you fancy," he commands, "Have her give you however many
children you desire."
Jonathan takes a step forward.
"Dio," he stupidly says, "I don't understand -- "
Dio grabs his sullied lapels and crushes their lips together. After he's
certain the other boy's breath has been suitably stolen, he turns to leave.
His own inexplicable sentiments -- as well as the sudden swerve of end goal -
- are what cause him to forget: this is Jonathan he is dealing with, and
Jonathan is nothing if not stubborn.
A loud "wait!" is all the warning he's given before he's tackled from behind
and they're both pushed over the threshold.
"You idiot -- !" he curses, while his fingers still itch to take.
As with before, to step through dimensions is more similar to stepping through
rooms than bypassing space and time. They land in a pile of limbs with Jonathan
somehow on top and Dio immediately knows, by the darkly amused chuckle, that
his greater self has seen all.
He scrambles to his feet and pulls Jonathan up to, covering the other boy's
mouth lest he say something stupid.
His master manifests in the blink of an eye, swatting Dio to the side and
looking down at Jonathan.
"My," Dio hears himself murmur; watches himself take Jonathan's face in his
hands, "It's been a long time, Jojo."
Jonathan darts a panicked gaze over. Dio is still staggering to his feet.
"Who are you?" he asks. The man looking at him is unlike anyone Jonathan has
ever seen. He's got pale purple skin, for one, and strange golden markings down
his face and across his arms. Staring at him makes his head spin and if he
keeps it up, he knows his knees will give out.
"Jojo, don't!" Dio barks.
"You call him Jojo?" the man asks, releasing Jonathan's face. "How strange. I
never cared for the name when I was your age."
Jonathan stares, rooted to the spot, as the man disappears only to reappear
before Dio. One touch of the other boy's temple and he collapses.
"Dio -- !" Jonathan tries to run over. He's plucked off the ground and heaved
over the man's shoulder.
His eyes roll back and when he wakes, he finds himself in his old bedroom,
nestled in the strange man's lap.
He doesn't remember what exactly he said, only what was said to him.
"You remember this room, don't you?"
"How old are you?"
"You needn't be scared of me, I don't plan to hurt you."
And through the one-sided conversation, he relentlessly asks for Dio.
-
His second cage is, without question, a gilded one. Although this is assuredly
not his room -- for his room had sunlight and the door opened into the hallway,
not nothingness -- it is a near-perfect replica, right down to the photograph
of his mother. The man visits him often, personally bringing his meals, but he
never answers any questions and explains absolutely nothing.
What was Dio warning him against? Why did he try to push him away? Did he know
that the first doorway would lead here? More importantly, did he know the man?
His requests to see the other boy are met with patient silence.
At a certain point, moroseness sets in and he begins to refuse all food.
Trapped alone in that fascimile of a room, Jonathan goes a little mad. Well, he
must have already mad, to have agreed to become his brother's lapdop in return
for a pair of murders, but the sudden onset of isolation increases the
intensity. In the uncountable hours he spends alone, he takes to tracing the
covered brand and the wound becomes proof of a time before.
Out of desperation, he had flung himself into the darkness outside his doorway
once. He had been trapped in a freefall for what felt like days only to land in
outstretched arms.
"Muda muda," the man mutters, setting him back down on the mattress. The
meaning of the phrase is lost on him.
"Please," he begs, grasping onto hand. At that point, he doesn't even know what
he's asking for, only that he can't touch himself there and -- and a dog is no
good without his master.
Rather than touch him or, better yet, lead him to Dio, the man recoils, curling
his lip in disgust.
"How defective," he sneers, "Of course trash like you would make it past."
Jonathan feels two ice-cold fingers pressing against his temple and he hears:
"If only your wife could see you now."
He's being spoken to, he knows. He fights to stay awake, tries to remember a
wife.
"My -- my wife?" he weakly repeats.
"Yes," the man snaps, withdrawing his hand, "You can't expect me to remember
the woman's name." He pauses, huffing, and adds, "Pendleton. Miss Erina
Pendleton, I suppose."
"Pendleton..." he struggles to sit up, just as confused as before, "Who...?"
And then it is the man's turn to frown.
"You don't recognize it?" he asks.
Jonathan shakes his head. The name is unfamiliar.
The same fingers are pressed against his brow. They leave just as quickly.
"You're not Jojo," the man scoffs, "Jojo had already met his whore at this age.
You are an imposter with no right to this room."
His judgment is absolute; Jonathan blacks out soon afterwards.
-
Dio wakes to the light of Heaven, sprawled out on the not-quite-floor. His
memories are a jumble and he tries to rearrange them, only for his mind to
settle on one particular point --
"Jojo!"
He sits up only to see his master, perched yet again on his throne. A glance
back shows the same pair of containers and the same almost-corpse is still
floating.
His other self is unhappy and the air itself buzzes with discontent. Dio
swallows, kneeling down on one knee and lowering his head.
"Why do you insist on calling him Jojo?" his master asks. "He's nothing like
him."
The treasonous thought of -- of course he's different, I broke him -- rests on
the tip of his tongue. Dio keeps quiet.
"You are nothing like me," the man continues, "And yet, he calls you Dio."
There is an undercurrent of accusation in his tone. But as nothing is actually
accused, Dio ignores it.
"Find me another one," his master commands, "This isn't a tenth, much less a
whole."
"Where is he?" Dio asks.
"Why do you care?"
"He is mine."
They stare off at each other then, the boy and the man -- lesser and greater.
Most surprising, it is the latter who concedes, depositing the still-sleeping
boy into his adopted brother's arms.
"Jojo belonged to no one," he snorts, "Least of all us."
"I broke him," Dio says, "Therefore he is mine."
"He could never be broken." His master waves his hand, creating another
doorway, "Take your imitation and find me another one."
Dio shoulders his pet and then does as told.
***** oh summer sun *****
The second door leads them back to the Joestar manor. Jonathan is still
unconscious, a dead weight nestled between his arms. Dio carries him over and
sets him down on top of the room's only bed. He presses the back of his hand to
the other boy's forehead and then touches his cheeks, checking for signs of
life. His Jojo is so unlike the boy in the glass tank, even when slumbering, he
radiated life.
After confirming the other was still breathing, Dio removes his hand and does a
quick scan of the room. Because of the sparseness of the furnishings and the
lack of a stoked fire, he initially thinks they've arrived in one of the
manor's many guestrooms. A glance out the window -- specifically the paneled
doors that led out into the balcony -- make him recant. He knows this vantage
point: of all the rooms in the manor with balconies, only one could see the
great oak tree and not the riverbank. This is his bedroom, he realizes, and the
realization makes him sweep his gaze about the chamber a second time.
Besides being in the same location with the same windows and doors, he realizes
the major pieces of furniture were in the same places. The bed, the dresser,
the nightstand, the writing table, even the wardrobe and full-length mirror are
where he remembered them to be. The difference, then, is how unused the room
felt -- his own room had been scattered with remnants of study and play: toys
and books and newspaper clippings, lithographs and caricatures and enough
clothing to dress a boys' school. His room had had two comfortable armchairs
and a perpetually-stoked fire, two mugs of tea and cocoa and a never-quite-
empty rubbish bin.
This room, in contrast, is barren. It is as if the person who lived here -- and
there certainly was one occupant, judging by the clothes in the wardrobe and
the choice books scattered throughout the otherwise-empty shelves -- was trying
to erase himself. The single armchair has dust on the armrests and the
fireplace poker set is missing altogether. The drawers are empty; the shelves
are empty; the lower compartment of the wardrobe is empty...
In some previous iteration, he must have considered this a foolproof plan.
Ingratiate himself in name with the Joestars while remaining forever-wary. Play
the part of the pretend family member, then make off with their whole fortune
at the first opportunity. Now, however, the old scheme reeks of shortsighted
pettiness, something only a child would think clever.
Between his ability and his knowledge (however vague) of what came next, Dio's
certain he can best himself at age thirteen a second time if need be. This is
why he hides between the wardrobe and dresser when he hears footsteps and why
he waits before extracting his own memory disc.
Sure enough, the bedroom door is soon thrown open and he sees himself -
- identical in height and build and likely age. He can't see his own expression
due to his hiding spot, but he can hear himself scowl.
"What are you doing here?" this Dio demands.
When Jonathan does not stir, he walks over to his bed and roughly shakes the
other boy's shoulder.
"Wha... huh..." Jonathan is startled into consciousness, blinking rapidly and
pushing himself up. "Dio?"
"What are you doing here?" Dio demands. And then, without allowing Jonathan to
answer or even take stock of the situation, he gestures to the still open door,
"Nevermind, I don't care. Get out."
Jonathan's eyebrows furrow in confusion as he looks about the room.
"Dio," he starts, "I don't understand. What just happened... and why is your
room different?"
"What? What are you talking about?" And then, "I don't have time for your
nonsense, get out. Some of us are planning on achieving literacy in our
lifetimes."
After a month of being treated as a favoured pet followed by an indefinite
amount of time in that gilded cage, Jonathan is hurt by the sudden change in
demeanor.
"Dio," he tries, though he does move to sit at the edge of the bed, "I really
don't understand. Can't you tell me who that man was? Or why we're back here?"
"What man?" this Dio snaps, batting the other boy's hand aside, "Didn't I tell
you you're not permitted in my chambers, I don't care if this is your father's
house, my room is my own!"
"But -- but what about -- "
"About what?" where anyone else might have had their irritation overtaken by
exasperation, Dio's ire only heightens. "Well?" he demands, "Either spit it out
or get out."
Jonathan searches his other self's face for an explanation. However incredible,
he manages to find one and seizes Dio's hand again, holding on tight.
"What are you doing!" Dio barks.
"Dio... I..." Jonathan's eyes are darkening in a tell-tale fashion, though he
maintains his grip, "Can you please..."
"Wait," Dio interrupts, "What's wrong with your eyes?"
His question startles Jonathan, enough to loosen his grip at least.
"My eyes?" he repeats.
"Yes." The other Dio seizes his chin and then forces his head up, using his
thumb and index finger to reveal the whole iris before quickly pulling back.
"They're green. Have you gone blind?"
Rather stupidly, Jonathan mistakes the unusual line of questioning to be the
start of another game. With the door still open, he pushes forward, brushing
his lips against Dio's. The sudden contact causes Dio to stagger back,
spluttering.
"What the hell was that for!"
"Dio -- " Jonathan grabs the hand on his chin and forces it lower, against his
neck, "Dio, please."
His other self has lived long enough in the slums to recognize lust, no matter
how absurd.
Dio reveals himself then, just in time to catch his own fist.
"What -- " both he and Jonathan say. Then he extracts his own memory disc and
watches himself fall silent.
"Dio...!" Jonathan exclaims, "You... are you..."
"Yes Jojo," he brushes his fingers against the other boy's cheek, "Of course
I'm me."
At the sound of his nickname, Jonathan relaxes. Then he remembers the whole
situation and wildly points at the double, "But then -- who is he! And why are
we back in your room! And why is it so... so different?!"
Rather than divulge his own suspicions, Dio pulls the other boy up and does a
second search of the room. Sure enough, the ⸢him⸥ of this world still stores
his spare change underneath the bedside floorboards. He plucks the hefty
coinpurse out, ignoring Jonathan's wide-eyed expression, and pockets it. Then
he throws open the wardrobe doors and starts looking for an all-purpose coat.
"Dio, what are you doing?" Jonathan asks, looking between the near-identical
individuals. "And -- and who is he?"
"I'll explain later," Dio replies, slipping into a blazer. "Here, hold out your
arms." The coat snugly fit Jonathan. "Good." Jonathan watches, at a loss, while
the other boy kicks the floorboard back in, pockets various other baubles,
before reinsterting the mildly-wiped memory disc.
"Let's go," Dio says, taking Jonathan's hand.
"What -- "
"Jojo," the now-familiar tone makes Jonathan shiver and shut up. He nods,
squeezes back, and obediently follows suit.
Although the sight of the two brothers strolling through the manor hand-in-hand
causes a maid or two to raise their eyebrows, they don't encounter anyone with
enough clout to actually question them. And why would they be questioned -
- they were the Lord Joestar's sons, in the last world if not this.
Dio tacks up a horse and mounts it and Jonathan clambers on behind him. The
other boy is obviously uncomfortable, between his confusion and his inopportune
erection which -- throughout the ride -- digs into Dio's backside. By the time
they reach the nearest roadside inn, the sun has fallen to the edge of the
horizon.
Always sensitive to the cold, Jonathan is shivering anew. He's still hard,
judging from the flush of his cheeks, and likely wet to boot.
"Could I have a room for two and someone to stable the horse?" Dio asks,
staggering through the inn's front door with one hand wrapped about Jonathan's
waist.
"Oh! Of course!" the innkeeper scrambles to attention, "It'll be one shilling
per -- "
"Have you hot water?" Dio interrupts.
"Yes, of course, we -- "
"And meals?"
"I cook them myself."
"Good." He tosses a crown as if it were a pence and the innkeeper seizes it
with both hands. Dio watches, nonplussed, as the gold coin is bitten into,
before the innkeeper beams.
"Thank you very much young masters. My, ah, daughter will show you to your
rooms."
"No need," Dio interjects, "Just point us in the right direction."
"Up the backstairs, any of the rooms on the right."
"Thank you."
He maintains his grip on Jonathan's waist, pocketing the coinpurse before
pulling the two of them up the back staircase. Jonathan isn't feverish, though
he's sweating hard, and Dio ends up carrying him for the last three steps and
kicking open the closest available door. After setting Jonathan down on the bed
for a second time, he shuts, locks, and bolts the door, throwing off his
heavier garments before going to undress the other.
He has to unlock the door to get a towel from the washroom after pulling
Jonathan out of the coat -- for someone who didn't have a fever, the other was
sweating like a pig.
"Dio," Jonathan moans as his underarms are being dried off, "Dio, I need..."
"I know," Dio hushes, stroking his brow and running the towel against his
stomach, "I always know what you need and I always know what is best for you."
He sets the towel aside and pulls at Jonathan's waistband. "Lift your hips...
yes, that's it. Good boy." He drags both garments down, throwing them to the
side, before getting the towel again and pressing it against Jonathan's thighs.
As expected, the other boy is fully aroused and making a mess of his bindings
once more. It is strange, Dio thinks, that the knot about his cock and the
brand on his thigh were the only things that marked Jojo's status as a pet. The
leash and collar which he had taken great lengths to commission, and even the
matching set of branding pokers, were all left behind.
Jonathan jerks his hips upwards, nearly-lidded eyes begging for his touch.
"What an obedient dog I have," Dio praises, "You didn't touch yourself once
without my permission." He kisses Jonathan chastely before slowly rolling him
onto his stomach, "I'll reward you properly, I promise," he adds before drying
off his back.
As Dio's trained him to do, Jonathan arches towards his touch, towards the
sound of his voice. He cants his hips too, rutting into the bed with a whimper.
"Jojo," Dio warns. Jonathan squeezes his eyes shut, fisting against the sheets.
He stops his actions however, and Dio helps him into a similar position.
"Curl your back, yes, and now pull your knees towards you." He presses against
the inner left knee until Jonathan's hips are off the bed, then repeats the
motion with the right leg. As the other boy has his arms bent at an angle, the
majority of his weight rests on his neck and chest. He pushes back when Dio
begins to stroke his ass and tosses his head from right to left then left to
right when Dio slips one finger in again.
"Dio," Jonathan chokes. He devolves into monosyllabic moans and grunts and Dio
is made content to feel his own body finally reacting.
"Jojo," he coos, "What a good dog. Look at how pretty you are now. After this,
I'll let you finish in my mouth." He wriggles his finger before crooking it
halfway, taking in the other's anguished arousal. Right before Jonathan comes,
Dio moves his free hand underneath Jonathan's hips, cupping his fingers to
catch the steady dribble of ejaculate.
He hears his name moaned three more times as Jonathan rolls his hips, clenching
and unclenching around the intruding digit. When he pulls his offending finger
away, semen is leaking out from the spaces between his fingers, making a slow
trail down his wrist. He turns Jonathan over again, cradling the back of his
neck with his free hand, and lifts his head up.
"See?" Dio asks, showing his dirtied hand, "You wouldn't want me to swallow all
this, would you?"
Jonathan keens, cognizant but not coherent. When Dio brings his hand closer, he
opens his mouth and sloppily laps at his own mess.
Mildly amused, Dio massages the base of his neck. He does not, however, make
his pet lick his hand clean, pulling back after a couple moments and swiping
both hands against the sheets. He presses his own erection against Jonathan's
naked form and whispers into his ear, while working the strips of fabric loose:
"I want you to remember what I shall do to you. Memorise it as you would
memorise a passage. And in the morning, if you can do the same to me, I will
give you a treat."
"A... a treat?" his dog echoes.
"Yes," Dio murmurs, already sliding down, "A treat." He takes Jonathan into his
mouth again, alternating between laving and sucking. Jojo spills in his mouth,
he swallows, and then reaches between his own legs to rub himself off.
When he scoots himself back up, Jonathan wraps his arms about Dio's waist,
burying his face in the older boy's shoulder.
"I missed you," he mumbles. The throwaway statement coupled with the boy's
unusual neediness makes Dio frown.
While petting Jonathan's hair, he asks: "Did he touch you?", uncertain of his
own response to the answer.
But Jonathan is already asleep and Dio is kind enough of a master to not wake
him. Eventually, he feels alert again and slips out of the other's embrace,
pulling the sheets out to cover him. He reappears on the ground floor with not
a hair out of place and reaffirms that yes, the other boy was his brother and
that they were sent to recuperate from a school trip. If the innkeeper were the
doubting sort, he's sure they would have asked more. But he pays upfront and
wins the maternal affection of the innkeeper so that he's permitted to bring
food upstairs to his recuperating brother.
Jonathan is fast asleep when he returns; Dio brushes thoughts of 'then' and
'later' from his mind, shedding his own clothes and putting out the lights. He
crawls into bed and finds himself asleep soon enough.
-
The two of them wake one after the other in the morning. Dio takes one breath
and wrinkles his nose.
"You reek," he pronounces, throwing the sheets off the two of them, "Come, I'll
wash you."
Jonathan sniffs himself and finds nothing wrong; his opinion is dismissed and
they troop over to the washroom. Although the inn has three baths, there's only
one spigot for hot water, which means they have to wait their turn.
Ever efficient, Dio decides to make good on his offer while waiting for the tub
to fill. As both of them are naked, he sits at the edge and parts his legs,
motioning for Jonathan to come hither.
The Jojo his master had known would have never demeaned himself like this.
Jonathan Joestar the boy, the man, the corpse, would have sooner died than take
his adopted brother's prick in his mouth -- first thing in the morning to boot.
But Jojo the dog, the well-trained and loyal bitch, nearly wags his tail at the
opportunity, taking Dio in full before working his lips up and down the shaft.
His sucking and slurping is offset by the running water, and Dio -- without
meaning to -- digs his fingers into Jonathan's hair, curling inwards and making
sounds more pitiful than his dog.
He swears Jonathan must be unhooking his jaw, for all the times his nose
pressed up against Dio's crotch, to say nothing of his technique. He didn't
bite, scraped his teeth with the perfect amount of intensity and -- and --
Dio comes with image of his dog crouched between his other self's thighs, being
taught how to give pleasure with his mouth, and likely filled to overflowing.
The vision is so jarring, it's as if he had not climaxed at all. With a grunt,
he pushes Jonathan away, causing the other boy to fall back, and turns the
water off with unnecessary force.
Dog and master lock eyes, neither of fully sound mind.
Jonathan looks chastised, at least.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asks.
Dio slides down from the tub edge and meets his pet on the floor.
"Jojo," he starts, curling his fingers about Jonathan's neck, "I am going to
ask you a question. If I find out you have lied to me, I will punish you
accordingly."
Underneath his palm, Dio feels Jonathan swallow and nod.
"That man -- " he finds it suddenly intolerable to refer to him as either
'master' or 'self', "Did he touch you like that?"
"What?"
"As I touch you. Here -- and here."
There's a pause as Jonathan colours. He shakes his head, no, and asks again:
"Who was he?"
"A stranger," Dio snaps, "And a busybody at that. You are not to speak to him
again."
Jonathan proves to be smarter than Dio's reckoned, eyes widening at the
implication.
"So then," he starts, "You mean... we'll see him again?"
"The water's getting cold," Dio says instead. He seats himself in the tub and
Jonathan joins him.
"You said you would explain," Jonathan presses when Dio is washing his hair.
Dio hums, feigning ignorance.
"What is there to explain?"
"Everything!" Jonathan throws his hands up, sending water droplets flying, and
winces when Dio digs his fingers in. "I mean -- " he closes his eyes and tries
to rearrange his thoughts, "Who was he? Where was that? Where are we now? Why
is your room different? Why is there another -- "
He's interrupted with a downpour, spluttering and spitting.
"Let's switch," Dio declares, washing the suds from his hands before seating
himself in front of the other. Jonathan grumbles and huffs, wiping the water
from his eyes and mouth and nose, but nonetheless works the soap into a lather
and works the lather into Dio's hair. Afterwards, when half the water has
sloshed on the floor they pitter-patter back to the room.
"We'll talk about this over breakfast," Dio declares, dressing himself in
minutes, "I'll go ask for it to be brought up, wait here."
Dio returns within minutes, insisting on combing out the other boy's hair. The
innkeeper's daughter brings up a breakfast tray soon enough, quietly marveling
over how young they were. She excuses herself after Dio gives her a dirty look;
the help should know their place, after all.
"I was sent to kill you," he says, matter-of-fact. Jonathan chokes on the
proffered slice of ham, coughing violently, and Dio gives his back a couple
solid hits before dislodging the cut of meat.
"You what?!" the other boy demands.
"Let bygones be bygones," Dio airily replies, waving his hand. "Perhaps I would
have killed you if you hadn't submitted. But you did and now you are mine and
that is all that matters." He lifts the glass of juice to Jonathan's lips and
waits for the other boy to drink his fill before downing the rest.
But Jonathan looks as brittle as he had been after the branding and Dio needs
to set both glass and fork aside to touch his cheek.
"Haven't I told you?" he reiterates, "I, Dio, take good care of all that
belongs to me."
"But you are mine too," Jonathan insists, touching Dio's hand.
"As much as a dog can own its master," Dio shrugs, retracting his hand and
picking up both utensils. He cuts both egg and sausage and spears a little of
each.
Jonathan's gaze softens at the concession and he opens his mouth, placated yet
again.
They finish breakfast in silence and Dio sets the tray aside. In honesty, he
doesn't know how to explain anything else. That the man was him, he is certain,
but how he knew this or how he could exist in two -- well, three or four
actually -- different places at once boggled the mind. If he said the other
were godlike (another inexplicable certainty), he was again left with the
conundrum of: what god would have need of a mortal?
"Do you know how long it's been?" Jonathan asks out of the blue.
Dio blinks.
"What do you mean?"
"Well..." Jonathan looks at the world outside, "I mean, how much time we spent
-- there." He looks sad for a moment, adding: "Father must think us dead by
now."
"What are you..." he's about to start. Except he follows Jonathan's gaze and
sees, sure enough, the slightest touches of orange and red on the otherwise
bright green tree. Without warning, he gets to his feet and dashes out the door
and down the stairs.
"Excuse me," he asks the innkeeper, "I was wondering -- what day is it?"
The innkeeper blinks, taken aback.
"Friday, sir," she stammers out.
"No, I mean -- the calendar day."
"Oh, that," she pulls out her recordbook and shows him. The latest entry reads
the twelfth of August.
Dio mutters a quick thank-you before storming back up the stairs. They had
passed into ⸢Heaven⸥ exactly four months prior. Had they spent so long in the
place? He recalls having warned Jonathan and then --
"Jojo," he says, slamming the door open and shut, "How long were we separated?
Do you remember?"
"What do you mean?"
"Were you ever alone?" his mind races, trying to piece the empty segments
together: they had arrived together and they had departed together, but as for
the time between... "I passed out, and when I woke up, you had passed out too.
Did you lose consciousness immediately after me or...?"
Jonathan looks at him with wide green eyes.
"You -- you were unconscious for the whole time?"
"Why else would I have left you?" Dio scowls.
"I don't know. I thought -- " he bites on his bottom lip, "I thought you had
gone back to Father."
The absurdity of the other boy's fears make Dio laugh. Well, bark out something
similar to a laugh, at least.
"How long was it," he asks again, "The time I spent unconscious."
"I don't know," Jonathan admits, looking uncomfortable, "I didn't have any way
to keep track of time. There was -- "
"No day and no night, yes, I know." Dio curses under his breath, then adds,
"What about the man? Did he say anything to you then?"
Dio knows his own vexation is alarming Jonathan but he can't quite keep himself
in check.
"I -- " Jonathan looks away, "I don't know. Dio, can't we go back home?"
"What home?" is the caustic reply, "In case you haven't noticed, that house is
nothing like yours!" He calms himself down and takes Jonathan's face in his
hands. "Jojo, you must remember that I always know what's best for you."
Jonathan nods. "I know," he says.
"Good. Then," he presses a second time, "Tell me, what did he tell you?"
With his face firmly held, the fight leaves Jonathan's eyes. He relaxes
significantly and eventually confesses: "He said that I was defective. An
imposter. He said that I had a wife, someone I don't know, and I..."
Jonathan's confession, when placed together with his master's unusual order,
suddenly puts everything into context. Well, this is what he thinks, at least.
Dio laughs a second time, bloodlust shining through, and Jonathan clutches onto
his hands, searching his face for clues.
"What?" Jojo asks, "What is it?"
"I know what he wants," Dio divulges, "And I know how he plans to get it too."
"What? Who?"
"Did you see the other me Jojo?" Dio asks, "Well, in this universe, he is the
original and I am the double." Of course, the other boy is slow on the uptake,
so he explains further: "Which means that you too have a double here."
"What!"
"He's nothing like you, don't worry," Dio smiles, "And he won't feel a thing
when we kill him."
***** oh autumn gust *****
Jonathan has protests. Reasonable ones, too. Dio cuts through them with a kiss,
twining their fingers and smiling down at the other boy.
"Before that," he says, "I've promised you a treat, haven't I?"
"A treat?" Jonathan repeats, perking up considerably, "Does that mean... you
liked it?"
"Your mouth? Oh yes," Dio gives another quick peck, "Much better than a dog,
I'm sure." And then, before Jonathan could take offense or argue further, he
pulls them both up onto their feet. "There's a carnival in the next town over."
Jonathan stares at him.
"You like carnivals?" he asks, wide-eyed.
"No, you do. But I will take you to one." He pauses to help Jonathan into his
clothes, "Is that an acceptable reward?"
Like the easily assuaged, persuaded, and distracted child he is, Jonathan
fervently nods, face splitting in a cheek-to-cheek grin.
"Good." Dio pinches his nose, "But before that, let's saddle up the horse and
get a change of garments."
The innkeeper directs them to the carnival town, three or four hours down the
road. Although they start off seated as they had arrived, with Jonathan's arms
about Dio's waist, the rear ends up being too much and they switch places
halfway. Dio slides down, Jonathan pulls himself forward, and Dio clambers on
behind him, hands on both sides of Jonathan's waist and knees digging into his
thighs.
"That tickles," Jonathan complains, keeping the reins taut.
Dio wraps his arms fully around the other boy.
"Better?" he asks.
"Mm." Jonathan judges prematurely for although it was better to sit in the
front than the back, Dio takes the opportunity to rest his chin on Jonathan's
shoulder, angling his hips so his own hardening erection was digging into the
other's backside.
"See what you do me," he whispers, tightening his grip. Jonathan shifts vainly
in his half of the saddle, resting more and more weight on the heels of his
feet until he was nearly standing on the stirrups. But Dio holds on tight and
Jonathan can feel the other boy's chest rumble with a light chuckle.
"Are you embarrassed, Jojo?" Dio asks, turning so his hand was at a wicked
angle.
"Not here," Jonathan bites back, "I might -- I might lose control of the
horse."
Dio laughs again, palming once before shifting his hand to a more appropriate
position.
"It's not unpleasant," he admits, when they're tying the horse up and making
rudimentary attempts at cleaning themselves up before the tailor's visit, "I
can see why few ride side-saddle."
Rather than being scandalised, Jonathan laughs too. Their handkerchiefs wipe
away all they can and they stagger into the tailor shop soon after.
Thinking back, it had been a waste of time going to a fitting for new clothes
considering the length of their stay. However it was only because they had
dawdled at the tailor's and then the shoesmith's that they had the opportunity
to leave said world prematurely. It really went to show, that even the most
innocuous of circumstances were far from accidental and that everything moved
in-tandem with everything else.
Take the tailor's shop for instance. Jonathan had kept himself in-check
remarkably well throughout the measurements and it was only when the old man's
hands drifted between his legs to measure the inseam that Dio stepped in,
temporarily removing the tailor's memory disc to finish the measurements
himself. And then Jonathan insists on returning the favour, insistent as ever
on reciprocation, and though neither of them are actually affected (much less
aroused) by the stray touches, Jonathan's hands -- hovering only to never touch
-- leave Dio short of breath regardless.
"Jojo," he calls, prying the measuring tape from the other boy's hand.
"But I haven't -- "
Jonathan's protests are cut off with another kiss. Because he is standing on
the measuring stool and therefore two feet taller than the other, Dio is able
to force Jonathan's head fully back, prying his lips open and twining their
mouths. It is messy and sloppy with spittle and saliva dribbling over both
their mouths. Dio needs to restrain himself from drawing blood, concentrating
on touching tongues and tracing teeth. When he pulls back and breathes deep,
Jonathan has his right elbow pressed against the fabric rack. Dio steps down,
takes the other boy's hand, and takes a series of steps until Jonathan is half
seated against the stitcher's table.
"Jojo," he teases, "One could mistake you to be a Florentine in your current
state."
Still caught in a daze, Jonathan blinks, hands reaching blindly about the
table. The prick of pain from the ill-fitted pincushion causes him to cry out;
he leaps from the table and makes both of them tumble to the floor.
"Sorry," he stammers, shuffling back on his knees, "Sorry, I -- "
"Give me your hands," Dio commands, sitting up, suddenly all business. Jonathan
does as told and he surveys the damage. The palm of the left hand is bleeding
in three separate points.
"I wasn't looking," Jonathan adds. He makes an effort at pulling his hurt hand
away, especially when Dio lowers his own head to lick at it. He gives up as
soon as Dio tightens his grip.
Dio lifts his head but does not let go and then says: "Get up. Go sit over
there." Jonathan climbs back onto the table and only then does Dio release his
wrist. "Hold it up," he instructs, "No, higher. As if you were reaching
something." Then he walks off to root around the tailor's drawers.
"What are you doing?" Jonathan asks, arm still obediently raised.
"Looking for bandages obviously," Dio drawls. Sure enough, the old man has a
dust-covered medicine kit in the back of his bottom drawer. Dio wipes the dust
from the cover and lifts the box's lid. Then he brings the gauze and salve
over.
"Give me your hand."
"Is this really necessary?"
"Yes."
Jonathan sighs. But he brings his hand down and lets Dio clean and bandage it.
While his palm is being carefully wrapped in gauze, his eyes travel to where
the tailor still stood, arms outstretched, in the same place and position he
had been in when Dio had plucked the measuring tape from his fingers.
"Is he dead?" he cautiously asks. The tailor didn't look dead. But then,
neither did the ringmaster and book-keeper. Not until they were bleeding on the
floor at least.
"No. Merely incapacitated."
"Inca-what?"
"Unable to move." Dio finishes the wrappings and pulls back, the previous mood
firmly ruined.
"But he's still alive?"
"Yes."
"How can you do that?" Jonathan demands, entirely incredulous. The 'can you
teach me too?' goes without saying.
Dio is busy placing the kit back in its compartment, though that alone would
not have distracted him. Rather, it is what drifts down from the second-lowest
drawer that diverts his attention. Jonathan awkwardly flexes the fingers on his
left hand -- for Dio had bound his palm tight enough to choke -- before sliding
off the table and going to the older boy.
In peeking over Dio's shoulder, he sees the other holding a recently-undusted
photograph of a man and woman in wedding garb. Jonathan does not recognise
either of them.
"Do you know them?" he asks.
Dio's grip tightens so that the right half of the photo was crumpled.
"No," he says, after a too-long pause, "I don't."
Much to Jonathan's surprise, Dio does not pocket the photograph of the unknown
wedded pair. Instead, he puts it back into the second drawer, wiping the dust
from his own hands before standing up again.
"We'll be leaving soon," he tells Jonathan, before touching the tailor's
temple. As if a match had been struck, the old man's eyes clear up and he
blinks rapidly.
"I'm sorry," he says, "I can't believe I lost track of time like that!"
"Think nothing of it," Dio graciously replies, "We're in no rush."
"Oh!" a quick glance at the table shows all the measurements tallied, "And I've
even finished measuring, goodness!"
They pay their dues and make haste to leave. The photograph had caught Dio off-
guard, the old man's birthmark even moreso. He hadn't known of his ancestors,
only that they existed. But he knows the people in the photograph, and he can
recognise his bastard father's face without fail.
The three dots on the ear. The old man had had his mother's birthmark.
Needless to say, Dio is set off-kilter following their visit to the tailor. He
is aware of arriving at the carnival and of Jonathan asking for money to stable
their horse. He's led through the queue and the bustling and bumping of seated
bodies in the mountain cart snaps him to his senses. Jonathan demonstrates an
impressive amount of restraint then, dragging them out of the carts and into
the back tents.
"Dio," he whispers, unable to follow through with some iteration of 'are you
scared' because Dio's hand is pressed against his mouth. In the light of the
midday sun, Dio mouths 'quiet', touching his own mouth with his index finger.
Jonathan shuts up and turns his head. Hidden in the deeper tents is the look-
alike Dio. His back is turned to them and Jonathan traces his gaze too.
Despite being told of his own other self's existence, to see one's doppelganger
is still an entirely jarring experience. Jonathan freezes up and then slowly
tightens his hold on Dio's arm.
"Is that," he starts, almost dreading to hear the answer, "Me?"
Dio removes his hand to pull them behind a tent flap.
"No," he says, "You're nothing alike."
Jonathan should be assuaged with this, reassurances from his master, but he
isn't. He pulls the tent flap back to see more. It's like looking into a
mirror: every move his identical self makes -- his muscles itch to follow
through. His other self seems to be waiting, kicking up dirt clods and looking
this way and that.
When the person he's waiting for finally shows up, wearing a wild west get-up,
Jonathan feels his heart leap to his throat. But he's not the one feeling this
-- the blond-haired girl is a complete stranger to him. No, this must be what
his other self is feeling.
Dio, on the other hand, is unable to monopolise his own attention. His gaze
keeps drifting -- from the other Jonathan to his Jojo, then back to his other
self, and then back to the other Jonathan who was finally meeting up with his
companion. His mind, likewise, paces between putting a wrench between the
blossoming romance and finding a way to quickly and quietly kill the Joestar
heir.
But no, neither of those trains of thought reach their endpoints. Instead, he
keeps returning to the aged tailor, and his own relation to the man. Did the
Dio of this reality know him? Know of him? He hadn't made any attempts on
Jonathan's life, though there was no lost love.
He knows what he needs to. He needs to separate cavorting boy and girl and
extract this Jonathan's memory disc and slit his throat. Then his own master
would open another doorway and insert said disc into his own iteration of the
boy. That the girl was Erina Pendleton went without saying; that her presence
(or lack thereof) in Jonathan's memory was the reason behind his master's
complaint equally obvious.
In following Jonathan's lead in staring at the not-yet-lovers, Dio fails to
keep an eye on himself.
"You two -- hey!"
"Dio? What are you doing here?"
"Jojo? What's going on?"
What follows is a comical sketch of five adolescents tangled in the folds of a
tiny tent. Their shouting and scuffling brings one of the ringhands to
investigate and, like all caught troublemakers, they are quick to make
themselves scarce.
Whether it is bad luck or fate, the two coupled pair are split up are further
separated. Dio drags the wrong Jonathan away.
"Dio! What are you doing here? Let go of me!"
"Quiet," Dio hisses, reaching for the other boy's neck. His hand is batted to
the side; Jonathan's eyes are a furious blue.
"Stop your nonsense!" he barks, "I need to go find Erina! Geez, you're always -
- "
His blather is cut short with the removal of his memory disc.
For a time too long, Dio stares at the immobile boy, trying to differentiate
between the two Jonathan's. But, save for the eye color, there is nothing to
distinguish one from the other. He has the same build, the same boyish face,
the same cut of hair, even the same style of dress!
Eventually, he pockets the disc and takes out his dagger, sliding it out of its
sheath. He leads Jonathan to a shadowed corner, tucked between the rubbish heap
and the animal stalls and has him sit down. Then he carresses the dead boy's
cheek and kisses his brow, helping still-warm fingers wrap themselves about the
hilt of the blade.
He had planned for Jonathan to slit his own throat. He wastes time, then, in
reaching between the other boy's shirt and feeling for his heart. Just like his
Jonathan, the dull thudding is slow and steady, unaffected by its own
encroaching end. He kisses him a second time and swallows an improper apology,
resting his own hands at the hilt of the dagger before pressing it in.
As it had been sharpened to do, the steel point eases through as if the skin
and flesh were foam. Jonathan, with his body robbed of its soul, shakes and
spasms, eyes rolling forward and then back. He makes a sound like a choke and
blood bubbles from his mouth, spilling forth onto Dio's hands and lapels. His
blood flows and flows, until it becomes a trickle and then stops altogether. He
wipes his hands -- as well as he can -- and uses his knuckles to push down the
other boy's eyelids. Jonathan looks cut in marble when dead, chiseled features
and fair complexion suddenly all the more striking against the redness of his
own blood.
Dio leaves then, trying not think of the time it took for bodies to rot.
-
Jonathan, meanwhile, has been seized by the upper arm and made to march to the
opposite end of the carnival where the gambling booths were set up. Unlike his
other self, he is immediately aware the other is not Dio. This Dio is under a
similar impression.
"I don't know who hired you," the other boy starts, "But I will pay you double
if you will work for me."
"I... I don't understand."
"Don't play dumb," Dio scoffs, "You may have his likeness but you shouldn't
follow his brains." He grabs at Jonathan's face, looking closely at it, "I can
see why they picked you. Outside of the eyes, you're his spitting image."
Jonathan breaks free and rubs at his cheeks, scowling.
"How much are you being paid?" Dio prods, "One crown? Two? Did they put your
pretty face under the knife or were you born with my brother's image?"
The slew of insults almost makes Jonathan lash out. He's readying his fists and
about to make the first punch when he hears --
"Jojo!"
From a distinctly feminine voice.
"Get rid of my brother's whore, won't you?" he sneers, "And then we can talk."
He shoots the girl a nasty look before retreating in the direction of the
crowds.
"Jojo!" Erina exclaims, hitching her skirts to properly catch up. "What was
that about?! And your brother too -- I thought you said he hated these places!"
For a boy who has never exchanged anything more than pleasantries with a girl -
- and certainly never been close enough to see the swell of her breast -
- Jonathan flushes, red to his ears, and tries to take a step back.
"Um, I'm sorry," he helplessly mutters, "But I -- "
Despite being dressed as a continental, Erina has manners enough to not grab at
Jonathan's face. She is, however, forward enough to lean close, close enough
that Jonathan could smell her, and more importantly: close enough so she could
understand --
"You're not Jojo. Your eyes are green."
She steps back as well, all of a sudden wary, and looks the look-alike from top
to bottom.
"Who are you?" she demands, "And what have you done with Jonathan?"
'But I am Jonathan,' he never gets to say. This is because the Dio he knows
rounds the corner then.
"Jojo," he growls, "Come here."
Erina Pendleton is left standing, trying and failing to make sense of the
situation. She watches Jonathan go to his much-despised adopted brother, and
watches on as Dio seizes his hand and shoots a murderous glance her direction.
"What did you do," Dio snarls, digging his fingernails in and ignoring
Jonathan's wince. He pulls them into a boarded-up stall and slams the door.
Then he repeats his not-question.
"Dio, are you bleeding?"
"Answer the question."
"I didn't do anything!" Jonathan insists. Dio yanks their hands apart and slips
his hand inside Jonathan's trousers.
"What did she do, then?" he bites, "Kiss you? Promise to fuck you?" He undoes
the binding with one hand and uses the other to push at Jonathan's neck. Jojo
predictably backs up until his wedged between the Dio and the planks. "Well?"
Dio asks.
"Nothing happened," his pet repeats, wrapping his arms about Dio's shoulders.
"She -- she called me an imposter." In the boarded-up stall, Jonathan looks
half-crazed, clutching on tight while his legs gave out. "Dio -- Dio, I'm not
an imposter, am I?"
Dio exhales, a warm breath Jonathan can feel against his forehead, before
shrugging his shoulders free and pulling them both to the floor. He turns
Jonathan over, petting his sides with hands that reeked of blood, and has him
slide out of his lower garments yet again.
"Wait," he reaches out and moves the other boy's hands. "Keep them there," he
dictates. It wouldn't do for the bandages to be infected after all. He undoes
his slacks and frees his own member then, slipping it between the other boy's
thighs and moving his hips in a lazy fashion. His semen splatters against
Jonathan's stomach and legs, dripping down from his inner thighs and dirtying
the already-dirtied thinly-clothed floor.
Jonathan is pushing back needily, lapsing into breathlessness. Dio adjusts
their positions again, slipping underneath and then between the other and
gently easing him forward so that his chin rested on Dio's shoulder. The climax
coupled with the knowledge that nothing had happened soothes him and he takes
his time easing his finger into Jonathan, letting him shift his hips and spread
his legs to reach a comfortable position.
He's milked to completion from fingers stained with his own blood. Both their
outfits are a mess and the stains are obvious even in the dim lighting.
While Jonathan is lying with his back against the floor, legs spread and chest
heaving, trying to catch his breath, Dio goes to the pile of discarded garments
and plucks the familiar strip of fabric from it. He takes the outer clothes too
and kneels before Jonathan. Like clockwork, Jojo hooks his legs onto Dio's
shoulders.
When they are dressed, Dio scrapes the blood from his hands and kisses
Jonathan.
"If all your duplicates are dead," he reasons, "Then you can't possibly be an
imposter."
Jonathan smiles, because this makes perfect sense, and he kisses his master and
gives thanks.
Their lull is short-lived unfortunately for the old doorway has already
disappeared. In its place is an identical passageway. Jonathan glances over,
nervous, and Dio obliges by holding hands. And so they step through to Heaven a
second time.
***** my master bids you hither *****
"Why is he here?" is his other self's greeting of choice. Dio watches himself
lounging against the throne. They must look like little more than insects to
the other man.
Dio maintains his grip on Jonathan's hand. He glowers, but keeps the peace. He
stands upright with his back set in a formal straightness. He does not shirk
from his great self's gaze.
Jojo, in contrast, wilts underneath the obvious enmity. He holds tight, trying
to meld himself with the other boy. His demonstrations of discomfort do not go
unnoticed; indeed, the man on the throne curls his lip and scoffs:
"Pathetic." And then, before Jonathan can reply, he turns to Dio: "I thought I
told you to keep him out of my sight?"
"You said no such thing."
"I have now."
Jonathan ducks back to hide fully behind Dio when the man descends from his
perch. Rather than directly defend his pet however, Dio reaches into his
breastpocket, pulling out a small silver disc.
The man raises his eyebrows.
"Have you retrieved it already?" he asks. His outstretched hand changes it
directory at the last moment, reaching for Jonathan. Dio bats the larger hand
away.
"Don't touch him," he snarls.
"Don't forget your place."
"You need me," Dio retorts. It's a gamble in the form of a challenge and, as
expected it pays off. The other man steps back and, with the flick of a wrist,
creates another door.
"Very well," the god sighs, "Have your boy go through here."
Jonathan justifiably does not step forward. Dio, likewise, makes no attempt to
herd him through.
"Such insolence," they hear, "You have no idea how pitiful your lives are to
me." In the blink of an eye, he's back on his throne. "Go with him if you
must," the man concedes, "But do not dawdle. Just get him out of my sight."
"As you wish."
Just as they're about to step through, the man stops them.
"Wait," he commands, reaching his hand out. "The disc, if you will."
It is not a request, but Dio treats it as such. He gives a flippant "after" and
steps through the doorway with Jonathan in-tow.
"I don't like this place," Jonathan says, immediately after the passage.
Dio looks about the new surroundings and cocks his eyebrow.
"What do you mean?" he asks, "This is your room."
"No!" Jonathan's shoulders are heaving from his own vehemence. He shakes his
head for additional emphasis, adding: "No, this is not my room."
Dio purses his lips.
"Were you held here?" he asks, surveying the near-perfect copy. Truly, the room
was not lacking in the finer details -- even the shelves were lined with
Jonathan's taste in literature! In fact, the only difference between this room
and Jonathan's old one was the tidiness of the former.
Instead of responding, Jonathan seizes Dio's arm with both his hands.
"Please don't leave me here again," he begs. "I hate this place, there's
nothing to mark the time and he's the only one who ever visits and -- "
"Shhh," Dio hushes, breaking free to cradle the younger boy's face. "Jojo," he
murmurs, "Listen to me. Breathe." He leans in close and slows his own breaths
down. Eventually, Jonathan's breaths fall in sync with his.
"Good boy," Dio adds, lightly brushing their lips together. "Now, do you
remember what I told you, when we were on the train, heading home?"
Jonathan blinks, trying to remember. The time before his thirteenth birthday
feels like ages ago -- as if the events had happened to someone else and he had
only inherited the memories. But he wracks his brain and in returning to the
bygone time, manages to chance upon the correct answer.
"You -- you take good care of your things."
"Yes," Dio smiles, "And I do, don't I?"
Jonathan, in thinking of the touches and the tutoring, nods.
"Yes," he numbly answers, "You do."
"Mmm," Dio cards his fingers through Jonathan's hair, kissing him again. "I
would never leave you here. You're mine, after all." He takes Jonathan's hand
and leads him to the bed, "But you must know that man -- he has power enough to
rival God. No, don't shake your head. I've seen it. How else can he move us
like chess pieces? Now, let me ask you this: why would someone stronger have
need of someone weaker?"
Jonathan creases his brow in thought and the concentrated expression does not
suit him. So Dio pushes him back against the mattress, falling on top of him,
and props himself up on his elbows, digging into the other boy's shoulders.
"I don't know either," he shrugs, "But I intend to find out."
"And that... that thing..."
"This disc?"
"Yes. That." Jonathan goes cross-eyed, staring up at the circular object. "What
is it? Why does it he want it?" He makes to touch it, but Dio pockets it,
moving to stroke Jonathan's bared neck.
"I suppose," he starts, "It's a person's ⸢Self⸥. Their memories, so to speak."
Jonathan's eyes grow wide.
"So," he stammers, "Those -- discs -- they're... they're souls?"
"In a sense," Dio shrugs, getting up and off and going to root through the
replica wardrobe. Sure enough, it was filled with all of Jonathan's clothes and
none of him. In reality, when they had left, the two of them had been sharing
Dio's room. Dio's wardrobe then, had been filled to overflowing with their
myriad outfits. The room's wardrobe just went to show that his other self had
an entirely different Jonathan in-mind.
He changes his clothes and has Jonathan do the same. As expected, the only exit
leads to the throne room.
-
"I thought I told you refrain from dawdling," his master drawls.
"Jojo -- "
"Don't call him that."
"He is mine. I will call him what I like."
"He is nothing like him. Nothing." In his displeasure, the gold markings on his
face have become creased and the space is one again filled with the hum of ire.
He pats his knee and Dio climbs atop it, noting how he nearly fell off the
other's lap now. His other self grabs a fistful of hair and pulls hair; Dio
exposes his neck on cue.
Needless to say, he hadn't wanted Jojo to see him -- like this.
"You must think yourself so clever," his master sneers, licking Dio's blood
from his lips, "Surely you know that I, Dio, have sent others before you?"
Dio has suspected as much; to hear it confirmed makes his blood run cold. He
keeps his temper in check however, lidding his eyes and leaning fully against
the other.
"I know," he bluffs, "I killed one of the earlier attempts. They're the
defective ones, aren't they?"
"As defective as your poor excuse of a dog." The hand on his head moves to grip
his throat. "You've ruined him," his other self condemns, "He's no better than
a palm-licking lapdog -- your whore."
"But he is mine," Dio repeats. Though it is tempting, he keeps from saying 'and
he will never be yours'.
Thankfully, his master's temperament does not allow for extended circular
arguments. He reaches inside Dio's jacket, pulling forth the disc, then sets
Dio down and stands up, sauntering over to the perpetually-sleeping boy. Dio
watches, quietly calculating, while his master bypasses the container entirely,
pressing the disc to the sleeping boy's skull. He removes his hand and waits.
His master is waiting for something, Dio knows. Upon further inspection, the
glass container is inscribed with various symbols. His other self traces the
leftmost sign before pressing his lips together, frowning.
"You are mistaken," he pronounces, "This is not the correct disc."
"But he had already met with -- "
"Take it out."
With blazing gold eyes despite the unnatural lighting, his greater self leaves
no room for argument. Dio swallows and steps up to the glass, and in recalling
the man's instructions, visualises his own hand slipping through the glass. He
succeeds and manages to touch the unconscious boy's temple with his fingertips.
"Should I...?"
"Yes," the other presses. "All of it."
Dio obeys, extracting the whole memory disc. As hypothesised, the other boy
must have had a value of 'zero' for his newly-extracted memory is filled with
the same exact memories as the old one.
In an uncharacteristic moment of weakness, his master seizes the ejected disc
and flings it to the floor.
"It doesn't match," he reiterates, whirling on Dio, "This isn't his memory! Why
is it that no one's found the correct disc?!"
Because his mind is racing too fast to be overtaken by fear, Dio stands his
ground and looks from master to raison d'être, trying to piece the situation
together. There were other attempts to wake this Jonathan; other iterations of
himself who had offered pillaged memory discs of their own.
"Jojo said," he starts, ignoring the dangerous glance in the other man's eyes
at his use of the nickname, "That you called him an imposter."
"Because that's what he is."
"He said you expected him to know the woman who would be his lover."
"His wife," his other self corrects. "And yes. Jojo had already met his little
whore by his age; his mind was poisoned from twelve onwards."
Dio withholds comment on the other's obsession with reviving the poisoned mind
and instead pursues a different angle:
"This Jonathan," he gestures to the tossed-aside memory disc, "Certainly knew
of a girl. We chanced upon them at the carnival." He also declines to mention
his own involvement in the date, as well as how said Jonathan was likely a
rotting corpse.
"How did she look like?"
"Blond hair, blue eyes." In truth, Dio hadn't gotten a good look at her; he was
too busy tallying up the negligent differences between the two Jonathans.
"With a homely face?"
"It could be said."
"Mrs. Erina Joestar," his greater self sneers, "I never liked her; she never
knew her place. Did you know she washed her mouth with muddied water after I
kissed her?"
In being asked, Dio nods, now able to vaguely remember such a scene.
"So they really had met..." the man turns back to the container, tracing the
symbols once more. "In which case..."
He turns to Dio and straightforwardly asks:
"Do the words 'spiral staircase' mean anything to you?"
He is about to shake his head, but then remembers -- "The manor. The Joestar
manor had one in the back."
"In the context of his..." his other self trails off, looking from the boy to
the fallen memory disc. "Pick that up," he commands of the former, pointing to
the latter. "Now, use ⸢Whitesnake⸥ to partition the disc."
"...What?"
"Your ability," his master almost-grinds. But there's an air of very real
excitement about the other man and he strides over to Dio and pulls him back
before the container. "You can read the disc, can't you?"
Dio nods. He hadn't tried it, not wanting to know what he'd find, but
concentrates on the contents of the disc.
When scanning through the now-dead Jonathan's memories, the whole world seems
distant. His master sounds so far away.
"What of the dog?" Dio hears, "Is it still alive?"
He searches through this Jonathan's memories only to discover that, when he had
died, his dog was indeed still alive.
Dio nods again.
"Yes," he says, "It's still alive."
"Perhaps that's it..." his master purses his lips. "Can you locate the most
recent memory with the dog?"
"Yes."
"Separate it."
For someone more used to deleting entirely, this command takes more effort. But
Dio gets the hang of it within minutes and soon enough there are two discs.
His master inserts one and waits. Then, when nothing happens, he asks Dio to
remove the disc and inserts the second partition. Again, nothing happens. The
second disc is extracted and his master curses.
"Useless," he sneers, "Bring your dog here. Let's see if his memories are any
better."
"If I may -- " Dio swallows, reluctant as usual to involve Jonathan, "What does
'spiral staircase' mean?"
"Would I be asking you if I knew?" the man scoffs. He returns to his throne and
snaps his fingers, "Don't make me wait. Bring the boy here."
"Wait," Dio snaps, concentrating on the two memory discs. He partitions the
longer one yet again, this time splitting it into two after his own arrival to
the manor.
The third try is the charm: immediately after slipping the disc in, the first
symbol lights up. In a flash, his other self is on his feet, crossing the
considerable distance without having moved. He presses his face and palms to
the glass and Dio watches, strangely breathless, as -- as...
"His foot," he notes, startled despite himself, "It's -- it's vanishing."
Sure enough, the boy's right foot was fading into nothingness.
"Yes," his master trills, "Yes." He lifts Dio up and carelessly twirls him in
the air, ignoring the adolescent boy's yelp of surprise.
"What was it?" he demands, "What was the defective memory?"
Dio waits to be set down before responding with, "The time after our first
meeting."
Rather than be offended, his master only laughs.
"What will you do with the rest of him?" he can't help himself asking.
"What a strange question," his master chuckles, patting his head, "I mean to
rebuild him in my own image, of course." And then, before Dio can pass any
meaningless judgment, he opens a doorway, "Run along now," he chides, "Your
crying boy is waiting."
-
Jonathan is indeed crying when Dio reappears by the doorway. Something more
visceral than mere possession wells up in him at the sight and he runs to the
other boy. Jojo is at an awkward angle, half-on and half-off the bed and half-
curled into himself crying at that. Dio pulls him into an embrace, rubbing his
back.
"Jojo, what's wrong?"
"Dio -- " Jonathan blubbers, "Dio, you came back!"
"Of course I came back," Dio murmurs, "Is that what this is about?"
The answer is never so simple of course and Jonathan throws his arms about the
other boy's shoulders, crying still.
"Jojo," Dio sighs, "Jojo, Jojo, Jojo -- "
The explanation, which Jonathan gives to him in warbled bits and pieces, is the
obvious one, considering the other boy's age. The realisation of how far he is
from everything familiar has finally caught up to him -- along with the
knowledge that his dog was dead by his hand, his father thought him dead, and
even if he could return, he'd be wanted as a child criminal.
"I want to go home," Jonathan cries, "I don't care if Father hates me or if he
makes me your servant, I want to go home."
As with his earlier bouts, Jojo cries until he's out of tears. Dio's shoulder
is positively clammy by then, though Jonathan has subsided into shivers and
hiccups.
"You need to sleep," Dio advises, smoothing back his bangs and pressing a kiss
to the briefly-exposed brow.
"I want to go home," Jonathan repeats. "Dio, please."
They fall asleep intertwined in an entirely chaste fashion that night with
their hands clasped underneath the sheets. After he's cried himself out,
Jonathan sleeps like the dead. Dio, then, is left awake to ponder the other
boy's complaints.
Like most of Jonathan's emotions, homesickness was as alien as paternal piety.
He remembers his own home and how it hadn't been large enough for his father's
ambitions, to say nothing of his own. There had been nothing to miss and if the
Joestar manor were a tenth -- even a twentieth -- of its actual size, the
opportunity to reside in it would've still been a godsend.
He breaks his initial promise after a year of knowing the other boy. Come a
fitful enough sleep and waking to the same unnatural lighting, he pulls the
blankets back and presses his fingers against Jonathan's temple. More than a
broken promise, it feels like a personal failure. He should have emphasised
their role as master and pet more -- if he had, Jonathan wouldn't feel so
homesick.
As it is, he sifts through Jojo's memories, carefully pruning the time between
his own arrival and the dog's death. He succumbs to temptation and cuts further
-- severing the other of his memories of ⸢Home⸥ -- and eventually chances upon
the rat baiting ring in London. Only Jonathan would make such a mountain of a
molehill; Dio had figured the ringleaders guilty of murder, at the least. But
Jonathan had wanted them dead for their treatment of the animals.
"How foolish of you Jojo," Dio notes while extracting yet another memory disc,
"To trade your autonomy for bringing justice to some dead dogs."
Of course, Jonathan wouldn't be himself if he weren't prone to flights of fancy
-- no boy with a good head on his shoulders planned to go into archaeology, for
one -- so Dio cannot punish him for that.
-
When Jonathan wakes, he's a changed person. Emptier, and yet, more at peace.
His mind has already filled in the gaps and he does not speak of Father or
Danny or home. For the sake of practice, Dio has him read aloud from the books,
transcribing passages in cursive and printscript before memorising a choice
quotation or two.
Jojo asks to suck him off afterwards and Dio obliges him. The loss of those
months have not affected his technique and his lips and tongue work Dio to
orgasm twice. He licks his own come from the other boy's lips and face and
pulls him back onto the bed.
How properly trained his dog is, Dio marvels, feeling between Jojo's legs to
find him already hard. In between Jonathan's own climaxes, he manages to work a
second finger into the other boy, rubbing and prodding and swirling at the
tips. It takes longer for Jonathan to spill now, though the afterglow is
extended too. After he's been milked again, Dio slips between his thighs,
nipping and licking and teasing at the brand. With his cock still wrapped like
a present and unable to harden much less come, Jonathan uselessly bucks and
rolls his hips.
Dio finishes in his mouth a second time, alternating between praising and
preening.
He cleans them both up and exits the bedroom with a swagger and a promise to
return soon, for he is so innately confident of his own position. Once again,
his instinct is rewarded: although his master threatens him, he manages to
cross the threshold before the other man, inserting the choice disc into the
sleeping boy.
"I can't believe it," his master admits as the second symbol lights up and the
boy loses his left foot too. He turns to Dio and looks -- well, almost
grateful. "Do you know how long I've been waiting?" he asks, shaking his head,
"Do you even know the second key?"
"The dog's death."
His other self raises his eyebrows in surprise.
"I had thought his mother's death would be the first beetle..." he mutters for
his own benefit.
"Now," Dio smiles, boldly leaning against the container, "Are you willing to
negotiate?"
***** and all he does is just *****
He has never lied to his mirror image. Has never had the need to, really. They
were cut from the same cloth, one molded by the other, and even if his lesser
self didn't know everything, he knew enough to keep from questioning him.
It had been true then, and Dio had said as much: there had been no lost love
between Jonathan and himself, and certainly not in their shared youth. In fact,
there were so few moments when he could stand the other boy that he could
easily recollect them so many years later.
Once -- when the girl had been sent away and the dog had been left to burn but
before the two of them were shipped to boarding school and university; when he
was in the middle of changing his demeanor and playing the part of the grateful
adopted sibling; when the two of them were left with one another's company and
little else to do -- Dio had caught Jonathan looking at him. Well, he had meant
for the other boy to look, it was why he had fished the borrowed-come-stolen
pocketwatch out and stared at the passing time. In preparation for the seven-
year-long peace, he had been prepared to part with the timepiece, knowing full
well that it (along with everything else) would eventually return to him. Which
was why he brought it out, with every intention of giving it back on the
pretense of having forgotten the bauble.
And Jonathan had looked at him and he had looked at the watch and Dio could
see, in his unguarded visage, a flicker of recognition. And he had smiled and
thought himself in position to play the gracious one, redux. So he had fiddled
with the lid, with the engravings, even turned the dial this way and that. But
Jonathan had said nothing. He hadn't looked away though; for Dio could still
feel his gaze, and it shames him -- he, Dio -- to concede anything to the other
boy. But he looks up a second time and sees the other, seeing him.
"What?" Jonathan -- Jonathan -- had made him ask. "What is it?"
And Jonathan -- the same boy who had fancied a girl for months and done nothing
more than carve her name on a tree trunk -- had blinked owlishly, said nothing,
and gone back to his own business. As if Dio hadn't said anything; as if Dio
weren't worth responding to. As if, thinking back, nothing he said would have
led to the return of the watch.
The false superiority in the other boy's gaze isn't what rankles the most. If
anything, Dio should welcome such sentiments; his current goal was to pass time
as quickly as possible after all. No, it's not the emotion, so much as the
sameness. For Jonathan was looking at him as he, Dio, had looked upon his own
father. The callous disregard, equal parts disillusion and disgust, which had
so slowly seeped over the hatred and resentment, the feelings could almost be
called the same beast.
And of all people, it is Jonathan who manages to look like him.
It is preposterous, of course, and though Dio feels his adopted brother's gaze
many times thereafter, he never quite looks like he had over the watch. Because
the other had never asked, Dio never returned the watch -- or the pipe, or the
jersey, or the bundle of manuscripts. These were things he had forgotten about
in his century beneath the waves. Even Jonathan had been like a yesteryear
memory and he, Dio, had almost forgotten the body was not originally his own.
He hadn't bothered to track down Jonathan's descendents because, well, he
hadn't given serious thought over whether they existed. But then he had been
given a Stand and the gazes started and it turned out the body -- being someone
else's -- came with its own Stand -- and, surprise surprise, it was the same as
Jonathan's grandson.
His pursuit of ⸢Heaven⸥, of bona-fide immortality, had been limited by two
factors. Although Jonathan's body was superb by human standards, it could not,
for inexplicable reasons, be turned entirely undead. Furthermore, it seemed to
have some radar-like function so as to call out to latter Joestars. Needless to
say, these two points were reason enough to discard Jonathan's body and acquire
and new one; it would serve the meddling man right and, truth be told, Dio had
been more concerned with ending the other's life than taking his body. But the
second particular had made itself known which was: despite the still-prominent
neck scar, he was somehow irreversibly joined and subsequently unable to
disconnect. Was this the result of the hundred years? Or was it another oddity
of the body? Either way, his options were greatly limited and he needed more
competent people to do his bidding.
And Enrico had succeeded -- had succeeded where he, Dio, had failed. Enrico had
always been a clever child with a sharp mind and a discerning eye. They shared
many passions while watching ⸢Made in Heaven⸥ -- some intellectual and others
carnal. Their positions were now reversed -- where before, he was almost double
Enrico's age, now, Enrico was twice his -- and it doesn't bother him as much as
it might, for he is so, well, happy at the grand reunion and their ascension to
⸢Heaven⸥. He had passed a lifetime in absolute contentment then: with no need
to eat or drink and all the world's books spread before him.
He might have been happy then.
No, no, he surely had been happy then.
"Do you feel that?" he had asked of Enrico, once. The older man had sat up and
looked around before slowly shaking his head.
"It's nothing," Dio said then, pulling him back into the sheets.
"I only have need of you," Enrico had murmured, kissing him with the usual
amount of reverence. It is that non-sequitor, not at all unlike their usual
conversations-come-lovemaking sessions, that pulls Dio out and forces him to
think on the inconsistencies of ⸢Heaven⸥. There are cracks in the façade, small
enough to be ignored, large enough to be seen, but at the end of the day, Dio
trusts his friend. It is Enrico then, or this likeness of him, that alludes at
the truth of the matter.
"You always return to the same books," Enrico had said, smiling the same sad
smile he had worn as a teenager when Dio had kissed him goodbye.
To be contrary, Dio had plucked an unread volume from the endless shelves and
gone through it.
"This one's inferior," he had declared when he finished, tossing the tome to
the side. And it was inferior, undoubtedly so. The author had no grasp of the
language and seemed to be flitting from point to point, as if he weren't
interested in his own story. The next three books are dismissed for the same
reasons; halfway through the fifth book, Dio looks up and sees Enrico watching
him. He's smiling sadly, looking older than he already is, and Dio closes the
book and goes over to him. They kiss and grope, struggle and straddle, lazily
passionate yet fervent all the same.
Afterwards, Dio asks: "Recommend me something."
"To read?" Enrico blinks, surprised, "I doubt I've read anything you haven't."
"Try," Dio insists.
Enrico rattles off a half-dozen titles which he has heard of but never read.
Dio picks one at random and asks for the other man's opinion of it. His
lackluster response is what breaks the dream. The lifetime spent in this place
flashes before his eyes and he gets off the bed, backing away. Even as an
adolescent, Enrico had different opinions and though they never came to blows,
their discussions were hardly as one-sided as these fascimiles. The man reaches
towards him and Dio steps away from his touch and just like that, he sadly
vanishes.
Of course the unread books wouldn't compare; it was impossible to conjure a
truly endless library and his own repository of literature was most certainly
finite. Of course Enrico would be unable to introduce any new books with his
usual enthusiasm -- how could he, when his memories were only a figment of
Dio's?
When he opens his eyes again, he is in the same darkness as his coffin. In the
darkness, where he has his thoughts and nothing else, the other presence
lingers.
"Do you -- " he starts before cutting himself off. He's not so desperate as to
question himself.
As he would go on to explain to many a mirror image, in Heaven, thinking is
enough. Despite that, it takes an immense amount of willpower to break out of
the darkness, to craft a world from nothingness. He stops and starts the
construction an uncountable number of times, sending scraps of marble and light
itself hurtling into oblivion when the alien presence got to be too much. Three
times, he tries to go back to Enrico, tries to return to the place where they
watched the universe loop into itself. He can keep up the act for days, months
even, pretend that this is really his Enrico and that they really are
circumventing Fate itself. But eternity is too long and he is the one to end
each illusion.
And through it all, the damned presence remains, and finally -- finally -- he
remembers.
"Jonathan Joestar," he sneers, "Here you are, taking the high ground still."
Perhaps the softened gaze is a figment of imagination. But he feels it
nonetheless and in feeling it, laughs riotously. Of course the Joestars would
have triumphed, the great-great-grandson would have discovered his diary before
Enrico, would have learned of the lullaby and the keys to reaching ⸢Heaven⸥
before his friend.
But as for this timeless expanse, where he reigns supreme as the god of nothing
and nobody... who else but Jonathan would have set him down here? Who else
could make Heaven and Eternity out as punishment? If he were alive in any
capacity -- and with his godforsaken descendents to boot -- Dio needed to get
there if only to snap his sorry neck a second time.
"You never had any patience," Dio chides, spreading his arms and bathing the
space in light once more, "This is another game, and like all our games, I will
be the victor." He makes himself a fitting environment from nothing, and
prepares to launch his own offensive.
His plan had been flawed from the outset, unfortunately. While this place
allows him to recreate anything and anyone from memory, he can never duplicate
an individual in full. In fact, the only people whose actions he cannot dictate
in full are his own mirror images. Well, and one more person: Jonathan. He and
his descendents were off-limits: although Dio could recreate their bodies, they
would not, under any circumstance, wake. In addition, he is effectively trapped
in this body, in this space. He cannot enter any of the other universes and he
cannot send imperfect duplicates through.
Although he has always considered his other selves a part of himself and they,
him, the fact remains that they are able to pass through to other universes
while he cannot. For a while, he passes time spitefully sending copies of
himself to snuff out the Joestars in every which way possible. They die in
their beds, scattered amongst dozens of other corpses, in the womb, and even
torturously ripped to pieces. But nothing changes and his own other selves
never live past his own lifeline and so the number of dead bodies evens out in
the end.
The current plan ran under the assumption that his connection with Jonathan's
body was the reason for his current predicament. In which case he needed to rid
himself of the dead weight. Taking stock of the situation, he ends up returning
to the old lullaby and its meaning. Even when he had written the words down, he
didn't understand what they meant or why he had chosen them. Back in Egypt, he
had attributed the babbling to his mother but thinking back, he couldn't
actually remember her singing that tune. The obsession with immortality and
eternity had been his own, but a preoccupation with the kingdom-to-come?
Therefore, he concludes that the fourteen phrases (along with the idea of
⸢Heaven⸥) were more the body than the mind. In reaching that conclusion, he
takes it a step further and hypothesizes being able to separate the two -
- separate himself from this miserable meddling oaf's body, at least -- by
breaking the pull of gravity the two of them seemed to have on one another.
And what better than a duplicate to pull the body away?
-
The first dozen iterations are impossibly frustrating -- though he can remember
the fourteen phrases in entirety, he has no idea what they mean, least of all
to Jonathan. He actually beheads the man's empty body three or four times to no
avail. Eventually, it becomes apparent that the empty body must be made full,
and that it would grow with time and memories, not unlike a real person. And so
he creates doubles of himself and sends them off into the myriad universes.
At some point, the floor of the throne room is littered with rejected memory
discs from every place and point in Jonathan's life. Like Dio, each iteration
of Jojo seems incapable of living past twenty.
To think is enough, except when it isn't. It doesn't matter how much he wants
it -- and he does want it now, if only because he thinks Jonathan to be the
reason behind his confinement -- for he cannot make the other man wake.
Which is why this iteration is so startling, so striking, and yet, so unlike
either of them. Here he had bent Jonathan entirely to his will, so much so that
the boy couldn't even touch himself, and seemed to have returned the sentiment.
Either way, they were much closer than he remembered and indeed, than they had
ever been. Was it the closeness that allowed his lesser self to isolate the
corrent memory disc? Or had he altered the memory in addition to killing the
boy?
Dio feels the almost-alien palpitations of excitement when the memory disc is
inserted and the first character lights up. When Jonathan's right foot
disappears, he suddenly understands: with enough memories and enough time, the
boy would become a man, a man who didn't exist below the neck. But he would be
complete and alive and very nearly whole and certainly a better fit with his
own body than Dio.
"Just you wait Jojo," he laughs, waiting for his other self to return, "I'll be
rid of you soon enough. I reject our destiny -- along with your foolish notions
of eternity."
Jonathan, of course, does not respond.
And still, the gaze lingers.
-
When his other self has made more progress on the fourteen words in a matter of
days than Dio has in eons, Dio does not hate him. Even when he continues to
value his imperfect Jonathan as much as the real article, Dio does not hate
him. It is only when he leans against the container and looks properly insolent
that Dio begins to distinguish between the lesser and the greater.
-
As soon as the question leaves his lips, Dio finds himself hoisted off the
ground by his neck.
"Such insolence," his master tuts, "Weren't you the one who said insolence
wouldn't be tolerated?"
He might have had a wit-filled comeback, were he not struggling to breathe. His
master lifts him, higher and higher, until the whole of his weight is dangling
by his spine and his nails are doing nothing to inhumanly bright and purple
flesh.
"There will be no negotiations," his master says, matter-of-fact, "You will do
as you are asked or I will end you, is that clear?"
Dio chokes and splutters. Perhaps it sounds like 'yes'. His master lets him
down -- lets his feet touch the floor at least -- and repeats the question.
He's an idiot, for thinking the leeway of two memory discs was enough of an
advantage.
"Or else what?" he counters as soon as he's able to. "I know you're trapped in
here. That's why you can't take the memory discs yourself." And then, when the
other makes no move to strangle him anew, he gathers up the facts and continues
with: "You said it yourself: I've made more progress than all the others
combined. You need me."
The slew of offensives, when coupled with his near-strangulation, set his
nerves on edge. As he soon discovers, his master is not the sort to pardon
offenses.
"Is that all?" the man asks, crossing and uncrossing his arms.
Dio clenches his jaw, saying nothing.
"Do you have nothing else to say for yourself?" his master prompts, in the same
way one might demand an apology from a small child.
Still, Dio keeps quiet.
"Very well then." With a snap of his fingers, a door swings open. It leads to a
now-familiar room.
"Wait -- " Dio tries, but the other man has already stepped through. He hurries
across the boundary as well, just in time to see his greater self towering
before Jonathan.
"Oh good," he hears, "You followed. That saves me the trouble of moving him."
Dio opens his mouth to retort, to protest, maybe even to apologize. He never
gets to say anything for he blinks and finds himself bound tightly to the
armchair with a gag stuffed tight against his teeth. He sees Jonathan staring
at him with fear in his eyes and struggles all the harder, all for naught.
"Boy," his master addresses, "Come here."
Although trembling, Jonathan manages to shake his head.
"Don't make me repeat myself." the man says and it is the same exact warning he
gave Jonathan.
Instead of obliging or shaking his head again, Jonathan tries to get to him,
whether to duck behind him or try to undo his bindings, Dio does not know. He
doesn't get far of course, three and a half steps forward and he's caught by
the back of his shirt, lifted up and thrown gracelessly against the bed.
"Let this be a lesson," he warns, "What takes months for you would take minutes
for me."
These are the last words spoken directly to him. From there on out, the unbound
Dio concentrates entirely on Jonathan -- imperfect imposter though he may be.
He rips the clothes off of him in violent jagged strips and holds onto
Jonathan's throat, squeezing and squeezing until he's forced to stop
struggling.
"My," he praises, "You have been trained well. Put on a show for your master,
won't you?"
"Dio said -- "
"He is not Dio," the man snarls, spreading Jonathan's legs and freeing his
cock, "I am Dio."
Jonathan is not at all prepared and this Dio -- his master -- is more than a
man, with power to rival a god. His hands grip Jonathan's waist hard enough to
bruise and he enters without preparation. A couple quick thrusts and he spills,
leaning forward to clutch at the boy's hair.
"Jojo," he mumbles. Then he shakes his head and pushes himself up -- all
without pulling out -- and picks up his pace.
As if the pain and humiliation weren't enough, Jonathan is called a textbook's
worth of names. Vulgarities, curses, even snide twists on his given name. He's
filled to the breaking point, again and again, and at some point his mind fails
to register the pain. Or rather, his length begins to thicken and harden and he
comes. And then he's filled further and he comes again.
And again, and again.
Save for the initial slip of tongue, his master looks clinical, no, nearly
bored throughout the act. With his inhumanly short refractory period, Dio loses
track of the number of times he climaxes, only that, at a certain point, every
thrust caused semen to flow between Jonathan's buttocks and down his thighs.
When it is finally, finally, finally over and Dio has blacked in and out of
consciousness twice, Jonathan is a crying twitching semi-conscious heap of
nerves. He's been kept on the brink of orgasm, then milked dry, then kept on
edge, and milked dry yet again. His eyes are unable to focus and he collapses
like a puppet with newly-cut strings the second the grip on his waist is
released.
"I want you to remember this," his master explains, pulling out and wiping
himself clean. He doesn't spare Jonathan a second glance, sliding off the bed
and grabbing Dio's chin. Dio feels the corners of his eyes being rubbed at,
realises belatedly he had been crying. "Everything that is yours is mine. You
are a shadow of I, Dio, and a poor one at that. Once your boy is fit to stand,
he can untie you, I give him permission to. I also give you permission to wipe
his memory of the incident, as you see fit. But, as you no doubt already know,
your own mind is not so easily altered."
The man pauses, as if tempted to say more. And then he shrugs, matter-of-
factly, and dresses himself in the blink of an eye, strolling out the door with
a swagger.
It is a good thing the gag is keeping his tongue down or else Dio might have
bitten it off.
***** but his company has inspired *****
How long do they stay like that? Was it minutes or hours? For the longest time,
Jonathan remains motionless, neither opening his eyes nor rearranging his
limbs. Dio fails at biting through the gag and is unable to free either his
wrists or ankles from the ropes. To think is enough -- except when it isn't. It
doesn't matter how vividly he imagines himself breaking free or how quickly his
imagination crosses the span of three feet. The gulf between the two of them is
the same stretch of space it's been since his other self's departure.
Dio closes his eyes and breathes slow and steady through his nose. Then he
redoubles his efforts, twisting and turning and clawing at nothing. When he's
been reduced to grunting and sweating like a pig, the chair he's been tied to
tips dangerously to the left side and he hears himself give a muffled cry
before hitting the floor. Were it not for the gag in his mouth, the impact
would have rattled his teeth. And if they were not in their current positions,
he might have been embarrassed at his sudden onset of clumsiness. But his fall
is one blessing in that the sound of wood-against-wood causes Jonathan to look
in his direction.
With the smallest of movements, Jonathan looks him in the eye. Who was the more
pitiful one, Dio wonders. His left hand is going numb from the sudden pressure
and he tries to communicate the obvious.
But Jonathan only closes his eyes and moves his head back down and for a
wretched moment, Dio thinks the other will go to sleep. He doesn't, thankfully,
but slowly presses his palms against the sheets, pushing off of the mattress
with head and hands. From the floor, Dio can only watch as the other stands up
just to fall down. Jonathan winces at his own hard landing, crawling over to
Dio on his hands and knees. He stands a second time, bracing himself against
the shelf, and heaves Dio and the chair to an upright position. Then he sinks
to his knees again and begins to undo the plethora of knots. Although
Jonathan's hands are steady, he nonetheless fumbles -- working and reworking,
winding and unwinding. Eventually, Dio has both wrists freed. He motions for
the other to scoot back before bending over and quickly undoing the ropes
around his ankles.
They look at one another then, and Dio feels a sudden tightness in his throat
when Jonathan reaches for his face. Fingers skirt the flushed edges of his face
before tugging at the corner of the gag. He had almost forgotten about it, he
realises, opening his mouth wider. With the gag out and the muteness done, he
swallows and licks his lips.
"The washroom," he says, for his mind had been occupied with nothing but
escape. Now that he's free, it's like a blank slate and he struggles to answer
what now. He sinks down to the other boy's level and continues with: "Can you
stand? I'll wash you."
It takes Jonathan a moment to parse the request. He turns his head and looks at
the distance between the dresser and shelf and the door leading to the
washroom. It's ten feet away, maybe.
He shakes his head and makes to lie down on the floor.
"I want to sleep," he mumbles.
"You can sleep after," Dio replies, pushing the chair back and turning around.
There's an unwarranted sharpness to his tone, one he tries to hide. The other
him -- his threats and jeers -- is still the king of this realm. His will is
still absolute. "Here," he adds, trying to clear his mind, "Wrap your arms
around my shoulders."
There's a lapse of silence between command and action. Dio closes his eyes and
counts to ten in his head. On twelve, Jonathan does as told, leaning fully
against him. Dio wraps his arms about the other boy's thighs, shifting his
weight so as to push up on the balls of his feet. Jonathan is still naked and
his thighs are viscid with slick. His breaths are even however, and he
dismounts with no difficulty, sliding into the tub before pulling his knees to
his chest.
In this place where the mind takes precedence over the material, the water
flows from the tap at just the right temperature. Dio stares out at the rushing
rivulets, watching the tub slowly flood. When it's half full, he turns the
spigot, slowing the tap to a trickle.
Although he does not struggle nor protest, Jonathan keeps his eyes closed and
maintains a tight grip on the edge of the tub. Dio, in response, maneuvers as
best he can. Though he sheds his shirt and slacks and rolls his pants up and
though the tub is only half-filled, the act of cleaning ends with him soaking
wet. Save for the sprinkling and sloshing of water and the slathering on and
off of suds, the washroom is eerily quiet. In fact, the only time Jonathan so
much as reacts is when Dio is reaching around and over to clean inside of him.
His breaths go short for a couple seconds before they even out. And through it
all, he keeps his eyes squeezed shut.
"There," Dio says. He is unable to muster any pleasure at a job well-done. He
helps Jonathan stand then swaddles him in towels.
"I can walk now," Jonathan replies. To demonstrate, he staggers out of the tub,
losing grip on the upper layer of towels in order to maintain balance. He
pushes himself upright and readjusts his towels, clenching and unclenching his
jaw.
Dio grabs a towel for himself before trailing behind. Right before the bed,
Jonathan turns around and looks him in the eye.
The thrown fist comes as a surprise; he catches it on instinct alone.
Jonathan's breaths are short and ragged again and while waiting for an
explanation, Dio realises his own breaths are the same. They stare out at each
other, two imperfect copies, fist-in-hand. Jonathan's expression is the same
one he wore in the week after his branding. Seeing the other's quietly furious
gaze makes his own mark sting and Dio quells the irrational desire to touch the
back of his own neck.
Eventually, Jonathan tightens his fist. He does not, however, pull back for a
second blow.
"You said," he slowly begins, "That if I listened to you, nothing bad would
happen."
In having nothing to say and saying nothing, Dio's hold slackens.
"You said you take good care of your things."
Without meaning to, Dio digs his nails in.
"I do. I will." Even to his own ears, his answer sounds hollow.
Jonathan glares, twisting his fist before pulling it away. Although he's
practically smothered in towels, he somehow manages to gain the upper hand.
"I want to go home," he repeats. His voice cracks halfway through the
declaration. That he was able to remember it at all unnerves Dio.
"You can't," Dio answers, "The home you knew doesn't exist anymore."
Half the towels are flung to the side as Jonathan seizes his shoulders.
"Tell me it won't happen again," he says, digging his own nails in. "Tell me
he'll never..."
The promise he can't make catches in his throat. Jonathan pulls back, covers
his mouth, then clutches at the remaining towels, stumbling back to the
washroom. Dio falls back against the bed, disregarding the inevitable dampness,
and plugs his ears. But even with his ears covered, he can make out the sounds
of vomiting.
In the time it takes for Jonathan to regurgitate the meal that wasn't there,
Dio fails to find a way out. What were the chances his other self would leave
them alone after his own version of Jonathan was completed? Next to none,
judging by his distaste at Jojo's continued existence. And wasn't he capable of
the same sentiment? Would he not do the same, given his other self's position
and power? When he unplugs his ears, he hears the sound of running water in the
sink. Jonathan brushes his teeth and washes his face before turning off the tap
and exiting the washroom again. When Dio sits up, he sees that they've both got
towels wrapped around their waists. Jonathan looks from the bed to the armchair
before seating himself in the former.
The sheets still reek of sex; Dio bundles the upper layer and stuffs it in a
corner. It is his own absolute helplessness that makes him sick.
Jonathan is reclining against the armchair, with his eyes closed and his legs
outstretched, clearly determined to drift into a fitless sleep.
"What happened there..."
Jonathan's eyes open and he twists his neck to look at Dio.
"It was my punishment. It had nothing to do with you."
"Nothing to do with -- " Jonathan repeats, eyes and mouth twitching at the
implications, "What do you mean nothing to do with me?!"
"You didn't do anything wrong. He -- he wanted to punish my insolence."
The rigidity of the pecking order hits Jonathan hard; his face goes ashen and
his fingers clutch at the upholstery.
"So then -- you mean -- " and there it is, that oddly-fitting angry expression.
"No," Dio says, sharp with emphasis. "All that is mine is not his."
Instead of being reassured, Jonathan just laughs.
"What can you do?" he asks, leaning back, "Against him, you're as helpless as
me." He digs his nails deeper and takes a shuddering breath. "I hate you," he
whispers, closing his eyes again, "I hate you for -- for -- " he struggles to
make sense of his missing memories and ends up settling with: "for killing
those two men,"
"You asked me to."
"I wasn't thinking clearly!"
"And yet you promised anything."
"Everything is your fault," Jonathan spits, "I wish I'd never met you."
"Likewise," Dio lies, rising to his feet and walking over to the wardrobe. He's
always known these sentiments, but to hear them vocalised again causes more
irritation than he thought possible. In dressing himself, one of the shirt
buttons gets caught in his somewhat matted hair. Jonathan leaves him to
struggle and in struggling (and eventually snapping the damn button off), Dio's
irritation intensifies.
"You do realise," he snarls, "That it's because of me that you've been kept
alive?"
"What kind of life is this?" Jonathan retorts, "I'd rather be dead than be your
dog!"
Dio leaves by way of the slammed door, marching into the throne room in an
almost suicidal state of anger. But his master is nowhere to be found. He
imagines a chair for himself and sits down in it, irritatedly tapping his
fingers against the armrest. But the throne remains empty. He imagines a
timepiece too and after it's ticked past an hour, he walks over to the
container, fully prepared to incite his other self's presence.
As with before, his master intervenes before he ever touches the glass. This
time however, instead of manisfesting behind him and grabbing his wrist, one of
the other doors swing open, beckoning. Dio casts one final glance at the
sleeping boy, the two still-lit symbols as well as his nonexistent feet. Rather
than truncate abruptly, his legs seem to fade into nothingness.
This door leads him to an unlighted hallway at the end of which is a blindingly
illuminated atrium.
"Come here," his master calls, motioning to his lap. Dio swallows his bile,
acquiescing. His master pets at his hair, murmuring nothings, and gestures to
the dozens of doorways. They cluster about with barely an inch of wall between
one and the other, emanating a lazy natural light.
"These are different worlds?"
"Mm. They are."
"Do you need them all?"
"In a sense."
"Then why -- "
"Shh. Watch." His master's hand leaves his hair, gesturing to an opened door.
He snaps his fingers and the light from the doorway gravitates toward him,
seeping into his skin and leaving the limb with a now-familiar purple hue. Dio
turns back to the doorway only to see it faintly glowing within moments.
"Gravity," the other says in lieu of an explanation. He returns to petting and
stroking, tracing his fangs against the letters of the brand.
"You really are the best yet," his master concedes after feeding, "And you are
correct: you've gotten further than your previous iterations. But one thing
you've yet to learn," he follows, casually stroking the skin above the larynx,
"Is that imitations cannot compare."
The man lifts his hand and presses the back of his palm against Dio's lips.
"Pledge your loyalty," he commands, "And I'll overlook this display of
insolence."
Were he anyone else, he might have been confused. But as they are the same
person, and as this is exactly what he would have Jonathan do, Dio kisses the
back of the palm with a hurried fervency, laving his tongue against the
luminated skin and scraping his teeth against the knuckles. His master
chuckles, petting his hair further, before sticking a finger in Dio's mouth.
Dio sucks on it, hallowing his cheeks and swirling his tongue, circling the
base with his teeth, and when his master retracts it, it exits with a wet pop.
He's made to suck on all four fingers, one by one and then all at once, before
pressing a circle of wet and breathless kisses about the wrist. After having it
in his mouth for the better part of an hour, Dio realises his master's hand
tastes, well, unnatural. It had no scent, no hint of sweat, and though he
registered it as flesh, it was notably absent of signs of use -- wrinkles and
calluses and their like.
"Good boy," his master praises at the end of it, drying his hand with a single
flick of his wrist before going back to petting his hair, "See how easy it is
to be obedient?"
-
After he sends his lesser self away, filled with thoughts of deception and
treachery no doubt, Dio returns to the throne room and admires the slowly-
vanishing boy.
"See how patient you've made me, Jojo?" he asks, reaching into the glass and
tracing the boy's cheek, "I hope you are enjoying yourself, wherever you are.
Seven years will pass in the blink of an eye and I promise I'll return the
favour, then." He extracts his hand and reappears on the throne, tapping his
chin and musing with himself. Although he had seen Jonathan naked countless
times in their shared youth, he had never actually touched the other, and
certainly not like that. The Jojo of his memory was too much of a prude to even
share the same shower to say nothing of his vehement dressing-down of one of
their teammate's lewder drunken propositions.
No, the Jonathan he had known would have never come from being fucked -- would
have never cried at being called names or spread his legs further from being
choked.
He hadn't meant to, but halfway through the act -- well, after his first slip-
of-tongue which led to him accidentally calling the imposter Jojo -- Dio had
started comparing the boy to Enrico. Of course he was as much like Enrico as he
was like Jojo; that is, not at all; but Enrico had been roughly the same age
when they had first become intimately acquainted.
Enrico was much more lithe, with darker skin to boot. He had been utterly
untouched before then, like Jonathan should have been -- like Jonathan had been
for his wedding -- and the difference in reactions was immense.
Thinking of Enrico makes him ache however, and he strives to remember the
priest as a man, not a boy. In the end, he returns to the atrium and eats
through three more worlds, damning Jonathan with each flash of light for
forcing him into his damn waiting game.
-
"Jojo," Dio whispers, shaking the other boy's shoulder. "Jojo, wake up."
Jonathan is slow to rouse, shrugging the hand from his shoulder and burying his
face in the quilted splat.
"Jojo, get dressed. We need to go."
The latter statement makes Jonathan open his eyes at least. He rubs at them,
trying to make sense of the command.
"Go?" he repeats, "Go where?"
"To a different place. Come on, get dressed."
With difficulty, Jonathan gets to his feet, walking over to the wardrobe to
rifle through various identical-enough outfits.
"Dio," he whispers, halfway through the buttons on his left sleeve, "Does -
- does he know about this?"
"No." It was the main reason they needed to hurry.
Jonathan looks at him, as if trying to ascertain the truth, before attempting
to pull up his socks and wincing. Dio bends down and bats the other boy's hands
away, helping with his pants and trousers too. When he's fully dressed,
Jonathan is somewhat flushed, though whether this is antipation or
embarrassment is anyone's guess. Probably both, knowing him.
"Are we running away?" he asks as they slip through the door and tiptoe past
the throne room.
"A tactical retreat," Dio insists, taking his hand and leading him through the
hallway. "And stop looking at me like that, if I wanted to trick you, I
wouldn't -- "
"Wouldn't?" a deeper voice prompts.
Dio tightens his grip, pulling Jonathan into the main atrium.
"We're leaving," he declares, throwing open the nearest door.
"So soon?" his other self asks, chuckling. "I wouldn't do that if I were you.
Who knows when I might be... well, in a feasting mood."
"Jojo," Dio hisses, tugging on the other boy, "We need to go."
This is the gamble he's taking: running under the assumption that one or both
of them were unique and somehow integral, the other could either end them along
with their world or leave them be until they were sufficiently replaced.
Jonathan, however, remains rooted to the spot, breaths coming in frantic gasps.
"You could learn a thing or two from your dog," Dio-the-god chides, "See how he
reacts to his own insolence?" He snaps his fingers and gives an additional
command of "Come here."
Dio's not playing fair and he knows it; the misuse of memory discs coupled with
his natural vampiric hypnosis mean Jojo's double was all but under his thumb.
In the face of such disadvantages, his own lesser self grabs the frozen
Jonathan and drags both of them through the doorway.
-
Left alone in his false Heaven, Dio laughs.
"It wouldn't be fun otherwise, now would it?" he asks, motioning to dozen other
open doors. "Jojo."
***** an unusual fear of doors *****
As expected, the third doorway leads them back to Dio's room in the Joestar
manor. This time, they arrive in the dead of the night. Dio keeps his hold on
Jonathan's wrist, dragging the boy who was still-as-stone out into the hallway.
In the flicker of candlelight -- so different from Heaven's effortless
effervescence -- they must look like a pair of sneak thieves.
"Jojo," Dio whispers. He repeats the other boy's name, until it becomes clear
the other is still lost. A glance at the dimly-lit clock shows it to be half
past nine, which would explain the murmur of conversation from the ground
floor. Dio glances quickly about the once-familiar hallway, taking note of how
the Joestar family retained their portraits and sense of décor from universe to
universe. Tucked in the corner between the washroom and the servant's stairs is
a large laundry hamper, about chest high. Throwing the towels out makes for a
conspicuous mess, but it'll have to do.
"Jojo, can you wait for me in here?" With the hand he used to open the lid of
the hamper, Dio touches the other boy's cheek. Jonathan blinks, still unaware
of his surroundings, and nods on-instinct upon registering the questioning
tone.
Jonathan needs to curl his knees and arms up in order to fit into the basket.
He lets go of Dio's hand after a while and does not make a sound when the lid
is closed.
"Dio," Jonathan calls, speaking with a mouse-like wariness.
"I'm here." Indeed, he's debating whether hiding the sheets and towels would
buy more time than it'd take.
"I'm -- well -- I don't like the dark."
Although he's moved only half of the displaced coverings from the hallway to
the washroom, Dio walks over to the hamper and opens the lid.
"I might have to kill someone," he murmurs, "Are you sure you want to watch?"
Jonathan stares, then slowly shakes his head.
"Are you," he's about to ask, but thinks better of it. He blinks again, looking
down the empty hallway, and squeezes himself further in, "You'll come back
soon, won't you?"
"Of course," Dio touches his cheek again, smiling, "Close your eyes and I'll be
back before you can count to two hundred." The additional touch of haste is not
what he needs, but it is what Jonathan needs to hear and that is reason enough
to have it. He closes the lid and quickly makes his way down the grand
staircase. Like usual, the servants are gossiping while doing the dishes with
the conversation revolving around a recently-deceased minister.
For Dio, the first of two gambles has already been won. Although his master has
demonstrated -- in an overt display of dominance, no doubt -- his ability to
absorb worlds, he has evidently chosen to spare this one, and their lives, for
the moment.
The second gamble is one of time and distance and for that, he needs money. Not
the paltry change from the floorboards, no, he needed access to Lord Joestar's
safe.
Like all locks in the Joestar manor, the safe in the study is child's play to
pick. There's the satisfying sound of parted locking mechanisms and the slide
of steel against steel. He pulls the door back to reveal stacks, literal
stacks, of papered currency. It looks more like a Scottish bank till than the
safe of a private household. There are coins and bars of gold too though he
doesn't bother with those -- doesn't even take the full account of notes.
When he tallies the total sum on the train, he'll realise the smallest note was
a five pound and that all the notes were issued by the Bank of England.
Furthermore, there were even one or two fifteen pound notes, collectors items
for they had stopped circulation decades prior. The most aggravating part of
the robbery then, was the knowledge that George Joestar would hardly feel such
losses. Even if the notes weren't insured, a thousand -- even two thousand -
- pounds was a drop from the bottomless fortune.
At the present, Dio stuffs the notes into his pockets, redoing the locks of the
safe and quickly leaving the study.
He's counted one hundred and thirty-three when the butler accosts him up the
stairs.
"Master Dio!" the old man exclaims, lifting his candleholder to get a better
view, confirming that it was indeed the adopted son. "What are you doing up at
this hour? Is there something I get you?"
Dio turns and smiles at the familiar old man.
"A glass of water and a small satchel if you will."
"Right away," the candle dips with the butler's bow and Dio hurries back up the
stairs.
He's on one hundred and fifty-eight but the lid is open and Jonathan is not in
it. Dio curses, ducking into the washroom only to see the discarded sheets and
towels and a missing left-hand candle. Then he backtracks to his own room then
stops at the doorway and detours towards Jonathan's room.
Jojo is indeed in his own room, seated at the edge of his own bed and looking
contemplatively at his own sleeping face. His other self does not seem to be
bothered by the washroom's candle and he himself does not startle when Dio
makes his presence known.
Looking at the two Jonathans reminds him of the inclusivity of their very
existences. There was a Dio in this world too, one that likely hadn't murdered
Jonathan's dog or stole his future wife's first kiss. One that hadn't killed
father and son in their sleep, in the heat of the moment, in the span of
months.
But the similarity is reminder too, of how replaceable people were. He tells
Jonathan as much, a concession as much as it was an offer.
"I could kill him," he says, "And they would never find his body. You could
slip into bed and no one here would be any wiser."
Rather than look at him, Jonathan looks at the doorway. Then he shakes his head
again, stroking his own cheek just as Dio had petted him, before standing up
with another slight wince.
"Was I always such a heavy sleeper?" he asks at a later time. Dio rolls his
eyes then, scoffing, and refuses to dignify the question with an answer.
"Let's go," Dio says at the present, sacking plans of stealing a horse. They'll
have to walk to the village and pay for the train. Of course, the main concern
was breaking change for a five pound note, not so much affording the journey.
Jonathan remains distant for a time following their departure. Quiet, but not
moody and restless rather than contemplative. He breaks silence a couple times
to reiterate prior demands: I want to go home; I want to forget; I don't want
to go back. Dio responds, in turn, with no, no, and yes. His only concession
causes Jonathan to at last look his way. With the pitch-black countryside
rushing by through the windows, punctuated with flickers of light from settled-
down civilization, Jonathan's voice is nearly drowned out by the tracks.
Do you mean it, Dio supposes. Well, lip-reads.
He nods.
Jonathan sizes him up yet again, no doubt considering how capable he was of
fulfilling this promise and whether he had promised anything at all. At the
sound of the whistle, he turns away to look out the window, as if Dio had given
no reply.
Irrational though it is, Dio bristles at the treatment. But his ire should be
directed at his other self rather than Jonathan and his energies put towards
the second half of the gamble rather than the first.
Theirs is a sleepless night and when the train pulls into the port town after
half a dozen stops, it is Dio who needs to be forcefully roused.
A single shake of the shoulder is enough to wake him. He snaps his eyes open
and whirls to look at Jonathan and then at the bustling noontime city outside.
"Oh," he says, standing up.
"This is the last stop," Jonathan says in a roundabout apology.
"Good."
They disembark, surprising the attendant with their nonexistence parcels of
luggage, and Dio leads the way down the winding cobblestoned main street to yet
another ticket office. This time, they are paying for a commissioner's suite on
a ferry.
"Are you sure you can -- " the paymaster starts. His eyes widen and his tone
changes when Dio calmly pays with a ten pound note.
"You've change, don't you?" he can't help but ask.
"Oh, yes, of course, just a moment..." the poor man fumbles for the key to his
safe and Dio watches on, taking pleasure in the subsequently meticulous
counting of coinage.
"Next!" a second paymaster calls, sliding back their 'CLOSED' sign to speed
through the rest of the queue.
The sudden attention sets Jonathan on-edge. He ducks behind Dio when they are
accosted by a hulking mass of a sailor after leaving the counter.
"That's a fine lot of papers you got there," the man drawls, "Any clue what a
pair of bed-wetters like you did to get that sort of money?"
"Murder," Dio shrugs, taking Jonathan's hand.
"Wuh -- "
"Was there ever any doubt?" he casts a pitying smile before stepping forward.
Unfortunately, the sailor grabs at Jonathan's shoulder then.
"Now wait a minute here," the man starts.
"Get your hands off of him," Dio snarls.
Although the blond-haired boy barely reached his shoulder, the sailor puts his
hands up, oddly inclined to obey.
"There," he says, "I ain't touching him now, see? Now listen here, two kids
like you journeying across the channel all by your lonesome... it would be
mighty infortunate if something were to happen." He smiles with his crooked
teeth. "You catch the drift?"
It's the leer on his lips more than threat on his tongue that makes Jonathan
lash out. He lets go of Dio's hand and surges forward, suddenly fighting tooth
and nail like a man possessed.
"What the -- "
"Jojo -- "
Jonathan manages to tackle the sailor -- a man two feet taller and almost twice
his weight -- to the ground. He even gets in a punch and a kick. But the sailor
is a fighting man through and through and he says "blasted kids" before
returning the blow.
With a crowd quickly forming to watch the spectacle, Dio foolishly entangles
himself between the two, shouting Jonathan's nickname over and over and trying
to pull the other away.
"Stay out of it!" Jonathan hisses, batting at the other.
"What do you mean stay out of -- " the sailor's punch makes contact with the
wrong boy and Dio feels the wind knocked out of his lungs. He staggers to the
floor, clutching at his diaphragm and coughing, and Jonathan, already furious,
becomes outright vicious.
Dio is too busy choking to play witness but the gathering crowd provides an
abundance of commentary. Somehow or another, Jonathan manages to gain the upper
hand, with his face beaten black and blue and bleeding from the mouth and nose,
he somehow pins the sailor to the floor and begins punching at the grown man's
face.
"Why -- won't -- you -- leave -- us -- alone?!" he demands, following each word
with another punch. The crowd turns vicious too here, for apparently the sailor
was well-known but little-liked.
"Bleed him, bleed him!" one of the boys, watching on, hollers. Amidst the
crowd, the shout becomes a chant and Dio catches his breath just in time to see
Jonathan's face covered with the sailor's blood.
A fistfight is one thing; murder out in the open streets was another.
Dio heaves himself over and on top of the other, grabbing at his arms and
making an honest yet hopeless effort at restraining him.
"Jojo! Jojo, stop."
Jonathan breaks free and nearly punches him.
"Why should I?!" he demands, "After what he did to us, after what he said!"
"Jonathan," Dio takes his face, searching for sense in the bloodlust, "Jojo.
This isn't him. This man is nobody. You have no quarrel with him."
"No," Jonathan stammers, looking back at the sailor's bloodied face. The
equally indistinguishable crowd, sensing the end of the fight, murmurs in
hushed and disappointed tones. "No, I wouldn't -- that's not -- I -- " He
scrambles to his feet paying no heed of his own wounds, and stares at his
bloodied knuckles.
"Nuts!" one of the other boys exclaim.
"Didn't even kill him!"
"Got 'im good though."
In the split second it takes for the crowd to swarm upon them, Dio grabs
Jonathan's now bruised and bloodied hand and drags him away.
"Hey! Those two!" one of the onlookers shout.
"Where are you -- " a shopkeeper screeches.
"Get them!" a constable demands.
Being unacquainted with Dover, they end up fleeing onto the docks.
Unfortunately, the constable is still in-pursuit. They do, however, have the
good fortune of running down the dock where their ferry was anchored.
"Embarking's not for an hour," the anchorman tells them. He gladly steps aside
for a single pound note.
"Don't tell the copper," Dio adds.
"I didn't see nothing," the anchorman reassures him, saluting.
The sudden chase coupled with the sleepless night and, in Jonathan's case, the
heady rush of adrenaline, catches up to them then. After stepping foot into the
ferry, they collapse on the floor, gasping and panting and clutching at the
well-trodden carpet. The anchorman is kind enough to close the door after them.
As it turns out, it's in the nick of time. The constable's boots can be heard
drumming against the planks and a heated discussion ensues. There's the sound
of insistent rapping against the door before the policeman gives up.
"Ain't no one 'llowed to be on the boat two hours before sail," the anchorman
adds. "S'only cargo and crew right now."
The boots drum away at a much slower pace and Dio is filled with an unholy need
to laugh.
"Coo-ee," the anchorman whistles, throwing open the door and looking at the two
boys -- well, Jonathan -- with admiration, "I'm guessing you here's the one
that gave Rudgar a licking?"
Jonathan sits up, looking ill-at-ease.
"I really didn't mean to -- " he starts, only for the anchorman to pull the
pound note out.
"If you'd told me that was why ye're running I'd've told the copper off myself!
Rudgar had it coming, you hear? Always racketeering and roughousing -- a man's
got to grow up, you know?" He holds the bill out until Jonathan weakly takes it
and claps a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Now why don't you help yourself to the
commissioner's suite? No one ever buys it out and it's got a working shower of
all things!"
"Thank you," Dio cuts in, sitting up himself and gingerly removing the other
man's hand. "Is it upstairs?"
"To the right, impossible to miss."
They stagger up the stairs like aged men, holding tight to the handrail and
taking the steps one at a time. Jonathan takes the lead here, leaving behind a
trail of bloody handprints.
"Your clothes are a mess," Dio remarks when Jonathan is running the tap. Sure
enough, the commissioner's suite somehow had a working shower.
"Do you think I killed him?" Jonathan asks, visibly sickened at the thought.
"What does it matter," Dio snorts, "He was absolutely worthless. The only
reason I stopped you was because I didn't want a scene."
In failing to convey the sheer dread he felt over killing a man, Jonathan
twists and clutches at his hands. Dio takes his face again then, pressing their
foreheads together.
"That wasn't your fault," the other boy pardons, "He was the one who accosted
us. He was the one who threatened us."
"But I didn't -- "
"Say it."
Jonathan's expression twists with disagreement as opposed to outright
rebellion. He pulls his head out and away and licks his lips.
"Say it," Dio presses.
"It -- it was not my fault."
"Whose fault was it?"
"His."
"And why?"
"Because he -- he was the one who -- "
"Accosted and threatened us. Yes." Dio pets his hair before touching his
covered yet tattered chest. "Do you need help or should I -- "
Given the option, Jonathan looks like a beast caught in a fresh snare.
"Should you," he repeats, looking at Dio and then at the shower.
"Leave you be, I mean."
"Yes. Yes, that would be..." Jonathan trails off, staring at the running water.
"Yes," he finally repeats.
The reality is: false memories notwithstanding, they are both boys thrust
suddenly into the machinations of men. Though he's doing his best to appear
unfazed and nonplussed, Dio feels utterly drained. The realisation of dozens of
duplicates when added with the punishment session and the first gamble being
seen through... he takes a deep breath and falls back against the bed, quickly
falling asleep despite the running shower and the undrawn curtains.
What does he dream of then? Many things, none of them important or even
tangible. Mostly darkness and sinking and remembering Jonathan. Missing him at
times, cursing him for the rest.
He's shaken from another hour of slumber by Jonathan shouting his name at the
top of his lungs.
"What is it?"
"Dio, the door, it's -- "
Dio goes to the washroom only to find --
"It's locked. Unlock it, will you?"
"I can't," Jonathan hollers, voice reaching a hysterical pitch.
"What do you mean you can't?!"
"The door -- the door, it's not -- " there's the sound of water splashing and
then silence.
"Jojo?" Dio calls, knocking on the door, "Jojo, unlock the door and let me see
the problem."
"I can't," the other boy repeats, "Dio -- you promised -- you promised but -
- but it's not the same door."
How long had Jojo been screaming, for his voice to give out like that? Dio
slams his fist against the locked door with a grunt, cursing his own
negligence. Hadn't this been the second gamble?
"Don't move," he commands, "I'll be right back."
"I can't go back," Jonathan moans, "I won't."
Dio dashes down the flight of stairs, nearly crashing into one of the crewmen.
"Wait, wait, wait, passengers aren't supposed to be in for another hour!"
"An axe," he says, looking more than somewhat mad, "I need an axe."
"An axe?" the crewman repeats, furrowing his brow, "Whatever for?"
"The shower in the suite -- it's broken. My -- my brother is trapped in there."
"The commissioner's suite? What are you doing in there?" The man is not given
the opportunity to cross-examine further; Dio takes his memory disc and quickly
scans his memories. The weaponry cabinet on the lower deck turns out to be the
correct bet; Dio grabs the axe and runs back up the stairs.
"Jojo!" he shouts, raising the weapon with both hands, "Stay back!"
When the head of the blade makes contact with the wooden door, there's a
sickeningly satisfying crunch. Splinters fly to the floor as other crewmembers
run up the stairs.
"Hey! What are you -- "
"Who's in the commissioner's suite?!"
Dio lifts the axe back and swings down a second time. It cuts through the door
and the pulls it out and strikes again and again. Eventually, he makes an
opening large enough for Jonathan to crawl through. As soon as he's out, he
throws himself against the other boy, falling on top of him a soaked and
shivering mess.
"I'm sorry," Dio concedes, short of breath and sprawled against the floor. "I
should have known -- I should have insisted -- "
"Why me?" Jonathan asks, confirming their triumph in the second gamble too,
"What does he want with me?"
"I don't think he knows," Dio admits, "But he's just revealed his own
weakness."
For Jonathan, the thought of a being whose influence extended across dimensions
having weaknesses was absurd. He says as much.
"Think of it like this," Dio reasons, "Why do you think he waited until then to
strike?" And then, when Jonathan takes too long to answer, he adds: "More
importantly, what would you have done if the rift was on my side of the door?"
Jonathan looks from the broken door to the still-locked entrance.
"I would leave."
"Through the second door, precisely." And then he lays out his understanding of
the rules: "From this incident, it seems he needs a doorway as passage.
Therefore, we should avoid entering places with only one exit."
Right before the door is unlocked and they're made to explain their near-
intimate states of undress, Jonathan's eyes darken. He traces the bruise
blossoming across Dio's neck and quietly adds:
"Or we could avoid doors altogether."
Dio had laughed then for the suggestion was ridiculous. What sort of place was
without doors, after all?
***** and this shelter where we've fled to *****
Thankfully, Dio still has the receipt showing proof that he had indeed
purchased stay in the commissioner's suite. Between the scrap of paper and a
couple additional pounds for the door and a request for peace and quiet, the
crewmembers take back their axe and leave them be. Eccentric nobleboys who put
down five crowns on a four hour boat ride were beyond their comprehension. The
suite is a mess at this point. Half the bed is damp and the washroom door is
beyond repair, lying in pieces on the floor. Dio takes one look at the damage
and decides to not look any further.
"What are you doing?" Jonathan asks, when he's walking over to draw the shades.
"Going to sleep. Wake me up when the ferry arrives." And with that said, Dio
gets back on the bed.
Jonathan frowns, walking over and pressing at the sheets.
"These are wet," he says.
"I don't care."
"You'll get sick."
Dio makes a disregarding noise, one which Jonathan is quick to disregard. He
places his hands on Dio's side and carefully rolls the other over until he was
resting fully on the dry half of the bed. Dio cracks an eye open, squinting out
in the significantly dimmed lighting.
"And you?"
Jonathan shrugs, going over to the chaise. He sits down and Dio rolls his eyes.
Of course Jojo would fret over him getting sick while covering himself with
nothing but a towel.
He heaves a sigh before pushing himself off the bed, throwing the top sheets
off. Then he gets back on it and pats the space to his side.
"Come here."
And Jojo does.
"No, here. Closer."
In a manner of repose like their sleeping patterns in the first world, Jonathan
presses as close as close can be, lying on his side to face Dio and turning his
head so that it rested against the crook of Dio's neck.
Dio tilts his head, resting his cheek against Jonathan's brow. The other is a
tonic at times, though he knows full well the resentment which chased at the
heels of fear. And once the immediate danger had passed, the resentment would
return.
But when Jonathan throws an arm over him, squeezing at his shoulders, a
contented sigh slips out.
His sleep is interrupted a third time by the blaring of the ferry's horn. The
captain pulls for the signal three times, then the barge lurches backward then
forward. Jonathan tenses up at the sudden movement; Dio groans and covers his
head with a pillow. There's a shout of "anchors aboard", drowned out halfway by
the roar of the engine. When the ferry begins to move forward, Dio feels the
arm about his neck leave. The mattress creaks with Jonathan's departure and he
pulls the pillow closer when the other draws the curtains back.
"Dio," Jonathan calls from the windowsill, "Have you ever seen the ocean?"
Staving off the need to sleep, he throws the pillow off and rises to his feet.
Sure enough, the ferry was plowing through wave after wave. The suite's window
was angled in such a way that the harbour -- now little more than a speck -
- could still be seen. The waters of the channel are calm and the skies are
absurdly clear for the season.
When Dio continues to stare, Jonathan repeats himself.
Hearing the question again, Dio turns from the window to the boy. He has
memories of the ocean, yes, though they weren't strictly speaking his own.
Would Fate cause them to become his own? He looks back to the surging waves and
remembers a doomed transatlantic voyage, a tiny cramped container, and a long,
long passage of time.
"No," he says at last, "This is my first time."
Even for simple question-and-answers like this, Jonathan finds reason to doubt
him.
"You don't seem surprised."
"I've read about it." And so he has. Has memories of being read Vernes and his
ilk at least.
"It's so -- " Jonathan tries, staring out at the horizon, "Well, big."
"Mm."
"Dio?"
"What?"
"Where is this boat going?"
"France."
"France?"
"Yes, France."
Were it some other time or circumstance, Jonathan might have said something
distinctly British. At the moment, he only sighs, looking out at the waters
once more.
They stand by the window until the wind picks up. The clouds are dispersed,
sent to the west, and the sun lights the sea up in a veritable shimmer.
Jonathan shades his eyes; Dio turns away altogether.
He flops back down on the bed, determined to sleep again, and Jonathan has
sense enough to draw the curtains, though he stays on the other side. Right as
he's drifting off to sleep, Jonathan returns. He walks over to the bed,
towering over Dio's reclining form, before kneeling down and leaning his arms
and upper body against the mattress.
Dio turns his head and sees Jojo with his eyes closed and hands clasped. The
engine and the waves drown out the words of the prayer but he reaches over,
carding through dark locks.
"Come here," he repeats. Jonathan climbs onto the bed and Dio wraps his arms
about the other, mimicking the start of their master and pet routine. They had
slept like brothers then, with their hands clasped and their nightshirts
tangled. He is the one to bury his face in Jojo's neck this time; he is the one
memorising the other boy's scent.
Though it's likely imagined, he thinks that he can smell the copper of blood
underneath the soap scrubbed skin. Unsurprisingly, he likes it.
-
This time, Dio wakes naturally after a fitful three hours of sleep. He
untangles the two of them and pulls the curtain a couple inches. The sun is
just starting its descent and the sparkling waters are still painful to watch.
After his eyes adjust, he realises that the ferry is hugging the continental
coastline. He closes the curtains and turns to the clock. With an hour left
until their destination, Dio steps over the remains of the door, inspecting the
rest of the washroom.
Jonathan, of course, has concentrated on cleaning himself. His bloodied clothes
have been wadded into a ball and left on the bathroom floor. He never needed to
clean up after himself; he did not value clothing. If they were still in the
manor, the maids would have brought a new outfit for the young master and said
nothing of his mess.
He helps himself to the shower then, eager for the appearance of cleanliness.
But Dio too has nothing to change into; he steps out of the bath wrapped in the
leftover towels and comes face-to-face with his master's second attempt at
reining them in.
The problem with the suite, however spacious, was that it only had one way out.
Could his other self see them? He must -- for how else would he know where to
place the doors?
At least, Dio wryly thinks, the other was kind enough to let them sleep. He
takes a steadying breath and walks over to the bed.
The horn interrupts him, though it does wake Jonathan up.
"Have we," he begins, and then sits up and stops. The blood rushes from his
face upon seeing the altered door and he clutches at Dio on instinct.
"Don't worry," Dio reassures, "I know of a way out."
"How?" Jonathan demands, filled with disbelief and frustration, "That's the
only exit and now it's gone!"
"No it's not."
To demonstrate, he frees himself and walks over to the window, pulling back the
curtains. Sure enough, the destination was in-sight.
Jonathan's eyes grow large.
"Can it open? Can we fit through it?"
Rather than answer, Dio unlocks the window, sticking a hand out. The suite
cabin is on the outermost side of the ferry; its window overlooks and opens out
to the sea.
Jonathan blanches and reluctantly stammers out:
"I can't swim. Not in the ocean, I mean."
"You won't have to. I'll get out and call for help."
"No." Jonathan looks from the door to the window, "No, I'll go with you."
"We'll have to wait either way," Dio shrugs, "No sense in jumping before the
ferry's docked."
And so, they wait.
The ferry docks within the hour and they squeeze themselves out through the
window and into the open sea. Surprisingly enough, it's Dio who needs help
treading water, gasping and splashing and generally failing to stay afloat.
"Help!" Jonathan screams, "Anyone, help!"
One of the shipmates jumps in to the save them; with the help of two others,
they're hauled onto the Le Havre harbour. The disembarking passengers stare -
- and what a state they must be in! Soaked from head to toe and dressed in
undergarments to boot! Thankfully, sheets and blankets are quickly brought over
and the anchorman who had let them board early dashes over to help them.
"What's the matter with you two?!" the captain bellows, "First the door and now
the window -- do you have any idea how long it'll take to repair?!"
"Captain, they paid for the commissioner's suite -- "
"They paid to use the room, not wreck it!" the man spits a couple curses before
stomping back into the exterior of the ship.
"Don't mind him," the anchorman says, "He's a good man, s'just this ship is his
pride and joy."
The near-death experience -- courtesy of his own hydrophobia -- leaves Dio in a
foul mood. He has enough control to not glare at the other man, though he
ignores the proffered help, pushing himself to his feet.
And then the captain stomps back down, throwing their paltry belongings at
their feet.
"There was nothing wrong with the door," the man growls, "I opened it myself.
It wasn't even locked! I'll bet the washroom had no problems either..." he
mutters something about spoiled rich brats vacationing without any care before
ordering the onlookers to keep moving and his own men to keep working. The two
boys are left with a pile of dirtied garments and stacks of now-worthless
currency.
"Wait!" the anchorman calls when they reach the other end of the harbour. He
catches up to them, clasping a hand over both their shoulders, and asks:
"Parlez-vous français?"
Jonathan's brows furrow and he looks to Dio for explanation.
"No," Dio tersely replies, pushing the man back, "And there's no need."
"No need?" the anchorman laughs, "Where do you think you are? What do you think
the Parisiens speak?"
"Parisiens?" Jonathan echoes.
"We've no plans for Paris."
"You're too young to be thieves," the anchorman points out, "And I've never
seen boys your age travel unchaperoned. Which means you're runnin' away from
something. Which is it? A girl? Your pappy? The coppers?"
"Nothing of the sort," Dio sneers. Somehow, he manages to look commanding even
while dripping wet, so much so that the tone of his voice causes the anchorman
to do a double-take.
"Students, then?" the sailor presses, "Or royalty?"
Somehow or another, they end up paying the anchorman five pounds to show them
around Le Havre. He has evidently shown monied folk around before, taking them
first to a bank to change pounds into francs and then to the still-
unfashionable prêt-à-porter stores where they buy clean but ill-fitting shirts,
trousers, socks, and coats.
"You won't need those here," the anchorman laughs when Dio tries to purchase
winter boots.
The easy congeniality irritates him and he buys the pair out of spite. The
extra purchase is nothing; they had some three thousand francs, even without
taking into account the leftover English notes!
He can, however, admit the anchorman was more helpful than not. Neither he nor
Jonathan knew the language and contrary to the eighteenth century voyager
manuals, no one they met knew any Latin.
"How strange," Jonathan remarks at a later time, "They look just like us and
they're just across the sea, but I can't understand anything they say."
"You don't have to cross the sea for that," Dio, who had memories of visitors
from York and Durham, will reply, "Head north from London for a couple days and
you won't understand a word either."
At the present, Jonathan keeps his peace, withdrawing into himself. He says the
bare minimum to the various shopkeepers and sticks to Dio like a burr, letting
the older boy play translator and interpreter with the anchorman. Although his
knuckles are now clean, the bruises and limping remain.
"Surely you'll be wanting a bed for the night?" the anchorman asks.
"We need to be going," is all the explanation Dio gives.
They're grudgingly led to another boathouse and purchase another suite, this
time aboard a steamboat traveling upstream along the Seine.
Dio's original plan had been to putter along the River Seine until they came
across a sufficiently abandoned and isolated castle. They would then disembark,
citing family relations, and take up residence in said building.
He has always had an affinity for castles, first in Windknights and then in
Cairo. Even the Joestar manor, for all its bland interior, was massive for a
single household. He revels in the surplus of space, the grandness of the
architecture, and the imposing presence of the building itself.
In boarding the riverboat, they part ways with the anchorman.
The Seine steamship was clearly made with comfort in mind, lithe and graceful
and covered in a fresh white coat; this ship is twice as long as the Channel
ferry and two storeys higher to boot. They've paid for the prince's suite and
go through the usual disbelief -- so young, so alone, so wealthy and so forth -
- before a deckhand offers to help with their bags. And they do have bags now,
not substantial ones, but enough clothes to last a week and pawned-off jewels
for the French country-folk.
Dio makes the odd request of keeping the main bedroom door open, one which
confuses the deckhand. To elaborate, he then moves the nightstand to block the
path of the door.
"Comme ça," he adds, gesturing to the unusual arrangement.
The deckhand furrows his brows and tries to move the nightstand back. Dio holds
the furniture piece in-place and shakes his head. The other man's speech is too
fast for him to parse but after more wild gesticulating, he throws his hands up
and goes to call for the captain.
Jonathan, meanwhile, has moved the second nightstand to prop the bathroom door
open.
"Messieurs, messieurs!" the ship's captain greets, thrusting a pudgy hand to
shake. He too speaks too fast and Dio falters, trying to remember if French
conjugations shared any endings with the Latin ones, but the captain is
gracious enough to switch to English.
"French is the language of treaties," he says in a characteristically snobbish
fashion, "And I'm surprised you two made it this far without speaking it."
"All's well we aren't here to sign treaties," Dio shrugs. British pride tempted
him to add that English would be lingua franca in the twentieth century.
"A Briton with a sense of humor, how drôle," the captain replies. "Well you've
had my man, ah, Jacques, in a fit over the furnishings." He turns to look at
the change in furniture and harrumphs as the master of the vessel. "This," he
points at the door, "And this. They are no good! You must close your doors to
not be disturbed!"
Rather than argue with the man, Dio reaches for his memory disc.
"What are you doing?" Jonathan asks.
"Speeding things along. Move the nightstands back in place, will you?"
"But -- "
"It won't be for long."
Jonathan shoots him another doubting glance before doing as told.
Dio, likewise, sifts through the captain's memories, removing the offending
moments before replacing the disc. He and Jonathan make a show of confusion -
- they had no idea what the deckhand was talking about and, as the captain
could see, all the furniture was in order.
"Pardon, pardon," the captain mumbles, bowing his head.
"Il n'est pas une problème," Dio replies. Jonathan coughs into his hand but the
captain is well-acquainted with foreigners, he bows again before wishing them a
pleasant voyage.
As soon as he leaves, they prop open both doors again.
"What will we do when the deckhand comes back?" Jonathan asks.
"He won't come back," Dio says matter-of-factly, "The captain has already
settled the matter. It doesn't look like anyone else is up here."
"But if he does?"
"Then we'll do the same."
"Alright." Jonathan shirks off his new outfit, flopping onto the bed.
Dio, however, succumbs to curiosity and asks at the expense of his pride: "What
was wrong, then?"
"Then?"
He repeats the earlier phrase and Jonathan coughs again.
"It's meant to be 'il n'ya pas de problème', I think."
"Oh." Dio curses his own impatience then. "Thank you."
It takes the steamboat two days to sail from Le Havre to Rouen, lazy meander of
the unsettled French countryside. It's like a whole other world across the
ocean, Dio thinks. The persistent fog is reminiscent of London and in the early
morning, it is as if the whole boat is meandering through clouds.
Jojo must be rubbing off on him for he becomes enamoured with the first castle
he sees. They're four stops past Rouen and three days down the Seine when the
mists seem to part 'round the riverbend and the marble-like walls of Château
Gaillard are made to sparkle in the late autumn sun.
"Dio?" Jonathan calls when the other boy heads off running, "Dio, where are you
going!"
"Excuse me," Dio starts, pulling the nearest crew member aside and pointing at
the looming fortress, "But are we to stop anywhere near that?" Unfortunately,
they do not understand the question, nor do they understand his attempts at
French. He eventually drags Jonathan over and has him translate. Jonathan is
cautious, pausing for seconds between each word, but he manages to make himself
understood, enough for the sailor to elaborate.
"Well?" Dio demands.
"Uhm..." Jonathan points at the castle, "He said we'll be stopping there. Well,
here. Right now."
Seeing Gaillard is one of those moments where the cogs of the universe seem to
align and his whole being is filled with the buzz of want. He doesn't know it's
history, or anything about the structure really, but he likes it enough from a
distance and already knows he will make the place his own.
He is so certain that everything will be fine after they take to living there
that his senses are dulled throughout the disembarkation. Their roles reverse
then, with Jonathan taking the lead and playing at translator and interpreter
and Dio giving short and hurried responses, anything to get off the boat -
- quick.
The sun provides a lazy sort of warmth as they hike up the ghostly-pale crag.
By the time they reach the castle's innermost bailey, noon has come and gone.
Dio flits from one empty room to next. Already, he is imagining himself as king
and keeper; already, he is thinking of surreptitiously settling in.
Jonathan, on the other hand, sees the abandoned fortress as it is: a reminder
of past ages and a relic from an older time. With each step into the castle, it
becomes apparent no one has lived in it for a long, long time. The stark-white
walls feel like the bars of a cage and he finds his feet taking him past the
bailey and through the moat.
Indeed, it is only when Jonathan is climbing back down the crag that Dio
notices his departure. He calls for the other several times, then paces through
the chateau. He catches a glimpse of Jonathan descending and leans out the
window.
"What are you doing?" he shouts.
But Jonathan does not stop or turn. He does not hurry either, simply continues
walking forward. And so Dio is made to follow. He exits the castle, hurries
through the walls and moats, but by the time he reaches the edge of the crag,
Jonathan has disappeared into the woods.
With no goal in mind but to catch up to the other, Dio shrugs his jacket off
and sets it on the ground. Then he ties the satchel to his waist and uses his
jacket to slide down the crag.
It's ripped beyond repair but he reaches bottom within minutes, scrambling to
his feet and swinging the satchel behind one shoulder before giving chase.
"Jojo!" he calls, taking the first step into the forest, "Jojo!"
Unlike the beaten trail they had taken to go from the dock to the castle, the
forest has no marked path. The first step is proof of a different domain, one
outside the measured chaos-and-order of man. His foot sinks into the soft loamy
earth and he grabs onto a nearby tree branch to keep balance. Like all natural
things, the forest is impassive and relentless, he starts off trying to follow
Jonathan's footsteps, only to be caught and tangled in a successive line of
brambles. Within minutes, the forest has torn his shirt and bled his arms and
neck and face, and still, he plods on.
The cluster of trees which might as well be the devil's garden seem to thirst
for human blood; he loses count of the number of times he missteps.
In a truly impressive feat, Jonathan looks even worse than him, when Dio
chances upon him in the clearing.
"Jojo!" he shouts, grabbing the other boy and shaking his shoulders, "You -
- what were you thinking?!"
"Dio," Jojo replies, smiling for the first time since. He gestures to the
alcove, the roof of branches and leaves, the limitless tangle of ferns and
vines, and beams.
"It's perfect," he says, breathless, and his voice is filled with enough
exuberance to make Dio ache.
***** is neither mine nor yours *****
It is a good thing Jonathan never asks to stay for if he had, Dio would have
given a firm no. He probably would have hauled him back up the crag, so long as
the daylight permitted it. Instead, Jonathan beams, extending his hand for Dio
to hold. And together, they misstep through the forest another dozen times.
The problem with Jonathan is that he is too eager, tripping and falling every
couple steps in his haste to see everything. This ends with him stuck up to his
knees in a muddy bog.
"Don't struggle," Dio instructs, "I'll get a branch for you to hold onto."
"No need!" Jonathan calls back, lurching forward to grab the nearest tree
trunk.
"What are you," Dio starts.
"I think this'll work," Jonathan disclaims, pulling himself through the muck
with the tree as an anchor. Then he lifts one dirtied leg up and, after three
tries, manages to wrap it around the tree trunk. He does the same with the
other leg.
"You look ridiculous."
"At least I escaped."
"And now you are dangling from the side of a tree," Dio huffs. He takes a step
forward with his own hand extended, prepared to pull the other boy back. He
discovers the bog starts unseen and sinks a good two feet, well, two feet deep
into the mud.
He curses and ignores his own advice then, kicking up a struggle, and the
indignance in his expression makes Jonathan laugh.
"I hate this place," Dio declares with all seriousness after he's been forced
to straddle the same tree. His boots are ruined, Jonathan's boots are lost,
their clothes are in tatters and the satchel's fabric is a lost cause. There's
a disgusting dirty slickness to their steps courtesy of the dripping mud, one
which Jonathan either ignores or fails to notice.
"We should look for shelter," Jonathan murmurs, scouring the growing shadows
for any sign of a cave or alcove.
"We just left a perfectly good shelter," Dio grumbles.
"But the sun's setting," Jojo points out, "We won't climb up in time." While
this is true, it does nothing for Dio's peevishness.
The silver lining of their wind through the trees and shrubs is that the trees
and branches clear away the worst of the caked mud. But when daylight is all
but gone and the sun is a semicircle over the hidden horizon, it becomes clear
there is neither cave nor alcove to retire in for the night.
"How about there?" Jonathan asks, pointing up into the darkness.
"What is there?" Dio asks, staring into the blackness.
"Branches. We can use the leaves for cover." And then, at Dio's disbelieving
expression: "That's how the Robinsons did it."
"I highly doubt," Dio sneers, only for Jonathan to release his hold and throw
himself against another tree, scrabbling and scrambling up the wide trunk.
Jonathan's many afternoons spent lounging in the boughs of the great oak tree
serve him well here: he reaches the lowest branch in minutes, heaving himself
up with a giddy 'oomph'. There's the snap of smaller branches and the rustle of
leaves and then, silence.
"...Jojo?"
"Come on up!" Jonathan urges, "It's actually pretty comfortable!"
"We just moved from one suite to another," Dio mutters, shouldering the satchel
and pressing his hands against the bark, "And you call this comfortable!"
"That's no good," the other calls.
"What?"
"The bag. You won't be able to climb with it. Here, throw it up."
"I can't see you!"
"Just throw it!"
Dio puts more force in than necessary; the coins and notes hit Jonathan in the
shoulder and he gives a grunt of pain. But he catches of it regardless and
repeats his previous urging for Dio to follow suit.
London has trees, but none of the ones in the parks were suited to climbing,
much less lounging. Even if they had been, his dead self had had better things
to do. As a result, he cannot find any guidance in his collective memories for
getting up the damn tree.
More curses soon follow and by the time he painstakingly slithers up the trunk,
the darkness causes him to bang his head against the branch.
"Ouch," Jonathan winces, leaning over to blindly dangle his arm, "That sounded
like it hurt."
"What are you doing?" Dio asks, when the other brushes against his shoulder.
"Trying to help. Is that you?"
"Yes."
"Can you grab on? I'll pull you up."
In the morning, when they descend from the treetops and see the branch in all
its scraggled glory, Jonathan will call the feat a miracle. As it is, the
overwrung limb gives a stomach-churning creak when Dio is heaved atop it.
"How high are we?" he immediately asks.
"No idea," Jonathan answers, and Dio can just barely make the outline of his
shrugging shoulders out. "More than ten feet, I think. Why?"
"Would the drop be fatal?"
"We're not going to fall," Jonathan reassures him as the branch creaks with
dissent.
Dio arches an eyebrow on principal but it's a useless gesture.
"What now?" he demands.
"We sleep, I guess," he sees the other boy shrug again, "Unless you know
something else we should be doing?"
"Oh no," Dio snaps, "I love getting stuck in trees."
"We're not stuck."
"What about the bog?" Dio counters, "There's obviously a source of water
somewhere, have you considered where it comes from?" And then, when Jonathan
says nothing, he continues with: "Because it's most likely from the rain. What
will we do when the ground beneath this tree turns into a swamp tomorrow?"
"You don't know that."
"You don't know the opposite."
"It's not going to rain," Jonathan says with childish certainty. "This is
France, not Britain." And then he sneezes.
"What are you doing?" he asks when Dio is touching his forehead.
"You don't have a fever, at least."
In imagining the other trying to gain admittance into a French infirmary,
Jonathan has a fit of nervous giggles, nearly falling off the branch. Dio
glares, grabbing at him, and they're both teetering for a couple precarious
moments. Jojo only sobers when the branch creaks again, reaching for the trunk
to steady himself.
"Sorry," he takes a shuddering breath, "Nerves, I think."
Although it makes no difference, Dio's expression softens. He presses his
scraped-clean palm against the other boy's cheek, scrubbing at the flakes of
nearly-dried mud.
"We should sleep," he cedes, "For there's no sense arguing in a tree."
"Can you come closer?" Jonathan asks, turning so that his back rested against
the trunk and his legs dangled from the sides of the branch.
"Why?" Dio asks in-turn, even as he's gingerly scooting nearer. He stops when
he feels Jonathan's leg but lets himself be pulled the rest of the way.
It is like the earlier days, with Jonathan's arms wrapped around him. He buries
his dirtied face in Dio's neck and Dio rests his chin in turn.
"You're shivering," he notes. And then he remembers that the other had likely
soaked his coat by falling into the bog a second time. "Here," he starts,
trying to shirk his jacket, "Take mine."
But Jonathan holds on tight and adamantly shakes his head, unwashed mop of hair
brushing against Dio's chin.
"I'm tired," he murmurs. And so, Dio lets him sleep.
Sleeping perched on a treebranch in the middle of a lightless forest is a
special sort of punishment. For one, the forest is loud -- there's the crunch
and rustle of leaves, the hooting of owls, even the leathery wingbeats of bats.
And although the temperatures are above freezing, the night as still cold, and
a damp cold at that. The sort of freezing that slowly seeps into the bones.
When Jonathan's teeth start chattering, Dio shrugs his jacket off without a
second thought, throwing it over the other boy's head and shoulders. Though
Jonathan never wakes, his teeth eventually still, though the shivering remains.
Dio thinks of a slow and painful death, of their intertwined corpses being
discovered years later, picked to the bones by the wildlife. The loss of the
jacket is acutely felt and he falls into a cold, wet, and dreamless sleep.
-
Jonathan wakes to the cry of birds, chirping and cooing from their higher
perches. He opens his eyes and sees Dio -- well, his shirt, and notices the
additional covering. Everything is so damp and the air is heavy with the scent
of oak and pine.
He makes the mistake of looking down and Dio wakes when he gives a cry of
alarm.
"What is it?"
"Look!" Jonathan points at the mist-covered lower layer of forest.
Dio looks and then curses.
"As if it weren't bad enough..." he mutters, squinting out at the obscured
floor.
The trunk is slippery from the early morning dew; Jonathan jumps the last three
feet and Dio slides the whole way down.
"There!" Jonathan says, wiping his hands and looking far too pleased for
someone who had spent the night shivering, "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
Dio declines to comment, looking up at the branch. It was three, maybe four,
yards up off the ground -- nearly invisible through the mist.
Jonathan takes his hand again and begins marching in some random direction.
"Now what are you doing?" Dio demands, reaching over to take the satchel back.
"Looking for food," Jonathan replies, "Aren't you hungry?"
"There's a village on the other side of the crag."
"Mm. Look at those berries. D'you think we can eat them?"
"How would I know?"
"Well," Jonathan shrugs with enthusiasm, "No harm in trying!" As he is unable
to climb this tree, he plucks a couple small stones off the ground and tries to
hit the berries off. Dio watches on, still wet and cold and unable to
understand why anyone, least of all Jonathan, wanted to be in a godforsaken
forest when there was a perfectly unoccupied castle an hour's climb away. When
Jonathan gives up on the stones and begins rooting around for a stick, Dio
begins to itch.
"Jojo," he growls, when he counts fifteen bug bites, "We need to go. Now."
Jonathan pauses in his attempts to whack at the bundle of berries.
"What's wrong with here?" he asks, looking genuinely surprised.
"You have three insect bites on your face," Dio snaps, "And who knows how many
more underneath the mud."
"Oh," Jonathan lowers the stick to scratch at his forehead, "So that's what it
was. Well, you have them too."
"Sleeping like that will be the death of you -- "
"I'm sure we'll get used to it."
"No we will not." Sticky and dirty and still cold and wet, Dio smacks at his
arm and then walks over, yanking the stick out of Jonathan's hand and throwing
it to the side, "Stop this nonsense, we're leaving now."
Jonathan watches the fallen branch disappear into the mist. He turns to face
Dio with his jaw clenched with resolve.
"I'm not going."
"Jojo," Dio tries to reason, "You can't stay here. This is no place for people
to live."
"I can and I will," Jonathan replies, voice trembling with conviction. "The
Robinsons did it."
"The Robinsons are fiction!" Dio explodes, "None of what they did has any
relevance to us, much less now! And don't look at me like that, I know you
think this place is as wretched as I do and there is -- "
"No," Jonathan shakes his head emphatically, "I don't think it's bad at all."
"Liar. What happened to your ambitions of being a gentleman? Do you think lords
and squires dwell in treetops?"
"Civilisation," Jonathan starts, "Is where he is." He balls his fists and
glares, "I told you, didn't I? I never want to go back there. Never."
"So long as we avoid doors, he has no way of getting us back," Dio argues. "And
the castle has no doors but it is somewhere people are meant to live, which is
why we should stay there."
Jonathan opens his mouth and then closes it. He refrains from arguing further,
stooping down to pick and pitch one last stone at the bundle of berries. It
misses its mark, as they all did, and he stalks off.
Dio thinks the buzzing of the forest is pooling between his ears. He hates it,
hates its indifference most of all, but as Jonathan was determined to stay...
Lacking other options, he follows.
Jonathan looks back when he hears the rustling leaves. There's a flash of
surprise before he turns around and begins walking again.
-
While trudging through the forest, the sun rises higher and higher until the
mist evaporates before their eyes. The forest is a different world during the
day -- vibrant and lively, filled with color and life. Were he not covered in
bug bites and serious contemplating setting fire to the whole place if only to
force Jonathan out of it, he might have appreciated it.
The problem with nature was that there was no justice to be gained from
fighting it. The forest could not be coerced or talked down or even reasoned
with. Its flora and fauna lived by their own standards and cared little for
human whims.
The trek ends at the edge of a pond, created from the diversion of a medium
deaver dam. Jonathan walks around the dam, crouching at the riverbank. Was this
an offshoot of the Seine, Dio wonders, watching the other boy dip his hands in.
After his hands are clean, Jonathan washes his face. Dio heaves a sigh and does
the same; they soon strip bare and jump into the stream.
After he's cleaned himself entirely and washed the remains of their clothes,
Dio hangs the garments on a nearby branch to dry. Then he stretches himself out
on a large rock and, on a whim, tries to tally his bug bites. He's on seventeen
and only at the waist when Jonathan exits the stream, dripping wet and shaking
the water from his hair.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"Counting."
"Oh." He flops down on the ground, unbothered by the blades of grass, and
begins to do the same. He counts aloud up 'till nine, then furrows his brows.
"What's a bite on top of a bite?"
Dio frowns. "There's no such thing."
"Look here," Jonathan points at the bend of his arm.
"That's disgusting."
"But it counts as two, right?" Jonathan insists, having taken it to be a game.
"I guess," Dio shrugs, lying down and combing through his hair. Outside of the
itching sensation, he feels his stomach ache with hunger, to say nothing of his
parched throat.
"How many did you have?" Jonathan asks once he's done.
"Twenty-seven."
"Me too!"
"That's nothing to celebrate about," Dio grumbles, "We'll have no blood left
after a week of this."
"I'm sure it'll be alright," Jonathan insists, "After all, we found this
place."
"I don't see anything to eat," Dio sourly replies, glancing from the rushing
stream to the tranquil pond.
"But don't you see?" Jonathan gestures at the lush expanse, "Other things must
come here so... so if we wait and watch, we can see what they eat."
Dio heaves a sigh, knowing better than to point out the irrationality, and
pushes himself off the rock, checking the still-garments. Then he walks over to
the pond and cups the water with his hand, taking a tentative sip.
"Well?" Jonathan asks, having followed him back, "How is it?"
"...Palatable," Dio admits. There's a refreshing sweetness to the freshwater,
no doubt the result of dehydration.
"See?" Jonathan preens, sinking down on all fours. He leans forward, drinking
from the source as beasts do, and Dio frowns, pulling his head back.
"What was that for?" Jonathan demands.
"Don't drink like that," Dio orders, "It's demeaning."
The other boy looks at him oddly and there's the flicker of rebellion in his
eyes. But he does drink in a more civilised fashion when Dio releases his grip.
They while away the rest of the morning by the riverbank. Jonathan scrounges up
some woodland strawberries and an assortment of weeds while Dio is wringing
their clothes dry a second time. After they eat through the paltry means of
sustenance, Jonathan tries to make a fire and Dio wades into the river, making
an effort to catch, well, anything.
"Caught anything?" Jonathan calls.
"No." Three fish had slipped through his fingers however and the last one had
doubled back to brush by his ankle. "How about you?"
"Nothing." Jonathan throws his hands up, "Can we switch?"
"Sure," Dio shrugs, clambering out of the river. Jonathan hands him the broken
branches before wading in himself.
After an hour, neither of them have anything to show for their efforts. Dio has
rubbed the bark right off both halves of the branch while Jonathan has made a
semicircle of submerged rocks in an attempt to cage the fish.
"This is ridiculous," Dio says again. He throws the sticks to the ground and
stands up, wiping his hands. Here they are, stark naked in a French forest
trying to catch fish and stoke flame and -- and for what? To have something to
eat? To not freeze through the second night? He goes over to the clothes and
has to satisfy himself knowing that they, at least, had dried. His jacket is
frayed at the edges; his shirt is missing three buttons; his trousers have
criss-crossed wrinkles. How far they had fallen, he thinks, to be wearing
unaltered and unironed prêt-à-porter! But his clothes are fully dry and when he
slips into them, he feels better already.
"Jojo, come here," he calls, motioning to the still-hung garments, "Dress
yourself."
"Now," he sighs, feeling warm and clothed and fully human for the first time
all day, "I am going to village, to buy matches and food if nothing else."
Jonathan's face falls.
"Were the berries not enough?" he asks, crestfallen.
Dio says nothing but shoulders the satchel, mentally preparing himself for the
trek. The thorns and brambles of the forest are as welcoming today as they were
yesterday and every step forward is an effort. A couple minutes in and he hears
Jonathan, tramping and trampling over the fallen leaves and branches.
Across the vines and brambles and through the alternating sunlight and shade,
the two of them stare out at one another. What would have been silent
contemplation in the castle is filled with the screeching, scurrying, and
chittering of the natural world. Although Dio ends up speaking, it is Jonathan
who bridges the distance, grabbing the edge of his sleeve and twining their
fingers at the simple "are you coming".
-
The proprietor of the general store at Andely speaks little English and
Jonathan does not know "matches" in French. But they successfully purchase both
matches and food and make it back to the pond an hour before sundown. They sit
around the small fire, breaking bread, and Jonathan reiterates his desire to
make this place without doors his own.
***** and now we are boys again *****
Although the forest is bearable in the spring and summer months, Dio is acutely
aware of what the colder weather meant. More rain, though no snow, and a
persistent numbness that left one unable to feel their limbs. He'd seen beggars
in London driven to unspeakable lengths for the promise of warmth.
Jonathan, unsurprisingly, is unconvinced.
"But you said it doesn't even snow here," he protests, "So why would we have to
go indoors?"
"Because," Dio reasons, wondering still how they managed to survive outside for
so long, "where we're sleeping now," he gestures to the forest floor, "Will be
flooded in the rainy season." It was a wonder how they hadn't caught anything,
really.
"Oh." Jonathan frowns, mulling this over, "We can just sleep in the trees
then."
"We can't sleep in the trees!"
"Why not? I've seen bears do it. And the Swiss Family Robinsons -- " Dio
terminates the conversation then. For understandable but frustrating reasons,
Jonathan needed to be dragged to the castle. And whenever they were there -
- writing, reading, pretending to be human again -- he looked like a caged
animal, constantly darting gazes to the forest. Although Dio has won on having
something like classes, the only reason Jonathan consented was because his
first notebook had been rendered unusable by a sudden rain.
So he goes to the village.
Although it's within walking distance, he has followed Jonathan's lead here,
keeping civilization at arm's length. In the village however, he discovers
problems aplomb with his straightforward plan. First, the storekeeper didn't
accept francs. No problem, Dio had thought, altering the man's memory
accordingly. Only to find out there was nothing in their size as boys their age
were expected to stay in the village limits. There was nothing, even, for full-
grown men as they were not expected on month-long hunting trips. Under the
influence of Whitesnake, the storekeeper presents Dio with the warmest wool
garments available.
Dio takes them, along with additional supplies, thinking anything was better
than nothing. He's wrong and the only silver lining is that he finds out a days
rather than months after. The wool absorbed water, practically doubling in
weight, and the oversized jacket suddenly feels like a brick. A cloying, wet
brick. Dio makes a disgusted expression, hurling the jacket off, and Jonathan
gives him a knowing look.
"Shut it," he grumbles, craning his head to wring the water from his hair.
-
The decision to hunt their own winter garments is perfectly logical. Dio is
even lays out the situation to Jonathan. The nearest village didn't have
anything available, who knew how far the second nearest village was (and if
they bred a stauncher sort of trapper), Jonathan was adamant about not living
in the castle -- about as adamant as Dio was to not freeze to death. Which
meant they needed warmer clothing, and fast.
"I don't want to," Jonathan says at the end of Dio's perfectly logical
explanation.
"What do you mean you don't want to? Do you want to go to the castle then?"
"No."
What do you think your father does on his weekend trips with business partners,
Dio wants to demand, do you think they take teapots and a card table to the
forest? But Jonathan's jaw is set and there's something like disappointment
stirring in his gaze. So Dio heaves a sigh and changes the subject. He doesn't
know what he was expecting -- thinking Jonathan Joestar would help him. The
other had always been about as useful as his mutt.
As a result of the village's lack of inclination for experiencing (or better
yet, subduing) the great outdoors, the wildlife treats them with varying
degrees of polite disinterest and outright contempt. Though they haven't been
preyed on, neither of them have tried their hand at catching anything more than
fish.
Dio goes into hunting with all the bravado of a city boy, staking his sights on
a wolf. Any wolf, really. His reasons were as follows: the wolves were the
loudest wildlife by a long shot, constantly barking, howling, moaning, and
baying, and looking at them reminded him of dogs and he hated dogs. Plus, they
didn't seem bothered at all by the rain, or even paddling upstream, so clearly
the fur wasn't all for show. But the village is so backwards they don't even
have traps on sale.
He switches his sights to deer following a particularly embarrassing stumble
involving falling from a tree and onto a wolf. The dumb beast had given him a
pitying look before trotting off.
So Dio tries with deer. He is about as successful with those as with the wolves
-- the difference being that deer were used to being preyed upon and were
subsequently impossible to approach.
As the days grow shorter and his patience grows thinner, the list of acceptable
pelts grows longer and longer -- from wolves to deer to wild pigs to beavers to
rabbits to mice -- and still, he has nothing to show for his efforts. Most
things move too fast or can't be found in the first place. And if they could be
found at all, they always (correctly) identified him as harmless.
At this point, dragging Jonathan to the castle seemed to be the easier option.
Sure, he'd be kicking and screaming and no, Dio couldn't skin him, but at least
it was no issue locating the other!
His efforts go unrewarded while Jonathan -- who had been dutifully building an
unattractive and inhospitable leaf-fort -- has opportunity fall into his lap.
Said opportunity comes in the form of an old wolf, clearly in its twilight
years, making its way on the other side of the stream with an obvious limp.
Jonathan is the one who brings said creature to attention.
"Dio, look," he points, "That's the second time I've seen him. I think there's
something wrong with him."
And then, before Dio even gets his knife, Jonathan crosses the waterway.
"Jojo! Wait!"
Like most things on the brink of death, the wolf is cautious. It bares its
fangs, growling, as Jonathan raises his hands and Dio follows, dagger drawn.
"There, there," Jonathan is murmuring in a soft tone, "I'm not going to hurt
you..."
Well, Dio thinks, it seemed Jonathan was useful for some things. He raises his
dagger, fully prepared to slash at it multiple times, except Jonathan catches
him and throws his arms about the beast.
"Dio -- no!"
"Jojo," he clicks his tongue and keeps from rolling his eyes, "Step aside."
"No!" The wolf is baring its fangs again, trying to back away, but Jonathan
hangs on tight.
"Jonathan, be reasonable!" Dio snarls, "It's going to die anyway, that's what
happens to the weak and old out here!"
"No!"
"You're the one who wanted to stay here!" he roars, "So you should follow the
law of the land and help me in killing the damn thing!"
"But we're not animals," Jonathan retorts, looking him in the eye, "We don't
kill the weak and the old."
"Then what are we doing out here?" Dio snaps, "Jojo -- if you want to live in a
civilised fashion, then live inside civilisation." But Jonathan's argument has
already cut where it matters and though the dagger is still raised, the moment
of bloodlust has already passed. Jonathan turns his attention to the wolf then,
letting it go and petting its head.
"That's it," he beams, "Who's a good boy, who's a -- "
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Jonathan carefully lifts the canine's left paw up, gingerly
prodding at the skin. The wolf flattens its ears, giving a pitiful whine. "Oh,"
Jonathan says, digging his fingers in and pulling out -- "Teeth?"
"Probably from a fight with another wolf," Dio snorts.
"Oh!" Jonathan realises, "That's probably why he was limping!"
"How astute of you, Jojo."
Although Jonathan is expecting something like Androcles and the Lion -- if not
for it to turn into Danny Jr. -- as soon as it sees the other's usefulness
exhausted, the wolf trots off without a backwards glance.
If Jonathan didn't look so crestfallen, Dio might have said something to prod
at the wound. As it is, he shakes his head before helping the other boy up and
they make their way back across the stream.
"Do you think we'll always be strangers here?" Jonathan asks when they're back
under the overhang.
"Yes," Dio answers without hesitation: "Face it Jojo, this isn't our world."
Jonathan purses his lips, but doesn't offer more on the subject.
-
They have both noticed the temperature dropping by the time they're thrown
another lifeline. At this point, most of the birds have flown south for the
winter and the skies above the village are dotted with the smoke from chimneys.
After wasting time attempting to get a raised floor, they've taken to perching
in the trees. It is as uncomfortable as Dio thought it would be, albeit as
possible as Jonathan had thought.
They've been in the forest long enough to not feel alarm at the shaking of the
earth or the desperate neighing of horses intermingled with the bark of wolves.
"Do you think they'll catch one this time?" Jonathan asks, grinning lop-
sidedly. Dio tries to stifle the irritation for squandering a god-sent
opportunity.
Except unlike other times, this chase actually goes through their encircled
meadow. Like the rest of the creatures living in the forest, the wild horses
know they own the place. They -- the six or seven of them -- trample through
the fort Jonathan's spent weeks working on.
"Hey!"
"What are you doing?" Dio grabs the other's arm.
"They can't just -- "
"We can rebuild it," Dio hisses, "Don't go down there."
Jonathan might have argued, had the wolves not encircled the meadow then. Five
of the horses manage to escape but one of them -- a young stallion, Dio
supposes -- isn't quick (or wary) enough. Jonathan clutches onto him as the
wolves bare their fangs, circling, circling, and Dio might have covered the
other boy's eyes, if he hadn't begged for the wolf's life. As it is, Dio
reasons, Jonathan could stand to see the harsher side of nature.
The leader of the pack barks and the whole group pounces as one.
The result should be set in stone then. Except it's not. The horse rears
forward, whinneying, before lashing out with its front legs. There's a
sickening crunch and a howl cut short and Dio hears Jonathan wince. As for the
horse, well, it thrashes about as the wolves attempt to regroup, stomping and
stomping until it forces its way out of the circle.
The wolves are skittish and sore, but there is prey enough in late autumn. They
are human enough to respect their own dead. They circle the corpses, pawing at
the dirt, before the head of the pack leads them away.
The two of them scramble down the tree then, and Dio realises the air is cold
enough to see heat leaving the dead flesh.
-
Being born and bred in the countryside, Jonathan is actually more useful than
Dio in this regard. He has no problem draining the corpses and even knows the
best way to skin them. As the deer likely didn't know what it was doing it's
just another stroke of chance, that only the fur around the neck couldn't be
used.
When they've made do with all they could, the difference is immense. Even
though rabbit was softer and seal was more water resistant, this was still
several magnitudes warmer than the wool the villagers used.
While he's busy stitching the final edges of both their garments, Dio stops to
reconsider the unusual chain of events. It was ludicrous enough that a horse -
- even a wild one -- could best a pack of wolves, but for it to stomp two of
them to death, right when he and Jonathan needed their pelts the most? And what
of the first wolf, the one that was practically begging to be put out of its
misery? Could wolves even lose teeth at that stage? There are other odd
coincidences too, he notes, like how there was suddenly leftover wood from the
otherwise meticulous beaver dam. Or how, no matter how hard it rained, they
never seemed to have issue finding dry firewood.
In the face of his suspicions, he's lost for what the point of it might be. If
his other self's end game were to get Jonathan back, why would he help the two
of them now? And if he could control the universe as much as he implied -- to
the point of snuffing out a candle -- why couldn't he force them out?
He finishes his needlework and after trying it on, is surprisingly pleased with
the fit. He could probably fix the wool garments, so they'd have something to
wear if the fur was ever sullied beyond repair. He sets the (stolen) sewing
supplies to the side before calling Jonathan over. Despite having so many
misgivings in the first place, the other gladly takes to his new garments,
stretching his limbs and grinning wide.
"I haven't felt this warm since summer!" he beams, looking too happy for Dio to
be angry.
"And whose fault do you think that was?" is all he manages to grouse out.
-
The cold comes without regard for the lack of snow or the location and though
they are prepared for it, it is mostly in theory. Even Dio, for all the time
he's spent in the streets, has never thought to spend the whole winter
outdoors. Jonathan sees the sun shining one day late in December and thinks to
swim about underneath it. He jumps in and jumps out of the creek in record
time, yelping, and his teeth are chattering even after Dio's restoked the
flames.
The same logic which led the dying wolf to Jonathan is the only explanation for
how Jonathan gets off with a couple sniffles and Dio gets an outright fever.
"It's not fair," he hears himself feverishly moan, "It's not fair, it's not
fair, it's not fair." He feels hot and sweaty and impossibly uncomfortable. The
fresh water from the stream is so cold, he swears it's freezing his throat on
the way down.
He would have thrown a proper fit, kicking and screaming and swearing
everything off, if Jonathan weren't clutching onto his hand, hovering over. His
eyes glisten with unshed tears.
"Please don't die," he begs, "Please, please, please don't die. I'm so sorry
about making us stay here."
It hurts to even parse his words and when he squeezes the other boy's hands in-
turn, every muscle screams. And still, he works up the energy to rasp out: "The
castle's not much better."
The ridiculousness of his confession seems to do the trick. Jonathan laughs,
spluttering and crying, but he lets go of Dio's hand to hold him close.
"Have you added fuel to the fire?" Dio asks.
"Mm." Jonathan rests on top of him, blindly shifting his left hand. It its way
up Dio's face before resting, palm-down, on his forehead. Dio hears himself
moan at the blissfully cool sensation.
"Dio...?" Jonathan tries to move his hand, but Dio grabs at his wrist.
"That -- " he pauses to gasp, " -- feels really good." And then, because the
fever must really be getting to him: "My mother used to do that. Because we
couldn't afford ice."
"Oh." Jonathan relaxes and Dio releases his wrist. While keeping his left hand
in place, Jonathan rearranges himself on the makeshift floor, turning so that
his face was cushioned against the furs and he could make out the other boy's
neck and chin.
"I never met my mother."
"I know."
"So tell me about yours."
Only sickness can make that sort of logic seem amenable. Perhaps he is merely
looking for an excuse to talk about her -- about the false memories that seemed
to so real. Either way, he humors Jonathan, giving the other a handful of
select stories before being lulled to sleep by the droning of his own voice.
It's not much of a consolation, knowing that Jojo was already snoring by then.
-
The fever has broken by the time he wakes next morning, though Jonathan is
eager to coddle him some more. They huddle together under the remade overhang
during a winter shower, pointing out glimpses of various animals seeking
shelter. Jonathan whistles at a squirrel and a family of rabbits but none of
them take him up on the offer. It's probably the smell of wolf, Dio reassures
him.
As a result of the winds picking up, the sky is startlingly clear after a
couple hours, and a rainbow arches across. It's the sort of thing Jonathan
delights in seeing and in seeing the other's delight, Dio realises how little
the grander picture really mattered.
"Isn't it grand?" Jonathan asks, beaming once more.
"It is, Jojo," Dio freely admits, closing the distance with a chaste kiss, "It
is."
-
-
-
***** and again you intrude *****
George and Mary Joestar relocated to the countryside, thinking it would be an
ideal location for the large family they had planned to have. But Mary dies
months after Jonathan's birth and though George honors his late wife's wishes,
the immenseness of the Joestar manor becomes the clearest reminder of what
could have been. Mary had wanted a child in every bedroom, had wanted them to
put on a family skit every weekend and take up two pews at church. And when he
listened to her talk about it, George found himself wanting the same things.
With her.
Jonathan is all he has left of her and he loves his son dearly, don't you ever
doubt that. But there are times when he looks at the boy and thinks how much he
cherishes the other and how careful he must be. His wife has paid the highest
price and he will not be able to look her in the eye if he wastes it.
It is little wonder, that Jonathan grows up sheltered. Well cared for,
certainly, but alone and lonely too. Even though George tries to make time for
him, there was only so much an adult, even a parent, could do. He reads the boy
books and takes him out on walks and lets him sleep in the armchair when he's
too swamped with work.
In part due to his late development -- he was still wearing dresses at age
five, after all -- but mostly from his home environment, Jonathan does not take
well with the other boys. In the manor, he interacts mostly with his father,
then the servants, and sometimes the servants' children. Everyone adores him
unconditionally and they never begrudge him his clumsiness or shyness. But
among the country boys, who need to vie for attention in their homes as well as
in school, his ideas and wants are rapidly drowned out and when he raises his
voice slightly, one of the older boys tells him to run off back to the manor.
In blunter terms than that. Jonathan is so shocked by the other child that he
does just that, running and running until he's throwing open the door to his
father's study and bawling in the older man's lap.
But while his father is sympathetic, he refuses to actually do anything.
Jonathan doesn't understand, why the boys of the village can't act like the
servants' children. He cries a little more in frustration and his father
explains it as best he can: the manor is a sheltered environment, but a parent
can only control so much.
And so Jonathan, aged seven-and-a-half, decides he'll stay in the manor if all
the village boys were going to be so mean. He tells his father this as soon as
the idea occurs and though George Joestar raises an eyebrow, he does not forbid
or even expressly discourage such an action.
And so Jonathan plays by himself in the mansion.
Look at this, he tells himself sometimes, isn't it so much fun? I can do
whatever I want, whenever I want to. Checkers, cards, puzzles, crosswords, he
can even play pretend in the garden when the weather is nice!
Unfortunately, like most children, Jonathan eventually begins to crave company.
And while he can get his father to agree to a couple games -- a couple hours of
games even, on Sunday -- he can't shake the feeling that his father is bored.
He tries to vary it up, tag and a hide-and-seek and the rest, but the relieved
expression on his father's face at the end of their sessions never quite goes
away.
This is where one of the maids steps in. She's little more than a decade older
than him and has a younger brother around Jonathan's age. Like many servants,
she regularly sends a portion of her salary home. She catches the young master
playing pretend along the grand staircase one afternoon and, being done with
her own chores for the day, decides to indulge the child.
Jonathan will never admit it, even if it was patently obvious, but playing with
the maid was so much more fun than playing with his father. She didn't mind
really pretending, for one, and didn't need to be asked twice to, say, race in
and out the house because the floor was on fire but the magic bucket filled
with holy water was right on the doorstep. She tells really interesting stories
too, with knights and dragons and heroes, and can describe the battles as if
she were really there.
In short, it's little surprise when Jonathan attaches himself to her, and her
to him. He is delighted to learn she has the same name as his mother -- Mary -
- and she is equally pleased to find the master of the manor encouraging her
caretaking.
Their little games progress and progress until once, over the dinner table,
Jonathan mistakenly calls Mary-the-maid 'mother'.
The knife slips between George Joestar's fingers, clattering loudly against the
floor, and when he leans to the side to pick it up, his fingers brush against
the maid's and he catches sight of her blushing.
There are Words to be had that night.
Jonathan knows he's made a mistake, but he doesn't understand why. He cries
when his father comes up to his room and tells him the news, that Mary has
already been sent back to her family.
"It was my fault, Father," he sobs, "Please let her come back and punish me
instead."
"Jojo," George sighs, missing his wife distinctly in that moment. He climbs
into the bed and wraps his arm about Jonathan, a firm squeeze but not tight
enough to smother, "It was nobody's fault. Just a misunderstanding, that's
all."
Jonathan is too young to understand the intricacies. Why nobles weren't allowed
to marry servants. How there were scandals of noblemen using their female
servants and then throwing them out. Why George had no interest in a girl
barely half his age. But he can understand this: his father still loved his
mother very much and that was why he was reluctant to remarry.
"Father," he asks at the end of it, "Do you still love Mother?"
"Very, very much, Jojo. Very, very much."
"Do you think Mother loved me?"
"Of course she did. And she still does."
Jonathan rubs at his eyes before taking a deep breath.
"I'm sorry for calling -- for calling Miss Mary 'mother'."
"It's not your fault Jojo," his father replies, embracing him, "If anything, I
should have protected your mother." Thinking of Mary -- of his Mary -- seems so
surreal. He swallows too, closing his eyes as Jonathan returned the gesture. He
refuses to cry, especially in front of Jonathan.
Eventually, the embrace ends and George kisses his son goodnight.
-
Although Jonathan tries his best at a stiff upper lip, losing his first real
playmate is still a great blow. He doesn't cry outright after that first night
and never speaks of her, but the other servants start to keep him at arm's
length: polite but reserved and impersonal, and he ends up even more isolated
than before.
He must have really failed somewhere in life, George thinks, to be bringing up
his son's problems at the end of business discussion. Outside of the usual
jibes at remarrying and giving the boy a sibling, one of his older associates -
- a newly made grandfather, actually -- suggests a dog.
"He's hardly old enough to hunt," George protests.
"No, no, not a work dog. One of the toy breeds. The Queen has one around all
the time and my wife has gotten a whole litter. They're smart little devils
too, always jumping onto the seats and tables."
Jonathan has a sullen reaction to the idea of a dog as an eighth birthday
present.
"Do I have to get one?" he asks when they're en route to the kennel.
"Not at all," George promises, "But if you find one you like, and if he likes
you back of course, then you may have him."
Jonathan stares out the window for a while, contemplating, but doesn't add
anything further.
Having borrowed hounds from his friends for all his hunting trips, George does
not know much about dogs. As it turns out, the toy breed which Queen Victoria
had popularised is not available in the run-of-the-mill kennel. Furthermore,
there was a difference between a kennel and a shelter. Jonathan grabs onto his
hand when the dogs start barking and presses himself closer and closer the
farther in they go. And then, when George hears the disappointing news, the boy
runs off.
George thinks his son has returned to the carriage. He is surprised then, to
see Jojo in the farthest side of the room, face pressed up against the divider.
"Father!" he shouts, "I want that one!"
The worker at the shelter is surprised at the choice, hesitantly adding that
such a large dog might be too much for first time owners. That it was extremely
difficult to keep one in London apartments. They are greatly relieved then,
when George describes the manor's living conditions.
"This one here is all bark no bite," the worker underlines, opening the cage
and letting said dog out, "Be friendly but firm, though he's no good for the
hunt. Wouldn't hurt a fly, that one." Jonathan cheers and George is left to
work out the details, but what matters is that they ride back with the dog in-
tow. Jonathan has grand plans for Danny: they're going to be best friends and
act out horse and knight and go on long adventures through the countryside.
Danny is as-described, but Jonathan is still a pushover. He thinks that treats
and attention alone will win the other's affection and understands only the
basics of dog training. The dog settles in within a week and has Jonathan
scrambling for his every whim. If he whines at the table, the boy will give him
scraps. If he scratches at the door, the boy will let him into bed. And if he
tugs on a sleeve (or even a lock of hair!), the boy will take him on a walk.
George watches it all unfold with mix feelings. On one hand, it was a relief
that Jonathan's blind pick was harmless. On the other hand, hwo was the boy
supposed to make friends -- especially with children his own age -- when he was
being led around by the nose by his own dog?
The divine intervention George had been secretly praying for comes two months
later, in the heat of the summer months. In a day where no studying could be
done, he had taken Jonathan and Danny down to the riverbank for a picnic. Danny
respected him, at least, although Jonathan could still only get him to fetch
half the time. He indulges himself with the papers underneath the shade of the
tree while boy and dog frolic in the placid waters.
Jonathan missteps, sinking into the muck or a hidden current. The worst part
is, George doesn't even realise anything's wrong until Danny is leaping into
the water and dragging Jonathan onto the banks by his collar. George comes
running too then, in time to help his son sit up and regain his breath at
least.
"Jojo, what happened?"
"I don't know! One moment," he takes a deep breath, "I was swimming and then I
couldn't move my legs and I couldn't breath and..." he turns to look at Danny,
who's just finished shaking himself dry. The dog barks and he throws his arms
about it in gratitude and gets his whole face licked clean in return.
For reasons George himself doesn't understand, Jonathan becomes truly
inseparable from Danny that day. Of course they had spent a copious amount of
time together previously, but after the near-drowning and subsequent rescue,
the distance which had been kept closes itself. Danny becomes more obedient,
practically humouring, and Jonathan learns how to say no.
The drowning scare becomes a turning point and George cannot believe his eyes
when he sees Jonathan interacting with the other boys in the village. And not
just interacting, but playing! They're just as irreverent and (at times)
outright hostile as they were a year and a half ago, but Jonathan takes their
comments in-stride. All the time spent racing in and around the manor, first by
himself and then with Danny, has made him the fastest child by a noticeable
margin and by the end of summer, the other boys have actually accepted him as
one of them. And Danny tags along -- whether it's boxing or fishing or picking
up leftover crops -- and George pens himself a note, a reminder to thank his
associate for the idea.
A dog as a best friend, he thinks, shaking his head. Who would have thought?
-
When Jonathan meets Erina for the first time, his conscience is in turmoil. If
anyone had asked him, he would have said he liked being an only child. Or
rather, that there was nothing to complain about his current situation. Between
Danny and his friends in the village and his father's lessons, how could he be
considered lonely? Even though his father reassures him repeatedly that this is
not the case, Jonathan's read enough books to fear being replaced. He knows
he's not the best at most things, and sometimes other boys get the better of
him even in boxing, but were his shortcomings really enough to warrant another
son?
When he sees two boys from the town over bullying a girl, he is not, on the
contrary, looking for a fight. Rather, he is looking for a way to stand out, so
he can return to the manor, beaming, and tell his father 'look, I'm a hero
now'. And maybe, just maybe, his father will change his mind about wanting a
second son.
This is how Jonathan learns the difference between boxing and brawling. The
other boys are happy enough to rub his face in the dirt and the sting of
humiliation at being beaten in front of the girl he was supposed to save hurts
the most, really. When she tries to talk to him, he realises how segregated the
sexes in the village were and thinks, with all the spite of a child whose pride
had been wounced, that the separation was good. Girls had no business playing
with boys, and if this girl hadn't been here, he wouldn't have needed to fight
for her honour in the first place.
What comes out of his mouth is less hostile but more personal: "I didn't do it
for you!" Jonathan insists, "It's just because I'm going to be a gentleman!" He
doesn't drop his handkerchief on purpose, it just falls out of his pocket while
he makes his grand escape. But he's too sore to double back and pick it up.
-
His first meeting with the other boy, Dio Brando, goes as poorly as he had
expected. Worse, even. The village boys had told him stories of Londoners so he
had been prepared for posturing. That the other boy willfully antagonises him
to the point of bullying is something he can't understand.
He initially tries to go to his father for advice. But the other man has
already made Dio Brando into a golden calf. Although he's not harsh, he does
gently recommend that Jonathan recollect his own actions. Dio was an extremely
mature and well-mannered boy, his father adds, for him to lash out at you as
you described, he must have had a reason, don't you think?
No, Jonathan wants to say, I don't think so at all.
But the idea of someone being cruel for the sake of it is still so alien and
when he's playing with Danny or the boys in the village, he remembers how far
he's come. No one outside of his father (and mother, though he doesn't remember
her) had liked him immediately. And, if he's honest, he hadn't liked anyone
immediately. Plus Dio had just lost both his parents and Jonathan had promised
himself he would be a gentleman and didn't the priest say kindness started at
the hearth?
With this sort of borderline chivalry, he goes into the boxing session
determined to fight his best and then throw the match, hoping Dio might
appreciate the chance to show off. Although he's been number in the village
since January, Dio demonstrates he doesn't need the handicap, doesn't need the
niceness, and nearly puts his eye out for show. And Jonathan remembers those
long and lonely years of isolation when he's curled up in pain on the floor.
How long would Dio torment him like this, he wonders?
After Dio wins the boxing match, things go from bad to worse. The boys begin to
treat him as they did five years prior, calling him names just within earshot
and then pretending he was invisible when he tried to talk to them. This is all
Dio's doing, he knows. But what can he do? He's been assigned back to back
extra lessons, his father's attempt to minimise the berth in their academic
abilities, and every minute spent indoors and away from the others is time Dio
spends solidifying his own presence.
As he had feared, he ends up the social leper a second time.
Had it been five years ago, Danny's company would have been enough. His dog has
only grown cleverer in the years, able to open doors and windows and predict
who would be at the door. But now that he's played with other children -
- whiled away whole days on imaginary expeditions -- Danny isn't enough.
"Who needs friends like those anyways," Jonathan says outwardly, scratching
behind Danny's ears, "You're much better than them!"
To demonstrate, he grabs a pinecone and tosses it over the hill. Danny
obediently bounds after it, tail wagging while Jonathan heaves a sigh.
Danny returns with the pinecone and Jonathan praises him. But his dog is not
content, skip-leaping a bit before barking at something behind Jonathan.
Jonathan turns in time to see a girl leave a basket on the tree. She startles
at Danny's barking and runs off without a word. Jonathan is confused, initially
thinking it to be another one of Dio's games. But when he peeks into the fruit-
filled basket and sees his missing handkerchief, he remembers.
It's just a gesture of gratitude, he tells himself. He had no interest in
girls, he insists, even nice and pretty ones. And he doesn't even know her
name!
Still, he can't quell the pleasant sensation entirely and attributes it instead
to the freshness of the fruit.
-
When the girl runs off again the second time, Jonathan does a terribly
ungentlemanly thing for their third (or fourth) meeting. He tries to set a
trap.
Tying his handkerchief to the tree branch she seemed to be taken with had
actually worked, except Danny started barking up a storm and she was certainly
going to run off again and --
Although he can catch up to her without breaking a sweat, his hand is still
unquestionably clammy when he grabs her wrist.
She stops to gasp and he immediately lets her go.
"Uhm, sorry," he stammers, backing up, "I -- I've seen you before!" And then,
because he had nothing to lose, "I'm Jonathan. Jonathan Joestar. But everyone
calls me Jonathan. I mean Jojo. Jojo, everyone calls me Jojo." His nickname
sounded so infantile at the moment; he can't even look her in the eye. His dog
had a better name than him!
"Jojo," the girl repeats and he finds himself liking his name again. "Nice to
meet you. I'm Erina. Erina Pendleton."
He chances a glance, only to catch her doing the same, and they suddenly break
out into giggles.
-
Playing with Erina is different, vastly so, from playing with boys or Danny.
Her dress prevents her from most athletic pursuits and she turns her nose up at
the prospect of boxing, even when Jonathan promises he'll go easy! Although she
doesn't mind racing -- barefoot or with shoes -- Jonathan suspects she's not
trying her best. She never looks upset after losing, at least.
"Mother says girls aren't supposed to climb trees," Erina primly tells him when
he's hoisting Danny up the branches.
This is news to Jonathan. He stares at her as if she'd confessed to something
indecent.
"Why not?" he asks.
"Because my skirt will get dirty."
"Oh." He cranes up to help Danny back down before looking at her skirt. It did
look pretty, prettier than the ones the maids wore at least, and he could kind
of understand not wanting to dirty it. "Well then what do you want to do?"
"You can climb the tree," Erina offers, "And I'll sit here and act as a guard."
"That's no fun," Jonathan makes a face, "And I'm supposed to be the guard. The
tree is a watchtower, remember?" He sits down as well, getting Danny to shake,
turn, and roll over, before looking to see what was keeping his playmate so
quiet.
"What are you doing?"
"Picking flowers."
"Why?"
"To make a flower crown."
"A what?"
"A crown of flowers." She uses her fingernail to puncture the stem, threading
another flower's stem through it, before repeating the process. Jonathan
watches, fascinated, as a chain made of flowers appears before his eyes.
"Wow!" he exclaims, "That's amazing!"
"Could you... um, close your eyes?" Erina asks.
Jonathan does as told. He hears Danny panting and feels a feather-light touch
at the top of his head. And then leaves and petals slipping down his face.
"Oops," Erina squeaks as the flower crown turns into a necklace, "Sorry!"
But Jonathan is delighted and immediately asks to be taught how. And even
though she says it's a secret for girls, he wheedles it out of her and makes a
lop-sided chain of his own. This one actually fits Erina's head and when she
lifts her eyes to meet his, their fingertips brush against one another.
"Thank you!" Erina declares in a falsely high pitch, standing abruptly and
dashing off.
Jonathan is left under the tree. He turns to Danny who barks and then rolls
three times as if to say 'that's what happens when you play with girls'.
Jonathan laughs, reaching over to pet him.
Still, he doesn't take the necklace off.
-
Erina runs faster than she had for any of their races. So fast that the flower
crown Jonathan had made for her falls off en route. Her heart is beating and
she knows she's going to get in trouble for having neglected her chores. And
she hasn't even told her parents about playing with Jojo!
The worse thing is: she knows that playing with boys is Not Allowed. Boys were
violent and messy, constantly smelly and trekking mud everywhere. Even Jonathan
can't stay still for long, as evidenced by his climbing up a tree.
There's nothing different or special about him, she insists, except for the
fact that he was as alone as her. Alright, and how he had saved her doll from
those other boys.
Jonathan's adopted brother is leaning against the wall of her house. He meets
her gaze and she knows immediately that he's been waiting for her. His usual
posse of followers are nowhere to be seen, though -- from what Jonathan's said
-- he doesn't seem the type to loiter about alone.
"Miss Pendleton," he addresses.
Although she's prepared for a conversation, she still flinches at the way he
says her name. There's a part of her that wants to say his name in a similar
syrupy-sweet way, to see how he liked it.
"Good afternoon," is what she ends up saying, too meek to even look him in the
eye.
"You're, ah yes, Dr. Pendleton's daughter, aren't you?" the other boy asks.
Erina nods.
"Yes, I seem to remember you when I made my speech. Do you remember what it was
about?"
She nods again.
"Miss Pendleton," Dio starts, "You seem like a clever enough girl. So let me
assure you, it is in your best interests to stay far away from Jonathan
Joestar. Believe me, someone like yourself can do so much better than him. He's
weak and spineless and a liar to boot and -- "
All the blather Jonathan spouted about boxing suddenly rises to the forefront
and she balls her right hand into a fist, thumb out, and punches the other boy.
Time seems to stop and then speed up indefinitely. Her cheeks are blazing but
she's more angry than embarrassed.
"Don't talk about Jojo like that! You don't even know him!" she actually
screams. And then she shoves past him, into her own house and slams the door
before running to her room.
She has no idea why she did that, except a sudden righteousness that exploded
from his insults. From all she had seen of Dio, the other had no right -- none
at all! -- to badmouth Jonathan and cut him off like that. But from what
Jonathan had said, the other boy was downright vicious when angered (and bully
enough without). And so, Erina takes a deep breath, steeling herself for the
inevitable second round.
***** had I been more persistent *****
Dio has always known his temper to be his Achilles' heel. He can't think
straight when angry and the whole world seems to blur as he paces through it.
Seething and simmering, he refuses to touch the spot he had been struck, to
acknowledge the blow would have been an anathema in itself. Instead, he makes a
beeling for the Joestar mansion with the single line 'how dare she, how dare
she, how dare she' looping in his ears.
His stupid adopted brother is coming back too and he's got his equally-
challenged mutt in-tow. Dio had been planning, for appearances' sake, to kill
the other later. A year before they were of-age to inherit or so. That way he
wouldn't have to deal with the brunt of Lord Joestar's coddling; as there was
only so much a self-sufficient person could put up with. He'll take all the
wretchedly affectionate pats on the back in the world if it means getting even
though.
Instead of giving Dio a wide berth, as Dio had been expecting, Jonathan does a
double-take and then actually goes to meet him.
"Dio! What happened?"
No way. There is no way, he thinks, that that uppity little cunt had actually
made a mark. It is such a horrifying thought, he refuses to entertain it,
giving Jonathan his most disparaging look.
"Don't you have lines to be writing?" he sneers, trying to continue through the
parlor.
But Jonathan grabs him by the arm and reaches out to touch his face and Dio
loses, he flinches, and the other boy draws back. In the pause, he jerks his
arm out of Jonathan's grasp and continues walking. Jonathan does not try to
stop him again.
His cheeks are burning when he reaches his bedroom and he throws himself onto
his bed, swearing. Jonathan had probably talked the stupid girl up to it, there
was no way some bitch from the countryside would think to raise her hand
against a nobleman's son. He had been planning on humiliating the two of them,
separately, so as to truly isolate Jonathan, but if the other boy were capable
of such plots, Dio has to press his own offensive.
-
After Dio's usual callousness, Jonathan is sorely tempted to leave it at that.
He watches his adopted brother make his way up the stairs before turning to
Danny. Danny cocks his head to the side, wagging his tail, and Jonathan forces
up a smile.
"You're right," he tells his dog, "Who wants to understand people like him
anyways?"
He scratches Danny behind the ears before leading him to the kitchen. After a
long day of running across the countryside, the two of them can empty out the
ice box. While Danny is gnawing on the bones, Jonathan combs the leaves and
bits of dirt from the dog's hair. He buries his face in the spotted hide,
accidentally taking a deep whiff, before pulling back immediately and making a
face.
"You need a bath," he complains. Danny pauses in his grand plan to swallow a
bone whole to turn to him, barking.
"Gross," Jonathan grumbles. If anything Danny's breath smelled worse than his
fur. Danny barks again, as if laughing, before licking his owner's face,
returning again to his bone.
"I guess I smell pretty bad too, huh?" Jonathan concedes, sniffing himself. He
could smell grass and mud and the leftovers of their afternoon snack. It
doesn't smell bad to him, but then, dogs had more sensitive noses. Danny barks
and Jonathan swipes the bone from out underneath the dog's paws, lobbing it
into the parlor.
Well, he reasons, they've already cleaned out the ice box and tracked
footprints and pawprints across the whole ground floor.
"We're going to get it this time," he laughs when Danny faithfully brings the
bone back. He pets and scratches the dog again, even giving him a belly rub,
and tries not to look at the flower necklace dangling from his neck.
After Danny has had his share, Jonathan leads the other out into his house.
There are even more bones than before.
"Danny!" he chastises, "I thought you were going to bury these!"
Danny delicately places the new additions in his collection before tilting his
head, feigning ignorance.
"Ooh, wait 'till Father sees this," Jonathan dramatically sighs. He's in too
good of a mood to reproach the other though, and soon sprints back into the
manor, taking the stairs two at a time before reaching his own bedroom. He
gingerly removes the necklace before taking off his outdoor clothes. Then, when
he's slightly more presentable, he puts the necklace back on and grins at
himself in the mirror.
"This is truly a most splendid, um, piece of jewelry," he tells his mirror
image. In his mind, he sees the Queen herself trying on yards and yards of
pearls. "The craftsmanship is most skilled and you can tell someone poured
their heart and soul into this."
And then, in a falsetto: "It truly brings out my eyes. I'll take five, no, a
dozen. My secretary will ring with the details, I have a ball to go to!"
He promptly falls to the floor, giggling, at the end of the impromptu skit.
He's grinning from ear to ear and making a complete fool of himself but it
doesn't matter because no one is there to see him and
"I just got a present from a girl!"
Jonathan takes the chain off and leaps into bed, showing the bound-up flowers
to his mother's portrait, "Mother, do you see this? Thank you for looking over
me! Thank you for the flowers!" With even more care, he drapes the flowers over
her frame, so that the photo was encircled by the blooms. Then he hugs his
pillow and rolls around on the bed some more.
Unfortunately, a voice that sounds suspiciously like his father's is nagging
away at him. It is gentle and quiet, but righteously persistent and he rolls
himself off the bed shortly after, talking once more with his mirror image.
"It's not my fault," he protests, "I wasn't the one who hit him! If anything,
he was the one who hit me. I thought my eye was going to be poked out,
remember?"
He tries to give an innocent smile, but it falls flat.
"And besides," he continues, "I don't like him and he doesn't like me. I think
he's an ungrateful wretch and a bully and he thinks I'm stupid and useless!"
And then:
"What do I care if he's hurt and I'm happy? He was happy when I was hurt! He
was happy to hurt me!"
He sees himself frown in the mirror and throws himself back on the bed with a
huff.
He doesn't like Dio and Dio doesn't like him. He doesn't like having to walk on
eggshells in his own house, he doesn't like being mocked and teased by people
he thought were friends, and he certainly doesn't like being shown up time and
again in front of his own father. Who cares who started it (even though it was
absolutely Dio), the point was: Dio had finally got what was coming to him and
even if Jonathan hadn't been the one to do it, he ought to be feeling good
about it!
Jonathan makes up his mind and then looks to see his mother. It's impossible to
scowl before her so he settles for a pout.
"Not you too," he laments, though he pushes himself off the bed a second time.
There's some rubbing alcohol and salve in the drawer of the right nightstand.
He takes them and then takes a deep breath before exiting his room and making a
left to Dio's room.
He knocks and then counts to ten. There's no answer. Just to fully drill it
into his conscience that he had tried, he even turns the doorknob. Except this
one time, Dio had forgotten to lock his door.
Jonathan musters up his courage, pushing the door open, only to see his adopted
brother in a similar state: lying face-down on the bed.
"Dio...?" he cautiously asks.
The other boy lifts his head and says, with an expression that looks fit for
murder: "Get out, Jonathan."
Even with the cut lip and the blueish bruise (which, Jonathan remembers, had
initially been red), Jonathan is tempted to obey. The other obviously didn't
want anything to do with him and, quite frankly, he returned the sentiments
whole-heartedly.
Both of his parents urge him on then and he clutches onto the first-aid
supplies before pressing forward.
"Are you deaf as well as dumb," Dio snarls when Jonathan drops to his knees
right before the bed, "I don't want you here so get out."
"I don't want to be here either!" Jonathan protests, "But something really good
happened to me today and now Mother is telling me to be a proper gentleman so I
can get married someday!"
The spectacular leap of logic coupled with the word 'mother' throws Dio off-
kilter long enough for Jonathan to grab his chin and unprofessionally wipe at
the already-dried blood. The alcohol stings and Dio tries to pull away, but
Jonathan maintains his grip.
At this close distance, it's impossible to not have eye contact. Dio closes his
eyes just to avoid that.
Jonathan prefers it that way; the other boy's gaze freaks him out (along with
everything else about him) and he'd, well, probably prefer the other a corpse.
Still, he cleans up his cheek and lip as best he can, coating half his face
with what feels like salve an whole inch thick. Then he lets go, eager to hurry
away, but Dio stops him with the closing barb of:
"This is all your fault, you know?"
Jonathan closes the door and dashes to his own room, tossing the first aid
supplies on the chest of drawers before turning on the tap in the bathroom. He
washes his hands, thrice, and still can't make sense of Dio's parting words.
Finally, he throws himself on top of the bed again and tries to frown at his
mother.
"I hope you're happy," he says sourly, "Though he's probably going to pretend
that never happened!"
Jonathan is right, though he doesn't know how much. That night, when the three
of them are eating dinner (and he's managed to keep all his food on his
plate!), his father naturally asks how their day went. Jonathan holds back from
commenting on the flower crown-necklace, curious about Dio's story, but the
other boy smiles and gives his usual platitudes. No mention about the blue
bruise on his left cheek is made.
-
"Shouldn't you have asked why?" Jonathan presses after he's asked his father
for company after dessert.
"It's only a bruise," Lord Joestar shrugs, "Even you've got into tussles,
Jojo."
"But...!"
"I gave him an opportunity to explain but he evidently feels it unnecessary.
Boys will be boys," he chuckles, "And I'm sure the other boy has his share of
bruises too."
"If you say so..." Jonathan grumbles.
-
Lord Joestar's comparatively laissez-faire approach to childrearing allows Dio
to stay home on Saturday and skip going to church on Sunday. Come Monday and
the bruise is still a stark purple (although the cut on his lip has mostly
healed) and he still barely consents to lessons, throwing the meanest possible
looks at Jonathan whenever their father's attention was elsewhere.
Jonathan is puzzled. Who could have inflicted such a blow on Dio, and why had
Dio blamed it on him? He had heard of sleep-walking, but sleep-punching? He
lays out the situation to Danny, who barks and then begs to be scratched, and
then, when Erina arrives, he recounts what he knows of the story to her.
"I don't understand why he said it's my fault," Jonathan concludes. But his
playmate has turned ghastly white at this point so he quickly retraces his
words, "It doesn't look that bad, I mean. And Father is right, of course. We're
boys, we get in tussles all the time!" But Erina still looks disturbed.
"Is he very angry with you?" she asks, at last.
"No more than usual," Jonathan lies. How stupid was he, he thinks, to describe
Dio's bruise in sickening detail to a girl? "I'm sure he'll come around soon
enough." Once the bruise went away, certainly. And then, because Erina still
looks so worried, he drops his voice and whispers: "Don't tell anyone about
this, okay?"
She nods.
"But..." Jonathan can't believe what he's saying, "But I think -- I think I'm
worried about him."
Erina looks at him as if he'd just grown a third eye.
"About Dio?" she repeats, "Why?"
"I don't know!" Jonathan answers, "I don't like him, of course, but I don't
think it's right. For him to be cooped up like this all over a bruise."
"But he's the reason you have extra lessons!"
"I know that," Jonathan scowls, "But Father is right. It's not very gentlemanly
to hold onto a grudge and we are brothers, sort of."
"Jojo..." Erina is about to tell her side of the story then, but Jonathan beats
her to it.
"So I need your help."
"My help?"
"Yes!" Clearly, a lot of thought has been put into this. "Since Dio isn't going
to say who did this to him, I have to find out myself."
Erina blanches. "What are you going to do once you find out?"
"Punch him back, of course!" When he gives a left jab for show, Danny barks.
And then he sees Erina's expression and adds: "Don't worry, I'm a pretty good
fighter. I won't get hurt!"
His playmate mulls over her options before carefully asking: "So... what do you
want me to do?"
"Ask around the village," Jonathan shrugs, "The other boys probably won't talk
to me, but maybe they'll talk to you."
"They won't talk to me either," Erina admits, frowning.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a girl."
"Oh. Right." He's reminded again of the unusual nature of their friendship and
how they were only friends because of circumstances. "Can you ask the girls,
then? Maybe they saw something. I guess I'll try to ask the boys, then."
"Alright..." Erina reluctantly acquiesces, still looking uncertain.
"Awesome, thanks!" Jonathan beams, pushing himself up before giving her a
helping hand. "C'mon Danny," he calls, "We're going to visit the village!"
"What? Now?"
"Why not now?" he asks, and as Erina cannot make up an excuse fast enough, the
three of them head to the village.
Although the other boys still teased him, they were also eager for news about
Dio. And so it is that Jonathan learns they hadn't seen him since Friday
afternoon. Erina has even less to report from the girls and after collating
their stories, it seems no one had seen Dio in the time between lunch and his
reappearance in the manor.
"This is so weird," Jonathan declares, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.
Danny barks in agreement and then circles Erina. Erina clutches at her skirts
and wonders how long she'll be able to keep up the act. Around Jonathan,
though... probably indefinitely.
"Well, thanks for helping, Erina," Jonathan says, "I'll see you tomorrow! C'mon
Danny," he claps his hands and Danny barks, lingering behind. "Come on, Danny,"
Jonathan repeats.
"Jojo," Erina mumbles, fists clenched tight about her skirt.
"What?" Jonathan asks, in the midst of tugging Danny along.
"With Dio..." she starts, but can't actually spit it out, "Please be careful,
okay?"
"Sure thing," he answers, grinning again. Did girls always act so nice with
their friends, he wonders. Either way, it's a welcome disparity from the boys'
taunts and backhanded compliments.
-
Because Jonathan is in such a good mood, he works up the nerve to see Dio a
second time. The other boy's door has been locked once more and though he
knocks politely -- twice! -- there's no response.
The curiosities work themselves in circles in his head and he ends up using the
servants' crawlspace to get in. Dio screams in surprise when Jonathan tumbles
out of his wardrobe.
"Jonathan! What are you doing here?!" and then the obvious, "You know what, I
don't care, get out."
Seeing the still-healing (albeit more green than purple by this point) bruise
strengthens Jonathan's resolve.
"Not until you tell me who hit you," he says, making no move to get up.
His earnestness catches Dio off-guard, who pauses to compute how likely it was
for Jonathan to be plotting something If negative percentages were probable,
he'd have arrived at them. As it is, he does his best to neutralise his
expression. There was no sense in giving the other ammunition.
"What's it to you?" he retorts, crossing his arms.
Jonathan looks embarrassed at least, though Dio can't understand why.
"Well?" he prods.
"I guess I think... I agree with Father?" Jonathan starts.
"...What."
"I mean, that even if we weren't family before, now we're studying and eating
and learning together. So we're family now." And then, as if one leap of logic
weren't enough, "So I thought some more and realised I'm sort of your older
brother now."
"What!" Dio gives him a disgusted look, "You are not my older brother! I'm
older than you!"
"But I lived here longer," Jonathan counters, "And Father is always saying
you're my responsibility."
"What kind of logic is..." Dio starts, refusing to believe the beginnings of a
flush were rising, "No. I don't care. Get out!"
"Okay, okay," Jonathan scrambles to his feet, "But I will get to the bottom of
this!"
"Get out!" Dio snarls. Except the door is locked and he has the key. So he has
to unlock the door, fumbling and flushing, while Jonathan whistles in the
background. He slams it with a vengeance as soon as the other boy leaves and
throws himself at boarding up the way out through the wardrobe.
Him, Dio, a younger sibling? Least of all to Jonathan Joestar? Preposterous!
The other boy was posturing, if that. So to settle the issue in entirety, he
determines he'll follow the other tomorrow to his meeting spot tomorrow. And so
what if he hasn't worked out the details of his revenge yet, he has all night
to think up something.
-
Although Jonathan sleeps like a baby, certain that he'll have vetted out who
punched Dio in the face, Erina tosses and turns. It was bad enough that she had
willfully gone against Dio, but to have hit him? And bad enough to bruise? The
other boy was dangerous, she was certain. More than being clever, there was an
undercurrent of... well, wickedness. How else could one explain his plot to
cast Jonathan outside?
She wishes she had never hit him. She wishes Jonathan hadn't pressed the issue.
She wishes she had told the other boy the truth, because what good were
friends, if they were the lying sort? And she wishes, so very much, that Dio
doesn't do anything. He clearly thought Jonathan was responsible for her
actions, which was ridiculous. But then, wasn't the whole situation ridiculous?
That night, she dreams of Jonathan discovering it was her and making good on
his promise. She flings off her sheets right before his fist makes contact and
clambers out of bed.
She'll confess, she promises. She'll confess a thousand times over if it meant
setting the record straight.
It's harder than it looks, however, as Jonathan is so oblivious and so eager to
give her a way out. Still, her bedraggled appearance must add somewhat to
gravity of the situation as, when she asks if she can tell him a secret, he
tells Danny to sit by another tree.
And then she tells him.
And he doesn't believe her.
So she repeats her confession.
"You?" Jonathan repeats, looking her up and down. And now it's his turn to look
at her with disbelief. "You're the one who hit Dio so hard he's locked himself
in his room for four days?"
"I didn't think I hit him so hard," Erina admits. "I -- I wasn't thinking."
Jonathan is thoroughly regretting his speech about being an older sibling, as
well as his promise for revenge.
"Are you sure you hit him?" he tries again. "And, and he didn't get into a
fight after you hit him?"
Erina gives him a look. He swallows.
"Okay, then," he pulls back his fist, "You know what I... what I said I'd do,
right?"
Not trusting herself to speak, Erina only nods.
When she squeezes her eyes shut, she can make out Jonathan practically
hyperventilating.
He tries. Honestly, he tries three times.
"I can't!" he chokes out on the fourth attempt, "I can't hit you! I'm sorry,
Mother, I'm the world's worst older brother!"
Erina cracks an eye open.
"...What?"
But Jonathan's already dropped to the ground, resting his elbows on his knees
and burying his face in his palms.
"I'm sorry, Jojo," she desperately tries, wondering how the other boy managed
to make her feel bad for hitting Dio, "I really didn't think it would hurt him
so much. I promise I'll apologise to him, please don't cry."
Jonathan... isn't crying at least. He tenses up when she puts a hand on his
shoulder though. Then he lifts his face and looks at her.
"I have a good idea," he starts.
And Erina, a little blinded herself at this point, believes him.
"What is it?"
"You should hit me."
"What!"
"No, no, it makes perfect sense!" Jonathan gestures, "See, Dio is angry because
he thinks that I told you to hit him. But if he sees that you hit me too, then
he'll realise that I didn't! And then we'll be even!"
Saying this, he stands up, pulling her with him, and waves his hand near his
face.
"The right side... no, wait, the left side! No, wait, the right side. Yeah, we
should match." He offers said cheek to her.
Erina is understandably speechless.
"Well?" Jonathan demands, "Do you need to warm up or...?"
"I can't hit you," Erina mumbles.
"What?"
"I can't hit you," she says, a little louder.
Jonathan is the definition of crestfallen then.
"Why not?"
"Because no!"
"But Erina, this is really important. Don't you want me to be on good terms
with Dio?"
"I can't!"
"Why not? It's just one punch! It'll be over like that," he snaps his fingers
to demonstrate.
"No!"
"But why?"
"How could you ask me to hit you?" she blurts out, "I want to marry you!" She
claps a hand over her mouth at the confession, turning cherry red, and it's
only her reaction that lets Jonathan know he's not hearing things.
"You what?"
"Nothing," Erina insists, cheeks flaming. "I didn't say anything."
Jonathan tries very hard to remember his original goal. Oh, yes: to get hit so
that everything would be alright. He tries to keep the grin from spreading
across his face -- married! a girl had just told him she wanted to marry him!
Him! -- and instead reaches to the ground for a pinecone.
"Danny," he calls at a half-warble, "Fetch!"
The random command works as all dirty tricks do: it gets Erina's attention and
she drops her guard long enough for Jonathan to grab her wrist and kiss her.
It lasts slightly longer than a blink. Or rather, she blinks and realises
something -- or rather, someone -- is touching her lips, then shrieks and
backhands him.
Jonathan stays still, with his cheek turned, up until Danny returns and lays
the pinecone at his feet. Danny then barks to get his attention, which Jonathan
gladly gives, and Erina watches, frozen, as Jonathan praises his dog and then
lobs the pinecone again.
"Jojo...?" she cautiously asks, "Are you alright...?"
"I think so," he says in a quiet voice. He touches his bright red cheek and
then covers his eyes. "Did you just kiss me?"
Erina blanches.
"I did not!" she shrieks, "You kissed me!"
"I did, I did!" Jonathan falls to the ground, covering his eyes and rolling
around with glee, "I'm so happy!"
In the middle of this impromptu song-and-dance routine, Dio decides to reveal
himself, dropping down from the top of the tree and reveling in the respective
shout and shriek.
"Dio! What are you... how long have you been there?!" Jonathan, of course,
demands.
"Long enough," Dio sniffs, brushing the leaves from his shoulders. Jonathan
grins, in too good of a mood to be critical, and helps tug a couple leaves from
the other boy's hair.
Erina realises that Dio is not snapping at Jonathan and suddenly feels very
small.
"I'm sorry for hitting you!" she squeaks out, bending forward at the waist.
"She hit me too," Jonathan adds, as if Dio hadn't been a witness, "So it's
alright!"
"Oh yes, Jojo," Dio continues, not sparing the girl a glance, "I wanted to tell
you that I'll be back out on Thursday."
"Really? That's great!"
Dio looks at her and smiles and Erina feels her stomach drop.
"And I was wondering," he smoothly begins, "If you would like to join me. Me
and the other boys, I mean."
It is as if someone lit a match, for how enthused Jonathan looks.
"Really?" he asks, and Erina wishes he didn't sound so pleased about not being
forced to play with her, "You mean it?"
"Of course," Dio smiles, wicked and knowing, "I believe we've started on the
wrong foot, but it's never too late, is it?"
"Oh Dio," Jonathan beams, "It means so much to me! I'm so glad!" And then he
walks over and places a hand on Erina's shoulder. "But I'm afraid I have to
decline."
Dio and Erina are equally surprised then.
"What," they say, as if in chorus.
"Well, I mean, after spending so much time with Erina, I think I like playing
doctor and dolls more," Jonathan shrugs, as if the decision weren't sacrilege,
"Plus, she could probably teach me a thing or two about boxing."
Erina knows Dio's expression well. She's probably wearing it herself.
"But thanks anyways!" Jonathan adds, still completely enthused, "Oh, Danny,
here you are! Look, me and Dio have finally made up! Oh, and did you know I'm
going to get married?"
Dio stalks off to the manor without another word while Erina collapses to the
floor, giggling.
"What?" Jonathan demands, "What is it? Was it something I said?"
"Don't ever change," she gasps out between giggles, "Don't ever, ever change,
Jojo."
-
"Wow, Erina," Jonathan declares at a later time, after Dio's face (along with
his own) had completely healed, "You must have magical fists!" He still can't
believe that Dio, of all people, had extended an offer of friendship. To him!
"No I don't," Erina insists, sniffing. She declines to mention how Jonathan
must be the truly magical one, blithely ending things without confrontation and
choosing, of all options, to continue playing with a girl!
***** would we still have this feud? *****
Although doctors have always been respected, being one has never actually
improved one's rank. Like the trades, it is a profession for the nouveau-riche
and the money-hungry. Therefore, although Erina's father is in comparatively
good social standing, especially when compared to the villagers, their family
is ultimately without rank. Perhaps Lord Joestar would have invited them
regardless; he was friendly enough with the villagers. However, even though the
New Year's gala was being hosted in the Joestar mansion, one of the London
Earl's was the actual host. It is unthinkable for him, to invite the
countryside riffraff to such a celebration, and so, the Pendletons, like the
rest of the village, are without invitation.
The villagers have always had a strained relationship with the Joestars -
- cityfolk who had moved into the countryside on a whim and ate yearly salaries
for dinner at times -- and they take the snubbing in-stride, holding a
celebration of their own on the same night. This party, the Pendletons are
actually invited to, and so they go.
Erina stands on the edge of the dancers' circle, staring down at her feet. Her
mother had been excited at the chance to pretty her up -- letting down the hem
of her skirt and looping a lovely imitation pearl necklace about her neck. The
boys and girls aren't really expected to mingle -- indeed, the men and women on
the dance floor are young adults at least, but she's never fit in with either
group.
She watches her parents dance for a while, off-beat and whimsical, with giggles
and smiles all-around. This is the sort of relationship she wants, where
romance was entertwined with amity. But her parents are old and they tire soon
enough and so, she turns her attention to the other couples, trying to imagine
herself and Jonathan amongst them, someday.
It is cowardly, but she bolts away as soon as one of the boys ask her to dance.
Did he not remember, she wonders, how he had thrown her doll in the mud and
laughed at her tears?
But it's not even about the doll. He could have done nothing wrong and he still
wouldn't be Jonathan.
The moon is only half-full on New Year's Eve, but the cloudless night sky makes
it seem as if it were full. The night is cold, but free of winds, and she is
able to walk from the church to the Joestar manor in her shawl and jacket.
How the manor managed to outshine the church, she has no idea. A light shines
out from every window and there's a group in every room. Although she's a
stone's throw away, it suddenly seems so far. Erina stops at the threshold,
looking out at the lively building. Without straining her ears, she can hear
the musicians playing. It's a slow and formal waltz, the kind one could see the
Queen herself dancing to, and this too, stands in stark contrast to upbeat
pavane that had been played in the church.
Everyone is Pandora, at some point or another. Even though she knows she
shouldn't, knows there's nothing she wants to see here, Erina can't stop
herself from walking forward and peeking through the ground floor French
windows.
As luck would have it, the first try leads her to the ballroom, where the lords
and ladies of nobility are dressed to the nines. The lighting is much better
here and she can see, from the outside looking in, the difference in posture
and dress and class. When she tears her eyes from the scene and looks down at
her own dress, she's overwhelmed by her own... homeliness.
The taunts from the other girls come back: how she was pretentious, how she
needed to be taught her place, how there was no chance of Jonathan Joestar
having interest in her.
And still, she looks back, holding out for some hope -- that Jonathan would be
inside. That he would see her and come out to greet her, at least. It is only
New Year's, she tells herself, and she had been alone the other thirteen years
without complaint.
Instead of Jonathan, she sees his brother. Dio is dancing with a girl couple
years older, one hand clasped about hers and the other about her waist, and his
expression has been schooled into one of reasonable contentment. It cracks for
a moment when he makes eye contact with her, but Erina ducks behind the wall
and when she peeks out over it, Dio is nowhere to be found.
Although Jonathan insists that their differences have been settled, Erina is
not as certain. But Dio had left Jonathan alone after that initial offer and
the initial vehemence seemed to have simmered over. Erina wonders if he'll tell
Jonathan about her, and is astonished to find herself hoping he would.
And so she leans against the wall and says a quick prayer, preparing herself
for disappointment.
The problem with waiting, then, especially waiting in the dark and cold, is
that it eats away at hope. She thinks Dio is taking his time in finding
Jonathan at first, until the orchestra stops for a break and it becomes obvious
he didn't alert his brother at all. Even though it's not his responsibility to
play messenger boy and even though she can't be certain he saw her, Erina still
feels ire towards the other. It seemed like they were constantly pulling at
opposite ends of the rope called Jonathan at times, though Jonathan remained
oblivious to it all.
She is about to head back when Dio steps out, holding a lantern in one hand.
Erina startles and he raises an eyebrow. In a truly knee-jerk reaction, she
thinks she should apologise again for hitting him. Thankfully, he beats her to
the chase, asking bluntly:
"What are you doing here?"
"I don't know. I thought..." but she can't actually voice her silly dreams, and
certainly not to him, so she shakes her head, "It doesn't matter. I'll be going
now."
"Wait," he says, as she's turning to leave.
Erina stops, turning to see him, and while he's cross-examining her, she does
the same to him. She is jealous, she can admit that much. That he was able to
spend so much time with Jonathan, yes, but also that he had been brought into
the folds of nobility, despite having (if the rumours were true) grown up in
the slums. And even though she's never wanted to be Cinderella, she had also
never thought it possible.
The two of them finish at around the same time, gazes meeting over the
flickering lantern light.
"Jonathan is probably waiting for you," he says, right as she's about to excuse
herself.
Erina can't believe her ears.
"What?"
"In the church. I can't believe you didn't run into him."
Erina takes off at a sprint, completely forgetting to thank the other. She
trips thrice on the way back to the church, leaving her hair tumbling out of
its bun and her dress speckled with dirt. It's a small wonder the imitation
pearls haven't snapped off.
Danny runs up to greet her, barking enthusiastically, and she's never been so
happy to hear the dog. Jonathan follows up soon after and they're breathlessly
laughing, as if someone had told the funniest joke, and suddenly, everything is
alright.
-
Although Erina holds her breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, it never
does. They're not at the age where anything was official, but she does receive
an invitation to Jonathan's fifteenth birthday party. It's almost touching, how
her parents' first thought was that she was being bullied into befriending the
other boy, or that they did anything more than the occasional fully-clothed dip
in the river together. Her poor father reaches for the smelling salts when she
admits to an attempt at handholding and after that, she dares not admit
Jonathan had actually forced a kiss on her.
"It's just a stage," she hears her mother reassure her father, "Surely she'll
grow out of it."
"I didn't raise my daughter to be some nobleman's wife!" her father huffs.
Erina imagines him reaching for his pipe, or perhaps even crossing and
uncrossing his arms.
"I know, I know," her mother soothes, "But Erina is such a clever girl -- "
"Precisely why she shouldn't be associating with him!"
"Would you rather her play with the other children?"
That question, at least, has her father momentarily stumped. But then he
harrumphs, probably stopping to tug on his moustache, and adds: "She should be
spending more time reading then."
"Dear, we both agreed that there was no sense sending her to India..."
Erina tiptoes back to her room then, slipping underneath the covers. Then she
turns around and balls herself up so that her whole body was underneath the
blankets. She knows she should be flattered, should be happy even, that her
parents thought so highly of her. There were parents in the same village who
thought girls (and even boys) didn't need to learn to read. And while she's
proud of her father and wants to follow as far as she can in his footsteps, the
thought of him thinking so poorly of Jonathan makes her feel awful.
Did Jonathan have to put up with similar remarks, she wonders? The thought of
Lord Joestar needing to be convinced to send her family an invitation is
mortifying.
Still, when she's with Jonathan, whether they're in line at the fair or waist-
deep in the riverbank, everything seems... well, in order. With unexpected
pragmatism, she finds herself holding tight to the emotion.
-
Come the next morning and her parents have come to a decision.
"You are allowed to attend the Joestar boy's birthday," her mother beams.
"But we are going to be there too," her father adds, "And we will be leaving at
10 o'clock sharp!"
It's the closest thing to acceptance they're willing to give at this stage, she
realises, and throws her arms about her mother.
"There, there," the older woman laughs, "Don't be so surprised. We were young
too, once. Now come, there's not enough fabric for a new dress but we can at
least pretty up one of your older ones."
-
For Jonathan, the uphill battle is getting anyone to take him seriously.
"I would be happy to invite the Pendletons," his father answers, penning their
name in, "But do try your best not to make the girl uncomfortable."
"Uncomfortable?" Jonathan repeats, tilting his head.
"You know how it is, grand ideas and all," George Joestar shrugs, "I thought I
knew what I wanted to do when I was your age too."
"Really?" It's the first time Jonathan's heard of it, "What did you want to
do?"
"Travel the world of course," his father laughs, "But I grew out of that idea
soon enough."
"I don't think I'd ever get bored of Erina," Jonathan says, with all the
sincerity of a boy experiencing his first love. His voice doesn't tremble, but
there's a conviction in it that catches the older man off-guard. To ease the
tension, he tweaks his son's nose, chuckling at the other's startled reaction.
"Run along now," he chides, "Don't leave the tailor waiting."
So Jonathan makes his way to the sitting room, opening the door to see Dio
doing an impression of a pincushion.
"Oh! Master Joestar!" the tailor greets, "I haven't finished your brother yet,
so if you'll just wait a moment..."
"Close the door," Dio says without inflection.
"Oh, sorry," Jonathan steps through and does as told, "Is it cold?"
Dio slants his gaze for a moment, before retraining his eyes on the opposite
wall. "I don't want the maids gawking," he says at last. The thought had never
occurred to Jonathan, who had been washed and dressed by the same women back
before he could do so himself. He thinks to bring it up only to remember that
Dio hadn't grown up under the same circumstances.
When the tailor finishes his measurements, Dio is allowed to lower his arms and
relax his shoulders. He steps down from the raised platform after the bits of
fabric and accompanying needles have been removed, and only then does it occur
to Jonathan he had been staring.
"Jonathan?" Dio asks, "It's your turn."
"Oh! Right!" he flushes without meaning to, scrambling to his feet. He's never
noticed it before, but Dio and Erina had similar hair colors. Thankfully, Dio
doesn't press the issue, slipping back into his regular garments before leaving
through the parlor door.
Left alone with the tailor and his own thoughts, Jonathan realises how odd it
is, to hear his whole name as an address. Danny couldn't talk, obviously, and
his father and Erina and the other villagers called him 'Jojo' while he was
forever 'Master Jonathan' or 'Young Master' to the servants and help. Although
Dio had made similar overtures throughout the years, and though Jonathan firmly
believed that the initial animosity was a result of a sudden relocation
following the death of both parents, he can't help but feel a purposeful
distance.
"All done," the tailor says, before he's even organised his thoughts.
"What! Already?"
"Well you haven't grown much since Christmastime," the tailor shrugs, "So I
haven't so many new measurements to take."
-
For all the fuss put up over it, Jonathan's fifteenth birthday celebration
glides by without a hitch. The Pendletons show up on-time, daughter in-tow, and
they actually make merry with Lord Joestar -- long enough so that they leave at
half past ten. Of course there are some snide remarks over their simpler
costumes, and some jealousy over Jonathan dancing exclusively with Erina, but
most everyone opposed reassures themselves that boy and girl are only fifteen
and nothing serious could come from such an unbalanced relationship.
But for Jonathan and Erina? They are happy enough at a chance to be together,
before their families. And though they misstep and don't quite finish on time
and though they're not supposed to be humming to the waltz, it's like they're
playing pretend back in the meadow again, for all they care of the others.
Because Erina had made it clear that her parents wanted the party over at ten
o'clock sharp, Jonathan convinces them to sneak away from the festivities
during the musician's break. It's half past nine and they're holding hands and
shushing each other all the way up the stairs.
"Ack!" Jonathan winces when they step foot into his room. Of course the maids
had prioritised cleaning the ground floor rooms! His room, therefore, has been
left as it were at the start of the party. "Sorry, sorry," he mumbles, trying
to tidy a corner up, "I, um, I was in a rush."
"Don't be," Erina giggles, "My room looks even worse. My mother had me go
through all my dresses, even the ones I couldn't fit in!"
"Ohhh," Jonathan looks amazed, "Your mother can sew? And she made your dress?"
"I don't know if she made the whole thing," Erina admits, "But she made
adjustments."
"Wow," Jonathan looks said garment up and down, "That must be useful, having a
tailor as a mother."
"I hardly think she's a tailor," Erina protests, "All mothers... oh." She
pauses, pursing her lips, "I'm sorry."
"Oh, no, it's nothing," Jonathan scratches his hair, clearing his throat, "I
mean, I don't..." he tries to find the right words, "I wanted to talk about
that, I mean." And then, when Erina is understandably confused, he gestures at
his bed.
Were this anyone but Jonathan, Erina would have been on-guard and possibly
offended. But she knows him too well to think anything less than the best and
she follows the angle of his wrist to the headboard.
"Oh!" It's terribly improper but she dashes to it, "This is the -- after all
this time -- you still have it?"
"I've kept everything you gave me," Jonathan solemnly replies. When he clears
his throat, Erina looks back at him. It takes him a while to get the words out,
and they don't really make sense, and still, she understands: "Well, um, I
mean, because I met your mother and father today and you met my father, I
thought it was only fair that you meet my mother too, right?"
Erina meets his gaze and smiles. Seeing her smile makes him relax and he stands
awkward to the side as she rearranges herself in a kneeling position on his
bed, clasping her hands in a silent prayer. Jonathan tries very hard not to
ruin the moment, but then she's getting off the bed and taking his hand and
whispering "Happy Birthday, Jojo" before kissing him on the cheek and even
though the boys from the village say he shouldn't be satisfied with crumbs,
he's actually on top of the world and there is nothing -- nothing -- that can
make him unhappy then.
"Thank you for letting me meet your mother," Erina tells him as they're making
their way down the stairs.
"Will you still like me if I never wash my face again?" Jonathan immediately
asks.
"I won't kiss you again if you don't," Erina primly replies. It's a good thing
the hallway is dark; she swears the flush has spread to her neck by now.
They let go of one another before going back to the ballroom, returning to
their respective families, but Jonathan shares a conspiratorical grin across
the room and says goodbye as they're about to leave and Erina can't help but
grin back.
-
Though Jonathan wants to retire as soon as the Pendletons have left, propriety
forces him to stand by his father and brother and thank each of the guests for
their presence and gifts. By the time the last carriages have pulled out of the
drive way, it's a quarter to twelve and Jonathan's spent an hour bouncing on
his heels. He thinks he's tired however, and so spends some time lying wide
awake in bed with his outer suit tossed to the side.
He's happy, he knows. Really really happy. And though his kneejerk reaction is
to share the news with Danny, his dog has been getting on in the years and no
longer enjoys being woken up at odd hours. And so Jonathan debates between
father and brother. He settles for Dio, reasoning he was less anxious around
the other, about the subject he wanted to discuss, than his father.
And so he steps out of his room and tries Dio's door. It's locked,
unsurprisingly, but he wants to share the good news with someone so he tries
the servant's entrance again. Only to find Dio had boarded it up on the other
side. Not to be deterred by this, Jonathan slams his whole weight against it
and, after a couple tries, manages to force his way through the other side.
As soon as he tumbles out of the wardrobe, Dio grabs him by the collar and
presses a blade to this throat.
"Dio!" he stammers out.
"What are you -- " Dio curses under his breath, though he is quick to put the
knife away. He backs off, flicking on the lights, sheathing the dagger and
setting it aside before going back to Jonathan's side. "What are you doing
here?" he asks, "And at this hour?"
"Why did you board up the secret entrance?" Jonathan immediately whines.
"To stop things like this from happening."
"I think I cut my hand from breaking through the wood," Jonathan winces,
looking at his palms. Sure enough, both were sporting mild cuts and, after
pressing them together, he was sure the left one had a splinter.
"You should have taken the hint and gone back to your own room," Dio grates. He
goes over to the wardrobe and pulls out his own first aid rations before
sitting down on the bed.
"Well?" he asks, patting the spot next to him. Jonathan looks as happy as he
did when Dio had extended a half-offer of friendship. At least he doesn't
decline this offer, following after Dio and seating himself down without
complaint. Dio doesn't have to ask him to show his hands and he swabs at the
right one with alcohol first. Jonathan winces, which he ignores, except then he
gives a cry of pain at the left one.
"Is it that deep of a cut?"
"I... I think there's a splinter."
While Dio is digging through the bathroom drawers for a tweezer, Jonathan looks
about the room. Although they were on better terms than they had started off,
all of their interactions were in the lower floors -- either the study, parlor,
dining room, or library. As such, this is only the second time he's seen the
inside of Dio's room. It's a lot neater than his, of course, but his brother
isn't nearly as orderly as Jonathan had expected. There are sheets of paper
stuck in the books, for one, and the nearest nightstand is practically covered
with candlewax, enough to dribble onto the floor. The thought of Dio burning
through whole candlesticks in his frenzied consumption of books makes Jonathan
smile.
"Found the tweezers," Dio announces, closing his fingers about Jonathan's left
wrist again. "Stop smiling," he says crossly.
"Sorry," Jonathan answers, still grinning, "But I'm just so happy! It's why I
wanted to talk to you, actually."
"So talk," Dio shrugs, lifting the hand for closer inspection. There seemed to
be two splinters by the looks of it.
Dio is tuning him out, Jonathan knows, but he doesn't even care -- that's how
happy he is. He talks about how Erina met with his mother and how she
remembered the flower necklace and how she kissed him on the cheek and how he
hadn't washed his face yet. His plans to travel with her (after getting married
of course) because she wanted to be a nurse and wasn't that just grand? Also,
also, also (Dio is dabbing at his splinter-free left palm with alcohol now),
even though the Pendletons were supposed to leave at ten, they actually left at
ten thirty -- because they were talking with Father! So, Jonathan argues,
wasn't that a sign that their parents were getting along well and, with luck,
they wouldn't have to persuade them?
Jonathan is about three-quarters through when Dio is bandaging up his hands and
he realises the whole day had been about him and it really wasn't polite
barging into someone else's room (even a sibling's!) at one in the morning to
ramble about things they had no interest in. So he wracks his brain for
something Dio would be interested in and comes up blank. Outside of lessons and
meals, they still didn't really fraternise.
"Alright," Dio declares, when both hands are roughly patched up, "Satisfied?"
At this point, Jonathan still hasn't found anything to say.
So he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. Which, in this case, is:
"I never noticed the three dots on your ear before."
Like clockwork, Dio's hand flies up to touch it, before he puts it back down.
"It's just a birthmark," he answers, "A little like your star."
"Oh. Right." He tries to think of something more to say, something more
complimentary at least, and the roulette wheel lands on: "Well, I like it."
And then, when Dio doesn't immediately respond, Jonathan feels the need to
elaborate: "Your hair, I mean. It's really pretty. Just as pretty as Erina's."
Dio's brow furrows and then, without explanation, he leans in. Jonathan
startles at the sudden moving, leaning back, but his brother rights himself
shortly.
"Jonathan," Dio starts, putting a hand on his shoulder, "You've had too much to
drink."
At the diagnosis of his ailment, it feels as if the stage lights had been
flicked on.
"It is really obvious?" Jonathan immediately asks, "I was really nervous, and
then I was really happy. I don't think I should have drank more after Erina
left." He cups his hands over his mouth and nose to sniff at his own breath,
making a face at the scent.
"Nevermind," he admits, "I should go back. Thanks for... thanks for helping.
And listening."
"You shouldn't be so worried," Dio tells him, in a good enough mood to unlatch
the door.
"Says you," Jonathan retorts, nodding his head to the dagger. He ducks out
before Dio can follow-up however, meandering his way back to his own room. Dio
stands at the doorway for a while longer, watching Jonathan open and then close
the door. He waits for the turn of a lock that never comes. Eventually, he
closes his own door and picks up the dagger, setting it on the nightstand
before turning off the lights.
As he's slipping beneath the sheets, it occurs to him that he hadn't wished his
brother happy birthday. He does so then and it is another reminder of how
strange the nickname seemed.
"Happy Birthday, Jojo."
***** the brittled leafless olive branch *****
The Joestar manor is burglared some weeks after Jonathan's fifteenth birthday
party. The thief or thieves come in the dead of the night, emptying out a
laundry hamper and the entire safe. The police are called immediately and the
servants are rounded up. Although Lord Joestar insists otherwise, the help take
it upon themselves to root through their own quarters. In the end, both
servants and policemen arrive at the same conclusion: there was no indication
of forced entry and no sign of the stolen money. The constable takes down the
serial numbers of the largest bills, though there's not much hope at that
point, and more or less scratch their heads at the series of deadbolts and
rehandled locks which the manor had already been equipped with.
It is only after the police have taken their leave that the butler summons up
the courage to have a private word with his employer.
"Are you certain?" Lord Joestar asks.
"I am not entirely certain," the butler admits, "For it was dark and I was not
expecting to see either of them."
"But you thought it was them?"
"Yes, sir."
Lord Joestar rubs his temples before ringing for another servant. This one is
instructed to fetch both his sons and soon enough, both Dio and Jonathan are
standing at attention.
"Dio, Jojo," he greets, "Thank you for coming on such short notice. Mr.
Chasings here," he gestures to the butler, "has relayed an interesting piece of
information regarding the burglary." He pauses, waiting for their reactions.
Jonathan opens his mouth a little, while Dio raises an eyebrow. Neither, of
course, look guilty. "Mr. Chasings, if you will?"
"Forgive me for the interruption, young masters," the butler murmurs, bowing
low, "But something has eating away at me since that night. You see..." he
chances a glance at his employer, but Lord Joestar's expression betrays
nothing, "I was told by Master Dio to get a glass of water and a small
satchel."
"On the eve of the burglary?" Jonathan asks, staring wide-eyed from the butler
to Dio.
"Yes, and... and more than that," the butler swallows, "I saw you with him."
"What!"
"That's ridiculous," Dio agrees, "What would I want with a glass or water or a
satchel at that hour?"
"And why would we be together?"
"I don't understand it either," the butler admits, "I thought the two of you
were playing a game."
"Mr. Chasings," Lord Joestar addresses, "Was there anyone else who might have
seen the boys?"
"Seen the -- " Dio is close to snarling, "What was there to see? I was not up
at that hour and there is always a flask of water in my room. Why would I need
to ask Chasings -- "
"Mr. Chasings."
"Mister Chasings here," Dio reiterates, "For a glass of water?" He looks to
Jonathan for agreement, only to find the other boy suddenly pale.
"Jojo?" Lord Joestar understandably questions, "Is something the matter?"
"I swear to God, Father," he promises, "I wasn't awake at that hour. But I
don't think Mr. Chasings would lie..." he gulps, "Do you think it possible that
you... that you saw a pair of ghosts?"
"I -- " the butler swallows, looking to give all parties an easy way out, "I
suppose that is within the realm of possibility, young master."
But when Jonathan looks to his father, he sees the other is as uncertain as the
butler sounds. Without being aware of it, he straightens his spine out, trying
to put up a good appearance.
"Mister Chasings, thank you for your report," Lord Joestar says at last. "I
believe you said there were two maids who had also seen the boys at that hour?"
"Just one, sir, Miss Sarah."
"I would like to speak with my sons in private, but could you return here, with
Miss Sarah, in an hour's time?"
"Of course, Lord Joestar." The butler bows again before moving to exit.
"Oh, and Mr. Chasings?"
"Yes, Lord Joestar?"
"Thank you very much for telling me this."
The old man chances a glance at the Joestar boys. Between Dio's barely-
contained ire and Jonathan's open protest, he suddenly wishes he had never
spoken up. So he dips his head and adds, "Please accept my apologies. I
think... since the morning after was so hectic... it's possible my memories of
the night were jumbled."
"So what you are trying to say," Dio drawls, "That you didn't actually see the
two of us?"
"My eyes might have fooled me," the butler insists.
"Mr. Chasings, Dio, that will be enough." Lord Joestar declares, heaving a
sigh. The butler knows his place at least, gracefully bowing out.
"Jonathan, Dio," the lord of the manor begins. Jonathan swallows hard here; his
father only ever used his full name when he was in trouble. "Do you believe I
give you enough allowance?"
"Of course!" Jonathan hotly protests, "Have I ever asked you for more?" he
turns to Dio and adds, "And I'm certain Dio hasn't even spent his Christmas
crowns!"
"Dio?"
"Jonathan is correct," Dio answers, "I have never thought it insufficient and
rarely spend it all."
"Father...!" Jonathan protests, unable to hold it in further, "You can't
possibly believe that we were the ones who stole from your safe!"
"I don't," Lord Joestar admits, "I don't for a moment."
"But then..."
"Mr. Chasings has worked at the estate for longer than you've been alive,
Jonathan. What reason would he have to lie?"
"I don't think he's lying," Jonathan admits, "But perhaps he didn't see
clearly."
"He says that Dio spoke to him."
"But Dio says he didn't!"
"Yes," Dio agrees, irritated, "I hadn't."
"Maybe it was a ghost then," Jonathan repeats, "I mean, think about it: what
sort of burglars could get past three sets of doors and not leave any traces?
And who else knows where you keep the keys to the safe?" Although he thinks his
solution is a reasonable one, the look his father is wearing says otherwise.
It's the undercurrent of doubt which cuts particularly deep. He turns to Dio
for a better theory, only to find his brother nearly-glaring at him.
"Dio, is there anything else you wish to speak on the matter?"
"Only that I was in my room, reading a book if not asleep, at the time Mr.
Chasings claimed to have seen me."
"I see." Lord Joestar reaches for the whiskey, uncapping the bottle and pouring
himself a quarter of a glass. He takes one sip, then sets it down, and slowly
begins his verdict: "I want to believe the two of you, so I will. I will tell
Mr. Chasings that the matter has been settled; he is professional enough to not
dispute my judgment."
"However," he adds, looking first at Dio and then Jonathan, "You should be
aware of where the manor stands in all this. The incident from last night
demonstrates that someone, somewhere, has enough knowledge to break in without
leaving a trace." Jonathan shivers while Dio gives no reaction. "But that is
still preferable," Lord Joestar continues, "To having an intruder inside. If
either of you need more spending money, you know you can speak with me,
correct?"
Both boys nod.
"Alright then," he smiles, as if some thousand-odd pounds were no dent at all,
"I'm sorry for doubting you at all and I'm still very proud to have you as my
sons."
There's an obligatory 'thank you, Father' before they take their leave.
Right as they've exited the study and before Jonathan can even give a sigh of
relief, Dio hits him with a baleful glare.
"What?" Jonathan asks.
"Ghosts?" his brother asks, "Really?"
"Don't you believe in them?"
"As much as I believe in fairies and unicorns."
Jonathan isn't up for a debate on superstition, though he has long known of
Dio's contempt for superstitious things. He is fully prepared to drop the
subject and go to his room then, but Dio grabs him by the shoulder, holding him
back.
"And another thing," Dio snaps, "I don't need you to speaking for me."
"I was only trying to defend you!"
"I can argue my own case, thank you."
"But you weren't saying anything!"
"What good is it, talking more? You saw your father's gaze! He's -- " Dio
remembers himself then, dropping his volume and releasing the other, "He was
more than willing to trust Chasings' word above ours."
"I don't think Mr. Chasings was lying," Jonathan says, a second time. There's
an odd cadence to his voice which Dio picks up on, narrowing his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"Just... like father said. I don't think he would lie."
"No. There's something else."
Jonathan can't help it; his face goes the same shade of pale it had when the
butler had first described the odd scene.
"Did you see something?" Dio demands.
"No," Jonathan insists, "I didn't. Did you?"
"I was in bed. Probably asleep. Just as I told your -- Father, I mean. Just as
I told Father."
"I was too," Jonathan echoes, though they both notice the slight hesitation,
"And I didn't see anything."
"Was it the butler?" Dio immediately asks.
"What?!"
"Did you see him, that night?"
"No!"
"I wouldn't put it past you," Dio snorts, "To feel some shred of sympathy for
the old man and agree to his absurd cover story."
"I would never," Jonathan protests, "I would never lie to Father, at least. Not
about something like this."
Dio looks at him, with a much sterner gaze than the one his father had worn.
But while both of them are expecting him to crack under pressure, to reveal
whatever it was they suspected he knew about the truth, Jonathan does not,
holding fast to his story. And just like his father, Dio eventually relents,
stepping back and rolling his eyes.
"You're too soft," is all his brother says before heading on back up the
stairs.
Jonathan follows a minute or two after, though he lingers before the recently
emptied-out laundry hamper. He lits the lid, inspecting what, he doesn't know,
before putting it back down and returning to his own room. He glimpses his own
reflection in the full-length mirror and pauses before that too, turning this
way and that.
-
Erina believes his side of the story without question at least, rushing over to
him the following day and immediately offering her condolences.
"Was anyone hurt?" she asks, double-checking him for injuries.
"No, no one," Jonathan shakes his head, wishing her hands would linger, "And
that's the strangest thing. There was no sign of anything being broken, not
even the locks for the safe."
"How awful," Erina shudders, "To think that someone had been there -- while you
had been asleep!"
"I think Father is considering hiring a guard. After we change the locks, of
course."
"Did the thieves steal much?"
"I don't think so..." Jonathan furrows his brow, "None of Mother's jewelry was
touched, at least. And according to Father, that's the most valuable stuff."
"The jewelry was left untouched?" she raises her eyebrows at this, "But then...
what was in the safe?"
"Coins and bank notes, I think," Jonathan shrugs, "Father didn't want us to be
there for the police report, so I'm not certain."
"And what of Danny?" Erina asks, "Didn't he hear anything?"
"I didn't hear him... but then," Jonathan makes a guilty face, "He's getting
quite old, you know? Sometimes I have to bribe him to go on walks."
Erina gives a quiet 'oh' before dropping her eyes.
"Are you worried?" she asks as she's patting her skirts down to sit next to
Jonathan.
"I don't know," he grudgingly starts, "It just feels really weird, you know? I
mean... the manor has always been home. Even when we have guests over, it still
feels like home. But now..."
"It is still your home," Erina tells him, voice wrought with conviction, "You
mustn't allow a thief to change your opinion of it. Even if all the locks are
replaced, it is still your home."
"Even if all the doors and windows were replaced?"
"Even then."
"Has your family ever been robbed?" Jonathan asks.
"No. But my aunt and uncle were killed by bandits."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"I only knew them from letters," Erina murmurs. She squeezes each of the
fingers on her right hand between her thumb and index finger, before repeating
the gesture with her other hand. Then she looks at Jonathan, who has been
staring at her hands, and asks: "Can I tell you a secret?"
"Of course," Jonathan readily replies, making the cross.
"I was relieved," she whispered. "I didn't want them to die, of course. But if
they hadn't, my parents would have probably sent me off to India."
"To India!" Jonathan repeats, eyes wide, "Why? When?"
"Three years ago. They wanted me to see more of the world, I suppose," she
pointedly leaves out how that was when their friendship had begun to take root,
"It's not so important now, since it didn't happen, but I wouldn't have wanted
to leave."
"I wouldn't have wanted that either," Jonathan immediately says. He mulls his
own statement over and adds: "But it wouldn't have mattered if you had. I would
have waited for you."
"Even if I never came back to England?"
"Then I would have moved to India!"
Jonathan's ridiculous over-the-top romanticism makes her laugh and hearing
Erina laugh relaxes Jonathan significantly. When the giggles have subsided, he
clears his throat and asks another abrupt question.
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
"Ghosts?" Erina purses her lips. "I've read stories about them... but I've
never seen one, if that's what you mean."
"But if I said I saw one, would you believe me?"
"I don't know." She pauses, "Did you see one?"
Jonathan is quiet for a bit, the fear of being doubted wrestling with the
desire to be believed. The latter wins out and he quietly repeats the previous
question.
"Can I tell you a secret?"
"Of course," she smiles here, "Even if I can't believe everything, I'll always
listen to what you have to say."
"I think I saw... whatever it was Mr. Chasings saw."
"...What?"
"He said he saw me and Dio, in the house, on Sunday night. Well... I mean, I
thought I was having a weird dream, but I think I saw it too."
"Saw what?"
"Me and Dio."
"You saw yourself?"
"But it couldn't have been me," Jonathan disclaims. "But he... but they... they
looked just like us."
"And... so you think they were ghosts?"
"What else could they be?"
Erina goes for the simplest explanation: "Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"
"I've never had a dream like that," Jonathan solemnly replies. Then he covers
his face in frustration, "Oh, I don't know why I needed to tell you! Father and
Dio wouldn't believe me even if I had told them and now, listening to myself -
- well, it all sounds so ridiculous!"
"I don't think you'd lie, Jojo," Erina offers, leaning slightly against him.
"That's what Father said too," Jonathan sighs, "Maybe I was just dreaming. It's
just..." looking for reassurance, he takes Erina's hand and squeezes it, "I was
really scared."
He cringes at the childish confession and wants to bury his face in the sand
when Erina pulls away to look at him.
"Scared?" she repeats, "What of?"
"They talked," Jonathan whispers, "About how easy it would be to kill me."
"What!"
"And how he... the person who looked just like me... would replace me so
easily."
Two pieces from two opposite puzzles slide together then, though Erina doesn't
know it. She smiles outwardly and squeezes Jonathan's hand.
"Now I know you're worrying over nothing," she says, fighting to keep her tone
light-hearted, "How could anyone conceivably replace you?"
Jonathan melts under her touch, fluttering his eyes when she presses her hands
to his cheeks. After another feather-light kiss, she's looking straight into
his eyes, irrationally startled by how blue they were. And then it turns out
Jonathan is thinking the same then, scooting right up against the tree to catch
his breath.
"Sorry," he stammers, "I'm -- I'm not used to being so close. Have I told you
that I like your eyes?"
"Just my eyes?" Erina laughs. She lets him prattle on about her other finer
qualities for a while before taking his hand and squeezing it again.
"I would do the same for you," she reassures, "If you were somewhere else, I
would follow. And if someone had replaced you, I would bring you back."
Jonathan gives her a fond but exasperated look then.
"Do you always have to say everything before me?"
"Ladies first," she grins.
-
The uneasiness she had never been able to quell around Jonathan's adopted
brother raises its ugly head at this prime opportunity. Seeing as how
Jonathan's recollection actually matched up, as far as Erina could see, with
the butler's recount, it meant that Dio was the odd man out. The plan she's
managed to make out from Jonathan is so convoluted though, she has trouble
believing it herself.
So far, she's worked out that Dio is still up to his old tricks and trying to
fully usurp Jonathan. But the only way he would need a Jonathan look-alike
would be... well, if he planned to dispose of the original, permanently.
And though Jonathan's adopted brother still showed a slight cruel streak, Erina
would hardly argue he was capable of cold-blooded murder.
Her determination to ensure Jonathan's safety triumphs over common sense here
she starts off snooping about in the village. Her continued friendship with
Jonathan (and inadvertent snubbing of everyone else in their age group) meant
that new faces could have skirted by. She wastes an afternoon confirming that
she had seen all the adolescents and, needless to say, none of the boys could
hope to pass as Jonathan, even squinting through a thick fog!
The question, she realises, was never one of where Dio was keeping this
replacement Jonathan, so much as when he would think to make the switch.
In thinking the other was in immediate peril, she acts without foresight. And
so it is Erina finds herself precariously perched on the first floor window
ledge outside Dio's room, two hours after her mother had thought her tucked
into bed. She's dressed in her warmest garments, enough for any freak summer
blizzards, and realises too late that she has no idea how to proceed. Even
ignoring the half-dozen problems with her theory -- such as why Dio had decided
on a robbery instead or why a would-be murderer would be discussing his plans
before his intended victim -- and assuming Dio was plotting his brother's
murder, how was camping out in front of his room supposed to solve anything?
Even with the curtains wide-open, what could she expect to find? A detailed
master plan in his journal?
While she is trying to rationalise the situation -- though the differing
accounts are still impossible to reconcile -- Dio keeps glancing at the clock.
At half past eleven, he closes his book with the bookmark slid into place and
then makes his way to the wardrobe. Erina watches, uncomprehending, as he then
wrenches a large wooden plank from the inner compartments. Dio then climbs into
the wardrobe.
In the second it takes her to put two and two together, she sees Jonathan's
life flash before her eyes. And then she's balancing as if her own life
depended on it, hopping from ledge to balcony to ledge.
Jonathan's curtains are drawn, but the lights are still on. Erina clutches onto
the railing with one hand, knocking frantically on the window with the other.
Jonathan's expression would be hilarious if she weren't worried for his life.
He pulls back the curtains and his knees buckle with surprise. And then he's
throwing open the window and dragging her inside and Dio is tumbling out of
Jonathan's wardrobe.
"Dio!" Jonathan's tone conveys it all: friendly and not at all surprised.
"What the -- " Dio scowls, standing up.
The whole thing is so slapstick, so of course the first thing that comes out of
her mouth is:
"What are you doing here!"
"I should be asking you that," he grumbles only to rolls his eyes, "You know
what, nevermind." And with that said, he climbs back into the wardrobe,
crawling back to his own room, presumably.
"Erina, are you alright?" Jonathan asks, face overcome with worry. He presses a
hand to her face.
"Jojo," she hisses, when he's led her to a seat, "What was he doing here?"
"Dio?" Jonathan looks a little abashed, "Um, well, I kind of told him about
what I saw -- "
"You what!"
"And then asked if he could come over. To, uh, check on me." And then he
redirects the spotlight to her, "But Erina, what were you doing outside? Did
something happen in the village?"
The preposterousness of her logic and accompanying actions dawn on her then and
suddenly getting a cold is the last of her worries.
"Oh gosh," she moans, "Oh god, oh my god, I'm so sorry."
"What is it?"
"I -- I think I lost sight of myself for a moment."
"What?"
"I have to go back, my father will be livid if he finds out," she stands to
leave, fully prepared to scramble down the window, but Jonathan grabs her hand.
"Wait, Erina -- what is this about?"
Never before has she wanted to shrivel into nothingness. Still, they had
promised loyalty, so she spills her side of the story. How Jonathan manages to
make it through 'I thought your brother was plotting to kill you and then
replace you with one of his lackeys' while still looking so concerned is a
small wonder.
"Is that what this is about?" Jonathan laughs at the end of it, "Haven't I
already told you? Dio and I have made up long ago. I'm more scared of ghosts
than him, to be honest!"
"I know," she freely admits, laughing with him, "I wasn't thinking clearly."
When Jonathan lets go of her hand to pile on clothing, she frowns. "Jojo? What
are you doing?"
"Putting more clothes on," he answers, buttoning his overcoat before donning a
scarf.
"Why?"
"To walk you home, of course."
And though they bicker and squabble and even though he teases her about her
grand misconception, Jonathan is still very much the gentleman for the whole of
their midnight stroll back. She kisses his cheek before letting him boost her
through the window and thinks of how grand things would be, in the future.
***** which was never yours to give *****
Erina would have not believed it if someone had told her beforehand, but her
first patient ends up being the man who would be her brother-in-law. In the
months since the burglary at the Joestar Manor, no further incidents have
occurred. Therefore, although the thieves were still at large, the usual sense
of calm had been restored. Of course the locks were changed and staff came and
went -- business was booming in fact, and private tutors had been hired for the
boys, which meant Mr. Joestar could travel with higher frequency. His father
was preparing them for their time at college, Jonathan tells her.
The elephant in the room, well there were two of them actually, is: what would
become of them when Jonathan went on his studies? And, of course, what would he
study in the first place. Although he had an interest in classical and ancient
civilisations, he lacked the patience to learn a dead language in full, and
could barely get through the simple past in Latin. Furthermore, his interests
were fleeting, lasting up until he had read all the books on the subject in the
family library. As for the prior issue, Erina knows that her own parents are
holding fast to the hope that their odd (but still childish) relationship would
end with the natural combination of time and distance. She does feel anxiety at
points, but never outright fear. Everything would be alright, he tells her, she
tells him, and so they believe.
An accidental result of the robbery is an upsurge of solidarity from the
villagers. They don't flood over all at once and, in fact, only the council
head directly conveys his condolences, but they organise a good-spirit
gathering in the Church, reminding the Joestars that even though they were from
separate classes, the blood was not so bad as to consider them outsiders.
Erina's parents play only a small role in the gathering, but even attending
makes her heart swell. The pastor gives a short sermon on the importance of
community and everyone of-age in the village sits around three tables, breaking
bread and making merry.
As Jonathan recounts to her father after storming into the Pendleton residence
looking like hell itself had frozen over, he doesn't remember when exactly Dio
got sick. It must have been after Lord Joestar had left on his trip, and
couldn't have been longer than three days.
"He's unable to walk here?" her father asks.
"Yes. And he refuses to eat or drink too!"
Her father takes his glasses off before standing up. Were this three years
prior, the motion would have allowed him to tower over Jonathan. But now, they
practically see eye-to-eye.
"Very well," he sighs, "I presume your carriage is waiting?"
"Um," Jonathan blusters, "I actually ran here."
"In this weather?" Dr. Pendleton gestures to the snow, "You ought to be taking
better care of yourself!" He sighs again before asking his wife to prepare his
traveling case.
"Already done!" Erina calls, sliding out of the hallway with said case in-hand.
"Erina!" the look of surprise on Jonathan's face makes her think he hadn't
truly connected her father as the village doctor, despite having seen him on
multiple occasions.
"Jojo, Father," she curtseys, prooffering the handle.
Her father looks her up and down, heaving another sigh at the obvious question
in her eyes.
"Alright," he relents, "You may come along. But wear something more than that!
There's ice on the roads!"
"Yes, Father!"
Dr. Pendleton turns his attention to Jonathan while his daughter is dashing
back up the stairs. "And you, young man..." there's another reproach on the tip
of his tongue but Jonathan's worried expression spares him from voicing it.
"There's a larger winter jacket in that wardrobe there," is what he says
instead, "Put it on, will you? If your brother is as sick as you think him to
be, there's no sense in joining his company."
Jonathan blinks, taking a moment to process the order. Then he mumbles out a
'yes sir' before shuffling over to the wardrobe.
When Erina dashes back down with what feels like every garment in the house on
her shoulders, she sees Jonathan and her father at the door. Her father gives
her back the case and she takes it. Jonathan does a double take when she's the
one holding onto the medical supplies in their trek back to the manor.
"Here, let me," he insists, tugging the box out of her hands. She relinguishes
her hold, glad to see he was wearing gloves at least, and then catches his
disbelieving look.
"Don't be like that," she reassures, "Father's hands are his life." Indeed, her
father kept his glove and mittened palms and fingers tucked snugly in his
pockets. "Imagine if his hands were to shake from the cold or the sudden change
in temperature."
"I see," Jonathan mumbles, rearranging his hold so as to treat the case with
more care, "I hadn't thought of it like that."
The wind picks up as they continue their way, making conversation impossible.
Although Erina is glad to be of use, Jonathan's uncharacteristic silence
reminds her of the gravity of the situation. It was still early in the morning,
barely nine, but he had trekked across the snow-covered hills without
hesitation. The lack of conversation allows them to walk faster and they reach
the Joestar manor before ten. Because she knows her father's bedside manner
well, Erina does not bother following them up the stairs. Instead, she accepts
an offer of cocoa from one of the maids and sheds the heaviest layers in the
family room. Danny is lazing by the fire; he cracks open one eye and lifts his
snout slightly, but offers no further greeting. Erina pulls her gloves off and
warms her hands up by the fire.
Sensation is returning to her fingertips when Jonathan stomps back downstairs.
His face is scrunched into a frown and he makes no attempt at greeting, sitting
himself cross-legged with Danny between the two of them.
Erina lets him stew for a couple minutes, turning her hands so that the other
side could be warmed up. How did Jonathan manage to coordinate his fingers to
scratch behind Danny's ears after two hours in the snow, she has no idea.
"Is he always like this?" Jonathan eventually asks.
"Mostly." Erina declines to mention that her father only ever allowed the
patient's relatives to stay for the initial diagnosis when the patient seemed
to be on the cusp of death.
"I know it's for the best," he admits, "But it's just so frustrating. I can't
do anything at all."
"I'm surprised," she carefully begins, "The two of you are normally so healthy.
Did something happen?"
"No, nothing happened. That's what I don't understand! I was the one who wanted
to go sledding and Danny was the idiot who nearly froze to death, so how is it
that Dio ends up getting sick?"
In hearing his name, Danny turns, managing an impressively reproachful glance,
for a dog.
"I don't mean it like that," Jonathan backtracks, scratching again at the dog's
ears, "But it just doesn't make sense."
"It's a wonder you're not sick," Erina notes, reaching out to touch the top of
his wet and cold hair. "Here, you should take your jacket and boots off at
least. And your socks too, really." Jonathan does as told and she manages to
maneuver him to sit in front of the fire. And then Danny is curling up against
her, resting his head in her lap, and she's stroking his fur and feeling his
ribs and wondering how so much time had flown by.
"I don't think he's sick or anything," Jonathan mumbles, petting his dog, "Just
old."
"How old is he?"
"Um... I got him when I was eight. But he was already fully grown, then."
Erina has done some research here and Danny, being a Great Dane, has a life
expectancy of eight to ten years. But what were statistics in the face of life
and death? She struggles and fails to come up with the right words to say and
though their gaze meet intermittently, neither her nor Jonathan try to further
the conversation.
Her father has been with Dio for half an hour when Jonathan begins to cry.
"I shouldn't have goaded him into coming out with me," he starts, "I know we're
not really close and he doesn't really like me, but I don't want him to die!"
"Dio isn't going to die," Erina swiftly reassures, "I'm sure he's just -- just
exhausted. Don't worry, Father is as good a doctor as he is a surgeon."
Thankfully, her father descends from the stairs at this point, clearing his
throat. Jonathan hastily wipes his face on his sleeve before demanding: "How is
he? What's wrong with him?"
"As far as I can tell," Dr. Pendleton notes, "He's simply feeling the effects
of a drastic change in temperature. Cheer up, boy, there's nothing wrong with
your brother that rest won't cure."
Jonathan actually deflates with relief.
"Oh," he says, voice tremulously high, "Is that all? Oh, thank goodness. Thank
you so much, Dr. Pendleton, is there anything I can do?"
"I've already instructed the maids to regularly change the blankets, but if
you're confident enough to change the sheets as well..." he takes one look at
Jonathan's confounded expression and corrects himself, "Nevermind. Just keep an
eye on him, alright?"
"I can change his sheets, Father," Erina hears herself volunteering.
"Absolutely not."
"But why not?"
"Because no daughter of mine is going to -- "
"But Father," it's difficult to maintain a determined but neutral expression
(and not go for the lilting-and-pleading route) but Erina manages, "If it's
just a cold then there's little chance I'll catch it."
"Absolutely not. It's bad enough you're running off in midnight sprints and
don't give me that look Erina, your mother and I aren't blind."
Rather foolishly, she turns to Jonathan for support.
"Jojo," she tries, "You know I've helped out in the hospital. I could help you
take care of Dio, at least until his fever breaks."
Jonathan's reluctant expression is like a slap.
"I don't know, Erina," he starts, "I mean, you should listen to your father...
and Dio is, well, almost a man..."
The implication in his tone is enough to rile her father at least.
"Mr. Joestar, could you be implying that my daughter -- who has spent more time
at the clinic than you've spent on books all your life -- would act untoward
your brother?"
"I said no such thing! Just that -- "
"Yes?"
"Father, please...!" How everything always managed to spiral out of control,
and so quickly too, she has no idea. She wants nothing more than to say
something snide about Jonathan's bedside manner (unable to change sheets,
really!) and slam the door shut.
"I just don't think it's, well, proper," Jonathan disclaims.
Erina extricates herself from Danny before standing up. She then walks past
both Jonathan and her father, ignoring Jonathan's alarmed 'Erina?' on the way.
With the knowledge gleaned from her hour camped on the windowsill, she locates
Dio's room. Her father is as clinical as she remembers, leaving the direct care
of the patient to the nurses, or in this case, maids. Dio isn't poorly-off, by
any stretch, though he's buried under four comforters.
Something comes over her then, as she barks out an order for a double pair of
clean bedsheets. Jonathan tries to intervene, protesting, but she silences him
with a glare. And then she's enlisting the help of two of the maids in lifting
the sweat-soaked sheet from out underneath Dio, flipping the comforters and
blankets, and mopping the sweat from his head, neck, and shoulders.
Much like Danny, Dio cracks open an eye at the fuss, though he can't put up
much of a fight. He groans when they're shifting the sheets and squeezes his
eyes shut tighter when she's pressing a clean and dry towel to his skin.
When she comes to her senses, she notes that she's the one sweating and her
father is clapping in the background.
Erina turns to face him, wiping the sweat from her brow.
"My daughter, the nurse," he praises, "And more efficient than some of the
London practitioners to boot."
She looks at Jonathan then, almost but not quite challenging. He bites his
lower lip, but dips his head.
"Very well," her father announces, "I will leave Mr. Joestar's brother in your
care, Erina. I know there's little chance of the usual professionalism in this
sort of situation, but I hope you'll strive for it nonetheless."
"Father...!" she'd throw her arms around him if she didn't need to wash them.
As it is, she looks at him and beams, "Thank you so much! I'll do my best, I
promise!"
"I'm sure you will, dear. Now I've got to get back to the clinic," and so, he
starts putting his tools in order, quickly listing off a more detailed set of
instructions for Dio's care to which Erina dutifully nods.
Jonathan stares mutely at the doctor, up until he's tucked his glasses in his
breastpocket.
"What are you waiting for?" Dr. Pendleton prompts, "Who do you think is going
to carry my case back home?"
"Right away, sir!" Jonathan stammers out, ducking out the room and back
downstairs to quickly put his own winter clothing back on and leaving doctor
and nurse in the room.
"Erina," her father warns, "I hope you understand that this is not a medical
facility. It is someone's home."
"Yes, Father."
"Have at you then," he pats her shoulder, "I'll be damned if I wasn't itching
to cut things up at your age."
-
Under any other conditions, Jonathan would have been honored at the chance to
walk alone with the man he hoped would one day be his father-in-law, nevermind
the opportunity to carry the doctor's medical supplies! But after the not-
quite-spat he had with Erina right in front of her father he's suddenly scared
she won't want to marry him at all. Here they were, promising hand over fist to
one another, and he couldn't even trust her to look after his brother? As her
seizing control in the sickroom demonstrated, she was clearly more experienced
in such matters than even the manor maids!
Dr. Pendleton is the one to break the silence.
"As soon as she knew what I was, she wanted to be just like me. Neither of her
brothers had any interest in medicine -- and look at them now, perfectly happy
outside our world! I should have encouraged the same of her."
"But Erina loves medicine," Jonathan protests, "Even if you told her otherwise,
I think she'd still want to be a nurse."
The doctor keeps his peace for a while after that declaration. There's a bout
of truly cold wind and Jonathan can feel the chill through his gloves. He had
always known about Erina's ambitions, had always been proud of them, really.
But to see her in her element is another experience altogether. And so the two
of them trudge through the snow. Dr. Pendleton needs to have Words with his
wife (who, like Jonathan, is horrified at the thought of their daughter helping
out with the Joestars), but Jonathan is thankfully not called in to argue his
case. He declines an offer of tea, eager to head back out, and returns to the
manor within the hour.
Dio is still feverish, flickering between states of consciousness, and looking
at him -- specifically, looking at Erina fuss over him -- makes Jonathan feel
useless.
Erina indulges him, or something like it, calling him over to help lift his
adopted brother up.
"What are you doing," Dio rasps.
"Uhm, uh," Jonathan stutters, "What does it look like I'm doing?"
"Taking care of you," Erina casually replies. "You're sick with a fever, but
it's nothing serious."
His brother looks as if he'll put up a fight, narrowing his eyes and clenching
his jaw. But the most Dio says is a defeatist "oh" before Jonathan is allowed
to gingerly recline him again.
Considering Dio wasn't sick enough to vomit, taking care of him isn't as
grueling as it could be. Jonathan learns some of the ropes at least, and when
Erina decides the sheets need to be changed for the third time that day, he can
do the work of two maids. The laudanum Dr. Pendleton had administered is
beginning to wear off in the afternoon, so that he has enough energy to sit up,
drink water, and even make his way unaided to the washroom. Unfortunately, the
change in temperature coupled with the sudden movement causes him to swoon on
the way back. Jonathan rushes to prop him up and Erina hurries over without
delay and the two of them help Dio settle back into bed, doing their best to
keep up with his complaints.
And he has so many of them.
"Jonathan," Dio growls, "It's too stuffy here. I can't breath."
Jonathan looks to Erina for guidance. She shrugs her shoulders and gestures to
the window. He goes to open it, just a crack.
"Wider."
"No, that's enough," Erina cuts in.
"Bitch."
"Dio!" Jonathan chokes out.
"Don't mind him Jojo," Erina waves her hand, "I've been called worse. Besides,
he'll be changing his mind soon enough."
The thought of Erina tending to even rowdier patients makes Jonathan sick to
his stomach. But sure enough, her prediction comes true and Dio demands the
window be closed as soon as he wakes again.
Dio demands water, bread, soup, and more pillows on four separate occasions. He
throws the pillows to the floor, complaining they weren't firm enough, and
sends the bread and soup back to the kitchens, complaining both were tasteless.
The water is accepted without complaint at least. And Jonathan, who had been
worried sick and close to praying for a safe recovery (and a speedy one,
considering their father was returning soon), thinks he wants to pull at his
hair in frustration.
"How do you put up with this?" he asks Erina. "And why would you want to?"
"Different people react to sickness differently," she says in a placid tone.
She's somehow gotten three-quarters through her book while Jonathan has barely
refrained from throwing his in the fire.
Erina smiles in reminiscence, adding: "I didn't like to get sick, but the best
part was when both Mother and Father would fuss over me. I can't imagine how
else I'd be convinced to eat so many lozenges, or allow leeches to be put on me
at all."
"Leeches?" Jonathan makes a face, "Aren't those out of fashion?"
"Mmm."
He shudders at the thought of the bloodsucking little worms. Except then his
stomach growls.
He flushes and Erina laughs and as one, they look at the clock.
"Sorry, I -- "
"No, you should get dinner."
"What about you?"
"Could you bring something up?"
"Sure!" Jonathan glances quickly at his sleeping brother, whispering, "Call for
me if you need anything, alright?" before heeding the complaints from his
stomach.
There's an audible clap from the covers when Erina closes her book.
"Jojo's gone for now," she says.
Dio snaps his eyes open, turning his head to face her.
"I never liked you," he starts with neither prompt nor emotion.
"I could have liked you," she freely admits, "If you hadn't treated Jojo so
horribly."
"There would have been no need, had you not monopolised his time."
"I don't believe you." But her voice too, is without challenge.
He turns his face away from her, closing his eyes. "What good is being
brothers, if he runs to you at every opportunity?"
'Did you make yourself sick so he would take care of you,' is on the tip of
Erina's tongue. But she doesn't think she can respond to his answer, whatever
it was, so she keeps quiet. The silence is thick as they wait with baited
breath for Jonathan to reappear.
"He's probably bringing a whole serving cart up," Dio huffs.
"I should hope not," Erina sniffs, "You're still sick."
"It's not for me," he snorts.
The might have been concession allows her to reveal one of her own.
"I'm scared you'll end up going somewhere far away. For university, I mean."
"The idiot's plans all include you," Dio bites back, "You have nothing to worry
about. He's just like a dog in that regard."
But Jonathan interrupts then, bringing with him (as predicted) a serving tray
laden with snacks, sweets, and sweetmeats, and they talk in muted whispers,
quietly shushing one another whenever a giggle threatened to breach the
silence. As expected, Dio's fever breaks in the night and he's absolutely
famished the following morning. Erina returns to her own home and sleeps the
rest of the day away and when Lord Joestar returns on Saturday, it is as if Dio
had never been sick at all.
-
Jonathan is better at keeping secrets than anyone gives him credit for he keeps
his change in ambition hidden from everyone, even Erina, up until the point his
father is asking about university.
Dio answers first; he had been wanting to study law since adolescence.
Both father and brother look at him then, the former with more apprehension
than the latter.
"And you, Jojo?" Lord Joestar prompts.
"I, Jonathan Joestar," he grandly declares, "am going to be a doctor!"
"A what?"
"Really."
His father nearly falls out of his seat. "Jojo, are you sure?"
"Yes," Jonathan nods, "After seeing Dio get sick, I realised how useful
medicine can be. I know I won't be able to save everyone, but maybe... I don't
know... I can save someone. Or help them, at least."
His earnestness wins his father over, without a doubt.
"Jojo, I'm so proud of you. And you too, of course, Dio," he stands up and goes
over to hug both his sons, "I'll have my secretary write to the available
departments at once."
-
"You want to be a doctor?!" Erina nearly screams. She covers her mouth, then
repeats herself at a lower volume. "But weren't you always interested in the
classics?"
"Hmm, I guess I was," Jonathan shrugs, "But seeing you take care of Dio really
put things into, well, into perspective." He scratches at his neck, laughing,
"I think I wanted to be your helper. Um, a nurse's nurse, maybe?"
"And you never told me?"
"I was afraid you'd laugh!"
Erina does have to bite back a giggle. But then she brushes her hair to the
side and schools her expression into something more serious. "Jojo, my father
always told me that medicine is a thankless profession. Everyone will want
things that you can't give them. He was nearly killed for not being able to
save a patient."
But Jonathan has done some research on his own and he merely nods.
"I know," he smiles, "But I still want to try."
Overcome with relief, Erina kisses him then. Then she pulls back and confesses,
"Just between us, I think my father is the happiest with the news."
"Happier than my father?" Jonathan scoffs, "I doubt it."
And so begins Jonathan's semi-apprenticeship under the man who would become his
father-in-law. He has a lot to catch up on, when compared to Erina, but
discovers that his education in the manor is not as lacking as Dr. Pendleton
had thought -- especially in matters of biology and anatomy. His declaration is
a boon for both families: the Pendletons had worried that their daughter would
marry a good-for-nothing landed boy unable to earn his own keep while Lord
Joestar had feared Jonathan would turn into said caricature of the peered
elite. In private, Dio thinks his brother is merely chasing after the Pendleton
girl, though he does not bother voicing his thoughts.
Either way, Jonathan demonstrates more drive than either family thought him
capable of and his frenzied six months of studying pay off with second mark
scores in all subjects and a guaranteed place in the Hugh Hudson medical
department. There's serious talk of marriage floating in the air and something
like a reverse Cinderella from green-tinged tongue, murmuring how absurd it was
the prince would be going on to learn the trade of a sweeper. And so it is
Jonathan and Dio leave for Hugh Hudson Academy at sixteen and seventeen years
of age in the Medical and Law departments respectively.
***** has somehow found its way to me *****
What had he wanted? Power and money. Why had he wanted it? The security having
both afforded him. How had he planned to get at it? Well, when he was still in
the planning phase of killing the man who killed his mother, he had asked
around the London gangs. Both the west and north districts were looking for new
recruits. But after his father had revealed his inheritance, the plan had been
to kill Jonathan Joestar and take his role as sole heir. And now? Now... the
plan seemed to be turning into a straight-laced lawyer and then waiting for
either Jonathan or Lord Joestar to turn the responsibility of the estate over
to him.
When Jonathan had revealed his change in career plans, Dio had been just as
surprised as his father. Adoptive father, that is. Said surprise had doubled
when Jonathan actually stuck out with the subject -- long enough to pass the
prerequisite exams for Hugh Hudson, which was already longer than any of his
past interests. Despite his misgivings, his brother was actually quite
tenacious and oddly resourceful, though Dio would never admit to thinking so.
But the world would always have need of doctors, even simpering soft-hearted
ones like Jonathan (who, he suspects, would still manage to turn medicine into
an unprofitable profession), and it was certainly more useful than any of his
past interests.
Their send-off to Hugh Hudson is a grand affair: a midnight-black carriage
drawn by six horses with enough space inside to fit a whole household. His
brother and the Pendleton girl had tearfully kissed in front of the crowds, if
their usual handholding displays weren't enough. And though the throng of
spectators gave a collective gasp, no attempt was made to drag the pair away
from one another -- classes or propriety be damned, for all the straight-
lacedness the village folk professed to have. Jonathan promises to write every
week; the Pendleton girl replies in the same; none of the parents intervene
(and, in fact, Dio thinks their respective fathers are smiling) and the
inevitable engagement is effectively cemented in the townspeople's minds.
Hugh Hudson is supposed to be different. But then, he had thought the same
thing throughout adolescence. Jonathan would grow tired of playing the same
girl and she would do the same to him, they would grow up and grow apart and he
could finally get the chance to see his brother outside of meals and classes.
Although Jonathan follows him onto the rugby team and although they make a good
show of brotherly camaraderie for the spectators, he's constantly prattling
about his subject (Today we watched the lecturer dissect a cow's stomach!), his
woman (Erina's in London too, she's got a position in the hospital as a
nurse!), or both (She'd probably enjoy the dissection. Or maybe she'd find it
boring? I know she's watched her father...). Dio's put up with this blather for
five and a half years and begins to wonder, with a wry sort of despondence,
whether it would be a recurring theme. Jonathan's interest hadn't waned with
regard to either subject, on that note.
Once, one of their rugby teammates remarks on the oddness of their
relationship. Jonathan has been allowed to leave practice early on account of
needing to study for an exam, and one of the second years clears his throat.
"So we've been wondering," he starts, "Who's older?"
"I am."
There's a couple curses, though the hooker pumps his fist. Evidently, bets had
been placed.
"But if you're older than him... why does Jojo keep calling himself your older
brother?"
"It's a joke of his," Dio shrugs, running the towel over his hair, "He likes to
think of himself as the elder."
"Just that?"
"What else would it be?" he finishes tying his shoes before heaving his
equipment bag over a shoulder. "Is that all?" he prompts, "Because I could
stand to study more too."
"Fat chance," one of his own classmates in Law snorts, "You've got the best
grades in the class."
Dio turns to leave, ignoring the comment.
"Woah, Brando! One more question!" this one, surprisingly, is from the captain
himself.
"What?"
"Why don't you call Jojo -- well, Jojo?"
"Personal preference," he answers -- too sharp and probably too harsh. He's not
so unrestrained as to storm out, but he can't hide his irritation at their
prodding. This was how things always were, he thinks. People would fraternise
with Jonathan and then ask Dio for the servants' whispers. And Jonathan
remained either oblivious or unaffected, while Dio was left fielding another
assortment of ridiculous questions.
The worst part about Jonathan though, is how he manages to drag everyone down
to his pace. Instead of staying indoors and studying his childhood away in
order to catch up, he instead drags Dio outside -- only to snub his invitation
and play with a dog and a girl! And Dio finds the desperate drive to excel at
every opportunity which had kept him alive in the slums getting chiseled into
dullness just by being in his brother's company. The best example lies in their
monthly allowances. Dio had saved every penny for the first three years, and
now it felt natural to spend hand over fist. When he catches himself putting
silvers in the coffers, he distinctly thinks: I am giving my money away.
But Jonathan doesn't notice and even if Dio had spelled it out for him, he
would have laughed it off. Maybe even patted Dio's shoulder and insisted it was
a good thing.
-
When Jonathan passes out in class in the latter half of their first year, he is
the last to find out. As the story is relayed to him (by the Pendleton girl, of
course) his classmates had thought him asleep and tried to wake him. And then,
when it became apparent he wouldn't wake up, they had to carry him to the
university hospital, where his father was alerted via newly-installed telegram.
Somehow, both George Joestar and Erina Pendleton are in the private hospital
room before Dio gets wind of the situation.
Erina clutching onto his brother's hand and crying is the only indication Dio
gets of how much time and effort has been expended trying to wake his brother.
"I've never heard of anything like it," she tells him, "His classmates said he
was sitting upright one moment, and then -- and then he -- he just slumped over
the next. The nurses have checked five times over but there's nothing wrong
with him."
"Is he breathing?" Dio demands.
"Yes! It's as if... as if he were sleeping...!"
Indeed, Jonathan's expression was free of strain, with an unclenched jaw and an
unfurrowed brow. Without thinking it though, Dio raises a hand, snapping his
fingers in front of Jonathan's face. As expected, there is no reaction.
"Jonathan," he chides, shaking his brother's shoulder, "Jonathan, wake up."
He repeats his useless command, to no avail. Erina makes no attempt to stop
him, though she keeps a tight hold on Jonathan's hand, shoulders hunched in
grief.
"Didn't you read the same books?" he asks, turning on her, "Haven't there been
similar situations?"
She can't even look at him, can't even look at Jonathan. The woman shakes her
head and chokes out: "This sort of state should only be possible from trauma.
But there are no visible wounds and -- and it's really like he's sleeping."
In a reversal of their previous sickbed roles, Dio and Erina share a sleepness
night, standing guard over Jonathan's bed. Every creak has them jolting, hoping
against hope that this would be the sign for Jonathan to wake. Erina succumbs
to exhaustion first, neatly collapsing on top of Jonathan. Of course their
hands would still be clasped; at this point Dio wouldn't have been surprised if
they ended up dying together, still somehow intertwined.
His own meandering thoughts bely his own exhaustion. He had never really hated
the Pendleton girl and had even had his interest piqued a time or two. She
wasn't so different from the other girls in the village -- or rather, there
were girls who were prettier and even smarter than her -- but she had latched
onto Jonathan so early on, Dio can't quite separate the two. And even though
Lord Joestar and half the servants call Jonathan by his nickname, his knee-jerk
association is still with that particular relationship.
"You're an idiot," he mutters to Jonathan, easing himself into one of the
waiting chairs. "I don't know how you managed to get yourself like that, but
I'm sure it's your own fault." He drifts to sleep cursing his brother's
contagion-like softness (for what else could explain why he chose to stay the
night in the hospital, when there were cases to be going over?). For Dio, it is
as if he closed his eyes at midnight then opened them at dawn, for all the rest
he doesn't get.
-
As Dr. Pendleton is in the middle of an operation, he is only able to drop by
the following day. But Jonathan's condition has not changed, and he too is left
scratching his head at the root cause.
Dio is shown the weak and cowardly side of his brother's choice in wife then;
Erina runs off in tears when her father comes to same conclusion. Perhaps he
would have followed her, at least asked if Jonathan had said anything unusual
in his letters to her, except his own father -- well, Lord Joestar -- thinks
the same for him.
"Was Jojo under any sort of stress?" the worried father asks.
"Not that I know of, no," Dio answers, "His grades have been good and he seemed
to enjoy rugby."
"Has he received any injuries while playing?" Dr. Pendleton interjects, "Any
stumbles, falls, trips, even mishaps?"
"He's been tackled," Dio warily concedes, "But never knocked out. Not like
this."
"And he hasn't said anything to you?"
"Does he ever?" it shouldn't sound so bitter, but he's too worried to be
polite.
"Dr. Pendleton," Lord Joestar turns to the other man, "What do you think the
best course of action would be?"
"I've never seen anything like this, especially at his age," Dr. Pendleton
answers.
"So you mean you have no idea?" Dio translates.
"Lord Joestar," Dr. Pendleton ignores him, "Your son is barely seventeen years
old. Unexplained comas are usually the result of strokes, which, as you know,
tend to afflict men our age."
"And if it is a stroke?" Lord Joestar asks, gaze flickering from patient to
doctor. "What would you do then?"
"At this stage? Palliative care, I suppose."
Lord Joestar's shoulders sag.
"I see."
"Is this the best London can offer?" Dio demands, "My brother has been
unconscious for over twenty-four hours and the most you can recommend is
palliative care?"
"Dio," his father puts a hand on his shoulder, "We've tried shocking him into
consciousness from the get-go."
This is news, at least.
"And?" Dio presses.
"Nothing. Not even his fingers twitched."
"You must understand, Mr. Brando," Dr. Pendleton tries to explain, "This is not
merely a deep sleep. Outside stimuli have failed to have an effect."
"And then? Do you plan to keep him here indefinitely?"
"If the problem is in his head, we've no way of seeing what's wrong without
causing permanent damage."
"Is there anything you can do?" Lord Joestar beseeches, "Anything?"
Dr. Pendleton pulls out his journal at least, flipping to the page where he had
made notes on Jonathan's condition.
"If you'll pardon the use of fairy tales in this context," he starts, "It seems
to be something like Sleeping Beauty, rather than Rip Van Winkle. Which is to
say: his internal processes have slowed past, well, what we would speculate to
be hibernation levels, were humans capable of such." As neither Dio nor his
father understand the explanation, Dr. Pendleton shows his notes to them. "This
is Mr. Joestar's heart and respiratory rate at the moment. Those figures are
per minute, mind you. The average adult male is somewhere between 70 and 20,
respectively."
"Is he using less energy then?" Lord Joestar asks.
"Significantly less. Furthermore, I compared my own obversations to those from
the nurses and both our numbers are so similar, I would reasonably state there
has been no change in his condition since he had been brought into the
hospital."
Erina reappears then, bringing fresh linens. Her eyes are red-rimmed and she
looks as tired and frustrated and helpless as Dio feels.
"But what good is that if we can't wake him?" she asks, even as she's airing
out the blankets.
Her father heaves a sigh, closing his notebook and taking off his glasses.
"It isn't," he eventually admits. "And there's very little for us to do."
-
Though Dr. Pendleton correctly identifies the comparative stability of the
comatose state, he is nonetheless unable to do anything about it. Jonathan's
classmates and lecturer are interviewed one-by-one and their stories, while
matching up, fail to shed any light on the picture.
And so a whole week passes where everything seemed to be put on hold. Or
rather, Dio's life seemed to be put on hold. Dr. Pendleton and Lord Joestar
were arranging visits with specialists -- neurologists and psychologists and
the like while Erina was monitoring Jonathan's condition around the clock. But
there is nothing for him to do. He tries to go back to class in the middle of
the week, but wastes his time in the lecture worrying for his idiot brother. It
would not be surprising, his conscience taunts him, if Jonathan were to wake up
while he was gone. And so he cuts class for the first time in the semestre,
rushing back to the hospital, only to see no change in condition.
After a week, one of the experts puts forth the wild suggestion that Jonathan
had not taken to city life. This is ridiculous, as both Dio and Erina will
attest to, but no moreso than any of the other theories. And so Lord Joestar
arranges a second carriage to bring them all back to the manor.
Dio tries not to dwell on how a hearse was the quickest way to transport a
sleeping person from city to city.
Their neigh-funeral party arrives back in the manor well into the night. It
takes another hour to get Jonathan settled in, for of course the Pendleton girl
would insist on measuring his vitals for the umpteenth time. Dio understands
thoroughness, really, and he would agree on a thousand more measurements if it
would help Jonathan to wake. But his brother's heart rate is as it was a week
prior and though Danny is scrambling into his bed and licking his face, even
this degree of familiarity is not enough.
There's a summer thunderstorm brewing in the night and their procession had
been lucky to reach the manor before the rainclouds had settled in.
When Dio retires to his room, he knows something is wrong as soon as he's
turned on the lights. Someone has been here, recently. He does a sweeping gaze
of the bedroom before going into the bathroom to double-check. When he enters a
second time, an ice-cold sensation spreads out from his chest.
"Good evening," someone who looks just like him says, standing up and drawing
their knife with a flourish.
"You -- " Dio struggles for words, trying to convince himself that this was not
him.
The intruder smiles and says: "I've been waiting for you to come back."
"You're who Chasings saw that night," it's a preposterous statement, for he had
thought Jonathan sleep-addled and the butler a liar, but the proof is before
his eyes. "Who are you?"
He watches his own smile widen, pitying and condescending, and he thinks: I
could make that expression without trying. Looking at the other is downright
jarring -- as if the image reflected in the mirror were acting of its own
accord.
"Come now," he drawls, taking a step forward, "You know better than to ask
those sort of questions."
In an instant, he recalls Jonathan's own recollection and how the pair of
doppelgangers had spoken of casual murder and replacement. Was this what the
other was aiming for? Dio darts a quick glance at the door, cursing his own
habits. Of course he had locked it. His doppelganger looks at his empty hands
and smiles.
"There's no need to struggle," Dio hears himself say, "It'll be over before you
know it."
When the intruder tries to stab at him, he veers to the side, rolling onto the
floor. In the spare seconds his doppelganger is caught off-guard, Dio manages
to pull his own dagger out from the nightstand, all without having shown his
back.
"Who are you?" he demands a second time, "And what do you want?"
"I am you," the other 'him' shrugs, "And I am here to kill you."
If this were a proper knifefight, Dio wouldn't have had a chance. None of the
boys in the village practiced the sport and his coursemates in university were
even more pampered. Needless to say, his skills have gotten shoddy in the
interim and though he can still move as if the knife were a part of him, his
opponent's movements are no longer an open book. There's the clink of blade
against blade, the first sign that something is wrong, but as it's set against
the backdrop of the pouring rain and intermittent lightning, he's momentarily
distracted. And he would bristle further, were he not fighting for his life, at
the unguarded amusement in his doppelganger's face.
"Much better," this other Dio praises, "I think I shall take your memories at
the end of it, to see how you've learnt."
And so he responds with a taunt of his own: "At least parry like you mean it."
Herein lies the advantage: for reasons he can't fathom, the other is even less
experienced than him. No, more than that, it seemed as if he were just as
perplexed by Dio's movements. This is the price proper hunters pay, Dio later
learns, for the movement of beasts was a world apart from men. When he twists
to the side again, something animals rarely did, he thinks he'll approach from
the back. This turns out to be overthinking on his part and a trap at that, in
the blink of an eye, the dagger is sent flying from his hand, clattering on the
floor, and he's knocked to the floor. There's unfettered bloodlust, coupled
with something like desperation, and time seems to slow when the other attempts
the finishing blow.
His own self-preservation kicks in then and he somehow manages to twist the
knife out of his doppelganger's hand before stabbing it back in.
The slide of metal through skin and flesh would be a lot more satisfying if the
victim didn't look just like him.
Dio watches the other widen his eyes before looking down in muted horror at the
wound.
He has killed people before. His mother's murderer had not been his first.
Still, it's been years since he's watched someone bleed to death.
As soon as Dio catches his breath, he pushes the other off, sitting up and
clutching at his own hand. His left palm and fingers are bleeding from grabbing
at the knife -- the knife which was still stuck in his assailant's side.
"Who are you?" he asks again.
"I already told you," is the answer he receives, "We're the same."
"That's -- "
"Impossible, I know," his doppelganger rests his palm at the base of the knife,
rasping a laugh when it came back bloody. "But if you ask me, this ending
should have been impossible."
Dio is still trying to make sense of the situation when his doppelganger asks a
question of his own.
"Did you kill your father?"
"Of course."
"With poison, huh?" he hears himself snort, "Pity. Trash like him deserved a
worse death." The doppelganger pauses to catch his breath, hand skirting near
the wound, hesitant to actually touch. "And Jojo? Have you started plotting to
kill him too?"
Hearing himself speak his brother's nickname reminds him of his own inability.
"There's no need," he bitterly says, "He'll be dead soon enough at this rate."
This, at least, startles the other.
"Dead soon? What do you mean?"
"What's it to you?" Dio counters.
"Come here," his doppelganger bites. "Come here, you wretch."
Dio refuses and thus forces the other to drag himself over, tracking more blood
in his wake. He remains seated on the floor, and makes no attempt at evasion
when the other reaches for him. Before Dio asks the obvious 'what are you
doing', he feels his own fingers pressed against his temple. This is followed
by an innately intrusive sensation -- as if he were writing in a journal while
someone was looking over his shoulder -- and it is only when his doppelganger
pulls away with a thoroughly poleaxed expression that Dio realises the other
had somehow seen his mind. He keeps his peace however, refusing to part with
more information, and watches on in silence as the other once more lowers
himself to the floor.
"Fuck," he hears himself say, "This wasn't supposed to happen."
In another fatalistic moment, he wonders if all iterations of himself are
spouting some version of said line.
"I can't believe you," his other self rasps out, "Chasing after his heels for
all those years," he finally coughs up some blood, and adds: "You're no better
than a dog."
"And yet I've bested you."
His doppelganger laughs. Or tries to, at least. He gasps a couple more curses
out before extracting a series of silver wafers from his pocket.
"Better you than anyone else, I suppose." And then he reaches into his own
head, extracting another wafer. Dio is on edge and on guard, but still frozen
to the spot and he can't do anything but stare when the paper-thin circle melts
into him at first contact.
A flood of memories come pouring and he's sent reeling at the unexpected influx
of information. He clutches at his eyes, his ears, his head, distinctly aware
of how ragged his own breaths sounded in-conjunction with the heavy rain. It's
as if he's been shut in the engine room of a locomotive, with a deafening noise
that thrums and thrums and thrums. He wants out, away, over and is desperate
enough to hiss out threats and accusations. But they are useless and there is
little chance he'll be able to inflict more damage on his doppelganger.
But nothing makes the noise stop.
Except then it does.
And then the memories blink into visibility, like snippets of sky and sunlight
filtered through the trees. It is as if someone tried to copy a two hundred
page book into the margins of a pamphlet for all the sense he can make of it.
His doppelganger really is him; there is another Jonathan; the Dio and Jonathan
his brother had seen on the night of the robbery had been one and the same;
there is yet another version of 'him' who was pulling the strings in the
background; his doppelganger had not wanted to kill him so much as extract
another disc. And he sees the lines in-between as well, and the history between
Jonathan and himself that had already been rewritten. There is an iteration who
had driven a wedge between the lovebirds, an iteration who had killed his dog.
An iteration who had killed Jonathan.
It's too much to process, and he returns time and again to the obvious
corollary: there was another Jonathan. A Jonathan who had never met the
Pendleton girl. A Jonathan who his doppelganger had possessed in entirety.
Dio forces himself into the present and it's like breaching the water's surface
for air.
His doppelganger is still alive. Still conscious, even.
"Well?" the mirror image demands. "I take it you understand better?"
He can. He does. Everything which the other had done and all he had remembered,
Dio can understand. And still -- the present escapes him.
"He didn't tell you to do this," Dio points out, "So why did you?" If it were
him, he thinks, he would have been satisfied having Jonathan to himself.
"We are connected, you and I," the other him replies. "And I thought, with this
power, I'd be able to sever the connection."
"Can you?"
"What does it look like?" he clutches at the handle of the blade, pulling it
out with a groan, "I can't believe I lost that. And like this!" He squeezes his
eyes shut, trying to force himself to concentrate, "You could do it, you know?
It's not too late."
"What do you mean?"
"They're not married yet." He takes a deep breath before forcing his eyes open.
His pupils are so dilated, it is as if the gold was never there. "Get rid of
this corpse and pick out the things he remembers about her."
Dio's blood runs cold. The idea had already occurred to him; but to hear it
voiced so harshly.
"And what about him?"
"Who?"
"Your Jojo."
How he musters up enough energy to throw the knife, Dio doesn't know. It sails
in a lazy arc, interrupted by the headboard before landing on the bed. As he
watches the blood stain the white sheets, the night sky is lit up by lightning.
He turns back to his doppelganger, only to find him covering his eyes.
"Fucking hell," he mumbles, "It wasn't supposed to end like this."
***** and only in my dreams do you live *****
They could have coexisted, he thinks to himself while bandaging his left hand.
After all, the doppelgangers were an ocean apart.
Likewise, he, Dio, has been given the opportunity to restore the status quo. To
return to it.
It is not so bad, he admits, playing the role of brother. Just as it wasn't so
bad, to get sick because of someone else.
But the meeting with himself reminds him of himself. Only Jonathan could have
convinced him to be satisfied with scraps.
And so, Dio goes about arranging the circumstances of his own death.
-
There is something cathartic in staging a robbery.
Dio knows he's not in the right state of mind, knows that his thoughts have
been cluttered with memories and thoughts that weren't even his. He sees
Jonathan and Erina on their wedding day while smashing a window. He sees them
on their honeymoon voyage while crudely picking through the study locks. And he
sees Jonathan rejecting his offer of immortality for a chance at saving his
wife. Positioning the corpse is the easiest part. Everything is his
doppelganger's fault, he repeats to himself. As expected, the servants come
running at the sound of shattered glass, only to see him looking like hell
warmed over. There's blood on his face and rain everywhere else and they look
for a way to excuse him, but he just reaches out and -- it's as easy as his
doppelganger had said: picking and choosing memories. Even his father and
future sister-in-law come out to see what the fuss is about. And Dio rearranges
their memories too.
And a wicked voice whispers: Jonathan will be no different.
-
Dio has also crafted an extremely convoluted plan for getting into Jonathan's
bedroom and inserting the disc without being caught. The provisions for said
plan are thrown out the window when, as luck would have it, Erina Pendleton had
actually left his brother's side for a moment.
He slips in through the servants' passage with his blood still singing. This
particular aspect of his newfound ability is still untested, entirely based on
his doppelganger's word, but the temptation to do as was suggested is still
there.
Rather than act on it, he extracts the disc and presses it against Jonathan's
temple without ceremony. Just as the memory disc had done for him, it melts
into the skin at first contact. And, like magic, Jonathan is made animate
again.
Dio slips out without even seeing his brother open his eyes.
He can't, he realises. He can't -- lest he be tempted into staying.
-
Why he waits to see his own funeral, he isn't certain. But he manages to escape
detection until the three-day-long wake and blends into the throng of mourners
on the day of the burial. No one is looking for a dead man, after all. Dio only
sees Jonathan again at the funeral. His brother gets through three-quarters of
a eulogy before being overtaken by grief. The Pendleton girl takes up the
mantle then, reading the rest of the speech for her someday-fiancée, and
everyone claps politely and whispers condolences.
But Jonathan catches him lurking about in the afterparty and though Dio takes
off running, the other -- for once -- actually gives chase.
He scrambles into the same nook where he had overheard the Pendleton girl
confess to hitting him (along with wanting to marry Jonathan) all those years
ago.
And here too, Jonathan does not disappoint; clambering up the hill with his dog
somehow in-tow.
"Dio!" he shouts, "Dio, I know you're there!"
And this is it, Dio knows. This was why he had waited around instead of dashing
off to the French countryside. The tree where his brother had whiled away his
childhood cannot be spied upon. So when he jumps down from the branches, he is
confident no one will see them.
"Jonathan," he greets, "It's good to see you up again."
"I knew it," Jonathan says, even though Dio can see his disbelief, "I knew that
wasn't you. I knew you couldn't have died."
"Why not?" Seeing his brother come out with only his dog, it's as if they were
twelve years old again and meeting for the first time. Danny has only gotten
uglier through the years, but the initial revulsion he had felt towards boy and
dog has long departed. Now, when he looks at the mutt, the most he can feel is
a vague irritation. Him, Dio Brando, being outlived by a dog in Jonathan's
memories!
Dio is stupid, to expect something heartfelt at a time like this. Still, his
chest clenches up when Jonathan reaches out to touch his shoulder. Or rather,
the space between neck and shoulder.
"I've seen you in the changing rooms," he explains. He is quick to retract his
hand, as if Dio would disappear at a touch. "There was nothing on your neck,
and certainly nothing like a brand."
"...I see."
"Dio," Jonathan pleads, "Come back. Father is beside himself and it's not the
same without you. I don't know why you did this -- or who that other man was -
- but whatever it is, we can help you."
"Why? Because we're family?"
"Yes! Of course!" Jonathan riles himself up at the question, "And more than
family, we're brothers!"
It was not kindness that led to his change of plans. It was not kindness that
allowed him to rationalise playing second fiddle to Dr. and Mrs. Joestar for
the indefinite future. And it was not kindness that led him to burn this
bridge.
And yet -- the never-quite-acknowledged affection flickers bright. And the
temptation is still very much present. All the times he could have killed
Jonathan rush back at him, all the times he had soothed or helped or otherwise
coddled the other. He hadn't hated the Pendleton girl so much as he had wanted
to play her role in Jonathan's life. What cut deepest in the flood of memories
was the certainty of their relationship -- even after Dio had out-and-out
declared their destinies intertwined!
He could do it. His other self has told him as much. He could pick and choose
Jonathan's memories and be left with enough of him to have all of him.
"If I asked it of you," Dio starts, "Would you not marry her?"
Jonathan's eyes widen at the improper question. Danny presses against his side
then, taking note of his master's tension.
"Is that what this is about?" he asks.
Dio does not reply, but he does not avert his gaze either.
"Dio, you're my brother," Jonathan tries, as if enough repetition would allow
the word to have the same weight and meaning for both of them, "And I would do
anything you asked of me, if it meant you would come back."
"But not this," Dio guesses.
"Not this," his brother agrees.
More than a one-two punch, the time following Jonathan's convalescence has
seemed to be one defeat after another. Jonathan looks on the cusp of tears
again, and his dog is licking at his hand. Dio can only imagine how many
sleepless nights the other man had spent. Had they been twelve years old, he
would have delighted in Jonathan's suffering. Had they been fourteen years old,
he would have been exulted and perhaps even satisfied, to be able to wring so
much emotion from his brother.
But it is now and twelve years old might as well have been a lifetime ago.
He, Dio, is the one to drop his gaze.
"I have always been looking at you," he admits, "And I have always loved you."
But the real meaning behind his words is so alien that Jonathan doesn't even
consider it. There is no damning realisation or flash of disgust, just the same
constant forlorn expression. He who closes the distance, at least, in order to
wrap his arms about his brother.
"So come back already," Jonathan demands, "We'll forget all this, or find some
way to make it up. Surely you know I love you too."
Dissatisfaction, selfishness, and greed are what make him decline Jonathan's
offer. Dio has always known this is the most his brother had been willing to
offer him, and he is not cruel enough to twist it otherwise.
But there is still kindness in him yet yet.
Dio allows himself to lean into the embrace before raising one hand and
touching his brother's temple. The selective editing of memories is as simple
as it is painful. He removes the memory of the branding, as well as their last
memory. And then, purely because he can, and purely because he wants to
Jonathan's life in his hand, he extracts the soul disc too.
He only returns the embrace when Jonathan slumps against him like a puppet at
the end of a play. Danny senses something is wrong, barking in alarm, but he's
used enough to Dio to be calmed with a simple shush.
"It's alright," he tells the dog as he's carefully setting Jonathan down in a
supine position, resting against the trunk, "You'll take good care of him,
won't you?"
Like his master, his brother's hound is smarter than Dio had accounted for.
Even on the cusp of senility, it seems to understand the finality of his
actions. Danny flattens his ears and presses his tail to his side, giving Dio
his most pitiful look.
And then, because there is no one to see, he scratches at the dog's ears.
He stares at Jonathan's peaceful expression, trying to commit it to memory. But
this is how untouchable the other has ended up in the years: Dio cannot even
bring himself to steal a goodbye kiss. He runs his fingers through Jonathan's
hair, lingering at the crown, before touching the disc to his temple yet again.
-
Jonathan wakes at the trunk of his childhood tree. Danny is curled up by his
side and he feels as if he had been woken from a long dream.
His brother will live on his memories, he knows. And if he managed to be as
brave and selfless as Dio, perhaps he could follow him to Heaven.
"Danny," he greets, "You rascal! You're far too old to be out and about in this
sort of weather."
Danny barks, wagging his tail, and Jonathan laughs. It's wry and nostalgic, but
a laugh all the same.
"Well, alright then," he relents, standing up and straightening out his
mourning suit, "Lead the way home."
-
Dio waits until Jonathan is back on the manor grounds before leaving his hiding
spot. He stares out at the familiar landscape for the better part of an hour:
the manor, the garden, the tree-dotted hills, the bridge, the river. But at the
end of it, he still cannot work himself up to say goodbye.
-
-
-
Jonathan -- the one who didn't belong in this world, least of all in the French
countryside -- wakes at the same time as his counterpart. It is hours before
daybreak and he has been placed in the center of the grand dining table in the
abandoned fortress. With the moonlight from the uncovered windows, he finds the
candles and matches Dio had left within arm's reach.
"Dio?" he calls out.
Save for the echoes, there is no response.
"Dio?" he repeats, slightly louder. There's the scuttle of mice, but nothing
more.
Although his stomach sinks upon noticing the other had left his furs behind, he
forces himself to stay calm. He can't remember why Dio had wanted him here, or
even how he ended up inside.
He clambers off the table still bundled in fur and felt and pads about the
castle. It is as empty as it had always been. Back when they had first taken to
visiting the place, he couldn't shake off the feeling that someone was watching
him here. Dio called him ridiculous, said there was no such thing as ghosts,
and so long as the other had been there, Jonathan had believed him. But here
and now, he jumps at every flicker of the candle.
When day breaks and he's snuffing the small flame out, there's still no sign of
Dio. And now, as panic looms on the horizon, does he realise how long it's been
since he's felt fear. The puppetmaster in the dreamlike world had made no
effort to communicate with them since their initial voyage and Dio has never
been farther than arm's length. It hasn't even been a day and already, this is
the longest time he's been left alone.
Jonathan leaves the castle at noontime to hunt, but his concentration is so
poor he ends up falling back on rations. Come late afternoon, when he makes the
trek to the castle again, Dio is still nowhere to be found. Jonathan lights
another candle and stays up half the night waiting.
But the second morning comes and Dio is still not there. Jonathan calls for
him, childishly expectant, but receives no response.
He searches through the things the other had left behind then, but there's
nothing more than candles and matches.
When he's moving the furs and blankets around however, his ears perk up at an
unexpected rustle. Rooting about in the pockets of the clothes reveals a
folded-up page, torn out from one of their practice notebooks.
Jojo, the two-line note begins, If you are reading this then -- and stops
abruptly.
"And then what?" he asks, staring hard at the familiar cursive strokes. "If I
am reading this, then what, Dio?"
He glances around the abandoned building, but there are no answers to be found.
The panic will be not be staved off and with each passing day, paranoia and
anxiety lay their respective sieges, filling his mind with dozens of worst-case
scenarios.
Jonathan tells himself he's lost hope a week in. He calls the other boy a
multitude of bad names, but most particularly a liar. Hadn't they promised
themselves to each other? And hadn't Dio boasted that he took good care of his
own things? The gut-twisting suspicion that he had been abandoned -- that Dio
had chosen to go back to civilisation -- cannot be shaken off.
"So what," he insists to himself, blinking back tears, "I never liked this
castle in the first place."
He convinces himself he doesn't need the other, doesn't need anyone and though
it's true in the most utilitarian sense, he still takes to sleeping in the
castle.
"Jonathan Joestar," he tells his reflection in the lake, "What do you think you
are? A dog?" He dips his hands in the water and fervently scrubs at his face,
but the memory of his own tearstricken face will not fade. "It doesn't matter
if he never comes back," he repeats to himself, "You were always better than
him here. You preferred living here."
And this is true too. Dio regularly made journeys to the village while Jonathan
refused to have anything to do with them.
And still, he returns to the castle.
-
He goes a little mad in isolation.
Though two and a half weeks is not long at all, especially when juxtaposed with
how long they had lived in the wilderness, the uncertainty of when it would end
-- combined with the fear there was no end -- make it seem much, much longer.
He begins to dream of Dio returning, incessantly. Sometimes the other
apologises, sometimes he even explains. But Jonathan couldn't care less, so
long as he was back. He takes to sleeping at odd hours then. Or rather,
sleeping with increased frequency so as to maximise the amount of time spent in
said fantastical scenarios.
In his dreams, Dio's come back and Jonathan's found and made whole again and
they hold hands while making their way into the forest.
In his dreams, he doesn't spend his days despairing and his nights tossing and
turning.
In his dreams, Dio has kept his promise.
As a result, when Jonathan is woken by a touch on the shoulder, he thinks he's
still dreaming. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and sits up, waiting to be
greeted or scolded or apologised to or forgiven, but this Dio only stares. And
so Jonathan stares back, thankful for the human company, however silent or
fleeting it might be.
-
Dio, on the other hand, is having difficulties coming to terms with how
identical they were to their doppelgangers. He had done a double-take with
himself and though he had borrowed memories of this Jonathan, nothing is really
enough to prepare him for seeing the other in the flesh. Outside of their eye
color, everything everything everything else was the same.
How was it possible? Didn't location play some role in development? The climate
between Mediterannean France and Atlantic Britain was as different as night and
day, so how could this Jonathan be a mirror image?
Dio has spent the journey acclimating himself to the finality of his own
farewell. He can't go back, even if he wanted to, having already convinced
Jonathan of his death. To be greeted with his brother again, even if it wasn't
-- isn't -- won't ever be -- the same person, his eyes are lying to him and the
rest of him wants to believe. How had his doppelganger planned to greet him?
Dio sifts through their shared memories and finds his other self had planned to
remove whatever it was that had connected them and then return to the castle,
effectively pretending as if no time had passed.
During the boat ride down the Seine, Dio has solved two problems which escaped
the other. First, there were three types of discs rather than two. His
doppelganger believed he had taken Jonathan's Stand and Memory disc, however,
the other had yet to manifest a Stand. The second disc, then, seems to control
animation. Furthermore, his older self had made no attempt at contact because,
as far as Dio could tell, there was nothing of interest so far as Jonathan's
memories were concerned in the years between. But as soon as university ends,
if this Jonathan were as integral as his doppelganger suspected, he expects
some sort of communication.
What he can't explain, however, is how -- although they looked like mirror
images of one another and evidently could influence one another's health
despite being hundreds of miles apart -- his doppelganger's death has yet to
affect him. By all accounts, the other had given him his Stand along with his
memories, but the third disc -- the one which he had just confirmed Jonathan
shared -- was conspicuously absent.
And then there is Jonathan. This Jonathan.
"Jojo," he addresses, trying to remember the last time he had used said
nickname. It must have been on the eve of Jonathan's fifteenth birthday party,
when he had still entertained hope that his brother might lose interest in the
Pendleton girl. He can barely recognise his own voice.
At the use of the nickname, Jonathan's eyes widen. And then he's responding
with a fervency Dio hadn't even dreamed of, though it's something as simple as
throwing his arms about him.
"It's you," he hears, "You came back."
The discrepancy in eye colours he can accept. The vision of the Dio this
Jonathan had been waiting for crying at the unfairness of it all before
slipping into unconsciousness from blood loss, he cannot.
But even as he returns the embrace, saying the things his doppelganger would
have said, he knows it will never be the same.
-
Jonathan is so pleased to have him back that he consents to living in the
castle, a concession the person he thought Dio was had never been afforded. And
here too, Dio finds the borrowed memories worthless. Although he knows this
place has none of the comforts of the Joestar manor, he's somehow convinced
himself it would only be a step or two down from the London dormitories.
He's wrong, so wrong, and this Jonathan -- this imperfect copy who walks and
talks and laughs just like the Jonathan he remembers but doesn't bat an eye
while gutting a freshly-caught fish and even offers to prepare Dio's -- either
doesn't notice or doesn't care. Either way, he's made the forest his home and
revels in the same inconveniences which make Dio want to retch.
Something else which comes as a surprise (though it's more evidence for the
discrepancy between 'existence' and 'knowledge') is how much... well, dumber,
this Jonathan is. Part of it has to do with thirty-odd years of memories on his
part, but Dio changes his mind about the efficacy of the manor's straight-laced
library and soft-wristed tutors. This Jonathan is not stupid, by any means, but
Dio is nonetheless appalled he would rather run, swim, or (heaven forbid) climb
a tree than read a book. Not to mention stare blankly every couple
conversations and ask Dio to define completely mundane words.
But just as his doppelganger was and was not 'Dio', so this Jonathan is and is
not 'Jonathan'. But he is him, more than he is not him, and Dio finds the lines
blurring more often than not. Worst than that, he finds himself content in the
oddest moments. Though the intimacy they had shared in early adolescence
remains a borrowed memory, this Jonathan has no qualms whiling away a lifetime
with him.
***** it is a strange choice of garment *****
What is the scent of time? Or more to the point, what is the scent of eternity?
Before having experienced it himself, he would have thought it to be stale. The
deadened untouched scent of crypts and attics, cobwebs and moth balls and
clumps of dust. If that were the case, he could have enjoyed it in the same way
a youth's tongue is slowly plied to wine. But crypts and attics much resemble
cider and champagne in that they ignite the senses in a finite manner.
When time itself ebbs beneath his fingers, by his wanting -- at some point in
time, at least -- the uninterrupted closeness causes him to lose track of his
own ability. Eternity fans out, above and under and in-between, as four-
dimensional as he had always imagined Stands to be. More than firsts and lasts
and things in between, it is like being beaten back to shore time and again
with memories he had yet to experience.
Memories he should have never been privy to.
How much time had passed since obtaining this godlike amount of control, he
can't say. His own nonlinear existence, however, means that a wait of five
years can be passed over at the wave of a hand.
For him, there is no such thing as waiting. There is no such thing as
impossible. There are merely possibilities upon possibilities, arranged to his
liking without conscious effort and all he needs to do is choose one. Or all.
More often than not (or, at least, often enough to be memorable with a
frequency bordering on maddening), he finds himself waking, wedged between
velvet and steel. The absolute solitude the ocean floor provides -- a cloying
darkness which had made him try, an uncountable number of equally futile times,
to break out of his cage.
The inside of the box had smelled of nothing. Neither flesh nor blood nor even
the dust and cobwebs of his imagined eternity.
Dio closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and when he wakes again, he is back
in his crafted Heaven, doused in its holy glow. He moves from the throne room
to the gallery and with the flick of a wrist, isolates a discrete possibility.
This is the universe he wants. This is the universe The World has vetted out
for him. This is the possibility that will chip away further at the already-
fractured Jonathan, still suspended in his tank.
He dips his fingers to sample at the space-time and raises both eyebrows in
surprise. Rather than being an offshoot or a rewind, the highest probability
stems from the original universe. Upon concentrating further, he discovers with
mild consternation -- that his own self, the one that had been gifted a copy of
⸢Whitesnake⸥ -- had gotten himself killed and the 'him' of this universe was
subsequently gallivanting with Jonathan in the forests.
Most jarring is how this Jonathan wants to be a doctor. A doctor!
Still, he trusts his own judgment if no one else's and reaches further into
said reality. He is not made to wait long (or rather, plucking one possibility
from another possibility was as simple as pulling apart the initial
possibility) for this self returns to civilisation soon enough. It's not
England unfortunately, or even one of the riverboats, but the dwelling has many
doors and enough rooms to trap his yet-unknown self in one.
It is so easy, he momentarily second-guesses himself. But even if it were a
trap, this would still be the most likely reality.
At the snap of his fingers, an entrance from said universe appears.
-
Despite the borrowed memories, the meeting with his greater self still comes as
a surprise. Although he had been expecting the invitation -- wanting it, even,
perhaps -- the lazy images of hallways opening to heaven pale in comparison to
the real thing. Like the neither-boy-nor-man that was buried in the coffin
meant for him he steps through the door without ceremony and falls to his knees
without prompting.
Like the 'him' before, even knowing who the man in the throne was, worshipping
him simply felt... natural.
"Already so reverent?" he hears. And then reminds himself that the otherwas
likely capable of reading his mind. "You know who I am, then."
Although it's not a question, he finds himself replying in affirmation.
There's a chuckle, and then a proper command.
"Rise, then." And he does. "Look at me. Come closer."
He does as told, allowing the other older, larger, grander man touch the side
of his face. His fingers have only just brushed before they both recoil, as if
struck. It's neither pleasant nor unpleasant, simply sudden -- the same jolt of
recognition when he had seen the other him lounging in his armchair, come to
think of it. The man in the throne furrows his brow.
"I did not think he would give you his Stand," he mutters, confirming Dio's own
suspicions.
"Why did he?" Dio asks.
His other self looks at him again, holding his gaze for a while. There's
something jarring in their similarities, though they looked worlds apart. Or
perhaps his upbringing has forever connected red eyes with evil. He swallows
three additional questions before his initial question is answered.
Well, responded to.
"I think you know," he hears, as the other retracts his hand, "For you are now
one and the same."
Though Dio disagrees with the second statement, the first statement nonetheless
holds true.
"He was dying," he hears himself explain, "And he knew that I would -- I would
insert the disc to wake Jonathan. Both of them."
"What do you suppose he felt?" his greater self asks, "As the bloodloss
overwhelmed him?" There's a strand of fascination in his tone that makes Dio
sick to his stomach. Other people were meant to be pawns, but not him. Never
himself.
"Fear."
"Mmm. Perhaps." He leans back against the throne, shifting his center of
balance and probes further: "Was it pity then? On your part?"
"No."
"Really?"
He swallows again (again-again) but remains silent. The line of questioning at
least revealed that his other self's mind reading was not as in-depth as his
own. Or he hadn't bothered properly sifting. Either way, he has to scramble
backwards as the other rises from his throne.
"Come."
And so, Dio follows.
The distance from one throne room to the next is no wider than a hallway. But
when he sees Jonathan -- a perfect copy save for the erased limb -- it feels as
if range and roaring sea had been crossed. It's nostalgia, pure and simple, and
he walks towards the container without permission or command, resting his palm
against the glass. This Jonathan is like the one of his memories, rather than
the borrowed one. He looks identical to the late-adolescent Dio had bid goodbye
to. Identical too, to the Jonathan that was waiting for him in the castle.
"He ages." It sounds ridiculous when spoken aloud but he says it all the same.
"Of course." There's another chuckle. "If anything, you and your copy age
because of him."
"If this is the real one," he tentatively blasphemes, "Then why are you trying
to erase him?"
In the moment his other self loses his composure, Dio thinks he can truly see
the resemblance. It's more heartening than it ought to be, knowing that even as
a god he still had trouble with his temper.
"Because," his other self spits, "Everything is his fault."
"How so?"
"If we are truly cut from the same cloth, you will see soon enough." An uncanny
tranquility returns to his expression and he reaches out to cup at Dio's face
once more. Even though they're very nearly the same height and build (for he
has one or two years of growing left), his other self is just as he remembered.
Larger than life. A representative of an entirely different world.
For a gesture so benign, there's an odd spark of intimacy. When he shivers, the
contact ends.
"You'll come back soon, won't you?" he's asked.
"If we are really one and the same," he dumbly responds.
Dio follows himself back to the original room, senses still ringing with
disbelief. Compared to how the 'him' before had been treated, he feels more
than an ambassador than an extension of the other man's will. Except then his
wrist is grabbed and the other man raises his hand to skirt against one
universe. The rush of information is even more heady than the previous influx
of memories -- understandable enough as all universes were made up of memories
and more -- and he finds it hard to concentrate on anything. When his hand is
forced to touch five more universes, he can't even remain standing.
When the other finally releases his hand, he slumps to the ground, short of
breath.
"What did you see?" his other self asks.
"I -- " Dio struggles to make sense of the experience. It is as if someone
thrust an orchestral composition before a man who had never read a note in his
life. "I don't understand. How -- but then -- " Despite his incomprehension, he
still says what the other man is waiting for: "There's no difference between
them, is there?"
"And therein lies the difference between my Stand and yours," is his response.
With a wave of a hand, his own universe manifests. Dio is pulled to his feet
and pushed through the same entranceway, and a 'don't keep me waiting' serves
as his foreboding farewell.
-
Jonathan is waiting for him in the castle like usual, tail practically wagging
in enthusiasm. He's caught another rabbit and is elbows-deep in preparing it.
His hands smell of mud and bark and entrails and they leave bloody imprints on
Dio's comparatively clean palms. After they've washed and eaten and washed
again, Jonathan lies with his head pillowed against Dio's thigh, listening to
the other boy read.
And Dio is made to remember: being cut from the same cloth is not enough. He
thinks of the Jonathan before him, forced to kneel and pledge fealty, willingly
paraded around on a lead like a dog, and ends up nursing dissatisfaction and
inferiority -- directed towards someone who was already dead.
"Jojo," he murmurs, kneading at the back of his neck.
"Mmn?"
"I need to go somewhere."
And just like that, the other's shoulders tense.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I won't be coming back."
"Oh." Jonathan relaxes again, having the fight sapped out of him.
It really speaks for the dedication his other self must have felt, Dio thinks,
for he's only been away from civilisation for a month and a half and already
feeling half-mad from the lack of it.
"Won't you come with me?" Dio asks, setting aside the book to resume his
combing through impossibly matted dark locks.
Jonathan shakes his head, clutching at the fabric of Dio's trousers.
"Don't go," he pleads, "You promised you wouldn't go." His childlike vocabulary
and speech had been charming at first. Now it is only another reminder of how
he wasn't the man Dio remembered. The one he could never have.
"I suppose this is goodbye then," he says.
The candle falls when Jonathan knocks him to the floor, drawing his matching
dagger and pressing it to his throat.
"You can't go," he insists, eyes almost black in the muted light.
Dio closes his eyes in lieu of responding and when he opens them again, the
candle has been snuffed out by the stonework and they are cloaked in a now-
familiar darkness. With the coldness of the blade sending goosebumps down his
spine, he imagines kicking Jonathan in the stomach and sending the offending
weapon clattering to the floor. But he is not so confident in its eventual
trajectory and cannot, at the end of it, determine whose life he wanted to
save. Jonathan saves him the trouble of acting, tossing the dagger aside
himself and grabbing at his shoulders before the blade finishes falling,
hunching over and crying.
Hearing the other cry reminds Dio of the other damning farewell. Of how he had
burnt his own bridge. He has to blink tears from his eyes then, wrapping an arm
about Jonathan's shoulders and squeezing the other close.
"It doesn't have to be like this," he hears.
"It doesn't," he agrees, "You can come with me."
"I don't understand," Jonathan mumbles, "What does he need us for? Why do you
have to listen to him?"
"I don't know," Dio freely admits, "But you're right, Jojo. He does need us and
you don't need to fear him."
Underneath his arm, Jonathan's shoulders shake, caught between a gasp and a
laugh. "Fear him?" he repeats, "I don't -- I hate him!"
"So hate him," Dio shrugs, "It's more productive than fear. Tell me Jojo, did
you really think you would waste the rest of your life out here in the
wilderness? What happened to your dreams of being a gentleman?" You're little
better than a savage, Dio refrains from saying, though they both smell the
part.
Jonathan is so quiet and so still for so long, Dio thinks he might have fallen
asleep. As he's debating whether to wait until morning or light another candle,
the silence is broken.
"Did you hate this, so much?"
"You were there," Dio answers. And it used to be enough.
-
Jonathan is not so timid as to need his hand held, though he does keep his grip
on Dio's sleeve during their descent from the castle. Said grip tightens
considerably when they turn right at the start of the forest, stepping past a
series of clearings into the nearby village. The closeness of the dwellings,
though they were nothing like the manor of his youth, makes him sick.
"You're hardly being led to slaughter," Dio chides, beelining for an abandoned
house on the edge of the village.
His nerves are so shot he freezes to the spot when the door opens. Try as he
might, he can't make himself step past through.
"Dio," he pleads again. But he can't work out a convincing argument while a
distinct 'I don't want to' loops into itself.
There's a momentary wash of relief when the other stops and actually exits the
door. But there's nothing to hold out hope for in his gaze and Jonathan stands
rooted to the spot, unable to even close his eyes while Dio leans forward for a
kiss.
"You're almost there," Dio tells him, stepping back. Beckoning. "Come inside,
Jojo."
There's a buzzing noise between his ears and he can barely feel the ground
beneath his feet. He manages to step across the threshold but drops to a dead
faint upon seeing the doorway shift.
-
-
-
Jonathan comes to without ever seeing the puppetmaster, opening his eyes to the
once-familiar countryside whizzing by in the world outside the train. Dio is
seated across from him, and he lifts his gaze from the sheet of paper.
"Oh. You're awake."
"Where are we?" Jonathan asks, "And where are we going?"
"On a train to London."
"Oh." He glances at the scenery, memorising the varied shades of green, before
turning back to the other. He peers over at the scrutinised sheet, but even
when Dio flips it around for him to read, the neatly-looped cursive might as
well be Greek. There's a dozen-odd lines, each a couple words long. The first
two lines are crossed out and he can make 'street' out as the second word on
the third line.
"What is that?" he finally asks.
"A riddle of sorts," Dio shrugs, "Do the words mean anything to you?"
Too embarrassed to confess to illiteracy, Jonathan shakes his head.
"No matter." He turns the paper towards himself and looks it over again before
folding it and tucking it in his breastpocket. Jonathan blinks, just noticing
how drastically the other's outfits had changed. He looks down at himself and
sure enough, he's wearing a similarly formal set.
"Whereabouts in London are we going to?" he asks.
"Hugh Hudson."
"...What?"
"It's a school. A university, I suppose."
"Why?"
Dio shrugs again. "Because you're there, I suppose."
***** to wear one's own face *****
The original plan had been to stake out in the vicinity of Hugh Hudson and wait
for something memorable to happen so that the fragment corresponding to 'ruins
street' could be harvested. But this Hugh Hudson is so identical to the one Dio
had gone to -- right down to the contested rugby fields and half-constructed
medical wing -- it's a fight to keep the nostalgia at bay. As chance would have
it, the two of them reach the campus right in the middle of rugby practice.
Although Jonathan stiffens at the sight of himself, it is Dio who has to blink
back tears.
"Dio?" Jonathan asks, touching his shoulder, "Are you alright?"
He rubs at his eyes, feeling small and foolish and cheated. "Perfectly," he
insists, turning heel and heading back to the train station, "Let's go."
He can't do it. He's not able to confront the reality he had tossed aside, much
less on a daily basis.
Jonathan sticks to him like a shadow, clutching at the hem of his blazer most
of the time. Dio walks past the train station without any particular
destination in mind and they amble through the darker dirtier alleys of London.
Not unlike, he realises only after the fact, how Jonathan had bartered away his
autonomy. Though they've many years since childhood, there is a tentative
boyish hesitance to their stride, especially Jonathan's, which speaks of not-
yet-adulthood. The residents jostle them, a beggar asks for spare change, a
madam offers them a night they'll never forget, an innkeeper is searching for a
dishwasher, and a bookie advertises they'll be able to double their funds in an
hour. A combination of wariness and disinterest leaves neither of them tempted
and they weave and wind through the streets until the sun is perched on the
edge of the smokestacks.
At the growling of Jonathan's stomach, Dio remembers his own hunger. And so
they turn into the nearest pub.
The Queen's Elephant is filled with so much smoke, the place seems to be in a
perpetual mist. While it was impossible to walk in a straight line in the
streets, it is impossible to get by in the pub without bumping elbows or
outright squeezing between two patrons. A man and woman are banging out what
might have been a duet on the grand piano, except it's impossible to make out a
note for all the noise. There's a fiddle and a flute and an accordion, a
temporary betting table in the farthest corner, and a sea of working-class men,
covered in dust and soot, preventing any chance of reaching the counter.
It's just like any other pub, in short.
"Dio," Jonathan whispers, grabbing at his arm and pressing himself close, "Dio,
I don't like it here."
But before Dio can dismiss or reassure, they are accosted by the proprietress
of the pub, a portly middle-aged woman who displayed her breasts like a harlot
and somehow managed to tower over them.
"Boys, boys," she booms, clapping a hand over both their shoulders, "Welcome to
the Queen's Elephant! It's your first time here, I take it?" How she manages to
make herself heard while smiling is anyone's guess.
"A table for two, if you will," Dio answers. Though they have enough money to
bribe their way through, he wouldn't count on the woman (or anyone in the pub,
really) to resist biting on a much larger fish. No, if they were going to
survive the night without being pitched into the Thames, they would have to
refrain from such gestures.
"Hungry after a long day?" the woman asks, manoeuvring them past the counter
and the piano to the staircase. There's a patron (or two) on each step but she
somehow pushes them up all sixteen. The first floor is somewhat quieter, though
it is filled with just as much smoke. Dio wrinkles his nose at the distinct
undercurrent of opium and the proprietress only laughs and squeezes his
shoulder.
"Ella!" she hollers, and a serving girl comes running, "Ella, show these fine
boys to a table and take their orders. And none of those tricks, y'hear?"
"Yes Ma'am," said girl affirms. The larger woman releases her hold, wishing
them a pleasant evening. "Right this way, if you will."
After she sits them down, she pulls out a pen and looks expectantly at them.
"Isn't there a menu?" Jonathan blurts out.
"Nah, we haven't got no menu. No need, sir. Not enough options to warrant it."
"What is available then?" Dio presses.
"The house special, sir!"
"Anything else?"
"Just the house special."
"What's in it?"
"I don't know," she shrugs, "It changes e'ryday."
Jonathan shoots him a look. One that reiterates his discomfort. Dio makes a
sweeping glance of the other tables, noting how their fellow patrons subsisted
on beer, bread, and dried fruits and nuts. He is about to follow their example,
except his stomach rumbles. So he turns back to the serving girl, smiling, and
says: "We'll have two of the house special and two pints, please."
"Right away, sirs!" she scribbles something in the palm of her hand before
pulling out a handkerchief, spitting into it, and then wiping down the table.
"Don't touch that," Dio instructs. Jonathan retracts his hand.
"What are we doing here?" he asks after a pause.
"Eating dinner."
"But why here?"
"It was the closest available pub." And he needed to get his mind off things
and his blood was burning for a fight.
"Oh." Jonathan seems satisfied momentarily. Then he thinks back to the chance
meeting on the rugby fields and asks, "Are you going to kill him?"
As soon as he registers the question, a lump forms in his throat. He tries to
swallow it, but it remains lodged, like a rock.
"No." A pause. "Do you want me to?"
Jonathan looks at him oddly and Dio remembers how he, well, the him before, had
made a similar offer. But Jonathan only shakes his head again.
"No."
Their silent observations of the other diners is interrupted with the arrival
of two house specials. Jonathan visibly relaxes at the sight of it, two bowls
of meat soup with half a loaf of bread on the side.
"Eat up," the girl grins, setting down two glasses of beer, filled to the brim.
"Why is it so dark?" Jonathan asks, tilting his head and peering over the side.
"Is it... wine?"
"Doubt it." Dio takes a sip of his own glass, "It's stout." He takes a second
sip, "Quite good actually. Not at all diluted."
Jonathan follows his lead before making a wretched expression.
"What are you doing?" Dio asks.
"Asking for water."
"No. Put your hand down." Jonathan does as told. "You shouldn't drink water
from these sort of places. You've no idea what's in it."
"And this is better?" Jonathan demands incredulously, gesturing at the dark
beer.
"Yes."
And so he takes another sip and makes another face. "It's vile."
"The taste grows on," Dio shrugs, breaking off a wedge of bread and dipping it
in the stew.
"How is it?"
"Palatable."
Jonathan has no complaints to levy against the stew at least, and Dio suspects
the other would prefer drinking that to the stout. But he dutifully finishes
both meal and drink, belching loudly at the end. Dio quirks his lips, refusing
to fully smile, but the smart comment he would have made is interrupted by
another patron, flanked by lackeys on both sides. His posture and build speak
of late twenties and early thirties; the wrinkles on his face make him look
twice that age.
"Enjoying yourself, boys?" he asks. The lackey on the right fumbles to place a
chair on the outer edge of their table. The man seats himself between them,
crossing his legs and lacing his fingers over one knee.
"As much as one can," Dio carefully replies, draining his own glass before
setting it to the side.
Like a snake, the other man slides his hand across the table, grabbing at the
bottom of the glass and bringing it close for inspection.
"I couldn't help but overhear," he murmurs, "Your surprise over the quality of
this." He tilts the empty glass at just the right angle to refract his own
smile. "Why do you suppose that is?"
Rather than prod at Dio, he turns his attention to Jonathan. Jonathan, who
looks ill at ease and visibly wants to be anywhere but here. "Well?" the
intruder asks, "Why do you think that is, boy?"
"I -- I don't know," Jonathan stammers, "Sir."
"This is your pub, isn't it?" Dio counters, taking up the slack. "Are you in
charge of a distillery?"
"Hey, boys," the man grins at his lackeys, "Looks like blondie here has got his
head screwed on tight." There's some nods and guffaws from his men before he
continues, "Something like that. None of that straight-collared nonsense here.
Have you heard they're trying to outlaw alcohol in the colonies? Any member of
House that tried that around here..." he makes a slitting motion before
shrugging, "Well, they know it wouldn't fly."
"I see," Dio answers, loudly clearing his plates. Jonathan does the same.
"Woah, woah, woah," the man starts, setting down the glass and raising his
hands in mock surprise, "What's the rush, boys?"
"No rush," Dio insists, "But we should pay before closing time."
"As the owner of this fine 'stablishment," the man drawls, "I've got your bill
right here." He pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket and lays it out with a
flourish.
Jonathan's eyes widen at the total sum. Dio narrows his eyes.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Wouldn't you say that was a fine meal?" the man goads, tapping at the absurd
figure, practically a years' salary for people in these parts, "And how often
do you get to drink Guinness, straight from the barrel?"
"I know the price of a pint," Dio bluffs, "And it's nowhere near this."
"But what of the hospitality?" Jonathan freezes in his seat as the lapel of his
suit is stroked, played between thumb and finger. "Look at this, boys," the
owner grins, "I'd reckon it's from the Row, wouldn't you?"
"Get your hands off him," Dio dictates.
"What's the matter? Blackie here can't speak for himself?"
"Jojo -- duck." Jonathan makes eye contact for a second before doing as told.
In part from the smoke but mostly because no one is expecting it, Dio extracts
the man's Soul Disc with one hand before stabbing him in the eye right after.
He's functionally dead before then, but he still bleeds.
There's absolute chaos as the lackeys scream and swarm, but the head of the
gorgon has been cut off and these men are no better than snakes. Jonathan is
shaken, whether this was from fear or the alcohol, Dio does not know. He needs
to be pulled to this feet and dragged down the steps. Dio leaves a large tip
for good measure before hauling the two of them out the front door.
"Dio," Jonathan mumbles, faltering as soon as they're in the night, "Dio, I
can't -- " he gives enough of a warning for Dio to catch him at least. The
closest accommodation is a common-lodging house and there is no room at all, no
matter how much Dio pays, for a room for the two of them. They are given a
fourth of a larger room, to be shared with four other men, and though the two
of them reek of alcohol and smoke, the other four stink of excrement. Jonathan
wakes in the middle of the night, thrashing and screaming, and Dio needs to use
his Stand to clear a way to the bathroom so the other can be made to vomit.
"I miss the forest," Jonathan mumbles against his shoulder, when he's being
helped back. "Why did we leave?" he asks again. And then: "I miss it."
"Shhh," Dio shushes, setting him down and stroking at his hair, "Go to sleep,
Jojo."
"But I -- "
"Sleep." He presses his hand against Jonathan's eyes to shield him from the
streetlights bleeding through the uncovered windows. One of their roommates
snorts, rolling over to pass gas, and another one coughs. Still, Jonathan
relaxes with his touch, in his lap, and eventually falls asleep.
-
Come morning and they're still in the same position, wedged between the slanted
east wall and the concave floorboard. Dio is seated with his back against the
wall and Jonathan is curled on the floor, head and shoulders and left hand in
the other boy's lap. The unsettling silence is what initially wakes him and the
empty room is the first thing he sees. The sun has fully risen and they're at a
junction of alleyways and he can't even hear the birds.
He slowly covers Jonathan's mouth before shaking his shoulder. When the other
opens his eyes, Dio puts a finger to his lips. Then he leans down and whispers:
"Stay as close to the floor and as far from the door as possible, alright?"
He sees his own impassive expression in Jonathan's wide eyes. But the other
nods and does not make a noise when Dio eases himself out.
The unnatural silence lasts for a minute, maybe two.
And then the door flies off its hinges and four bona-fide mobsters stand at the
doorway.
"Blondie," the leader of the pack snorts, "On your feet. Hands on your head."
The man to the right is brandishing a bat with nails sticking out at every odd
angle. Dio does as told.
"Come here," the same man says, gesturing to the space before him.
Dio does so.
This punch hurts a hell of lot more than the Pendleton girl's. He sees stars
for a moment and can make out Jonathan's shout of alarm. He raises a hand,
silencing the other, before reaching out and extracting the mobster's Soul Disc
as well.
"What the -- "
"Boss! Yo, Boss!"
"Who sent you?" Dio demands, spitting blood on the fallen body. He drops the
disc to the ground and crushes it beneath his heel.
"You fucking cad -- "
"You're gonna -- "
He disables two more men, crushing three Soul Discs in total, before kicking
the single remaining man to the floor.
"Who sent you?" he asks a second time. And then he corrects himself. "No,
better yet. Lead us to him." He turns to Jonathan, cowering with stark white
fists, and clicks his tongue. "Jojo, we're going."
"What about them," the gangster demands.
"They're dead," Dio flippantly replies, "Now lead the way."
Jonathan scrambles to his feet as Dio collects their meagre travelling
accessories. When they're making their way down the tenement steps, he reaches
out to touch Dio's bruised face. Dio flinches, though he doesn't outright
glare.
"Does it hurt?"
"What do you think?" At the sight of Jonathan's wounded expression, Dio
relents, touching the back of his hand. "Don't worry about it. It looks worse
than it is."
"The Head is gonna string you up for this," the man leading them through the
busying streets warns.
"Duly noted," Dio shrugs.
"Why are we following him?" Jonathan whispers.
"I don't know," Dio admits, "But I'm considering employment."
Before Jonathan can splutter and stammer over his answer, they arrive at the
entrance of the Queen's Elephant. It's like a different place in the day, free
of smoke and patrons. The man at the front doffs his cap at the proprietress
from the previous night and the serving girls hurry out of their way as they
climb the stairs. They bypass the first and second floor and the mobster knocks
on the innermost door at the end of the third floor hallway.
"Come in."
A well-dressed gentleman on the cusp of midlife is seated at the center of the
office. He is admiring his own reflection in a floor-to-ceiling mirror. Without
even turning around, he frowns.
"Baxter, I thought I wanted this young man's head on stake. Why is he still
alive?"
Dio kills the messenger before he can respond, dropping him to the floor and
shattering the corresponding disc.
The older man has an automatic pointed at him in the blink of an eye. Jonathan
tenses, pressing closer, but Dio only laughs.
"Who are you?" the man demands, "What are you doing here?"
"Make me one of your bosses," Dio answers, "I think you'll find I'm most
capable."
"You killed four of my men and the boss of this pub and you want me to hire
you? I should just blow your brains out."
Dio does something his other self would not have done. He grabs Jonathan and
throws him between the two of them before grabbing the barrel of the gun and
touching the other man's uncovered neck. There's a single shot that sears at
his palm and makes his ears ring, but the bullet embeds itself into the
ceiling. He's high enough from the adrenaline to spin the Memory Disc around
his index finger before turning and facing Jonathan.
The other looks at him with disbelief bordering on anger.
"You -- you threw me!"
"I needed a distraction Jojo."
"But you threw me!"
"Would you like to do the same?"
"Before a gun!"
Dio laughs, sidling up close and wrapping an arm about his shoulder, "I'll make
it up to you, promise."
-
The owner's room at the Elephant has its own bath and balcony. The four-poster
bed is large enough for a sultan and his harem and all that is not silk is
velvet. Through selective deletion, Dio has effectively replaced the man who
used to live in said room. He has enough kindness to allow the leader his
position at the head of the pack.
Back when he had lived in London, he had always considered joining a gang. It
was the easiest way to earn money when one had absolutely nothing. But then his
father had disclosed his unusual inheritance and Lord Joestar had picked him up
and he had set aside that ambition for a while.
"If you're the boss here," Jonathan starts, coming out of the bathroom swaddled
in towels, "Then what am I?"
"My right-hand man of course," Dio answers without thinking.
Jonathan looks at him owlishly. "Do you think I can?"
"How hard can it be?"
"I suppose." Jonathan ambles over to the armchair, seating himself down. He
taps his fingers over the oriental design carved into the armrests, before
looking out the window.
Dio follows his gaze, staring out at the bustling street too, before returning
to the history book he had selected from the dead man's private library.
"You don't think," Jonathan starts, "I'll have to kill someone, do you?"
The thought of Jonathan Joestar -- the man he associated the name with, at
least -- dirtying his hands with anything, least of all murder, is laughable.
Dio laughs, "Of course not."
***** but it was no surprise to you *****
The first thing Dio does after settling both of them in the owner's suite -
- following a cursory replacement of most of the upper management in the pub,
that is -- is acquire a library of his own. Judging by the crispness of the
pages and how certain volumes were yet unwrapped, the man whose position he had
stolen either couldn't read or didn't bother. Despite this, he had good taste
in books and Dio chose to keep the entire former collection, installing two
shelves of his own on the empty north wall.
Two upsets happen after the books have been carted upstairs. First, it is made
apparent that five years in the wilderness have sent Jonathan's academic
abilities down the gutter. In all fairness, Dio felt shoddy after a month in
the castle, where a collection of translated fairy tales had been the reading
material available. But Jonathan needed ten minutes per page and asked for
definitions (and explanations on top of definitions) with the most rudimentary
of words! It just went to show, Dio reminds himself, that appearances were
deceiving. Although the other was the spitting image of Jonathan, the mirror
can only reflect so much.
Secondly, his own responsibilities as new head of the Queen's Elephant were
more time-consuming than expected. Rather than overseeing under-the-table bets
and stopping the odd brawl that got out of hand, he learns quickly that the pub
was actually a front for both opium and prostitution and that the previous head
had dabbled in racketeering and blackmail. Despite the man's wretched end, he
had built up a rat's empire for himself, which reasonably explained why his
lackeys had been so devoted, as well as why the leader of the High Rips had
felt the need to avenge his death. In the spirit of competition, Dio thinks he
can do better. But in having such aims, he discovers how little time he has
left over. After two weeks of restructuring and rearranging, he's barely gotten
through one book!
Tutoring Jonathan, though the other desperately needed it, is also out of the
question. But he likewise refuses to allow the other to dog upon the waves of
literacy.
-
The lower members... well, his new lackeys, have been gossiping from day one as
to the nature of their relationship. Looking at things from their perspective,
it was indeed a curiosity. Jonathan was, by all counts, more suited for grunt
work -- intimidation and outright conflict if the situation called for it. But
Dio insists that he stay in the room on the third floor whenever they're not
together and really, he only brings Jonathan along with him for the more benign
negotiations.
The insinuations of carnal relations are laughable. Even though they shared a
bed, as far as his borrowed memories could ascertain, the two of them had done
little more than the occasional embrace in their time outside. And though he
wakes at times -- with increasing frequency -- with an arm about Jonathan's
shoulders and his own erection pressed between the two of them, he sees little
issue in relieving himself on his own. Jonathan either doesn't notice or
doesn't care; he makes no comment either way and harbours little interest on
the subject.
-
Following his first real expansion of territory, Dio takes the stairs two at a
time, walking as fast as leisurely possible down the hallway. Jonathan is
reclining against the bed, head tilted at an awkward angle against the still-
open book. He doesn't stir when Dio closes the door.
After he's washed the blood out from underneath his fingernails and cleaned off
both blade and handle, he goes back to the bedroom. Jonathan has woken up in
the interim; he is now seated in the armchair, looking out at the balcony.
"Was it fun?"
"In a ways."
"Did you kill anyone?"
"Does it matter?" Dio walks over to the bed, picking up the abandoned book, and
passes it over. "Here, why not read something aloud for me?"
"I don't like that book," Jonathan frowns, pushing at the cover, "And I don't
like this place."
"The suits fit you better than the furs."
"Can we go -- "
"No."
Dio goes to put the book back in its place in order to keep from seeing
Jonathan's crestfallen expression.
"I wasn't going to ask that," Jonathan insists.
"What were you going to ask, then?"
"If we could go somewhere else." And then, at Dio's furrowed brow, "For the
day, I mean."
"Where?"
"I don't know!" Jonathan throws his hands up, rising to his feet. He rocks on
his heels, trying to remember what there was to do in the city, "The museum? Or
the zoo?"
"We're a bit too old for the zoo," Dio remarks. He relents at Jonathan's
protesting gaze, reaching for another book, "Alright then. The zoo it is. But
first finish reading this book."
Jonathan glances at the cover and makes another face, throwing himself on the
bed.
"But I don't want to," he mumbles against the sheets.
"What's wrong with this one?" Dio exasperates, "Wasn't Verne one of your
favourites?"
"I can't read him."
"What do you mean?"
Jonathan rises, propping himself up on his upper arms, "Do you think I'm going
to be a student?"
"Of course not. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't read."
"I don't know how you do it," Jonathan bites, turning over and reaching out for
the volume. Dio hands it over and he flips open to a random page, stumbling
gracelessly through the escape of the apes in The Mysterious Island. It takes
him three minutes to get through two paragraphs and Dio stops counting after
seven errors, one of which was a stumble through 'granite' of all things. At
the end of it, Jonathan closes the book and turns to Dio to rest his case.
"See?"
"It's... well," Dio purses his lips, "I'll find a tutor for you." The Jonathan
he remembers would shirk at killing an animal, nevermind skinning and cleaning
it for sustenance, and though his nails were never clean, his hands were still
that of a nobleman's son, through and through. This Jonathan looks at him with
something akin to puzzlement.
"Why is this so important?" he asks.
"It's not," Dio insists, "It's important to you." And then, to prevent further
argument, he sets the book aside and claps his hands together, "You were
complaining of boredom before. So let's go for a stroll."
-
The Queen's Elephant has thirty-odd serving girls between the ages of seventeen
and fourty-seven, each of whom had taken on the name 'Ella'. In addition to
being waitresses, hostesses, and maids, they also provided nightly comforts and
certain degrees of housekeeping come education. The most clever unfettered girl
looks as if she'd come from a degree, with straight white teeth and bobbed
brown locks.
"Ella Sage at your service, Mister Brando," she introduces herself, curtseying
low.
"A pleasure," Dio answers, ushering her into the study. "Jojo, this is Miss
Sage. She'll be supervising your studies for most of the week."
"Pleased to meet your acquaintance, Mr. Joestar," she smiles. The curious thing
about the girls at the Elephant was how they never seemed fazed. Because he's
limited his contact to the proprietress, Dio has yet to learn of the feminine
front as well.
As female thieves (and female crooks) exist, it follows that female gangs exist
too.
Miss Sage's smile has teeth. Jonathan fails to notice and Dio ignores it
altogether.
-
As Jonathan is understandably sulky about his lessons, Dio does not press the
subject. It was embarrassing enough to need basic writing and reading
curriculum at his age, to say nothing of his tutor being a woman around his age
if not younger.
-
Within a month of private lessons, Jonathan has gone past his previous
competencies where dictation and memorisation were concerned. Business at the
Elephant is bustling and though Dio knows both his position along with the
current slice of reality were ephemeral, he can't help but preen at his own
accomplishments. He begins to think of the accounts as a game -- a more
intelligent way to pass the time. The money earned wasn't his and it wasn't as
if either of them needed the spare capital, but there is something... almost
relaxing, in seeing the figures add up.
Through of series of negotiations (some with less conversation than others), he
has successfully expanded the Elephant's betting territory. Most everything in
the immediate two miles is under the gang's protection, which means they
receive a cut of all profits. The man at the head of the ring, who had called
for his murder less than two months prior, pays him a personal visit in
congratulations.
It is early January when Jonathan finishes the selected volume of Verne. Like
an unused gear, his intonations have mostly been smoothed out and if Dio closes
his eyes and concentrates on the familiar lilting, he can almost imagine the
man he knew, seated cross-legged under the great oak tree, reading children's
stories to his dog.
The snow has yet to melt when they finally head out to the zoo. The majority of
the exotic species have been herded indoors and the remaining habitats cordoned
off. Jonathan chatters happily, at ease in the near-empty park, pointing out
the handful of animals still outside.
"Wait," Dio starts, as Jonathan is gesturing to a near-hidden pair of foxes,
"It didn't snow there." He flips through his memories, double-checking, and
concludes that the mild climate didn't allow for snowfall.
Jonathan blinks in confusion. "Yes," he nods, "I know."
Although he is familiar with Jonathan's characteristic impatience, the other's
familiarity with the zoo -- its layout and its inhabitants -- still strikes him
as odd.
"You've been here before," Dio surmises.
"A -- a long time ago, yes."
"No. Sooner than that." He reaches out, tapping at the plaque which
commemorated a recent restoration, courtesy of the Royal Family.
Caught in the beginnings of a lie, Jonathan stares out at him.
"There's nothing to hide," Dio shrugs, going through the motions of
nonchalance, "I was simply... surprised. That you had time between your lessons
to come to the zoo."
Jonathan studies his face, looking for some sign of displeasure. It's masked
well enough that he relaxes, sighing, and comes clean in full: "Well, I didn't
mean to. But Miss Ella thought a change of scenery would be good."
"How thoughtful," Dio echoes, veering away to look at the snow-covered savannah
where the giraffes would be displayed come summer, "And did she take you
anywhere else?"
"The -- " Jonathan's voice hitches here and Dio forces himself to relax, "The
museum."
"Which one?"
"All of them."
"In one day?"
"No."
"I see." He looks at Jonathan and sees him strolling arm-in-arm with the
serving girl and forces his eyes away.
Jonathan reaches out then, looping their arms together.
"You're not angry?" he asks.
"No," Dio lies, "Just surprised."
-
He can pinpoint the moment the lines had started to blur. Right when they were
settling in, when he was still entertaining the misguided notion that Jonathan
could be moulded into a mobster, they were watching the breaking-in of the new
girls. One of the new ones hadn't wanted to give up her name or join the ranks
at all.
If Dio could have acted unilaterally, he might have freed her. He's been raised
to be enough of a gentleman to mind a woman's tears, at least.
But the choice lay in the proprietress' hands and, as she explained, the young
lady had no home to return to for her husband had sold her off. A sad story, to
be certain, but they were a dime a dozen in these parts and he thinks of how
many years his mother suffered and turns a blind eye to her dismissal.
The woman had bolted before the gun was fully loaded. And Jonathan had caught
her and let her go and turned away when she was inevitably caught. Although he
had the stomach to watch an execution, Dio had excused the two of them.
(Incidentally, that woman hadn't been killed. Necrophilia wasn't as lucrative a
business.)
Jonathan had been trembling and needed help climbing the stairs. Although Dio
led him to the bathroom, he hadn't gathered enough bile to vomit, crawling back
under the sheets and shivering half the night away. If the episode had elicited
disgust or exasperation or even sympathy, Dio wouldn't have pushed him away.
More than those sentiments, however, the sensation of his not-quite-brother
shaking like a leaf plucks at the same string of want that Jonathan -- his
Jonathan -- had elicited.
And he can't have that.
-
Still plagued with visions of tutor and tutee ambling through the streets like
lovers and reeling from his own poor decisions, Dio dismisses the girl first
thing the next morning. Whatever fondness she had for Jonathan is overruled by
the half-year's salary he offers her from his own pocket. Polite as ever, this
Ella curtseys and tells him 'thank you' before leaving the study.
Dio leans against the back of the chair and closes his eyes, waiting.
Jonathan shows up at half-past nine. He does a double-take, looking up to check
the clock.
"Where is Miss Sage?" The question is a formality and they both know it.
"She's returned to her usual duties."
"You were angry then."
Dio changes the subject then, pulling out another book and tossing it over.
Jonathan catches it at least, though he doesn't bother looking at the cover.
"Why don't read something for me?" Dio hears himself suggest. His voice is
steady, though his hands are not.
Jonathan stares at him for a while, as accusing as he had been when Dio had
barred him from negotiations. But he swallows and flips open the book, clearing
his throat before reading from the first page.
The improvement is audible. Whether it was worth it is another story.
It's fifteen minutes past ten when he finishes the last sentence of the first
chapter. Dio opens his eyes, straightening his neck and shoulders as the room
bleeds back into focus. He stands up and walks over to the other, taking note
of how their heights had normalised yet again. By build alone, one might
mistake them to be brothers.
He leans against the front of the partners' desk, half-seated, and pats the
right edge.
"Come here."
When they're seated side-by-side, he takes the book from Jonathan, setting it
aside before looping an arm about the other.
"I misjudged," he admits, and Jonathan's shoulders hunch beneath his grasp at
the confession. "If I could keep you happy in a locked cage, I would."
They are close enough that when Jonathan leans in, Dio can see his individual
lashes.
"The forest was like a cage," Jonathan answers.
"Do you miss it that much?"
His breath catches but Jonathan does not hold it for long, slowly shaking his
head. "No. In fact, it all feels like a dream, now."
Dio hums in agreement, squeezing lightly. "If, as I suspect, this place is what
'ruins street' means, there will be a memory to harvest. So we'll be leaving
soon."
It doesn't matter how tall he's grown or how much muscle he's pulled from
nowhere, up close and personal like this, he can't help but see Jonathan as
someone young. His eyes can get so wide, caught between unguarded hope and
wonder, despite the sturdiness of the oaken table and how all of London was
three floors down or the sun was still climbing above the smokestacks, intent
on illuminating the winter sky, Jonathan makes him feel so alone. Isolated,
really.
"I don't think I'll ever understand you," Jonathan whispers, "And if I had
anyone else, I wouldn't even like you."
The insult hurts, but his is a well-thumbed wound. Dio smiles wryly before
answering, "Why don't you tell me something new, Jojo."
"You promised you'd make it up to me."
"I thought you didn't mind this."
"I still prefer the forest."
The moment ends and Dio resists pushing the other away. He removes his arm and
scoots off the desk instead, putting the book back as an excuse for movement.
"Alright then," he says at the end of it, "Do you have something in mind?
Another trip to the zoo, perhaps?"
"Teach me how to fight."
This request, at least, catches Dio off-guard.
"What?"
"I want to learn how to fight," Jonathan reiterates, "With a sword. Or, um, a
knife."
"Why?"
"Because you know how."
"I don't know how to hunt," Dio reasons. Already he can imagine a repeat of his
own doppelganger's death. The certainty of the image makes his stomach churn
and gold eyes are easy to overlay with green.
"You never needed to hunt."
"Just as you won't need to fight with a knife."
"But you promised you'd make it up to me."
The impassé lasts as long as one would expect. Though Jonathan is the first to
avert his gaze, Dio is, predictably, the one who relents.
"Fine." A pause. "But you have to come with me downstairs for today."
"...Why?"
"If you plan to get in knifefights," Dio can't believe he's explaining this, or
that Jonathan actually wants this, "Then you can't shirk from the sight of
blood."
"I've killed -- before," Jonathan insists.
"Only animals."
"They still bled."
"And so will you," he thoughtlessly warns, "If you think you can get by
treating the two of them the same way."
"That's not -- "
"Regardless." Dio straightens his jacket, redoing his buttons, before glancing
at the clock. Half past eleven with the first meeting after lunch. "Will you be
coming downstairs with me or not?"
Jonathan doesn't answer, though he staunchly follows.
-
Because Jonathan sits through an entire interrogation without fleeing or
fainting, Dio upholds his half of the deal. And so they're facing one another
and Dio is listening to himself explain the basics of defensive knifefighting -
- namely keeping one's distance and refraining from circling. And through their
meter-wide dance, all he can think of is the thunder and lightning, bolting
through the Joestar manor and his own mirror image bringing a hand to his face.
He does not make Jonathan bleed at least. No, the idiot manages to nick
himself, fumbling with one of his parries. Jonathan's blade falls soundlessly
against the carpet, as the man himself stares in wonder at the blood welling up
from the side of his palm.
Dio curses, stooping down to lift the fallen knife before setting both weapons
on the bureau.
"It's just a small cut," Jonathan says, while his hand is being fussed over.
"You were just saying we wouldn't need the bandages."
"Well it is just a small cut."
Dio finishes dressing the wound before giving his verdict.
"That's not fair!" Jonathan immediately protests, "You said that if I sat
through that... that bout of torture, then you would teach me how to fight."
"I changed my mind. Regardless of what you think, you won't need to know how. I
promise."
The scathing glare Jonathan levels at him would be more potent if it didn't
come from a toothless predator.
"Sometimes," he begins, "I think I hate you enough to kill."
"I know," Dio smiles, remembering the knife against his throat in the darkness
of the castle, "But I'm all you have left, aren't I?"
And though Jonathan glares further, he cannot think up a suitable retort for
that.
***** for you never knew your place *****
The soon Dio has promised does not come soon enough. Though their routine is
somewhat altered for he has delegated off enough of the bloodier work so
Jonathan can feasibly remain as his right hand man this time, the months still
bleed by. The snow melts after his nineteenth birthday, gone unnoticed as
usual, and Jonathan turns nineteen a couple weeks after that.
The continued closeness is a year-long walk to the gallows. Although Jonathan
is different; indeed, although they are both different, he's still so alike and
so close and so nearly obtainable that it hurts.
And though his gaze does not waver and though he must be aware of Dio's
proclivities, he does not say a word. And so, on certain nights, when he's
drunk more than he should and Jonathan is fast asleep and curled on one side,
Dio reaches out across the space between them, clasping their hands together.
He reaches underneath his nightshirt with his other free hand and rubs himself
off. He doesn't even need to fantasise then, just the knowledge of Jonathan,
possibly conscious but certainly in the same bed, is enough to tide him to
orgasm.
Back across the channel, force of habit had made Jonathan into a light sleeper.
But now that he is back in civilisation, and as civilised as a portfolio'd capo
could be, he's gotten used to sleeping like a stone. If he stirs in the night,
a rare occurrence in itself, it is only after Dio has climbed back into bed
after cleaning himself off. It's a wonder Jonathan doesn't comment, considering
how he goes through four nightshirts a week.
But even the act of sharing a bed -- no matter how chaster or unsatisfying -
- is forbidden. And Jonathan would have never agreed to it. So he lies to
himself, reasoning that Jonathan was a late bloomer and never going further
than the squeezing of hands.
-
He has had encounters with the looser girls at Hugh Hudson.
Their tentative touches cannot compare to the ministrations of an experienced
whore.
His cock is wet from her mouth and her cunt is dripping and he hasn't even
touched her yet. She arches her back when he pushes in and locks her legs
around his hips before thrusting back against him.
He doesn't know anything about the woman outside of her being another one of
the Ella's, but the physiological response the act instills tempts him into
making it a regular occurrence.
Lost in the waves of climax, he nearly forgets about Jonathan. After the woman
uncrosses her legs, he pulls out quickly dresses himself. Jonathan is still
seated on the opposite end of the bedroom, making an admirable effort of
shrinking into his seat. Dio notes his erection with something resembling
pride, sauntering over and touching his still-clothed shoulder.
"Well, Jojo?" he asks, pushing back a lock of hair, "Did you like the show?"
The rising flush spurs Dio on, and he leans down to whisper, "Would you like
the same girl or a different one?"
"I'm waiting," said harlot sing-song's, spreading her arms against the bed and
lifting one leg. Jonathan quickly averts his gaze, turning crimson at the
sight, and Dio slides to the floor, resting on the other man's knees.
"Would you prefer a virgin?" he asks, "I know you haven't been with a woman."
"You need to relax," Dio whispers, pushing himself up again. There's a bottle
of already-opened wine next on the dresser. An already-used flute is right next
to the bottle. He pours himself a glass and downs it with a single tilt of the
wrist before pouring a second one and pressing the rim to Jonathan's lips.
"It'll feel good," he promises, and so Jonathan begins to drink.
He is a coward, offering a whore in lieu of himself. Although he tells himself
this Jonathan is different and wholly his, he isn't certain his own overtures
would be accepted. As careless as he is with regards to insults, outright
rejection is a different beast.
The plan had been to strip Jonathan and then help him into bed.
The undiluted wine causes Jonathan to flush further. He makes a small noise
when Dio brushes at the patch of skin beneath his skin.
"Turn your head up," Dio instructs, concentrating on undoing the tie. Jonathan
does as told, eyes lidding, and the girl in the back giggles at their song and
dance routine. Jonathan shifts in his seat, leaning backwards and then forwards
so that Dio could take his jacket off, and the girl covers his mouth, poorly
stifling her amusement as Dio fumbles with the buttons of the dress shirt.
She laughs outright when a button pops off, falling to the floor, and Dio
glares at her. In the haze of the alcohol, his own plan seems to fray at the
ends and he questions sharing his prize in the first place.
"Leave us," he commands, finding it difficult to remain standing. He sinks to
his knees yet again, propping his elbows on both sides of Jonathan's legs.
Dio has maintained an iron enough hold on his position so that his authority -
- even on the second floor -- goes unchallenged. The girl covers her mouth
before giving a quiet 'yessir'. Dio is too busy watching Jonathan to observe
the woman picking up her garments before scurrying from the room. He sighs at
the opening and closing of the door, leaning fully against the other man.
"That's much better, isn't it?" he smiles, reaching up to take Jonathan's face.
Something like panic flits across Jonathan's face and Dio slides up, thinking
to kiss it away. Jonathan shoves him back and he falls against the floor,
momentarily immobile from shock. In his hasty exit, Jonathan leaves his shirt,
tie, and jacket behind.
Dio knows he must look like a fool, sprawled out naked on the carpet with
neither prostitute nor right hand man to show for his efforts. On one hand, it
had been a pleasant experience and he had thought Jonathan would like it. And
on the other hand...
The possessive streak he had fought to keep down bubbles forth constantly. It
is the fault of the previous iteration, for bequeathing the entirety of his
memories.
-
They share a bed later that night and Dio sleeps the alcohol off and they don't
speak of the girl.
-
After shoving the soreness of the not quite rejection into the back of his
mind, one admission he does make is his treatment of the other. He has been
mulling over their unusual circumstances for quite some time -- in between
working out what the other eleven phrases meant, that is -- and arrived at the
conclusion that Jonathan was a replacement for himself. Or rather, he was
treating the other as he had wanted to be treated. Back when Jonathan had gone
on a witch hunt looking for the cause of Dio's bruise, or when he had
introduced himself as the elder brother.
All for what, he can't say. The reality he had come from is as impossible to
return to as Jonathan's own past, the one where he had studied archaeology and
gotten himself killed before turning twenty-one, that is. In the self-
flagellation, he stumbles upon a secondary question: if his other self had been
surprised with what had happened in his reality, who was to say the rest of the
timeline was certain? Although the breaking-in of the manor had been the
doppelgängers' doing, he's certain the possibilities had fractured long before
that. Around the Pendleton girl had punched him, perhaps, considering he can't
find a similar occurrence in his other self's memories.
-
Waiting is the worst, Jonathan thinks, swerving his gaze this way and that.
Although the daily meetings were far more palatable without bloodshed, it
didn't stop them from being so boring. Business was business, even in the
underworld, and he has little interest in figures. After nodding off for two
hours and needing Dio to shake him awake, he asks for permission to leave. Dio
is so immersed in his game of meters and pounds that he waves his hand in
acquiescing dismissal.
Perhaps he thinks Jonathan will head upstairs, to the bedroom or the study. It
would certainly explain why he hadn't bothered looking up.
But Jonathan is itching for a change of pace. So he slips out downstairs, where
a handful of patrons were littered about the pub floor, dining and betting and
trading conspiracies.
"Mister Joestar," the girl at the front of the house greets, "Where are you off
to?"
"Outside," he gestures vaguely.
"Does the boss know?"
"Yes."
This Ella can't be much older than him. She scrutinises his face for any signs
of hesitation and he wonders what, exactly, Dio had instructed the staff to do,
before finding nothing and smiling. "Have a good trip then," she smiles and
curtseys, allowing him to depart without further delay.
-
In the weeks he had spent stewing after Dio barred him from knifefighting,
Jonathan had nursed the dream of picking up gunsmithing, just to show the other
he could. The self-inflicted wound had healed within the week; the soreness
from being chastised and sheltered lasts significantly longer. And so he had
snuck out on various pretences while Dio had thought him studying.
But then when he had worked up the nerve to ask one of the smiths to teach him,
their allegiance to the Elephant had been revealed (another one of the
protected establishments, of course). The man had even pointed out the girl
sent to tail him and that was the end of that.
The humiliation smarts and his own irritation grows. He's been given enough
loose change to give Dio a run for his money, if he considered properly
fleeing, but the promise he had made pushes itself to the forefront and he had
dragged his feet back to the pub.
-
It's late afternoon when he's walking through the streets of East London. The
walkways are as crowded as ever and the stench of the sewers floats about.
People push him this way and that, hurrying, hurrying, and he needs to press
himself up against the brickwork when a mule-drawn cart takes up the whole left
side of the street.
Even though the city is no longer foreign, he still can't find anything
familiar about it. But dwelling on the differences only makes him thankful for
his father and there's nothing to be done with the gratitude now.
While turning at a juncture of three alleys, he's hit with a sense of deja vu.
He stops at the center, turning and turning, before a particular back entrance
lights the spark of recognition. Although he knows better -- and though his
conscience is screaming otherwise -- he walks to the entrance and tries the
doorknob. It's unlocked and the unguarded entryway opens directly to a flight
of stairs leading underground.
He flinches upon hearing the jagged whine of a hound. Without descending, he
can guess at the cause. Some masochistic streak cuts at him and he needs only
glance at his already-healed palm to quell the churning in his stomach.
Jonathan takes a breath to steady his nerves before proceeding down the stairs.
In the decade since he's pushed the ratfighting ring from sight and mind, it's
absurd how quickly the memories come flooding back. The sights, the smells, the
sounds. It's still a room of men swarmed about a ring and the same book-keeper
and ringmaster he had traded his freedom to kill are still at the center of the
ruckus. Unlike before, where the rats would merely fight one another, the
ringmaster has decided to enter a dog in the match. To add more excitement to
the fight, of course.
Jonathan watches the hound lose. Watches the rats gnaw out the dog's eyes and
tongue. There's too much blood for him to smell the dog's death and still, he
thinks he can smell it. The rats are as clever as they are vicious and their
owners have kept them on the brink of starvation.
By the end of it, he numbly pays up a crown as an entrance fee and sets down a
couple shillings for the next dog.
Thankfully, he has enough sense and self-preservation remaining to climb back
up the stairs before the start of the second match.
The sun is minutes away from setting when he exits. There is enough light
remaining for him to close the door behind him and stare out at his own steady
palms.
By his own volition, he had killed more animals than that. He had even asked
Dio to kill for him. Perhaps that was why he faltered in reacting.
There's no bile in his throat and his stomach has settled down. He can
concentrate on things just fine, whether it be his own hands or the setting sun
or the darkening sky. Despite the waning light, he catches movement in the
shadows and swerves to identify the source. It's Dio, wearing a mask fit for a
masquerade ball.
Jonathan missteps then. He calls out the other's name and actually runs toward
him.
"Dio!"
Dio freezes at the address, but doesn't turn around until they're both under
the streetlight.
"Jojo," he smiles, removing his mask, "What a surprise to see you here."
"Liar," Jonathan accuses without thinking, "You were following me again,
weren't you."
"Following you?" Dio scoffs, stuffing his mask into the pocket of his overcoat,
"Don't flatter yourself. I have better things to do."
The dog and the rats slow him down from connecting the dots. The unfamiliarity
of the cape-like overcoat, with its ruffles and feathers, strikes him as
particularly odd and he reaches out to touch it.
"What are you doing?" Dio frowns. And then: "What's wrong with your eyes?"
Jonathan retracts his hand and swallows, before bolting.
He knows he shouldn't be scared, but it's all he can feel when sprinting
through the alleyways.
"Wait! Jojo!" the other Dio -- the wrong Dio -- calls out to him.
Jonathan is fast, but he's gone for months without hunting, to say nothing of
sprinting in a three-piece suit. He's still a mile away from the Elephant and
already out of breath and when he pauses -- heaving and gasping against another
lamppost, Dio catches up to him, grabbing him by the shoulder.
The unexpected contact causes him to scream.
"Jojo!" he's turned around to face the other, "What is wrong with you?! I was
going to explain my reason for being here and you just take off running?"
"What," he gasps, "Is your reason -- then?"
Rather than answer, Dio holds up a hand.
"Wait. Do you hear that?"
Between his own ragged breaths, Jonathan can barely tease out the tapping of
running feet.
Because he is so desperate to change the conversation, he gestures wildly in
the direction of the noise, adding, "I think it's coming from there" before
stumbling in said direction.
The night is filled with one bad decision after another. In his single-minded
aim of distracting the other (to some extent, buying time for a possible
escape), Jonathan accidentally leads the two of them to a murder scene. An as
of yet undiscovered murder scene.
"Oh God," he mumbles, covering his nose and mouth. "Oh God."
If it weren't for the tattered dress, it would be hard to tell if the victim
were a woman, hidden in shadows and coated in her own blood.
Dio's hand returns to his shoulder.
"Jojo," he starts, "We didn't see anything. But we need to leave -- now."
"But what about -- "
"Now."
Jonathan dashes forward as if possessed. He manages to wet his left palm with
blood before Dio grabs him by the collar, heaving him to his feet.
"Get ahold of yourself!" he hisses, shaking him by the shoulders.
Jonathan opens and closes his fist. Dio bats it away, grabbing his other arm
and dragging them off.
-
As luck would have it, this Dio drags them off to one of the pubs in the High
Rips' territory. Jonathan excuses himself on the pretence of washing his hand
before sprinting off to the Elephant.
His hand is still red and still wet from the dead woman's blood and he tries to
keep it from getting on the patrons but there's too many of them and some of
them push at him. He's out of breath again at the top of the stairs, ears
ringing and blood singing.
"Jojo," Dio greets, "Where have you been?" He gets off the bed and sees his
hand, taking it and immediately inspecting it for the source of the wound,
"What happened?"
"Dio -- " Jonathan babbles, "There was a woman and now she's dead and you were
there and now you're in a pub and...!"
"What?"
"I don't know what to do," he moans, "Please help me."
"Did you kill someone?"
"No!"
"What is it then?"
"It's you," Jonathan repeats, fumbling, "Except it's not."
"Where is the blood from?"
"A woman. She's dead. We -- we saw her. I think we saw the person who killed
her too."
He nearly cries in relief -- so tongue-tied and overtaxed from the whirlwind of
events -- when Dio finally understands.
"And you met him? The other me?"
"Yes."
"And he knows you're not the same?"
"Yes."
"And you left him in a pub?"
"What was I supposed to do?" Jonathan counters, near hysterical.
"Not let him out of your sight for one," Dio grumbles, letting go of Jonathan's
hand to motion at the bathroom, "Clean your hands first and then we'll go."
Jonathan dashes off with a nod, eager to have something to do. Dio rubs at his
temples, before pulling on his outdoor garments. He takes the dagger as an
additional precaution but doubts he'll use it.
-
"Is he still there?" he asks after Jonathan has ducked out of the second pub.
"Yes."
"And he didn't ask anything?"
"He said something..." Jonathan furrows his brows in concentration, "Something
about an alibi."
Well. It was certainly what he would be concerned with if he were in the
other's shoes.
"Will we have to kill him?" Jonathan asks, nervous.
"No. In fact, we can't."
"What? Why?"
"He's the reason you'll be coming here. And that is the memory we need."
Jonathan's eyes widen. "So then -- we'll be leaving soon?"
"Not if he suspects you know he's bought the poison." Dio purses his lips,
trying to reorganise his priorities without mention of neither Rips nor
Elephants. "I'll need to erase his memories of your meeting," he concludes, "So
bring him out here somehow and I'll do the rest."
"How am I supposed to do that?"
"Say you've found a witness. Lie."
-
The alteration is as easy as expected. The two of them keep in the shadows and
the other 'him' is none the wiser upon re-entering the pub.
As his own memories had foretold, Jonathan's doppelganger comes barreling into
Ogre Street soon after, searching for the apothecary that had sold his brother
the poison. He nearly gets killed for his troubles but somehow manages to make
friends with one of the other bosses, a Mr. Robert E.O. Speedwagon.
The immediate amity between the two strangers irritates him somewhat. How much
of it is his other self's sentiment, he can't say. Either way, he appears from
the shadows as soon as Jonathan is isolated, extracting his ⸢Memory Disc⸥
before heading back to the Queen's Elephant. He spares a glance at the
temporarily-incapacitated man, wondering not for the first time how these
worlds continued to function -- if they existed afterwards at all. It is not a
question he like to dwell on, naturally.
Despite it being the dead of the night, Jonathan is wide-awake and fully
dressed. His face is ghostly pale in the candlelight and the flame is
practically dancing courtesy of his trembling grip.
"Would you like to sleep through it again?" Dio offers.
Some color returns to Jonathan's face in his momentary surprise. Then he nods,
once, quietly adding "Yes please" and closes his eyes when Dio touches his
forehead.
Jojo slumps against him and, as if on cue, an entrance appears from the
bathroom door.
***** this mask of my own making *****
Jonathan's unconscious form is a significant weight on his shoulders. Though
his other self raises an eyebrow at their entrance, he makes no additional
comment and does not stop Dio from hauling Jonathan to his replicated bedroom.
Everything in said room is as it was a year and a half ago, when he had first
entered the room. It really was identical to Jonathan's room in the manor,
right down to the photo of Mary Joestar. After he sets Jonathan atop the
mattress and pulls the sheets over him, Dio lingers in the room.
The last time he had entered as a guest had been after the burglary. It was, as
far as he could recall, the one time Jonathan had asked for his help, though it
was for something as banal as warding off nightmares. And then the Pendleton
girl had been dangling outside his brother's window for god knows how long and
of course he had chosen to walk his future wife home instead of keep his
earlier appointment and it's ridiculous how how much the memory can still sting
-- when that time and that person and that version of himself are as far away
as one could imagine.
While looking at his own not-so-ragged reflection, Dio plays with the handle of
the wardrobe. The same whim which made him linger makes him open the closet,
and he pushes back an assortment of outgrown garments, reaching for the back of
wardrobe.
His heart skips a beat when his fingers make contact with the brickwork. The
beginnings of the servants' tunnel. That even this detail had been
reconstructed further confirms the depth of creation in this heaven. There had
never been any doubt, he admits while tracing over the join of asphalt and
brick, for only person would be able to recreate Jonathan's room like this from
memory alone.
Dio is gripped with a curiosity then. Though the doorway led to the rest of the
nebulous space, where would the servants' passage lead?
He casts a glance at Jonathan, arranged to look asleep, before pushing more
clothing to the side. He's nearly twenty years old, far too old to be crawling
headfirst into wardrobes. But there's no one to see his folly so he tucks the
set of ⸢Discs⸥ deeper in his pockets before taking the first step into the
tunnel.
When Jonathan had asked for his company four years prior, he remembers
crouching along the passageway. He needs to squeeze his shoulders to get
through the entrance now and can only proceed further on hands and knees. Like
the real passage, there are two turns. Following the first one, the meagre
amount of light from the wardrobe is lost altogether and he crawls forward in
darkness.
When crawling through the tunnel in the manor, one could hear the water running
through the pipes. The fabrication, in contrast, makes him fear deafness from
the rustling of his own clothes, rubbing and scraping against the foundation.
There is no light at the end of this tunnel, just a sudden plunge into the
throne room. One second he's squeezing himself along brick walls and the next,
he's falling a meter and a half into his own lap.
His cheeks are burning are he scrambles off of the other. Himself. And though
his eyes are still adjusting to the heightened light, he thinks he sees a
glimpse of amusement on the other man's face.
Standing... well, crouching, before him reminds him again of the difference in
stature. Though he has stopped growing for months (and suspects he'll never
quite reach two meters), the other man feels two heads taller.
"Is he settled in?" the man on the throne asks.
"Yes."
"Hm." There's the quirk of lips, a parody of a smile, before he extends his
hand, expectant. "The disc, if you will."
Dio reaches into his pocket, extracting the pair of discs. He keeps Jonathan's
and hands over the doppelganger's.
His other self stands and walks over to the glass container. As Dio remembers -
- except not really -- he manages to stick his hand through the container,
pressing the edge of the disc directly against the perpetually-asleep
Jonathan's forehead. The disc is accepted and when his other self retracts his
hand, Dio watches on as the entire right leg dissolves from being. Even seeing
it happen doesn't make it any more believable: there's no wound, no blood, no
cut -- nothing to suggest the limb had ever been there. More surreal is how the
difference between flesh and water blurred, so that he couldn't even make out
where the leg was supposed to have been.
The Jonathan suspended in the tank gives no reaction, not even a flutter of
eyelids.
Dio swallows, uncomfortable at the inexplicable display, and turns to his other
self.
"Is that all?"
He expects a careless dismissal, if that. But the other man frowns, reaching
back into the tank and retrieving the disc. It is as if a switch had been
flipped, for Jonathan's right leg fades back into existence.
Dio stiffens.
"This is wrong," the puppetmaster declares, "Are your own memories so faulty
that you can't recreate the timeline?"
"What do you mean wrong," he is too quick to protest, "What else is 'ruins
street' supposed to mean, if not Ogre Street?"
"The where is indeed correct. But the when," his other self shakes his head
before walking back to his throne, "It's no good. This isn't the ruins street
of his memory."
"But Jojo -- " he stops, correcting himself, "But Jonathan was there. And this
is evidently the correct memory." Or else the leg wouldn't have disappeared, he
refrains from adding.
"Practically identical is not good enough," dictates the man on the throne. To
illustrate, he drops the ⸢Memory Disc⸥ onto the floor, crushing it beneath his
heel.
"What do you suggest then?" Dio demands, suitably riled, "That we wait another
year before he pays a visit Ogre Street at the correct time?"
"On the contrary," and there it is again, that almost-amused expression, "The
correct possibility no longer exists in that reality."
"So you want us to wait a year in a new one?" The time spent at the Elephant
seems hellish in retrospect, plodding along day in and out towards a goal that
was nothing more than numbers on scraps of paper, for all the value money still
held.
The other snaps his fingers and a veritable shelf of ⸢Memory Discs⸥ rain down,
clattering against the nebulous floor.
Dio fights back the urge to touch them. Even without confirmation, he knows
what the discs are. Whose discs they were.
But his other self doesn't say anything. Simply remains on his throne, watching
and waiting.
Finally, Dio clears his throat.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"How many times," he answers himself, voice carrying a mad lilt, "Do you think
I have tried to erase him? We may be cut from the same cloth, but when you have
had eternity as I have had eternity, you will soon understand: it is the
details that matter the most."
And Dio hears: if you are not willing, a functional duplicate will be made
willing.
"And at the end of it?" he asks.
"At the end of what?"
"When you've -- when you've fully erased him. What next?"
"That's the curious thing," the man shrugs, "I have yet to arrive at a
possibility where the meddling fool is erased. But rest easy. It is only a
matter of time when eternity is concerned."
"And what of us?"
"What about you?"
"Say we misstep. What will happen if I -- if we retrieve the next disc too
late?"
The smile he receives is answer enough.
-
He processes the news of another year of waiting with numbing calmness. Free of
further questions, he makes his way to Jonathan's bedroom, tracing the sleeping
man's face. Nothing here makes sense, least of all the joining of rooms. How
could the straight path from throne room to hallway to bedroom lead to free
fall in the middle? He shoulders Jonathan once more and when they are once
again seated at opposite sides in the same private train carriage, he reinserts
the ⸢Soul Disc⸥.
When Jonathan wakes anew, he is scrutinising the same sheet of clues as the
year before. He squints at the writing before repeating his old question. Dio
gives the same answer he had then.
In the corner of his eye, he can see Jonathan looking out the window and then
back at him. There's a question on the tip of his tongue.
"What is it," Dio monotones. This is after three attempts.
"Before..." Jonathan still looks bewildered, "Was I dreaming?"
"No."
"But everything is the same."
"Yes."
"And we're going back to the same place in London?"
"Yes."
"But why? I thought... didn't you already get what he wanted?"
"Time has passed, if that's what you mean," Dio answers.
"Not just that," Jonathan protests.
"It wasn't the right memory," he explains, still mildly peeved at his willful
ignorance of the obvious set of restrictions.
"The right... what do you mean not the right memory?"
"You -- well, the version of you in that reality -- weren't supposed to go to
Ogre Street then."
Jonathan blinks, confused.
"When was I supposed to go, then?"
"In a year's time. Roughly."
"A year's time!" At least Jonathan looks as he feels, spluttering with
disbelief, "And what are we supposed to do then? Wait?"
"I don't see what else we can do," Dio gripes.
"It seems all we're doing is waiting," Jonathan declares, slumping against the
window and crossing his arms, "And I hate it."
Dio withholds his own agreement, pulling out a pencil to scratch notes on the
margins of the paper. They're still two hours away from London when Jonathan
tears his gaze from the countryside to ask: "What happened, then?"
"What do you want to know?"
"How do you know the memory was wrong for one," he shrugs, "I mean, I thought
you didn't know what exactly we were looking for."
"I don't. But it seems that he has something specific in mind." Before he can
continue stewing about the arbitrary judgement call, he thinks back to the
recreated room and asks a question of his own: "Do you remember your bedroom?"
"The one at the pub?"
"No, the one in the manor."
"Oh. Not really, no."
But Dio is still curious, so he presses further. "Nothing at all, really?"
Jonathan looks to the left, biting at his lower lip. "Well... I guess I
remember the photo of my mother." The photo you tore up, Dio hears.
"But nothing else?"
"What else do you mean?"
"A servant's entrance?"
"Oh, you mean through the wardrobe?" Jonathan is on the first step of scrutiny,
furrowing his brows while looking back at Dio, "What about it?"
"Do you remember where it led?"
"Your old room." He pauses, and then adds: "But I didn't use it after you
arrived. In the manor, I mean."
"Did you know," Dio starts, "That there's a perfect copy of your room there?"
"Of course I know," Jonathan answers, "I was kept there."
"Did the clothes fit you then?"
"What?"
"The clothes in the wardrobe. Did they fit you then?"
"I -- no. They didn't."
"Already."
"What?"
"I don't understand it," Dio admits, "Why that room exists, as it is. There's a
version of you he wants to erase, you know? It ages as we do."
Jonathan needs a moment to process the influx of information. He opens his
mouth, then snaps it shut, flexing his fingers, "So -- you mean -- you think
the room should age too?"
"I don't see why not," Dio shrugs, "Especially if it's supposed to be for you."
"Except he wants me erased." Jonathan is remarkably at-ease, speaking of his
own disappearance.
"Right." Which only reiterated the question: why did said room exist,
especially in the state it remained in?
As one, the two of them turn to look out the window. Only Jonathan expects to
find an answer, of course. And so they sit in silence until the next stop. The
horn blows five carts away as the conductor distantly hollers that they're half
an hour from London.
Jonathan is the first to speak when the train lurches forward.
"If you're planning on killing him, I'll help you however I can."
Dio actually doubles over laughing. He hadn't even considered it for, without
even trying, he knew he would be beat, but of course Jonathan would think of
it. When he catches his breath, Jonathan has crossed his arms, refusing to join
in on the jape, and it only adds to his own amusement.
"You've been thinking about this for quite some time, I presume?" Dio chuckles.
"Laugh all you want," Jonathan sniffs, "But he's hardly all-powerful."
"Oh?" It's not a novel idea, but he really hadn't counted on Jojo entertaining
conspiratorial notions.
"He can't directly intervene, for one."
"And?"
"So he needs us. Well, you."
"And with this information," with effort, Dio manages to keep a straight face,
"How do you expect to kill him?"
And this is yet another difference. The man he knew could never speak of
murder, regardless of the reason. There's a fire in Jojo's eyes and the sight
of the spark makes his stomach clench.
"I don't know," Jonathan admits, "Which is why I was asking if you had a plan."
"It hasn't even occurred to me," Dio laughs as hanged men do, "Though you must
realise he'll probably kill us at the end of this? When we've served our
purpose?"
"No," Jonathan shakes his head, "I don't think he will." He gives Dio another
odd look then, still never quite scrutinising, but Dio is too preoccupied with
his own amusement to pursue the look.
-
The Queen's Elephant is where it had always stood. It is filled with gamblers
and drinkers and especially hardy eaters at a quarter past seven. The madam who
plays proprietress is the same woman, though she naturally does not remember
either of them.
It is a good thing Jonathan is there, for he might have doubted his own
recollection then. How real everything had felt, and how he used to own this
place. Or one just like it. He makes the mistake of trying to continue past the
first floor and is stopped by the same pair of guards he had first killed
before taking over.
He could do it all again, he knows. Could even expand the Rips' territory
further this time. He puts up his hands in apology instead, pardoning his own
misunderstanding before heading down the stairs and out the door. Jonathan
dutifully follows, though he does not stick as close as he had a year ago.
-
Dio is openly stewing by the time they're led to their ill-begotten hotel room.
In fact, he's still stewing after Jonathan finishes bathing.
Jonathan presses at his creased brow before lying down on the bed.
"I thought you were expecting death."
"Everyone dies."
"Why didn't you kill those men, then?"
"I didn't see a point." He needs to get ahold of himself. His own emotions, at
least. The man he was imitating wouldn't be so flustered at being forgotten.
Wouldn't give a damn about the resetting of universes, so long as he had
Jonathan. Of course, that iteration of himself had actually had Jonathan, while
he seemed to be rebuffed at every turn.
"Sometimes I wonder," Jonathan starts while drying his hair, "How things would
be like, if we hadn't met."
His laugh is bitter and he knows it.
"You would have fallen in love and gotten married and I would have killed you
and cut off your head."
"And?" This, of course, is what Jonathan questions.
"What do you mean 'and'?"
"That's rather cruel, isn't it?" he remarks, "Cutting off my head after killing
me? Why would you do that?"
Dio closes his eyes then, sifting through his own memories.
"I wanted something -- to remember you by, I suppose." In truth, even after two
years, he can't quite believe his own memories at times. Willfully harming
Jonathan was absurd enough, but somehow wearing his body from the neck down and
achieving practical immortality as a vampire to boot? At a certain point, the
sheer number of possibilities begs the question: hwo different could the
outcomes be, if the two of them were constantly crossing paths?
-
When Jonathan kisses him the next day, it's so out of the blue, Dio initially
thinks he's dreaming. They're in the middle of discussing what to do in another
spare year with maps and guidebooks sprawled over the coffee table, when
Jonathan stands up without warning, bracing himself on Dio's shoulder before
dipping his head down.
For such a sudden gesture, it's characteristically chaste, closed eyes and
puckered lips and a light pressure a couple seconds long.
It's over too soon, though Jonathan does not pull back, Dio falls in a little
deeper after seeing his eyes. His memories provide him with a vision of the man
in adolescence, spread-eagled on a spring meadow. It's that sort of glistening
green. Dio is an idiot through and through, to be fooled by Jonathan of all
people. He reciprocates the gesture, and feels light-headed from boyish
giddiness when Jonathan half-pushes and half-pulls him to the bed.
The passion ends as abruptly as it had started, when Jonathan peels away his
collared shirt while straddling his lip. Dio puts two and two together before
the other touches his unmarked, remembering the deductions of the Jojo he had
grown up with, and his blood runs cold at the telling.
And still, Jonathan reaches out, pressing his fingers into the skin before
dragging them across. When it becomes apparent there's no powder no smudge, he
digs his nails in.
Rather than wince, Dio keeps a straight face, ignoring too the shiver that runs
up his spine.
"Where is he?" Jonathan asks.
"How long have you suspected?"
"Where. Is. He." Jonathan punctuates each word with a slight twist of his
wrist. The last word of his question breaks skin.
"Dead and buried in the space Father -- your father -- wanted." He barely
registers the pain, for how overcome he is with relief. He had been hoping for
this confrontation, he realises, hungering for the chance to distinguish
himself at last.
"Did you kill him?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"In the time you were alone in the castle."
The anguished cry Jonathan gives is so like a wounded animal, it would be
comical if it weren't directed at him. He makes a rudimentary effort at
defense, but is taken by surprise when his hands are batted away and his
windpipe is seized in a chokehold.
Despite the mounting pressure, Dio finds he's not scared at all. Even when the
oxygen deprivation makes him light-headed, he doesn't feel an inkling of fear.
His faith is rewarded. Jonathan doesn't strangle him; doesn't even come close.
He releases his grip to grab at Dio's bare and bleeding shoulders, hanging his
head in sorrow.
"Why?" he demands at the end of it, "Why would you?"
Dio cards his fingers through the other man's hair.
"Pity, I suppose," he shrugs. "Pity and greed," he amends.
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