Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Maybe I'm mistaken, expecting you to fight.

Or maybe I'm just crazy, I don't know wrong from right.

But while I’m still living, I've just got this to say:

It's always up to you if you want to be that, want to see that, want to see that way...

You're coming along.

---

The wrong Joestar died on that rainy night in 1868.

At least, this was the opinion of Mary Joestar.  The only comfort - if she could even call it comfort - was in the survival of her only son, and the fact that her husband likely died instantly, and did not suffer long in the aftermath of the accident. 

There was one other cold comfort within her circumstances: she was found by a rough-spoken man and his shadow of a wife, both of whom had doubtlessly seen worse in their squalid lives than a woman in her situation, broken and filthy and lost.  Their pity and judgment of her surely would never reach her social circle.

The man - he introduced himself as Dario Brando - was kind enough to lead her to the shelter of his home, not far from the road, and allow her to rest and collect herself while he went to get help.

In his absence, she was cared-for by Claire, Dario’s wife.  Though her words were painfully crass to Mary’s ears, she was gentle, even groveling, in her behavior.

“What an ‘andsome little son you ‘ave there, Missus Joestar!” she told Mary, that evening.  “I got a son of me own, ‘round the same age. Me sweet little Dio. Wanna see ‘im?”

“Of course,” Mary said.  Her words were weak and windy.

With a girlish sort of laugh, Claire made her way to the corner of the small, dirty house, and brought back a child so pretty and so clean that Mary’s first thought was that he had been stolen from somewhere.

“Dead handsome, ain’t he?  Gonna steal all the ‘earts when he’s grown, I’m sure,” Claire said.  “Just between you and me, Missus,” she continued, with a wink, “‘e sure don’t get ‘is looks from Dario.  Lucky, ain’t I?”

Mary forced a grimace of a smile onto her face, and tried to preoccupy herself with Jonathan, who rested, blessedly at peace, in her arms.

The police arrived not long afterward, and Mary was removed from the temporary sanctuary of the Brandos’ home and given proper care and lodgings in the nearby town.  Though her purse and wedding ring had been stolen by the time of her rescue, she still had Jonathan with her, and the single case of luggage that hadn’t fallen over the cliffs and into oblivion.

She still had the mask. 

Once she had safely made it home to the Joestar estate, she drafted a letter of thankfulness to the Brandos and enclosed a small sum of money within, for their efforts.  The matter, in her mind, was henceforth settled.

(She told herself.)

And even if it hadn’t been settled, she had far more important things to attend to than negotiating whatever perceived debts those common folk would ask of her.

The burial of her husband, for one.  His body was recovered around the time of her own rescue and transported to the estate along with her own, living self.  Despite the best work of the embalmers, the funeral required a closed casket.

There was also the matter of Jonathan’s care and education.  Though he was still an infant, his future as a respectable gentleman was far from guaranteed, not without the aid of governesses and fencing-masters and tutors in Latin and history and all other Classical subjects of education.  Letters upon letters of commission and employment would be required, in time.

But the mask was the most immediate concern.

From the moment she had seen it there, in that Italian marketplace, it had captivated her.  She had begged George to buy it on the spot. George, delightfully confused but seeing no need to question his wife, did as he was told.

Mary barely remembered anything else about the trip, not after that.  She would spend hours in their hotel room in the evenings, gently brushing her fingers over the rough stone of the thing, taking in every strange, unsettling detail.

“What is it about that thing that has you so enamored, my love?” George asked her, one night, with a warm chuckle in his voice.  “You’ve scarcely taken your eyes off it since I got it for you.”

“I don’t know,” Mary replied.  “There’s just… something about it.  I can’t quite say what.”

“As you say,” George said.  “I should hope you tire of it once we get home.  It’s quite a macabre little thing. Not terribly becoming of a lady.”

“Yes.”  Mary’s hands rested on the delicately-carved fangs over the mouth of the mask.  “Of course.”

The mask was her escape from the whole business of tragedy and indignity in her life, as the days, as the weeks, as the months went by.  Her behavior - hours spent in her husband’s study, poring over books and papers - was written and spoken away as her way of grieving, spending time in a place that had once belonged to her husband.  A widow was entitled to strange behavior, after all.

But, shortly after dressing herself in a dusky violet gown of half-mourning, Mary announced that she was going on holiday.

“Beg pardon, madam, but is that really such a wise thing to do?” her butler asked her, once she told him of her intentions.  “Far be it for me to tell you what you can and cannot do, but traveling so soon after the accident from your last holiday seems… unwise.”

“It has been a year since my husband’s death,” Mary replied.  “I am tired of this confinement. The fresh air will be good for my constitution.”

And, truly, her health had declined considerably after the accident.  She slept poorly, and ate rarely, and found little joy or happiness in her old, womanly pursuits.

“I cannot argue with you there, madam,” her butler said.

Within a fortnight, she departed for Italy.  And, from there, to Germany. To the mountains of the Orient.  The forests of the South American continent.

Each step taking her closer to the secret of the mask that had made its claim on her mind, the mask that she carried with her always.

She would learn its secrets.  She would learn the truth behind the words, written and printed in old and flaking books.

She would know immortality.

---

In her absence, the son of Mary Joestar, Jonathan, grew from an infant into a child, and from a child into a young man.

The staff of the Joestar estate struggled somewhat with how best to raise the young heir, lacking direction and instruction from their eccentric employeress.  Doing their best with referrals from other, high-minded families, and half-drafted plans for the boy’s education, left behind by his parents, they hired a roster of governesses and tutors.

With regards to Jonathan’s social education, however, they failed to some degree.  Having no chaperone of an appropriate social class, Jonathan was unable to fully enjoy and participate in the dinners and dances befitting of a young gentleman, and the relationships and valuable social connections that would result from them.  Yes, he was a well-mannered boy, but there were some aspects of society that even a tutor could not provide.

So Jonathan was raised in a lax environment indeed, associating freely with the servants of his house, and often speaking with them as equals.  In truth, he felt more comfortable around them, and their honest, open talk, to the stuffy insinuations his tutors called “proper speech.”

Therefore, when a young man by the name of Dio Brando came to the Joestar estate with a letter written in the hand of their matriarch, Jonathan, who was technically the head of the household by virtue of his blood, welcomed him into his house with open arms.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your father, Mr. Brando,” Jonathan told him, in the parlor, after Dio explained his situation.  “I never really got to know mine, given the accident, so I can’t help but envy you a little, having grown up with one.”

“Spare the envy,” Dio replied.  “Dying in his sleep was far better than a man like him deserved.”

A gentleman would have changed the subject, after such harsh words, or defended the noble concept of deference and respect to one’s parents.

Young Jonathan wasn’t much of a gentleman.

“Was he a cruel man?” he asked.

Dio blinked, his nose wrinkling slightly with confusion.  “I would describe him as such,” he finally said. “To be completely honest, I was surprised to hear that he had done something so selfless for your family.”

“Well, regardless,” Jonathan said, with a slight smile, “no reason why his nature should get in the way of you benefiting from his generosity.  However rare it was. Ah! Is his room ready?”

The maid that had appeared behind Dio’s seat nodded, and Jonathan eagerly got out of his chair.  “Wonderful. Come along with me, Mr. Brando! I’ll help you get settled in.”

For the second time, Dio’s nose wrinkled.  “You intend to personally escort me? Isn’t that beneath a gentleman such as yourself?”

“Of course not!” Jonathan replied, a laugh in his voice.  “I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t. Come on!”

He held out his hand.  Dio didn’t take it. Jonathan laughed, and continued on all the same.

---

Dio had made his way to the Joestar estate intending, wholeheartedly, to cheat them for everything they had.  He’d manipulate that foolish concept of “honor” to his favor, and use it to launch himself into that world of riches and idiotic gentry.

He had expected to be received by a simpering, soft-hearted widow, based on the letter his father had given him.  Someone he could charm with his words and pretty face, like he had charmed so many others in his short life.

When he was presented with Jonathan, instead, a mere boy with an easy laugh and far too much enthusiasm, he was certain he would be able to adapt and reach his goals all the same.  After all, children were, by and large, idiots. Dio possessed a mind far beyond his years, he knew beyond a doubt. Jonathan’s blue blood only made him an easier target, surely.

But at every turn, Jonathan surprised him.  It began with their first meeting - what business did a boy of his social standing have, associating so freely with the servants and their tasks?  

...at least, that was the impression Dio had of such people.  He’d never had the… fortune of knowing the company of high-born folks, certainly, but he knew what to expect.  He knew.

And yet…

“Mr. Brando!  Come outside, let’s have us a game of football!”  An absurdly common offer as the spring rolled around, considering it always left Jonathan laughing and covered in mud.  Dio usually declined, but the offer itself was… curious.

“Mr. Brando!  Would you like to join me in the kitchen to help with dinner?”  Another common offer, regardless of the season.

“Why would you assist the staff with the work you pay them to do?” Dio asked him, once, in response.

“I just like doing it,” Jonathan replied.  “Besides, the conversation’s fantastic. And, don’t you think?  It’s useful to know how to cook. Just in case.”

Dio declined, that time, and many others.  But he would occasionally sneak by the kitchens, before dinner, hiding near the door, and see Jonathan, there, peeling potatoes and laughing at some bawdy joke.

“Mr. Brando!  Would you like to go into town with me?  I need to stop at the greengrocer’s for a few things.”

Dio, eventually, stopped asking, stopped assuming that these errands were asked of Jonathan by staff that did not know their place.  This was truly a boy that took pleasure in being useful and kind, social status be damned.

It should have been dead easy to work this to his advantage, and yet…

“You don’t have to call me Mr. Brando all the time,” Dio said, after this particular question.  “It’s just... Dio.”

“Haha, all right, then!  Dio! Shall we go into town together?”

Once again, as he did so many times, Jonathan held out his hand in offering.

Jonathan’s enthusiasm was so annoyingly persistent.  Like a dog looking for attention.

(And, like a dog, so strangely… innocent.)

“...yes, that sounds like a fine time.  I’ll accompany you,” Dio replied.

“Well, come on, then!”  Jonathan threw his hand over his shoulder, grinning, and led the way to the carriage waiting outside.

Dio decided, eventually, that perhaps he would have an easier time with his plans once Jonathan’s mother came back from her travels.  After all, Jonathan didn’t have much access to the family’s finances, much less any social connections to the upper crust. Dio would require both of those to take on the world as he pleased.

Yes, once Mary Joestar came home, he would really get to work.

Until then, he would continue to exploit Jonathan Joestar’s friendship and hospitality and live in comfort and ease.

(He told himself.)

Chapter Text

Give me these moments back.

Give them back to me.

---

Mary Joestar did not return from her travels for eighteen years.

During that time, she did a great amount of thinking.  About the mask, about the misery and misfortune in her life, about what she would need to do to make it right.

Each letter from home that reached her - dryly-written reports from her butler, then chicken-scratch attempts at English from a son she barely knew - they were like bait for her darker thoughts.  They were reminders of a life that had been stolen from her. They were fuel for the fire of resolve in her chest.

Even with the years behind her in their wasted, withered state, if she succeeded in her endeavor, she would have all the time in the world to finally enjoy her life.

The mask was the key.

She reached another, strange conclusion, in time.  Strange in its leaps of logic, strange in its inadvertent dispensation of justice.

The Brando family had cursed her.

It had been just a tenuous association, at first.  The carriage had overturned because of rain, because of mud, because of a poorly-maintained road.  But the loss of her ring, her traveling money - it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Dario Brando, that filthy man, had stolen them from her.  He probably had.

And then, another letter came, from Jonathan.  The writing was half-polished, youthful, and it made her smile.

Then she saw that name.

Brando.

The curse had made its way into her very home.

She could not blame her innocent son for his decision to bring the creature into their house.  He was young, he had no idea of the evil that family represented. And she did not allow her words to reflect this knowledge, instead praising him in her letter back to him for the gentlemanly generosity he embodied with his actions.

The boy’s father and mother were both dead.  If the boy himself continued to live, she would find a use for him.  She already had one in mind.

She had learned a great deal about the mask, over the years; about what it was truly capable of, about what she would need to do in order to best exploit its gift.  From her residence in South America, she studied and studied, and, eventually, experimented. There was no shortage of impoverished natives she could lure into her laboratory with money she never needed to spend.

She obtained another obsession, with time: a red stone, mentioned here, mentioned there, in the most ancient of sources.  A stone that would allow her true immortality, without stipulations.

She searched.  For years, she searched, and could not find it.

She learned of ripples, of arrows, of sleeping masters, but nothing else.

Then.

A lead.

She would have to return to the Orient, away from South America. To Tibet.  She could, along the way, stop at a home she no longer truly knew.

The boy, Dio, was still alive.

She would find a use for him.

She sent a letter to England, announcing her imminent arrival home, and she began her way across the sea and one step closer to her destiny.

---

Mary Joestar arrived home on a rainy autumn evening, far earlier than expected.  There was a wide streak of white in her once-soft hair, and her face was weathered and cold in its expression.

“Where is my son?” was her first request.

Jonathan returned shortly thereafter from university, with Dio close behind.  He was filled with a nervous eagerness, finally meeting this woman he had only ever known in letters and photographs, and stood stiffly in the entrance hall of the estate while he waited for Mary to emerge from her own room, where she was changing into her evening attire.

“No need to be so nervous,” Dio told him, with a sharp, semi-kind smirk.  “It’s only your mother. How frightening can she be?”

Jonathan laughed, slightly, but there was still an inconstant tremor in his hands.

Mary descended into the hall, in the minutes following, with a slow, deliberate gait down the stairs.  Dressed entirely in black, she was a grim figure indeed.

She looked Jonathan up and down, silently, and her eyes narrowed.  “Just like the photographs. You resemble your father very much,” were her first words to him.

“I… do I really look like him?” Jonathan said, after far too long a pause.

“Yes.”  She tilted her head, and her eyes narrowed further.  “And who is that behind you?”

“Oh, Mother, this is Dio Brando.  The son of the man that saved us, all those years ago,” Jonathan said.  “I’ve written about him in my letters to you.”

“Brando.”  Mary’s voice grew hollow.  “I see.”

(Far too pretty.  Far too clean, for such a creature.)

“I should hope you haven’t been taking advantage of our hospitality with your time here, boy,” she continued.

(There it was, the treatment Dio was expecting.)

“Not at all, madam,” Dio replied, his voice as clear and sweet as honey.  “I am eternally grateful to you and your family for their generosity. Thanks to you, I’m well on my way to a career as a lawyer.”

“Indeed?” said Mary.  “Well, then. Jonathan, Mr. Brando, I expect you both to join me for dinner this evening.  And… Mr. Brando. I should like to speak with you after dinner, in my husband’s study.”

“Anything you ask of me, madam,” Dio said, bowing slightly.

The gentlest of sneers flickered across Mary’s mouth, and she returned to her chambers on the second floor.

“Well, at the very least, she seems to like me far less than you,” Dio said to Jonathan, in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

(Even with a heart softened, somewhat, by friendship, Dio’s true displays of kindness always contained some sort of barb in them.)

This made Jonathan laugh, at least a little.  “Dark as always. It went better than I was expecting.”

“Did it?  Excellent.  Hopefully things will improve from here,” Dio replied.

(Famous last words.)

Dinner was a similarly cold and distant affair, but Dio was expecting such an atmosphere.  He ascended the stairs to the study without worry a short while after Mary excused herself from the table.

“Good luck,” Jonathan said.  

Mary closed the door behind him, when he entered.

“Are you familiar with archaeology, Mr. Brando?” she began.

“Somewhat.  That’s more Jonathan’s area of study,” he replied.

“Yes, so I’ve heard,” said Mary.  “I’ve become something of an archaeologist myself, these past few years.  Traveling the world as I have.”

“I imagine you’ve learned quite a lot, on your travels,” said Dio.

“More than you could ever believe, Mr. Brando.”  Mary, her back turned to him, opened a desk drawer and removed a stone object from it.

A mask.

“Do you know what this is, Mr. Brando?” she said, brandishing it over her shoulder.

“A mask, I take it?”

“Not just any mask.  It is a relic of an ancient civilization, so far removed from our culture and history that almost all record of it has been lost,” she said.  “Sun-worshippers. It took me years to learn as much as I have about them.”

“That sounds utterly fascinating,” Dio said, managing to sound entirely sincere.

Mary looked over her shoulder, and there was a thin, thin smile on her face.  “Would you like to take a better look at it? It is quite beautiful up close.”

“Of course.  I would love to see it,” said Dio.  

(A strange, slippery sense of discomfort was leaking into his chest.  He was well-practiced at saying things people wanted to hear, sounding like he cared, but here, finally, in front of the ultimate mark…)

(...was he nervous?)

“Careful, now.  It is fairly brittle,” said Mary, placing it, gently, in his outstretched hands.

Dio turned it over once, twice, an eyebrow raised in curiosity.  “It’s a beautiful artifact, Mrs. Joestar,” he said.

Mary’s smile widened, and poison entered it.  “Yes. It is very beautiful.”

A moment later, she dashed forward and slashed at his hand with a small, sharp blade.  

A moment later, the blood from Dio’s palm touched the mask in his hand.

A moment later, a multitude of hollow hooks jumped out of the mask, and dug themselves into the flesh of Dio’s arm.

Dio screamed.  Mary laughed.

“As many times as I have done this, Mr. Brando, I do not think I have ever enjoyed it as much as I do now,” she said, once she had gathered her breath.  “Somehow it feels… like justice.”

Dio gasped and panted, having fallen to his knees on the floor.  “What… is this…?”

“This is punishment for your family’s curse upon my house,” Mary said.  “Ever since the day I met your despicable mother and father, my life has been nothing but unholy anguish .  This is what you deserve.”

She grabbed the mask, and the hollow hooks pulled and tore at his skin, his flesh.  The fabric of his shirt bloomed with blood.

“Do you know what this mask is for?” she continued.  “To create servants. Incredible, immortal bodyguards, meant to serve and protect across the ages.  Of course, they are not without their flaws… But… is there such a thing as a perfect tool?”

She knelt down to eye level with him.  Her eyes were almost warm from the smile on her face.

“It is time to repay your family’s debt, Mr. Brando.”

Right as Jonathan burst into the room, Mary placed the mask on Dio’s face, and the spikes dug into his temples and the soft spaces of his head.

“Mother!  What are you doing?!”

Dio fell to the floor, writhing and clutching at his face as an inhuman screech escaped his throat.  Mary was laughing, and laughing, and laughing, as she rose to her feet.

“Do you not see, Jonathan?  I have finally done it. I have avenged your father,” she said.  Her eyes were wild and wide. “And I am one step closer to eternal life…!”

She started laughing again.  Jonathan, gasping and worried, shifted his attention to Dio, whose writhing had ceased some, and was now only trembling on the floor.  “Dio! Hold on, I’ll get this off you!”

One by one, he managed to wrench the spikes away from Dio’s head, eventually freeing the mask entirely.  Dio lay, shaking violently and gasping for air, on the ground. Jonathan threw the mask with desperate force across the floor, and it rattled where it came to rest near a bookshelf.

“Dio, are you all right?  Say something!”

Dio didn’t respond, though he was still breathing.  That was enough, for now.

“Mother… you’re not well.  I’m going to get help,” said Jonathan.  “And Dio… I’ll fetch help for you too. Just keep calm.”

Jonathan left the room, his legs burning with purpose.

Mary was still laughing, softly.  “You’ll thank me, in time,” she said. “You’ve been blessed with what I’ve yet to obtain.  Blessings and curses. Saved my life and ruined it. That’s what you deserve. What you deserve.”

Dr. Pendleton arrived via carriage not an hour later, his skinny assistant rushing behind him with his black leather bag.

Mary was the most immediate concern.  “I’ll attend to the lady,” he told Jonathan.  “Help me get her up. We’ll need her to be somewhere quiet.  My assistant will see to Mr. Brando.”

The doctor quickly determined that her time abroad had surely done something to her mental state, and she needed rest and confinement.  A sanitorium was quickly located, and her belongings were packed and sent along to her.

Jonathan, of course, accompanied his sick mother the entire way, and once he was certain she would be cared-for, he returned home, where Dio was similarly recovering.

Dr. Pendleton was waiting for him once he got there, as he had gone on ahead, intrigued by his assistant’s notes on the matter.

“It’s a condition I’ve never quite seen before,” he told Jonathan.  “The initial wounds from the mask healed extraordinarily quickly, but he’s developed an extreme photophobia.  Even the smallest amount of sunlight causes his skin to burn terribly.”

“I see…” said Jonathan.

“I imagine you visiting him should put him in slightly better spirits,” Dr. Pendleton continued, his mustache bristling with a dry smile.  “You have been gone for quite some time.”

“I hope so,” Jonathan replied.

The curtains were drawn, in Dio’s room, and he was sitting at a table in the corner with a bottle of wine when Jonathan entered.  His yellow hair was ragged and fell into his eyes.

“Dio?”  Jonathan’s voice was gentle.  “How are you feeling?”

“If that isn’t the question of the year,” Dio replied.  He took a sip directly from the bottle, and grimaced. Sharp teeth gleamed in the darkness.  “I’m feeling remarkably well, and yet I’ve never felt more miserable.”

“How so, Dio?”  

“I can feel… incredible vigor in every fiber of my being.  Strength beyond anything I’ve ever known. Here, look.” He stood up from his chair and bent down by his bed, and with a single hand, he lifted it off the ground.

“Dio…!”  Despite himself, Jonathan took a step back.  Frightened.

Dio saw.  

He set the bed back down, and returned to his seat, a bitter smile on his face and exhaustion in his shoulders.  “A blessing and a curse, your mother called it. All this strength and no way to use it. Add to that the fact that I can’t even leave the house to attend to my studies…”

“I’m… I’m certain that the headmaster can make an exception for you and your condition,” Jonathan said, attempting to smile.  “Have you submit your classwork through the post, or…”

“And what shall I do afterward?  What sort of lawyer cannot even attend court during the day?” Dio replied.  He sighed, deeply. “At this point, I might as well resign myself to a life as a lamp-lighter.  Or a night’s watchman.” A bitter huff of a laugh. “That might make use of this freakish strength of mine, eh?”

Jonathan struggled to gather thoughts, to gather words.  “Well… well, surely, there is a cure out there, for your condition.  We’re living in an age of modern medicine, after all, and…”

“I have a feeling this is not a condition modern medicine will be able to fix,” Dio said.  “What sort of treatment does one prescribe for a curse off an ancient artifact?”

“Dio,” said Jonathan, “curses don’t exist.  Surely, it’s… some sort of infection you picked up from the mask, when it dug into you like that?”

“If only,” Dio said.  He took another sip of wine, and another grimace appeared.  “Terrible. I can’t even enjoy food and drink, any more. Not that it much matters.  I haven’t felt so much as a twinge of hunger since…”

Dio’s eyes fell, and the veneer of sarcastic strength dropped, if only for a second.

Jonathan saw.

He made his way to Dio’s table, and lowered himself to the point of kneeling to be at eye level.

“Dio.  Whatever it takes to find a cure for your condition… I will find it.  I swear this to you.”

A warm and wavering moment passed.

Dio turned his head away.  “Save yourself the trouble,” he said.  “Go on with your life. I’ll find a way to go on with mine.”

There was a hard finality in his words, and Jonathan knew that he’d reached the end of his present aid.  He got up, and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

The light in the hallway felt almost oppressive, after Jonathan emerged from Dio’s room.  But before this particular little seed of guilt could take root, another form of light entered his mind.

“Jonathan?”

He turned around to find Erina, hands gently clutched near her chest.

“Erina!  I didn’t know you were here,” he said.

“I came with my father as soon as I heard what had happened to Dio,” she said.  “I figured he would perhaps appreciate some… care from a friend, but…”

“It’s all right,” Jonathan said, a genuine smile finally making its way onto his face.  “I appreciate the effort.”

(Erina was equally dear to the both of them, this was beyond questioning.  They’d gone from scruffy boys, squealing and teasing each other over kisses, to friends and possible-suitors, over the years.)

“Well, now that you’re here…  I suppose I can go home, though, if there’s anything else I can do for you…”  Her face was ever-so-slightly flushed, and her gaze was averted.

“Nothing further will be needed today, Erina.  Thank you,” Jonathan said. He nodded in place of a bow.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me… I have some work I need to attend to.”

“Right…”  Erina nodded, and began down the hallway down the stairs.

Jonathan, meanwhile, was making his way to his father’s study.

Dio’s blood was still on the floor, dry and rust-colored in the pale shaft of light that cut through the half-opened curtains.  The servants had been reluctant to enter the room, since the incident, and Jonathan could hardly blame them for their negligence.

The mask on the floor immediately drew his eye.  Cautiously, he picked it up; it was surprisingly light, for something with such terrible power.

He couldn’t hold it for more than a moment, setting it down on the desk after a few seconds.

Papers upon papers littered the surface of the desk itself, covered in his mother’s handwriting.  He moved, on instinct, to gather them into neater piles, but the words on them pulled at his eyes.

Words about the mask.

He quickly gathered as many papers as he could, and rushed out of the iron-scented study and into his own chambers.  His own desk was similarly covered in papers from his archaeological studies, but he shoved them, inelegantly, desperately, aside, to make space for his mother’s writing.

He returned to the study some hours later to retrieve more papers, and journals, as well.  At that point, the sun was going down.

A servant found him and told him to come down for dinner, but Jonathan declined, saying he was still studying.  A meal was left outside his door, all the same, but Jonathan ignored it.

He ended up falling asleep there, at his desk.  And as soon as he woke up, he resumed his reading.

Perhaps this wasn’t an illness.  Perhaps this was a curse.

Perhaps there was a cure.

Chapter Text

I know this super highway,

This bright familiar sun.

I guess that I'm the lucky one.

---

Jonathan Joestar studied his mother’s notes for three feverish days before requesting a sabbatical from his headmaster.

“It’s a terribly urgent matter,” he explained.  “I’ll have to go abroad for a while. But I’ll be researching for my thesis while I’m there.”

“Anything you need, Mr. Joestar,” the headmaster replied.  “Word has reached me of the recent… unfortunate circumstances of your family.  I should hope that your mother and Mr. Brando both make swift recoveries.”

“I hope so too,” Jonathan replied, softly.

He asked Erina, before he departed, to look after Dio for him.  “Even with the staff,” he said, “he could use a friend to talk to, while I’m gone.”

“I’ll do my best,” Erina promised.

Jonathan also went to Dio, of course, with promises and farewells.

“There’s got to be something in her notes that will lead me to a cure for you,” he said.  “I’m not going to rest until I find it.”

Dio had barely left his room, in all the time between.  Wine bottles, evidence of desperate attempts to feel anything , littered the floor.  

“No matter how long it takes,” Jonathan continued, “I promise, I’ll…”

Dio, crouched in his bed and holding one of his legs to his chest, tightened into himself.

“...I’ll try not to take long,” Jonathan said.  “I promise, Dio.”

(Dio had little faith in promises.  Even from Jonathan.)

Jonathan had one more person to visit, before he went on his way.

Mary had been given a truly lovely set of rooms, in the sanitorium, given her wealth and status.  She had grown docile, since her initial attack on Dio, but remained restless in some aspects.

Jonathan knocked on the door before he entered.  “Mother? May I come in?”

“You may.”

Even in her soft dressing-gown, her hair loosened around her shoulders, her severe features were still remarkably harsh to behold.

“I’m going on a journey,” said Jonathan.  “And I wanted to ask you some things, before I go.”

“What is it you need to ask me?  Go on.”

Jonathan reached into his satchel and took out a thin stack of paper.  Her papers.

“That stone mask…  What is it you were researching about it?”

A smile like the curl of a dried leaf came upon her face.  “That mask is the key to immortality, my son. But it is an incomplete key.”

“Immortality…?”  

(Despite the disbelief in his voice, Jonathan already knew this.)

“A stone mask, and a red stone.  Combined, they infuse energy into the pressure points of the body that impose limitations of mortality upon it, and render them useless.  One without the other is only a semblance of this power. Tell me, my son,” she continued, “do you intend to seek out the Red Stone of Aja?”

“Yes,” said Jonathan.

Her smile warmed.  “I do hope you find it.  The Joestar legacy is one that deserves to live forever…  It’s only right…”

He didn’t have the heart to correct her.

Jonathan had no intention of living forever, if such a thing was even possible.  Nor did he want anything to do with that damned mask, once the whole affair was over.

All he knew was that this stone was the key to removing the “fetters” imposed upon the users of the mask, that weakness and aversion to sunlight.  With the stone, he would be able to cure Dio’s condition.

And give his friend his life back.

---

Jonathan was gone for only a year.  There was little need for research, or obsession, not with all the work his mother had already put in.  He had a map of words, and all that was left was to follow it.

He returned home with very little warning, breathless and starry-eyed, dusty and unwashed.

Making a great deal of noise, it did not take very long for Erina to find him.  “Jonathan! When did you get back?”

“This morning!  Erina!” He grabbed her shoulders, and she blushed with the sudden contact.  “Where is Dio?!”

“He’s… in his room, um…  It’s the same one as always…”

“Brilliant!  Thank you! Erina!”  Without another word, he dashed up the stairs, leaving Erina reeling from the sudden, far-too-familiar touch of his hands.

Dio’s room was cleaner than the last time Jonathan had visited.  Dio, in fact, was reading in an armchair, well-dressed and groomed.  Almost looking like his old self.

“Dio!  Here, put this on!”

Dio rose from his chair with great haste, setting down his book as Jonathan opened a pocket in the front of his khaki traveling clothes.  “Jonathan! When did you-”

Jonathan shoved a fist forward; a silver chain was wrapped around his hand, and a pendant dangled below it.  “No time, no time! Put this on, quickly!”

A twitching mix of strange emotions played across Dio’s face - confusion, delight, perhaps a little fear - as he looked upon the necklace.  

It was a beautiful red jewel, captivating in its color and shine.  Softly triangular in shape, it was held in place by a simple setting.

“What is this…?” Dio said.

“Just put it on,” Jonathan said.  He was grinning.

Dio, an uneasy smile on his own face, took the necklace from Jonathan, and slipped it over his head.

As soon as the jewel touched his chest, there was an immediate, overwhelming wave of warmth that spread out from his heart to the tips of his extremities, one that grew and grew with each heartbeat.  A gasp fell from his mouth, as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

“Are you all right?  Tell me, how do you feel?”  There was more excitement than fear in Jonathan’s voice.

“I feel… warm ,” Dio said.  He was breathing deeply, quickly, and each breath seemed to increase the growing warmth in his body, the life returning to his blood.

“Yes, yes…!  Now - please, trust me, Dio…”  Jonathan began toward the window; the curtains that covered it were slightly dusty from misuse.  “I’m going to draw the curtain. Just a little bit.”

“Jonathan, wait-”

“Just.  Trust me,” Jonathan said.  There was strength, conviction in his voice.  “I promise, I’d never do anything that would deliberately bring you harm.”

Dio took a deep breath.  The warmth did not abate.

“Very well.  I trust you.”

Jonathan’s smile wavered, and he opened the curtain.  Just a little bit.

A shaft of light, golden from the afternoon, cut through the dusty air.

Dio knew what he needed to do, before Jonathan could even say it.

His hand trembling, he allowed the tips of his fingers to enter the light.

There was no pain.

There was no pain.

He allowed more of his hand into the light, then his whole arm.  His heart was beating with such intensity that he could feel it in his throat, in his ears.

“Open it further.  More - more light!” Dio said, his voice rising.

Jonathan eagerly complied.

The full force of the sun, forbidden and terrible, enveloped Dio’s body as the window was fully uncovered.

And there was no pain.

Dio’s eyes became hot with tears.  He felt one roll down his cheek.

“Dio?  Are you all right?  How do you feel?” Jonathan asked, once again.

“I’m… I think I’m...” Dio held a hand to his mouth.  Another tear touched his fingers. “Jonathan you’ve... you've cured me.”

“Thank God…!”  Jonathan’s own breathing began to sound like laughter.  “I was terrified that it wouldn’t work!”

“Well… what is it, exactly?” Dio said, holding the pendant in his hand; the jewel itself was gently warm, like a bird in his palm.  “How is it doing this?”

“It’s a terribly long story,” Jonathan said.  “In fact - oh dear - I fear I’ve left Mr. Speedwagon and Mr. Zeppeli outside with the carriage, I was simply too eager to get this to you…”

“Yes, but… what is it, Jonathan?” Dio said.

“It’s called the Red Stone of Aja,” said Jonathan.  “It’s a… sort of key meant to counteract the effects of the mask that cursed you.  So long as you wear it, the sun won’t be able to hurt you any more.”

“Truly?” said Dio.

“Well,” Jonathan replied, with a short laugh, “I think the fact that you’re standing in the sun without harm speaks for itself!”

An unusual impulse seized Dio, there, born of the strange, overwhelming joy of the moment.

Dio threw his arms around Jonathan, and embraced him as firmly, as gently as he could, even with the curse purged from his body.

“Why did you do this…?  Why do all of this for me?"  he said.

Jonathan pulled out of the embrace and shook his head, his forehead wrinkled with confusion.  “Because you’re my dearest friend, Dio,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.  “Like a brother to me. I knew you’d do the same for me, if I were the one with the curse.”

Dio closed his eyes, a strange shame in his chest.  “You think far too much of me, Jonathan.”

(He couldn’t tell himself that he would do the same.)

Jonathan’s boyish smile was his only reply.  Then, so much like a child, something else seemed to catch his attention.

“Now, come on!  I need to introduce you to Mr. Speedwagon and Mr. Zeppeli.  Without them, I never would have found the Stone,” he said. He took Dio’s hand, and pulled him, eagerly, out into the hallway.  “I should think they deserve your thanks as well!”

Dio, almost weak with the onslaught of emotion, was unable to resist as Jonathan pulled him through the house and out, once again, into the sunlight.

---

Dio had never been one to savor simple pleasures.  He was a man entitled to the finest things in life - sex, liquor, theater - decadent pastimes of all kinds.  These were the things he deserved, rewards for his cleverness, his cunning.

Jonathan had no love for such things, but that was to be expected.  He was a kind and simple soul, bless him, preferring sport and the company of other honest folk.  Jonathan was a far better person than his social class deserved, truly, so Dio did not fault him for this at all.  They were simply different men, different sorts of people.

Their chosen careers even reflected this.  Dio, silver-tongued as he was, would become a skilled lawyer, defending the very worst the world had to offer in exchange for magnificent sums of money, with which he could live comfortably.  Jonathan, a man of curiosity and adventure, would pursue archaeology.

Given the state of things beforehand, it was understandable that Dio would enter into a state of empty agony, once the curse of the mask fell upon him.

Despite his lack of hunger, he still craved the taste, the sensation of food, but everything felt like cold clay in his mouth.  Despite his lack of thirst, he sought the gentle intoxication of wine, but it turned to vinegar on his tongue, and failed to warm his body, with his flesh as cool as winter earth.

Even with the ability to go out at night, in the absence of the sun, he could take no pleasure in the company of women - or men, for that matter.  Nothing could stir even a semblance of excitement in his loins, to his utter frustration and disappointment.

His was a body changed for only one purpose: strength, and subservience.  He was not allowed pleasure, he was not allowed anything beyond the things some hypothetical master had deemed was meant for.

When the curse was lifted, he was surprised at his lack of interest in his old vices.

Deprived from true, warm light for so long, he took pleasure in simply walking, being outside, and passively taking in the majesty of nature.

Being able to finally enjoy the tastes, the textures of things as simple as fresh bread, or sweet water, were pleasurable enough in and of themselves to bring him as much joy as the most sumptuous feast, as the finest wine.

And he’d never before felt such love and appreciation for Jonathan, for Erina, and everything they did for him in his time of need - and even before then, in their simple, humble expressions of friendship toward him.  This was not lust, which he had felt so many times before, but true affection - agape, as the old masters had put it.

The lifting of the curse had not just cured his body, but his soul, in his eyes.

He’d resume his studies in law, but his focus would be on justice, rather than riches.  After all, would he not be one of those common criminals, stuck cheating unwitting fools at chess and cards, had fate not delivered him to Jonathan and his boundless kindness?

He’d pursue an honest, simple life, befitting of a gentleman of humble circumstance such as himself.

And he swore, with his entire soul, that he would find a way to repay Jonathan someday.

Chapter Text

And you give yourself away…

And you give yourself away…

---

There were few who mourned Mary Joestar when she died at the age of 42 in 1890.  A stroke or aneurysm was suspected, for her to pass away so suddenly and at such a relatively young age, but her body was already prematurely aged by her obsession with the Stone Mask and immortality.

(A mask which Jonathan had destroyed thoroughly, allowing the dust of its ruin to spread to the winds and never again curse another being.)

Jonathan had her buried beside his father, in the Joestar family plot.  Only the family servants and close relations - the Pendletons and Dio, primarily - attended the funeral.

He never told her that he had found the Stone, much less that it was given to Dio.  He figured it was for the best.

Very much on the contrary, there was much celebration and happiness when Jonathan finally married Erina, later that same year.  It was a beautiful ceremony, with no expense spared at all for the happy couple.

At Jonathan’s very eager insistence, Dio was his best man, and Dio happily agreed to the request.  He stood beside Jonathan at the altar, the warmth of the Stone against his chest second only to the warmth of happiness in his heart for his two most-beloved friends.

Also at Jonathan’s insistence, Dio was to accompany the newlyweds on their honeymoon in America.  “You’ve been kept from traveling for far too long!” Jonathan explained, after Dio initially declined the offer.  “Come on, now. We’ll have a great deal of fun together, I’m sure.”

“If you say so,” Dio replied.

It was summer, and the cold wind off the sea was refreshing, rather than oppressive, against the heat of the day.  By night, though cooler, the open sky above the deck allowed for a brilliant view of the unobstructed stars.

Dio truly savored every minute of daylight he was now afforded, yes, but the night still carried many pleasures for him.  Unconcerned with his curse, he could now allow himself to enjoy smaller, finer things, glossed-over in the past, like constellations and shooting stars.

He leaned against the railing of the upper deck, star-watching, when he felt the slight warmth of a person beside him.  “Mind if I join you?” Jonathan asked.

“No, not at all.”

They shared a pleasant silence, for a while.

“You know,” Dio said, for the thought had been weighing heavily upon his mind, “I really don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you, Jonathan.”

“Repay me?” Jonathan said, his face so honest and open.  “You mean for the holiday? There’s really no need…”

“No, not just for that.”  Dio reached into his collar, and pulled the Stone out.  In the starlight, the gem was as red and dark as clotted blood.  “Everything you’ve done for me, since we were children. Where do I even start?”

“There’s really no need to worry about something like that, Dio,” Jonathan replied.  “If it weren’t for your family, I wouldn’t even be here today. Making your life easier is the least I can do.”

“My family was responsible for that, not me,” said Dio.  He kept his eyes on the jewel, still so warm despite the chill of the evening.  “What you’ve done for me… that feels like a separate debt.”

“Really, Dio, there’s no need for you to worry about such things,” Jonathan said.  “Just the fact that you’re here with me and Erina is enough.”

Dio felt powerless, unable to find any further words.

How terribly fortunate was it that an explosion occurred, before the uncomfortable silence could continue?

The ship rocked violently with the force of the blast, and Jonathan and Dio both braced for balance against the railing.  

“What was that…?” Dio said, shoving his pendant back under his shirt.

“Erina!”  Not even fully balanced, Jonathan ran to find her.

Dio, naturally, followed him.  “Wait, you fool - hold on!”

As it happened, a boiler had exploded, blowing a hole in the hull and setting everything nearby aflame.  A death by fire or water was equally, terrifyingly certain.

Erina was, thankfully, found quickly.  “Jonathan, what’s going on?” she said, as he steadied her against his chest.

“I don’t know, but I intend to keep you safe,” Jonathan said.  “They’re loading the lifeboats - women and children first. I’ll take you there.”

“And then what?” Erina said.  “If there aren’t enough lifeboats?”

“There will be, don’t worry,” Jonathan said.

Erina was boarded on a lifeboat with little fuss.  “I’ll join you soon, my love,” Jonathan told her, before she was lowered into the water with the other passengers.  “I’m going to help bring more people to safety.”

“Not alone, you aren’t,” Dio added.  He easily set a smile upon his face, confident and false, a necessary precaution.  “Worry not, Mrs. Joestar. I’ll make sure he gets back to you safely.”

Erina’s eyes wavered with uncertainty and hope.

“I’ll be waiting,” she said.

Dio and Jonathan worked at helping lift the other passengers into the other lifeboats, and as the crowds began to thin, Jonathan just kept on being too damned helpful.

“Is everyone accounted for?” he asked one of the crewmen.

“I believe there are some passengers left in the lower-class cabins,” the crewman replied.  “But, with the fire spreading as it is…”

“I’m sure I can get at least a few out,” Jonathan said.  “Allow me to evacuate them.”

“Jonathan, be reasonable!” Dio said.  “It’s a death trap in there! We don’t know how much longer this ship has before it sinks, or…”

“A gentleman must always do what he can to help others,” Jonathan said.  “Even if I can save a few more people, it will have been enough.”

Dio’s face creased.  “Forget being a gentleman, you have a wife to return to!  If anything, I should be the one doing this!”

“Join me, if you wish, but my mind is made up,” said Jonathan.  “Please,” he continued, to the crewman, “ensure that there is a lifeboat waiting for myself and those I bring back.”

“O-of course, sir,” said the crewman.

Without another word, Jonathan ran inside, and down into the lower cabins.

“That damned fool…!”  Once again, Dio followed.

The air was thick with smoke, and Dio could barely see, but he followed the sound of Jonathan’s coughing down the hallway, and the sound of people, of children, yelling and banging on doors for help.

“Dio, there’s a baby - can you hear it?”  Jonathan had the collar of his shirt pulled up over his mouth and nose, and his eyes were winced half-shut.  “Can you find where it is?”

“I’ll try…!”  Following the cries, Dio found a cabin door where the sound seemed to be coming from, and forced the door open with his shoulder.

An infant lay, wailing and coughing, in the arms of a woman collapsed on the floor.  The woman’s skirt was covering the child’s face, which perhaps accounted for why it had survived so long.

Carefully, Dio felt for the woman’s pulse; there was none.  “I found the baby!” he called out. “But the mother…”

“Take whomever you find upstairs!”  Dio could see the outline of Jonathan’s body through the smoke, with a limp, heavy body hefted upon his back.  A small line of coughing passengers followed behind him, holding on to each other as they went.

Dio unbuttoned his shirt and slipped the infant inside, and followed along, depositing the child into the arms of a waiting crewman once they surfaced onto the deck.

He and Jonathan returned once more, twice more, rescuing more passengers, but the toll of the effort on Jonathan’s body became horribly apparent, after a time, his coughs outweighing his breaths.

“Jonathan,” Dio said, trying to restrain him from going down into the lower decks again.  “You’ve done enough.”

(Dio, who was not coughing, who was not fatigued, who was not noticing any of this.)

“No,” said Jonathan, gulping down air and coughing it out almost immediately.  “I can save a few more.”

“Damn those few more!”  Dio said. “Once you get them out, you’ll just insist on going in again, won’t you?  You utter fool.”

“As long as I can do something…”  And Jonathan pulled out of Dio’s grasp, and once more, down, into the hellish smoke.

“Jonathan!  Stop!”

Once again, Dio followed.

At that point, the smoke-filled hallways were gilded with small flames, escaping from the cracks between doors.  The deeper they went, the hotter it became, to the point where the walls and the ceilings were glowing with embers and creaking, threatening to collapse.

“Jonathan!!”  Dio’s voice was barely audible over the blaze.  “Jonathan, get back here!”

Jonathan did not turn back, but, eventually, he stopped.  His body was a huddled, massive shadow against the red-golden glow of the fire, and it spasmed with violent coughs.

“Jonathan.”  Dio put his hands on Jonathan’s shoulders.  “You’ve done enough. Anyone still stuck down here… they’re probably gone.  We need to get out of here.”

There was a small river of tears running down Jonathan’s face, only emphasized by the soot and grime stuck to his skin.  Whether they were tears of frustration or from the smoke were equally likely possibilities.

“Dio… I could have done more…”

“I know.  But - you’ve done all you can.  Come on, let’s-”

The ceiling, charred and crackling, collapsed.

Dio managed to step out of the way in time, but Jonathan…

“Jonathan!!”

When the cloud of ash and embers, raining like hot fire on Dio’s skin, abated, Dio saw Jonathan pinned to the ground beneath the wreckage of the ceiling.

“Jonathan, hold - hold on, I’m going to get you out of there!”

It took him no effort to lift the beams off Jonathan’s body - something he would have noticed, something he would have marveled in horror at, in another time, in another place - and tossed them aside as far as he could.

A burning shard of wood was embedded in Jonathan’s chest, near his heart.  Too close to his heart. Blood was leaking out of the corner of his mouth, was shining in the fabric around his wound.

“Jonathan - stay still, I’m going to try and move you…”

Before Dio could pull at the shard, Jonathan raised his hand and stopped him.

“Dio… I’m sorry, I…”  He coughed, and more blood sprayed out of his mouth.  “I should have listened to you…”

“Stop talking…!”  Once again, Dio reached for the shard, but Jonathan pushed his hand back.

“Dio…  I’m not going to make it out of here…”

“No, don’t say that, don’t say that…!”  Dio shifted his position, and started trying to work his arms around Jonathan’s chest, to lift him up.  “Surely a doctor is in the lifeboats, he’ll be able to help you...”

“Not… a wound like this… Damn it all…!”  Jonathan kept coughing, his teeth, his lips stained yellow-red with blood.  “Dio, I should have listened…”

“It’s all right, it’s all right, just… just stay with me…”  Dio managed to lift him up some, but Jonathan shifted his weight, falling back to the floor.

“I’m not going to last long…  Dio, while you can… get out of here…”

“No, no, no, Jonathan, don’t say that, you have to…”  Dio fell to his knees, holding Jonathan’s hand. He smelled burning hair, burning flesh, but could not feel a thing.

“Dio… It’s all right.  We’ll meet again… someday, God willing…” Jonathan said.  “Look after Erina for me, and… and tell her I’m sorry…”

That fool, that damned fool.

“I promise, Jonathan.” Dio was holding onto Jonathan’s hand so tightly, so desperately. “I promise.”

“It’s all right… Dio, everything will be all right...”

Jonathan was smiling when his soul left his body, his hand going limp in Dio’s hands.

Dio allowed himself one moment, and one moment only, to mourn, his eyes stinging with tears and the heat of the inferno.

(He did not deserve to mourn.)

And he got to his feet, and made his way out of the flames and back to the deck.

“Sir!  Thank God, we thought you were dead!” a crewman said, escorting him to the final lifeboat.  “But, where is your companion?”

“He… succumbed to the flames, and then the walls collapsed upon him…” Dio said.  He breathed in the clean air, deeply, but still did not cough. “I could not retrieve his body.”

The crewman crossed himself.  “May God rest his soul,” he said.  “Quickly, now, there’s not much time left…”

The ship burned like a sunset for a good hour while the surviving passengers waited for help to arrive.

Dio managed to find Erina, in time, as the boats clustered together.  

“Dio!  Thank the Lord, you’re all right…”  She reached out to him from her boat, though the distance was too great for their hands to touch.  “Where is…?”

All Dio could do was shake his head.

(Damn himself.  Damn his uselessness.)

It was all too easy to see the tears in her eyes in the light of the burning ship.

“No, he can’t…  But he…”

(Damn the distance.  Damn his useless hands, his useless words.)

“Erina, I… I’m sorry, I did all I could, but…”

(There was no reason for Jonathan to apologize to her.)

“No, Dio, I’m - I’m sure you did,” said Erina.  She wiped at her eyes. “I’m sure you did all you could...”

“Erina… I promised him…” Dio continued.  “I promised him that I would take care of you.  And I will. Until the day I die.”

(However close or far away that day was.)

“I know you will,” said Erina.  “I know you will.”

The wrong man died that night.  

This was not an opinion, this was fact, Dio knew, Dio knew.

(And he was incapable of dying in the first place.)

Chapter Text

Well, I’d been afraid of changing,

‘Cause I built my life around you.

---

Dio and Erina were rescued after some hours by a passing cargo ship that had picked up the morse distress signal of the steamer, and henceforth returned to England, as it was the nearer destination.  

The infant that Dio had rescued in the earlier stages of the recovery effort was identified via the ship’s manifest as a child named Elizabeth, and she was an orphan, as her mother hadn’t made it out of the ship.

“We should take her in,” Erina said.  “It’s what Jonathan would have wanted.”

Dio could not disagree.

“Besides,” Erina had continued, her eyes lowered, her smile bittersweet, “perhaps this shall be my only means of raising a family in his absence.”

But Jonathan had left her a gift, before his passing.

When the child was born, Erina named him Jorge, after Jonathan’s father.  She didn’t have the heart to name him after Jonathan, though the thought had crossed her mind.

Erina easily and eagerly assumed her role as a mother, and Dio, though he could never, ever replace Jonathan in her heart or her family, settled into a fatherly role of sorts of his own.  Jorge would need a strong role model in his life, as he grew up.

(One who wasn’t a drunkard, or a thief.)

Besides, even if Jonathan was gone, there were ways in which Dio could repay his debt.  If not to Jonathan, then to the Joestars themselves, and everyone that came after them.

When he wasn’t helping with the children, Dio worked diligently at the law offices of Cricket and Fuller as a junior clerk, gaining the valuable experience he would need before launching a practice of his own.

Time, as it was wont to do, passed, and passed.

Strange and wonderful things filled Dio’s days and months and years.  Jorge grew into the spitting image of his father, from his dark hair to the star-shaped birthmark on his back, though his manner was far more stoic and refined.  Dio attributed this to the structured, steady upbringing Jorge was fortunate enough to receive, one that Jonathan was denied in his youth.

Elizabeth - or Lisa, as she later preferred - grew into a lady of similar elegance and refinement, though she possessed a surprising talent for sport, and pursued every possible avenue of it that she could.  Dio, in the spirit of Jonathan’s defiance of social norms, actively encouraged her in these pursuits, and saw her enrolled in classes for everything from archery to equestrianism.

(That strange Italian, Zeppeli, also offered to train her in something he called “Hamon.”  Such an art was outside of Dio’s knowledge, but Lisa seemed eager to learn it, and attended her lessons with as much enthusiasm as any other subject.)

When the Great War broke out, Dio and Jorge both did their part - Dio on the front lines, and Jorge from the air.  A prodigy of flight, Jorge was unmatched in a dogfight, and was highly-decorated in very little time. Dio, while an unremarkable soldier, developed a bit of a reputation for being a tough bastard to kill, never once requiring the need of a medic, no matter what injuries he sustained.

Both of them made it, safely, home, once England prevailed, and years of peace and fortune followed.

After the War, Jorge married a woman named Olivia Bluejay, whom he met at university, and shortly thereafter produced a son whom they named Joseph - and, once again, that strange star-shaped birthmark was made manifest.  Joseph and Olivia lived with Erina and Dio at the Joestar estate, accompanied by Jorge, when he wasn’t deployed by the RAF.

Lisa, herself, never married, instead focusing on a career as an Olympic athlete, bringing glory and honor to the Joestar family with medals of gold and silver.

(Though she had spent a very long holiday in Italy, in 1918, after being seen gadding about with the son of William Zeppeli.  One could make of that what one wished.)

And time passed, and passed.

Golden and peaceful as these years were, a strange unease took residence in Dio’s heart, and it grew with each day, each month, each year that passed.

And, one day, he had a terrible revelation.

Olivia, sharing tea with him and Erina one afternoon, unleashed the fatal words while lamenting the seeming failure of her most recent beauty treatment.  “I do wish you’d tell me your secret, Dio. How you’ve maintained those boyish looks of yours after all these years.”

“Boyish looks?” Dio replied, with a chuckle.  “I’ll have you know I am well into my fifties, my dear Olivia, I highly doubt boyish is the right word to describe me.”

Olivia clicked her tongue.  “Well, it’s true. You don’t look a day over twenty, it’s remarkable.”

“You really have been blessed with good looks, Dio, it’s true,” said Erina.  There were gentle creases in the corners of her eyes, at the corners of her mouth.

Dio waved away the compliment, but uncertainty, unease flared in his stomach.

Blessed?

He waited until the evening to confront his suspicions.  By the light of an electric lamp, he took a good, long look at his face.  There wasn’t a wrinkle in sight.

...well, perhaps that was just good fortune.

And yet…

He resorted to photographs, next, scattered throughout the home.  Formal portraits, first, but increasingly candid as the years went on.

His face was the same in every one, as polished and flawless as a Leyendecker painting.  Eternally youthful.

So many aspects of his life were so suddenly called into question.

Ever since he’d obtained the Stone from Jonathan, he’d been able to endure sunlight, enjoy food and drink, but had that truly been the end of the curse?  Had he really never noticed his continued lack of hunger, his strength, his remarkable constitution and capacity for healing?

Had he been in denial all this time, so desperate for normalcy after the trauma he had endured because of the mask?

He held the Stone in the palm of his hand, the half-cure as warm as ever to the touch.  

What a delicious irony, if it were true: he’d been granted eternal life, that which so many men across the centuries had desired, and he wanted nothing to do with it.  He was still cursed - cursed to watch the ones he loved age and, one day, pass away before his eyes.

Dark thoughts of whether or not he would truly be able to die clawed at his mind with astonishing swiftness.  If he removed the pendant and stepped into the sunlight, perhaps? Or if he were injured beyond recovery - beheaded?  Drawn and quartered?

But he was not suicidal.  He did not actively want to die.  He simply did not want to live so very long.

The revelation ate so badly at his conscience that the only thing he could think to do was walk the grounds of the Joestar estate, giving himself solitude and something with which to preoccupy himself as he thought.

His eventual conclusion - cowardly though it was - was that it would be best for him to remove himself from society and live a transient life, never staying in one place for too long a time, else his condition draw attention to itself.

He would see the world.  Learn languages. Fill his endless years with knowledge one could not possibly obtain in a single lifetime.  Make the most out of a terrible situation.

Spare the Joestars the pain of knowing his fate.

(Break his promise to Jonathan.)

He didn’t tell Erina, Jorge, Lisa, how long he would be gone, even though they didn’t ask.  Nor did he tell them where he was going. He simply said that he was going on holiday. The same was told to the employees of his law practice, who could carry on well enough without him.

Though.

One person did ask.

“Where are you going, Mr. Dio?”

Joseph, five years old, already so similar to Jonathan, with his bright, eager personality.

Dio was packing his things in his room.  “Why, I’m going to see the world, Joseph.”

“Yeah?  And then what?” Joseph replied.  “When are you going to be back? ”

“Not quite sure,” Dio replied, softly.  “But I’ll be sure to keep in touch.”

Joseph pouted.  “I don’t want you to go.  I’m going to miss you.”

Dio paused, lowered his eyes, packed away another shirt.  “I’ll miss you too, Joseph.”

“Come back soon, all right?”

Dio put away another shirt, and ruffled Joseph’s hair affectionately.  “I’ll certainly try.”

The next day, Dio Brando went out into the world, and did not speak to another Joestar for several years.