Work Text:
There is nothing you can do that I have not already done to myself
…
Sitting on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, there was a long breath, silence remaining the only companion to the man there. Once again, it was late, though that allowed the curtains to be drawn open even for the time being, cool air drifting in from the Egyptian night. It felt nice, leaving a tingling sensation against his base skin, though he shivered a second later as if the softest fingers had been drawn between his shoulder blades and down his spine.
It made him sit straight, eyes needing a moment to focus before he snorted. He brought a hand up to brush his bangs from his eyes, his nose wrinkling briefly. It was then, he decided to stand, his other hand being used for the momentum to push his body to his feet. Giving a lazy glance to his surroundings, he humored himself a grin.
“Funny, isn’t it, Jojo?” the words rang hollow, with the softest of echoes seeming to bounce off stone walls and back at him mockingly. He only continued when he was trailing fingers along the bed, before his attention fell to the window, slow steps taking him in that direction. “After all we went through, there were times I never expected to be the victor, and yet...”
The words led to a laugh, one deep in his chest, before his lips only twisted into a sly smile a little too uneven on his face. Placing a hand against the window sill, he let the feeling of smug pleasure wash over him before any thoughts continued to occupy his mind further. He was much to satisfied with his win, and each time he thought about it since he had once again awoken, and once again been freed from his underwater Hell, he was quick to revel in each and every moment. Perhaps he was eager in that regard, but in this instance he just couldn’t help himself.
“To each we have a small victory, it seems. Lucky you, managing with your little legacy despite it all. I’m unsurprised on Erina’s behalf, but your’s...well.” he spoke again, still to no one, still to himself. Or perhaps to the remnants of Jonathan Joestar that lingered around him like a heavy smoke. There was always the inkling, the very thought in the back of his mind, that Jonathan was there. He was never quite sure if that was a curse, or if he was to find an odd blessing in it, and furtherly be amused.
Somehow, it was usually the former.
“Though I feel that in the end, I will be the final victor.”
“You’re sure?”
It was the first time he had heard that voice in weeks, though in the previous years he knew it had played in his head too many times to count. His fingers pulled away from their trail along the stone as he turned, eyes trying to find the source, or track if it was a trick in his head.
“Well, Dio?”
When the words came again, his brows almost knit together, though he was quick to knock away the response of shock his body was trying to show. For years, in that God forsaken box, he had held conversations with the dead man. Such scathing insults aimed at the ghost of a man who held him on that burning ship, of the man he had hated. Hated. A strong word for their relationship, perhaps it was too much. To a degree, perhaps it wasn’t even true.
Dio Brando held enough hate in his life, most of course aimed at his own father more than anyone else, and yet the word was too heavy and bitter when he would try to speak it about Jonathan. It had always seemed a little too much, as if he was trying to be dramatic and convincing, something even he himself could see, as in truth the emotions and thoughts he buried deep within were a lot more complex and convoluted.
But he was not standing in his room, staring at nothing and no one to analyze his feelings on a ghost. No, he was too busy curious now if he was just simply going crazy once more with his new found freedom, or just in general.
“Yes.” he finally spoke his response, pouring his overconfidence into the singular word, and using it as bait for even his own mind. “I stand here, and yet you are nothing, Jonathan, nothing. I have powers, ones you could never imagine, at my fingertips, I’ve become truly unstoppable. The days with hamon were nothing, they were a joke, if you could see things now...” would he consider himself akin to a God? Not yet, he needed more before he could even utter the words, but the road was closer in his sight than it had ever been in the days before.
“And yet? You don’t sound so sure about that. Power is not everything, you know.”
Dio turned again when he heard those words, how they almost seemed to come from behind him again, ever avoiding his gaze. Did this remnant of Jonanthan sense the doubt in him? He knocked the possibility away quickly, as there was little to no doubt that he even held for himself to know of, how could a dead man know? Doubt was weakness, and he could have none.
“And yet nothing. You’re nothing but memories, now, and soon the rest of your family will be too. Memories and the bones a body must leave behind. You’ll be nothing, just like it was meant to be.” he spoke, lips curling in a soft disgust. That is what everyone became, in fact he kept his own little haunted memento in the corner. The last physical piece of Jonathan sat next to his bed, with a flickering set of candles and a half-filled glass.
The head of a once great man left one thing behind, and now it was little else than decor.
“You speak like those are the fears you have, that you’ve always had. You put on such a face, but I know what’s under it. You can fool the world, but you can’t fool me. You never could.”
That stunned him for a moment, a soft anger building itself under his skin that refused to boil over as it twisted with the confusion that washed over the entirety of him. When Jonathan had died, Dio expected to be free of so much, he expected to otherwise earn so much more, and yet he was stuck, plagued, standing in the night of Cairo, being called out by the words that some would say came from his own mind. Was it guilt? Was it finally the gnawing feelings, eating their way into his chest, and finding their home amongst his ribs before they would tear him apart from the inside out?
No, he wouldn’t let it happen, he would crush them before they got the chance.
Empty eyes from the bed watched him as he moved about the room, as if judging him in his unfinished thoughts, though not another word was spoken. He waited for a moment, anticipating more, wishing and wanting to the point he almost seemed to yearn for it in those ticking moments. He was met with silence for seconds that stretched to minutes, to the point it all began to feel like hours.
“Say something else.” he broke the silence, finding his words, and attempting to not let himself sound pleading. He refused to let his words bleed with emotion, not now, not after he had earned so littler from Jonathan in those moments when he hadn’t asked, when he had been so close to forcing himself to forget. “Damn it, say something! You can’t just speak when you want to, asking me questions before retreating back to...to...” Hell? Heaven? Whatever the embrace of death had offered him?
His hands were tearing at his hair at that moment, his fangs digging into his bottom lip. It was bullshit, it was unfair, it was words he could not even find.
“This wasn’t the way I planned things, you know.” he continued after a moment, finding his words in a slow exhale, his hands sliding from his hair and down to run nails against his shoulders, only to leave red marks in their wake. Though he couldn’t seem to finish such a thought, he merely offered a laugh and spoke nonetheless with another tangent. “I just needed your body, I always did, what else was the point of your life? Do you think you mattered? Do you think anyone did?”
He kept running his hands lower, fingers a feather against his skin. His. That’s what it was now, his very own. His skin, his body, he was perfect in the end. All his life built to this, all his suffering, all his planning and waiting, and he had won. What he hated more was how he found himself wishing for Jonathan’s words, be them kind or disapproving, be them anything, he waited. Dio wanted to hear them, and he hated that more than anything else in that moment.
“I’m still standing, Jonathan, and you can’t even say another word to me. It was always like this, I always..” he trailed into a laugh, another echo bouncing around him. “I always win.”