Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Patience had never been Jonathan’s forte.

He always lived in the now. He could never wait for dinner to arrive, for the sun to rise, for his friends to meet up with him. Jonathan knew that time was forever changing, forever five steps ahead while he was forever five steps behind. Call it a pet peeve, but he could never stop and take a breath; not when life could steal it away at any given moment. 

It was childish, yes, but being a child was all he had ever known. Impatience was merely a roadblock in the boy’s adolescence, a stubborn obstruction that he could easily overcome. Hopefully, one he could overcome when he was older. And mature. And more of a boring old man rather than a jubilant thirteen year old boy. 

That was the first thing that Jonathan had noticed about Dio— not the part about being an old man, although he did note that there was a lack of juvenile spirit that differed from other kids their age. Instead, it was that he made Jonathan wait.

The young lord had a vague idea regarding the Brando’s and their circumstances. His father explained it to him the night before, but he was growing impatient when it happened, and merely wanted to go play. 

Even so, Jonathan had comprehended the gist of what his father said— that he and his father owed their lives to the Brando family. To Dio Brando. 

Twelve years ago, Jonathan’s mother had died in a carriage accident that almost took the other Joestars’ lives as well. A man passing by managed to find the wreckage, alert for help, and get the men away from the debris. That was Dio’s father, Dario. He was the reason why Jonathan was alive today, and why he was trudging back home in preparation for his new companion’s arrival. 

Seeing as he strived to be a gentleman, Jonathan was able to let the inconvenience slip from his thoughts the moment the fateful carriage rolled up to the manor. After all, Dio was supposed to be his new brother. He could at least try to cut him some slack. 

Dio Brando was a boy of common shadows. He lurked in the alleyways of London, hid in pubs that reeked of bad choices while he cloaked himself in the moon’s umbra. Draped across his neck were years of waxing and waning crescents he’d spent slaving away for his father, the silhouette of a man no more honorable than a repulsive street rat. And yet when he leapt out of that black and maroon wagon, Jonathan could only describe him as ethereal.

Dio’s hair was like spun gold, tousled across his alabaster face with a particular sheen that glistened under the sun’s warm embrace. He rose like a flower reaching out for the glow of radiant sunlight, graceful in his movements as though he were performing for the morning dew. His eyes were like amber, encapsulating an eternity of fossilized youth within the sticky sweet sap of his gaze. He was Helios incarnate, dripping in ichor and all things heavenly. 

When Jonathan reached a hand out to greet his new brother, he noticed how dark his complexion was compared to Dio’s. His sun kissed skin was no match for the ivory cut fingers that twitched against the other boy’s sides. “You must be Dio Brando.”

Dio’s eyes raked up and down Jonathan, as if interrogating him, learning about who he was with just a simple glance.

The conclusion Dio must’ve came to revealed itself in the form of a sneer, ugly and contorted against his seraphic features. He didn’t take Jonathan’s hand, nor did he even spare him the pity of attempting one. However, it was gone just as soon as Jonathan had noticed it, replaced with a small smile that arched across his angular features.

“And you must be Jonathan Joestar.”

“Yes,” Jonathan hummed, “But everyone calls me Jojo. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Barking interrupted whatever was to be said next between the two boys. Jonathan turned and let out a joyful laugh, crouching down with open arms as a boyish grin lifted his lips. 

A Great Dane came barreling towards him, but it’s direction steered off the moment it caught whiff of Dio. It ran in circles, chasing its own tail as it cheerfully yipped away.

“That’s Danny,” Jonathan explained, “He’s my dog! Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.” 

It had happened all too fast for Jonathan to make sense of the matter. Danny came prancing over to the two boys, almost leaping through the air like a ballerina. He looked happy, and it had made his owner happy. Everything Danny did made Jonathan happy. 

As if on reflex, Dio’s knee jerked up, slamming into the muzzle of the Joestar’s prized Dane. 

The young lord tensed up, jolting to his feet as he whipped around to face Dio. “What was that for?” He left no time for an answer, fists bunched up as he fell into a fighting stance. Hot tears singed behind his eyes, mocking him with the weight of their embers. “You’ll pay for that!”

Something dark overcame both Dio’s face, and Jonathan’s senses. It felt unfamiliar to Jonathan, cold and vile but then it burned so white hot it was like his entire body was on fire. He didn’t like this sensation, how the flames scorched in the corner of his vision and made him see red. How liquid inferno coursed through his veins, licking adrenaline into his wounded heart. He disliked this emotion, this unforgiving feeling of anger that dared to rival the heat of the sun. 

All Jonathan could see when he stared back at Dio’s celestial features was hatred, all he could glimpse as he traced the arch of the other boy’s cheekbones was loathing. Detest painted itself in swirls of yellow across his temple, and animosity bled into the searing orange of his eyes. 

This was how Jonathan had met Dio, a boy made of sunlight with a rancor darker than the night sky. 

This was how he had met the boy that he’d have to live with for the rest of his young, impatient life. 

.

The first test of Jonathan’s forbearance came in the form of a brawl.

There were occasional pauses in his everyday life where he could feel that familiar fuming sensation brew under his skin: at dinner or during lessons where Dio would outshine him like the little sunspot he was. 

It stung more than he liked to admit when his father would praise the other boy for his talents, yet chastised Jonathan for the mishaps he was once so lenient about. There was a coolness to Dio, a calculative approach to his new life that mocked everything about Jonathan’s old one. It revealed itself through perfect test scores, good manners at supper, side eyed greetings where that wicked curl of his lips felt more like a waxing crescent moon than a sunny summer’s day. And yet… why?

The young Joestar couldn’t fathom what he had done to cause such aggression, why he had become the bane of Dio’s existence. Jonathan was left confused, bewildered even by how quickly his world had been tipped, how his footing was lost and how he was plummeting farther and farther into the strange and unfamiliar abyss that Dio had brought along with him. If only, Jonathan sometimes pondered, he could climb back out and reset to a time before the Brando boy’s arrival. Boxing often did the trick for him, although it was a sedative at best and an avoidance of his newfound vexation at worst. 

The fight that day only proved it.

Jonathan’s skin grew goosebumps under the brisk chill of the morning air, the sweat at the back of his neck like a cooling gel as he readjusted his gloves. The vibrant red contrasted the blue-black of his hair and the white of his shirt, but they helped bring out the sky blue of his eyes. 

He always felt bad when he’d hurt the other opponents, but these fights made him stronger, made him more resilient. They allowed his intrusive and vitriol thoughts to slip away, even if for a brief moment in time. There wasn’t anything venom laced in flesh colliding into flesh, nothing dawn soaked in the amber of Dio’s irises when he’d pummel his combatant into the ground. It didn’t leave him with that strange and discomforting anger he’d feel around the other boy— but it did leave him feeling quite guilty about harming an innocent person. 

Jonathan had just finished another round when the referee hoisted his hand into the air. 

“Another win!” He exclaimed, and though cheers circled around the two, no one was surprised that Jonathan Joestar had once again won a match.

“It’s no wonder, you have been looking quite deft as of late,” the referee teased before making a sweeping motion with his arm. “Our next challenger is a chap from out of town, a newcomer by the name of—“

“Dio Brando,” both Jonathan and the referee said at once. Although Jonathan had murmured it under his breath, as though such a name were one he mustn’t dare utter under the watchful eye of the sun. 

Dio’s navy blue trousers creased as he rose from the ground, nimble fingers brushing away the dirt and grass from his attire. A smirk danced across his lips as he laced up his gloves, leather dyed the same shade as Jonathan’s eyes. It somehow felt insulting to the young Joestar. Dio crossed the distance between the two, slithering like a snake under the rope that barricaded off the makeshift ring. Every step he took sent bells off in Jonathan’s head, pulses of anxiety coursing through his veins once they finally met face-to-face.

“You lot know the rules, one hit to the face and you’re the winner.”

The match began quicker than Jonathan realized. He shot his fist out on instinct, hoping this fight would come to him as easily as the rest did. And yet it didn’t— not even in the slightest. 

Dio managed to side step all of Jonathan’s lightning fast punches, his weight shifting like a leaf in the wind. When his feet moved, he moved with the current. It was like he was part of the zephyr, and Jonathan was merely an oaf caught in the midst of his grazing. Jonathan could feel the ripple of heat under his skin, the furrow of his brow and the grit of his teeth as he continued to throw fist after fist. 

Why, why, why, was all Jonathan could think as he released failed blow after failed blow.

Why does he hate me so? A miss.

What does he have against Danny? Another one.

Why couldn’t I just have a normal step brother, and not one that makes me want to scream and tear my own hair out or tear his hair out or even cr—

A strangled cry left Jonathan’s lips, half choked out against a gasp as Dio’s fist met his stomach. The blonde was quick to slam his other glove into the sharp angle of a jaw, his thumb wedging deep into the Joestar’s eye. Blood came from some part of the wounded one’s body, splattering across the ground in shades of mahogany that dared to rival the red of his gloves. 

Why, why, why?

The digit against the top of Jonathan’s cheek was all he could see before everything around him gradually went blurry, and the baby blue sky melted into the touch of the ocean’s horizon.

.

A snitch was what they started to call Jonathan after that fight.

Erina Pendleton didn’t believe in the rumors, not because she thought they weren’t true— which she didn’t think they were— but rather because she never really cared for such hearsay. Snitches and the like were the jejune humor of boys her age who only thought of deflowering maidens and drinking till they could stop time dead in its tracks.

She liked Jonathan Joestar because he didn’t want to stop time, merely just wanted to catch up to it. And she liked how he was willing to bring her along with him.

There was something so endearing about a boy who was willing to rip the moon and the stars down from the night sky and leave them by her bedside. She thought his impatience was a sign of his determination to live in the now, to cherish his dwindling youth and bask under the sun’s glorious rays for as long as he could. Sometimes Erina caught herself wishing she was the star in the sky he would loll away his days under. 

“Your hair looks like sunlight,” he’d murmured, so quietly she almost didn’t hear it. His head laid in her lap and the waves of her yellow locks were tangled between his calloused fingers. 

Erina hummed softly in response, her small and delicate hand finding its way up to the one in her hair. A faint blush had bloomed across her ivory features. “Yours looks like midnight.”

Jonathan enjoyed the moments of serenity that Erina’s presence offered, while Erina enjoyed the excitement and buoyancy that Jonathan’s presence brought along. The heiress had fallen for him the moment she laid eyes on the boy, although that was something she’d never admit to aloud. It was a secret best kept in the watery depths of her eyes, the same hue as the river they’d frolicked in just the day before. While on the contrary, Jonathan could shout it from the rooftops just how much he loved the Pendleton girl, how she conducted orchestras in his chest using the plush of her lips and the sound of her laugh. It was sometimes enough to make him feel woozy. 

“Jojo,” she soothingly crooned, letting the syllables fall from her lips and take flight in the form of a songbird’s lilt.

Jonathan was so sure she could hear the yearning in his heart as it rose to a vivace tempo behind his sternum. “Hm?”

“Must we be off now? The sun is far beyond the horizon line.”

That crescendo his chest had anticipated for dwindled away, a frown forming across his face as he propped himself up on an elbow. The momentum brought their faces closer than before, and he watched as Erina’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “We needn’t return so soon. Couldn’t we possibly stay out longer, even hide away if need be?”

“Hide away? And do what?”

A smile graced the young lord’s features.

Erina felt a burning flush travel down her neck as she pushed his body off of hers. 

His laugh was boisterous, loud and booming around them as he lifted himself to his feet. He lent a hand out to her, but she gave him a quick ‘hmph’ before rising on her own. “I apologize,” he said between a fit of giggles. “You know I would never ask such brazen things of my fair lady.”

Erina mulled over the mention of being a fair lady but didn’t simmer on the topic for long. Instead, she just crossed her arms and gave the young lord a small pout. 

“But you did.”

Jonathan let out a soft sigh, eyes falling shut as he meekly rubbed his arm. “I suppose it did come off that way. I’m really sorry for my horrid behavior...” He hesitated, shifting awkwardly on the balls of his feet. “I just don’t like waiting to see you again, Erina.”

Erina’s gaze softened, and when Jonathan opened his eyes he could see the lovely shade of red that painted across her face. “Well,” she bashfully whispered, “Aren’t I worth the wait?”

Jonathan could feel his own face burn up in embarrassment, the boy dipping his head vigorously in a nod. “O-Of course! I would never think otherwise!”

And with that it was her turn to giggle, the chimes dancing along with the current as they caressed the shell of the boy’s ear. He practically melted at the sound, letting a dopey smile string across his lips as they trudged back up to the main path.

Jonathan lowered into a playful bow, a jocose look glimmering behind long black eyelashes. “I bid you farewell, Ms. Pendleton.” He took her hand and pressed a delicate kiss to the air around her knuckles, as though even brushing his lips across her pearl white skin was a sin. 

She tittered, pulling her hand away to raise the fabric of her gown. She lowered down to match the boy’s stance, golden locks nearly touching the ground. “As do I, Lord Joestar.”

The two parted ways, Jonathan hurrying back to his manor while Erina decided to take a stroll back to hers. She couldn’t contain her breathless giggles as she thought back to the comment he had made, the young girl suppressing a squeal of excitement as she ducked under a low hanging branch. She knew that Jonathan had feelings for her, which only made her heart swell ten times bigger than it initially did. Just the day before he’d carved their initials into one of the trees she was nearing up to, and although she’d reprimanded him in the moment, there was a giddiness in her step and a ginormous smile on her face as she approached the love laced flora.

As she walked up a hand shot out, wrapping around the base of the tree. She couldn’t make out who it was, but in the distance she could see two boys snickering amongst themselves.

“Hello there,” an unfamiliar voice called out. “You must be Erina.”

.

Jonathan had never felt angrier in his life.

Hellfire spilled into his bloodstream, bleeding into his vision until all he could see was a screaming, cacophonous blur of red, red, red .

He threw open the doors to the manor, barely registering the splintering sound of wood as he hurdled over the threshold. He roared that dastardly, wicked name and sprinted across the tiled floor, whitened knuckles raised in a fighting stance. 

Dio closed the book he was holding and sighed, as though Jonathan were but a trivial nuisance preventing his afternoon reading. “Don’t dare utter my name so lightly,” he snapped. 

Blood rushed in the lord’s ears, pounding and pulsating and wailing until Jonathan couldn’t even hear his own words. “This ends now, I won’t stand by and let you hurt an innocent maiden! Your fight is with me!”

Dio’s lips curled into a cruel leer, something malevolently bitter but coated in a suggestive sweetness. “So you heard about Erina, huh? Of what she shared with me? Now you’re riled and wish to take revenge?”

Jonathan thought he could see a hint of red in Dio’s eyes, but maybe that was just the crimson blinding his vision as he swung at the other boy. “I won’t let you insult her so!”

Dio ducked down, elbowing away Jonathan’s attack as he held back a laugh. “Jealousy will be your undoing, Jojo.” He slammed the point of his arm into Jonathan’s nose, watching the thick blood spray out and stain their clothes. “Care to repeat the events of our brawl?”

Jonathan stumbled back, the railing of the stairs catching his graceless fall. His entire body was trembling, and though tears stung behind his eyes the lord wouldn’t dare let them slip down his face. He refused to let Dio see him as weak, see him as that young and oblivious boy he was the day they’d first met. 

As short a time as that was, it felt like a millennia to Jonathan. Time had moved so agonizingly slow since then, grueling as the boy carried the weight of a crumbling world upon his back. Dio had tipped the axis and left the cosmic debris for Jonathan to scrape up, starting with Danny until it all came barreling down to Erina. Jonathan thought he could live with the flames, the blinding, burning detest that radiated off of Dio whenever they caught each other’s gaze. The Joestar assumed he could deal with it in due time, recollect the shattered pieces and build anew when he was older, when he was that shriveled old man he pictured himself to be and not the spry little kid with blood on his face and his heart on his sleeve.

Dio stood before him, a heavenly body scintillating with the force of a thousand suns. Jonathan wanted to cause a supernova and go blind from the luminosity of it all. He wanted to bring the heat to scoldering, be engulfed in the explosion and feel himself give way to the galaxy. He wanted Dio to become a dwarf star, a shell of his former self that could no longer shimmer in the midnight sky. Jonathan refused to be the one that fell from the heavens, to stand in Dio’s shadow any longer than he had been. 

Even worse, he couldn’t lose now.

Not when Erina’s honor was on the line. 

The two struggled for dominance in the fight until Dio kneed the other boy, assuming a landslide win was in motion. That was until Jonathan yanked him down by the hair, hard enough to rip out the locks of golden sunlight. Dio startled, fingernails digging deep into the young lord’s shoulder.

“H-How were you able to grab me?”

Jonathan couldn’t even register what was being said. He was too far gone, submerged in the violent rage that was eating him alive. He pulled his head back, slamming hard against Dio’s face with enough force to tear the earth in two. 

He threw punch after punch, not caring how bloody his knuckles got, or even how bloody Dio got. All he cared about was the relief he felt when the other boy finally went down, sprawled out on the floor with an alarming amount of blood splattered across the wall. A rattling sound could be heard, something hollow and heavy. When Jonathan turned, he saw his late mother’s prized artifact fall to the floor. 

Jonathan didn’t know much about it. It was a family heirloom, and although his father had kept it in the manor the boy thought it looked rather awkward plastered on the wall. It always just sat there, lonesome and watching with cold, dead eyes. 

However, it now laid on the floor, a strange set of claws protruding from the back. Jonathan furrowed his brow, trying to make out what exactly it was. 

“How... dare you…”

The lord whipped his head around, his gaze falling back onto Dio. Bloody, beaten Dio who trembled as he rose from the floor. A wave of guilt and realization forced Jonathan to stumble over his feet, those baby blue irises reluctantly glimpsing down toward his hands. They were coated in red. When he peered back up, a gasp fell from his lips. 

Crystals dripped down Dio’s face, glistening against his porcelain skin. 

“Y-You’re crying…” Jonathan faintly mumbled.

The boy made of sunshine was cloaked in cumulonimbus clouds, the kind that pelted the earth in hail and swallowed any light it could find. But there were flashes of those ore cut irises, the kind that filled you with the heat of a thousand hellfires. Jonathan heard a funny phrase once, or at least at the time he thought it was funny. It had been raining out, but the sun was still shining high in the sky. His father had called it “the Devil and his wife.” Jonathan sometimes wondered if Dio was a product of this devil and his merits, or if Dio was himself that devil. 

Oh to be so complex yet so infuriating, a timeless mystery that Jonathan felt he would never be able to unravel. How could one cause so much grief, yet cower at their own actions? How could someone be so vicious, so evil as to hurt those like Erina? To hurt Danny in all the ways to come? To hurt Jonathan just for merely existing? 

As Dio came racing towards him, the young Joestar began to wonder if maybe— just maybe— he could learn to be patient enough to find out why all this was occurring. To learn more about Dio— as much as he hated the thought, and figure out how to prevent any more animosity between the two. 

All Jonathan had to do was learn to be patient. 

Chapter Text

They said that Jonathan Joestar could never hurt a fly. Wouldn’t even think of doing so.

Dio knew otherwise, though. He knew that the moon soaked boy was capable of so much more than the colloquial titles of ‘mild mannered’ and ‘gentle giant’.

That was the irony of it all, was it not?

Dio always tried to keep his temper in check, but it was Jonathan whose anger could unravel the easiest. 

Dio came to learn that the harder you hit Jonathan, the tougher he got. Because of this ever growing resilience of his, it became the one thing that prevented that oafish brute of a stepbrother from slipping up and letting his temper get the best of him. He’d done so before, all those years ago when Dio stole away his true love’s kiss. The Brando boy was so sure that it had been the final straw for Jonathan, just the thing to tip him over the edge and leave him drowning in the aftermath of his own desolation. 

Yet that Joestar, as optimistically irksome as ever, had managed to bounce back from their fight despite the events that still haunted him nearly seven years later. It took him time, but what else was a boy with the entire galaxy on his back meant to do besides wait for his waning crescent heart to heal into a full moon? The abhorrence he’d felt for Dio gradually simmered away as the years came and went, although it could still be found lurking in the darkness, teeming somewhere between his heart and his hands.  

Dio, on the other hand, could never let go of his detest for the Joestar. There was something that lingered around the boy made of midnight, something so vile that it made Dio sick to his stomach. His loathing could only be sung under a moonlit sky, hidden away from wandering eyes and prying ears. He hated Jonathan Joestar, hated the young lord and his quasar shaped eyes and starlight smile. He hated how undeserving he was of his family name, the fortunes Dio’s father was so desperate for his own son to claim. Dio hated that Jonathan had everything he never could. Even more than that, he hated how he still hadn’t made Jonathan truly suffer. 

Jonathan had learned to play along with Dio’s games, but Dio was ever scheming, ever changing in his antics. Maturity taught the young lord to let go of his feelings towards the other boy, to understand his circumstances and try to love him as he would his own family. However, it always ended up feeling like a futile venture to the Joestar. Dio was just unlovable, and not even a million years worth of patience could change that. Eventually Jonathan came to the conclusion that he’d just have to continue tiptoeing around his brother’s malevolence, possibly until the day he died. 

As the years went by, it dawned on the young lord just how tedious of a wait that was going to become.

.

Jonathan knew he made a bold choice majoring in archaeology. 

Dio often ragged on him about it at supper, but it was only some light conversation meant to fill the tension in the air. They played the part of brothers well enough, to the point where Jonathan no longer felt queasy hearing Dio refer to his guardian as their ‘father’. 

Although, he could never truly forget about the cruelty he’d endured at the hands of that sunspot. No brotherly bond could erase the years of loneliness and seclusion Jonathan went through, the heartbreak and creeping feeling of melancholia at losing Danny— at losing Erina. Jonathan thought he’d finally gotten over that point in his life, finally gotten over the way it tore him apart from the inside out. At least he assumed so, but his father’s recent sickness only sent everything the boy worked to build up crashing back down around him. 

George Joestar had never been one to get ill. Jonathan was always the one getting sick, even Dio on occasion, but never their father. It perplexed Jonathan to no end, sent him spiraling back into that dark, abysmal place the blonde created for him many years ago.

“Father,” Dio greeted as the two walked into the elder’s chambers. “How are you feeling?”

The older man sat up in his bed, the creaking noise of the frame echoing in Jonathan’s ears. He hacked up a cough, poorly covering it with the satin sleeve of his robe. “Better than before, but I still have this nasty cough to deal with. The doctors insist I be hospitalized.”

Dio frowned, leaning down so he was at eye level with George. The boy placed a comforting hand on his father’s shoulder, brow furrowed in concern as he grabbed for the man’s wrist. “You mustn’t concern yourself with that, you know.” His hold fell slack, a pensive look beginning to fog over in his amber eyes. “Hospitals don’t care about your wellbeing, they only wish for profit. Trust me, Father.”

Jonathan peered down into Dio’s honeycomb irises, the sticky sweet sap ensnaring him in the Brando’s dismal gaze. He searched through the resin, watching the way those frosted blonde lashes fell to his cheeks, fluttering briefly as though blinking away whatever thoughts were circulating in his mind. Jonathan often caught this lamenting gaze on his step brother’s face, saw the ruminative thoughts that painted across his statuesque features. He wondered if Dio was thinking about his mother, maybe even his father, and if he ever missed them. 

George glanced between both of the boys before releasing a soft sigh. He’d spent more time examining the blonde than his own son. “Alright, I won’t go. Home is where I’ve decided to stay.”

Jonathan frowned, but his father only continued. “Thankfully the pain in my chest has dissipated, and the swelling in my hands subsided. I’m positive I’m getting better.”

Jonathan thought otherwise, yet refused to voice any opinion that contradicted Dio’s. 

“I heard about the game today,” George mused, his clear blue eyes brightening ever so slightly. “Congratulations on your victory, boys.”

The two shifted to look at each other, Jonathan the first to speak up. “You heard?” 

George smiled, and it was the first smile Jonathan had seen from him in days. “An old college friend informed me.”

Dio’s eyes widened in surprise, a scoff escaping his lips as he raised a hand in the air. “Really? Quite some friend you got there, we ran all the way back home so we could be the first to tell you!”

They broke into laughter, although Jonathan couldn’t figure out what was so funny. He just knew he had to laugh along, to play the part of a loving son and brother, and try to ignore the way his skin crawled being this close to Dio. 

He always felt at odds with himself whenever the blonde was around. Jonathan had accepted him into his life years ago, learned to unlearn the antipathy that lurked under his skin, to empathize with the boy cast in sunlight and forgive his temperamental shortcomings— or so the Joestar had thought. Maybe the luminosity was too blinding for him, or the heat was too scoldering for his taste, but Jonathan just couldn’t rid himself of the restlessness in his bones. He loved Dio, but also didn’t. It didn’t feel right to love him, to lie and say it wasn’t an impossible task to do so. He tolerated him, but knew he couldn’t condone the boy to cause anymore pain to anyone else. Dio hadn’t done so, not since they were kids, but Jonathan’s instincts were always on alert as he tried to decipher the constellations that mapped out Dio Brando. 

George merely nodded in agreement with the giggling boys, whose laughter felt like it had gone on for far too long. “Well, I’m quite pleased. It makes me very proud to have such excellent sons.” All of George’s focus went back to the blonde. “I heard you did very well, Dio.”

Both of them knew he was referring to more than just the football game. 

“Please follow your dreams, my boy. Your family will support your every endeavor along the way.”

A familiar look briefly flashed across Dio’s face, flickering in and out of existence before dissipating completely. Jonathan had seen that look before, years ago when they’d first met. 

 “I will forever be indebted to you for having lifted me out of the poverty that consumed my young life.” Dio’s golden tipped lashes looked almost gossamer under the oil light, and his porcelain skin appeared near angelic. “My desire is only to make you proud, Father.”

Jonathan couldn’t stomach any more of this. 

Waves of nausea overcame the young lord as he exited his father’s chambers, high tailing it away from Dio and towards his study. In recent months Jonathan would often leave abruptly like this, caught between the dissonance that prowled around in the concaves of his skull. He could handle the prior years of dissimulating his relationship with Dio, of creating a fantasy for his father’s liking that didn’t consist of fighting sons and brothers. That wasn’t real, though. That facade was merely a play set on for the elder, a tale as old as time that ensnared Jonathan in its unrelenting grasp. He was just a pawn, a thespian in this Greek Tragedy brought on by the Brando boy’s existence. 

George’s sickness had begun to make Jonathan feel sick. He was sick of pretending and sick of the unexplainable sensations his body felt, sick of the irritable mood swings and the nightmares that Dio caused him. For months after Danny’s death Jonathan couldn’t sleep. Insomnia became his bedside companion and Dio the monster under his bed. He’d felt like the one to blame for what happened to Erina, and it took everything in him to ignore the intrusive thoughts that began to rise to the surface of his mind. He didn’t even care that Dio secluded him away from people, caged him like a canary and clipped his wings of all the friends he once had. He didn’t care that he was being drowned in gold by the golden boy, dipped in autumn blues and winter nights left without anyone to love. For the longest time, he didn’t care about anything at all. 

Jonathan had fallen into Chaos, lost in her embrace as the feeling of nothingness swallowed him whole. Some days he still felt like he was engulfed in her primeval emptiness, trapped between dying stars and dark matter. Luckily he was able to hide behind his gentlemanly exterior when the microcosms under his skin became too unbearable, and he knew that no one would ever suspect a thing. He was the good son, the patient son, the loving son who could only be one of three lest he tarnish the Joestar family name.

Jonathan eventually found solace in the macabre. 

He knew that it was a peculiar sort of comfort, one not many would understand. Not even he was quite sure why such grim topics offered him a feeling of familiarity, a feeling of fondness for something he never truly knew. Perhaps it was the reason why he pursued archaeology; maybe he wanted to study the secrets the past held. Especially those with dark origins.

His fingers traced across the ice cold stone, circling one eye, then another. Those baby blue irises focused on the papers in front of him, countless scrawlings rambling on about the mask and all he could find out about it. Jonathan wordlessly reached across the desk, dragging an object back towards him. 

The sheath was small, the leather worn beneath his calloused touch. He slid a blade out, the sheen glistening orange under the candlelight. The atmosphere became moody without the sun pouring into his room. Jonathan often shut his curtains whenever he observed the mask, keeping its secrets hidden far away from the outside world. 

Just a prick of the finger was all he needed. The boy didn’t even wince as he pierced his skin in the same spot he had a hundred times before. His flesh protested, scarring and tissue resistant to the unwanted touch. Jonathan merely ignored it and pinched the pad of his thumb, watching that familiar glisten of red ooze out. It was viscous, and the sight unnerved the Joestar to this day. He never did care for blood, especially not after the fight with Dio all those years ago. He could still vividly remember the syrupy texture on his hands, how it carved merlot rivers into his fingerprints and stained his palms crimson. 

He tried not to dwell on the topic for long, restlessly waiting for the blood to trickle down his digits and spill onto the mask. 

It trembled in the soft glow of the flame, a protrusion of claws erupting from the incurvate interior. Those hollow eye holes felt like they were following Jonathan’s gaze the entire time, surveying him just as he did to the mask. 

The stone contraption was Jonathan’s secret alone, confidential matters completely unbeknownst to the rest of the world— at least, until he could figure out what exactly made it respond like this. Why did it react to contact so fervently? What did this reaction entail? Hell , why was the mask ever even made in the first place?

Jonathan glanced up, peering at his notes before letting his gaze flick over to a single portrait on his desk. He picked it up, a tender sort of look painting across his Neptune colored eyes. The mask belonged to his mother, whatever the reason may be. As ghastly as it was to study, the family heirloom allowed him to stay tethered to the limited facts and details he knew of her. Perhaps that was the reason for his fascination towards such artifacts, the reason for the succor it lent him. 

Jonathan was quick to put everything back, carefully coordinated in his actions as he closed notebooks and tucked away papers. He exited the study and locked the door behind him, the young lord wary to let anyone see him around. His steps were brisk as he walked down the corridor, sunlight streaming in through ceiling high windows. His shadow danced across the lavish wallpaper, mirroring the hues of the stained glass in shades of blue and green. 

The library was always dark and dingy, the drapes pulled tight to avoid any light from getting in. His father used to like the room all bright and shining, however his sickness meant there was no one to nag about the curtains, the dust, or even the books strewn about that Jonathan would often forget to clean up. Unlike the odd ritual notes in his study, there was nothing conspicuous about linguistics and architectural novels.

Hopefully those notes would make his father proud of him one day, make the entire archaeological world proud of his efforts. If only he could figure out that damnable mask. 

Jonathan was tall, taller than everyone else in the manor, but even he needed the ladder to reach the books on the top shelf. He needed something new, something that would allow him to make his big break. The Joestar’s burly fingers drifted across the aged wood, collecting dust bunnies in his wake. He couldn’t see what books were up there, the bindings unfamiliar as he flicked through them. His nails lightly scraped across the leather endbands, pausing when they reached a new texture. Jonathan frowned, raising on his toes to grab whatever he’d discovered.

A gasp spilled from his lips as something came plummeting down, the rectangular object clanging sharply against the tiled floor. What was that?

A collection of oddities splayed across the ground, among them all an envelope. Curiosity got the better of Jonathan as he climbed down and picked up the yellowed paper, turning it this way and that in his hands. Dario Brando, was the name inked across the back, plain as day for all eyes to see.

The moment Jonathan tore open the letter to read the contents inside, a churning feeling formed in his stomach. Those celestial irises turned to supernovas in an instant, and the boy was already sprinting down the hall before finishing the final sentence.

Dario, Danny, Erina, who else was there?

Jonathan’s skin was itching, heat pouring like poison through his veins. 

I’m overcome with sickness. 

The blood rushed in his ears as he banged on Dio’s door.

Whatever it is, the end is near.

“Dio!” He roared, ignoring the anxiety creeping up his neck. He favored the bitter tang of rage on his tongue instead.

The pain in my chest is excruciating. 

There was no response, which only fueled Jonathan’s indignation.

My hands are swollen, and my cough is unrelenting.

There was a noise in the foyer, the mumble of voices conversing. Jonathan followed it, trying to focus past the red that shot across his vision and listen over the thrumming that submerged his body whole. 

He could see the rays of sunlight from a mile away. “Dio.”

The boy glanced up from the tray in his hands, citrus eyes narrowing upon seeing Jonathan. His entire expression became sour for a fleeting moment before returning to its original composure. “Yes?”

“What are you doing with that medicine?”

Dio furrowed his brow, although it was more in irritation than confusion. “What do you mean? He’s due for his next dosage.”

Jonathan’s senses spiked, not from the adrenaline tearing through his nerves but rather from being in such close proximity with Dio. His emotions were on the table, open for the Brando boy to read like a book, and that thought alone brought Jonathan’s bout of aggression back down to caution. “Have you… all this time, have you been the one bringing it to him?”

“Yes, why?”

Jonathan had to keep his hand from trembling as he raised the paper in the air. “I came across a letter your father wrote to mine. It’s from seven years ago.”

Dio showed no reaction as Jonathan read aloud what Dario had written. The young lord couldn’t keep his anger in check any longer, hands balling into a fist as he crumpled the paper within his grasp. “Those symptoms are exactly the same as father’s! Explain yourself, Dio!”

Dio turned his head to the side, and from this angle Jonathan could see an archipelago of moles curving up his earlobe. He’d noticed it before, even asked Dio about it, but the other boy had no response to give. 

“What exactly are you trying to say, Jojo?”

Jonathan snatched the powder off the tray, his hands working seemingly of their own, boiling volition. “I’m saying that I want a doctor to examine this medicine!”

Dio was quicker than lightning, those alabaster fingers wrapping tightly around Jonathan’s wrist. Their complexions contrasted greatly, the Joestar’s sun kissed flesh rivaling his brother’s moon born skin. Helios had breathed life into Dio’s eyes, while Selene coaxed night into Jonathan’s. 

The two stood their ground, maintaining eye contact as the Brando boy throttled the lord’s arm. “Jojo, if you doubt that medicine, you doubt our friendship. Furthermore, if you believe that I would ever poison Father—“ he grimaced, nails digging into Jonathan’s wrist, “— then you truly wish our friendship is no more!”

Jonathan couldn’t look at Dio. 

He couldn’t face the honey honed rancor that accumulated in his gaze, the way it beckoned him in with a baleful ooze. The sunlight boy dared Jonathan to question his fidelity to the Joestar name, urging him to try and uncover some half-cocked, treasonous lunacy. It was more than just that, however. It was Dio’s face imprinted upon Jonathan’s memories, bloodied and beaten, and ready to beat the young lord up. It was that unnerving ire that fanned the flames in Jonathan’s chest, the fury that kept him afloat when he felt he was drowning in darkness. It was everything and nothing all at once, Jonathan’s childhood and Jonathan’s love and Jonathan’s hate all condensed into a single glare. 

He told himself that the reason he couldn’t look Dio in the eyes was because he had no evidence, but even that sounded like half-cocked lunacy to him.

“Jojo,” Dio censured, “I implore you to put that medicine back on the tray. Do so and I’ll forget all about your foolishness.”

Jonathan pulled his arm against his chest, releasing Dio’s hold on it. “Dio, I want you to swear on your honor— on your father’s honor as a gentleman. If you do so, then I’ll put this medicine back, and the rest will be history.”

There was a notable change in the Brando boy’s demeanor, a tension that stifled the already hostility filled air. 

“Swear on it,” Jonathan urged.

Dio shifted on the balls of his feet, and it made the Joestar realize something. This was the first time he’d ever seen Dio so… unlike himself. So knocked down a peg, so out of his usual imperious element. “Swear…?” 

Those hubris tinted irises lowered to the floor, cascading down in a plume of wax coated feathers. Dio’s lashes were the sun, and his pupils were Icarus plummeting into a watery casket commissioned by his own pride. He swore under his breath, and Jonathan was sure he could see those arched lips twitch downward. 

“S-Swear on his honor? Don’t be absurd, that damnable bastard never had any honor to begin with!”

And with that, Jonathan knew he had all the proof that he needed. 

.

The world was spinning. 

The heavens had fallen off their axis, descending down, and down, and down until the celestial bodies were but debris defiling the earth’s surface. Shooting stars still fizzled across Dio’s vision, scathing the golden glow of his eyes with a chromosphere the color of blood.

He winced, stumbling down the hall and towards the room. Perhaps this was an omen, fate that strung him across Saturn’s rings and hung him with Orion’s Belt. His plans were barely in fruition when that detestable Joestar began to tear them down, ripping his waxing crescent claws through the folds of Dio’s usurp. 

His fingers quivered as he unlocked the study, the key ice cold in his grasp. He’d nabbed it moments before his graceless fall down the stairs, the pain still sharp as a knife against his side. He wanted to chuck the key across the hall, wanted to impale the young Joestar on it so he could feel the same torment Dio had felt.

The door swung open, knob slamming into the beige wallpaper with enough force to break through. The hinges eerily creaked as they retreated back into place with the threshold, cowering in fear of Dio’s fading silhouette. He didn’t hesitate to go in, storming over to the desk and flinging open the notebooks piled up. 

A flurry of emotions and thoughts rattled around in his brain, a caterwauling that started with Jonathan and ended with… his father. 

That drunken, loathsome creature of a man who reeked of late night pubs and cast himself in the light of fallen stars like Dio’s mother. His father thought he was a connoisseur of fermented immortality, thought that his golden boy of a son would bring forth eternal riches beyond their wildest dreams. All he had to do was beat the child down, turn him into apathy incarnate and hope he’d still age like a fine wine destined to make a pretty penny. His father only had to hope, to dream, to wish upon a star that his son wouldn’t mind the maltreatment he’d endured during his youth. Well, Dio did mind, and the twisted vendetta it festered into had swallowed any empathy left in the boy when he was still but a child. 

Knowing his blood flows through my veins makes me sick .

Dio knew his father wasn’t the charitable man George claimed him to be. He knew the old fool didn’t save Lord Joestar, and wouldn't save anyone unless it catered to his needs. A part of Dio always wondered if George himself knew this, yet still decided to take him in out of the kindness of his heart. The thought alone was enough to leave the boy in a fit of pique. 

All of Jonathan’s notes were near undecipherable, thanks to that boor’s unsavory handwriting. Luckily Dio had practice reviewing the young lord’s work when they were kids, whether that be during lessons or sneaking peeks at his assignments. He needed to find something, anything that could help with his vengeance, that could finally stop the chaos in his head. Dio needed that money, needed to prove he was better than his father, better than Lord Joestar and his dratted son. His pesky, happy-go-lucking, infuriating fucking son. 

The mask was his key to success, it just had to be. There was something odd about it, something Dio couldn’t quite put a finger on; but he knew that Jonathan knew, and that was enough for him. 

He flicked open a knife, letting the sharpened tip jam into the crevice of a drawer to heave it open. It only took a few tries before the cabinet was swung out, the mask on full display for the sunlight boy to see. His gaze fell back onto Jonathan’s notes, skimming across the near illegible text until he landed on the final few pages. 

Time was of the essence for Dio, he was cognizant of that fact. However, he could sit there for hours on end, until dusk kissed the horizon line and the moon caressed the night sky. All the information on display to him, all the knowledge that Jonathan had accumulated regarding this chunk of stone, it was… it was horrifying. 

It was exactly what Dio needed.

Jonathan was acutely aware of the poison. He had to get it examined to learn about the contents inside, but thankfully it wasn’t anything from around here. The Joestar would eventually figure that out though, which meant that Dio only had so long to plot this out, to masquerade around as if he wasn’t a ticking time bomb ready to self implode. 

Dio had to get to London before Jonathan— he needed to get there before Jonathan and find the apothecary he’d bought the medicine from. He could burn it all down like he did with Danny, or perhaps kill the man who’d sold it to him. No, that’d be too convoluted of a murder. 

It eventually dawned on Dio what he must do, what he must use to finally get everything he desired. The mask rattled under his grip as a smear of blood coated the entire left cheek, Dio’s thumb pressing fruitlessly against the vacant spot of an eye. 

He hummed in satisfaction, a wicked smile twitching against the corner of his lips. 

Dio knew what he needed to do to survive in this world, to ascend far beyond the measly aspirations his father had wanted of him. 

The boy didn’t look back as he shut the door, cradling the stone mask in his arms until it finally returned to its original state. This was what Jonathan deserved. This was what he was going to get.

All Dio needed to do was figure out where his brother was headed next. 

.

“Much apologies, Sir Joestar, but the contents of this medicine aren’t like anything we’ve ever seen before.”

The professor’s assistant nodded, paused, hesitated to open their mouth, then quickly shut it again. Jonathan’s glacier gaze fell onto them, and the auxiliary was quick to start rambling.

“W-Well, I don’t wish to spread false information, however, this nostrum does vaguely ring a b-bell for me. I assume that this isn’t any medicine made through Western practices, and it certainly isn’t from the Americas, which leaves me with only one other speculation. I believe this is an Eastern remedy, at l-least based on some of the contents it’s made up of...”

Jonathan peered back at the professor, who seemed less than stellar about their subordinate’s blurt of words. The young lord merely smiled and took back the small packaging, careful not to pinch it too hard between his fingers. “Thank you very much for your services.”

As he exited the office, a feeling of apprehension fogged over the boy. Where was he going to find anyone who peddled Eastern medicines around here? Perhaps he could try London, see if anyone out there knew something. 

“Mr. Joestar?” a voice called from behind.

Jonathan turned and let a feigned grin pull across his features. “Ah, hello, Professor.”

It wasn’t the same man from the laboratory, rather it was Jonathan’s thesis advisor. He was the reason why the boy was excelling in the archaeological field, why George even let his son major in the subject to begin with. The least Jonathan could do was offer him the time of day— or, well, night. 

“I want to talk to you about your brilliant thesis, my boy.”

Jonathan bit the inside of his cheek and bobbed his head in a nod. “Of course, sir, however I’d quite appreciate it if we had this conversation at a different date.” He neglected to mention the imminent death his father was facing, since it didn’t seem so important to the conversation at hand.

The professor didn’t seem to catch on to the urgency, however. “Yes, but I have someone who’s been inquiring about speaking with you regarding your paper—“

“Please, sir,” Jonathan implored, “I’d love to discuss this any other time, but now is not the best for me.” The impatience burned heavy under Jonathan’s skin, goading him on in the form of tapping feet and the threat of a frown. 

“Of course,” the professor said, although it didn’t have the same pep he’d approached Jonathan with. “I’ll let Mr. Zeppeli schedule a time with you himself.”

Jonathan didn’t even bother to listen as he sped off, out of corridors and down staircases until he left that gothic architecture of a building behind. The coach driver opened the carriage for the young lord, the boy practically leaping into the seat. The horses winnied and began to trot off into the night, Jonathan hoping the sounds would help to drown out the thoughts scampering around in his head. It didn’t. 

Time blurred around the Joestar. Time often did that, its tempestuous haze contorting the line between present and future. Jonathan was always an impatient person, but it was during these cloudings of the mind did he wonder if he truly wanted to catch up to time. If he really wanted to get this over with and save his father, or if he wanted to go back in time to that young boy yearning for the sunny summer days ahead. The lurking fear of the medicine poisoned his thoughts, melding childhood innocence with his father’s sickly face, the heat of the sun at high noon and the inevitable cold of an empty bedroom. 

“Where to, Sir Joestar?” 

Jonathan was snapped out of his worries, a small frown forming on his features. “London, please.”

The coachman nodded, leaving Jonathan back to his fretting. Silently, the Joestar wished his driver would quiet those intrusive thoughts once again.

.

“Are you sure about this, Sir?”

Jonathan dipped his head and peered out over the darkened street, an ambivalent feeling settling over the young lord. “You said that you wouldn’t go any farther.”

The coachman nervously fiddled with the horse’s reins. “It’s dangerous continuing down that way! This place is not meant for a gentleman to enter, that’s been public knowledge for nearly a century now.” Jonathan’s face showed that he wanted to know more. “Down that way is a place known as Ogre Street, m’lord.”

Jonathan’s gaze fell to the medicine in his pocket, midnight lashes resting against snow nipped cheeks. The alley sounded villainous, exactly the sort of place Jonathan assumed Dio would frequent.

“Thank you,” the boy sighed out, gingerly adjusting the lapels on his beige suit. “I’ll walk from here on.”

“Stop, please!” The coachman insisted. “It’s not a place for you to go, Mr. Joestar!”

Jonathan felt unease at being referred to with such high titles; m’lord, sir, Mr. Joestar. It made him miss the informal nickname everyone used for him— hell, it made him miss when Dio would use it.

Dio . The name made the boy’s gut churn, although he couldn’t figure out if it was from anger or guilt.

“I have a reason that forces me to go.” Those starlight eyes followed the way his hand slid out of his pocket, throttling the packet of medicine in a knuckle white grip. “Even if I’d lose, say, my own hand in the process.”

And with that, Jonathan was off into the cold and unforgiving night that awaited him. 

He wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Ogre Street, but never in a million years would he have guessed it to be the labyrinth of an alleyway he stumbled across. Each building taunted him to go around its corner, only to find a whole new maze awaiting him. No one was around aside from the looming moon that trailed along with Jonathan, its presence less of a comfort and more of a threat in the form of pitch black silhouettes. One could only imagine what went on in these shadows.

Jonathan heard pittering behind him, a soft and light sound that crossed through the snow. When he turned around he saw a small black cat, relief flowing through him that quaked his once jumpy nerves. Well, that was until he saw what the kitten was eating. The young lord startled back, watching the feline lift its back and leap away with a dead puppy clamped down in its mouth. 

“Oh dear,” he muttered to himself, letting his fingers glide up the dead end wall he’d encountered. They were shaking, and his vision was distorted with pictures of Danny’s grave. Did Danny’s corpse look like that when they found him? No, probably not. Jonathan knew that fires liked to consume things. It probably left nothing of Danny behind for him. 

Another sound could be heard, this time something much heftier trampling through the thick layer of snow. It was more than just one set of footsteps, something more akin to a stampede than a lone kitten. Jonathan whipped around almost too late, his palm snaring down around the jagged edge of a blade. He could barely register the jolt of pain that surged through his body as he surveyed the man who had just attacked him.

He was ugly, to say the least. A smear of blue decorated the center of his face, accentuating onyx black eyes and hair the color of ink. Jonathan winced as he tried to pull the blade out of the other man’s sturdy grasp. Perhaps Ogre Street was an apt name for this place. 

“A-Are you an idiot or something?” The guy choked out through a perturbed laugh. “You grabbed me knife with your bare hand?”

Jonathan said nothing in return, his mind still caught on medicine and dead dogs. 

The man sniggered as he learned forward. “You think you’re a tough guy, huh? You’re just a little baby with a big body. What’d ya think will happen once I twist this knife a bit? We’ll probably see four of ‘yer fingers on the ground, now won’t we?”

“Just try it,” Jonathan murmured, brushing his thumb against the sheen of the blade. “The moment you do so, I’ll bring my foot up to your groin. I truly don’t mind losing a few fingers as long as I can do that.”

Jonathan leaned in, so close that he could see the way the inkings bled into the man’s face. “I’m here to protect my family from those who wish it harm, I’m sure that’s far more than you can say.”

The man snorted and shifted on his feet, his gaze briefly flickering away from Jonathan. The Joestar noticed this, noticed the way he tilted his body, leaving room for him to see the other man behind them. 

The individual had a strange haircut, frizzy blonde hair that spilled out from a bowler hat and serrated bangs that framed his impish features. He had a crooked smile, the kind that arched into the corners of his eyes and the thick furrow of his brow. Amber pooled from within his irises, a warmth that made Jonathan think of the aurora and the rising sun on the horizon.

But it wasn’t morning now it was night, and that kindling of heat was quickly stomped out by the smirk on the man’s face. It crinkled the ghastly scar that marred his gaunt cheeks, climbing up his face until it disappeared under that oddly shaped hat.

Why did he leave so much room for me to look around? Jonathan thought to himself as he struggled to keep hold of the knife. His eyes wouldn’t leave the man in the back, but his senses were yelling at him to focus on his surroundings. Weren’t there more footsteps?

Jonathan caught a glance at something from above. Ah, he concluded as a man came charging down at him. That’s why he made room. 

The boy’s first connected with the cusp of a cheekbone, hard enough to send the man flying back. He thanked the years of boxing with Dio as he swiped at the tattooed man’s feet, releasing the knife and throwing a keen right hook into his jaw. “Now,” he slightly huffed, the breath fogging around him. “Tell me where I can find someone who peddles Eastern poisons around here.”

“Not so fast,” the final man said. He was the one that waited in the back, the one with the orange eyes and straw blonde hair. “What I’m hearing is that you don’t care if you lose yer fingers, huh? Well I can make sure you lose a lot more than that.”

Jonathan frowned, but quickly his features dissolved into worry as he took a step back. “Wait, please don’t do anything hasty! I’m just here to find an apothecary!”

With a flick of the man’s finger, his hat came to life, twirling through the air as a set of blades protruded from the brim. He glared daggers at Jonathan, trying to mask the visible indignation with a waggish grin. “You’re not bluffing your way past me so easily, rich boy.” 

Jonathan was quick to lift his arms up, protecting his head and chest from the oncoming drone. Is this really necessary? Well, whatever is thrown my way, I’ll push through it to find that apothecary.

The man barked out an astonished laugh, watching the way the moonlight reflected across the metal blades. He found it quite funny how much of an amateur the midnight boy was, even funnier how big of a fool he’d been for stepping into Ogre Street. God, was it hilarious how he didn’t even guard himself correctly.

Jonathan merely sighed as the blades grew closer.

There was a brief pause, something noticeable in the atmosphere as the hat coursed away from its trajectory. The man noticed too late that it was his mate’s knife, the dagger mere centimeters away from his head as he leapt away. It caused his cap to spiral out of control, but by the strained noise the lord uttered, he knew it had hit something.

“Cut straight to the bone, that did!” It was true, the hat’s blades were lodged deep into the Joestar’s arm. The man with the scar always hated such vile sights and noises, but he’d grown to stomach them during his time on Ogre Street.

“That knife threw me off, but—“ A deep ‘oomf’ cut off what was about to be said next.

Everything went dark around the man. It took him a moment to register the pain, for the wet feeling of blood to ooze onto his skin and the stinging sensation to rise to the surface. He fell back against the snow, thankful for a padded fall. 

Jonathan didn’t even make a sound as he pulled the metal out from his flesh. His mind was racing, adrenaline coursing to the point where the ringing in his head dulled into background noise and the pain became minimal. The prickling heat in his bloodstream grew to be uncomfortable, the inferno in his chest seeping deep into the boy’s heart. Jonathan knew all too well of this emotion, this innate feeling of anger that he’d felt a million times before. No, he thought to himself as he pressed his back against the cobblestone wall, I need to keep my anger in check, else I’ll be no better than Dio.

But he was angry because of Dio, because of what he’d been doing to George and what he did to Danny and Erina and Dario. Jonathan didn’t hold much resentment for what Dio did to him, that part was easy to let go of if he didn’t think about it for too long. He, of course, was conflicted about it. Even now he felt guilty for not giving Dio the benefit of the doubt and putting the whole thing behind him; for not loving his brother the way his father had hoped he would. For letting time get the best of him during his youth and those years of loneliness, the ones inflicted by the Brando boy. Jonathan was always so, so angry but he learned that he needed to mold his emotions into something different, something more pleasing for the rest of the world to see so they wouldn’t witness the catastrophic events conspiring within the cosmos in his mind. Even now, after just being attacked by a gaggle of thugs, Jonathan didn’t want them to see how ugly he could truly be. 

When the lord looked around, he was surprised to see he was surrounded by men in all shapes and sizes, wielding weapons of a similar caliber. Jonathan tensed up, feeling that fire in his stomach flicker out and give way to the chills slithering down his spine. Some held torches, the orange and red glow illuminating all the menacing faces that approached closer and closer. How in the bloody world did Dio manage his way through these parts?

Jonathan took a deep breath, trying to still his worried heart as he lifted his fists into a fighting stance. 

“Stop!” A voice called out from behind the crowd. “I won’t allow anyone to lay a finger on that gentleman.”

“Gentleman..?” Jonathan rose up to see who spoke, his gaze catching that of the citrine eyed man from before. When the crowd parted Jonathan could see him stumble to his feet, a perplexed look giving way on his features. 

“Tell me something,” he muttered as he pointed at the lord. “Why did you hold back? W-Why did you go easy on me?”

Jonathan sucked in a breath. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Why didn’t you kick me with your full force? You could’ve beaten my face bloody, mangled it even. You went easy on me, didn’t ‘ya?”

Jonathan avoided the stares from all the people around him, trying to keep his attention on the man with the scar. He had eyes vaguely similar to Dio’s. “I’m here... for my father’s sake. I realized in that moment that you have a father too, and a mother, and possibly even siblings. You have a family waiting for you that I wouldn’t want to sadden.” 

The man wiped dried blood from his lips, leaning on one of his friends for support. These people were his family. They were the ones whose sakes he’d fight for, not some mother or father. 

He realized something as he took a step forward, ears perking at the sound of a muffled groan across the way. As naive as the Joestar boy was, he spared the man’s family with probably the same belief in mind. 

He chuckled softly to himself, dispersing the crowd with a wave of his hand. “Tell me your name.”

Jonathan hesitated, but cautiously stepped forward to let the man lean on him. “Jonathan Joestar.”

“Robert E.O. Speedwagon.” He was shorter than Jonathan by quite a few inches. 

“Be careful,” he murmured, so quietly as to not let the other thugs hear. While they were his family, they were also men down on their luck who would do or say anything for a couple quid. “I know about who you wish to see. The man who sells the concoctions you’re looking for is as sly as a fox.”

Jonathan’s brow furrowed as he waited for everyone to leave. His side felt warm from where the other man pressed against. “You know him?”

Speedwagon nodded. “To make up for what I did to your arm, I’ll guide you to his store.”

The moon cast a shadow over both men as they walked along, Jonathan keeping his gaze to the ground as Speedwagon directed him out of Ogre Street. The area was lively now, men and women conversing to themselves as fires were lit and doors opened to pubs.

“It wasn’t like this when I arrived,” Jonathan said to himself as he peered up. 

Speedwagon was able to walk along by himself now, an odd look painted across his features. He kept examining Jonathan, as though he were some mystery to unfold. “We’re weary of outsiders around here. As soon as you staggered in we were quick to shut things down.”

Jonathan didn’t like being stared at so intensely, especially when that gaze looked just like the eyes he couldn’t dare to face earlier that night. “You’re a peculiar one, Mr. Speedwagon.”

“ Me? ” The man mustered through a hearty chortle. “You’re a peculiar one yourself, Mr. Joestar.”

“Why is that?” Jonathan asked, now seemingly unable to tear away from those fiery eyes. They seemed kinder than Dio’s, especially when paired with that laugh. 

“Never have I met a man with your build that did everything in his power to hide it from the world. Nor have I ever met a wealthy bloke who didn’t bother shoving it in ‘yer face every five seconds.”

Jonathan thought this was quite a funny way to meet a new friend; beat up their mates and suddenly you two are the best of buds searching for an apothecary in the late London night. “I find it quite bizarre how a man so quick to forgive a beating like yourself would loiter around these parts.”

“I find it downright bizarre how you’d let bygones be bygones and accept help from the thug who tried to give you said beating in the first place.”

Jonathan opened his mouth to respond, yet couldn’t find anything to say. Instead he just laughed, boisterous and boyish and oh so freeing after the whirlwind of negative emotions he’d been feeling all day. He wondered when the last time he’d laughed like this was, when it wasn’t something put on for show in front of Dio and his father.

Oh right, his father .

The two gradually pulled away from the nightlife behind them, entering a much darker and quieter atmosphere. The cold crept back in and the darkness seemed bigger than before. They were still technically on Ogre Street, but Jonathan assumed the main square was where most of the citizens had congregated.

“Ogre Street is feared by many,” Speedwagon said as they moved along. “But it’s quite an alright place once you get to know the people. There are those like my mates who’re better chums than the lot you’d meet back in your posh parts, but then there’s the damn miscreants that keep the rest of us on our toes at all times of the day.”

Jonathan thought he could hear voices around the corner. “Is the one who sells this medicine one of those guys?”

Speedwagon nodded as they rounded a building. “Yep, he’s a no good, bloody—“ Both men suddenly stopped dead in their tracks.

The first thing to catch Jonathan’s gaze was the blood. So, so much blood. It made him queasy just to look at, made him think of red gloves and red hands and red jewels dripping down his fingers. He could see it seep into the snow, staining the powdery ground a deep crimson under the moonlit sky. The second thing that Jonathan noticed were the golden rays emitting from afar, sunlight curls that framed dove white skin and menacing orbs for eyes. A figure hunched over two bodies, one of them lifeless while the other cowered in fear.

Speedwagon stumbled back, the realization forming on his face as he backed away from the scene. “B-Bloody hell, Mr. Joestar, w-we gotta go!”

Jonathan didn’t move, icy breath hitching as his eyes widened at the horrible sight before him. The world felt like it was tipping under his feet, yet he stayed firmly planted in place despite how Speedwagon tugged at his arm. 

“Is that the w-wanker the papers been talking about?” Jonathan quickly came to learn that Speedwagon rambled when he was nervous. “Come on, you d-damn bull, before he spots us!”

“Dio,” Jonathan whispered, the words fogging in the air before him. 

Feathers sprouted from his shoulders, not quite wrapping around his neck like a collar nor trailing down his back like a pair of wings. They were just sort of there, contrasting the navy blue of his coat and the golden trim that glistened in the full moon’s light. He tilted his head back, and even with how far apart they were, Jonathan could make out the devious smile that coaxed across his lips. 

“Jojo,” Dio called out, his posture straightening as he slid a hand into his coat. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

“You know him?” Speedwagon practically choked out as he pulled the hat off his head. He was already flicking the brim off to reveal its multiple blades.

“That’s my brother,” Jonathan responded with, hands trembling by his side. 

Speedwagon looked down and noticed this, but his gaze quickly shot back up and over towards Dio. The boy with the sunlight locks had begun sauntering over to them, wobbling a bit on his feet as he dragged a dagger across the cobbled walls of a building.

“Father is worried about you, Jojo.” Dio’s normally plummy voice was slurred, and the laugh that erupted in his chest was interrupted by a hiccup. “Oh so worried.”

There was something so charming about the man’s tone, something about the honeyed ooze of his words and the silvery lull on his tongue that unnerved Speedwagon. He couldn’t get Jonathan to move no matter how hard he pulled, and with the drunken man approaching closer and closer, the thug felt like he was being cornered by some deity. Or maybe just a killer, he couldn’t really tell.

“Damn it all to hell,” Speedwagon muttered as he took off his cap, pulling it back as he aimed in the direction of Dio. 

Something yanked down at his wrist. 

He flung his head over and saw Jonathan’s grip on his arm, saw the emotions jumbled in his dinner plate sized eyes and the faint quiver of his lips. The Joestar let go of his hand and nudged Speedwagon away, obscuring his view of the golden boy with the knife. 

“Get out of here,” Jonathan warned, “I won’t let Dio hurt another soul.”

His laugh started as a soft titter, rumbling in his chest until Dio couldn’t contain such a cacophony of noises any longer. He guffawed and came running down the road, slashing at Jonathan with the dagger over and over again. The lord raised his arms up as he backed away, trying to guard Speedwagon from the onslaught of stabs. 

“Go!” Jonathan yelled as he tried to move away from Dio.

“You ruined my plans!” Dio yelled, his usually composed features now animalistic in appearance. “You made me do this!”

It was taking everything in Jonathan’s power not to freeze back up in fear, to keep backing away as each drag of the blade cut across his skin. His heart was pounding and sweat dripped down his face, thoughts racing as his mind screamed at him to get away. Too bad his body told a different story, legs growing heavy as though they were freezing into icicles. Tears welled behind his eyes, and Jonathan cursed himself for being so weak. What happened to the fury he’d felt earlier? Why didn’t he feel it now? 

“Dio!” Jonathan cried out as he shoved the other boy away. “Stop this at once!”

“No!” He snarled in response, pointing the tip of the knife point blank at Jonathan. “Don’t you get it, this is your fault. If you’d just stayed in your place then those men wouldn’t be dead, and I wouldn’t be prancing around town like my damnable father!” Dio was sobbing now, which did make it easier for Jonathan to tell his step brother was drunk. With how close the two were now, he could even smell the wine on his breath. 

However that didn’t excuse the men he’d attacked, the men Jonathan knew Dio would attack because he’d known all these years that Dio would do so. He knew that Dio would hurt someone again, it was only a matter of when that dictated his brother’s temperament. 

“T-This isn’t my fault,” Jonathan strained to say, the lord trying to ignore the stinging from the fresh wounds on his arms.

Dio dipped his head in a nod, a grimace contorting his chiseled features. “Oh, but it is, Jojo. That’s why I have to punish you now. It’s what you get for ruining my plans, for making me stoop this low.” He hiccuped and drew the dagger close to his own cheek, letting the blade drag down across his face. 

Jonathan gasped as Dio cut a thin streak down his jaw, the Brando closing his eyes as his brow furrowed together. When they opened again, a small smile grew on his lips. 

Everything moved so fast that Jonathan couldn’t even keep up. Dio swung the blade down towards Jonathan’s chest, but the pain never came. Instead it hit something— or someone else.

“Speedwagon!” Jonathan let the other man fall against his side, quick to pull the dagger out from the thug’s shoulder. He pressed down against the wound, telling himself that it was okay for Speedwagon to squirm and groan at the pain he was causing. “What were you thinking?”

Speedwagon kicked Dio away, the man tumbling further into Jonathan’s arms as he lost control of his feet. “I-I’m so sorry, sir. First I attack you, then I lead you to— to this? This is the least I can do f-for you.”

Jonathan was never the type to curse, but he really wished right now that he could break that trivial rule of his. “I told you to get away!”

Speedwagon shrugged, but it hurt him to do so. “Why won’t you fight him?” 

Jonathan willed himself not to get paralyzed in place. “What?”

“Why are you sparing him?”

Jonathan pulled Speedwagon away from Dio, weary eyes watching as the boy made of light rustled around inside his coat. “He’s my brother, I-I can’t fight him.”

“He’s a monster!” Speedwagon cried. 

Dio frowned as he looked over at the thug, his deadly gaze boring into Speedwagon’s soul. “Take that back, street rat.”

“N-No,” Speedwagon shouted as he fumbled his way out of Jonathan’s embrace. The lord was too distracted by the dread scouring through his body to notice the two blondes getting closer and closer. “I don’t know who you are, but by the trio of moles on your ear I can tell that you were marked by the Beast himself. You’re a murderer!”

Dio’s fingers twitched as he slid an oblong disc out from his jacket, the object shaking in his grasp as he lunged at the man. “Silence yourself, peasant!”

The two struggled to gain control of the fight, but Jonathan couldn’t focus on that right now. His mind was racing, thinking about what Speedwagon had said. He was right, Dio was a monster. But Dio was also his brother, right? 

Right?

Speedwagon shifted and twisted abruptly, Dio tripping over himself as he fell to the floor. He growled and leapt back up, fist connecting with the back of Speedwagon’s head hard enough to knock him down into the snow. Dio’s alabaster fingers came up to his face, gingerly dragging across the cut he’d given himself. There was a small bit of blood, but it was just enough to make the mask work. He loomed over the thug, eclipsing the moonlight with his minacious silhouette. 

“I am not the monster,” Dio grumbled, rolling the man over so they were face to face. Speedwagon’s vision was blurry, but he struggled as Dio straddled him and placed the plate of stone over his face. “That would be my father. Give him my greetings when you meet him in hell, street rat.”

Dio’s hand pressed down on the mask, leaving behind a sliver of blood. It began to rattle, but before the familiar set of claws could come out it was snatched away from Speedwagon’s face. Dio’s head shot up, mere centimeters away from Jonathan’s startled gaze. 

“D-Dio…”

“Jojo,” Dio calmly responded despite the rage burning inside him. “Give that back.”

“No,” Jonathan breathed, taking a step away from his brother. 

Dio huffed and rose to his feet, grabbing the discarded knife as he closed the distance between him and the Joestar. “Give it to me or else I’ll kill you.”

“It seems like that was your plan all along.”

Dio’s jaw twitched as he screamed in frustration, the sound deep and guttural in his throat. “Give me the fucking mask, you abominable twat!”

He threw a punch, thumb pointed directly at Jonathan’s eye. The lord was brisk in blocking it, elbowing Dio away with just enough force to keep him upright on his feet. Jonathan didn’t want to hurt his brother, after all. He just wanted him to stop.

The two danced around each other’s moves, Jonathan blocking’s Dio’s offenses while Dio tried to work around Jonathan’s defenses. It was hard to win against someone you’d grown up fighting with, especially when you knew each other’s tricks and cheats. 

But Dio always won their boxing matches, just as he’d won against Jonathan when it came to anything in their lives. He was crafty in that way, his accomplishments almost always attributed to his time growing up in the slums. 

Dio’s leg shot out and slammed against the back of Jonathan’s calf, sending him down into the snow. He dropped the mask during his fall, which Dio was quick to pick up. It had already gone back to normal, which greatly pleased the boy made of sunlight.

“Dio,” Jonathan pleaded as his brother pinned him down, “I beg of you to stop all of this, please! Father can give you whatever you want, just end this madness!”

“Oh, Jojo,” Dio uttered through a dramatic sigh. He leaned in close, the tantalizingly sweet smell of wine on his breath filtering through Jonathan’s nostrils. Paired with the saccharine sound of his voice and the lord knew that everything about Dio spelled out trouble, especially when paired with alcohol. “Don’t you see? I don’t want to stop, and that doesn’t make me a monster. If anything it makes you the monster for driving me to this point. Humans have their limits, don’t you agree, Jojo? I think I’ve reached mine, but that doesn’t make me any less human than you.”

Jonathan tried to shove his brother away, but his arms hurt too much from the stabs, and Dio was moving so that his knees pressed down against the palms of the Joestar’s hands. “Dio, stop, think about Father a-and your future, and—“

“I suppose that if I should think about my future, then you should think about your past, dear brother. After all, it’s all you’ll have left in a moment.”

He placed the mask over the other boy’s face, then lifted the knife up and plunged it into Jonathan’s chest. He did so, over and over and over again, ignoring the way the lord struggled beneath him. The only thing Dio could feel was the fire in his chest, urging him to continue on as the thoughts of his father fanned the rising flames. He was the monster, not Dio. Never Dio.

Jonathan’s life flashed before his eyes. He couldn’t tell if it was too short, or too long. Time was funny that way. His life was standard but nice in the beginning, full of love and coddling from everyone in the manor. His father was never an affectionate man, but even he used to baby Jonathan. Then came Dio. That’s when everything felt distorted, memories either hazy or far too vivid for the Joestar’s liking. Jonathan felt like he was chasing after his youth as it all came barreling back to him, trying to find just the right memory that would help him forget all about the night’s occurrences. He could never do it, though. He could never catch up to time, no matter how close he felt he got. 

Jonathan was glad that Chaos was accepting him in with open arms after so long of pretending like they weren’t old friends. It was the least she could do, seeing as they had a life long streak that started and ended with the existence of Dio Brando. Well, a streak that ended now with the death of Jonathan Joestar.

“Bye bye, Jojo,” Dio cooed in a sing-song tone as he stood up and smeared Jonathan’s warm, sticky blood all over the mask. It quivered as the boy walked off into the horizon, hastily wiping his hands down against the fabric of his coat. 

Everything went black for Jonathan, and soon the sound of Speedwagon’s cries also faded away into dark, abysmal nothingness. 

Chapter Text

His fingers were numb. Even trying to move them felt like a Herculean task, as though he lost all sense of control in his hands. A prickling sensation warmed the itching digits, but it lasted for only a moment before that icy sharpness took over again. It was like his body was actively fighting off the heat, fending away the fiery inferno daring to breathe life back into him. 

The darkness that consumed him was rapidly fading away, sizzling out in a flash of white. Planets danced across his vision, forming in the wake of the macrocosms pulling him back into consciousness. He was a universe reborn, galaxies woven into his skin and constellations pulled taut against the bone. 

He felt eternal, recreated in the image of a newborn star...

He felt like a supernova ready to implode. 

He felt like he was dying all over again.

There was a primal, gnawing feeling in his gut, the kind of ache that made you think you were eating yourself alive. He reeled at the soreness, at the dying stars tearing him apart from the inside out. This pain was sempiternal, and he wondered when it would ever end— if it would ever end. 

“M-Mr. Joestar…”

His eyes snapped open. 

Jonathan shot forward, a raspy inhale anchoring in as much air as his lungs could take. He thought he could feel a cold sweat on the back of his neck, but the Joestar quickly realized that there was nothing there. Brawny fingers pressed against the tufts of hair curling around his ears, tracing down his skin as though trying to memorize the feeling of flesh on flesh. His own body felt foreign, like someone had sewn a layer of verglas around his soul.

Everything felt cold. Why did everything feel so cold?

Everything felt heavy. Why was everything so heavy?

Everything felt… alive. Why did he feel so alive?

Jonathan whipped his head around, eyes widening as he came face-to-face with a knife. A rush of adrenaline spiked in his veins, the boy quick to leap up and move away from the weapon.

“Mr. Speedwagon!” Jonathan shouted as he pressed his back against a wall, legs wobbling as he tried to stand atop the mattress he’d once been laying on. The springs folded beneath his feet, fabric melding into the touch of his heel with each step he took. This was not Speedwagon in front of him. “Where is he?”

Candles lit up the dingy room, causing Jonathan’s shadow to dance across the walls as he moved about. There was a single window, curtains drawn shut to avoid any light from spilling in. A lone bed lay pressed against the wall, a weathered nightstand beside it and a door across the way. There was a chair in the corner with clothing piled atop it, and what looked to be strips of cloth. Then, there was the seat that Speedwagon’s friend had sat in moments ago. He could tell by those atrocious inkings on his face that it was one of the men from the night before. 

The chair cluttered to the ground, the sound a harsh crack in Jonathan’s ear. Each step that the man took made the old wooden floor creak, each breath he exhaled was shaky and fraught. His clothing rustled with each move, suit awkwardly creasing to adjust to the high angle his arm made. The knife was still pointed directly at Jonathan, but he could see the faint tremble in the thug’s fingers as he struggled to stand his ground.

The lord sensed fear.

“Sir,” Jonathan started, but quickly stopped when the man swung the blade at him.

“N-Not another word, demon!”

“Demon?” Jonathan parroted. He received a nod in return, which made him frown. “Sir, what are you on about? What’s— what’s going on?”

His memory was foggy, but Jonathan swore he could remember finding Dio, crossing paths with him in the late London night. “Where’s Dio?”

Speedwagon’s friend laughed, a bit hysterical as he braved a step forward. The knife was now pressed against Jonathan’s chest. “Not another question, got it? Not til I know this is the right bloke from last night. N-Not that… monster.”

Jonathan looked down at the knife, quick to snatch it out of the man’s grasp. “Whatever are you on about, sir?”

He struggled to keep his hold on the weapon, but the thug bolted at the touch of Jonathan’s hands on his. “D-Demon,” he whispered, dinner plate sized eyes falling to Jonathan’s hands.

The lord’s gaze followed down and he saw the way he clutched the dagger. It wasn’t unlike how he did the night before, but he wasn’t disturbed by the way it pierced through his palm. In fact, he didn’t really feel it at all. It was so unlike all the sensations he’d felt not too long ago, the cataclysmic agony he was experiencing in his dreams. Dreams . That’s all they were, right? All the cold and gut wrenching sensations were but nightmares his brain had created. 

And yet, his fingers were ice cold. His feet were freezing, and even his chest felt odd. He didn’t feel like himself.

He heard a noise coming from behind the door. Jonathan got down from the bed and made a beeline towards it, ignoring the man who followed behind him. It slammed open harder than he intended, yet there was nothing there. “Where’s Speedwagon?” He repeated, this time with more emphasis on the demand for an answer.

Jonathan vaguely remembered a fight; a knife in someone’s shoulder and one in someone’s chest. Speedwagon, Dio, a knife fight. What other puzzle pieces was he missing?

The man with the tattoo wouldn't respond, so Jonathan left the unfamiliar room to go searching. The boy could’ve sworn he heard something, he just wasn’t sure what. Looking around, he saw that there were other rooms similar to the one he’d previously been in. The corridor was chock full of doors that led to other chambers, possibly just as dreary and depressing as his. Was this an inn? Jonathan thought to himself as he took long strides down the hall.

The man chased after him, hiding the knife as he followed in Jonathan’s shadow. There was no blood on the blade, not a single drop. 

The Joestar stormed out and into the main hall, startling the few customers that were there. He saw a tavern, and despite the dim lighting he could perfectly see every patron residing there. One of which being Speedwagon. 

“Mr. Speedwagon,” Jonathan exhaled as he headed over to the man. The thug glanced up at the mention of his name, realization forming on his features as he jolted out of his seat. He practically sprinted over to Jonathan, leaving no time for him to even enter the pub. 

“Mr. Joestar!” Speedwagon cried out through a laugh, waking the final set of drowsy customers with the sheer joy in his voice. “Is it really you?”

Jonathan’s brow creased as he looked down at the man, realizing he’d now grown cautious in his steps. “What is going on around here, your mate said something similar not even a moment ago…”

Speedwagon hesitated to close the distance between them, his fiery eyes scanning up and down the lord’s body. His throat was bobbing, and again, Jonathan could sense something akin to fear now sweltering in the atmosphere. “Let’s talk about this elsewhere… Perhaps back in your room?”

Jonathan saw the bandages on Speedwagon’s bicep, and he swore there was a tangy scent lingering in the air. “My what?” 

Speedwagon’s friend caught up, his manic eyes catching that of his mate’s. The thug with the scar was hasty in pulling his friend aside, insisting he go and rest in the pub. Jonathan pursed his lips, watching as the two sauntered over to a table together. He could hear their entire conversation play out, right down to Speedwagon asserting that there was nothing wrong and that his friend should get a pint, or two… or three. 

“I insist, mate, my treat.”

“I told you I didn’t want to take watch, I just knew he’d wake up…”

“I know, I know, but there was really nothing to fret about. I truly don’t understand what had you lot all worked up.”

“You do know, though, I can tell— why are you pretending nothing happened?”

“I can’t fathom what you’re on about, Tats.”

“Mr. Speedwagon,” Jonathan interrupted, fingers climbing up to the back of his neck as he shifted awkwardly on the balls of his feet. The floor here was even colder than the one in the room. “We need to talk.”

The man nodded, gingerly releasing his hold on the other thug. “You’re right, of course…”

Jonathan glanced around once more, noticing how little light came into the room. He felt cramped inside the stuffy pub, even more in the strait passageways twisting and turning back toward the room he’d awoken in. The walls grew distorted with each step he took, warping in the corners of his eyes into claustrophobic blobs. They pressed and pulled against his vision, even when he turned his gaze down to stare at the floor. 

Even when he tried to ignore how he fixated on the back of Speedwagon’s neck. Ragged tufts of hair tried aimlessly to conceal the paleness of the thug’s skin, to hide the small slivers of it that Jonathan could see.

Time grinded to a halt for the lord. He was stuck in this eternal corridor, forever caged in a loop where all he could lay witness to were the decaying walls and the curve of Speedwagon’s shoulder as it connected to his head. Jonathan was growing lightheaded, an aching laceration forming in the pit of his stomach while every noise became a screech in his ears. He swore that he could hear something coming from Speedwagon, but he just wasn’t sure what. 

When he moved a little closer, the boy could see the languid bob of the thug’s Adam’s apple. The twinge of a vein caught his attention next, fluttering so close to the skin that it reminded Jonathan of a butterfly ensnared in a spider’s web. He loomed over Speedwagon, never once taking his eyes off the layer of flesh that hid the nymphalid’s blood red wings. Oh, how he wanted to swat away the pesky gossamer webs and set the poor thing free… at least, until it ended up captured again in his eight legged grasp.

“I’m sure you could tell that my mates are a bit… hesitant to be around you.”

Jonathan snapped out of his thoughts the moment Speedwagon’s voice hit his ears, a violent shiver running down the boy’s spine as he turned to look away. “O-Oh, yes, I haven’t a clue why… Frankly, I can’t remember much of what happened, did I do something to upset them so?”

Speedwagon stopped and turned around, a perplexed look painting across his features. He held a key in his hand, outstretched to the inn door right before them. “You don’t remember a thing?”

“No,” Jonathan simply said, a haste pause following in tow. “Well, actually, I remember going to Ogre Street, and meeting you, and heading toward the apothecary…” 

His blood ran cold. Or well, it felt as though it did. “And Father! I traveled to London for my father, because he’s sick and because my brother, oh god, he was there! Where’s Dio? I need to find him, before he gets into trouble, I swear he was around here last night, I swear on my life he was, he had a knife and, and a—“

“ Jonathan .”

His lips sewed shut, and the hallway went quiet.. 

Speedwagon hesitated, a startled look splattering over his face as he took a step back. The lord would’ve expected the thug’s cheeks to bloom a bright red in that moment with the expression he was making. “S-Sorry, Mr. Joestar, my apologies— it’s just that, er— how should I say this…”

“I shouldn’t be here right now,” Jonathan whispered, lips unfurling into a frown. “I need to get home.”

Speedwagon’s back faced Jonathan once again, and he was brisk in unlocking the door. He motioned for the two to go inside, prudently closing it as he tossed his hat onto the lonesome chair Jonathan had noticed before. “Mr. Joestar, you shouldn’t be anywhere right now. You should be… d-dead.”

The boy blinked once, then twice. Then maybe once more for good measure. 

“ What?”

Speedwagon assumed Jonathan’s reaction was perhaps warranted, although maybe a bit lackluster considering the gravity of the situation. 

“I watched you die,” he murmured, so quietly Jonathan could barely catch it. “You died, but then you came back to life, and well…”

The silence was gradually being filled with shaky breaths, each more sporadic than the last. There was the reaction he’d been expecting.

“See, word travels fast on Ogre Street, mate. My pals were the only ones brave enough to stand by all night long as we waited for you to wake up again. You’re right lucky I convinced them otherwise when they told me what they saw, else everyone would be waving a pitchfork with ‘yer name on it. Hell, I’m quite sure I’d join the fray if I didn’t witness what’d happened first hand.”

Jonathan was so sure that the world had gone out from under his feet. “That doesn’t explain any of the lunacy you’re spouting, Speedwagon.”

Speedwagon escorted Jonathan over to the bed, but the lord broke free of the other’s grasp with little struggle. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will away the ice in his veins and the pang of disorientation in his head. The Joestar was quite sure someone had cut an awful incision straight down his chest, one that helped explain away the anguish that struck his heart at full force.

“I-I know a cruel joke when I hear one,” Jonathan uttered more to himself than anyone else. “I’ve lived with them my whole life, and they’re not funny.”

“This isn’t a cruel joke,” Speedwagon replied, his amber eyes all but telling a lie. “At least, not one being played by me. I saw you die, sir, I— I saw you get m-murdered in cold blood.”

Jonathan’s heart felt so tight in his chest, like someone was trying to throttle the organ until it stopped. “Murdered..?”

Speedwagon ran his fingers through his hair, combing away the blonde strands as he sat down on the edge of the bed. Jonathan couldn’t help but fall down beside him, sky blue eyes examining their fiery counterparts.

“It was the dead of night,” Speedwagon began, his tone rehearsed as he stared off at nothing in particular. “I was taking you to the apothecary. We ran into a boy— no, a devil of a man, one with sunlight for hair and hellfire for eyes.”

“Dio,” Jonathan breathed, vague images of the Brando swirling around in his head. 

Speedwagon nodded, then continued. “He was drunk, god knows how much he needed in him to do… to do the crimes he committed. He killed two other men, stabbed them with a knife ‘bout the size of your hand. You went to stop him, got into a bit of a tussle and I tried to help but he got me good right here.” He motioned to the bandages around his arm, realization sparking for Jonathan as he reached out to brush across the makeshift gauze. 

The thug winced, but he was the first to not shy away from Jonathan’s touch. “He had something with him, I’m not quite sure what but he tried to put it on me, and you stopped him. You saved me by making him put it on you…” Speedwagon trailed off once again, tears brimming in his eyes as he balled his hands into tremulous fists. “He wouldn’t quit stabbing you. There was so much b-blood, Jonathan, so much of it and he just w-wouldn’t stop. I-I tried to follow after him, but he knocked me out too. Hell, I wasn’t even mourning beside you like I was supposed to be. I was out there tryna be some h-hotshot and avenge you for what Dio did.”

A scoff. “When I awoke, I saw my friends and we— we went back to the road that you and I had taken. We got there, but your b-body was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t even find the other men, t-thought maybe Scotland Yard took ‘em off s-somewhere.” Speedwagon was downright sobbing now, shoulders shaking as he tipped his head down. Jonathan leaned down to try and see his face, but the man abruptly stopped crying— abruptly stopped much of anything at all. No balled hands or quivering lips, shaky shoulders or tear drops caressing the angular structure of his jaw.

When Speedwagon looked back up, Jonathan could see that there was genuine terror in his eyes. “We were walking back to that alley, t-the one we met you in. Sun was starting to come out at that point, but it was a little dark so we couldn’t get the best l-look, and... And you were there. You were just standing there. Moving, and breathing, and alive.”

“Dead, then suddenly alive?” Jonathan had to laugh. He had to. “T-that doesn’t explain why I’m still standing here! I c-can’t be dead, not if I’m here…” He remembered the feeling of stone, of something heavy blurring his vision as his final moments were taken away from him. 

“The mask.”

Speedwagon tipped his chin in a nod, scar on his cheek twitching as he blinked away the tears in his eyes. “He had something quite like a mask, but it was like nothing I’d e-ever seen. It’s what h-he put on your f-face when you died.”

Thoughts of anatomy and brain activity swirled around in Jonathan’s head, but he tried to will them away and focus on anything other than the core parts of the nervous system that the mask’s pincers could damage. “There’s nothing of the sort that could cause such magic, Speedwagon.” Only 10% of the brain is used, and the symmetric concave of those needles can reach all other parts of that percentage. “This is ridiculous, I must get home now—“

A hand shot out and held Jonathan in place. “I’m not sure if I’d call what I witnessed magic,” Speedwagon uttered, a frightful tone rekindling in his voice. “Probably something more akin to sorcery, especially on account of what it made you do.”

Jonathan‘s lips lowered into a deeper frown as he shifted about. “What it made me do..?”

“I told them to go get help, t-to leave me with you…” A strained chuckle escaped Speedwagon’s throat as he wiped away the drying tears on his face. 

“I’ve n-never been a superstitious man, Mr. Joestar, but I know of creatures that go bump in the night. Living in a place l-like Ogre Street, you start to think that you’re the monster in the shadows everyone is scared of, and yet…” Shaky fingers reached up and clasped onto a tie, gingerly pulling the fabric out of its intricate knot until it slid down onto Speedwagon’s lap. He wrestled with the collar of his shirt, pulling it open to reveal the porcelain complexion of his neck.

There, two small dots laid. Jonathan would’ve thought they were nothing more than pin pricks, perhaps bug bites if it weren’t for the churning that arose in his stomach. He wet his tongue, startling at the sudden jab that nearly pierced through the sensitive flesh. Rolling it across his teeth, he could feel out the rows of bone before pausing upon an unfamiliar canine. It was longer, more narrow than he recalled the incisor once being. 

Jonathan’s heart would’ve probably stopped in that moment, but the acceptance was slowly taking over as he realized he no longer had a heart that could just abruptly stop. 

He was remembering the time that was lost to him, the memories that Speedwagon had unlocked with just a simple glance at those damnable marks. 

Jonathan pressed a hand to his chest, straight in the center where a knife had been hours before. His fingers melded against the curve of his sternum, drifted across his collarbone before dipping down to drag across the bumps of his ribcage. He brought his digits back up and pushed against his heart, hoping to feel the spasm of a pulse. The lord waited, let cruel, cruel time have its way with him as he silently begged for the relief of a heartbeat to save him from the despairing depths that threatened to engulf him whole. And yet, he felt nothing.

“J-Jonathan,” Speedwagon softly said, trying to swallow the tremors in his voice. Deep down, the thug knew that the Joestar wasn’t a monster— he couldn’t be! It’s the reason why he threw all logic out the window and stayed by the boy’s side. Jonathan had spared him and his family once, showed his true colors for at least a moment in time, and that was enough for Speedwagon to trust him wholly and forevermore. He just needed to shake off the creeping cold that snaked up his spine whenever he caught the young lord’s gaze. “I’m sorry… I w-wish I knew how to help you, how to find some m-miraculous cure that could make everything normal again.”

Jonathan was dead.  

He was dead, but not dead. Alive, but not quite alive either. 

Jonathan was no longer made of flesh and the millions of red giants that had once flowed in his bloodstream. He had a black hole in his stomach, a supernova in his chest, and a quasar in his heart. He was a star floating through space, or perhaps just the remnants of a white dwarf left out in the universe, he couldn’t quite tell anymore. 

“I know you’re not some demon, Jonathan, y-you’re still human.”

He touched the fangs, baring his teeth as he fiddled with the new canines. They felt odd, but not crowded or uncomfortable in his mouth. His head was still spinning, and the world around him was madness incarnate, but even so he just examined the curvature of each tooth with the pad of his thumb.

“I-If anything, your no good wanker of a b-brother is the monster here!”

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan finally said, the lord rising to his feet as he willed away the bile in his throat and the tremble in his fingertips. “I’m truly sorry for hurting you, Speedwagon. I-I… I need to go, I need to see my father, I…” Father would know what to do, fathers always know what to do. 

Tears glistened in the boy’s eyes, contorting the baby blue skies into cloudy days. Midnight lashes fell to his cheeks, and fat droplets ran down the curve of his jaw before splashing onto his button up. Father wouldn’t want to see you like this, like a monster. 

If it were Dio going to him for help, he’d surely provide him with as much aid as he needed. 

But I’m not Dio. I never was.

“Jonathan,” Speedwagon said, reaching out to touch the lord. 

Jonathan reeled away from his touch, avoiding that sunlight hair and those fiery eyes like they were the plague. He had a million things he wanted to say, but so little time to get them out as he slammed open the door and rushed down the hall. Speedwagon ran behind, trying to keep his voice quiet as he called out for the Joestar. 

“Sir, wait, come back—“

Jonathan rounded a corner and found himself back at the tavern. His breathing was growing ragged again, and every part of his body was beginning to feel frozen in place. The lord trudged through the paralysis taking over, ignoring the stares of other patrons as he looked for an exit. A door laid in the corner, two windows on each side. They blocked out any light that could come in, thick curtains resembling the ones back at home. Home.

“Jonathan, wait!”

Jonathan threw the door open. Sunlight spilled in, glorious rays of yellow and gold basking across the threshold. Warmth invited one forward, beckoning with open arms to be caressed by the sun’s seraphic embrace. It was everything Jonathan had been missing, every bit of himself he’d lost now condensed into a single glimpse of the heavens. 

A cry shot out from the boy’s lips as he fell to his knees, and began to burn alive in the wake of the rising sun. 

.

Time felt slower, or perhaps Jonathan had just finally caught up to it. 

His body had stilled, and yet he felt energized at the same time. 

“Jonathan, mate…”

If he tried hard enough, he could hear a billion things at once. If he tried a little harder, he could focus on one sound, one heartbeat, one pump of blood through the arteries and into the bloodstream. 

“It’s almost night…”

His wounds had healed up quite nicely, but he didn’t like to think about why or how. Dead things shouldn’t be able to heal, and yet here he was. Dead, alive, and everything in between.

“Perhaps you could try again?”

He couldn’t stomach taking another sip from the glass, yet he knew he had to. The blood ran thick in his mouth, and he wanted to vomit everytime he felt it go down his throat. He didn’t want to think about where Speedwagon got it from, what mangled trauma could be found if you searched long enough under the layers of clothing the thug wore. 

Only demons drank blood. Only demons would hurt others, use something so twisted as their own teeth to leave imprints of their impurity upon another’s flesh. Only demons cowered under the watchful eye of god and his celestial guards that made up the sun. Only demons could climb their way out of hell and back into life. Only Jonathan could do that.

“Jonathan?”

Only Jonathan.

Speedwagon was tired, far too tired and worn out to still be waiting around for the young lord to come to his senses. He yearned for the comfort of a bed his own, for the solace his corner of Ogre Street offered as the setting sun washed over the effervescent sky in shades of pink and violet. However, what he truly desired more than all of that was to see Jonathan’s eyes. He couldn’t quite understand why, but he wanted to see those clear blue waters twinkle in the reflection of the light; to crinkle in the corners as the young man laughed, the sound like a bubbling brook while pebbles skipped across the running waves. 

He’d heard Jonathan’s laugh briefly, for a fleeting moment in time the night before. All Speedwagon wanted was to hear it again, to know that the one who spared him and his family was happy and well… and yet , why? Why did he care so bloody much about this random brat, this lordling barely worth his salt? Why did he so gravely, so desperately want to help out the starlight boy who’d accidentally stumbled into the shadows of night? It was all quite infuriating to comprehend, but Speedwagon filed it away for a later date to fuss over. It wasn’t the best of times at the moment, not when he was trying to raise Jonathan’s spirits and get him out of this damn room. 

“I wish I knew what was going on in ‘yer head,” Speedwagon murmured, more to himself than anyone else. He didn’t even intend for it to be said, just something kept hidden within the recesses of his mind. 

Jonathan still heard it though, a melancholic frown taking form on his lips as he leaned his head back against the murky brown wall. “Speedwagon, why are you even still here?”

“Pardon?” The thug replied, his tone acting as though it weren’t the most obvious reason in the world.

“Why have you stuck around this long? I hurt you, a-and I’m no longer human.” Jonathan’s eyes fell shut as he tried to quell the waver in his voice. “I’m a monster.”

Why did he stick around? “Well,” Speedwagon reasoned with himself as he shifted over and sat beside Jonathan, “If I didn’t, who would? I don’t know much about you mate, but I reckon there’s not many in this world you can depend upon. People need other people, y’know?—“

“But I’m not a person anymore,” Jonathan said, his gaze snapping open and boring into Speedwagon’s soul. There was so much plea, so much pain that Jonathan was begging, aching for someone to take away. The thug was entranced by the lord’s solemn eyes, by the centuries worth of dolor and misery circulating within whirlpools the color of moody blues. 

Speedwagon willed himself to look away, a stern grimace sifting across his features as he rose from the bed. “Perhaps not human, much as it pains me to say, but you’re still every bit a person. And a good person, at that.” 

Jonathan set the now empty cup down on the nightstand, letting his fingers uncurl from around the glass and trace the rings of aged wood. He looked like he wanted to say something, or maybe say nothing at all. Speedwagon couldn’t quite tell.

“I want to go home,” The Joestar mumbled under his breath. 

Speedwagon sighed and peered out the curtains, watching as the final slivers of sunlight faded away behind cobblestone buildings. “Like I said before, we can try again.”

“ We?” Jonathan parroted, an empty chuckle following in suit. “I don’t want you to burden yourself with me anymore. Everything having to do with my brother and father are matters I need to deal with, not you… You have a family outside these doors you’re lying to, and why?” Another hollow laugh. “For me? Mr. Speedwagon, I don’t want you to get wrapped up in affairs that’ll hurt you in the long run.”

Speedwagon looked down, observing the way Jonathan fidgeted with his hands. It was so strange seeing someone so burly act in this manner, nervous and almost afraid of the world around them. It only fed the thug’s ever growing curiosity regarding the young Joestar. “Why do you care so much about me getting hurt, hm? If we ought to be just strangers, then you shouldn’t get your feathers so ruffled over what I do.”

Jonathan looked up, his brow quirking down as he pulled at the base of his fingers. “What do you mean by that?”

Speedwagon reached out, hesitated, then pulled his hands back against his sides. He wondered how eyes could shine so bright, when the candlelight around them was so very dull. “It means that I’m no burden to you, mate, and you’re no burden to me. So it shouldn’t bother you quite so much if a bloke such as myself wants to take a trip to the countryside and happens upon, say… the arrival home of a great lordling to the Joestar manor?”

Jonathan couldn’t tell if Speedwagon was joking. He couldn’t tell if this was a sick joke being played at his expense, a way to further the existential dread slowly eating away at him. Speedwagon had been right, Jonathan never really felt like he had anyone on his side. He did, once, but Dio was always one step ahead and ready to take everything away. That’s probably why he was so ambivalent to let Speedwagon tag along with him— that, or maybe because the situation was so far out of the realm of reality Jonathan had been in just a day before. 

“Mr. Speedwagon,” The boy said, trying to ignore the hollow in his chest or and the caterwaul in his head, “I implore you not to come along.”

The thug lifted his shoulders in a carefree shrug, but Jonathan could sense the prickle of fear rising in the air. “Well, I implore you to wash yourself up, we can’t have you going back home looking like that.”

It seemed to Jonathan, as he sputtered to find the right words to respond with, that Speedwagon wasn’t going to be taking no for an answer. Well, he stubbornly thought to himself, neither was he. 

Chapter Text

There were two types of people in this world. Those who were handed things in life, and those who fought to possess their keep every waking second of the day. It was hard to unlearn the ferocity that sewed itself into your skin, the borderline savage nature that clung to the smell of your lower class fabrics and concealed itself in the silhouette of your shadow. 

No matter how hard one tried, old habits would always die oh so hard. Especially those that helped you live in a cold, unforgiving world for so long. 

Dio knew of the supernovas that collided in his veins; knew of how they sang hymns and wrote poems using the white hot ink of his blood and the sound of his beating, blackened heart. He had to drain it of its color in order to survive all those years ago. Bringing the red hue back into his life proved difficult, from settling into a world that promised no more cold nights and struggles for food to a very long lesson on how to keep his emotions in check while residing in the Joestar household. He was still feral, still savage, and still nowhere near as cordial as he should’ve been. Dio knew this, and he trained himself to revel in the inhumane nature survival of the fittest had brought him. 

It’s what his father would’ve done, anyways. 

But that color did come back into his life, and it did so in the form of fists. Fists covered in red dyed leather, strapped around wrists that connected to hands Dio swore could never do wrong. Then came those fists without the boxing gloves, without the restraints and without the pull of sophisticated life tugging them back down to the ground where they belonged. Jonathan Joestar had ascended above all Dio could’ve ever imagined and more, using his anger as both a weapon and a paintbrush to color the Brando’s world in a deep, dark crimson. 

They said that blood was thicker than water. What did that truly mean, though? Dio couldn’t comprehend it.

He wasn’t dumb or anything, but that saying absolutely shattered him inside. What did it mean? Family was blood, but that blood never gave him anything but strife. Blood ruined him. George acted like Dio was blood, when really he was ice cold water running rampant in the Joestar family's veins. 

He was kind to Dio of course, but he was obligated to. There was no other reason for his hospitality. There couldn’t be another reason, one such didn’t exist. 

Dio hated the Joestars. It was obvious, and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, it was always visible on the surface of his amber eyes. He hated them because they were born into everything he couldn’t have, everything his father would never receive and everything his mother never had a chance to possess. He despised his father above all else, but Jonathan had gradually been climbing the ranks ever since they were kids.

It was Jonathan’s blood that Dio detested most. His relations to a world far beyond anything Dio’s life would’ve ever achieved if he had not joined their family. Dario Brando was a lot like Jonathan and George on the outside; someone who played caring and who feigned kindness. But Dario grew up poor, poor and hateful and spiteful which made Dio all the same. Dio wondered if his life and his emotions would be different if he were born to the Joestar name. 

He also wondered if stars had families. He wondered if stars bullied other stars, killed their dogs and poisoned their fathers in some slim chance of proving that they were a better star than all the others. That the atoms caught in the interstellar gasses which created him were enough to make him a North Star, too. 

Better yet, if it were enough to prove him a Sirius. 

All he needed to do for this to become a reality,  was make sure that no one saw the debris his supernova of a brother had left behind. 

.

Jonathan’s eyes followed the long tail of Canis Major, treading up the constellation’s slight curvature before meeting the blazing brilliance of its center point star. He instinctively reached out and pressed his fingers against the carriage windows, tapping his index finger against the cool pane. His touch lingered over Sirius, but then a tree blocked his view and soon an entire manor plunged his sight into formidable darkness.

“You alright?” Speedwagon murmured beside him, hat tipped low to cover his features. Even without seeing the other’s face, Jonathan could sense the worry quivering behind the thug’s facade of an exterior. 

“I’m not sure,” Jonathan admitted, letting his gaze fall into his lap. What was he to do once all this was over? Accept the cruel reality that time no longer belonged to him? That his life had been stolen in the same way his youth and his past and his future had been? How was he to go about his days with an undying thirst for a taboo only demons partook in? 

His skin crawled, colder than ever before but tingling with an uncomfortable itch that only grew worse as time went on. His eyes saw everything and nothing at once, honed in on the slightest of details that made up the red carriage walls while simultaneously flickering over to the inky black night that awaited outside. His mouth was beginning to feel sore, and he wanted to spit out whatever was causing it so. His nose could smell a million things at once, and he found it impossible to sit still. Father would surely notice something was wrong with him, even if he paid so little attention to Jonathan to begin with.

Speedwagon cleared his throat, scratching at his neck before tipping his hat down further and stepping out of the carriage. He walked around and away from Jonathan’s view before opening the Joestar’s door. A small smile graced the thug’s lips as he motioned for Jonathan to exit. “Everything will be alright mate, promise.”

Jonathan liked how comforting Speedwagon’s words felt, even if he didn’t truly believe in them. 

The air around the manor felt off, something that made the hairs on the back of Jonathan’s neck stand on end. He couldn’t quite pin down what it was, but he didn’t like the atmosphere of the building that towered over them, of the home he once cherished and yearned to come back to. In that moment, he headed towards it with a newfound reluctance.

As they entered inside, a sort of nostalgic feeling swarmed Jonathan. It was warm inside, warm and cozy and full of memories that he was beginning to realize were now lost to time. Every occasional moment where his father wasn’t ashamed of his biological son, every long night where he’d work tirelessly on college essays and archaeological studies, even the rare tranquility of a moment spent with Dio where he could convince himself that they were finally getting along. These thoughts consumed the lord alive… or dead? It was all still very confusing.

The silence was suffocating. Both men were stiff and on guard as they surveyed the dark corridors and spacious foyer. Jonathan was so engulfed in his memories that he almost didn’t hear the faint click of a gun.

The Joestar pushed Speedwagon behind him right as a hoard of men came barreling down the stairs and out from under the stairway. The thug protested as men grabbed him and Jonathan from behind, the barrel of multiple guns directed point blank at their foreheads. Jonathan smelled fear, but also, blood. It smelled familiar . 

“What is the meaning of this?” Speedwagon cried out, wrestling against the men restraining him. He noticed how the lordling did the same, yet it seemed as though he were struggling to process everything going on. That, or struggling to do something that the thug couldn’t identify. “Explain yourselves!”

“Jonathan Joestar,” a low voice rumbled from the crowd. The voice didn’t receive any visible answer, but stepped forward nonetheless. It was the chief of Scotland Yard, a man Jonathan’s father knew well. A man who reeked of blood stained clothing. A man who wore another man’s blood on his chest. “You are under arrest for the murder of Lord George Joestar. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law.”

Speedwagon’s eyes widened, the thug tripping as he was pushed forward to stand side by side with Jonathan. It was here that he could get a close look at the young lord’s gaze, could lie witness to the words contorting and configuring in those azure irises. They were both panicked, that much was noticeable— however, that was where all similarities had died off.

Jonathan stared with dinner plate sized eyes, lips slightly parted as though he wished to say something. His figure was stiff against the men holding him down, and his midnight bangs fell over his face in a way that hid the twitch of his brows. 

“… What?”

The air grew cold when the words left Jonathan’s mouth, but he didn’t sound at all as startled as Speedwagon had expected him to. He merely sounded… curious.

“Don’t play dumb,” the cop grumbled, “Eye witnesses placed you here one day ago and saw you leaving the manor before returning in the dead of night. They caught you heading towards your father’s chambers, and when they went in to check on him, he was dead.”

“B-Bullshit!” Speedwagon cried out, yanking restlessly against his cuffs. “I was with this lad for all of last night and day! My mates can attest to this, he’s got a rock solid alibi that proves he wasn’t here!”

“P-Plus,” the thug continued, growing more worried by the second when Jonathan didn’t seem to give much of a reaction. “The young lord was looking for medicine all the way in downtown London, and I-I took him to a shop so he could purchase some for his father! How could he have killed his own flesh and blood if he was out buying medicinals to save his life?”

“Silence!” The officer demanded, pointing his gun in the direction of the two. He cocked it to the side, an unspoken gesture for the lord and thug to be escorted off the premises.

Jonathan kept his head low as Speedwagon struggled beside him, a caterwaul of thoughts banging around in his head as he used all his might to stay calm. He did not kill his father, this was not happening, he was not dead, he was not gone, nobody was gone— Jonathan was not dead. 

“Jonathan.”

Those ice blue eyes darkened to a near black as he froze in place, giving the officers a struggle to drag him along. He looked over his shoulder, wincing at the flame of a lantern dangling in his direction. Behind the glow was a face, one he knew all too well. One with hands that reeked of the same blood as the chief. 

“Dio.”

Dio’s sunkissed irises shone an unfamiliar expression, something akin to surprise and almost.. terror. He released a breath he’d been holding in, attempting to regain his composure as he stared down at the living corpse that was his brother. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

He was supposed to be dead.

That lock of eyes was the thing to send Jonathan over the edge.

He was the absolute destruction of the universe, of time itself as he broke free and stormed over to Dio. Guns were pulled back out and the lantern fell from his brother’s hands as the lord slammed him against the wall. Tears dropped from Jonathan’s eyes, thick like diamonds as his hand wrapped around Dio’s neck. The contact of skin on skin hurt Jonathan more than it did Dio, sent alarm bells off in Jonathan’s head and not Dio’s. He wanted to pull away and apologize profusely, but told himself he couldn’t when he knew that there was more to the story than the officers were letting on. 

“Where’s father?” He murmured, so quietly Dio almost didn’t hear it.

The blonde just stared at his family, his flesh and blood only by name that he’d tormented for years on end. Dio would never admit to it, but his life had flashed before his eyes. Every moment spent terrorizing Jonathan, all the childhood lost to time he’d taken in his crusade to riches. All the horrors he’d committed to survive in this cruel and unforgiving world. 

“It really was you… that I saw last night…” Dio hoarsely whispered, clasping at the hand around his neck. His skin was turning a disgusting shade of blue-grey, one that made Jonathan sick to his stomach as he pulled away. The Brando was quick to shove Jonathan off of him, rubbing red raw at the pink print staining his ivory skin. He visibly hated how cold those hands were, which Jonathan supposed made two of them.

“Y-You were there…” Dio sputtered through a cough, attempting to maintain contact. He never had this sort of problem, it was always Jonathan. “You were the one… who killed.. Father…”

“I didn’t,” Jonathan begged, prayed, even. He wasn’t sure who his pleads were being sent to, but he hoped in desperation that they were true. “I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill Father, you have to believe me—“

“But you did,” Dio said, pushing Jonathan back into the grasp of Scotland Yard. There was something almost akin to sadness in Dio’s ember eyes, a meloncholy look he’d lacked when he stabbed Jonathan to death only a couple nights before. “You did kill him, you bloody demon!” 

The blonde’s voice lowered, and as it did so,  he stared at Jonathan with teary eyes and a quivering lip. “Not even I would’ve done so in the way you did.” 

Chapter Text

It keeps saying my chapters are being posted all the way in July or October of last year and I’m just like bro what so this is a test chapter to see what’s going on <3

Chapter Text

Who killed George,

A powerful lord such as he?

Who killed him,

A man with wealth that all would like to see?

Who killed Lord Joestar, himself?

Was it his sons?

No, it couldn’t have been.

But he’s dead.

Either poisoned, or murdered.

A slow and painful death, or one quick and clean.

Who did it?

Who killed their father?

The son he bore?

Or the son he liked more?

Who  killed their father?

Who killed their father, their father, their father—

Their father, their father, their father, their father, their father, their father, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, Father, I killed him, I killed him, I killed him, I killed him— I did it, I did it, oh god I did it, why did I do it, I did it, oh god, oh god please, I DID IT, I—

No. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t. He did.

He’s the one who killed him. 

It was he.

.

Jonathan didn’t remember how it happened. All he knew was that he had Dio face down against the floor, a bloodied mess of red, red, red . The blonde stabbed the lordling deep in the sternum with the same knife he’d used a few nights ago, back when he thought it had offed his brother.

“I did not kill Father!” Jonathan yelled in Dio’s face, fist connecting hard with his chin. “You were the one poisoning him before all of this, perhaps you murdered him in cold blood!”

Dio grunted and kicked Jonathan off of him, tackling him to the ground as he stabbed him once, then twice, then a third time for good measure. “No I did not— and even if I did, I at least wouldn’t bleed him dry like you did, you bloody demon!”

Officers didn’t know what to do, they feared the weapon in Dio’s hands and the monster that was Jonathan, guns shifting left and right as some of them attempted to tug the men off each other.

Jonathan’s hands were shaking. He hated how he was acting, the monster he was becoming. He hated putting his hands on Dio, but it was deserved, after everything Dio had done to him he deserved it, he deserved a slow and painful death—

Jonathan rolled off of Dio and blocked the knife as it lunged towards his heart. This wasn’t Jonathan, these thoughts weren’t him. He feared them, almost as much as he had feared Dio all throughout their childhood. All the years, all the times he’d grow tense around the Brando, frightened of him and what he might do, those were who Jonathan was. The skittish lordling terrified of his brother’s looming, black matter shadow. 

But Jonathan felt cataclysmic. He felt like he was on the brink of explosion, the rush of adrenaline and pour of ferocity through his veins made him see red, red, and only red . 

“No!” Jonathan cried out, confusing Dio as the Joestar pushed off of him. He had a million things he wanted to say, a million apologies he wanted to spew and a million questions he needed to ask; but rather than leave any time for things to be uttered, Dio took off running. 

Who could blame the Brando? To all else, he was merely escaping to protect himself— which he was, but it was seen out of fear. Fear for the monster that was his brother. For the monster that was Jonathan.

Jonathan followed in pursuit, startling at the rain of bullets that came from behind. He swerved to avoid whenever he heard them flying by, trying to remain calm as he turned a corner and ran up a flight of stairs to catch Dio. The golden haired man was trying to lock himself in Jonathan’s study, the scraping of wood against the floor indicating a barrier was being put into place. The lordling grunted and slammed his shoulder against the door, banging over and over again until the wood began to break under his touch and the ground became putty for him to push back against.

The door gave in with a final desperate shove, desk falling face down as Jonathan pushed through the wooden splinters and looked around. Dio was nowhere to be found, but rainwater poured in from an open window. Chills slithered down Jonathan’s side as he saw fingers clutching onto the windowsill one moment, then gone the next. He sprinted over and almost fell straight through, gripping tightly onto the edge as he pulled himself back in. There, he saw with widened eyes, Dio climbing down the rooftop, his clothing drenched and his gaze frantic as his head tilted up to see Jonathan.

Lightning shot off in the distance, and when the sparks of white finally faded out, Dio slid himself down and disappeared under the roof tiling.

Jonathan quickly followed suit.

As the lordling slid down the tiles he caught a glimpse of Dio running into the woods, the stone mask and some papers secured under his arm. The rain continued to pour down harder and harder as he sprinted to catch up, realizing it wasn’t that difficult to do so with his new abilities. Faster than the speed of light, Jonathan managed to tackle Dio down into the mud, the two rolling down a small hillside that subsequently left the papers scattered in the process.

The lord didn’t want to hurt his brother, far from it. These intrusive, invasive feelings weren’t who he was, they were a separate entity that Jonathan had begun to fear. He feared them almost as much as he feared Dio, but at the same time he didn’t fear Dio, he was furious with him and wanted him gone— 

“Dio,” Jonathan croaked as he pinned down the blonde, “Please, I’m sorry, please let’s just talk—“

“Talk about what?!” Dio snarled, yanking to pull his limbs out of the Joestar’s grasp. “Talk about how you truly are the monster I always knew you to be?!”

“Monster?” Jonathan softly said, loosening enough for the sunlight boy to shove him away.

“Y-Yes, I knew it all these damnable years. My hatred for you runs deep, Joestar, deeper than the ocean and much farther than any known planet in the solar system. I loathe you, despise you, detest you even— but I tried to hide it, and for what?! For my drunkard of a father who wished for me to inherit your wealth? To become heir to a throne I don’t even want?! I could do far better than your abhorrent family name, and I was going to with that poison! I didn’t feel giddy with joy poisoning your father— he was going to feel better before his death! I was going to give him sedatives before his passing to ease it along! Or at least consider it.. That’s a far better gift than I’d ever give you or my own father, but then you came back from the dead and ruined things for all of us!”

Jonathan could tell Dio was deteriorating, scrambling to pick up the mask and any papers he could find as he continued to ramble.

The boy made of starlight and sunshine was quickly drowning himself within his own darkness as he spoke. “How are you even here now?! How? Is it— no, it’s the mask, isn’t it?”

Jonathan nodded as he tried to pick up the dirt stained papers with Dio, who did not seem to like the help in the slightest.

“Yes, I think so, I think that’s what caused this, but Dio please, let’s stop and talk at the very least, please.”

A curt ‘no’ was the immediate response. “Damn it all to hell, I’m taking your stupid papers and stupid stone mask and getting out of here. Fuck, how could you ruin things like this?!”

“I didn’t ruin a thing!” Jonathan argued back. “You were the one poisoning Father, and then you killed me in a drunken haze, rambling about humanity and how I messed things up for you!”

Did Dio not remember killing Jonathan? Or perhaps only remember short instances of it? He looked shellshocked when Jonathan first arrived, but the sheer lack of continuity confused the lordling. Dio clearly remembered that Jonathan died, that he was gone… did he remember killing him with the mask? Surely he did if he was collection the papers Jonathan had written?

“At least I’m consistent when I’m inebriated,” Dio responded as he shakily pulled the papers away from his brother. “I know you won’t kill me, you would’ve done so already, so please Jonathan, please just let me leave. You left your friend behind in the manor, did you not? I’m sure it would be unwise to keep babbling on when any second now things are going to go very south.”

Jonathan frowned at the insinuation that had been made as he took a step back. “Why would things go south, Dio?” Jonathan refused to touch Dio again, to lay his hands on the blonde in a way that could lead to harming him. 

“Well,” Dio huffed as he also took a step back, trying to regain his composure, “Since I’m now the only heir to the Joestar name, my first order of business was to get rid of the accursed manor that’s plagued me for much of my adolescence. To kill two birds with one stone, I added the patrolmen who tortured me in my youth as a boy in the slums. Favoritism runs deep, you know; almost as deep as my hatred.”

“Dio…” Jonathan warned, although he knew it wouldn’t do a thing.

The corner of the Brando’s lip quirked up, and he took off running once again.

Before Jonathan could follow, an explosion went off.

.

Will Zeppeli very nearly crossed paths with one Erina Pendleton that morning, but the two had just barely missed; like two incoming asteroids scraping along Saturn’s belt or Earth’s orbit. 

The baron was searching for a young graduate by the name of Jonathan Joestar. To his knowledge, it was the boy himself who approved of his university publishing his final thesis, a thorough study into the history of Aztec culture. 

The Aztecs had a tale about the creation of life, of how it was interconnected with death. The world was born, then killed off, then born over again. The two danced together five times in total, although Zeppeli feared that the sixth waltz was coming. Something about Jonathan’s work stood out to him, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on why. It wasn’t exactly a paper about the Aztec deconstruction of ex nihilo creation myths, rather it was the physical remnants of their ancestry left behind. Specifically their masks.

Trudging through the mud, Zeppeli made his way up to the front of the Joestar manor, a pile of debris that once stood proud among the land. He reached down and touched the ashes, feeling the distant life that once inhabited the place. Even if ash itself wasn’t a physical being, or a being at all, it told a story. A story about a family and their servants, about a boy who fell in love with the mystery of a stone mask. A boy who was now dead. 

Or at least, that’s what the papers reported. The story of the Manor left everyone in town shocked, heartbroken, and wondering who was to blame. Who could ever kill another human being, especially one as prosperous as the Joestars? As philanthropic, as kind and giving as Jonathan? Oh, how the townspeople sang hymns about that boy.

“I remember he was the best of friends,” one man mourned.

“Ay, remember how we’d always go boxing with him?”

“And how we’d all have a good laugh pretending not to hear him?”

“Yes, he’d get so mad he’d turn red, that Jonathan…”

“I wonder what that country girl thinks of all this…”

“That Erina…”

.

Erina felt strongly about the incident at the Joestar Manor.

She threw up in fact when she heard the news.

Her mother rubbed her back, whispered soothing words while her father read the paper aloud. 

“Can you bloody well believe it?!” Her father exclaimed, “The yard says it was a freak accident, but I heard rumor half their men were there when the fire happened!”

“Oh yeah?” Her mother absentmindedly called, tending to her poor daughter and her poor illness. Whatever could have caused such a thing? “How’d you learn that news, dear?”

“Saw them heading up the way last night! Saw it with my own two eyes, then I talked to the servants and they said they saw the same thing.”

Erina’s mind was plagued with midnight blue hair and baby blue eyes, but her vision was assaulted with technicolor vomit. She didn’t even eat that much the night before.. 

Later that morning, the Pendleton girl visited the manor’s charred remains, and there she sat for the next few hours. It was a pathetic sort of sight, really, but Erina didn’t feel pathetic at all. She read her books as best she could, finished all the embroidery projects she’d neglected, just trying to ignore the way the ashes blew her direction, or how she could still make out the framing of the front door. She tried to forget about the way Jonathan would leap up to smack the top of the frame whenever he left the house, how he would tackle her down and use her petticoat as cushioning for the two, how he would bask in the sunlight and live in the now. 

But this was the now, not those pesky memories. The now was death, and yet Erina couldn’t accept it. 

She fell asleep under a tree, relatively close to the manor but far enough away that the wind didn’t have some vague direction it could puff remains into her eyes. 

The sky began to paint a rosy pink when the sunlight was suddenly blocked from her body. She couldn’t see the veiny red in her eyelids anymore and so she woke up, blinking a few times before fully startling awake.

A man stood before her, wearing a coat far too big for his stature and a hat angled oddly over his face. He had a lot of hair, like straw spilling from a scarecrow’s head, and a scar adorned his features. He looked her up and down, seeming to size her up in scrutiny.

“You’re the Pendleton girl?” He asked.

She didn’t nod or shake her head, chest rising and falling quicker as the seconds passed. 

“You’re the Pendleton girl, are you not? Got the crest on your cloth.”

Erina looked down, and there it was: etched into the handkerchief peeking out of her basket. She sealed the lid and looked up, pursing her lips as she tried to find the right words to respond with. Something snappy, she told herself. Something to scare him away .

“So what if I am?” Good try, Erina.

“Well,” the man responded, reaching down to grab her basket. Erina called out but to no avail, trying to yank it back. His firm was grip though, and he had a look of determination in his orange, almost red eyes.

The faint remnants of sunlight glistened off of the brooch on his coat lapel, the Joestar insignia blinding to Erina’s teary gaze.   

“Mr. Joestar’s looking for you.”

Chapter Text

Omg for some reason I’ve been getting hella comments on this fic lately… I have a chapter I never posted… might do so soon…

Chapter Text

The Pendleton fortune was an heirloom built upon the backs of porcelain dolls and children’s tea sets; raggedy yarn hair and fluff stuffed toys stitched together by nimble fingers taught under Morena Pendleton’s watchful eye. She was the shadowy puppeteer pulling the business’s strings, but of course, a woman like her was born too early to truly stretch her wings and take flight among the big birds. Her husband was considered the sole proprietor of their family name and their family business and the contracting and the shipment and all the other business spew, but Morena worked close by, never turning away. That was until she had Erina, a decision she never once regretted, but often pondered on.

Morena loved her daughter, but to have a child was to lose her freedom, or so the story goes. What little autonomy she had was now soiled under the tiny baby boots her newborn daughter wore, now dimmed beneath the bright sheen of her summertime locks and weathered away by her sky blue smile. Morena loved her daughter, but despised her foreseeable circumstances.

Erina knew she’d ruined her mother’s life.

Inadvertently, yes— but ruined, nonetheless. She wasn’t stupid, just a bit naive. Just a bit of a daydreamer and a poet, a muse’s muse and a Pandora’s Box sitting on shelves with her family’s brand stamped across her back. A jack in the box perhaps, one wound up and ready to blow. She never meant to take away her mother’s freedom, to cut short her connection to the business she loved, but Erina always seemed to be the one at fault. That’s how the Pendleton offspring saw herself: the heiress of misfortune.

It was her fault that Jonathan had died, after all. That she was sure of. Some cruel, convoluted twist of fate was the reason she had to trek through the slums of Ogre Street and step over piles of trash to find the corpse of a lover who never lived to his fullest potential. Dare she even call Jonathan a lover? The thought made her face burn red but her heart yearn in shades of black and blue. His hair, his eyes, his life. But then her vision shone with gold, and she had to stop in place.

Pale yellow, golden glow, amber eyes and an ivory bite. That’s what she remembered whenever Jonathan came to mind. It’s why she stopped visiting him, why she averted her gaze whenever he came by. Because the boy made of starlight had a brother made of sunshine, and Erina never understood why man wanted to stand too close to the sun. Daedalus and Icarus and Brando.

Dio Brando.

Only Morena believed Erina when she confessed to what he’d done, how the bastard son dug his talons into her flesh and pressed her into the dirt. A predator on display, with hawk eyes and sharp teeth that she could still sometimes feel upon her lips. Her father might’ve believed her— if Erina had the strength to tell him, but she just couldn’t. She couldn’t.

Mother forbade her from seeking solace in the arms of a Joestar, and Erina agreed to it, for Mother knows best and Morena knew her daughter’s feelings best, too. She knew Erina didn’t want to run the risk of seeing Dio ever again, and she didn’t want to put her daughter through that torment anymore. However, nothing was done in retaliation to Dio’s actions— because nothing could be done. On the one hand, Erina didn’t want it getting out past her mother, her friends who swore not to utter a word but didn’t believe her in the same breath, and her stuffed animals that sat knowingly atop the dresser her father had bought for her. To utter it into existence in the presence of constables and jurors was to will into being a newfound perception of both her and Dio. A harlot, that’s what she would become. A siren who lured in the Brando boy. Who forced him to attack her.

On the other hand, society would never listen. Society would never care. And society wouldn’t dare do anything for the small girl stuck within the confines of her own mind, a prison blurry and blackened out with events she sometimes wasn’t even sure actually happened. “You’re trying to push the memory away,” her mother had said at the time, lying beside Erina in her king sized bed. There was plenty of room for the two to have their own space, but she curled around Erina’s frame, shielding her daughter from the outside world. “Sometimes it’s all I can think about,” Erina said in response, muffled by the fabric of her pillow.

“Both are common, my love.”

“Is feeling like a ghost common, too?”

“Most definitely so.”

“I wish I was a different sort of ghost.. I’m a ghost of my former self, but I want to be the dead sort.. the kind that’s free from this mortal plane..”

Silence.

“I wish it never happened.”

“As do I, my love.”

Erina trudged along behind Speedwagon, staring intently at his back. The wooden basket she’d brought earlier in the day bounced repeatedly against her hip, a jangle of tiny objects and even tinier intentions. Erina felt small after what Dio had done to her, but never again.

Never again.

She could hate herself all she liked for ruining her mother’s life, for ruining Jonathan’s life— but she would never hate herself for something a scourge like Dio did.

Erina slid her frostbitten fingers into the folds of the basket she’d managed to yank away from Speedwagon, feeling the worn leather of her book and the soft cluster of fabric crumbled within. The cold nipped at her cheeks, but the prick of a needle cut far worse, causing her eyes to flutter and her lips to purse. She slid out the thickest of her needles, tucking it between her index and middle finger like a claw emerging from her knuckles. Like a talon ready to strike.

“Pardon, sir,” Erina said, finding her voice surprisingly hoarse from not speaking the entire time. She delicately cleared her throat, then spoke again. “How far along must we go? And how exactly do you know Jonathan Joestar? You aren’t the company I’ve known him to keep.” That was a bold-faced lie and Erina knew it; Jonathan would keep any company if he deemed them kind enough, but she wanted to sound her title and fortune, so snootiness was a necessity right now. “And how do you know he’s alive? News said he… that he..”

“That he died,” Speedwagon cut in, running coarse fingers over the lining of Jonathan’s jacket. He slid up along the lapels, towards his neck, then stopped. “A bold-faced lie.”Just like the one she made. “The only surviving witness of the event is the one spreading that news, a son of a chap who wishes to remain anonymous. And yet,” he tipped his hat at Erina, and she got the feeling he knew of the sewing needle in her hand, “I’m sure you know who’s weaving the story.”

A face came to mind, but surely… surely not. Surely Dio wouldn’t go this far with something…

As if on cue, Speedwagon nodded.

The two made their way down a tight corridor, the walls musty and gray, the floor dirty and lifted. Erina almost tripped over a nail in a broken board. She held her basket tighter, finding comfort in the groves of wicker and the way they winded around the handle. It was familiar, a family owned basket. A family owned product.

Sometimes Erina felt like a product.

Not just a product of her mother and father, but a manufactured good for the purpose of their business. The Pendleton fortune was an heirloom built upon the backs of a golden haired girl and the sorrows she cast over her mother. The ignorant father, a mere pawn in this game of cosmic bodies, divinities who could never be fully recognized by the common folk. Those who worship the corporation over the artisan.

Erina squared her shoulders and continued on, stopping only when Speedwagon stopped. She would be confident, she’d be a strong Pendleton woman. If slander is what Dio had decided to throw, then fine. She could handle slander. If Dio decided to burn down the Joestar estate, then fine. She could handle fire. It was definitely a jump to get from point A to point B, but Erina could make it. She’d be whatever Jonathan needed at that moment. Even if she hadn’t seen him in a long time. Even if it felt sinful to disobey her mother’s words.

“Alright,” Speedwagon muttered, fingers trailing down the edges of the lord’s coat. He shrugged it off, fixed his hat, and glanced over at Erina with an ambivalence she’d never seen before. “I only brought you here because of Mr. Joestar.”

“Clearly,” Erina piped.

Speedwagon curled a brow up, but that hesitance stood firm. “I don’t know you, you don’t know me. I was never with the Pendleton heiress, and you never saw the corpse of Jonathan Joestar, got it?”

Erina blanched. “C-Corpse? You said he was alive!”

Speedwagon shrugged, and Erina hoped he’d break out into laughter. Any minute now. Any minute he would call this a cruel Ogre Street prank.

The scruffier of the two opened the door, letting out any room there was for a joke to be made. When Erina stepped inside, she realized it was far too late to turn away.

Multiple candles surrounded a lone bed pushed to the center of the room. The faintest sight of bloodied bandages could be seen through the pitch black, but some were right in view of candlelight. All were stained brown and red. A horrific smell dominated the room, something charred and almost sickly sweet, pungent like forgotten vegetables but nauseating like old meat. A hulking mass laid on the bed like an examination table, stiff and unnatural. Erina discerned that that was meant to be her point of interest.

Shakily, she managed to put one foot in front of the other, reminding herself of her heritage. Pendleton heiress, daughter of Morena, she wasn’t some damsel in distress, just an idiot who let herself be lured to a secondary location. Oh God, Erina thought as she neared the bed. I’m going to die.

Speedwagon made a beeline for the other side, standing between two long candelabras. He looked down at Jonathan, his eyes glowing softly under the light. The lord was covered in bandages, but Erina could see bright pink flesh peeking out under a few strips.

“He’s not actually a corpse,” Speedwagon admitted, tending to the wet coils of gauze that melted into Jonathan’s skin. “Though that’s another thing the papers are spreading.“

“But I don’t understand,” Erina murmured, covering her face with her sleeve, “Why would Dio ever go to this extreme? It’s inhuman!”

Speedwagon’s frown managed to deepen. “I fear that’s precisely the point. Maybe he gets off on cruelty, maybe it’s just who he is. Whatever the case, there’s far more going on here than simply rivalries and assassinations.”

Since when did such matters become simple? Erina wondered as she examined the room. Off to the side, on a sad wooden table, were papers. Curiously, she went through them, and found a drawing. An illustration of a hollow face— perhaps a mask? “Look over ‘ere,” Speedwagon called. Erina reluctantly turned, watching as the rugged man lifted a knife to his wrist. Erina gasped, and against her better judgment, she leapt over to try and stop him. She didn’t know the man, yet she couldn’t let him injure himself!

Time felt like it slowed around Erina as she skirted around the table, knocking her basket against the corpse’s shoulder. A lone cross, simple in design, flew out of the opening, her fingers outstretched as a scream spilled from her lips. She grabbed the blade, but cut into her own flesh, instead. Hands engulfing the metal, Speedwagon startling, and a hulking mass rising from beyond the grave.

The last thing Miss Pendleton saw was her childhood sweetheart, devouring her like a predator to prey.