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Diego watched as the young jockey walked his horse off the track, grinning as he was congratulated by the other men. Diego snorted. He'd done that on Athena yesterday taking it easy. While Johnny wasn't a terrible rider, he was trying too hard. He wasn't a natural, but he was the boss's son so everyone had to dote on him. Diego, admittedly, did so too; albeit with a little less grace and more side-eye than the rest of them.
Diego checked Athena's saddle before mounting up on the dappled mare. He took a second to adjust himself once on the horse's back, mentally preparing for the lap. Envisioning the turns and the way he would shift his body accordingly.
"Beat that, Dio," Johnny said smugly as Diego passed him on his way to the track for one last practice lap.
Diego smirked to himself. Johnny Joestar could eat his dust.
"Go!"
Diego was off, crouching over the saddle, knees barely grazing the horse's back as he shifted with every one of her minute movements, smooth and natural, horse and rider as one.
The lap was over in the blink of an eye, and the man with the stopwatch called out his time.
"Eighteen seconds! Well done, Diego, you've been keeping your laptimes within one-to-two seconds difference all week."
Diego smiled, patting the horse on the neck. "Athena has a lot of promise as a real racehorse. She'll be a winner for sure."
"As will you if you keep it up, Diego," the trainer said sincerely as Diego dismounted, taking hold of the reins to begin leading Athena back to her stall. "You've already won by a wide margin in the smaller races you've been in. Mr. Joestar is talking about putting you in the big times."
Diego felt a well of pride form in his chest. There was something to be said about being around people who actually valued you for your talents.
"Kid has a lot of promise," one of the other men said as Diego started to walk back.
"Haven't seen that much talent since Master Nicholas," another stated.
Diego glanced back and saw Johnny standing off to one side of the track, holding his reins in a tight fist, knuckles white. It was another reward in itself knowing he had gotten under the little upstart's skin.
"Come on, beauty," Diego murmured softly to his horse as he led her back to the barn.
Once inside, he set about removing her tack, and currying the sweat and dust from her coat; a task that always managed to soothe him just as much as it calmed the horses.
Diego had always loved horses—a lot more than people for the most part. They were both quiet and powerful (reminding him a bit of someone he once knew) and if you were kind to them and took good care of them, they would be devoted to you for life.
It was his way with horses that had landed Diego the job with Mr. Joestar to begin with. He'd started as a hot-walker until the trainers had discovered he had a talent for racing. Not only did the horses trust him and work well with him, but he was the perfect build and naturally skilled in the art of racing. They said he had the kind of instinct that made horses trust a man because they knew they could get through to him.
He was just putting Athena back in her stall with some oats and a couple apple slices as a treat when he heard boots coming determinedly toward him.
Diego looked up with a slightly blasé expression as Johnny strode up to him, a dark look on his face, brows furrowed over stormy blue eyes.
"Why the hell do you always have to show me up like that?" he demanded.
"I'm not showing you up," Diego snorted. "You could easily achieve the same times with some adjustments to your technique—adjustments the trainers have mentioned on multiple occasions and yet you continue to ignore."
Johnny's face flushed in anger as he speared a finger toward Diego. "Just stay out of my way, okay?"
"Why? It's not my fault you can't make daddy happy," Diego replied. He knew he shouldn't have said it. He might get in trouble for talking to the boss's son like this, but someone needed to put the brat in his place before he got too big for his britches. So he dove in fully, deciding to bury the knife. "Your brother was better than you. That's just a fact."
Fire flashed in Johnny's eyes and his hands were suddenly gripping Diego's sweater, shoving him back against the post of Athena's stall, hard enough to bruise. The mare startled slightly, letting out a surprised snort.
"Don't you dare talk about my brother!" Johnny shouted, shoving him backwards again for good measure. "You don't have the right to mention his name! Until you've lost someone don't you dare pretend you know anything about me, got it?!"
Now Diego felt real fury creep into his veins. He brought his arms up between Johnny's and forced his hands off of him. "You don't know a damn thing about me and what I've lost," Diego growled.
Johnny took a surprised step back, seeming shocked. And true, Diego hardly ever showed this much emotion. He and Johnny usually kept it to snide remarks and fake niceties. But his past was admittedly a sore spot, and Diego had had enough of this brat's presumptions. He tugged his sweater back into place, glowering at the other boy.
"You have no idea what it's like to have to scrape by on pittance, to work non-stop all day for one cup of stew, to have your mother—" He stopped. Johnny didn't even deserve to hear about his mother, so he continued. "To have your father wish you dead the day you were born, and damn near make that wish a reality."
Johnny stared at him, finally seeming to be at a loss for words. Diego felt uncomfortable suddenly, knowing he'd said too much, gone too far. Now Johnny would probably go tattle to his father about everything. Let him. Diego wasn't exactly sorry.
He'd actually liked Nicholas a lot. The older boy had been kind to him when he'd first gotten there, and had even shown Diego some tricks. He could understand Johnny's bitterness and grief at losing his brother, but it still didn't give him the right to be an ass about it.
Johnny shook himself and finally looked down, fists clenched at his side. "Just…stay out of my way when I'm running laps, okay?" he said, starting away before he spun back around, a look on his face that Diego couldn't quite place. "And for the record, I do know what it's like for my father to wish me dead."
And then he turned around and hurried out of the stables, but not before Diego caught the brief glint of wetness in the corner of his eye.
He sighed, trying to calm himself down as he began to clean and put the tack away before checking on the other horses. Most of them hung their heads over the stall doors and whinnied in greeting as he passed. He reached out to pat the velvety nose of the dun stallion Eurus, another horse he trained with regularly. One day he would win a big race even if Johnny hated him for it. It wasn't Diego's fault that he put in the hours of training it took to be a real winner.
He finished up in the stables and then went up to his room in the apartments where he and the other trainers and grooms stayed. It was small, but comfortable and warm in the winter. It was better than anything he and his mother had had while he was growing up.
He still smarted from Johnny's assumption that he hadn't lost anyone. Who was he to assume that anyway? He didn't know anything about Diego, he had never bothered to.
Diego sat down on his bed and pulled his boots off before opening the drawer in his side table. He reached for the gold chain and pulled out the small object, setting it in the center of his palm.
The locket was slightly dented on the back, and some of the embossing had been damaged, but there was nothing more precious than this to Diego. He flicked the tiny clasp open, and inside saw the picture of his mother, faded with time, but immortalizing a young woman who had been the only support system Diego had ever had.
He still remembered when she had given it to him. She'd been sick in bed at the time, and Diego had been living with the certainty that she wouldn't be around much longer. He had tried to stay by her side as much as possible during that time, spending any extra money on medicine, despite her protests, though in the end it had done little good.
She had surprised him with the existence of the locket since he had never seen her wear it.
"It's too nice to wear while working," she had told him when he asked. "I should have sold it, but…I just couldn't bear to part with it. It was your grandmother's, you know. She never got the chance to meet you, but I know she would have loved you." She smiled as she handed it to Diego, setting the smooth gold into his small palm. "I want you to have it now. You can sell it if you want to, I won't mind, just promise you won't spend a penny of it on me."
"But, Mama…"
She smiled—beautiful even when so ill—and reached out to cup Diego's cheek. "I want you to have a better life than this one, Dio. You have talents and you are a very bright boy. Make something of the Brando name. Bring up your children in a real home. I know you'll go far, my dear boy."
Diego held the locket in his hand that night long after his mother had fallen back into a fevered sleep, and then he had clasped it around his neck and felt like he carried his mother's love and pride with him, tucked close to his heart under his shirt.
Now, while he was finally on his way to making something of himself, he snapped the locket shut again and clasped it around his neck, rubbing the familiar smooth gold through his fingers as he lay back on the bed.
"I will make you proud, Mother," he said quietly. "I promise you that."