1.
"The environment is hardly ideal, I know. I apologize. But... "
Click, clack, Dio's heels tap against the hard stone floor. Click. Clack. Click clack.
"I'm sure you'll forgive it, in time. If I had the time, I would have brought you elsewhere - to a more familiar landscape. Something more comfortable, perhaps, but... well. You'll understand soon enough."
The air itself is still and quiet, though. Poised. Waiting. As though the night itself is holding its breath.
Dio presses a long fingernail against his green-gloss lips.
He leans forward, one hand to either side of still, unmoving shoulders, and presses his lips against the forehead curve of hard, white bone. When he moves away, the surface bears the mark of his lips like a brand.
"Yes... I'm sure you'll forgive this undignified way of welcoming you."
The scent of blood is in the air. Dio leans closer.
"...JoJo."
2.
It's quiet there, the sailors had told him in their last moments. They swore it again, again, even as they steered their tiny boat away from the docks, toward the rocky, sandy shore, at his demand. His saviors. His salvation. They must have thought he was mad, clawing his way onto their tiny boat half-drowned and complaining of the noise and light so far from land. To human ears, there are few things more calming than the sea at night.
It's quiet. It's peaceful, they said. Dark. You can get away from the noise. No one will see.
That last part, at least, was true. No one saw them when they fell.
Even so, when Dio reaches the shore, lets Jonathon's ruined shoes sink into the sand, the air isn't peaceful, not at all. It is... cacophonous. He could bear, at least, the waves on the rocks, the shifting sand. But here, in the distance there is endless noise - the hum of civilization, the hum of voices and... something else. Something strange, like the grinding sounds beneath his feet in the little boat he'd sunk into the sea. Like the engine of a train, but smaller, and everywhere.
Yes, in the far distance, the noise of civilization buzzes and roars and it all echoes in his head and no, it isn't quiet. And no, it isn't dark.
Dio sheds his clothes there, on the shore - rotting silk and velvet fall, whisper-quiet, into the sand. And Dio hears that, too, even beneath the wailing of the tide. He keeps a single souvenir - a once white handkerchief marked with Jonathon's name, which he uses to tie back his unkempt, long and tangled hair.
Standing there, naked beneath the moonlight, he can hear everything. Sea birds and singing from the nearby town. He can smell the air - polluted? Filthy. Different, at least, from the air when he fell below... just like the water itself, filled with the trace scent of something wrong.
One day, it will be quiet again. He believes it because he has to, if only to stay sane. Yes, one day, he'll find the silence. But now...
"What is this world that I've awakened into?" He mutters the words beneath his breath, his voice still scratchy and rough from disuse. "Full of noise and sickening odors and..." ...the feeling that he is eternally surrounded by great, mechanical beasts, screaming in the distance.
"I wonder what you would think of it." Dio glances to a nearby boulder. Atop it sits a white skull, motionless, staring with empty eye sockets. And Dio's fingers drag across its surface, smearing the bone with blood, and dirt. They drag across the teeth there, the jaw bone, the black pits that once housed tissue and blood and brain and eyes and tongue and a million beautiful things. All gone, now, like the spirit of the man who had resided within them.
Gone... and yet, still here.
...here. Dio's fingers drag down his body, from the mangled skin of his neck to his bare chest - Jonathon's chest. Bony, for now - emaciated after God knows how long cannibalizing its original occupant's seemingly bottomless strength. If it weren't for that - for JoJo's youth and, ironically, the life-giving power of the ripple energy stored within him, Dio would never have survived his long imprisonment. Even so, time has bitten off its pound of flesh. Jonathon's muscular physique has turned to skin and bones, his massive hands to a sack of twigs. And the physical condition of a vampire is... set, in theory - the undead cannot change, will always draw back to the way they were on the day they "died." In time, when he has fed properly, when he has regained his strength, he will be as robust as Jonathon ever was.
But that could take months. A single glance in the mirror onboard the second boat had told him that much.
Still. Even now, these hands are bigger than the ones he'd had before. The bones are heavier, too, his fingers... longer, yes, but shorter proportionate to the rest of him. His body is taller, and wider, even in this condition. His center of gravity has changed, as well. And there is black hair scattered across these arms, these legs - nothing at all like the pale gold he'd been born with.
Just walking is strange - almost too conscious, as though he's just remembering how. It may well be the case. He barely remembers what moving felt like in the years before the sea.
Yes, everything is strange.
Strange and wonderful.
This alien flesh, these bones, this blood... thick fingers, dark hair, they are all... his. His prize. His victory.
"These were your hands, once, JoJo." Dio's voice is quiet, and it breaks when he says that name. And he drags his thumbs along the skulls' eye sockets, down its cheekbones, along its jaw, to the knot of bone that once connected Jonathon Joestar's head to the neck that is now Dio's. Carefully, he lifts the skull to his lips. Yes, careful. The teeth there are so hard, and the bone is so cold.
Dio kisses Jonathon's fleshless mouth with his parched lips.
Moments later, Dio's bare feet leave footprints in the sand as he heads toward town. The warm wind caresses his bare body, and he carries Jonathon's skull cradled carefully between his arm and his ribs. Soon the wind will wipe away those footsteps, and the sea will drag his rotted clothes back into its depths. Soon, there will nothing at all left to mark his passage.
He reaches town in a few minutes, and the streets are warm and hard beneath his feet. The first person to spot him stares for a moment, and then she laughs at the sight - too strange to be real - of a nude man cradling a skull. The laughter doesn't last for long. In an instant, her eyes stare, vacant, at the sky, and her face is pale and motionless. Dio licks a drop from his fingertips once his tentacles recede, and covers his eyes to blot out the glare of streetlamps.
There's nothing he can do for the noise - the footsteps, the laughing, the engines and music playing inside people's homes. The gasps and whispers when people notice him there. He hears the whispers - is that a costume, a nude swimmer? Did he forget his clothes? Are they filming a movie? ...what is he holding?
Someone asks him if he's on drugs.
Someone offers to contact help.
Someone threatens to call the police.
Dio ignores them as well as he can. He crosses the roads and walkways with his awkward gait. He ignores them so completely that he fails to register the screams of warning, or the bellowing horn, like the shrieks of an angry beast.
The massive metal contraption approaches him with a speed that defies logic. It has no horse to pull it, no apparent driver, and yet there it is. It's easy enough to step aside, but when the next such object approaches, he pushes himself from the ground and lands with a heavy thud atop the metal box. Inside, staring at him through glass, there is a man - a sack of meat and blood with a face that is rapidly turning white.
The box screeches to a halt just in time for Dio to reach through the glass with one blood-streaked hand, and grab hold of the human inside. And pull him through.
The glass cracks, and then gives, a spiderweb of shattered places spreading across the glass, which strangely does not fall apart. In his hand, the man writhes, and cries, and pisses in his pants.
Humans never change.
"What is this thing?" Dio leans close before he speaks. He can smell the blood in the air. A quick glance down tells him that this man is already dead - even if he doesn't realize it. A jagged piece of glass has lodged itself into his lower abdomen. The shock may protect him from the pain, but he'll die even so.
The man shakes his head, screams, tries to wriggle loose. Despite the glass embedded in his face, his hands... despite the danger, he's seems quite strong for a human.
...or, no, perhaps not. It's only that Dio is weak. But even at his most fragile, he is stronger than any living man.
The shattered glass around Dio's hostage creaks. Nearby, humans shout, they run. No one thinks he is a swimmer now. No one thinks this is a performance.
"What... is this thing?" Dio repeats the words, slowly, and as clearly as he can with his raw throat. "Where am I?" Or, no. A better question. "When?"
The man opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a gasp and a dribble of blood. Dio presses his lips together hard, and then leans forward. He licks the blood from the man's mouth - sweet, nourishing, even just that drop. He sets down his bony souvenir inside the ruined metal carriage - carefully, gently. Out of harm's way. And he stands atop the metal beast, listening to the screams, to the footsteps running away, carrying the sparse crowd in various directions. There are only a few - stragglers from the daytime, still going about their business even this late. Only a few.
And not one of them can run far enough, or fast enough, to escape.
The town is alive with the screams of the fleeing, but when he reaches the first bystander, the true screaming begins.
It's only a few minutes later when he pulls a newspaper from beneath the corpse of a waxy-white man. His fingers brush against the date. His eyes settle on the year, trying to understand it, and then to accept it.
1985.
...1985.
Dio stretches his arms, works the kinks from his neck and shoulders. The warmth of his prey floods him from the inside out.
This world is strange and different, now. And it's been so long, and he's missed so much.
Even so... he feels better, already.
3.
"1985."
Dio takes a seat again. The armchair is not unlike a throne - large and heavy, taking up a great deal of space. He had chosen it specifically for this occasion. One can't simply appear before a friend after so long without taking pains to make the right first impression.
"Yes, JoJo. You heard correctly. It was nearly one hundred years after our battle on that, the day I finally rose from the grave you buried me in. One hundred years of darkness and silence. One hundred years of nothing."
His voice is heavy, edged. But he takes a deep breath, stretches his arms in front of him. Pulls back his tone.
"...yet, I'm not angry. No. One hundred years is quite a while, it's true. But I, Dio, am eternal. One day, that time will be as nothing to me - a moment short as a heartbeat. One day, I'll barely remember it happened at all."
Perhaps.
...he had chosen the placement of the chair precisely, as well. From here he can watch closely - observe as flesh spills upward, crawling from the corpse to that skull in tendrils of red tissue. Watch as an empty skull and corpse join together to form a man.
"It wasn't long after that Enya found me. It was she who roused The World with the simple prick of a single arrow. One might think it was the commotion of my return, but I believe it was simply... destiny. Yes, it's true - I believe she and I were fated to meet. Without her, I could not be here."
Dio drags his fingernails down the motionless body's shoulder, down its arm. It's slimmer than his own - slimmer than Jonathon's had been. But only barely.
It will do.
"It would be difficult for me to explain The World to you. A being that is not a being. A part of me that lives outside of me... sometimes. One day, perhaps you'll have a Stand as well. Then, you would understand."
Jonathon Joestar, with a Stand. What an interesting thought. Dio chuckles.
"I wonder what it would be... and what you would do with it. Would you fight me again? Would we resume our war? I wonder."
A war, he thinks, wouldn't be so bad. He would even enjoy it.
In the end, it's better than nothing, isn't it?
4.
One of the first things he does is go home.
London has changed a great deal in the century Dio spent away. Rationally, that was only to be expected. Still, Dio can't help but find himself amazed at the myriad alterations. Macadam gave way to "asphalt." Carriages gave way to the metal carriages he now knows as "cars." The wooden signs that marked each shop became "nylon overhangs" while the stone became "neon." Theater melted into cinema. Now people play music from "records" and women who wore trousers and worked were the norm, and men painted their faces and danced to loud music from the inside of glass boxes.
There is noise everywhere, but eventually Dio learns to tolerate it, like the constant smell of chemicals and the smoke in the air.
London has changed, but the rolling hills and flat plains that are the former location of Joestar Manor have changed far less. The land remains empty but the ruins of his old home still stand, though long since overgrown. Initially, he's a bit surprised that no one has rebuilt the manor, or built atop it... but on second thought, that is no doubt attributable to Erina Pendolton - no, Erina Joestar's sentimentality. She would have inherited the land with Jonathon's death - the land, along with whatever remained of the Joestar fortune after their home and all their treasures burned away.
What happened to the titles, he wonders. To their bank vaults? To all those worldly things he coveted in his human life? All gone to her, he supposes, and then to whomever it is she left those things to, herself. A second husband, perhaps, or the children of another man.
In the end, his human ambitions had amounted to nothing. What a strange thought.
Near midnight, surrounded by wind and rattling trees, Dio sits on the ground. Around him, the hills are overgrown with grass, the trees with tangled vines. Above him a particular, familiar tree reaches upward, its leaves turning red and gold and its branches turning bare by the slow-encroaching winter.
Dio's hair is long and pale gold in the moonlight, falling over his shoulders in loose waves, or blown like strands of silk thread in the wind. He hasn't trimmed it since his return from the deep - there's something about it that he loves, or hates, too much to relinquish. It makes for a strange look, he expects, with the tailored jacket, the turtleneck he wears to cover his throat. At first, he tied it back, but now Jonathon's handkerchief stays, folded, in his pocket.
Dio taps his hand against the tree's trunk and says, "I believe this is the one."
It had been the branches of that tree that sheltered Jonathon during his youth. Dio remembers it well. He remembers that mutt of his playing near the river, and JoJo with his ridiculous pipe, playing at being mischievous. As though he knew anything at all about that. Dio remembers, too, watching him play with the girl who would become the Widow Joestar. He remembers that girl, closing her eyes as Jonathon brought her little gifts. That girl, ducking behind a tree as they played out their little mating dance.
"You were so obvious." Dio drags his fingers through the damp earth, through soil and pebbles and grass. "And that romance... so easy to break."
Except it wasn't, in the end.
The thought bristles. So Dio presses his lips together into a hard, thin line, and closes his eyes. Here, away from the city, it almost feels like he's home again - in time, as well as space. Here, he can ignore the slight wrongness of the atmosphere, the distant sound of life murmuring from afar, echoing in his inhuman ears. He can imagine that he is 20 again, and human, and-
(Yes, he's twenty, and when he opens his eyes, the manor will loom in the not-so-far distance. With his eyes closed this way, it's evening, and autumn. George Joestar is in his study, smoking, reading. JoJo is in the library, of course, bent over that mask, scribbling another note in his endless series of notes. Trying to unlock the artifact's secrets. Dio will need to study for his next exam - taking him one step closer to becoming a solicitor. And he's never taken a sea voyage. He's never seen true dark. And all of this has been a dre-)
"Jonathon!"
Dio's head jerks up at the sound of that name. And for a moment - just a moment - he is twenty again, and that girl is calling for Jonathon, and any moment now they'll appear atop the nearby hill.
But, the moment passes.
Dio stands, watching the ruins of the manor where two children - a girl and a boy - run through the flora that has made its new home there. Flowers grow in what was once the lounge. Vines twist around the ruined statue of the love goddess. Dio presses a hand to his chest, and in the distance, the girl calls that name again, Jonathon! And the boy turns to wave at her.
Jonathon.
A common enough name, in the end.
(Besides, the man Dio knew... he was never truly Jonathon, was he? No... he was only ever JoJo.)
Dio checks his watch. It's far too close to dawn, and he's found what he came for, he supposes. If he came for anything. He'd wondered about the land where he spent his youth, and what had become of it, and the ghosts of his past. Now he knows that manor still stands - as much as it did when he left it behind. Knowing that should feel like closure, but it doesn't. So, Dio stretches those long limbs, still slightly alien, and turns to leave, dragging his fingers along the tree's surface as he goes.
It's only then that he feels it - the vague edges of a tree carving, and of two names carved inside a heart. A proclamation that somehow survived when the man who wrote it, when the estate he should have inherited, and the marriage the message foreshadowed, did not. Words written a century ago.
Dio stares at the names in silence. Something black and sticky and cruel bubbles up inside his gut and out of his throat. He hasn't any word for it - that sick mix of anger and aching, longing. A feeling he's only encountered once before - the day he stepped onto the estate grounds for the first time and saw the way the nobility lived with his own eyes.
The first time he saw everything he'd been denied.
Dio digs his fingers into the bark and breaks the carving to pieces.
Hours later, he slumps in a reclining chair in the basement of a nearby home - newly devoid of living owners. Boxes stand, stacked in the far corner, and random things lie strewn across a nearby table. The basement does feature a lounge area and a small bar, but it's more a private space than one intended for company. There's an incessant dripping, too - the clipclop of water drops coming from the ceiling above. It's only water, he tells himself. As though he hadn't lived in fear of water for decades.
And Dio dislikes staying belowground - it feels suffocating and claustrophobic. Even with the dim overhead light burning, he half expects the shadows to close in, to solidify. But the sun is more dangerous to him than any shadow, more dangerous even than the shadows in his own mind, and the space is functional enough for a man in need of a refuge.
Dio pours a glass of wine and sits in the darkness, watching nothing. And he waits.
When daylight comes, he can tell easily enough by the tread of people walking nearby, and their cars, their softly bubbling conversations. Everything makes the ground shake, just a little - impossible to notice for most, but for him, it's equally impossible to ignore. Even if he is growing used to it, a bit at a time.
Dio sheds his jacket and pours a second glass.
It's on the third drink that he notices the mirror.
It stands in the corner of the room, half covered by a drop cloth. Judging from the heavy wood and intricate carvings of the round frame, it is likely to be a family heirloom. Once, he would have immediately wondered about its monetary value. But now, silhouetted by the dim light, his primary distraction is his own reflection. His own large hands and broad shoulders. His stolen beauty.
He still remembers when he first emerged, bone thin and weak. But now, months later, the body has returned almost entirely to its original state - strong and broad. Hard muscles, sharp edges.
Magnificent.
He tips his head to the side and pulls down the turtleneck, examining the as yet unhealed wound there - the raw demarcation point where his pallor meets Jonathon's warmer complexion. Something inside him recoils... but Dio only steps closer. He sets down the wine, and drags his fingers across the scar's length. His nails scratch lightly there, and there's blood on his fingertips now - just a tiny spot. He licks it away, his blood and Jonathon's intermingled, a mix both compelling and strange to his palate.
He pulls his shirt off, lets it fall to the floor, and his fingers pass over the flat plains of Jonathon's chest (his chest. JoJo's. Both. Yes.). His abdomen. Large hands caress the angles of his muscles, sharply defined as though carved from wood, or stone. Dio lets his hand move... down. Farther. Unhitching the button of his trousers, and pulling the zipper loose. Soon his feet are bare, too, flat against the basement floor. And Dio stands naked there, just as he had that first night on the shore... but the sight is quite different, now.
Jonathon had always been powerful, had been born to size and strength just as he had been born to wealth, to titles. Jonathon and his inheritances - that perfect physical specimen. That most privileged of children. That monster of a man.
"Yet, you lost, in the end," Dio says, his hand sliding over his abdomen again, and lower. He twists his fingers inside the coarse hair below - too curly, too dark to be his own.
"I remember, JoJo... I remember you at university. It took four men to slow you, then. You were an unstoppable force. Even in our battles, you were the same way. What other human could trade blows with a vampire and win?" The thought of it sends tingles down his spine, and a rush of blood follows, flooding him with desire - hot and suffocating.
Dio tips his head forward, lets the shadows engulf his face... and watches his hand (strange, disconnected) stroke his length. He shudders and gasps, as much from the sight as the feel of it. Those hands, and that body. Staring at his reflection, it's almost like seeing someone else, and yet still seeing himself. Jonathon and himself. Yes, of course, that's as it should be. They are, after all, one flesh.
The shadows are closing in. Aboveground, around him, he can hear the sounds of life, still, ever present. Nothing is ever silent, not to him. But for this moment, at least, it doesn't make a difference. And when it's over - when the pleasure breaks over him in waves, it's Jonathon's name that passes his lips.
5.
"I should apologize, JoJo."
Dio's fingers run across the surface of newly formed flesh - exposed muscle tissue, growing cartilage. He wasn't certain how long this would take, but it's taking longer than expected, even so.
But that's fine. It gives him a chance to talk.
"Yes, I should apologize. I ought not have ruined your little tribute to young love. It offended me, and so I destroyed it. I didn't stop to wonder whether such actions would offend you.
"Even I, Dio, can make such a simple mistake when my mind is muddled by emotion.
"Things are always clearer, though, once one realizes their desires and accepts them.
"And you will forgive me, of course. As is your way.
"And whatever feelings you held for that girl is irrelevant now. She is dead. Your family is dead. Everyone you knew is dead.
"Except me."
6.
It's only in the last few days of his time in London that he finds the clubs.
He wouldn't have gone to them spontaneously. The 19th century world he'd been reared in lacked for the means to create such a thing, or at least he'd lacked the opportunity to seek them out, so he never would have thought to look. No, instead, he finds them by following the thread of fate.
He feels it for the first time as he walks the streets that night, half looking for prey, half observing the rhythm of life, the behavior of the human animal in the strange new universe called the 1980s. It's vague, at first, barely noticeable. But it's enough to pique his interest. So, Dio follows that draw through the streets of London, through the men and women making their way to their homes, and the shoppers and pedestrians, boys and girls on their bicycles. It nudges, at first, and then it compels. And every step makes the compulsion stronger. He passes through the alleyways whose names he doesn't know, and into streets he knows even less, until he reaches the gates of Heaven.
A simple enough structure, from the outside - simple double doors. But even from half a block away, he can feel the pulse of life from beyond that barrier. The street vibrates with it, and Dio can feel the beating of a thousand pulses but only one calls him in.
For someone like Dio, it's simple to gain access. His presence, his beauty, they can unlock any door. Inside, he feels the eyes of those surrounding him, watching, following. And since that night in the cellar, he's learned to display himself - skin-tight leather fits JoJo's body more beautifully than suits ever did, and a choker covers the scar as effectively as a turtleneck. Here, these things fit well... or rather, they stand out in the best possible way.
The club itself is darkness lingering in the corner, and pulsating light piercing through its center. It's red and green and gold, it's blue and white, and the music is loud enough to drown out everything, even itself. The club is crowds and claustrophobia, and yet here, somehow, the light and shadow melt together and the noise is so overpowering that it becomes almost as soothing as silence and suddenly, somehow, all the madness becomes peace.
This is how Dio tolerates the environment. This, and the benefits of tolerance, too - there is so much to see and to enjoy in this place of revelry, this celebration of hedonism.
Women are scarce, but that's fine. It's the men that draw his eye, these days. It isn't a preference, exactly - it's simply redressing the balance. He's had many opportunities presented to him as a "child" of the Joestars, but there were some things a young man of standing in the 19th century did not do - some desires he did not indulge, not openly. Not under the watchful eye of a guardian, a traditionalist, capable of taking everything away with a single word.
But that was then.
Now, Dio sits in a booth in the dark and he watches the dance floor. He sips his drink - a Bloody Mary, sadly lacking actual blood. Before him, the lights flash and the music roars in all its magnificent chaos, and the people dance.
He feels like a king at court, like Caesar of Rome. He feels as though he is watching the bacchanal or the orgies of Caligula, from the distance of his shadowy throne. The people here dance for him, even if they don't know. Because he holds their lives in his hands simply by being present - by noticing they exist. Because whether they're aware or not, they're only breathing because he hasn't decided to stop them. Because if he grows tired of listening to their hearts beat, he can easily tear them out.
Because they are his, as the world itself is his. Even if he's the only one who knows.
Yet.
The thought is like crackling fire, and Dio closes his eyes, leans his head back. Listens to the heartbeat of the room - the crashing drums, the electronic noise. It's heady, and intoxicating. Distracting enough that he nearly misses that tug - the feeling that drew him in to begin with pulling at him again. Almost, but not quite.
Dio opens one eye, and then lifts his head. Yes, he feels it again - a gentle urge, but powerful as a geas. He rises from his booth and makes his way through the teeming crowd, his heels clicking in time with the beat, a glass cradled in one hand.
He knows the source the instant he sees the man. He feels it, yes, but visually it's impossible to mistake as well. Because that man, perhaps in his twenties, seems so familiar in Dio's eyes.
It's the black curls and blue-eyed gaze. That solid build, his impressive stature. The look of a Joestar. Dio knows then what that tug is - Jonathon's blood calling and responding to its own. And when Dio smiles and steps forward to introduce himself, when he allows himself to contemplate his new plans for the evening (talk. fuck. kill.), he can feel this man's blood stir, and yes that man must feel it, too.
Inside him, whatever remains of Jonathon screams. The body often fights him. But, in the end, it never wins.
And when Dio's fingers touch the other man's, his skin burns with wanting and his blood runs hot as lava.
Half an hour later, Dio pulls the button down shirt from that man's back and tosses it the floor beside his bed. Beneath, there lies the inevitable - a star birthmark just behind his shoulder blade. Unmistakable. Dio bites the man's ear lobe until he tastes copper and says, "What was your last name again?" Though he's fairly sure he's never asked for the first one.
The man says, "Wright," and hisses, and flinches. He opens one eye and glances at Jonathon's skull. "Nice prop."
Wright. Not a Joestar, then, not quite. A long lost cousin or some such? Perhaps the descendant of a daughter long ago - someone who married into another family even before George Joestar became heir. Perhaps the descendant of someone's lovechild, long ago. A tenuous link, but definitely a link. Dio can tell by the way Not-a-Joestar's blood tingles on his tongue, and the way the taste of the man makes his hunger growl and bite. And oh, he wants to drive his fingers into the man's body - wants to drain every drop.
But he wants other things, too, and anticipation is the greatest part of pleasure.
Dio kisses Not-a-Joestar's throat, tangles his fingertips in that dark hair, and in black curls between those legs. In the movies, he would press his fangs deep into this man's jugular, and he would drink. And he could, yes - it would be messy, and not as efficient as his normal method of feeding. It would be... an indulgence of sorts. And he does like to indulge.
But not now.
Or, not yet.
Now, he pushes Not-a-Joestar onto his back, and pins those thick wrists against his chest with a single hand.
"Let's play... a little game." Dio's voice is low and dark, and he drags his free hand along Not-a-Joestar's side. Slowly.
And Not-a-Joestar says, "What sort of game?" though his voice is strained and raspy. And Dio can feel his desire, his aching, and a touch of anxiety too - all of them mingled together. There is no greater aphrodisiac.
Dio says, "It'll be the best game you've ever played."
Not-a-Joestar's eyes are blue, like unpolluted oceans. Like the sky just past dusk. Like someone else's had been, once. And his hair is black as midnight and breaks in little curls like ocean waves. Dio purrs deep in his throat, and he remembers... the body he wears - himself, his lover, his prize - bare-skinned in the cellar. How he's never alone, even when no one else is there. How he feels his JoJo pulsing inside his skin. He kisses Not-a-Joestar's throat, and he remembers cutting through Jonathon's. He remembers that last gaze.
Why does it... sting?
Dio sucks air between his teeth and growls. From the nightstand, he can feel those empty eyes burrowing into him.
He says, "That that isn't a prop."
He hadn't meant to say it. He meant to finish his pleasure before taking his reward - the blood of a Joestar, robust and healing. But the words slip from his tongue, and then the atmosphere changes. Not-a-Joestar's heartbeat increases, and he tries to pull his wrists up... but of course he can't. The spell is broken now, the mood has fled. And Dio wants to dig his fingers into Not-a-Joestar's arteries, but for a moment - just a moment - he... can't.
It's only a second. But it's long enough to pull Dio's guard down, and for Not-a-Joestar to push him away.
Not-a-Joestar starts for the stairs to the main floor without hesitation. Dio sighs. Because it's always a trial with that lot. Always a battle.
In this case, there's hardly a contest. Thorny vines spring from Dio's wrists and hands, wrapping around Not-a-Joestar's ankles and arms, holding him aloft. To his captive, they must be invisible, but to Dio they glow green-gold in the darkness as they draw his screaming prey back to him. There is no pleasure to be found here, now. Only death.
And this time, he does exactly what he desires.
7.
"You were protecting him, weren't you... JoJo?"
Dio moves away from the table, and retrieves a tube of lipstick from the nightstand where the skull once sat. In the mirror, he wipes the old color away with a bright yellow handkerchief. Behind him, he can see that half-born thing twitch.
"Not literally, perhaps. I'm not suggesting that your spirit tried to take possession of me."
At least... he doesn't think he is.
"But your body fought me for ages, all the more when I faced someone of your blood. Something of you still lingered there, warring for dominance.
"I wonder what would have happened, if I'd lost."
Dio stains his lips with crimson red - the color of passion. The color of blood.
8.
Not-a-Joestar lies, cold, by the stairs, and Dio can't remember the last time he felt so alive. There's electricity buzzing in his skin, flushing his face, and his mind screams, moves like wildfire.
...no, correct that. He can remember the last time - ages ago. A century ago. When his body was whole. When he was a true vampire... and not a half-undead parasite using a human man's corpse as a host. It was like this then... wasn't it?
He steps before the mirror, examines his throat. If he is whole again, truly whole, then the scar may have faded. Even if not, his wound at least should have healed. It should.
But he stops several feet away, a stone sinking into his gut. The wound has improved, yes. It no longer looks quite so raw. Even so... it remains.
Dio moves away from the mirror, barely resisting the urge to punch through it. Moments later, he's pacing - covering the floor with long, quick strides. And he buries his hands in his hair, claws his scalp hard enough that his fingers come away damp, because he already knows he needs... more. Yes, that's what he needs. Another Joestar, another try. He suspected before, but he hadn't known, how could he know? And to think, if that boy had escaped... if he had reached the dawn-filled streets... if that had happened, Dio might never have seen the truth.
And it could have happened. It nearly happened... because of Jonathon's influence. His spirit, or something of it, still living inside that flesh.
Dio growls like a mad beast, and turns on that silent skull. Sitting there, unmoving. Mocking him.
"You aren't dead." His voice is a rumble in his throat. "You aren't dead. You live in my body - you infest my soul, you..." Resist him. Fight him every step of the way. He wants to demand that it end, that the ghost of Jonathon Joestar rescind... but the words won't pass his lips. Can't.
That... that is even more frustrating still.
Dio screams, and kicks the side of the bed, hard - it screeches and splinters even as it slides back several feet. And the impact jars the nightstand, too, sending the skull toppling toward the ground.
In one instant, Dio thinks, I hope it shatters.
But it doesn't. Instead, when Dio turns to look, he finds The World there, cradling the skull in its massive hands.
Dio stares at his stand, that force even larger than himself, hovering before him. Inside those hands, even Jonathon's bones seem small.
"I didn't call you." Dio presses his lips together into a tight line. "And yet... a Stand reacts to its user's desires, does it not? Its user's instinct." The World meets his gaze from across the dank cellar. The white bone in its hands glows near luminescent in the light of the overhead lamp, the vague glow of psychic energy. Dio steps closer, slowly... one, two. "Do I want to protect you that much, JoJo?"
His rage simmers low, but does not cool. In seconds he stands before The World, staring up.
"Or is it me at all? I wonder." He leans closer. Even in his heeled boots, he can't match his Stand's eyes evenly. "The World... my Stand. The ultimate power. ...whose are you, really? Are you mine... or his?" His voice is quieter now, dangerous... though the World shows no fear. Can a Stand feel fear?
Dio says, "Take off that mask."
It's an absurd order. He isn't even sure that is a mask. Stands are strange, unknowable - is the World sentient? Does it feel, or simply obey? He's never been certain. But in that moment, there is nothing he needs more than to know.
"Take it off."
The World moves, slowly as any human might. It pulls the crown, the mask, from its head.
And in that moment, Dio chokes. Because beneath the mask is that face - unseen for nearly a century. Framed by dark curls, staring at Dio with warm blue eyes, like summer pools. Somewhere inside Dio knows, or believes, that it must be another "mask." A new face. After all, The World's eyes were neither warm nor blue. And if a Stand exists to serve its user... couldn't its face be a service, too?
In the end, despite his rage, his frustration... isn't that exactly the face he'd wanted to find?
That's one answer. But there is another, as well. If a Stand is a manifestation of the spirit present in one's flesh... this could be Jonathon's spirit, could it not? Jonathon's soul, fighting his battles. Winning his wars. JoJo, shackled to him. Forever.
It's chilling. Dio gasps in pleasure at the thought of it.
And he knows his question remains unanswered. There may not even be an answer, at least a definitive one. Still, he mutters, "JoJo," and reaches up, drawing him (it) nearer.
Touching The World is... strange. Physically, it doesn't feel like a man, but a... force. Almost as though he is embracing pressure - a hard wind, or hard air. So hard it feels solid. And there is no heat there - no body, no blood, only energy, and will. His own will, and Jonathon's. His own energy, and Jonathon's. But then, aren't they the same thing?
And a Stand User experiences everything that their Stand does - every wound, every touch. So, when the World's lips touch his, he is both kissing and being kissed. When the World's hands stroke down his back, he feels the velvety coolness of his own skin against his hands even as he feels hands on his back. The World is strange, silent, as it always is... but Dio desires, and so it provides. Those huge hands - hands that can break through solid diamond and tear steel like tissue paper, rest on each side of Dio's face.
...he should be afraid. If there is any force stronger than Dio himself, it is his Stand. And even now, he can't guarantee that The World is uninfluenced by the spirit of his old enemy, his old friend, his brother, his other half.
He should be afraid. But staring into that face - that mask that isn't a mask - he feels only hunger. And he holds his arms out to his sides, head back, embracing The World's touch - or his own - as he would a raging storm. He accepts insistent kisses (cool and hot and overpowering and calming all at once), and those hands wrapped around his shaft. The feeling on his flesh on his palm, and his palm on his flesh - stroking, teasing. He hears his own gasps through two sets of ears, feels himself stiffening in his open hand, his own hips moving with his strokes as he comes. He feels it all, although he never moves.
And if he is this flesh, then The World is his JoJo, and if he is the spirit of the The World then this is Jonathon's flesh. And if he is both, then they are both together - two who make one, and one who makes two, a single inseparable flesh, one soul, forever.
. . .
Later, when the room is empty again, and the fire has been satiated, the heat drained away... that's when Not-a-Joestar begins to move again. Slowly, at first, as though he's waking from a long sleep.
Dio steps closer, his body still bare, his eyes burning wild.
"It seems you're back," he says, leaning closer to the animated flesh of another undead slave. It wasn't an intentional resurrection; a bit of his blood must have fallen into one of Not-a-Joestar's wounds. Certainly there had been enough scratching for that. A strange chance, if you believe in chance.
But Dio, of course, does not believe in chance. He believes in fate.
Not-a-Joestar tries to stand, and Dio mutters, "What is destiny telling me, I wonder," as he looks down at the man, watching the struggle.
And Not-a-Joestar is below him, staring up. The pallor of his cool skin is luminescent in the shade; his star mark stands in sharp contrast to the rest of him, all bare and all white. Dio drags his fingers across its surface, marring the dark patch of skin with slivers of red. And he thinks.
He thinks of Jonathon's face staring at him from below The World's mask-crown, and the blood of the Joestars. He thinks of this man - unimportant and disposable in most ways, and informative, too.
He had thought the line dead with Jonathon, but now? If one such man exists, couldn't there be others? Other Not-a-Joestars? Weak ties, but ties even so.
Others whose blood can make him whole.
Others he might find, if he seeks them well enough.
9.
"He was nothing like you... aside from his appearance."
Long, sharp nails drag down the not-quite-a-corpse's bare chest. Dio shivers inside at the feel of it - at the ridges of bone and muscle, and that skin, growing warmer... though it will never really be warm again, not the way it once was.
"You were strong... but that man was not. In the end, he joined the nameless ranks of my minions and fought for me, and died. But he served his purpose. He carried the message of fate on his back, and I received it."
10.
5:34am. Dio lies stretched across his bed, warmed by the humid air, his blankets a puddle of velvety cloth on the floor. Beside him, there is a woman, pale and still, her back the canvas for another star mark. In his hands, Dio holds Jonathon's skull.
He holds it up, and the skull's shadow falls across the woman's back.
"She looks calm, hm?" Dio clicks his tongue. "As though she is merely asleep."
But of course, she isn't.
Dio rises from the bed, and tugs a green band from Not-A-Joestar II's deathgrip. It's the latest in a series of accessories he's tried - this one a gift from a new favorite among his followers, Vanilla Ice. Vanilla claims he chose the heart to echo the appearance of The World... but Dio is not fool enough to mistake its significance in the hands of a man who watches him the way Vanilla does. A love token, perhaps, but it doesn't matter. Of late, the symbol seems to have taken root inside Dio's closest circle. That alone is reason enough to let it remain... at least for now.
He sets the skull down on his vanity, and gently pulls the band across his forehead again.
"What do you think, JoJo?" His hair falls over it, framing his face. "A pretty enough trinket, yes? And green has always suited me well." His red tipped fingers drag across the heart's surface. Every nail is a dagger - sharp and pointed at the tips.
At the edge of the vanity, Not a Joestar II's handbag sits, half open. Dio reaches inside and draws out a tube of her lipstick. He applies it with a smile.
And Dio travels to New York, where the streets are crowded and grey-black, but always alive, and always awake. The wind billows through the tunnel-like paths forged by a million high-rise buildings in the financial district, but in the East Village, there is a different kind of storm.
Near midnight, he sits in a booth at the back of the latest in a series of clubs. At his side, Vanilla holds one of his hands, paints his nails deep purple. Dio sips his drink, and he watches the floor, the stage, the writhing bodies of men and women and those who bend and blur and erase those lines completely. The music washes over him - pulsing beats and wailing vocals, and there are a million beautiful bodies to see but no matter how long he lingers, he does not feel that pull.
In Paris, he finds another "ally," in a silver-haired Frenchman. The call of destiny again, he thinks, like the call that drew him into a church in Florida, or to Cairo the day he met Enya. Like the one that brought him to Joestar manor all those decades ago. Behind him, his army is growing... but as he pulls the choker from his throat and examines the pink gashes there, he mostly feels... frustrated.
He settles in Cairo again, when the tarot is all but complete, and the gods have come to kneel before him. The desert setting suits him in most ways. The sun is too hot and too bright, but he is far, now, from the damp breeze and the waves.
In daylight, Dio restricts his movements to windowless interior rooms. He keeps his library in the shadows. He lives inside the dark. At night, he stalks the streets of the city, sometimes alone, other times with a companion. More often than not, the companion never sees the sun rise.
Time grows long. The hours and days pass; they stretch into weeks that stretch into months. Empowered by the blood of his not-quite-relatives, Dio plays games with time - he grabs hold of it with his hands and yanks it to a stop. One second. Two. Each time he tries, he feels his metaphorical muscles stretch, and the flow of time grows more malleable in his hands.
And then, one day, Dio feels it - the sensation of being watched, like a prickle across the back of his neck. And when he stares into the mirror, he can almost see the face of Jonathon's descendants... staring back.
11.
"I had thought your line - the strongest vein of it, that descended from the Joestars I had known - was extinct."
Dio strokes his fingers across Jonathon's half-formed face. He feels every ridge, the jut of every bone. And he does not turn away.
"But in that moment I knew they persisted. They lived. And that their blood would repair my wounds - would make this body mine, entirely. I would become... the man I once was.
"No. Far more than that. The strength of a vampire lord, the power of The World...
"Truly I, Dio, would become an unparalleled being."
Could this earth wish for a stronger hand to guide its destiny? Could such a hand even exist?
...
Dio sinks, once again, into his faux-throne. His hands rest on his knees.
He'd had the simplest and most glorious of goals, then.
"Yes... unparalleled."
But at such a cost.
12.
For weeks, he feels it - their gaze on his back, in the mirror, in the dark. He feels it while he feeds and while he fucks. In the beginning, it's unnerving... that feeling of being followed. And Dio is used to being surrounded at all times, but he's never before been surrounded by a nothing that sees. After a while, he grows used to it. And he begins to play with them - a glance over his shoulder at that invisible eye. A barely visible smirk in the darkness. He lets them see his birthmark, the legacy of their progenitor. He lets them see more than that, too.
All the better to draw them in.
Not that provocation is necessary. His informants tell him that the Stand awakened inside Jonathon's flesh has caused a domino effect that is slowly creeping through his bloodline. The power is awakening in them, too. And while one would expect them to thank him for this, Dio knows better.
One of them, Jonathon's great-granddaughter, has a spirit too weak to support her own power, and so she is dying. To Dio, such a creature seems best left to go the way of the flesh. But Joestars are Joestars, and he knows they will hunt him to the grave. Or theirs.
"It seems fitting, doesn't it?" Dio stares in the mirror, hand flat against the glass. His reflection looks back at him. Behind him, the empty bone eyes of Jonathon Joestar look back, too. "You are their dead patriarch - the well from which their strength flows. And now, you are me, and their power flows from my life.
"In the end, it will be one or the other, JoJo. Your family, or me.
"Perhaps that, too, is destiny."
With the flow of time pulled taut, Dio is alone. Away from the nameless watchers, away from the noise of the street. In the timeless void, he is at peace.
He examines the wound at his throat and he thinks... Soon.
And it's hardly surprising when the Joestars defeat his minions. When they liberate Polnareff, Kakyoin. It's not surprising at all when they turn up at his doorstep. They are Joestars after all, and he's learned not to underestimate them. Their predecessor taught him that much.
If circumstances had been different - if he didn't need their blood, and if they didn't need his - he might have let them alone. It would be a gift to his JoJo, their forefather. But destiny is rarely so generous as that - this he's learned as well. And so when the walls come falling down, when he feels that unmistakable pull - blood screaming for its own, so much stronger than he's felt with the others, the offshoots - Dio goes to war.
The Joestar-allies are unimportant - as unimportant as they had been when they were his. He and his leave them bleeding and broken, spiritually, physically. If they aren't dead. There have only ever been two that posed a true threat to him. Only two that ever could.
The old man falls easily - a victim of his weak stand, and his ill-trained Ripple. As Dio drains his life away, his blood turns to flame, and the power surges inside him like a tsunami. And he wonders, is this what it's like to be God?
It really is... the greatest high.
13.
"'The Lord Gave, and the Lord Hath Taken Away.' "Yes... I believe that is the original quote. You would be surprised how well I know biblical quotes, these days."
Beneath his fingers, the near-living thing... twitches. Gasps. Dio stands.
"But if He can take what He has given, can He not also give what He takes?"
A groan comes from its lips - or what will soon be lips. Blue, lidless eyes stare at the ceiling. Dio lays a blood-red kiss on the flat of that chest. Under his lips, the skin is cool, but not cold.
"My name means God. Did you know that, JoJo?"
14.
The young one is more difficult. Even outmatched, Kujo fights like a beast. Like his great grandfather. And at times, it's like being young again, standing on that balcony, at war with his brother - himself.
Really, it's funny. Beneath Kujo's cool exterior, his long dark coat and ridiculous hat, they even look alike.
It's only in the silence that follows, when the battle has grown quiet, and Dio nurses his wounds, that he wonders... what would have happened, if he had faced Kujo without first consuming those long dead, distant relatives? What would have happened if he had entered the battle just a little more wounded than he did?
Dio's broken fingers knit themselves together, and he brushes them against his throat. There is no gash there, now. No pain. Only smooth scar tissue and well-healed skin. His body no longer fights him when he draws himself up to his full height and approaches the unconscious Kujo to deal the final blow with his one uninjured hand.
. . .
No fight. No recoil.
No Jonathon.
Dio draws his hand back and listens to the silence in his body, feels the emptiness of his flesh.
The body is his, yes. He has driven out the last remnants of its former occupant.
And now, he is truly alone.
15.
Dio's hand lays across Jonathon's throat - red, raw, still wounded. But it will heal... and much more quickly than his own wound had. He's made certain of that.
"There's another saying, too - about being careful with one's wishes.
"Many times, I've been asked why it is that I do not... let you go. But a person who would ask cannot possibly understand.
"There are many things that I care for, JoJo. Many things I... love. My dreams. My ambitions. My power. And yes... my priest."
His voice is soft, and then softer. Dio pushes back the dark curls forming around the face he hasn't seen in so long. He draws a handkerchief from his pocket. It's old, and stained with seawater, and blood. Even so, the embroidered name remains legible. He presses it to his lips, and then closes Jonathon's new hand around it.
"But you are the other side of me. And you have lived for a century inside the darkest corner of my soul... but even so. In the empty hollow of that undersea grave, or the shadows of an abandoned cellar - in the streets of New York and the ruins of the home we once shared... you have been my light."
He steps back for a moment - through a puddle of blood, over a discarded hat. He steps back and watches the final moments of birth. Jonathon's new skin is pale as the moon in the cellar light. Pale as white bone in the dark.
"I've been told you are likely in Heaven... enjoying eternity with your woman, or that dead child of yours. Frolicking in the oversaturated green of divine fields with your mutt... I suppose. I wouldn't say I believe in Heaven, by that definition. But if that is true... then you must be happy. Indeed... I know you wouldn't want to come back."
He circles the table. His heels leave blood-stained tracks on the concrete underfoot.
"But I am empty, JoJo."
Dio stops at the head of the table, his hands placed on either side of Jonathon's face. Eyes closed, barely moving, he looks peaceful. Even so, he smells of blood.
"When The World removes his mask, there is no face I know beneath it, now."
He leans down, close; his hair falls around their faces like a curtain.
"I'm sorry, my old friend. My JoJo."
Only inches away, Jonathon opens his mouth and inhales.
"I cannot let you rest in peace."
Jonathon's eyes open, and Dio kisses his first words away.
...epilogue.
Pucci hands Dio two discs and says, "I don't understand what you need with these, Dio. I doubt you intend to give his stand to someone else. It would court suicide. Why not simply kill him?"
"Of course not." It's midnight, and a soft flame crackles inside the furnace. Dio holds the discs to the light. Star Platinum stares at him from the second disc's surface. "It was a matter of practicality. I needed to preserve his flesh... at least for a time. His mind and soul were... disposable."
"Another feeding?" There's a soft reprimand in that voice, and Pucci's silvery brow is knit close. " To hold a body with no mind simply to drain its blood and fuel yourself is cruel. I hope you have a reason for it."
Dio waves a hand, a soft dismissal. "It's nothing like that. Nothing at all."
Dio sets the discs down on his nightstand, beside Jonathon's silent skull. And then he moves across the room again, toward the door, toward the library. There is a ship scene waiting for him there, still unfinished, though he's been working on it for some weeks. Pucci shadows his steps, only a foot or so behind as Dio pads his way across the velvet carpet, through the twisting halls.
It isn't so far. When he steps inside, the grand table greets him - the delicate ships, the carved wooden waves, painted with sea green and sapphire blue, oils and washes. His paints have been set aside, today, in favor of glue and tweezers. Spools of thread.
He says, "If a ship were terribly damaged, Pucci - damaged to the point where it could no longer sail - and yet you wanted to salvage it anyway... how would you go about that?"
Pucci blinks, and he lingers by the table, still standing, for a long moment before taking a seat across from Dio's. Chin resting on the back of his hand, he says, "I suppose I would find the proper materials and repair the damage."
"Indeed." Dio presses the stem of a mast into its slot atop a miniature steamship. "And wouldn't it make sense to use material as close as possible to that of the original vessel? ...to preserve its feel. To make it what it was. ...or as near to what it was as it can be."
"I... suppose that makes sense." Pucci watches Dio across the table. "What has that to do with Kujo's body?"
Dio drags his fingers across the textured waves.
"Nothing," he says. "Nothing at all."
I became the color
I became the daughter and the son
When the feast is over
Welcome to another one.
-emily wells, becomes the color