"How long has it been, JoJo? What do you think?"
Dio's fingers stretch through the empty air, twisting lightly inside those dark curls. At least… he assumes they're still dark. Here, there is no light, no air. Here, there is barely any space, come to that, only. . .
"Us," he says, softly, and his voice is like a predator's whisper. "Only us."
Hadn't it always been them, in the end? Locked together as brothers, as friends, as rivals, as enemies… yes, in a sense, they're all the same thing. Connections are connections, no matter the flavor of them. Hatred and love, brutality and tenderness, violence and sex. Life and death.
"Yes," he says. His voice is a purr in the empty dark.
. . . it's quiet as death at the bottom of the sea. If they are, indeed, at the bottom. Pushed by the the waves, or the impact of JoJo's explosion, they could be… nearly anywhere. Perched at the edge of the ship's wreckage. Atop an underwater cliff. Deep in some underwater cavern. The center of nowhere, or a stone's throw from shore. He knows very little about the motion of the sea, or about how far things travel, or how quickly - he was a scholar, in his time, but a scholar of law, and a student of humanity - learning to use the resource that was the human ego, the human heart. He'd never much cared for the natural sciences or what lie inside the scattered corpses of man's lost past. Those things were abstract, pointless - they could neither be traded for coin nor used to pursue it in sufficient quantities. They held no worth, for him. They were Jonathon's domain. The domain of the soft class of men who could afford to worry about that kind of thing.
Two scholars, yes, but as different in their approaches to that as they were in everything else.
"I thought, once, that we were too different to understand one another, JoJo." Dio's voice is soft, and dark. "But, in the end, perhaps it is only those who are as opposite as we who can ever truly know one another. For such as we, one begins where the other ends... and the one ends where the other begins. They fill in the gaps left in one another. In this, they form one entity. . . and who better to understand a single being than the being itself?"
He speaks... but, of course, there is nothing but silence in response.
How long has he been here? It's impossible to tell. Were he aboveground, he might judge by the passing sounds of animals (hunting trips, once a day) or the shift in temperature - warmer by day, and cooler by night. But here, there is no variance, no change, only the silence. His own voice is nearly swallowed by it all. And if he were a living man, he would be concerned for the lack of air, the lack of food. But he is not living, and barely a man in the traditional sense of the word, so in the end it doesn't matter.
Still, the environment is. . . (he shifts uncomfortably. Not lonely, no, it's-) ...stagnant. Unchanging. And Jonathon is silent and cold. His throat has long since stopped bleeding. (Both ends. Dio brushes his fingers against the still raw lumps of flesh that merge his neck with Jonathon's.) As for the bodiless head, well. He can imagine that face is probably quite peaceful in expression, bearing the same look it bore when the ship began to fall. The last expression Jonathon ever wore in life.
Yes, peaceful. That was JoJo. A warrior and an academic, yes. A gentleman. But, in the end, he had been who sought to embrace things with his eternally open hands. He embraced everything that allowed him. Even his own death.
"Even me."
He's not certain why he said it. But once the words pass Dio's lips, he feels the dreadful weight of them, crushing him. Heavier than the ocean above, weighing down on his bones. And his hands move of their own accord, cupping those cheeks against his palms. Feeling Jonaton's features with Jonathon's own hands. That face (still, cold and dead, but not yet-). He draws that face… closer. Close enough to feel the coolness of Jonathon's forehead against his chin, and then Jonathon's mouth against his.
A kiss, yes. Dio lets his fang dig into the edge of his lip, and then allows the tiniest drop of blood to settle on Jonathon's tongue. Enough to keep decay from setting in, but not enough to revive him… though, for a moment, it's almost tempting to allow that, too. He chases the thought away with another kiss, and with the sharp edge of hunger pulsing through him as he moves his hand (JoJo's hand) down his chest (JoJo's chest) and lower, and lower still, and…
Why did he bring that head into this little haven with him? Why didn't he let it drift away?
He asks himself the question, but he already knows. The answer lurks inside his chest, aching to be freed. It lingered at the back of his tongue during their final meeting. It grew inside him slowly even before - with each clash, with each defeat, every time Jonathon came after him again, each time. . . stronger. Maybe it took root even before that, in the long days of their childhood. Perhaps he'd lived with it nestled inside him like a slow-growing seed, destined to break through his skin.
Dio's flesh aches, and the desire curls out of him like emerging buds, flowers and vines, blooming and entwining and consuming him, fed by all the desperate heat of another cold kiss. Those flowers are red in his mind, like lust and like blood. He flexes his fingers, and pulls loose buttons on Jonathon's trousers, and yes… he already knows the answer.
The sailors told stories of mermaids that lurked under the water, waiting to murder human men. They would sing, and play siren, and then they would consume. Beneath the water, Dio imagines them with every scratch - claws dragging over rotting wood, luminescent eyes shimmering in the lightless depths, all claws and and teeth and seductive illusions. They would tear through the soft barrier that is that coffin's walls, and stain the undersea world with blood.
Sirens are such dangerous things.
"It wouldn't be terrible, would it, JoJo?" His eyes are closed, though it makes little difference. And there is a scratching noise above his head. "To be pulled free of this confine by hungry beasts."
And, in the silence, Jonathon says, "I doubt they'd be hungrier than you."
Dio chuckles, because yes, it's true… no beast on earth or in heaven, no creature submerged beneath the sea, could equal the depths of his hunger. How long has it been? He asks himself this frequently, aloud or in silence. How long has it been?
"That's not possible to know." JoJo laughs, that easy laugh. (It's right, isn't it? It was something like that, though the memory is starting to fade.) "Remember when you planned to be a lawyer, Dio? If you did well, you might have sent a lot of people to this kind of place."
I wasn't going to lock them in a box and drop them into the sea.
"No… but a windowless tower is probably just as bad. Criminals suffer. That's only justice."
Dio opens his eyes, though there is, of course, only blackness. "Were you always this mercilessly self-righteous?"
There's a beat of silence. Dio presses his lips together.
"I was never self-righteous at all. You just remember me that way."
He wants to take a breath, though the box has long since run out of air. And he would argue if he could, but… no. It's true. JoJo wasn't like that at all. He wasn't merciless or cruel. No sharp edges, no hard lines. He was sunlit smiles and an eternally extended hand. He was gullible not from stupidity but by choice. Because he chose to believe. He chose to look for the good in those who had long since shed their goodness. He loved everyone. . . or tried to. He forgave everything. He would never say, This is your own doing. You deserve this. He would never have the thought. And, in the end, even his vengeance - his rage - was conditional.
"I could have repented," Dio says, softly.
And that voice says, "I would have forgiven."
"Even after everything I'd done. Your dog. Your first love. Your father. Your mentor. Your life. Yes… I suppose you would have. That's only your nature." Dio licks his bottom lip; his tongue is dry and his lips are cracked.
And he laughs.
"But I don't repent," he says. "Even now."
Outside, he hears that scratching again. Inside, there's nothing but nothing.
"You meant for us to disappear together," Dio says, and places a kiss against Jonathon's forehead. "I suppose this was not quite your intention. We should have died as we had lived - bound together. But death, my old friend, is a valley where I will not walk.
"Even now, even here… I will survive."
What makes that blood on the point of your knife?
My love, now tell to me.
It is the blood of my old coon dog
Who chased the fox for me, me me
Who chased the fox for me.
His nails are long and jagged and make weak scratching noises when he moves his hand. Not that he often moves it. Not that he often can.
It is too red for your old coon dog.
My love, now tell to me.
It is the blood of my brother John
Who hoed the corn for me, me, me
Who hoed the corn for me.
Dio's voice has faded, too - the rich velvet of his baritone dying to a husk. Still, he sings, a whisper, a memory. His eyes are… open. He thinks. Staring into the dark, and beneath his head there is (nothing) Jonathon's lap, cradling him and singing, too.
What did you fall out about?
My love, now tell to me
Because he cut yon holly bush
Which might have been a tree, tree, tree
Which might have been a tree.
Jonathon's voice has not failed with the passing of time. It echoes in Dio's mind just as clearly as ever. And he can't feel his own body, can't locate the place where his flesh ends and the shadows begin, but he can feel the warmth of Jonathon's flesh beneath him, and Jonathon's fingers brushing back his hair, even though-
Why did he want this? Or- no… is this what he wanted? The murk and the void and the water dreams and time that never stops?
What will you say when your father comes back
When he comes home from town?
I'll set my foot in yonder boat
And sail the ocean round, round, round
I'll sail the ocean round.
"JoJo. You're so… cold." Did he speak, or only intend to? It doesn't matter, does it. No, Jonathon's fingers are here anyway, as they always are. And they're soft and warm against his cheek. Dio listens to the rhythm of Jonathon's breath and his heartbeat.
And Jonathon says, "Shh. Just sing."
(How does he have a heartbeat?)
Dio's fingers move - just a little. They close around… something. Cold, and hard, and strange. He can't quite remember what it is. But his eyes close and his mouth opens, and he sings.
When will you come back, my own dear love?
My love, now tell to me
When the sun it sets in yonder sycamore tree
And that will never be, be, be
And that will never be.
(My God, there's a man inside.)
Dio sees light, and the first thing he thinks is, It's not the right color. He remembers light - vaguely, like a half-recalled dream. He remembers it green, filtering through the leaves of overhead trees, and gold, dancing on the surface of the lake on the Joestar grounds. He remembers firelight red flickering against the wallpaper as he leaned over a book, and JoJo in the doorway, bathed in light, always glowing, even in the darkness of the coffin.
But this light is different. White. And above his head there are pinpricks in the darkness, breaking up the shadow. It's nothing, really, but another dream.
(He's perfectly preserved. How is that even possible? How long has this thing been down there?)
...another dream. An illusion filled with mumbling voices, shouting men. And a hand on his forehead. A voice, soft and warm, more familiar than his own now… telling him to blink.
How can he do anything but obey?
(Wait. Did he just. . . )
That's when the screaming starts.
. . .it's instinct. A bodily reaction brought on by human voices - the jarring of his stagnant environment. It's the call of flesh for nourishment, the gnawing hunger in his gut and his veins and his blood… if he still has blood. After that comes will - the drive to move his fingers, move his arms. The drive to use the miniscule stores of energy remaining to him to reach out with his fingers and penetrate.
When the first man falls, Dio finds the strength to stand.
It's night, he realizes now. . . and the cool breeze, moist and salty, whips through Dio's hair as he lets the second man drop at his feet. There is no blood. No blood remains.
The third says, "Please," when Dio's fingers wrap around his jugular. He says nothing else, after that.
Underfoot and around, the ship is steel. Alien, and hollow. Unfamiliar. Dio hisses softly between his teeth, and soaks in the moon's white light, and the glitter of the pin lights he now remembers are stars. Around him, the world is alive with the crashing of waves - subtle sounds, subtle colors. It's all… beautiful. It's all…
Too much. Somehow. Too bright. Too noisy. Too much movement.
Dio covers his eyes to blot it out, and breathes once… twice. Because the act of it, stretching lungs and salty scent, calms his nerves. And, yes, because the capacity to do so is, in itself… sweet. Another breath… the moment passes.
Dio pushes the corpses of three sailors into the sea, and they travel to meet the sirens and the singing and the nothingness Dio knows so well. The loss of those things, his constant companions, leaves him strangely hollow, now. Still, it's a temporary emptiness, and destined to be filled. He knows that even as he walks away (carefully, carefully) from the edge of the ship, returning to his long prison if only to leave it behind at last. He will close it, and time will pass. He will find other things to do, other songs to sing. He and JoJo-
-JoJo.
He'd nearly forgotten how little of that time was real; how much was a story his imagination constructed to keep him sane. Or, no… rather, he didn't forget. He never knew. At the time, he hadn't the faculties to know. But now, staring at that gore-stained box, the bone white skull within, he finally understands.
There's an aching in his chest, squeezing out his breath.
"JoJo."
Of course, there could be no other reality. Dio runs his fingers down the bareness of his chest. The scars there are Jonathon's. His fingers, large palms and thick bones… they're Jonathon's. Even the clothes on his back, the remnants of a suit Jonathon wore on his honeymoon. He remembers, now, those first… days? Weeks? The droplets of blood on JoJo's tongue - how long has it been since he remembered to bleed for him? He remembers those cold kisses, and imagining Jonathon's hands on him, or his hands on Jonathon.
He remembers the longing, the heat. Even now, it smolders. Given time, it will only grow, fueled by the memory of a dream, of warm hands on his face. But JoJo won't sing in the dark for him, now.
(Why did he kill him? Why had he wanted to? At the time, it seemed inevitable. But…)
Dio glances away, over the ocean. In the distance, another ship draws near, obscured by the misty air. That ship will be his salvation, his escape. He'll reach the world, again, and start over. It's hard to say how long it will take before he fully recovers - even now, he finds it taxing just to stand. But as he watches - as gravity draws the vessel closer - he already knows that he won't leave alone.
Rotted flesh and white bone. Dio closes his eyes as he drives the point of a fang into the pad of his thumb. One drop, that's all. Enough to draw the flesh together, but not enough to undo death. For now, at least, he hasn't the strength. But this much he can do.
One drop.
Dio stands above the casket and watches the image death become an imitation of life - recreating the one face he knows as well as his own. Above him, the moon is wide and pale and around him, there is the music of the waves.
Under his breath, he sings again.
When will you come back, my own dear love?
My love, now tell to me
When the sun it sets in yonder sycamore tree
And that will never be, be, be
And that will never be.
Notes
Part of a fic-for-art exchange with Perplexingly on Tumblr.
The song is called Edward. It was written in the 1700s, and is originally about a man explaining to his mother why he killed his brother. I admit I switched "son" for "love" because it worked better oops. But there are a lot of different variations on it, so I figured I could get away with it.
More information (and a midi o the tune) can be found here.
The fic itself inspired a piece of art which can be found here.