Chapter Text
“What keys are you playing?”
“All of them. I’m playing all of them.”
Erina burst into laughter once more as Jonathan struggled to play his part in Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano. To distract herself from pregnancy pains and boredom, Erina asked him to play the instrument with her, knowing full well that he was terrible at it. He supposed she just wanted a good laugh.
“Don’t you know what a ledger line is?” Erina giggled.
Jonathan chuckled as he shook his head. “No.”
Another snicker. She tapped a specific quarter note on the music sheet (at least he recognized what that was). “Start here. You keep playing with your right hand instead of your left.”
They tried again, but Jonathan continued to hit the keys with the wrong hand, drowning them both in a sea of laughter. Slightly embarrassed, Jonathan ran his hands down his face and groaned dramatically. “I can’t count. I can’t read.”
He glanced at Erina beside him, who was laughing so hard that her cheeks were as red as a sunset and tears were glossing over her eyes. She gripped her swollen belly and whimpered “Ow” under her breath. She then turned to say something to him but fell into another giggle fit.
God, she was so adorable.
“Okay, catch your breath,” he smiled, cupping her hot face and pecking her forehead. “It’s not that funny, by the way.”
“It’s so funny!” Erina managed between snorts. “You really can’t count.”
Jonathan threw his head back in laughter, adding “Now you’re just being mean.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Helena climbing the stairs with a basket on her hip, smiling at them both. As she disappeared, Erina leaned against Jonathan’s shoulder, wiping her eyes.
“Didn’t you play the piano as a child?”
“Yes, and you know that Father stopped my lessons and switched me to the cello because of how awful I was. Dio, however, played the piano beautifully, almost as good as you…”
Erina’s laughter died down to a playful hum and the smile on Jonathan’s face lingered. They stared aimlessly at the piano keys, their minds thick with thoughts.
A few weeks have passed since Jonathan and Speedwagon found Dio hiding away in his childhood home. Jonathan made an effort to visit him every other day with food and warm clothes with the chilly autumn air beginning to settle in. Dio, still his prideful, stubborn self, tried pushing Jonathan away every single time he walked through that creaky doorway, both physically and emotionally, but Jonathan was just as stubborn and kept coming back, trying his absolute best to understand his brother and to get him help.
Speedwagon also came with him every now and then (more as a form of protection, he insisted). He also listened to some of Dio’s stories, but he wasn’t near as emotionally attached or sympathetic as Jonathan. He was searching for lies, like he did when he followed Jonathan home after meeting him on Ogre Street. Inevitably, he did find some and was quick to point them out to Jonathan (which didn’t help his relationship—if one was bold enough to call it that—with Dio at all). Jonathan was fully aware that Dio would have a lot of work to do if he wished to win Speedwagon’s trust, and Speedwagon would have to be willing to accept what little progress came from Dio’s end.
It was a lot of effort, but Jonathan was determined to save Dio from himself and those around him.
“I pray you’re not wasting your time with him,” Erina mumbled against his shoulder. “I hope all your efforts will not end in vain.”
His lips brushed against her hair. “I have hope.”
She glanced at him with her strong, steady stare that showed truth, fact, and a bit of persuasion. “You’re a good man, Jonathan, and I hate to see that goodness be taken advantage of. I know I can’t
stop you from following this through, but please look after yourself when conversing with Dio. He’s still not trustworthy, despite what progress you’ve made.”
Jonathan smiled softly and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “I know; I’m always careful. If I didn’t think Dio had a chance at redemption, Robert would’ve gotten his way with him a long time ago.”
Erina smirked. “A terror to avoid at all costs?”
“You have no idea.” He then laid a hand over her stomach, now the size of a small pumpkin. “Besides, I want our child to come into this world surrounded by love and opportunities. I want them to
know that Joestars always give second chances and fight for what’s right.”
Erina placed her hands atop his and assured him, “They will become a most remarkable person with you as their father—this I know.”
Warmth seeped into his soul like a hot beverage on a cold night. He pressed a soft kiss to his wife’s pink lips.
***
As always, the door squeaked piercingly as Jonathan pushed it open. His gaze landed on Dio sitting at the kitchen table—a glass bottle was raised to his mouth, and his eyes flicked toward the entrance in sleepy boredom.
Jonathan sighed in disappointment, shutting the door behind him. “You promised you wouldn’t buy any alcohol.”
Dio swallowed and put the bottle down (though kept his fingers wrapped around its base). “I stole it.”
A frown. “You don’t listen to a word I say, do you?”
“You’ve only yourself to blame. Why would you put your trust into the man who burned your house to the ground?”
Jonathan rolled his eyes. He sauntered over and set his jam-packed messenger bag on the table. He then started taking its contents out, one by one: half a loaf of bread, canned beans, two pomegranates, a clean shirt, and two mason jars, one filled with tea, the other with lemonade.
He spoke as he did this: “I’ll come back Tuesday, so this should last you until then. I’ll bring a blanket or something next time—it’s starting to get chilly again. I would’ve brought leftovers from last night, but Erina said ‘murderers don’t get mince pie.’”
Dio barked out a laugh and ran his hand through his hair. “Enticing little cat, isn’t she? Pleasing to look at but spiteful when approached.”
Jonathan glared daggers into the side of Dio’s head, feeling his chest tighten in anger.
Dio picked up one of the pomegranates and tapped its hard surface with his unclipped fingernail. “Now tell me, rich boy, how am I supposed to open this without my—?”
Jonathan snatched the fruit from his hand and spat out, “Mind your words. I still haven’t forgotten what you did to her long ago, so if I were you, I would choose my battles very carefully.”
He then took out Dio’s knife from his own coat pocket and plopped into the seat beside him, slicing the pomegranate down the middle. Jonathan confiscated Dio’s knife the night he and Speedwagon first discovered him hiding in his childhood home. When asked what he was supposed to use to defend himself with, Jonathan told Dio that he was “quite certain he could fend off most with his wits alone.”
Now Dio’s expression turned deadpan. “You’re still upset over that?”
Jonathan shot him another fierce scowl.
An eyeroll and a huff. “Pity you think that actually meant something. I believe it’s time for you to move on—”
Jonathan pitched one half of the pomegranate carelessly into the air, and it struck Dio’s knuckles before landing on the dirtied floor beside him. Dio glanced at the fruit, then back at Jonathan.
“I can take it all back,” Jonathan hissed. “After all, you technically don’t deserve any of it.”
“That’s fine,” Dio said as he bent down to pick up the pomegranate, “I don’t want to talk about your wife anyhow.” He brushed the fruit against his shoulder before plucking the seeds from within.
“How about that spark of lightning you can emit from your fingertips? Let’s talk about that, shall we?”
Jonathan put the other half of the pomegranate on the table and tucked Dio’s knife back into his coat pocket. “The whole point of these visits is for us to come to some sort of understanding—”
“And I want to understand how you possessed such magic. I have information you want, and you have information I want. Let’s do as alchemists and provide equivalent exchanges.”
He popped a pomegranate seed into his mouth and smiled.
Jonathan exhaled slowly. This wasn’t the first time Dio’s asked about Hamon, and Jonathan was hesitant to share any details. Baron Zeppeli spoke of the ancient fighting style like it was art, a sacred
peace. Even though he’d been told that Hamon-users were few and far between, in the back of his mind, Jonathan was afraid that Dio would somehow conjure the Ripple if he said too much, and then use it for evil.
The chances were low, but not impossible—Dio had the potential to become a Hamon-user for he was anything but idle and weak.
“I don’t have time for this, Dio.”
“Well, I do. In fact, I’ve got all the time in the world.”
“No, you don’t. You’re cooped up in this house while being haunted by the memories of your parents. Your only daily task is to spy on me because, for some reason I’m trying to comprehend, you’ve been stuck in that loop since we were twelve. You’re drinking to cope or to distract, I don’t know. But I do know that you’ve been following your father’s footsteps for a while.”
His gaze was steady. “It’s only a matter of time before you lose your sanity.”
The words were harsh, but he only threw at Dio what was thrown at him earlier. Dio’s eyes narrowed, an oddly silent fury fizzing in his pupils like Jonathan was staring into the bottomless pits of hell. Sometimes he forgot just how much hatred his brother carried, for his father, for Jonathan, for the world entirely.
Fighting fire with fire would only make matters worse. He needed a truce, some common ground that they could both relate to or put aside their differences for. He looked at his dim reflection in the mason jar that contained lukewarm tea. It brought up a conversation he had with Zeppeli, who’d been drinking tea from a mason jar, much like this one.
“I was told that the Ripple has energy identical to the rays of the sun,” he said slowly. “To use it properly, one must have the willpower to control the airflow through their lungs, which will manifest ‘ripples’ through the bloodstream and create small sparks of energy. It is important to maintain one’s breathing in order to achieve this, especially under stressful or frightening circumstances.”
He glanced at Dio, who was looking back at him, interested. Jonathan continued: “In other words, meditation is essential to the Ripple. It’s good for focusing on your breathing pattern, and for calming your mind. The best way to do this—for the sake of the Ripple, anyhow—is to submerge yourself in a place that you find peaceful. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a memory or somewhere you’ve been before. It can be a place from your dreams or somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, as long as it makes you feel calm, safe.”
Jonathan paused and, when Dio didn’t respond, he leaned forward and asked the riskiest question he could’ve asked, “What makes you feel safe?”
His eyes glowed like the moonlight reflecting off the blade of a dagger. “I want to hear yours first.”
Jonathan couldn’t help but smirk. The retort was so like his brother that Jonathan couldn’t hold back a-louder-than-expected snort. He looked down at the other end of the table, avoiding eye-contact so Dio wouldn’t explode in a fiery gust of flames.
“I should’ve expected that,” he murmured to himself before clearing his throat and speaking clearer: “I have a few peaceful memories. Sitting by the riverside near the manor is always calming—the
soft breeze, the chirping of birds, the babbling brook. It’s all very relaxing to me. So is reading a good book in front of a fireplace. To hear the crackling of the fire or the rainstorm pattering outside or simply having Erina next to me is enough to ease my nerves.”
His gaze flicked toward the small, square window by the front door. Showcasing an early evening fog, people walked up and down the street, most keeping their heads down so they could make it home without being hounded.
“But there is a particular memory that makes me feel secure, protected. It’s silly, but it’s what I fall back on the most.”
Even now, as he thought of it, he could sense comfort blanketing him like a warm cloak.
“I must’ve been no older than five years of age; it’s one of my earliest memories. I was terrified of thunderstorms as a child, and there was this specifically brutal storm one summer night. I remember the lightning flashing across the room and the thunder made the whole manor tremble. I sat frozen, overtaken by fear. I just watched the lightning strike like it was some monster from a fairytale.
“My father came into my room shortly after the storm started. With it taking place in the middle of the night, he was disheveled and half-asleep, but despite that, he smiled and was comforting as can be. He sat beside me, put his arm around me, and we talked ourselves to sleep. He told me how lightning occurs, how it is nothing more than the rapid exchange of electricity between the sky and the ground, how it’s all a natural occurrence. Even when I cowered in fear each time the manor shook or was convinced the storm would crash through the window and grab us both, my father remained patient and kind. He held onto me and always spoke gently yet reasonably. We eventually fell asleep, despite the raging storm.
“When I awoke, I saw sunlight streaming in through the windows and my father sleeping beside me. A certain sense of relief washed over me then, and it’s that feeling I hold onto the most—when practicing Hamon, that is. I remember how my father came to me in the midst of a storm, not the other way around. He knew I was afraid, and I didn’t have to say a word. He spoke calmly and gave me no reason to fear the storm. And he stayed with me throughout the night—he could’ve left when I fell asleep, but he didn’t.
“It was perhaps my first recollection of love and, most importantly, peace. The sense of complete calmness after the storm was worth the panic before. With my father’s love, I was able to use that
experience to fight my fear of thunderstorms…and later, the fear of losing my family. That’s why I learned Hamon in the first place; to think tranquil thoughts was my first lesson in the matter. This memory serves as my ‘safe place’ or the core of my Hamon.”
He looked at Dio. His face was poised, unassuming. He hadn’t interrupted him once—he’d been listening after all. What was he thinking exactly? How was he judging him now?
Jonathan ducked his head and asked quietly yet imploringly, “Do you have any dreams or memories like that?”
It was now Dio’s turn to stare out the window, night seeping in like melting snow. Jonathan expected no answer—he was prepared to heave a sigh, sling his bag over his shoulder, and take his leave,
planning yet another tactic on how to get Dio to open up—but hell froze over when he spoke: “My mother did the same for me.”
Jonathan bit the inside of his cheek to refrain from speaking, for it would surely break Dio’s trail of thought.
“Only it wasn’t thunderstorms she protected me from, but my father. He would always push me around and she would always bark at him to leave me alone. They fought all the time about everything, including me. My father insisted that he was toughening me up, trying to make me a man, but my mother said he was turning me into a monster. She always fought to protect me, but she never lifted a finger to save herself.”
Dio absentmindedly picked at the seeds wedged within the pomegranate, rolling them between his fingers. “The ‘safest’ moments in my life were just my mother and I. They weren’t common—Mother was usually out either working or staying away from my father, perhaps both at the same time. But whenever he was out, wasting every breath he took, it felt like the closest thing to peace.”
“Would you do anything together?” Jonathan slipped out.
Dio glanced at him. Jonathan pursed his lips and looked down. He thought he ruined it all; he might as well toss his hope into the Thames. A shameful bout of silence hung in the air and yet another miracle occurred: Dio answered Jonathan’s question truthfully without pointing out his mistake.
“Sometimes. Some days we would cook ourselves dinner or she would sew any tears in my clothes. Other days we would simply sit here, stare into oblivion.” His eyes glazed like crystals as if he was demonstrating his mother’s abyss-like stare. “I didn’t understand it at the time. My naïve mind was merely focused on the fact that it was just Mother and I. It took awhile before I realized that stare meant misery, that she loathed her existence and saw no point in keeping it.”
A short pause. “But I suppose those moments before she killed herself were pleasant. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.”
Jonathan’s heart sank like an anchor, though his brain posed as the sailor and tried pulling him back to reason. Dio might be telling his tragic truth, but Jonathan mustn’t let it cloud his judgement.
Just because he came from cruelty doesn’t give him the right to spread it to others. But, then again, how could he be kind or even decent if he hardly knew the feeling?
“It sounds like your mother cared for you deeply.” Jonathan tried to make his voice as soft as flower petals or feathers, for the subject was fragile and could only be handled with the gentlest of tones. “Maybe she took the brute of your father’s force so you wouldn’t have to. Like all good mothers, she wanted the best for you—your safety, your happiness, your place in this world.”
He hesitated. “But I don’t think she’d want you sitting here; she’d want you to be somewhere better, doing something great.”
Dio’s eyes hardened once more. “You didn’t know her. You don’t know what she wanted.”
“You’re right—I don’t. But do you believe she’d want you to be here, to stay in the same house that she tried to get away from? You said your mother often protected you from your father’s blows. You said she hated him. What would…” He pursed his lips again as he scrambled his next set of words carefully. “Would she want you to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
Dio’s face tightened the more Jonathan mentioned his father. The veins in his neck bulged and his jawline stiffened. Jonathan thought he would crush the pomegranate in his hand or climb over the table to ram his fist into Jonathan’s face. But something strange happened instead.
A glossy look overcame those golden spheres. His lips twitched and his eyebrows scrunched together. Anger was still etched into his features, but was it directed at Jonathan, the situation, or himself perhaps? He finally severed his gaze with Jonathan, his pupils darting around the table as though he was following some speedy orb or desperately looking for something to hit. His chest rose and fell with each unsteady huff; there were too many emotions for him to handle at once.
On instinct, Jonathan put his hand on the table and tilted toward Dio. “Remember to think of your safe place,” he said. “You told me that you felt at peace with your mother, like how I felt with my father. Remember those times; clear everything else out.”
As if to prove his point, his hand shimmered a soothing sunrise yellow, vines of Hamon lacing between his fingers. Dio looked over, burdened with his inner struggles yet captured by the unnatural light. Jonathan’s heart couldn’t help but break for him. He could only imagine the overwhelming loneliness Dio carried since childhood.
“Let me help you, Dio,” he pleaded. “All you need to do is be willing.”
An eon of weighty silence dragged by as the two brothers lost themselves in their thoughts. Jonthan observed Dio like how a cat watches another cat, waiting to see if they were friendly or hostile.
Dio remained frozen; his body and mind were stuck somewhere he hadn’t escaped before, not on his own. What would come from this? Would he realize that he needs help and pull himself out of this pathway his father infamously strolled on by taking Jonathan’s hand or keep his pride close as everything else in his life drowned?
Mourning doves wooed the oncoming darkness outside. Jonathan’s eyes never left Dio’s; though his patience waned, he kept it together. Hamon still radiated from his hand, posing as their
candlelight or oil lamp. He waited until he was positive that Dio wouldn’t answer him. But he almost forgot how unpredictable his brother could be.
Tears rolled Dio’s cheeks as his fingers sunk into his half-eaten pomegranate, mumbling through strained breaths, “I can’t escape him.”