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“Dio!”
When he looks up, Jonathan is tearing through the thicket of wild hawthorne that lines the crest of the hill above him Thin branches catch at the seams of his freshly laundered trousers and whip angry red marks into the backs of his hands. Dio doesn’t expect something as measly as a bit of shrubbery to stop him though. He’s correct.
As uneven as the hill is, Jonathan storms his way down to the edge of the river, loose dirt and feeble clods of grass giving way under his heels and nearly sending him tumbling down into the water himself.
“You bastard,” Jonathan heaves out. “You bastard!”
The breeze is pleasant by the riverbank, the heat of summer tamed by the churning water that rushes by Dio’s feet and wisps a faint mist against his face when it breaks against the dirt. There’s a footpath that follows the river down past the town, but this little patch of land is more secluded, tucked away within acres of untouched pastures and overgrown trails unwelcoming to those who do not already know where to go.
Dio remains where he is, legs stretched out just far enough by the edge of the river to dampen the heels of his boots. When a shadow blots out the unforgiving sun over his head, he turns his gaze back to the water.
“Did you need something?” he asks.
“I know what you did.” Jonathan’s voice warbles ever so slightly, but Dio isn’t stupid enough to mistake it as a weakness. “I know it was you. I—I trained Danny not to go off on his own. He never leaves the house without me.”
“Hm,” Dio says. “I think you give yourself far too much credit. That mutt was barely smart enough to know his own name. He would have gotten himself killed all on his own eventually.”
Dio leans back, feels the grass soft against his palms. A hollow silence creeps in between them.
“What is wrong with you?”
When Dio looks up, Jonathan looms over him, jaw clenched and eyes glossy with unshed tears. The stench of sulfuric ash and charred flesh clings to his clothes.
“Is this some kind of game to you?” he asks, his voice hoarse with smoke and strain. “Do you really not know what you’ve done?”
Dio pauses.
“I know we don’t get along, or see eye to eye all the time, but this isn’t a joke anymore, Dio." A faint tremor runs through Jonathan's hands. "Danny is dead. He’s not—he’s not a shirt I can wash, or a book I can buy. He’s gone. Do you understand that?”
“What gave you the impression that I’m that naive?” Dio says curtly. “I’m aware of how death works.”
“Then why on earth would you do this?” Jonathan asks, voice rising higher with every word. “Dio, you killed him!”
Dio doesn’t understand why Jonathan is looking at him like that. Like he’s a dog who doesn’t know any better than to bite.
“And what of it? There’s plenty of strays in town if you want a pet so badly.” Dio turns back to the riverside. “I’m sure you’ll find another to take in.”
The wind whistles through the grass, warbling like a sickly songbird. It’s a beautiful day today.
“Is that really what you think of me?”
Jonathan’s voice is barely loud enough to be heard over the rumbling of the river by his feet, not much more than a murmur. He’s not sure what to expect when he looks up again. Maybe horror. Or indignity.
Not hurt.
Jonathan swallows. He wipes at his eyes. Transparent tear tracks streak down the back of his hand and catch against the sunlight.
“I don’t understand. I’ve done everything I can to at least be civil with you, but you keep acting like—” Jonathan falters. “Like I’m a monster.”
There’s something vulnerable in Jonathan’s eyes. Something dangerous.
“Dio, what did I do? Have I done something wrong?”
Dio digs his fingers into the grass. A few weak strands snap in his grip.
“If I’ve—If I’ve hurt you somehow, I’m sorry. But I just don’t know how to fix this if you won’t tell me what I’ve done.”
When Jonathan steps forward, Dio is up on his feet. Clots of dirt and dead weeds fall from his clenched fists and muddy his shoes.
“Why can’t you just talk to me?” Jonathan asks. “None of this would be a problem if you could just tell me why you hate me so much. You didn’t have to go after Danny too.”
“Are you ever going to stop talking about that damn dog?”
Jonathan freezes.
“He was barely your responsibility,” Dio says. “You weren’t the one who fed him, or took him outside. You had the maids do all of the work for you so you could come around and play with him whenever you remembered that you had a pet in the first place. Do you cry over all of your toys like this? Or just the ones that people use without your permission?”
There’s a long second where Jonathan opens and closes his mouth again. His face twists up, like he’s unsure of how exactly to express what he can’t say just yet.
“Is that what you didn’t like?” he finally asks. “That I wasn’t taking care of Danny myself?”
Dio barks out a laugh. “Are you serious? What, do you think I was freeing him from his misery then?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what I did that you find so unforgivable, but I thought you of all people would be a little more mature about killing anything!”
There’s something burning in Dio’s stomach. Something that’s been burning for a long time.
“More mature?”
Jonathan must catch the change in the atmosphere between them. He clenches his jaw, refusing to break away from Dio’s gaze.
“It wouldn’t be right to compare us,” Jonathan says quietly, “and I have no intention of starting now. We haven’t lived the same life, but I thought you’d understand what it felt like to lose someone.”
There’s always been an innate understanding between them that no matter what disputes they have, Dio would always win. It didn’t matter what he did. What mattered was the fact that he was always the one who left their spats level-headed while Jonathan cried and swung like a child who couldn’t control his own emotions. Control was what made Dio the better of them both.
But there was only so much that Dio could control. And what Jonathan was trying to prod at was something that he had no right to touch.
“You’re right,” Dio says. “Why start now? There wouldn’t be anything to compare. You’ve never lost a damn thing in your life.”
Jonathan’s lip twitches. “You know that’s not true. I’ve lost my mother too, Dio.”
Like he’s peering through the slots of the furnace gate, Dio sees nothing but red.
“You lost her? You really think you lost her?” When he looks up, Jonathan is suddenly only a foot away. He doesn’t know which one of them moved first. “You can’t lose something you never had.”
Jonathan looks just about as volatile as Dio feels, his fists balled at his sides and tension running rigid through his shoulders. “What are you trying to say?”
“That you’ve been coddled all your life,” Dio snaps. “Do you think we’re equal? That you have the right to talk to me like that? Fine. Then tell me this. Do you remember your mother at all?”
Even under the brunt of the sun, there’s a crimson red that’s starting to creep up Jonathan’s neck. His nails dig in hard into the flesh of his palm.
“Do you remember how she held you? What she’d tell you before bed? Do you remember what she looked like or do you just remember a portrait on the wall?”
Jonathan purses his lips together tight enough to make the skin around his chin a pasty white. An awkward tremor, more of a erratic spasm, makes his arm twitch.
“You’re barely have a memory of a memory,” Dio spits out. “You don’t know a single damn thing about your mother worth grieving.”
“Shut up,” Jonathan grits out.
He should. Right now, he’s acting no better than Jonathan.
But trapped within Dio’s ribs, there’s a hound that burns, some snarling and drooling beast, mad enough with grief to gnaw at the furnace gate that sears its mangy muzzle.
“I’ll tell you what you lost. You lost a woman who burned in a crematorium you can’t even remember, and a mother who’ll burn in hell until you join her.”
Before Dio can close his mouth, Jonathan’s fist catches him clean across the face.
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother like that!”
He stumbles backwards into the river, cold water seeping through his boots and soaking the hem of his trousers. He can barely catch his breath, blood trickling down his nose and white spots flaring in his eyes, but Jonathan trudges right into the river after him.
Sheer instinct has him ducking his head to avoid Jonathan’s next punch. With the water weighing down his feet, Dio can barely move, thighs burning with the effort to just lift his leg and jam his knee into Jonathan’s stomach.
He isn’t thinking clearly enough to aim, but he swings high to clip Jonathan just above his ear, kicks his knees back in hard enough to make them crack, cheap shots that would have made anyone else fall over by now. It makes Jonathan stumble and swear, but he’s bulky enough to stand his ground no matter how much he sways. What little technique they have is lost to the river soon enough, leaving them with grappling hands and stray fists.
Dio loses track of what he’s trying to protect and where he’s trying to hit. He lashes out blind, just tries to stay standing. He turns his head, and in that second, Jonathan hits him in the jaw hard enough to make his whole body whip around.
He fumbles, loses his footing against the water. He doesn’t even have time to catch himself. His back hits the shallow, muddy bottom of the river, his head submerged a breath later. Water rushes into his mouth, his nose, blots the world out and chokes the air out of him. It’s fast enough to knock the back of his head against something underneath him because then—
—he wakes up.
When Dio opens his eyes, Jonathan is staring back down at him, heaving for air, clothes drenched and dripping riverwater onto his face. The grass is damp underneath him, and faintly, Dio realizes that he’s shivering.
That’s all he manages to take in before he’s choking.
Dio claws himself onto his side, heaving and spitting out water. It burns his throat, stings his nose, a downpour that feels endless enough that he can barely breathe through it. He rips the buttons off the collar of his shirt in a muddled attempt at finding any kind of air to take in, tears the fine stitchwork into gnarled tangles of thread and silk.
Gingerly, a broad hand reaches out to rest against his spine.
“Dio?”
Jonathan’s voice is thin, cut with sharp, warbling breaths. Dio can barely tell at first, with how much his diaphragm spasms, but cold against his back, Jonathan’s hand shakes.
“Are you—” Jonathan sucks in another feeble breath. “Are you okay?”
Whatever Dio wants to say comes out as another choked gasp. He moves to sit up, but Jonathan is quick to stop him.
"Wait, careful," he tries to say. "Your head."
Dio reaches up instinctively. He flinches when his hand brushes against a tender spot on the back of his scalp. When he pulls his hand back, the tips of his fingers are stained a watery crimson.
Even after he tries to wipe at his face, the world still blurs around the edges. There’s no pain, but his body refuses to align itself with his head. His limbs move like rubber, collapsing in on themselves. When he tries to push himself up, he loses his balance and nearly hits the ground again.
Jonathan’s arms dart out in a flash to catch him around the shoulders.
“Wait,” he says again, almost panting out that single word. “Please. Just, wait.”
“Get off of me,” Dio rasps.
“Just wait!”
Jonathan’s voice cracks. His nails dig into the ruined fabric of Dio’s shirt, his shoulders trembling. Dio opens his mouth on instinct, but he snaps it shut not a moment later.
Jonathan hiccups, presses his lips together to stifle it. Drenched as he is, it’s impossible to tell where the teartracks on his face start and end.
“Dio, you weren’t breathing.”
Jonathan sucks in a sharp, warbling breath. His face is flushed, ruddy and unsightly. There’s no composure left for him to even try and maintain.
“It was my fault,” he says quietly. “It—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to hurt you. I swear. I really didn’t. I just—I didn’t know what happened. I thought you just lost your balance. You went under and you didn’t come back up.”
Hazy as the world is, Dio can scarcely make out Jonathan’s incoherent rambling. He blinks slowly, tries to re-orient his body to remember which way is up, and then finds the energy to untangle what just fell out of Jonathan’s mouth.
“You pulled me out?”
“Yes, but—”
“Why?”
Dio’s mocked Jonathan hundreds of times before for the very same thing he’s doing now: that slack-jawed, moronic silence when he can’t even find the words nor the wit to keep talking.
“Why?” Jonathan repeats. He opens his mouth uselessly, his eyes wide enough that Dio can make out the bloodshot vessels that twine around the murky blue of his irises. “What do you mean why? You were drowning.”
Dio knows that. And he knows well enough that the terrain around the river is unsteady enough to make anyone lose their balance. It wouldn’t be damning in the slightest if Jonathan came back alone with the tragic story of how it was all so fast, or maybe that he was too far to get to him in time, or that the current swept his body off. Nobody would question him if he said there was nothing he could have done. Accidents happen.
Jonathan’s whole face goes slack with realization. The blood drains from his face quick enough to turn him as pale as a corpse in the blink of an eye.
“Dio, I don’t want you dead.”
Dio turns his head. He can balance himself well enough on the palms of his hands now. When he tries to sit up this time, he stays upright. “Of course.”
He makes to stand, but a firm hand to his shoulder forces him to turn back to the side. Jonathan leans forward, trembling on his hands and knees, a raw desperation flayed across his expression, open enough to make Dio tense.
“I mean it,” Jonathan says, looking almost mad in his fervor. “I know we fight, and I know you hate me, but I’d never want you dead because of that. You understand that, don’t you? I’d never want you dead.”
Jonathan’s never been graced with the art of subtlety. He says too much, feels too much, shows his hand before he even realizes what he’s holding, and that alone is as dangerous as the most carefully constructed facade. The kind of vulnerability he carries demands balance. What he pulls from himself, he bleeds from everyone around him too.
Jonathan isn’t lying when he says he doesn’t want Dio dead. That is his truth. Dio isn’t sure if he can say the same. That is Dio’s truth.
He’s not sure why he wants to be proven wrong.
When they make it back home, Jonathan’s father storms down the stairs amidst the chaos of maids scrambling for towels and water and for someone to send for the doctor.
“What on earth happened to you two?” he asks.
Jonathan opens his mouth, the words it was my fault fumbling out. If it weren’t for his money and his name, that alone would be enough to have the police knocking on their door. Maybe even enough to have him pleading that same case in front of a judge, if Dio doesn’t stop him.
But Dio’s lost enough. Had enough taken from him. Jonathan’s absolution is his own grave to dig, but he has no right to martyr himself in Dio’s name.
“Just an accident,” Dio says. “The riverbank was muddier than we expected.”