ディオパン

in the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the remainders of every glove that laid him down and cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame “i am leaving, i am leaving” but the fighter still remains

--

Throwing matches shouldn't discourage him.

By the end of it, he received money not bet on him. That was the sole reason he fought. The only reason he was there at all. As it was, later, in the dressing rooms, he’d look around at the other fighters and felt disgust. All the same, money would be in his pockets soon enough. On other people’s pockets, too, and they’d celebrate. Except those who had bet on him. He couldn’t blame them. People could celebrate, they just never celebrated him. Even when he actually won, which wasn’t often. Or more like only because he lost. Because the odds always looked bad for the others, his opponents, and never for him. And so business was good, if you bet against the odds. If you were in the know. But he wasn't a gambler, never been. He didn’t bet on himself. Just lost or won, depending on what was needed of him, right there, right then. Depending on what the old man told him to do; he was a gambler, the old man, always been, but he never bet on Guts, either. Bet only on his failure. Been betting on it ever since the failure of his birth. At least the old man was consistent. Not bad for a gambler.

Throwing matches shouldn’t discourage him yet there he’d been one day, after a match, filled with disgust, staring at the new wave of fighters coming in. Staring at him. Coming in with an army of followers, as if this wasn’t a dirty old backwater town’s poverty riddled boxing ring no one cared for. As if this place was something else entirely. As if he was something else entirely. Someone.

He and Guts were not in the same league, of course. Some other weight. Lower? Lower, of course. But the first thing Guts thought when he first saw him that day was that his face was beautiful. And that it would be a shame if others punched it. Though it sure looked like no one ever did, or it would've been marred, deformed. Like his. Like everyone else’s.

That was the first time, though, his first thought. Later he would get used to seeing that face in the crowd at his matches, as if he knew the schedule, as if his smug grin knew the outcome beforehand, too. Always there, staring. Disappointed? Something like it. Something else too, wholly different.

So he started attending that guy’s matches, too. Just watching him. (Learned his name was Griffith, learned his record was unbeaten, learned Griffith should not have been there. He should not have been there, either. At Griffith’s matches, that is, in the crowd, watching matches he had no vested interest in but unable to look away or leave.)

And of course, Griffith never threw his fights. Always won. Maybe his opponents did, throw their fights, but for a second, Guts thought it wouldn't even be necessary. Nothing to arrange. Nothing to bet against or even for. Griffith won because he won. He deserved it. He stopped himself to grin, standing at the back of the small backwater town’s gym, the sweaty necks, sweaty heads, sweaty hands of other watchers hiding him, hopefully hiding him from view of the one on the ring. That he would have that kind of faith for a beautiful face, he had to laugh at himself. That he would have that kind of faith for anyone. Or faith at all.

He did, though. Every time he stayed behind after throwing his match, every time he shot down some gambler’s uncalled for comments, every time some sweaty, bearded guy reeking of the same alcohol the old man reeked of, thought he could be friendly, thought he could say it was good for business that the pretty face always won and the big guy always lost, he thought how they were not the same. Griffith and him were not on the same weight bracket. Not on the same level.

And so he expected the first time Griffith was there to witness his victory to be different. Something else. Not sure what, but something different. All Griffith said when they found each other in the lockers was « I didn’t expect you to win. »

No one did, really. Except the old man had instructed him last minute, near the lockers, behind that same bench, that it was to be done, because they—both of them he said but included others too—they needed to have this guy lose all his money.

Victory didn’t taste any different from defeat. It was failure all the same. But this time, it was something else. Unexpected. In the dressing rooms (Griffith didn’t have a match that day, he shouldn’t have been there but he was) Guts, sitting on that bench, towel over his head, mouthpiece still in place, for the hell of it, found himself gazing upwards to a beautiful face, expecting to feel disgusting, but feeling something else. Something wholly different. « Let’s fight. »

I could. Make something of myself. Understand.

It would've been easy to say no, to win, to lose, to be sacked and lose every cent he could ever hope to make, lose every single thing the old man had. So easy to follow that man's path and say, yes, that's me too, I’ll win, I’ll lose, no matter the outcome, just for myself. Just that. For the hell of it. But that wasn't him. Winning had never been a priority. (Losing hadn’t either). More like a curse. Staying alive, eating, having a place to live, no, a place to stay, getting on the ring to throw punches, no matter the consequence, at least that made some sense. At least most days, these days. Used to be every day before these days. But these days. These days not a lot of things made much sense anymore.

You can't live off dreams, he still remembered being told. Not people like him, not the old man. You can’t live off dreams, Guts, Gambino said, once or twice, when Guts still thought making pro would mean something, would have any kind of effect, had any sense to it at all. You can’t live off dreams. Others though. Maybe.

Maybe others could live off their dreams and follow them through, with their unmarred faces and flawless record and offering to fight him, from a different weight, and winning, and losing, and betting nothing.

Fighting for the fun of it.

Sitting in the locker after a fight and gazing up at a beautiful face.

Standing in his corner after the gym had closed up for the day. « It’ll just be the two of us. » Gloves on his hands, excitement in his vein, a broad smile on his face.

For the hell of it.

Throwing a punch, catching one, never aiming for the face—not wanting to—but taking cuts to his jaw, putting up his arms, putting them down, being held against the ropes.

Against the ropes.

His muscles aching and tired from exertion and his smile still in place.

« Are you having fun? » The words muffled by the mouthpiece, but distinctly clear. And yes echoing through every one of his bones and muscles. Yes. I’m having fun.

Blocking blows with his forearms, with the gloves close to his face, his feet wide apart, mesmerized by the graceful fluid movements of his opponent, his footwork, his hair tied up and some locks coming loose to frame his face. To frame his smile.

« I’m having fun too. »

And not winning. Not losing. Just finishing the match out of exhaustion, continuing it afterwards at a ramen place, nursing their bruises with the warm broth and the cool air of a winter night on their backs as they make their way through town, nowhere special, nowhere in particular. A match of equals that draws longer and longer through the night and is punctuated by words shared with little caution, thrown like blows on the ring, that leads them to the door of Griffith’s apartment where he lets his hair down and Guts finds his hand—red bloodied knuckles—twirling around one of the locks.

Griffith wins, though.

When he takes Guts’ hand in his and kisses the wounded knuckles softly, gently. Knock out.

That fight is, like everything with Griffith, something else. Something like a reason. Like a place to live.

-------

tumblr is dead but sometimes i find myself missin the berserk fandom (which means the five ppl i used to regularly talk to abt berserk which means i still talk to most of them just not abt berserk) like u miss that summer u’ll never get back or ur backpackin trip thru southamerica when u saw the sun rise in macchu picchu or that winter u spent lookin for four leaf clovers in ur backyard & it didn’t snow even once cos now uve grown & u dont hve time for all that and so here’s this

Πάντα στον νου σου νάχεις την Ιθάκη. Το φθάσιμον εκεί είν’ ο προορισμός σου. Aλλά μη βιάζεις το ταξείδι διόλου. Καλλίτερα χρόνια πολλά να διαρκέσει· και γέρος πια ν’ αράξεις στο νησί, πλούσιος με όσα κέρδισες στον δρόμο, μη προσδοκώντας πλούτη να σε δώσει η Ιθάκη.

In this place time is counted by drops falling onto puddles of stale water. He knows it's stale. Even if he can't smell it anymore. He can't smell anything after all. Sometimes his head is left propped to the side, the helmet heavy weighing on his exposed neck, and he can witness the drops falling, not just listen.

Not that day though.

From darkness, creatures that bring forth voices of others calling his name try their best again to fool him into hopefulness. Everyone's voices gathered and rounding into a call for him, shaping his name and other words he knows must still be pronounced out there, out of reach.

During the first days, weeks, months, spent in the depths of the king's tower, he could smell and hear everything. He could see. He felt the king's spit on his tired face. And the jailer's hands on his exposed nerves. He smelled himself and recoiled, sweat stained blankets on puddles of piss it was too dark to keep away from when he rolled over in the few moments sleep he could get. The puss from his open wounds, infected by the touch of faeces and rat bites and dead maggots on rotten fruit. He can't smell a thing now. It's not for the best.

Guts' face appears to him often. And often the desire to lash out is within him, still.

Until that day.

His head was propped away from the water but teardrops fell on his open flesh from Guts' face. All and any desire for revenge left his body. He hadn't felt himself deflate and suddenly he was small. They stung the same as stale water, and alcohol, and blood, his own or the other's, and those liquids he could never identify, the tears did. They stung the same. Lightly salted, too. But everything stings flesh when it's been torn open, muscles exposed, tendons cut and retreating when their tension is lost, their shapes forming lumps under paper thin skin that'll thin even more. Touch stings. Cloth stings. Voices sting like paper cuts scraping underneath his nails that keep growing despite his will and voices scratch the inside of his head and not even the helmet keeps them out. The blood of others stings. It stings when he watches her wiping blood clean off Guts' face. It stings when Guts lets her.

He's on Pippin's back. No longer inside that cell. He's—

Guts embraced him and he placed his hand on Guts'. He felt Guts' tears stinging his face, and then he'd been picked up, propped on Pippin's back. From there he bore witness to their interaction, Guts' and Casca's, and it was as if they couldn't even see him. His flesh was already exposed so he couldn't do much more.

Outside the city a girl offered him flowers. They stung his charred wounded hands even as they floated away from him when he let them go and the child he once was ran back to the uneven cobblestone of backstreets stinking of urine and rotten food, the view of the castle left behind, and the sun, and everything else that could reach him obscured in the shape of a tall, broad man's sillhouette. He can't smell those backstreets anymore, either, even if they weren't just imagination.

The way the wagon's uneven wheels hit against the road hurt his muscles, his open wounds, his ripped flesh, his cut tendons. No way he'll let them know, though. No way he'll reveal to the rest just how deep he's been cut, just how much he's lost. He has Guts now, at least. He watched Midland's roads fade into distance behind them, the castle and the tower a speck in the horizon. His eyes were heavy with Charlotte's voice, entwined with Guts', with Casca's. Somewhere all of this was concrete. Somewhere this wasn't just a delusion brought about by the creatures slipping out of darkness, out of the interstices covered in mold that lined the inside of his cell in the tower.

Harsh voices filled the void around him: loud shouting and hoarse screaming. Everyone has their own voice. At night he hears words carried by the wind, and the crackling of the fire. He can't smell the food they're preparing but he knows it's clean. Outside the wagon—as it did outside the tower—time carries on without his trace. This is his home now. This will be all.

The drapes that hide him from view and separate him from the rest of them—and the fire and the voices and the smells he cannot smell—rustle. Their movements match the anticipation building within him and he lifts his face slightly—it's all he can manage—to meet the one he waits for.

Sometimes Judeau, or Pippin, or someone else entirely comes. Their faces, their noses, their mouths, twist and wrinkle and disfigure; they open the drapes as wide as they can, let the sun inside, eagerly, urgently inviting a breeze that should wash it all away to start anew. Is it that important to distract themselves from the one in the wagon? Is he that disgusting? Is he that impossible to look at, to learn to live with, to believe? They smile so wide their eyes wrinkle and their faces crack open like a horse before its legs give in. They smile because he’s impossible.

Does he look at you in that same way?

Guts fills the spaces between them with words not of comfort or pity. “Soon, he says, we’ll both be back in the battlefield, soon” he repeats. Soon. Yes. But for now, for now Guts changes his bandages and cleans his skin and fills the spaces between them with laughter.

This face doesn’t twist, it doesn’t wrinkle, this smile is wide and open like a sword, like the sun staring down on the land signalling the best time for attack. For a moment or two he believes in it. He lets himself believe in it. He really truly isn't in that tower anymore. Guts is by him, once more. For a moment he believes.

He doesn’t look at you in that same way.

The drapes rustle and something on the outside breaks. The spell is broken too. Guts looks at the entrance of the wagon (is that the same anticipation he can see in himself?) and no one comes but they both know who could.

Can he even see you?

Guts waits for someone too. And—again, again—it's not him.

He feels small against the hands that help him inside the armor. Small against this voice telling him that soon. Soon he’ll wield a sword. Soon they’ll meet battle together.

He feels small against the voice not mentioning her and them, even when he already knows, he already heard. It’s so easy to forget, so easy to place his own broken hand on those large ones and forgive. He truly believes Guts is with him, here, no longer in the tower.

In this place time is measured by the rising and setting of the sun. The meals brought by Guts, or Casca, or Pippin. The fires lit at night. The voices carried in by strong gusts of wind. The second day he heard their voices, just outside. The two of them, leaving—again, again—leaving him. And now together. Casca who had wiped the blood from Guts' face. And Guts who'd let her. They spoke of leaving. Leaving him behind, torn, open, ripped, limp, unmoving, lying on the shredded remains of those who believed, the festering, broken remains of his dream.

And so he lets Guts say soon. Soon they'll be together again, like they're meant to be. He plays their daily game of dress up and dreaming and longing. Guts lifts his arms and positions him inside the heavy impossible armor. But he knows what hides behind those drapes.

The wagon has travelled farther and farther, he knows. Days have passed and they've only stopped nights, the horses too tired, the food too scarce. He doesn't have it in him to ask. He cannot.

"I know of someone who can heal him" he hears on the seventh night.

-

‘Tsuchimura!’ Naki comes into the room, running. 'It’s Tsuchimura,’ Tsuchimura says, always splaining. 'And what I say? I tried on the suit like you said.’

Tsuchimura walks around him, hand on his chin, looking at the new white suit.

'Hm,’ he makes a sound. 'And what’s this?’ he points to the front of the suit. 'Oh! S'a flower! Ya said the hole here was for that.’ 'But this is a sundrop.’ Yamamura crosses his arms. 'Hah? Nah, it’s a flower.’ 'It means desperate, you know?’ 'Wh-? No… flower means flower. This is a flower.’ 'You—flowers have meanings,’ Yamamura says. He rubs his forehead too.

Naki raises his eyebrow. This guy’s crazy, he thinks. He’s always been strange, but this? S'too much.

'Flowers have a language.’ 'Haah? That’s not true! Flowers can’t say words, they ain’t even alive! Who’s the fool now, Yamada?’

Yamada looks at him with that look he wears when he looks at him. Like he’s tryina smile but he can’t. Ah, it’s sad, Naki thinks. Sometimes it reminds him of the way Yamori looked at him sometimes.

'Come with me, Mess Ye Naki,’ Yamada says. 'Where?’ 'I’ll teach you.’ 'Teach me? English again? I don’t wanna… My head’ll start hurting…’ 'It’s my head that will hurt. Just come.’

Naki follows. Maybe Yamamura’s got problems with some stuff too, if his head hurts.

'Where’re we going?’ he asks, and then when he sees they’re walking out the door: 'What if someone sees?’ 'Try not to call attention to yourself.’

They walk in silence. It’s kind of cold, the sun’s about to set, but the sky’s orange. Looks nice. There’s a park around here too, maybe Tsuchiyama wants to go play, Naki’s pretty good at the see saw. They’re couple of corners away from the building when Yamamura grabs his sleeve.

'We’re here,’ he says and points. 'What’s this?’ 'A flower shop—it says right there—A flower shop. They sell flowers.’ 'I ain’t lendin ya money. I got none.’ And he gives Naki that look again. Yeah, it’s sad. 'Look,’ he says. 'Do you know this flower?’ ’S'a rose,’ Naki says, proudly. Of course he knows, what a stupid question. Tsuchiyama really just seems more smarter than he really is. 'Red roses mean love.’

Naki looks at the flower trying to see what Tsuchiyama sees. But he can’t read so even if he could see them he wouldn’t understand any of the words that’re supposed to be on the flowers.

'I can’t read,’ he splains. 'You don’t need to. I’m telling you. Sundrops,’ he points to Naki’s flower, 'mean desperate. Red roses mean love.’ Ah, Naki thinks he gets it. 'I think I get it,’ he says then, of course. 'Like how a heart means love, too, huh? Yamori taught me that!’ 'We,’ Tsuchiyama says. 'Not you, just Yamori.’ Tsuchiyama really is ego—ego—selfish. 'Um. Well. This is a tulip,’ he points to another flower. 'A ha.’ 'If it’s yellow it means fame. If it’s red it means good bye.’ 'Oh! And this one?’ 'That’s a camellia. It’s love. Or bad luck.’ 'Huh? Which one?’ 'Both.’ 'What’s that?’ 'It’s love and bad luck.’ 'Oh.’ Naki gets it. A bad love. He crouches so his face is on the same level as the flowers. Tsuchimura stands next to him. He smells like flowers, but he always smells like flowers. Now he smells more like that.

'Daff and dills mean death. Christmas mean respect. Carnage mean trust. And these ones are called Gardens, they mean loyalty.’

Naki nods, touching the leaves and the petals. He can’t see any words but at least he gets what Tsuchimura said.

'Did you understand, Mess Ye Naki?’ 'Yeah!’ Naki smiles up at him. 'Thanks for teaching me, Tsuchiyama!’

Tsuchiyama looks surprised, or something. He covers his mouth with his hand. He does this sometimes, sometimes when he talks to Naki but sometimes when he talks to Kaneki too. Sometimes he looks like he’s distracted, after he does this. Like he was sad but he didn’t know. Maybe he’s lonely. But being lonely’s so terrible Naki hopes it isn’t that cos that’s a really terrible thing. Naki’s been lonely himself and it’s awful. Tsuchiyama’s a good guy, he shouldn’t feel that way.

'It’s Tsuchiyama,’ he says after a while, but he’s already turned away from Naki, is walking back to the building. 'I know that! Hey!’ Naki jogs up to him. 'That was easy! Ya can teach me more English if ya want. Not now though, learnt too much today.’

Tsuchiyama smiles in that way he smiles sometimes, like he made a sort of line with his lips, Naki thinks. A small smile. And he nods. But he ain’t looking at Naki so maybe he didn’t nod and Naki only thought he did.

He really is grateful so he spends the next two days thinking about it. There ain’t a lot to do, just wait for when they gotta all wear the suits so he thinks it over and he thinks it’s a great idea, that he’s had.

'Yamada!’ Naki comes into the room, running. 'Look! This is what humans call “surprise”!’ Yamada turns away from the hanging suit he’s smoothing out and looks at Naki. '”Surprise”?’ he sees the flowers on Naki’s hands. 'Yeah! Yamori taught me about it. It would be boring without it, yeah?’ 'Ah, I see. They’re for me?’ 'Yeah! I got 'em from that place we went to. I went with my bros, I trieda teach 'em about the flower words but I don’t think they got it. I got you these cos you taught me!’

Yamamura takes the flowers from Naki and looks at them.

'Ah,’ he says. 'Dahlias and gardens and christmas.’ 'Yeah! Cos you’re cool, I respect ya too, ya know?’ 'Ah,’ Yamamura says, covering his mouth with his hand again. He does that sometimes too. Maybe he’s hungry. Then he says 'Thank you, Mess Ye Naki,’ very softly, almost like he didn’t wanna say it very loudly. 'Well yeah of course!’ Naki says. The others are waiting for him so he has to go, he only came here to give Tsuchiyama the flowers. 'I’m happy you like 'em,’ he says when he’s by the door, turning back to wave. Tsuchiyama’s giving him that other look he has sometimes, like he was sad and he didn’t know. 'Ya can teach me more again sometime, ya know? We’re fighting for Kaneki so you’re like my bro, too.’

And finally Tsuchimura does that smile, the small one, but it’s better than the other look, so Naki smiles back and waves again, twice, before he’s gone.

–

im too depressed to even make an author’s note but cant not talk abt myself

--

They say a vampire lives in the old abandoned church. He's thirteen the first time he hears the tale, coming from the idle mouths of well-fed boys at the school he and Jojo attend together. In his old life there was no time for such trite. But Jojo hurries his step when the road back to the mansion leads them to the church's steps. Ever the coward.

You can't really believe that nonsense? Dio asks, standing still. I don't! But. But?

But there are things humans know not of, Jojo doesn't say. So many things. He keeps walking, tentatively looking back to check if his brother follows. He catches Dio staring up at the church before he picks up his pace. When Dio's hand ruffles Jojo's hair it's almost like they've both forgotten what came before.

They say a vampire walks the roads leading up to the abandoned church at night. He's sixteen when he takes a bet to venture inside the place, Jojo and two other boys from the rugby team stand on the road waiting for his return.

You don't need to do this, Jojo holds him back by the sleeve.

It's Jojo who needs not do things. He violently yanks away, takes long strides up the steps towards the 16th century church, built just after the Reformation, a monument to Catholic loss.

Floorboards creak under his weight, his breath comes out in clouds of mist, and the altar is surrounded by a halo of light, reflection coming from the golden plating of a cross where the figure of Christ, bloodied and suffering, perpetually draws His last breath. Dio's mother would've crossed herself, so he does so, instinctively. His footsteps echo through the ribbed vault as he approaches the altar. Mossy and stuffy but sweet—cinnamon and incense—the smell of the place is nauseating, old and cold. Maybe a mouse or two crawl away back to its nest. To the right of the altar the votive candle rack holds all the candles it can, all half new as if someone had recently changed them, lit them, yet at its feet a mountain of wax sticks to the floor, traces of years of offerings and requests no one's bothered to clean, not even for Him.

Dio runs a finger over the altar, not as dusty as he expected. He traces the latin letters on the wall, marking the places where someone rests for all time. Sebastian, Moira, Perla, Domenico, Requiescat in Pace, anno Domini, beatae memoriae, IHS. Ages ago his mother taught him what all this meant. Now he knows more latin than she could imagine and yet they still hold only her meanings. He lets out a sigh. There's no one else here. A waste of time. But if he let out a scream Jojo would have to run to the church, fear coiled tight around his stomach, and maybe he'd cry, maybe he'd faint. The prospect is not enticing enough to carry it through. For all it's worth, Dio finds solace in the melancholy solitude of the place. He mocks himself half heartedly, how pitiful, how childish, his mother's hand showing him how to cross himself, where to kneel, what to say. He wishes he could light one of the candles, watch the light draw shadows on Christ's face, ask Him where He was during all of that. During all of this. A waste of time.

He's halfway to the entrance when a voice calls out to him. He turns to find a man, a young man only slightly older than him, with hair white as snow and skin dark as night coming out from behind the altar, the door leading to the catacombs. He wears black and white robes which hide his hands. Dio struggles to remember when he's faced someone like this, but he can't quite understand what it is that this someone is like. So he crosses his arms, stares in defiance. It's always worked, after all.

What's your name? The man speaks in a soft, soothing voice. Dio Brando. Italian or Spanish? I don't know. A Catholic? My mother was. Dead, is she? Gangrene. Are you here for mass? Is there mass here? Not since 1572. Why are you here, then? I take care of the place. The bodies that rest here. You're a priest? Aren't you too young? I'm ordained. A monk? Dominican? Dio remembers the Dominican monastery back in town. The young man smiles, You know your robes. Dio smirks, So, you're the reason people think there's a vampire here? They do? Children at the school all fear the place. People believe whatever's easier for them. They fear whatever's out of their reach. That they do, Dio says, smiling more widely. Not you, though? You're just barely more than a boy. This is just a church. There are worse things out there, you know? I do, he smiles, knowingly. It's nice here, Dio says half unwillingly. Is it? I— Suddenly, Jojo calling out his name brings him back from wherever he's gone while staring at the monk's face. Religious experience, maybe. I have to go, he says, almost betraying that he does not wish so. That you do, the young man says. Your name? Pucci, he says. I'll light a candle for your mother, and with that he turns towards the candle rack, doesn't watch Dio leave.

Was there really a vampire there, Dio? Jojo asks, his voice wavering in front of the crackling fire once they've returned home and had dinner with that retch. Don't be an idiot, Jojo. There was no one there. Abandoned churches are called so for a reason. Then why'd you say-- A bet's a bet. That incompetent Castle paid, didn't he? You can get yourself those chocolates you like to gobble up in the middle of the night. I don't—! Dio laughs heartily almost sincerely, he imagines he hadn't done so in a while, and it is Pucci's face he pictures as he does.

They say a vampire haunts the abandoned church. Dio knows the truth, though, no one but a young Dominican monk, the church's caretaker, ever steps foot inside the old building. No one but that boy and Dio himself. He hasn't seen Pucci again, though he visits the place regularly. The legend of a bloodthirsty vampire keeps the idiotic villagers away, and not even Jojo will come near the place. Dio spends early mornings there, away from the Joestar mansion, reading books of law, napping on one of the benches. Only once does he dream that someone watches him. The air gets colder and colder and he shivers. It's early spring so he'd taken off his jacket and yet he wakes to find it on him like a makeshift blanket. He pretends he did so in his sleep. He's twenty one when he runs there while the sun is setting after another argument with Jojo—another one involving “their” father, Jojo's father. If he didn't know better, he'd think he's grown a soft spot for Jojo, spurred on by the unjust treatment his disgusting father dishes out on him. If he didn't know better, he'd think he was fuming out of something other than resentment. He sees Pucci the moment he steps into the church. Sitting on the floor, his back to Dio, he turns his head, half hidden under the hood of his robe, to face the newcomer and his one visible eye almost sparks. Dio swallows not out of fear, not out of anything. The boy's unchanged from when Dio first saw him. He looks to have been crying.

Pucci, Dio ventures. Go away, he says, his voice not soft, not soothing. Not now. Pucci, he says again, walking closer. I said, Not Now.

The echo of his words makes the bats leave their nests, flap around the vaults, screeching to find their way in their own darkness. Dio instinctively covers his face, lets Pucci out of his sight for a second and then finds him gone. He spends the night there waiting for the boy's return but it never comes. When dawn breaks he notices he fell asleep on the bench once again, the lit candles on the rack kept him warm.

Two days later he visits Town Hall for records on the church. He pores through the dusty pages of information with the same diligence he awards his law studies. He charms his way to records the secretary says are for law enforcement eyes only, thinks it too easy to have the secretary hand those to him after a little push. Nothing of importance. He recognizes the names of those buried in the church. Sebastian, a noble whose fortune paid for the construction of the building in 1518; Moira, the wife of someone of some importance who devoted the empty hours of her life to God and was buried to spend the empty hours of her death in 1546; the siblings, Perla and Domenico, dead together in a fire in 1572, their funeral the last service the church, now on a land owned by an Anglican who prohibited Catholicism, ever held. He looks for the logs of their birth, noted down in the baptismal records left behind by a meticulous priest. Domenico and Enrico Pucci, twins, and their sister, two years younger, Perla, born in England to a family of wealthy Italian immigrants, their father dark skinned, noted with the racism of the time, of all times, possibly African. Census records show the parents left town not soon afterwards, leaving all their possessions behind. Disappeared. Their home became public property fifty years later, now part of the Joestar estate, demolished and hidden under horses barracks, Dio figures from the location. What's of interest, though, is the fire that killed the siblings, noted by police to have been started by them, in the shack under the statue of Aphrodite that stood in one of the moors, a popular place for young lovers doomed by fate. No word on the third sibling, the other twin. Left not with the parents and died not with his brother and sister. Eternally, then, keeping custody over the graves of those he cared for most. Morbidly, Dio imagines he'll take care of his own grave, once he's dead. Maybe even Jojo's.

He escapes Jojo's probing questions with a shrug of his shoulders, disappears into the shadows inside the church, lights a candle in wait.

When Pucci appears, rising from the stairs that lead to the catacombs, his face is shadowed so it appears to Dio as if no flesh separates him from Pucci's skull, the empty sockets that held his sincere, intense eyes a mockery. It's only a flash, though, as the light flickers and he can see Pucci's dark skin soft and smooth, his lips full, almost a smile. You know, he says, if you come here, you can never go home again. No one can, Dio smirks, from his seat at the first bench in front of the altar, eager for communion. There's been no home to return to for a long time, he means. No me to return there. Pucci nods. He kneels in front of Dio, a resting form in the chiaroscuro of candle light. All those paintings he devoted to memory, devouring books devoted secretive Catholics left as offerings throughout the centuries, like that one woman, that one. I suppose you know, now. Dio nods, looking down at Pucci. How easy it is, despite the unsurmountable gap that divides them. You've grown. You haven't. Pucci laughs. How quaint. How? As children, my brother and sister played together. We played with a mask our grandfather brought back from the New World. When it was New, to us. We played with it until we saw a drop of blood, from Perla's finger, drop onto it. Back then, as a child, I thought dying like that would be too painful, your head pierced, your skull struck, all the way through the soft tissue of your brain. I thought it would be painful and it was because of that that I chose it. I thought it would be slow, like dying in a fire started by your own hand. But it wasn't. Aren't you bright? Don't use that tone with me. Pucci mimics Dio's earlier smirk. Where is it now? Dio has a suspicion, nagging at the back of his mind. A mask that Jojo said belonged to his mother, hanging on one of the rooms of the large mansion, calling out to its inhabitants, the reason for Jojo's interest in Archaeology. Hm? The mask?

So many years ago. He can't even remember, Pucci thinks. Of course he can, though. We tell ourselves the same lies we tell others. No other way.

So many years ago, he says, a woman came into the church to pray and saw me, I think, curled up on one of the benches, trembling out of what she must've thought was cold. And the next day she came again, with new clothes—worn by no one—and a warm meal I had no use for. And the next day, she came again. And again. And even when she couldn't see me in the vastness of the church, she left the meal, and blankets, and more clothes. I had no other means by which to thank her, it was the only thing left in my possession, and I didn't think it at the time. But I was cursing her. Cursing her? If she were to ever use it. Dio lets out a laughter that echoes through the vaults, almost enough to make the bats flutter around. That kind of power, that kind of—a curse? I think you've lived too comfortable a life, Mr Vampire. And Pucci stares. It's a kind of thrill, too. When he stares. As if him, a creature like him who fears not death nor humans nor the passing of time, as if him, Pucci, is shocked to learn the thoughts that Dio's plagued with. Have you been anywhere? What do you mean? Outside the confines of the church that holds the remains of your dead siblings, Dio says, making sure he's clear enough. Or are you trapped here? Bound by grief? And he scoffs, slightly. I have to feed, Pucci starts. Dio laughs again. Even Christ laughs with him, it seems. Outside this pathetic town, I mean.

How long has it been, since he's felt like he can pour out the secret of his shame, his grief, his regret, and expect absolution? How long has it been since your last confession, monk? How long since you knelt and prayed and felt God Himself say, You've done well, my child, now rest, and pray, and let yourself be. Isn't that what Catholicism is all about? Repentance and salvation? Unlike other religions? Mistake upon mistake and sin upon sin and all is forgiven if you, once, just once, let go?

I, he starts though no lattice separates them and Dio is no priest, I agreed their death was the one choice to make. She was (strange love bears strange fruit) pregnant. If that hadn't been so, we could've all gone on pretending. He was to marry someone. Secrets can be kept for eternities, I know, I've kept them with me. I thought it was what was right. I thought so sincerely. But it was not. I could not—bear. And dying like I did was nothing like dying in a fire—trapped here, for all eternity—to repent.

There is silence, so complete and calm not even the pulse on Dio's wrists are any matter of concern. Not even his flesh, his scent, his—

And then Dio laughs, like an eruption, not the third time today, a roaring silence that fills all voids in Pucci's heart, in his emptiness.

You, Mr Vampire, have challenged death, and can't overcome one little thing? Immortality is not a curse but a reward. That kind of power? Not a curse for one who's done wrong, but a blessing for one who's done right. Are you not a man of God? I have— What? Think yourself forsaken?

Centuries of watching the ambition of humanity turn to dust, their rage and their dreams, their urgings and their riches, their longing and their hunger, all over in one fell swoop, all over in a beat, under Pucci's hands, blood dripping from his fingers, his teeth, his lips, so fragile and lost and scared. Centuries in the making of a self imposed imprisonment, unable to die by his own hand, again, for fear of what that might wreak, a portion of untouched waters deep in the recesses of his soul speaking out to him, This was meant to be, God has willed it so, and now here, in front of him, was a boy with the face of an angel, the most beautiful of angels, to tell him it was, as he'd suspected, a blessing. Not forsaken but praised, rewarded, granted that which humans seek after with their fates at stake. A reason. There must be.

this is like a sketch/the structure of a thing that shd be longer but undertakin smth this long is too much. i had to google gothic romance lol my knowledge of english literature is fortunately v limited. today was a rly bad day for me lol so pls praise me tell me im the most beautiful man u’ve ever set eyes on

tw for implied fraternal incest

---

“Father,” the woman said, her voice a hush. “You'd be better off staying with us. That place--” her voice cracked.

Pucci'd seen this kind of thing before. Superstitious folk, born out, he's sure, of the closed off puritan self chastisement of protestantism. It was them who chased the witches, after all. Their churches cold, dark, wooden hollow places more akin to barns. God doesn't dwell there. God rests where Caravaggio's paintings hang. Where altars of gold and windows of tinted glass praise his glory. Where the ceilings—

“That place is cursed,” she finished.

Pucci nodded, curtly. Thanked her for her generosity, in warning, in hospitality, explained that such things could not harm him. He was a man of God.

Rain from the day before left the roads murky, his boots, splattered with mud and grime, left footsteps behind him as he crossed the narrow bridge towards the manor. Below him the winding river lost itself into the dark woods that framed the property, where the villagers say a wolf lives alone, having killed all the other wolves years prior.

Waiting for him at the door to the guest house was the portly housekeeper he corresponded with in the months before his transfer, her expression as curt and to the point as the letters she wrote once the Order put him in touch with the Joestar estate. The Joestars, they explained, were not a Catholic family. The master of the house, George, was a non practicing Anglican. But his son, a recent convert, was to house the priest under a reasonable prize.

“It's all,” Rhys whispered, “to dispell the rumors.” “What rumors?” Pucci asked and got no reply.

The housekeeper frowned when she showed him to his room, an ample double bedroom with its own lavatory and a large boudoir. She told him where to place his bags before leading him into the dining room, adjoining the kitchen.

“The cook comes by every day, you might not see him. Breakfast is served at 8, lunch at 12, tea at 4 and dinner at 7. No sooner and no later, do you understand?” Pucci nodded. “Do not go into the woods, they're unsafe.” He nodded again. “And Father,” the housekeeper said, her tone stern. “You're not to wander into the main house. Master Joestar does not take kindly to strangers.”

She turned on her heels and bid him good night just as rain started falling, tapping on the tiled roof. Pucci felt himself give in to melancholic musings, memories drawn back towards his sister's face looking in from the windows, her hair and long dress wet with rain, face pale and lips blue, begging him not to tell, and his twin tapping him on the shoulder, Go back to bed, Enrico, Mom and Dad are asleep, we should be too, and then waking hours later in their shared room, alone.

He'd always found days go by faster in rural areas, contrary to what they'd have you believe. He walked under the rain every morning after breakfast for the 10AM mass which the same three people attended, with the same sins to confess, the same Hail Marys to pray, knelt with their sad dark clothes. Mrs Ryan walked him back to the road leading up to the manor, never got too close, said she'd pray for his safety. Her husband invited him for a glass of wine at his pub the night of the storm, after 8PM mass. He said the good Father couldn't walk back in this weather. The soles of his boots would tear open and. And. They roam the woods when the weather's like this. “They?” “Oi, Gerry, what're you doing?” a voice piped up from one of the tables. “He knows already. That's why they sent you here, innit Father?” Mrs Ryan crossed herself. “Issat true?” the same man who'd spoken earlier asked. “Is what true?” “That they sent you here for them?” “Why else would he stay in their house?”

A chill ran down Pucci's back. He'd felt like this before, not when discussing Evil, or Witchcraft, or Paganism, but when his mother and father had asked where Domenico and Perla were; when, younger still, his brother and sister had left him behind while the three of them took a stroll and he'd found them later out of breath, Perla's hair loose and wild, strands of grass on the back of her dress, and Domenico's hands dirty with mud and grass.

“They've made a deal with the devil. They've noth—” Silence set in as the door's bell rang when the barmaid walked in the door, uncovering her blond hair guarded from the rain. “Just be careful, Father,” Mr Ryan finished.

Pucci wrote Rhys a letter with questions left unanswered, as a reply never arrived. He searched his memories, always accurate to a fault, for the moment in which the Order told him he would be placed in this town, in that house, and the reasons, and found nothing.

Days later, James led him to the Page house. The villagers had taken it upon themselves to give the Page's boy at least a chance for an Extreme Unction, though Pucci had never seen the family at church. From within the shoddy walls he could hear wails and whimpers, and before he knew it James had left his side, left him at the doorstep on his own. The door creaked as he made his way inside, calling out to whoever was in there.

In a small room, a boy lay on his deathbed, her old mother—grandmother?—at his side, doubled over in her grief.

“I'm Father Pucci,” he said over her sobs. “There's nothing to do,” Mrs Page said, suddenly calm, “but to go to him for help.” “God is always here to help.” “I do not speak of God, but him.” Pucci raised his eyebrows. “The master of the house where you reside. Take me to him. His blood can heal everything.” “What are you saying?” “He cured Father McKenzie's boy. Before the Father went mad. Take me to him.” Father McKenzie was not mad, he was a pederast. But Pucci bit his tongue. It was no use. “I have never met him.” “Take me to him,” she repeated, her voice getting louder. “Take me to him.” “I'll give your boy the Unction.” “Do not touch him! Take me to him!”

She was in such a state, arms flailing, legs kicking, that Pucci decided to leave. He'd seen people like this before, dismissed sometimes as hysterics, sometimes as possessed, most times as simply stupid. Pucci imagined Domenico's room in the asylum, perpetually asking his twin to return to bed. He was none of those. The good Father said a prayer for the boy's soul and walked the narrow road towards the manor, handling his rosary. The main house up on the hill behind the smaller one where he resided looked back at him as he got closer, no light visible from behind the drawn curtains.

He heard the commotion while he rested on his bed, reading Tristram Shandy for the fourth time. From his window in the dark he could make out Mrs Page's figure, struggling against the housekeeper and a man he did not recognize. The body of her dead son lay on the ground, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle.

“What's the matter?” “Father, go back into the house.” “Take me to him! Take me to him!”

The old woman's eyes were red and black. Everyone spoke at the same time, screaming. The housekeeper, the man he assumed was the cook, the woman, even the crickets chirped too loudly for his own thoughts to take any kind of form. He lifted his hands to cover his ears but stopped himself when every sound around him suddenly, abruptly came to a halt.

Before their makeshift group of people thrown together in the cover of night stood a man, tallest out of all of them, of features beautiful and hair long and blond. He took in all of them, even the dead body at their feet, and their silence, and then spoke.

“I'll take him. All of you leave.” Like insects they all scattered, old Mrs Page muttered her thanks, now back to her grieving mother role, and the housekeeper and the cook hurried on their way to the guest house. Only Pucci stood still, watching the man who hadn't moved a muscle. “Is there something else, Father?” “No.” “A pity we had to meet like this. Now, excuse me.”

The man picked up the dead body, hoisted it on his shoulder, and slowly walked towards the main house. Later, Pucci would wonder why he didn't follow. Why he didn't move at all.

“Mrs Ryan, I need to—” “I know what you'll ask, Father,” she said, stopping in her tracks on the way back to the manor from church, as usual. “You saw him. I can tell. Your expression has changed.”

Pucci wanted to scoff at her superstition, if only he hadn't felt it too closely.

“The rumors didn't start long ago, ten or so years past. At first even I thought them born of envy, the wealthy incite those feelings, for just reasons. A family that'd made a pact with the devil, to save the life of the patriarch who'd fallen gravely ill and whose children were no older than fourteen, a story told of old, yeah? A pact with the devil to save their name, to live on forever. These started because the Joestars stopped leaving their house. Before this you would see them around town, the children, and even the father. It's been years since they’ve been to town, and yet their fortune remains, where from is anyone's guess. Some have seen them, in the woods at night, some young ones dare each other to go and spy on their rituals, but most haven’t ever returned. And they say not even the housekeeper speaks directly with them anymore, and she’s forbade to speak with anyone in town. But well—” she dries off her hands on her skirt, tightens her sweater against her chest. “I think it really all started when Lord Joestar returned from one of his trips to London. With him he carried a child of around nine said to have been cursed, a street urchin he found trying to steal his money. My brother's wife's sister worked in the house at the time, as a governess to Master Jonathan, and she said the child was evil, that he looked a beast, an animal flung out of Hell, that he bit and kicked and spit at his new brother. She was let go not soon after, and with her half the household staff. The children were left without governesses or nursery maids, and only the butler and a couple of others remained. James was once their foot boy but he swears he cannot remember, he wasn't much older than the children, then. Seeing him about town, you wouldn't believe these stories, of course. Master Dio grew into a handsome boy, kind and sweet, who loved his brother dearly and respected the family that had taken him in. I suppose he must've been grateful. Which is why he helped his brother. The Devil doesn't give any kind of deal that's good for us, you must know that better than I do. To save his father and his family, Master Jonathan damned himself and the others to Hell on Earth. Now they can only leave their house at night, feast on the blood of humans stupid enough to find themselves lost in the woods. My niece's friend's father one—”

Pucci turned to look at the direction Mrs Ryan was staring to see what had made him shut her mouth. Down the road, walking towards them and with his arm wrapped and held up by a slink made of satin, was the boy Pucci had seen dead not twelve hours before.

Mrs Ryan turned pale.

“Run, Father,” she said, her voice quivering. “He's not alive yet not dead.”

The boy's eyes focused on them and Mrs Ryan ran back towards the church, but Pucci remained in his place, watching the slow painful stride of the one approaching him. Perhaps not recognizing him, the boy simply passed him by, not even glancing at him a second time, and again Pucci wondered why he had not followed. Instead, he walked in the opposite direction.

When he reached the main house past the fountain and prepared to bang on the door, the housekeeper appeared behind him, urged him to return to the guest house.

“I told you you're not to come here, Father. It was part of the agreement.” “I need to know what's going on.” “I'll expect you'll leave this place by morning. You've broken the conditions set by the lease.” “What lease?” “The one signed by you and your Order.” “I have no recollection of such a thing.” “And yet your signature is there, clear as day. Now please, leave this place and ready your bags.”

Pucci looked up, exasperated, and from the window right above the door staring at him was the tall, blond man.

“I wish to speak to you,” Pucci shouted at him, hoping he could hear. But the man drew the curtain in front of him. “Tell me how you did it!”

With the cracking of his voice, Pucci realized this was not about the town, or the Page boy, or any kind of duty to the Holy Church. His sister's face looking in from the window, hair wet with rain, came to haunt him as it always did. There was no reply but the howling of the strong wind, and the housekeeper leading him, once he gave up, into the guest house.

Morning came with a letter stuck under his door, allowing him to remain in the guest house provided he not break the agreement again. With it was the document, and there his own signature that he did not remember ever giving.

At midnight he ventured into the woods once he was sure the housekeeper and the cook slept. The image Mrs Ryan had shared with him that evening after mass vivid in his mind as if him, or her, had witnessed it themselves: a large bonfire the only source of light in a clearing surrounded by tall trees, three people dancing with a goat headed figure as a young person bled to death, their flesh charred by the proximity to the fire. He trudged through the trees for hours and found nothing but his feet getting heavier and heavier with sleep and tiredness.

Once more, he wrote letters to the Order and Rhys and handed them over to Gerry Ryan for delivery. No replies came again.

He tried, again, to walk towards the large entrance of the main house, up the marble steps that separated both properties, past the fountain and under the watchful stare of the housekeeper, but all his efforts were rendered useless. The housekeeper informed him over lunch one day that the young masters had gone, as they did every winter, to Cairo and would not return for another four weeks.

Pucci spent those days submerged in his regular routine, but his nights were plagued with dreams of a large, unfathomable Islamic mansion, surrounded by minarets, the halls of which he walked alone like a ghost who's come back to do again what gives him pain, to revisit old wounds that haven't healed. At the end of all the corridors, the elusive, shadowed figure of the tall blond man, donning the light, sheer clothes of the East, seemed inviting, but always out of reach. He knew, too, that in one of the rooms Perla's spirit tapped on the window asking to be let in, and in another, Domenico, his mind gone, urged him to go back to bed, for everyone in the house slept.

Winter was just a word in this northern English town, though. Pucci, who'd received his religious education at a monastery in the south of Italy, where lemon trees mix their fragrance with the sea, found himself laughing when James told him winter was finally over, having noticed no change in the weather. By that point the dreams had become so vivid he could see the Cairo mansion if he closed his eyes during waking hours. A bastardized version of the Orientalism his classmate at the seminar, a muslim convert, warned him of.

But winter came to an end, truly, when one Saturday, leaving the parish after 10AM mass, a young, beautiful woman with long curly hair not unlike Perla's handed him a peach colored envelope. Dinner at eight, the main house. Midler will pick you up from the guest house at seven fifty five.

Midler, the same beautiful woman, knocked on his room door at the exact time the letter announced. She spoke not a word, walked three steps ahead of him towards the main house. With a large key she opened the doors and allowed him inside.

It was nothing like the architecture his imagination had constructed. The curtains were drawn, the only source of light long candles on various chandeliers. The furniture veiled by satin covers, their shape only a hint below their masks. Midler led him into the smoking room and asked him to wait. Not long afterwards a man carrying a tray with a bottle of wine and a crystal glass entered the room, opened the bottle and served wine for Pucci without a word. Aside from the chair in which he sat and the table where the wine bottle and his glass were placed, the furniture in the room was also covered. A grand clock marked time. Two minutes to eight. He took a sip of wine, too sweet, and rose when the clock struck. Midler was at the doorway to lead him to the dining room where a long table had been set for just two people, one at the head of it, the other around the centre. The tall blond man waited for him there, arms extended out as if for a hug but when he was close enough, he took Pucci's hand and kissed the ring that signaled him as part of the Order.

“A pleasure, to meet you again, Father.” “Likewise.” “I'm awfully sorry my brother could not be here to meet you. He would've loved to.” Pucci nodded. “And your father?” “Indisposed,” he said, imperceptibly gritting his teeth. “I presume you know who I am, though we have not been formally introduced. My name is Dio Brando. Please, take a seat. Dinner will be served now.” “I'm honored, Lord Brando.” “Just Dio is fine,” gritted teeth, again. Pucci wondered how he even caught it in the first place.

Dinner came and went without a hitch. Dio sipped slowly from his glass of wine. “Do you find life here to your comfort?” “It is what it is.” “Uh huh. Must be a grand change from what you were used to, before.” “What was I used to before?” “Different climates, I reckon.” “How did you revive that boy?” Dio placed his glass back on the table, his smile sweet with venom and rust. “Are you finished with your meal, Father? Was it to your liking?” Pucci stared at his plate, half finished, and nodded. “Tell me, I want to know.” “Well then,” he said, ringing a bell. Midler and the man from earlier came into the room to take their plates. “Follow me.”

Dio's studio was lit by candles too. Shadows danced on the walls, hiding and revealing tomes of books on the occult, esoteric paraphernalia, large oil paintings—Pucci knew the Velazquez was original—hanging on the walls. In the center of the room a table held a human skull engraved with Et in Arcadia Ego and other symbols Pucci recognized as pagan in origin. Opposite the skull, a portrait of Dio and two other men hung, the others' faces slashed through, indistinguishable. On the desk, a large ancient book on Eastern Medicine was lined with notes made by a hawk feather pen.

“These are the big secrets,” Dio's eyes narrowed, seductive. He laughed loudly, ominous surrounded by all that silence. Pucci felt breath stuck in his throat. “Do you fear God, Father?” Dio asked. “Enough to stay away from all temptation? Even the biggest temptation of all, to defeat death?” “What do you speak of?” “There are things far worse than God.” “The Devil, you mean?” “How foolish. Even God makes deals with the Devil, tortures His most faithful follower for fun.” “That's blasphemy.” “That's in your Scriptures. So is that which you wish for, is it not?” “I do not follow.” “Communion with the dead,” he walked towards Pucci. “The woman of Endor.” “I—” “Perla, was it? Your sister,” Dio was so close Pucci could smell the wine in his breath, too sweet. “Strange love bears strange fruit, and perhaps it was envy which pushed you? That she chose him over—” “Enough! What do you know about me?” pushed against the desk, Pucci had no way out but he was not one to give in. Usually. “More than you do,” Dio said, closer still. Too close.

He woke in a pool of his own sweat, in the room he'd called home the past months. A tree branch hit against the window repeatedly, drowning out the howling winds. Breakfast did not come that day and he missed church wandering around the woods in hopes of finding the wolf that killed all the other wolves in years prior. He found his way down to the river and walked along the bank, ran into a family of wild boars, the newborns following after the parents in apprehension, and a hooded figure sat on a rock. He stopped some paces away from it, startled when the figure turned to him, and stood up. Under the dark hood was the long blond hair of the barmaid. Seeing it Pucci was able to breathe calmly again. “Ms Erina,” he greeted. “Father,” she started, walking closer. “We need to speak.” “Is there something you need?” “You should stay away from Dio.” “Huh?” “Things are not what they seem. They're not as the people in town put them.” “What do you know?” “Father. Leave this place. It would be better for you.” “What do you know?” She didn't reply. “Tell me.”

She looked over to the other side of the river then back at him.

“All I know is the Joestars are dead. Jojo—Jonathan and I—we were friends. He wouldn't disappear, the way he did. Years ago, I wanted to be a nurse, I helped care for Mister George until Dio ordered me to never return. Jonathan wouldn't disappear like that. They're dead.” “People say they've seen them—” “People believe what they want to believe.” “I saw the Page boy dead. Now he's alive.” “His fate was better than Jonathan's. Listen to me, Father. You should leave. There's a reason Dio called you here. It can't be good.”

Thunder stroke once, thrice, striking always in prime numbers, outside the Cairo manor, Perla curled up on the corner under the window, her hands covering her ears—she feared storms—Open the door, Enrico, please, Open the door, Enrico—Open the door, Father—the thunder morphed into knocks, the wooden door almost coming off its hinges.

“Father, Father,” the housekeeper was frantic, the sleeves on her uniform stained with blood. “He's not breathing, you have to come—”

Pucci followed her outside and caught a glimpse of the fountain water dyed red out of the corner of his eye. Climbing up the stairs to Dio's studio his heart pounded in his chest and Perla's pale face in the window, Domenico staring at his bloodied hands, her lifeless body—he focused on the housekeeper's shoes to calm it down, counted prime numbers in a voice not his own.

Dio lay, the skull on the floor to his side, in a pool of blood, his forearm's inside slashed from the cubital fossa to the ring finger. “How long has he been like this?” “I don't know! Minutes... he was alone...” “Fetch me some cloth, and boiled water.”

While she ran out, Pucci moved Dio closer to the light and noticed the names written in blood inside the circle drawn in some sort of white powder on the floor, and the hebraic lettering he couldn't now remember how to decipher.

He couldn't wait so he ripped one of the curtains and tied it tightly around Dio's bicep and then pumped his chest like he'd seen once. Some more blood gushed out from the open wound, but not worrying amounts so he kept at it and Dio opened his eyes and drew a long breath that arched his back right as the housekeeper was coming in with the water.

“Father...?” Dio whispered, heady with sleep. “Don't speak. Bring me whiskey, if you have it, if not any distilled alcohol should do.”

Alone again, Pucci dipped the cloth in water and cleaned Dio's blood of the wound to assess its gravity.

The housekeeper returned with a bottle of whiskey and promptly left them. Pucci propped Dio's head up with his hand to help him take a sip off it.

“What happened?” he asked once Dio's breath had returned to normal and his eyelids appeared less heavy. “You already know.” “Necromancy?” Dio tried laughing, wheezed painfully. “Is it true?” to have some semblance of hope, only one, to ask, just once, if he could see her, just once. “You die, just a little, to converse with the dead.” Pucci swallowed, his throat dry. Just once, just to see her, nothing more. “It's never worked,” Dio's voice was not angry, not tired, just, incredibly, sad. “Th-then,” just once. “Then what about the boy?” “The boy was catatonic. He never died.” “Catatonic?” “As good as dead,” his smile was sweet, heavy. “Simple science.” “And this,” he asked gesturing towards the skull. “Science, as well?” Dio's expression changed, like when Pucci asked about his father, anger disfigured his beautiful features, his smile a snarl, even in his exhaustion. “Do not touch that.”

After a moment's silence Pucci helped Dio up, led him to his room, laid him on his bed.

The first time Jojo and Suzie take Holly to Naples, she’s seven.

Usually it’s Caesar who visits them Stateside, bearing gifts and kisses and the mediterranean air of his hometown. Sometimes he brings news, and with them photographs, of the restaurant he opened some years back in a narrow building on Tribunali, fruit of his hard work and Jojo’s generous investments.

(The first time Jojo visited the place, he asked if it really was okay for the place to be called Joestar, and Caesar smiled softly, held his hand. He’d wanted to say certain things about Jojo he had no words for, so he didn’t open his mouth but for kissing. Two days later, when Jojo dared suggest he serve some stupid and unnameable American variation of pasta, Caesar had found himself lapsing into Neapolitan—not even Italian—‘L’artista ccà song’je! Stu cafone ‘e ‘nu ‘merican…’ and kicking him out the door when he asked to know what Caesar was saying using his limited Italian—‘Per… eh… favore… Cesare!!!’—but let him back in only twenty minutes later, a record for both: Caesar didn’t expect to give in so quickly; Joseph didn’t expect to wait for that long. The first time Suzie visited the restaurant, by herself, things went smoothly. She’d even brought some recipes for northern dishes her mother had entrusted her with written down in her disordered but beautiful handwriting. Caesar had kissed her hands and her face and Suzie had laughed, her nose wrinkled and her hair down.)

Holly’s running feet echo around the apartment, chasing Caesar’s children out into the stairwell, all the way out onto the yard. From the balcony Caesar watches them try and sneak up on one of the stray cats that gather around the dumpsters and hide in the grass no one ever cuts. Holly squats down to their level but laughs too loudly at the faces Valentino makes at her, and the cats sprint away, light on their feet. He can’t hear their children’s voices wrap themselves around language but he knows they go from one to the other easily, Holly absorbs Italian sounds and names the things around her with ease. From inside the apartment, he can hear Jojo calling his secretary at work and Suzie flipping the pages of a magazine. Holly looks up at him and waves, a smile on her face to mimic his. He waves back and Valentino shouts that they want to go to the park. By his side, Francesca nods, and Holly, smile still in place, looks anxious in wait for an answer. He puts the cigarette out and waves at them. ‘I’ll be right down.’

When he walks by Suzie she smiles up at him, says she’ll stay. Jojo waves at him and proceeds to argue with his secretary, like a child. In the yard, he finds Holly sitting on the tall grass, almost hidden behind overgrown weeds. Francesca puts flowers on her hair and Valentino tells them if they look good from in front or not. Holly stands, brushes her hands on her clothes, then takes Caesar’s left on her small right one.

At the park he pushes Holly on the swings. He looks over the rocks and bugs that Valentino and Francesca bring for his inspection, ‘Ehi Papà, guarda!’. The sun is soft, filtered by thin clouds, and the grass is wet, smells like Spring, like the sea, like Jojo’s hair when he steps out of the shower. He helps Holly drink fresh water from the fountain, holding her up, then directs the water flow towards Francesca with his hand, and their laughter is just as clear. Some pigeons fly over head and he pouts, still dislikes vermin, then watches the children roll down the grass-covered slopes, mossy green staining the fabric of their clothes at the knees, the sides. At the end of the slope they all laugh and then run back up to do it again. It’s the way they laugh that pushes Caesar into joining them, rolling down the grass once or twice, sitting down all together, laughing loudly, then racing each other back up to do it again. Holly is on her stomach, laughing, when she looks at him getting up, and says softly ‘Mi diverto tanto con te, Papà.’ There’s a pause, he feels, in time and space after the word leaves her mouth. Valentino and Francesca are still, too, and no one reacts until she stammers to correct herself. ‘U-uncle Caesar!’ and then laughs shortly. There’s a pause, he feels, in himself, stagnant in time, before he reaches down with all the momentum awarded by inertia and picks her up in his arms, kisses her hair. ‘Anch’io’ he says, mouth wide in smile ‘I have a lot of fun with you too, carina’ and Valentino and Francesca too reach up for a hug.

The sun sets before they notice. Streetlamps lighting up let them know it’s time, and Holly looks up at the night sky over Naples with heavy eye lids, a dirty face, and a smile. Caesar’s had to pick her up and carry her by the time they get to the apartment, Joseph greets them at the door, taking Holly in his arms himself and setting her in the children’s room. Valentino and Francesca go and sit on the couch in the living room to eat the zeppoline Caesar made that morning, leaving the adults (and Jojo) in the kitchen.

‘È andato tutto bene?’ Suzie asks from the balcony, the coastal air has curled her hair into her face (like that first night they met at Lisa Lisa’s). ‘Sì,’ Caesar nods. ‘Perfetto.’ ‘Hey,’ it’s Joseph now, ‘I know that smug look. What happened, huh? What you do?’ ‘Me? Nothing.’ ‘Stop grinning like that, moron. Come on, spill.’ Caesar crosses his arms—he swears it’s not purposely arrogant—‘Holly called me Papà,’ he grins. Suzie giggles and Joseph laughs. Not at all what Caesar expected. ‘No, really. What happened?’ ‘You idiot! That’s what happened!’ a frown but then back to the smile. ‘She said she has fun with me, actually she said « I have so much fun with you, Dad »’ ‘No, she didn’t.’ ‘She did.’ ‘She didn’t.’ ‘I’m tellin ya.’

It’s probably the expression on Joseph’s face, and the way his upper body motions as if to turn that prompts Suzie to say, ‘Joseph, don’t you go wake her up.’ ‘But Suzie! I need to know if it’s true!’ ‘What, are you jealous, Jojo? Mascalzone.’ ‘What you say? Why’d I be jealous, I’m her real dad!’ he looks at Suzie at this, it’s just a second, less than a second, but enough to know he shouldn’t have because she slaps him and Caesar laughs. ‘What’s that for! I only looked so you’d tell ‘im!’ ‘Tu! Mascalzone!’ Caesar keeps laughing so his children come into the kitchen. ‘Tell Uncle Jojo what Holly said at the park.’

They speak over each other but manage to convey the general idea. ‘She seemed very happy.’

Joseph’s face falls, he’s been defeated. It’s rare that victory’s like this, almost as complete as it was back then, when they were finally free, both of them, the three of them. It’s rare so Caesar relishes in it. ‘Let the child choose, she’s very sensible, I can tell.’ ‘She’d never pick you! She made a mistake, she can’t speak Italian very well.’ ‘No, no, that’s you, Jojo. She’s pretty good at it, like a native.’ ‘That’s true,’ Suzie offers. ‘So there you have it, Jojo. She just has good taste.’ ‘No! I am her dad, she likes me more!’ ‘She doesn’t, Jojo, give up.’ Suzie starts laughing again, in the face of Jojo’s desperation, ‘I suppose you can share if that’s what she wants.’ ‘Suzie Q!’ he drags the u sound into a whine, makes her laugh louder. ‘It’s not what she wants!’ ‘We can share too, Uncle Jojo.’

Again Caesar recognizes that kind of silence, like the Earth’s gears are stuck for a moment before they resume, and panics increasingly at Jojo’s expression going from downtrodden and miserable to triumphant and victorious, his gaze shifting between Suzie—she returns the smile, the traitor—and Caesar himself.

‘Basta! It’s time for children to go to bed—you too Jojo, wipe that smile off your face.’

–

The eye lets him see clearly. On the plains he recognises the figure for what it is, almost as if he could just reach out his hand and touch, kilometres away. This kind of clarity, focus in details that should escape him, he knows it, he's experienced it before, sitting on hay stacks inside the stable when symbols became letters and letters became words he strung together on the pages of children's books he'd found discarded. Books owned by the children who inhabited the large corridors owned by the owners of the estate, and of the stables, of the haystacks, and who were not as good as him at riding horses or staring down but for whom these books had served their purpose long ago. He urges Silver Bullet to pick up his pace, biting down a smile to the wind.

Get Up, their horse, is the one to acknowledge Diego's arrival. HP glances to the side and nods almost imperceptibly, hold on the reins tightening—he can see that with the eye as well—but not in apprehension: inexperience maybe, hesitation. Their form sways barely atop the saddle when they clicks their tongue and looks forward, to what lies ahead. The wind is at their backs, Diego watches it blow HP's hair, sticking to their skin on account of the sweat; he watches muddy strands of grass caught in the fur of their hat; watches unmarred hands dirty with grime and leather-stained; their knees tightening hold on their horse's flanks; Get Up's hooves kicking dirt and stones away; desert lizards toasting in the sun atop the rocks scattered to the sides of their path; scorpions steadily walking away; a small cottontail sniffing the air, its ears shot up in attention.

'What do you want?' HP says and there's nothing uncertain about their tone. Diego smiles. 'Do you know what's a vampire's favourite thing about watching horse racing?' 'What are you talking about?' 'Y'know, when a vampire's watching a horse race, what's his favourite thing?' HP, who'd been looking ahead, turns to watch him, their hand tucking loose sweaty locks of hair behind their ear. They doesn't say a thing. Diego watches sweat glistening in the neck of Get Up. Some ways away a tall agave plant waves in the breeze. 'What do you want?' 'It's when it's neck and neck!' He laughs and points his right hand fingers in the shape of a gun to HP, smile wide with all of his teeth.

HP surely would've said something, surely would've kept quiet, but Diego extended his hand out to their hold on Get Up's reins and pulled on them. Time slowing down, he could see so clearly, the tiny kangaroo rat, coloured with desert sand and rocks, could see Get Up taking note of the rat, its hind legs gaining momentum for it to stand on them, rearing out of control, could see that one horse years ago, as if betraying its rider who seemed to know it so well, startled by a white field mouse crossing the track his rider's rich father had laid out for him, startled by something so small, invisible to its rider's eyes, a mere inconvenience, like open wounds in extended hands, in open palms, burnt flesh speaking of the kind of sin maybe HP could explain to him, something so small, erasing lives unnoticed by eyes that were not like his, not anymore.

HP holds onto the saddle's horn because Get Up's attempt to rear in self defense isn't prevented entirely, balance thrown off and then regained. Silver Bullet holds on for the two of them, and for Diego, and Diego pats his neck in thanks, after he pats Get Up's.

'Not very adept at handling horses, are you?' he asks when calm's returned. When the rat has jumped away into the landscape made from the colors of its fur, when HP has retaken the reins, when Get Up no longer huffs, and Diego cannot see its unsteady breath in the hot evening air. 'I hold my own,' they replies. If they's curious, they doesn't ask how Diego knew, how he was able to help the horse. Maybe they doesn't need to.

Silver Bullet and Get Up trot at an even pace, neck and neck without any race driving them. Perhaps they're tired, the darkening sky closes the sleepy eyes of snakes on surrounding hills.

'Don't know much about horses, though, d'you?' HP doesn't reply, but he can see their shoulders shrugging. 'D'you even know which side of a horse has the most hair?' he frowns. They look at him in silence, serious. Even with the eye he can't see their lips tugging in any direction. They shakes their head. 'The outside!' and when his right hand points a finger gun at them, they slaps it away and he laughs a little louder, watches them take a swig of their water bottle before hesitating and finally putting it away again.

Diego and HP both look up at the sky at the same time, without meaning to, and then they voices their thoughts.

'It's late.'

He nods even though they isn't watching. Then points to a range, a nook formed by years and years of chipping away. Behind it Wheeler Peak oversees the extension of silence where the two horses with their riders slowly make their way towards a resting point.

Once he dismounts, when they hands him his helmet, fallen from his standing on his hands to show HP what having a good handle of riding really is, he says 'thank you, Sister' carefully, as if he's testing the waters before plunging in head first, but they doesn't give anything away. They just keep gathering enough materials to keep a small fire running, lets him know as much.

The eye lets him see the sparks in reanimated fire, crackling, painting shadows on the granite walls around them. It lets him see his mother in her bed, her narrow back and short breaths. And the old man after the derby who'd told him he must be patient to speak to the dead because the dead reply in whispers of leaves and wind grazing the still waters of the river and a sudden high flame in the fire in the worst of winter when his back is turned to it.

HP nudges his shoulder and he can see a sandwich in their hand, so clearly. From one of the cows they keeps. He smiles wide, all teeth, all sharp. 'I hear you hang people for taking these.' 'I hear you murdered your wife for more,' they says, mouth full and their gaze on their own food.

Half-heartedly he scoffs, focuses on the taste of meat, how much juicier and sharp it is now, rich in blood. Maybe he doesn't have to explain, maybe they understands.

When he rests his head down on his saddle the inside of his mouth still tastes like iron, fresh and dry, cushioned by bread. From there he watches HP, arranging their own things in order to sleep, outlined by changing shadows casted by dying fire until he falls in slumber and is able to see clearly in dreams.

They's gone when he wakes up.

He doesn't pause for long to wonder how he didn't notice. Not alert enough. He doesn't pause long to wonder why that was.

*

By his side, Silver Bullet's breathing is laboured, and he smells sweat on his body despite the rain falling. They both lie close to the ground and that smell, he remembers, was his mother's favourite: grass after the rain, hay and rocks and cattle and gravel roads and the entire world's smell after the rain, on her death bed looking out the window at the drizzle running on the glass.

He's about to extend his hand towards Silver Bullet, maybe being a dinosaur will help them both heal, from tiredness, from wounds, from whatever it is that aches so deep in the rain. He's about to extend his hand and he's seeing his mother's back clearly and that's why, that's why, he only sees a dark figure, in the rain, standing above him, about to kneel, and can't make out who it is until after they've extended their own hand to him. Until after he's felt relief and closed his eyes softly, shortly.

HP heals him tentatively, as if they's testing the waters before only putting their feet in up to the ankles and walking the shores. They heals Silver Bullet's injured leg once they's done with the ones on Diego's skin, doesn't utter a single word throughout. Both Diego and the horse still lie on the ground and rain pours on the three of them, rain pours down HP's face, down the thing they holds in their hand that helps them heal wounds and change appearances and smells of charred meat and singed leather and the flowers he burnt at his mother's tomb because they'd been placed there by that man.

Together they walk to meet Get Up, who waits under a tree, and the four of them, HP and Diego on foot, in silence find shelter from the rain.

Their clothes, socks, gloves, and boots left to dry in front of the fire give off steam, he sees it clearly, sees steam rise from his trousers, which still stick, damp, to his legs, but HP told him to keep those on or they'd make sure the trousers couldn't be taken off permanently.

He tries not to watch them handling the rusted pan with boiling water, lift it from its place above the flames and pour water into two enamel cups. He tries not to but he fails, and he keeps careful watch of their movements, and it's maybe thanks to the eye that he notices they notices what he's doing, watching over them, over the risk of boiling water near hands that have taken off their gloves to leave them to dry.

They pauses to look at him, they's so tall, so much taller than he is, but now that they stands and he sits, it's barely noticeable, it's almost as if they's bad at looking down, or is doing their best so he won't have to look up. He holds their gaze for long and it's broken once he smiles, once he realises his lips were tight, a line, betrayal of some sort of stupid worry from places he keeps tucked away for no one else to guess. His smile pushes HP away.

They sits at his side and offers one of the enamel cups. From the smell he knows this coffee's no good, but it's warm, and to tell the truth he, too, is tired, so he nods and doesn't test any water this time. He blows on the coffee and waits perhaps too long because HP stares from behind their cup, taking long sips.

'I hear you fear your past,' shadows enlarge on their face but Diego can still see it clearly. 'I hear you have one,' he takes a sip of his coffee, sufficiently cooled down now, in this weather.

Their striped shirt is still humid, like his trousers, he can feel it at the point where their shoulders and arms meet, and he tries not to lean into the pressure, tries not to notice that they do the same. The eye lets him see the warmth coming from their face, their hands around the enamel cup. He places his by his side and slowly, softly, shortly, closes his eyes, tries not to lean into the place where their shoulders meet but it smells of wet wood, almost rotten, like the stables he spent his childhood in, wet hay and sweaty horses and a humid striped shirt, sweaty hair, short soft breaths, his mind wandering towards places where he can see everything clearly, their hands around the enamel cup.

Maybe he fears them too.

They's gone when he wakes up.

They must've positioned him as he is now, and thrown the alpaca cloth on him. He doesn't pause for long to wonder how he didn't notice that they did. Just wasn't alert enough. He doesn't pause long to wonder why that was. Maybe he doesn't need to.

--