Angelico

The wind stirred the crisp autumn leaves, and the melody of the birds ceased at the awful, grating sound of—

Shit. Your mouth had parted, and from your throat, a hoarse moan of pain had wrenched itself into existence.

The singing, too, paused, and the faint warmth from your side shifted. It was enough to remind you of yourself: of the sweat that was coating your back, of the spiky grass that supported your head under the swaddle of woollen cloth, and of the undignified sensation of sticky drool that coated one side of your face. 

Your eyes snapped open, and you wiped your cheek with your sleeve aggressively. 

It was a disorienting experience, forcing your dull head to ring out in protest. Each sensation came delayed, and the rough pawing at your face begot the strange divergence of petting something, and being petted: no longer a unified gesture, but rather having your sensations split between two bodies.

And then, it concluded just as quickly, and you were staring at someone who was staring at you. 

“You slept for a whole day.”

His rough voice felt at odds with the idle lullaby he’d hummed under his breath, and you wondered whether it had truly come from him in the first place, or if your mind had been starved for a shred of comfort in the endless shadow. 

Hot Pants. You tried to greet him, but it sounded more like a gurgle with your rusted lips. The stony mask staring at you softened, almost looking puzzled at your weakness.

“We’re still in Kansas, but out of that wretched place.” Cold metal slid against your mouth and nudged it ajar, while a hand cradled your nape to prop you somewhat upright. “Drink.”

The canteen’s water felt tepid, but your throat bobbed reflexively to swallow: feeling the acute sense of relief as your parched tongue lapped up the liquid, stunned at just how out-of-it you felt. 

When you gasped for air, the metal pulled back almost instantaneously. You could feel the water travel to your brain and soak it up: still spinning, but no longer quite as painful. 

Depeche Mode was quiet. A faint buzzing presented itself in your sternum, as though the Stand had dozed off itself, but Depeche Mode never slept. You felt at odds with its nonsense. 

“There’s a note on your forehead,” Hot Pants added matter-of-factly as he screwed the lid on to his canteen, and you distractedly let out a mumble of something like ‘ah’, before your hand resumed its pawing of your face. 

Skin brushed skin. 

“My—” you tried, snagging the small, neatly folded paper that had been pasted onto your face with what appeared to be tree sap. It was grossly uncomfortable, and you wondered why you hadn’t felt it before, and you were now feeling an offputting sense of panic, and—

“Bandanna?” he supplied, and his face sported a rather terrible grimace. You sat up, properly this time. “It got wrapped in oiled paper. I wanted to burn it with how ruined it was with blood, but Johnny Joestar wouldn't let me.”

Staring at the folded note, you felt as if it were your only saviour, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to unfurl the words.

“You got shot particularly deep, from what I heard. Thank you for staying,” he murmured, and his rough voice was sanded down with a touch of gratitude. Quid pro quo. You hadn’t abandoned him and he, in turn, felt obliged to not abandon you.

“Yeah, no worries,” you replied distantly, fingers trembling as the parchment almost tore in your hands. 

Left to catch up with Dio. Something’s up with Gyro—he made a more terrible joke than usual, and seemed to be angry about something. He’s urging me to hurry up. Hot Pants offered to stay with you, and for once Gyro didn’t say anything about it. 

Until we see each other again, 

Johnny

What could you do other than let out a dry laugh?

It contained all the information you needed to know. Some recognition had, in fact, sparked through the executioner’s mind as he observed your naked face—enough that his radar for deception had lit up in alarm. 

You looked at the short letter numbly. Johnny’s words had not implied a ‘goodbye’, but from them it was clear he didn’t know the cause of Zeppeli’s irritation. If he did, would he agree?

“Good news?” Hot Pants interrupted, and the easy neutrality of his voice almost made you weep. You pressed your lips together to quell their trembling before you spoke. 

“Depends on who you ask.” 

The tension in your stomach loosened as you sighed, dragging a hand down your face. You mulled through each tumultuous thought; there was nothing you could do to change this past, and the only platitude you could offer was that it wasn’t personal. It was never personal, even if it had benefitted you to omit information. 

“Do you want the face covering back?” Hot Pants’ face contorted into a look of distaste as he thought about the mangled state of the rag. You glanced at the stained parchment he held, and grimaced yourself, hesitating. 

You could fix it. It would be as good as new, and you could wear it once more. If you abandoned the covering, Zeppeli would definitely think it was personal, now that he’d seen your face. 

But the wind felt nice on your face, and you still had a thin veil in your bag for checkpoints and cities. A bridge had been decimated, and you weren’t sure if it could be repaired anytime soon, not even with the assistance of Personal Jesus. 

“No.” 

He studied your face for a prolonged heartbeat, mapping each curve of your expression: the steely look in your eyes, the firm set of your mouth. 

A smile tugged at his lips subtly. It might’ve just been a trick of the light. 

“Good.” He ran his tongue across his teeth, eyes darting away to look at the surroundings. “Your face looks fine as it is. Very expressive.”

The compliment (was it even a compliment?) sounded stiff and characteristically gruff, but it was endearing enough that you didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. “…Thanks.”

“I don’t get why Gyro Zeppeli would be mad at your face,” he added, and your face fell. Hot Pants, seemingly trying to backtrack, stood up hurriedly and made a point to clear his throat. He was… awkward for once, and it made the sting that much more bearable. “Let’s go.”

You accepted the hand that he held out, and felt the warmth of his life pass through your palm. 

. 　⁺ ✦ 

[You called?]

You didn’t reply to the Stand as it hovered meaninglessly by your shoulder; rather, you chose to watch the flames crackle and spit in the stone ring you’d hastily created in the Kansas wilderness. 

What could you even say?

It wasn’t its fault that your cover had been blown. Like an idiot, you’d made a move without thinking of how it would ricochet back onto you. Just like that, you’d been shot, and Depeche Mode wasn’t able to do anything but twiddle its thumbs uselessly at your motionless body, and your silent anger was what kept it quiet this morning as you came to your senses. 

You sighed, exasperated by both its meekness and your own, fatal weakness. 

A spark landed on your foot, and you shook it off with a vigour that drew Hot Pants’ attention over. He was busy oiling Gets Up’s hooves with a concentrated expression, but now, he was staring at Depeche Mode with an interest that completely decimated his stoic facade. 

“That’s your Stand?” 

His boots crushed the leaves underfoot as he marched his way over to you, peering at the floating mannequin with an intensity that almost made the bobbing head bashful. Depeche Mode didn’t speak this time, as if awaiting your approval. 

“Depeche Mode. Has the ability to reject phenomena. Used for fighting and fixing,” you rattled off, trying to ignore the gloved hands that inspected its face, turning it this way and that. He hummed at the resistance, perhaps not quite realising that you were resisting the turning with your own head. No, you were instead trying very hard to focus on keeping your shirt in your teeth steady as you inspected the not-quite healed bullet wound on your ribs. Silvery marks—no, stitches?—had been left behind on the flesh, and you winced as you accidentally pressed down on it. 

“Fixing?” His hands finally stopped poking, which was just as well since his curiosity had brought his fingers dangerously close to Depeche Mode’s clock eyes. You could feel it bobbing helplessly mid-air, but your sympathy was limited from the ghostly reminders of the pain of being shot. 

“Mmn,” you grunted, not offering any further explanation as you activated the slot machine. 

[Second slot activated: Personal Jesus. Countdown has begun.]

You sighed in relief as the syringe pierced through your body, cracking a relaxed smile when you heard the startled yelp of Hot Pants at the grotesque sight of Depeche Mode’s failed nurse get-up. 

“Since my user seems to be quite… preoccupied, I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have,” Depeche Mode piped up helpfully, and its eyes looked rather bright as it peered up at the rider that had sat down next to you. 

“It talks,” he eyed it dubiously, and perhaps in the firelight, your Stand seemed to smile: revelling in its own novelty with some piggishness. “Why does it talk? Why the hell is it sentient?”

You tipped your head back and closed your eyes, feeling your bones simply refresh themselves after a gruelling day of riding, but not before shrugging. “I couldn’t tell you for the life of me. Believe me, I wonder about that every day myself.”

“It’s fixing you right now.” It was a statement, but it trailed off like a question. You could feel his eyes scrutinising the two of you and the utter absurdity of it all. 

But, by their nature, weren’t Stands already absurd?

“Pretty much. Personal Jesus takes something back to its determined ‘function’ by rejecting any change to that function, within limits.” Depeche Mode sounded unusually animated, as if it had missed talking to anyone but you. It felt weirdly insulting. Were you not a good enough conversationalist for your Stand?

“And fighting?” 

The questions were peeling back layer after layer of skin: vivisecting the manifestation of your soul. You couldn’t tell what conclusions Hot Pants drew, and you didn’t want to know—not if it meant another bridge burned, not if the warmth next to you decided to leave into the long night. 

“More local focus of Personal Jesus. ‘Words Like Violence’ reverts the body back to a fighting prime, and focuses extreme, rapid healing for high-impact areas like the fists, the head, and legs.”

“Interesting,” he murmured, and the brief silence that followed lulled you into a false sense of tranquility. 

“Can this come off?”

A faint pressure swelled through the crown of your head: like a marionette string, gently pulling you upright. Your eyes shot back open as you saw his hand curiously prodding the nurse hat that now appeared bolted onto Depeche Mode’s head. 

“I can feel that, y’know,” you muttered hoarsely, and his fingers curled back as though burnt. His brows furrowed in consternation: appearing genuinely remorseful. 

“My apologies,” he spoke, gravely enough that it made you smile in its wondrous absurdity. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees: remorse gone, replaced with curiosity again. “So, can that hat come off?”

He was right. It was hideous. 

You canted your head, squinting in one eye as you regarded the Stand that swivelled its empty gaze between the two of you: put on the spot. “No clue. In theory, though…”

“Why are you both looking at me like that?” Depeche Mode’s monotone voice was uncharacteristically tinged by a sliver of concern. 

“You changed forms when I put on the tapes for Words Like Violence,” you accused, fuzzily remembering your grievances when you first saw its Personal Jesus form. “And you just stuck around like that?”

Now, it was the turn of Hot Pants to swivel his head between the two of you.

“You said it was the manifestation of my soul or something, and that it was my fault you look this way,” you snipped.

“Did I?” The question carried a note of confusion, as if it genuinely could not remember. The ghostly syringe still rested against your chest, and you eyed the incriminating piece of equipment with fresh venom. 

“But, is there actually a problem with its outfit?” Hot Pants questioned thoughtfully.

[Exactly.] Depeche Mode retorted indignantly within the confines of your mind, and its hands gripped the comically large syringe with what appeared to be the whisper of a threat. 

You felt deflated, eyeing your Stand with a fresh perspective. If it had a proper outfit—harsh blue gloves, a mask, a stethoscope dangling from its grip—would it be any more respectable? Would it be even more anachronistic?

As you conjured up the disturbing image, its general shape swam before your eyes, and you heard a small yelp of surprise tear itself from Hot Pants. 

“Oh… oh wow,” you muttered, feeling a sharp lack of words at the sight before you. 

It looked more professional. There was no denying that. There was even a scrubcap tied to its smooth, bald head, while the stethoscope was infinitely more inviting than that blasted syringe. 

Objectively, it was less comical: the quality of its garments was less cheap costume, and more actual medical wear. 

Unfortunately, it still looked incredibly stupid. You winced, and your Stand affixed you with its soulless clock eyes accusatorily. 

“You’d think it would’ve looked better,” you commented, rubbing at your temples in exasperation. Depeche Mode seemed to glare at you. 

“I disagree.” The words of Hot Pants made the Stand briefly look a little more smug. “It’s literally a floating head with hands—it will look ridiculous no matter how you dress it.”

“You’re right. Hate to say it, but I can’t win this,” you replied seriously, and the gravity of both your tones bore down onto the mannequin head, who seemed to bob uselessly through the air now that its only defender had defected to your side. 

His expression contorted into a rictus of pain, before he let out a short-lived coughing fit that might have masked a laugh. Clearing his throat, he pointedly eyed your stomach that had let out a well-timed gurgle. 

“Food. We need to eat,” he muttered hoarsely, dodging your gaze that threatened to expose his twitching lips. His steps seemed hurried as he moved to grab his pack from where it lay in the dust by Gets Up, but his rushed movements froze as he opened it. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Walking over, you were greeted by the sight of a rather… suspiciously empty bag. The methodically wrapped paper packages that should have been nestled in there were gone, replaced by the hollow folds of the leather bag.

His mind whirred in real time. Lifting one of the straps, he examined the rough way it had been handled: the faint marks that belied the culprits. You looked on, partly fascinated, and partly scared for the poor soul who’d incurred his wrath. 

That great pink head shot right up, mouth set in absolute conviction. 

“They stole my sandwiches.”

“Who did?” Your question was hesitantly drawn out, and your tone confirmed that you had your own suspects. He shot you an exasperated look. “Zeppeli?”

“They stole my sandwiches,” he muttered in disbelief, staring vengefully at the offending bag once more. “Let’s kill them.”

You let out a laugh, albeit a very strained one. “Sorry, what?”

He didn’t seem to hear you—no, he pulled out a small notebook that seemed to contain all his grudges. He pondered the bag as though he were assessing a crime scene, breaking his vigil only to stare intently at the jotted lines. 

“Well, I suppose he did take care of that maniac,” he noted under his breath. From the depths of the bag, his fingers pulled out a pencil, and he decisively appended some more information before the notebook snapped shut in his irritated fingers. 

“Let’s go,” he stood up like nothing had happened, dusting himself off and marching in the direction of… somewhere. 

“Where?” you asked uselessly. He regarded you with a faint contempt, like you’d hit your head somewhere and its repercussions were only showing up now. 

“Well, to get food.” It was followed up with a muttered obviously. Obviously. The obviousness of it all had you scrambling as you followed, mustering up pity for the poor creature about to face slaughter, and for the poor you who had volunteered to cook it. 

Watching a rabbit being skinned, you vowed to forget everything that had happened from the moment you ventured away from the campfire. 

. 　⁺ ✦ 

Quiet anger simmered inside Gyro. 

It was not the rash type, Johnny thought. There wasn’t any irritation, nor were there obvious signs that would’ve alerted laypeople of his displeasure: nothing like the chilling, mocking glances he would serve when someone had rankled him. No, this anger seemed to mark a certain type of confusion—the kind where questions had nothing to collide with, and instead lashed out at everything else. 

He wasn’t stupid. 

Johnny was capable of figuring out why the executioner was mad. He watched, propped up against a half-destroyed balustrade, as Gyro argued with your Stand that had floated helplessly in midair around your collapsed body. He watched as the man worked himself into a righteous indignation on your behalf: watched as anger had manifested that your messianic ability had failed you, the one person it had actually been built for. 

He understood that: felt it himself as he stared daggers into his own, useless hands. 

But that wasn’t the anger Johnny was referring to. 

No, the root seemed to be the moment when Gyro peeled the sticky bandanna off your face: the moment where his mind whirred and his eyes mapped every contour that he saw. The glass bottle of liquor had shattered. The hurt that flashed across his face was noted by Johnny himself, before it was schooled into a mask of utter indifference. 

This was what the anger protected; curled up in a ball, to shield it from the world, was the expression of betrayal he’d worn. 

Johnny didn’t understand it. He couldn’t, but he knew it all the same: intimately familiar with the anger that coated every movement when one was wounded from the inside like that. He could recognise it for what it was, and he studied you in turn. 

Who are you?

His elbows strained to support him as he leaned forward before Gyro started removing the bullet from your body, to fully see you for the first time. He scrutinised the curves of your mouth, the planes of your face that were still marred with blood, and the entire set of expressions that you wore while your pain refused to cease. 

There was a weird twinge in his stomach that he attributed to observing your entire being for the first time. This is what you look like, he thought. He imagined all the times you grinned and he couldn’t catch it, all the times when you were angry and nobody could see the snarl of your lips nor the mocking smiles you might’ve shown, or the—

Johnny swallowed, averting his gaze as Gyro yanked your shirt up properly.

He could not help but pull his body backwards as the stench of blood became stronger in the air, and he could sense the hospital walls closing inwards—

“We’re leaving.”

Time blurred together. 

“What about—”

Gyro made a particularly terrible joke, Johnny had accidentally found out Hot Pants was a woman, and—

“We’re leaving. Do you want us to lose another part?”

The Italian methodically transferred a paper bundle from her bag into his, looking temporarily appeased by the bounty. 

“This guy…! He has a lot of stuff—if we eat all the roast beef sandwiches, he’ll have no more evidence to sentence us to hanging!”

It was a poor facade, whistling as he hurriedly closed the bag with an appalling sort of gall. In his haste, he left a tiny streak of blood on the leather, and Johnny didn’t have the heart to tell him. In fact, he didn’t have the heart to say much of anything. 

He remembered exchanging a few words with Hot Pants after they woke up, acting none the wiser to what he discovered. He remembered scribbling a note that he stuck somewhere; he just didn’t remember what he wrote, only the small reassurance that he definitely wouldn’t have cursed you with any goodbyes. He remembered looking back after he’d climbed onto Slow Dancer, watching Hot Pants peer at you with curiosity that felt real familiar. 

He remembered many things, and not many at all. 

“You seem angry.” The forest seemed lifetimes away when Johnny finally found the words that had gotten all tangled up in his head.

Gyro didn’t turn his head from where he gazed ahead determinedly. “You think?”

He made a placating gesture that was ultimately futile, not when Gyro was also stubbornly ignoring the hand waving in his peripherals. 

“I’m not. I’m not angry.” The man spoke in a very precise, controlled manner that seemed a little too forceful to be convincing. “I even joked with you before we left, yes?”

Johnny stared at him in disbelief, while Gyro remained staring straight ahead. 

He couldn’t fathom any other reason the mood could’ve shifted so drastically—other than, of course, when that blood-soaked bandanna had been peeled off your face to administer the liquor. 

“Do you know who they are?” 

“No, I don’t,” Gyro bit out. 

“Let me rephrase. You know who Mercury is.”

For the first time in this flimsy exchange, he looked at Johnny, who looked impassively back. 

“Are they an enemy?” he asked slowly, deliberately.

“No.” The reply was quiet. 

“…someone from your country?”

“No.” The reply sounded ashamed of itself.

He canted his head, the question unspoken: who are they, to you? 

Perhaps he didn’t quite want to speak it aloud. Neither did Gyro, from the mumbles that escaped his lips.

“Speak up. I can’t hear you,” Johnny uttered tiredly. 

“They’re a bartender.”

He looked askance at Gyro: eyes darting all over the other man’s face as if this was a pathetic imitation of a joke. 

“I think,” he added, which made things all the more confusing.

“Right.” Johnny’s brows furrowed, and he passed both reins into one hand to thoroughly massage his pained temples. “What in tarnation is wrong with that?”

“San Diego. That stronzo poured me some liquor—could’ve poisoned it with something slow-acting to eliminate a competitor—” The words turned into feverish rambling, as though he was aware that his reasoning was growing more and more tenuous. “Did they recognise me? I couldn’t forget the rudeness—”

Johnny let out a long exhale, feeling the exhaustion of the entire day suddenly crash into his body. “Hey man, calm the hell down, you sound ridiculous. Why would they remember you, servin’ so many customers a night? And they’ve had plenty opportunity since then to poison you, but they’re not the type to do that.”

Gyro stared at him with bloodshot eyes, like he hadn’t considered it. 

“Well, surely they would? I’m not a forgettable person.” It was uncertain, but Johnny felt as though he had gleaned some further insight beneath the convoluted strands of frustration. He seemed to lose the righteous posture he’d held, shrinking into himself slightly. 

“Well, they’d probably remember some other riders too if that’s the case. Is it really an issue?” he probed. The anger no longer had an outlet, but the mind still seemed to race to hold on to something. 

Johnny wasn’t an idiot. He’d parsed through human nature well. The choler was not logical, in the way emotions typically were. Fury at Ringo had begotten extreme stress to both the body and the mind, which had been tempered into worry about everyone felled by the man—and just when the relief was creeping up on the horizon, like the Sun after a particularly long night, it was doused by your identity being exposed after you spent weeks meticulously concealing—

Ah. 

“If it truly was such a trifle, couldn’t they have at least trusted us a little?” Gyro’s gaze shifted back to the late afternoon sun. “Why hide around us, too?”

Here it is. The hurt was infectious, and Johnny felt a familiar cascade of despair threaten to spill over him too. Yet, it could not be said that Johnny felt the same hurt as Gyro, because he saw a truth that the man had not. 

You weren’t that close with them at all. 

Some element of trust existed. In life-or-death situations, it was undeniable that you would have their backs. In those in-betweens, where the fire made idling away possible, it was also undeniable that you could act as a friend: someone to bicker with, to gossip with, to share food with. 

A line had been drawn in the sand. You were honest about that, and it seemed that Gyro had forgotten that you were as elusive as the wind, and just as hard to make a friend out of. 

“Everyone has their circumstances,” Johnny said finally. His hand dropped back to his side in what felt like defeat. 

“Circumstances?” he scoffed. “You’ve got a scientist, who’s clearly well-educated, knowing about some obscure corpse with their own agenda for it—who’s also a Stand user. And now they’re the bartender from San Diego, who’s been concealing their identity for the past few weeks? Cazzate—tell me that’s not suspicious.”

“It is suspicious.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ there, Johnny, and I don’t like it,” Gyro warned. 

“I believe that this has been a recurring point of contention. We seem equally suspicious; hell, they don’t even seem to realise who I used to be. It matters a real lot less when we’ve faced death together.”

Gyro sighed with the same vigour of an alcoholic pouring themselves a ‘small glass’. 

“C’mon, Johnny, we don’t even know their name,” he argued, but he sounded significantly more defeated. The pent-up misgivings had coalesced into a monster of distrust, but it was ultimately weak. He didn’t want to distrust you, which was why he was pulling every sort of half-baked argument from his ass in the hopes that Johnny would dispel them. In fact, it seemed that the man wanted to find a friend in the person who stubbornly remained friendless in this brutal race, who extended goodwill to everyone but those he bickered with.

“Look man, I doubt whatever secrets they’re keepin’ are any more shocking than your occupation in the Kingdom of Naples,” he shot back at the executioner, whose vindictive scowl fell and was replaced with something more petulant. “You don’t have to trust them, but you can trust that they’ve risked their life multiple times alongside us.”

A green lip wobbled, and the petulant frown mulishly deepened. 

“I’m still mad.”

Each layer had been peeled back. The thick skin concealed the muscles that screamed in agony, which in turn enveloped the lungs that fuelled these petty arguments, that in turn cradled the heart that had been wounded. 

“Be mad, then. Tell them about it,” Johnny said distantly, and it was his turn to face the sun as it began dipping past the horizon gently. “Tell them they’re an idiot for obstinately holdin’ on to their burdens alone. Tell them they’re stuck with us for the race of this damned race, and they’d do mighty well to confide in us a bit. Tell them their expressions are much more interesting when they’re visible.”

His eyes darted back when the silence stretched out, only to find Gyro already examining him like he’d grown a third head. But he said nothing, only shaking his head when the expression greeting his eyes grew puzzled. 

The storm had settled. 

Johnny hadn’t said his goodbyes, and didn’t plan to. He would see you again, and Gyro would yell at you, and you would yell back, and the two of you would sort it out in some bizarre way like you always did. And it would be imperfect, and he’d listen to the bickering, and he’d join in to sway the boat one way or the other and quell the noise in his own head.

Johnny didn’t need goodbyes. 

He’d see you in Kansas City.  

. 　⁺ ✦ 

The hawk came far too late for his liking. 

Countless seconds had been spent, mindlessly pushing towards the city that hid the next corpse part. His body had nothing left to give after he dragged it past its limits, and now Silver Bullet was beginning to peter out in the midst of a field in Kansas. 

A long breath confirmed the absence of any threats around him. He could taste the bird in the air, and the bitter atrament on the papers it carried. 

On a cold, damp evening, Diego finally dismounted for the night with a grim premonition and the feathered predator circling overhead. His patience wore thin as it continued cruising, but he waited: looking over and feeding Silver Bullet, setting up a small fire to ease his weary body, and roasting some of the meat that he’d caught. 

He closed his eyes, savouring the last sounds of peace, before it was interrupted by the sound of talons piercing through wood. Diego was ready. In his left hand was a wet piece of liver he’d sliced out from the belly of a beast, which was now held out in offering to the hawk that snatched it greedily. 

From its leg, he carefully untied it, making sure to keep his hands firmly away from its snapping beak. 

There were two pieces of paper. He frowned, unfurling what was bound to be at least a few lines of useless drivel. 

Dear boy, 

He scoffed at the familiar scent of condescension bleeding through the words. He had to give it to him: the gall of Baron Menini was incredible. 

I think you’ll find that your ‘press’ing matter has been taken care of. 

Yes, yes, he could see that, and look how well that had worked out. Diego almost crushed the pages out of fury. Was this what the Baron called a job taken care of? Was this the extent of his usefulness? The target that had been so neatly painted on Menini’s back was growing more intensely red each second. 

Attached should be some findings of my subordinate. Regards, Menini

Finally. After weeks of no response, the Baron’s guild had done their job. He ignored the rudeness of Menini to focus on the next, thicker segment of paper, and his excitement was palpable. 

He forced himself to take a deep breath. You were fucked. You were completely and utterly fucked, and he wanted to take his time dismantling you and everything you stood for. But that required his focus. This required his attention: to vivisect the data that had been plotted with you at the origin. 

Unfurling the parchment, what greeted his eyes was something so perplexing that he wondered if he’d intercepted the wrong hawk. 

There was nothing. Not ‘nothing’ in the sense that the bumbling fools had forgotten to write anything, but ‘nothing’ in the sense that the bumbling fools had evidently also bumbled their way through the investigation they were tasked with.

Your name? Not available. Your age? Not available. Any sort of presence in the world apart from your participation in the race? None. 

There was nothing. 

Legally, you didn’t exist in San Diego. The man known as Vincent Cosgrove, who owned the Jamie’s House inn, only had one labourer listed, who coincidentally bore his name. The witnesses that had been grilled only ever referred to you as ‘barkeep’, and thought nothing of it. There was nothing to think about in their minds after all, Diego realised grimly. The owner himself only ever seemed to call you ‘kid’. 

A splitting headache formed as he tossed the useless records into the fire. Nothing. Nothing!

“Is he a fucking ghost or what?” he spat out, rummaging violently for some paper in his bag to scrawl out a threatening message to the insipid bastards working at the American branch of Menini’s guild. 

How could he hope to direct the poor idiots working there? What could he piece together from the information available to him?

Perhaps he was looking in the wrong place. 

If no records of you existed, then there was a possibility you could be an outlaw, or from a piss-poor region—but no, it didn’t make sense. From what he had overheard in the mountains, you had received some level of formal education. You had to be in a system somewhere. There was also a certain lack of experience you had with racing. Any contracts that you signed for purchasing equipment or your horse would likely have been made in San Diego. Did he seriously have to tell them this?

He scrawled down his instructions: a sweep of the area around San Diego, and looking into any purchases made in your name. Or lack of it. With an extra helping of organ meat, the hawk was coaxed back into its orbit once more, and Diego slumped into deep thought as he ate. 

It was sickening. You had been written off as a stray dog who didn’t know its place, thinking itself so clever as to hide from the world and flaunt that fact in its face. But finding a stray in a race like this was easy. Ordinary people left traces. Ordinary people with wit left fewer traces. But to leave no trace at all… his brows furrowed. It just didn’t make any sense.

For the first time, Diego contended with the increasingly unpleasant reality that your erratic behaviour had been more calculated than he anticipated. He lacked the crucial information needed to crush you underfoot. In the back of his mind, there was a faint warning; he had made assumptions that you could be forced into a corner, just one of the pieces that he could topple on the great board of the Steel Ball Run. Yet, in all your clamouring and incessant noise, you had drawn attention away from the motives you had, and the cards still held close to your chest. 

The corpse. He had to secure the next part of the corpse before anyone else, and figure out your motives along the way. 

Sleep eluded him. He could feel the chill sink into his bones as he tossed and turned, and inevitably, his thoughts drifted irritably to his knife that you’d taken. A fresh wave of indignation hit him, and his body inevitably felt warmer as a result. 

The fury had always been there. It had always been honed in on you, but now he cursed himself for his weakness. He cursed at how close you had been—so close he could practically taste the salt on your skin—and how your neck had been within grasp, yet he was too inebriated to take the opportunity to rid himself of you. But his weakness had stopped him. 

Fragments of memories floated through his disorientated, tired mind, and he could not help but curse at himself even more. He had been outmanoeuvred, losing any control he had over the situation as soon as that disgusting liquor had touched his throat. And you’d gone along with it, waiting until you grew irritated enough to spin him around and pin him into place. He could still picture the cacophonous surge of your heartbeat as you’d plucked his knife from his hands and left him in the darkness, the scalding heat of—

No. These memories were useless, and he hissed in irritation at the humiliation he had experienced that night. No, he had to travel back in time further.

His head felt like it was splitting in two as he tried to recall the fleeting moments where he had been part-lucid, when Dr Ferdinand had first molded the pinnacle of his creations: Diego. 

Anything. 

Pain. Yes. He could remember the pain of his bones cracked and transformed, he could remember each and every scent that he came across, he could remember the taste of bear and the sound of swarms upon swarms of flies. 

There it was. Faintly, at first, then like homing pigeons, the smell coalesced around your medicinal, chemical scent. Pain again, as something wound around his neck, something that had the notes of you, but then a flicker of satisfaction as he pinned your smell down beneath heavy claws: examining the bird he had finally managed to trap within a deadly cage. 

Nothing. 

The eye had granted him enough autonomy to revel in the gratification of seeing you in despair on your knees in the sand, before he plummeted to escape. But there was nothing else, apart from the gnawing realisation that you had held your own for a bit through his unconscious stint as a dinosaur for the first time.