Chapter Text
When the Ball Touched the Ground
Chapter One – From the Pan Straight Into the Fire
As the train’s iron wheels were rolling over his limp form, it was not white, all-consuming pain that Diego Brando felt. It was not the sickening, squelching sounds of his ruptured innards spilling out from his bisected abdomen that he heard, nor the gnashing of his spine snapping and breaking into two. It was neither blood nor acid that he tasted in his mouth, and it was not darkness that he saw.
No, nothing of that sordid sort.
His battered body registered nothing but an overwhelming warmth enveloping him from all sides, and it was such a dear sensation.
The blood pounding violently in his ears sounded to him more like the soft humming of his mother during the long winter nights spent in the stables. Her quiet voice was echoing gently inside his head, lulling him to the sort of sweet sleep that only a child could fall prey to. Her slender, shivering fingers traced his cherubic cheeks and wiped his droopy eyes, wet from the chill in the air and fatigue. But he was not cold, and could never grow cold in Mother’s safe embrace, even though the wind was howling over her angelic lullaby. With her, no pain reached the small child, no sorrow furrowed his brows, no troubles could possibly reach him. Her ever loving presence was that of a mother who existed solely for her son, for her lone ray of sunshine in the whole miserable world. And to her little boy, within the caring arms of his mother was the only home that he had ever truly belonged to.
Right then, she was singing so sweetly for him, caressing his face so lovingly, just like she did every bitter night. Diego could only smile, and it was not the charming smile that he reserved for those social gatherings that he loathed from the bottom of his frozen heart, nor the smug grin he had mastered especially for the ever loving reporters that were chasing after his victories. No - it was the smile of a child, oblivious to the grim filth of the world, born into bone-racking poverty but surrounded by so much love.
It was an innocent smile, brilliant and honest.
He had won.
He had won his place back in his mother’s arms, where nothing could harm him. He was home again.
He, Dio, had won!
“You bloody maniac!” a voice screeched into his ears, and the warm caresses over his still cheeks were no more.
And it was then that Diego Brando felt the sort of crippling pain that was more real and raw than any other that he had ever experienced in his life.
His body hurt so furiously that he couldn’t even shout. His throat was constricted and his nostrils flailed haphazardly, stuttered breaths suddenly invading his lungs like arrows piercing them from within. It was as if his stomach turned around like a whirlpool inside his belly. His heart was beating loudly and fast and so unbelievably hard, the rhythmic thumps echoing into his clenched teeth.
His vision, whatever he possessed at that moment, was swimming in bright cotton balls.
Diego struggled to blink, his entire world spinning along with his throbbing head. The initial pain was slowly turning into a chilling sort of ache, though he was so dizzy he couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t, in fact, falling into some never-ending hole, not just merely lying down on his back. He started making out forms gravitating around him, a bird soaring into the distance, the clear sky above him-
“You absolute madman! Dio in Paradiso, you lunatic!” a woman was angrily shouting at him while shaking him.
A woman? Shouting at him? But why? Where had that wonderful lullaby gone? His mother would have never yelled at him or called him such names.
It was then that Diego realised that it was not his mother that was singing to him, nor was she caressing his cheeks – it was Hot Pants, his more-or-less-willing racing partner, who was yelling profanities at him and slapping him across the face with a force that could awaken the dead.
Her visage was obscured by pink strands of hair as she stared down at his body, her eyes wide and terrified. “What in God’s name were you even thinking?! Good Heavens, Diego! What the Hell is wrong with you?!”
Again, Diego blinked, wondering the exactly same thing as the other rider.
What was happening?
Trying to shift, he began coughing violently, reflexively doubling over. Warm blood slipped between his lips, seeping down his chin in thin rivulets.
“Hey, stronzo, stop coughing and lay the fuck down! Merda!” a man’s voice boomed from seemingly nowhere. Unceremoniously, Diego was pushed on his back and his head was forced to the side, his cheek making contact with the ground beneath him. “That’s what I get for being nice! You’d better not start throwing up either, capisco, you fucking genius? Porca puttana!”
“Ugh?” Diego rasped, his chest aching from the effort of producing that minimal sound.
“And shut up!” yelled the same man.
Irked, Diego felt trapped under the heavy palm that was forcing his head to remain glued to the soil. He began sniffing the air, the tingle of his monstrous transformation gurgling from underneath his skin.
“DIO! Don’t you fucking transform, either! Listen for once and stay the hell down!” the man shouted again, and finally Diego realised who was holding him down.
It was that infuriating Italian, Gyro Zeppeli, holding a curved needle between long fingers that were covered in blood and grime. Next to him, Hot Pants' face came into view, her red lips agape. She was shaking the lighter-resembling recipient of her Stand, Cream Starter, and frowning deeply.
“What part of stay the fuck down don’t you get, Dio?” Gyro said as he lowered the needle. “Cazzo, why am I even bothering with you? Johnny needs me!”
The woman shook her head, trying to disperse the panic that had seeped into her chest after having nearly been killed, herself. Her voice was much calmer and levelled than before when she opened her mouth to speak again. “Diego. Listen to me. You were hurt. Gyro is sewing you up. Just wait a bit longer and you’ll be fine. Okay? Don’t respond, please. Just stay still.”
Normally, Diego would have thrown a tantrum of gargantuan proportions for being ordered around like some dullard – at the very least, that pompous ass of an Italian would have had his garish teeth bashed in with a fist. However, being entirely too confused to process anything without getting a headache, he merely managed to angle his head downwards, wanting to understand why those two were fussing about him, and to assess the damage that Hot Pants was talking about.
What he saw was plainly ghastly.
His legs were bent at an unnatural angle, his trousers sported large red spots all over them, his sweater was a tattered mess of caked blood and fibres that were sticking up in odd places. Most of his abdomen and torso were bare, the skin’s colour ranging from ripe plum purple to black. Right under the diaphragm, a pinkish mass that he certainly didn’t remember having above his navel connected his belly to his chest. Said pinkish mass seemed to be coming from the small, shiny canister in Hot Pants' hand, slowly piling up around the edges of what must have been a very deep wound. With practiced moves, Gyro used some soiled and oily thread to seal the flesh that glued the edges of the gash, leaving even and surprisingly clean stitches behind.
Like in a dream, Brando’s horse, Silver Bullet, came trotting towards them, and Diego noticed a train steaming in the distance.
Oh yes, now he remembered. He had fallen off a train, along with Funny Valentine, the president. Of course, how silly of him to forget. They had been fighting, and Diego jumped with him before the other could have brought another version of him from another dimension, or worse – another version of Diego to annihilate the current world’s one.
They both had fallen under the train, actually, right on the tracks.
That explained the wounds and the pain, yes. It made perfect sense.
He had been run over by a flipping train!
“There,” Gyro interrupted his racing thoughts. “Good as new. Not that it’s a good thing with you, but my job here’s done. Finito!” he declared and rose to his feet. “I should return to Johnny, he’ll need my help with Valentine.”
“Valentine? He’s not dead?” Diego inquired, his voice surprisingly steady. He still hurt everywhere, but it was fading somewhat. He felt like he needed to move, to chase after something. To hunt. To bloody kill.
Gyro shook his head, his face contorted in a very serious frown. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”
“But I dragged him onto the railways! I bloody did!”
“Sure you did, I saw you jumping out of the train through the binoculars, but the only thing you actually managed to do was to get yourself cut in half. Valentine got between the wheel and the railway and escaped with his Stand to another dimension.”
“That blooming smarmy bugger of a Yankee-“
“Whoa, okay, potty mouth! You made your point, slow down,” the Italian loudly interjected the other man’s tirade. “Look, Dio,” he pointed to a dark, wet patch of grass. “See all that blood and stuff there? All yours. I just stitched you up with the Zombie Horse to make sure you remain glued, but you should thank your buddy HP over there for sticking you back into one piece. Your legs were somewhere over there when I arrived,” he waved with the back of his hand towards the rails. "How you didn't instantly go into hemorrhagic shock is beyond me."
Anger bubbled in Brando’s chest. He nearly died – no, for all the logic in the world, he should have been dead, after having been torn in half by a moving train. And for what? He had accomplished precious nothing, from the looks of it. The train that had mortally wounded him was still advancing in the distance, and he could make out a speeding blue silhouette – most likely Johnny Joestar, rushing after a pink one - Valentine and his Holy Corpse.
What a mess.
He noticed Gyro making a move to hop onto his own horse, Valkyrie. The mare was waiting patiently for her rider to reclaim his spot on her back, her eyes focused on the ground underneath her hoofs.
“I’m coming with you,” Diego made out of the blue, frustrated with having to declare his intentions.
That made the Italian doctor pause in his tracks. His horse stirred slightly, surprised that her master was still faltering in mounting her saddle. “Come again?”
“You heard me, Zeppeli, and I don’t like repeating myself. It’s such a useless, ludicrous thing! I’m coming with you.”
“Diego,” Hot Pants said monotonously, her demeanour returning to her usual coolness. “You were wounded and we’ve barely managed to revive you. Cream Starter struggled to cover the gap between your two sections. If Gyro hadn’t arrived with the thread, you would’ve been dead. And right now, you’re hardly in a good shape to be moving around, let alone fighting against anyone. You’ve lost too much blood as it is. Be reasonable.”
Brando shook his head. He was many things, but reasonable wasn’t one of them at the best of times. And this wasn’t his best moment, not by a stretch.
“No. I’m going. I don’t know yet how, but I, Dio, will have my revenge.” He looked behind his back at the concerned woman. “Thank you, HP, but this is something I must do.”
Pressing her painted lips together, the nun huffed a resigned puff of air through the nose. “I see.”
The man struggled with getting up to his feet. Silver Bullet scampered towards him, offering his side for his rider. Thankful, Diego grabbed the stirrup and used it to give himself a lift, his shaky legs barely holding his weight up.
Pathetically, the bottom half of his destroyed sweater rolled down to his ankles.
Sneering, Gyro showed his golden teeth in a mocking grimace. He should have already left without a glance back – not to mention he should have left the British jockey to rot in the first place, not to rush to his aide when he had seen him falling off the train. He owed him literally nothing, but something kept giving him pause whenever Brando surfaced like a particularly persistent rash. It was something that made his guts clench, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good sensation, or a bad one.
But it certainly intrigued him to no end.
“Oho, you sure are dressed to kill! Is bloody and tattered a new fashion statement of yours, Dio?”
Diego, not one to live anything down, revealed his own set of crimson teeth. “Ugh, the Italians! All that noise for nothing! I will have you know - I always come prepared, Zeppeli. I own more sets of trousers.”
“You sure came prepared to soil them, huh?” Gyro taunted him, curious where the conversation – if it could be considered one - was going.
Despite himself, the British jockey grinned, his face illuminating with something wicked coming from his lightly coloured eyes. “Not at all, Zeppeli – but you never know when you might have to skip the town in a less than polite state, if you get my meaning,” he commented as he discarded the remains of his useless jumper. The new scar that surrounded his middle like a belt shone in the sun as he wiped the blood off his face and chest with a rag, and put on another sweater from the bags on Silver Bullet’s back.
Taken aback by the frigid jockey’s remark, Gyro stared transfixed, his hand frozen on top of Valkyrie’s mane. He blinked when Diego kicked his boots and trousers along with them, making good work of his statement of owning several pairs. He swiftly changed into fresh jodhpurs, ignoring the Italian’s baffled expression, and thrust his legs back into his high boots. Rolling his bloodied clothes into a neat pile and shoving them in another compartment of his bag, the jockey returned the doctor’s gaze.
“Got your fill of ogling, darling? Need some space to gather yourself, or shall we get going?” he made teasingly. His face, although paler than usual and still splattered with some small droplets of blood and mud in spite of his best efforts, was a perfect mask of seduction and bullshit that only Diego Brando could muster.
Gyro’s golden teeth shone brightly as his grin widened. “Nyo-ho! Gotta give you that - you’re made differently, Brando.”
Diego pushed his chin forward and defiantly cocked his hip. The motion hurt like a bitch, but hell, he was making a statement. He could see with the corner of his eye that HP was making disapproving motions with her head, but was hopping onto her horse nonetheless. They were going to ride together and defeat Valentine, just like they had planned.
There had been some major hiccups along the way, but things were going accordingly to the plan.
Mostly, but oh, well.
Confidently, the British also mounted his horse. The dry bushes surrounding them seemed to be spinning to his dizzy brain. “Why, I am indeed!”
If there was a God who was watching over them, Diego prayed He didn’t let him fall off the saddle in his utterly smashed state.
XXXXX
Being so close to knocking on Heaven’s door – as far as the expression applied to him, of course - had rendered him soft, thought Diego grimly as he pierced the flesh under his fingertips with the same curved needle that had stitched his own skin just a little while before.
His knees were folded under him as he struggled with sewing up an enormous wound on Gyro’s side while being unable to fully retract his claws. By his feet, Cream Starter’s container sparkled dully under a thick layer of dirt.
Clenching his jaw, Diego frustratingly pressed his lips together, but the plump flesh barely touched over the shapness of his fanged teeth.
He was seething.
After having jumped off the moving train and having been rescued by the most unlikely duo of Italians – Hot Pants and Gyro Zeppeli – Diego found himself rushing after Valkyrie, mounted on the reliable back of Silver Bullet. By his side, the nun, Hot Pants, rode on top of Gets Up, her dark eyes scanning the distance.
“I see Lucy!” she announced evenly, the initial shock of almost getting herself killed inside the train wagon having waned. “And there’s Valentine!”
“Figlio di puttana!” Gyro exclaimed as his horse jumped over a boulder. “There’s Johnny, too!”
“Zeppeli!” cried Diego. His cheeks had deep cracks surfacing from beneath the skin. “You run to your little Johnny,” he shouted, “and we’ll go after Lucy!”
“What? No!” Gyro responded. “No way in Hell I’m letting you get to the Corpse! Not you! Johnny needs it!”
The Englishman rolled his eyes, visibly irritated. “For the love of- Zeppeli, do you hear yourself? We can extract the girl and take her somewhere away from Valentine, while you go after Jojo and Valentine! HP can carry Lucy away to safety, and I can create some diversion! He needs to be taken from all sides, don’t you get it, you daft wop?! We need to surround that pink wanker somehow!”
“Absolutely not! You only want the Holy Corpse and will fuck off the moment you get your hands on Lucy, and leave her to die!”
Diego wanted to smack the other man. “I get that you have shit for brains, but Valentine expects you to approach Lucy!”
“Hell yes, so piss off!” Gyro yelled as he took off after Johnny.
“Zeppeli, you idiot!”
What happened in the next minutes was a blur of colours and noises.
Diego and Hot Pants promptly changed course, still determined to get on the other side of the moving train to cause an ambush, as Valentine needed to be somehow distracted, despite not having their makeshift plan reciprocated by the third party. Although Gyro was dead-set on riding to where Lucy Steel laid collapsed and he had virtually no way of preventing that raging bull of a man from reaching his target, the brilliant jockey’s entire being began tingling with the unpleasant sensation that their approach was going to prove a grave error of judgement.
As much as he loved being right about everything, this one time, Diego wished to be mistaken.
What he didn’t suspect was just how absolutely off the case he would actually be.
“DIEGO! WATCH OUT!” HP screamed at him, and Diego turned his head to look at her.
Right behind Gets Up's tail, an exact copy of himself was trotting towards them.
“Blimey,” he cussed and urged Silver Bullet to run faster.
“Not so fast,” a very familiar voice mocked him, getting nearer to him much sooner than it should have. One of Diego’s doubles from another world – one that he apparently hadn’t managed to dispose of, like the others - was chasing after him, pointing a gun at him. “There can be only one of us in here victorious!”
Diego wanted to rip up something. That madman! Was he really the only version of himself with any speck of imagination? He understood the thrill of besting oneself – quite literally, at that – but they would get annihilated if they touched. Didn’t that other-him know the risk? And he was getting too close!
He clenched his fangs, tasting the remnants of the blood in his mouth.
Was his double in a hurry to die? Screw him! Diego was delighted to fulfil his death wish.
“Indeed, and that shall be me!” he screeched as he unexpectedly pulled the reins of his horse to avoid getting shot by his double. Silver Bullet obediently jumped and took a turn, but nothing could prevent Diego from colliding with a flash of golden that suddenly sped by him.
His Stand, Scary Monsters, surfaced violently from underneath his skin, his tail wrapping securely around Silver Bullet’s underbelly. The stallion, ever reliable, didn’t even flinch at the unnatural half-transformed beast that suddenly appeared on his back, but expertly aligned himself with his new course.
However, the other-world’s Diego wasn’t so lucky, not having Scary Monster’s agility at hand, and trampled with his fists wrapped tightly around the reins of his own horse. His eyes went wide and wild, staring in mortification at the golden thing that had suddenly flown from his side to his counter-part’s back.
“DIEGOOO!” HP shouted after the real Diego, or at least the one that she had ridden alongside for a good while. “Catch!” she added, throwing Cream Starter at him. “It’s my Stand from another dimension! Take it!”
Without skipping a beat, Diego extended his hand to catch the falling container, but HP’s throw was aimed extremely poorly. In horror, he almost jumped from the saddle to lengthen his reach.
The same golden apparition that had crashed into him a few moments before abruptly materialised next to him and effortlessly caught the small canister.
A shrill passed between HP’s lips. “DIEGO! Go after the president! I’ll handle this imposter! GO, DIOOO! GOOO!”
Oh, how that gave him a rush! It was like in the races, when Diego was passing by the other contestants – the audience was cheering him on! And why shouldn’t they? He, Dio, was the best of the best!
Even better than himself from another dimension! He was the best version of himself!
With inhuman determination, Diego kept his blue tail wrapped around his beloved stallion and sped into the distance with the double’s Cream Starter and the golden manifestation that had grabbed it.
Right now, the same ‘manifestation’ was protectively standing by his side, ready to spring into action if needed.
After the unexpected appearance of his double, Brando eventually reached Lucy Steel, Gyro Zeppeli, Johnny Joestar and Funny Valentine just in time to see the Italian crumpling from his horse, a flash of blood spraying from his body as he fell down in what appeared to be bare soil. Out of the sudden, waves came crashing above him, the agitated water claiming the purple and brown figure in its merciless embrace.
Johnny watched his best friend's fall with an expression of anguish. He turned to Valentine, who was making his confident bargain of sweet lies.
What Johnny most certainly saw as a tragedy that was about to trample him like the hoofs of a wild stallion, Diego perceived as a stroke of luck.
Hopping off Silver Bullet’s back, Brando used the extra Cream Starter to transport himself closer – and stealthily - to where he had noticed Gyro collapsing. Navigating by the ear, after only having observed HP using her Stand, he reached the man that was submerged in pinkish water.
Oh, how he smelt of death.
Crinkling his sensitive nose, Diego grabbed the Neapolitan by the middle, blood immediately seeping between his clenched fingers. Not understanding why, he felt his chest constricting and his claws surfacing. In spite of it all, he somehow managed to drag Gyro to dry land.
Instinctively, he pulled Cream Starter from the pocket of his, once again, dirty jodhpurs. It seemed that the day was not particularly favourable for any of his garments.
As he lifted his hand to press the button of the lighter, he thought of the golden manifestation that had collided with him, and a huge golden mist appeared by his side.
He realised, quite smugly, that what he had before him was a Stand, and it seemed to belong to him, as it responded to his call. He willed for it to take Cream Starter and start filling in the gaping holes in Zeppeli’s chest and abdomen, and the thing obeyed him.
No, not thing. His Stand.
Well, the other dimension’s Stand, now made his.
“Oh, haven’t I told you, Zeppeli?” he bragged, searching Gyro’s pockets for the needle and thread that the doctor had sewed him up with. “The victory is always mine!”
But as he began sewing the wounds that were yet to be filled by Cream Starter’s meat, he realised that Gyro was not jolting awake as he had when he had been saved, but remained just as lifeless and still as he had been under the water.
His nose was not deceiving him – that man did stink of death.
Diego couldn’t comprehend the intensity of the ache that gripped his chest, and had no time to contemplate it. He began slapping the larger man’s cold cheeks, but he was completely irresponsive.
“Zeppeli? Gyro? Oi, don’t you bloody die on me! Come on, I haven’t rushed all the way here for you to croak, you twit! Blast it!”
His fingers began turning into claws, making it very difficult to hold the needle. His vision was swirling from the recent loss of blood. Under his skin, Scary Monsters was roaring mournfully for a reason his User was unable to grasp.
This was unacceptable.
Dazed and utterly conflicted, Diego shifted his eyes and saw the unmovable face of his newly stolen Stand, and somewhere behind its huge, dazzling form, Johnny Joestar was holding one of his hands up like a gun, his arms trembling and pointing to a haunched over blond man. There was quite a fair distance between them, but the dinosaur’s enhanced vision helped in such times.
He clearly made out the young jockey’s pathetic expression of defeat, his dark determination deflating under deep sorrow and heavy tears.
Diego’s fine ears picked up fragments of Valentine’s deceptive voice, and his mind was made up in an instant. He was so not having any of that.
Inside him, the dinosaur that he commanded was reeling with a purpose that the User embraced like the greatest high.
He was Diego Brando, and he could conquer anything!
“You are the World,” Diego stated commandingly to the awaiting apparition, and the Stand’s eyes shifted with clear intelligence at the mention of its name, a name that seemed to arose from the deepest depths of its new User's determination. “And this time is mine. I shall be victorious!”
With determination, the Stand’s large hand passed through Gyro’s unmoving chest and gripped his heart, and started clenching around it rhythmically.
Diego put a gloved finger over the dead man’s carotid, and like on command, blood began pumping under his fingertip. Gyro’s face began to regain its colour, and his deep green eyes flied open.
His first gasp was like a new breath for Diego, who neatly stitched up the rest of his wounds with a triumphant grin.
XXXXX
Outside the window, the weather was worsening.
The pitter-patter pattern of the rain filled the silence inside the dingy cabin wherein they took refuge – quite the lucky occurrence, given the horrible storm that was raging in the wilderness. Johnny rubbed his frozen hands together, all the while searching for something to get the fire started with in the small chimney. He found some wood and thrust it into the fireplace. Deftly, he began rubbing the flints he always carried together, sparks crowning the friction and igniting the mercifully dry wood.
Proudly, he blew into the flames to get them going, already thinking about heating up whatever provisions they had for dinner. Impatiently, he dragged himself to their discarded bags and began rummaging for the cans that they had rationalised for that evening. It wasn’t much, by any means. The weather needed to clear out soon, or they might not have enough food.
Well, they would make do, somehow. They always did.
The uninteresting beans stew slowly cooked over the fire, and Johnny began wondering what was holding Gyro up. He had gone to hitch their horses in the adjoined barn, but he had yet to return.
He was getting really worried for his friend.
Had he been attacked?
Just as he thought those worrisome thoughts, the door opened and a powerful wind gushed inside.
“Idiot, close the door! I’ve just lit up the fire!”
“How splendid of you,” spoke a suave voice that definitely didn’t belong to Gyro, and the door was shut with a loud clang.
Johnny turned his head like he had been struck by the lightening, his back arching and his arms tensing.
“Hey, don’t be an asshole!” said the voice that did belong to Gyro, and it sounded quite unnerved.
“Of course, of course,” the other replied with false subordination. “My bad.”
Johnny swore he saw red when Diego Brando passed the threshold wearing an expression of both amusement and boredom. He walked defiantly towards the fire, the assortment of bags and his saddle discarded next to the ones of the occupants of the small cabin.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Johnny made angrily. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing here? Gyro!”
Diego did stop his stride, but only when he was in front of the fireplace. “Look, Jojo,” he said, his honey voice levelled and icier than a glacier. “I know this isn’t ideal. But the weather, as you might have noticed, is even less than ideal, and it will be holding up in the same manner for a few days at least. However,” he continued, turning his still gloved palms over the flames, “I am not the only one that is stuck here, until the weather lets up. You are, too, along with your horses and mine. I am not risking Silver Bullet’s integrity again after the stunt that your friend over there has already pulled, so I’m not leaving until it’s safe for him to race.”
As he spoke, Diego didn’t move an inch from the fire, keeping on turning his hands in front of their boiling stew.
It was then that Johnny realised that what he had thought to be a perfectly composed Diego was, in fact, a very heavily shivering Diego.
His pale face was flushed from the coldness and his straight nose was bordering a crimson shade of red. His dark brows were pinched in a frown and his tussled golden hair was covering most of his thin cheeks and getting into his bright eyes. His shoulders were drawn in and his knees were locked in a slight crouch, his slender body struggling to retain some of the heat from the chimney.
In front of the small fireplace, Diego Brando appeared slighter than ever, and that sight was just plainly wrong.
But the blaze in his pale eyes was enough to stir the fire into a greater flame.
“I have provisions that you will need for the next days,” he added, voice just as passionless as before. There went the sliver of amusement that he had entered with, abandoning any pretence. “I know you didn’t stock up properly in the previous town, and what you have won’t last you until the next civilised stop. Therefore, I am willing to share some of my supplies with you if you allow my horse to have a roof over his head.” As he said the final words, his eyes trailed to Johnny’s, boring holes into his head.
“And just where do you land in this?” Johnny exclaimed like a pouty child. “Gyro, what were thinking, letting this asshole in!”
“He’s not wrong about our supplies, Johnny. We barely have enough for us and our girls, and the storm will take a while.”
“Gyro! Don’t take Dio’s side! I don’t want him here!”
“And I won’t be staying here, rest assured,” Diego replied, finally taking a step back from the fire. “I only want to heat up something for me and my horse, and I will go and stay with him in the stables.”
“Like hell you are!” Johnny shouted.
“Johnny!” Gyro made sternly. “Seriously!”
“Yeah, seriously! I ain't letting this horse-poisoning son of a bitch near our horses!”
A murderous flash passed over the blue in Diego’s narrowed eyes.
“Okay, okay, that’s enough! Both of you!” Gyro intervened. “That’s enough. We’re all in the same predicament, so we’ll have to get over it like civilised people. Okay?”
Johnny frowned and shook his head. “No.”
“Johnny!”
“I said no, Gyro! He ain't staying anywhere near our horses, I can’t trust him with them! ” He angrily pointed a finger at Diego, who watched the exchange with a blank grimace. “He’s staying here, and we’re gonna take shifts keeping watch. Now, show us what you’ve got, this stew is hardly enough for three people.”
Gyro’s chest sweltered with pride. “See? In the direst of situations, civilisation wins!”
Johnny’s airborne knitted cap smacked the Italian over the eyes, and Diego snorted at the childish display.
“Oh, shut up, Gyro!”
XXXXX
Gyro’s eyelids grew heavy as he fought against the sensation of waking up. He felt a dull ache permeating his every pore, and his skin was cool and moist.
A hand squeezed his arm, and it was only then when he realised that he was hugging some moving object that was warm and thick, and that another unidentified thing was hovering behind his back.
With a startle, he opened his eyes. What he saw was the flaxen hair of Silver Bullet, carrying him on his muscled back. The hand that was supporting his forearm had a leather glove on.
Wide-eyed, he turned his head to look at who was holding him from behind.
“Ah, Good Morning, sunshine! This commotion must be quite eye-opening, mustn't it?” Diego said with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
“Che cazzo-“
“Ah-ah, don’t start thrashing or we’ll both fall off the saddle. I’m just returning your favour, you see,” he explained, as if the two of them riding together on the same horse made any sense. “And for your part, Gyro Zeppeli, you're going to light up the flame in your precious Johnny and save the day!”
“He’s not my precious!” Gyro spewed.
“Honestly, Zeppeli, I don’t give a damn,” Brando told him trenchantly. “Jojo needs some help and you might be useful for that. He’s right up ahead and things are looking grim, and I want that pink son of a whore Valentine dead. Sounds like a plan, you reckon? It sounds so to me. Why, how lovely that we are on such agreement,” he went on, although the Italian hadn't expressed any opinion about the aforementioned action scheme.
Gyro frowned at Diego’s implicit curtness, finally noticing the big holes in his purple shirt and the red that had infused his trousers’ light fabric, currently drenched. It seemed like bloody and tattered was indeed the fashion statement of the day.
XXXXX
It was starting to get ridiculous, the sheer amount of times that Diego ran into Johnny and his gyrating companion - and the other way around, as well.
This time, a blizzard caught them in a barn, along with their horses. Although Johnny groaned when he noticed that the only refuge that they had managed to find was already occupied by his British nemesis, he looked subdued as he silently crawled to take a seat in front of the fire that Diego had built in the middle of the room, trying to warm himself up. The jockey said nothing to the two invaders, yet he beckoned them silently with a slight nod of his head in front of the not-precisely safe fire pit.
They sat like that for a while, not saying a word. The horses made soft whinnies behind them, the two mares having become quite friendly with the Arabian stallion over their many encounters.
Johnny watched with a deep scowl how Slow Dancer pushed her nostrils against Silver Bullet, and the horse eagerly reciprocated the gesture with a little happy noise. Eagerly, Valkyrie greeted the other horse similarly, and they exchanged loud snorts of air through their noses.
For some unfathomable reason, the two mares had refused to remain in the corner where they had been tied up by Gyro, and became agitated when they weren’t put together with the stallion. The riders had no other choice but to hitch them together.
Even worse than that, the mares munched happily on their oats from each side of the golden stallion that, after every few chews of his own, was gently grooming one of the horses, or the other.
Johnny wanted to scream at those three equines. How dare they get along like that!
He looked back at the other two humans who were with him. Over the little makeshift fire, Diego was stirring the contents of a blackened cauldron, whereas Gyro was whisking coffee in a slightly dented kettle and was humming some obnoxious, but catchy song.
That made him want to scream even louder – even his best friend and his arch enemy seemed to be able to maintain some level of civility around each other!
It looked like the only one who had his full arsenal out was him.
Fuming, he didn’t even notice when Diego extended a plate filled with stew that smelled better than whatever either him or Gyro had ever managed to cook on their journey - and not from the lack of trying – yet he took it in his hands mechanically. By his side, Gyro was already digging into his share of food, clueless in regard to Johnny’s inner turmoil.
Seeing his friend so content with eating, Johnny took his cutlery out and took a bite. The stew was really good, like everything that Diego prepared for the three of them whenever they were shacked up somewhere due to the biting weather. For some unexplainable reason, the Englishman kept on taking it upon himself to make their shared meals, and had yet to poison them.
That uncharacteristic kindness held Johnny right on the edge.
Bitterly, he made his way through his large dish, and only then did he notice that, despite both he and Gyro having received some overflowing platters, Diego had barely filled his halfway. Why was that, he wondered.
The manner in which the Brit chewed was methodical and slow, almost as if he was in pain, his eyes focused on the distance, seemingly not seeing anything. He swallowed the delicious food as if it hurt him, and he took small sips of coffee every now and then.
Johnny remembered how he used to eat in the exact same fashion when he was racing. Small meals, well chewed to trick his brain that he was going to be full from eating almost nothing, the painstaking swallowing of what was more saliva than anything. All the standards and regulations that he'd had to maintain, the weighting, the dehydration, the dizziness, the vomiting before the races...
Seeing Diego nearly punishing himself with what was supposed to be mere sustenance, Johnny remembered all the trouble that the man in front of him had put him through over the years. The British winning every single competition against him, the words of his father as Diego lifted another trophy that would have been his had the other not shown up at the starting line.
The moment when Nicholas, his dear brother, had fallen and been trampled to death by his own horse, and Diego, who was then employed at the Joestar stables, had grabbed Johnny with anguish and put a trembling hand over his eyes and pressed his face into his chest not to let him see the older boy laying crushed and bleeding under his heavy horse.
During every tragedy in his life, Diego had extended a hand towards him, and Johnny had never understood what any of that meant.
It had always appeared like Brando was the one to bring him nothing but misfortune, though maybe, he had been wrong. Maybe there was more than what had met the eye and understanding of the hot-headed loose-cannon boy he had once been.
Both of them had undergone the same gruelling training, they had been hurt and had ached just as badly and must have suffered just as much. Yes, Diego might have been able to walk, unlike him. May it be that he could feel his legs and didn't need to crawl on his hands and elbows. But, even if he appeared to have everything, Diego was still a deeply miserable man, and Johnny, as much as he would have wished to, couldn’t fully enjoy the other’s unhappiness. Not after what they both had gone through over the years, all those situations that had pushed them together on more than one occasion.
Had their rivalry ever meant anything? All that senseless animosity? Had all the restrictions, the anguish, the arguments, the pain, the horrible words of resentment – had they meant anything, when then, in the present, they were eating together, he and the very bane of his existence, under the same roof? Did the other even know what he had put him through? Did he even care? Was all this docility, during this forecast-imposed armistice, just some ploy? What was going to be his punishment for this moment of peace?
And Lord, wasn’t Diego so terribly thin under all that thick, colourful fabric. So very small and tensed like a wild animal.
Listlessly looking at Diego, the ghostly sensations of his soothingly cold fingers and comfortably warm chest lingered against Johnny's skin. Once again, like in those restless moments when the phantom pains of his gun wound were tormenting him and he felt as if he was alone in the whole wide world, Johnny remembered the overwhelming safety of Dio's arms and his nerves turned still, even if he had only felt his touch for a fleeting moment and would have given anything to forget its searing memory.
Yet, for just a second, Johnny wished he understood what was going through that golden head that always seemed to be scheming. He wished to see Diego for who he really was.
He wished to learn if he was the only one plagued by such lamentable thoughts.
From behind his steaming bowl of stew, Gyro watched the two jockeys with careful eyes. Diego was drilling holes into the tip of his shiny boot with his empty gaze, his porcelain face stilled into bone-chilling apathy, and Johnny was staring at him openly – or his friend might have thought he was being stealthy, who knew. There was a disconcerting look in his eyes, something that looked like introspection. He looked sad, a million of words threatening to spill through his big, blue eyes as he glanced at the dead expression that the other jockey wore like a glove.
For a moment, watching the two younger men, Gyro felt like he was looking at his little brothers after they had been scolded, and he wanted to hug them tightly and reassure them that the world wasn’t as dark as it seemed.
That unsettled the Italian more than he liked to admit.
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With his heart racing, Gyro tightened his grip around Silver Bullet’s neck. “If only that freaking Dino of yours could fly!” he complained. It was very awkward to be riding with someone else behind him, especially with someone who clung to him like a wet leaf.
Well, that was hardly surprising, as Diego was much smaller than him and they were trying not to fall down, given how tired and bruised they both were. But still - Dio could have held his incredibly sharp knees closer to himself.
But what bothered Gyro the most was that he wasn’t actually bothered by anything at all - and he felt like he ought to be.
“Oh, yes,” the voice behind him purred, and the thighs that were steering the stallion under them tightened slightly to spur Silver Bullet into an even faster pace. “That would be so uplifting, wouldn’t it?”
Gyro chuckled, the noise surprising even to himself. “Nyo-ho! Nothing says shit has hit the fan better than some good humour!”
“To be frank, the situation does stink a bit,” Diego quipped.
“Nyo-ho-ho, but you’re Dio!”
The grip around his hips became just a bit tighter and a deep chuckle tickled his right ear, but he had no time to contemplate either, as they were fast in approaching Johnny and Valentine.
The president seemed to be making quite a case to the young man, who wore his pain in every fibre of his being.
From their side, veiled by a cloud of thick dust, Gets Up sprinted and Hot Pants grabbed Lucy from where she was lying unconscious, along with the thin Holy Corpse. It seemed like Diego’s idea for an ambush wasn’t so farfetched, after all.
With a loud voice, Gyro grabbed the shocked audience’s attention. “Hey, cazzo! We’ve returned from Hell, Valentine!" he shouted, just in time for the World, Diego’s newly stolen Stand, to punch the pink clothed man with a huge yellow fist and make him tumble backwards.
"Oi! Blast your cunt mug, Valentine, you gobshite twat!" Diego spewed vengefully and propped his elbow onto Gyro’s shoulder, firing the last bullet from the barrel of his gun right between the President’s eyes. From his seat at the front of the saddle, the Neapolitan guffawed at the Brit's violent burst. How very classy of Dio, very chic - not petty at all.
The commotion was the exact wakeup call that Johnny needed, who called for the evolved version of Tusk, his powerful Stand, before Valentine could react to the mighty blow and the gunshot he had just received. His eyes burning with unearthly determination, Johnny fired his nails and swept the ground under the president’s feet, burying Funny Valentine in an infinite spin underneath the dirt that he had confessed to loving so much.
Well, he could now successfully bite it to his heart’s content, over and over again, for a lot longer than he might have desired to.