Chapter Text
“...Dio!”
Dio's body floated under the surface, his limbs swaying peacefully with the tide. In the distance, a voice seemed to call out from above, but the sounds were too muffled for him to make out the words. He sank like a stone, letting the cold wrap around him like a blanket and seep into every pore of his skin. But he didn't struggle. The water emptied his head and relaxed his nerves, drawing him down like a trap he would gladly walk into.
Suddenly, his back hit something hard, and the scent of pine tickled his nostrils. A light breeze ruffled his hair, and orange rays of sunlight danced behind his eyelids. Dio's finger twitched before his hand closed around a handful of earth and dead leaves. He opened his eyes.
“What the...?"
Above his head, the long branches of the trees filtered the light of a late autumn day, and he sat up hastily to brush the dirt from his hair. What was he doing lying in the middle of the forest? As he cleaned his clothes, his hands froze. From the moment he had been taken in by George Joestar, the most naive nobleman there was, Dio had been careful to maintain impeccable style. Not only did he have the heavy task of appearing convincing in British high society, but his fashion sense had always been geared towards valuable fabrics and the latest trends.
Even as an East End child clinging to his mother's skirts.
Yet it wasn't one of those refined outfits he wore, but something more like pajamas. The jumper and trousers were made of a soft, white fabric covered with black crescent moons. The sleeves were loose-fitting with ruffles at the cuffs, and three moon-shaped buttons fastened the shirt.
He jumped to his feet. It made no sense! He would never wear such an outfit! Except... Except perhaps on Halloween, to please Lord Joestar and appear as the best heir. Yes, on closer inspection, it seemed he was wearing a costume. But then what was he doing there in the middle of the forest? Shouldn't he be in a mansion, or in a carriage approaching the home of a wealthy host?
A flash of pain shot through his skull as he searched through his memories. God, had he fallen and hit his head? What if the impact had been so violent that he had lost his memories of the hours and days leading up to the current situation? He put his hand to his head, searching for a bump or any trace of dried blood, and sighed when he felt only his hair beneath his fingers.
A groan startled him.
“D-Dio?”
He spun around and finally noticed the body lying nearby. Jonathan sat up, wincing, and ran a hand through his brown curls.
“What happened? Where are we?”
His clothes were a black version of Dio's outfit, with white stars instead of crescent moons. This was hardly surprising, given that Lord Joestar always asked the tailor to make them matching outfits for every important event, which never failed to annoy them. They weren't brothers, let alone twins. They couldn't even consider themselves friends. The most appropriate term, according to Dio, would have been ‘people who tolerate each other because they have to live in the same house’.
“We're in the middle of the forest, don't you recall anything?” He replied.
“...No.” Jonathan rubbed his head. “Did we fight? It seems we were going to a party…”
“What do you mean, you don't remember anything either?”
Jonathan frowned, ready to retort, but his expression turned into a grimace, and he put his hand to his forehead.
“It's no use, the more I try to remember, the more my head hurts.”
“Okay, then let's think. Tell me the last thing you remember.”
“I don't know... The smell of smoke, I think. And that it was both very hot and very cold. What about you?”
Dio groaned. “It's useless. I think your father mentioned a party. Do you remember who was hosting the Halloween party this year?”
As he expected, Jonathan shook his head.
“Well, in any case, that's probably where we were going,” Dio crossed his arms. “It makes sense.”
He turned his head towards a path above them and pointed at it.
“See, we must have fought and fallen from up there, hit our heads, and lost consciousness. Anyway, we must not be far from the manor, let's hurry back before your father wonders where we are.”
Jonathan got up and looked down at his clothes.
“I don't know, Dio. I find it strange. Look, our costumes are clean and…”
“So what? I bet you were the one who tried to hit me first, so it's your fault we're in this mess. Let's hurry back, I want to comb my hair before we leave for the party.”
And he began to walk away to find a way back up the slope. It was impossible just to walk straight ahead, his shoes were slipping on the muddy ground... But soon, the lack of footsteps behind him made him stop. Jonathan hadn't moved, standing in the middle of the forest as if waiting for Dio to take him by the hand. Ugh, his stomach churned at the thought.
“So, are you coming?”
“Dio, I don't know where we are, but I'm sure it’s far from home. This isn't Liverpool woods.”
Dio placed his hands on his hips. “All right, Mr wood expert. What makes you so sure we're not near the mansion?”
Jonathan sighed and bit his lip.
“The forest near the house isn’t this dense, even when you go deeper into it, and I’ve never seen trees this tall in Liverpool. Plus, think about it: you hate dirt, so if we had been fighting outside, we should still be at the edge of the woods, even if we fell into a ravine.”
He had a point, but Dio's ego was too big to admit it. Yet, his stomach twisted as he glanced around and found himself unable to see any way out. The trees seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see, as if they had suddenly woken up in the very heart of the woods. Sweat rolled down his temple.
“So what do we do? We're alone in the middle of the woods, late in the afternoon, with nothing to eat. We can't stay here, we have to find a way back to the mansion.I don’t care how far we are.”
Jonathan stared for a minute before finally agreeing.
"I'm scared, Dio. What if we've been kidnapped? Maybe our memories are gone because someone drugged us and left us in the middle of nowhere…”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“I don't know, maybe they want some money from Father.”
Dio stopped and turned to him. “If that were really the case, why would they bother taking me with you?”
Jonathan blinked.
"You know, Father considers you as much his son as me.”
“Don't make me laugh."
Maybe it was the circumstances that tightened the knot in his stomach, but the truth remained obvious: Dio could have perfect manners, the best grades, and long conversations with George Joestar, while his idiot son spent his time playing in the mud, the old man would never see him as anything other than a working-class kid he had given a chance to. The son of Dario, the man who had saved his life. Another beautiful lie, and proof that Lord Joestar was nothing more than a naive nobleman unable to see trickery incarnate.
“Hey, what's that?”
Jonathan's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and he looked up in the direction the boy was pointing. Shivers shot up his spine.
Lying on the ground near a mossy trunk was a black lantern. Gothic in style, an orange flame flickered in its heart in a way Dio couldn't tear his eyes off. He swallowed hard. Slowly, Jonathan crouched down to pick it up, but a chill ran through Dio's body, and he jumped in front of him.
“Don't touch it!” He shouted.
Jonathan recoiled.
“I just wanted to see if…”
Dio lifted the lantern, and his stomach untangled itself. For the first time since they woke up, the weight on his shoulders had disappeared. All thanks to this strange lantern. A pang of nostalgia bloomed in his chest.
“We shouldn't touch it, Dio,” Jonathan began. “It's still lit, so its owner must be nearby... It could even be our captor! I have a bad feeling about this…”
But Dio didn't hear him, his eyes hypnotised by the flames and the way they gently swayed.
“Hey, are you listening to me?”
He jumped when Jonathan's hand touched his shoulder, and he finally looked away from the lantern. Jonathan's eyebrows were furrowed, and worry was written all over his face.
“I'm going to keep it,” Dio said in a tone that left no room for protest. “We would have heard if anyone was there, and anyway, I don't want to find myself in the dark when night comes.”
Jonathan clenched his jaw but didn't reply. Clearly, he too didn't want to find himself defenceless in a few hours. But after ten minutes of walking in tense silence, Jojo spoke again, “Can I hold the lantern?”
“Why?” Dio retorted, moving the black lantern away from Jonathan’s hands.
“Come on, I’m not going to run off.” He rolled his eyes. “But we found it together, and it’s not fair if you’re the only one holding it.”
Then, in an unusually softer voice, he added, “I'll take good care of it, don't worry.”
That mature tone, so different from that of the boy he had come to know, had a strange effect on him, like a bird's wing tickling his heart. He frowned.
"All right, fine.” He grumbled, handing him the lantern. “But only for ten minutes, okay?”
Their fingers brushed, and Dio shivered. Jonathan's hand was cold, almost damp.
“Thank you.”
As soon as Jonathan touched the lantern, his eyes widened, and an unreadable expression crossed his face. His lips pressed together. He looked at the object, then at Dio, and turned away without a word.
But as the sun continued to decline and the dead leaves crunched under their feet, Dio's stomach twisted. He felt hot and wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. His legs wobbled, and he leaned against a tree trunk for a moment, watching as Jonathan walked away without noticing that he was no longer being followed. With every new step separating them, violent waves of nausea rose within him, and he clasped a hand over his mouth.
“J-Jojo! Come back.”
The boy turned around and frowned at the sight of Dio. Lantern in hand, he ran back to him and crouched down.
“What's wrong? Do you want to take a break?”
Dio winced. His throat was tight, air couldn't fill his lungs. Yet, when he stopped clutching his chest, the pain compressing his heart had disappeared. The nausea, the shivers...
He felt fine.
As if it had all been a dream.
And in the midst of it all, one obvious thought.
“The lantern. Give it back to me.”
Jonathan raised an eyebrow before hesitantly handing him the object. As soon as his hand closed around the handle, his shoulders slumped and he let out a long sigh.
“Don't let him steal the lantern,” A deep adult male voice echoed in his head.
It sounded weirdly familiar, but the memory escaped him as soon as he tried to pinpoint it.
“Are you sure you're okay? Maybe we should really take a break and sit down for a few minutes.”
“No, I'm fine.”
Jonathan gave him another suspicious look, as if he didn't believe a word coming out of his mouth, but with a shrug, he started walking again. Dio barely had time to straighten up when the boy called his name, waving his arms as if he were several hundred meters away and not just in front of him.
“What?” He asked when he reached him.
Instead of words, Jonathan pushed aside the thick foliage of a bush to reveal a slightly mouldy wooden plank. A faded, half-peeled poster was still attached to it, and Dio leaned over to read it.
“Funfair, one kilometer away.”
The drawing promised carousels, sweets, and other rides, each more childish than the last.
There were no funfairs in London, and the first time one had set up near the manor house, or at least the first time for him as it apparently came back every summer, Lord Joestar had given them pocket money. Five coins to spend in one afternoon on silly things, shining in his fist more than any others he had earned in the East End.
Eventually, he decided to go with two lackeys and former friends of Jonathan who followed him everywhere, hoping to squeeze a few extra coins out of them at the same time. That day, Jonathan had pretended to be ill when George suggested that the boys go together, which delighted Dio. Nothing pleased him more than seeing the fear in his eyes.
But as he was enjoying an ice cream, he saw him.
Jonathan, queuing for the sledge, smiling at a young blonde girl. Erina Pendleton, the daughter of a doctor in Chester, where Lord Joestar was the viscount. He had watched them until their turn came, and Erina's arms tightened around Jonathan's waist. He could still feel the bile in his mouth and how the small glass bowl in his hand had shattered. Yet the pain from the shards digging into his palm was nothing compared to the needles piercing his heart.
He went home immediately and never set foot in a funfair again, not even when, years later, Jonathan begged him to go with him, having no other “friends” to go with.
“Let's go,” Jonathan said, seeking his approval in his eyes. “Not just for the rides. It's better than being alone in the woods, and maybe people can help us.”
Dio sighed. “All right, there are no other options anyway.”
Jonathan smiled, and they continued on their way. It wasn't long before the first wooden scaffolding appeared in the middle of a huge clearing.
“It’s the first time I've seen a funfair in autumn,” Jonathan admitted, looking around in wonder. “It reminds me of the time I went with... um…”
They passed the entrance marked by two flags fluttering in the wind and entered the grounds. A strange feeling came over Dio. Instead of laughter, screams, and other mechanical noises from the rides, they found only silence. The park was empty. Slowly, Jonathan's smile faded as he came to the same conclusion.
“Oh no, maybe it only opens in the evening,” He muttered before turning to Dio. “What shall we do? Shout to see if anyone’s there?”
Dio stared as if he had grown a second head.
“No way,” He said firmly. “We don't know this place, we could attract someone dangerous.”
“That makes sense. Did you learn that in London?”
He spun around, his heart pumping anger through his veins before his brain could take control.
“What did you just say?”
Jonathan had never asked any direct questions about his life before he arrived in his family. He had quickly learned it was wiser to refrain. And now that they were lost, he decided to take a chance?
“I'm just asking. I don't know why, but since we woke up, I've had the feeling that there are lots of things we should have talked about and…”
“If you're so bored, just find something to play with instead of bothering me,” He snapped. “If we manage to get out of here, it will be thanks to what I learned in London, where a spoilt kid like you wouldn't last long.”
The brown-haired boy's eyes darkened, but he didn't back down.
“Oh yeah? Who realised we weren't near the manor? Who found the sign for the funfair? We're even here.”
His nerves crackled, and he clenched his fist. But before he could take a step forward to wipe the smug smile off Jonathan's face, the flame in the lantern flickered, and a wave of terror washed over him.
“What the...?” He cried out.
Immediately, the light went back to normal, as if he had been dreaming, and only Jonathan's questioning gaze proved that they had seen the same thing.
“...Let's check if there's anyone there.”
He wiped his palms on his trousers and set off without another word, ignoring the brown-haired boy's insistent gaze.
As they made their way into the fairground, the absence of cobwebs and the good condition of the wooden stalls reassured them. Although it was empty, everything suggested this was only temporary and that sooner or later, someone would come and get everything up and running again. They passed a small purple tent topped with a sign with a painted crystal ball, then a colourful carousel, before Jonathan stopped in front of a small stall selling candies. His stomach betrayed his thoughts.
“Do you think we could take some? We don't have any money, but there's no one here…”
“Is that something your father would approve?” Dio smirked.
Jonathan went inside the shop, and his shoulders slumped. “Nothing.”
They had just passed a large wooden house with curtains covering the windows and a tall structure designed for sledding, which made Dio frown, when an unpleasant feeling began to grow in the pit of their stomachs.
They were being watched.