Chapter Text
They’re out in the hospital’s garden when Erina tugs on his arm. Jonathan is steadier than he has been, but Erina’s grip helps him balance. He stops dutifully at her signal, tilting his head. Erina steps around to face him; her hands rest lightly on his forearms.
“Is something wrong?” Jonathan asks.
“No, no, nothing’s the matter.” Erina tilts her head to match him. “The doctors tell me you’ll be released tomorrow.”
“I heard!” Jonathan grins broadly. “Good as new!”
Not really. There’s a lot of scarring, mostly on his back and abdomen; it gets bad again on his forearms, and there’s a stretch of shiny new skin down the side of his face. But by all rights, Jonathan shouldn’t even be alive, so he counts himself lucky; and he can pretend, and Erina can pretend, and it’s almost like he really is fine.
“Good as new,” Erina echoes, patting his arm. “So before you go … ” She squints up at him. “Ah, get down here, you giant.”
His back is still too injured to bend well. Jonathan sinks to one knee, instead, wincing -- even softening the impact hurts, his muscles still raw from their recent encounter with open air. “What is it?”
Erina steps forward and kisses him.
It's quick, and chaste, and over before Jonathan can collect himself or respond. “Now it’s as it should be,” she says quietly. Jonathan opens his mouth to ask what on earth she means, but Erina looks up before he can, and her eyes are dark and sad. “I don’t suppose you’ll want to see me again.”
“ … what?” Jonathan asks dumbly. “No, I -- of course I will. Why would I not?”
“You’re not … angry?” Erina’s fingers curl on the curve of Jonathan’s forearm.
“Of course I’m not.” Somewhere along the line Jonathan must have missed a crucial memorandum, or he just can’t find all the pieces, because he has no idea what’s going on. “Why would I be?”
Erina sighs. “I ran away from you. I realized not long after how silly it was, but then I couldn’t find you, and when you weren’t in town for almost two weeks, I thought … ”
“Oh, no.” Memory strikes: he knows what happened now, and if he’d been the slightest bit braver they could have been friends this whole time. “Oh, no, you thought I was avoiding you? No, no, that … ” Jonathan chuckles nervously. “That was because I was grounded.”
“Jonathan,” Erina groans, rolling her eyes; it’s almost familiar, and then they both catch themselves. “What did you do?”
Well. This, at least, he’s proud of. “I never blamed you,” Jonathan explains. “Dio would have done anything to isolate me. But before then, he had only spread lies to my friends -- ‘Jonathan’s a tattletale’, ‘Jonathan’s a crybaby’, ‘Jonathan’s a liar’. I never thought he’d stoop to hurting someone else to get at me.”
“He must have known I’d never hear an ill word against you,” says Erina, tossing her head like it’s an easy boast and not a reminder of Jonathan’s best, oldest, strongest friendship. She raises her eyebrows. “Grounded?”
“When I realized he’d hurt you, I … ” Jonathan cringes, looking for all the world like a schoolboy caught out. “I ran home and broke his face.”
“Ha!” Erina claps her hands over her mouth, then steps back so she can double over, her shoulders heaving with laughter. “I wish I could have seen it! That smug b -- ” She cuts herself off, clears her throat. “It must have been a shock for him, I’ll say.”
“It was pretty good,” Jonathan admits. He doesn’t like to dwell on the violence of it, but the fury, the strength -- powering through the kick to his stomach to break Dio’s nose, seeing the wide-eyed horror on his adoptive brother’s face, knowing that finally, when it counted most of all, he’d managed to make an impression. It’s one of his better memories -- a highlight in more or less seven years of unbroken loneliness and inadequacy, scattered with reprimands and Dio’s barbed oneupmanship. “I thought … since you’d been hurt because of me, you wanted to stay away. I wouldn’t have blamed you. I would have apologized, at least, but I feared what he would do, if he found out we’d been talking.”
“Ah, Jonathan, I wish I’d known.” Erina lifts a hand to his temple, brushes her fingers through his hair before letting it fall. Her expression clouds. “He made such a -- a fanfare about having kissed me. Like I’m not a doctor’s daughter. But I suppose it was never about me; it was about him feeling like he’d stolen something from you.”
“I’m sorry,” says Jonathan helplessly. “You’re not a pawn. Nor anything of the sort. He shouldn’t -- he should have let you be.” But if should-haves were fruits, Jonathan would have an orchard; Dio, knowing the bastard, is tending pavement in Hell.
“I know. Still, I would rather have stood by a dear friend, than … ” Something -- rage? disgust? bitterness?-- flickers through Erina’s expression, but she shakes it off without a word, flashing a glitter-edged grin. “I washed my face in street mud, right in front of him. You should have seen it -- it was worth it just to watch him lose control. All that careful image, out the window. Just another petty schoolyard tyrant thinking his word is law.” The grin fades. Erina sighs. “I wish I’d tried harder to prove him wrong.”
“I don’t blame you for running, either,” Jonathan assures her. “He would only have -- have escalated … ” Deep breath. Forget Dio’s smirking face, fluid charisma, the adder’s tongue everyone but Jonathan seemed to believe. Forget the box in the furnace, the makeshift cross on the lawn. His brother is dead; Jonathan is in the garden with Erina; autumn is crisp on the air, and he’s got morning dew in his socks. “ … let’s not dwell on that.”
“Let’s not,” Erina agrees. Her jaw tightens, and she laces her hands together. Uneasy silence settles between them, thick as seven years’ worth of dust.
Something deep in Jonathan’s chest screams. He’s only just found Erina again -- he can’t bear to lose her twice. “Can’t we fix it? We were too young for real love, I think. We were, what, twelve? But you were a very dear friend. I don’t think it’s too late to try again.”
“You were twelve,” says Erina airily. “I was thirteen.”
“A venerable age,” Jonathan says solemnly. “How could I forget.” He breaks character to laugh. “You’ll like Robert. Have you met? He’s witty, like you. You can both complain about how much of a fool I am.”
“Yes, but you’re my fool.” Erina ruffles his hair. “His, too, it sounds like.”
“I -- well.” Jonathan hasn’t thought about that. He gives love easily; it comes naturally to him, and he’s always thought of that as a virtue. That was before he really had anyone to risk hurting by it, though. “Yes? Robert’s very dear to me, as well. I … hope that doesn’t trouble you.”
“Of course not,” says Erina, smiling. “He saved your life. And you, mister Joestar, deserve all the friends life throws at you, even if they make strange fashion choices.” Her voice quiets. “You were very dear to me, too, Jonathan. When I heard you’d been hurt, I thought it might be my last chance to make amends. If we could be friends again … ” Her teeth flash in the morning sun. “I’d very much like to prove him wrong. How better?”
Jonathan relaxes; a hard knot of pain he’s forgotten about eases in his chest. “How better,” he echoes, grinning.
It seems fitting. Dio’s final effort to destroy Jonathan has instead brought back one of the most important people in his life. Maybe now he’s gone, Jonathan can rebuild.