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The muggy heat beats on Dragona’s back, sweat running rivulets down his neck. He can’t imagine how Jodio feels with that hoodie he clings too. A truck would’ve been useful, he ruminates, if only they didn’t have to ditch theirs earlier today. Onwards they walk, step after step without a word between the two of them.
Dragona idly thumbs the thin strap of his bikini top.
Scratch Scratch Scratch
A nail presses into the fabric, indenting into his own skin. Rubbing up and down. Down and up. His index finger curls around the strap to tug further.
It’s soft. It’s perfect. Dark and breathable with no discernible threads poking through. Fashionable and new. Perfect with every strand, the way Dragona wishes to be.
The finger pulls and pulls and pulls, until the elasticity reaches its limit.
Thwack
There, he deliberates above the stinging jolt of pain, a new, red mark ready to come into fruition. Maybe if he does it a couple more times it’ll give way to a bruise. Something that’ll offer to him a memory of earlier with every glance. Proof that today exists beyond the recollection of his pounding heartbeat filling up his ears and the sight of a barrel to brothers face.
He promises to offer a mosaic of welts to that side of his mind who vies for the thrill of forgetting, a trail down his shoulders to a chest that isn’t as nearly as big as he wants it to be-let alone his matching panties and what held there. To the officer who left nothing but the ghost his touch, the stark memory of his panting, hot and humid in Dragona’s ear.
Thwack Thwack Thwack
Jodio looks over from his phone, Dragona tries to flash him a smile and wavers. They keep walking, the eerie silence among them promising to send further cold sweat down his ada-her throat. She shakes her head to send thoughts awash, opens her mouth to take a deep breath, fails. Closes it with a click.
Jodio pockets his phone, slides another, deeper gaze from beneath his bangs. She looks to her feet, fingers fiddling, and mind fading away from the world around her, from the worried glint she almost recoils at. Someone’s car door slams, Dragona startles back to the very real world she’d nearly forgotten about, eyes snapping forward to meet a much closer green under heavy lids, boring right into her own.
“Jesus fuck!” Dragona snaps, stepping back even as Jodio matches her to stride forwards, eyes intent.
They are both roughly the same height, she wishes he’d grow a little faster as progress for the both of them in the ways that matter; but not now, not when he grabs hold of the hand at her collarbone kindly. Already she feels feeble and scrubbed raw, the spiral notes of her mind spilling over into the real world without need for translation. There has never been need for translation between the both of them.
Jodio examines the raised skin, irritated blood vessels already spreading past her bikini strap, and then her mouth, pressed firmly closed as if to carry the revolting day with her and twist it into a failed normalcy.
Jodio steps back, swinging her stolen arm between them, heedless of the pedestrians swerving around their still forms and cursing at the two. He bends his head, fringe swinging to hide his eyes, doesn’t speak.
Dragona hates when he does this, she cannot discern what he is searching for, what thoughts race in his mind. She cannot stand anything right now, with the collected echoes of the cop stringing at her heels, her unsaid words bouncing in the both their brains.
Just like his older brother, his elder sister, like Dragona: whoever she wants to be, Jodio opens his mouth to make an abortive movement to speak before sighing. The knowledge of earlier strains their easy sibling-hood. It's fine, Jodio can be brave enough for the both of them right now.
Raising his head, he asks, “Hey, back there, do you think I should’ve killed those guys?”
Dragona hisses, snapping out of his grip to cover her idiot little brother’s mouth, “Not in public, moron!” She hurriedly drags him by the arm to the most secluded area she can find. Searching through the throngs of people, eyes bouncing back and forth. Dragona leads them to an emptied grove of trees, clenching Jodio’s wrist.
She gnaws her bottom lip, of course he knows what bothers Dragona, it would take very little thought for anyone to realise. And of course, he would try, albeit clumsily, to try and comfort her.
Dragona releases him, whirling around, “Can’t you be a little more careful? We’re nowhere near home for you to be talking so casually, you know.”
“I said guys, not the cops,” Jodio retorts, arm swinging back to his side and hardly perturbed by his sisters frustration. “Besides, I’ve been doing this since I was a kid, you know that. Now answer my question.”
Dragona leans back against rough bark, a pressure to ground her, to take back her cool. She meets his gaze, “No, we would’ve been too late to get our cut,” She answers. “Besides, the thought of my younger brother murdering anyone for my sake just means that I fucked up somehow.”
Jodio stills, the heat in his eyes seemed to heighten. “You did not fuck up today, you were just fucked over by that fucking cop.” November Rain flits through the trees above them, elongated legs protectively crowding them close. Jodio steps forwards, “Like a random act of kindness, there’s random acts of asshole-ness too! There was nothing you did wrong!”
Dragona stares at her feet, face indiscernible to him and for a moment Jodio falters, breath stuck in his throat and November Rain fading away at his lapse of weakness. Then she steps away from the tree to stand on her own strength, the lines around her eyes ease even if her nose is a little red. She clenches her fists, unclenching, clenching, she mutters, “Random acts of asshole-ness. I wasn’t… I didn’t…” Dragona takes a shuddering breath and uncurls her shoulders. “You’re right,” steely eyes flash to Jodio, “The only thing I did was wrong was not stomping on that guy’s hand.”
This is the Dragona Jodio knows, he exhales in relief. The one who instinctively disfigured the cop who put her little brother into danger without pause, even when she didn’t lift a finger to help herself. He wishes that second part would change soon, wishes that she would come to her own defence, but for now this is enough. Jodio knows Dragona will never face those cops again, not with the way he left them.
Jodio looks off into the distance, scratching his cheek at the sudden earnest look of his sister that bore into him. She already knows that he’ll murder the ass of anyone who fucks with her, that doesn’t need saying or thanking.
“You know I don’t really get this stuff,” He continues pass her stiffening shoulders of the topic change,” but you’ll always be Dragona to me. No matter who you chose to be-you will always have a younger brother called Jodio Joestar. That will never change.” How cliché, how embarrassing. But it needs to be said aloud, even if she knows, so that she’ll never have to think he might say otherwise.
An arm reaches over his shoulder to squeeze at his neck, a cheek that mirrors his own in its growing redness squashes against his. “Man, my little brother really has grown up. Buuuut” That same arm clenches his neck harder, Jodio’s strangled hrrrk goes ignored. “Do you think I’ll let you off the hook with that sappy line? You’re still paying for the Uber.” The provocative glee that bubbles up from Dragona’s throat is suddenly stopped short.
Wrestling his sister into the ground, he can still feel the impression of a wide, sappy smile pressed alongside his own. Despite the increase of money tucked into his pocket today, Jodio knows the glowing warmth in his chest cannot be measured by any quantifiable thing. The gold flecks of sun dart through the leaves and shine the curves of their mouth’s rich with laughter that reverberate about the foliage.