a miracle diopan writes diopan once in a blue moon. as usual it’s abt nothing, but has horse jokes that i find hilarious + inspired by a prompt i got in 2013 lol ‘hp heals diego’s wounds’
The eye lets him see clearly. On the plains he recognises the figure for what it is, almost as if he could just reach out his hand and touch, kilometres away. This kind of clarity, focus in details that should escape him, he knows it, he's experienced it before, sitting on hay stacks inside the stable when symbols became letters and letters became words he strung together on the pages of children's books he'd found discarded. Books owned by the children who inhabited the large corridors owned by the owners of the estate, and of the stables, of the haystacks, and who were not as good as him at riding horses or staring down but for whom these books had served their purpose long ago. He urges Silver Bullet to pick up his pace, biting down a smile to the wind.
Get Up, their horse, is the one to acknowledge Diego's arrival. HP glances to the side and nods almost imperceptibly, hold on the reins tightening—he can see that with the eye as well—but not in apprehension: inexperience maybe, hesitation. Their form sways barely atop the saddle when they clicks their tongue and looks forward, to what lies ahead. The wind is at their backs, Diego watches it blow HP's hair, sticking to their skin on account of the sweat; he watches muddy strands of grass caught in the fur of their hat; watches unmarred hands dirty with grime and leather-stained; their knees tightening hold on their horse's flanks; Get Up's hooves kicking dirt and stones away; desert lizards toasting in the sun atop the rocks scattered to the sides of their path; scorpions steadily walking away; a small cottontail sniffing the air, its ears shot up in attention.
'What do you want?' HP says and there's nothing uncertain about their tone.
Diego smiles.
'Do you know what's a vampire's favourite thing about watching horse racing?'
'What are you talking about?'
'Y'know, when a vampire's watching a horse race, what's his favourite thing?'
HP, who'd been looking ahead, turns to watch him, their hand tucking loose sweaty locks of hair behind their ear. They doesn't say a thing. Diego watches sweat glistening in the neck of Get Up. Some ways away a tall agave plant waves in the breeze.
'What do you want?'
'It's when it's neck and neck!'
He laughs and points his right hand fingers in the shape of a gun to HP, smile wide with all of his teeth.
HP surely would've said something, surely would've kept quiet, but Diego extended his hand out to their hold on Get Up's reins and pulled on them. Time slowing down, he could see so clearly, the tiny kangaroo rat, coloured with desert sand and rocks, could see Get Up taking note of the rat, its hind legs gaining momentum for it to stand on them, rearing out of control, could see that one horse years ago, as if betraying its rider who seemed to know it so well, startled by a white field mouse crossing the track his rider's rich father had laid out for him, startled by something so small, invisible to its rider's eyes, a mere inconvenience, like open wounds in extended hands, in open palms, burnt flesh speaking of the kind of sin maybe HP could explain to him, something so small, erasing lives unnoticed by eyes that were not like his, not anymore.
HP holds onto the saddle's horn because Get Up's attempt to rear in self defense isn't prevented entirely, balance thrown off and then regained. Silver Bullet holds on for the two of them, and for Diego, and Diego pats his neck in thanks, after he pats Get Up's.
'Not very adept at handling horses, are you?' he asks when calm's returned. When the rat has jumped away into the landscape made from the colors of its fur, when HP has retaken the reins, when Get Up no longer huffs, and Diego cannot see its unsteady breath in the hot evening air.
'I hold my own,' they replies. If they's curious, they doesn't ask how Diego knew, how he was able to help the horse. Maybe they doesn't need to.
Silver Bullet and Get Up trot at an even pace, neck and neck without any race driving them. Perhaps they're tired, the darkening sky closes the sleepy eyes of snakes on surrounding hills.
'Don't know much about horses, though, d'you?'
HP doesn't reply, but he can see their shoulders shrugging.
'D'you even know which side of a horse has the most hair?' he frowns.
They look at him in silence, serious. Even with the eye he can't see their lips tugging in any direction. They shakes their head.
'The outside!' and when his right hand points a finger gun at them, they slaps it away and he laughs a little louder, watches them take a swig of their water bottle before hesitating and finally putting it away again.
Diego and HP both look up at the sky at the same time, without meaning to, and then they voices their thoughts.
'It's late.'
He nods even though they isn't watching. Then points to a range, a nook formed by years and years of chipping away. Behind it Wheeler Peak oversees the extension of silence where the two horses with their riders slowly make their way towards a resting point.
Once he dismounts, when they hands him his helmet, fallen from his standing on his hands to show HP what having a good handle of riding really is, he says 'thank you, Sister' carefully, as if he's testing the waters before plunging in head first, but they doesn't give anything away. They just keep gathering enough materials to keep a small fire running, lets him know as much.
The eye lets him see the sparks in reanimated fire, crackling, painting shadows on the granite walls around them. It lets him see his mother in her bed, her narrow back and short breaths. And the old man after the derby who'd told him he must be patient to speak to the dead because the dead reply in whispers of leaves and wind grazing the still waters of the river and a sudden high flame in the fire in the worst of winter when his back is turned to it.
HP nudges his shoulder and he can see a sandwich in their hand, so clearly. From one of the cows they keeps. He smiles wide, all teeth, all sharp.
'I hear you hang people for taking these.'
'I hear you murdered your wife for more,' they says, mouth full and their gaze on their own food.
Half-heartedly he scoffs, focuses on the taste of meat, how much juicier and sharp it is now, rich in blood. Maybe he doesn't have to explain, maybe they understands.
When he rests his head down on his saddle the inside of his mouth still tastes like iron, fresh and dry, cushioned by bread. From there he watches HP, arranging their own things in order to sleep, outlined by changing shadows casted by dying fire until he falls in slumber and is able to see clearly in dreams.
They's gone when he wakes up.
He doesn't pause for long to wonder how he didn't notice. Not alert enough. He doesn't pause long to wonder why that was.
*
By his side, Silver Bullet's breathing is laboured, and he smells sweat on his body despite the rain falling. They both lie close to the ground and that smell, he remembers, was his mother's favourite: grass after the rain, hay and rocks and cattle and gravel roads and the entire world's smell after the rain, on her death bed looking out the window at the drizzle running on the glass.
He's about to extend his hand towards Silver Bullet, maybe being a dinosaur will help them both heal, from tiredness, from wounds, from whatever it is that aches so deep in the rain. He's about to extend his hand and he's seeing his mother's back clearly and that's why, that's why, he only sees a dark figure, in the rain, standing above him, about to kneel, and can't make out who it is until after they've extended their own hand to him. Until after he's felt relief and closed his eyes softly, shortly.
HP heals him tentatively, as if they's testing the waters before only putting their feet in up to the ankles and walking the shores. They heals Silver Bullet's injured leg once they's done with the ones on Diego's skin, doesn't utter a single word throughout. Both Diego and the horse still lie on the ground and rain pours on the three of them, rain pours down HP's face, down the thing they holds in their hand that helps them heal wounds and change appearances and smells of charred meat and singed leather and the flowers he burnt at his mother's tomb because they'd been placed there by that man.
Together they walk to meet Get Up, who waits under a tree, and the four of them, HP and Diego on foot, in silence find shelter from the rain.
Their clothes, socks, gloves, and boots left to dry in front of the fire give off steam, he sees it clearly, sees steam rise from his trousers, which still stick, damp, to his legs, but HP told him to keep those on or they'd make sure the trousers couldn't be taken off permanently.
He tries not to watch them handling the rusted pan with boiling water, lift it from its place above the flames and pour water into two enamel cups. He tries not to but he fails, and he keeps careful watch of their movements, and it's maybe thanks to the eye that he notices they notices what he's doing, watching over them, over the risk of boiling water near hands that have taken off their gloves to leave them to dry.
They pauses to look at him, they's so tall, so much taller than he is, but now that they stands and he sits, it's barely noticeable, it's almost as if they's bad at looking down, or is doing their best so he won't have to look up. He holds their gaze for long and it's broken once he smiles, once he realises his lips were tight, a line, betrayal of some sort of stupid worry from places he keeps tucked away for no one else to guess. His smile pushes HP away.
They sits at his side and offers one of the enamel cups. From the smell he knows this coffee's no good, but it's warm, and to tell the truth he, too, is tired, so he nods and doesn't test any water this time. He blows on the coffee and waits perhaps too long because HP stares from behind their cup, taking long sips.
'I hear you fear your past,' shadows enlarge on their face but Diego can still see it clearly.
'I hear you have one,' he takes a sip of his coffee, sufficiently cooled down now, in this weather.
Their striped shirt is still humid, like his trousers, he can feel it at the point where their shoulders and arms meet, and he tries not to lean into the pressure, tries not to notice that they do the same. The eye lets him see the warmth coming from their face, their hands around the enamel cup. He places his by his side and slowly, softly, shortly, closes his eyes, tries not to lean into the place where their shoulders meet but it smells of wet wood, almost rotten, like the stables he spent his childhood in, wet hay and sweaty horses and a humid striped shirt, sweaty hair, short soft breaths, his mind wandering towards places where he can see everything clearly, their hands around the enamel cup.
Maybe he fears them too.
They's gone when he wakes up.
They must've positioned him as he is now, and thrown the alpaca cloth on him. He doesn't pause for long to wonder how he didn't notice that they did. Just wasn't alert enough. He doesn't pause long to wonder why that was. Maybe he doesn't need to.
--
i re-read parts of steel ball run for this & remembered that diego & hp are probably the absolute best characters in all of jojo. in the end i couldn’t capture the humid hot summer of 2014 spent w hik during which this was conceived but i’m sure i’ve already captured it in caejo fics so it’s fine. smth abt diego that i can’t remember like an explanation but whatever. praise me as usual but like for real tbh y’all never do.
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The permission for reprinting this picture has been granted by the original artist. Please don’t reprint this anywhere else and go to the original source to bookmark and rate them 8)
The permission for reprinting this picture has been granted by the original artist. Please don’t reprint this anywhere else and go to the original source to bookmark and rate them 8)
The permission for reprinting this picture has been granted by the original artist. Please don’t reprint this anywhere else and go to the original source to bookmark and rate them 8)
