Growing up, did you ever experience any abuse? Physical, Sexual, Mental or otherwise?”
Dio swallowed, his eyebrows furrowing. This was going to be strenuous. He had told Caesar once or twice before that his father had beat him, but he had never gone into the detail that he knew Caesar expected of him now. He was opening a can of worms that was chock full of death, rot and mold, but if he had to breathe in the smell that escaped the can to meet his son, Dio would brave the judgement that was sure to come. Dio was unsure if Caesar was aware of his history and was only doing this for confirmation, but either way he was going to do this.
“Yes,” he began, his voice already ready to cease speaking. He swallowed again, gaining his composure and settling for appearing stone cold instead of racked with emotion. He made his voice grow even, forced his back to straighten, and composed himself before speaking. “My father physically and mentally abused me and my mother throughout most of my childhood until he-” Dio paused. Honesty. “Until I poisoned him. My mother took the brunt of his beatings for me and he killed her so- so I killed him.”
Caesar nodded, meeting Dio’s eyes and smiling in confirmation before leaning down to scribble on his clipboard.
“Do you think your father deserved that?” Caesar asked, his eyes guarded in a way that stressed Dio. Caesar's eyes were extremely calming, homely almost, and seeing them this dull, this blank, made him shiver, but the answer came to him as quickly as the others had.
“Yes. My father was a bad person.” His voice was low, almost as if he were still attempting to convince himself of this fact. He sounded childish, young, naive.
Caesar went through his routine again; a comforting smile, a nod, before scribbling at the papers on the clipboard. It was too mundane. Dio felt his stomach begin to shiver, his body quivering from within, the strangeness of this situation filling him adrenaline he wished would go away. But as always, he was a prisoner within his body and desperately tried to quell himself. Oh, what sweet irony. “I reject my humanity, Jojo!” Yet the vampire still lacked that control he so desperately craved over his own body.
“Out of the words intelligent, incompetent, ambitious and confused, which do you think best describes you?” Caesar said again, his voice carrying the same professional roboticism.
Dio frowned, though. This question was odd, compared to the last ones. Intelligent, incompetent, ambitious, and confused? How was he supposed to know? Intelligent seemed to be the best option, because he knew he was pretty book-smart, but he just really didn't feel like it most of the time. Incompetent? Oh, for sure, but no one was really relying on him so he supposed that wasn't quite right either. He was ambitious, once. Now his only ambitions were Giorno. But that also was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong. Confused. Yeah. that worked.
There were about three more questions like this, with Dio picking such words as ‘regretful’, and ‘persevering’, and ‘adequate’ out of many demeaning and narcissistic words with no in-between words. It was a slippery slope of trying to stay honest. Dio’s brain was hardwired to forge lies, and was confused at the blunt honesty. The questions seemed to almost morph together, as Dio got a good hold on it and each word he spoke lessened the bricks on his chest. It was easier. He spoke more words, more detail.
“How old were you when your mother died?” The question came out of nowhere and hit him like a truck. His mother. None of the previous questions had spoken of his mother. Oh, his mother. He missed her.
“I was eleven.” He whispered, the words almost silent in the quiet room. He had hung his head without realizing, his hair falling delicately into his face. He reached a hand up that scrubbed hard at his eye with the butt of his palm, relishing in the dull pain and the colors that decorated the back of his eyelid. It was a good distraction.
