starmark | IC Inbox

I don't...know.

[That's a half-lie. He does, sort of, but whether or not he can fit it into words is another question entirely, and the frustration is evident on his face, on the twitch of his folded-back wings.]

You're not fine. I'm not fine. But we keep acting like it's fine. How long are we going to keep it up before one of us cracks?

[ The issue is that this combination is very, very stubborn. Rohan doesn't deal with being called out very well. ]

Have it your way. [ The tip of his tail is unknowingly slipping around the dead man's ankle while he speaks. ] I'm not fine. You can already see I'm not fine. I haven't been fine.

Look at this, Jotaro. [ His free hand motions around the room. ] We are sitting in an apartment in the middle of the night over a man I killed because he decided it would be a fun idea to jump me. I'm ignoring how I'm literally falling apart from the inside out and you are ignoring something that is happening on your end.

I'm in a perpetual state of being hungry, cold, or tired. I have done my damnedest to transcend the needs I had before I transformed. Successful or not in those ways, there is no stopping the rest of it. [ The ensuing POP noise that strikes the air is from that poor guy's ankle snapping. Is this Snakebutt or Rohan being frustrated? Either way he still holds fast to Jotaro's wrist. ]

I would say we are doing a complicated dance around a large issue but I don't have legs to dance with. Since I can't dance, we're going to talk about it. [ He hisses harshly and with a pent-up burst. ] What is wrong?

...You. You're wrong.

[He looks down at his wrist, like he's realizing that Rohan's holding onto him for the first time, and kind of blinks as suddenly his attention starts to drift from that to Rohan to Snakebutt to the dead man.

His wings twitch and flutter again, an anxious little wriggle.]

You're in a perpetual state of being hungry, cold, or tired. You're literally falling apart from the inside out.

[He looks down at himself, motions to the scales and the wings and the talons vaguely.]

This doesn't bother me. I don't care what happens to me. I wasn't ready for Star Platinum, either, but I didn't get a choice about him. I didn't get a choice about this, and that's fine.

...But I can't fix you. I have to watch this happen to you and I can't fix you. I can't — do anything, I can't make it easier, I can't make it stop hurting, I can't —

I'm useless, that's what's bothering me. You're fucked up and I'm not making it better. That's what's bothering me. If I can't even do that, then what good is it, anyway?!

[ Rohan's lips purse into a thin, thin line before sinking into a frown. His eyebrows knit. It isn't anything either of them can control, and they know this. Jotaro confessing his supposed uselessness surprises him propping open his eyes under his brow. ]

I'm not asking you to make it stop. I know for a fact that you can't. You don't need to fix me. [ It's Josuke's job to fix people. His grip loosens a tad. ]

I'm not saying that I give a shit about a lot of people, places, or things but I know that you have helped me and I have helped you. Remember when you said that you would be screwed without me? I-- [ This is all coming off as very candid and personal, treading into territory Rohan isn't used to. It's stilted and he's taking shots in the dark with bluntness. ]

I will survive. You have done everything right. Try to--... I don't know. [ He takes a deep breath, playing with his phrasing. ]

Understand that.

[The instinct to perch on something overrides him then, but there's nothing in the house that would support his weight or grant him the satisfaction he's hoping for, so he ends up having to make do as best he can with what he has, which ends up being adjusting the way he's crouching into a more withdrawn, subconsciously stoic pose. Little does he realize the effect it has on his overall appearance; unbeknownst to him, he looks like a gargoyle in the way that he's arranged himself, in a pose that to him just feels natural but outwardly looks classic and stony.

The reassurance, in and of itself, doesn't do much. Words don't. He can tell himself words as much as he wants, or people can tell them to him, and in the end they'll still only be words.

It's the other component of the exchange, though, that does pierce through. That it's altogether too easy for him to mistake general bitterness for targeted frustration — that lately his impulse seems always to assume that if something is wrong and he hasn't fixed it, then that makes it his fault if for no other reason than from the inaction. It's hard to set those thoughts aside at all, and more and more he's growing to discover that it's not something he's really capable of doing all on his own.

You have done everything right.

It never feels like that.

But believing Rohan is easier than convincing himself, and so after a while he just nods slightly, and wonders if his body language shows how grateful he is for these few and far between moments when he almost feels like he's connected with someone on a level that he usually can't — these small ports of respite in the tempest that is his loneliness.]

Okay.

[He should say more, probably, but he doesn't know what to say. He should feel more than he does about the dead man laid out between them, but if he does then this fleeting feeling of relief might vanish, and he's not willing to surrender it just yet.]

You don't...have to transcend. Around me. If you don't want. If you still want to then do what you want but. ...When you're not fine, if you say something...

I'm saying don't just "survive". I guess. It feels like that's all I do, is just "survive". And it sucks. I don't want you to feel like that all the time, like I do.

[ Reluctantly, he lets go of Jotaro's wrist after he gets himself fixed in the position that would look more comfortable should he be perched on a parapet. His hand hurts in dull thrums and upon inspection of his palm, it appears that he has most likely burned himself. Without his scales, he would have melted it all together. It's nothing that won't fix itself or hopefully hinder anything he does with it. The claws flutter in his palm, flexing and extending over and over while the gargoyle speaks. He is morbidly fascinated by what he's just done to himself though he looks up to catch Jotaro's eyes at I don't want you to feel like that all the time, like I do. ]

I'm fine-- [ That's what he doesn't want to hear. Rohan corrects himself through shaking his head. ] Don't just "survive" when you are living here. Going outside where you aren't given the choice is different. I am trying to say that you don't have to do that around me, but if you insist on it I can't stop you or tell you what to do one way or another.

[ If Rohan has ever in his entire life sounded sincere, it's right then. Another uncomfortable feeling he isn't totally sold on yet. ]

I think we're going to be okay. I think. That's all I want.

...So it goes for both of us, then? Let's both stop...surviving. And try being okay. Or something.

[He looks at Rohan's hand — or more correctly, looks at Rohan looking at his own hand. It occurs to him belatedly that he might be overheating again, and reaches absently to try to gauge it — but it's hard to tell, when he's the one giving off the heat and the one trying to perceive it at the same time.]

...So. You're gonna eat this guy...?

I'm fine with being okay, Jotaro.

[ Rohan would briefly find some semblance of a smile that won't last too long. He's not thrilled with the unpleasant feeling but he will get over it. It drops to rest on the top coil of his 'lap'. ]

Yes. I think he's done cooking. [ The other hand reeeeaches down to try pulling the corpse up by the arm again. It promptly gives way with a wet sound and the flesh begins to slough right off his forearm. It pulls Rohan's smudged upper lip and crinkles his nose. ]

Eugh... I'm never going to get used to this. [ S I G H. For someone who is down with licking spiders and other gross shit for the sake of research, he sure does have a problem with eating. It's the principle. ] Do you want some of this? It's easy on the teeth.

"Cooking". I guess that's one way of putting it.

[But that's another question, indeed — one whose decision sort of gets made for him when he watches the flesh come sliding off the armbones like a particularly tender piece of chicken. He'd been working up the courage before, taking a backseat to the gargoyle instincts that simply want to feed and see this as nothing more than dinner, but the sight visibly rattles him, despite his best efforts to stay calm and still.

All of a sudden, stop surviving and start being okay seems to take on a different but immediately significant meaning.

He casts Rohan a half-alarmed, half-stricken look that still comes out more muted on his expression than it would on most people's — delivered mostly through the eyes.]

Can you —

[God, this is mortifying.]

...Maybe if it...looked a little less like a person.

[God, he should just figure it out and cope with it, but suddenly he just doesn't want to this time.]

I have news for you... [ Blunt as it is, Rohan shakes his head and starts plucking away bits and pieces of that arm in neat little strips and setting them in one of the jars. ]

They all look like people. [ He doesn't look like he enjoys delivering this news. This is going to take all goddamn night at this rate. ] It's a shitty thing, Jotaro. You stop having a choice. You stop getting to go-- [ He holds up one strip of pulled away muscle to look at it with a long squint. ] Is this really what I feel like doing tonight?

[ Into the jar it goes. ]

I'm not going to lecture you but I think you need to look at it from the angle of someone who literally cannot eat normal food anymore. Josuke brought me a milkshake last week and it was the greatest thing to happen to me for a whole ten seconds before it made me sick.

[ Rohan Has A Bad Day keeps getting better and better the more he talks about it. The more tired and borderline forlorn he sounds is reflected in all of what he is explaining. It's harder on him than he has been making it look for the past... How ever months they have been here. ]

I know what I'm going to have to do someday. I'm not trying to pretend like it isn't coming. As soon as my shoulders split open with all of this, I knew a clock was ticking.

[He ducks his head, reaching up to scrub at his face.]

I know you're being the voice of reason. I need that. It's not denial, I'm not in denial, it's just...I need to feel like I tried. Just that I tried to not...just accept this. I need to feel like I fought it somehow, or I'll spend the rest of my life wondering if I really am like —

[And then he stops short, hard and abrupt, like he didn't mean that last bit to leave his mouth but it got out anyway.]

[ Uh oh. That cutoff is telling Rohan that maybe they're a little Too Deep in Tragic Backstory Territory. Rohan being who he is naturally wants to hear more. On the other hand, something is stopping him from pushing the issue.

Whatever is up with that is well beyond him. ]

You are your own worst enemy, Jotaro. You have your reasons for doing and not doing the things we are hardwired to learn. It's admirable. When you look at it from that way... Spending the rest of your life wondering something... [ This is said with a hypnotic, sing-song eloquence. His fingers stop stripping the arm and his eyes roll over to Jotaro's face with a yellow flickering of his sclera catching on any shadow. ]

You're the only enemy you ever seem to lose to.

[It's hard to look at, the work that Rohan is doing with terrible efficiency. He ends up deciding to look at Rohan himself instead — the tail that's replaced his legs, the white and black pattern of scales, the eyes and the fucky teeth and the deadly fangs. He hadn't been able to carry his kill upstairs. He'd barely been able to slither his way up the stairs on his own.

He himself has been principled, as much as he can. He's had the luxury of being principled, with his changes coming in as awful and slow as they have. Rohan just got dumped into the middle of a tempest and told to swim or die.

(He can sympathize with that. Oh, can he ever.)

Absently, he looks at his palm and remembers how Rohan had burned himself previously — evidently from the heat his body is giving off — and makes a concerted effort to moderate that down to a dull even warmth before reaching to rest his hand against the scales of Rohan's tail. It's hard to explain what he thinks he's achieving with that. It's an attempt at kindness, certainly — he's cold all the time, so surely an offering of warmth is something of an comfort he can extend.]

Your Stand. The one you had before you came here. Did it say something about you?

[ His eyes are drawn back down to follow the line of Jotaro's arm to where his hand is settled against any part of his tail. They are more suited for direct contact with heat than his own hands and therefore just sort of relax and become a little more willowy. ]

That depends on who you ask.

[ Really, it does. ]

Heaven's Door allowed me to read people from start to finish. To know everything about them at my will. It allowed me to give them new memories or take away old ones.

Do you think that says something about me?

..."Read" people. Like they're a book? That's not bad, for a manga artist.

[He hums a little in the back of his throat, hand skimming absently over a small patch of Rohan's scales.]

You're someone intensely interested in experiences. Stories. People. Your Stand lets you read them like a book. But there's a separation, too. It lets you find out about someone without having to ask them. You get to skip the social part and just...read.

I don't know. I think it sounds like you. Or something that's helpful to you, anyway.

Literally books, yes.

[ He hits the nail on the head, of course. Rohan left out some other... Details about his Stand but Jotaro has the idea well enough. ]

It's very helpful. It keeps me from having to get too close to people to get the information that I need.

If you haven't noticed: I'm not a social butterfly. I can get my work done without the bullshit that comes from interpersonal connections. It keeps a nice wall between myself and the people around me. There are days I miss having that.

Mine says I'm similar to a monster. So I think what you said, about me being my own worst enemy...

[He pauses, just for a moment, and regards Rohan with a slow look.]

...I don't know a lot about who I'm trying to be. But I always know who I'm trying not to be. That's why I can't just accept this without fighting it, even if it would be the reasonable thing to do. What other people do isn't any of my business. But I have to know that I tried as hard as I could to not be him.

[ The tip of Rohan's tail twitches and thumps thoughtfully against the ground. On the one hand, he is thinking. On the other, it's reminding him that he is supposed to be eating and not engaging in mid-dinner conversation. Part of him does want to ease Jotaro's mind over the whole situation.

Nooooot something he's very good at. ]

That person is not here. Any relevancy to him is null and void. I said the only enemy here is yourself. I know that isn't what you want to hear. [ He's never been known for sugarcoating. ] The intricacies of thoughts and feelings through association of one's self to another person is not something I can fix.

If I had my Stand, I would. [ He sure did just say he'd get rid of that if he could. But uh-- ] The only person who can take that page out and make the omission is you. If I know you the way I think I do, it is not a feat that is insurmountable.

If you had Heaven's Door, you'd want to read me?

[He shifts his hand, aiming to lightly catch the thumping part of Rohan's tail and close his fingers around it, the way one might try to catch the flicking tail of a cat. It's idle and stupid and makes no sense, but it's a distraction, anyway.]

...And not just that. You'd take away the things that bother me?

[ His tail makes a half-assed attempt at wiggling away out of reflex. It relaxes and forgets that it's even being handled, sway-swaying every now and then. ]

I want to read everyone who sounds like they have things worth reading.

[ Sighing, he runs the least messy of his hands through his hair. ] I don't like seeing people suffer when they don't deserve it and they have done nothing wrong. [ Sounding sentimental leaves a bad taste in his mouth which toes an uncomfortable line for him. He will deal. ] I would take those things away if I had the chance. The ability.

[How odd. That sounds weirdly like affection; certainly it's sentimental, but even moreso it's the fact that it's sentimentality coming from Rohan, who's trying to make him feel better, trying to spare him grief if he could.

Maybe he can't, but the fact that he would if he could is soothing in itself.]

I don't know if I would want you to. To just...take away a part of me, I mean. Even a bad part of me. Even a part of me that hurts. I think you're right...it's not just that I'm the only one who can do that. Maybe it's that I'm the only one who should.

[A pause.]

...But. If you ever do unseal your Heaven's Door, from the way they're suppressing it here...I'll let you read me sometime. I think I could — maybe that'd be good for both of us. I don't know.

Heaven's Door is, surprisingly, not high on my list of priorities to get back. I have gotten on fine without it before I had it and I'm doing the same as I was now. [ Rohan has never needed his Stand as a crutch. It just made things easier in a pinch. ]

If that happens, I'll keep it in mind. [ His tail has since wriggled out of Jotaro's hand to lazily drape itself over his wrist in a way that is similar to what it does when he carries him. A little reminder that he has his back and the smallest semblance of affection that he can muster. ] Don't worry about that right now.

Put all of it out of your mind and focus on something else. It's the best strategy you have, Jotaro. Am I wrong? [ He blinks once and then twice, keeping his line of sight trained on Jotaro but flicking away now and then because... Well, it would sure suck if he ended up doing The Direct Eye-Contact Paralysis Thing right now. Does that even work on other monsters? ]

Hm...?

[There's eye contact, and suddenly he finds himself feeling Strange. It's an inexplicable kind of Strange, and a fleeting one: a Strange that has nothing to do with the situation or the change in Rohan's eyes or the grotesque alterations to his own form. It's Strange, and it's the kind of Strange he's going to have to think about a lot, but it sure is something because it's a Strange he hasn't felt in a while now, a Strange that reminds him of something he can't quite place.

A dark moment, impending peril, and then suddenly reason and competence, someone on the same wavelength, a spot of unexpected mirth amid the shitshow —

Hey. Do you like sumo?

It's been a long time since he felt like that.

Strange.]

The only thing worth focusing on around here is you.

[oh]

Is that okay with you?

[well]

[ Oh. ]

Oh--

[ Dead guy between them notwithstanding, Rohan can't help but feel pretty damn Strange himself. It's not for the same reason as Jotaro but it has its own awkward set of implications. An awkward set of implications that has been politely ignored and deflected up until this very second. ]

Yeah. [ He replies after a pregnant pause with a nod. There is no one else around to see how disarmed Rohan Kishibe of all people is. His upper lip twitches in the way it does when he isn't sure what to say, catching his fang briefly on the lower one before receding back into his mouth. ] That's okay with me. It's the same, really.

[ WELL. ]

...Okay.

[Well. Isn't this...something. All right. Yes it sure is, boy howdy.]

I'll...I'll see if I can warm up the house for you. For the time being. So if nothing else, maybe it won't be quite so...cold. For you.

IC Inbox | ryslig

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WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, THIS IS JOTARO. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 019.20.118.16 * THIS IS JOTARO has joined 019.20.118.16 <THIS IS JOTARO> okay i'm typing now what <THIS IS JOTARO> delete what i just said <THIS IS JOTARO> delete what i just said <THIS IS JOTARO> delete everything i just said <THIS IS JOTARO> make this an automated messa <AUTOMATED REPLY, DO NOT RETURN>** This is Jotaro. Whatever you want, hurry up and tell me already.