IC Inbox | rubycity_rp | II

[starmark]

. . . Yare yare. What is it? Hurry up and say something already.



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[silvercrusader]

Yeah, he just about bit my head off when I asked him what he wanted.

[He wrinkles his nose. Birthdays, man, what is it with this mansion and not wanting a giant house party?]

But I got a month to figure it out, so.

[starmark]

Last year I got him that coat he wears sometimes. The leather one.

[He pauses a moment, reflecting.]

But between that and the arcade, I'm low on ideas too.

[silvercrusader]

Mm. You could do something sexy, maybe? Or . . . I don't know, ask for more games to fill out the arcade?

[starmark]

...Why the hell is "do something sexy" the first thing you come up with?

[silvercrusader]

[The honest answer, the one that Polnareff isn't quite aware of, is: because I'm always a little aware of the fact you two are dating. But the answer he gives is:]

Because it's not something I can do, so I figure you do it and that way I eliminate any competition for other presents.

[starmark]

Who knew you were so mercenary about birthdays? Trying to get me out of the way to give yourself a better shot.

[He bats at Polnareff one last time, then settles back in and resumes strumming again.]

When's yours, by the way?

[silvercrusader]

December 3rd.

[The most Sagittarius to ever Sagitarri . . . i.]

I'm warning you right now, we're gonna have a big party. None of this leaving presents outside the door junk-- if people can remember their names by the end of the night we're doing it wrong.

[starmark]

December th—

[And all of a sudden he goes still, frowning intensely as he picks his hands up off of his guitar and starts counting on his fingers, like he's remembering something.]

...We were on the road December 3rd. It was just a couple of d—

...

Did we beat the shit out of you on your BIRTHDAY?!

1/2

[silvercrusader]

You--

[silvercrusader]

[It was all hazy under Dio's fleshbud, after all. Time hadn't meant anything; his only point of focus was how to get to the Joestars, not what day it was-- what use are birthdays when you were a slave?]

Oh my god!

[He sits up, staring down at Jotaro in both mock and real indignance.]

It was my fucking twenty-second birthday! Abdul nearly fucking burned me to death on my twenty-second birthday!

[starmark]

[For a few seconds, there is nothing but silence.

Then, Jotaro's irresistible impulse to be Jotaro wins out.]

...Well. I guess without any candles to light, he had to improvise.

[J O T A R O]

1/?

[silvercrusader]

[silvercrusader]

[silvercrusader]

D O N E

[silvercrusader]

[The cycle of dealing with Jotaro's awful humor: shock, anger, reluctant acceptance.]

I'm going to set you on fire when you turn nineteen.

[A little growl, and he tugs Jotaro's hat on lower, which . . . isn't actually a threat, because he doubts he could bend it out of shape, but. Still!]

And when Abdul comes, I'm not gonna let him forget it. Fucker owes me now.

[starmark]

You can set me on fire right now if you want. It wouldn't be the first time I've been.

[The mirth seeps away, though, with the mention of Abdul — and more importantly, with the use of the word when. Not if; there's no room for the possibility otherwise, is there. It's a when, because sooner or later he must.

If Abdul weren't delayed, would he be the one sitting up with Polnareff all night, instead of Jotaro...?

There's a thought that gives him pause, too.]

He'll probably make us all look bad, when it comes to giving gifts. He's more thoughtful than any of the rest of us.

[silvercrusader]

Of course he is. He'll probably remember, too, I'll bring it up in November and he'll be all, "Oh, Jean-Pierre, of course I remembered, what do you take me for, I've gotten you a hundred gifts already", and they'll be really well thought out, and he'll be all smug and I won't be able to hold it over him at all.

[Which is just a fancy way to say: I've thought about him coming here. And maybe he's aware of that a little, because he falls back on the bed, avoiding Jotaro's eye.]

[starmark]

[Oh. That — hmm. This is going in Directions again, and while it's better than dwelling on Sherry, that doesn't mean it's going to be an optimal conversation despite that.]

...What else are you gonna do? When he gets here.

[When. When.]

[silvercrusader]

[When when when, when, because he has to believe that.]

Treat him to dinner.

[At least he smiles as he says that.]

We said-- before the mansion, I said to him, when we get out of this, buy me dinner, all right? And he agreed. And-- I mean, he still owes me. But I think I could spot him, just this once.

[Why is it all right to talk about this with Jotaro? He hasn't spoken of Abdul for months-- not outside one passing reference to Giorno, and even then he'd shoved past the topic. But now the words come forth-- not easily, but willingly.]

And then-- then I'd have to show off my baking skills. Dessert'd be some cake I made.

[starmark]

More like hunt him dinner. Go take down a moose or something.

[Like easy, natural fucking around. Like jokes about dowries and direwolf pelts.]

You could be the tour guide for a change. "In this city, the local custom is to eat your moose like this," or whatever. Make something up and he'd have to go along with it.

[silvercrusader]

[He huffs a laugh.]

Nah. He's too smart for that. He'd probably play along right up until it's easiest to embarrass me. But maybe he'd get all impressed by my hunting skills. Chariot's more built for that than Red. I'll win his admiration with a moose of all things.

[starmark]

You bring it home, he roasts it over an open flame. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

[He hesitates a minute, suddenly struck by something else, but wavering uncertainly on the follow-through.]

He's not the type to embarrass you. Maybe other people, but not you.

[silvercrusader]

Not in front of other people.

[A disagreement and agreement all at once-- because if there had been hints of Kakyoin and Jotaro being a separate unit, the same had also been true of Abdul and Polnareff. Not in any real seclusion way; they four of them had all enjoyed one another's company, and Abdul was as much Jotaro and Kakyoin's friend as he was Polnareff's. But there had been times away from the fire, and conversations between the two of them, and--]

And not like . . . not like you and me would do. He's just-- he's good with words. So he'll talk and talk and so will I and eventually it ends up he's right and I look like an idiot.

[Not that he sounds anything but fond as he says it.]

[starmark]

You are an idiot.

[But then, again, that same thing happens — he stops a little, hesitant, and this time the same sounds echo back as he very nearly repeats them, just with a subtle but significant variation.]

You're our idiot.

[And that's — he's missing the point, he knows, or dodging it, or avoiding it, but one way or another he knows what the point is and it's somewhere over there, not here.

Maybe he doesn't want to approach the point. Maybe that's why the dodge is easier.]

[silvercrusader]

[He could say a lot of things to that, he thinks, and several of them flash through his mind. Some of them are flirtatious, and some are sad, and some continue along that deflecting line.

Polnareff finally tugs off Jotaro's hat. After a moment, he tosses it over at him.]

Yours, huh?

[He's not. Or-- well, he is and he isn't, and these days there's a pretty big distinction between the two. Yours, and he thinks about the start of this conversation, about what to get Kakyoin for his birthday, about he and Jotaro being a pair. You can get things for him I can't, because Jotaro and Kakyoin are a unit now, intertwined and inseparable. He thinks about Abdul and how very much he misses him-- not just him, but all the intimacy between them, the quiet conversations and the excited electric shock of earning a proper grin and the coolness of the desert night as they'd talked and talked and talked about everything and nothing. He thinks about the way things had been, once, before they'd found Dio's mansion and everything had gone to hell.

All of it coils in his chest, a heavy sad weight that won't go away, and so he does what he always does: he pushes it away.]