starmark | IC Inbox | rubycity_rp

[You can't guess? But he's older than Jotaro, so maybe it matters more to him. Maybe those few extra years really hammered home the point that to be different was to be wrong-- and for all he doesn't mind being the center of attention, there's a difference between taking the spotlight and being shoved into it.]

Because Jesus, Jotaro, people don't-- they don't do that. Not normally. Not-- not where and when we're from, it doesn't work like that. You go around saying shit like that and suddenly you're this guy who-- who's off. I go around saying I've wanted to kiss Abdul since China and all of a sudden everything's different, because I'm different.

...I think I can understand that. Maybe not exactly the same way, but.

[A pause.]

One day I had a Stand, and all of a sudden everything was different. I'm not saying they're exactly the same. But I think I understand the kind of feeling you mean.

[Another beat passes, though, and once it's had the chance to, he adds softly.]

So are you and I different now? Because you've said that.

Are we?

[No, not at all, but maybe they are. Maybe somewhere deep inside Jotaro is reevaluating all those flirtatious little comments; maybe he's looking at Polnareff and thinking what's he trying to pull with that?]

I don't think so.

[...]

To tell you the truth, now I'm just thinking about what it's probably like to kiss Abdul. He always smelled like...kind of wood and spice, or something. So maybe like that, I guess.

Christ--

[But it isn't unhappy. Far from it. Leave it to Jotaro to bring him out of his anxiety and terror and grief with just one joke-- or maybe not a joke, actually, given how everyone leans in this house. Polnareff grins, and-- okay, yeah, he can't just throw himself into it headfirst, there's definitely heat on his cheeks and a slight hesitation in his words, but at least he's pleased.

(What it would be like to kiss Abdul, he cannot yet tell Jotaro, is that it would be full of heat. Not just the heat of kissing, no, but he'd brushed up against Abdul enough times to know the other man runs hot. Even in the cold desert nights, his skin was always warm, his touches lingering on Polnareff's skin long after he'd pulled away, and so surely kissing him would be like kissing fire, like--

Christ).]

[Right. Focus.]

I don't know why you're thinking of it at all, he's not gonna want to kiss a kid like you--

[When he's got me, but there's taking steps and taking Steps, even when you're fucking around with someone, even when they know what you are.

(It's sandalwood, for the record. He knows that. It's not important why he knows that, he just does, it's just one of those things he knows, C h r i s t.]

Edited (ok im done editing for real) 2016-06-20 07:18 (UTC)

[There it is. There it is, right there, that smile and that flush, that right there, it's going to be okay. That right there, whatever it is he did, he's done something right. He did good. For a few seconds, everything is right with the world.

He of all people knows how much difference a few seconds can make. It's nice to be able to give them to Polnareff now.]

A kid like me? Who the hell saved your ass, I was old enough then. I don't get any credit for that?

I didn't say you were helpless. But you're still a teenager, and that makes all the difference when you're in your twenties and kissing somebody. At least me, I'm twenty-two-- he's even older, what's he gonna do with somebody who's eighteen?

Bullshit. It's a couple of years, what difference does that make?

[This is a weak argument, he's well aware. But it's an argument that leaves a door wide open for Polnareff to take advantage of it, which is a success in itself.]

[It's all a joke, of course; all within the same vein of the usual fucking around they do. But the difference is, this is fucking around with something that had been terrifying, that Jotaro is doing his damnedest to normalize. Polnareff knows what he's doing, and just--

Thank god for Jotaro Kujo, that's all his life ever really boils down to, and maybe one of these days he'll tell him how much easier life is when he's around.]

Psh-- sorry, who was just asking me about sex? Who was desperate for advice? You couldn't even make it with me, four years between us, never mind someone like Abdul.

[Which says very neatly how highly he thinks of him.]

It's ten thousand years too early for me, huh.

[He quips, choosing the line in particular with deliberate intent.]

Don't make me sound like such an amateur. I'm a fast learner.

[There's a small pang of-- not grief, precisely, but longing, that same awful feeling that he hates. God, but I miss Abdul, but he shoves that away. It's easier to talk about him like this than cry over him.]

All right, you wanna look at it another way--

[And he grips Jotaro's hand, keeping him very firmly in place--]

You start going around kissing Abdul and I'll start going around kissing Kakyoin.

Edited 2016-06-20 08:36 (UTC)

[He's not altogether unsurprised by the fact that for a second, just one, Polnareff's teasing prompts an imperceptible, abrupt flash of bristling in the back of his mind. It's only to be expected, perhaps — what, no, that's mine, mine — but what proves to be optimistic is the subsequent fact that it's a feeling that also doesn't last very long.

And of course, once he gets past that kneejerk flash of possessive jealousy, he ends up thinking about Polnareff kissing Kakyoin, which by extension also leads to just thinking about kissing Kakyoin in general.

His hand is being gripped tight. It takes him a second, but then he grips right back, turning the hold almost into a contest of wills, a not-quite arm wrestle.]

Do it and I'll kick your ass.

[Which, of course, is approximately the sentiment Polnareff seems to be trying to convey in return, so it seems appropriate.]

...You'd think he'd taste like cherries but most of the time he doesn't. Unless he's just been eating them, I mean.

Oh, jeez, Jotaro--

[What had he expected, though? He'd most definitely be talking about Abdul if their positions were reversed; he can't actually blame Jotaro. And, honestly, the guy ought to be commended-- three months here, and he hasn't actually ever cornered Polnareff in order to wax rhapsodic about Kakyoin.]

So what does he taste like, if not cherries?

[He might as well learn.]

...Not really like anything, actually. I mean, mostly it's just...like a guy. It's not like biting into a fruit basket or something.

[He blinks a second, glancing at the ashtray nearby — does he taste like smoke and ash when he's kissed, he wonders abruptly? It's something he's used to personally, of course, but he smokes somewhat on the regular so of course he is. Should he start carrying mints? What if kissing him is disgusting?

The sudden horror of this notion would keep him up all night, even if he weren't planning to be up all night with Polnareff already.]

Mostly just like guy. Sometimes if he smells good that'll kind of mix in with it too. If he's got chapstick on then it's a little sticky. Lipstick makes everything taste weird, though.

[!!!!

Honestly, that's what his face goes through. You can practically see the little exclamation points appear above his head, loud and surprised, and it takes just about everything he has not to literally shout.

Instead, carefully, he pulls his hand back from Jotaro's. Finally takes his cigarette and ashes it, offers it to Jotaro. And then, his voice betraying none of his excitement or (fond) amusement:]

I know that. Why do you know that?

What? Am I not supposed to know that?

[He accepts the cigarette, and the natural conclusion he draws is, perhaps unsurprisingly, what he would imagine to be the standard one. Girls wear lipstick, Polnareff kisses girls, so he knows what lipstick tastes like because it's gross. He's surprised because he doesn't really think of Jotaro kissing anybody, save maybe one guy, neither of whom wear lipstick. He's impressed and astonished at this apparent girl-kissing prowess.

Except.

...Except that then it slowly starts to nag at him that maybe that's not what Polnareff is saying, and maybe the piqued interest isn't about kissing girls, but about something else.

Maybe —

Maybe Polnareff's expression just went through all those eager internal gymnastics because all of a sudden something he thought was different...turned out to not make anything different, again, after all.]

...

[Well. One way to find out.]

I don't get how gir—

[A pause. For a second he can practically feel the ghost of Giorno's scorn burning holes through him.]

...people, how they deal with having stuff like that all over their mouth all day long.

[Oh, well, he was subtle and look what it got him: nothing. So, instead, he goes for the blunt approach, which is after all the best.]

Who, exactly, is the one wearing lipstick in this relationship? Because last I heard all Kakyoin had was heels, Jotaro.

[And then, once he's gotten the more important query out of the way, he adds:]

Anyway, it's not about it tasting good, it's-- y'know-- for looking sexy. And it gets really sexy once it's all smeared and stuff, that's how you know you've done well.

Yeah, but if it gets in your mouth then it fucks everything up.

[HOW LONG CAN HE SIDESTEP THE IMPORTANT QUERY AND DRAG THIS OUT. A FEW SECONDS LONGER, AT LEAST.]

...It is good when it gets smeared, though. Not like a lot all over. But like when you get punched in the mouth and it splits your lip, and it smudges a little in the corner. Like that. That's really good.

[He pauses, reflects. Might as well go all in.]

What color? Mine was kind of pink-orange.

[There it is. And-- not at all what he expected, actually, because he'd already sort of formed a hazy picture of Kakyoin in, like . . . red, like fire-engine red, but if it's Jotaro--

Well!]

I didn't know you did that-- when did you start? I thou--

[Wait.

An Assumption has been made.]

Wait, what do you mean, what color?

You haven't worn any before? I'm asking what color it was, if you did.

[LOOK AT THESE ASSUMPTIONS GO.]

...What.

I just--

[FOR GOD'S SAKE, KUJO]

I literally just told you I might like to kiss a guy, all right, why the hell would I have worn lipstick before? I said I knew because I've kissed girls who wore the stuff! You end up tasting it no matter what side you're on!

[He's overreacting, he knows, he really is, because who cares, it's not like Jotaro went out and announced it to the city-- but still. It's a little terrifying, having someone casually think that about you, and-- no matter what Giorno might say-- he can't just accept such a thing. For others, all right, easy, fine, but for himself? God, no.]

Because what if you had!

[He half-turns, brow knitting as he fixes Polnareff with a look of searching intensity.]

I don't know! What if you had? What if you had and it went the other way around, I sat here and went oh I assumed you never would because that's weird, that's not you, that's whatever? That's...that's like the opposite of being your damn Sherpa, that's kicking you back to the bottom of the mountain!

You know why I wore it? Because I didn't get it. I didn't get why a guy would, why anybody would, I don't get it. But I want to get it. Because if people care what I think then I ought to be making sure I'm not accidentally making them feel like shit when I don't get something that's important to them.

I want you to be able to tell me anything. I don't want you to have to worry if it's going to make something different. So yeah, I'm going to act like it's not a big deal because it isn't and I don't want it to be one! Not with me. Not when it might be your feelings on the line!

[But there's a difference. There's such a difference between taking care around Giorno or Kakyoin versus taking care around him. Because if Jotaro takes care around him, he thinks it might be possibility, and if he thinks it might be a possibility--

That's focusing too much on the details and not the broad point. I want you to be able to tell me anything. You'd think after all they'd been through, that'd be true. And on some level, it is; there's very little he keeps from Jotaro--

Except things like his attraction to both genders. Except things like there's a growing distance between us I don't know how to resolve. Except things that take three days to come out, like: I cut my sister's throat.

He's done everything on his own for so long. Feelings-- proper Feelings, with a capital F-- were things to be ignored or dealt with on his own, not shared. ]

It-- is. To me.

[Slowly, uncertainly said-- but Jotaro isn't Giorno, and there's more room to maneuver and error without earning scorn.]

I don't just mean makeup, I mean-- anything. When it's me, it's a big deal. I'm not used to any of this, I can't just-- just talk about shit all of a sudden. Not like this, not when it's me.

[Does that even make sense? He takes the cigarette again, because it's something to do.]

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