starmark | IC Inbox | prismatica

You don't need to go anywhere. I just wanted to know. Saves me checking the slow way.

Is Star still bringing things?

he's having a hard time
all he wants to do is bring things
but trying to help is what burned me out so bad in the bubble
and he knows that

so i think now he can't figure out if helping is really helping
or if it's making it worse

Do you want to let him bring things? It shouldn't be too much of a problem while one of us is there. I don't know if it'd make recovery slower but it might be worth it, if it'll keep him calmer.

I have another class after this, then I'll be back.

yeah i want to let him out i think
he wants to be anyway
it'll just make things easier

just come find me when you're done with class
i can keep star calm until you get here

[ The key clicks in the lock - he's not addressed the fact that it turns out Adrian was right to give him one after all, no matter how much he insisted on not having one. He's recovering chroma at a decent pace, but Hierophant still isn't as effortless a presence as he usually is. It's irritating, the way that not having him for a few days was, but not debilitating. ]

It's me.

[ Not that that is important information, but Adrian had one rule for him and it was to speak up when he entered. He can follow one (1) rule, since he's taking the time to take off his shoes anyway. ]

[He's just...tired, these days. Tired in a way that he hasn't been in almost a year now, tired not in the burned-out used-up way he remembers being in the aftermath of his battle with Dio, but tired like a switched-off engine that won't turn over and start. He knows it's only temporary, because he's felt like this before and then eventually improved. He also knows that the right treatment for it is attention and time. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating, to just be so tired, to lie still and remember kicking and kicking at the slowly-shrinking bubble and wait while surrounded by darkness to be consumed.

They came to get him. Someone came for him. He didn't have to do it alone, this time.

He doesn't have to do this alone this time, either, and so when he hears the lock turn in the door he waits for the telltale creak of the hinges opening and then raises his head enough out of the pillows to call a mumbled reply.]

M'in here.

[ It's taken not much more than a day to establish a routine. He comes in, takes off his shoes and sits on the bed next to Jotaro without changing, backpack and all. All without Hierophant. ]

I should have left the console for you, shouldn't I? Didn't think of it until just now.

[ He shrugs off the backpack and pushes it away, letting its weight settle at the foot of the bed, and falls back against the mattress with the satisfying sort of whoomph that you only really get from flopping back against a soft bed. ]

Been bored out of your mind?

Nah. Star brought me everything I could ever want. And a couple things I didn't ask for. It kept us busy.

[He leaves Kakyoin to enjoy his flop for all of about ten seconds, then rolls over and tosses an arm around him to pull him in like a lamprey.]

How was class?

[ He takes a deep breath, deliberately deep, so that his chest swells with air and moves in a way that's easy to feel. He said it helped, didn't he, being able to feel him breathe. Tangling his limbs around Jotaro in a way that almost shouldn't be possible for someone with a skeleton, he lets the breath out as a tired laugh. ]

Just how many apology notes are we going to have to write once this is over?

[ He says, as if either of them have any intention of returning any of the things Star has taken or writing any apology notes. ]

Honestly? The spiny penis conversation was the high point. I an't focus for shit right now.

If people didn't want Star to take their shit they should guard it better.

[It's nice, feeling Kakyoin breathe. It's nice to feel him close at hand, too, pliant and warm. Better than the koi Prismal he'd spent all that time with in the bubble, who'd wanted next to nothing to do with him and he'd felt about the same way. They'd touched only the barest minimum to stay going. All the rest had been cold, and quiet.

Kakyoin is warm and solid and alive. He buries his face in Kakyoin's hair, letting it tickle against his skin and not caring a bit.]

How about now? How's your focus?

Better. Good.

[ It's true. The second Jotaro made contact with him he felt every sense sharpen, his entire being shrink down to the point of contact. It's moonlacing, of course, rather than just Jotaro's presence. But it's close enough. ]

Should have just skipped and stayed here.

Oooh. Cutting class, huh. Sounds like something a delinquent would do.

[He shuffles a little, tucking against him, getting comfortable.]

Not a fine, upstanding student like you.

Please, I'm not like you. I'd write myself a doctors' note.

[ Because forgery is, in fact, a proper and upstanding student thing to do. And ignoring the fact that, let's be real, 'my boyfriend got kidnapped by horses' is probably something that doctors here actually give real notes for anyway.

He tucks his head under Jotaro's chin. It'd be annoying to feel short if it weren't so inherently satisfying to fit himself perfectly into a space, like a cat finding it can curl up in a mixing bowl and create a perfectly level surface on top. ]

See, now I can think. Now all the material makes sense. I wonder if I can get away with just holding on to you through classes.

Did you bring back homework? You might want to do it, while it makes sense.

[Let's be real: the only way Kakyoin is retrieving his homework is if he can send Hierophant to go get it, because there's no way he's escaping from the Venus Flytrap of an embrace that is Jotaro's arms and chin right now.]

I missed you. While I was under, I mean.

It can wait.

[ It's not like he's going anywhere anytime soon. He's here for the rest of the day, now, give or take going to the bathroom or getting dinner. Homework (and, in truth, going over the actual topic of the class in the textbook to make sure he didn't miss anything that isn't covered in the homework) can wait a bit longer. He kind of likes curling up against Jotaro while he's half asleep to work on it. The chroma from that is a slightly different shape, somehow. Better for thinking. ]

I can see why. The horses would struggle to make any bread at all underwater, let alone make it into frogs. It's not an environment where I'm easily replaced.

You're so full of shit.

[He wonders, vaguely, how much he can get away with while they're cuddled up together like this. What will happen if his hand wanders — not because he's really that interested in heating things up between them, not while he's comfortable and drowsy, but because he still doesn't quite know where the line is between okay and not.

Kakyoin said he loved him.

Emboldened by that knowledge, and solely by that notion, he nudges his hand to rest against Kakyoin's hip, pressed against the little hollow just above the jut of the bone.]

Can't you just say something like, "I missed you too, Jojo"?

Do you want me to?

[ There's something that begins just above where Jotaros' fingers rest, just barely tactable through his clothes. About as thick as cloth but too smooth for it. Kakyoin's fingers spider outward over Jotaro's back, covering as much distance as possible like an insect staying afloat by spreading its legs as thin and far as possible. ]

You already know how much I'd do to have you back.

[...Unusual. That's neither soft skin nor the hard ridge of scar tissue, and he can't quite figure out what it is — not that he's trying particularly hard, with the way that they're cuddling. He nudges at it anyway, plucking with the tips of his fingers like he's trying to work out what's there beneath the fabric and not really coming up with any answers.]

Hah. I know better than to try telling you what to do, too.

[He remembers listening to his heartbeat, beat after beat. Counting out a length of time that seemed to stretch on to eternity, swallowed up by the darkness all around the outside of the bubble. Pushing away the intrusive thoughts that even if he could break out somehow, he'd be too far from the surface to find air before his own ran out.

Waiting and waiting and waiting. Waiting for someone to come. Waiting for Dio to come back —

Despite himself, he tenses up all over, an unconscious reflex born of leftover trauma.]

Well. It's over now.

[ It budges a little, pushed with enough force. It’s smooth. Soft-ish. Like skin, if skin lay on top of itself and were perfectly smooth and uniform. Like the sort of skin an alien would pull over its body to play at being human. ]

It is.

[ Beneath his spider-hands, Jotaro’s muscles shift. He observes as best he can with just his own senses. Measures the movement in a way that isn’t quite as detached as he’d like but still more detached than he should be. Afraid. This is afraid. He untucks his head to look up at Jotaro, trading away neatness for sincerity. ]

I miss you when I’m in class. When you’re at work. I didn’t miss you when you were gone. It would have been an unforgivable waste of time. I looked for you. I mapped out the entire fucking city trying to find out where you were. What I would need to do to who in order to bring you back.

...Oh.

[Oh, he says, a sigh like the key to a dam that's been holding back a tidal wave of relief all this time. Oh, leave it to Kakyoin to bring it back to a question of specific words rather than broad-reaching sentiment. Leave it to Kakyoin to be precise, and exacting, and offended by the very notion of carelessly expecting one inferior term to fully encompass the vastness of another.

Adrian has seen things in him before, often during Sanguis, and told him that they're close to what a vampire feels — the possessiveness, the fierceness. He's been a vampire, too, and felt those same things firsthand, felt his whole body shake with his resonant need to be close to the things he loves.

Kakyoin sounds like a vampire, when he describes his hunt and his intentions. He doesn't know if that's something he ought to give voice to, and so he decides against it.

What he says instead, though, is probably just as well.]

I need that. I need — you, and Adrian. Chasing after me like that. So I never get lost, I need — don't ever not do that. Okay...?

I won’t miss you - I’ll follow you. Always. Anywhere.

[ Into January 17th, if he can find a path.

He brings his lips up to Jotaro’s, because that is how these things go. That or a pocketknife and split palms and mixed blood and a kiss seems far more sanitary and less liable to ruin Adrian’s nice bedsheets. ]

Both of you.

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