starmark | IC Inbox | prismatica

I just need you both to hold onto me. I need chroma for this.

[It means also that his arms stop regenerating for now, stopping just at his wrists. He'll deal with the rest later, but for now he needs to spend his chroma on the Infinite Corridor and closing the mess he's made.

The way Jotaro's doppelganger looks at the corpse of the other Adrian makes him wince guiltily.]

...I'm sorry for what I've done. Not just to everything, but to you. Even if you aren't mine, it pains me to know I've hurt you.

The more intimate the contact, the more you'll get, right?

[The real Jotaro moves to more securely support Adrian, wrapping his arms around him from behind again, burying his face into the back of Adrian's neck. They're the same person, himself and his doppelganger, only with wildly different priorities. It's why he knows what's coming; it's what he would do, too, if reason and conscience weren't around to get in his way.

Gently, the doppelganger brings his forehead to touch against Adrian's, stroking his fingers down his newly-regrown forearms, but stopping short before they reach the still-severed wrists. No sense in dwelling on that now.]

Adrian — I'm gone either way. So before that thing takes me back, I want you to drink from me. Take too much, for once. Then I won't have to be sorry about leaving you. You'll still have all of me I could give.

But that-- I'll kill you.

[The idea is horrifying to him. He's never taken so much that he's killed a person before, and he would never do that to Jotaro. Even if it's not his Jotaro, the idea makes him feel colder than usual.]

You're asking me to kill you.

...No. I was asking you to spare me — from having to find out whatever happens when those portals close up, and I don't belong here anymore.

[The doppelganger smiles ruefully, then presses a kiss to Adrian's forehead and draws back a step.]

But you're right. That's the easy way out. And I...can't do that to you.

[He ducks his head, then shifts to wrap his arm around Adrian's, joining the real Jotaro to double the chroma generation.]

I won't do that to you. So whenever you're ready...I am, too.

[For a moment, Adrian is quiet, his eyes closing as he takes in the chroma. He can't help but weep softly, pressing his face into the doppelganger's shoulder.]

I'm sorry for what I've done. But I will do right by you, if that's what you desire from me.

[With a sob, he sinks his fangs into the doppelganger's throat. The blood will be enough to give him the strength he needs to finish this, to end what he's started. The mess he's made.

And he deserves to hurt for what he's done, nearly losing himself the way Dracula once had.]

[What unfolds then is a spectacle that the real Jotaro will never experience, one only ever considered in hypothetical and fantasy. He watches himself — his own face, his own eyes, his own flesh — as it contorts beneath the piercing razors of Adrian's bite. A sound escapes that identical mouth — a wet, choking gurgle as blood pours down his throat and fills his lungs, even as his head falls back to bare more of the messy wound to Adrian's lips and teeth.

It's not beautiful. It's not romantic. And yet there's something almost beatific in the way his double bends to it, absorbing the pain and giving himself over to it freely.

Unable to help himself, his arms tighten around Adrian. That's him, that's another him, dying in his selfishness and inevitability, unable to sacrifice the world for the person he loved so he'd chosen to sacrifice himself for it instead.

It's slower than having your heart ripped out. It leaves the doppelganger with enough strength to smile at Adrian one last time before his eyes close and his legs fail to hold him anymore.

Jotaro Kujo watches himself die.

So that's what it looks like, he thinks, and shudders.]

[The feeling of draining someone alive like this is both horrifying and thrilling; a sensation that he could see any vampire quickly becoming addicted to, seeking out their prey and drinking them to death. It's hardly a shock to know this; vampires are predators through and through, after all, but to actually experience it firsthand is something else entirely.

And worst of all, to do it to a variation of the man he loves most is absolutely terrible.

Adrian feels the body go limp. His hands finally finish regrowing easily with the amount of blood he has regained and more, so he gently sets the body down. Red stains his mouth and chin, mixed with both his own and Jotaro's doppelganger in hideous poetry.

Finally, with all of the chroma and blood, he focuses on the Infinite Corridor. To close the horrors he's opened up. He tries to think of that, to do the right thing.

But he is flawed. He is horribly flawed, either by being too much of a beast or too much of a human, he isn't sure. Maybe both, maybe neither. But he still desperately wishes to escape his awful fate of Wallachia.

For a second, the opening to the Corridor changes. It is a small modern Japanese town that Jotaro may recognize. In a park, a boy with short dark hair that just pushes on being curly is trying to keep his composure, but there are clear tears in his eyes as he clutches the hand of an older gentleman.

A man with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail approaches, holding out a plush toy of an orca whale. In Japanese, he asks: Excuse me, did you lose this?

It is a happy reunion between a child and his toy. As the blonde man waves them farewell, and glances over his shoulder.

Adrian stares at himself.]

[And Jotaro stares at — himself.]

Wait...I remember that —

[Of course he remembers it. How many times has he recounted that memory of Jiji, full of frustration and derision? Of course he remembers taking Godzilla to the park, and how he'd set him down for just a minute when something else had caught his attention, and how one thing had led to another, keeping his attention elsewhere, and not on the bench where he'd set his favorite toy down.

There'd been a man in the park. Not watching him, not suspicious or predatory, but just...remarkable. Worthy of notice. He remembers nothing about him, except that he'd been there, and that he'd thought the man seemed both happy and sad at the same time.

Then the realization that Godzilla had been misplaced. The horrible sinking guilt of having been so careless. The ache of loss, born of his own thoughtless actions. How badly he'd wanted to cry, and how hard he'd fought not to.

And then — that man. Blonde like his mother. His voice gentle like her, too. And eyes he didn't recognize back then, but that he'd never mistake for any others now.]

...That was you...

I... suppose it was.

[Though Adrian is just as puzzled, he remembers: he needs to close the gate. Does this mean that somehow he manages to find Jotaro anyway? How is that possible? He wonders, ever confused.

Don't be so impatient, Adrian tells himself from another time and place. Seems to always gets us in a mess.

A piece of advice he doesn't know what to do with.

But Adrian closes his eyes, and focuses on closing the Corridor finally, and the glimpse of his future and Jotaro's past starts to seal.]

But that means you must...you find me...?

[He's still holding on to Adrian, watching from over his shoulder, but unable to take his eyes off the vision through the gateway even as it begins to shrink.

No, he reminds himself eventually, shaking his head at himself. No, there's still too much to focus on. He can indulge in questions of what if and when later. This is more important now.]

That's it. Just — I'm sorry. Close them all, that's right. Let it go.

Don't apologize. All of this is my fault.

[Slowly, the main Corridor closes finally, sealing the last glimpse he has of a possibility or a future. He doesn't know which. Either way, the gate closes, and the others that had opened begin to close after it.]

If anything... I am sorry. For thinking I could control this.

...How long have you been hiding this?

[As the gate closes, Jotaro takes that as his cue to shift the placement of his hands, moving from embracing Adrian to finding a grip that will let him turn his dhampir in his arms, intent on making him face him properly.]

All those late nights. The stuff you were dodgy about. It was this...?

[It's tempting to look away in shame, but Jotaro deserves better than that. So, with reluctance, he gazes at him, face to face and eyes meeting eyes.]

Most of the time, yes. It... started out innocently enough, as anything. Researching how chroma could power Hotaru's arm, improving it. Then I obtained some books from Dracula's library, and began to think: "what else could I use the chroma for?"

The easiest way to open the Infinite Corridor is with the sacrifice of mortal lives to power it. I thought that perhaps instead chroma was the answer. Although today was merely meant to be a test to see if I could even do it, I won't make any excuses about it.

So that you wouldn't have to go back to Wallachia. You'd just use this and...

[Follow him home. Escape. Run away to 1988, where he'd be loved and cherished and have a real future ahead of him, and not the cold isolation of abandonment and betrayal.

It's hard to hold it against him. Certainly he can't condemn Adrian for it. But he also knows, deep down, that it wouldn't be right, or fair to either of them, to just sweep it under the rug, either.]

Is it because you were afraid? I just — I need to know why. How you got to this point. How I didn't...notice.

...As you've no doubt concluded.

[Ideally, he'd go with Jotaro. But even if he couldn't, then anywhere but Wallachia would be ideal. Acceptable.]

Fear. Apprehension. If I went back to Wallachia after everything I've had with you and Kakyoin, I... don't know if I could live again. Perhaps seeing Sypha again reminded me of it. Of what I gained here, and what I could never have in Wallachia. Not just because of losing Mother and Father, or being left -- but what Sumi and Taka did to me.

And I would've just...talked you out of it.

[He doesn't make it a question; they both know it isn't one. It's one thing to comfort Adrian; of course he could do that. But actually do something, take some real meaningful step to overcome that apprehension? What could he possibly do that would matter, deep down?

The truth is, he couldn't promise Adrian a future any more than he could promise Kakyoin one, for all that he might want to pretend otherwise.]

We should go find him. Now that things are settling down. Talk this out, all three of us.

...Yes. And I knew that.

[Adrian closes his eyes finally, feeling a horrible dread in his chest. How much has he ruined by doing this? Did he see his future, or was it a mere possibility branching away that he will never know?

Stiffly, he nods.]

Okay.

[The guilt and shame are practically radiating off of Adrian in waves; it's impossible not to notice. Fumbling, and at a loss, Jotaro reaches down and brushes his fingers against Adrian's for a moment, before moving closer and more deliberately weaving them together to take his hand.

It doesn't make anything better. It doesn't solve anything. It doesn't fix it.

It's something he needs to do, anyway.]

I think he's at the academy. That's where I was headed, before...

[Before his doppelganger found him. Before they leapt through that errant portal. Before two people died, and one of them was him.]

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