starmark | IC Inbox | prismatica

[It feels obscene, the way Hierophant wraps around his tongue. Fucks his mouth to the same cadence as the machine. Kakyoin isn't paying attention to him at all, even though he's sitting so close. There's a tapping scratching noise that must be a pen against paper; his face gets hot as he thinks the phrase more important than me.

It's not that he's trying to be self-deprecating. He doesn't like being drenched in humiliation. It's just a thought that adds to the weight that's got him suspended so deep in his own head, that homework is something that needs focus and he isn't. It's nice to be nothing for a little while, when you've been everything to everyone for so long.

His mouth is messy and inelegant. He tries to fuck back with his tongue, tries to move it right to follow the rhythm that everyone else knows and he just absorbs. He's clumsy and off-beat. He tries anyway because he knows Kakyoin is on the other end, knows that sucking feels good to receive as well as to give.

Fingers stroke his stomach and he jumps a little, his collar chain rattling from the movement of his head. It makes him come up a little, leaves him a bit more alert. It won't last long; he'll soon drift back down again.]

Nnnnnn.

[He whimpers, faintly. Whines for attention he doesn't really expect to get. It would be so nice to hear how well he's doing, but he can wait. Adrian told him to just hold still and be good.

A minute later, the machine winds into a new phase, picking up speed and taking on a more erratic rhythm of starts and stops. It's too different to ignore. It keeps him roused long enough that he thinks to turn his head and try to find Kakyoin with his dark, hazy eyes.]

O...kaeri...

[His voice is ragged, his throat thick. Kakyoin's hair is so beautifully red that he almost can't look at it, it's so much.]

[ He squirms a little more than he'd like to, as Hierophant's coils and Jotaro's tongue move with each other. Shuffles in his cushion. Alters the way he's sitting again as they perform the call and response as if all of this is just the way things are..

It's hard not to be impatient. Not to touch Jotaro more. Lean in and kiss him himself. Bite. Run Hierophant over every inch of his body, or send him coiled thin along the length of the machine's cock, a layer of him over it. To say I love you or something else more material than 'I'm home'. He's cautious about any of that. He doesn't understand this fully, and the last thing he wants is to do something wrong.

And it's fun, in its own way, to do so little.

The machine speeds up. It's cute, almost, the way Jotaro's body moves with the force of it. He's just making nonsense scribbles against the paper now. If Jotaro were in anything close to his right mind it'd be obvious. ]

You're doing as he says, aren't you?

[ He doesn't like to say 'good boy'. It sets him on edge. But there are other phrases that communicate the same thing, and he has no such issues with those. By definition, doing as Adrian says would mean that Jotaro is, in fact, a good boy. This time, his fingertips graze against Jotaro's chest. They're moving upward, bit by bit, toward his face. ]

You're so, so pretty like this.

[He's roused, now, at least a little more than he'd been before, and that's all right. It means he's more conscious of just how arousing the physical sensations actually are, while the machine works him over and Kakyoin's fingers brush light over his damp skin. It means he'll have to work harder not to get distracted or to come without thinking, because he's not forbidden from it — this isn't that kind of game — but if he does he'll get overstimulated and Adrian won't keep him in the contraption when it starts to hurt. It's never about hurting, even when it's about taking so much he thinks he might come apart at the seams from it.

But Kakyoin implicitly demands his attention, talking to him, and he likes demands when he's like this. Demands are easy. He just obeys them.]

Y...Yeah. M'sposed to...

[He tries to think. Words drift around in his mind; it feels like he has to swim after them and collect them in the crook of his arm before he can begin to string them together.]

Hold still. Be good.

[The consonants all run together, slurred through a mouth gone red and wet. Kakyoin's fingers are moving toward his face. Maybe they'll go into his mouth; that's not for him to decide.]

I...hhah, I'll.

[He swallows, thickly. The machine hits him at a new and unexpected angle from the subtle shifting around he's done, and it drags a soft whine out of him.]

What'ver...you say, too...

Of course you will. I know you will.

[ Upward. Over the sharp cut of Jotaro's collarbone. The thorn-scars at his neck. His skin is hot. Tacky with sweat, and if he applied more pressure than a whisper as he moves his fingertips over it then they'd stick. Pull slightly when he drew them back, like octopus suckers. They do stuck when he pauses at Jotaro's jaw. Tilts it upward slightly so that Jotaro's dark, glassy eyes have to meet his properly.

So maybe he can see the appeal of all of this. In Jotaro undone, completely, and the red in his face and on his lips and in his skin. In the little whines and moans and almost-noises and the way his body moves with the machine. He wants to keep this softer Jotaro with all the sharp edges sanded down, to put him somewhere safe and warm and never stop watching him. Or maybe he wants anything at all to see him the way he can feel himself seeing Jotaro. Part of him wants to stop touching him, or to grab his hair or to bite down with his blunt teeth hard enough to bruise for a week, just to hear the noises he makes. He shuffles further forward, until his own face is just, just in range. So that Jotaro can meet it without breaking the leash. ]

I want you to kiss me. You'll do that for me, won't you?

[ He lifts his hand further, tracing it over the shell of Jotaro's ear. ]

Because you love me.

[His heart is pounding, his arousal coiling up in the pit of his stomach. It's hard to stay in the moment like this and not want to chase after his inevitable peak because thinking about the pleasure of it just makes the burn all the more potent. It was easier when he was under, and time stopped meaning much of anything. It's nice when that's the way that time stops for him — still technically in motion, but he's just lost all track of it.

But Kakyoin wants a kiss, and that's easy. He knows what to do. Even if Kakyoin makes him work for it, stretch for it — it doesn't matter, because it feels so good to just do as he's told.]

Y...eah...

[He forgot that his limbs are restrained. He tries to shift them to reach better, and the straps rattle and for a second he doesn't understand why his body isn't moving. Another half-minute before he can accept it's not going to work. His eyes keep falling closed and it's hard to keep them open.

When the machine changes gears a minute later, there's no drowsing through this setting. It's faster, more punishing, and he chokes on air as every thrust makes fireworks of white light explode behind his eyes, as pleasure sets his nerves alight and makes his body tremble of it's own volition.

The way he finally reaches for Kakyoin's kiss is as much an attempt to relieve some of the sudden overwhelming sensation as it is to chase his reward. He's desperate when their lips meet, all tongue and teeth, hungry to obey and moaning frantically into Kakyoin's mouth because he just can't do anything else.

This setting never lasts for long, he knows; it can't, he couldn't bear it if it did. He can hold out past it, until it recedes. Focusing on loving Kakyoin so much will help, but he still feels as though a single careless touch could send him spilling over the edge.]

[ Shit. It’s unbearable. Unfair, the way Jotaro looks like this. The way he sounds. The way each moan echoes into him through the kiss and twists its way around his lungs just as surely as Hierophant twists its way into Jotaro. Except that Hierophant doesn’t touch, not yet. Just hides, where the sound of those moans squeezes all the air out of his body.

Jotaro is beautiful, and he’s dizzy with it. ]

I knew you could do it.

[ He makes the very deliberate choice not to send Hierophant through the whole of Jotaro’s body right now, because nobody is going to get anything done if he finds himself stuck with the secondhand sensations of the machine. Even coiled in his chest (measuring breath. Measuring heartbeats), he can feel the impact of each thrust.

He moves his free hand along the frame of the machine. He’s seen the plan for it. He knows there ought go be a chroma-sensitive panel somewhere to select the movement patterns. ]

You look perfect like this, you know. [ Hierophant measures. Measures. Measures. He strokes a few more times over Jotaro’s ear. Pinches the stud there and rolls it between thumb and finger. Kisses again, more and more hungrily. Measures. Measures.

He finds the touch panel at just the right moment, and the machine returns to its initial slow pace. ] stay like this a little longer? For me?

[Inside him. Hierophant goes inside him, after all, and it's almost too much because he knows what's happening inside him even if it's not strictly something he can feel, knows that slender tendrils are working their way past nerves and organs, curling up between muscle fibers, waiting and waiting inside him and any second he could feel it, any second Hierophant could twitch and play his body like an instrument, any second sensation could blossom up like every drag and thrust of the machine makes him heat up and he doesn't know, he doesn't know when it's coming.

So much of this isn't even about sensation at all, but about letting his mind do all the work for them. It's always about his state of mind, from forcing him down into that liberating calm to pulling him back up out of it again, to keeping him quivering on a knife's edge to painting a picture in bold black lines and letting his imagination color all the details.

His eyes are wet, it's so much. With every piston of the machine, he can't help but think that the next one will be the one that pushes him into oblivion. He's panting against Kakyoin's mouth and the surface tension is so built up, stretched so thin, that surely even the slightest addition will break it —

Kakyoin's fingers pinch his earlobe, and he keens.

And he holds on.

He didn't have to. He doesn't have to. There's nothing but his own desire keeping him in the machine being good. But he wants to be pushed like this, wants to be taken to his very limit and finally nudged over and caught in warm waiting arms when he falls, and he's not there yet.

And he must've done well, because Kakyoin reaches and the pace slows back down again, the pleasure still intense but more predictable and more measured, and he wants to keep himself held up because Kakyoin didn't tell him to stop kissing him, but he just can't.

He slumps back down against the pillow that's been supporting his head, eyes squeezed shut, body shaking. He feels like a guitar string tuned too tight. Ache and need fold in on themselves inside him until it feels too big for his body, until he doesn't even know what he's feeling, only that it's something not meant to be contained by his trembling limbs and heaving chest. It's so much that he feels like he's sinking beneath the waves, too tired to tread water anymore, and watching the sky fade out above him as the ocean gathers him up in its embrace.

Stay like this a little longer? For me?

Kakyoin's voice tugs his head back above water, but almost before the words have faded he's sinking back down, ready to lose himself in the relief of exhausted nothingness for a second time.

Perfect, Kakyoin had called him, and when he's like this it's easy to believe, because he's empty of protest and just waiting to be filled with praise.]

Yeah.

[His voice is dreamy. It doesn't even sound like his own. Someone else must've said it; it's hard to remember that he knows words at all.]

Anything for you.

So good. So good.

[ Jotaro’s head rolls back, away from his hand. He waits anout a dozen too-quick heartbeats before following. Brushing the moisture from his long eyelashes. Continuing into his hair, combing it back away from the sweat of his face. ]

He won’t do anything. Not until I want him to. He’s just going to observe.

[ This is his. This is his boyfriend, who loves him. It’s hard not to be struck by that, every now and then. The most beautiful sight in the world, and it’s his. He doesn’t turn his attention back to his homework yes, but he does grow more lethargic in his petting. ]

You’re lucky you’re so pretty, you know. I can’t be too mean to you when you look like this~

[He wouldn't like it, probably, that word outside of a moment like this. Pretty. That's not him, is it? That's Kakyoin. That's Adrian. It's not him, he's not pretty, something like that would certainly make him sputter and protest and blush.

But it's so easy to accept things he's told like this. Kakyoin says he's pretty, so he must be, or he wouldn't have said it. Kakyoin says he's good, so that must be true too.

He can go as deep as he wants into his own head, where it's quiet, and he won't get lost. Kakyoin's hand is petting through his hair. Adrian's collar is around his throat. He's not going anywhere. The people who love him know right where he is.]

Nori.

[His lips part, and close on nothing. Even when this all is for him, when he's free to be as indulgent and selfish as he likes, how funny that there's still a sliver of him that aches to please and share in his satisfaction.]

Nori...

[He was going to say something, but the words got away from him. It must not have been that important. He doesn't have to worry about anything right now, anyway.]

I'm here.

[ That's always the most important thing, isn't it? Always. That Jotaro has proof that they're there. That he has proof that they know that he's there.

Even if he could weave his way around the machine to rest against Jotaro's chest right now without being spectacularly uncomfortable, it would- maybe be a little much. He's rationing touch carefully. It seems correct, even if he can't quite out his finger on why. His own weight on Jotaro would be too much. But it's not the weight that's the proof. It's the heartbeat. The movement of his chest as he breathes in and out. And Hierophant can bear that into Jotaro easily enough. ]

He's going to move now. Just a little. If it's too much, he'll stop.

[ For a moment he pauses, and then he pulls his hand back. Rationing again. Trying not to do too much at once, because he only has the vaguest idea how this works and it's important. Important that he doesn't ruin this. These things that Jotaro and Adrian do are a house that isn't his, and he has to take his shoes off and be a proper guest if he's going to enter.

Hierophant pulses softly beneath Jotaro's skin. Swells and contracts. Swells and contracts, trying to match his own heartbeat. Applies and releases pressure over Jotaro's chest, the way his breathing would. His heartbeat. His breath. Just without his weight. ]

See? I'm here.

Nnnnn. S'not too much.

[With the way his words are slurring together, it might be easy to misinterpret him; he realizes that belatedly, and tries to make himself clear, but it's hard. Edging is hard when he's brought so close to the brink and then yanked back and made to settle down again. It takes a physical toll on him alongside the mental one, and he loves it, loves how good it feels to be so tired and yet not hurt.

He's exhausted, and still faintly trembling, but the pace of the machine is slower now and he won't come from it; it'll just keep him where he is in his sensations, hold him steady in pleasure and not let him escape. He feels strange, bratty and stubborn and proud, despite it all. He can take more. He's good. He can do it for Kakyoin, he's more than this.

(Deep down, he knows this is a dangerous feeling. Knows this is why Adrian is still listening to him with his oversensitive hearing from elsewhere in the vicinity, like Kakyoin checking his vitals with Hierophant. He'll push himself too far when he's like this, if he's allowed to. But Adrian will tell him when it's time to stop, when he's had enough. Maybe Kakyoin will, too.)

Hierophant is in his chest, he realizes at length. That's a good place for him; the thought leaves him feeling warm, and his head thick like he's trying to think through a haze of fog and cotton. Hierophant is where he belongs, he thinks, wrapped around his heart. Pulsing —

Unable to help himself, he moans.]

Please...please...

[ He wants to do nothing. Keep Jotaro's little whines going for as long as he can. Keep him begging, voice soft and heavy and warm with arousal. He wants to never refuse Jotaro a single thing again for as long as he lives. He wants to bring all of this to an end so he can pull Jotaro into his arms. He wants to drag it out until Adrian intervenes, leave Jotaro here on the lowest setting that the machine can manage and genuinely just get on with his schoolwork. Wants to rest his notebook against Jotaro's stomach while he works like he's an exceptionally well-fucked writing surface. He just wants.

Whatever he does, he's probably ruining Adrian's plans for the afternoon. But that's Adrian's problem. He knew what he was getting into setting all of this up where he could interfere. He knew what he was getting into letting Noriaki Kakyoin into his life.

He slides his hand into Jotaro's. The other goes back to the touch panel. Hierophant keeps pulsing his heartbeat between the threads of Jotaro's muscles, massaging it into them. ]

It's going to be a lot. But I'll be here.

[ That's it. That's what he can say, where good boy will always be something he can't manage. I'm here. He touches the panel. The speed of the machine barely changes at all, only the amount of time it spends inside Jotaro before withdrawing. Just a split second longer, and a slight corresponding decrease in the pause between its thrusts. Just a warning that he's going to change something soon. ]

You're ready, aren't you?

[He knows what happens, he thinks dazedly, at the end of this. He remembers what happens, sort of. It's the part he likes, which isn't to say that he hasn't liked the rest of it, but it's that part, the part of this where —

He knows what happens. It starts with him getting lost, and it's all right. He gets lost and stays lost and it's all right. It's dark. It's quiet.

And then slowly, slowly, he comes back up again, like floating back to the surface from the bottom of the ocean. And when he gets there, someone will be touching him. Petting his hair. Aftercare is the word he's heard said before, and it sounds so reassuring. It's the part where someone takes care of him after. It's the part where he feels ripped open and too much like a burst overripe fruit, and someone loves him so gently and so patiently that eventually he remembers he's Jotaro Kujo again.

It's the part that makes him crave this whole thing. He's gotten so good at burying his feelings deep that sometimes they get stuck and he can't get them back out again. There's no holding back his feelings when Adrian helps him do this, however. They all come out, and he has no say in it whatsoever. He doesn't have to decide. They all purge out, good and bad and in-between, and he gets to rest in the aftermath.

He likes this part. He's so, so glad Kakyoin is going to be with him this time.

He wishes Kakyoin's hand was near his mouth so he could lick at his fingers, gratefully, but then at length remembers how to squeeze his hand where Kakyoin's holding it, and that's almost as good by comparison.]

I know.

[He does. He's known all along. It's going to be so much, but he can do it. Kakyoin is here, so he must be safe, and it's such a damned luxury to remember what safe even feels like to begin with.]

I am.

He'll be observing. He'll know when it's too much.

[ That's what Hierophant does best, after all. Measures. Measures heartbeats and nerve signals and muscle tension. Measures every possible signal that something might be wrong that he's capable of, because measuring makes him feel safe. Tells him that everyone around him is safe.

He can trust Hierophant with Jotaro. He doesn't quite trust himself, but he can trust Hierophant. He can trust Hierophant and Star and Adrian with Jotaro. With someone too precious to entrust to anyone else.

He drums his fingers over the panel. The effect isn't immediate (a timer of a few seconds between switching to a higher setting and the machine taking effect. He remembers that from the plans. A grace period, because Adrian is too careful with them not to put in every failsafe that comes to mind), and in the short gap of time he has he brings his hand up to Jotaro, starts to stroke it over his side, from the base of his ribs to his thigh. His other hand is still in Jotaro's. He'll be here. ]

I know you can do this.

[ It's a whisper, which means that the second half of it is probably lost when the grace period ends and the machine's pace becomes brutal. ]

[The hardest part of it all, really, is the fact that when the machine is turned up like this, it makes it impossible to ignore the reality that he is, in fact, naked and strapped down and collared and getting fucked.

There is no ignoring it. There is no drifting away on darkness and silence. There's a cock pistoning into him at a pace that perhaps Adrian could match — but wouldn't — and that otherwise no human would be able to maintain, at least not for long. It sinks deep and drags along his flesh and it never falters, it never tires, it never ceases in its perfect relentless machinations, and he can't not feel every inch of it, every time, with abandon.

It's horrible. It's pleasurable. It's inevitable, which is really what fucks him up so bad about it, the machine doesn't laugh or care or toy or tease, the machine has one job and that job is to fuck him senseless until someone else decides to make it stop.

And it keeps him in the moment, pinning him there with every thrust. It forces him to think about the sweat on his brow and the wet on his lips and the air on his bared spine, the ache in his legs and the bite of the collar and Kakyoin's eyes burning holes into him, watching this intimate, obscene thing happen to him when he has no escape from being aware of the observation.

He's babbling, he realizes belatedly. Words are pouring from his mouth, wailing and begging in every language he knows, Kakyoin's name, Adrian, consonants and vowels and nonsensical sounds, choking breaths, messy sobs.

His heart is pounding. He can barely get a breath in before the machine fucks it right back out of him. And it's so hard and so hot and such intensely blinding pleasure that his other emotions start to drag lose with it, shame and humiliation and stress and upset and he's shaking his head, he's rattling his collar from it, he must look so stupid and so embarrassing and it won't even let him feel it because his body has no space for anything but the sheer physical arousal of having his body manipulated so.

His mind is in one place. His body feels separate, somehow. His body is the source of all of his choking keening pleasure and he's going out of his mind.

Up and up and up it takes him, heart pounding, eyes wet, and he's so hard it hurts and he's coiled so tight he's going to snap, and Hierophant must know it because Hierophant is inside him still, writhing inside him, Kakyoin inside him, inside him and with a bone-shattering cry he's —

There's no coming back from this one. He never even got close to the edge; he careened over it in a leap from twenty feet away.

His climax takes him hard, as hard as the machine's relentless pace, and the world behind his eyes goes red and red and supernova white as his whole body quakes with it, and he drops hard into an abyss of tempestuous sensation, wrung out and falling head over heels with nothing at all left to catch him.]

[ Star wouldn't let him hurt him. He said that, didn't he? And Star isn't here to stop him. He checks for Star, when Jotaro shakes his head. When the words he's babbling out are in languages he doesn't speak (Italian? It sounds italian. And something from further into Europe. Probably Romanian. It would make sense, if it were Romanian.). He checks when the wetness returns to his eyes, fat dewdrops on his eyelashes.

Star never stops him, and so he keeps going, for as far as 'going' describes his part in this. He keeps stroking Jotaro's side. Keeps holding his hand. Keeps watching, as every last thread of him pulls taut. Tries to stretch. Unravels. Hierophant sends him the signal. He lifts his hand from Jotaro's side to turn off the machine. It doesn't stop immediately, nothing so jarring. It slows instead. Its thrusts grow weak. Shallow, until it finally pulls away entirely. His hand returns to Jotaro's side. Careful. Delicate. Hierophant remains curled in Jotaro's chest, but a tendril of him reaches out from his mouth. Pushes past his teeth, so that it can undo the restraints, then wanders off to the kitchen like a long green helpful tongue. There's the distant sound of glasses moving in the cupboard, then water from the tap. ]

I take it back. [ He says as Hierophant brings the glass of water back to him and wanders off to find a blanket, less to make conversation and more to make noises with his mouth. To put his voice there for Jotaro to follow. ] I like this thing after all.

[His face is wet, but it wouldn't be altogether accurate to say that he's crying, because he's not. It's not so much that there's an emotion driving the tears as it is just that it's all of his emotions finding every possible means to get out of him that they can, and that just happened to be one avenue.

He doesn't actually notice the machine turning off, until well after it's already come to a halt. He's shaking, but he doesn't really notice that, either. It's involuntary, it's just his body so overwhelmed that his nerves haven't quite recovered yet, keeping him trembling while the adrenaline works its way out of his system.

At least the cushion beneath him is soft. He barely recognizes the way Hierophant nudges his mouth open just enough to creep out; he barely registers the way his limbs slump and go all directions from gravity when the restraints aren't in place to hold him. Breathing feels so soothing; the rise and fall of his chest is all the external stimuli he really needs right now, and just that is enough to make him content.

He's going to be so sore. Oh, fuck, he's going to ache all over.

But that's later. Later he'll feel things. Right now he's too tired to feel anything, too grateful to just rest and float and be trembling numb. Kakyoin's voice is there, vaguely; he knows there are words said, and knows what they mean, but he can't hold onto them long enough to work out what to do about it. It's like his words have been stolen from him altogether; he knows he knew how to talk, once, but right now he can't quite connect between his mind and the rest of his body that way.

For a while, he just floats. Everything is silent, and the noises that are there seem to be foggy faded things on the far periphery of his comprehension. That's nice, for a while, until slowly the warmth in his body starts to fade, and the adrenaline leaves him behind, and a bad feeling starts to come over him, a deep and treacherous melancholy that starts to hang in the air like a looming shadow.

He's deep, deep in his own head. He needs to come back up.

Hierophant is still inside him, he thinks hazily, and tries to say his name, tries to ask for his help, tries to beg him to wrap around him like a tether and draw him back in the right direction.

In the real world, he makes the faintest, thinnest sound.]

[ It makes absolutely no sense that Hierophant should be able to reach out from inside Jotaro and coil around his limbs and lift him. He does. It's a slow, winding process. Kakyoin stops stroking his hip and starts to carefully ease each limb from its restraint, and Hierophant carefully coils around them until Jotaro is in his arms and not the machine's.

He speaks a few more times as he lays the blanket down on the couch, lets Hierophant lie Jotaro on top of it. Nothing important. Just voice noises. Little breadcrumb words for Jotaro to follow home. Hierophant uncoils from Jotaro and drops something next to Kakyoin before it crawls back home.

Jotaro makes a noise at him. He smiles. Sits on the floor next to the couch, so they're about at eye level. Strokes over Jotaro's face, fingertips pausing at his lips. ]

Can you manage some water? He can help you take the painkillers, but you'll have to drink the water yourself.

[ He's perhaps not as good at this as Adrian is. All practical concerns before emotional ones. Water. Blanket. The packet of painkillers Hierophant just dropped next to him. All of them are things that need to be dealt with first, gotten out of the way before he can fuss too much rather than things to be eased toward. ]

[It's somewhere in here, probably, that Adrian appears in the doorway for a moment, summoned by that slightest of sounds from Jotaro's throat and all but compelled by his nature and his adoration to come and check on him. It's enough for him, though, to see that Kakyoin has their mutual boyfriend well-tended, and so he lingers there only a moment before slipping away again, back to resume his own devices while keeping a careful ear in the main room's direction like before.

The couch is soft. Softer than the cushions had been, or maybe just soft in a different way. Kakyoin's voice helps ground him a little; the touch helps ground him a great deal more. Fingers trace around his face and find their way to his lips, and he can just barely gather the strength and presence of mind to close his lips slightly around them, a faint sucking motion that might be just as much muscle memory as it is a conscious thought.

Words slowly start to take shape again. Water makes him think of how dry his throat feels, or maybe it's just rough from all the noise he'd been making before. Pills mean swallowing. Both of those things mean he has to get up from where he's been placed, and just the thought of trying to move right now seems all but insurmountable.

Maybe he could open his eyes. It wouldn't be dark behind his eyes. There'd be things to see and perceive and think about.

Maybe he can just take the slightest look.

His eyelashes tremble, long and wet, as his brow furrows just a fraction and he tries to make his eyes slide open. They're about a quarter of the way when he catches a glimpse of red and thinks oh, Kakyoin.

Jotaro. That's right. He's Jotaro. And there's Kakyoin, and Hierophant, and Star —

Remembering Star is all that it takes for his Stand to fade into being at the side of the couch, looking fussy and doting and ready to serve his exhausted master's every need, and after a moment he seems to act on that very desire — reaching for Kakyoin's hand, moving it from Jotaro's mouth to the top of his head and shaking it slightly, guiding him to ruffle Jotaro's damp, sweat-sticking curls.]

[ It's cute. Charming. A little bratty (he thinks, as if he isn't actively keeping his own stand shoved inside Jotaro), the way Star picks up his hand and relocates it. It's in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, and so Star just resolves the problem. Puts it in the write place. Makes it do the right thing. It's so simple.

Also, wrong. Because no amount of stroking Jotaro's hair will result in him consuming adequate hydration.

He combs through Jotaro's hair anyway, though. Pulls his fingers through clumps of damp hair, separating strands from each other. They cling to each other with the sweat, and the slight resistance makes them feel thicker. Denser. He keeps it up for a moment, then wriggles his hand free of Star's. ]

Water first. [ And then again, looking up toward Star, only a little sternly. ] Water first.

[It's good, the hand in his hair. It's what he craves, affection and attention and contact in a careful, moderated fashion. He's still so sensitive that he can't handle much yet without risking getting overwhelmed, but by the same token he thinks he'll die a little if Kakyoin doesn't touch him and stay touching him.

Good boy, Star. Star is helping. Star knows how to take care of him, too.

It makes him sigh — his first semi-verbalization yet. Kakyoin wants him to drink water, he thinks vaguely, and feels the fog around his mind clear a little more as he's roused into just one more sliver of awareness. His throat hurts. Water would be cool and fresh, and would clear the thickness from it.

His eyelashes flutter. He draws in a breath and sighs again, more deliberate this time, trying to shape it into an affirmative sound and only just barely succeeding.]

I knew you could do it.

[ His eyes remain on Star as he rakes his fingernails lightly over Jotaro’s scalp. See? He’ll be nice. He’ll take care of Jotaro. Of both of them. Water is just also important. It’s as much a promise as anything else when the pads of his fingers replace nails, pressing into skin just slightly.

His other hand picks up the pills that Hierophant brought for him. He pushes two out of their film. Hierophant reaches out from Jotaro’s mouth again and he drops the two pills into its waiting arm. Lets it curl around them and carry itself back inside Jotaro, carrying the painkillers with it. The water comes next, cool and clear as he raises the glassto Jotaro’s lips. ]

[It's such a surreal feeling, having one of Hierophant's tentacles literally just...ferry a couple of painkillers straight down his throat and into his stomach, without any necessity of swallowing of his own volition. It's likewise surreal that it keeps crawling out of his mouth like that, like he's the host to some kind of weird noodle alien, which on second thought is exactly what he is, but that doesn't make it any less weird.

Drinking, while lying down, isn't easy. Doing it without wanting to move his head is even harder, when he's also trying not to spill it all over the couch. Star frowns at them, then zips off to parts unknown; when he returns, it's with a bendy straw in tow.

Fuck, he's so tired. His whole body hurts. It's strange bliss to just hold perfectly still in a comfortable position and not move, lest something twinge and another ache spring up again.

Meanwhile, Star offers the straw to Kakyoin, watching intently through big eyes and dilated pupils.]

[ He keeps his hand in Jotaro's hair while he tries to drink. Not moving, not while it could distract him from the monumental task of it, but there. present. He's here. He's here.

He almost removes it to take the straw from Star. Almost, but Being under Star's gaze reminds him why it's there in the first place, and he puts down the glass instead. Takes Star's hand in his now-free one, brings it up to his lips before taking the straw. ]

Thank you.

[ He pauses for a moment as he puts the straw into the water, then looks up again, patting the floor next to him before he picks up the glass again and sets to work bringing it to Jotaro's lips. Hierophant is observing. There's no reason why Star can't, too. ]

Do you want to stay here? So you can tell me how to do it right.

[ Which is an uncomfortable admission of the fact that he might do something wrong, but it means that Star can have a defined task. An easy one. Just watch. Just watch and if he needs to be touching or not touching or anything else, just move his hands to where they ought to be. ]

[Exhausted and pliant and suggestible as he is, it feels good to try to reach for a drink, even if he originally isn't altogether that successful at it. It will be good for him, yes, but it's also what Kakyoin wants him to do. It's best when those two things align, at a time like this. It means he doesn't have to think about which reason holds more control over him; either way, the outcome is the same.

He gets his lips wet, mostly, and a little makes its way into his mouth, but it isn't until Kakyoin guides the straw up to his lips that he really gets a proper drink, and moans softly around the thin plastic from how good it feels to have the cool liquid rinsing his mouth and running down the back of his throat.

Obediently, he sips and sips, while Star settles in next to Kakyoin and watches them both intently. Jotaro still isn't sure he could make words even if he tried to, but Star didn't need words to divine his needs, and he'll make sure Kakyoin understands them if they appear, so it's all right.

It feels strange, not being fucked after so long of that just being a given status that he'd almost started taking for granted. Every so often his hips twitch back, just a fraction, like they're still trained to rock back into a stimulus that's no longer there.

Ora, Star pronounces solemnly, and pets against his side, his ribs, his shoulder, his hair. Star has the benefit of knowing exactly how Jotaro wants to be touched, even when he doesn't precisely know what he wants himself.

It feels good, and he sips his water, and slowly, at great length, he opens his still-glassy eyes.]

IC Inbox | prismatica

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