[There's a while where Jotaro doesn't speak, and Giorno doesn't expect him to. It's not as though they have anywhere else to be; it's not as though he's got anything more important to do right now, or ever, than protect his famiglia. Sometimes quiet is a kind of protection - this he's learning from Bruno, a lesson he feels he should have learned earlier, and from Jotaro, who is always teaching him something.]
[What he does in the silence is stand steady. He knows himself well enough to be aware that's something he does well, something people value him for. He wants to be valued, but more than anything else he wants to be that pillar of support. He wants to help, because that is the most direct way he knows to love people - personally and impersonally, in the micro- and macrocosm.]
[He's pretty sure there isn't anything more important than that - love and the good things that can come from love. And in this realm of the-most-important-thing-that-is, Jotaro is one of the most important things.]
[Sometimes it's baffling that he doesn't see that, how vital he is, how necessary, how much. But sometimes a friend's role is to be a mirror and nothing more. This is something else Giorno has learned.]
[So for a few minutes, he lets himself focus out into the trees. His attention, forcefully gentle as always, doesn't return to Jotaro entirely until he speaks.]
[Three words. Aren't they important ones, too.]
It's like those pictures, the ones that are from very close up, so you can't tell what they are. It looks like the center of the sun, explosions on top of explosions, but it's a dragonfly's eye. Something tiny and insignificant. That's what it is, looking at a human life for a month, or two, or three.
I believe that he is. I believe - there are little, tiny signs that say he's starting to question power as a pure ideal, as what he wants. I believe the less scared he is, the more truth he hears, the more he will be able to heal, the safer he'll be from scarring.
But I can't . . .
[For half a second, he buries his face in Jotaro's sleeve. Half a second is all it takes to pull himself together again.]
I can't promise anything. I'm not him. I haven't lived his life. I just know - what it means to want power, so that no one else can ever hurt you again. It's not about the power, in the end. It's about being safe, and everything else comes after.
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[What he does in the silence is stand steady. He knows himself well enough to be aware that's something he does well, something people value him for. He wants to be valued, but more than anything else he wants to be that pillar of support. He wants to help, because that is the most direct way he knows to love people - personally and impersonally, in the micro- and macrocosm.]
[He's pretty sure there isn't anything more important than that - love and the good things that can come from love. And in this realm of the-most-important-thing-that-is, Jotaro is one of the most important things.]
[Sometimes it's baffling that he doesn't see that, how vital he is, how necessary, how much. But sometimes a friend's role is to be a mirror and nothing more. This is something else Giorno has learned.]
[So for a few minutes, he lets himself focus out into the trees. His attention, forcefully gentle as always, doesn't return to Jotaro entirely until he speaks.]
[Three words. Aren't they important ones, too.]
It's like those pictures, the ones that are from very close up, so you can't tell what they are. It looks like the center of the sun, explosions on top of explosions, but it's a dragonfly's eye. Something tiny and insignificant. That's what it is, looking at a human life for a month, or two, or three.
I believe that he is. I believe - there are little, tiny signs that say he's starting to question power as a pure ideal, as what he wants. I believe the less scared he is, the more truth he hears, the more he will be able to heal, the safer he'll be from scarring.
But I can't . . .
[For half a second, he buries his face in Jotaro's sleeve. Half a second is all it takes to pull himself together again.]
I can't promise anything. I'm not him. I haven't lived his life. I just know - what it means to want power, so that no one else can ever hurt you again. It's not about the power, in the end. It's about being safe, and everything else comes after.