starmark | IC Inbox | rubycity_rp

...That first night, he told you I saved his life, remember? So I'm not really telling you anything you haven't heard before. He came after me, I kicked the shit out of him, I took him back to show Jiji and tell him I'd been attacked. That's when we found the thing that was controlling him.

[...]

They said they couldn't do anything. He was just...lying there and they were all just standing around saying "well, that's it, it's going to kill him, he's going to die." It...wasn't right. It pissed me off.

[Funny how "it pissed me off" is so frequently verbal shorthand for "it made me feel something intensely", but so it goes, and he's tossing his pudding cup from hand to hand now, trying to keep himself grounded with the motion.]

I didn't even know if I could do it, but I knew I couldn't just sit there and do nothing. So Star took it out. I remember it went up my arm toward my brain, too, but...anyway, he took it out.

[Around his pudding, face still partially covered in chocolate goo, Star offers a quiet ora.]

But the first words out of his mouth, once he was awake, were, "why did you do that." He was on his knees, he had bandages around his head, and he was looking up at me like he was going to get up and fight me, even then. Like if I dared to look down on him, he'd get up and knock my teeth in.

And I thought, someone like that...the last thing he'd want is to think that I'd pitied him. Or that I was full of myself with righteousness, like I thought I was better for sparing my enemy and wanted him to make sure he knew it. So I just...didn't. Didn't really answer. I thought that was at least a little kinder than rubbing it in, or whatever.

...I didn't know anything about him then. I didn't know it'd end up being as important as it was.

[It takes him a moment. It takes him a moment, and then it clicks, and Giorno bites down hard on his spoon. Shit indeed.]

[Why did you do that?]

So. He didn't know, and . . . not knowing meant the only way to keep you was to do the same thing.

[He's tempted to take Jotaro's hand then, because he can, because he's here. Instead, he turns so that he's walking on Jotaro's other side, on Star's other side, and takes the Stand by the wrist and places the rest of his pudding into his hand, then links arms with him and walks for another moment or two in silence.]

All right. I'm going to tell you, even though I said I wouldn't. I think it's important.

He said that the reason he relates to you is because you're the first one who could ever see Hierophant. [A beat.] Because you saw his soul and you believed in it and you accepted it. You before anyone else.

So yes, I think you're right. I think he was afraid. I think he would have done anything to keep you close. But I also think that you made him feel validated and normal and sane. And loved. And that means a lot.

...Yeah. Stuff he's said before, it makes a lot more sense now. Why he worried about keeping up, why it was always about...usefulness. Because you keep useful things as long as they're useful, and that's something he did know how to do.

[It had to be you. Your Stand was the only one that could've forced his hand, it had to b—

He doesn't even notice he's slowing down until he's a half-step away from being at a halt, momentarily lost in thought because there's one natural place that logic like that leads, one very obvious connection that puts together Point A and Point B — and he knows there are other points between them, vital ones, things that make a difference, but for a moment there's only two, and the line that connects them is it was how he could be useful.

That really isn't right, is it.

It's just not right. "Useful" isn't enough, it isn't nearly enough.

And he still doesn't know how it is he's supposed to go about this whole...everything, whatever this is, what he's asked for this extra time to consider, but there's one thing he's certain about now, and it's that if he accomplishes nothing else in his life, he's damn well going to convince Kakyoin that what he is, what he means, is worlds above and beyond "useful".]

So I need to tell him, flat-out, what it takes to keep me. He needs to understand it, or he'll be too worried about losing it to just accept it.

[LOOK AT HIM GO OH MY GOD LOOK AT HIM GO]

[It's easy to slow down when Jotaro does, to stop when he stops, to give him the space he needs. It's easy because it's something that Giorno is good at, giving people what they need, but it's also especially easy with Jotaro because of how much Jotaro has been willing to give him.]

[It's easy, too, because what's being said is easing the tight knot of worry in his chest a little bit. Jotaro is smart, but not in the way Kakyoin is smart - that is, sometimes he stumbles over his own emotions, but he doesn't tie himself up in knots thinking about every possible awful scenario. He sees what's happening, and he thinks about what should be happening, and he tries to bridge the gap.]

[Giorno leans his head against Star Platinum's arm and nods, small and solemn and serious.]

That's exactly what you need to tell him.

. . . I think what it is, really, is that sometimes people think they're speaking the same language when they're not. They're exchanging messages written in code, and every single person has his own particular cipher. So you have to give that away sometimes, if you want people to understand and feel safe. You need to give him that.

I can do that.

[And it's a statement that comes with surprising confidence, and a sort of easy finality; it's important, so he's going to make it happen. Some things in life are like that — when you absolutely can't afford to lose, you cheat, but when your confidence in your success is absolute, there's no need to.

It's liberating, really. It's something he can do, a direction to pursue, instead of just wandering blindly and hoping that maybe he's fumbling his way toward doing something right.

And while he's thinking about this, Star Platinum appears fairly content with the new buddy he has acquired, and offers him a pudding-toothed grin that coincides with the exact moment that Jotaro seems to Get It™.

As the moment passes, he starts walking again, just enough to be a suggestion without leaving Giorno behind, and at length he offers up a new thought.]

...So. Is that why you feel safe when I'm around — because you've figured me out?

[Star Platinum is not the cutest Stand. Sex Pistols is the cutest Stand. But Star is a pretty close second, and Giorno smiles up at him brightly and leans up to pat him on the shoulder.]

[They walk, then, although not quite as quickly as before; Giorno is feeling thoughtful rather than playful, more so when Jotaro asks that question. It's a little while before he answers, and when he does, it's slow, his words coming out as though he's still turning them over in his head as he says them.]

I don't . . . think so. I think I do have you figured out, at least mostly. That's not something I can . . . turn off, trying to figure people out. But.

Feeling safe around you is an instinct, not something I decided to do. I don't really know why it is. I just know that it is. I don't think I've ever decided to feel safe around someone just because I knew how they worked.

[Abbacchio is, in fact, an excellent example of this. He understands Abbacchio effortlessly. That doesn't mean he could ever trust him. Not like this.]

All I know is that I don't feel safe around that many people. So I'm glad you're here.

[That leaves Jotaro quiet a moment, thoughtful in his turn, like there's an invisible ball of self-reflection accompanying them in this conversation and they keep passing it back and forth between them. Whatever it is he's thinking about, though, the evidence of it isn't something he voices, but rather it's something demonstrated through Star Platinum — who, being largely left to his own devices for large parts of this conversation, has been given the rein to act more independently as a result, responding to Jotaro's unconscious moods and whims on his own.

This time, the response is more direct, more deliberate because it stems from Jotaro himself, passed along through to Star with an implication that his Stand, by nature, will obey.

And that's how Star ends up sinking down to the ground and hunkering over even lower, setting the pudding cups carefully on the ground long enough to free his hands and pat his broad, armored shoulders in silent invitation.

It'd been a joke once before, hadn't it? Want to sit on his shoulders, and be lord of all you see?

He can't claim to have Giorno figured out nearly as well as Giorno probably has him, he has to concede to himself. But there are some things, educated guesses, little niches — who's been telling you things about me? — and the fact that Star has pudding on his teeth at all is just one more ounce of reinforcement that Giorno is someone who doesn't back down, from a bluff or from a challenge, and when you know that, figuring him out gets a little easier.

Not a subordinate, but a friend; so, there's space to set authority aside, and be a sixteen-year-old kid for a little while, too.]

[Maybe it doesn't matter so much where Jotaro ends and Star begins. That doesn't mean Giorno isn't curious - of course he's curious. That's one of those things he got in spades no matter which side of the coin you look at. He likes to look at things and see how they work, what makes them function and what makes them fail, how to keep them running and how to knock them down.]

[He likes to look at things and figure them out so that he can control them. But he's learned, too, that he likes to figure things out for the sake of understanding them - sometimes for the sake of making them happy.]

[Gradually, he's learning that sometimes other people have the same impulse in his direction: they want to figure him out for the sake of making him happy.]

[There's one moment, one single slim moment, when he hesitates. What resonates through his head is Don Giovanna wouldn't-- But that's easy to discard, easier, maybe, than it should be. Don Giovanna is him, but he isn't always Don Giovanna. Which means that sometimes he can do stupid things or fun things or frivolous things, and it's all right.]

[It doesn't change the fact that he fucked up and people died. But Narancia would punch him in the fucking face if he sat around crying about it, so he clambers up onto Star Platinum's shoulders significantly faster than might be expected and rests his chin on top of his hands on top of his head, curious and expectant.]

[Going from two or three feet off the ground up to the massive eight or nine that Star usually stands at is a dramatic change, a little bit like a runaway elevator hurtling skyward. Of course, it's the sort of thing that tends to necessitate hanging on to your passenger for support, which in turn poses a problem when you've got a bunch of pudding cups to haul up off the ground with you.

So what ensues is a balancing act worthy of a trained circus performer, in which Star shifts his pudding cups to rest delicately on the top of his foot, then hangs on steadily to Giorno and lifts with his knees and thighs to return to full height. Then, with painstaking precision, his weight shifts to one leg, and the one with the pudding cups balanced on it raises, sloooooowly elevating them up to where he can reach them and return them to the security of his hold.

...Because pudding is important, apparently.

The shoulder pads, at least, make for a wide and comfortable seat, and the ride is steady, with a very slight bob not unlike being perched on a horse.]

...So how's the view from up there?

[Jotaro is easy to talk to - shockingly easy - but the thing is that Jotaro is fun, too, and maybe Giorno didn't realize exactly how much of himself Jotaro keeps quiet until he saw Star Platinum's smug grinning face this evening, until he watches the perilous upwards journey of the pudding cups. Jotaro Kujo is a lot of fun, and maybe it's easy to have fun with him because in a lot of ways they are so similar. Different dreams, different lives lived, but they hold some of the same weights on their shoulders, family legacies and friends dead and buried.]

[Maybe that's why Star Platinum is so comforting to him, because he's an outward reflection of the things Giorno sees so clearly in Jotaro no matter how cleverly he tries to hide them. Maybe that's why he leans perilously over Star's head now and reaches down for the pudding cups, his voice quiet and almost identical in tone to when he said Mrs. Kujo, please sit down.]

Give me those, you don't have to carry them.

[It's only after a distracted pause that he glances up - or, well, down - at Jotaro again, and smirks.]

Not so bad. I can see the ocean from here. Maybe we should go that way.

[. . . and while Jotaro is distracted, Gold Experience slips up quietly behind him, snags his hat, and puts it on, then zips around to the other side of Star Platinum.]

Sure, we can go th— what the hell?!

[...This is getting to be an unusual trend lately, this business of snatching his hat off of his head as one facet of a conspiracy to surprise him.

(It's sort of funny; it still makes him think of N'doul sometimes, just idly — you managed to knock my hat off, he'd offered, like there was a compliment disguised in the exasperation. N'doul preoccupies his thoughts a lot when he's around Giorno, he's starting to notice, because he can never quite decide if Giorno would take his existence as a comfort or as a horror, what he would think about words like he had honor, I sort of liked him, what he would do with the knowledge that there were people who followed Dio out of respect and admiration and who called him a savior alongside their fear.)

Suffice to say, though, his hair's not looking much for the better with the hat snatched off; it's rumpled and a little fluffy, like he'd washed it earlier before replacing his hat (which he had), so the curls are matted in places and askew in all directions, and with no more brim in place to hide part of his face, the narrowing of his brows is a lot more pronounced.]

...You're not getting away with wearing my hat, too.

[He complains, but the telling point is in the fact that his crabbiness never manages to reach Star's own demeanor, because the Stand in question is already preoccupied with handing up the pudding as bidden and licking his mighty lips to get some of the excess mess off.]

[It would just be strange, mostly. Giorno isn't foolish enough to believe for a moment that what his father had could be called honor, but there are different ways to be a savior and not all of them are good. Savior, after all, only means removing someone from a bad situation, not necessarily placing them in a better one. Removing the gang from Diavolo's influence did not, for example, mean that they necessarily would stay alive.]

[Which just goes to show that he is more preoccupied with his own qualities as a leader than with Dio's at the moment, focused on the nagging absence at his side where Bruno should be, an absence that will be with him for a little while, weeks if not months, trying to content himself with that, be patient, be patient. He channels his need for perfection and control into this, and his need to love something, too: he takes the pudding carefully from Star and holds it against himself with one arm while, with the other, he produces a handkerchief from some nearly-invisible pocket and leans back in to wipe at Star's mouth.]

I'm not wearing your hat. Anyway, what's this "getting away with"? You offered that I could get up here.

[He looks at Jotaro thoughtfully then, his attention momentarily drawn away from his Stand.]

. . . You look a lot younger with it off.

Are you babying him?

[What's weird about this moment is the recognition that he could stop it in an instant, if he thought about it hard enough. There's no question that Star will react instantly to his will, be it conscious or subconscious. But if he doesn't exercise that right, and leaves things open instead, it's a more permissive state of affairs — and that's where he finds his relationship with Star to still be new and uncertain, because when he gives Star leave to act with autonomy, his Stand will still sometimes surprise him...

But maybe that's not so strange, either, because sometimes people discover things about themselves that surprise them, too, and it's only because circumstances had never otherwise brought it out.

But Star is and isn't him, his fighting spirit and his evil spirit, and so it's difficult and curious to try to draw lines around the way he engages with Giorno — when Star grins and he sulks, is that really opposing perspectives on the same situation, or one opinion with multiple layers?

Curious.]

...That's why I don't take it off.

[Among other reasons. Speaking of which, it's obvious bait, but he's got no reason not to take it — so he starts to advance on Gold Experience, rubbing absently at his mussed hair with one hand as he does so.]

[People are complicated. Stands are just a reflection of that complication. There are moments, more and more lately the more capable he gets of taking off and putting on Don Giovanna, that Gold Experience expresses the things he doesn't - subtly, of course, because they are still the same, after all, but sometimes it moves almost skittishly, and sometimes it stands over him protectively, and sometimes it curves its fingers over its mouth like its shy.]

[None of these things are happening now, as Giorno murmurs something wordless and folds his handkerchief back into his pocket. Gold Experience is just staring at Jotaro with its head cocked slightly, ready to move at a moment's notice.]

I didn't realize that cleaning was the same as babying.

[No, except he is 100% babying Star right now, and he's not sorry. Resting his chin on the Stand's head, he watches Jotaro advance on Gold Experience for a moment; he gets almost close enough to take the stupid hat back before Gold Experience hops backward to the very edge of its range.]

I think our range is the same, Jotaro.

At least you didn't lick it.

[This is what his life has become. He's playing Keep-Away with a Stand that could probably turn his hat into a baby seal on an instant's notice, and that would be nothing short of horrendous because he wouldn't in good conscience be able to ask for it to be changed back so he could have his hat again.

Giorno brings up a good point, though, and a curious one; if he's on top of Star, then what they've created is a circle with a perfect radius that this game can operate in, where Star and Giorno are center point and neither Jotaro nor Gold Experience can exceed the circumference that sets.]

Gold Experience is a close-range Stand? So about two or three meters, all told.

[Shall we compare the speed of our attack rushes?

No. Let's not, and compare the speed of our footwork instead, as he darts after Gold Experience again.]

. . . Why would I lick it? I don't think Stands can lie.

[All of Giorno's maternal instincts come from Bruno Buccellati. This is good in a lot of ways, and Really Weird in others.]

[Nevertheless, this is a good game. It's especially good because he knows he couldn't keep up with Jotaro physically himself, but this is almost the same thing, except he doesn't actually have to move, he can just observe. He pets Star's hair absently as Jotaro makes a dash for it; Gold Experience can go forward or to either side, but it can't go backwards anymore, so--]

[Well, the obvious solution is to run towards Jotaro with every apparent intention of crashing into him and then, at the last moment, plant one hand on each of his shoulders and leap over his fucking head.]

[And Star's.]

[And land on the other side.]

[Giorno hums and eats another spoonful of pudding.]

...The hell does licking have to do with —

[...It's hard to say what it is that actually makes him break off this time, Gold Experience's approach or the phantom sensation he can feel on the top back of his head, stroking down the line of his scalp even though there's nothing there and that's. Kind of weird, but not weird enough to distract him once GE launches like that.]

— holy shit.

[...He's got the wrong idea with ladybugs; that thing jumped like a grasshopper. He whirls, ending up facing Giorno because he and Star are currently between him and where GE landed, and just kind of blinks.]

...You ever jump like that while you're hanging on to him?

[He laughs a little bit, his smirk mostly hidden in Star Platinum's hair. Surprising Jotaro is his idea of a hilarious time, honestly. Gold Experience comes and peers over Star's shoulder.]

No, I don't think I have. I don't know if it would work, with the extra weight.

That's how Bruno tells if you're lying.

...You're telling me he has a lie detector tongue.

[So if he French-kissed Polnareff, would he be able to tell that he was lying about the toilet —

WOW, THAT TRAIN OF THOUGHT WENT TO WEIRD PLACES, TIME TO HURRY UP AND GET BACK TO THE PRESENT MOMENT]

I bet it'd work. When you're done up there, I'll show you something, but for now — here, have him do it again while I hang on.

That's right. That's how he knew I was lying when we met.

[Secrets Revealed. Gold Experience shuffles out from behind Star, standing shoulder to shoulder for a moment before slinking forward and dropping the hat back on Jotaro's head, then backing to the edge of its range again.]

All right. Ready?

...You know, I wouldn't have been fine with letting him lick me anyway, but thanks for the heads-up that I really shouldn't be, I guess.

[He absently replaces his hat back to its usual standard, then follows Gold Experience and examines it a minute, looking for the easiest way of hanging on to it and settling for hooking an arm around its neck and forming a triangle by gripping its opposite shoulder.]

Whenever you're ready, don't do anything special. Just have him jump; I'm betting he's strong enough to tow me just like this.

[This is sort of weird - less because he can phantom-feel Jotaro's arm around his own neck than because Gold Experience is big comparatively, but Jotaro is bulkier, and it doesn't really make physical sense that his Stand might be able to jump like this. Still, dubious as he is, trusting Jotaro is becoming almost frighteningly easy, so he just shrugs and focuses, maybe a little harder than usual.]

[So it's just a second or two before Gold Experience bends its knees slightly and leaps, and Giorno lets out a sound that's half-surprised and half-thrilled, because Jotaro was right. His Stand only moves maybe half as far, but it's still a lot more than he expected, and Gold Experience still lands light as a cat.]

[It is, admittedly, a little bit unsettling to be putting himself into the hands of Gold Experience like this, not because he distrusts Giorno at all but just because there are maybe two Stands in the multiverse that he would be completely at ease with when it comes to something like this, and Gold Experience simply isn't one of them.

But it's fun, in its own way, to go hurtling through the air in one of Gold Experience's grasshopper arcs, and he lands reasonably neatly as they come down, letting go a little bit early to drop back to his feet on his own.]

I thought so. It's a faster way of getting around, doing that kind of thing. Or if you have to get away from something in a hurry, that's a pretty good trick for a last resort.

That's so interesting . . .

[And he does legitimately sound fascinated, his voice and expression going a little distant as he considers the ways this could be useful to him. Somehow it never really came up - they were on the ground, mostly, and Aerosmith was their eyes in the sky. This, though - he could have used this.]

Can Star do that too?

...Star can go one better. No offense to Gold Experience.

[And the aforementioned giant purple punchghost takes that as his cue to tip his head way back to peer up at Giorno, a brilliant grin on his face.]

I can show you, but he'll have to put you down for a minute.

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