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rubycity_rp | I
. . . Yare yare. What is it? Hurry up and say something already.
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[OOC: Contact through any format is fine, including action as you see fit!]
IC Inbox |
. . . Yare yare. What is it? Hurry up and say something already.
⇦ ● ⇨
[OOC: Contact through any format is fine, including action as you see fit!]
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[It would be easier, much easier, if he said he couldn't imagine how awful it must be. But that would be a lie. He can imagine it easily. It's not something he lives with every day anymore, but he knows it, he'll always know it, it'll never be something he can live without. He thought for a while that he could escape it, but no. It will always be just out of sight at best.]
[That is what it is. He doesn't have to live in the thick of it anymore, at least. Dio does. Dio who's surrounded by people who hate him, who knows that someone in this city killed him once, who can't know who it was, can't protect himself because these shadowy strangers must be protected first.]
[After a moment's pause, a moment's observation, he takes a step to the side, so he's standing in the periphery of Jotaro's vision.]
Would you like to walk? It's very cold.
[And it's hard, standing still like this. Hard to think, hard not to explode.]
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[His hands go deeper into his pockets, instinctively burrowing down into Giorno's borrowed scarf at the mention of the cold.]
...How often do you talk to him, Giorno?
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[Something in his expression flickers. It's not guilt. Something else, but he doesn't know what himself.]
Every few days.
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[That's easy enough; the path is long since familiar by now, and the navigation even without it isn't difficult. He turns in the direction of the beach and starts forward, conscious of his own stride so he doesn't end up forcing Giorno to hurry along at his side trying to keep up.]
...I'm not going to ask what you talk about.
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[It's natural to fall into step behind Jotaro; it feels like the safest thing that's gone down in this forest tonight. He isn't afraid of Jotaro, what he said was the truth, but nothing about the rest of this is easy.]
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[He sighs, ducking his head.]
I'd rather just believe in you. I don't want to know.
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[So briefly, he brushes his fingers against Jotaro's sleeve. I'm here.]
You're worried that someone else is going to make you unsafe?
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[He stops short, hesitates. After a minute, he starts again, lower and more ragged than before.]
"You push past your limits. You could be on the verge of death and still stand back up. You're self-sacrificing; how you expect to protect anyone like that is beyond me. You're closed off. You don't let anyone get close to you. You go out of your way for other people and never do anything for yourself."
There's somebody here who knows me, a decade in the future. That's what he said I'm like, when he knows me. And on days like today...I feel like that guy he described. Not the one I've been trying so damn hard to be instead.
But all that guy can think about is how...nothing is safe. Least of all him, and the people he cares most about.
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[That makes sense. For the first time, he feels like Jotaro really does understand what it's like, having the specter of a nebulous future self always dogging your steps. His is not evil, not the way Giorno could be; he could never see Jotaro taking the nosedive he can always feel in himself, just around the corner. But there's someone worse, someone who doesn't care about himself, someone who is always afraid.]
You're working so hard. You don't want it all to be in vain. You want to be someone that you can be proud of. Ho ragione?
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[...]
Sometimes not wanting to know is as much to protect myself as anything else.
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[That's something he can understand. But at the same time--]
[He tugs on Jotaro's sleeve, more urgently this time.]
If you killed him, I think it would have the same result. You wouldn't feel safe from yourself.
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Because I'm not a killer?
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Because you're not a killer. Because you want to be someone with a life, not someone who takes lives. Because you're afraid of being like him.
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...Am I doing it again? Throwing myself away, for the sake of the goal? ...I am...that's just a different way of killing myself to win, isn't it...
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[The answer is obvious, anyway.]
Killing part of yourself that matters to you is another way of killing yourself. That's what I think.
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[He ducks his head, gaze listing to one side before wandering back into Giorno's direction.]
What do you think I should do? I'm not...I'm not going to kill anyone. What do I do instead? Just...act like it's nothing?
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[Which is not precisely an answer, but also is. It means thank you.]
[He shakes his head decisively.]
Not that. Definitely not that. That's how you become Bruno.
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[Which is a subject change, there's no denying or disguising that, but it's also the natural thing to ask. Bruno is important, but his understanding of Bruno has also evolved in the time that he's known the man. He's still a unique and guiding presence, but lately he's grown to understand how that's only part of the equation that is Bruno, too.]
Sometimes it feels like...the only Jotaro I really know how to be, deep down, is the wrong Jotaro. It's easier to be the wrong one than the right one.
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[Worrying about everyone right now, really. This - he doesn't like that word, wrong.]
What does that mean, "wrong"?
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[But.]
It's...I guess, solving the problem first and worrying about the consequences afterward. That's wrong, when the consequences involve hurting myself. I don't know why it's still so easy, telling myself "it doesn't matter, I don't matter, so long as..." whatever.
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[This time he doesn't hesitate, just slides his arm around Jotaro's waist and leans into him, fierce and firm, his gaze unyielding.]
I know why it's easy. Because when you have to fight for your life, it gets burned into your bones. What you're doing now is healing. It's hard. It's much harder than fighting.
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[He's right, isn't he? Healing, that's what this is. Sometimes setbacks are a part of healing, a re-broken bone or a scab that comes off too early. Things can be healed and still show scars. A setback in the process isn't the same thing as confirmation that it'll never close over.
Absently, he thinks of Giorno's hands glowing gold, and the tree he'd pierced with the knife. Healing. It doesn't just come from his Stand, does it, but from his understanding, too.]
I...want to ask you something, but I'm. I'm.
[...]
...I'm scared. Of the answer.
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That's okay. You're allowed to be scared. And you can take your time asking, too. Nothing bad is going to happen.
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That's the second problem. He doesn't know how to heal from them, or how to try to combat them without fighting.
That and the fact that even now they're still heading toward the beach, and therefore the sound of the surf, it leaves him thinking of Hamon, the training he hasn't been doing. Another failure.
But that was a day of being set to complete tasks that he didn't know how to fulfill, and his setbacks were never failures. Just start over from the beginning, and try again.
His breathing evens out, and grows rhythmic and steady. He can't Hamon breathe and hold a conversation, but Giorno gave him free license to take his time, so he'll use it. Start at the beginning, and calm down first. He's allowed to be scared. He's allowed to take his time.
The warmth of the sun is right here next to him. All he has to do is pull it under his skin.]
...
[It's only three words. Three words aren't hard.
He lets his circling breath go, and forms them carefully, one at a time.]
Is...Dio healing?
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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.
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