starmark | IC Inbox | rubycity_rp

Ti voglio molto bene, Jotaro.

[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.

Is he still doing that?

[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.

He's . . . better than I expected. But he made me promise not to bother him until it was time, so I'm respecting him while worrying.

[Worrying about everyone right now, really. This - he doesn't like that word, wrong.]

What does that mean, "wrong"?

He told me I could check in on him once in a while. I said I wouldn't push, so long as he'd let me do that much. He gets to set the pace.

[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.

That doesn't make you wrong, Jotaro. It's a wrong thing to do, but there's no wrong version of you. A sadder one, maybe.

[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.

...Yeah.

[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.

[That makes him look up further, lean back a little bit to take in the entirety of Jotaro's expression. His friend, his brother, scared. His important person, admitting he's scared. He's never met anyone so brave in his life.]

That's okay. You're allowed to be scared. And you can take your time asking, too. Nothing bad is going to happen.

[He's trying not to tense up, and at first it's obvious that he's fighting the urge to, not least of which because Giorno is so close and so thoroughly in contact with him. He's not sure when it changes; maybe it's when he realizes that what he's doing is fighting, and it's just that this time he's fighting his own impulses instead of trying to heal from them.

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?

[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.

...When I say I trust you...

[He's slow, when he begins, not so much choosing his words carefully as simply taking his time with the thoughts; it's a subtle difference, but on Jotaro it's an obvious one, particularly to someone who knows him so well. Words wouldn't come easily, whether he was trying to craft them or not. As it is, he feels burned-out and tired, with ache already ringing his eyes like the dark circles he suspects he'll have in the morning.]

I never...expect promises. Certainties, I mean. It's not about being infallible.

[He pulls Giorno a little tighter; it's strange how he almost feels like an impostor like this, a little kid playing at being an adult, in a too-big body to match.]

What I mean is...I trust that you'll tell me what you honestly believe. And that when you act, it'll be on honest belief. I might not ever be able to see him differently than I do. You might do things differently than I would. Maybe I'll disagree with them, even, but...

...I don't know what's right. I know what I think is right. And I trust you, always, to do what you believe is right. So...at least if we're all trying, one of us will probably get to it. Even if it's not me.

I believe in you. And I believe...that you think, that there's no version of "right" that involves me getting hurt. So...

[It's not about being infallible.]

[That's a wonderful kind of statement. Awe-inspiring, really. Isn't that what he's supposed to be - perfect, so that no one else has to be? So that other people can make mistakes and it won't ruin everything? He must be perfect, or everything falls apart.]

[So this - it's not about being infallible - it makes him gust out a sigh, easy to disguise as Jotaro pulls him close, and he thinks it must be so difficult to be Jotaro, to give comfort to someone who's chosen to lead when you haven't chosen it yourself. He clings tightly to the sleeve of his gakuran and buries his face in it and thinks if I had been there no one would have gotten hurt except for me.]

[It's a guilty thing to think. But if he could pull all of that weight off of Jotaro's shoulders . . . some days he feels like he should. Some days he feels like he could be Atlas.]

There isn't one.

[He says this fiercely, pressing himself tight against Jotaro's side, refusing to be forgotten or ignored.]

There's no reality where you getting hurt is right. So I won't allow it. I don't allow wrong things to happen anymore.

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