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[starmark]

. . . Yare yare. What is it? Hurry up and say something already.



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[starmark]

[Polnareff will forgive him, he tells himself, as he stops time.

There are probably less...extreme methods that he could use in order to get Jolie to relinquish something she's playing with, but the truth is that as extreme as it may be, it's also in some ways the simplest. Time stops, everything stops, and she has no recourse as he carefully pries her tiny paws off of Polnareff's earring, and shifts it slightly to relieve some of the tension on his lobe, and then picks her up and moves her away and out of reach. He's learned to put something else in her paws in the meantime to make the change less disorienting on her; she won't know what's just happened, but she'll still have something to bat around, and maybe to some degree that's all she'll care about.

Polnareff might care about this a lot more, but — this is a part of him, he reminds himself firmly, to help ward off the initial stirrings of apprehension that are beginning to tighten in his stomach. He uses it on his own terms. He does it for good reasons. This helped, it helped, he's not a monster.

Hopefully it'll stay that way when —

Time resumes.

In quite literally no time at all, the world has changed; Jolie has moved about a foot and a half higher on the bed toward the pillows, and there's nothing pulling on Polnareff's earring anymore, and there's a toy in her paws instead of a half-heart, and Jotaro is looking...well, slightly wearier and more worn out than before.

Magic.]

[silvercrusader]

[He doesn't realize, at first. He can't see, he just knows one moment there was something yanking on his ear and then there wasn't. He sits up, and Jolie is over there, and Jotaro looks weirdly tired, and--

Oh.

It's a stupid trick. It's just like any other ability of Star's; it's no worse than his punching things or his weird ability to draw or whatever. And Polnareff believes that, he really does, but--

At the same time, not two weeks ago, he can remember Dio, appearing and disappearing at will. He can remember the hopelessness he'd felt when watching from above; the thought that how can we possibly fight this, because his ability was beyond anything they'd ever faced. He remembers the utter malicious stupidity of trying to climb those damn stairs-- and oh, how Dio must have laughed as he stopped time and manipulated Polnareff, because for him time meant nothing, it was nothing, and people were just things to be moved around as he deemed fit, and--

And here's Jotaro, and Jolie is moved away, something shiny in her hands, and it's just a little too similar for his comfort.]

Thanks.

[--but then again-- and he looks at Jotaro, at his stupid hat and his mussed up hair and his carefully stern expression-- it's not the same at all. Because all Jotaro had done was help. He could have done so much more, even in the name of fucking around with Polnareff-- but he hadn't. He'd just-- he'd helped. And maybe that's all that really matters.

So he smiles, after a moment, and wrinkles his nose at the otter.]

After gel, next thing I'm gonna have to buy is some new types of earrings. No more dangling shit.

[starmark]

...Sorry.

[It falls out of his mouth, pretty much instantaneously, because he just knows. Of course he knows, and he hates it, but that's what makes it all the more important to say it, right? Because he used to just assume that people would know, and then they didn't, and that's why sometimes you have to say it.]

Normally I say something before. So it's not just...no warning.

[The corollary, though, doesn't quite make it out: She was hurting you, I didn't want her hurting you an instant longer than she already had, not if I could do something to stop it.

He casts Polnareff an unusually vulnerable look, just for a second, and then lets his attention slide to his otter as well.]

Just be more careful. The dangling shit looks good.

[silvercrusader]

[He offers him half a smile-- reassuring, a little nervous, but ultimately fond. It's okay, and it really is. A warning would have been nice, but at the same time, Jotaro had simply reacted, eager not to see Polnareff in pain. So it's fine.]

Yeah, yeah--

[He tugs out his earrings, shoving them into his pocket. He's not about to risk his ears again, thank you, even if Jolie is currently entirely focused on her new toy.]

Oi, pelts aside, what do you trade?

[starmark]

...Work, usually. I'm good at it, so.

[Three guesses what kind of work the 6'5" refrigerator-like teenager gets drafted to do around here. Which is sort of sad if you think about it, but hey, it puts food on the table and gets the job done.]

Food is free, though. Nobody really polices the grocery or anything.

[silvercrusader]

[Well, all right, that's not so hard. He doesn't mind doing some labor work in exchange for shit.]

Why? I mean, that's great, yeah, but it seems like it'd fall apart in like three days.