hierophany | Inbox

Yeah.

We can figure things out. The blood thing. Or the everything thing. Or we can just
Be a dog and bird.
Watching bad television.

I think that'd be okay, too.

[He comes home.

He's so fast as a vampire, even if it feels strange to move so quickly under his own power rather than calling on Star to assist him in it. Star isn't there, no matter how many times he calls, and sometimes that leaves him feeling lonely and hollow in a bittersweet way he can't quite articulate, but he knows his Stand is in good hands anyway. Adrian loves Star as much as he does. Star's okay. He's just not with him, but that's fine.

And fortunately he's made enough of a study of Adrian that he knows already what sort of powers he's got at his disposal. It didn't take him altogether long to figure out how to change into a wolf, or how to fly. He's already sort of familiar with his heightened senses because of Sanguis. He wasn't ready for the overpowering depths that his desire runs, but he was at least aware of it, capable of identifying it when it hit him.

He keeps scratching open his lip on his fangs. It keeps healing. It's strange.

He bounds up to the front door of their apartment in Lunatia and paws at it, as long and as heavy as an animal as he is as a human being, bumping and rattling at it just out of pure canine mischief until it's opened for him.]

[ Shirts really have been the most difficult part.

Doorways were tricky, too, and moving around without knocking things about, but he's used to having extra limbs waving around needing to be carefully manipulated lest they knock against things. It's been second nature for a long time. If he extends Hierophant's reach just beyond his wingspan, he can tell if he's in danger up bumping into things. But Hierophant can pass through cloth and the wings can't.

In the end he put on a button up backwards, doing the top few buttons and leaving the rest open. He still has the flesh-coloured band wrapped around his abdomen beneath it, but it's still- awkward.

Hierophant opens the door, because of course he does, but Kakyoin is still standing behind it, all feathers and slight bemusement, staring down at an actual fucking wolf that is apparently Jotaro. ]

I wouldn't have used Dog metaphors if I knew. Somewhat tasteless in hindsight.

[Here's the funny thing: at full extension, even like this, Jotaro is still a good half-foot longer than Kakyoin is — which means that when he primly gets up onto his hind legs, rests his forepaws on Kakyoin's shoulders, and bumps his furry head against the underside of Kakyoin's chin, it's just a reinforcement of how astonishingly big he is.

But it doesn't last long; he drops back down to the floor and trots inside without further implicit comment, hopping up onto the couch and settling down into a relaxed dog position like he owns it.

Which he does.

His eyes are still green, at least. And from the way that he's watching Kakyoin, it almost seems as though he's staying this way until he can gauge out Kakyoin's current feelings before shifting into something he expects to be more jarring than a friendly, albeit incredibly fucking large, canine.]

[ It's probably fucked up that instead of being alarmed, instead of questionning anything, he just leans his head down, resting it against Jotaro's stupid wolf head for the few seconds that he stays. Like he's so touch starved and pathetic that he's devouring everything he's given, even though he's had more human contact in the few weeks he's had here than he has in his entire life. It's not even probably fucked up.

But a lot of things here are fucked up and this doesn't even make the top ten, so he proceeds to begin the work of navigating how to use a couch. Sitting on it normally isn't happening, so he thinks for a moment before sitting sideways. Small of his back against the arm of the couch. Big stupid wings trailing off the side, knees tucked to his chest and arms wrapped around them, staring at Jotaro.

He doesn't seem entirely comfortable, but the bulk of that seems to come from his needing to arrange himself differently to account for being a swan. ]

I think it fucks me up more that it's possible for you to lose Star, to be honest. That seems like it shouldn't be able to happen.

[What a parody they make, the two of them. Kakyoin with his white wings and Jotaro with his black fur, gazing awkwardly at each other without knowing quite what to do. It's tempting to just stay this way, maybe put his muzzle down on his paws and just go to sleep, but he doesn't want to ignore Kakyoin when it feels like he's really talking, without pretenses and formalities.

And he can't talk while he's like this, so...

He's still not as graceful at making the change as Adrian is when he does it. Probably Adrian's had years more practice than he has, but he makes it look like an art form, a graceful leap into a transition from one shape to another. For Jotaro, it's just a spontaneous cloud of mist and a reorganizing of limbs, so that where there'd been a dog there's now a young man, still clad all in black, but now absent of fur.

He still hasn't figured out how Adrian manages to talk and smile in that way that disguises his fangs, either. As soon as he opens his mouth, they're going to show, and he sighs.]

I guess it's not as weird for me because I remember life without him. I spent most of my life without him, so it's just kind of...back to the way it was before. I guess.

[He can hear the blood in Kakyoin's veins. He can smell every bit of scent clinging to him. It's not polite to smell people but he can't help it any more than he could help hearing him without blocking his ears.]

...So.

[He says, while he's looking straight at Kakyoin, while he knows he'll see the glistening deadly fangs in his mouth.]

Are you afraid of me?

[ He looks at Jotaro, and he waits. For the taste of bile. For the air to leave the room. For the walls to close in. For his stomach to crack open and all the rotting food to spill out on the nice couch. For the chemicals in his brain to throw themselves at the wrong receptors and for the thing in front of him to be something more horrifying than a graceless collection of limbs and anxiety with too much bone in its mouth. He waits for memories to rush to fill that hole that's been left since the flesh bud was removed because maybe that's what will happen. Maybe he'll remember the things Dio said to him, remember what it feels like to be happy to act as fuel for the fire of something greater than you.

But it's just Jotaro with extra teeth, and he doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. His heart races when the change begins and then it starts to slow again. ]

Bet you can't do the cigarette thing with your mouth like that.

Bullshit. Just watch me, I'll —

[But then he stops, because he'd instinctively already turned over his hand like he'd expected something to happen, except that he doesn't smoke anymore and Star isn't there to fetch anything he asks for on an instant's whim, and it only just hits him afterward.

He can't blush, not without blood in him, but there's something sheepish in the way he turns his hand back over and tries to hide that he'd ever done it to begin with.]

...Sorry. Forgot I gave up the habit a while back. I don't have any in the house.

[Kakyoin's heart is beating. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but steady. He's alive, by some measure of aliveness. The sound reassures him, like a lullaby.]

So you can't do it, is what you're saying.

[ He leans forward as much as he can while sat like this, chest pressed against his knees. And he's smiling, and this is somehow the most normal that things have been in a while. As if things got so fucked up that it cycled right back to normal. ]

Sorry to disappoint you, but you're just you with weird teeth. I'm not scared.

[He smiled. He made Kakyoin smile. He can still make Kakyoin smile.]

I'm not going back out. Besides, the smoke probably smells horrible when I'm like this.

[...]

You are too, you know. Still you. Just weird.

It always smelled like shit.

[ That's a lie. He misses it, the smell of tobacco permeating fucking everything. It'd get into his clothes and make them feel like armour. It's probably best for Jotaro's lungs that he stopped, but it's bittersweet. No more stupid tricks. No more smoke particles getting stuck in things and turning them into steel. ]

'Weird'. Wearing odd socks is weird. I look fucking ridiculous.

[ But he sounds like he's already accepted it. He's a swan. That's a thing that's happening. He's a swan and Jotaro's a vampire and sometimes also a dog and Star's off stealing things for someone else for a while. ]

So. The- blood. Thing. Or I can explain- Okay, so I can't explain the plot of Moonstone Days to you, but I can tell you the parts I understand. It's the worst.

I'm — I'm not going to drink your blood.

[A normal person wouldn't notice it, but Kakyoin will, because he's Kakyoin, and Jotaro knows it. There's a very significant verb choice there, even if it's not overemphasized in any way — he's not going to, which is very different than whether or not he wants to.

Because he wants. He wants, he's so hungry, but it isn't even about the food because what it's really about is him. He may be a vampire now (or half of one) but it's not as though all of his memories of before have vanished, and he remembers exactly how it feels when Adrian's teeth sink into his neck. He remembers how he'd asked him for it, again and again. How he'd had to press and press and even then he still only got away with it once a month, and in moderation.

He doesn't have nearly the control that Adrian does. That didn't come with the abilities. And he doesn't know how to do it and be careful. He doesn't know how to do it and make it feel good.

And he won't do it because it's Kakyoin, and there are ten thousand other reasons why something like that is so egregiously off-limits. There's Adrian. There's Kakyoin. There's him. There's — Dio, Cairo, everything. He won't. He won't risk it.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to.]

I can go a month without needing it. It's — annoying, s'all. I'm not actually going to starve or anything.

More blood for me, then. Tell me if you have a change of plans.

[ He doesn't force the issue, because it's 'not going to', and there are forces in the universe that aren't worth fighting. Not wanting to or needing to, he would challenge. But Jotaro has declared the way that things are going to be. When that happens, that's how things are. ]

It's a trashy soap opera, but they're all foxes. Except for this one bear who lives on the outskirts of town - I think he's played by a famous actor? - he's also a fox, really, but he has a fat suit and one of those big rubber masks.

Yeah, well.

[He hesitates a moment, abruptly holding his breath, because something crossed his mind and in the old world, in the pre-Cairo world, he would've said it without hesitation but now he doesn't know, isn't sure, he's so afraid —

But Kakyoin isn't afraid of him, right? Kakyoin...Kakyoin wants it to feel like the old times, too, doesn't he?]

...Try keeping it inside you for a change. You're pretty shit at that.

[He sucks his lip behind his front teeth, biting it without letting his fangs get in the way, and hopes.]

[ He's taken aback, just for a second. He had his own safe backup conversation topic prepared and everything, but Jotaro just-

He laughs. Not the quiet, rehearsed, pleasant one but the stupid ugly one that feels like it comes up from parts of him that don't exist anymore and sounds like there should be some vocal sac under his chin expanding and contracting to shove out horrible noises. It's not even particularly funny. It'd have got a chuckle at best before Cairo. But right now it's-

-everything he needed. Because he can't pretend it didn't happen, not with Jotaro here. And the next best thing is to accept it. And this? This is the least painful way to accept anything. ]

Didn't Mr. Joestar say that it was unhealthy, keeping things bottled up inside you?

[ Okay so he PROBABLY didn't mean blood. ]

[It's the kind of joke they would've made back then. Maybe after Wheel of Fortune, when Jotaro'd left half his blood spattered all over the desert. Maybe after he'd taken a sword to the gut or Kakyoin had been slapped around by the High Priestess's tongue or any one of a million other ways they'd taken a beating and survived.

It's the kind of thing they'd say in the backseat of a car as they were falling asleep on each other. It's the kind of thing they'd say with fireglow warming their legs and knees.

All those times, they survived, and they'd made jokes about it. And Kakyoin didn't survive Cairo except here he is, breathing, alive enough to hear one of those same jokes and laugh.]

If Jiji said it, that's how you know it's wrong.

[But his lip trembles, behind his teeth, and after a second he's snorting a strangled laugh, too.]

[ Laughter releases endorphins. Painkillers. It forces the body to acknowledge that a situation is safe and triggers an end to the fight/flight/freeze impulses. It normalises a situation, makes it easier to acknowledge and then set aside the absurdity of the fact that events are happening and instead focus on dealing with them. It was the best thing any of them could have done for each other, back then.

It’s still the best thing, probably, and for a moment he’s laughing too much to respond. Laughing until his stomach hurts and he has to choose between calming down a little or curling around it in a way that- will probably seem alarming from the outside. Instead, he watches Jotaro’s mouth, the teeth inside it, and carefully tries to poke at himself to find where his boundaries actually are. ]

Not sure I’d- biting. Wouldn’t have been okay. In case you do change your mind.

[He doesn't get it at first, not for a minute. He's too busy laughing and then being delighted about the way Kakyoin is laughing, and then realizing offhand that he's too delighted about the way Kakyoin is laughing, and oh, there it is again, the vampire thing.

It's less that he actually feels the emotion and more that it surges through him like a torrent past a burst dam. He did good, he did good, look at him, he's happy, Kakyoin is happy, Kakyoin is laughing, he did that. It's euphoric and he wants to just — roll around in it, wrap himself up in it, he did good.

He feels so much when he's like this. Luckily he's able to come down from it quickly, too; he assumes that's the still-human side at work.]

...But you would've done it anyway. Biting. For me?

[It's not hard to guess; all of a sudden, he's sober again, and the emotion starting to build up behind the dam is concern.]

You would've done it anyway. If I wanted it. Because I wanted it.

There are other ways of getting blood out of people. I assume.

[ Except he’s second guessing himself now, because he doesn’t even remember how it worked for Dio and what if the biting part is important? ]

I- yeah? I mean, I can suck it up and deal with it if it’s important. You wouldn’t want it if it didn’t matter.

Yeah. You could cut your finger. It doesn't matter where it comes from.

[His gaze flicks briefly to the side, halfway between sheepish and bashful. The vampire healing hasn't washed away the scars that were already there, and he's got a few shaped like teeth in...interesting places.

Also: heh heh. "suck it up". yeah he sure can.]

What part of it scares you?

[ He runs a finger down his arm, picking at one of the stupid feathers. ]

Wouldn’t even need to do that, right now. Pin feathers contain blood vessels. I could pluck one easily enough.

[ But he doesn’t, even though it has been very tempting to pull them all out. It’s like trying not to pick at scabs but multiplied a hundred times.

And he thinks, even if he’s not sure he wants to. Because that’s probably worth examining. ]

I don’t know. He didn’t bite, not like you see in comics. He did this- thing. With his hands. Like the roots of a tree. Like you’re dirt and he’s some kind of megalomaniac sunflower that’s finally making something worthwhile out of you. And I shouldn’t know that, I don’t know how I know that. But I do.

[ He huffs out a breath, and maybe he shouldn’t be talking about Dio but this is kind of unavoidable. ]

I don’t want you to make me feel like that. Because I think you’d get pissed if you knew that you did.

...I know how he did it. I saw him do it to Jiji.

[Of course Kakyoin couldn't have known about that. Kakyoin wasn't there. Kakyoin was dead by then.

I've already killed Kakyoin.]

I meant what I said. I'm not going to do that to you. But it's...different, when it's teeth, and not his hands. It just hurts a little, and then all of a sudden it doesn't anymore.

Oh.

[ It’s quiet. It’s solemn. And he wants to ask. But he mentioned Mr. Joestar earlier and Jotaro didn’t say anything. Surely if something had happened-

Mr. Joestar is okay. He’s probably okay. He isn’t going to ask any questions that would result in him potentially learning that it’s okay, because he’s learning that when it matters he’s a fucking coward even now. ]

I don’t mind. Really. If it hurts. It’s- ugh. You’re going to think it’s fucked up. You’re going to think I’m fucked up, you know.

Kakyoin.

[He doesn't want to get into what happened to Jiji, not because of that in and of itself, but because it happens after Kakyoin died. And that seems to be the rocky terrain, the acknowledgement that at some point along the timeline, Kakyoin just stopped, and everyone else didn't.

So he focuses on the other part instead. This one is more embarrassing, more subjecting himself to the mortifying ordeal of being known, but that doesn't matter. It's worth it.]

I don't mind it either. Sometimes...it feels good, that it hurts. I know I'm fucked up. But you're not. You're not, okay?

I don’t get off on getting hurt, Jotaro.

[ He laughs, but it’s not the stupid uncontrolled one. It’s not the polite rehearsed one, either. It’s the one reserved for those moments when someone mistakes Hierophant’s body for its true form and rushes into its web. For when they’re completely and utterly fucked and haven't realised it yet. Its cruel, and he’s not sure if it’s aimed at Jotaro or himself. Because of course that’s what Jotaro would assume being fucked up was. Because Jotaro’s understanding of fucked up has not been influenced by a lifetime inside the brain of Noriaki Kakyoin. ]

If you bite me, then there’s less of me. And there’s more of you. Some part of me stops being me and turns into someone else. Someone better. And it’s fucked up that I’d want that from anyone and it’s more fucked up that I’d want it from you and it’s not fair to drag you into it.

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