hierophany | Inbox

[Almost absently, he flexes the fingers of his right hand, watching the skin stretch and recede over his knuckles. Star isn't there. He's a vampire anyway, he heals every injury he incurs, like this.

He can still feel it, anyway. How it felt when the knuckles split.]

They have these...pods, here. Virtual reality, they call it.

[Jotaro, you're such an 80s kid.]

They can play back memories. So when you want to know, we'll go.

They do?

[ Okay so he was trying to have A Moment but Jotaro just casually informed him that the coolest she he could ever imagine exists and it feels like it would be physically agonising to take his hand from Jotaro’s hair and it would takehim a good two minutes to figure out how to fit through the door and he can’t wear a shirt right but damn if he doesn’t want to go find these cool things right this second.

And then the next part sinks in. ]

Why would you want that?

[ He can’t quite place the emotion in his own voice. One part cautious affection to three parts concern, seasoned with confusion and disbelief. He’s heard a similar tone before. Once, in the desert, when Jotaro asked him if he’d sliced open his own skin. ]

...When it was January sixteenth, about six months ago now. I went in and...I did it over again. I had to do it again. All of it, the whole thing. That whole night.

[He closes his eyes, instinctively leaning into the hand in his hair, and listens past the sound of Kakyoin's voice to the beat of his blood, the pulse of his heartbeat.]

You want to see him die, don't you?

Not enough.

[ He sounds a little taken aback by his own words. Like he didn’t expect there to be a level of hatred he couldn’t reach. Like he never thought he’d so easily admit to being not enough of anything at all. His tone is still soft. Warmer, now, heated by anger after being chilled by worry. But the words taste metallic coming out and he can’t quite tell if that’s the taste of knives or blood. ]

He hurt you. I don’t hate him enough to let him do it again just to watch him suffer for it.

He doesn't need a simulation to do that.

[What a bittersweet admission to make. It's a shame about Kakyoin's wings, he thinks idly; if he were sitting normally on the couch, instead of sideways, it'd be much easier to lie down and curl up and rest his head up against Kakyoin's leg and just hold still for a while.

He's not supposed to want that, he reminds himself, but it doesn't matter. The vampire doesn't listen to the human's insistence.]

Anyway, like I said. When you want to know, we'll go. When you decide. I won't make you, otherwise.

And I don’t need to give him another tool. I don’t need to be another tool.

[ He wants - something. Something impossible. Wants to cut January the 16th out of Jotaro’s heart like the abdomen out of a stupid, stupid boy. Wants to make him forget. Wants to pull him close and collapse the world in around them until there are no shadows left for old monsters to hide in.

He just keeps stroking. ]

If you want to show me, I’ll go. But I won’t be made into something to hurt you. Not by him, and not by you.

[It's too late for that too, he thinks, but doesn't say it aloud because it won't solve anything. It won't solve anything and it'll only make Kakyoin frustrated and impotent, confirming that Dio used him against his will yet again.

So he doesn't. He just keeps his eyes closed and tries to remember how it feels, instead, to just lie still and happy in a small, narrow world hidden away from everything, where nothing hurts and no one dies.]

I think you need to know.

[His voice rumbles a little, low and faded.]

Whether I tell you or I show you. Either way.

When Star is back, then. And-

[ He has conditions. He knows he has conditions. He just doesn't know how to make them into reasonable things. He can't just demand that Jotaro not hurt. He can't demand that things be made right again. He can't ask Jotaro to let him protect him. ]

-Adrian. You tell him that you're doing this. [ He has no idea if Adrian is any better at navigating this than he is and fuck he hates relying on people but Jotaro's hurt and he can't fix it and maybe someone else can. ] He doesn't have to be there. But he has to know.

He was there the last time.

[But then his eyes open slowly, and he peers up at Kakyoin with a searching, inquisitive look — not accusatory, just caught off-guard and abruptly curious because of it.]

How did you find out his name? He only ever introduces himself as Alucard.

You- said that was his name. Didn’t you?

[...he did, didn’t he? He must have, because Kakyoin doesn’t fuck up like that. Not in such an easy, stupid way. Not even when angry. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. ]

...Only when we're alone.

[On one hand he should probably feel a little bad for what he's doing to Kakyoin right now, but on the other hand, the part of him that religiously watched Columbo every day is absolutely living.]

Did you read it somewhere?

[Note to self: perhaps hide his diary better??]

I don’t think so.

[ Fuck fuck fuck he fucked up. He should have gone with the stupid vampire name but also: why should he call someone backwards for Dracula it’s so on the nose it practically sounds vampire-racist. It’s stupid. ]

I must have just overheard. I’d thought that ‘Alucard’ must have been a nickname. It seemed- a little presumptuous. To call him by it.

[ Is it a nickname? It must be, right? A stupid cutesy vampire nickname and ugh, it’s not like he wants a bad nickname but STILL he wants to puff up with jealousy. ]

Hah. Actually, you've got it backwards.

[It is, actually, kind of funny. Both the way Kakyoin's reacting (did he forget that Jotaro can hear the pulse of his blood and the beat of his heart? Liar, liar, liar) and the fact that he remembers feeling exactly the same way about the same stupid name, way back when.]

It'd be like...you, letting someone off the street call you Nori. Your name, but not the one you tell people.

That’s not my name, Jotaro.

[ And he does, in fact, puff up. He doesn’t blush except at his ears, but his cheeks inflate like a chipmunk’s and his feathers stick out until he looks less like a majestic thing that doesn’t know how to use a shirt or a couch and more like a hedgehog made of feathers that still doesn’t know how to use a shirt or a couch. ]

It’s not even nearly my name.

[ Oh my god why are you giving him cutesy nicknames. ]

You wouldn't be blushing if you didn't get my point.

[As though Kakyoin could hide a rush of blood from him when he's like this. He knows exactly where it is. He can sense the heat, all the little physiological tells that no human could ever hope to pick up on.]

Too familiar for just anyone. That's how it is for him. One name for everyone, and another...really, just for himself.

I’m not blushing.

[ Except for how he is. It’s half being difficult and half following a script, because he’s played enough of those sorts of games to know that nobody ever admits to blushing. ]

I got his name wrong. It happens. You don’t need to make a fuss about it.

...You know —

[He runs his tongue idly over his fangs; he's better, by now, at managing them. Better than he was, at least. He's not cutting his lip open all the time, now. He can talk around them.]

I...always thought. Or — hoped, I guess. Just, I always kind of figured the two of you would get along. You're both...

[Lonely.]

Well, anyway. Maybe you can meet him. When we go.

Yeah. He's- fine.

[ Downgraded from 'great' earlier, because his stupid name situation has made his life difficult. How dare. How very dare Alucard-Adrian have two different names specifically and solely to trip him up and force him to almost face consequences for his own actions. Why would he do this to him personally.

He finally removes his hand from Jotaro's hair, and it feels like pulling off a layer of skin. But he does it so he can rearrange himself, tucking his legs underneath him to sit on his calves rather than having his knees pulled up to his chest. Less barriers between them. It feels right enough to justify the loss of contact. The temporary loss of contact, because he almost-not-quite returns his hand to where it was, fingertips brushing against the very ends of a few hairs. ]

Call me that again?

Why would I call you something that isn't your name? Or even nearly your name.

[He'd really meant to sound like more of a bastard, saying that, but he doesn't have it in him to be a bastard when the tips of Kakyoin's fingers are just barely touching one of his curls, and even though the touch is nearly nonexistent, he still feels it like a shiver all the way down his scalp and spine anyway.]

But if you want me to, then I will.

[Of course he will. He can't not, and wouldn't have even if he did have a choice about it.]

...Nori.

Because I asked you to.

[ More than this would be- wrong. Inappropriate, for all kinds of reasons. He should probably make a list, sooner or later, and he could put it in order and stare at it until it seemed right. Maybe if he was alive, he'd be willing to fuck up Jotaro's life just a little bit by going further than this. But he's not. He's not and Jotaro is and it feels wronger, somehow, to risk messing up everything when once this bullshit ends and they stop playing moon aliens who don't hurt, he can't even stick around.

But this much, this much is fine. Playing at being loved the same way he was playing at being alive, except that nobody's snapped him out of it just yet. He combs his fingers through Jotaro's hair again, knocking the hat aside entirely. It's a stupid nickname and he hates it, but it sounds maybe-tolerable in Jotaro's voice. ]

I think it can be easier. For now, at least.

It doesn't suit you. Sounds like something a girl would call you.

[Of course, when he says "a girl" he doesn't mean "a girl", precisely. It's a very distinct subset of "girl" that he's referring to here — the loud kind. The obnoxious kind. The kind who would follow Kakyoin around and decide they were in love with him without ever even knowing him to begin with, who would flounce around playing games and acting cute and playing insecure, and never actually see what was really right in front of them.

So, you know. "Girls".]

Pick something else, if you want me to call you something.

You’re the one who picked it. You can’t just back out now.

[ It’s good, being disagreeable about shit that doesn’t matter. It’s good to sulk because Jotaro Kujo isn’t following his script. Doesn’t seem to realise there is a script. Probably doesn’t know what a script is. It feels normal. Makes all of this normal. ]

Pick something better if you don’t like it.

What's better than "Kakyoin"?

[Without really meaning to, his mouth opens a fraction, his lips pulling thinner as they stretch to bare his fangs to the air. It's an odd reflex almost reminiscent of a deep stretch or a satisfying yawn — something he does instinctively, testing the newness of the feeling in his mouth.]

It's who you are. Why would I pick anything different?

[ It should bother him, the fang thing. It’s one of those things that universal human experience should force him to read as danger, to say nothing of personal experience. It should be encoded into his dna to see things with fangs and think ‘no, that’s a bad thing’. At the very least he should have learned it. With Adrian he was distracted by something like scientific curiosity, watching how he moved his mouth when speaking or eating to compensate for their presence.

With Jotaro, he’s just too fucking floored by how stupid and earnest that was. ]

Maybe I want something that you made.

Edited (My phone decided the tag was done early) 2020-07-01 22:50 (UTC)

[He thinks a minute, still absently working his mouth. He'd bite his lip if it weren't for the fact that he's already learned the hard way — a few times — what happens when he indulges that particular bad habit these days.]

...Then. I should make sure I pick something good. Not just the first thing that comes to mind.

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