hierophany | Inbox

...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.

Fair enough. Take all the time you need.

[ He wraps a curl around one finger. It’s as close to doing something absentmindedly as he is capable of getting, which is to say that he’s not very close to that at all.

And he falls quiet, because the back and forth teasing is nice and makes everything seem normal and real, but the quiet is the warm, sleepy, comfortable and safe sort of heavy. It’s a quality he’s only ever known silence to have a few times. All on their journey. On the better nights. He inches forward until his knees are brushing against Jotaro’s head, still stroking his hair, heartbeat slow and perfectly even, like it’s rehearsed its lines as carefully as the rest of him.. ]

[If he reached out, right now, his hand would be close enough to brush up against Kakyoin's stomach. It's covered a little oddly by the backwards shirt, both because of the wings and because he's absolutely certain that Kakyoin doesn't want anyone seeing his stomach bare right now. But still, there's that compulsion to touch anyway — just to brush his fingers over the plane of his abdomen, to feel it whole, to reassure himself of something he can't even explain.

But it's better, he thinks, to just let Kakyoin touch him instead. Better to stay still, even if it crosses his mind that it might be more comfortable for Kakyoin and his wings if he were able to stretch out on his stomach, and how easy it would be to roll onto his back and pull Kakyoin on top of him and just be reassured by his weight that he's there and alive and not dead.

It's only a thought. One he's never going to act on. It's fine.

He lets out a breath, and it seems to deflate him somehow, softening all his edges like chocolate melting under heat.]

Nori.

[Nah. It still sounds stupid, even as he says it. But that's okay, too.]

I like it.

[ He wouldn’t, were it anyone else. Not just because of stupid sentimental reasons. But because of other, unrelated stupid sentimental reasons. It’s not because it’s just something Jotaro chose. It’s because Jotaro Kujo is the single person most capable of thinking through problems on his feet that he has ever known. Including himself, some days. And yet the second anyone applies the slightest bit of pressure to think of something to say-

It’s because it’s something that Jotaro chose while being intensely bad at deciding these sorts of things. And because every time he makes him use the name he’ll be thinking about how stupid it is. It’s fifty days of teasing him about his awful one-liners packed into two too-cutesy syllables.

He loves it. ]

Look up. Just for a moment.

...Wait, I wasn't...

[Except he did, kind of. Without meaning to, he just sort of did. And against all odds, Kakyoin seems to like it.

There's no point in fighting it. It's already done, mostly by accident, born solely of idle absent impulse.

That seems to happen a lot, with Kakyoin.]

You hated it a minute ago. Fickle bastard.

[But he looks up anyway, all tousled curls and half-lidded eyes.]

I’m allowed to change my mind. And I didn’t know you hated it, before.

[ And yes, also he is a fickle bastard.

But he’s also a smiling bastard, when Jotaro looks up. He’s still angry. He’ll still be angry the second this ends. But Dio isn’t here and Jotaro is and for now, just for now, he can be soft smiles and mostly-closed eyes and ears still flushed red even as the rest of his face refuses to take on colour.

But he didn’t ask Jotaro to look up in order to demonstrate happiness at him, mostly because it would first need to occur to him that seeing him happy might be a priority to Jotaro. No, he asked him to look up so he can shuffle forward just a little further, tucking his knees under his head. ]

...?

[Hey, wait a minute, now he can't put his head back down, Kakyoin's knees are in the way.

...

......

.........

Oh.]

...Mm.

[So, carefully, he puts his head back down, and it's nice to have his neck on a pillowed angle instead of parallel with the cushions, and he fits his lips closed around his fangs and he just breathes.]

Listen.

[He's quiet, for a spell, but the silence isn't what he wants Kakyoin to listen to.]

...I really...want you to be happy.

I am. Right now, I am.

[ -tomorrow he’ll be so mad that he runs out of things to clean here and has to break into other people’s places to do chores. ]

I’ll work on managing it a little more often.

S'not what I meant.

[Is he a vampire, or is he a content and sleepy pet dog? It'd be hard to tell the difference at this point, from the way he's acting.]

I mean...I want this place to make you happy. Being here. Want it to be happy for you.

You're here.

[ That is, every script he's ever made says, a nonsensical response. But its also the truest one he could ever make. He combs his fingers through Jotaro's hair a few more times, waiting for the feeling of dread from saying the wrong thing to sink in. It doesn't. He presses his fingertips into his scalp once it becomes clear that he isn't going to feel afraid or apprehensive or anything but the overwhelming sensation of adoration smothering anger. Rubs five little circles into it. ]

I didn't think I knew. How to be happy, I mean. But I've been starting to figure it out lately. It's more like learning a language than learning anything else. You have to experience it to really understand the intricacies. You need someone to speak it with you.

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