[ It's difficult, sometimes, to measure time. Hours or days seem to slip away from him without his say. And it's frustrating how often it seems to happen, how it keeps him from knowing to the second how long he's spent in his lord's care. He wants to know. The content of whatever he's forgotten doesn't worry him, of course, but he wants a number he can burn into his heart and burn again every second to increment it. An objective measurement of his Lord's love. Proof that he's earned his place in Lord Dio's presence. He likes proof. Especially now.
It's difficult not to be jealous of the prisoner. It isn't his place to question Lord Dio, he knows. But it's difficult. Difficult, when for two glorious months he had a place in the world. When he had been able to be part of sustaining something so beautiful, so perfect. When that's been taken from him, because since the prisoners' arrival his lord has only ever taken Joestar blood.
And so it's a grim satisfaction he feels, when Lord Dio complains of the prisoner becoming too ugly to be worthy of his presence. He learned quickly how to hold himself to allow Lord Dio to strike or kick while keeping the visible damage that his lord dislikes so much to a minimum. Learned how to use Hierophant to break capillaries artfully, to make bruises look like blooming flowers.
It's why the prisoner is placed in his care for a few days, until he's in a pleasant enough state to be worthy of Lord Dio's gaze. And finally, finally he is of use again.
He knocks at the door of the prisoner's room. He's probably the first one to do so, being the only person in this place who thinks of this as a guest room rather than a cell. ]
[Maybe there's a sort of irony in it, how he's gone from one jail cell to another, and on some level he's the one who put himself in both of them.
It had all happened so fast, it feels like. The fight, the four guys hospitalized, the evil spirit destroying them on his behalf. Going to the jail to keep people away from him until he could figure out what was happening to him and how to keep it from hurting people any more. The other inmates loathing his company and being terrified of him in equal measure. And then, one night, the guy with the green monster showing up and taking him away from it all.
They must be looking for him. His mother wouldn't sit still and do nothing if he were to up and disappear. Maybe she'll call his grandfather, even; Jiji would fly to Japan on a moment's notice, at nothing more than a word from his favorite (only) daughter.
But will they even find him? He's not in Japan anymore. He's somewhere else, somewhere hot and sandy and dry, learning what's happened to him only through secondhand eavesdropping on triumphant bragging and awful threats, and every waking hour a new form of torture.
He knows that his captor is a vampire. He's got the terrible damage to his neck and shoulder to prove it, from where his claws have dug in again and again to feed. He's got the bruises from being thrown around and the rubbed-raw skin from the chains they use to keep him tied up at the foot of his throne, or to his bed, or wherever else he feels like it that day.
He knows that the fact that he's a Joestar is important. He knows the vampire has a birthmark like his, but he doesn't know why or what that means.
And he knows he's probably going to die here. That — that's the pervasive, intrusive thought that nearly breaks him down sometimes in the afternoons when he's alone. He's probably going to die here, and he doesn't know why, or what even is happening to his life anymore.
And then there's this guy. The one who knocks like this is some kind of fucking hotel, like he couldn't just walk in and beat the shit out of him if he really wanted to, and there's nothing at all that could stop it.]
No.
[He says it without any sort of resolve in it, mostly just to be stubborn and to see what the guy will do. He's so tired today, and he's starting to think that it's from the blood loss; his skin seems more translucent than he thinks it ought to be, and it's hard to keep his eyes open.]
[ Well shit, foiled. There'd be a joke in there somewhere about Lord Dio being able to enter the room without permission, but him being incapable of bringing himself to go anywhere in his lord's home without leave. ]
Sleep well, then.
[ It's hard to say for certain, whether it's the appropriate time for the prisoner to be asleep. Lord Dio sleeps by day. And so it only seems logical that the prisoner must, also. He used to sleep by day, when Lord Dio loved him best.
There's a stab of jealousy at that. Dio used to love him best. The prisoner - the interloper can't even hurt prettily, and yet Lord Dio loves him most. Chains him to the throne as if he were beautiful enough to decorate it. Parades him around like he's proud to have him. He was never proud of-
He doesn't question Lord Dio. ]
I'll return at dinner. Please allow me in then.
[ He turns on his heel and leaves at that. There are other tasks to attend to. It's hours later when he comes back, knocking on the door again. ]
Well, shit. That certainly got his attention, scattered and fragile though it may be. He wonders when dinner is, and wishes there were some way of telling time in his cell. Maybe that would help to keep all the days from running together into one long drone of active pain and passive ache.
He falls asleep, maybe, and the new knock at the door is what rouses him. It wasn't enough sleep, and he's hungry; he comes around feeling foggy and disoriented, and half-mumbles in reply as his head starts to hurt.]
[ One hour. One hour is missing, measuring by how much the bread dough rose. Maybe a little more. He's quite glad he didn't leave the oven on.
(Cream disposes of the bodies, if they turn in a way that offends Lord Dio. Some people, however, can't simply go missing. They need to be seen. And Hierophant is useful for that. Slides into them and potters about Cairo, being captured on security cameras and in the backgrounds of tourists' photographs. Buying painkillers and being certain to get receipts. Swallowing the whole bottle, for all the difference that will make to a body already dead, so that there's something for the autopsies to find. And then walking them onto a train, and sitting them down by a window to enjoy the view until they're too far away and the strings break.
There are urban legends about the station, by now. How people board trains there to die. Hierophant's limbs ache from struggling against rigor mortis.) ]
I'm coming in, please excuse me.
[ He doesn't ask permission this time - he can't exactly not feed the prisoner - and when Hierophant opens the door he's carrying a tray with a bowl of something very green and very slimy. Of course. He looks the prisoner over while Hierophant closes the door behind him.
Ah. He hasn't truly had a chance to look at him for a while. He does have something of a task on his hands, if Lord Dio wants him in any sort of presentable state within a few days. ]
[Whatever he's carrying, it doesn't smell like food. Just looking at it glopping around in the bowl makes his stomach turn and bile jump up into the back of his throat, and deep down he knows it really doesn't matter what he does or doesn't do, he'll be force-fed it anyway because for all that they'll make him suffer, they can't let him die. That's why his bones are still intact, why the damage they do to him is always careful to just ride the line of superficial. They can't risk anything that might make his body rebel and poison his blood. They can't take the chance that something will get infected or taint him or cause him to hurry up and die.
So he'll be fed, because he's food. That's just how it is.
That's why he doesn't bother to get up off of the floor where he's been sleeping, because he's been ignoring the shabby cot he's been given mostly out of suspicion and spite. He leaves his head resting on his uninjured arm, his eyes half-open, and he looks over the guard and his noodle-appendaged spirit, watching him as he moves through the room.]
My apologies. Next time I'll be certain to squeeze your meals under the door.
[ You can lead the fleshbud into the brain, but you can't make Kakyoin not a petty bitch. He steps forward, stopping at what he thinks is just out of range of Star Platinum's attacks. But if the prisoner is going to be difficult, then he's going to have to move closer. He'll have to eventually, no matter what. ]
I'll be entering your stand's range now. Please don't do anything regrettable. [ One step closer, cautious. And then the rest of the steps. He places the tray down. Soup and bread. ] Molokhiya. It's local.
[ And very rich in iron. He's still a petty bitch and he's still a nerd about foreign foods. ]
[He doesn't move, because there's no reason to. No point in expending precious energy unnecessarily, not when he's so tired and his body aches so much.]
You're Japanese, right?
[He speaks enough English to get by, here — for some reason the vampire seems to insist on English from all of his minions — but this one speaks Japanese like a native, and even at his worst, Jotaro can't resist a puzzle.]
[ He's quick to move out of range again. The room is dark and poorly furnished and not particularly clean, but it is large. His Lord doesn't see the sense in avoidable danger. ]
Of course not.
[ He dusts off the unused cot a little before sitting on it, removing a padded bag from his shoulders to place it by his feet. He opens his mouth to say something else, to explain how his Lord does not kidnap (regardless of the overwhelming evidence of Dio's kidnapping that is his presence here). To say how he came to be here. Except he isn't entirely sure himself. ]
I was afraid. [ He remembers that much, and lets his mind string together the rest into an order that makes sense. He was afraid. Because he thought his life meant something, the idea of it coming to an end terrified him. Not like now. ] My lord condescended to offer me the chance to put fear aside in the name of something greater. I owe him everything.
[Because these days, Jotaro knows about being scared. He hasn't quite learned to let go of being scared, not entirely; for all that he's tried to reconcile himself to the things that are happening to him, to flatten out his affect and resign himself to the fact that he has no control over the pain he does or doesn't receive so it's fruitless to even bother pretending...
He puts on a good face, but he's still scared. Sometimes it's all he can do to hide that flash of weakness when the vampire is around, spitting defiance he doesn't always feel and shoving down the irrational desperation that says maybe if I just give him what he wants, whatever he wants, if I can figure out what he wants then this will stop.
But. It sounds like that's precisely what this guy did too, doesn't it? And look where it got him. Licking boots and praising that bastard with every breath. No, thanks.]
He doesn't care about you. If that's what you thought, then I feel sorry for you.
[He rolls over, deliberately turning his back on his visitor, and tries not to give in to the impulse to brace himself against the dread of being kicked, or worse.]
[ Even he’s surprised how easily that admission comes. It hurts, to say it. Makes him want to coil Hierophant around his ribs and wrench them open. But it is the truth, and he is not a man who denies the truth. Aside from as it concerns Lord Dio’s kidnapping habits. ]
He did, before. But now he loves you. Even though you are troublesome. And filthy. And disobedient.
[ It’s ice packs that he takes out of the insulated bag as his tone becomes more venomous. The swelling is the first problem he’ll need to deal with. That offends Lord Dio more than anything. Muscle already doesn’t yield to pressure easily, less so when swollen, and there are few things that his Lord dislikes more than that which does not yield to him. ]
Fuck do you mean he loves me. If that's his idea of love, then I'd hate to see what he does to the people he loathes.
[It's petty, but each insult out of the other guy's mouth feels like a badge of honor. Troublesome. Filthy. Disobedient. Yeah, fuck you too, fuck Dio and his kingdom and all his stupid little pets.]
I'm not eating that. No.
[He wonders if he'll get away with it. Probably not, but he said no the last time and the guy just walked away, so...]
[ He has a schedule, asshole. He clicks his tongue. The ice packs will melt sooner or later. Really, it'd be more convenient to just use Hierophant to force him to eat.
He doesn't. Instead he just continues to set things out on the cot. There's no sense in looking at the prisoner, not when he has his back to him. ]
Why not?
[ He has no idea what the prisoner usually gets fed, in truth. He could have asked the butler, but he didn't feel like asking. ]
[ If he weren't so very, very glad to finally have the opportunity to shower, it would almost be a shame to leave the open desert behind. Even if he's found himself less able to cope with both the heat and the cold of it than might be ideal. Even if he keeps finding sand in increasingly interesting places. There's a liminal quality to it, to the endless movement across an almost unchanging landscape in a silence that stretches out as long as they allow it to, that makes everything seem a little more comfortable. That makes it acceptable for parts of him to be messy and disorganised. For the smell of second-hand smoke to cling to his hair.
It doesn't have to make sense, there, that for the last three days he's woken up with his head rested on Jotaro's shoulder, both of them huddled up in the combined warmth of two sleeping bags and two coats. He doesn't have to put too much thought into what it means that when he thought about what he'd regret if they didn't make it home his first thought was that he'd probably not pass any university entrance exams if he wasn't there to take them and his second was that both of them had lips like fucking sandpaper and then belatedly he noticed he'd just kissed him.
(Lip balm. He needs to buy lip balm once these stand users are dealt with. The rapid changes between heat and cold are terrible for the whole kissing experience.)
He didn't need to figure out what it meant, then. And even if he'd tried, the desert was so quiet that any attempt to actually discuss it would have been overheard. It only really started nagging at him once sand became roads and buildings started rising up out of the ground and grew and grew until suddenly it was a city and they were in a place for being human again. It's almost a relief that they're under attack. At least strategy is easy and comfortable.
Almost a relief because this is going terribly. They lost the advantage of numbers early on when they split up in this maze of an abandoned neighbourhood. He's still not entirely sure how they split up. They lost Jotaro first, and then while he was using Hierophant to search for him he turned around to find that Joseph and Polnareff weren't there and he was staring at a dead end.
(The first stand is named Backstreet Boy, and its user has been shifting walls and rearranging this part of the city for years to trap victims. I didn't think of what the second one was yet and decided to just post this already instead of mulling it over any longer.)
There were two of them, at least, which means that whoever is attacking them is likely splitting them up to fight each of them two on one. Hierophant unravels from him at that uncomfortable thought, sprawling across the walls of the alleyway like a web of frost, crawling into cracks in brickwork and through broken darkened windows and empty rooms and out of the keyholes of locked doors. Feeling for any movement at all, waiting for Jotaro or Joseph or Polnareff or one of the enemy stand users to touch one of its strands and give him some sort of direction. ]
[The second Stand's name is Heart Shaped Box, which is a thing that Jotaro learns the hard way.
It's pretty obvious why these two users have been working together the way that they have; their Stands, much like Star Platinum and Hierophant Green, are naturally compatible. Backstreet Boy is capable of rearranging the city's streets to its own whims; Heart Shaped Box is what's waiting whenever their mutual victim is isolated.
It's so simple, it's almost stupid. He'd gotten lured down into a dead-end alley, and Heart Shaped Box had taken effect, enclosing him within the boundaries of its territory like a beautiful cage. And he's done everything he can to get free of it, too, but the beauty of Heart Shaped Box is that there's nothing that can be done to escape — from the inside.
A lobster trap is designed to be easy to enter and impossible to escape from. Some turtles have backward-facing spines in their throats so that when they swallow jellyfish whole, any jellyfish that attempts to escape ends up skewered instead.
Heart Shaped Box is easy to enter and impossible to leave, because the only way out is in pairs. And so long as Backstreet Boy is ensuring that help can't find him, he's virtually trapped and utterly alone.
But Kakyoin will find him. Kakyoin and his Hierophant, they'll be here, they'll track him down. Hierophant is a scouting Stand for a reason. Surely Kakyoin has already begun the search.
Unless he's been captured himself, that is, but as he paces within his cage like a restless tiger, he reminds himself not to think about that possibility right now.]
[ He doesn't quite have a word for the sense that Hierophant's tendrils relay back to him. It's the standard five that humans use, in what he would call a purely scientific sense if 'science' was a word that one could apply to stands in any way whatsoever. Light reflects off objects onto the surface of the tendrils, and by analysing the amount and qualities of light reflected it can form a picture of what surrounds it. It feels the vibration of air in the same way that one might hear. Molecules in the air touch against its surface and allow it to receive information in the same way as a nose or tongue. But it all returns to him as information. It's like seeing the world as a console sees a videogame. There are images and sound at some distant, higher level. The console sees all of it as letters and numbers.
And yet the vibrations on the air that translate to footsteps, the absence of reflected light that means a figure in mostly black clothing, the knowledge of how many metres away from him something brushed against a tendril? None of them mean anything less for being delivered in the stand equivalent of a sequence of ones and zeroes that means Jotaro. He grins.
And then he tries to withdraw Hierophant. He has a clumsy, incomplete map of the current layout of the streets, but it's a map that can take him to Jotaro. Leave the both of them less vulnerable to attack while he seeks out Joseph and Polnareff or while Joseph maps out the whole place better than he can. When he tries to withdraw Hierophant-
-it'd be a dramatic exaggeration to say that it hurts. It never does, to lose a few tendrils. Maybe a few capillaries burst, leaving a tiny bruise somewhere. He couldn't even say where. But he's aware of it. He tried to withdraw the tendrils closest to Jotaro and something severed them the second they moved away.
Which means that there's something there other than Jotaro.
And so, being the brilliant strategist that he is, he immediately sets off in that direction. Because running towards trouble is always the correct response. Backstreet Boy is rearranging the walls again, probably in response to whatever severed Hierophant's tendrils catching on to what he was doing, but for now he has a path. If he doesn't in a few seconds? He'll deal with that problem when it happens.
Inside Heart Shaped Box, the cut tendrils splap onto the floor. Not the most auspicious sign in the world, but a sign that he's found Jotaro nonetheless. ]
[Well. That's...horrifying, to say the least. He can see the severed tentacles once they plop helpless onto the ground, and of course he knows where they must've come from. Which means that Kakyoin knows he's here, and that's both good and as expected. The problem is, Hierophant is wounded, and that's not ideal at all.
Can Hierophant regrow its tentacles the way a starfish can grow its arms? Maybe. He hopes so. But then, what does that mean for the severed ones? Are they still a part of him? Are they just gone, and will fade on their own?
Unable to help himself, he crosses over within the confines of the box and picks the tendrils up, piling them carefully into the bend of his elbow. It's a stupid sentimental thing, yes, but he can't help it. Not knowing what they must mean.
If only there were a way he could get out of here, or send some sort of message. But if there's a means to do it, he hasn't found it yet.]
[ The cut ends of the tendrils harden, like blood clotting. They're taking a while to fade away, but they don't seem very alive. After a few seconds they've stiffened into something like glassy green stone.
There's a building where there wasn't a building before, but it's not the obstacle that Backstreet Boy's user clearly thought it would be. It has a door, and it takes Hierophant a matter of seconds to wriggle into the keyhole and push at the pins of the lock until it turns. He'd rather do it himself, do it properly, but time is of the essence.
The inside of the house is, at least, relatively stable. The walls of it don't shift, but the walls outside it can move and place doors and windows up against solid brick. It's not the easy way through that it had been when he tested with Hierophant before, he discovers after the back door opens up to reveal a wall. But there's a window on the second floor that leads to about the right place. And maybe if all else fails he can get onto the rooftops from up there. The window doesn't open, but glass is easy enough to break (artless. frustrating. he doesn't like breaking things, it always makes him feel like he's failed. he's mad at the window for not having hinges and a lock to pick). ]
Jotaro!
[ He's a little way down the alley when he leans out of the window, and a story up in the air. There are a lot of important things that he should ask- does he know what the second stand is, is he hurt, has he come across the others? What he asks instead is- ]
[That's sort of weird, actually; it's almost like when these bits of Hierophant were severed, they hardened into something like emeralds...
...which all of a sudden lends a positively disquieting clarity to where exactly Hierophant's emeralds might come from when he uses Emerald Splash, and NOPE OKAY NOPE he's not thinking about Hierophant snapping off little bits of itself and shooting them at anybody, good grief.
Luckily, he doesn't have to for long, because all of a sudden Kakyoin's head comes poking out of a second-story window, and that warrants all of his attention.]
Your arms?
[YIKES]
There's a barrier. You were looking for me — did they get cut off?
[ Well. Hierophant's arms. Kind of the same, except that Hierophant has enough of them to spare a few and he doesn't. ]
Something like that.
[ He hops out of the window, catching himself with Hierophant because anime characters can just jump out of windows no big deal. He's careful approaching, though. He has an idea of where the barrier starts, but not an exact one and he really care for the idea of also getting trapped. Seems like a bad plan. ]
It's less that they were cut, more that they're just not attached anymore. [ Weird distinction, but here we are. ] It happened when I tried to withdraw. I'm glad that I didn't have any parts I'd miss in there.
[ Unfortunately, Jotaro has all his parts in there. Some of which he probably would miss. ]
What's the difference between cut and not attached? How is that not the same thing?
[Jotaro, is this really the time to be pedantic about this? Regardless, apparently he is going to be pedantic about this. If they're going to die today, then the hill he intends to die on is one of his choosing, and he chooses this one.]
...So you got in fine, but you couldn't get back out again. Right?
It's not at all the same thing. Arms can stop being attached to things in other ways. They can get cut off, ripped off, burned off, drop off from lack of blood flow- [ Why has he thought so much about people losing arms? It's a mystery. ] -the point is, nothing cut them. Or tore them, or anything. I just pulled them away and they weren't attached anymore.
[ No it's probably not a useful distinction here, but dammit it matters to him. And to Jotaro apparently. ]
Right. [ He looks around. Their attackers have to know that they're here. And if there's a way for him to release Jotaro that probably means they're going to try to stop him.
He feels vulnerable in a way he hasn't in a while. Hierophant and Star work well together because they compensate for each other's weaknesses. Hierophant struggles at close range, encouraging enemies to move in to deal with him and putting them into Star's range. Or maybe Star's power at close range forces foes outward and away from him where Hierophant can deal with them safely. Here? This is the worst of both worlds. Things can enter whatever it is that has Jotaro trapped, just not exit, meaning he's still vulnerable to being attacked from a distance. And if Backstreet Boy can trap Hierophant at close range, Star can't help. ]
Try to throw something out here. See if it's damaged by going through or if it just stays inside.
[The truth is, he does feel better having Kakyoin close at hand, even if they happen to be separated by the barrier wall that Heart-Shaped Box is enforcing at the moment. At least they can still talk to each other. When they're together, they stand a much better chance of figuring out how to solve the problem they're faced with.
Something to throw, something to throw. He digs in his pocket and finds his lighter; that should do for the moment, he figures.
He tosses it to Star, who catches it and winds up, heaving it at the barrier — and almost immediately, Jotaro ducks for cover when it comes hurtling back at an equivalent speed like it's been reflected back by a mirror. At least Star is waiting to catch it, thankfully.]
Okay. So it doesn't let you out. I guess that's why Hierophant got — unattached. The parts that were through it never got back out, but the parts that weren't could still move away.
So if someone attacks into there, it'll just ricochet around until Star catches it. That's not ideal.
[ It's close to a worst-case scenario, in fact, as far as Jotaro being attacked from outside goes. And he looks for clues. There have to be clues here. The clouds above them are moving normally, not being caught in anything. So there has to be a limit to how high the barrier goes. Which means the logical next hypothesis to test would be 'this thing has a ceiling'. ]
Throw it upward next. See if it gets stopped on the way up. I'm not going to assume they've thought far enough ahead to add a roof to this.
[ Walls are moving again. He hears it before he sees it, then the window he used to enter slides away behind another wall and is replaced with a constant pattern of bricks. It seems foolish, at first. It's stopped him from escaping through the window, but he can still get up onto the rooftops. He wasn't going to escape without Jotaro anyway. It seems like a lot of effort to deny him an option that he wasn't going to take.
Well. He'll worry about that once it becomes a problem. In the meantime, it's time to do science at a weird box until it makes sense. ]
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hierophany) wrote2020-05-05 11:57 am
no subject
It's difficult not to be jealous of the prisoner. It isn't his place to question Lord Dio, he knows. But it's difficult. Difficult, when for two glorious months he had a place in the world. When he had been able to be part of sustaining something so beautiful, so perfect. When that's been taken from him, because since the prisoners' arrival his lord has only ever taken Joestar blood.
And so it's a grim satisfaction he feels, when Lord Dio complains of the prisoner becoming too ugly to be worthy of his presence. He learned quickly how to hold himself to allow Lord Dio to strike or kick while keeping the visible damage that his lord dislikes so much to a minimum. Learned how to use Hierophant to break capillaries artfully, to make bruises look like blooming flowers.
It's why the prisoner is placed in his care for a few days, until he's in a pleasant enough state to be worthy of Lord Dio's gaze. And finally, finally he is of use again.
He knocks at the door of the prisoner's room. He's probably the first one to do so, being the only person in this place who thinks of this as a guest room rather than a cell. ]
May I enter?
no subject
It had all happened so fast, it feels like. The fight, the four guys hospitalized, the evil spirit destroying them on his behalf. Going to the jail to keep people away from him until he could figure out what was happening to him and how to keep it from hurting people any more. The other inmates loathing his company and being terrified of him in equal measure. And then, one night, the guy with the green monster showing up and taking him away from it all.
They must be looking for him. His mother wouldn't sit still and do nothing if he were to up and disappear. Maybe she'll call his grandfather, even; Jiji would fly to Japan on a moment's notice, at nothing more than a word from his favorite (only) daughter.
But will they even find him? He's not in Japan anymore. He's somewhere else, somewhere hot and sandy and dry, learning what's happened to him only through secondhand eavesdropping on triumphant bragging and awful threats, and every waking hour a new form of torture.
He knows that his captor is a vampire. He's got the terrible damage to his neck and shoulder to prove it, from where his claws have dug in again and again to feed. He's got the bruises from being thrown around and the rubbed-raw skin from the chains they use to keep him tied up at the foot of his throne, or to his bed, or wherever else he feels like it that day.
He knows that the fact that he's a Joestar is important. He knows the vampire has a birthmark like his, but he doesn't know why or what that means.
And he knows he's probably going to die here. That — that's the pervasive, intrusive thought that nearly breaks him down sometimes in the afternoons when he's alone. He's probably going to die here, and he doesn't know why, or what even is happening to his life anymore.
And then there's this guy. The one who knocks like this is some kind of fucking hotel, like he couldn't just walk in and beat the shit out of him if he really wanted to, and there's nothing at all that could stop it.]
No.
[He says it without any sort of resolve in it, mostly just to be stubborn and to see what the guy will do. He's so tired today, and he's starting to think that it's from the blood loss; his skin seems more translucent than he thinks it ought to be, and it's hard to keep his eyes open.]
no subject
Sleep well, then.
[ It's hard to say for certain, whether it's the appropriate time for the prisoner to be asleep. Lord Dio sleeps by day. And so it only seems logical that the prisoner must, also. He used to sleep by day, when Lord Dio loved him best.
There's a stab of jealousy at that. Dio used to love him best. The prisoner - the interloper can't even hurt prettily, and yet Lord Dio loves him most. Chains him to the throne as if he were beautiful enough to decorate it. Parades him around like he's proud to have him. He was never proud of-
He doesn't question Lord Dio. ]
I'll return at dinner. Please allow me in then.
[ He turns on his heel and leaves at that. There are other tasks to attend to. It's hours later when he comes back, knocking on the door again. ]
no subject
...
He just actually left just because he said —
Well, shit. That certainly got his attention, scattered and fragile though it may be. He wonders when dinner is, and wishes there were some way of telling time in his cell. Maybe that would help to keep all the days from running together into one long drone of active pain and passive ache.
He falls asleep, maybe, and the new knock at the door is what rouses him. It wasn't enough sleep, and he's hungry; he comes around feeling foggy and disoriented, and half-mumbles in reply as his head starts to hurt.]
What?
no subject
(Cream disposes of the bodies, if they turn in a way that offends Lord Dio. Some people, however, can't simply go missing. They need to be seen. And Hierophant is useful for that. Slides into them and potters about Cairo, being captured on security cameras and in the backgrounds of tourists' photographs. Buying painkillers and being certain to get receipts. Swallowing the whole bottle, for all the difference that will make to a body already dead, so that there's something for the autopsies to find. And then walking them onto a train, and sitting them down by a window to enjoy the view until they're too far away and the strings break.
There are urban legends about the station, by now. How people board trains there to die. Hierophant's limbs ache from struggling against rigor mortis.) ]
I'm coming in, please excuse me.
[ He doesn't ask permission this time - he can't exactly not feed the prisoner - and when Hierophant opens the door he's carrying a tray with a bowl of something very green and very slimy. Of course. He looks the prisoner over while Hierophant closes the door behind him.
Ah. He hasn't truly had a chance to look at him for a while. He does have something of a task on his hands, if Lord Dio wants him in any sort of presentable state within a few days. ]
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So he'll be fed, because he's food. That's just how it is.
That's why he doesn't bother to get up off of the floor where he's been sleeping, because he's been ignoring the shabby cot he's been given mostly out of suspicion and spite. He leaves his head resting on his uninjured arm, his eyes half-open, and he looks over the guard and his noodle-appendaged spirit, watching him as he moves through the room.]
Gave up on asking, huh...
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[ You can lead the fleshbud into the brain, but you can't make Kakyoin not a petty bitch. He steps forward, stopping at what he thinks is just out of range of Star Platinum's attacks. But if the prisoner is going to be difficult, then he's going to have to move closer. He'll have to eventually, no matter what. ]
I'll be entering your stand's range now. Please don't do anything regrettable. [ One step closer, cautious. And then the rest of the steps. He places the tray down. Soup and bread. ] Molokhiya. It's local.
[ And very rich in iron. He's still a petty bitch and he's still a nerd about foreign foods. ]
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[He doesn't move, because there's no reason to. No point in expending precious energy unnecessarily, not when he's so tired and his body aches so much.]
You're Japanese, right?
[He speaks enough English to get by, here — for some reason the vampire seems to insist on English from all of his minions — but this one speaks Japanese like a native, and even at his worst, Jotaro can't resist a puzzle.]
So what. Did he kidnap you too?
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Of course not.
[ He dusts off the unused cot a little before sitting on it, removing a padded bag from his shoulders to place it by his feet. He opens his mouth to say something else, to explain how his Lord does not kidnap (regardless of the overwhelming evidence of Dio's kidnapping that is his presence here). To say how he came to be here. Except he isn't entirely sure himself. ]
I was afraid. [ He remembers that much, and lets his mind string together the rest into an order that makes sense. He was afraid. Because he thought his life meant something, the idea of it coming to an end terrified him. Not like now. ] My lord condescended to offer me the chance to put fear aside in the name of something greater. I owe him everything.
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[Because these days, Jotaro knows about being scared. He hasn't quite learned to let go of being scared, not entirely; for all that he's tried to reconcile himself to the things that are happening to him, to flatten out his affect and resign himself to the fact that he has no control over the pain he does or doesn't receive so it's fruitless to even bother pretending...
He puts on a good face, but he's still scared. Sometimes it's all he can do to hide that flash of weakness when the vampire is around, spitting defiance he doesn't always feel and shoving down the irrational desperation that says maybe if I just give him what he wants, whatever he wants, if I can figure out what he wants then this will stop.
But. It sounds like that's precisely what this guy did too, doesn't it? And look where it got him. Licking boots and praising that bastard with every breath. No, thanks.]
He doesn't care about you. If that's what you thought, then I feel sorry for you.
[He rolls over, deliberately turning his back on his visitor, and tries not to give in to the impulse to brace himself against the dread of being kicked, or worse.]
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[ Even he’s surprised how easily that admission comes. It hurts, to say it. Makes him want to coil Hierophant around his ribs and wrench them open. But it is the truth, and he is not a man who denies the truth. Aside from as it concerns Lord Dio’s kidnapping habits. ]
He did, before. But now he loves you. Even though you are troublesome. And filthy. And disobedient.
[ It’s ice packs that he takes out of the insulated bag as his tone becomes more venomous. The swelling is the first problem he’ll need to deal with. That offends Lord Dio more than anything. Muscle already doesn’t yield to pressure easily, less so when swollen, and there are few things that his Lord dislikes more than that which does not yield to him. ]
Please eat. You are making my work difficult.
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[It's petty, but each insult out of the other guy's mouth feels like a badge of honor. Troublesome. Filthy. Disobedient. Yeah, fuck you too, fuck Dio and his kingdom and all his stupid little pets.]
I'm not eating that. No.
[He wonders if he'll get away with it. Probably not, but he said no the last time and the guy just walked away, so...]
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[ He has a schedule, asshole. He clicks his tongue. The ice packs will melt sooner or later. Really, it'd be more convenient to just use Hierophant to force him to eat.
He doesn't. Instead he just continues to set things out on the cot. There's no sense in looking at the prisoner, not when he has his back to him. ]
Why not?
[ He has no idea what the prisoner usually gets fed, in truth. He could have asked the butler, but he didn't feel like asking. ]
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It doesn't have to make sense, there, that for the last three days he's woken up with his head rested on Jotaro's shoulder, both of them huddled up in the combined warmth of two sleeping bags and two coats. He doesn't have to put too much thought into what it means that when he thought about what he'd regret if they didn't make it home his first thought was that he'd probably not pass any university entrance exams if he wasn't there to take them and his second was that both of them had lips like fucking sandpaper and then belatedly he noticed he'd just kissed him.
(Lip balm. He needs to buy lip balm once these stand users are dealt with. The rapid changes between heat and cold are terrible for the whole kissing experience.)
He didn't need to figure out what it meant, then. And even if he'd tried, the desert was so quiet that any attempt to actually discuss it would have been overheard. It only really started nagging at him once sand became roads and buildings started rising up out of the ground and grew and grew until suddenly it was a city and they were in a place for being human again. It's almost a relief that they're under attack. At least strategy is easy and comfortable.
Almost a relief because this is going terribly. They lost the advantage of numbers early on when they split up in this maze of an abandoned neighbourhood. He's still not entirely sure how they split up. They lost Jotaro first, and then while he was using Hierophant to search for him he turned around to find that Joseph and Polnareff weren't there and he was staring at a dead end.
(The first stand is named Backstreet Boy, and its user has been shifting walls and rearranging this part of the city for years to trap victims. I didn't think of what the second one was yet and decided to just post this already instead of mulling it over any longer.)
There were two of them, at least, which means that whoever is attacking them is likely splitting them up to fight each of them two on one. Hierophant unravels from him at that uncomfortable thought, sprawling across the walls of the alleyway like a web of frost, crawling into cracks in brickwork and through broken darkened windows and empty rooms and out of the keyholes of locked doors. Feeling for any movement at all, waiting for Jotaro or Joseph or Polnareff or one of the enemy stand users to touch one of its strands and give him some sort of direction. ]
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It's pretty obvious why these two users have been working together the way that they have; their Stands, much like Star Platinum and Hierophant Green, are naturally compatible. Backstreet Boy is capable of rearranging the city's streets to its own whims; Heart Shaped Box is what's waiting whenever their mutual victim is isolated.
It's so simple, it's almost stupid. He'd gotten lured down into a dead-end alley, and Heart Shaped Box had taken effect, enclosing him within the boundaries of its territory like a beautiful cage. And he's done everything he can to get free of it, too, but the beauty of Heart Shaped Box is that there's nothing that can be done to escape — from the inside.
A lobster trap is designed to be easy to enter and impossible to escape from. Some turtles have backward-facing spines in their throats so that when they swallow jellyfish whole, any jellyfish that attempts to escape ends up skewered instead.
Heart Shaped Box is easy to enter and impossible to leave, because the only way out is in pairs. And so long as Backstreet Boy is ensuring that help can't find him, he's virtually trapped and utterly alone.
But Kakyoin will find him. Kakyoin and his Hierophant, they'll be here, they'll track him down. Hierophant is a scouting Stand for a reason. Surely Kakyoin has already begun the search.
Unless he's been captured himself, that is, but as he paces within his cage like a restless tiger, he reminds himself not to think about that possibility right now.]
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And yet the vibrations on the air that translate to footsteps, the absence of reflected light that means a figure in mostly black clothing, the knowledge of how many metres away from him something brushed against a tendril? None of them mean anything less for being delivered in the stand equivalent of a sequence of ones and zeroes that means Jotaro. He grins.
And then he tries to withdraw Hierophant. He has a clumsy, incomplete map of the current layout of the streets, but it's a map that can take him to Jotaro. Leave the both of them less vulnerable to attack while he seeks out Joseph and Polnareff or while Joseph maps out the whole place better than he can. When he tries to withdraw Hierophant-
-it'd be a dramatic exaggeration to say that it hurts. It never does, to lose a few tendrils. Maybe a few capillaries burst, leaving a tiny bruise somewhere. He couldn't even say where. But he's aware of it. He tried to withdraw the tendrils closest to Jotaro and something severed them the second they moved away.
Which means that there's something there other than Jotaro.
And so, being the brilliant strategist that he is, he immediately sets off in that direction. Because running towards trouble is always the correct response. Backstreet Boy is rearranging the walls again, probably in response to whatever severed Hierophant's tendrils catching on to what he was doing, but for now he has a path. If he doesn't in a few seconds? He'll deal with that problem when it happens.
Inside Heart Shaped Box, the cut tendrils splap onto the floor. Not the most auspicious sign in the world, but a sign that he's found Jotaro nonetheless. ]
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Can Hierophant regrow its tentacles the way a starfish can grow its arms? Maybe. He hopes so. But then, what does that mean for the severed ones? Are they still a part of him? Are they just gone, and will fade on their own?
Unable to help himself, he crosses over within the confines of the box and picks the tendrils up, piling them carefully into the bend of his elbow. It's a stupid sentimental thing, yes, but he can't help it. Not knowing what they must mean.
If only there were a way he could get out of here, or send some sort of message. But if there's a means to do it, he hasn't found it yet.]
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There's a building where there wasn't a building before, but it's not the obstacle that Backstreet Boy's user clearly thought it would be. It has a door, and it takes Hierophant a matter of seconds to wriggle into the keyhole and push at the pins of the lock until it turns. He'd rather do it himself, do it properly, but time is of the essence.
The inside of the house is, at least, relatively stable. The walls of it don't shift, but the walls outside it can move and place doors and windows up against solid brick. It's not the easy way through that it had been when he tested with Hierophant before, he discovers after the back door opens up to reveal a wall. But there's a window on the second floor that leads to about the right place. And maybe if all else fails he can get onto the rooftops from up there. The window doesn't open, but glass is easy enough to break (artless. frustrating. he doesn't like breaking things, it always makes him feel like he's failed. he's mad at the window for not having hinges and a lock to pick). ]
Jotaro!
[ He's a little way down the alley when he leans out of the window, and a story up in the air. There are a lot of important things that he should ask- does he know what the second stand is, is he hurt, has he come across the others? What he asks instead is- ]
-what are you doing with my arms?
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...which all of a sudden lends a positively disquieting clarity to where exactly Hierophant's emeralds might come from when he uses Emerald Splash, and NOPE OKAY NOPE he's not thinking about Hierophant snapping off little bits of itself and shooting them at anybody, good grief.
Luckily, he doesn't have to for long, because all of a sudden Kakyoin's head comes poking out of a second-story window, and that warrants all of his attention.]
Your arms?
[YIKES]
There's a barrier. You were looking for me — did they get cut off?
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Something like that.
[ He hops out of the window, catching himself with Hierophant because anime characters can just jump out of windows no big deal. He's careful approaching, though. He has an idea of where the barrier starts, but not an exact one and he really care for the idea of also getting trapped. Seems like a bad plan. ]
It's less that they were cut, more that they're just not attached anymore. [ Weird distinction, but here we are. ] It happened when I tried to withdraw. I'm glad that I didn't have any parts I'd miss in there.
[ Unfortunately, Jotaro has all his parts in there. Some of which he probably would miss. ]
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[Jotaro, is this really the time to be pedantic about this? Regardless, apparently he is going to be pedantic about this. If they're going to die today, then the hill he intends to die on is one of his choosing, and he chooses this one.]
...So you got in fine, but you couldn't get back out again. Right?
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[ No it's probably not a useful distinction here, but dammit it matters to him. And to Jotaro apparently. ]
Right. [ He looks around. Their attackers have to know that they're here. And if there's a way for him to release Jotaro that probably means they're going to try to stop him.
He feels vulnerable in a way he hasn't in a while. Hierophant and Star work well together because they compensate for each other's weaknesses. Hierophant struggles at close range, encouraging enemies to move in to deal with him and putting them into Star's range. Or maybe Star's power at close range forces foes outward and away from him where Hierophant can deal with them safely. Here? This is the worst of both worlds. Things can enter whatever it is that has Jotaro trapped, just not exit, meaning he's still vulnerable to being attacked from a distance. And if Backstreet Boy can trap Hierophant at close range, Star can't help. ]
Try to throw something out here. See if it's damaged by going through or if it just stays inside.
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Something to throw, something to throw. He digs in his pocket and finds his lighter; that should do for the moment, he figures.
He tosses it to Star, who catches it and winds up, heaving it at the barrier — and almost immediately, Jotaro ducks for cover when it comes hurtling back at an equivalent speed like it's been reflected back by a mirror. At least Star is waiting to catch it, thankfully.]
Okay. So it doesn't let you out. I guess that's why Hierophant got — unattached. The parts that were through it never got back out, but the parts that weren't could still move away.
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[ It's close to a worst-case scenario, in fact, as far as Jotaro being attacked from outside goes. And he looks for clues. There have to be clues here. The clouds above them are moving normally, not being caught in anything. So there has to be a limit to how high the barrier goes. Which means the logical next hypothesis to test would be 'this thing has a ceiling'. ]
Throw it upward next. See if it gets stopped on the way up. I'm not going to assume they've thought far enough ahead to add a roof to this.
[ Walls are moving again. He hears it before he sees it, then the window he used to enter slides away behind another wall and is replaced with a constant pattern of bricks. It seems foolish, at first. It's stopped him from escaping through the window, but he can still get up onto the rooftops. He wasn't going to escape without Jotaro anyway. It seems like a lot of effort to deny him an option that he wasn't going to take.
Well. He'll worry about that once it becomes a problem. In the meantime, it's time to do science at a weird box until it makes sense. ]
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[He scowls, but even as he does, Star is rearing back to throw the lighter again, this time skyward.]
You might have to just abandon me. Find the user and deal with him, and forget about me. I'm probably just the bait in here, anyway.
[Up, up, up the lighter goes — and as before, it comes right back down again, into Star's waiting hand.]
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