digiorno | ic inbox ( ruby city ) Ⅰ

He is.

[Such a good boy. Which is why Giorno reaches up to pet his hair again, softly enough that it doesn't distract him.]

Are you both ready?

[It's probably a bad time to point out that he can feel that. And that it's comforting, in the strangest way.

So instead he half-rolls, half-sits up, and gives Giorno his attention as much as Star has.]

...Yeah. We are, yeah.

. . . Okay.

[And he gives all of his attention to the towel in his hands, then, draping it over the tips of his fingers so that it conceals the way Gold Experience blooms in his fingertips. It's all about showmanship, even when he isn't really thinking about showmanship at all. That's just what comes naturally to him, little lies in everything he does, and this has to seem . . . natural. Like a birth of a sort.]

[All the same, it happens quickly once he starts, the terrycloth shifting and changing until all of a sudden it's squirming of its own volition, a furry little monster baby squeaking intensely because why the fuck does she suddenly exist, and why is the wind ruffling her fur, who approved this?]

[For once, he's actually speechless.]

[...That's his baby. Otter, granted, but still his baby. It's his. It's going to be his, it's a tiny life that suddenly exists now and didn't exist before and it's his, Giorno's holding it and it's making little toy-like squeaking noises into the still night air and he's so fucking exhausted but somehow unbearably alive all at once.

It's — ah, no, she's, oh god it's a little girl — she's —

He's staring, now, openly and unmindfully, in an eerily identical way to the manner in which Star was staring at the betta just a minute before; it's gawking, almost, except that there's less foolish astonishment and more just quiet wonder. He can't seem to unstick himself from that one vastly significant point of note, the same one they'd discussed over starfish on this very beach weeks ago — that it isn't just towel to otter that's happened here, it's unfathomable power put to use in the gentlest, kindest way. It's the power he'd been fighting tooth and nail when he'd stopped his own heart, and now that same power has...started another one. A new one. A tiny, fuzzy one.

She didn't exist a minute ago, her tiny fragile life, and suddenly she does.

(Her baby paws end in tiny velvety toebeans. She's a mountain of fluff — she doesn't know how to swim yet. She...she...)

Holy shit.]

...She's a girl.

[SOUND MORE LIKE EXPECTANT FATHERS IN A DELIVERY ROOM, WHY DON'T YOU.]

[When Jotaro speaks, when he finally tears his gaze away from the otter and looks at Jotaro again, sees that wonder on his face, the renewed faith in the life that can come out of the darkness . . . he just thinks: good. If this is all he can do in this place, reaffirm that, then it's what he wants to do, over and over again. Make that kind of happiness come out.]

[It isn't all he can do, not by far. But it might be the most meaningful.]

[She rolls onto her side a little bit, wiggling in his arms, still squeaking in confusion. It occurs to him that he doesn't know what to do with babies, not even otter ones. Once they get old enough that they've been hurt, he knows how to heal them, but when they're this small . . .]

[He scoots back and nudges Jotaro with his elbow.]

Go on. Take her.

[He almost makes Star do it, at first. He would, except that Star is still preoccupied with the betta and the last thing they need right now is to make this into an overcomplicated juggle. But the impulse is still there, Star needs to do it and not me, because Star is careful, and precise, and takes care of the things that Jotaro deems important.

But that's sort of what this is about, isn't it. Learning to take care of the things that are important, and believing that one of those things on that list is...himself. So no, Giorno is right. He should do this, with his own two hands.

He can do this with his own two hands — that's something Giorno's always been right about, too. This time is no exception.

So he reaches, carefully, and lifts his wriggly ball of fur (his, his!) over and into his arms, and he's nervous but somehow all of a sudden it's just easy. She flops and waggles her little limbs in the air, and when he brings his hand to rest against her belly she squirms and chatters with a noise that sounds eerily like giggling, batting at his wrist and trying to catch hold of it with unpracticed paws and toes.]

Hey. ...Hi. I'm...

[He just gazes at her a minute, watching the beginnings of her play, watching how quickly her interest shifts in an attempt to make sense of everything that's around her all at once.]

...You're okay. It's okay, you're all right. Curious, huh...that'll get you a long way, once you start growing up.

[He glances up at Giorno, eyes still a little wide and expression touched with awe.]

I'm glad. That. ...That you can do this. I'm glad it's you.

[There was a moment when he thinks he'll have to shove her into Jotaro's arms. He doesn't want to do that, not because she's fragile - she isn't; nothing can hurt her without getting hurt itself - but because she doesn't deserve the jostling, and it might frighten her.]

[But Jotaro pulls through, like he almost always does, and Giorno ducks his chin and smiles, proud and pleased and thrilled and content and exhausted. Everything bad is going away. Everything. Just like this. Jotaro is talking to this otter like she's a little person who can understand him, and she's grabbing at him like she hasn't quite figured out where she begins and ends.]

[He'll be good to her, Giorno thinks. He'll take care of her . . . won't he.]

[Absently, he runs his fingers along his lips, through his hair. Little fidgets, not nervous, but remembering himself, where he begins and ends. Sometimes it's hard to know. Harder when Jotaro looks at him like that, like he's done something amazing.]

[Me?]

[Blinking slowly, he half-shakes his head, then changes his mind and nods.]

Me too. It's . . . my favorite thing. Of all the things I can do.

She really likes you, Jotaro.

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