digiorno: <user name="sawakonosadako" site="tumblr.com"> (♛ it's up to me & you to prove it)
giorno "menace, pronounced like versace" giovanna ([personal profile] digiorno) wrote2015-08-23 03:30 pm

ic inbox ( ruby city ) Ⅰ 



buongiorno! sorry i missed you; i'll happily get back to you as soon as i'm done with whatever business i'm on. leave a message!

( text | voice | video )

⇦ ●
starmark: (BWUH ☆ those shoes with that shirt)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-02 07:17 am (UTC)(link)
[...Well. That sure happened, all right.

The sudden vitriol is unexpected, to be sure, and the fact that it comes spoken in Giorno's voice instead of over text goes a long way toward provoking his own silence, making his own tension rise. That much is just pure, deep-seated instinct; when someone gets aggro in your face, you harden into steel and stand your ground. They push, you don't give, and your faces just get closer and closer with teeth pulled back in a snarl until something snaps and suddenly someone's in the hospital.

What doesn't add up, though, is the way the reaction follows, and he has to sit there a minute and absorb it to root out the source, the sore spot that he'd driven a nail into without realizing it.

I can't believe you'd think that little of me — "of me"?

If I thought Abbacchio was a danger — "if I thought"?

...

Coming on the heels of "I manipulated both of them", that's...telling. Everything he says describes Bruno and Abbacchio as a unit, a team, perfect for each other —

I just can't believe you'd think that little of me.

Abbacchio and Bruno's problem. And Giorno, in the middle because he puts himself there, who can't keep them safe or happy.]


I never said "danger", Giorno.

[What the hell happened here...?]

...You did the same thing I did, right? When I pulled Kakyoin behind me. Bruno didn't need you to take that hit for him — a bond like the one you described isn't going to disappear from one fight, no matter how angry they are. But you saw it coming and you jumped in the way.

I asked because I thought it was a given that the answer was no. I thought you'd be pissed, but not like this. I thought it'd be because I was asking you to admit the obvious.

But you're acting like I accused you of failing some duty. You saw a problem coming and you took it on your shoulders, and now you're pissed because you think I'm implying you missed another one that you ought to be carrying and aren't?

If you knew they'd be fine, then why didn't you stay out of it?
starmark: (ATTEND ☆ oh hey look there's rohan)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-02 08:08 am (UTC)(link)
...Giorno.

[...So that's what happened here.]

...It happens when you love someone so much you can't think straight.

And when you're so scared of something that you start seeing it in situations where it's not.

[He just breathes for a moment, letting space hang in the air, the distance between mouth and pocketwatch and all the city distance between the two of them right now.

Abbacchio had to come here to Spiral, and Bruno came with him.]


You were trying to be the fairy godmother for them. Right? At your pace. The way you want them to.
starmark: (AVERT ☆ okay so maybe i fucked that up)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-02 04:46 pm (UTC)(link)
...That's your family.

[An observation that comes not altogether directed at anything Giorno has laid out, but at least in some way responding to it. Passione isn't his business, and these are someone else's internal affairs — but Giorno is distraught, and Giorno is his affair in a way that Abbacchio and even Bruno aren't.

Because Giorno is family. Because Giorno understands some things in a way that most people — maybe everyone — simply can't.

Because he'll never forget that he has moments like these, when Jonathan raises his voice or — he suspects, at least — Bruno is at odds with him, and Giorno sounds like he wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

He really, really wishes he were one of those people who's good with words. That he were the kind of person who sets people at ease just by existing, the way Kakyoin describes his mother. Either one would be so useful right now.

He can't help but wonder how much of Giorno's agony right now is stemming from not wanting to be alone, either.]


...I'm sorry. I didn't call hoping to...

[...do this.]

...Even if you did make a mistake. It's not something that can't be fixed. A bond like the one you have with them isn't something that disappears just because of something like this, either.
starmark: (PONDER ☆ snakeskin is in this season)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-02 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's so strange, hearing that same sentence — the exact words, even — coming out of someone else's mouth. Everything's been really terrible lately, and when someone puts it so bluntly and with such cavalier abandon, it's disguised in plain sight. It's there like it's nothing, and you just assume it must be fine despite its severity, because no one is treating it like it's a big deal so much as just a state of being.

Getting from that to I don't want to feel like this anymore is a transition that's infinitely harder alone. He knows that from personal experience, too.

But what the hell does he know about doing something about it?]


When I get like that, I usually go hit things until I feel something again.

[But what the hell does he know, even, his coping strategies are shit and if it weren't for Passione, if it weren't for Giorno, if it weren't for Bruno Buccellati he'd still be deep in that hole right now, too.]

If you want something like that, I can make it happen.
starmark: (BEHIND ☆ is he posing in a parked car)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-02 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[Well, that's — okay, actually, no, that should be enough time to — yeah, good, a half-hour. That should do, just fine.]

Okay. We'll be there. I might get a little tied up, but no more than ten or fifteen minutes.

["We" being Star Platinum, clearly, but from the sound of rustling on Jotaro's end of the microphone, he's already moving to try to ensure that the extra lag doesn't prove to be necessary.]
starmark: (BRUSH ☆ oh now you've fucking done it)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-03 01:36 am (UTC)(link)
[Yes. It's time to get ready.

What he's doing, frankly, is crazy. He's well aware of that. But for Jotaro, actions will always speak louder than words, and though he's not technically the one who created this mess, he is the one who dragged it out and into the light of day, so on some level that makes it his to accept and contend with. That's how things are. And Giorno is a special case anyway, because Giorno is always a special case. He has been since the beginning.

And this is what they do, the niche he somehow fills in Giorno's existence by providing something he doesn't have from his other sources. Someone beyond the inherent power structure and struggles that dominate his life. Someone who grabs him from the middle of it and drags him elsewhere.

Sometimes there's chocolate pudding. Tonight there'll probably be blood.

As he's leaving, with Star Platinum at his side and a backpack slung over his shoulders, he pauses outside Kakyoin's door and takes a moment to just stand there, head lowered, thinking. Before he quite realizes it, he can feel the wood of the door beneath his fingertips; he won't open it, knows better than that, but there's a familiarity and closeness in reaching for it anyway.

I'm sorry for making you wait, he thinks. Just hang on a little longer?

And then — they go.

Giorno beats him to the beach, which is expected. Giorno — at first glance in the twilight, that isn't who he sees, which isn't expected at all. The saving grace is that he's far too short to be Dio, and the clothes are wrong, and the Stand looks nothing like The World, but from a distance there's still that moment, just like the first night they met all over again.

The noise he makes to give himself and his presence away comes in the form of unshouldering his bag and tossing it onto the sand with a thump; whatever's in there, it's soft enough not to risk being damaged by being dropped, but heavy enough to make a sound when it lands. Star is at his side, at always, and his face is the one hairline crack in an otherwise stoic situation, because he's grinning in a way that can only be called loud as a contrast to the quiet twilight silence.]
starmark: (TCH ☆ can't replace the protagonist)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-03 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
I remember what hell sounds like.

[And this is tonight's episode of Ultra Edgy Teens, with your host, Jotaro Kujo.

He remembers a little about the things Giorno's said about Diavolo prior to this. Things about the Stand he used, erasing time. Things about the way Giorno beat him, how he punished him for his transgressions. Their discussions about power, about how wielding it feels like a test instead of a gift, how it makes you wonder who decided that you could be trusted with something of that magnitude.

Maybe hell isn't a place so much as it is a state of being. Hell is ten thousand knives suspended in the air with their points all facing toward you, and waiting.

And hell, sometimes, is wanting to stop feeling like this when this saturates everything you do, clings to it, seeps in under your skin and won't get out, screams at you with words like failure and fault and they're dead because of you.

Star Platinum doesn't touch him, which makes for an odd contrast. Where Gold Experience is in constant motion, Star Platinum is a silent guardian, poised and waiting at the opposite end of this moment that isn't a showdown, but has all the elements of one anyway.]


You're not going to hold back, are you.

[It's not a question, just a confirmation. Everything about it is quiet and declarative, making sure everyone is on the same page before they start putting their fists through it.]
starmark: (BRUSH ☆ oh now you've fucking done it)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-03 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
[He nods slightly, hands finding their way into his pockets as his stance shifts fractionally, the distribution of his weight over his feet readjusting to something a little sturdier, a touch more ready.]

...Yeah. Me too.

[Because of course, he'd be lying if he said he'd never thought about it. He has. At length, across tedious mornings filled with the repetitive hammering of shingles, in sleepless nights of staring at the ceiling, in metal strings blunted against callouses on his fingers and in the cold air that hits the back of his throat before it descends and bites frigid at his lungs from the inside out.

Yeah, he's thought about it.]


I want two things, then, first. Because you know I won't go all-out unless you know what that means.

[Because this is how he chooses to use the power he's been given. This is what he needs, to satisfy his conscience and his honor. Maybe someday that will change, but for right now — ]

So tell me that's what you want. If I'm going to throw Star Platinum at you with everything he's got...then I want to hear you accept those terms first. That's the first thing.
starmark: (BEHIND ☆ is he posing in a parked car)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-03 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
[That's that, then. The question isn't about developing a strategy so much as simply demarcating the field upon which they're playing, writing rules and traumas onto the blank pages of this moment's playbook because contrary to all third-party appearances, there is trust here, and respect. It's something neither of them had the last time fought like this; it makes it different enough that it doesn't twist knots into his stomach like thoughts of fighting Giorno's father do.

It's about confronting themselves, not each other. Seeing who wins. So in a way, it really does have to be everything, because to hold something back — maybe it's like Giorno said earlier. It would feel like lying.

The point is to be honest. With themselves, with what they've done. With what they carry on their backs, and what they shouldn't have to.]


The other is: am I the only one you're fighting?
starmark: (INSTRUCT ☆ step one: fuck this shit)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-03 05:08 am (UTC)(link)
No.

[And that's exactly why he wants to say I understand, but what he does say is a little bit different, and a little less kind, and a little more open.]

I'm going to fight to earn the right to use the power of my Stand as I see fit. One more fight. No more doubts.

I'm going to use it to its fullest, and take it for myself once and for all.
starmark: (MENACING ☆ sfx sfx sfx sfx sfx sfx sfx)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-03 11:20 pm (UTC)(link)
[And neither one of them is named Brando nor Joestar. They carry it with them, of course, but they wear their own names. They stand on their own feet.

...And maybe that's one more thing they'll both be fighting tonight, the enemy they both share and perceive, and will hopefully leave behind on the sand when they're done in some sense, some shape, some form.

Good. Let them carry the legacies of their forefathers in with them, and see what follows them back out again.]


Arrogant but true isn't really all that arrogant.

[And then, with his eyes darting from Giorno to Gold Experience and then back again, watching the way he naturally shifts because they can both taste on the wind that the fight is nearing its ignition with every passing moment: ]

Don't worry too much about fighting yourself. I'll gladly beat the shit out of him for you.

[Posturing. Idle, meaningless, senseless posturing, because it's important to acknowledge that there are fights without grudges and opponents that aren't enemies, and he could've just said it's my honor too, but in the end, he thinks it's probably more apt to do it this way, somehow.]
starmark: (BRUSH ☆ oh now you've fucking done it)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-04 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
[Oh. Disappearing acts, is that what we're doing now. Well, that's fine; there's one of his own he can answer with — but, as with all magician's tricks, it's really only impressive if you don't know how it's done.

Or at least, if you don't see the way the moving pieces work to make it happen.]


How about you brush up on your Japanese. Let's start with kakatte koi.

[But as he finishes the words, the easy vowels that come in Kakyoin's inflection instead of his own, his mouth keeps moving over the subsequent syllables of a familiar command, and Star Platinum stops the world.

He knows, already, that he'll have to use this sparingly. Maybe tonight is about finding his own limits for The World, too — limits he desperately needs to know, to use it with any real tactical effect. How many, for what duration. If he needs to recharge afterward, how long is that delay. He needs to know; it needs to become his. It needs to become second nature, inside and out, or it's nothing.

For now, he has five seconds, and he's not tired. So he uses them wisely, dispatching Star Platinum to follow him and sweep over his tracks in the sand as he runs at Giorno, catching him easily up and moving him back a few feet from where he'd previously stood. Not far; just enough to make a statement, to change his view enough that he'll notice, and have perhaps a moment of hesitation from trying to re-orient himself.

With his remaining time, he veers off to one side, just barely out of Giorno's peripheral vision in his new position, and brings Star Platinum to guard against a hair-trigger attack that he suspects will be coming the instant that —]


Soshite toki wa ugokidasu.

[— Time resumes.]
starmark: (BSOD ☆ is everything a jojos reference)

[personal profile] starmark 2015-11-04 02:31 am (UTC)(link)
[It makes a memory twinge briefly in the back of his mind, the sight of a towering mass of something advancing on him. There are a few things that save it, that keep it only a twinge; one is that he's upright, instead of on his back, and the other is that he has Star Platinum in front of him.

(A third is that time is moving. He is the only one here who can control time. Time Stop is his, and he'll prove it again and again until he believes it.)

It's reasonable to assume that this is Giorno's answer; he's built himself a wall to act as a shield (while he recovers? probably, he assumes; it'd be disorienting to anyone) and now that wall is advancing like an offensive, but they're vines. He's buying himself time to move.

That's fine. And frankly, Jotaro's a little relieved. Giorno has every reason to be unnerved by his use of The World, maybe even almost as much as Kakyoin, but he hasn't turned pale and screamed. He doubts he could've continued the fight, honestly, if he had.

But the fight has continued, and that means the next step is to show this wall why it's not going to be that easy.]


Star Platinum!

[His Stand surges forward with a mighty roar, fists winding back for a brutal, lightning-fast attack rush —]

...!!

[— that blows him back thirty feet and lands him on his back in the sand, blood beginning to pour from his nose as not-inconsequential explosions of pain begin to go off beneath the flesh of his torso and face.]

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