[He glances around the room briefly, apparently concentrating on something. It takes a little work, because they're not outside, but . . . there's wood in the walls, of course, and there's always some kind of vegetation around, even if you can't see it. After a moment, he puts a hand in his pocket and draws out a few buttons, then lays them on the ground next to his foot before toeing his shoe off. He presses the sole of his foot down to cover them, and—]
[There's a brief glow, and the sense that something's shifting, like the feeling of standing in the middle of a thick forest during the spring thaw but accelerated times ten.]
[And then, all of a sudden, the floor is carpeted with tulips, so thick that the floor's no longer visible; they're yellow-orange and crawl halfway up the walls, open and facing Giorno as though he is the sun.]
[Okay, so-- it's not like he doubted him, but there's a difference between knowing something factually and seeing it springing out of his carpet. Polnareff leans over his bed, peering down at the tulips. After a moment-- gently, because he remembers the warning about Jolie-- he brushes his fingers against a tulip head. It's just as real as the otter, as far as he can tell.
This is . . . he glances over at his Giorno. This is beyond simple speed or strength. This is-- what? Bringing things to life, and somehow the implications didn't quite sink in until just now.]
[He's seen that look before; of course he has. Maybe Polnareff will understand now why it is he feels so responsible when someone dies and he can't bring them back. He has all of this power, but of course it's not quite enough.]
[That, at least, gets a smile. He's still a little off-kilter, which is to Giorno's benefit; it means his hair stays unmussed. And the sentiment-- it's hard to say, for reasons he can't fathom, but Giorno deserves the effort. God knows he does. So, after a slight pause:]
Ti vo-- voglio bene to you too.
[It's only slightly mispronounced. He's doing this best. And then there's the flowers to focus on, definitely not that sentiment, and--]
So-- I'm not gonna, but if I did hurt one of these flowers-- it still goes back to you, right? Flowers or animals, it's all the same?
[Well, good. Even if it's frightening . . . and he knows it must be, he knows that when Polnareff looks at him he still doesn't quite see everything there is to see about Giorno — even if that, he has to know that Giorno loves him. It doesn't mean everything, but it has to mean something.]
[He curls his toes and tucks his foot back under the bed.]
Mmhm. Anything I make. And I can make anything alive . . . I could make, oh, bacteria if I wanted to. It doesn't matter, if you try to hurt it you get hurt instead. There was a man who hit one of my frogs with a shovel once and came away with a dented skull.
[It's not meant badly, although he realizes belatedly it might be taken that way. Just in case, he leans over, bumping their shoulder together. Polnareff glances down at the flowers-- they're just as real as they were a moment ago, and he traces the head of one, admiring.]
No wonder you're in charge of Italy.
[And perhaps this is the inevitable question, but he has to know:]
[He . . . sticks the tip of his tongue out of his mouth, then bites down on it delicately. He knew this was coming, of course, but still.]
It would be inadvisable to try. I . . . tried to bring someone back from the dead once, and it would have been better if I hadn't. I feel that trying to make a human being from nothing would be . . . significantly worse.
Besides, that's—
[For a moment he stops, then tilts a tight smile at Polnareff.]
That sounds like something Dio would do, doesn't it?
[He says it because it's true: it does. An army of blank bodies, without soul or purpose, ready to be directed into battle-- yes, that sounds precisely like what Dio would do. And perhaps he shouldn't have asked, but he's always impulsive. He had a question and now it's answered; it's how he's always done things.
A few seconds pass-- and then, quietly:]
I did that, you know. Tried to bring someone back from the dead.
[He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to remember.]
You saw what happened . . . what I did. The end of it, at least. How by the end he couldn't see, or feel, and . . . then you saw him die for good. And at the funeral, I—
[His shoulders are tense, shuddering a little. It's still not far enough in the past to have stopped hurting.]
I just shut down. Because I felt like I'd made him suffer unnecessarily, and you said . . . "I understand the impulse, capo," that's what you said to me. And later you told me about your sister, so I just — I wasn't sure. And there wasn't time to ask, everything was so chaotic.
[Maybe they shouldn't talk about this. Not everything has to be a serious conversation, and if he wanted to, he could turn it back towards irrelevant. Make a joke, or brush it off. Make it something stupid.
But the more he learns about Giorno, the more he understands why he stays with him in the future. Polnareff slips his arm over Giorno's shoulders again, tugging him in close.]
There was this Stand . . . Judgement, who granted wishes.
[He shrugs.]
Sounds stupid when I say it, but I thought-- well, if it was shit, no harm done, and if it wasn't . . . if I hadn't wished that, I'd always wonder.
[Stupid. It seems obvious now in retrospect that such a thing wouldn't be possible-- but who could resist the temptation?]
There was a man-- a man we traveled with, one I'd thought had died. Abdul, I don't know if Kakyoin or Jotaro have mentioned him. I wished for him and Sherry to come back. And I got my wish, in a way, but not-- not at all what I wanted. They weren't them, just-- puppets, made to imitate them.
[A long few seconds-- and then he exhales harshly, dismissing his thoughts.]
Anyway. Abdul wasn't dead, and it was him who saved my ass. Destroyed those puppets and taught me about-- the dead staying dead.
[His lip wobbles a little, and he assumes what has become his secondary position during these sorts of talks with Polnareff: tucked up close with his face pressed against Polnareff's side, unwilling to look out at the world, because it's not safe. Not for people like them. Not for people like Abdul, he knows.]
He told me that . . . Bruno . . . reminded him of Abdul. My Bruno, I.
[He takes Polnareff's hand in his and tugs his arm tighter around his shoulders. It's a lie to think that no one can harm him when Polnareff is there, but he tries to believe it anyway.]
I . . . was Judgment, really. I thought I could do it. And if I had a wish, that's what it would have been.
[He says it firmly, and his voice is rough-- but his grip on Giorno doesn't waver. He settles his head atop Giorno's, tucking him in close.]
You weren't Judgement. Judgement gave me that choice knowing what it was he was doing; how false his promise was. He did it because he liked to see people suffer. There's a difference between what he did and trying to bring someone back because you-- you love them.
[His voice is so small. He burrows in closer, tucks his knees up underneath him. He feels so sad, but in a distant, aching way. And there's a bloom of sweetness in his chest, too, that after a moment he identifies as "belonging".]
So maybe I . . . was more like you? Like a hero . . . or at least trying to be one?
[He says it and he means it-- but in case Giorno takes it as simple pandering:]
You were trying to keep your friend alive. You were trying to do right. I don't think . . . I think it's something that's too tempting not to try, when you're faced with someone you love dying, when you have the power to change things.
[A beat-- and then he kisses the top of Giorno's head, just as he would Sherry when she was upset.]
[Polnareff kisses him, and he wriggles a little, loosening his grip. He feels safer with little bits and pieces of affection like that, safe enough to look up with a crooked smile.]
You said something like that, too. After you said you understood. It was almost exactly that, "too tempting not to try".
[He wonders if there will always be the moment of relief that comes after successfully navigating emotions. The little internal sigh that means you didn't mess up. He wonders if thirty-six year old Polnareff has that moment, or if he's matured enough not to need it.
He pulls back as Giorno does, though he still keeps an arm around him.]
I know I'd have always regretted it if I hadn't tried.
[They're not the same age, but it doesn't occur to Polnareff to count himself as someone not normal.]
And Sherry-- she loved people. She loved anyone who had a speck of goodness in them-- and god, she'd talk to you about flowers all day. We had a little garden outside our house, after Mama died, she was the one who planted everything-- tulips, that was her favorites. That's how I know them, she liked the red ones the best.
[He says this in an extremely blase way, but. Well. Talking about Sherry is better.]
Um, I should have made red ones! If those are her favorite. I just thought about this color because you said gold is your favorite. She sounds perfect, I don't — I never had a sibling before Jotaro. But it sounds nice.
I dunno about perfect, she fed my fish to her stupid cat once . . .
[But perfect in Giorno terms, maybe. And even as he says that, he's grinning fiercely-- no matter what, he'll always want to talk about Sherry. It hurts, but when doesn't it? At least this way he can share the good parts with someone else.]
She was smart. Smarter than me, she-- we lived together, just she and I, for a bit, she was always the one going over the books. I wish I had a picture to show you, she didn't look anything like me, she took after Mama-- brown hair, all long and curly.
[He glances up at Polnareff curiously, trying to envision what his father might look like, or what parts of Polnareff's face might be hiding in Sherry's. Absently, he plays with the end of his hair and then seems to realize something.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Can you show me?
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[What kind of flowers are there?]
Tulips?
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[He glances around the room briefly, apparently concentrating on something. It takes a little work, because they're not outside, but . . . there's wood in the walls, of course, and there's always some kind of vegetation around, even if you can't see it. After a moment, he puts a hand in his pocket and draws out a few buttons, then lays them on the ground next to his foot before toeing his shoe off. He presses the sole of his foot down to cover them, and—]
[There's a brief glow, and the sense that something's shifting, like the feeling of standing in the middle of a thick forest during the spring thaw but accelerated times ten.]
[And then, all of a sudden, the floor is carpeted with tulips, so thick that the floor's no longer visible; they're yellow-orange and crawl halfway up the walls, open and facing Giorno as though he is the sun.]
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[Okay, so-- it's not like he doubted him, but there's a difference between knowing something factually and seeing it springing out of his carpet. Polnareff leans over his bed, peering down at the tulips. After a moment-- gently, because he remembers the warning about Jolie-- he brushes his fingers against a tulip head. It's just as real as the otter, as far as he can tell.
This is . . . he glances over at his Giorno. This is beyond simple speed or strength. This is-- what? Bringing things to life, and somehow the implications didn't quite sink in until just now.]
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[He's seen that look before; of course he has. Maybe Polnareff will understand now why it is he feels so responsible when someone dies and he can't bring them back. He has all of this power, but of course it's not quite enough.]
[He leans up and kisses Polnareff on the cheek.]
Ti voglio bene, Papa. You know?
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[That, at least, gets a smile. He's still a little off-kilter, which is to Giorno's benefit; it means his hair stays unmussed. And the sentiment-- it's hard to say, for reasons he can't fathom, but Giorno deserves the effort. God knows he does. So, after a slight pause:]
Ti vo-- voglio bene to you too.
[It's only slightly mispronounced. He's doing this best. And then there's the flowers to focus on, definitely not that sentiment, and--]
So-- I'm not gonna, but if I did hurt one of these flowers-- it still goes back to you, right? Flowers or animals, it's all the same?
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[He curls his toes and tucks his foot back under the bed.]
Mmhm. Anything I make. And I can make anything alive . . . I could make, oh, bacteria if I wanted to. It doesn't matter, if you try to hurt it you get hurt instead. There was a man who hit one of my frogs with a shovel once and came away with a dented skull.
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[It's not meant badly, although he realizes belatedly it might be taken that way. Just in case, he leans over, bumping their shoulder together. Polnareff glances down at the flowers-- they're just as real as they were a moment ago, and he traces the head of one, admiring.]
No wonder you're in charge of Italy.
[And perhaps this is the inevitable question, but he has to know:]
Could you make a person?
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It would be inadvisable to try. I . . . tried to bring someone back from the dead once, and it would have been better if I hadn't. I feel that trying to make a human being from nothing would be . . . significantly worse.
Besides, that's—
[For a moment he stops, then tilts a tight smile at Polnareff.]
That sounds like something Dio would do, doesn't it?
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[He says it because it's true: it does. An army of blank bodies, without soul or purpose, ready to be directed into battle-- yes, that sounds precisely like what Dio would do. And perhaps he shouldn't have asked, but he's always impulsive. He had a question and now it's answered; it's how he's always done things.
A few seconds pass-- and then, quietly:]
I did that, you know. Tried to bring someone back from the dead.
[Two people, actually.]
Did I tell you in the future?
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[He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to remember.]
You saw what happened . . . what I did. The end of it, at least. How by the end he couldn't see, or feel, and . . . then you saw him die for good. And at the funeral, I—
[His shoulders are tense, shuddering a little. It's still not far enough in the past to have stopped hurting.]
I just shut down. Because I felt like I'd made him suffer unnecessarily, and you said . . . "I understand the impulse, capo," that's what you said to me. And later you told me about your sister, so I just — I wasn't sure. And there wasn't time to ask, everything was so chaotic.
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But the more he learns about Giorno, the more he understands why he stays with him in the future. Polnareff slips his arm over Giorno's shoulders again, tugging him in close.]
There was this Stand . . . Judgement, who granted wishes.
[He shrugs.]
Sounds stupid when I say it, but I thought-- well, if it was shit, no harm done, and if it wasn't . . . if I hadn't wished that, I'd always wonder.
[Stupid. It seems obvious now in retrospect that such a thing wouldn't be possible-- but who could resist the temptation?]
There was a man-- a man we traveled with, one I'd thought had died. Abdul, I don't know if Kakyoin or Jotaro have mentioned him. I wished for him and Sherry to come back. And I got my wish, in a way, but not-- not at all what I wanted. They weren't them, just-- puppets, made to imitate them.
[A long few seconds-- and then he exhales harshly, dismissing his thoughts.]
Anyway. Abdul wasn't dead, and it was him who saved my ass. Destroyed those puppets and taught me about-- the dead staying dead.
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[His lip wobbles a little, and he assumes what has become his secondary position during these sorts of talks with Polnareff: tucked up close with his face pressed against Polnareff's side, unwilling to look out at the world, because it's not safe. Not for people like them. Not for people like Abdul, he knows.]
He told me that . . . Bruno . . . reminded him of Abdul. My Bruno, I.
[He takes Polnareff's hand in his and tugs his arm tighter around his shoulders. It's a lie to think that no one can harm him when Polnareff is there, but he tries to believe it anyway.]
I . . . was Judgment, really. I thought I could do it. And if I had a wish, that's what it would have been.
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[He says it firmly, and his voice is rough-- but his grip on Giorno doesn't waver. He settles his head atop Giorno's, tucking him in close.]
You weren't Judgement. Judgement gave me that choice knowing what it was he was doing; how false his promise was. He did it because he liked to see people suffer. There's a difference between what he did and trying to bring someone back because you-- you love them.
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[His voice is so small. He burrows in closer, tucks his knees up underneath him. He feels so sad, but in a distant, aching way. And there's a bloom of sweetness in his chest, too, that after a moment he identifies as "belonging".]
So maybe I . . . was more like you? Like a hero . . . or at least trying to be one?
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[He says it and he means it-- but in case Giorno takes it as simple pandering:]
You were trying to keep your friend alive. You were trying to do right. I don't think . . . I think it's something that's too tempting not to try, when you're faced with someone you love dying, when you have the power to change things.
[A beat-- and then he kisses the top of Giorno's head, just as he would Sherry when she was upset.]
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[Polnareff kisses him, and he wriggles a little, loosening his grip. He feels safer with little bits and pieces of affection like that, safe enough to look up with a crooked smile.]
You said something like that, too. After you said you understood. It was almost exactly that, "too tempting not to try".
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He pulls back as Giorno does, though he still keeps an arm around him.]
I know I'd have always regretted it if I hadn't tried.
[A beat, and then:]
You would have liked her, you know. Sherry.
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[He gives Polnareff an uncertain look.]
I wasn't very good with . . . other people my age, who aren't. I don't know.
. . . I don't do well with normal people.
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[They're not the same age, but it doesn't occur to Polnareff to count himself as someone not normal.]
And Sherry-- she loved people. She loved anyone who had a speck of goodness in them-- and god, she'd talk to you about flowers all day. We had a little garden outside our house, after Mama died, she was the one who planted everything-- tulips, that was her favorites. That's how I know them, she liked the red ones the best.
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[He says this in an extremely blase way, but. Well. Talking about Sherry is better.]
Um, I should have made red ones! If those are her favorite. I just thought about this color because you said gold is your favorite. She sounds perfect, I don't — I never had a sibling before Jotaro. But it sounds nice.
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[But perfect in Giorno terms, maybe. And even as he says that, he's grinning fiercely-- no matter what, he'll always want to talk about Sherry. It hurts, but when doesn't it? At least this way he can share the good parts with someone else.]
She was smart. Smarter than me, she-- we lived together, just she and I, for a bit, she was always the one going over the books. I wish I had a picture to show you, she didn't look anything like me, she took after Mama-- brown hair, all long and curly.
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[He glances up at Polnareff curiously, trying to envision what his father might look like, or what parts of Polnareff's face might be hiding in Sherry's. Absently, he plays with the end of his hair and then seems to realize something.]
Did you do her hair when she was little?
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[He doesn't miss the way Giorno touches his own braid. Polnareff offers a slight smile.]
'S why I'm actually pretty decent at doing yours.
[And why he finds the entire ritual soothing, frankly.]
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