Eloquence

Roses

Here ya go, ForeignStardust. Thanks for reminding me to update :)

"Jo-" Kakyoin chokes, confused and miserable. 

"I talked to her," Jotaro grunts, words clipped with discomfort but clear all the same, a generosity for Avdol and for Polnareff. "My mother. She says she doesn't know."

There's a war of sympathy and frustration twitching through Jotaro's posture. He knows, of course he must, what it is to have a strange and frightening new power. He knows what is to have a Stand out of control. These are things that plague Kakyoin as well, so they are easy to see. The frustration, too, is only natural. Kakyoin reads stiffness like shame in the muscles under the rose-patterned skin.

The struggle between the two is clear only to Kakyoin. Without the raw edge of pain that only Kakyoin can detect, without the sorrow that Jotaro has grown all too practiced at concealing, hidden in his eyes, there would be nothing but reprimand in Jojo's words. Stupid woman. Useless woman. 

What Jojo says with his eyes and his hands and the uncertain hunch of his spine is help her, help us, help me.

It was dangerously easy to miss. Kakyoin reminds himself that for all his practice, he still has more to learn about Jojo.

Jotaro's eyes trail across the roses that Kakyoin can feel climbing scarlet up his own neck. Kakyoin has a sudden urge to dive somewhere cramped and secret, somewhere away from eyes that see too much and speak too clearly. But that is only Hierophant, Hierophant who loves to hide and to kill and to lie, and Kakyoin knows how to distance himself from such things, so instead of curling away from Jotaro's piercing stare Kakyoin meets it, and watches something like shock settle in front of Jojo's fear.

It's better to be startled than afraid and it stirs up something feral in Kakyoin's heart to know that he brought about such visible change.

He feels roses crawling under his skin, tugging their way to the surface on spiny tendrils, and he shudders.

"We'll find a way," says Avdol in his fortune-teller voice, and Jotaro's flurry of emotions settles into something calmer, something with purpose. Kakyoin tries not to be jealous, tries not to admire the speed at which resolution finds its place in Jotaro's heart. He almost succeeds. 

Roses climb up Kakyoin's throat and he struggles not to gag. Hierophant, Hierophant, he lies to himself, remembering the days when his Stand would bury itself in his mouth to escape from the business and light of the world. It's impossible to believe when Kakyoin can feel Hierophant curled up in the back of his mind, watching, hoping for a more violent kind of conflict. Kakyoin thinks instead of cherry stems and knot-tying.

"At least they're not hurting anyone," Polnareff consoles. "If Magician's Red ever got out of control, we'd have another kind of problem."

Avdol looks mildly put out. "He doesn't just burn people without purpose."

Jotaro cuts in, rough and dangerous. "If either of you could pay attention to anything but one another, you'd have noticed that they are hurting someone." He seems surprised at his own outburst but carries on. "I'll make jokes when Kakyoin doesn't look like he's being choked to death."

Kakyoin remembers to breathe against the unpleasant sensation of rose petals brushing his lungs.

It's too strong and he's feeling too much and Hierophant is panicking and there's no escape from the roses under his skin, tangled in his throat, all too much like knives of water closing in on Kakyoin's vision until the world goes black.