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[manuscripture]

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[ Somewhere around town-- at the bookstore, the Tomoe-Kaname Bakery, attached to posts and notice boards --you find a small white notecard. On it is printed a little message and some numbers in ornate lettering. If you look closely, it reads the following: ]

Rohan Kishibe, Mangaka & Visual Artist
Owner Pro Tempore of Ebony Threads Tailor Shop
Highly Experienced.
Commissions & Advertising For Hire
Pay Negotiable.
Contact At: 512.66.730.91 for inquiries
Castle Lüvchaque - Directly North of Bavan per appointment ONLY.

(( feel free to use this as an action-based prompt too. any random interactions will MOST LIKELY take place in the form of walk-ins at the tailor shop unless it's pre-planned. just drop a starter in here! ))

Comments

[starmark]

What a mature response.

[YOU ARE LITERALLY PROVING HIS POINT, SNAKEBOI.

Still, he closes his eyes for a moment, focusing carefully, and the heat radiating off of his body increases slowly and very slightly. Evidently someone's been working on his control of his abilities, and learning to do them on a small scale instead of zero to inferno in .002 seconds.]

I'm sure you'll manage to cope somehow.

[manuscripture]

[ For as great as gargoyles are, inferno is not good and he doesn't want to melt. That would be one Hell of a buzzkill. It's almost like they are trying to RELAX. ]

I have been through enough today that I am already half-placated. [ Only half. ] This helps. [ He taps at Jotaro's shoulder with the file. ] You have been practicing controlling your temperature. I won't burn myself again.

[starmark]

I'm sorry you burned yourself the last time. Your hand, right?

[Again, he flicks at the file with the backs of his fingers as if to bat it away — this is almost turning into a game by now, really.]

If it's going to be a part of me, I'm going to have to be able to use it. That's the philosophy I'm trying to go with.

[He pauses.]

Though you'll still have to be careful, probably, around things that nobody could control themselves about. Because I probably won't be able to, either.

[manuscripture]

It isn't your fault. It's not like it was bad. If I didn't have the scales, it would have been a problem. [ If he didn't have scales, he would be cooked more than skin-deep. ]

I'm not reckless, Jotaro. [ His chuff is cold. ] I like to get close to things that are unusual, but I would never do something flat-out dangerous.

Are you worried about me? [ Rohan is taking a tiny break from being uptight to poke and prod at the gargoyle's hands while he teases him halfheartedly. ]

[starmark]

["I would never do something flat-out dangerous", he says, after yanking Mitsuhide's tongue out through his throat. Okay. Yes. That is a statement that was just made, definitely.

Okay, fair enough, that wasn't what he was getting at, technically. But it's still just incongruous enough to be kind of funny.]

Maybe. It might be something like that, sure. Who knows?

[manuscripture]

[ To be fair, Mitsuhide wasn't a real threat and he knew it before he went through with it. He could have gotten away with doing anything. ]

Oh, please. [ A flippant roll of his eyes and he starts filing his other hand's claws. ] Why be so dodgy? I'd rather you be direct if I ask you something.

[ Says someone who gets SO CHILDISH and does his best to find outs if put-on over anything.

[starmark]

Maybe that's why I'm being dodgy. So you'll have to keep asking.

[Says the resident bastion of maturity himself.]

...Is there a difference between "am I worried", like right now at this minute, and "do I worry", like is that a thing I'd do ever, under the right circumstances?

[manuscripture]

[ The two most mature creatures this side of Bavan, ladies and gentlemen. ]

Let's go with the latter as the definition. [ That sounds like a safe one. Just cover the whooooole thing. And since he suggested it: ] Do you worry about me, Jotaro?

[starmark]

Yeah. When you're having a hard time or it seems like you're miserable, I worry. When you first changed and slept all that time, I worried. I don't know how much you remember about that, you were pretty out of it.

When people fuck with you, I worry about you. It doesn't matter that I don't need to, or that you don't need it. When something bothers you, I worry about you. It makes me want to fix it. But you knew all of that already.

[He skims his warm hand along Rohan's scales, eyes locked on the pattern beneath his fingers.]

...How long things will stay okay, in the times when they're actually okay. I guess I worry about that, too. Whether they'll last. When I wish they would last.

[manuscripture]

[ Something tickles at the back of Rohan's brain. Something that is way too bold. He thinks it is. No one has ever told him that they worry about him. He has stopped filing his nails with the distinct sawing noise of the brick on his claws falling silent. ]

It's still something I've never heard before if that counts for any of the expended effort. [ He sounds flippant about it but after a couple of beats and reluctant flexes of his fingers-- and squinting since Jotaro is NOT looking at him to see the indecision --he settles that hand over the one running along his scales.

THERE. HE DID IT. ]

Things don't last when you are-- Like... [ shIT... ] Glass half-empty about them.

[ pot, meet kettle on the glass half-empty front. good god. ]

[starmark]

[Oh. That's a hand on top of his own. Is this one of those things that ought to last? Is that a hint, is he supposed to try to be something other than glass-half-empty about it? What even would be glass-half-empty about this moment, anyway?

...Well, focusing on Mitsuhide, probably. That's one way to half-empty anything in a heartbeat.

Okay, so. So. He should...keep his hand still, let it be covered. He should maybe not look up, not just yet. He should just hold still, while he tries to figure out what he's supposed to do next, if anything at all.]

So. Focus on...enjoying things while you have them, instead of fixating on when and how they might end up gone...?

[manuscripture]

[ Well, now he's in Too Deep in uncharted territory that was probably better left untouched. Buuuut here we are. He's going to hold still too, trying his best to not be stiff as a board.

It's fine. Rohan Kishibe fears nothing.

Nothing but actual affection. ]

That's right. [ A little nod of his head confirms that. ] I live in the moment, Jotaro. I don't like to blink and miss things. It's why they all end up on paper-- good or bad.

[ He's bring awfully profound for someone who doesn't know how to hold hands. He's waiting on something. ]

I quickly grew tired of What-If's and all that crap when I was younger. It's a hindrance.

[starmark]

[This is the epitome of QUICK NOBODY CALL ATTENTION TO THE THING LEST WE HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE IT AND THEREBY MAKE THINGS WEIRD.]

...Is he going to end up on paper, too? Mitsuhide.

[Wait for it.]

What he pulled on you, I mean.

[manuscripture]

[ Which part of what he pulled on him???

Oh. Right. ]

No. [ By way of his thought process, that should be on paper. ] That doesn't need to go there. [ He tore a hole in his sketchbook by accident and everything. ]

There are occasionally things I do not want to see again. Not too many. [ Rohan can feel his mouth running dry just thinking about it. IT WAS NOT FUN. There is a little curl in his fingers around Jotaro's hand. ]

I would like it erased. If I am honest.

[starmark]

I can't erase the past.

[And for a second then, he stills, like he's surprised by the words that have come out of his own mouth. He'd meant it as a reference to Rohan's Heaven's Door — what he'd said about taking away memories for the sake of making it easier on him, how they'd talked about whether or not he'd want those memories taken away in the first place. He'd meant that he doesn't have a Heaven's Door to reach into the book of whatever it is that makes Rohan who he is, and start making edits to the words there with a pen or eraser in hand.

But there's something that happens when you say words that mean more than you mean them to, and all of a sudden they're out there and in the air and become something that everyone heard, something concrete and real. All of a sudden they're out there, I can't erase the past, and he'd meant them as an excuse to Rohan but it strikes him significantly at how easy it is to say a sentence like that when he's saying it to someone other than himself.

It's never that easy when he's saying it about himself. So why is it so fine in one context and not the other? That's food for thought, isn't it.

I can't erase the past. The dead aren't coming back, are they.

He turns then, bringing his gaze up from Rohan's scales to look him in the eyes directly. His gargoyle changes have altered a lot of him thus far, but they've left his eyes alone, already so odd in his face — light-colored eyes on a Japanese boy, jewel tones instead of a dark rich brown like his father's.]

Neither can you, anymore. So maybe the best you can do is...

[An instant of hesitation.]

...change the future. You can't take it back. And if he was your first — what I mean is, maybe all you can do is at least make it so that he's not your last.

[manuscripture]

I don't usually say that I want to erase the past. I don't like erasing anything unless I absolutely have to. [ OR if he wants to take them from someone else. That's also fine, if not ambiguously rude in every way seeing as he doesn't always ask. Good or bad memories. ]

Heaven's Door does not work on myself. [ Except for that one time in France??? ] On a permanent level. [ Jotaro is right on the money in any case. He can't, he won't, and futures are what keep ending up altered here.

Jotaro's instant of hesitation pardons Rohan's own as an excuse to admire the gargoyle's eyes. His too have never been the typical color one would see on a Japanese man. No, the clear green is anything but fake or a trick through false, colored contact lenses which would have otherwise been a good guess. Uh, Mitsuhide had used the word 'emeralds' specifically. He also wanted to pluck them out, making that null and void. He is thinking. He is thinking hard. Too hard on one thing... ]

You're right. [ He never stares into Jotaro's eyes for too long. He interrupts it with a forced blink and a brief side glance before they end up back to where they have been focused again. It is another excuse for hesitation. ] I can make sure he isn't the last, Jotaro...

[starmark]

...Yeah.

[And he's quiet, anxious and quiet and altogether too focused on how his hand is still trapped underneath Rohan's, thrumming uncertain with a sort of sleepy adrenaline that reminds him of tensing up in preparation for a fight, except that there isn't going to be a fight. It's the same kind of anticipation. He's never been this uncertain about a fight before.

He swallows and thinks of playing poker, of video games with his own soul giving his movements away — all those times when he didn't know what he was doing, but refused to let on about it, and got by in the end by making it up as he went.

He doesn't feel cool or secure in himself, but he can at least act like it.]

...If you're going to ask me something, be sure it's what you want before you ask. I'm warning you that you're pretty hard to say no to, when you're looking at me like that.

the absolute maDMAN

[manuscripture]

[ Rohan has the advantage of being confident and calculating. The latter is situational, the former is consistent. The face of uncomfortable situations fails to shake him. Under the heavy raincloud of uncertainty and his unsure hand, Rohan is still positive that he knows what he is doing.

It's fine. ]

If it's hard, then decide afterward. [ He feigns that line as being as smooth and easy to swallow as a fistful of glass. If Jotaro is allowed to have just plain Bad lines, so is he. It has to go both ways-- much like when he makes the move to lean over the whole skosh of space he has to cross in order to press his lips against Jotaro's.

Nothing invasive. It's just a kiss.

A WHOLE KISS. ]

[starmark]

[It's not altogether unexpected. Really, he'd been pretty sure that this is what was coming for the past few exchanges now. He's awkward and he's clumsy when it comes to social nuances, but he's not stupid, and there's only so much dancing and hinting and feeling each other out that a pair of people can do before it starts to get really obvious, even to someone like Jotaro, about what it is that's really happening here.

And if he lets himself, he'll start thinking, and then thinking will turn to considering and considering will turn to obsessing. He'll start fixating on every single little minute detail of all of this, pondering its ramifications, trying to make sense of what it all means and is going to mean and what he's supposed to do about it.

That's if he lets himself think about it.

What he does instead is focuses. He pushes notions of ramifications out of his head entirely and fills the vacancies with thoughts of how Rohan is cool to the touch, and how his skin has gone odd and sleek somehow, and how his mouth is a deadly weapon and all he really has to do is swing those violent fangs out and in a single snap his entire face is going to be Jamba Juice and —

Okay, no. That's just unattractive. So is the notion that if he's not careful he might bellow fire straight down Rohan's throat, so he'll have to skip that, too.

Let's try that again.

It's sleek, and soft. It's probably everything that Mitsuhide's wasn't, and that's probably intentional. Rohan doesn't seem to have a problem with the fact that he's another guy and yet this is happening. For a second, he thinks of kissing the nurse at his school, and ripping Kakyoin's Hierophant out of her throat with his own Stand's teeth.

...At least this is guaranteed not to be the weirdest kiss he's ever had. There's something to that, certainly.

It occurs to him then that he's probably supposed to be thinking something about the person he's kissing — that he ought to make at least a token effort to do this right, somehow. Rohan's got nice eyes. Nice eyes and a sleek soft kiss. If he asks after this is over, at least he can tell the truth and say he thought something about him while they were kissing.

And they are. Still kissing.

It's really not all that bad.]

[manuscripture]

[ First and foremost: No one needs to be set on fire here. They may have been lovingly discussing lighting up the wendigo who started the whole mess but there is no reason to try that out on each other.

For Rohan, he hasn't had any 'weird' kisses (barring Mitsuhide). Kisses have always been kisses and they were nothing but uneventful. Things in passing, things he had to do for making his writing ~real~. Rohan is too much of a handful for anyone to keep around and he has never wanted anybody to stick around. People cause problems. Kisses cause people to be problems. Jotaro is not a problem by any definition. Nor has he been one.

Whatever the case, this was bound to happen at some point and here they are. The catalyst that finally set things up could not have been worse, and yet... Neither of them have pushed or pulled away. There is more to work with than what he is choosing to use. He could put his other hand somewhere-- he doesn't. The other one stays where it is until it needs to be moved again. Totally still. The one thing he does do is feel out the pause before he leans into the touch of their lips a bit more.

It's kind of a real kiss.

It ain't that bad either.

A tiny clearing of his throat interrupts him, making a little out for Rohan to take a breath that is not far enough that he has to raise his voice over a whisper. Boy, that happened. ]

Have you decided?

[starmark]

I still think you're hard to say no to.

[Which isn't what he's being asked, and maybe it's sort of an asshole answer anyway, because of how it leaves ambiguous whether or not he would've said no in the first place. Actually, it completely leaves any and all of his feelings out of it, which is probably unsurprising coming from someone like Jotaro, but that doesn't make it fair or right.

There was another time he'd done that, wasn't there? Someone had asked him a question, and he'd resorted to deflection and ambiguity.

Why did you risk your life to save me?

He'd known, or at least he'd had a pretty good idea. He'd said he hadn't, and turned away instead.

(He hopes Kakyoin wasn't waiting for that answer. He never did get it, did he.)

So even though it's awkward and discomforting and he doesn't like it a single bit, he makes himself dig for something better anyway. It's hard to say what he even thinks is likely to go wrong if he does reach for his feelings to try to express them; it's not as though he's worried about being laughed at or scorned. Maybe it's just that he's so unused to offering them that he doesn't typically want to contend with the frustration of fumbling through bringing them to the surface.]

...Don't — don't ask me if it meant something. That. I can come up with an answer to that, maybe, but. It...might take me a while.

[He licks his lips absently, like he's still tasting the phantom remains of the kiss lingering there.]

...I don't regret it. And I'm not going to. For what that's worth.

[manuscripture]

[ Don't ask me if it meant something.

Okay. Rohan cannot tell if he's offended or if he's fine with having the answer up in the air for a later date. He is not being denied an answer at all if Jotaro says he will come up with one. It doesn't stop him from wanting to drive his teeth into his lower lip and crinkle his nose in childish retort. He decides not to in favor of shrugging up his shoulders. Throughout most of this time, his tail has slipped over and busied itself with curling around Jotaro's ankle.

Pursing his lips for a moment is a better choice than licking them out of reflex. Another buzzkill: His whole tongue falling out of his mouth because he isn't paying attention. The corners of his eyes have softened up as fondly as they can. ]

You're not the one who started it. You shouldn't be regretting anything. [ Correcting him, yes. ] I don't regret it. [ It doesn't feel like he should. It feels like he should bite the bullet and do it one more time to make sure it's all real or that it might have meant something. A something that doesn't need to be said.

He waits, however, to see if Jotaro will do anything about that or send himself on his way. Either option works now that they're both on the table. Rohan wants to see him react. He wants to see him react to something that will not be winding up in his manga. It will make it to paper, but not THAT... ]

It's worth a lot in any case. It's the most concrete thing I have experienced in a long time.

[starmark]

[He shouldn't have pursed his lips. He really shouldn't have. Because from where Jotaro is sitting, pursing his lips looks like the same kind of instinctive reaction that licking at his own was for him, and it's got him focusing in on Rohan's mouth again. And at this point, it's hard to imagine how justifying two kisses could possibly be more difficult than justifying one, and he's already going to have to figure out how the hell he's justifying one anyway.

So. Nobody's regretting anything. He's not, and Rohan's not. Good. Good. Then he can keep on not regretting anything a little longer.

The second kiss is unlike the first. It's not particularly soft, and it's not particularly careful. It's rougher, for one thing; for another, it's one he controls much more confidently. And control is really the word for it; though he may be hesitant and awkward and fumbling when it comes to articulating the feelings behind it, the physicality is something that comes more naturally to him, and he applies himself skillfully to it.

He's a fairly damn good kisser, in other words. And for a few seconds, he lets that be everything he needs to be.

When he does finally draw away, it likely comes as no surprise that he recedes farther than he had before, body shifting like it's implicitly searching for space without quite letting his hand slip free of where Rohan's is covering it.

He's hard to hold on to, Jotaro Kujo. But if he really wanted to create a solid complete divide, he could — and so maybe what's most telling of all is that he's not.]

...There. One to get rid of Mitsuhide. And...one not because of Mitsuhide.

[manuscripture]

[ Those few seconds are all that Rohan needs to stay raveled together. His unoccupied hand has found a spot on a far side of Jotaro's chest near on of his shoulders if not only to have it somewhere that isn't hanging awkwardly at his side. It gives him something to brace against when he steals a nuzzle against Jotaro's mouth that might have clanged their teeth into each other if he hadn't drawn away.

Done and done.

His chest swells with a breathy sigh-- ]

Good. Thank you. [ For what? Well, he's not gonna say because he's not supposed to ask either. Another time. Make it teaser. Rohan likes hearing himself talk but he is at a loss for too much to say. ]

I need to... [ UH... His tail lets go of the gargoyle's ankle and his eyes dart to his side table across the way behind Jotaro's shoulder where a book sits. His gaze flickers back to meet the other man's. ] ... Draw. Just for a little while.

[ For the first time in what might have been the past hour, Rohan shifts to start climbing his way out of Jotaro's lap and onto his blankets. The smooth sliding of his scales pauses once or twice in reluctance. He knows where he wants to go and there is no stopping him, but he isn't going to look hasty. ]

I will come back out when I'm done. I need to finish Miss Hiiragi's portrait. [ He is already making the reach for his book and the pen beside it. ]

Privacy, please. Jotaro.

[ It's demanding in 'The Rohan Way' that is so well-known around here. Not rude, but telling that he needs a little bit to get readjusted. This is quite honestly not awkward at all.

If it were awkward, he'd be more caustic about it. ]