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After all of that, it’s just… over.
There’s blood on the floor, blood on their hands, blood in their hair and eyes and mouths and blood everywhere and they’ll never be able to wash it - this - out. This blood will soak through their clothes for the rest of their lives, pool invisible in scars and poison relationships. This blood, abundant and coagulated and unavoidable, is a shadow, one that follows forever like a cowl like a stalker like a sister.
And despite all of that gushing, dripping, plentiful blood, the stench of iron and the sting of red, it’s over.
Jotaro stands beside Kakyoin, in the kiosk area of some Mos Burger somewhere in Tokyo. His hands shake, and his eyes are unfocused, and somehow they made it off the plane. His chest aches, but his stab wounds are scabbed over somehow, and for some reason looking directly at Kakyoin hurts, like he’s staring at the sun.
He’s… really pretty, he thinks, all at once, before realising it. Without the threat of his mother’s looming death, of stand attacks and vampire fangs, he can slow down and appreciate it; Kakyoin is just, objectively, nice to look at.
“We’ll take… two double Mos burgers with cheese. Onion rings. And-” he goes to ask what Kakyoin wants to drink, but he looks distant, like he’s in a world of his own, so Jotaro decides for him- “one Pepsi, one melon soda.”
Kakyoin doesn’t even react; there’s some comfort in that, in Jotaro knowing he trusts him not just with his life (a horrifying fact that Jotaro was forced to witness firsthand, time and time again) but with his choice of drink. It’s almost domestic.
Kakyoin’s eyes are sunken in, and Jotaro swears he didn’t notice them so much before - this addiction, the way he can’t look away, is all new, as he pores over deep maroon scars, long black lashes, heavy eyebags. Has he slept at all?
Come to think of it, he didn’t sleep on the plane, either (although Jotaro couldn’t blame him; hearing about grandpa’s history with flying would make anyone anxious), and he mentioned before they even got to Egypt that he’d been having trouble sleeping. For some reason, Jotaro can’t remember why it came up.
“Are you tired?” he grunts out slightly, and then realises how stupid the question is: Kakyoin’s eyelids are clearly heavy, weighing down, and he hasn’t attempted conversation for hours. Not once has he commented on the food (not even a, “look Jotaro! Mos Burger uses full onions in their onion rings!”) or taken a break from sipping to mention how much he missed melon soda.
“Yeah,” he responds, and then doesn’t elaborate. Jotaro’s sure he should be saying more, and is for some reason desperate for it, craving Kakyoin’s voice - he doesn’t think he’s ever craved a sound before - but he doesn’t press the topic. If Kakyoin wanted to talk, he would, right? Jotaro knows he’s not the easiest to open up to, but it’s never been a problem before.
“...Is it really over?” Kakyoin finally murmurs, before going for another far-too-small bite of his frankly-too-big burger. He’s not even sure he’s hungry, but Jotaro suggested burgers, just the two of them, and Kakyoin will take an opportunity to be alone with him any time he can get one.
Jotaro’s breath is shaky, like he’s not sure, but he’s a protector by instinct; he responds, as firmly as he can, that yes, it really is.
His mom’s fine. They saw her that morning, something like 6am, driving back from the airport in a Speedwagon van, none of them talking and Polnareff blissfully snoring in one of the backseats. Jotaro’s sure Kakyoin wasn’t sleeping then, either.
And Kakyoin’s fine. Okay, even. The hole punched through him is sore, but grandpa’s magic healing breath (that he somehow forgot to mention having, the senile old bastard) patched him up decently enough, even if it’ll scar.
And Iggy’s fine, Speedwagon’s doctors picked him up, and even Avdol’s okay, but he’s a little upset about losing his arms (as, Jotaro considers, any reasonable person would be).
All in all, it… really should be over, but Jotaro gets it - he, too, has that hopped-up-on-adrenalin brain, that it’s-been-too-bad-for-too-long mind, that any-minute-now-it’ll-start-again heart. His chest throbs, and when he looks at Kakyoin - whose eyes seem a little wet, right now, for some reason - it throbs in his chest that really, truly, he can relax now, just sit back and watch Kakyoin. He always liked watching Kakyoin: revelled in fun facts and attempts at humour and slightly bitchy little comments he doesn’t realise Jotaro can hear, and now, now there’s no distraction or enemy or danger, he appreciates just how gentle his face looks in this light.
“...What now?”
Jotaro, in truth, doesn’t know - how can he? The world has crumbled around him, blood drenching through him, placebo iron on his tongue, and there he sits, alive. Somehow.
Somehow, they both sit there, alive.
They are not who they were, and never will be - old memories, of Rome before the fall, of Troy before the siege, are tinted rose, but it’s not from glasses; it’s from aching, leeching blood, dripping down crumbling stone walls. Their bodies are Babylon, valuable piles of rubble, a city in name only; hanging gardens of guilt and second chances never gotten like punch cards never cashed.
Kakyoin looks at him, and of all the wonders of the world, the fact that he sits there - making very slow progress on his burger, and slower progress on his drink - must be the best of all.
“I… think we should sleep.” He doesn’t say together, in the same bed, so I know you’re near, but he means it.
“Can’t.” Kakyoin chews drily - Jotaro watches his mouth move, rhythmic, enchanting. Easy on the eyes. Easier on the soul.
Assuming it’s because of Kakyoin’s… impromptu departure from his parents’ house, Jotaro understands: it’d be hard to explain to his parents, he supposes.
“You can sleep at my place.”
Kakyoin sighs. “You just don’t get it, Jotaro.”
Jotaro has no idea what he’s talking about, so he assumes he must be right - “Get what?”
“Back in… Saudi Arabia, I think, there was this enemy that attacked when we slept, and none of you believed me.” He really looks like he’ll cry now. “I haven’t been able to sleep right since.”
“...I don’t remember that.”
“No. No, none of you do, even I didn’t. You don’t get it.”
Hearing that tone, the bitter betrayal, the sound of him holding back a sob, makes Jotaro’s chest hurt far more than Dio’s knives. He wants to get it. He wants to apologise for not understanding then, even if he still doesn’t understand now.
“...I believe you.”
Too little too late, he thinks, but it’s something. Please, God, let it be enough.
Kakyoin sighs again, pretty eyes fluttering shut, wrestling to stay open, blinking long and slow like a lizard.
“Yeah,” is all he says.
A little longer, Jotaro watches. Kakyoin’s hands on wheat buns, dipping his fries in the sauce that leaks, sipping melon soda through a straw without putting the burger down: it’s a little ritual, yet another back to normal Jotaro is forced to get used to.
And yet, with this new-old-same-as-always, Jotaro’s heart aches, aches, aches.
“I love you,” he says, like he says everything else, matter-of-fact and aloof like he’s discussing the weather.
Kakyoin’s eyes close for one, two, three beats. He yawns.
“Took you long enough.”