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#imagine being the italian girl in chain of iron

incorrectlasthours · 4 years

Text

Cordelia: This is my boyfriend, James. And this is James’ girlfriend, Grace. And this is Grace’s boyfriend, Charles. And this is Charles’ boyfriend, Alastair. And this is Alastair’s boyfriend, Thomas.

Person: uh...

Cordelia: And this is my other boyfriend, Matthew. And this is Matthew’s girlfriend, Lucie. And this is Lucie’s boyfriend, Jesse. He’s a ghost though so he doesn’t have any other girlfriends.

Person: ???

Cordelia: This is my father-in-law, Will. And this is his wife, Tessa. And this is their husband and my cousin, Jem. And this is-

Person: *running out of the London institute*

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ohnotoomanyfandoms · 3 years

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I like the way you analyze, so I'd like to ask you a more general question: what do you think will happen to Matthew's character? (in general, not only in relation to Cordelia, it seems that people can't think of anything else, and the THOUGHT OF THE RELATIONSHIP WITH JAMES RUINED FOR A GIRL makes me terribly angry and saddened) I don’t see it well, I find credible the theory about the marks stripped, and I fear we may not even see him in the continuation of the saga. Excuse my bad English

Thank you for the kind words and the question! Your English isn’t bad at all <3 Here are my thoughts on Matthew’s future.

I think he will hit rock bottom in Chain of Iron, because of a multitude of reasons. The last straw might be that something terrible happens because Matthew is drunk: someone might be injured (which is heavily foreshadowed by Lucie in chapter 12 of Chain of Gold), they might lose an important object, forfeit an important mission, or worse. I hope James will finally see fit to intervene and ask Matthew to straight-up tell him what’s wrong. He tried in ChOG, but he wasn’t persistent enough, and Math definitely wasn’t ready to talk just yet.

But I think once Mathew confesses his “original sin” to Cordelia (I am 100% sure he will tell her first), his heart will be lighter and he will be able to confess it to other people too: his parabatai, hopefully even his parents. I hope Charlotte reassures him they will always love him instead of being mad for something he inadvertently caused years ago. Matthew always thought his act was unforgivable. If his mother and father show him forgiveness, love and devotion instead, it might be enough for him to finally start moving on. I hope this - and not some lady’s kisses, whoever she might be - sets Matthew on a path of self-love and amelioration.

Things will not be okay for a while yet, and Matthew will always have to live with what he did. He might always hate a part of himself, but hopefully he stops with the self-destructive behavior. He can keep up the bohemien attitude that we all love and keep having fun with Anna and Magnus and the Hell Ruelle. He just needs to stop putting himself at risk and he needs to take himself seriously.

Ship-wise, you all know what I think, so I’m not going to really break it down here. I don’t think he and Cordelia will happen romantically. I joke on Twitter that he will have a fling with Filomena, but that’s mostly a jape because many of us Italian Shadowhunters are totally self-inserting. I hope that in the future maybe Matthew and Lucie could have a chance once they’re more mature. Apart from all this, he will have at least one more (brief?) love interest before the end of TLH. We know that Kellington is the one who broke his heart a while back. We may see that passion rekindle, or Math could meet someone gentler, which I sincerely hope is the case.

However, I do think Matthew’s future is not with the Nephilim. Time and time again he has commented on how he hates violence and their people’s ways. He only really stayed so far because he grew up in a loving (and prominent) family and because of his friends, because he clings to them. In COI, he will begin distancing himself: this starts with him going to live on his own (thus physically walking away from his family) without telling his friends until he’s all moved out (as we’ve seen in a snippet), getting a car... he is looking for some concrete, tangible sense of independence. But this also means he will spend more time alone, and loneliness does not do him good.

Matthew has said on multiple occasions he would prefer to be a mundane, to live of art rather than war. I do think he will either choose self-exile in the end, or even - more drastically - be stripped of his marks (even though I sincerely hope this doesn’t come to pass, and he would need to commit a BIG crime for the Consul’s son to receive this treatment). Maybe that’s the only way for him to truly find peace: to walk away from all the violence and destruction and never look back. I am aware that right now it seems absurd that he would ever willingly part from James, but we don’t know what’s in store for them. We do also have to take into account the hypothesis that Matthew may die young.

On the other hand, I’ve heard there are brilliant theories of how Matthew might become a Downworlder too - also fitting since he’s so close with so many of them, and unusually so considering the times. Some say he might become a werewolf, some say a vampire, which would be so ironic considering his quote about wanting Dorian Gray’s immortality and staying young and beautiful forever. If that is the case, however fitting it may sound, we have to realize that since we haven’t met Matthew in books that are set in the future, he may have perished anyway. Or maybe, if that ends up being the case, Cassie just came up with this ending recently so there are no mentions or easter eggs of it anywhere else.

This is all speculation. This is what I think/hope will happen. I’m in no way saying it should or it will, it’s my personal opinion drawn after attentive analysis. Whatever happens, I hope my baby Matthew gets the love and peace he deserves. I hope he lives a long life of his choosing.

At the end of the day, whatever happens, keep this in mind: his arc and his development need to be about himself before they can be about anything or anyone else. External events may shake him, but Matthew’s biggest enemy at this point in the trilogy is himself. He needs to win an internal struggle before he can truly be a participant in the game. It won’t happen in the span of three chapters. It will be a gradual process, but I have faith. He can overcome his inner demons so he can join his friends in fighting the literal ones out there in the world.

“We do not get to choose when in our lives we feel pain. It comes when it comes, and we try to remember, even though we cannot imagine a day when it will release its hold on us, that all pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.”

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thanatosangels · 4 years

Text

Liquor On Her Lips

a Matthew Fairchild one shot

disclaimer - this includes the elusive Italian Girl who is to appear in Chain of Iron. as i am writing this in July of 2020, i have no more knowledge than anybody else on the matters of this Italian Girl. Therefore, any and all mentions of her in this are entirely from my imagination, sent to yours. i really hope you enjoy! <3

Matthew lounged by his pillar, the one he had taken to stationing himself at during events like these, and surveyed the room.

The ballroom of the London Institute was alive and whirling with colour and dancing and music and chatter and laughter. The middle of the room was filled with couples: some awkwardly swaying together for mere convenience, simply because they did not want to be appear socially outcast, some smiling together, friends or siblings, who were lightly conversing as they moved their feet in time to the music, and some - those who made Matthew roll his eyes - stared longingly, lovingly into one another’s eyes as they spun perfectly around the hall, as if they knew each others movements better than their own.

And then there was James and Cordelia.

They were swaying together, near the middle of the floor, as they should be. They were engaged. It would have been, if not scandalous, a bizarre occurrence had they been dancing with anyone else, save a sibling or relative. Matthew could not tear his eyes from Cordelia, her hair ablaze in the bright witchlight, her beautiful face turned upwards towards her fiancée’s, beaming at him. She’s a good actress, Matthew observed A damn sight better than him. James, too, was smiling, although it was rather absentminded, distracted almost, his gaze periodically flitting towards the shock of silver spinning very nearby. His black hair was tumbling into his eyes, a waterfall of ink dripping down a white page, and he looked positively dashing in his black and white three-piece that set off Cordelia’s burgundy dress wonderfully. Even Matthew had to admit they made a pretty pair. To the happy couple. he thought ruefully, as he took a swig of gin from his flask.

Matthew watched Cordelia, as Cordelia watched James, as James watched Grace.

She was, naturally, dancing with Charles. They moved together disjointedly, borderline awkwardly, and Charles looked as if he would rather be anywhere else. Matthew knew he was a bloody git, and he didn’t think much more of Grace either, but he thought he might have at least had the presence of mind, the manners, to have plastered a smile on his face in front of all these people. Grace was smiling sweetly, her grey eyes wide as she stared pathetically at Matthew’s brother. They turned his stomach. He scanned the room, searching for Anna, pressing the flask to his lips again.

“You love her.”

Matthew jumped at the feminine, accented voice, almost spilling gin down his new waistcoat. He turned indignantly to see Reneta Malatesta standing just behind him. He’d almost forgotten the latest addition to the London Institute, an Italian girl on her travel year, who had arrived the week before. She had been polite and kind so far, if rather withdrawn. Matthew had a vague recollection of someone saying this ball had been thrown to welcome her, but his memory was foggy. It always was.

“Pardon?” Matthew made no attempt to hide his flask.

“I said,” She leaned towards him, her soft, brown eyes steady but bright. “You love her.” The corner of her mouth quirked up at one side.

Matthew raised his eyebrows at the girl. She was pretty, but she was not Cordelia. Her brown hair was long, tumbling over her right shoulder and down her lilac dress, highlighted here and there with sunbleached strands. Her skin was tan from the hot Italian summer, and she appeared to be covered from head to toe in freckles. They danced delicately across her high, flushed cheekbones and chased down her Marked neck and arms like stars across the night sky. What really struck Matthew, though, was not her face, or her freckles, or even her accusation; it was that she seemed… familiar, somehow, despite the fact he’d only had one or two conversations with the girl. Something in her eyes, the half-smile, rang a bell.

“Well, Miss Reneta, good evening to you too,” he smiled, his most charming smile, and cocked his head. “If I may be so inclined to inquire, who am I in love with?”

She breezed passed and positioned herself next to him, leaning against the pillar with her hands behind her back and her skirts brushing his leg, so she was facing away from the dancing couples.

“Reni. Please call me Reni,” She looked at him, her eyes dancing. “and one Miss Cordelia Carstairs, of course.” It appeared Matthew had not been the only one watching that evening.

She smelt like whisky. The realisation, the familiarity, dawned on Matthew.

“You’re drunk, Reni.” It was not an accusation, for he was in no position to accuse, but a statement. A fact.

Reni laughed, clear as a bell, let her head loll back against the pillar, and met Matthew’s gaze directly. “But am I wrong?”

He broke the eye contact, slightly unnerved by the sense that she could see directly into his soul. He did not know what to say, so he said nothing at all. He simply took another swig of gin and held the flask out to her in offering. She took it and, in a fashion most unladlylike, gulped greedily. Then, transferring Matthew’s beloved flask to her left hand, she reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a flask of her own. Matthew decided, right then and there, that he liked this enigma of a girl. Her’s was smaller than his, shining silver, decorated with delicately carved flowers and butterflies. She handed it over, and Matthew drank from it, looking at her quizzically.

“Why whisky?”

She leaned in closer to him still. “It burns.” Her voice was low. Her eyes flared. “I like it.”

Matthew had been carelessly leaning, facing her, but he moved to stand over Reni, his right hand - still holding her flask - on the pillar just above her slim shoulder, his left in his pocket. He could not help it. Here was a pretty girl, with liquor on her lips, shamelessly flirting with him. It was not that he was not used to being flirted with, by man or woman, it was that she was so forward, so brazen, he was so used to that particular burden falling on his shoulders that he could not help but be enthralled by this Shadowhunter girl’s electrifying air. She’s not Cordelia! a voice at the back of mind insisted, but he pushed the thought back. His blonde hair fell into his twinkling eyes, and he smirked. She raised her face to meet angles with his, their lips centimetres apart, the smell of the alcohol on their breaths hung in the air between them.

“I have to say, Reni darling, I think I rather like you.”

She smiled then, a deceptively innocent smile, that lit up her freckled face. She’s not Cordelia.

“I’m glad to hear that, Mr Fairchild.”

Unbidden, the wispy, half-memory of a dream about waking up with Cordelia in his arms, showering her with sweet, morning kisses drifted through his head. Again, he pushed the thought back.

“You can call me Matthew.”

He was about to bend his head ever so slightly down, to close the distance between him and Reni, when a flash of burning red caught his eye.

Cordelia, in all her glorious, fiery perfection, all skirts and long hair and graceful arms, was spun rapidly past the pillar by James. Matthew could not help but stare. She was so elegant and poised, like the sun rising in the East, blazing over London and washing away all the grey and black of the night with a coat of glittering golds and sparkling reds. His head followed her, almost involuntary, as she turned and turned away from him, unknowingly knotting the strings of fate that entwined her and James and Matthew together even more tightly than before.

Suddenly, awakening him from his reverie, there was a small, scarred hand gently grabbing his chin. Reni repositioned his face directly above hers, as they had been before, and looked him dead in the eye through thick eyelashes.

“You know,” Their lips were millimetres away from each other, he could taste the whisky on her breath. “I have been told I am an excellent distraction.”

And, with that, he closed his eyes and kissed her.

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kvetchlandia · 5 years

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Burt Glinn Beatnik and Ex-con Poet Ray Bremser on the Fire Escape of Allen Ginsberg’s Apartment, East Village, New York City 1959

I used to sit often composing the manuscript never denouncing and therefore not to be written without preparation for trial.

I'd sit contemplating unobvious thoughts without poetry, being the poet of adequate life on broken brick steps full of contractions of piles and pimply sores from the stone and syphilis-eyed hypochondria sleep-thinking germs bringing flu and I caught my first cold fifteen histories ago in the maggoty festering garbage-can alley back of my mother's rear room.

I used to sit dreaming the dreams of accomplishment marching in questionable cadences down to the foot of the Harborside Terminal into the emptying carrying cars of Spry and Colgate Mullers outgoing spaghetti and infinite meatballs!

counting the black-balled parolees and broken-backed spics, Italian laborers, Polacks and sweaty old terminal boss, whose unknotted tie and left-wide-agape collar was motive enough to imagine the noose.

When I was ten I discovered the poet and quick circulated great novels of spy and adventure and killer police, whose murderous face I didn't at first grasp until I discovered a cop humping some young indiscernable girl in the park.

She addressed him with delicate fits from her lips which turned ghostly and blue and the dress tore away and he popped with a joy every cop in New Jersey recalls.

Since then I have hated what passes as law and the ten-year-old grew but the poet did not and the novels fell off into idiot poems and madness and sight of my city, the city of squares and the city of Pharisees all mobbed into a mass of the lewdest advertisement, tight demin levis - buck shoes for the silent and cardigan jitterbug jackets with saddle stitched pockets of rubber ... I've never been ready for trial.

But Carole Fugate has! Sweet youngest ever martyr City killer high accomplishment " "in her peaceful, pensive, elemental face the Virgin Mary ended indecision and elected to abide in every sinew's whore-mastered inch of Charlie's sweet and favored yards of flesh.

How did he do it to you? Whispering 'mother'? or 'little sister'? What of your idiot's eyes? Now it is more than Charlie's, sweet " now it is every lecherous penis legality has - every sensuous prick of old righteousness! Lord, how they're prodding, those moot prosecutors!

In love with your lips and in love with your belly's white warmth, 0 human - 0 animal "heavenly screwed little girl - in love with your crying's pure succulent salt of the heart - hot heart of the murderess " heart of the victim, whispering 'love' and whispering "please' - and the minor-thief's heart in my own hunting skin corresponds to your sexual lips of immaculate white - I would run my cool tongue in your mouth, eat your tears, taste your difficult washmachine beauty!

My city envisions your breast beneath which is the heart that addresses itself, and the answers? definite crazy - and love!

No; it wasn't odd that night when I went alone - into the streets and out of my home, so long out of sorts - was I out of my mind, too, with the dread melancholy stuck edgewise into my brain and into my guts, only man-guts, not pig-iron but twisted and flanged and eroded with rust?

So I had to walk and I walked, way outward onto the unfamiliar street where people are not always people -

And I. took in my hand in my coat and conjoined a pistol, in case - to decide things best for myself!

But the dreary, unfluctuables pinioned me stiff-columned into my shoes. The trigger-taut sinewous spindle stood me up clotheslessly still to suffer the bearable whipping of fingers over the mutable flesh - the motherless sonofabitching flac " the criminal shots, were pinned, like medals of thievery, onto my breast; and my waxworkwings found Icarus's pool; and I'm here now, changelessly dressed!

It is sometimes the way our necessity balks at a curve, to be tried. To be taken in dubious custody, chained to a chair in the precinct called lst and allowed the due processes up to the neck of the fist and the shattering bludgeoning hard?- rubber hose of an arm's length.

question and answer and hate for the acne-nervousness paused on the face and the please-leave-me-alone in the watery eyes that were blue turning black from the law's dark insensible glare " whose brute badges of courage and bravery stare, because Hart Crane might have had one of the heads that was cracked by the graces of nightstick and sailor Bayonne!

How their foolish pomposity walks in the streets! At the Hoboken wharves and the West New York Hills, over Palisade plumage of rock and the Fort Lee nest of the eagle - Washington Bridge Riviera "? doubtful escape on the harlotted Hudson Expressways!

One thing I found in the handcuffs was this: Great fear of the law! and a dread of my own Jersey Cityite's farce gone beyond the impossible truss of a sentence too large to impress any boy with its complex of God!

I will sign the confession of monsterous crime I will sign I will sign I will sign

I WILL SIGN! ##

--Ray Bremser, “City Madness” 1965

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diveronarpg · 4 years

Photo

Congratulations, KAT! You’ve been accepted for the role of PUCK. Admin Rosey: There's nothing that thrives more in Verona than chaos and Kat, that's exactly what you brought us - a character that exudes nothing but pure and utter chaos. Your para sample highlights perfectly the best and worst of our beloved Puck and his unapologetic satisfaction in being the best at being the absolute worst. Verona has endured many things but it has yet to endure Puck - and honestly I'm not entirely sure it will. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Kat Age | 24 Preferred Pronouns | She/her Activity Level | I think I’ll be able to get on quite a bit! At least two or three times a week, but likely more! Ya girl dropped a whole job ya YEET Timezone | EST How did you find the rp? | I originally came across it in the lsrpg tag, also I miss y’all :( Current/Past RP Accounts | These are links to inactive past accounts! https://neosy.tumblr.com/ https://grchcmisms.tumblr.com/ https://99gael.tumblr.com/ https://halogenq.tumblr.com/ https://odinbellc.tumblr.com/ ;)

In Character

Character | Puck, Pavel Lam

What drew you to this character? | beautiful chaos and twisted humor, a spring in the step of a child-like demon, all soft face and sharp features. they live life as if there are a lack of consequences, laughing in the face of harbored restrictions and societal rules. they swindle, steal, and slice, color the world with trickery and a wicked grin. they’re absolutely flavorful, chocolate cake with bitter, poison icing, long sticks of candy cane that are licked too sharply pointed.

similar to the likeness of peter pan, of trickster gods, and all devil-may-care figures. he is forever a boy, but parading as a man, selfish and big-headed. i see potential dripping from the deepest of crevices, his heart burrowed in armoured steel, tasteless victory.

what draws me to pavel lam? sweet, sweet chaos fed to me like grapes from adonis himself. let me unleash the beast of my writing in all its absolute, unruly nature. let me shatter glasses of whiskey by chucking them towards my fireplace as i express all the ways he can shred plans like priceless documents. i crave blood-stained teeth and busted knuckles, the dance of a jester as he makes away with all the kings gold. the clanking of chains and countless rings adorning fingers, gluttony and swallowed sanity. dear god, what doesn’t draw me to this character?

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

i. pride he shrugs, his silhouette not at all coy nor a picture of interest, but on the other side of a turned back there are gritted teeth and balled fists. he supposes it’s the curse of a person forced to work for their success, scramble and claw for riches. nothing tears him apart like a lack of respect, ironic and hypocritical from someone who can’t recall the definition of the word most days. he cannot stand being discounted, or ignored, more likely to smile at a drink thrown in his face than a turned back. his pride will eat him alive if he lets it, will consume him whole without mercy, and he cannot let them know how much it bothers him. he keeps secrets and lets blood pool his mouth from having his teeth sunk too harshly into his tongue. he can only clench his jaw so tight before something begins to splinter, a comment or a jest just an inch too far, just a little too close to home and something is bound to snap; an aging dam that still struggles against the weight of its burden.

tread lightly, or beware of the snakes in the long grass.

ii. greed it’s never enough, not all the riches in the world, not the most dangerous task nor highest penthouse. they can’t be sated by grandiose or any price tag, though such things are very well accepted and stolen. he will take all that is offered and more, refusing to reject any task that seems of interest, anything that feels as if others would turn it down out of fear or otherwise. these are the things that get people killed, and still he only laughs, the sight of his own blood lighting mirth and distaste. he feels no pity for himself, no self-preservation active in his mind or body. it’s only a matter of time before he finds himself in a situation that he even his wit and silver tongue cannot get him out of. danger signs do not flash so brightly to him, the dense fog filling the road in a blind search for glory and gore, his fingers grasp in the darkness and he plays it all as a game.

once and awhile, headlights cut through the mist in a warning.

iii. shame at night his muscles twitch and ache in sync with the pain in his chest, stood in his bathroom mirror with smudged glamour and horrid eyes – hurt, and disdain for his hurt. who is this person in the reflection? weak, and caked with dirt, hideous, with weighted skin under dull eyes that look pitifully vengeful? at night he stays out to avoid the man he shares his apartment with, the one who glares at him through the framed glass in his bathroom, the sleepless monster that feels everything he ignores, drunk and full of nightmares so that the pavel who works and the pavel who socializes can laugh and spit and jeer. the man who cowers under sheets and stares at blinking clocks is human, disgustingly so, and he rots and rots until he pulls his arms through decadent sleeves embroidered by gods. he does not cry, but seethes, and then he pulls himself together, all intoxicated and wild, the character, the jester, the mercenary.

he plants his hands on the cold porcelain edges of his sink, locks eyes with the reflection he sees, and laughs as if mad.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | you know me, the more pain, the more suffering, the more gain. bring it y’all.

In Depth

In-Character Para Sample:

he sits in the backseat of a parked stretch hummer with his legs spread in a dramatic fashion, leaned back in his seat with aloof expressions, careless posture. it’s not his car, but he dominates the atmosphere, the perfect center of attention, the other man’s eyes steadily on him, as it should be, as he intends for it to be. silvers drip from him, a newfound love of chains and jewelry, pretty and powerful. he looks unimpressed, perhaps playing his version of coy as he says, “okay, you have me here, now what on earth are you going to do with me?” all sharp teeth and glinting eyes, a modern day dionysus filled with lies and mirth, devilish words with a darkened tone, he leans forward, his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. pavel smells of fortunes, far from the street rat in rags, far from desperate but perpetually greedy, his grin so sharp it practically glows in the dark, could easily be imagined floating in midair, hovering above the leather seats.

they’re only here to play games, fingers gleaming with rings and itching to touch, to sully, to disrupt.

in instances like this they feel perhaps immortal, catching the light of the car overheads, the glare and tinted windows blocking the blackness of the late night outside. yes, mother, a child not designed but merely thrown together, a sloppy collection of limbs and blood becomes something beautiful, something frightening, so very terrible. a boy who had to struggle for money now carries himself as if he has had it his whole life, so comfortable in luxury, shrugging at expensive things and putting his shoes on the interior of italian leather.

“you know what you’re here for.”

pavel’s lips pull back in a wicked smile. the knife digs into the bottom of his calf in his boot.

it’s all too easy to play a part; pursed lips, crossed arms, sunglasses perched on the end of his nose. he appears petulant, perhaps wanton, poorly postured at a gala. expensive clothes but in an under dressed manner. he caught the targets attention immediately, an old married man with a high price on his head, a chunk of gold hidden in his chest, a new rolex behind his temples, and that’s all he sees now, not blood beneath flesh or rolling veins. if he is inhuman, then so is the man, objects for objective purpose, paid for in cash and carnage, a handsome face with chilling features.

he whispers lies and gets pretty words in response.

he likes it this way, business perceived as business, no fluttering eyelashes and personal questions, just the words of ‘roll over’ and a ringing, gawky laugh in response.

this is what war looks like to him now, red tinted club lighting and soaked underfoot, sleight of hand and golden letter openers, expensive bottles of wine and chandelier shards etched into skin. he suits this as well as he did sloppy street crimes, officers never minding the homeless man on homicide scenes; now they turn their backs to boys with expensive things, petty and spoiled, they assume, not worth their time. he climbs into the other man’s seat easily, a swing of legs over hips, knees fitted and he leans forward. it’s then that the feeling inside the car changes, near imperceptible to the eye but distinguishable by the way the man suddenly squirms, feeling less in control still, suddenly trapped. pavel gets close, faces nearly touching, eyes all humor. “what’s wrong? you wanna be on top?” he laughs, and the man pushes his chest, trying to get him off but pavel tightens his grip, fingers pressed tightly to the top of the seat on either side of the man’s head. “this is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he feels the panic, the surge in energy, and it’s then, in one quick motion, that he unsheathes the knife and plunges it into ribcage.

he still does his best work with messy murder, pulling the knife out and slamming it into the man’s chest a second time, the leak of blood getting on his clothes, pants and undershirt black for good reason.

blood runs red yet appears inky in the under-lit vehicle, seeping out of wounds like tar, a monster escaping a body first in slow motion and then all too quickly. bodies get cold fast to him, his interest only spanning how long it takes for the light to leave your eyes before it’s on to the next. not a minute to waste, unopened bottles of champagne lay waiting to pop, showers of wine and new gadgets and shiny things to replace the new gaping void he feels in the cars interior. it doesn’t make him quite nauseous, but something inside him rolls. disgusting. boring.

he removes his long white over shirt now tainted with red and discards it on the floor of the vehicle carelessly, leaving a black wife beater on his person and opening the door, one leg sliding out in front of the other. he stills just a moment outside the gaudy vehicle, allowing only a moment to pass before the dull click of a lighter.

Extras:

playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6BpLUvLJ5B0AShSPXzf4sT?si=xZj_nNlVTWOQqzk3K2S_Ig hc: owns gucci slides unironically

#accepted: puck #accepted

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granpafrisbee · 5 years

Text

Truth or Dare Part 1

Warnings: Cussing

Word Count: 3,752 (it’s gonna get longer tho)

Pairing: Bucky x OFC

Masterlist

Summary: After going to Italy and avoiding any romantic relationships for pretty much all her life Joey comes back to the U.S. to move in with her life-long best friend, Sam Wilson, and his two closest friends from college. Joey’s met Steve but is apprehensive to meet the elusive Bucky, whom she’s always missed despite having visited Sam consistently throughout college. Once she meets him, however, she wonders how she’ll be able to run from love when they share a bathroom.

A/N: Hey, so I'll be updating this most Wednesdays. I'll try my hardest to stay regular.

I wrote this using an OFC bc I cannot work my brain to replace my name with fucking Y/N and I know I'm not the only one. (I always end up reading it as fucking "yuuhnnumm"). I am fully in love with Zazie Beetz so our OFC is completely based on her except maybe a lil chubbier because why not. Really for the apartment just picture the layout of the New Girl loft.

I always have a confusing time picturing characters in fics so I'm gonna lay it out for y'all. Steve is full nomad, them honey brown locks and the full beard. Joey's hair is natural like Zazie so often wears it. Bucky is just Seb in fall/winter 2017 because I am weak for the I, Tonya press tour look. Sam is Mackie's classic look. The rest of the characters can be left to the imagination.

Also I mention good music so listen to that if you want. Please let me know if you like this and follow my hot garbage tumblr.

Special thanks to @buckybarnesxoxo for asking to be tagged!

the AO3

Stay Sexy

It’s the bathroom that really impresses Joey. She believed Sam when he said the apartment was nice. On seeing it for the first time when moving in, she discovers that her best friend is distinctly incorrect. A working sink is nice. A proper heater is nice. A nearby laundromat is nice. This loft, this four-bedroomed palace, is exquisite in comparison to her previous abodes. The kitchen has all its necessary appliances. There are a washer and dryer in unit. The walls are thick enough that if Sam was stabbed in his neighboring room, she would maybe hear it. Four bedrooms with their very own closets. All of these have her speechless as she tours around. However, as stated above, it’s the bathroom that is killer. The idea of sharing said room with three men is maybe one of the more foreboding aspects of her new sweet digs, but once she sees the giant clawfoot shower and tub, she is sure the positives will heavily outweigh the negatives.

She immediately slides down into her new porcelain palace. She’s a medium height at 5’6”, and even she has to point her toes to touch the far end of the tub. She sighs comfortably and is already planning an essential oils combination for her first real bath when the door swings open and her fantasy is interrupted by one her new roommates. He’s the one she hasn’t met yet but Sam and Steve have shown her plenty of pictures. His hair looks soft and well-coiffed and he wears a tank top under an unbuttoned striped short sleeve button down. Rather than judgment appearing across his abnormally handsome face, he smiles like there was nothing else he could have expected when entering the bathroom.

“You see I specifically told Steve to get a bathtub that doesn’t come with a human.”

“Oh no, you got it all wrong. I’m actually a ghost here to haunt you but hygienically. Instead of boo, I say floss.” She says without a beat and he nods, very seriously, in response to this.

“You know I’m pretty sure I just carried in a bed to our fourth room that might be more comfortable than the tub, but who am I to judge one’s preferred sleeping arrangements.” His quip is followed by another fantastic smile, and based on the past ten seconds of her life Joey is absolutely sure that this is her kind of human.

She smiles back and extends her hand from the tub. “Joey.”

“Bucky,” He shakes her hand and nods again.

“You guys brought up my bed? I told Samuel to let me handle that shit.”

He laughs and scratches his beard, “Ah just gave me another opportunity to show Sam how much stronger I am than him. And Steve the chance to show up both of us.”

Joey chuckles and silently appreciates how Bucky balanced his dig on Sam with some light self-depreciation of himself. Although it would be unrealistic to pretend that anyone was stronger than Steve. The man is built. “Seriously though, I’ll come help y’all out. I’m not gonna be the useless roommate.” She gets out of the tub and starts out the door.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that, I think Sammy’s got that title covered, Darlin’.” He follows her out and therefore doesn’t see her face cringe at the pet name.

She considers calling him on it when Sam yells from the front door, “I know you’re not in there besmirching me to my very own best friend Barnes,” He enters view sweaty and smiling, “And I especially know she wasn’t participating, because she is my best friend and therefore automatically on my side.” He wraps his arm protectively around her shoulders causing her to shrug away from him with her nose scrunched.

“Consider our friendship on sabbatical until you take a shower, Wilson.” Joey continues backing away.

“Jesus I always knew your personality stank but I guess the inside always comes out huh.” Bucky mirrors Joey’s disgusted face as he walks towards the door.

Sam rolls his eyes, “Not funny.” Although the involuntary “Hah!” Joey lets out at Bucky’s comment seems to contradict his statement. Sam just flips her off.

“Thank you, Doll. You see Sammy, even your best friend thinks I’m right.” Bucky mocks as he heads back outside.

This time Sam sees her face twist in reaction to the nickname. Misinterpreting it he grumbles, “Oh come on there’s no way you can smell me from over there.” He starts to head to his room, presumably for deodorant.

Joey follows Bucky downstairs to help with some more furniture moving. Steve is outside their building, ass in the air, bent over picking something up. “Damn Rogers,” Joey calls out appreciatively, “If I knew I’d be getting a view like that I would have shacked up with you years ago.”

He stands up, holding up an entire bookshelf on his own, further challenging the poor under armor shirt that is being stretched to hell on his giant frame. “Hey killer, thanks for joining us.”

She picks up a lamp and smiles at him, “Well I figured you guys needed the extra muscle.”

His smile is bright against his beard as he walks into the house with the ease of a man who isn't carrying a bookshelf.

The four of them finish loading their sporadic furniture into the loft and the afternoon fades to early evening. An old but amazing and huge high-quality leather sectional provided by Steve’s mom. Sam’s flat screen, whom he’s named Esmeralda, and may or may not have a near sexual attraction to. Bucky’s records and a player that’s older than any of them, plus a big wooden dinner table his Dad handmade. Steve’s varied level of completed canvases and paint stuff. Joey’s shelves and chairs she found on the side of the road her senior year in college. A mix of plates, bowls, and utensils have been loaded into varying drawers and cabinets. As well as cooking instruments, although, beyond Joey’s waffle iron and an old cast iron from Steve, it’s all Sam’s. Everyone’s personal boxes and furniture is piled in their own rooms.

Joey sits on the kitchen island as the boys lean against it, all sipping the cheap beer Joey bought as penance for them carrying her bed in. She takes that moment to appreciate the weird chain of events that got her where she is now. She and Sam have been friends since grade school. They went to different colleges but remained good ol’ buddies throughout. When they graduated Joey traveled around and did an apprenticeship with an Italian glassblower. Sam went to Culinary school, and when he graduated the second time around Joey was offered a job with a world-renowned blower (god she will never get tired of calling her profession that) stateside. After little luck finding a two bedroom inexpensive enough for the two of them, Steve, one of Sam’s old college buddies Joey had met many a time during visits, mentioned his friend's dad owned a couple lofts in the neighborhood they were looking in. Sam toured with Steve and Bucky and the three of them signed the lease that day. Sam called Joey that night and announced he was so confident that he forged her signature. He was insistent that it was the best option they’d find, all Steve is a good guy and fellow artist, and even Bucky is sometimes bearable but don’t tell him that. Steve paints and sketches in his free time and works as a personal trainer to pay the bills. Joey knows he isn’t passionate about it, but with his perfect body and matching attitude, she is sure he is fantastic at his job. Sam is starting at a new restaurant with a name Joey can only pronounce thanks to high school French. A plus for living with Sam is that he brings work home with him. Although Joey had visited Sam plenty over the years and even struck up a solid friendship with Steve, she always seems to have missed Bucky. They had never met but she knew he was a language major with a focus in Eastern Europe and Russia. Sam had told her Bucky translated English books into Russian and vice versa and made more money than he should. Earlier Joey had heard him curse in some sort of Slavic tongue when Sam “accidentally” dropped his end of a coffee table on Bucky’s foot. She also had heard a few stories about Steve and Bucky’s childhood, the rambunctious troublemakers lived up to every tall tale. As the four nursed their beers she felt confident that this was going to be a very important group of people in her life.

“Joey?” Sam snapped her out of her thoughts.

“What?”

“Barnes suggested we get more beer and pizza and invite some friends over. Are you down?” The three men looked at her expectantly.

“I say hell yeah. Who are we calling?” She looked down at her watch and was surprised to see it was only 6:30.

“Well there are the couples, Nat and Wanda and Thor and Bruce,” Steve suggested.

“I told Shuri I’d pay her in alcohol if she set up all the tech shit,” Bucky adds.

Steve nods, “Now that you mention it, we should probably invite Tony, he’s the reason we got this place.”

“Tony means at least Rhodey and probably Pep, Clint is a must, and if we invite Wanda we should call Pietro too.” Sam finishes his beer and scrolls through his messages.

“Brunnhilde and Okoye are in town too.” Joey hops off the counter and recycles the empty bottles collecting on the island.

“Alright you guys decide who to invite, and I’ll go get libations and sustenance,” Bucky grabs his keys.

“With the list we’ve got you’ll need some help, I’ll come with,” Joey volunteers.

Bucky smiles vibrantly and nods towards to Steve, “You okay babysitting Rogers?”

“As long as Killer doesn’t mind your unreasonably picky ass,” Steve’s retort is so quick that Bucky and Sam raise their middle fingers simultaneously at their aggravator.

Joey and Bucky decide to start off to the pizzeria three blocks away and pick up the beer on the walk back. The walk begins in mildly uncomfortable silence.

“So… you’re picky?” Joey asks to spark some sort of conversation.

“Nooo..” Bucky’s defensiveness creates an endearing drawl, “Those two pompous asses just don’t understand that I like my pizza simple. Margherita pizza is a fucking gift. Who am I to screw it up with a bunch of American bullshit?” He gestures widely as he speaks.

“You’re kidding right?”

Bucky’s must have misinterpreted her smile as he quickly responds, “Alright I’ve been judged enough in my life, I know you lived in Italy and-”

“No, no, Bucky!” She grabs his forearm, “Margherita is my favorite! I ate it all the time in Italy, judgment-free.”

“Jesus Christ Doll, where have you been all my life?”

She smiles and they continue a brisk pace to the pizza place. “How did you know I lived in Italy?”

“Ah, I know plenty about you. Sammy talks about you non-stop, has since I met him. Steve even thought he was secretly in love with you until he hung out with you in person.”

This makes Joey raise her brows, “Really? Wow. What, if I may ask, ultimately caused him to accept our relationship as extraordinarily platonic? Was it the sibling-like side hugs? The lack of sexual tension in our banter? The fact that I knew him during his first mustache phase?”

“Are you telling me there was a skinnier mustache than the one we know and mildly tolerate?”

“I’m talking Prince but pubescent. It was so thin models asked his mustache for dieting tips. It was so thin his first girlfriend thought he had an eyelash over his top lip. I mean you would’ve thought he drew it on with a ballpoint pen. In fact, it’s very possible it was. Just because I never saw doesn’t mean he never-”

Bucky is laughing uproariously, “Please, please, you’re killing me. I’m gonna need pictures as soon as possible.”

“No can do. I will recite the epic of the mustache homer-style until the day I die, but any physical evidence shared will prompt an all-out war between Samuel and me. That is just something I can’t afford.”

“Oh now I have to see them. What’s your secret shame, sweetheart? Bangs? Braces? Please tell me it was an emo phase,” As he lists off he starts walking backward, the goofy smile didn't dim once.

“I’ll never share, but trust me when I say if you find something behind my back, I’m sure Steve will be more than willing to share some pictures of your past. Emo phase is a good guess, but if I didn’t know any better I’d say that was a projection, hmm?”

That does a good job of replacing his smile with pursed lips and a quirked eyebrow, contemplating his next move in this battle of embarrassing adolescence. “Steve would never betray me.”

“Don’t be so sure, all men have their weaknesses,” She smiles deviously.

“Oh yeah, you gonna seduce him for a picture of me in eyeliner?”

“First of all, I would seduce Steve for much less so thanks for confirming my emo theories. Secondly, I may not know Steve like you do, but I know him well enough to see that seduction would hardly prove fruitful.” She holds the door open for him and they both bask in the practically orgasmic scent of the pizzeria, “Steve is so suspicious of anyone who wants to sleep with him that he’d see through me. My method would be to trick him to do some sort of high school ‘Where are they now?’ portrait. He’d be so inspired he’d paint your lined eyes and black, I’m guessing, over parted hair in a second.” The line is moving slowly and he admires how she never lowers her volume or hides from strangers eyes.

“Damn, Doll, you’re good.”

“I minored in manipulation.” The store isn’t too packed for Saturday night and Sam Cooke is playing lightly in the background. She’s nodding her head and he’s mouthing along to words and when they both realize this they share a smile at the music.

“So Steve is a suspicious mind in your book?” She chuckles at his reference.

“I’m not the biggest drinker and neither is Steve, so when Sammy went hard when I visited, Steve was always good for a tipsy talk. The poor guy has the same self-esteem he must have had in high school. Unlike us three cool cats Steve will show me pictures of his past self. I know you were there through it all, but just because the outside changes doesn’t mean the inside follows suit. I have seen the most dedicated and gorgeous women throw themselves at him and yet he remains sure that she was ‘just being friendly’. It’s actually impressive.”

“I know what you mean. To be fair though a lot of that is just his college girlfriend. She really did a number on him.” He runs a hand through his hair but doesn’t hide his contempt for whoever she is.

Solemn surprise covers Joey’s features, “I never knew. Never met her on any visits.”

“She wasn’t big on him talking to other girls, probably hid him anytime you came around. Although that isn’t my story to tell, I’m sure the punk will tell you about it sometime.” She follows his eye line down to his shoes. He’s drawing stars with the tip of his shoe, a tic she’s just noticing.

“What about you? You have a girl hiding you away, distracting you during your collegiate years? She the reason our meeting was so unluckily delayed until today?”

He thinks about the answer for a second or two. “Nah, no anchor to this ship. At this point, I’m just convinced Wilson just didn’t tell me you were around because he knew you would like me more than him.”

“Well turns out I like Steve better than both of you.”

He puts his hands up and reassures her, “I don’t need to be first, Sweetheart, just as long as I’m on your radar.” As he lowers his hands the song changes and they simultaneously recognize the song, both begin humming the initial notes. “Penny & The Quarters fan huh?” He asks.

“Nobody, baby, but-” she sings before quickly turning her attention to the cashier, “We’ll have two large Everything Pizzas and one large Margherita.” Facing Bucky again she smiles and drops another line that makes his heart race, “Just for you and me, huh?”

The pizza is out quick, and a trip to the local gas station provides them with more than enough beer. They continue discussing music, Joey is surprised at their similarly irregular taste. He describes his favorite Etta James songs, but can’t forget the Simon and Garfunkel song that he thinks is his first love encapsulated. He lists his top three favorite rappers after ranking contemporary folk bands. She adds in her opinions sporadically, and he apologizes twice for dominating the conversation when they get in the elevator.

She is being honest when she says, “There’s nothing I want to hear more than whatever you’re going to say right this moment.” He thinks that every lyric in every song he’s just listed doesn’t have shit on that sentence.

He’s about to tell her so when an alarming large hand last minute catches the elevator as it closes. The doors open to the Thor and Bruce. The couple is the lynchpin of every good party, from rager to kickback. Thor is the greatest hype man in history but is never hammered, probably because it would take two handles of tequila to get him there. Bruce is much more chill but a secret god at beer pong, not to mention he always has weed. Bucky’s favorite part of their presence always happens when Bruce is particularly high and begins a lecture on some sort of subject no one else understands. He isn’t exactly captivating, especially not to anyone far from sober although his passion is palpable, but Thor will plop down on the couch next to him and watch him like he’s the only thing in the universe (while rubbing Bruce’s neck to keep him from getting too wound up). Bucky loves those guys.

“Looks like we arrived just in time, wouldn’t you say Thor?” Bruce shakes Bucky’s hand and smiles at Joey.

“Of course! I was worried we got too much pizza, but now that you’re here Thor I’m sure you’ll help us with any surplus.” Joey sets the pizzas down before Thor pulls her into a bear hug.

“Joey, you know I never leave a damsel in distress,” Thor agrees as he sets her back on her feet.

Joey’s eyebrow playfully shoots up, “Who are you calling damsel, Odinson?”

“In this case, definitely Sam. I’m surprised he even let you order out.” Bruce answers for his boyfriend.

“My love is right in my insinuation. Never ever have I seen you anywhere near damsel status Joe.” Bucky watches their interaction with curiosity.

The elevator dings and Bucky asks, “This may seem like a dumb question but how do you guys know each other? Just through Sam?”

Joey picks up the pizzas as Thor holds the door open, ”Thor’s siblings and I were all in a group home together as teens. I’ve known this big lug long before he was the Nordic party god we see before us.” Thor laughs and he and Bruce go to greet everyone inside.

“Are you telling me Thor hasn’t always been a blonde beefcake?” Bucky whispers in Joey’s ear as they set the pizza and beer on the counter.

“Sadly no, he’s looked like that since I met him. I just like making that joke because he’s too humble to care.” She makes note that he doesn’t question the foster home part of her story. She wonders just what Sam has told him about her past.

People start to crowd the food and drinks, so Joey and Bucky greet everyone who has arrived. Nat is there sans Wanda, who is at home sick. Bucky knows this means Nat will be leaving early. Pietro made it despite his ill sibling, but he still looks pretty sick of the conversation in front of him. Shuri and Clint are mid-argument about the chicken and the egg when Bucky thanks them for coming. Clint gives him a smile and points to a fake succulent on the table and mumbles, “Got you guys a housewarming present,” before returning his attention to telling Shuri that the Chicken is the obvious choice. Shuri tells Bucky she set up the wifi and the apple tv and Clint doesn’t even register that she’s talking over him. Bucky kisses her cheek and hands her a beer.

Steve is sitting with Bruce and Thor on the couch, all of them engrossed in conversation and pizza. Sam is chopping fresh onion for his pizza when Bucky asks, “These are the few you could bribe to get here?”

“These losers are the only ones without any plans on a Saturday night,” Sam says without looking up.

Clint and Pietro both look up and say a simultaneous, “Hey!” Before turning their attention back to their conversation.

“T’Challa and Nakia are in Paris. Brunnhilde has a gig tonight. Okoye hung up on me when I said pizza and beer. Parker has an exam. Tony named six events he was invited to tonight and would’ve kept going if Steve hadn’t hung up. Pepper and Rhodey are probably plus thing one and two wherever Tony ended up at. Thus, this motley crew is all we got.” Sam sprinkles his diced onion on top of his already spilling slice and when he bites into it his groan stops the conversations surrounding the apartment.

“Lame. Your intestines are not going to be thanking you for that monster you are devouring under the alias of pizza.” Joey makes a face as he continues to stuff his face.

“Like eating just mozzarella and basil is enjoyable at all,” Sam dismisses her and joins the rest of their crew.

“Heathens,” Bucky dramatically admonishes their friends, “You ready Doll?”

This time he catches the tightening of her expression at his comment, ”Born ready.” They both grab a piece of their untouched pizza and taps crusts in cheers.

Part 2

Part 3

Thanks for reading!

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes au #bucky x ofc #marvel au #modern au #roommate au #bucky roommate au #steve rogers #captain america #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky imagine #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barns fanfiction #sam wilson #zazie beetz #bucky x poc

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duhragonball · 6 years

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[FIC] Vento Aureo: Alice in Chains (1/1)

This is a Secret Santa gift for @glintea.

Golden Disclaimer: JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure is a trademark of Lucky Land Communications. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Windy Continuity Note: This story takes place between Chapters 550 (”Beneath a Sky Seemingly About to Fall”) and 551 (”Pronto! On the Line! Part 1″).

Tip of the plot to @jimintomystery.

I. GUIDO MISTA

Sardinia was a death trap, but they couldn’t leave, not yet.

Guido Mista supposed that Sardinia was where it had all begun. It was the home of the man who founded Passione, the gang of Stand Users that now dominated the Italian underworld. “The Boss” had secured his position by hiding his true identity from friend and foe alike, but he had made a mistake. While living in Sardinia, he had sired a daughter, leaving a trail for his enemies to follow.

Mista’s capo, Bruno Bucciarati, had been assigned to protect the Boss’s daughter from traitors within the gang, but they eventually learned that the Boss only wanted her protected until he could kill her himself. In that moment, Bucciarati chose to save the girl, and barely escaped. Now a traitor to Passione himself, Bruno asked his team to join him or remain with the gang.

Mista chose to side with Bucciarati. They all did, except for Panacotta Fugo, who remained behind. At the time, Mista didn’t give much thought to Fugo’s decision. Mista bore no resentment towards him. The Boss was a powerful man, and everyone who challenged the Boss ended up dead. Fugo was just playing it safe.

But Mista had seen things differently. He sympathized with the Boss’ daughter, sure, but besides that, she had been marked for death, and survived. Bruno had made the decision to save her, and he had succeeded, with timely assistance from Giorno Giovanna, who seemed to have a talent for making the right call in these kinds of situations. Fugo might have called this a fluke, but Mista saw it as a sign that maybe the Boss wasn’t so invincible after all. He didn’t know how Bruno and Giorno were going to take the Boss down, but he was sure that they could, and he wanted to be on their side when they it happened.

This reasoning had led Mista to follow them to Sardinia, where they hoped to uncover the Boss’ secrets, only to lose their comrade, Leone Abbacchio, in the attempt. Abbacchio’s death had forced Mista to wonder if Fugo had been right all along. It had been easy to throw in with Bruno before, when they were all still alive, but now...

The problem, Mista decided, was that he had plenty of time to think about it. The Boss was still on Sardinia, but wounded, which gave them a breather, but it was still too dangerous to relax. That meant Mista was on guard duty, which normally didn’t bother him, except that it gave him a chance to second-guess his decisions. But rethinking things now was useless. He had already made his choices. There was no going back, no matter how many times he went over it in his mind.

They had taken up temporary residence in a shopping mall in Olbia, not far from the site of Abbacchio’s murder. Security was lax, and it wasn’t difficult for them to hide after the mall closed for the evening, and from there on they had the place to themselves. The building itself offered little protection, but it provided shelter and restrooms, which was all they really needed. Their Stands would handle the rest.

Everyone that mattered in Passione had a Stand, a psychic power that manifested as a thought-form that would stand beside its user, hence the name. Mista’s Stand, named Sex Pistols, took the form of six bullet-shaped creatures that guided the trajectory of bullets fired from his gun. He didn’t really know how they worked or where they came from, or why they ate tomatoes and salami he had stolen from the food court. Throughout Mista’s career in Passione, he had learned to accept Stands as a fact of life.

Across the table from him was another Stand User, a turtle. Ironically, the Boss had given them the turtle to use during their mission to deliver his daughter, and now they were using it against him. Its Stand took the form of a key embedded in the top of its shell, and a large jewel in the key served as a passageway into a secret room. Mista didn’t really get how it worked, but he was grateful that it did. By hiding some of their group inside the turtle, it was much easier to conceal their numbers and protect themselves. The turtle itself wasn’t much to look at, but Mista supposed the same could be said about himself. Like him, the turtle got the job done, and that was what mattered.

Nearby, Narancia Ghirga was perched on a chair, glancing furtively at the exits. Narancia’s Stand was Aerosmith, which took the form of a miniature fighter plane. It’s offensive power was impressive, but its true value in this situation was its ability to detect carbon dioxide. This meant that anything that breathed within Aerosmith’s range could be detected, located, and--if necessary--destroyed.

Narancia hadn’t slept since they found Abbachio’s body.

Normally, this might have worried Mista, but they needed Aerosmith--now more than ever--and Narancia had to be awake to use it. Mista had encountered so-called “automatic” Stands, which functioned independently of the user’s awareness, but most Stands could be deactivated when the user fell asleep or unconscious. Unfortunately, no one in Bruno’s group had such a power, and that left them with little choice but to stay awake and stay vigilant.

“Get some sleep, Mista,” Narancia said, as though reading his thoughts. “I’ve got this.”

“You first,” Mista said. He was surprised by how tired his own voice sounded. He didn’t feel fatigued, but maybe it was easier to believe that when you didn’t talk.

“I’m fine,” Narancia said. He looked as bad as Mista sounded.

“Then so am I,” Mista replied.

They had been over this topic three hours ago. Neither of them accepted the relief. Giorno or Bruno could have taken over guarding the turtle, but their Stands were less suited for the task, and they had other things to attend to anyway. Mista doubted they had gotten any sleep either.

Abbacchio had died for their cause. He had struggled to the very end of his life to bring them closer to the goal. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between them all that they would press on, forsaking rest in Abbacchio’s honor.

Or maybe Mista was imagining things. He was tired, after all.

*****

II. TRISH UNA

Inside the turtle, Trish Una was holding a vigil of her own.

She didn’t know Bruno’s gang very well. They only met when other members of Passione had handed her off to them to transport her to her father, known only as “the Boss”. So at first, they were little more than jailers. Oh, they had treated her respectfully enough, but their first duty was to keep her in their custody. When her father tried to kill her, and they rallied to her defense, she was touched, but not much had changed. Instead of a running battle with her father’s enemies, now they were in a running battle with her father himself. There wasn’t time to socialize.

What had changed was that she now had a chance to contribute to the effort. They still kept her in the turtle for her own safety, but it had been her idea to go to Sardinia, based on something her mother had told her years ago. Trish never knew her father, but she knew he had been on the island fifteen years ago. And with a date and location to work from, Leone Abbacchio could use his Stand, Moody Blues, to get a look at her father’s face.

Stands were still new to her. Her father had one, which he had used to try to kill her, and she had recently developed one of her own. Abbacchio had been less than forthcoming about his ability, although Trish had a general idea. Moody Blues had been able to look backward through time and assume the appearance and actions of a particular person from that past moment. By "rewinding” fifteen years at a place her father had been, Moody Blues could take on the appearance of her father, revealing his face. The only problem was that Abbacchio was vulnerable during this “rewinding” process. Her father killed him, putting an end to this attempt to expose his true identity.

But Abbacchio’s death wasn’t in vain. Somehow, he had managed to use Moody Blues one last time to assume the Boss’ features. Then he created an impression in a nearby stele. Trish wasn’t sure how he had done this. It was as if the stone had been made of soft clay and Moody Blues had simply pressed its face and hands into the surface of it. Perhaps Abbacchio had caused Moody Blues to materialize inside the stele, displacing it somehow. What really mattered was that he had done it, and her father hadn’t noticed, and that Giorno Giovanna had noticed. All they had to do now was make a cast of the impression, and they would have a precise copy of her father’s face and fingerprints.

As it turned out, that task fell to Trish. Her Stand, Spice Girl, could soften materials and make them malleable like clay. In theory, Spice Girl could soften a solid object and stuff it into a mold, then harden it again and create a perfect cast in a fraction of the time it would take using ordinary plaster. In practice... well, she hadn't had much practice using Spice Girl. Her father's face had been easy enough, but the hands were more challenging. It wasn't the hands themselves, but the intricate ridges of the fingerprints. After three failed attempts, the group decided to break apart the stele and take the hand impressions along in the turtle, where she could continue in relative safety.

It was difficult work. Her Stand stood beside her and she guided its hands over the marble they had gathered for the job. With a touch from Spice Girl's fingers, the marble became like dough, and sank into the impressions of her father's hands. The goal was to soften the marble even more, and make it so fluid that it flowed freely into the grooves of her father's fingerprints. Trish still wasn't entirely used to manipulating objects through Spice Girl. It was becoming easier, but the sensation of holding still and letting her Stand do the work was strange. Spice Girl was approximately her own height and build, although it looked like a bright pink robot. With a little concentration, Trish found that she could actually see through Spice Girl's "eyes", which looked like the tail lights on a car. It was bizarre to split her awareness this way, especially when she looked through Spice Girl's view and caught a glimpse of herself sitting nearby.

Across the room, Giorno Giovanna was busy at the computer, scouring the internet for information, using the general description of the Boss they had from the cast of his face. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of Giorno. She hadn't known any of them for long, but she thought she had a handle on Bruno Bucciarati. In saving her, Bruno had turned against the Boss, and now Abbacchio had paid for his decision. Bruno had been cold and stoic since he had made his fateful decision, and she couldn't blame him. He was leading his squad into an uncertain future, and fighting a battle he couldn't be sure he could win.

But Giorno was something else altogether. He was polite to her, but he was also very driven, as if Bruno's gang, Trish, and everything else were only means to an end. Even as he waited for her to complete the fingerprints, he was determined to make as much progress as possible. While he waited for websites to load, he looked away from the computer and fixed his intense gaze upon the bust Trish had made, as if it held some hidden clue besides its appearance.

There were times when Trish almost wondered if Giorno knew her father somehow, but that was impossible. If he did know him, then there would be no need to go to such lengths to identify him. But even if there was no history between them, Giorno's resolve to bring down the Boss seemed to run deeper than any of the others, and Trish wondered why. On some level, she liked to imagine that his extra resolve was for her sake. But that was childish, wasn't it? Bruno and the others had sympathized with her, but they had their own reasons for wanting to bring down her father, and why should Giorno be any different?

"May I make a suggestion?"

She had been so focused on her work that she hadn't noticed his approach. She looked around to find him looming over her chair, his blue eyes locked on her now with the same intensity he had applied to the bust of her father.

"Wh-what? I mean, yes," she said awkwardly.

"I apologize for sounding impatient," he said. "But a moment ago I was thinking that this was taking too long, and it reminded me of the time it takes for my own Stand to work. Smaller, simpler tasks are faster."

Trish nodded. Gold Experience could transform inanimate objects into living things, although this was only scratching the surface of its full potential. Giorno could also manipulate biological functions to some degree, and heal wounds. It hadn't occurred to her until just now that he hadn't always known how to do those things. He must have learned to use Gold Experience in much the same way she was beginning to learn Spice Girl.

"I'm talking about the fingerprints," he went on, gesturing idly at the stone fragments Trish was working with. "Your cast of the head was excellent, but the hands require more detail. Only we don't really need the hands at all. Just the tips of the fingers."

"Oh!" she said. "I hadn't..."

"Try focusing one finger at a time," he said. "That might be easier for your Stand. Eventually, I'm sure you'll develop the skill to cast larger, more detailed forms, but for now this should make the work faster."

"Right. I'll try that," she said. "Thanks."

"Again, I apologize," he said. "Your Stand has been instrumental so far, and it's easy for us to forget your inexperience. I should have thought of this sooner."

"No problem," she said, for lack of a better response. She wasn't sure what to say next. He just kept looking at her, and then suddenly he turned away to return to his work.

He did that from time to time. Just stared at her for a little too long to be inconspicuous. Was it pity? Attraction? Or was he simply looking to catch a glimpse of his nemesis in his daughter's eyes?

She set the question aside and focused on her casts.

*****

III. NARANCIA GHIRGA

Outside the turtle, Narancia Ghirga paced around, trying to stay awake.

His hope was to sleep once they left the island. They wouldn't be much safer then, but at least they'd be on the move, and they'd have a destination to reach. He could hold out till then, he told himself. He wasn't some kid, even if everyone treated him like one. Giorno and Trish were only fifteen, and they had been up the whole time, hadn't they? He was older than them, wasn't he? He was seventeen, only a year younger than Mista, but they treated him like a kid. He was practically a grown man.

Aerosmith had two components. One took the form of a miniature fighter plane, while the other was a radar screen that hovered directly in front of his right eye. Any source of carbon dioxide would show up on the radar. At the moment, there were only three: himself, Mista, and the turtle. Those inside the turtle's Stand were invisible to Aerosmith. Narancia didn't know why that was. Maybe people actually shrank when they entered the turtle, so their breath was too minuscule to be detected. Or maybe they weren't really breathing while they were inside the turtle's Stand. But there seemed to be air inside, and it wasn't stuffy or anything, so there had to be some kind of ventilation.

Soda had helped. At first, he thought the caffeine would keep him awake, but he soon realized that what really helped was the constant trips to the restroom. At least it gave him something to do while he waited. Check the radar, drink a soda, check the radar, go to the restroom, check the radar, splash cold water on his face, check the radar, walk back to the turtle, check the radar, drink another soda.

His whole life had been a series of betrayals before he joined Bruno's gang. They had shown him kindness, and so he repaid them with loyalty, which was reciprocated. When Bruno turned against the Boss, choosing sides had been the most difficult decision of Narancia's life. Ultimately, he decided that he saw too much of himself in Trish, so he sided with Bruno, but that meant turning his back on Fugo, who had remained loyal to the Boss.

Once, Fugo had tried to tutor him in American history. Most of it was lost on Narancia, who never got past the second grade, but one lesson that stuck with him was the American Civil War. As the United States split into two factions, General Robert E. Lee was faced with a dilemma. Though he was loyal to the Union, his home state of Virginia had chosen to betray it by joining the Confederacy. Ultimately, Lee chose Virgina over the Union, but a lot of other Virginians felt differently. When Virginia split off from the Union, the loyalist faction decided to split off from Virginia by forming a separate state to stay in the Union: West Virginia. So no matter which side Lee picked, he was still fighting a war against his home. He was a traitor no matter what.

At least, Narancia thought it was General Lee. Maybe it was General Sherman, and the state was Georgia instead of Virginia. No, "West Georgia" didn't sound right. Whoever it was, Narancia felt like that general. He had tried to tell himself that Fugo would be all right, and that somehow this would all work out, but that had been much easier to believe while Abacchio was still alive.

Abacchio's death felt like a betrayal, even though it really wasn't. Narancia felt betrayed by Abbacchio’s sudden absence, while at the same time he felt like he had let Abacchio down by not being there to save him. All he could do now was try to protect the ones who still lived, and ensure that Abbacchio's sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. And this sense of obligation, more than the soda or the cold water or the full badder, was what kept him awake.

He was returning from the restroom when he heard something like the clanking of scrap metal. This confused him, but there were no new blips on the radar, so he wasn't concerned. Then, as he emerged from the hallway and into the food court, he saw Mista struggling on the floor.

He was bound by a glowing orange chain.

"The turtle!" Mista shouted as soon as he spotted Narancia. The chain was pulling him away from the table where he had left it. Narancia ran towards them, and in spite of Mista's order, he couldn't take his eyes off him as the chain dragged him along the floor. It spanned the length of the mall, as far as Narancia could see, and beyond.

It was an enemy Stand, that much was clear. But it wasn't the Boss' Stand, and Bruno believed that there were no other Passione members still alive on the island. More importantly, Narancia still wasn't picking up anyone else on his radar. Did the enemy have a way to hide his breathing, or did his Stand have a wider range of effect than Aerosmith's radar? Just how long was that chain, anyway?

Unless he could find the Stands user, he would have no choice but to attack the Stand itself, which was a tricky proposition at best. Generally, it was simpler to go for the user. Killing or incapacitating the user would shut down their Stand and nullify its effects. On the other hand, damage inflicted upon the Stand would hurt the user as well, but many Stands were resistant to direct attack. In this case, Aerosmith would have difficulty hitting such a long, narrow target. It's weapons were better suited to strafing runs and carpet bombing situations. But maybe if he laid down fire over a long enough distance, he could score enough hits to make it release Mista. Or he could just follow it back to the user, using his radar to get the drop on whoever was behind this. His mind was racing with possible responses...

"Dammit, get to the turtle, you dumbass!"

...except for the one response Mista had told him to think about. Reluctantly, he turned his back on his comrade as Mista was dragged down the corridor. The turtle was still on the table where Mista had left it. It was munching on a piece of lettuce Mista had given it from his sandwich, seemingly unaware that anything was wrong.

"We're under attack!" he cried out as he loomed over the jeweled key that was embedded in the turtle's shell. Inside, the tiny figures of Bruno, Trish, and Giorno looked up at him expectantly. "He's got Mista!"

Bruno gestured to the others to remain where they were. "I'm coming out," he said as he raised his hand over his head. Normally, this motion would cause an occupant to emerge from the room and return to the outside world, and Narancia stepped back to make way for Bruno's arrival. But nothing happened.

Bruno winced as he raised his other hand to try again. "Something's wrong. Narancia, did something happen to the turtle?"

"I don't know!" Narancia said hurriedly. "I was taking a leak when--!"

"Narancia, pick up the turtle and get us out of the mall," Bruno commanded.

"But Mista--!"

"We can't help him if we're trapped in here!" Bruno snapped. "Get us as far away as you can. Once we're out of the range of his Stand, we can go back and try to--"

And then something shot out of the room like bolt of lightning. Narancia had touched the turtle to lift it up, and in that moment a length of orange chain emerged from the jewel and wrapped itself around Narancia's body. Instinctively, he summoned Aerosmith to his side, but there wasn't anything his Stand could do about this, not unless he wanted the plane to open fire on himself and the turtle.

Before he knew it, he was being yanked into the room with the others. It was a familiar sensation by now, only this time it was much rougher, since he was being pulled into the turtle's Stand against his will. He crashed onto the floor, and the next thing he saw were Trish's boots as she reached down to help him up. The orange chain was gone.

"It's just like the one that got Mista!" Narancia said. "But there was no sign of the user, and how could it drag him away from the turtle and be inside the turtle at the same time?!"

"I think I can answer that," came an unfamiliar voice from outside the turtle.

They all looked up and saw Mista wrapped in the chain, being lowered over the turtle as though by an unseen hoist. Then he too descended into the room that was the turtle's Stand, and he collapsed only inches away from where Narancia had fallen.

"My name is Sausage Burrito," announced the voice from outside the turtle. He loomed over them to reveal his face, though the curvature of the jewel distorted his features, and made his triumphant grin even more smug and self-satisfied. "And you are all prisoners of my Stand."

*****

IIII. BRUNO BUCCIARATI

Trapped inside the turtle's Stand, Bruno Bucciarati had no choice but to hear out the man who now held all of them in his power.

"Let me explain the situation to you," he began. "Your turtle's Stand has been locked by my own Stand, Alice-in-Chains. I fixed it so that people can freely enter the room you're now in, but they cannot leave."

He paused to let this sink in, and continued. "My Stand has a fairly long range, you see, which makes it useful to detect other Stands over a wide area. That was how I tracked you down without any of you noticing. When it was safe for me to do so, I chained the turtle's Stand as one of you entered the room.

"Of course, I couldn't simply wait for all of you to enter the turtle at the same time. You kids aren't stupid. Fortunately, Alice-in-Chains has the power to lock two Stands at a time. I simply snared Mr. Mista from the other end of the mall, and Mr. Ghirga was kind enough to get close enough to the chain already in place around the turtle. Well, more accurately, I reeled their Stands in, I should say. Their bodies were dragged along with them.

"That's all very interesting, Mr. Burrito," Bruno said. "But now that you have us, what do you intend to do with us?"

"Very good, Mr. Bucciarati," be said. "I can see you're a man who gets right to the point. Very well: I intend to trade your lives for money. A lot of money."

"Money?" Bucciarati scoffed. "You think you can extort the Boss, Burrito? He'll kill you just to show the rest of the gang what happens to traitors."

Burrito laughed. "Oh, I'm not with the gang, Bucciarati," he explained. "I never heard of Passione until a few years ago."

Bruno was astonished. "Then how--?!"

"How did I find out about your little power struggle?" Burrito finished. "Very easily, Bucciarati. "Passione practically rules the Mediterranean like a Roman Empire of the underworld. The other crime syndicates don't understand how, but to a Stand User like me, it makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

"That's the genius behind Passione. Stand Users attract other Stand Users. We all know it's true, even though we don't know why. The Boss had a Stand, probably a very strong one, and when he met other Stand Users, he recruited them. There was a guy in Egypt who tried something similar in the 80's--you lot were probably too young to remember any of that-- but Passione operates on a much bigger scale. Any Stand User who crosses the gang's path has to step aside, or join them, or die."

That was true enough, Bruno thought ruefully. When Giorno Giovanna had first approached him about taking down the Boss, Bruno had convinced him that the only sensible way to do this was from within the gang. Giorno had joined, Fugo had stepped aside, and Abbacchio had died.

"Your actions here," Bruno finally said, "suggest that you found a fourth option."

"I watched," Burrito said. "My Stand powers made it easy. I could swing my chains until I discovered a Stand User, and then approach them without giving away my intentions. When I needed to interrogate someone, I simply bound their Stand at an opportune time. You'd be surprised how many Passione operatives lose their nerve once they can't summon their Stands or their comrades to rescue them. Half of them thought I was their Boss, coming out of the shadows to punish them for some minor infraction.

"The trick is to whittle away at the fringes," Burrito went on. "No one would miss a dead flunky, so long as his death was made to look like an accident. Your group seems to be targeting the Boss directly, and it's attracted a lot of attention. It didn't take me very long to find out about you, Bruno Bucciarati. Mista and Ghirga have been with you for some time. The girl with the pink hair is the Boss's daughter, and the kid with the blonde hair is the enigma, Giorno Giovanna. He's new to the gang, and that's probably worked to your favor up to now. No one knows just what his Stand can do, so he's your secret weapon.

"Secrets... that's the only sure way to defeat a Stand User. A Stand User with a secret is almost unstoppable. It's what makes Passione the hidden masters of Europe. It's what keeps the Boss in control of Passione. It's what's kept your rebellion going this long, and it's how I captured all of you. That's why I'm telling you so much about me, Mr. Bucciarati. I no longer need to keep secrets from you and your companions, because I've already won. I don't say this to humiliate you. This isn't gloating. I'm just stating facts. I know people like you are very reluctant to accept defeat, so I want you to understand your predicament before you waste your energy on useless heroics."

"I see. You aren't interested in the Boss at all," Bruno surmised. "You plan to extort us. Otherwise you wouldn't be trying convincing us to cooperate."

Burrito made a satisfied smile. "I already know the Boss would kill me rather than meet my demands," he said. "I think I might be able to make a deal with him anyway, but it's not worth the risk. You, on the other hand, are desperate. You'd do anything to get out of that turtle and get back to your mad dash to stay one step ahead of your enemies. And that means you're willing to pay me a handsome fee to let you go. It means you'll let me walk away, because you're in too much danger from the Boss to worry about taking revenge."

"What makes you think I can pay you anything?" Bruno asked. "Thanks to you, I'm trapped here."

"There's a computer in that room," Burrito said. "It's difficult to make out from this vantage, but it wouldn't be of much use without a modem. Come to think of it, I wonder how it works. Is that room in another location altogether? A place with wiring for electricity and telephone service? Ah, but I don't think so. There's no doors in that room, and if were as simple as smashing through a wall, you've have done it by now."

"You expect me to wire money directly into your account," Bruno said.

"An untraceable account, I promise you," Burrito replied.

"As a Passione Operative, I had access to a small fortune," Bruno said, "but now that I've betrayed the organization, those funds are no longer available to me."

"A weak ploy, Mr. Bucciarati," he said. "I suppose you had to try it just to see if it would work, but I'm no fool. A clever young man like you wouldn't have become a Passione Operative without the good sense to set aside money in private accounts. For that matter, I doubt Passione could ever truly lock you out of their finances. You're very resourceful, from what I've learned."

"All right. For the sake of argument, then. Let's say I could wire you the money," Bucciarati said carefully. "Why should I expect you to release us?"

"Put simply, I need my Stand for other things," he said. "I can't just hold you all indefinitely. Naturally, I couldn't just release you while I stand so close to the turtle. You'd want retribution, and while my Alice-in-Chains can handle itself in a fight, I'd never stand a chance against five Stand Users. Fortunately, my Stand has a substantial range, and I can release all of you from a safe distance and take my leave before you can turn your Stands on me. At least, that's how I'd prefer this to end, assuming we can come to an agreement."

"You presume too much, Burrito," Bruno said. "You may have locked the turtle's Stand, and you might be able to freeze the Stand of one other person, but that still leaves four of us who can use our Stands to break free. If we disable the user, the Stand's effects wear off."

"I don't think so," Burrito said. "Your Stands can't exit the turtle any more than you can. I'm quite safe out here, and my Stand is wrapped around your turtle's Stand, which is the room you're all in. You can't reach it from the inside."

"I'm not talking about attacking you," Bruno said. "I'm talking about the turtle. If we attack the room itself, that damage will be reflected upon the turtle. If we hurt it enough, the turtle will fall unconscious, and its Stand--this room--will deactivate. One that happens, we'll be returned to the outside world."

"You're welcome to try, of course," Burrito offered. "I doubt you'll have much luck with that. A Stand like this turtle's has no offensive power or speed, or any combat ability whatsoever. And I've learned a few things about Stands in my time, Mr. Bucciarati. A Stand with such limited ability makes up for it by being incredibly durable. It doesn't do the turtle any good, since the Stand doesn't protect it, and it doesn't do the five of you any good, since the turtle is vulnerable, but it does work out very nicely for me. You can all tear that room to pieces if you can, but I'm guessing you won't put a dent in the Stand, which means you won't knock the turtle out anytime soon."

He leaned over the jeweled dome of the room and glared down on Bruno like a bemused god addressing an unruly ant. "I think you need some time to consider your situation. I'll leave you alone for a while. Give you a chance to scheme and plan, and then maybe you'll start thinking about more practical matters. For example, how much food and water do you have in that room? Is there a toilet? I don't see one."

And then the enormous face receded from view, leaving Bruno to contemplate those words. He might have turned to look to the others, but there was no need, for he was sure they were already looking at him, expecting him to find some way out of this mess.

As much as it galled Bruno, he had to admit that Sausage Burrito seemed to have an answer for everything. Even if they could batter the turtle's Stand into deactivating, the Boss was still somewhere on Sardinia, and every moment they spent here increased the risk of being found.

Maybe Burrito had an answer for the Boss, too, but Bruno doubted it. Bruno had experienced the brutal power of the Boss' Stand, King Crimson, and barely escaped. No, Burrito had no idea what the Boss was capable of, or the lengths the Boss would go to in order to protect his identity. If Burrito had known, he never would have dared to meddle in Passione affairs like this.

And so it seemed that he had no choice but to capitulate and give in to Burrito's demands. But in the game of extortion, that was no solution at all. Giving Burrito what he wanted would only prove that he had nothing to fear from them. He would demand more, or wait and try to capture them again, or sell their location to Passione, confident that Bruno would be too weak to stop him.

He finally turned to inform the others of their decision. "I'm going to try to kill the turtle," he said.

They all did their best to hide it, but none of them relished this prospect. The turtle wasn't exactly a pet, but it had accompanied them and sustained them through their journey, and that counted for something. Even so, Abbacchio had given his life for their cause. Weighed against that, the turtle was an acceptable loss.

"Are you sure you can, Bucciarati?" Mista asked. He approached one of the walls of the room and rapped his knuckles against the drywall. "That guy’s a prick, but he has a point. This Stand must be really durable to manifest a whole lounge like this."

"True, but he also made a good point about this room. We don’t really know what's on the other side of that wall. Would we find the turtle’s innards? A way out? A way to attack the turtle? Maybe none of these, but I think it's time we found out."

He approached the wall and summoned his Stand, Sticky Fingers. Broadly speaking, it looked much like a masculine version of Trish' Spice Girl, only colored blue and white, with gold zippers hanging from various parts of its body. No sooner than it appeared beside him did Bruno command it to punch the wall before him. Once its fist made contact, a large zipper appeared.

In the past, Sticky Fingers had been able to create zippers that could separate entire body parts. Bruno thought that this might be useful against the turtle in this situation. If he could make a zipper long enough to cross the entire room, he could bisect the turtle's Stand, and thus the turtle itself. This wouldn't necessarily kill it, but it might be enough to shock it to the point of disabling its Stand. Unfortunately, Sticky Fingers didn't have a big enough range of effectiveness to cover such a large area. The best he could do was to open the zipper he had made and face whatever lay on the other side.

But when the zipper opened, there was only a blank white field beyond it, and the air in the room began to rush through the aperture. Bruno found himself pulled towards the hold he had made, and just barely managed to catch hold of the zipper teeth. He looked back, and was relieved to find the others had managed to anchor themselves more effectively. Mista had grabbed hold of Narancia, who had wrapped his legs around the coffee table, while Trish clung to the armrest of the sofa, trying to protect the casting she had made of the Boss' fingers. Similarly, Giorno was holding on to the computer table, and using his Stand to hold onto the bust Trish had already finished.

he had miscalculated. The airless void he had opened could only make things worse. He needed to close the zipper, but he couldn't do that while he was holding onto it. Sticky Fingers could pull him back inside first, but he worried that in the time that would take, too much air would be sucked out of the room.

And so he let go, and Sticky Fingers sealed the opening as it followed him into the nothingness.

*****

V. GIORNO GIOVANNA

Bucciarati had been gone for an hour. There was nothing anyone could do. Only Sticky Fingers could access whatever realm he had vanished into. If Bruno could return, he would, and if not, then they would never see him again.

Instead, the rest of them had focused their efforts on attacking the turtle's Stand. This was an unlikely proposition, but they had nothing else to try.

"I feel like a damn jackass, Giorno," Mista said as he watched his comrades work. "Sex Pistols can't do shit in a situation like this. They can kick a bullet around and hit damn near anything, but bullets don't work on Stands, and without bullets their offensive power is weak as hell."

He was right. Stands could make use of ordinary objects and weapons, but they could only be damaged by the power of another Stand. They both knew this perfectly well, but Mista was already frustrated with his inability to help, so there was no use in calling attention to this. Instead, Giorno nodded and stepped closer to him. "Keep your gun handy anyway," he said. "We'll need it once we do escape."

He didn't look at Mista, but focused his attention on the wall. His own Stand, Gold Experience, threw a few punches, but it's strength wasn't all that impressive. Gold Experience was reasonably strong, but it's punches weren't as powerful as Sticky Fingers'. Its abilities were more subtle and diverse. Nevertheless, he still studied the undamaged wall, as if there was something revelatory about the spot where Gold Experience had struck.

Narancia had already tried using Aerosmith, and wound up covering one side of the room in tiny, shallow bullet holes. The attempt had been as fruitless as it had been dangerous, and Giorno was reluctant to ask him to try again. Unlike Mista's gun, Aerosmith's firepower was based on Stand Power, so it could harm the turtle's Stand, but apparently not enough to make a difference.

That left Trish, who had also tried to attack the turtle a short time ago, only to come up short. Spice Girl softened things, and could restore them to their original consistency. By restoring them very quickly, she could hurt them, but she lacked the range necessary to affect the entire room all at once. With time, Trish might have extended her effective range, or discovered some new application of Spice Girl's power, but time was something they didn’t have.

There was also the air supply to consider. The air was thinner in the room since Bruno had tried to leave. Giorno wasn't sure how the air worked inside the turtle, but there was clearly a limited supply. He considered using Gold Experience to turn the furniture into plants to replenish the oxygen, but he doubted this would do much good in the short term. In the long term, they would die anyway. Asphyxiation was no worse than dehydration, or being found by the Boss.

"What if we tried to combine our attacks?" Trish offered. "If Narancia fired on a wall after I softened it and snapped it back, maybe that would push us over the top."

"I'm afraid it wouldn't make any difference," Giorno replied calmly. "We should try it, but I think we should wait first. Burrito is still out there, trying to wear down our resolve. We need to conserve our strength.

"What good will that do?!" Narancia shouted. "Bucciarati's dead!"

Giorno turned to face him. "That may be so, but we still have to focus on our goal. We--"

"And just what happened to Mr. Bucciarati, hmm?"

They looked up to see that Sausage Burrito had returned. He appeared to be eating a pizzetta sfoglia as he observed his prisoners like fish in a bowl. He even tapped the surface of the jewel in the key that allowed him to see inside.

"Is he hiding? Are you planning an ambush? I don't think you understand. None of you are getting out of there until I get my money. If you expect me to come in there with you, you're only fooling yourselves."

"Hey, fuck you, asshole," Mista grumbled.

"Bucciarati... is gone," Giorno said firmly. "Whether you believe that or not is immaterial. Earlier, he made it plain that he had no intention of bargaining with you. Therefore, his absence changes nothing."

"Too bad for the rest of you then," Burrito scoffed. "None of you have anything to offer me. I didn't want to contact Passione, but if that's the only way for me to make a profit from this outing, I suppose I'll just have to--"

"Bucciarati wouldn't bargain," Giorno interrupted. "But I will."

Inside the turtle, the others looked at him. "Giorno?" Mista asked, unable to voice a full question.

"And what could you possibly have to offer, Giorno Giovanna?" Burrito asked. "Bucciarati had access to secret financial accounts. All you've got is a silly haircut."

"You mentioned secrets earlier," Giorno said confidently. "I kept this from the others, but I have a nephew in the real estate business. I had hoped to keep him out of this situation, but you leave me with no choice. There's a trust fund in my name. I could contact him and arrange funds to be wired into your accounts."

"Nephew?" Trish asked.

“Real estate?” Mista asked.

"Tempting, but I doubt you could match the sort of payout I was hoping to take from Bucciarati," Burrito said. "I might as well sell you out to the Boss."

"Why not both, then?" Giorno suggested. "You can free me, and cut whatever deals you want for these three." He pointed to the bust of the Boss on the computer table. "I already have what I need for my own agenda."

"What?!" Narancia gasped. "You're selling us out?!"

"Abbacchio died to get us that, you lousy--!" Mista began to shout.

Giorno shook his head. "I joined Bucciarati's gang," he said. "Now that he's gone, I see no conflict of interest here. I can either die in this turtle with you, or abandon you to complete our mission. Which would you choose?"

Trish said nothing. She simply stared at Giorno with horror in her eyes.

"Fine, fine!" Burrito said. "I see what you're playing at, Mr. Giovanna. You dangle a prize before me, then antagonize your fellow prisoners. So now I have to release you from the turtle, or they might kill you before I can take whatever money you have to offer. Very clever."

"You have nothing to fear by bringing me out of the turtle," Giorno said. "You've already demonstrated that you can lock two Stands at once, so I'd be as helpless out there as I would be in here."

"True enough," Burrito said. "Alice-in-Chains!"

Before the others could come to grips with what was happening, an orange chain entered the room through the jewel and wrapped itself around Giorno's body. He made no effort to resist, and like a fish on a line, he was hauled up and out of the room, then emerged into the outside world. Specifically, he found himself standing in a studio apartment, and the turtle lay comfortably on a twin bed. Before him, Sausage Burrito stood, pointing a handgun at Giorno’s chest.

He was taller than Giorno, but not by much, and his short orange hair had an elaborate pattern shaved into it, which matched a similar design in the soul patch that adorned his chin. He wore a silk button-down shirt under a pair of green zubaz and a neon yellow fanny pack around his waist.

"No tricks," Burrito said as Giorno got a long look at the gun.

"Of course," Giorno said. The orange chain around his body vanished, then reappeared to his right, now binding Gold Experience's body. Giorno raised his hands and put them behind his head.

"You're their secret weapon," Burrito said. "I knew you would make some convoluted play to get them out of this." He patted Giorno down with his free hand and withdrew a revolver concealed under the back of his jacket.

"Cute," Burrito said. "You took Mista's gun while no one was watching. It couldn’t hurt the turtle’s Stand, but out here, you could have ended this very quickly."

"I just didn't want Mista to use it on me," Giorno said. "I did just sell them out, after all."

"No, I don't think so, Mr. Giovanna," Burrito said. "You wouldn't have come this far with them to abandon them so easily. Even if you were that ruthless, you'd still try to find some way to regain their trust, if only to use them a while longer."

"It makes no difference," Giorno said. "You've let me out, and we can conclude our business."

"Yes, your 'wealthy nephew,'" Burrito said with a roll of his eyes. "I suppose your father is an older gentleman, and you're the product of a second marriage in his old age."

"I have no idea," Giorno said. "I was lying about having a nephew, at least as far as I know."

"Then you have nothing to bargain with," Burrito groaned.

"Nothing that would interest you, no," Giorno admitted.

"Then I don't see what the point of all this was," Burrito said. "A weak ploy to pull a gun on me, and nothing more? Or were you hoping to get a change to break the turtle's neck while you were out here? As if I'd let you anywhere near it."

"I never had any intention of harming the turtle," Giorno said firmly.

"Then what?" Burrito demanded. "Your Stand won't work any more out here than it did inside. I only brought you out to spring whatever cunning trap you laid, but it seems that you didn't think very far ahead. What a useless gesture."

"I don’t make useless gestures, Mr. Burrito," Giorno replied. "To tell the truth, I only tricked you into pulling me out of the turtle so that I could neutralize your Stand, while my plan went into effect."

Burrito blinked in surprise, then he laughed. "You what? What did you say?"

"You heard me," Giorno said. "I see no point in repeating myself, especially now that I've cornered you."

"Cornered me?" Burrito shouted. He struck Giorno with the butt of Mista's revolver and a trickle of blood ran from the corner of Giorno’s mouth. "I'm the one holding all the cards, you little punk! I have the guns, I have the turtle, I have your friends, I have your Stand, and I have you!"

"You have me," Giorno said. "But nothing else. My Stand has been freeing my friends this entire time, and you can't do anything to stop it. If you don't believe me, take a good look at the turtle."

Burrito indulged him, and leaned over to look into the jewel on the key in the turtle's back. "They're still in there!" he said testily. "Your bluffs are beginning to annoy me, Mr. Giovanna."

"Not the turtle's Stand, Mr. Burrito," Giorno said with a sigh. "I told you to look at the turtle."

With a weary groan, Burrito did, and when he finally noticed what Giorno was talking about, he gasped with fear.

"What... what have you done?!" he asked.

"Gold Experience doesn't have the raw strength of other Stands," Giorno explained. "Even a very powerful offensive Stand would have had difficulty punching its way out of the room in the turtle. To attempt this with Gold Experience would have been useless, so I didn't bother. When I struck the walls of the room, I used Gold Experience's true power, which can speed up the metabolism of living things. This power affected the Stand, which in turn affected the turtle."

"Stop it!" Burrito screamed. He pointed both guns at Giorno, though he wasn't nearly as confident as he had been before.

"I can't stop it," Giorno replied. "Your Alice-in-Chains has locked my Stand. Just as the turtle's Stand is stuck so that it can only allow people to enter, Gold Experience is locked into the effect it has on the turtle's metabolism."

Burrito's eyes went wide with horror.

Giorno locked eyes with him and continued. "During the winter months, reptiles enter a state called brumation. They become lethargic, and move very little, if at all. They seek out burrows or other places to sit out the cold weather. If I had to guess, I would imagine that if a reptile had a Stand, it would probably deactivate during this time. Of course, winter is some time away, which is why I used Gold Experience to speed up the turtle's biological clock. Though the weather is still warm, its body 'thinks' that it's time to become dormant.

"Stop it!" Burrito demanded.

"You already said that," Giorno said. "Your Stand has fixed my Stand on this course of action. I could reverse the process, but not unless you release Gold Experience, at which point I would use it to attack you and free the others. You could shoot me, and stop Gold Experience that way, but the turtle will enter brumation very soon, and then Trish and the others will emerge from the turtle. You could defeat two of them with your Stand, but not all three."

"No..."

"You tried to exploit the weakest link in our group," Giorno explained. "But the strongest link is nothing without the rest of the chain. You called me ruthless earlier, but I know the value of my allies, Burrito. You lost the moment you tried to use my own chain against me.

"I can still kill you!" Burrito stammered, desperate to claim any sort of advantage.

"Abbacchio died to further our mission, and Bucciarati may have done the same. If it had been necessary to kill the turtle to save ourselves, I would have done so. Is my life any less expendable than theirs? I, Giorno Giovanna, have a dream. If I am not prepared to lay down my life for that dream, can I truly be worthy of it?"

Burrito looked away from Giorno, and his lip quivered as he watched the turtle. Giorno seized the opportunity and snatched both of the guns from his hands.

"What do you dream of, Mr. Burrito?" he asked coldly. "Money? Secrets? Are you prepared to die for those?"

"Don't...!"

Suddenly four figures appeared in the room: Mista, Trish, Narancia, and Bruno Bucciarati, who seemed no worse for wear after being lost in the void. On the bed, next to the turtle, lay various items that had been in the room, including the materials Trish had been working with to capture her father’s likeness.

”I see the turtle has fallen asleep then,” Giorno surmised. “Apparently Bruno was still under the effect of the Stand, even though he was trapped outside of the room. So when the Stand deactivated, he was brought back along with everyone else.”

Giorno handed Mista’s gun back to him, but held up his hand when Mista pointed it at Burrito.

“There’s no need,” Giorno said. “Killing him would only attract unwanted attention. Besides, he’s completely defeated now.”

Mista looked to Bucciarati, who nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s true,” Bruno said as he regarded Burrito with utter disdain. His power is only useful against one or two people at a time. Now that we know what he can do, he’s helpless against us.”

”In your false triumph, Burrito,” Giorno explained, “you foolishly revealed your secrets to us, when they were the only thing protecting you. Now, you’re like a turtle without its shell. All you can do is hide.”

Burrito muttered something in agreement, but Giorno paid no mind to this. Instead, he gathered the sleeping turtle into his arms and followed the others out of the apartment. He had much more important things to do than listen to the groans of a beaten enemy.

First, he needed to restore the turtle’s metabolism to normal and gently bring it out of brumation. It was, after all, a valued member of the team.

末

#jojo's bizarre adventure #vento aureo #fanfiction #giorno giovanna #bruno bucciarati #guido mista #trish una #narancia ghirga #coco jumbo #glintea #secret santa

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ladybugmeat · 6 years

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Sidney - Coursework Piece

It was on a humid afternoon in the last days of June Sidney ate the whale. Not the entire animal – he was a small man – but enough to get an idea of the whale’s quiddity. When the hot metal dish arrived with the pile of dense mammal he threw the tongues of muscle between his teeth and chewed. The mighty dice of eraser rubber, congealed in an opaque glue tasted only vaguely marine. Sidney for a moment was reminded of his late mother, seen from the gap in the serving-hatch, pushing out a cube of gelatin from her refrigerated mold in the kitchenette. “Jell-o thrice a week keeps the nails firm and the teeth white!,” she’d titter, before shoving the jelly tray into the back of the fridge and tipping a Virginia Slim between her disappearing lips.

Sidney pulled the back of his coat loose from his underwear, imagining its close imitation to a tailcoat’s gradual taper. He pushed the plate away and watched the old night porter, like a prop in The Copper House’s slimy walls of verdigris, blot cubes of whale onto squares of mint tissue. He did it with the strange, exhausted mechanical swing of a poor man: forking and poking at the meat and sliding it into the hole of his wizened face. Sidney stashed a wad of notes beneath the salt pig and slid out the back of the eatery.

Out on the street, the people jeered when Sidney passed. His shoes were falling off and the pieces of whale now sloshed around his gouty body, squirming in a weeks marinade of liquor and gluttony. There were moths living in Sidney’s bedroom, and now they had made a home for themselves in the sutures of his clothes. He felt their small wings wince as he stumbled about the pavement. He had acquired a squiffy tick: a scratch at both armpits and a claw through his chest hair. It did not make him feel pretty. To beguile some more time Sidney sat in an Italian place, one with a gaudy neon sign, displaying sad triangles of pepperoni in the window. He watched them being peeled off the sheet of plaid paper, leaving behind perfect shadows of grease. The skinny Turk behind the marble, slid on the lino, flipping and twirling a tea-towel and shoveling the pizza into the oven to be baked to tastelessness.

Sidney sat there for two hours, quaffing down an Aperol and muddling through a plastic cup of gray olives. Everyone had a lime bobbing in their glass. The sliced green fruits jumped. Sidney thought the floor might be heaving.

Did the floor heave?

He looked out the window and only the clouds moved.

The people were too busy eating slim sausage stew to see what Sidney saw so he ditched the place, angry about the moths, leaving the table wet and a thicker pile of notes stuck to the PVC tablecloth.

Sidney was walking in the gutter again and the jeers were getting louder. Old men are often unfairly awarded the epithet ‘dirty’, Sidney thought. It was an anxiety he identified in many of his old friends, particularly those of ample proportions. With their puffed out flanks hauled into cords and the hair of an ugly duckling, getting a leg over was a damp and timid venture. Albert would often say the town made him want to die. Most times Sidney felt the same.

Nonetheless, they cheersed to the sad folk! Cheersed to wine lips and poor sex! Cheersed to vengeance and big mistakes!

Sidney had taken a seat on the curb where he thought about his big mistakes. Whilst being construed as a wispily-haired toilet hanger-abouter did not flatter Sidney’s ego, it did not falter his commitment to Tuesday night dabbling. You see Sidney McBrady took pride in his thirst for the dirt; A vast and haughty nonagenarian who only answered to the sobriquet ‘Duchesse’, he wore his heels high and his skirts short. Without last night’s imbroglio, that had left him a gray shade of yellow, he’d have nothing to tickle the ear holes of the girls at the bar. He had been the simpering badger sat up on a bar stool, looking for an udder to suckle — a night straw — but in the heavily sun-shined street of Wednesday morning, McBrady was a superhero in waiting.

Sidney pressed his toes into the liver-spotted insoles of his kitten heels and hauled himself up with the tender aid of a lamppost. He staggered past the Tesco, another that had appeared, assembled quick as a flat-pack and snaked itself around the new build in an L-shape. It had the office boys huffing, bumping crotches, waiting to pay for their BLTs in the L-shaped queue. The place sold horrid stuff, Sidney never understood why those supermarkets were always so busy. He had bought a ridiculous ready-meal in there a few Tuesdays back. The measly bits of chicken that floated in the orange sauce were square, comically square! As if the whole bird had been sliced through a quadrat.

Sidney had wandered around in there that morning and bumped into Eliza, the Superstore’s bouncer. His black face had lit up with teeth like a hundred Hollywood bulbs when he started towards Sidney, his fatness bold and pleasing, packed into security gear. He had been what had felt like an ill-suited face for the nightclub’s front - a Deptford born, Bible man. On his first weeks trial, Sidney remembered how Eliza had stuck close to the doors, walkie-talkie clamped to his cheek, his short stature lost in the high-heeled crowds. Tuesday’s trans-scene: the night’s pavement alight with wigs, the girl-boys, the question-mark people and the freaks, the pierced and tatted, shaven and tonguing, Sidney had thought Eliza was a man overboard a slippery, shiny boat. Though within a short succession of club nights, Eliza won the adoration of the people and Sidney’s came first.

Sidney was gyrating to the music of yesternight, slipping on and off the pavement. The red and yellow acrylic shopfronts, each bespangled with Pakistani hieroglyph and a stink of kebab and broiled onions made him think of Christmas. Homebound, he eyed the dregs of the early morning crawl about Peckham Rye, burdened with bags and homeless troubles. He wasn’t afraid to look at them anymore - Not now that he knew he certainly wasn’t one of them.

He reached the last of the Common’s shops and clattered up a fire-escape, dodging the potted plants strung on chains from the iron boughs. Sidney jumped in through the third window, limboing the frame and landing in somebody’s kitchen.

#creativewriting #creative #writing #mine #coursework #poetry #character

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davidfostercomedyblog · 7 years

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Dear CVS... An Open Letter to Preserve NYC

Dear Mr. Merlo,

As you are probably aware, much has been made in recent years about the rapid gentrification, development and commercialization of New York City, and the divide between citizens’ perspective on it, not unlike that of the political state of our country. While one side chalks it up to clichés such as “the only constant being change” and “money talks,” the other might be guilty of stubbornly clinging on to a romanticized nostalgia being perpetually filtered through life’s hourglass, and there’s nothing we can do about it… maybe.

I don’t know you from Adam, but I’ll presume you’re good people, as I’ve never heard anything to the contrary, and most people are (relatively good). One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in adulthood is maintaining awareness that the foundation of many conflicts is not necessarily good versus evil, but instead the clashing of differing priorities as they intersect over a particular environment. I recently spent a few years in L.A., and nobody told me when I came back that the next time I got off the D train at Broadway Lafayette for the first time in my life I wouldn’t see Soho Billiards, but instead a block long rendition of your store. Having been born in New York in 1978 I’ve seen the city change a lot, in many ways for the better. Fully aware that my bias errs more towards the side of nostalgia, I’ve been mindful to question: Where is the tipping point? Where is the line between totally understandable expansion of successful business and pathological takeover that results in a tangible dilution of the culture?

For me it was at Soho Billiards.

Ironically, I’ve never actually been inside of Soho Billiards. In adolescence my friends and I used to hang out at one pool hall in Chelsea and another, long since defunct, Le Q, that was on E. 12th St. But I’ve walked by Soho a million times, on my way home at night, on my way out, always enjoying one of New Yorkers’ favorite pastimes of people watching, playfully prejudging, occasionally pausing to gawk at some girl in there on a date with her boyfriend, attempting to diagnose the many dynamics at play, no pun intended. Albeit pedestrian-sounding, literally, and void of fiscal value, it is settings and daily experiences like these that make New York, New York, and make living here special. Now when I walk by there I see people just passing through to purchase generic products and fill prescriptions. Another historic site of social congregation centered around a cultural activity replaced by a cookie cutter site of commerce - just like the one a few blocks up from it, and the other a few blocks up from there.

New Yorkers take great pride, for better or worse, in the fact that cultural staples everywhere else are irrelevant here, and vice versa. In exchange for this uniqueness we pay astronomical rents and sleep in close quarters, working harder than most for an objectively lower quality of life. For many of us it’s because we’re from here. Our family is here and we’ve “no choice” but to stay. For others it’s because their families are not here and this is enough to offer them sanctuary. All jokes aside, when someone feels compelled to live in New York it really isn’t a choice, but more similar to the experience of falling madly in love, and no matter how crazy or bad things get, we can’t imagine life without her, as she is so unlike the other 49 girls we’ve met.

I don’t fault you for your expansion. I understand the human condition and the instinct for stability via resources, which equates more with good, and I can’t know whether I wouldn’t be doing the same thing in your position. I also cannot tell you to stop, as who am I but some guy whose opinion is not even necessarily shared by enough others to matter at all (it is shared, but probably still doesn’t matter)? Instead, I would request that you consider being more mindful of what it is you’re replacing in your next hypothetical location. I write not just with the interest of maintaining mom and pop stores, but maintaining the cultural identity of our special home. New York thrives on its distinction and diversity, not only in the citizens, but in commerce and scenery as well. Should every block transform from Korean grocery stores, Cuban restaurants and Italian delis to 7-11’s, Starbucks and CVS, New York will cease to be “New York,” which would logically, eventually impact finance as well, and then we all lose.

In a vacuum, successful chains are wonderful… until every store is a chain and another key ingredient to the world’s most famous melting pot is lost. New York is sadly shifting from a place that has rich neighborhoods to one that is a rich neighborhood – a place that originally blossomed via the mantra: “Give us your sick, your hungry, your poor,” to one that now requests: “Give us your wealthiest, and we’ll kick the poor out the door, tear down their floor, and give you much more.”

In closing, I ask that you please either stop building more stores here or at least consider donating money towards helping lower income families remain in the neighborhoods that they helped build, which indirectly made our city into the hub so apparently worthy of your ubiquitous presence. We natives can concede our priority bias towards cultural definition. Can you concede yours towards financial gain? I hope that there must be some potential for compromise here.

I thank you for taking the time to read and appreciate your consideration.

Sincerely,

#gentrification #soho #cvs #nyc #nycrealestate #sohobilliards

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