( open ) leap the sprinkler

[digiorno]

Who: Giorno Giovanna & OPEN!
When: Aereur 13 — Dream A Little Dream
Where: The Looking Glass House (of dreams)
What: A number of memories get shared that Giorno would rather keep to himself.
Warnings: Will also be listed in section titles, but the log overall will contain child abuse, neglect, and body horror.
Notes: Links with a TV (📺) go to a video clip. All other links are picture-only. Giorno will appear in all threads after the memory has hit a certain point, unless you'd prefer he not — just let me know in that case.

[This mirror’s frame is ornate, ostentatious verging on ugly: the sort of resonant gold that exemplifies what the word gold means in the human subconscious. So gold that it’s a little too bright, a little too shiny. So perfect that it’s a little wrong. The design around its edges is classical, but not, flowers and vines wreathing mirror images on each side of the frame. Two ladybugs, ascending the edge. Two chalices, ready to receive. Two men, holding armfuls of fruit. Two arrows, pointing skyward.]

[At the top of the oval frame, another ladybug, larger than the first, climbing still. Entirely unsatisfied.]

[Giorno isn’t here yet. But he’s coming. Best touch the mirror and fall in before he gets here.]

CHILDHOOD

a beating | cw child abuse/neglect | "i'm not supposed to be like this"

[This room is small, dingy. A kitchen, one might realize as eyes get used to the low light; it’s clearly daylight outside, but the curtains are drawn. There’s a table in the corner with low chairs, plain but durable.]

[Something squeaks. Scrapes. One of the chairs moves. A small child, no more than five or six with straight black hair cut into a rough bowl cut, shoves the chair out from under the table, freezing like a rabbit at the sound its legs make on the linoleum. His wide eyes peer out through the slats at the back of the chair, watching the hallway warily. After a long period of silence, at least a minute, he begins to move the chair again.]

[The scraping is unavoidable, he soon seems to realize, if the tight-jawed resignation on his face is anything to go by. He moves slowly, keeps the noise as low as possible. His goal quickly becomes clear: it’s the cabinet he’s scooting the chair towards, far too high up for him to reach. Halfway across the floor, he pauses, tilts his head as if listening — but the only sound in the room is the sudden, loud growling of his stomach.]

[He startles, then continues towards his goal. Once there, he climbs up and pulls the cabinet door open. There’s barely time to see inside before he starts pulling things out. He goes for rests and leftovers, things that won’t be missed or go bad. The packages in the cabinet rustle, quiet but not silent.]

[A shadow looms in the hall. The boy, distracted by food, doesn’t notice. As the shabby man crosses the threshold into the kitchen, closes the distance between himself and the small boy, looms over his shoulder still unseen — he raises a belt in his hand.]

saving the gangster | "a late long march into spring"

[The alley you walk down is washed-out, the color of long-bleached sandstone. You’re trailing a small, black-haired child, whose walk is even, disinterested, regimented. He doesn’t turn to look at anything. Not for a long, uncomfortable while. He might be a businessman walking home from a long day at work if not for his age and the small backpack weighing him down.]

[But then he does stop. Looks right. You follow his gaze to see a tall man with black hair lying in the shadow of a building, hidden (but not well) by a broken wall and a patch of short grass. The man is clutching his stomach and covered in blood, eyes shaded but still enough that he’s either unconscious or dead. The boy’s expression, now that you can see it, is mildly surprised, but not shocked or upset or afraid. Just surprised, and barely that.]

[He turns slightly as if to walk closer to the injured man when a burst of voices startle him still. A group of men appear from an adjoining alley, tall men with good hair and good suits. The leading man wears a long coat and sharp hat. They are all shouting.]

— Damn it, where did he go?
— Find him! Don’t let him get away!
— He can’t get far with those wounds!
— You don’t think he went into someone’s house, do you?
— Keep your eyes on the ground! There should be blood!
— You go straight ahead. We’ll go this way.

[The leader of the men stops just short of where the small boy stands, stares down at him. The boy looks up at him, expression blank.]

Hey, kid, [the leader grunts.] Have you seen an injured man around here? He’s tall and has black hair.

[The boy’s expression doesn’t change. There is a movement by the injured man that neither the boy nor the leader in his long coat seem to notice. Maybe you can spot it: the short grass poking through the paving stones beginning to grow up around the injured man. Taller and taller, thicker and thicker, with no sign of stopping.]

meeting gold experience | "my newfound friend"

[You see the moment money is stolen from a tourist’s wallet.]

[You can tell this woman is a tourist, although you’re not sure how you can tell or even where exactly you are. The buildings are old, European, classical; the streets are narrow, sidewalks stone-paved. The woman is wearing a T-shirt bearing a heart filled by three vertical stripes, green and white and red. She looks confused, disoriented. And a hand is extracting itself from her purse, coming away clutching a handful of brightly-colored bills.]

[It’s a clumsy attempt. The young man’s wrist knocks against the side of her back on the way out of it, causing her to whirl around in surprise. Surely she catches the flash of color before the young man, blue eyes impassive, dark hair in his eyes, hides his hand behind his back.]

Hey! [she yelps, storming towards him. What she’s saying seems slightly distorted, incorrect, but it’s understandable.] What did you just take? Show me your hands!

[He’s reluctant. Stares at her, not so defiant as to be stubborn but certainly unwilling to budge. Except then — he starts, and turns to look over his shoulder.]

Don’t think you can fool me that easily, [the woman yells,] just because— [But Giorno is no longer listening, so neither are you. Wide-eyed, he stares at the creature standing behind him, a humanoid thing taller than him but not by much, standing loose and easy with toes hovering just centimeters above the ground. It’s gold, the sun shining off its carapace so brightly that for a moment you have to shield your eyes. As insectoid as it is humanoid, its eyes look close to compound. It stares, unblinking, at the boy in front of it, then cups its hands around his own with the stolen bills inside.]

[The woman, still shouting, doesn’t appear to see it. She also takes no notice when something inside the boy’s and creature’s joined hands begins to glow a molten, shuddering gold.]

PASSIONE

buccellati's gang | "tell me what it's like to go outside"

[In media res, a busy restaurant 📺. You stand in the corner. There’s a complex smell in the air, a bone-deep scent of good hearty food unfortunately overlaid with a light stink of urine. This is not the type of restaurant one would normally expect that from, and yet, here we are.]

[At the table in front of you, crowded with empty plates and cups along with the six young men leaning on or around it, Giorno sets a teacup delicately back in its saucer and smiles. The audience erupts in noise.]

— No freakin’ way!
— What did you guys do?
— Gross! He actually drank it!
— D-dude, you’re hilarious! Did you seriously drink it?
— No, there’s no way he could have! Hey, how’d you do it? Where’d you hide it?
— Hey, come on. Just tell me! Okay?

[Giorno is still smiling. Friendly, if not relaxed.] Who knows? You’re all keeping your abilities secret too, aren’t you? [A complex look passes between the rest of them. Understanding, wariness, grudging respect. More babbling from the smallest one, coming at a possible answer from another direction — You actually drank it for real? Was that your favorite or something? — but Giorno doesn’t budge.] If you guys tell me about your powers, I might tell you mine.

[They settle. The leader among them, a slim young man in a white suit, attempts to redirect. We’re going out, he says; hurry it up. And as the group stands to go, when everyone’s back is turned, the tension in Giorno’s shoulders begins to show. Just a little.]

buccellati's secret | "i've never been"

[Driving down a highway at night, you look out the window. You’re riding in the back, passenger side. There’s not much to look at right now: open space, trees in the dark. The light of a city behind you. To your left is Giorno, wide-eyed and alert. In front of him, driving, is a man in a white suit with both hands on the wheel. Something about his right hand is wrong, but you can’t put your finger on what.]

[Giorno turns to you, though his body still faces the man in the front seat.] Mista, rest for a bit. I closed your wounds, but if you move now, they’ll start bleeding again. I’ll look out for any cars that might be following us. [And after watching you for a moment or two, he seems to be satisfied and turns back to the man in the front seat.]

[There stretches a long silence, taut as a wire. Giorno is staring at the man before him like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. His eyes narrow and flit back and forth erratically, from the man’s shoulder to his ear to his right hand. When they settle there at last, they widen. There’s a chunk taken out of it, as though it’s been ripped or bitten off. It isn’t bleeding.

Buccellati, your wrist . . . did you hurt it? [Businesslike:] Please, let me see it.

[Silence. No response. The man in front doesn’t seem to have heard. Giorno waits before speaking again:]Are you listening, Buccellati? If the mold got to you, you’re in danger. Please, let me see it.

[Again, there is no response, verbal or nonverbal. The man reaches down with his damaged right hand and shifts gears. Giorno’s eyes widen, the first true sign of panic he’s shown, and he reaches forward.] That’s— [But the car jerks forward, and instead of coming to rest on Buccellati’s shoulder, his fingertips touch the man’s neck.]

That’s impossible, [he breathes, voice shaky.] Your skin is so cold. And your pulse . . .

[And suddenly you can feel it. Somehow, you feel it. Your fingers overlay Giorno’s, touching the neck of this man you don’t know and love very much, and you can feel your own pulse in your fingertips — but that’s all. Other than that, a deafening silence.]

[Buccellati keeps driving.]

garbage disposal | cw body horror | "& i never will"

[Some might recognize the skyline of Rome at night when they fall through the mirror. Lights reflect off of the cityscape 📺, a bit too yellow, a bit off. Smoke rises, here and there, although you’re too high up to see the source. The viewer is perched in a tree which has grown out of the side of an old stone building and diagonally up into the sky. Just below you lies a man — a body? — upside down, like the Hanged Man. There is a bleeding hole in his head. He looks dead.]

[In the middle of the roof is a man prone and unmoving. Hanging off the edge of the building, stories above the ground, by one hand and one elbow: Giorno. His face is covered in blood coming down from his hairline, dripping down to his chest. His expression is focused, but calm.]

You’re just pretending to be dead, aren’t you? [He’s speaking, it seems, to the corpse.] And you’re thinking: if you can move your body just a few centimeters before I climb up there, you can slip beneath the trench and escape. You’ll be able to activate the mold again, and you’ll win. That’s what you’re thinking.

[He stares. The body doesn’t move.]

. . . To be honest, I have a hole in my right lung right now. My subclavian vein has been severed, and four of my ribs, my right humerus, and my right hand bones have been shattered. [His right hand, the one previously clinging to the roof. Now he stands on a ledge just below the edge, favoring his injuries the best he can.] I’m honestly not sure how fast I can get up there.

But my Stand is Gold Experience. [A humanoid figure, just a bit taller than Giorno, covered in a gold carapace with compound eyes and markings like tear tracks down its cheeks, appears by his side.] It’s a power type with a range of two meters. If I just take a moment, I’ll be able to end you. If you continue to stay still, I’ll incapacitate you, but I promise you I won’t do anything else. I’m giving you a choice. So what are you going to do? . . . I’m going to start climbing now.

[Giorno moves. And as soon as he does, so does the corpse on the tree, lurching upright and jeering at him — one-armed. In the missing shoulder joint, festering, squirming mold.]

Stay away from me! Look behind you, you moron!

[As Giorno turns, you see it too: the man prone on the roof has a disembodied arm holding him down, hand clamped tight around his throat and cutting off his airways. Giorno’s expression sharpens, but he doesn’t move or make a sound.]

pretty woman | "let's try to find a happy game to play"

[When your eyes open, they’re blurry with sleep. Across from you on the shabby couch, Giorno’s waking too, looking in much the same state. He’s scruffier than anyone but his Bonded have ever seen him in Aefenglom, his hair not even properly undone but ruined by sleep, one victory roll flopping haphazardly over his forehead. His eyes are red and puffy. Every movement is stiff with fatigue, or maybe injury.]

[The closing scene of Pretty Woman is playing on the tiny scuffed-up TV. Julia Roberts is standing on her balcony; Richard Gere’s driving up in a limo, standing up through the sunroof. Music swells. It’s this that woke you up, most likely. On the other couch, catty-corner to this one, a girl with short pink hair slumps on a young man’s shoulder. She looks as though she’s asleep, except for one eye slit open, turning from the screen to Giorno. The young man, in sweats and a beanie, is watching rapt, although he does sit up slightly when he sees Giorno stirring.]

Hey. You can go back to sleep. You only closed your eyes, like, half an hour ago.

[But Giorno shakes his head, pushing himself up on both hands, clearly wobbly but stubborn.] There’s too much to do. I don’t have time for this, Mista.

[The girl’s single narrowed eye rolls up to look at the young man — Mista. Asking him to do something, or waiting for his next move.]

sheila e | "come play with me, i whispered"

[This room is opulent in an old European way, high-ceilinged with walls of eggshell that still manage to shine. Marble fixtures. Dark wood makes up the majority of the antique desk set by the window, the one Giorno is sitting behind — or was until a moment ago. Now, in the moment you fall through the mirror, he stands and nods almost imperceptibly to someone standing behind you.]

[You turn and see a man standing in the doorway, brightly-colored hat pulled down to cover his hair, hand on a gun held brazenly at his hip. The look he gives Giorno is — unhappy, but willing. He doesn’t keep his eyes trained on Giorno for long, either; they land back where they were before, on the girl standing in front of Giorno’s desk, short and stocky but lithe and quick of movement. It’s clear just from the way she’s standing that she’s shoved herself up from her chair moments ago, that she’s still ready to lunge if she needs to. That she hasn’t decided if she needs to yet. Her long braids dangle past her arms, trembling with the force of her emotion, whether that be fury or grief. Or both.]

Mista, [Giorno murmurs, and after a brief pause, the man at the door opens it and steps stiffly outside before pulling it shut behind him. It’s just Giorno and the girl, who looks as though she might fly across the desk and wrap her hands around his throat. When she lifts her head, her eyes are flinty, crazed.]

[He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he steps around to sit on the edge of his desk. There’s nothing between them.]

Give me a good reason why I’d lie to you. I’ll say it one more time: you can’t kill Illuso with your own hands. I watched him die months ago.