middaeg | ( OPEN ) we’re gonna crash your party

Who: Giorno & ny’all
When: End of Aguril, all of Septeril
Where: Aefenglom (generally and Bad Decisions Haus); Dorchact for most of Septeril
What: Backdated transformations for Aguril and Giorno doing his best to keep his temper and actually be helpful in Dorchact.
Warnings:

i. you fucked the world up now ( full moon, aguril )

[When he wakes up, he is a bat.]

[This should be more of a dramatic realization than it is. He should wake up and be extremely alarmed or something, probably. But he isn’t. Maybe because he’s sort of been expecting it; most other vampires have already hit this stage, and it seems to be a relatively tolerable one. But maybe it’s because bats simply aren’t capable of the level of drama he operates at ordinarily. Giorno, in bat form, is content enough.]

[But hungry. So it is that, after some time wrestling out from under his own copious blankets, Kaede and Maria’s kitchen is beset by a small hungry menace fluttering upon the counters and searching for fruit. He army-crawls from his awkward landing smushed up against the wall and investigates the sink. Any fruit in here? Where’s the fucking fruit?]

[Later, he can be found dive-bombing innocents who have interesting-looking snacks, or latching onto the cloaks of people he’s familiar with to catch a rest and a ride to somewhere new. Don’t look at him like that. He knows you recognize him, peasant.]

ii. we’ll fuck it all back down ( waning moon, aguril )

[The aftereffects of this moon aren’t as bad as the previous one, although to be fair, not much could be worse than a sudden and uncontrollable need to drink human blood. That’s still bottom-of-the-barrel awful. This month, it’s a minor cosmetic change, one he doesn’t entirely hate — his ears have gone to slight points, easy to hide under his hair or a hat if he absolutely must.]

[And he’s tired. Of course he’s tired, considering everything, but . . . it’s different than the exhaustion other people experience after a full moon. Every month after the moon, his body aches more, moves more awkwardly. Everything takes more effort.]

[Plus, there’s the other thing. His mouth is . . . sensitive. Strangely so. It’s not teething or gum tenderness, exactly; he had that earlier, when his new teeth first came in. No, he just feels better when he’s chewing on something. Which gets embarrassing. Sometimes a guy just wants to hang out in a coffee shop, or in a library, and worry a straw or a pen or something in his teeth without getting funny looks.]

What?

[Okay, or he genuinely has no idea he’s doing it. It could also be that, considering that sometimes what he’s caught chewing on is his own shirt collar.]

iii. we’ll put water in your guns ( dorchact, library )

[Speaking of libraries: one of the few places that seems halfway like a refuge in Dorchact is the library. Hair curling in loose tendrils over his shoulders and down his back, Giorno looks, but for his ever-gaunter appearance, like he belongs here, and even that can be explained away. What can’t so well is the look of horrified disgust he can’t quite school off his face, not yet.]

[He’s been to the barracks. He tried to go undercover there, to pose as a handler, but — he doesn’t know what it was. Maybe she felt how sick he got all of a sudden. But Zelda was there in the back of his head, quiet caution, and — he left. He had to go. There was no way he could stay without blowing everything.]

[Here in the library, he runs shaking fingers bedecked with tri-star rings over the spines of books, pulling some out at random as the thought occurs. History of the military, mostly, and how much of it connects to Morgana Drummond. Should he see any familiar faces, he beckons with the subtle crook of one finger.]

Help me fill in these gaps. [There are so goddamn many, unsurprisingly.]

iv. we’ll do it all for fun ( dorchact, resistance )

[It’s in the company of the Resistance that he feels the most comfortable and the most stable. There’s plenty to be done in Dorchact, but he’s beginning to recognize the flare of his temper and knows that being here, among the people in need, is what suits best at the moment.]

[He strives to be a mirror for his people. There are not his people — but each Monster seeking freedom feels important all the same. Quiet as a mouse, he sits alongside a naga in the shadow of the docks, her trembling uncontrollably at the thought of leaving everything behind and the still-present pull of Dorchact on her mind. Him with a hand on her shoulder, steady; gaze on hers, steady; waiting until she’s ready, until he can help her onto the waiting ship.]

[This is one scene of many. He darts in and out of the Resistance’s many clandestine hideouts, offering a hand here, a word of reassurance there, assistance with logistics in a third place. Sometimes what he offers is a cup of tea or coffee and a moment of quiet.] It’s difficult to be a refugee, [is how he explains this if asked.] The least we can offer is empathy.

v. wildcard

[Since Giorno is in Dorchact this month via Portkey, he’s only available in Aefenglom from Sept. 1-5, but I’m happy to set something then if you’d like. Additionally, I’m happy to write private starters generally, including more everyday survival stuff in Dorchact. Just PM or message at passiones if there’s something you’d like in particular.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[HAND ATTACK.]

[Points to Maria as usual, Giorno was deeply unprepared to just be slapped. He should know better than to underestimate her, but as has long been established, he's a very clever idiot. He narrowly avoids a total hit by dodging at the last second, but she does send him spinning with a smack against the edge of his wing.]

[Dodging past her head, he nearly slams into the opposite wall before diving into the kitchen and careening around to rest on top of a cabinet. From this perch, he screeches down at her reproachfully. Excuse the fuck out of you.]

[Excuse her? This thing is the invader, here. If it didn't want to get slapped, it shouldn't be in her kitchen!

... Maybe she'd feel a little different if she knew who this particular critter was, but for now, it's just an 'it', and it needs to get out of her kitchen. Though she's sort of amused by the indignant chattering at her. Enough so to quirk a tiny little smile - barely perceptible - up as she shakes her head and walks over to it.

Oh, the things she does when she's pretty sure no one is looking. Scandal.

It's harder to do the shooing thing when he's on top of the cabinets - it means she has to lean over the edge of the counter to get at him, which saps some of her height and she swipes ineffectively at the air near him, just trying to use "thing coming at bat" to scare it into moving again.] You'll not find whatever you're looking for, here, now get moving.

[Maria smiling is a strange sight. The moons might as well turn red again. An ill omen. Or a good one? Really hard to say.]

[Regardless, Giorno's most prevalent instincts in this moment are bat ones, which scream at him in response to the incoming hand. Danger! Owl, probably! Never mind the fact that no owl would be caught dead as clumsy as Maria's hand, sorry Maria. It frightens him enough that he skitters sideways, tumbling off the edge of the cabinet before clutching in desperation at the curtains.]

[Precariously close to the open window.]

[He yelps at her, probably about how he's darkness and the night, but the fact remains that he is losing ground in this battle.]

[Gee, if only you could speak, Gio. The chittering doesn't help, but it does continue to amuse her that she's clearly upset this tiny creature. Well, it upset her first. Bats aren't healthy to have in the kitchen around food anyway. Who knows what kind of diseases they have (spoilers: usually it's "all of them").

So once more, she just stalks along merrily, like the apex pursuit predator a human actually is and continues to harry him closer to the window, her other hand reaching out as a sort of barricade to him flying to the other side to funnel his window of escape to the outside, there.

Sorry, Gio, sleeping outside it is.]

[It is usually all of them, Maria's right. She's right to chase out stray kitchen bats. She's also got extremely impermeable hands. No matter how Giorno batters himself against them, they push him . . . once and for all . . . outside.]

[For a few minutes, Maria gets some peace and quiet.]

[And then, just when she thought it was safe, there's an absolute hammering at the front door. Police, open up! You're under arrest for bat crimes!]

[Well, she closes up the window - no use letting in any insects attracted to the light of the kitchen - before going back to sifting through the pantry for something to chew on when she can't fall asleep easily or well.

... And then the door starts being slammed by something so hard it puts her on high alert. Her sword is in her room, so Gio gets the door answered by... Maria with a knife, and being absolutely unafraid to use it.] Ah-... Giorno?

[If Giorno is intimidated by Maria’s midnight knives, he doesn’t show it. (Author’s note: he definitely is.) Instead, he bustles past her into the house, indignant and righteous.]

You can’t just put me out of my own home when I come into the kitchen for a snack just because you don’t like the shape I happen to be at the time!

[Well, that’s a spin on the matter for sure.]

[At least she relaxes relatively quickly, shifting the knife into a loose grip and turning to follow him inside.]

What are you talking about?

[She has not made the bat correlation yet, sorry not sorry.]

You pushed me out the window!

[Remember that screeching bat tantrum? Same earfeel.]

I won't stand for that. It's my house too, you know. [And — oh, he's making a beeline for the kitchen again, just sort of expecting Maria to follow him, apparently? Rude.]

Pushed you out the window? You weren't...

[Pause.]

... Did you turn into a bat?

Yes! So?

[He's going to take zero responsibility for this. It's a normal occurrence that Maria should have been prepared for.]

[That definitely was not a laugh. That was a hiccup. Nope, not a laugh. Zero laughing. Maria doesn't laugh. Maria doesn't have a sense of a humor.

And Giorno as a tiny, chittering little bat that she shoved out a window is not actually hilarious.]

You could have told me you were planning on being so... small. I could not recognize you. [Okay hang on. She's smiling. Something is wrong.]

( OPEN ) we’re gonna crash your party

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