sleepytimejunction | electric tapestry

electric tapestry

It's been a couple of years since he'd left Italy. Primarily, his skills in speaking English help him get along, especially with his various contract jobs. Of all of them, the Speedwagon Foundation pays the nicest, and the money is usually clean -- that's not exactly typical of most places, but it's kind of refreshing for a change of pace.

Not that Abbacchio probably deserves clean money.

Anyway, he's technically off shift, not that he'd care if he was still on the clock, as it were. He's seen this guy around a few times and hasn't really cared to know who he is, just kind of assumes he's probably upper management somewhere. He isn't bad to look at, but Abbacchio doesn't exactly play nice either. He'd said something along the lines of stop staring or fucking do something about it to the man.

That's about what led him to being on his knees in a closet sucking the guy's dick. Not that he has a problem with it; if he hadn't wanted to, he'd have put up a fight but he genuinely didn't expect him to be this big. To Abbacchio's credit, he doesn't choke, though.

He slides off with a lewd, wet pop and strokes him.

"This all you wanted? Fucking up my lipstick? That shit isn't cheap, stronzo."

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I can see it. It's soft purple and sleek with tall boots and a sort of hood around its neck. It doesn't have a mouth, and there's something like a timer set into its forehead.

[He recites the description, sort of matter-of-factly, then sidesteps a little to make room for Star Platinum to appear at his side, bigger and bulkier than the other purple Stand in their midst.]

People who don't have one can't see them. That's why you scared the nurses. Most of the staff around here knows that there's a protocol for "strange things are happening but you can't see the source"; they thought it might've been something belonging to that guy from the warehouse, trying to finish you off.

[The more slender purple thing looks at Star with curiosity, head tilting, a delicate ringing noise humming from it for a moment. It'd probably be interesting to watch this thing, but Abbacchio is more hooked up on this guy's words right now.

He knows. He knows a lot.]

...You're someone pretty high up on the Speedwagon Foundation's food chain.

[Well. Whoops. He fucked someone important.]

Who the fuck are you? And what are these things?

[He just sort of stares at the guy a moment, then glances away and tugs the brim of his hat down over his eyes.]

...Sure.

[SO MUCH FOR ANONYMITY. And discretion. Good fucking grief.]

It's called a Stand. It's a manifestation of your fighting spirit. It's following you because it's a part of you; it doesn't have any choice but to be near you. Here — I'm going to touch it. You should be able to feel it; that's the proof you're connected.

[And, well, when he says "I", he means "Star", who flits over to the other Stand and regards it a moment before extending a thick finger and tracing it down the length of its spine, from the nape of its neck to the hollow of its back.]

[Some fighting spirit, he thinks darkly. All it does is repeat things that have already happened. His way of not being able to let go, he supposes. Maybe it really is here to punish him with his past.

Then he feels it, Star's finger running down his spine -- but it's running down the other Stand's back, and he can feel it too. Abbacchio jerks, instinctively looking behind himself, whereas his Stand makes a surprised ringing noise but doesn't retaliate. Some fucking way to test that sensation, but Abbacchio refuses to let himself look flustered.

His Stand does not hide it so much, less concerned evidently about being honest. Maybe that's why it doesn't have a mouth; Abbacchio wouldn't be so open.]

That's weird.

[He practically glares at the other man.]

I still don't know your name.

You can sort of turn it off. I can't really describe how to do it, but it can kind of mute the connection. Dull it, so it takes the brunt of the feeling and not you.

[Star circles around the other Stand, a half-apologetic look on his face, and flashes a puppy-eyed expression at his purple friend. Without any real capacity for speech, an implicit "sorry for startling you" is about the best he's going to be able to get.]

Jotaro. ...Kujo.

[He pauses.]

Or maybe you've heard the name "Joestar". That's my family.

[Abbacchio's Stand reaches out almost delicately, placing his hand over Star's forearm. No harm was done, evidently.

The admission of Jotaro's name makes Abbacchio freeze in place. Well, he thinks. Fucking Joseph Joestar's grandson was not the worst choice he's ever made, but holy shit.]

I know both those names.

Well. Shit.

[Way higher up on the food chain than he expected. Gonna just pretend it's not a big deal it's fine this is fine.]

Now what? I have this fucking thing following me around that nobody else can see.

[That may just be the most gently Star has ever been touched by another Stand; a rumbly little ora escapes him, approving, and all of a sudden he's regarding the other Stand with renewed interest, looking him over intently while their two masters talk.]

In case you forgot, I still don't know your name, either.

[HMMMMMMMMMMMM this is fine, this is totally fine.]

What do you mean, now what? It's yours. It's not going to go away. You do whatever you want with it, or do nothing with it.

[...]

Though I guess if you figure it out, you might get a better job around here than whatever you've been doing.

Yeah? What's it to you? I wasn't anybody before, and I'll be surprised if that changes suddenly tomorrow. You, though -- you're not just an important associate of the Foundation. You're bigger than that.

[He huffs, turning away, and suddenly his Stand disappears. It's not like he's going to demand that Jotaro give a damn, but more that he'd be surprised if he suddenly did.]

Then I choose nothing. It's already a pain in the ass.

And I'm right where I ought to be.

Hell are you so pissed off about all of a sudden? It's not like you're getting offered a promotion because you can ride a dick.

[Fucking hell. How has this day taken such a sharp left turn in such a short amount of time. Why is his life like this.]

...What exactly have you heard about me, anyway?

None of your fucking business is what. We had a good time, shit got weird, and neither of us wanna deal with any of that. [Maybe he's just projecting on that last part, but...

God, he's thirsty.]

A handful of things. Heard you were a giant. Heard you could be a real hardass, too. But never unfair. People are scared of you, but they respect you. That's how it is.

Actually haven't heard too much bad shit about you or your family. Sure, everybody's got rumors, but it always struck me as weird how loyal people here are.

Oh. Yeah, that goes back to the founder, I think. He was friends with my great-great-grandfather.

[Although the way he leans into the word "friends" lends just a touch of suggestion that he has his suspicions about that friendship, at least in one direction of it.]

I'm pretty sure there's a short list somewhere with my family's names on it and the title is "give these people anything they want". It's annoying. I'm not some...god, or something.

[He shakes his head.]

But they do good work here. Make people's lives better. I don't mind being a part of that.

[Good work. Make people's lives better. Wasn't that his dream once? To protect the innocent, make it better. Instead, he turned it all rotten when he let himself get weak.]

I need a fucking drink.

[He doesn't mean to let it out, but then he doesn't care.]

So what's up with the kid and the arrow?

...I've got a bottle of whiskey in my desk.

[...]

Just a thought.

[He coughs audibly, clearing his throat behind his hand, then stuffs them both into his pockets.]

We're not sure yet. He got agitated while security was hauling him off. Kept saying something about, "was it the right one". We think he might've been talking about you — or your Stand.

[The offer does... surprise him a little. He gives Jotaro a glance.]

I'm more of a wine guy. ...But whiskey will do.

[Weird. So the arrow was for a purpose. He was looking for something. A Stand.

No. Stop. This is Jotaro's problem to solve. Abbacchio doesn't need to get involved. So he shrugs, like he doesn't care.]

...Leone Abbacchio. By the way. If I'm gonna drink your whiskey, guess I'll give you that much.

Gonna have to drink it straight from the bottle. I usually do.

[Leone Abbacchio. So he's Italian. There's an irony there, probably, about his bloodline and Italians, but he's not going to get into that either for right now.]

Right now our people are going to run some tests on the arrow. See if it's a match for something we've been looking for. Well, I've been looking for. It'd be something else, if after all this time it was just...here, under our noses.

[He eyes Abbacchio, then moves slightly out of the way, making room for him to go out the door first if he wants.]

And then we need to figure out how a kid like that got his hands on it.

Long as you don't care if there's lipstick on it.

[Something he'll tidy up once he has a moment to look at himself. For now, whatever, he'll follow Jotaro to his desk and drink enough to feel less shitty about this. Or try to.]

Something like that causing people to pop out Stands. Sounds like a fucked up time. Do they all get some weird ability?

[Figure out how a kid got his hands on it. His Stand seems to... replay what's already transpired--

No. No, fuck no, he's not going down that path. He does not need to risk his own ass for this.

He goes out the door first, shoving his hands into his pockets, ignoring the ache in his ass.]

That's just part of having a Stand. They all do something. No way of knowing what they do, though, without seeing it.

[He follows along, letting the doors close behind him, and lets his fingertips just barely clip against Abbacchio's side as he passes him to lead the way toward his office.]

That's why the medics were so freaked out when you said you saw one. They thought it might've been that kid's, and they couldn't even see it, much less hope to guess what it might do to them.

[And the thing is, Abbacchio's not stupid. Any second now he's going to add up the pieces and ask, so what does yours do. Is he going to tell him, he wonders? Even now, he doesn't really know.]

You should figure out what yours does. Even if you never use it, it's a good thing to know.

[The touch is subtle, but he notices. The thing is, he needs to decide if it's nothing or not, and in the case of Jotaro he's sure it's not nothing.]

So we can't rule out that he might have one. How do we know he won't use his to escape? He got in here, after all.

[He doesn't want to know. He doesn't want to see Florentino's face again. The suggestion makes him visibly wince, his guard down for a moment before he's huffing through his nose.]

Yeah. Maybe.

We don't. But it's not like we have a lot of Stand users around here, so...the Foundation will do the best it can with what it's got.

[He shrugs, vaguely.]

You should name it, too. It makes things easier in the long run.

What, like it's a fucking pet? [Abbacchio scoffs.] I don't want it, so what's the point?

[Like he needs a name to something that's perfectly capable of reminding him of his mistakes. He's well aware enough of how fucked up he is. He runs from it every day, tries to bury it down.]

Can Stands be taken away?

...I only ever heard of it happening once.

[He looks away, finding something on the horizon that looks interesting. Ah. There, the doors to the building where his office is housed. That's interesting. He'll look at that awhile.]

A woman. She couldn't control her Stand, so it started killing her. Some Foundation operatives followed the source of her Stand back to its origin and killed it there, and she hasn't shown signs of it since.

That was an unusual circumstance. Her Stand would've killed her if the operatives hadn't uprooted it first.

[The reaction is subtle, but he picks up on it. Someone Jotaro knows. Interesting, but clearly not something he's going to get into right now.

Well. That's fine. It doesn't sound like an option for Abbacchio anyway.]

Guess I'm stuck with this then.

[It's good the woman lived. Dying to your own Stand sounds shitty.]

Does everyone get a Stand like this? [He pauses, then answers his own question:] No, you were surprised. You even said the arrow was something like you've been looking for. So you got yours in a different way.

You're just full of questions, aren't you?

[As soon as he says it, he hopes he doesn't wind up regretting it — hopes it doesn't provoke Abbacchio's contrarian nature into clamming up just for the hell of it.

Just to be on the safe side, he dangles a little more bait, like insurance to make sure he stays talking.]

Yeah. Star's different from just about any other Stand we've ever seen.

[He's clever, this one. He'll catch onto that phrasing, "just about". He'll wonder, he'll sink his teeth into it. He won't be able to leave that one alone.

Here's hoping.]

Some people are born with their Stands. Some people develop them through contact with that arrow. Mine is...more of a fluke. A one in a billion chance that could never be repeated.

[He almost shuts his mouth then and there, because he is that asshole. Fortunately, his inquisitive nature is too damned strong in this face of all of this new weird shit. He can't bear to not ask.]

Just about.

[Abbacchio is almost more interested in this than the whiskey. Not that he's going to refuse a solid drink, no sir, but still.

Bait taken. He can't leave it alone.]

But there was someone who had one that made you think he was like Star.

You're pretty sharp. And you don't back down when you think someone's not giving you a straight answer.

[He smiles, faintly — just a little uptick of one corner of his mouth.]

You sure you won't let me hire you to do something different in the Foundation?

[Regardless, he finally leads the way into a nice office building, through a few keycard doors and finally into a corner office with a lock. There's an aquarium along the wall with a myriad of colorful fish, and Jotaro goes without hesitation to his desk and digs around after a half-empty bottle of top shelf whiskey.]

Here. You ever hear any rumors around here about vampires?

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