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[lapidarius]

"This is Kakyoin Noriaki. Please leave a message, I'll contact you as soon as I can."

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[silvercrusader]

All right?

[He ducks his head, trying to catch his eye.]

Anything else you want to tell me? Any other weird Stands I don't remember or whatever?

[It's kind of a joke, but it kind of isn't.]

[lapidarius]

No, that was it--that's all I think I needed to say.

[silvercrusader]

Good!

[That's settled, then, and he throws his arm over Kakyoin's shoulder, tugging him into a (gentle!) one-armed hug.]

Oye, speaking of shitty Stands-- did Jotaro ever tell you about Alessi?

[lapidarius]

...I'm not sure. Was that while I was in the hospital?

[silvercrusader]

Yeah!

[Too enthusiastically said, perhaps, but it's just because he's excited to share this.]

He was such a shit-- he could turn people into kids. Me, specifically, but then he did it to Jotaro too and it turns out your boyfriend was a punk even when he was like ten, so he beat the shit out of him.

[He doesn't mention the Lady. He has secrets of his own, after all.]

[lapidarius]

Somehow that really doesn't shock me too much.

[silvercrusader]

Good thing, too: Silver Chariot wasn't too powerful back then. He had us backed into a room.

[lapidarius]

Hm...I guess Hierophant wouldn't have been that much help in a fight when I was a kid, either. That must've been difficult.

[silvercrusader]

It was a pain in the ass.

[Cheerfully said-- but, with more interest:]

What was it like when you were a kid?

[lapidarius]

Huh? Well..smaller, mostly. I didn't learn Emerald Splash until I was about thirteen, so up until then most of what I did was experiment with how far he could reach.

[silvercrusader]

Did you use him?

[After all, he can think of several ways one could use that.]

I mean, I'd've used Chariot in school all the time if I could have gotten away with it.

[lapidarius]

...Not really. I mean... [He shrugged, interlacing his fingers with Hierophant's.]

Didn't it ever bother you, being able to see something nobody else could?

[silvercrusader]

[He shrugs.]

I just thought it made me special. Like someone out of a fairy tale, you know? I knew Chariot was real, and that was enough. And he was friendly, so it worked out.

[A beat, and then:]

It was good, finding out others were like me. But I never minded when I was a kid.

[lapidarius]

It didn't--

[Wow. Nothing like realizing you'd been even more dense than Polnareff about something for most of your life.]

...Being different from everyone else never bothered you at all?

[silvercrusader]

[THAT'S SO RUDE

Polnareff shrugs again, offering a slight smile.]

Well . . . like I said, I just thought it made me special. I didn't understand it, but I didn't have to, not at first. I had Chariot, and he was like an imaginary friend, only I knew he was real. And since I knew it, that's all that mattered. And-- I mean, I was lonely, sure, but that's why I worked to get so friendly. People like you when you like them, and even if they weren't like us, they weren't bad to have as friends, and that helped some, and once I hit nineteen-- well.

[Then J. Geil had happened, and he'd known he wasn't alone in his abilities.]

[lapidarius]

...I was a pretty stupid kid, I guess. [He'd almost have laughed, if it was more than darkly funny.]

I was never able to grasp that concept, I'm actually a little jealous it was so straightforward for you. When I was a kid it wasn't 'only I can see Hierophant and that's enough', it was 'so why can't anyone else?' For me, it was like...having someone look at you and knowing they weren't seeing you. There's no way to trust someone that you know right away won't be able to understand you, so I didn't bother trying. I accepted that I was different and wrote it off as a lost cause.

I like to tell myself Jojo was the first person I met that could see him, but that's a lie. The first time i met another Stand user was in Egypt months before that. [That time he laughed, a little bitterly.] Damn, I really was stupid if even you could figure something like that out before me. What a disaster.

[silvercrusader]

Hey, hey.

[Chiding, and he reaches over, punching his arm lightly.]

Don't start blaming yourself for what he did to us. And you're not wrong, about understanding.

[After all, his childhood was far less lonely than Kakyoin's sounded-- but that didn't mean he had trusted someone.]

But you've got friends now. You've even got a boyfriend now. And that son of a bitch is dead, and we're all okay.

[lapidarius]

['Don't start blaming yourself'? When had he ever stopped?]

[But damn, he'd missed Polnareff. There were just some things that Giorno and even Jotaro just couldn't really get that the two of them had in common.]

...yeah. Right, we're fine.

[silvercrusader]

[That isn't the rousing cheer he'd wanted, and Polnareff frowns. A direct approach won't work; time for a side attack.]

Do you blame me for falling under his control?

[lapidarius]

What--no, of course I don't.

[silvercrusader]

Why not?

[He tips his head, regarding him.]

It was stupid, the way he got me. He told me he could help me find my sister's killer. That if I helped him, he'd help me. And that one moment of hesitation, that was all he needed. You don't think that's worth blaming?

[lapidarius]

...Because all he had to say to me was 'let's be friends'. And I was so scared of him that I couldn't fight back. Call it stupid all you want, he at least gave you a reason to stop and think about it first.

[silvercrusader]

Avdol jumped out a window he was so scared.

[He crosses his arms, fully committed to this now.]

And you were lonely, and you were scared, and you were seventeen. You didn't accept his friendship, you didn't act out of your free will. He had to control you-- force you-- before you'd do what he wanted.

[lapidarius]

...

[He looked away at that, folding his arms.]

[silvercrusader]

[There. Polnareff draws in, aware he's right, aware that he has to make his point now, because who knows when any of this will come up again.]

Blame him. Blame him because he forced us both to do things we'd find dishonorable, that we'd never do otherwise. But don't blame yourself, because you did nothing wrong. All you're guilty of is facing someone you had no way of defending against.