CLOSED

[surpriseitsclarence]

Who: Clarence and Josuke
Where: Josuke's house
When: Some vague time before the mingle
What: Somebody's getting a new host.

Warnings: Sickness, parasitism, possession, hallucinations

[Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.

Hello.

Hi.

Hello.

A thread. Moving on its own. Wet thread. Pull it. There. Again. What is that? Spine.

Good word. Spine. That one's ours.

Follow the thread. Something moving. Inflating. In and out. In and out. Don't touch. Let it do what it does. We need it alive.

Find the fingers. Count them. Use numbers. (What's a number?) One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. Great job, monkey. This is going to be fun! Maybe I won't get you killed after --

after --

af --

Time waster. Slow coach. You need to go up. Find spine. There. Our spine. Hello. Hi. We know where to go next. Warm. Warm. Warm.

Warmer.

Nighty-night. ]

Comments

[kureijii]

[ He felt... awful. And it only gets worse as the swirl of confusion and frustration colors his day. How many times did he snap at Giorno? Didn't he already text Alisaie that? He keeps looking over his shoulder, wondering who spoke to him, and finding nobody there. Terrifying as it is, now isn't the time for antics.

Josuke thought maybe what happened back in that diffusion zone was just getting to him—watching the weird, putrid body Clarence piggybacked breathe its last. It feels weird to think that death was a mercy for that guy. And... whatever the hell was up with Clarence, it's a relief to know that maybe, whatever happened back in January, can't possibly be happening anymore. Things are better this way, right?

It still made Josuke feel nauseous. But at a certain point, the nausea in his stomach, chest, and head definitely didn't feel like guilt from watching a former friend die. Something isn't right. He should tell Giorno... ]

Ugh... I think I'm gonna barf... [ He says to no-one in particular. But there's no time to barf. There's not even time to do his hair today! The world spins over his head and his vision cuts into blackness.

————

When he comes to, the room is dark. Empty. Josuke groans as he efforts to stand, looking into the entry room of a house. The thin light of day cuts through boarded up windows. Paint peels off green walls. A stripe of blood leads his eye along, up the little step into the house and toward the stairs. A coat rack is one of the few adornments that have always been here, but newer is the shoe rack and single pair of shoes. Okuyasu's backpack is here—wait... ]

Okuyasu? [ He mutters, weary. Ugh. ] I feel like shit... [ At last his balance returns to him and he's upright. Am I really home right now? Yet, something doesn't feel right. He tries, regardless— ] Okuyasu! Mr. Nijimura?

[surpriseitsclarence]

[The brain fights. It always does.

Clarence's mind stutters and struggles, grabbing onto thoughts the way you'd hold onto the handlebars on the subway during a particularly rough turn.

House, something says inside him. Home.

He hasn't been thinking. Not for days. Now that his thoughts are coming back online, it hurts, like a rock grinding against another rock. He doesn't remember the man with the knife, or his collapse about forty minutes later when he realized all at once that he needed a doctor. All he remembers right now is

Blood. Warm. Cold. Warm again.

Make him ours.

The room Josuke finds himself inside is almost correct. It looks like someone made the room by flitting through his memories, seeing it once, and then saying good enough. In fact, perhaps that person is still flitting through his memories -- now and again, little adjustments are made. A window is lowered to the proper position. A new crack forms in the walls. Another one vanishes. Subtle, small things like that, things that make the room feel like it's alive.

Watching.

Does Josuke follow the trail of blood? It seems like a wise idea -- or a very unwise idea, depending. ]

[kureijii]

[ "Make him ours." God. Gross. Don't do that. For some unknown reason, Josuke feels kinda squicked out, sensing a cosmic disturbance. ]

The hell's wrong with the walls? Everything keeps shifting around... [ He narrates, as is his JoJo duty. ] No way this is actually Okuyasu's place. [ No, this certainly isn't home. If it were home, he'd consider the front door more seriously; there aren't words for how badly he's missed his mom.

Strangely, he recognizes the stripe of blood. It was from when Koichi was shot with the Arrow, Keicho dragging his dying body away into the house. The stripe had disappeared when Josuke repaired his friend—and he scolded Okuyasu for not cleaning up the dried traces that no longer tethered to Koichi's body later. He misses them both too... a lot.

His eyes scan the exposed ceiling for Bad Company, those toy soldiers that tethered themselves to Keicho's will. There's no glimmer of rifles, he thinks. ]

I get the feeling no matter what I do, I'm screwed.

[ Even if it's kinda rude, he's going to keep his shoes on as he steps into Okuyasu's house. He won't go upstairs, instead peeking around the first floor and up the stairs. ]

[surpriseitsclarence]

[Clarence feels all of Josuke's thoughts, even though he doesn't have the language for them. They wash over him in waves, nourishing him. Bringing him back.

Sharp. Blood. Mess. Soldiers. Gone. Missing. Mom.

Shoes on.

The staircase is too tall, stretching upwards towards infinity. Several of the steps are crumbling, revealing nothing but inky blackness beneath them. They're stable enough, if Josuke chooses to step on them. Physics has no place here.

The rest of the first floor has doors where there shouldn't be doors and rooms where there shouldn't be rooms. The same strip of blood he saw earlier is replicated elsewhere: on the ceiling, on the wall, on the ground just beneath his shoes. When he lifts his shoe, he'll find a toy soldier underneath it, mangled and crushed like an insect.

Fix it.

The words enter Josuke's mind without a voice. They're just an urge, gentle and insistent. ]