Chapter Text
In the elevator, Jolyne’s hand wanders to her lips when Hermès isn’t looking. Her whole body feels like a live wire dropped in the motel pool, bright and sharp and electric. There’s a growing edge of brittleness to the feeling too, like one wrong step will crack the glass under her feet. Like one wrong word will wake her up from this dream. She needs to calm down, convince herself she’s panicking, that this is all real and she is alive and well, that this isn’t the feverish imagination of a woman bleeding out in a turbulent, uncaring sea. Old wounds burn briefly, as if reminding her of their presence.
It’s a little unfair, for things to go to shit again right after they had finally gotten good.
But then Hermès turns and smiles and closes her hand around Jolyne’s own and everything clicks into place again, and her heart thuds faster than it should. They have survived. They are together, and they will be alright.
This is the culmination, the singularity. In that moment Jolyne feels more alive than she ever has, feels everything through her skin at once. Hermès’s calloused hand in hers. The creak of the elevator’s mechanisms, the sounds of people in rooms down the hall, absorbed in themselves, making noise in the night as if no one else matters. Jolyne understands. How can she think about any one else when Hermès is smiling at her, and she can still feel Hermès’s lips on her own?
She squeezes Hermès’s hand once, a reassurance. Something unspoken is communicated; Hermès squeezes back, and there’s a faint flush on her cheeks that Jolyne notices instantly,
“Hey,” Jolyne says. “Are we… y’know?”
Hermès quirks an eyebrow. “Do you want to be?”
“Of course,” Jolyne says, and she knows there’s a blush creeping over her face as she says it. What is this, middle school? Hoping the boy she likes sends her a Valentine? Waiting for her crush to ask her to the dance?
But that isn’t this, or at least she hopes it is. At some point she’ll need to look back and wonder about things. The idea that she loves women as well as men makes her reevaluate a lot. Sometimes there’d be boys she chose to like— was Romeo one of them? That’s for another day, a day where she can sit quietly and sort memories into messy boxes, and marvel at how long she went unaware. Because right now, Hermès stands next to her, and their hands are joined, and Jolyne can still smell Hermès’s chapstick, something subtle and vanilla-y, and she knows her heart has never loved someone stronger than right now.
“Me too,” Hermès replies, and squeezes Jolyne’s hand again. “Girlfriends.”
“Girlfriends,” Jolyne repeats, just to hear it leave her mouth. It sounds nice.
And then the ancient elevator finally groans to a stop, gears grinding in a theatrical, almost worrying way, and they’ve arrived at their floor.
Jolyne doesn’t remember much after that, just stumbling to the room and throwing her body in a trajectory that will hopefully land her on the mattress. She doesn’t even bother getting out of the bra and shorts she was going to swim in. Hermès laughs softly in the darkness and lies down next to her, arm reaching around her waist, thin sheets of the motel bed pulled haphazardly over them as they drift off.
~
The next morning, per their promise to Emporio, they actually get in the pool. The day is hot, too hot for March and too hot for nine in the morning, but that’s alright. In the daytime the pool is less charming. Without the glow of the underwater lights, it isn’t much; cracked tiles and weeds sprouting through the concrete, sun-bleached pool lounges and the occasional lizard hiding in the shade, which Emporio regards with wide eyes, inching his way closer until the creature scurries off.
But the cold water feels good, and the other things aren’t important. They play chicken (as well as they can with an odd number of people) and the combination of Emporio on Hermès’s shoulders gives them just enough momentum to knock Jolyne off her feet, who counters with Stone Free and pulls them both down with her.
A “No Stands” rule is enacted right after, much to Jolyne’s dismay. Honestly , Hermès teases, smiling, pressing a kiss to Jolyne’s cheek when Emporio isn’t looking, we would have won if you didn’t cheat.
~
They leave the motel behind like everything else, a speck on the horizon that disappears out of the crooked rear view mirror. The notion that they could stay there, in the little motel by the interstate, is tempting. They could choose to stay in any of the quiet towns, or almost-towns, slices of rural life cut up by swathes of asphalt and barbed wire, but they don’t. The urge to keep going, to keep driving, is what carries them. For now, none of them are content to settle down.
Emporio’s face is sunburn-pink from their pool party and Hermès’s hair drips chlorine on her sweatpants as she drives. They’re all a little worse for the wear, healing scars and tired smiles, and maybe they’d benefit from some R&R, but no one cares to linger for too long. She’s sure the Speedwagon Foundation is having a fit, because the three of them had just up and left on their second day of bedrest, as if her arms hadn’t been ripped off and as if Jolyne hadn't been stabbed. They’re resilient like that, she supposes. Stubborn too.
Mile after mile, they drive on. Jolyne hands Hermès Skittles over Emporio’s head. Emporio thoroughly kicks their asses again in Eye Spy; Hermès uses the excuse that she needs to pay attention to the road, smiling. Jolyne has no such excuse and forfeits a pack of gummy Lifesavers, complaining the whole time.
A comfortable silence develops, only broken by intermittent song requests and the changing of CDs. Until--
Until Emporio, out of nowhere, says, “Do I have to call Mister Jotaro Grandpa now?” and Jolyne screams with what is half laughter and half fear and Hermès pulls the car over because she will certainly swerve off the road with how hard her shoulders are shaking.
It takes Jolyne quite a few minutes to steady her breathing enough to speak. “If you did that, kiddo,” she says, still sort of wheezing. “I think he’d have a heart attack.”
Emporio considers that. “So, bad idea.”
Hermès thumps a fist against her chest, coughing. “Bad idea.”
“Kid,” Jolyne says, fond but cut with worry, “we’re not old enough to be parents.”
They’ve needed to have this conversation for a while. G-d, Hermès loves this kid more than anything, but motherhood is not her calling. She didn’t have a mother, for G-d’s sake, because faded memories don’t substitute for one, and she’s definitely not planning to be one.
“Oh,” says Emporio, and his voice is filled with the emotion he’s trying to hide on his face.
“But we’re still family,” Jolyne says, smiling in ways that make Hermès feel everything all over again, and it’s red-hot and painful but tinged with something underneath that must be love, and she grabs him by his shoulders and squeezes, gently. “I’m like… your cool aunt. Or your big sister.”
And he says okay, and asks how Hermès fits in, and when Jolyne says my girlfriend Hermès literally feels like screaming with joy, and she sincerely hopes that feeling will never fade.
~
Jolyne has started keeping a tally of every sign telling her to fear G-d when she dies. They’re a dime a dozen out here, where cows and lonely fields crawl on for miles around the asphalt and the Christian zealots put up their posters. She thinks they’re funny, in a twisted sort of way-- it’s the irony of it, really. If she can kill the man who claimed to be closest to G-d and walk away (though not unscathed-- the knife in her chest is proof), why should she fear Him? Hermès thinks they’re creepy.
When they stop for gas and wander into the desolate convenience store for drinks, Hermès finds a singular tube of green drug-store brand lipstick, hidden behind the displays of reds and pinks. Our color, Jolyne says, smiling. We’re going to have to share.
They steal it, because no one in their right mind charges eight bucks for that. (Also stolen: a roadmap, because it’d be nice to know where the fuck they’re headed, for once.)
And also because the cash is really running low, like worryingly low, and Hermès really doesn’t know how to tell Jolyne that. She’s been doing the math over and over again (and it’s never been her strong suit) as Jolyne drives them through foothills, watching the distant mountains rising like grey haze on the horizon. If she puts aside gas and food money, there’s not much left. Maybe two motel stays, three if they find a real shithole. So what now?
They pull over to switch drivers; Emporio, like he is given to, wanders the side of the road, looking for things to put in his pockets. Hermès keeps half an eye on him (but there hasn’t been another car for miles now) and turns to Jolyne, who is stretching her shoulders.
“So,” she starts, figuring now is better than never. “What happens when we run out of cash?”
It’s unfairly blunt, and she knows it. Some part of her hopes Jolyne has a plan. Maybe she scammed Annasui out of his life savings or something and they’ve got enough money to be free like this forever.
Jolyne sighs, stares straight ahead like the mountains will give her an answer.
“I haven’t figured that out yet,” she says simply, that special kind of determination in her eyes, but she doesn’t sound mad. “I’m open to suggestions.”
And Hermès wants to go with that. Really really does. But they both know the end to this trip is inevitable, which hurts in indescribable ways. Less than a week ago they had set out from the wreckage of a shit-show of unimaginable proportions with the intent to never stop. But now there’s not many options left. They’re not even far from the coast; further from home Hermès has ever been in her life. When they run out of road, what happens then?
She searches for the words. Her optimism is fading, but it’s putting up a good fight.
“Two more days,” Jolyne suggests before Hermès can pin down what she wants to say, still studying the horizon.
“Okay,” Hermès replies, and that’s that.
And because the universe is apparently done being kind, there’s another problem: they haven’t seen a motel for miles. The foothills have evened out, the mountains still grey smudges in the distance, but despite the flat land there’s no sign of anything. Not even exit ramps alluding to some form of civilization. Just a thin line of trees and empty fields as far as the eye can see. The sun is sinking slow and steady towards the mountains, and Hermès really doesn’t feel like sleeping in the car.
Jolyne struggles with the map for a few seconds, then hands it to Emporio, defeated.
Hermès pulls over to the shoulder so they can try to figure out where the hell they are. Emporio, squeezed in between them, tries to help navigate, but he’s also eleven and not good at it.
“Okay,” Jolyne decides eventually, when they’ve scanned the whole map back to front and accomplished nothing but confusing themselves even more. “I call the backseat.”
Then she hears it: another car, the first in a while. Maybe they can flag them down, ask for directions.
“Worth a shot,” Hermès concedes, as Jolyne steps out and starts waving her arms.
The car shoots by going ninety, and even though it’s not much more than a blur, Hermès can tell two things: 1) it’s expensive as hell, shiny and black with tinted windows, and 2) it’s a rental, judging by the yellow sticker on the bumper. Hermès didn’t even know they made rentals that nice; she looks to their dinosaur of a car and sighs. Sometimes life just isn't fair, she supposes, but maybe with everything that’s happened she should have learned that already.
Jolyne looks at Emporio. “Cover your ears, kiddo.”
When he does, more curious than mad, she yells loud enough to wake the dead. “ Dick! Get back here, you fucking asshole! ”
And then like the driver could hear her over the sound of the engine, the car skids to a stop, and Jolyne puts her hands on her hips and scoffs. “Prick.”
Emporio, who clearly was listening the whole time, stares wide-eyed out the back window. “They’re coming back, Jolyne.”
That they are. Instead of pulling a U-turn, the jerk puts it in reverse and speeds backwards, as if that’s the easiest (and safest) way to do it.
The car pulls to the shoulder, maybe fifteen feet from where Jolyne is standing, defiant and ready for a fight. The door opens, the driver puts one bougie loafer down on the dusty ground, and Hermès realizes that letting Jolyne handle this is not going to end well, either with a fight or a lawsuit, because with Jolyne they’re both equally likely.
~
Jolyne doesn’t really know what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. The man that steps out of his ridiculously expensive rental car is, for one, a good two inches shorter than her. For a second she can’t even judge his age; the lingering baby-face of a teenager and the stern eyes and the expensive looking blue suit clash together, and she stares at him longer than is socially acceptable to try and pin him down. Probably a Stand user, because apparently all Stand users have collectively agreed to dress as absurdly as possible for any given situation.
Carefully, ever so carefully, she unwinds her pinky into string, sends it running along the asphalt and over to the car. From the vehicle, she can hear two whispered voices, both men. But for the moment she’s not worried about an ambush, because they seem to be arguing over… whether or not dinosaurs had feathers?
The man offers a small, polite smile that doesn’t really reach his eyes, and Jolyne wonders if she’s not as subtle as she thinks. “I apologize for speeding by. I didn’t see that it was you.”
Jolyne clears her throat, unsure of what that’s supposed to mean. Is it the language barrier? The guy (because he must be older than her if he can afford the suit and car) is definitely foreign, with an accent that escapes her for the time being.
He extends a hand, and Jolyne looks down at it, still confused.
“You do shake hands in this country?” he asks when the moment drags on to the point of embarrassment.
Jolyne turns around to look at Hermès in the car and gives her the ‘I don’t know what’s happening’ face. Hermès shrugs, clearly at a loss.
“Ah,” the man says at last. “Your father did not tell you. I see.”
Jolyne cracks a wry smile at that. When will her father stop being the source of her problems? (It’s becoming an alarming pattern.) Hopefully soon, if they’re going to have the big Father-Daughter Reconciliation in the near future.
“Haven’t talked to him in a week or so,” Jolyne explains. “You know him?”
“We have met once or twice,” the man says, which isn’t exactly answering the question. “My name is Giorno Giovanna.”
“Jolyne,” she replies, but he probably already knows that, and maybe it’s a little too late but she takes his hand, shakes it. Then, suddenly, it hits her that she is wearing flip-flops and sweatpants and a Hawaiian shirt and she is having a conversation with a man that looks like that , and she feels so underdressed it makes her skin crawl a little.
But Giorno doesn’t seem to mind, or at the very least, he’s good at hiding it. “I should explain some things,” he says, and G-d is he hard to read. “Would you mind walking with me for a bit?”
And Jolyne figures, Hey, if he wanted me dead he could have done it by now, and I’m bigger than him anyways , so what could go wrong?
Honestly, knowing her, probably a lot, but she ignores any rational thoughts and follows him down the shoulder of the highway, reassuring Hermès with a thumbs up. The crickets chirp in the tall grass, the cicadas drone on from the treeline. Daylight is fading.
“How much do you know about your father?” he asks when the two cars are behind them.
It’s asked in such a nonchalant way that Jolyne stops in her tracks for a minute. “What do you mean?” she asks back, confused.
He turns and looks at her in the half-light, studying her face. His full attention makes her feel queasy, just for the slightest moment. “How much has he told you?”
Jolyne’s flip-flops are making an annoying noise on the asphalt, but she ignores it. Now she gets what Giorno is implying. “He promised he’d explain it soon.”
Her father hadn’t said that outright, but she tells Giorno the white lie in the hopes that it’ll happen. Another favor from the universe, or something like that.
“Ah,” Giorno says again. “Then I suppose I will have to tell.”
And he does. The full story isn’t what she expected (but what even was she expecting, anyway?) and Jolyne is silent for a little while, just trying to let it sink in. One day the absurdity of her life won’t shock her anymore, but that’s not today, and not for a long while. When she does gather her thoughts, her voice is warbly and rough. “So he told you all that?”
The and not me? is left unsaid, but they both know that’s what she’s asking.
“I figured out most of it myself,” he says, and for once Jolyne is positive he is being truthful. “And your father’s friend told me some, and your father gave the rest.”
In any other situation, she would have made a jab at the phrase your father’s friend . Now, however, she feels empty and thin, hot with anger and grief. “But he still told you parts of it. I didn’t get anything.”
Giorno considers this, and Jolyne gets the feeling he’s choosing his words carefully.
“I get the impression,” he says, pausing to look at a clump of weeds with delicate little flowers growing up through the cracks in the concrete, “that your father does not want you to hear that story.”
Jolyne scoffs, kicks a pebble down the road and watches it skid. “I know that much.”
“You misunderstand, Miss Cujoh” Giorno says. “He does not want you to think he is weak. He thinks what happened then was a result of his weakness. He sees himself as a failure.”
“Oh,” says Jolyne. Miss Cujoh? The last time she got called that was by her lawyer at her trial. For a second she thinks he’s being patronizing, but his face is serious. “He blames himself for all that?”
“Yes,” Giorno says. “He puts too much weight on his own shoulders. He’s only human.”
It’s a lot to think about. She’s got to let it settle in and hope it doesn’t leave a mark. It’s unfair in ways, her father being so tormented by his grief and guilt that he’d all but erased himself from her life. A vicious cycle, of sorts. At least now it’s closer to breaking.
“Giorno,” Jolyne asks. “Why are you here?”
He sighs. “I felt the same pull as the rest of my blood. But my work was important, so I hesitated, and by the time I was able to leave it was already over.”
“That’s not what I meant. Why did you come all the way out here when you knew it had finished?” Jolyne says.
Giorno concerns himself with a toad crawling across the pavement in front of them for a moment. “I felt as though I should apologize.”
“For what?”
“For what my father did. I know how much pain he’s caused.”
“Don’t,” she says, anger flaring. “If we sat here apologizing for what our fathers have done we’d be here all day.”
Giorno pauses, and smiles a little. “I suppose so.”
Jolyne puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, wrinkling his suit. “I’m serious. You’re not him, you’re not his actions. I didn’t know any of this until just now-- did you think I would blame you?”
She’s not sure who she’s speaking for, Giorno or herself, but he sighs and offers another small smile.
The sun has set behind the mountains, leaving them in the growing darkness.
“We should head back,” Giorno says at last.
So they do. The cicadas have gotten louder, droning from the far trees. Giorno’s nice loafers make clicking sounds on the asphalt, Jolyne’s flip-flops make a sound akin to a slap. She’s sure it’s a funny scene, the two of them together.
When they arrive back at the cars, the two mystery men from earlier have emerged, leaning against the rental and talking with Hermès and Emporio. Again, weird outfits, because her life is not normal and neither are the people in it. The first guy is worryingly pale and his outfit has so many holes it looks like he threw into the shredder before putting it on. The second guy is an unfortunate example of how not to pattern-mix (because seriously, who thought that would look good together?)
“This is my partner Fugo, and our friend Mista,” Giorno says, and the guys both shake her hand and call her Miss Cujoh again and honestly this day could not get any weirder.
“Uh,” she says articulately, before remembering to introduce Hermès and Emporio to Giorno. Emporio looks up at him, studying his face, before offering a small wave.
“Well,” Giorno says. “If there is anything you need, please do not hesitate to ask.”
Hermès and Jolyne exchange a look, and G-d does it feel scummy to ask someone you just met for money (even if they are, apparently, distant family, so distant she doesn’t want to look at the mess of their family tree), but she says it anyway.
“Of course,” Giorno says, and looks to Fugo behind him. “You know I can not remember the exchange rate.”
He’s smiling as he says it, and Jolyne remembers him saying partner and wonders if that didn’t mean the business kind.
Fugo says it without having to think, and he’s smiling a little too, and yeah, Jolyne’s assumption was correct.
“We make him do the taxes,” the other man, Mista, jokes, but Jolyne is fairly certain most guys in finance don’t dress like that (and have scars to boot). She’s been trying not to look at Fugo’s; it’s red and angry and trails from his mouth to his neck, and she really can’t think of anything that could have caused it, but he’s clearly close to Giorno and she doesn’t want to offend either of them, so she keeps her gaze neutral.
Giorno suggests a number for them and Jolyne can feel her jaw hit the floor. She tries to say something and nothing comes out.
Hermès chokes on nothing, coughs shakily, and straightens up. “We can’t accept that.”
Mista actually laughs at them. “Eh, don’t worry, Gio’s richer than G-d.”
“Still,” Jolyne manages. “That’s way too much.”
“Then it’s no problem,” Giorno says good-naturedly. “What were you thinking?”
And so they decide on an amount (and even though it’s a measly fraction of what Giorno had offered originally it’s almost too much for the three of them), and Mista gets out a briefcase full of cash from the backseat and Hermès gives Jolyne an incredulous look, but again, this is what her life is like and she really can’t control its absurdity.
When they say their farewells and walk back to the car richer than they’d ever thought they would be, Emporio has a CD case in his hands.
“Where’d you get that?” Jolyne asks, and Emporio hands it up to her so she can look at it better. It’s almost all in Italian, but the album cover is of a woman in an elegant dress singing to a huge audience, and on the back, there’s some English that reads The Essential Trish Una Collection.
“The guy with the hat gave it to me,” he says. “He asked what music I liked, and he said I would like this one.”
They squeeze back into the car, and Jolyne puts the disc in, and then they’re pulling off the shoulder and driving down the dark road. The songs are good even if she doesn’t understand a single word, and the singer has a great voice.
“Well,” Jolyne says. “We didn’t get directions, but that was still nice.”
“I think your cousin works for the mob,” Hermès says. “But he was pretty nice.”
“He probably runs it,” Jolyne jokes. “Did you see the briefcases back there?”
“I think he was a vampire,” Emporio pipes up from the middle seat, where he’s intently studying the disc case.
“Who, the pale guy?” Hermès replies, smiling. “He totally looked it.”
“No,” Emporio says, and Jolyne kind of wants him to stop reading the case, because he’ll probably get car-sick. “Jolyne’s cousin. He had fangs .”
“No way,” says Jolyne defiantly, but she’s actually trying to remember if she got a clear view of his mouth. “I don’t think vampires are real.”
Hermès laughs, one hand on the wheel, the other out the window, enjoying the cool night air. “That’s where you draw the line?”
“I don’t think I’m being ridiculous here. Stands, yes. Vampires, no.”
“Whatever you say,” Hermès says, leaning over to kiss her cheek, leaving a green smear on her freckled face. Emporio makes a face as he’s squished in between them, and Jolyne laughs and pulls him into a headlock, and that’s when she knows this is how things should be, the three of them on the road, sort of definitely lost, but enjoying every second of it anyway.
~
With the help they got from Giorno, they don’t need to make the decisions right away. They’re still young, still unsure of things. One day they’ll decide when and where to stop and how to start their lives all over again, put the money to good use and anchor themselves back to the world they had left after Cape Canaveral. But for right now, Hermès drives, with the two most important people in her life squeezed in the bench seat of the beat-up old car next to her, and the plans can wait until they’re ready.