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madimpossibledreamerHappy Valentine's if you celebrate it and if not I hope you had a great day anyway!
Buffy doesn’t actually know about Giorno’s beef with drugs and it’s a good thing she didn’t say that out loud. She might never learn the truth though.
Rush invents sea-aged alcohol roughly 10 years early.
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Giorno examines Buffy's find.
Word Count: 1087
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
She’s briefly surprised to see Giorno has a bottle, too, but then notes the flies attempting to escape and immediately understands. He’d grabbed the flies that were useful and not just indicating a dead person to make a rudimentary sort of compass. Clever, she mouths, because they don’t want to be seen by whoever’s coming. Two of the flies is trying to go in the direction of the sound of the car coming down the road, altering trajectory as it approaches, so some of the DNA he’d grabbed happens to be from them. The main question, of course, is who ‘they’ are. They wait, crouched out of sight. The driver is going painfully slow, it feels like, though part of that is just a Slayer’s reflexes and part of it is probably the road itself. It hadn’t been a pain for her to walk, or Anitta or Giorno, but then, they all lived in places where it was more normal to walk, these days. Or take public transportation. Not something she’d ever considered when she was young, and if Giles ever asks she will defend the honor of the automobile as a proud American, but given a Slayer’s pace in a crowded city it’s actually usually faster to walk there, and it’s not like she hates exercise, given her profession.
“That’s the supervisor. I’ve seen her a few times,” Ludmilla murmurs, and it’s as if that broke the spell of silence, because Anitta stops holding her breath. “Though I don’t think there was an inspection scheduled for today. I overheard her telling the crew that she was coming down to finalize a few things tomorrow.”
“She changed her mind, I suppose. But why?” Anitta responds.
Giorno hands off his bottle with the flies and motions for Buffy to hand her bottle over, which she does. To her surprise, though, he doesn’t try to clean the outside of the bottle, popping the cork off her bottle with a gold-plated switchblade he produces from one of the pockets. Then he cautiously fans a hand towards himself, breathing in shallowly, like he’s afraid that it’s some kind of poisonous trap—and that hadn’t even occurred to her. Buffy finds herself holding her breath as he thinks, trying to place it.
“This is a fine wine. I suspect it was for consumption, not as a trap, though I’m not willing to test the hypothesis. Alcohol has been occasionally been lost on shipwrecks, and the chemical changes would probably have caught his interest. I’m not sure how much it can tell us about Rush’s past or his current whereabouts, however.”
Buffy feels her temper flare. “You think it’s a waste of time?”
“That was not what I said.” Giorno’s glance is actually a little irritated. “We won’t know until we clean the outside of the bottle, but given the type of enemy Rush is, I would be surprised if this was a known brand. If it is, it’s probably a label Rush made himself, through at least a few shell companies, with ingredients obtained in relatively the same way, ready to be abandoned at a moment’s notice. Just like with this whole venture we won’t know how valuable it is until after we’ve done.”
“That sounds a lot like you’re saying it could be a waste of time,” Anitta points out quietly.
Giorno sighs. “Facts aren’t everything.”
Anitta frowns. “Like...the soul of the city? Individual tourist locations and historical facts are just part of Salvador.”
Maybe she’s been out of the field too long, because it seems like she’s forgotten some things. Because yeah, sure, facts are important, like whether the latest Big Bad is vulnerable to an axe separating their head from their shoulders, but research and trivia are the domain of the Watchers. Buffy hasn’t managed to take out an enemy without instinct, without getting a feel of that enemy. “Right. I didn’t see any other bottles nearby. So even if he was doing an experiment, he was actually probably planning on checking on the results himself.”
Giorno nods. “Which makes a difference from the last man I had to deal with. He used anonymity as his shield. Hotel rooms, using another as a mouthpiece, not indulging in the latest clothes, or food, or any other personal items. Other than a single outfit he normally wore I’m not sure if he actually died with any possessions because he valued intangible things more.”
That description definitely reminds her that oh yeah he’s a mob boss. Funny he doesn’t mention drugs or women, but he’s probably trying to sanitize it for company.
“If you think he’s different, though, why would he abandon his alcohol and houses and identities?” This time she’s not challenging him, something that it’s clear with how he relaxes that he appreciates that.
“He’s not abandoning them, merely switching them. He’ll appreciate them when he has them, but he’s not attached. If he has to abandon nice clothes, he has more at a different house or will buy more at the next opportunity. The only consistency, and probably his greatest treasure, is knowledge. Anything he learns—like his perfect preference for aging wine, for example—is something he can apply later, as long as he lives to see another day.” The angelic smile is a little wry. “I’m certain it will astonish you to discover that I may be projecting in this instance—though I have no intention of abandoning my dream or all I have fought for.”
“I’m absolutely shocked,” Ludmilla states, deadpan, and then they’re all grinning at each other.
“I don’t think you’re wrong, Giorno. I got the same feeling when I was standing looking out at the water.” She shrugs. “And maybe there’s a lesson in there for us, too. Anything you can learn about your quarry and how he thinks is useful.” It might be a strange way to put it if she wasn’t standing with two other Slayers and a mob boss, who someone would probably call predators and not be incorrect about the description.
Buffy doesn’t actually know about Giorno’s beef with drugs and it’s a good thing she didn’t say that out loud. She might never learn the truth though.
Rush invents sea-aged alcohol roughly 10 years early.
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Giorno examines Buffy's find.
Word Count: 1087
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS
It’s a pain, running with glass in hand and wet clothes, but they don’t have far to run before they can hide in the same vegetation Ludmilla had been keeping an eye on the house in, and—well, it’s not a sure thing, but she hopes that means there aren’t things like poison ivy or whatever. She definitely wouldn’t have set up in a place with dangerous plants to sit in a carefully concealed chair for hours, anyway.
She’s briefly surprised to see Giorno has a bottle, too, but then notes the flies attempting to escape and immediately understands. He’d grabbed the flies that were useful and not just indicating a dead person to make a rudimentary sort of compass. Clever, she mouths, because they don’t want to be seen by whoever’s coming. Two of the flies is trying to go in the direction of the sound of the car coming down the road, altering trajectory as it approaches, so some of the DNA he’d grabbed happens to be from them. The main question, of course, is who ‘they’ are. They wait, crouched out of sight. The driver is going painfully slow, it feels like, though part of that is just a Slayer’s reflexes and part of it is probably the road itself. It hadn’t been a pain for her to walk, or Anitta or Giorno, but then, they all lived in places where it was more normal to walk, these days. Or take public transportation. Not something she’d ever considered when she was young, and if Giles ever asks she will defend the honor of the automobile as a proud American, but given a Slayer’s pace in a crowded city it’s actually usually faster to walk there, and it’s not like she hates exercise, given her profession.
“That’s the supervisor. I’ve seen her a few times,” Ludmilla murmurs, and it’s as if that broke the spell of silence, because Anitta stops holding her breath. “Though I don’t think there was an inspection scheduled for today. I overheard her telling the crew that she was coming down to finalize a few things tomorrow.”
“She changed her mind, I suppose. But why?” Anitta responds.
Giorno hands off his bottle with the flies and motions for Buffy to hand her bottle over, which she does. To her surprise, though, he doesn’t try to clean the outside of the bottle, popping the cork off her bottle with a gold-plated switchblade he produces from one of the pockets. Then he cautiously fans a hand towards himself, breathing in shallowly, like he’s afraid that it’s some kind of poisonous trap—and that hadn’t even occurred to her. Buffy finds herself holding her breath as he thinks, trying to place it.
“This is a fine wine. I suspect it was for consumption, not as a trap, though I’m not willing to test the hypothesis. Alcohol has been occasionally been lost on shipwrecks, and the chemical changes would probably have caught his interest. I’m not sure how much it can tell us about Rush’s past or his current whereabouts, however.”
Buffy feels her temper flare. “You think it’s a waste of time?”
“That was not what I said.” Giorno’s glance is actually a little irritated. “We won’t know until we clean the outside of the bottle, but given the type of enemy Rush is, I would be surprised if this was a known brand. If it is, it’s probably a label Rush made himself, through at least a few shell companies, with ingredients obtained in relatively the same way, ready to be abandoned at a moment’s notice. Just like with this whole venture we won’t know how valuable it is until after we’ve done.”
“That sounds a lot like you’re saying it could be a waste of time,” Anitta points out quietly.
Giorno sighs. “Facts aren’t everything.”
Anitta frowns. “Like...the soul of the city? Individual tourist locations and historical facts are just part of Salvador.”
Maybe she’s been out of the field too long, because it seems like she’s forgotten some things. Because yeah, sure, facts are important, like whether the latest Big Bad is vulnerable to an axe separating their head from their shoulders, but research and trivia are the domain of the Watchers. Buffy hasn’t managed to take out an enemy without instinct, without getting a feel of that enemy. “Right. I didn’t see any other bottles nearby. So even if he was doing an experiment, he was actually probably planning on checking on the results himself.”
Giorno nods. “Which makes a difference from the last man I had to deal with. He used anonymity as his shield. Hotel rooms, using another as a mouthpiece, not indulging in the latest clothes, or food, or any other personal items. Other than a single outfit he normally wore I’m not sure if he actually died with any possessions because he valued intangible things more.”
That description definitely reminds her that oh yeah he’s a mob boss. Funny he doesn’t mention drugs or women, but he’s probably trying to sanitize it for company.
“If you think he’s different, though, why would he abandon his alcohol and houses and identities?” This time she’s not challenging him, something that it’s clear with how he relaxes that he appreciates that.
“He’s not abandoning them, merely switching them. He’ll appreciate them when he has them, but he’s not attached. If he has to abandon nice clothes, he has more at a different house or will buy more at the next opportunity. The only consistency, and probably his greatest treasure, is knowledge. Anything he learns—like his perfect preference for aging wine, for example—is something he can apply later, as long as he lives to see another day.” The angelic smile is a little wry. “I’m certain it will astonish you to discover that I may be projecting in this instance—though I have no intention of abandoning my dream or all I have fought for.”
“I’m absolutely shocked,” Ludmilla states, deadpan, and then they’re all grinning at each other.
“I don’t think you’re wrong, Giorno. I got the same feeling when I was standing looking out at the water.” She shrugs. “And maybe there’s a lesson in there for us, too. Anything you can learn about your quarry and how he thinks is useful.” It might be a strange way to put it if she wasn’t standing with two other Slayers and a mob boss, who someone would probably call predators and not be incorrect about the description.
