Chapter Text
“Erina! I’m home!” Jonathan called out as he walked into the Joestar manor, stretching his arms above his head. He was met with a silence instead of the sound of footsteps and the embrace of his love, causing him to wander his way over to the main room. He assumed she was asleep with their son until he found a note on the table.
My dearest, JoJo,
I’ve taken George with me to visit my mother for the day as Johnny came home and seemed out of sorts. He requested to be alone which I did insist on not being the case, but he was so adamant; I couldn’t refuse.
There is food in the fridge that you can heat up if you begin to feel hungry and we will be home before dark <3 Welcome home, I’m proud of you for doing so well at your job!
Please check on your cousin for me, I hope he’s feeling just a bit better than earlier.
Your love, Erina
Jonathan loved his wife sometimes. She seemed to know exactly what he’d need and what to say to make him feel as loved as he wanted to be. His stomach rumbled with hunger and he couldn’t help but laugh at his body for being so open about its desires.
“Okay, okay, we’ll get you some food,” but, before he could even enter the kitchen, Erina’s request nagged in his mind, “I’ll go check on Johnny first.” He decided to ascend the stairs to his cousin’s room to see if he was alright.
Johnny had been staying with Jonathan’s family for a while now, a couple of years since his accident happened, and he’d become much closer than a distant cousin to them. He was a real uncle to little George and helped around the house whenever he could, and Jonathan and Erina would respect him whenever he needed a few days to himself. Johnny was more than just an uncle though, he was too old to be like another son, but just the right age to be like a little brother to him. A little brother who coincidentally had the same name! The accident had changed a lot; things were different afterwards – they needed to be there for him when he needed them.
Climbing the stairs to Johnny’s room, Jonathan couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his stomach from forming. Every step closer to the door made him feel sick with worry as his mind jumped around possibilities that could have happened to him. His own childhood with Dio had scarred him enough and he knew what it felt like for things to be hopeless, but he had Erina through all of that. Johnny didn’t have anyone who would love him so unconditionally like she did him.
Knocking on the door, Jonathan dismissed the thoughts of negativity and sighed. He was letting his imagination get away with him. Just because Johnny hadn’t responded to his call or come to greet him at the door didn’t mean anything. Like he’d assumed his wife was asleep so could Johnny be, and he couldn’t exactly expect him to take the time to wheel his way all the way downstairs for him. After all, who would have brought his wheelchair down?
“Johnny? Are you in there?” Jonathan knocked again when he received no reply. He didn’t like to be intrusive and so he knocked and waited a third time before taking matters into his own hands and slowly inching open the door. It creaked from its old age and opened to allow Jonathan in to his cousin’s room.
He breathed deeply to calm his nerves, not too unlike how he’d been taught during his martial arts training and took a step into the large room. The bed was empty, the desk was clear sans a few pieces of paper and a pen, Johnny’s wheelchair was still propped up against the bedside table, but there was no sign of the boy himself.
“Johnny? Where are you?” Jonathan called out with an edge of worry lacing his words. He wanted to believe that his cousin was okay but when he’d disappeared like this, he couldn’t really do anything else but jump to the worst conclusions.
He took off out of Johnny room and down the hall way. It wasn’t entirely unreasonable for him to have just gone wandering around the house without his wheelchair – he’d done it a few times before, saying he just couldn’t be bothered – so he could still be somewhere in the house! He opened every door he passed, even to the ones no one used and for once he cursed himself for owning such a large house. Jonathan frantically ran about trying to find his cousin, calling out his name repeatedly, until he heard shaky breaths come from the far left of him.
The bathroom, of course! It made so much more sense than something terrible happening. It explained everything just fine. Johnny was okay, he was safe in the house and he was okay.
“Johnny, please respond with something if you’re at home. I was scared out of my wits for y-” Jonathan’s voice caught in his throat as he walked over to the bathroom to find the light on, the door wide open, and his cousin laying in the bathtub crying silently to himself.
“Johnny! What happened; are you alright?!” Panic overtook Jonathan as he gently shook the young boy who wouldn’t stop crying. He was hugging himself tight with one hand and the other one was clasped tightly around his mouth in a desperate attempt to not make any noise.
Taking a second to glance around the bathroom, Jonathan realised what had happened.
Why Johnny wasn’t responding, why he sent Erina away and wanted to be alone, why he was in the bathroom with the medicine cabinet wide open…
“I… Johnny, you…” Jonathan was lost for words. He couldn’t form a full sentence, his voice soft and barely more than a whisper. Johnny didn’t make any move to respond to the unvoiced questions, he merely sat there gasping for breaths as his eyes continued to water uncontrollably, and Jonathan let him. He tidied away everything back where it was supposed to go – noted that he should invest in a lock for the medicine cabinet – and then returned to kneel by the side of the bathtub, hoping that his presence showed Johnny that he cared about him and that he was there, even if it wasn’t put into words.
They simply sat like that for what seemed like hours but was probably just a couple of minutes that had been dragged out by the weight of the situation.
“Why didn’t you tell us, or even just me? You know we would’ve done anything and everything to help you…” Jonathan broke the silence and immediately regretted it. His words sounded as if he was accusing Johnny of doing something wrong, which certainly wasn’t the case. The teenager didn’t respond, he just picked at his long sleeves restlessly and avoided eye contact.
“You know Erina didn’t want to leave you alone… She was concerned about your well-being and was reluctant to visit her mother. We didn’t want to ask you about it, but we had an inkling that-”
“How?” The question caught Jonathan off guard, he wasn’t expecting Johnny to reply so soon but he wasn’t going to ignore the fact that Johnny had spoken. This was progress. Definitely much better than a one-sided conversation.
“Well… I suppose you just start staring into the far-off distance and your face goes blank. It makes you look like you’re seeing everything and nothing at the same time, as if you’re not on this world anymore and it’s… scary.” It wasn’t the best way to word it, but it was one that Jonathan understood well. He’d once been described the same way by Erina, but that time it had been for a completely different reason. It just seemed to fit. He saw so much of himself in Johnny and didn’t want him to stray down the path he almost did when he was younger.
“I can’t look like I’m not on this world if this is the only one there is…”
“I… I suppose you’re not wrong.”
“And I’m fine, so you don’t need to worry, I’m going to go to bed.”
“Wait, Johnny, we can’t just ignore wh-”
“Yes, we can. You don’t need to tell Erina anything and we can both forget this entire thing by the time tomorrow rolls over.” Johnny wiped his eyes on his sleeves and moved to lift himself out of the bathtub. Jonathan quickly supported his cousin by helping him out, so he could crawl his way back to his room. They’d lived together long enough that he knew that Johnny despised being picked up by others. Made him feel weak or inferior or something along those lines, apparently.
“By the time tomorrow comes we’ll all be in America and you know that. Of course we would have to ‘forget’ it, because we would have so much more to worry about…” Jonathan said as they made their way down the corridor. Johnny kept on moving, not paying attention to the words. They soon enough reached his room, the Joestar mansion was only so big, and Johnny went in, said he was going to sleep, and closed the door on his cousin’s face.
“Erina, we can’t leave this be… He’s getting worse again and I don’t think he even-”
“Hush, my dearest, let us not speak of this behind Johnny’s back.” Erina placed her hand over Jonathan’s as she lay close to him in bed, sliding her thumb back and forth over his knuckles caringly as she smiled up at him. “I know we have to do something, and we have to do something soon, but he’s an American citizen, right? I’m sure there is a hospital you can take him to. I love you darling, I know you can do what’s best for him.” She leaned up and kissed her husband on the cheek before snuggling close to his side and falling asleep.
Jonathan sure hoped he could…