Work Text:
Nail biting was a bad habit that she had managed to overcome when she was a teenager. She hadn't done it in years.
Guess stress really brought out the worst in her.
If she listened closely enough, she could swear that she could hear the howling winds that had kept them company, kept them prisoner, throughout the night. She couldn't actually hear it, of course, she was too far into the building, had walked down too many long, sterile corridors to actually be able to listen to the shrieking of the wind.
The man next to her was tapping his foot in a rhythmic pattern, lounging back on the uncomfortable plastic seat, eyes closed as he tilted his head up towards the ceiling. Tap-tap-tap.
She knows she couldn't have stayed at home last night, but she recalls back to the way her son was shivering throughout the night and thought, 'There was something else I could have done.'
The taste of general antiseptic was strong in her mouth. She had used some on her hands when she had entered the waiting room alone, a force of habit overriding the sheer panic she was feeling. "Always stay clean in a hospital, Tomoko-chan." The voice of her mother echoed around her head.
She should really stop biting her nails.
Tap-tap-tap.
Her head bounced up as the door to the main desk opened. "Mrs. Higashikata?" A voice called, and Tomoko had already shot to her feet, disturbing the half-sleeping man beside her. "Oi-" he grunted, but she ignored it.
The harried-looking doctor didn't so much as flinch as she rushed up to him. He looked professional enough, but if one were to look closer they would see the skewed hair, the purple bags hanging under his eyes. Usually, Tomko would feel some concern for the man who was clearly overworking himself.
Right now, she didn't care.
"My son, how is he?" She rushed out, annoyance spiking within her as the doctor calmly raised a hand to cut off any further talk. There was a tired look on his face.
"It would be best if we didn't talk here," he gestured to the rest of the waiting room, "follow me, please."
He took off at a walk, and Tomoko felt almost frustrated enough to scream. Something was wrong with her son could he not hurry?, she thought.
She followed him as he strode through the hallways, and eventually they ended up in a diagnosement area, it looked as if it hadn't been used in a while.
"My son?" Tomoko bit out.
The doctor sighed. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he said solemnly, and Tomoko's heart leapt into her throat, "We've taken blood tests, swabs, everything, and all the results say that there's nothing wrong. Which clearly is not the case." He adjusted his glasses slightly, pushing them up his nose. "We've attached him to a saline drip, and would prefer to keep him in the hospital until the underlying cause is found."
"I-" Tomoko paused, emotions in turmoil. "Alright," she said "Can I see him?"
The doctor, Tanaka, his nametag said, nodded in response. "He's currently in room 126, shall I lead you?"
Tomoko nodded, and found herself to be following the man once again as he led her through the hallways towards her son.
"This is door 115, so just keep going forward until you find 126, alright?" The man said as he turned on his heel to head back to the waiting room she had been in previously.
Tomoko's legs couldn't move fast enough. She paused briefly outside the hospital room, before gently opening the door to peer inside. There were four beds in the room, three of which were currently empty, and in the fourth, furthest from the door- oh god.
Josuke looked so small.
She hurried over to him, doing her best not to wake him as she sat down by his side. Wires leading all the way downwards from the half-depleted bag of saline fed into his arm, and he had a tube under his nose to aid with breathing. Her stomach plummeted. She felt like she was going to be sick.
"Josuke," she whispered, tears budding in her eyes as she gently squeezed his hand with hers.
.....
..........
.....
Jotaro Kujo was, frankly, having a really shitty day.
He had come to Morioh for a few reasons, some being work related, some being family related, because apparently his seventy-nine year old grandfather, who had been married for literally over fifty years, didn't know how to keep it in his pants.
On the work side of the coin, he was here on behalf of the speedwagon foundation to track down a serial killer suspected to have had a stand, as the murders seemed too unusual to be done via regular means. There was little to no progress on that side, though.
Worst part was though, that upon mentioning the name "Joseph Joestar" to Tomoko Higashikata, she had broken down in tears and slammed a door in his face. The woman had apparently-
(The heart monitor let out a flat whine, and Tomoko stared numbly at the child (small, so small,) lying still in bed. Hospital staff rushed into the room, various forms of revival equipment in hands. He was so pale.
She screamed.)
-lost her child years ago. He just didn't know what he was going to tell Joseph.
"Check up on them while you're there, Jotaro?" The old man had said, regret and wistfulness clear on his face, the former likely the only reason Jotaro hadn't gone off on him for cheating on Suzie Q. He looked... strangely fragile, for the grandfather he had known most of his life.
Call it selfish of him, but he didn't want to be the one to break the knowledge that he had had an uncle, a child, who had died. Died because he took too long to defeat Dio. Died because-
"I'm sorry, but it would be best if you left." Ryohei Higashikata told him firmly, and he was still reeling from the revelation that, yes, he saved his mother, but a child died because-
-because of him.
Pausing mid stride at that thought, he found himself to have wandered over to the park, trees swaying lightly in the wind. It was empty, the citizens of Morioh apparently having better things to do on this day than enjoying time outside. Jotaro was about to move on, to do what he had done best over the past few years, repressing family issues via copious amounts of work-
Except,
There was a kid standing at the edge of the small playground, sequestered away in a corner of the park, just a few feet away from where he was standing. He was looking straight on at Jotaro, and something about him made a voice deep inside the older man's head buzz.
Jotaro glanced around. No parents.
"Excuse me?" The kid called out to him, and unmistakably him. There wasn't anyone else around.
Jotaro tipped his hat slightly, covering his face. "Yeah?"
"You know Joseph Joestar, right?" The kid asked, curiosity plain on his face. "What's he like? Will he help her?"
Help her? Who was the 'her' this brat was on about? "Not sure what you're talking about, kid." He responded.
"I think you do." The kid replied with a frown on his face, but the disgruntled look only served to highlight the fact that he looked like a strong breeze could blow him over. "You know Joseph Joestar." He repeated.
Something about this was off. How did the kid know who his grandfather was? He had only been in town for a short time. Star Platinum manifested by his side, ready for anything, and he was only half surprised when the kid's eyes shot over towards his stand.
"Oh," the boy said, suddenly subdued, and Jotaro really wondered if this kid should even be allowed outside with how ill he looked. "I have one of those, too." A small pink being appeared beside the child. It looked... wrong, like it wasn't supposed to come out that way.
He had met stand users that had had their stands since childhood, such as Polnareff, (a̶n̶d̶ ̶K̶a̶k̶y̶o̶i̶n̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶A̶v̶d̶o̶l̶,̶) but he knew it wasn't a kid thing, because even when Polnareff was a kid back in the eighties, Silver Chariot didn't radiate a sense of, of wrongness, as this one did.
"He fixes things," said the raven headed child, "but he never came out right, because before he could I-" The boy paused. Flickered slightly. Suddenly, his skin took on a much, much more concerning shade of white, face flushed crimson in fever, before the vision was gone.
"Will you take care of her?" He asked for the third time, eyes off Star Platinum and staring Jotaro dead in the eyes. He... had a feeling he knew who this was.
"Higashikata?" He asked, and the boy nodded, although Jotaro didn't know if it was in confirmation of who he was or who 'she' was.
Just his luck to get confronted by his failures as soon as he decides to repress them, honestly.
"I will, Josuke," he said, hoping that he wasn't horribly incorrect with the guess but at the same time hoping so, so dearly that he was.
The boy beamed up at him, and Jotaro felt a weight of guilt settle on his shoulders as he looked upon the one family member he had failed to save.
Another name on the list, then.
"That's all I want." The kid said, something older in his eyes than his appearance belied.
Jotaro blinked, and when he opened his eyes the kid had vanished. He didn't know how the hell he was going to break this to his grandfather.
...Maybe he should visit Jolyne, after all this was over, he thought to himself.