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It had been two weeks. A simple two weeks back in Japan, back with his mother, back to his mundane life. Jotaro didn’t think about how tired he was, didn’t think about the fact that he'd maybe gotten one full nights sleep since the return. Didn’t think about how casually he'd see Joseph around the house and his chest would ache. He didn’t think about any of that. He focused on staying numb for the most part. Focused on actively being who he was before Egypt. With the exception of maybe being okay with his mother’s affections.
It all came to a grinding halt over something so small. The proverbial last straw to break the camel’s back.
He'd picked a glass up at an awkward angle. A simple mistake that resulted in it shattering messily after bouncing off the counter. He stared at the pieces, not even a scowl on his face, then quietly said "fuck". Then again. "Fuck".
The fleeting thought of ‘I wasn’t fast enough’ drifted through his mind and again, this time with a warble to his voice, he said "fuck". The warble morphed into a shuddering breath. Then a hiccup and he felt helpless. Lost. Tears welled up in his eyes and it felt like climbing a mountain to wipe them away. Its didn’t help much as as soon as he’d wiped them they simply returned. A few more time he'd tried before simply giving up on the whole exercise.
That’s where Holly found him. Standing in the kitchen, looking at the shattered remains of a cheap glass and crying. Holly was a mother by nature. She always had been. The perpetual mom friend of her group and then an actual mother. When Jotaro was a child, her little little baby boy, she would scoop him up at the first sign of tears. She would coo and whisper comforts until he'd calmed down enough to tell her why he was upset. This was different though.
It had been a while since shed seen Jotaro cry at all. He was different now too. A man far to early. So very delicately she started with. "Everything alright honey?"
Jotaro looked up at his mother. His mother who through no fault of her own had played a big part in the raging ocean of emotions sloshing him around. He nodded though, still trying his best to seem put together. "Yeah...I... I just, broke a glass". His words came with small sobs attached to them. "I broke a glass" he said again quietly.
His mother nodded gently, a worried look on her face, and Jotaro finally admitted defeat. "And I don’t know how to fix it" the words warped around his heaving sob that accompanied them and the dam broke.
Holly gently walked over to her son, her big strong Jotaro crying in the middle of her kitchen, and put an arm around his shoulders. He was a child again. Scared and confused by so many things. He curled into her, allowing her to properly hold him. This time, Holly didn’t coo at him. She knew she couldn’t. Understanding why a child is upset is easy, there are only so many things, but Jotaro is not a child and despite how she still plays at him being her baby boy, she knows this. She also knows that she has no
idea what he’s been through in the past month.
So she holds him, lets him sob onto her shoulder and eventually wrap his own arms around her. Holly doesn’t lie and say that it's going to be okay, because she honestly doesn’t know if he will be. As his mother she believes that he’s strong and she’d like to believe that he will get through whatever is happening to him now. But, Jotaro is also still so young.
She slowly takes his cap off to comfortingly run her fingers through his hair. Then quietly she asks "do you want to sit down?". Jotaro simply nods not trusting himself to speak.
Joseph came home a little later than he'd have liked, but what could you do. He'd never admit that he'd gotten lost. It was around 12 then, Jotaro would be at school and Holly would be...doing whatever she did. His daughter had a wide array of hobbies so one never knew what you were coming home too. As he reached the door though, he quickly noticed that his grandsons shoes still lay haphazardly at the door. So he was home. Joseph hoped he was sleeping. It seemed that Jotaro was always tired as of late, but Joseph could hardly blame the boy. He'd been through a lot and handled it like a champ.
So Joseph had hoped that upon his return, he'd find Holly doing something she enjoyed and Jotaro asleep. And while he wasn’t on the nose entirely, he wasn’t exactly wrong either. The two were curled up on a couch, it wasn’t a big couch but despite Jotaro's size they seemed to make it work. Holly was reading, a book in one hand and her fingers idly twisting through her sons hair. Said son was sleeping with his head in her lap. It was a strange picture considering the type of person Jotaro was, but as Joseph looked for a little longer he was reminded. Jotaro was a child. A strong child who’d saved a lot of lives through literal will power, but a child none the less. A child that Joseph had willingly unwillingly dragged through hell and back.
Holly looked up at him, a small smile on her face. “if you wake him up, I’ll kick you out" she teased, definitely playing off the fact that Joseph indeed could be the loudest thing in the room at any time. “I'll try my best" he offered her a similar smile. Joseph made to walk away then, maybe deal with his own realization, when Holly softly called to him. “Papa, will you do me a favour?”. Joseph nodded. “Anything”.
“Could you maybe clean up the glass in the kitchen please?”.