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All of them were sweating, cramped, miserable, but he only knew something was really wrong when Kakyoin moaned and his hands slipped, dropping his upper body and face into the ground. The hole was a tangle of limbs, but Jotaro crawled forward as best he could to see Kakyoin struggling to lift his head again. None of them looked good, but something was wrong here.
With a shaking hand pressed against his mouth, Kakyoin gagged. He squirmed out of the shelter of their tiny cave and once the sunlight hit his face, he retched and threw up bile that immediately began to steam and bubble. He didn’t seem to notice or care that some of it had caught in his hair.
“Kakyoin, what the hell?” Jotaro grabbed his ankle and yanked him back into cover, just as a blast slammed into the ground in front of them, spraying them with scalding sand. He didn’t answer, or move. Joseph carefully rolled him over and put a gloved hand over his forehead.
“He’s not sweating anymore,” Joseph said. “Kakyoin, can you hear me? I think you have heatstroke. We need to get out of here, now.” He didn’t answer, eyelids fluttering as he tried to focus on their faces. He didn’t look like he was seeing them.
Joseph reached for the canteen, only for its last few drops of water to leak out the hole torn through its middle. “He’s not going to last without anything to drink. Where is the stand user?! He must be close, so why can’t we see him?” All his whining was getting on Jotaro’s frayed nerves. He felt dizzy himself, a sharp feeling setting in behind his eyes.
Polnareff hit him in the arm, and harder when he didn’t look away from Kakyoin. “The user’s right there,” he hissed in Jotaro’s ear. “See that rock?”
He didn’t need to know more than that. Star Platinum, as sweaty as the rest of them, hefted up a fist-sized rock and threw it with all of Jotaro’s borrowed anger, and maybe some of his own—Star liked Kakyoin as much as he could like anyone. The air shattered into a mirror, and finally the sun faded away.
“What the hell are you doing, Jotaro, I need your help here!” his grandfather snapped, from where he was unwinding Kakyoin’s scarf.
“Shut up, old man, and get out of the way. The sun’s gone.” Polnareff jogged ahead, presumably to finish off the stand user, and Jotaro pulled Kakyoin out of the cramped cave.
The air was cooling with the night, but not fast enough. Kakyoin looked like he was suffocating. “Oh, fuck this,” Jotaro growled and, taking hold of Kakyoin’s coat, tore it open with enough force to spray its buttons across the sand. The shirt underneath was near-transparent with sweat, and his chest rose and fell too quickly, desperate for air. He looked a lot smaller without it on.
Joseph honed in at his neck and began to unbutton Kakyoin’s collar, when Kakyoin let out a gurgling moan. Though his efforts were weak, he clawed at Joseph’s face, muttering a stream of no no stop no. Jotaro pinned his wrists down into the sand. Hierophant Green surged forward, coils ready to strangle them both. Star Platinum tackled their main body and carefully gripped their hands to make sure they couldn’t fire off any emeralds, only for Hierophant to unfurl into meters of shimmering green tendrils, all aimed for Joseph. For a second he thought the old man was done for, a sharpened tentacle mere inches from his face, before the vines of his Hermit Purple poured out of him to tangle with it.
Kakyoin screamed, his voice hoarse and cracking, and Hierophant thrashed in Star’s arms. Kakyoin’s face was all pinched up like he was about to cry, but none of them had enough water left for tears. Joseph quickly finished unbuttoning it and lifted his hands to where Kakyoin could see them. “Calm down, Kakyoin, it’s only me.”
“Grandpa, put away your fucking thorns, you’re hurting him,” Jotaro hissed. Star Platinum rocked his armfuls of Hierophant a little, pressing his face into their shoulder with a quiet Ora. Inch by inch, Hermit Purple began to vanish, all while they stared at Hierophant, waiting for Kakyoin to attack again. It looked like he had exhausted himself, though, and he gasped for breath.
In one of those rare instances where Jotaro could believe his grandpa had ever been a decent dad, he swept the hair from Kakyoin’s face and shushed him. “It’s okay, Kakyoin, I’ve put Hermit away. It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you again.” The fact that Kakyoin let anyone shush him was a bad sign, but at least he wasn’t trying to tear out Joseph’s eyes.
No wonder he had been trying to protect his throat; it was a mess. There were marks on Kakyoin’s neck, scars the size of broad fingertips, four on the right side and a thumb over his pulse. It looked like strangle marks, but those would bruise and fade, not scar. Joseph scowled when he saw them, and in a rush, Jotaro remembered a childhood story he’d long since dismissed as fantasy, about ancient vampires...
“Hey! Get over here, the Stand user had extra water! And an air conditioner!” In the distance, Polnareff waved his arms over his head. Kakyoin was in no shape to walk there, so Jotaro heaved him into his arms. Kakyoin pushed against his chest and squirmed, but he didn’t have enough energy to get free. Star bundled up loops and loops of Hierophant into his arms and carried them, too. The sand probably wasn’t cool enough yet to let them slither around in it without pain, and they didn’t look like they had the will to float there.
He tried to ignore Kakyoin’s frantic whispering. “Please, I’m sorry, don’t...” Whatever Kakyoin was seeing, it wasn’t any of Jotaro’s business. Even when he started saying Dio’s name.
The Sun’s user had a pretty cushy setup behind the mirror, and Jotaro carefully laid Kakyoin down onto the tarp. “He even had a cold drink,” Polnareff said, and Joseph snatched it from his hand. He poured a handful of ice into the folds of Kakyoin’s scarf and held it against his neck.
“One of you, prop him up so he can drink this without choking.” He tried not to be rough about it as he maneuvered Kakyoin’s limp body into his lap, the back of his head against Jotaro’s collarbone. Polnareff held the straw to his mouth and thankfully he drank, coherent enough that none of them would need to drip water into his mouth like they were syringe-feeding some injured animal. “Slow down, Kakyoin, we can’t have you throwing up again.”
With the fan blowing over him, they could see him improving. He held the cup himself, breathed a little slower, and his eyes weren’t as frantic. He still kicked at Polnareff as he removed Kakyoin’s shoes, but maybe that was because he was whining about the smell.
Joseph felt at his forehead again. “Still a bit warm. Jotaro, get his shirt off. Maybe he won’t panic if it’s you.”
He leaned down and tapped him on his flushed forehead, trying to be gentle about it, again and again until Kakyoin met his eyes. “Kakyoin, it’s Jotaro. Don’t freak out on me.” Almost imperceptibly, Kakyoin nodded.
“Jotaro, hurry it up.” His hands were too big for Kakyoin’s shirt buttons, and sweaty besides. It seemed wrong somehow; even when Kakyoin shared a hotel room with Jotaro, he always dressed behind closed doors. The thought that Kakyoin would feel a little bit better with it off was the only thing that helped.
A sickening shade of red had crept down his throat and chest, like a sunburn. It was easier to focus on that unhealthy color than to think about Kakyoin’s bare skin, his nipples, his navel.
At his grandfather’s direction, Jotaro pressed damp rags to Kakyoin’s skin, while his own sweaty clothes dried icy against him. In the starlight, he could see more scarring. Claw marks raking down his hips, the faint impression of sharp teeth. It looked like he’d been mauled by a wild animal. Maybe he had been.
Slowly, his inflamed skin paled again and his eyes weren’t so glassy. “Kakyoin, are you with us? Stay awake now,” Joseph said.
“I... I think so.” With Joseph’s help, he crawled out of Jotaro’s lap and took an offered ice cube, holding it to his forehead. The other hand splayed across his chest, trying to cover himself. Was he blushing from the heatstroke, or from being half naked?
“Well!” Joseph clapped his hands together. “It’s dangerous to travel at night, and you need time to rest. Polnareff, help me with the camels. ...The remaining camels.”
That left the two of them sitting there in silence. Kakyoin pulled his knees up, but Jotaro still couldn’t help staring. Was he going to be okay? He had started shivering from the chill wind, and before Jotaro thought it through, he had already shrugged off his coat and offered it. Would Kakyoin want it? How badly did it smell?
Kakyoin took it, draping it over his shoulders and swearing quietly when the icy chain on the collar brushed his bare skin. They sat together, listening to Polnareff’s indignation over camel spit in his wilted hair, watching the stars.