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When Josuke woke up, his head was pounding .
He couldn’t in the slightest focus on where the hell he even was, only the fact that every few seconds a harsh beam of light would pierce directly through his closed eyelids and spear directly through the back of his skull, like staring directly into strobe lights while having a hangover.
It didn’t help that everything around him was spinning, low rumbles surrounding him as he groggily peeled open his eyes- only to wince as another flash of light streamed into his face, receding a moment later.
There was a low drone of voices somewhere in front of him- quick, baritone mutters swimming in the all-too-dense air. He could only barely make out the words, the mumbles instead fusing into each other into a mostly incomprehensible haze of sound.
[I didn’t tell him to do it did I no it should have been fine it isn’t anything worse you already know that don’t you not for sure you have nothing to prove it you have nothing to disprove it]
Josuke blinked again blearily, head feeling like it was going to tumble off his shoulders with dizziness. He was sitting down- head lolled slightly back on what must have been a headrest in the back of a car as it bumped along the road through the field and back toward Morioh.
The radio wasn’t playing in the car, oddly enough, only making the slew of voices more confusing in his already groggy mind, and he managed to lift his head enough to try to see who was driving.
Sure enough, there was a familiar Lucky Land emblem glittering in the rearview.
“...Jotaro?” Josuke mumbled, lips sticky. “Wha’s going on?”
[You thought you had more time to mull it over, didn’t you?]
“Huh?” Josuke blinked, glancing around.
“Don’t overwhelm yourself,” came Jotaro’s low voice from the front seat, more grunted than spoken. “You passed out on the mission.”
Josuke took a long moment to think it through, ignoring the still low whispers of chatter all around him with no one to speak them, figuring it was just the effects of his headache. The fragmented memories of the mission slowly filtered back in, flickers of punches flying towards him, barely blocked attacks thanks to Jotaro stepping in to help, and something else- A fist slamming into the side of his head, the taste of copper in his mouth, another hand directed at his gut-
And then here.
“...Oh, wh- did… I get hurt?” he asked, still reeling. He knew vaguely that it was probably a stupid question, but even just forming words was an effort, most of his filters had dropped.
[Did you get hurt. Did you- Don’t be like that. Pupils dilated, slurred speech, head trauma, bothered by headlights out the window.]
“You may have a concussion. Don’t overwhelm yourself,” he repeated, but Josuke couldn’t help but feel already overwhelmed, staring dizzily out the front window and trying to decipher the voices. He was exhausted and his brain was working about as fast as a hiker’s boots dragged weakly through a thick bog.
He decided to ignore the voices for now. They’d go away in time, he was probably just confused. “...’Kay. I, uh- might fall asleep.”
[Not yet.]
“Sure. I’ll wake you up to check in when we get back.”
Josuke nodded but regretted it, feeling nauseous as he sank against the seat again and let his eyes flutter shut again. He could still feel the headlights racing by him, but he was drained and muscles felt sapped of all his energy, enough to drag him further into sleep with the promise from Jotaro that he’d check in on injuries and the promise from himself that the voices would be gone.
As he began to nod off, though, one last thought rang in his cotton-stuffed head.
[Good grief, he really did take a beating.]
…Josuke felt the words resonate and settle against him, feeling like they should have made him realize something- but it was just out of reach, and he was too tired to lift his hand and try to grasp what it was. So he let the sound drift along with him into a peaceful nothingness.
[Get a grip on yourself.]
Josuke weakly reached up to rub at one of his eyes as some odd sound settled inside of his mind, one he couldn’t even trace to anything around him. He blinked and slowly came to realize he was lying down on a couch in the Morioh Grand Hotel, a suite he recognized as Jotaro’s.
His head was still pounding with pain, but less so with the curtains drawn and the room silent. He carefully pushed himself to sit up, pain spiking through his temple that he chose to ignore.
Jotaro was sitting in the armchair nearby, gaze boring into a magazine in his lap. He was silent as always, looking up upon hearing Josuke shift, and the sound suddenly played again, making him jump slightly.
[Out of time. Again.]
He couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, especially not having just woken up- everything was slightly fuzzy, like he was listening to everything underwater, scrubbing at his eyes again as if clearing the stickiness of his eyelashes would give an explanation as to why he was hearing someone talking with no one but Jotaro in the room.
He glanced over his shoulder- curtains still drawn, the pillows fluffed on the couch that looked barely used before him. A heap of biology and tourism magazines sitting on the coffee table, empty mugs clustered next to them.
[He’s looking around. Was he attacked? Of course he was attacked.]
Josuke’s gaze finally landed back on his nephew sitting in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table, whose brow furrowed slightly, one of the only displays of emotion Josuke could ever get from the man.
[He probably doesn’t even know what it is. You should have checked the database, you’re in the dark on its abilities.]
A realization slowly crawled up Josuke’s throat as he heard the voices continue to overlap and ring out in his head, all a perfect commentary on what he was doing. As if there was someone observing him, from not far away-
As if sitting right there, on the other side of the coffee table.
“Jotaro?” he croaked, eyes widening and voice hoarse from waking up.
[At least he can speak coherently now.]
Jotaro raised an eyebrow expectantly, the tone of the next words only confirming his suspicions.
“I- I’m so sorry about the mission, I know I fucked it up-”
[You could have died.]
“...But I think I got hit by the stand.”
Jotaro’s expression didn’t change, jaw set and eyes fixed in a dull stare across the table at the teen.
[Does he know what it did?]
“Why is that?” Jotaro responded, setting down the magazine and folding his arms over his coat.
Josuke grimaced, only feeling more nauseous in anticipation of Jotaro’s reaction. He had a feeling that Jotaro would absolutely not want him listening in to everything he thought, as he barely even spoke at the best of times. He probably wanted the level of barely any communication to be kept that way, but what if the stand didn’t go away? He didn’t want to lie to Jotaro, especially if he could help.
“Uh- I…”
[Patience.]
The word was almost reassuring, even though it clearly wasn’t directed to Josuke- the fact that it was Jotaro talking to himself, retaining his composure in anticipation- it was enough to get Josuke to open his mouth, voice hoarse-
“...I don’t- I don’t mean to freak you out, but- I’m pretty sure I can hear your thoughts.”
There was a few seconds of silence from the voices, a stunned gap in the words before they quietly started up again.
[That isn’t good.]
“That’s good, at least,” Jotaro muttered, in direct contrast to his thoughts. “It isn’t anything dangerous.”
[To you, at least.]
Josuke stared at the man, coming to realize he somehow understood Jotaro even less when he could hear every one of his thoughts. “Huh?”
“It isn’t a danger to you,” Jotaro repeated, jaw clenching. “I knew you were under one’s abilities, but there are stands far more difficult to deal with.”
“So- you’re chill with having me hear everything you think because it means I won’t get hurt?”
[You might get hurt.]
“...Something like that,” Jotaro replied, tugging his hat over his face.
Josuke leaned to the side, trying to see Jotaro’s face beneath it. “Why do you do that?” he asked, definitely not at all to hear Jotaro’s real response.
“Don’t ask unnecessary questions,” Jotaro responded at the same time as the thoughts came through, but one was outside Josuke’s mind and the other rang inside of it, so that no sound, no matter how loud, could cover it up.
[it’s easier when you can’t see my face.]
“What’s easier?” Josuke asked, resisting the urge to smirk.
[Stop talking, Josuke.]
Jotaro glared at him, a gaze that felt like it was going to burn a hole directly through him if he didn’t look away, so he dropped it, letting out a breath.
Jotaro cleared his throat, clearly changing the subject. Josuke didn’t even need to hear his thoughts to figure that out. “How much do you remember of the mission?”
Josuke hesitated, already unsettled to have to discuss what he did remember of what he did on the mission. He had headed out to the next town with him, news of a stand user that had no description in the database, only a relatively low threat rating, so Jotaro had taken Josuke along, albeit begrudgingly. It made sense.
But Josuke had slipped up, hadn’t been well-rested, and had needed Jotaro’s help at quite a few points along it. And then toward the end…
“Are you gonna catch me up on it all?”
Jotaro’s eyes narrowed, a quick mutter of a voice that Josuke couldn’t catch before he folded his arms again. “Hopefully. I’d like you to know what happened, what you can do better next time.”
[Mainly the latter.]
Josuke felt frustration curl in his gut. He was trying .
[It wasn’t his fault. He’s just a kid.]
[You were just a kid once.]
The impromptu argument was cut short as Jotaro let out a sharp breath, leaning over and sliding another magazine over toward himself and Josuke realized he hadn’t actually responded. Jotaro had changed his mind so quickly, and Josuke felt unable to stay mad at him.
He seemed so much more conflicted than Josuke had originally thought- he seemed made of stone, a split decision-maker, and unable to be convinced, but hearing his thought process more made it sound like there was a whole group of people having short arguments over what he would even think, let alone say or do.
“Why can’t you just- y’know, think it?” Josuke offered. “It’s kinda fun like this, not gonna lie.”
[You have an interesting definition of fun.]
“No.”
“Why not?”
[I don’t enjoy having my thought process read back to me by someone who messes up enough to force me to stop time on missions.]
“We’re not doing that,” Jotaro grunted.
Between the curt spoken response and randomly aggressive thought leaving Josuke to just keep his mouth shut and nod, he started to wonder just how much Jotaro withheld information.
“I- Damn, okay then. I remember up to when we got to the bridge and the user was there.”
[I wish I could have forgotten that much.]
Josuke narrowed his eyes at the response. What did that mean? The one thing he was hoping to get out of this was being able to understand someone as mysterious as Jotaro better, but the only thing he had picked up was that the man was more, if not even more cryptic, inside his own head.
“Not to like- offend you, or anything but- your thoughts say some weird things, Jotaro,” he commented, and Jotaro’s gaze darted to fix on the floor.
[Disgusting, aren’t they?]
“No-” Josuke suddenly rewound, again caught entirely off-guard by the response. “Just weird, I-”
“Then ignore them,” Jotaro cut him off sharply, launching into the story. “After we got to the bridge, you managed to land a couple blows on the user, but then he managed to fight back, and that’s when I’m relatively sure you were hit, with both the stand and got the concussion. You have a concussion, by the way.”
Josuke blinked, the pounding headache and the way everything felt like he was listening through the big glass window the thin curtains were drawn over suddenly beginning to make sense. Also, the fact that he couldn’t remember anything. That probably should have tipped him off, he figured.
He rubbed his eyes. “...Oh. Good to know.” He looked up. “What happened after that?”
“You failed to dodge,” Jotaro replied curtly, expression slowly sharpening into something more piercing, and Josuke shifted uncomfortably. “I called out, but you didn’t get out of the way in time. He was about to attack. He managed to grab you and slammed you into the barrier. I assumed he was going to throw you off, but he didn’t. He was going to just kill you there.”
Another fluttering breath of a thought Josuke couldn’t catch, drifting like a falling feather beneath Jotaro’s words.
“I was forced to stop time to get you out of the way,” he muttered, glancing back down at his knees for a moment.
[Do you have any idea how pissed off that makes me?]
Despite what seemed like a normal, if not slightly disappointed explanation from his nephew, Josuke felt his throat constrict at the words that followed. That was what he was really thinking?
“You’re… mad at me?” Josuke croaked, guilt and frustration curling in his gut. It wasn’t his fault . “I got hit once- I know I’m not the best fighter, but why do you have to be so touchy about it? In the end, it’s fine, you stopped time and killed him, right? You seem way too mad about this.”
He didn’t know if it was the concussion or the cold, hard plate of stubborn insecurity that had resided somewhere in Josuke’s body, but he was somehow feeling bold enough to ask Jotaro why he was being bold about something. There was a voice in the back of his head (different from the others) telling him he was definitely about to get punched, but he kept his jaw set.
“Well?”
Jotaro was still staring at him, seeming to have not reacted-
But not quite.
His chest was rising and falling the smallest bit faster than it had been a moment before, face slightly paler. Pupils small and teeth grit, hands clenched in his lap as he froze in his armchair.
“...Jotaro?”
[When I was seventeen I got myself arrested for]
[Shut up.]
[Sending two men to the hospital and I stayed there for]
[He can hear you.]
[Far longer than my original sentence. I refused to leave because of]
[Don’t.]
[What I believed was an evil spirit possessing me and I didn’t want anyone]
[Something else say something else.]
Josuke stared at him, eyes wide as more of the words overlapped in Jotaro’s head, repeating, growing more frustrated and ever louder with the voice telling the story filtering into a harsh, resonating echo that ground coarsely in Josuke’s ears, even hearing it second-hand. It was overwhelming, panicked to a degree Josuke could never have associated with the biologist in the past- as if someone else lived inside of Jotaro’s head.
“...the hell?” Josuke rasped, more out of shock than trying to be disrespectful.
As if turning up a knob on a speaker, the sound only intensified with his words, overlapping infinitely as Josuke reeled further on the couch, heart rising in his throat.
Did he do this? He couldn’t figure it out- he felt he had heard the low, misophonia-inducing drone somewhere before, but the only other way he could think for this to happen was that it just- did. A common occurrence inside of Jotaro’s mind, a sudden spiral of rushed stories, pleas for it to stop, and the only calm affirmations disappearing into the thick, matted heap of sound within seconds, swallowed by the writhing monster of dark, tangled monologues.
[You’re hurting him too.]
[What did you expect? You’ve learned plenty. Seventeen, just a schoolkid with a stand who got caught up in too much, a sudden loss dragging him into this.]
[A sudden loss? Don’t pretend. You’re awful at it. Losses hurt people, then they move on. You act as if you help, pin someone in place in a twisted argument of warped morals, they believe they’re doing the right thing until their hands are tied, don’t notice until the stake is burying splinters in their back and the fire’s been lit below them. People can’t move on from you-]
[They either die or end up almost as miserable as you.]
“Jotaro-” Josuke asked, the sudden bitter words crawling through to sit on top of the mass of sound, fingers curling into the cushion in his lap out of stress. He didn’t understand - he had thought hearing Jotaro’s thoughts would have been interesting, maybe at most kinda funny to see Jotaro unable to be as mysterious and unpredictable as he usually was- but guilty, splenetic words were sharp and glistening like daggers amidst the pulsing mass of emotion.
The man still wasn’t answering, glance locked askew and fixed on a spot in the carpet.
[It’s funny, isn’t it?]
[Not really. Miserable things aren’t funny.]
[Then why did he always laugh at me?]
[Maybe you should ask him.]
[See, that was funny. And miserable at the same time.]
[Dead people aren’t funny.]
[I’d argue that dead people are the funniest thing of all.]
And when Josuke blinked, breathing growing even heavier, Jotaro’s expression hadn’t changed. It was set in stone, as if frozen in time, as it always was.
“Jotaro, I- I can still hear you. What’s going on?”
[What’s going on?]
[You don’t belong here, you should have left fifty days ago.]
[Let it be me dying this time.]
[Get out of my fucking head.]
“I- I can’t, the stand, remember?” Josuke asked shakily, tilting his head to the side and trying to see beneath the brim of Jotaro’s hat. It was futile, the shadow cast over it dark and hiding any light from the man’s eyes. “I’m stuck like this-”
[Don’t get stuck, get out before he-]
[Feels helpless, doesn’t it?]
[What?]
“Please, you’re-” Josuke felt panic rising in his throat, still dizzy from the concussion and the only stable thing he thought in the room now apparently an incoherent mess with a stone mask fixed over his face. “You’re scaring me, Jotaro.”
[Then fix it, don’t fuck it up like-]
[I’m scared too.]
“...Scared too?”
[I’m…]
“I’m not mad at you.”
Jotaro suddenly actually spoke, catching Josuke off guard as his heart jumped forward a couple of beats and he let out a breath. The man’s voice was pretty quiet, as always, but it sounded like his throat was closing up, words being wrangled into existence as he pulled his hat further over his face, practically hiding beneath it as Josuke saw his chest rising and falling slowly once again.
“Shit- you freaked the fuck out of me there, what…”
[In. …2, 3, 4. Hold. …2, 3, 4. Out. …2, 3, 4.]
Josuke blinked, realizing what was going on and shutting up faster than any time Jotaro had snapped at him.
Something had happened just there.
Something like what happened when Josuke heard sounds too much like the click anticipating an explosion, shouts that felt too much like people he knew begging for his help. Ambulance sirens, the disgusting white walls of the hospitals.
[...Out. 2, 3, 4.]
Jotaro’s eyes snapped open from beneath his hat and he slowly looked up, meeting Josuke’s gaze once again, who was waiting with wide eyes.
“I’m not mad,” Jotaro muttered.
[Don’t overwhelm yourself.]
“I should probably explain.”
Josuke shook his head, not wanting Jotaro to talk where he didn’t want to. “No, I- I think I understand already.”
[That’s an awful lot to understand.]
Josuke managed a half-laugh, rubbing one of his eyes. “I kinda figured that part out. I meant like- that something fucked up happened on the bridge, that- that I probably didn’t get, and you realized it. You don’t give me enough credit, dude.”
[You’re right.]
“Awe- thanks.”
[You’re welcome.]
“Yeah,” Jotaro mumbled.
Josuke glanced down at the pillows that had been set at the end of the couch for him, trying to think of how he could help, what he usually did after something that… unpleasant happened. “Uh- if you need some time, I can fall asleep in like two seconds, everything’s still kind of cloudy.”
[Please.]
“Then get more rest.”
Josuke nodded, the coarse echoes of Jotaro's panicked thoughts like clamping jaws in the back of his mind. He might have stayed awake longer, but the concussion had his head pounding and eyelids growing heavy from exhaustion. Jotaro seemed grateful for it as well, as undoubtedly having someone constantly looking into his conscience was invading and uncomfortable, infinitely more than Josuke’s having to sit there and realize how entirely fucking wrong he had been about what the inside of Jotaro’s head looked like.
He was able to keep the distant reverbs aside, dampened enough that he could focus only on the sensation of Jotaro drawing the warm blanket back over his shoulders and the softness of the pillows against his cheek as sleep once again stole him away.
He was awake again to hear his mother on the phone, apparently having found out that Josuke had been hurt and very harshly scolding Jotaro as he leaned away from the receiver.
[Good grief. I wonder if Holly would chew the fuck out of someone if I got hurt. Probably.]
Josuke had taken the phone for a bit, promising over and over that he was fine and getting his own few minutes of half reprimanding, half repeated checking if he was okay, asking him if his head hurt, if Jotaro was making sure he had water and had cleaned up any wounds and was checking in on him every three hours or less- to which Josuke nodded and agreed, apologizing profusely as Jotaro stood over him, hands in his pockets.
[Of course I’m reducing bright light and letting him rest. I’m not a monster.]
Josuke woke up again, at one point- but didn’t open his eyes, instead just lying silent with Jotaro’s thoughts sitting somewhere in his head-
[I suppose it makes sense that the entry would be shorter, as they stay on the deeper floors. With the tripod-like anatomy, it would be at the best evolutionary advantage in either the shallows, but perhaps in a reef, where the tides were lesser, or deep enough to find a floor and keep the water still.]
…It had taken Josuke a few minutes of waiting with eyes closed to realize he was reading a book about fish.
And then finally, by the late afternoon, he woke up again to Jotaro nudging him awake to check on the concussion, and it was silent.
He sat up slowly, the blanket slipping off his shoulders as he blinked and once again remembered where he was- and Jotaro was there, saying something to him, but there was no other sound accompanying it. It was… quiet, again, just the sound of Josuke’s thoughts and Jotaro’s own voice, blunt and withholding as much information as he wanted.
“You should get home soon.”
Josuke stared up at Jotaro, who raised an eyebrow. “The stand doesn't work both ways,” he grunted. “What is it?”
Nothing else.
“Shit- I think it wore off! Like- unless you made yourself somehow stop thinking, nothing’s coming through!” he gasped, starting to get to his feet.
Jotaro’s hand kept him from standing up, and he sank back down on the couch. “You’ll just get dizzy and fall over. And that’s good. I don’t know what the range of the stand was, I doubt you would have been hearing me from home, but it would have been an issue if it lasted longer, especially while trying to recover.”
“Wait-” Josuke realized, the familiar sensation of all of a sudden feeling really stupid washing over him with the clarity of the headache having receded slightly. “If it was ranged, why not just leave? You didn’t have to let me hear all of that, right?”
He caught a muscle in Jotaro’s jaw tighten. “I considered that.”
Josuke looked up at him. “Yeah?”
“It was insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Not exactly worth it, more like it doesn’t really matter.”
…And Jotaro was right back to his incredibly, overly cryptic self. “I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” Josuke replied flatly, too tired to try to rack his brain and figure out what that meant. Or maybe he had been spoiled by having a second layer of explanation in the man’s thoughts.
Jotaro’s eye twitched with annoyance, and he pulled his hat over his face again. It’s easier when you can’t see my face, Josuke remembered.
“It may have been more convenient for me to get out of range until it wore off, but you would have been alone in a hotel room with a concussion.”
Josuke paused for a moment, feeling the gears turning in his mind. Jotaro didn’t… want to leave him alone.
“...You didn’t want me alone here?”
“Not with a concussion and nobody else to attend to it.”
“And you didn’t even leave to keep me from hearing… that?”
“Correct.”
“You- you care more about me being safe than you do about being mysterious all the time?”
Jotaro pulled his hat even further over his face, but this time Josuke caught a glimpse of the faintest smile beneath it.
“Good grief. I’ll drive you home, kid.”