Work Text:
Josuke kicked his shoes off at the edge of the sand and ran to catch up to Jotaro, who hadn’t bothered.
“It’s nice out,” he said with a grin, looking out at the cloudless sky and the turquoise blue of the ocean. The breeze that threatened his hair was balmy; exactly the right temperature for a day at the beach. This beat hunting rats in a drainage ditch by a long shot. “We should’ve brought Koichi and Okuyasu.”
“Today is work, not play,” Jotaro responded, setting his backpack down in the sand.
“Oh, yeah. Remind me what you need me to do again?”
“You see those tide pools?” Jotaro pointed at a series of shallow pools a few meters away.
“Yeah.”
“I need to know what lives in them for my research. I’m especially interested in this starfish.” Jotaro pulled out his notebook and showed Josuke a detailed pencil drawing. “It’s purple, with orange papulae.”
“Great. Uh,” Josuke winced. “Remind me what those are again?”
Jotaro sighed. “Like little fingers sticking out of the side.”
“Got it!”
“You don’t have to touch or disturb them. Just count how many there are and write it down for me.” Jotaro pulled his shirt over his head.
Josuke nodded. That sounded easy enough. Definitely better than hunting rats. He was much happier to spend time with Jotaro when it didn’t involve wading through leech-infested muck.
Jotaro reached up to pull on a rash guard, and Josuke gasped.
His body was covered in scars. They marred nearly every part of his torso and arms, angry and twisted and painful-looking. Josuke winced, imagining the battles that must have left those marks. No wonder Jotaro didn’t like talking about Egypt.
One mark stood out from the others. It was on the left side of his chest, just below the collarbone. The shape of it was deliberate and relatively clean, compared to the others. A straight line, a few centimeters long, with what looked like a small lump under it.
“Jotaro,” Josuke said, indicating the same spot on his own chest. “What’s that?”
Jotaro paused for a moment, looking as if he were struggling with himself. Finally, he sighed and pulled the rash guard down, covering the scar. “A pacemaker.”
“A pacemaker?” Josuke repeated in disbelief. “You never told me you were sick.”
“It’s...complicated.”
“You should have told me sooner. I can fix you!” Crazy Diamond materialized next to Josuke, hand outstretched to touch Jotaro’s chest.
“Don’t.” Jotaro took a step backward.
“Don’t be stupid. Let me just—”
“Josuke, I said no!” Jotaro snapped. Star Platinum materialized between them, grabbing Crazy Diamond’s wrist and holding him back.
“Alright! Shit.” Josuke held his hands up in a placating gesture and withdrew his stand. “Dude, what the hell?”
Jotaro sighed. “Sit down.”
“Jotaro—”
“Josuke. Please.”
Josuke sprawled out on the warm sand next to his discarded shoes. Jotaro sat cross-legged nearby, eyes somehow hidden in the shadow of his hat despite the brightness of the day. He took a deep breath and sighed it out.
“It’s an old injury. I have it because I fucked up when I was younger and my heart got damaged. Part of the muscle died. That’s not something Crazy Diamond can fix.”
“You could still let me try—”
Jotaro held up a hand and stopped him. “Even if you could, I wouldn’t want you to.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I don’t expect you to.”
Josuke raked his hands through the sand, digging for the cool wetness of seawater underneath. “Will you tell me what happened?”
Jotaro looked off wordlessly toward the horizon, toward the place where the sky bled into the sea until it was impossible to tell which was which.
“It was twelve years ago, when we were fighting DIO. My friends were dead. DIO killed the old ma—your father in front of me. I was fighting him alone, and I was losing. I decided to take a gamble and pretend that I was dead.”
Josuke kept digging, eyes on his hands.
“DIO’s senses were keener than ours. Just lying there wasn’t going to fool him. I used my stand to stop my heart.”
Josuke’s head snapped up. “You what?”
“I stopped it for almost thirty seconds. It nearly killed me. But I managed to catch DIO off his guard, and eventually kill him.” Jotaro paused, looking off into space. “Josuke, I was seventeen. I was stupid and arrogant and the most pissed I’ve ever been in my life. I thought that nothing else mattered as long as I killed him. I didn’t care if I died too, as long as I did that.”
“I can’t imagine.” Josuke bit his lip.
“Oh really?” Jotaro glanced pointedly at the puckered scar just visible above Josuke’s knee from the last fight with Kira. He tapped the place where the pacemaker was embedded in his chest. “This is a good reminder.”
“Reminder of what?”
“Not to lose it. To think first and act accordingly.” Jotaro sighed. He suddenly looked much older than he was. “I let my anger get the best of me, and if I hadn’t gotten very lucky I would have died because of it. And then the sacrifices Kakyoin, Avdol, and Iggy made would have meant nothing.”
Josuke stayed quiet, listening to the low rush of the breaking waves.
“Life is unpredictable, Josuke. One day you might get into a fight not knowing that it’s your last. The men in our family don’t tend to last long, the old man excluded. Every single stand user I’ve known who died was a very capable fighter. It only takes one mistake, one thoughtless action, one moment of indecision, for it to be over.”
“Th—this is pretty heavy, you know?” Josuke laughed nervously. “I don’t see what it has to do with me. Morioh is safe now, right?”
“Stand users attract stand users,” Jotaro said grimly. “I’m not saying these things to scare you, Josuke. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to have to go through the same things I did to figure them out.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Josuke said, sighing. “I guess…I just want to just be a teenager for a while, you know? The whole time I wanted to chase after Kira and you kept telling me to focus on school, I thought you were treating me like a useless kid. I get it now. I didn’t then, but I do now.”
“Good.” Jotaro got to his feet and extended a hand. “A teenager isn’t a bad thing to be.”
Josuke took it and let him pull him to his feet. He grinned. “C’mon. Let’s count some starfish!”
It was faint, but when Josuke glanced back over his shoulder he was sure he saw Jotaro smiling.