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Josuke awoke slowly, disoriented and groggy. There was a crick in his neck, ears were filled with a low, steady rumbling sound that buzzed inside his head.
“You’re awake.”
Josuke’s breath caught in his throat for a moment, the low, blunt voice catching him off guard as he sat up in his seat, feeling his standing instinctively surface from beneath his skin. It was only a slight jolt, but he still caught a flash of blue and pink shimmering at his fingertip as he found the edge of the table in front of him.
He blinked blearily, heart thrumming against his ribs for a moment as his mind scrambled to catch up to where he was–there was a low, constant rumble from beneath him, there was a table he was sitting right in front of, and… Jotaro was there.
Right– the rumbling was that of tracks, he was still on the train back from their last mission. A stand user that apparently had once worked for DIO, Jotaro had handed him a case file when Josuke asked for context, but Josuke had soon given up on it. Whatever the danger was, it wasn’t worth dealing with his dyslexia over, and Jotaro seemed to have it covered. He had at least explained that it wasn’t as threatening as it sounded, more for the sake of cleaning up all the remaining mess DIO had made than an actual threat. Precautions.
Josuke had figured that, at least, made sense. Recently, Jotaro had been more… wary, bringing Josuke on less threatening missions with him, leaving his hotel empty for days while he vanished off to some other country to take someone down. Josuke was glad, at least, that Morioh seemed to be a kind of home base for him.
Jotaro may have been about as entertaining and fun as a piece of cardboard, but Josuke knew plenty of people he could rely on to play video games and do typical high schooler stuff with him. Jotaro was better to go and pester when things were starting to feel… tiring. When he realized the inside of his chest felt colder than it should have been, memories he was having trouble dealing with seeping back in, and all his usual tactics were failing him. He was best for when he didn’t want anyone talking at him, where awkward silences wouldn’t be anything new.
“...Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Josuke swallowed, coughing lightly against the receding tightness in his throat and waving his hand dismissively. “No, you’re- you’re good, dude, mostly the train that caught me off guard,” he said, voice hoarse from sleep and still feeling disoriented.
Jotaro hummed in acknowledgement, and Josuke sat the rest of the way up, jacket he had been using as a blanket sliding off his chest. He didn’t doubt that Jotaro had noticed the jumpiness, but for once, it didn’t have much to do with anything that had happened with Kira. He just wasn’t much used to long train rides. He never fell asleep on planes, rarely in cars, and when he was on a bus for a while, it was usually with Okuyasu– who consistently fell asleep on his shoulder, relying on Josuke to wake him up when they reached their stop.
It had startled him, really, and as he rubbed one of his eyes, looking around the train car, he realized it was actually pretty comfortable-looking. Dim light flooded the car from the ceiling, clearly kept low for the passengers who wanted to rest. There weren’t many people on the entire train at all, considering it wasn’t exactly the time of year for travel.
The table in front of them was empty save for a couple of files Jotaro apparently had been flipping through while Josuke had been passed out, in a font too small for Josuke to actually make out but looking important enough.
Jotaro was sitting across from him, having already looked away from Josuke. His gaze instead fixed on the book he was holding in one hand, expression as neutral and cold as ever. It could have been the most thrilling thing in the world or in another language and Josuke was sure he’d be staring at it the exact same way.
Only propping the book up slightly more on the table so Josuke could lean over and read the cover. He did, tilting his head and taking a moment to decipher the kind of obnoxious font on the front.
“...Hanshin Shell Club, a bibliography of Tokubei Kuroda?”
Jotaro only replied in a low hum of acknowledgement, not glancing up. Josuke huffed, sinking back against the cushion of the booth behind him and rubbing his eyes again. He didn’t think he’d be able to get back to sleep, now overly aware of someone right in front of him, the train rattling away around him, and having already caught a bit of rest. But Jotaro didn’t exactly make for the most entertaining conversation partner.
“Marine biology thing?”
Jotaro nodded silently.
“Cool.”
Jotaro didn’t respond, effectively shutting down the conversation again, and Josuke picked up the jacket that had fallen into his lap, rearranging it and digging through the pockets for something to entertain himself.
“Hey, Jotaro, what time is it anyway? I can’t remember when we left.”
Jotaro didn’t look at his watch. “Eleven thirty.”
“Already?” Josuke leaned over to stare out the window, raindrops clinging to the outside of the glass, shining with his own slightly disheveled reflection. He huffed at the sight of a stray strand of hair that had fallen in front of his face, shifting closer to the window to adjust it.
It was easier to wake himself up a bit more as he fixed his hair in the reflection, even if his hands weren’t the steadiest with the rocking of the train. Jotaro never looked up from his book, holding it silently as Josuke went about piecing together the memory of their last mission.
He knew it had been something that meant a lot to Jotaro, taking in how dead serious he had been on the way there, expression particularly somber whenever he went over the details of the stand user, the fleshbuds, DIO.
Josuke would have asked more about DIO, about the people he occasionally mentioned when he briefly discussed his travels, but usually either decided against it on his own, or chickened out whenever Jotaro started picking up on what he was trying to ask.
Still, there was still something about the mission that didn’t quite make sense to him, lingering in the back of his mind, that didn’t have anything to do with how Jotaro spent 1989. It had just been after the mission, when the stand user had cut open a nasty gash in Jotaro’s arm, and Josuke had hurried over to him, only wincing slightly as he put weight on the ankle he had twisted.
“Jotaro?”
Silence. Josuke glanced away from his reflection, his hair looking a bit more intact, and Jotaro’s expression was still mostly hidden beneath his hat. He was still, though, like he was at least listening.
“After the mission, why didn’t you let me heal you?”
“...I did.”
Josuke frowned, turning back to the window and digging through his coat pocket for a comb. “No, not eventually, like, when I first got there. Y’know, my ankle was fine. It still kinda hurts, but I might’ve gotten the same thing from skateboarding or something. Your whole shoulder was covered in blood.”
A pause, and Josuke wondered if Jotaro had stopped listening, or just decided he no longer had an obligation to respond. Then he lifted a hand to tug his hat down his face another inch.
“It’s not just the severity of the damage that I was concerned about.”
“Then what were you concerned about?”
“...Does it matter?”
Josuke frowned at him over his shoulder, hands still poised around the side of his ear, where a few more strands had come astray. “I mean, yeah? If you won’t let me do anything about a pretty dangerous injury when it’s probably the most useful thing I can bring to the mission, I kinda want to know what the point of it is.”
“It’s not the most useful thing you can bring to the mission.”
Josuke scoffed, digging out his comb again. “Yeah, well, I can’t exactly fight as well as you can, especially when that’s not what my stand is built for. I just kind of felt stupid waiting for you to get help because of a twisted ankle , while you kept bleeding and wouldn’t let me use my stand that could fix it.”
Another pause, the rumbling of the train filling the silence, and Jotaro was still. Then-
“After Kira. I figured it’d be worth avoiding a similar event, anything too… unpleasant. I think it’s worth bringing you with me, but especially on a case like this– I won’t have you getting hurt because I had a score to settle. I had your safety prioritized.”
“...Oh.” Josuke glanced down at the comb in his hands, blinking at it for a moment. It was a difficult thing to process, whenever Jotaro actually told him something. ‘Something’ being anything that wasn’t a clear dismissal of the topic, or a blunt, direct question. And when most of the time the best Josuke could get out of him was a particularly meaningful silence, it was almost jarring to get an explanation.
“That… makes sense, I guess?” Josuke frowned slightly. He wasn’t one to have anyone obsess over him, but he didn’t mind that kind of thing being done if it was about his mom being concerned. Except—
“It kind of makes me feel guilty, though, when I can’t help someone because they’re waiting for me to feel better. Like, I know you’ll be fine, I’m not doubting that, but I don’t like having to see you only paying attention to if I’m completely uninjured as you bleed out.”
“Guilty?” Jotaro repeated, glancing up briefly from his book.
Josuke stopped for a moment, shrugging. “Yeah, I guess. I appreciate it, but if I can’t at least use my stand to clean up whatever damage happened, I feel like I’m kind of on these missions for no reason.”
“You aren’t.”
Josuke waited for him to elaborate, something he thought he knew Jotaro better than to expect. He was being more talkative than usual, anyway. Josuke shifted away from the window, satisfied with his appearance again, and folded his arms.
“Okay. Well, thanks for telling me, anyway. I won’t do anything stupid on missions if you let me heal you more often, like when you’re clearly more badly injured than I am.”
“...Sure.”
Josuke, having not expected Jotaro to agree that easily, felt a slight bloom of pride in his chest at having successfully convinced Jotaro of something.
“Y’know, you should just– say more things.”
Jotaro looked up from behind the pages, giving Josuke a quizzical glance. It was the kind of expression that often made Josuke feel stupid, but he had spend enough time around Jotaro enough to know that he did actually respect Josuke to some degree, considering he kept asking him on missions. There had to be at least some reason he was sticking around in Morioh, and while that could have definitely been something to do with starfish, Josuke entertained the thought that he liked being there.
“Like this whole time, you haven’t really said that much, besides just then. I know you were focused on the mission and everything, but even when we were boarding you were acting like we were going to a funeral. Don’t you get– I don’t know, bored?”
“I’m reading,” Jotaro said bluntly, as if it were a chore to explain even the most basic observations to Josuke.
“You haven't turned the page the whole time. You’re only like a chapter in.”
“...I’m a slow reader.”
“You’re a professor. Scientist– fish enthusiast. Guy.”
“Researcher. And those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“But like, they kinda are.”
“Josuke.”
Josuke rolled his eyes, dropping the subject and sinking back against the booth seat. He could still hear the drumming of rain on the roof of the car, melding with the sound of the tracks and clattering of something in the next car over.
It hadn’t really sunken in that it was particularly odd that Jotaro didn’t seem to be paying attention to his book at all. He hadn’t given much of the impression of being paying attention to Josuke, but he had been asleep for three hours. Josuke himself was a slow reader, but he felt like he would have noticed if Jotaro always took that much time.
Either way, he didn’t press it, just staring out into the darkness past the window, watching silver-stained raindrops chase each other down the outside of the glass, wondering what he’d do when he returned home. Probably find something to eat no matter what the time ended up being, text Okuyasu, then crash in his own bed and get some better sleep.
That was part of what he looked forward to, whenever he went on trips. It wasn’t that he hated other places, but he did like feeling just a bit more grateful for his own house and room whenever he got back. Curling up under the blankets and turning off his alarm always felt that much more rewarding whenever he had been away for a couple of days.
He had gotten lost in his thoughts, breath beginning to condense on the glass he was leaning against, when he heard Jotaro speak from across from him.
“Josuke?”
“Hm?”
Jotaro’s voice was low, stilted slightly, and he had shut his book, setting it down on the table. And as stiff as he sounded, there was a softer sincerity to it Josuke didn’t think he’d ever heard before.
“...I’m glad you woke up. I’ve never liked traveling alone.”