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madimpossibledreamerJojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Fitz elaborates on how his family knows Xander's.
Word Count: 1, 576
Rating: K
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
"My mother never talked very much about her own Stand, or your mother's. I think they reminded her of a brighter time, just out of reach." Fitz hesitated, then continued. "But given some of her stories, I think that together, they were nigh unbeatable. And for a time, I think they believed that they were, walking out into the darkness with a laugh on their lips and a smile in their hearts. They had no fear."
It's somewhat of a shock when Speedwagon notices before Xander that the restaurant's owner has returned to inquire frostily about whether the eggs were satisfactory. He's irritated. The story's interesting, and probably not something that they should just be talking about out in the open. "They're great!" He smiles sunnily, then stuffs his mouth full of lukewarm egg. It's definitely not as good this cold, but the ravenous hunger by this point has eased, to be replaced by curiosity, an emotion of which it's never been argued he has little, and a delight at actually getting answers for once, rather than having them dangle just out of his reach.
In disgust, the restaurateur huffs and quickly disappears, and Xander has to hide his smile. Mission accomplished. He grabs another piece of bacon. "Go on," he tells his ally, gesturing with the meat.
Fitz rolls his eyes fondly and continues. "Your mother always had powers, but not mine. My mother and future father were traveling with yours when an incident occurred. I...hmm. I was just going to throw out words without knowing whether you understood them. Do you know what a Stand Arrow is, Jojo?"
Xander hastily swallows the food he'd been absently chewing. No one warned him that audience participation was going to be a part of this. "Umm...an Arrow that's a Stand?"
His ally sighs. "No, although that isn't a bad guess." He pauses, then continues. "It's the source of Stands." Xander opens his mouth again, setting the forkful of egg back down. "Once someone receives their Stand by the Stand Arrow, the power can also be transmitted through family bloodline." He shuts his mouth again. "May I continue?"
Xander looks sheepish and nods, picking the fork back up and continuing with his now mostly cold meal.
"No one, not even the Speedwagon Foundation, knows much about the Stand Arrows. I'll get to that later." He shoots another look that tells Xander that it's a very good thing that Fitz isn't a teacher. That sort of about-turn never boded well with teachers. "Where was I...? Right. I won't go into the whole story here, but during one of Josephine Joestar's trips, in which she was always accompanied by my mother, they encountered a Stand Arrow. The Speedwagon Foundation hadn't anticipated the presence of a Stand Arrow, and so both my mother and my father, who hadn't married her yet, were affected. My mother threw herself in front of yours." A story like this should probably be weird, but for a survivor of Sunnydale this was pretty much everyday life.
"The effects of a Stand Arrow can be...horrific." Fitz's hands unconsciously clenched into the napkin at his place. "If the person afflicted is not spiritually strong enough, it can kill them. Fast or slow. If they're not strong enough to manifest a Stand, they die. If they manifest a Stand, but are not strong enough to control it, they die." Speedwagon suddenly relaxed, letting the napkin go with a self-conscious expression on his face. "Fortunately, neither my mother nor my father were weak enough to die, or I would not be here." Despite the words, his face remained troubled. "What was the word I used earlier? Inseparable? For the longest time, it was true, even before my mother received her Stand. They grew even closer after the incident, and even less afraid of the future."
Xander finds a thought breaking the spell Fitz's story had woven. "You know, when people keep adding 'or so they thought' to stories, that implies what comes next is very much of the bad." At the green-eyed stare, he reviews the last few seconds until he realizes something. "I...said that out loud, didn't I?"
"Good job, you can recognize foreshadowing." The somewhat arrogant smirk on Fitz's face and egotistical words are contradicted by the pleased glitter in his eyes.
"Do I get a gold star?" Xander asks innocently. Even as he smiles, he realizes the technique he's using, so much habit that he hardly made the choice. His words are more...instinct, cutting the tension because that's crucial for fighters and Buffy and the others never even realized how much it probably helped. Not that he really knows either, but still.
"Jojo!" Fitz looks shocked. "You already have food, cooked for you by a very good chef. Eat it!"
"Yes, sir." He mock salutes, but the way he digs in isn't mocking at all. It's an order he's happy to follow, and the hunger is beginning to return. Just slightly.
Fitz shakes his head, fighting the smile. "My mother never spoke too much about it. I think she believed she was protecting me, though I'm not sure how. I've thought about it, over and over, but I can't understand..." He's forced to look to the side until he gets his breathing under control and can resume. "They ran into an enemy that they couldn't face together. The only choice was escape. For some reason, they couldn't get help from the Speedwagon Foundation, or perhaps they merely couldn't get help in time. And so the unbeatable team split up, to try to make sure that someone survived..." Fitz bites back a sob, which is terrifying. He's British. He shouldn't cry.
Xander has a feeling he knows how this story ends, but he doesn't want to admit it, even to himself. He eventually reaches out a hesitant hand, lays it on top of his ally's shaking arm, hoping that the man can get some comfort from it.
"For years, my mother and I were safe. I was twelve when the monster returned. I didn't see the fight. I never saw her use her Stand, Kiss From a Rose. I..." Fitz's eyes are filled with tears now, though he now soldiers on through the pain. "I hear that it was beautiful. Elegant. I wish I'd seen it, even once, even if we weren't fighting. My mother was strong but gentle. I didn't want to imagine her fighting, but knowing that one of the Joestars was with her and that she had survived to be telling me these stories was enough to calm my fears. We stayed with my aunt, however little my mother and I cared for her and her greed. It must have been a good hiding place, because it took her killer a little over twelve years to find us..." Speedwagon angrily wipes away the tears. "I walked into the drawing room to find my mother dying. I...don't remember much of the following days, nor the years after that. For a long time, I was angry at the world, lashed out at everything, but that wasn't how my mother would have wished me to honor her memory. And in any case, it wasn't the world that had taken my only family from me. Josephine Joestar hadn't abandoned my mother. She'd believed, I'm sure, that their enemy would follow, for a Joestar was a greater prize than a Speedwagon. I even believed the other Joestars might have been wiped out, given that I never heard from them."
Xander bit his lip.
"No, Jojo, it's not your fault." The sigh was that of a giant, holding the world with all its faults and imperfections and beauty, on his back. "My father was the coward. My mother was pregnant, though she hadn't told your mother yet. She wanted it to be a surprise, I'm sure. And despite how much my mother looked up to him, he wasn't a hero in her stories. He ran to save himself, left my mother on her own. I hope he got killed." The hate and bitterness was like looking in a mirror, and felt like a shock of cold water to the face. Still, a man who would abandon a woman, even one who could fight, in such a condition...no, he couldn't be forgiven, but perhaps death was too lenient. No, that path of thinking only leads to becoming the evil one, and possibly world destruction. "Someday, I will run into my mother's killer. I'm sure he must have been a Stand user, one powerful enough to overcome Josephine Joestar and Mercia Speedwagon together, so I have a lot of training to go. But I will ensure I'm ready, and once me meet, I will have no mercy."
