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madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Fitz and Xander escort the User of Violent Whispers to her house.
Word Count: 1,342
Rating: K
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Warning: Darker chapter.
It turns out that no one besides him is hungry, but he begs until Fitz gives him money to shut up. He hides a grin and buys a pastry. Maybe Willow would be yelling at him for not getting something nutritious at the moment, but that’s fine. He’s mostly just going for calories at the moment, anyway. He debates, then gets a super sweet coffee with extra shots of caffeine, just to stay awake. He’s starting to get a headache, but if he’s hyper, instead, it’ll go away. He’ll crash later, but it’s fine. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s missed sleep for a while, after all. Fitz, meanwhile, looks completely fine, but if you take a closer look you can see by the determination in his eyes that he’s still conscious by sheer willpower alone.
The girl doesn’t know how to react to the two of them, but then, that’s only to be expected. She’s still a little wary, but looks about ready to cry when Xander gets back with the food and he’s explaining, “We’ll at least escort you somewhere safe. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt, after all.” She clearly doesn’t want to hang around them, which is all right. It’s dangerous around them, after all.
She’d been so sure that they were going to hurt her. A cold dread settles into Xander’s gut, which he covers by taking a huge bite and chewing loudly.
The Englishman glances at him with a disgusted look. Good, he hadn’t gotten to the point he could see right through that, then. In an effort to distract the girl from the American barbarian, he asked her, “How long have you had a Stand?”
The girl looks confused, so Xander clarifies in a mumble that apparently no one can understand, crumbs spraying everywhere. He swallows, then repeats himself, “Whisper.”
“S-since I can remember. You’re not going to take him away, are you?” The snake-like Stand slithers just a little further from them, as if they’re going to jump it and try to snake-wrangle it into something that very second. Not like either of them really wanted to tangle with the Stand she called Whisper, but it appeared she hadn’t made that connection yet.
“Like we could,” Xander snorts. He’s distracted from the sudden hope in the kid’s eyes by Fitz stealing his coffee. He waits for the inevitable spew or “Jojo, that’s vile!”, but it doesn’t come. The blond shrugs and hands back the cup without comment, but there’s a spring in his step and the exhaustion has fallen away, just a little, so maybe he needed the caffeine too? He decides to resume the conversation as if it hadn’t happened, too. “Both you and Whisper clearly know how to handle yourselves, and we were pretty much at your mercy, so I think you kinda hold the cards right now.” Never mind the fact that it’s a Stand and can’t really be separated from her anyway.
As most teenagers, she’s slightly flattered by the respect she’s being shown, but deflates slightly at the mention of the fact that they’d nearly died. “I—I didn’t mean to hurt you. Not that much.”
She’d mentioned that, over and over, so clearly it was bothering her.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re tough, too.” Xander flexes, causing a waterfall of crumbles to tumble. She giggles, while Fitz looks on, bemused by their antics.
Eventually, he breaks in with a question that makes her freeze again. “Have you met others like us?”
She’s stuck in fight or flight mode, eyes not quite seeing the present. Xander sighs and hands his coffee and pastry to the blond, fixing him with a disappointed look. Then he crouches down so he’s not so large or intimidating. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“I-I got away. Thanks to Whisper. He saved me, and he’s been with me ever since.” She’s quiet, but he hears her and smiles encouragingly.
“That’s good. But just because that time scares you doesn’t mean that you’re weak.” For once, it’s hard to come up with the right words, but this is important, so he forces through it and stills the tendency to babble. “That fear helped save you. But that doesn’t mean it has to define your life, either.” It won’t be easy, and it’ll never go further away, but there are better things in the world.
She looks back up. There are tears in her eyes, but by mutual silent agreement they all choose to ignore them. She’s smart enough to realize it’s not as simple as he’s putting it, but is choosing to overlook that for his sake. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”
He shrugs and stands back up, taking back his food from a somewhat shocked Speedwagon. “So, are we actually headed somewhere, or would you rather…?” He lets her fill in the sentence—not go home, not have us see where you live, or something he can’t even predict.
She’s about to answer when an ambulance followed by a police car and a fire truck head past, sirens blazing, and she trembles, staring at it, having forgotten the question entirely. It turns down a street, and she’s still standing there, oblivious to the world.
“Hey,” Xander says, and she shoots off in the direction of the emergency. Xander swears and grabs the pastry from Fitz, stuffing the entire thing in his mouth and following at a pace he’d learned from surviving in Sunnydale.
They catch up to her talking to a police officer at a cordon. Tears are streaming down her face again. She’s a bit of a mess, after all of that, but it’s only to be expected. She actually looks young now.
Fitz follows shortly behind, downing the coffee in a huge gulp. Xander would complain, but this isn’t really the time and it was the blond’s money anyway. The evasiveness of the copper is a sign that they’re probably trying not to cause any more hysteria.
“What are we going to do?” he whispers.
“We can’t leave her like this,” Xander replies, which gets a sarcastic eye roll. “What happened, anyway?”
“I remember something my mother told me, a long time ago. ‘Stand users are drawn to Stand users.’” It’s not necessarily the case, but the bad feeling in Xander’s gut is agreeing with that statement. He keeps his voice low, but the police officer at the cordon is rather occupied by the kid crying. Still, there’s his partner, plus the firemen and the paramedics to dodge. They probably can’t get in to see the body. “I think they’d notice if they suddenly all fell asleep. Probably draw the conclusion that someone used some sort of sleeping gas, but it’d probably draw too much attention.”
“So, Lotus Juice is out.” He hasn’t experimented, but Pretender probably can’t go to that range. And he refuses to make the girl send in Whisper. She doesn’t need to see that. And as for sneaking in themselves…well, someone would definitely notice.
The girl starts walking away, and they make it a few blocks before she rushes Xander, beating him with fists that have all the strength of an exhausted kitten. It’s not the first time he’s held someone as their world collapsed, but this time he’s much more gentle with his hug. Given some of her responses, she’s not the biggest fan of touch. “They were horrible people,” she laughs. “So why am I crying?”
The coldness of those green eyes sends shivers down Xander’s spine. It reminds him of the look his friend had in his eyes when he declared the one who’d killed his mother would die. But he agrees with the determination as Fitz declares, “I know a few people. We will find out what happened. And we’ll protect you.”
“But why? You don’t know me!” she protests, tears beginning to dry.
“We’re nosy and stubborn like that.” He gets a slight smile at that, which was his goal all along.
