Silent Sonata
Oct. 25th, 2018 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerI also wanted to do an exploration of Jotaro's PTSD, because seriously, if you think about Jojo's in any realistic sense, ALL Jojo's have PTSD, if only because of the number of their friends who die. And there's the realizatoin that DIO and Jotaro 'shared' a Stand. (I mean, there's the lost plot thread that the World can do any Joestar or any Arcana card power. It's really unclear, but it's a lost plot thread, so it wasn't going to go far anyway.) Even if that's true, to some extent, that's not something Jotaro can see, so as far as he knows, only he and DIO share a Stand. A Stand is your reflection of your personality, your soul, who you are as a person. Having similarities with DIO of all people has got to mess you up (which is part of why I don't think he ever really tried to increase the amount of time he can move in stopped time).
I think it ended on a kind of hopeful note?
~Dreamer~
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure
Summary: Pretty much, the summary goes like this: Jotaro has PTSD.
Word Count: 1536
Rating: Teen
The worst part about coming home—
No. Wait.
That’s wrong. It’s not, because it isn’t. Could never be. There’s nothing that compares to thinking of something clever to Kakyoin, or even wanting to share the newest fact he’s learned about marine life—the fact that catfish have taste buds all over their body, about ten times as many as a human has, or the fact that European eels can slither across dry land, or, or—and he turns to smirk at his friend, and there’s nothing there.
There’s nothing there.
There never will be anything there.
Ever again.
No one mentioned that losing someone would feel like nothing happened. Until it hits you, each and every time, like a steamroller to the face (oh, how he wishes that weren’t a comparison he can actually make), and he’ll never admire the pride of that weird gum-eating dog, or hear the wisdom of the fortuneteller who died so near his home (he assumes; Avdol never talked about it, but he wonders—Polnareff never talks about it, not even when he asks abrupt questions over the phone because he just can’t help it, he’s curious, he wants to know, to understand, to make this helpless, confused feeling go away—did the man predict it somehow, or was he outpredicted, did the oracles lie), and he’ll never watch a sumo match with his perfect ass of a friend, never be teased as the patient redhead tries to teach him how to play videogames, never, never, never. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like any minute now, he’s going to open his eyes and find he’s fallen asleep and had a shitty dream in that car, or maybe while on the camels, and Kakyoin will tease him—maybe with a tinge of hysteria, he’d gotten a tendency toward insomnia toward the end, not that Jotaro didn’t understand the trouble accepting the deadline, the fact that Joseph’s watch was ticking its way down toward the inevitable. And Polnareff will join in, and Avdol prior to his “death” would’ve been disapproving but not really saying anything. Joseph will be insufferable.
And then he comes back to himself, and he’s been zoning out during class. At least the teachers learned their lessons by now, so if they were dumb enough to call on him and he just stared at them silently, they know to move on. They don’t need to know he’s not doing it intentionally now, because if they knew, it’d just be a pain in the ass.
He first uses his new power of Star Platinum’s when his mother startles him, because that woman, she wasn’t even supposed to be up yet, the doctors said, she’d just moved up quietly behind him, probably to surprise him, and next thing he knows there’s a hole in the antique cabinet and he’s breathing hard and those are probably his hands that are shaking. Thank goodness he’s got pockets he can put those in. She doesn’t say anything about it, just offers him some brownies. It’s honestly kind of odd, but then, she probably gets anxious, too.
He skips one afternoon and just heads out to the park and practices stopping time until he can do so without his hands shaking. He gets this feeling in the pit of his stomach and honestly feels like throwing up, but it’s not showing on his face and the only things that suffered today were some trees, so today overall was probably a good day.
He keeps waiting to be attacked. He keeps waiting to turn a corner and suddenly there’s a new Stand, stabbing him or eating his hand or turning water into claws. He probably went a little too long without drinking anything after that occurred to him, since he starts feeling a little light-headed. Thank goodness, he finds himself thinking. Thank goodness they were in the desert, not in the submarine or next to a water main or walking through the rain or even in a house, thank goodness.
Sometimes he wouldn’t say anything because he just didn’t feel like it, or didn’t feel like he needed to, and sometimes he was short because honestly a few words were all he needed. Some of these days, it feels like he can’t, like the words just get stuck in his throat.
When that happens, he’ll glance over, wherever, and even though he doesn’t remember summoning Star at those times, ever, his Stand will be looming, protective and ominous, sometimes just watching him with a sad expression, sometimes with a bottle of beer or red bean paste sesame balls his mom made yesterday, and sometimes it’ll steal his hat and ruffle his hair with an affectionate ‘ora’ and it almost feels normal. He almost feels normal, happy even, then.
(He actually laughs out loud the one time Star steals his hat and wears it, and he can feel Star’s own innocent joy at having gotten that reaction, which makes him feel just that much better.)
Star seems like he’s giving a thousand peace offerings, trying to get him to calm down, trust himself, trust his Stand, again. There always will be something broken with him, he thinks, because he and DIO practically shared a Stand, because what does it mean about him, that he’s got practically the same soul as an evil, soulless vampire?
It doesn’t last, but then, he wouldn’t want to, because as much as he wants to get to the point he can use timestop without that panicked feeling deep inside him, he also doesn’t want to try to hold the sands of the hourglass still, because even with timestop that’s not how it works.
The worst part is the silence. Well, the worst part, beside the absences. He can deal with everything else, but the silence is the worst. It’s especially bad during timestop, because that is a world of pure silence. He thought the worst part about timestop was being stuck, aware and listening but unable to move as DIO talked and gloated and pulled psychotic stunts like with the knives, but he almost—almost—wishes DIO was back, just so the world of timestop wasn’t silent. Silence means DIO’s planning something. Silence means DIO’s about to come back with a steamroller. Silence is no less dangerous than the presence of an ancient, evil vampire. It just means the danger isn’t obvious, isn’t right in front of him, can’t be easily punched.
Silence is a world holding its breath. Silence is everyone’s eyes on him. Silence is a world only he can enter, control, now.
It’s actually vaguely terrifying that the annoying gossip of girls tagging on his heels is actually real, important, grounding. He still hates it, but the hates the silence more. He interrupts them one day. “So,” he begins, clearing his throat, and the sudden hush is awkward and he’s glad his hands are in his pockets. “Look, yammer at me all you want. I mean it. Just don’t go expecting a reply.” There’s a quiet pause for two more seconds, as if none of them could believe what they were hearing, and then the talk ruptures again, and…well, if it sucks, at least it’s an anchor.
He wakes up early one morning and can’t get back to sleep. Nobody else is awake, so it’s silent. While he’s moving, he can barely hear his slippers, if he strains his ears, and he does, because otherwise he’s lost, alone in his own head. He ends up going for a shower to clear his head, and it’s fine due to the running water up until the point he gets out.
When he finally comes back to himself, he has no idea how long has passed. He was lost in his head, staring at the broken shards of a mirror. He can’t even remember whether he’d punched it or whether Star had, though he supposes it’s all the same in the end since he’s dripping blood onto the floor slowly. Drip, drip, drip. The mirror breaking must’ve made some sort of noise, but he didn’t hear it.
The thought occurs to him that it’s probably safer for other people if he locks himself away again, but a voice in his head that sounds suspiciously like Kakyoin reminds him he can’t, that he’d died so Holly could live, so Jotaro has to take very careful care of her, please~.
Another voice, a voice he’d never want to hear again. “Would you have traded Kakyoin’s life for your mother’s, knowing the price?”
He punches the mirror again, just for good measure. Then he puts his bloody hand in the pocket of his pajama pants and smirks, just a little.
In the end, maybe the difference is that Jotaro will always live in a world of brutal honesty. He won’t speak honeyed lies to get followers. He would only ever want Kakyoin to choose to follow him of his own volition. So what if this world is broken, that it hurts or there’s blood. It’s where starfish and octopi and dolphins are, and to honor Kakyoin’s and Iggy’s and Avdol’s memory it’s where he has to live.
Time resumes.