Rewritten Encounters

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure post-Eyes of Heaven
Summary: Eyes of Heaven: Explored mostly as a source of working through jojo issues ;)
Josuke wanted to know more about his nephew.  He certainly didn't actually expect to learn much.
Word Count: 1381
Rating: Teen
pre-Jotaro/Kakyoin

        Josuke spends a moment checking his hair in the hallway mirror before approaching the right hotel door.  He’s nervous.
        He’s pretty sure his nephew didn’t mean to be so intimidating when he called, but the tone still has him half-convinced there’s a lecture waiting for him when he actually arrives.  Well, no, actually, he can’t really imagine his stoic relative lecturing, because that would require using words and he doesn’t do that much, but maybe a silent glare.  That would definitely crack him faster than any words.  And sure, he’d screwed up when dealing with Hazamada, but he’d stopped anything bad from happening, so he deserves some praise, too, right?
        He knocks, finally, and the door opens silently.  Hang on—Jotaro-san would at least grunt to acknowledge his presence, right?  Is this some kinda trap?  Could Red Hot Chili Pepper imitate voices over a telephone or something?
        He enters cautiously, once he’s called out Crazy Diamond, just in case.  He spots the string wrapped around the doorknob, and follows that to—
        To a little kid, face scrunched up in concentration, missing half her arm.
        “Holy shit!” he yells, punching her with Crazy D before he even has a chance to think about it, because that’s a kid and she needs healed now.
        Jotaro-san materializes so quickly and silently he probably stopped time.  When he sees Josuke, though, his shoulders slump, and he recalls Star Platinum.  The kid, meanwhile, is poking at her own arm in complete awe.  “Look, dad!  Great-uncle Josuke fixed it!”
        “Don’t open the door for anyone until you check.  Don’t just keep using Stone Free like that,” Jotaro-san tells her solemnly, and she pouts.
        Josuke tries to understand what’s going on.  Okay, Jotaro-san is a dad.  He has a great-niece.  It’s not what he expected, but it’s kinda cool.  “It probably would’ve been useful to know about her.  Just so I could help keep her safe.”
        Jotaro-san turns his glare toward Josuke, who tries not to cringe away.  He’s pretty sure that’s just Jotaro-san’s face.  “Good point,” he rumbles.  “I hoped not mentioning her was enough to keep Jolyne out of it, but—stop or you won’t get ice cream.”  The cute little kid instantly stops unraveling her arm out of what is probably just boredom, rearranging it so fast and looking up with the best innocent look she can muster.  Like she wasn’t misbehaving at all.  Josuke chuckles, ruffling her hair, being careful to avoid the little braids and the butterfly clips.
        “Why can’t I use Free?” she asks, stubborn like her dad.
        Josuke thinks, squatting down to her level.  Lucky he’s had experience with this kinda quick thinking, arguing with his mom.  “You ever ridden on a bike, Jolyne-chan?”
        She nods, eyes narrowing like she’s pretty sure he’s bullshitting her.  She’s pretty smart, too, but he’d expect that, from Jotaro-san’s daughter.
        “Well, you know what happens when you ride too fast?”  She might not, in which case his entire metaphor falls apart—
        “You scrape up your knees!” she responds, still bored and skeptical.
        “I pushed too fast when I was a kid, too,” he tells her, bringing out Crazy Diamond to show her.  “One of my friends climbed a tree and fell.  They broke their arm, and I tried to fix it, and I passed out.  That’s a lot like scraping your knees because you’re trying to move too fast, isn’t it?”
        She frowns, unconsciously imitating her father’s face, and then nods when she decides that makes sense.  “So I could get hurt.  That would suck.”
        “You’ll learn, but you have time,” Jotaro-san agrees.  He sounds a little softer, now. 
        “And you have to be careful of bad guys.”  He’s pretty sure that returning glare means that any of the good will he’d gotten by explaining for Jolyne might have just evaporated, but this is important, if she’s here.  “What if you’d opened the door and it was a bad guy instead of me?”
        She thinks about that carefully, instead of blurting out the answer.  “…Dad would save me!” is what she eventually comes up with.
        Jotaro-san pulls down his hat, hiding.  “Yes.  But I don’t want you in danger.”  In response, little Jolyne-chan runs to Jotaro-san and throws her arm around his leg in a hug.
        “So, are we going to get ice cream now?” he asks cheerfully, straightening.  This had been a lot better than he’d thought—
        “Actually, we’re going to the hospital,” Jotaro-san states gruffly.  “Red Hot Chili Pepper attacked again.”  He hadn’t wanted to interrupt, but he’s fidgeting with his hat.
        Josuke instantly gets serious.  “Okay, do you wanna take Jolyne—”
        “She’s not leaving my sight,” his nephew answers instantly, and, well, good point.  No one should be alone right now.
        It turns out the hospital’s actually in S City.  Jotaro-san tells him quietly to call whoever he has to and starts pacing like a caged tiger on the other side of the room, Jolyne-chan bouncing on the hotel’s Western style bed.  He calls his mom with a story about a classmate who got in a car accident and follows that up with two calls to Okuyasu and Koichi.  Okuyasu instantly offers to protect his mom, which means he’s still being weird, but Josuke can’t muster much annoyance about that when it just might save his mom’s life.  Koichi listens quietly and then states firmly that he’s protecting his own family, just in case.  He’s a little apologetic about it, but Josuke reassures him that he gets it.  He doesn’t want Koichi to suffer like he had, of course he gets it.  Not like he’s going to say that, though, because then Koichi will act like it’s his fault when it obviously isn’t.
        “All right, we should be great to go,” he tells them, and wow, Jotaro-san doesn’t look like he’s running, but his stride is long, and Jolyne-chan’s little legs are going fast to keep up.  Josuke swings her up as he practically jogs to not be left behind.  She squawks but goes along with it easily enough.
        “His name is Kakyoin Noriaki.  He went with me to Egypt and has been in a coma.  Only woke up this year.  He managed to fight off Red Hot Chili Pepper.”  Jotaro’s words are more clipped than usual as they get into a car labeled as the ‘Speedwagon Foundation’ waiting outside.  Coupled with the ‘actually careful’ way he’s moving, the pacing, the fiddling with his hat—for once, Jotaro-san is deeply worried.
        “I can heal him as soon as we get there,” Josuke offers, and gets what he’s pretty sure is a thankful nod in response.
        “Dad wants to kiss him!” Jolyne-chan shares cheerfully.  She likes messing with her dad, apparently.
        That’s…also something new, but from the way Jotaro-san doesn’t respond, just silently and moodily stares out the window, he’s pretty sure it’s probably true.  “I’m single,” he clarifies, and—well, it’s not like he’d been all that worried, but it’s good to know his whole family’s not like that.
        “There’s—uh, there’s nothing wrong with that, Jotaro-san.  With liking men, that is, not cheating.  I mean, you know that already, dealing with all the mess Joestar-san made.  I’m shutting up now.”  He’s so awkward and he’s supposed to be the cool uncle.
        “I like you better than the old man,” his nephew says quietly, still staring out the window.
        It’s sweet.  It’s equally awkward, so he’s not alone there, but it’s honest, and even if the words aren’t perfect he’s pretty sure they’re coming from the heart.
        “It kinda sucks, but I’m still happy I got to meet my cool nephew and grand-niece,” Josuke tells him, smiling, and that is probably a smile, given how little Jotaro-san’s expressions change.  It’s still fairly understated, but then, that’s the kind of guy Jotaro-san is.
        He decides to ask about the other thing.  “Egypt?  Isn’t that the place with that DIO guy and the Arrows?”
        “We didn’t know about the Arrows until after,” his nephew answers.  Usually he’d hesitate more when talking about DIO, but it seems like he’s taking it as the out Josuke tried to give him.
        “Well, if Kakyoin-san managed to fight him off, your friend will be okay for now,” Josuke reassures, and Jotaro-san nods and looks marginally less stressed.