Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 258

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Did they make the right choice?
Word Count: 1043
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

        As they continue, Whisper grows ever more convinced that they really are being watched.  Not just the feeling that the city is alive and watching.  Not the general feeling of paranoia it’s instilling.  But something living, breathing, hostile and intelligent, following behind.
        It’s a straight path, again, once they get up the stairs.  Well, fairly straight.  It could be getting more narrow.  She’s not entirely sure about that part.  It could be her imagination, the paranoia getting the better of her.  The others aren’t talking as they walk in front of her, though there’s the occasional gesture.  She’d never learned sign language, if that’s even what they’re using.  It’s a bit of a pity, because it’d come in handy now.  Then again, she’d never thought she’d end up in a group with others watching her back, so of course she hadn’t bothered to prepare for a situation she never thought would exist. 
        It might be partly to try to take the enemy by surprise, even though Whisper and Darling herself are fairly certain that’d be impossible.  Maybe by something they do.  Maybe.  Not by their very existence, or where they currently are on their journey traveling into Xibalba.
        It’s probably also partly the fog, dampening everything.  Feeling, certainty, sound.  It feels like trying to fight that and possibly giving away their location is not worth it, not yet.
        There’s nowhere someone or something could hide behind them, even if they knew the exact moment they’d need to do so.  Even with the fog, they’d make out the shape unless it’s actually the fog itself or something.  She doesn’t want to say anything yet herself, not until she’s sure.
        She makes sure not to slow her pace, to show that hesitation.  Just in case that advice meant anything.  It’s Whisper that keeps an eye out, curled around her shoulders and looking back.  Just in case that advice was a trap, trying to prevent them from noticing the threat behind them.
        She doesn’t want to bother the others.  They’re watching forward, just in case the danger comes from there.  It makes sense, of course, because while they’re transitioning to Xibalba, they haven’t made it to the court of the Lords or the heart of the city proper, so a danger would be more likely to come from that direction.
        Unless this is the wrong path, actually.  Unless she isn’t actually imagining things, and the narrowing path and fog are signs they’d chosen poorly, and they’re going to experience something a lot worse and a lot more concrete and less ominous soon.
        “It feels like we’re being followed,” she announces.  She can’t force her voice to be loud, is concerned it’s not enough to overcome the effect of the fog.
        Mr. Robin sighs—at least he’d heard!—and responds in a similar quiet tone.  “I know.  Whatever is following us is alive, so I doubt it’s one of the inhabitants here, and it’s keeping the perfect distance behind us, matching our pace.  At the same time, I don’t know why something that’s not one of them would be here or be following us.”
        Wait, there’s a hint of hope.  “Could that be Mr. Speedwagon or Jojo?” she asks, voice louder than she intends in her excitement.
        “I doubt it.  If it was, why wouldn’t they just join us?”  The Captain asks the question and then shakes her head, answering her own question, possibly.  “And no, as ridiculous as Jojo is, I think even he has some sense of time and place and knows that this is not either.”
        Darling feels the hope die in her chest and nods.  It’s a really good point, as much as she hates it.  Jojo might be the kind of person to play a prank, but he wouldn’t drag it on this long and, given what they’ve already been through, wouldn’t do it in the first place.  Mr. Speedwagon…Mr. Speedwagon would be hanging back, nervous and embarrassed, a little more ashamed of having put them through such worries than being wrong, though he’d never admit it.  Neither one of them would still be doing it, not after this long.
        “At least it’s not attacking,” Mr. Brown states quietly, and yeah, that’s a really good sign.  Because it very well might have, if she pointed out its existence and it was unhappy about that fact.
        And then he puts a hand on the Captain’s arm.  “Let me.  I’m used to squeezing through tight spaces.”
        So she wasn’t imagining things.  It is getting narrower.  From her position as she crowds in a little, not wanting to get too far away now that there’s something confirmed following them, she sees the Captain frown, aware that this is apparently one of Mr. Brown’s strengths and trusting her partner but unhappy with the prospect of splitting up, just as she had been before.
        “Don’t make that face.  You can make a grappling hook and pull me out if you need to rescue me.”  He still sounds cheerful, but then, so did Jojo, and it’s easy to forget, but because of the understanding he’d shown toward her, Jojo wasn’t that cheerful all the time.  Neither was Mr. Brown, she suspected, though she thinks he doesn’t hide the gloomy feeling as often.
        And then he strides off through the fog in front of them.
        “I don’t think our watcher is moving,” Darling tells her, trying to cheer her up, and Captain Beefheart merely sighs, readying her pistol at the seemingly empty space behind them.  She enters such a state of concentration that Darling is half convinced she could shoot their watcher whether or not she could actually see or hear it.  It’s probably best not to disturb her, she decides, trying instead quietly to ask Whisper whether he’s got anything else on the creature following them or knows how to tell if they’ve gone the correct way, but it appears that the gods usually use a different, secret path in.  It makes a little sense.  Why would someone want to go through twenty traps just to walk in their front door?
       At least it's something to do, waiting in the quiet and the cold and the fog, and she can learn more about the dangers coming up, too.