Unsure Footing

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Eyes of Heaven
Summary: Eyes of Heaven: Explored mostly as a source of working through jojo issues ;)
Josuke tries to get to know this version of his nephew.  Now if only he'd stop saying the wrong thing.
Word Count: 1012
Rating: Teen (swearing)

         “So, uh, your daughter, huh?” Josuke doesn’t really know how to approach this baby Jotaro-san, but he’s so lost with what’s happening and whenever he didn’t know what to do, he’d turn to his nephew. Maybe that’s kind of, he doesn’t know. Rohan would probably call it pathetic, but what does that damn mangaka know anyway? He couldn’t rely on anyone unless it was maybe Koichi. He’s too terrible to actually have any friends.
         Jotaro-san just grunts and doesn’t even glance in his direction to show he’s listening, staring at the choices of mochi. Josuke feels his heart sink, but man, he’s not the kind of guy to just give up like that!
         “Hey, you’re dealing with it better than I would. I ever tell you about the invisible baby me and my old man found? They probably would’ve thought it was mine, and man, I would’ve died from embarrassment!” He has, he knows, but not this version, and while he hasn’t gotten any confirmation one way or the other, he has the feeling that while Jotaro-san might despise small talk, he actually finds stories interesting.
         Jotaro-san freezes and then turns to look at him slowly, like a horror movie. It makes the hair on the back of Josuke’s neck stand on end. “A damn baby with a Stand?” he rumbles, voice having dropped deeper, dangerous.
         “She’s fine! She just turns herself and anything she’s touching invisible!” Josuke stammers, voice having gone up (man, why can’t he be cool like his nephew), and Jotaro-san closes his eyes and breathes out deeply. “I mean, it’s not that weird. We went hunting rats with Stands that were melting and eating people, so…” Please, put him out of his misery, make him stop babbling.
         “Relax,” Jotaro-san says, voice back to normal, and he’s looking away, pulling his hat down.
         Huh. And normally he doesn’t bother trying to make himself look smaller and more approachable, but he’s kind of hunching his shoulders like—like he’s socially awkward. Like this is actually causing him anxiety.
         Oh. And Josuke’d been so worried on the other end he’d just been making all of this worse.
         “I’ve fought an orangutan and a falcon and with a shitty dog.” His nephew tentatively goes back to looking at the mochi. “I just…” he stops talking again, and doesn’t seem likely to continue, and Josuke smiles and nods.
         “Yeah, it’s weird, but that’s Stands for you, right? I mean, there was a...cat-plant? Plant-cat? With a Stand.” Jotaro-san does glance over this time, and Josuke takes that as encouragement, keeping going for a bit before he interrupts himself. “Hey, Jolyne-chan’s from America, right? So maybe you should go for a little more Western of a flavor, like chocolate. And you like black sesame, right? What about your friend, what’s he like? Don’t worry; I’ll pay.”
         Jotaro-san glances back up, startled, and Josuke laughs. “Okay, I’m going to be grumpy about everyone else making me do it since I’m the only one who’s got yen, but the older you offered to pay me back through the Speedwagon Foundation once. A guy’s gotta spoil his nephew now and then, right?”
         It takes a moment for him to realize his mistake when Jotaro-san stills, again, and then starts glaring, but it’s too late for him to take it back.
         “That bastard,” Jotaro-san spits, hands turning into white-knuckled fists. He’s holding himself so rigidly he’s actually starting to shake.
         “Hey, uh, Jotaro-san? He’s already, uh. I mean, Suzie Q was furious for him for, like, a month, you were avoiding him, I yelled at him, and he’s going senile. I mean, part of that was an act, probably, but. Point is, it’s not like he made it out with no consequences.” Josuke reaches out a hand helplessly, pretty sure that touching his volatile nephew (it’d been so second nature to tease him with that that he forgot it was this whole dramatic thing) is probably a bad idea, trying to communicate with a glance to the wide-eyed and obviously frightened konbini store clerk that he’s totally got this with confidence he doesn’t really have. Surprisingly?
         Jotaro-san leans in. Just for a second, just for a fleeting touch, but he does it anyway, still breathing a little hard but getting himself back under control. “I’m not—it’s not your fault,” he snarls harshly, and then he smiles.
         Jotaro-san, the older one, smiles too, sure. It’s smaller smiles than on anyone else, but if you know where to look, you can absolutely catch them. This isn’t one of those. This is a big smile. A scary one. He absolutely looks like he’s going to use Star Platinum on Joestar-san. “I don’t feel so bad about sticking him with explaining everything now.”
         “That implies you felt bad in the first place,” Josuke points out, and his nephew snorts.
         “Yeah, fine. Get something for yourself too.” To be fair, having this version of Jotaro-san explaining anything in the first place probably isn’t all that productive to begin with. Not that he’s not intelligent or anything; far from it. He’s probably the smartest person Josuke knows. But this version, Josuke suspects, is a lot more thoughtful, a lot slower to the speeches. It might take him a while to think of what to say, even if he’s essentially just saying the same thing over and over, especially if he gets interrupted by questions.
         He’s probably going to be a brat to Joestar-san about the whole thing, but now that he’s thinking about it he realizes who the guy that explained this whole situation was and why he kept sweating. This is his dad probably around the time he actually did everything, not the old man he felt bad about yelling at, and he hasn’t experienced all those consequences, so maybe he deserves a little of that.
         And yeah, they might barely know each other, but Jotaro-san cares, even if he’s just as bad at expressing it. “Thanks, Jotaro-san.”
         This time, pulling down the hat is definitely an attempt to cover up a smile.