madimpossibledreamer

This chapter’s song is actually kind of important for this one. It’s both Johan’s promise and mine. Sorry about this, both of you.

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Johan has survivor's guilt, but that's not the only thing that's haunting him.
Word Count: 1296
Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

         There’s a door, an ominous-looking door that makes his skin crawl. The Pretender shakes his head. He maybe even tries to say something, but it feels like they’re underwater and he’s exhausted and he can’t hear. If he wasn’t so tired, he’d panic more, but as it is he just doesn’t have the willpower to put the effort into it. It’s kind of like the stone mask. He wants nothing to do with it. That should be the end of it. And yet…
         And yet he’s come to understand his powers, better anyway. This is his dream world. It’s a creepy door in his mind. So how did it get there? Sure, the mansion changes around all the time, between Jonathan’s and Jotaro’s and very occasionally Josuke’s childhood home, or the one he’d had with his wife and kid after becoming a police officer, or Joseph’s home with Grandma Erina, or the big penthouse suite fit for a real estate mogul. It might seem odd that a more distant family member’s home shows up more, but there’s a reason for that. It’s the history that resonates through his very bones, so while the newer locations might have had plenty of memories seep into the very walls, it’s hardly the same.
         He thinks, distantly, as he reaches for the doorknob and Pretender panics and lunges for him, that the fighting part of his subconscious really should know better, that curiosity has always been a stronger motivation than self-preservation, and he’s always at his most impulsive when he’s so sleep-deprived he can’t think. (It doesn’t occur to him, not until after, that he shouldn’t be feeling like this, not in The Colour and the Shape, where he’s asleep and the space is specifically created to be restful—)
         He’s more aware of what’s going on, more aware of the oddities of his strangely orderly dream world, but for an instant
for an instant he’s
floating, space, if space had neon lights everywhere, and the utter despair, and
it’s the girl in the ocean again, just floating, and he feels this utter loss, like he should know her but she’s just missing and yet somehow completely and utterly familiar
         He sees the old man Speedwagon again, the one with the scar and the cane and the hat, but there’s something wrong. He’s lonely.
         Fitz doesn’t exist. Speedwagon never married. Had Fitz ever mentioned who she was, how special? He talks all the time about the Joestars, but he can only remember the first time they talked about Mercia Speedwagon…
His mother doesn’t exist. He doesn’t exist. He’s nothing, out here in the blackness of space. His friends don’t know him. He doesn’t exist
         “—Jojo!”
He panics, tries to scream, but there’s no oxygen, no air. His blood begins to boil, as the world spins, as someone looks on in amusement—the Joestar line must pay, it’s just natural, like gravity
         “Jojo, open your—”
Maybe this is all in his head. Maybe nothing is real. If he doesn’t exist, though, how would he know? How would he know reality from something he made up to make himself be someone, exist somewhere, be not so alone in the neon blackness of space
         “Damn it, Jojo, wake up!”
         He bolts upright, the horror of that opened door still in his head, and to his shame bursts into tears.
         “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” That’s—that’s Josie, that’s his mom, why can’t he see her?
         “Fitz—where is he, I just heard him, why can’t I see—” he’s babbling, tears streaming down his cheeks, and some reunion, huh, it feels like he’s ruining everything he touches.
         “Xander!” Willow is crying, he can hear her babbling, grab his hand, why can’t he see her either? This isn’t even like after the priest why can’t he remember the name stabbed his eye out; he was just about as fuzzy, but something’s wrong.
         “You lost your good eye somehow.” Jotaro. Sounds calm, but there’s absolutely no way he actually is. He’s on the verge of losing it, if he hasn’t already, because he does care, no matter how awful he is at actually expressing it because he doesn’t think he has to
         “Giorno made you a new one.”
         Everything’s jumbled, that’s the problem. He can’t focus because it’s all blending together. Because he remembers that, he remembers making a new eye for himself because even though they were right there he couldn’t even scream for help and it hurt and that’s never happened before, it failing like that, not on a fresh injury and his was even though he’s not got a clue how long it’s been
         and none of that, none of it, is actually his memories.
         “Wills. Please. I’m feeling a little scrambled. Is Fitz okay?” Ordinarily, he wouldn’t leave Xander’s side, not like this, but maybe he knew Johan was waking up, maybe he went to go get food, he knew how important that was—oh yeah, it might not have occurred to him to introduce himself— “The mini-Giles.”
         “We didn’t find him,” Buffy states from somewhere...to his left, as gently as she can.
         “No.” He’s trying to deny it, but it just comes out a whisper, because something was wrong and he’d known that. Because the blond would be berating him, scolding him for wandering off like that and giving everyone a heart attack. Be on the verge of tears the entire time, too.
         Like he’s above that. His vision isn’t getting blurry but that’s because he still can’t see for some damn reason, but he can feel his cheeks getting wet. Just one of those fun things about losing an eye.
         “I’ll let them know you’re not up for visitors,” Jotaro states and leaves the room abruptly. It might seem rude, but he’s giving Johan the space he needs, which is appreciated because this sucks.
         And it’s. He hadn’t put words to it, not before now. Because it was too big, too private. Because honestly he’s completely oblivious and doesn’t always get it. And it...hurts. Because seriously, is there a point in saying it now? When the blond asshole with a heart of gold isn’t going to be here to hear it? But then, if he doesn’t...if he doesn’t say it out loud, he’ll still know, and they’ll look at him and wonder why it seems like he’s overreacting, because grief and losing friends isn’t exactly a new thing, not for them, and they get through it with lousy jokes and fake smiles, and sure, he can do that, but right now...he can’t just bring himself to deny it.
         “Willow, um...remember asking you to ‘gay me up’?” What the hell, brain, that’s not how he was going to go about this, at all. “I.” Why is this so hard? “I’m pretty sure I love Fitz. So I’m not…” He swallows. “Find him? Please?”
         “Oh no, honey,” Josie—mom—says in that mom-voice he’s waited his whole life to hear and pulls him into a hug, and the death-grip on his hand grows as he hears Willow crying, too, and Buffy just silently puts a hand on his shoulder, and the word ‘safe’ crosses his mind and then he just loses it.