Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 340

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Willow, Kakyoin, and Jotaro go to check out one of the houses with a mysterious death.
Word Count: 1296

Rating: Teen
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

         Willow isn’t fully comfortable here, but Buffy’s off to Brazil and it’s not like Xander can go and they really want someone to go with Jotaro and Kakyoin, and there’s so many leads to follow up on, and it’s not like anyone really wants Xander to be in the field. And he’s even starting to get used to that idea himself, so.
         It probably helps that he can help, a little, in his own way. Even if it’s just being moral support, but then, he’d always kind of leaned into that anyway. Specifically, he’s smiling and even kinda amused when he explains, “Will, seriously, you’ll be fine. If Kakyoin starts to mess with you—because he probably will, he’s a bit of a troll—just threaten to turn him into a rat or something. He’s been itching to ask you questions about how the whole witchy thing works, so he’ll get distracted asking questions and forget to push your buttons.” He...apparently doesn’t know that they’ve had a couple conversations. Short ones! But still. She doesn’t want to shut him down, though, not when he’s actually kind of maybe happy for the first time in a bit. “And Jotaro doesn’t mean to be so intimidating and doesn’t get how other people see him. It’s a lot like how Buffy has this delusion she doesn’t try to fix all her problems by staking them, only she’s not 195 centimeters and blonde and says most of the weird thoughts out loud, so people think she’s more approachable. He might not notice you’re uncomfortable, though.”
         It’s one of the more surreal conversations she’s had in her life, and given her life that’s saying something. It’s her first taste of seeing him use his Stand, even if it’s not super obvious and even though she’s half sure he doesn’t even notice, but it’s pretty clear he’s speaking from experience and he’s, like, channeling someone else’s speech pattern at the same time. Among other things, he absolutely has no idea what a centimeter is. Or at least, he shouldn’t.
         And at least it was someone else’s turn to make the portal. Of course, everything might be fine, but people had already checked out the houses of the people who had died in the UK, so they had to go to the US, no one was in the mood for a plane ride (apparently the Joestars might be cursed on that front? She’ll have to actually look for a curse later), and just in case they get attacked it’s better if she keeps all her energy for spellcasting later.
         Still, she has to assume the nod from Jotaro is actually a welcoming greeting. Kakyoin is at least a little better about pretending to be normal, because he greets her with a “Good morning! I hope you slept well.”
         As...well, both she and Xander probably could have predicted, though, her response when slightly nervous is to babble. Just because she’s gotten better about that over the years does not mean that it’s gone away completely, and it’s been years since she’s felt this out of her depth about these things. Even if part of her is a little settled in the fact that the ‘Xander’ she saw die on the altar in the vision wasn’t actually Xander but was actually some sort of Stand pretending to be him, apparently. “I mean, not really, no, but it’s not that much of a difference because it’s not the first time we’ve had to deal with enemies hunting us down in our sleep and at least it’s not, like, the First all over again, unless this guy has a cult following him. I’ve managed to learn to be rested pretty early on, in my teens, even if it’s not exactly well-rested, so...Yes and no?”
         She trails off at the apparently blank green-eyed stare. And then Jotaro puts his hands in his pockets and starts walking toward the car. “That’s shit,” he tosses over his shoulder, like he doesn’t care whether they even hear him or not.
         “It’s...unfortunate there are some similarities to our own teenage years. Jotaro’s upset about that, I think.” It’s rather ironic that Kakyoin’s sharing that with her, given the conversation she’d had before this, but it does mean that Xander probably actually does know what he’s talking about. For once. “Shall we, oh Great and Powerful Witch?”
         Maybe, after all, she can do this. Because that’s definitely a Scooby brand of silly, and it’s not new, given that they’ve talked. She smiles back. “Just Willow is fine.”
         The car ride over is interesting, consisting mostly of Kakyoin asking a bunch of questions about how being a Witch works and what her powers are and what she can do and listening attentively. Her best guess as to why he’d been holding back was that they’d been pretty busy, and for whatever reason he’d been trying to be ‘polite’ and not ask her too many questions (maybe he’d thought it was a sore subject, given he’d noticed a few lingering attitudes around the Dark Willow thing), but now that she’d brought it up the topic was fair game. He does seem to be trying to tie being a Witch back to having a Stand, somehow. To which she has to explain that, no, there’s a bunch of us, I could introduce you to a coven, oh, but hey, I think Father Styx could explain some of this stuff, when we get back in contact, his explanations had been pretty useful before he’d had to go on lockdown.
         That actually gets Kakyoin’s attention. More than everything else, that is. He actually glances over at Jotaro. “Didn’t your grandfather mention a Father Styx who died on the same ship as your great-great grandfather? Related, do you think?”
         Jotaro just shrugs, not taking his eyes off the road.
         “A question for later, perhaps,” Kakyoin agrees, as if that had actually been a verbalized reply, and then he asks another question about how giving all the Slayers hamon had worked, which then got into a discussion of how empowering all the Slayers in the first place during the thing with the First had worked, and before she knows it they’re pulling up to the house.
         “I hope I don’t come off as some sort of true crime voyeur, but I think visiting a crime scene like this is terribly exciting, don’t you?” Kakyoin asks, climbing out and she’s pretty sure that, just as Xander predicted, he’s getting with the teasing already.
         Jotaro responds with an extremely flat look. Usually, she would’ve interpreted that as being kind of disapproving, but given what Xander had said, she’s actually kind of wondering if he actually kind of thinks it’s funny, in a jerkish way. He might not realize how over the line some stuff is, if he has issues reading other people’s reactions. “The police don’t care about this anymore,” he disagrees, voice just as flat, but if she’s not imagining things he might be smiling a little bit.
         “Unless we’re still dealing with a Sunnydale Syndrome kind of attitude, though, the neighbors might,” Willow points out, and it works like a charm, because Kakyoin’s attitude disappears as he turns to her, curious.
         “I wonder if it might have a similar effect to the attitudes in Morioh…” he muses.
         Unlike in the car, though, Jotaro is not content to let the conversation drag out. “Stop showing off and use Hierophant already.”
         On command, a seethrough shape appears from Kakyoin and shoves noodly tendrils into the lock. “Ah, but I’d think a man with a PhD would understand an academic curiosity...after you.”
         She gets her seeing charm off just as Jotaro manifests Star Platinum and opens the door. And they all slip inside.