The Sound of the World

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure AU, Prequel to Song of the Ocean
Summary: Jotaro's always heard the music of the world.
Word Count: 1335
Rating: Gen
Notes: Actually, I lied.  I forgot that I hadn't completely finished the other 'ship fic yet, and by the looks of my homework schedule this week I won't have time until the weekend at least.  So here, have a prewritten thing instead.  (I swear I will have Shadowed Suspicion done someday and then I can participate in the International Fanworks Day like everyone else.  I don't want to upload other things to AO3 yet.)

 

            Jotaro’s always heard the music of the world.  He often can identify when his mother’s approaching, not by her footsteps, but by the sweet, caring melody growing gently louder as she approaches.  He always knows when his father’s home, because suddenly there’s a duet, flute and saxophone, and somehow it’s an unexpected yet beautiful harmony.
            He learns to stop asking about music the more and more his father is on concert tours.  It just changes his mother’s music to sad and sweet, and beautiful as it is, he doesn’t want to hear that song any more than he has to.  That’s why he never asks for music lessons, why he never learns to play despite the music thrumming through his veins.  He imagines that if he did ever learn, it’d be a saxophone like his father, but it’s only a half-remembered dream, never taken out in the light of day.
            He finds he has a good singing voice, but the one time his mother catches him singing, the look of longing and pride and sadness on her face is enough to get him to be much more careful in the future.  Her song should always be cheerful, bubbly, and even silly.  Not this unhappy variation.
            So he sings in private.  He never gets any training, but the fact that he can replicate any song he hears by ear would probably make him an excellent musician if he’d had any inclinations on that front.  Instead, he just keeps it, a secret, to himself.
            It’s when they first take him to the ocean that his breath is taken away.  It’s a symphony and it’s almost too beautiful, overwhelming in its splendor.  He never loses that feeling of awe.
            When, as an apology for the absence that is soon to become a rhythm, his father brings him to an aquarium, it’s fascinating.  The ocean symphony is here, too, but muted, far distant, a low tide.  Here, though, he can hear the harmony, every part, the crashing of the wave and far off the call of a whale’s eternal lament of the terror and beauty of life.  His father leaves, briefly, and he sings to the dolphins.  Their song stirs, stops, and then they begin anew, mimicking his song, and if his father is alarmed to come back and find his son grinning madly, having practically tamed the dolphins, it’s never mentioned.  He locks the melody of the dolphins inside and knows his future, though he does not tell anyone.
            It’s a worry when he starts getting into fights more often.  His mother says it’s just hormones, but he’s not entirely sure that just hormones can alter his own song so.  It’s not like he can hear his own, unlike everyone else’s.  It’s more of…like he can feel it, in his blood, beating through his bones, and it’s off.  It’s almost a relief to lock himself in jail.
            Maybe he’s insane.  Maybe the music (that apparently no one else hears) is just the start of it.
            But no, then his grandfather comes, with his quirky theme and an unfamiliar Egyptian flavored one, and things change.  It should be a sign that these are the first songs he’s heard with words.  When the song becomes much louder when this Avdol calls out his fiery companion, the thing his grandfather calls a Stand, suddenly Jotaro has an idea of what’s going on.  “You can control it with your will?” he asks, a terrifying smirk appearing on his face, and concentrates on the beat of his blood, the rush in his ears, and his own Stand appears.
            He still doesn’t make the connection until after Holly’s lying there, a sickly song with lyrics, and he knows, then, that it’s the sign of a Stand, and only the sign of a Stand.
            Unfortunately, the Stand Songs don’t follow the rules.  Jotaro guesses it’s because, after all, they hardly follow the usual rules of physics and science anyway, still an integral part of the world, but a hidden one.
            It’s still difficult to surprise him.  Jotaro tends to realize when people are around, a useful habit when they’re getting attacked all the time.  But it’s clear that Stands are more unpredictable.  He tends to be able to tell when an unfamiliar Stand User is around, but usually not who has the music attached, and the where is more complicated than a crescendo when his mother is coming to wake him up for breakfast.  Songs sometimes linger, he finds.  And when it’s a place that’s been very busy, it’s hard to distinguish the songs, find one among many that has an accompanying singer.  At least there’s one thing that is certain, that he can count on.  The music quiets and eventually stops altogether when someone dies.  Jotaro makes a note of this.
            Polnareff teases him about paranoia, but then, the Frenchman tends to be entirely carefree in contrast, so it’s no wonder.  Kakyoin seems to think it’s just a normal state of things.  It’s a wonder that the old man is the one who comes to him on watch in the desert sands.
            “There are things you might need to know,” he begins, and then launches into an abbreviated if still rambling tale about ancient vampires and the power of the sun.  Jotaro stays silent, his ‘this is so stupid I don’t know what to say’ face on, and yet.  There are parts of the tale that ring true.  There’s a long, awkward silence when Joseph finishes, and eventually he lets out a long, steady, deliberate breath.  “You’ve heard how Hamon works.  I’ve been trying to use it to look for attackers, but I’m a bit rusty.”
            “And you think I might have inherited this ‘power of the sun’ thing from you?”  Jotaro thinks harder than normal about his next words.  He’s never spoken about this with anyone.  If anyone could understand, it’d be the old man, but.  It’s hard getting out of old habits.  “I don’t think so.  You mentioned that being able to breathe was a huge deal, that lessened lung power would cut down on your ability, but.”  He gestures quietly, deliberately, with his cigarette.  The old man will get the idea.  Now that he listens close, there’s a strength, an ever-beating drum, within his Grandfather’s song.  He’s been underestimating him.  “I haven’t noticed any difference.”
            “Those things are bad for you,” Joseph says automatically, and Jotaro favors that with a sardonic twist of the mouth.
            “You’ll let me know if you notice anything,” Joseph eventually states.
            Jotaro nods, and allows himself a small smile when his grandfather reaches out and squeezes his shoulder before heading back to sleep.
            DIO’s intimidating, more so than any foe they’ve fought before.  It’s after his grandfather lies dying that he notices something.  Joseph’s song is stilling, yes, and it takes that to realize it’s coming from another source.  DIO actually has a few songs, which shouldn’t be possible.  There’s a triumphant, proud trumpet, there’s DIO’s own sinister piece, and there’s, quiet but still there, his grandfather’s eccentric song.
            So that’s how he knew exactly what we were doing, and it wasn’t just the bloodline, Jotaro thinks grimly, and then a thought occurs to him.  The same kind of Stand.  D’arby’s fear.  I know DIO’s song, just from listening to it.  I can do things by ear.  What if I…try to ‘play’ DIO’s song with Star Platinum?  Could I stop time, too?
            He tries, and it doesn’t work, not quite, but he can hear a clock and then all sound cease.  There’s no music, not even DIO’s.  Other than DIO’s movement and gloating, there’s nothing.  It’s terrifying, but he has to move past that.  Or DIO will win.  At least he can see, now, in this stopped time.  DIO’s song, sound of a clock, stop all music.  He can do that, can’t he?
            When time resumes, DIO’s song is playing quietly at his ear, and he allows himself the inward smirk even as DIO’S chorus grows.