Chapter Text
Jotaro watches Emporio grab a fistfull of bread slices from the cheese plate his mother set on the coffee table, drop a loose one onto the carpet, and then disappear from his view beside him, on the floor behind the couch.
He sighs. He was never really fond of Western food, but he thinks that Emporio would like the cheese if he tried it.
He takes a piece of the warm, crusty bread and layers a slice of Fontina cheese onto it, then holds it down, out of sight where Emporio is. He can feel his small hands take it.
“For me?”
Jotaro looks down at the little nook Emporio wedged himself in. Jolyne used to do the same when she was much younger and around too many people, so he’s not going to say anything about it, especially when Jolyne herself doesn’t care. She sits across from him in an armchair, pretending to help Josuke get over his fear of turtles by shoving Polnareff into his face.
“Try it,” Jotaro says, and Emporio does.
His eyes light up. They should probably stop buying so much takeout.
The living room seems to grow warmer as all the guests, sans his mother and grandmother, collect on the overstuffed couches and armchairs. The cheese plates draw everyone together, along with the bottles of wine Giorno brought. He gives a quick explanation of why they start off the night with sangiovese, one that Jotaro doesn’t listen to. He takes a glass of it because it’s handed to him. He prefers beer, and so does Jolyne; she steals his glass for a sip, and scrapes her tongue against her teeth before handing it back.
The chatter is nice. When people gather he never says much, and lets the social people pour words into the air that he can dissolve into. He chooses to watch and observe, the same way Emporio does - he’s just been far too big for too long to have any habits of hiding.
Staring at the people filling the room feels as if it should be the culmination of...something. Jolyne and Emporio give him the feeling of completeness, but it could be pride. Neither are emotions he finds any familiarity with, so who can tell what the press on his chest means when he sees Jolyne slide more cheese and a smile to Emporio. But the full room, all together, the weight of all the lives he has singularly kept track of finally meeting is stopped from being fully experienced. There is a block in the way, and he can’t figure out what it is.
Josuke, tired of being harassed by Jolyne, leaves to speak with Okuyasu and Mista. In his place, Giorno drifts over with two glasses of wine and takes Josuke’s seat.
He is all tender, serene smiles, and Jotaro can feel Jolyne’s body tense.
“Please, have a drink,” Giorno says, handing her his second glass.
“I’m good.”
Giorno takes no offense, and simply sets the glass down on the coffee table. His actions always read as purposeful, laced with confidence that isn’t arrogant. Unlike Jolyne, who sits with her feet on the armchair and curls her fist against her cheek as she glares at Giorno; she is confident in the explosive way, the way that doesn’t shy away from offending people.
Not being an idiot, Giorno turns to Jotaro with his smiles when Jolyne proves too difficult.
“I was wondering if I could speak to you about some recent events,” he asks in Italian.
It must be delicate if he needs to say it in the only language he is fluent in, so Jotaro sits up a little straighter. This is a conversation he was hoping to avoid with Giorno. Josuke’s phone calls were bad enough.
“What events?” Jotaro says.
“Florida,” Giorno says, sounding strange wrapped in an Italian accent.
Jolyne’s feet hit the floor and she leans over the arm of her chair towards Giorno. “What about Florida?”
The English throws him off for a moment, his large, dark eyes narrowed in a moment of confusion, before understanding passes over his features. Realization, then the mask of calmness returns. Every conversation with Giorno always feels like a business transaction, where it seems like he’s screwing someone over in the most polite way possible. It’s degrees less sinister than the few conversations Jotaro had with his father, if their exchanges could be called that. It’s one of the remaining qualities Jotaro finds unsettling about him.
“Two months ago, I received a phone call telling me to travel to Florida. I could not trace the number,” Giorno says, this time in English.
“I’d rather talk about this in private,” Jotaro says in Italian.
Jolyne’s head whips around to glare at him. Fuck.
“Dad, what’s going on? Who is this guy?”
“You don’t need to worry,” Jotaro says to her. He means it to be comforting. This is one of the dangers he took on himself when she was eight, before any part of Dio and the evils of the world had to touch her.
She doesn’t take it that way. She leans towards him now, her jaw squared and her eyebrows pulled low, and he can’t help but think that these are the looks he passed onto her.
“What do you mean, I don’t need to worry? That just makes me worry more!”
“I am sorry,” Giorno says. Jolyne doesn’t even look at him, but her shoulders tense. “I did not mean -”
“He’s not dangerous,” Jotaro says.
“Bullshit!” she says, louder, and she turns back to Giorno and points at him. “Alright, who the hell are you? Since you walked in here, you’ve been really weird. How’re you even related to us, anyway? You Gramps’ kid too?”
Giorno’s face expresses apologies his language abilities can’t translate, and Jotaro is sure that means he can’t understand much of what Jolyne is saying. He’s got to stop this, quietly.
“No, we have not met before -”
“Then how are we related?!”
The room is quiet now. The conversation has died and everybody is staring at Jolyne, who is shouting, and doesn’t give a damn about the eyes on her.
Jotaro has never seen Giorno look so out of place, but the emotions pass quick enough. He looks ready to say something new to dig Jotaro deeper into the hole he’s already in, so Jotaro stands up, and holds out his hand to his daughter.
“Let’s talk,” he says.
Jolyne scoffs and turns away at the offer, but Jotaro doesn’t close his hand. He learned his lesson the last time he helped her up carelessly, and he’s not about to do it again. He can wait.
She slaps her hand into his and meanly squeezes it when she stands up, abruptly lets go, and rushes past him and out of the living room. Without a look back at the silence he leaves in his wake, Jotaro follows.
***
She runs outside and into the snow, the fleece he gave her tossed on, and he watches her stomp down the front steps and into the driveway. He closes the door behind him and she tramples the snow, the flakes that are still falling dusting her hair from black into white.
“Who the fuck is he?” she shouts as he makes his way down the stairs to join her. “There’s something wrong with him, and you know what it is!”
“Stop yelling,” he says, and the only thing that keeps her from spitting no in his face is to keep talking. “He’s one of Dio’s sons.”
“What?” She shouts. She’s terrified, and her body knew to be before her mind caught up. He should’ve seen this coming.
“Giorno Giovanna. Dio’s oldest son,” he continues. Jolyne stands before him with her feet planted on the ground like she is ready to fight, her fists hidden in the pockets of the fleece. “I investigated him when he was fifteen years old. He’s fine.”
The tension leaves her in an explosive sigh, her entire body drooping into the release. When she pulls her hand out of the pocket to brush away the snow in her eyes, a wrinkled packet of cigarettes - his old brand - is curled between her fingers.
“Ok. Look,” she starts, then pauses. She notices him looking at the cigarettes and she tosses them at him without warning. Star Platinum catches them when he can’t.
“Look. I understand why you were always gone when I was a kid, but like, I know nothing about you. Or, apparently, anybody in that house. There’s just some guy named Dio who really fucked you over when you were a kid and Gramps helped you take care of it.”
She starts to pace in the snow, kicking it into little flurries with a pair of boots she shoved her feet into, ones that aren’t hers. She paces as if she only has a short amount of space to move. He knows she was in prison for too long, and her body still doesn’t know how to handle it. He sees the effects of it in her every day, from the restricted movement, to the coil of fear that tightens her muscles. The sound of plastic crinkling makes him look down to realize he’s curled the cigarettes tightly into his fist.
“I remember, y’know? I remember Uncle Polnareff babysitting me, and showing me this big scar on his leg, said he got it in Egypt, and now I get it. He helped you too, right? It’s like - it’s like it’s always been there, but you tried to keep the good shit in it and the bad shit out. But I don’t know - I haven’t...”
Her voice trails off and the last of her fear burns off of her. Part of him knows, part of him has thought about it: how other fathers would hug their child and soothe them with reassurance when terror grips them. He doesn’t believe in the answers to hypothetical questions, only in action, but he wishes that he had been different. He knows that now, a hug won’t solve what problems he’s made.
“I don’t really know any of those people in there, but, you do,” she says. “Can you - I dunno, just? Can you tell me what happened?”
It’s fair is the only thought that fills his mind. It’s fair. He made her get involved.
He thinks of Josuke back in the hallway. She was probably lonely. Jotaro learned the difference between alone and lonely after he was seventeen, but she learned it earlier than that. She could love these people and he doesn’t want to rob her of that, the same way he didn’t rob Josuke and Giorno of their own lives.
“Do you smoke?” he asks, and starts to straighten out the box of cigarettes.
“Uh, sometimes,” she admits easily enough, then backtracks. “But those aren’t mine, they were in -”
“- I know. I smoked a lot when I was seventeen.”
“You did?” She asks.
“I don’t remember when I started, but it got worse in Egypt. Polnareff, too, he smoked a lot,” he says, opening the box, and overturning all the loose tobacco into his palm. “One of our friends, Avdol, tried to get us into hookah, but I didn’t like it.”
Jolyne’s smile is careful and wobbly, like she’s trying to do it for the first time after forgetting for years how to do it properly. She looks like a kid again.
“Yeah? Did Gramps try it?”
Jotaro nods, and her laugh is more of a funny exhale.
“Kakyoin, though. He couldn’t smoke at all. Every time I lit a cigarette, he said I was going to get lung cancer.”
Her laugh this time is louder, the kind he never makes and, if it came from anyone else, he’d call it annoying. From her, though, it’s fine. He doesn’t mind hearing it.
“He sounds like a nerd,” she says.
Jotaro lets out his own, breathy ha as he nods.
“Yeah. He was.”
***
“We killed Dio on a bridge in Cairo. You know how well he stayed dead,” Jotaro says to the pile of tobacco, a loose pile of ash in his hand. He remembers how hard quitting was, and how he feels nothing towards the pack in his hand now. He pauses and looks up, finds his daughter’s wide, focused eyes on him, and he counts. “The anniversary is in nine days.”
“Christ, that’s - wait - you were in Egypt on Christmas?” she asks.
“No, Saudi Arabia.”
She frowns, and he doesn’t know why this upsets her. He keeps talking.
He isn’t sure if he says enough. He’s never had reason to discuss these things outside of dangerous situations, where it was more about explaining the facts than explaining, well. Whatever else there was to explain.
He doesn’t try to sell her the legacy stuff in the way Jiji sold it to him, even though he fully believes it, because belief in tragedy is easy. He only tries to speak. He can see his words billow out of his mouth, hitting the cold air as steam. He tells her he kept her on the edge of the ocean, away from it all, in the only place that ever felt like a refuge. Everything else, everyone else, was kept where they belong: Josuke on the coast of Morioh, Giorno on the coast of Naples.
But it’s different, now. She made it different; made it better.
She’s not afraid to interrupt him when he talks, but he’s thankful that when he finishes, she doesn’t ask more questions. They’re both shivering by now.
“We should probably go back, huh?” She asks.
He nods. Dinner will be served soon.
She doesn’t move and neither does he. She smiles like she knows she’s done something wrong, another expression that reminds him of her much younger, putting crayons over his thesis and toys in his suitcase.
“Guess I gotta apologize,” she says.
“Yes,” he says firmly. Then he remembers the course of events that brought them to this moment again, and realizes something has gone unsaid.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
He hates it when she cries. She somehow looks like his mother when she does it, which he also hates. Crying freezes people up and keeps them from moving forward. At least having a partial hand in raising children lets him know that tears are usually stopped one way.
The moment he opens his arms to try and hug her, the tears are falling and she starts barking with laughter, her whole body dancing with hilarity before she tosses herself into the hug. It knocks a little air out of him, but she’s laughing and squeezing too hard to notice.
He sighs and pats her back once he’s had enough. “Alright, knock it off.”
She pulls away and wipes at her face, rubbing her runny nose over her sleeve. She’s still laughing.
“Hey, d’you think there’s any beer in the house?” she asks, and starts the walk back.
“I don’t know, but you’re not getting any if there is.”
“What! Oh, come on.”
“Drink wine if you have to.”
He lets her punch him in the arm as they walk inside.
***
He doesn’t watch over her as she goes to apologize to Giorno. The mood of the living room is quiet and torn between looking at Jolyne and him, but thankfully, his mother bursts in to announce dinner. Then, it’s a damn near stampede to the table.
He moves against the fray and helps Emporio out of his hiding place beside the couch, because with a nod of understanding, Josuke helps wheel Jiji to the table.
“Is Jolyne ok?” Emporio asks quietly. Jotaro nods, and Emporio sighs. “Ok. Good. I was worried.”
Jotaro frowns. “You don’t have to. She’s going to be ok.”
Emporio smiles at him.
Jolyne is already sitting at the table, next to Josuke, who is trying and failing to convince Holly that he really shouldn’t be sitting right next to his father, really, Holly, you or Suzie should . Nonna sits at the other end of the table across from Joseph, shouting, oh stop it Josuke, you stay put , and Giorno sweeps in to sit next to her. Okuyasu goes to sit at Jolyne’s right, and Jotaro wonders for a moment where he and Emporio are going to sit, until his mother waves him over.
“Jotaro, you sit next to Dad,” she says, pulling out the chair at Jiji’s left, across from Josuke.
He goes to the chair but Emporio tugs on his sleeve, grabbing his attention.
“Can I sit next to you?” he asks.
Jotaro nods. Where else would he have sat? He tugs out the empty chair next to his seat before sitting down himself, and pushes Emporio in.
The table is covered in food, barely leaving enough room for the plates and glasses. He doesn’t really know how long it would’ve taken for anyone to cook all of this, someone normal who isn’t his unstoppable mother. The food isn’t what he’s used to her cooking, but the names appear in his mind each time he glances at them: sarde in saor , patate stufae , and branzino in crosta agli aromi . It makes his head spin, along with all the language changes his mother switches between as everyone talks and settles in.
“Gio! Gio!” Holly calls as she comes back into the room with another tray of food. “Could you pick out another wine to go with the meal?”
“Of course.”
“Okuyasu, has your plant been taken care of?”
“Oh, yup! He - uh - it. It’s good.”
“And the turtle? Where is he?”
“He is comfortably resting,” Giorno says as he breezes back into the room, placing a hand on Holly’s back. The Italian he speaks in gives him more confidence. “Which I believe you should also be doing. Please sit, Mrs. Kujo, you’ve done so much.”
Amazingly, she does go and find her seat, sitting down next to her mother and Shizuka. The chatter in the room is light as Giorno takes up the task of pouring out the wine, and Jotaro watches as Jolyne places her hand over her glass. It’s nice to see her relaxed around him, but she whispers something to him and Jotaro is sure he knows what it is.
“No beer,” Jotaro says loud enough for them both to hear.
Jolyne scoffs. “But Dad -”
“No.”
“I would not like to make an enemy of your father tonight,” Giorno says, laughing. “Have some wine.”
Jotaro doesn’t protest this, because he’s not an idiot that would get into an argument with a bunch of Italians over wine, on top of Polnareff being somewhere in the house. Giorno finishes serving the wine to sit down, and a moment later, Jiji is tapping his ungloved metal hand against his glass to get everyone’s attention.
The room quiets immediately, and all eyes are on Jiji. When he doesn’t try to stubbornly stand, it hits Jotaro that he is much older than he realizes.
“I just wanted to say thank you for coming,” he says. His voice wavers and rasps with age. “I don’t think there’s been this big a gathering of Joestars anywhere. So, I’d like to have a toast to us.”
Thank god Jiji is always to the point whenever he speaks. Jotaro partially thinks of toasting to short, blunt speeches as he raises his glass, and allows the rest of the table to chorus, to the Joestars! for him. Emporio laughs when they clink their glasses together, and laughs again when Jolyne leans across the table to hit their glasses together, winking and mouthing, to the Kujos .
The dishes are passed around and the conversation starts up again. Mista sits on the other side of Emporio and, despite the language barrier, the two seem to get along well. Jolyne keeps laughing with her mouth full of food at whatever jokes Okuyasu and Josuke trade back and forth, when Josuke isn’t serving food to Jiji’s plate. Jotaro cranes his neck back to make sure his mother is taken care of, and she is: she talks with her hands in the way she does whenever speaking Italian with her mother. It’s comfortable.
That leaves Jiji, who is already complaining about the toughness of the lamb.
“Dad, there’s so much other stuff to eat,” Josuke says. “Just skip it.”
“And what, stuff myself with pasta sauce, since I could eat that with a straw?” Jiji says, offended.
“Well, it’s either you skip the lamb, or I punch you in the teeth,” Josuke says. “Your choice.”
“Give it here,” Jotaro says, motioning for the lamb. Josuke hands the dish over without protest, and Jotaro pulls out the softest piece, stuck in the middle of the leg and still very pink. The old man loves to put up a fuss about this kind of shit all the time.
Jotaro puts the slice onto Jiji’s plate, and starts to cut it into smaller pieces.
“I feel like a baby,” Jiji laments.
Josuke sighs. “Maybe if you didn’t act like one...”
“Josuke wanted to talk to you about something,” Jotaro says.
He doesn’t need to glance up to know Josuke is trying to kill him with a look. Whatever. The last thing Jotaro wants is to spend the dinner discussing is how old Jiji is, and listening to Josuke flip back and forth between lovingly insulting him, and staring at him out of pity. Might as well throw Josuke under the bus to avoid it.
“What do you want to talk about?” Jiji asks.
Josuke sniffs, shrugs, and tries to act casual to regain his composure. It doesn’t work.
“Uh, just. Y’know, nothing too serious,” Josuke says, and pauses to stuff his mouth with some pasta. Jotaro finishes cutting Jiji’s lamb and is free to watch.
“Oh, well, alright,” Jiji says and starts to eat.
“Well, ok, I lied. It’s a little serious,” Josuke says. The topic seems to weigh on him and, finally, he looks ready to discuss it. “It’s about Shizuka.”
“What about her?”
“I’m worried.”
Jiji waves the idea away with his fork. “You worry too much. She’s fine.”
“I think she should come live with me in Morioh.”
Jiji drops his fork and knife onto his plate and rolls his eyes as he chews. “Oh, this again.”
“Yeah, Dad, this again -”
“- I agree,” Jotaro says.
Josuke closes his mouth and Jiji leans forward, surprised.
“You do?” Jiji asks. Jotaro just nods. It’s all he has to do. While Jiji is still stunned into silence, Josuke takes his chance.
“Dad, look at her. She’s twelve and she doesn’t have any friends her own age,” Josuke says. “She loves you and Suzie a lot, and I know you’ve given her a great education, but there’s more to growing up than that. C’mon, you know what that’s like.”
Jiji doesn’t fight back. He looks up and Jotaro looks down at his plate, not wanting to see his grandfather looking upset as he stares at his quiet, adopted daughter. It’s not his cause to fight for.
“We can talk about it,” Jiji decides. “With Shizuka and Suzie.”
“Yeah? Really? Thanks, Dad.”
Jotaro looks up to see Josuke lay his hand on Jiji’s arm, sincerity moving his actions. Jiji smiles back before screwing his face up into an exaggerated frown.
“How about you take me back instead,” Jiji says, and Josuke laughs.
The moment passes and the conversation grows light again, and Jotaro doesn’t feel much need to talk as everyone trades back jokes and laughter. He sinks into the ambient noise and eats in peace, looking up every so often to make sure everyone is having a good time.
***
He helps clean up the table. He doesn’t announce this, he just starts doing it after the dessert (and the dessert wine) has left everybody sleepy and sluggish. Josuke and Okuyasu help him, and Giorno tries, but he’s never loaded a dishwasher before, so Josuke kicks him out with a pat on the back and a promise, next time I’m not full of wine I’ll teach you.
The lights in the house are dimmed, the strongest glows coming from the small bulbs of winter decorations that seem to grow across the house like vines. The faint lights outside show the snow still falling, and he wonders how many cars he’ll have to help dig out tomorrow, since the snow means everyone will spend the night despite the hotel reservations Giorno made. The snoring from the living room says that his bodyguard wasn’t fit to be driving anyway.
When he returns to the living room, Emporio is curled up against Jolyne’s back on the couch, surrounded by the copies of Pink Dark Boy Josuke brought with him. Jolyne sits across from Giorno, a glass of wine in her hand, legs tucked up under her comfortably. They can’t really talk to each other. A moment longer, and he watches how their mouths barely move. Jolyne gestures, her movements fluid and lazy, tapping at her arm and slicing across the junction of her elbow. Giorno nods. He draws a square over his eye, makes a chopping motion at his wrist. Jolyne grimaces and smiles and then unravels her index finger, showing off her stand. Giorno laughs, takes his empty wine glass, and turns it into a flower.
The reveals are gentle. It reminds him of Josuke; of all the worry wrapped up in finding a child burdened by their family, only to discover the kindness he possesses. They’re gifts, not curses.
Jiji sits with Polnareff in his lap, Jiji more hunched over than usual as he speaks quietly to his friend, who has grown more subdued and less ridiculous with all the tragedies that he has suffered. It’s an odd sight, one that Jotaro can’t decide is good or sad. They are alive, but barely. Their bodies and movement are nearly all robbed from them. They cling on with cruel miracles that keep them going.
Jotaro considers himself lucky as he has the chance to pick up Emporio to carry him off to bed. He lets Jolyne kiss Emporio on the forehead, and him on the cheek, sleepily whispering good night. He says the same to her, and doesn’t let her know he won’t properly fall asleep until he knows she is tucked into her own bed.
She gently tugs off Emporio’s hat, and stares at it for a moment. She flips it around and shows him that the back part, where the size adjustment used it be, has been cut off. It’s purposefully frayed.
“Oh my god,” she whispers. “Where do you think he got that idea?”
“No clue,” he says, and her eyes light up when she realizes he’s telling a joke. She laughs, places the hat on Emporio’s chest, and he leaves.
He passes by Mista and Trish, who share an armchair and sleep peacefully in an uncomfortable heap. On his way upstairs, he watches Josuke turning down the soft jazz playing out of the kitchen radio. Josuke smiles while Okuyasu has Shizuka standing on his feet, leading her around in a dance, before his arm reaches across Okuyasu's shoulders and he takes one of Shizuka's hands.
His mother is upstairs already, getting ready for bed. She steps out of her bedroom and coos at the sight of Emporio sleeping in his arms.
“He’s so sweet,” his mother says. “He reminds me of you.”
Maybe. Jotaro doesn’t remember what he was like as a child anymore, but he likes Emporio.
“He’s a good kid.”
“And so are you,” his mother says, and he knows what comes next. She can’t comfortably stand on the tips of her toes anymore, so he bends down to let her kiss his cheek. “Good night.”
“Night, Mom,” he says and shifts Emporio in his arms.
The guest bedroom they stay in has two twin beds, one with a trundle that pulls out along the floor. He places Emporio down, happy to know he sleeps as soundly as Jolyne did as a child, because Jotaro was never perfect at tucking her in gently, either. Jotaro places the baseball hat on the floor beside him.
He gets ready for bed himself, and remembers to dig through Jolyne’s suitcase. He watched her pack the nightlight even when Emporio insisted, with uncertainty, that he didn’t need it. He plugs it in, turns it on, and shuts out the light.