NOTE: Sorry that I don't post that often, writing is a complicated process for me. I just realized it's taking so long to get to the...ya know ...Juicy parts. But I swear were almost there. It's a slowwww burn so I hope you're ready for the ride. I hope you enjoy! P.S Thank you so much for everyone that left a kudos, I really appreciate it since it's my first fic.3

"Ok Kakyoin" Avdol was holding the sewing needle in hand. "This will hurt but it's only temporary. You lost a lot of blood from your ear. I'm not a professional so once we find a place we'll get better stitching, but for now this should hold it together."

They were in the tiny bathroom, most of the crusaders were hunched together watching. Not everyone fit so Jotaro and Joseph waited outside. Kakyoin was seated on the toilet, elbows on her thighs and head tilted. Her coat was gone and replaced with a white blouse cuffed to her elbows. Her school uniform was already worn out, sheer stockings were barely intact. She was glad she had a spare school skirt, it was longer than the one she was wearing so it covered her battle torn stockings. She tied her hair back in a hassle to give Avdol space for the procedure.

Avdol had already applied disinfectant to the wound and stood waiting for her to mentally prepare.

"Where did you learn to do this?" she asked, hoping that something reassuring would come out of his mouth.

"Well I used to work in a farm and learned a thing or two from local farmers since we didn't have vets back then." he said thoughtfully.

Great, not reassuring at all.

"But then I started working with the SpeedWagon Foundation on their scouting team and picked up a few things from there" He continued. She let out a sigh, she didn't want to know anymore.

The cart was shaking with the speed they were going at.

It was another 4 hours till their next stop.

She didn't have much of a choice.

"Ok let's just get it over with"

"You might want to hold on to something, this is going to hurt" he gave her an apologetic smile.

She looked around but couldn't find anything to grip.

"You can hold onto my arm if you want," said Polnareff. He extended his arm out to her.

"Polnareff I don't think that's a good idea." Jotaro said her back leaning on the door of the bathroom. "She has a strong grip"

Kakyoin remembered the incident in Singapore and felt the prickle of shame spread across her neck.

"I'll be fine" waving his hand dismissively.

"Are you sure Polnareff?" Kakyoin asked. She was actually touched he offered

"Yeah" he gave her a smile.

She smiled back.

"Ok Avdol I'm ready" she placed her hand on Polnareff's arm.

"Ok " he takes a deep breath and holds her earlobe gently "Bismillah"

It took all her willpower not to scream and thrash. Her eyes were crewed tight enough that the dark of her eyelids had turned a murky yellow. Instead of screaming she grunted and focused her attention on the arm she was gripping.

"MERDE" Polnareff screamed. "KAKYOIN YOU'RE CRUSHING MY ARM"

Kakyoin forcefully opened one eye to see Hierophants tendrils wrapping around Polnareff's arm. The process felt unbearably slow as Avdol wove the thread in and out her ear. The pain pounded in her head, she couldn't muster the will to remove the tendrils wrapping around him.

"Sorry Polnareff" she croaked, Avdol had just finished stitching the last part and her throat was raw from the screams she held. The marks on Polnareff's arm were red hot and bruising, crisscrossing across his forearm.

He didn't hear her. He was too busy rubbing the pain away.

They all waited silently for each one to collapse into their chairs. The charged atmosphere from a while back had left them drained and exhausted.

Joseph had tilted his hat forward and plugged his Walkman into his ears, drowning out the chatter of the passengers. Polnareff was staring out the window determined to look nowhere else, arms were woven tightly around his chest. Kakyoin thought that he looked upset but ended up dismissing the thought. Avdol was looking for the closest SWF allied hospital near our next stop in Myanmar, flipping through a tiny booklet of neatly printed hospital names. Jotaro was slouched on the chair, head tilted forward. To any normal passerby she would look asleep but Kakyoin knew better. It was the way her breath came harsher than the soft whispers that she had gotten used to in their silent nights of sleeping together in the same room. Or in the way her shoulders were winded up to tight to be relaxed in sleep. She wondered what made her uneasy. She was the most exhausted out of all of them, the dark circles under her eyes a permanent testament on her face. But she felt that she already knew the answer.

Her head was pounding to the rhythm of the train tracks. The colors of the world outside blurred as they picked up speed. The throbbing of her ear had made it uncomfortable for her to sleep. Seconds, minutes, hours passed as she teetered between sleep and pain. The rest of the crusaders at one point had all scum to their exhaustion, some more than others. But Kakyoin couldn't, as soon as her eyelids fluttered shut the pain of her ear would make it uncomfortable to fully fall asleep. Even Jotaro had somehow managed to get a few minutes of sleep. She was relieved that Avdol had felt sorry enough for her to ask the people sitting near them if they had any pain relievers.

"It won't help much but you would have to make do" he said handing her two white pills and a small cup of water.

"Thank you" was all she mustered through gritted teeth. The throbbing headache had progressed into a migraine and every speck of light had irritated her. It would take a few minutes for the medication to work. So she closed her eyes and shielded the light from her face as much as possible.

The medication gradually started taking effect as she realized that the bursting pain from her ear had reduced herself to a dull ache. She embraced any relief with open arms, no matter how small. Finally she shut her eyelids.

It was raining, something strange in terms of where she thought she was. She tried to move but her feet were caught in water soaked sand, pulling her downwards. She quickly started to panic, she didn't want to be here, she wanted out. But she couldn't leave. She felt the sand pull her deeper every time she struggled to get out. She was chest deep in the sand now, her arms flailing in the air hoping to grab something. She closed her eyes tight as she felt sand crawling it's way up her face, her hand still flailing as she tried to cling on to the last bit of hope.

She was in a room, a familiar room. The sand that threatened her nowhere to be seen. But she knew that she was far from being safe. She felt a pair of wide golden hands grab her from behind. Her back pressed back on the body that engulfed her. The embrace was both soothing and suffocating. A mix of emotions she didn't understand. She wanted to hate it but couldn't bring herself to.

They bring their lips closer to her ear. The puff of hot air raising the hair on her back.

"You miss me don't you"

She woke up with a jolt, a reflex the body used when it felt like it had been close to dying. She sure felt that she had almost died. Even in her sleep she could find no rest. Her body felt as if she had jumped into a cold lake. She shook as she brought her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead.

It was late at night now. Most of the passengers were huddled in sleep some way or another. She turned towards the crusaders. Joseph was still asleep, his hat now tiled at an odd angle from his restless movement. Avdol was sleeping with his arms crossed and his head bowed as if in silent prayer. Polnareff had his forehead stuck to the window as he snored loudly, both arms still crossed but relaxed in deep sleep. It was no surprise to her when she found that Jotaro was not asleep. She knew the girl well enough to know the difference between her wakefulness and her sleep even though there was barely any. Her hat was tilted to cover her face but she could tell that her head was tilted towards her. Was she looking at her or staring out the window? She couldn't tell.

She rested her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. She was tired, really tired. The pain in her ear was a manageable dull throbbing. Irritated at herself she huffed loudly. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't stop hurting, and she was tired.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

She ran a hand in her hair, It was still bundled in a loose ponytail. She hadn't even tried to look presentable. Her hair was a mess, her ear swollen, bags were forming under her eyes, her stocking ripped, her shoes dirty. The only thing that was clean about her was the last white blouse she had put on and her long skirt. If the her from a few weeks ago were to see her now she would recoil in disgust. She didn't care now though. She was too tired to care.

After a few minutes of silently collecting her energy she spoke to the only one awake other than herself.

"How long was I asleep"

"not more than 30 minutes" she replied, her tone taking it's natural disinterested, clipped approach.

" I see…" she had hoped she would have at least gotten an hour.

"Go back to sleep we haven't reached our destination yet" she said

"Easier said than done" she replied rubbing the tense muscle between her brows.

"Why?"

She was caught off guard. She didn't expect her to ask why.

"Can you?" she fired back. she really didn't want to start explaining herself now, not when she barely had the energy to speak.

"Fair point" she replied. She stuffed her hands into her pocket and turned her head the other way, signaling the end of their discussion.

As time passed her body started to cave in. Fatigue slowly debilitated her, making the simplest tasks impossible. Her headache returned with full force leaving her dizzy. She gritted her teeth hard enough to hear the trembling in her jaw. Her eyes kept trying to drift towards sleep but every time they shut a flash of red would jolt her body back up again. Her breath came harsher now, flames fuming from her nostrils. Why was she so hot?

A cold hand shot up towards her forehead. Her eyes focused and unfocused on the blurry image.

" Kakyoin, you're burning up" her voice sounded as if she had covered it with multiple pillows or maybe like she was hiding under a blanket. The thought of strong, intimidating Jotaro hiding under a blanket made her giggle.

" what? That's nonsense, I'm just a bit woozy, a bit sleepy." Her tongue felt weird in her mouth. Where was her tongue supposed to go again? On the roof of her mouth or did it hover in mid air? Was the tip of it at the top?

She felt the cool hand slide away from her forehead. In that moment all the body heat she had was gone, as if zapped away along with her retreating hand. She almost asked for Jotaro to put her hand back but she stood up to leave.

" where are you going?" Her body was shaking from head to toe.

"I'll be back" and with that she left.

Ages later ( or what felt like ages), Jotaro returned with a cheap blanket and film of drugs. She threw the blankets on her as she turned to bring out the tiny water bottle from her pocket. Kakyoin barely managed to get the blanket off her face and wrapped around her body.

"Here drink this" she held out two red pills. "I managed to get them from a first aid kit"

Kakyoin held out her hand to take it as she muttered a thanks. Jotaro pushed her hands in her pockets and sat down with more force than necessary.

A few minutes of silence passed between them as both teens were heavy with exhaustion.

"We're the only ones awake" commented Kakyoin

"Yeah" answered Jotaro

"This sucks"

A barely noticeable grin appeared on Jotaro's face "that's one way to say it"

"You want to kill time?"

"Like what?" She pushed a hand under her cap "I ran out of cigarettes and we can't go anywhere" she spoke as if she had already thought through all the ways in which to distract herself from her boredom.

"How about a game"

"A game?" The tone of her voice implying 'what are we five?'

"Come on it will be fun, might put us right to sleep"

"I never thought fun and sleep could go together like that" was she teasing?

Kakyoin rolled her eyes "the rules are simple we choose a category and we have to name a name that starts with the letter that the other person ends at"

Jotaro raised her eyebrow

"for example the category is countries" she pulled her blanket close to her as she felt a cold draft push against her skin. "If I say Russia you would have to choose a country that ends with an A, like Albania. so do you want to play?"

She didn't say anything so Kakyoin took that as a yes.

"Ok so topic"

"You can pick whatever"

"How about we limit it to the things we see on the train"

"Sure"

"I'll start, carpet"

"Table"

"Earring"

"Seat"

"Time"

"I don't think you could see time" Kakyoin pointed out

"Do you really want to have that metaphysical discussion right now?" Jotaro countered, a smirk playing at her lips

Kakyoin gave in " no but try picking something else"

"Ok" she said "torn ear"

Kakyoin dramatically placed her hand on her heart as she gasped "low blow Jotaro, low blow"

This got her a small smile.

This went on for a while as each one racked their brain for new words to describe the things they saw. It was after an hour of playing did Kakyoin start feeling tired. As if in sync with her thoughts she felt a small bump on her shoulder. Jotaro was sound asleep, her head on her shoulder. Her eyebrows were knitted in agitation. Without thinking Kakyoin placed her thumb between them and ran it across the creases of her forehead, smoothing it out. Even in sleep they were not allowed to rest. How long would they suffer like this.

She was also getting sleepy as well. She felt the warm body heat radiating from Jotaro comforting her, lulling her to sleep. She dropped her head to lean in to her, her eyes fluttering shut. When was the last time she had slept with someone like this or found comfort in physical touch.

She grabbed onto Jotaro's arm hoping that it would be a physical barrier between her and her thoughts. Hoping that when she was pulled back into her dreams that he wouldn't be there.