Fic for the RWCW Guild Shared Dreams story challenge prompt. Not the best thing I've ever written, but I hope you guys all enjoy it anyway :)

Have some Dadtaro

Enter Sandman

A JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Fanfic

Josuke sighed wearily as he waited around the back of a building, wondering when hunting down Stand users after school had become part of his life.

But yet, here he was, trying to track down a Stand user on busy streets with Jotaro on orders from the Speedwagon Foundation.

There had been a rash of strange dreams going around Morioh, dreams that seemed more like nightmarish memories no one remembered having. After a couple people had gone into comas, seeming unable to wake up from these strange dreams, they'd decided it was time to take action and find out if it really was the work of an enemy Stand; maybe one left over from Kira's father's rampage.

Josuke shivered at just the thought of Kira and his insane ghost father. While he might have fully recovered psychically from his injuries, aside from a couple scars, he wouldn't really call himself recovered. He certainly didn't need an enemy Stand to give him nightmares.

He was startled by a blip on the walkie-talkie he was carrying and Jotaro's voice came over the static. "Josuke, he's coming your way."

Josuke looked around, manifesting Crazy Diamond, but didn't see anything. At least not yet.

A few seconds passed and still nothing. Josuke frowned and raised the walkie-talkie. "Jotaro, I don't see anything," he said.

"Josuke!"

Josuke looked up to see Jotaro in front of him, coming around the corner of the building. He was already running by the time Josuke realized he should turn around.

Something slammed into him, and Josuke hit the side of the building hard enough to daze him.

"Star Platinum!" Jotaro shouted.

"Enter Sandman," another voice sounded out and Josuke scrambled to his feet with Crazy Diamond just in time to see a grey cloud of smoke explode out of the dark figure that had hit him.

"Agh!" he cried as whatever it was got in his eyes, feeling gritty. "Crazy Diamond!"

His Stand punched through the smoke and hit something. A voice cried out, and then Jotaro was rushing past him, Star Platinum a streak of blue and purple.

"Ora!"

Another cry and then the smoke dissipated. Josuke rubbed at his eyes until he saw Jotaro and Star standing over the collapsed form of a skinny man, blood streaming from his nose.

"It's too late," the man was sneering. "My Sandman has already affected you even if you don't know it yet!"

"Shut up," Jotaro growled and kicked the man in the jaw, effectively knocking him out. Star Platinum dissipated and Jotaro turned to Josuke. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Josuke said, rubbing his head. "Sorry I didn't catch him sooner."

Jotaro blinked and pulled a handkerchief from his coat, rubbing his eyes with a glower. Josuke bit his lip. "Umm…you think this will still have an effect?"

"Don't know. Probably not, since he's going to be leaving the town soon. I doubt his powers will still work on the people here once he's outside of Morioh."

Josuke nodded, feeling a little better.

Jotaro called in the local Speedwagon agents and the men came to pick up the Stand User, transporting him off to wherever they usually took the Stand users. Josuke yawned. Man, he really was tired today.

"You can go home now," Jotaro said, startling Josuke who glanced up to see the older man watching him.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yeah. You did all right today. Just let me know if you have any weird side-effects from the attack."

Josuke's stomach flipped but he nodded, hoping Jotaro was right about the distance causing the Stand user's abilities to lose their potency.

By the time he got home, it was already time for dinner and he gratefully sank down at the table to eat.

His mom glanced at him with a frown, shaking her head. "You really need to get more sleep," she said.

Josuke sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "Yeah, I know. I'm trying."

She gave him a concerned look but didn't say anything. Josuke knew it was hard that she didn't know everything about what had happened, but he couldn't exactly tell her either.

Still, he was exhausted. After he finished some homework, he was seriously just too tired to do anything else and crawled into bed.

Maybe he actually would be able to get some sleep that night.

After making all the necessary reports to the Speedwagon agents and seeing the Stand user out of Morioh, Jotaro went back to his hotel room, feeling pretty worn out. Maybe it was the pressure he'd been under lately, what with hunting down Kira, cleaning up his mess, watching over Josuke as he recovered, and on top of all of that, writing his thesis, which he was quickly running out of time to do. Jotaro wasn't exactly accustomed to sleep, but he had been getting even less of it lately.

He sighed as he pulled his coat off and folded it over the back of a chair. He called dinner into his room and sat down to work.

After he ate though, Jotaro found that he could not concentrate on his research. He was just too tired. He rubbed his eyes, frowning as he felt some of the remaining grittiness from that Stand's attack. He shouldn't sleep. He didn't know what would happen if he did, if the user was far enough away to still affect him, and yet…

He glanced toward his bed with a longing he rarely felt and shook himself, getting up to grab another cup of coffee. He wasn't going to give into this. Not while he still had so much work to get done.

He sat back down at his desk and started writing again, but before long, he felt his head inexplicably drawn to the desk and there was nothing he could do about it…

Jotaro found himself standing on a sidewalk, staring down Yoshikage Kira. But this was not from the time he and Koichi had been attacked at the shoe store, this was different. That kid, Hayato, was standing off to one side, screaming in warning.

Jotaro whipped his head around just in time for Okuyasu to come running up to jump in front of him to attack Kira.

"No!" he shouted, the cry torn from his throat without him realizing it was happening.

There was an explosion of red and Okuyasu collapsed on the ground, body half blown apart.

Jotaro screamed and reached for him, again, seemingly unable to control his actions, but Kira laughed, striding slowly toward him.

"Do it, he'll take you with him. Killer Queen has already touched him, Josuke. You can't save your friend now."

Josuke? Wait…

Jotaro blinked in realization. This wasn't his nightmare. It was Josuke's.

That must be what Enter Sandman's ability was.

And if that was the case…

Jotaro fought to wake up, pull himself out of the dream, but nothing was working. Kira was only coming closer as his own body trembled, wanting to reach for Okuyasu who only seemed to get farther and farther away.

"You have to leave him!" Hayato was screaming at him, tugging his arm. "Josuke! He's dead! You have to leave him! He's dead!"

"He's not! I can heal him!" Jotaro snapped, playing Josuke's part in the dream as he watched through his own eyes. "Crazy Diamond!"

But no Stand appeared. Not Crazy Diamond or Star Platinum. He tried again but there was still nothing. Kira was laughing.

"See? I won. Fate is on my side today Josuke Higashikata."

"No! Okuyasu!" Jotaro cried as he reached forward to grab the injured teen.

He was met with something sifting through his fingers, nothing but dust. He watched, disconcerted, as Okuyasu crumbled into dust in his hands, completely slipping away.

"No, don't! Okuyasu!" he cried.

"ORA!"

Jotaro broke from the strange performance of Josuke's part in the dream as he glanced up to see Star Platinum hovering behind him. The Stand reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Ora!" He jerked Jotaro backwards and everything went dark.

Jotaro jolted upright with a gasp, sweat beading on his brow and chest heaving from labored breaths. He felt a ghostly grip on his shoulder and looked up to see Star staring down at him from where he hovered at his side, a concerned look on his face.

Jotaro rubbed his eyes, realizing he was still at his desk. He glanced outside, saw light out the window and then at the clock, realizing it was already eight am and he had slept the entire night through with that strange nightmare.

He groaned, and stood, swaying slightly before he could steady himself. "Thanks, Star," he muttered, then stumbled into the shower, washing the sleep from him.

That was…really bizarre, and also disturbing. Were those the kind of nightmares Josuke had all the time? Not that Jotaro was surprised. Despite the years that had passed, he still couldn't escape the nightmares most nights either, and this whole ordeal had only worked to reactivate a lot of them. Good thing he didn't have a lot of time to sleep.

He just really hoped Josuke hadn't suffered similarly…

He got out of the shower, the instant the phone rang and cursed, letting it ring for now while he dried off. But as soon as the ringtone ended, it started up again and Jotaro growled in annoyance and wrapped the towel around his waist, storming out of the bathroom to grab the phone.

"What?" he demanded.

"Jotaro? Is that you? It's Tomoko," the voice on the other end said and Jotaro instantly recognized that something was wrong in her voice and any annoyance he felt melted away.

"Is something wrong?" he asked her.

"I don't…I don't know what to do, but Josuke won't wake up. It's like he's trapped in some sort of nightmare. I don't know why, but I thought I should call you before calling a doctor…"

Jotaro inhaled sharply. "Don't worry about it. I'll be right there to see if I can wake him up."

"Thank you."

He ended the call, quickly got dressed and then hurried out of the hotel, a pit in his stomach.

If they had really swapped nightmares, he didn't want to think about what Josuke might be experiencing right now.

Josuke had no idea where he was. It looked like he was on the street of some city in the middle of the night but there was no one around. And yet, he could hear something like water falling, trickling down.

He wandered down the street, confused, until something dripped on his shoulder and he reached up to wipe it off, frowning at his hand as he saw the water wasn't clear but…red.

More dripped down around his feet and he stepped out of the way, before looking up and seeing the source of it.

There seemed to be some sort of damaged water tower raining down on the street below. But there was something else there among the wreckage and though Josuke got a pit in his stomach, he couldn't really tell what it was.

He knew he didn't want to look, and yet, in the strange ways of dreams, he found himself a second later, on top of the building, approaching the dripping water tower slowly. The sound of the water was deafening up here, the rush like a waterfall but there was also another sound like a plinking of viscous liquid dropping into a pool of water.

Josuke opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He couldn't stop himself from approaching either. He seemed completely at the will of some other force.

And then he finally saw the water tower wreckage up close and stopped with a gasp, his heart in his throat.

There was a body lying there! A red-headed boy who looked to be about Josuke's age, wearing a school uniform with a huge hole punched through his middle. The water was spilling around him, but the blood was also flowing, making the second, louder sound as it fell to the ground below.

"Kakyoin!" he screamed, shocking himself.

Who the hell was Kakyoin? Was it the boy? And how did he know that? Josuke had never seen the other student in his life…

Could he…maybe use Crazy Diamond to heal him? Was that what he was supposed to do in this dream?

"You're too late, Jotaro. I've already killed him. And the rest of your friends too. You're all alone now."

Josuke spun around to see a tall blond man in a ridiculous outfit standing on the roof behind him. And…wait, why did he call him Jotaro?

"Dio," he said, again without knowing why and then it struck him.

Dio! That was the vampire that the Joestar family had had a feud with for years before Jotaro and Joseph had gone to Egypt to kill him. This wasn't even his dream, it must be Jotaro's! Is that what that Stand they fought could do?

"You think you'll be able to escape me, Jotaro? You have no chance. You're pathetic. You couldn't save your friends, how could you ever manage to save yourself?"

Josuke clenched his fists, fury rising at this Dio that had nothing to do with him playing the role of Jotaro.

Something flew out of the darkness and slammed into him. Josuke cried out, pain shooting through him as he was thrown off the side of the building, falling and falling, until he crashed into the ground.

Dio flew gracefully down, landing beside him as he strode over to stand above Josuke, a cruel grin on his face. "Pathetic. Look at you."

More knives appeared and Dio seemed to take pleasure in stabbing them into Josuke's body, pinning him to the ground as he screamed in agony.

Then Dio disappeared for a long moment before he came back, dragging a body. "But Jotaro, I'm not entirely cruel. I will let you see your dear friends again, one last time. Now that they are mine."

More figures came out of the shadows. A man with tall silver hair, and another with dark skin, both of them had red eyes and a look of hunger in them. When they licked their lips, Josuke saw fangs.

"Avdol, Polnareff," Josuke whispered the names from Jotaro's memory.

"You failed us, left us alone to die," the men said, snarling.

Dio chuckled and Josuke whipped his head around to see him holding the red-headed boy's body, which was shuddering as he set it on its feet. "They're all mine, now, Jotaro. Look, Kakyoin, aren't you happy that your first meal will be the one who sent you to your death?"

Kakyoin's eyes opened and fixed on Jotaro, hissing in hunger. "It's all your fault I died," he growled, taking a step forward.

Another step sounded from Josuke's other side and he whipped his head around, breathing heavily as he saw another figure, which he could only assume was a younger Joseph, also staggering toward him with a growl.

"Old man," he muttered, trying to move, but all the knives were stuck into him, keeping him pinned and sending pain shooting through him.

Dio laughed cruelly. "Now, my loyal followers. Have your first meal as mine. Take him."

Josuke cried out in terror as all of the newly turned vampires surged toward him and fell on him, tearing him apart as he struggled and cried out.

"You did this to them, Jotaro," Dio told him. "So endure the damage you wrought."

Josuke tried to wake up, break out of this nightmare, anything, but he couldn't. All he could do was scream as he was subjected to a nightmare that wasn't his, and yet it was one he could relate to more than he was willing to admit.

Tomoko let Jotaro in as soon as he got to the door.

"What happened?" he asked her, already following her up to Josuke's room.

"I don't know, he was just so tired last night, and he's been having nightmares since…the accident," she replied. Jotaro winced, knowing exactly the kind of nightmares Josuke had been having now. "And he seems to be stuck in one now, and I can't wake him up. I've tried everything. Even splashing him with cold water."

Jotaro pressed his lips together as he opened the door to Josuke's room, seeing him rigid and shaking as he lay in the bed, face contorted with agony as a cry escaped his throat.

"You don't think this is part of that strange sickness going around? Putting people in comas?" Tomoko asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"No. That's been taken care of," Jotaro told her simply before he leaned over the bed and reached out to grab Josuke by the shoulder, but all he did was jerk away with a cry.

"Ah! No! A-Avdol, stop! Kakyoin! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Jotaro froze, breath catching in his throat.

"That's the other thing, he keeps calling for people I've never heard of before," Tomoko said simply.

Jotaro had to swallow hard to get his composure back. "G-get him something warm to drink. I'm going to wake him up."

Tomoko stared at him for a long moment, but finally left the room.

Jotaro took a breath to steady himself and called Star out. The Stand gripped Josuke's shoulders and shook him.

"Josuke!" Jotaro snapped loudly. "It's just a dream. Wake up. This isn't your nightmare."

It seemed like the instant Star touched the boy, Josuke gasped, a change coming over him, and he relaxed on the bed for a brief second before his eyes flew open, red-rimmed. He flailed, Crazy Diamond appearing before Jotaro leaned over and grabbed his shoulders.

"Hey, it's just me, kid. Easy," he said.

Josuke seemed to be in so much shock, he simply surged upright and latched onto Jotaro, clinging to him as his breath choked in his throat.

Jotaro was forced to sit on the side of the bed so as not to fall on the kid, and wrapped an arm awkwardly around him, frowning as he felt Josuke's trembling.

Tomoko chose that moment to come in with a cup of tea and gasped in relief. "Josuke!"

Jotaro held a hand out to her though, not knowing how Josuke would react to another person yet. She held back, carefully placing the cup on the bedside table. Jotaro nodded at her. Then spoke quietly over Josuke's head, "Let me get him calmed down and aware of where he is."

Tomoko pressed her lips into a thin line, not looking pleased, but thankfully seeing the sense in his request. She stepped out of the room. "I'll make you tea too," she told him.

Jotaro finally looked back down at the terrified kid in his arms, seeing his hair was a wreck and a sheen of sweat was apparent on his pale face.

"Josuke?" he called quietly. "You're okay. It's just me. That wasn't your nightmare. You don't have to worry about it."

Another shudder ran through Josuke and Jotaro remembered how disoriented he'd felt after he'd woken up too. Jotaro sighed and leaned Josuke more comfortably against his chest, rubbing his back in awkward but hopefully soothing motions.

Finally, Josuke raised his head, and blinked up at him with red eyes. "J-Jotaro?"

Jotaro nodded, pushing him back a little. "How are you doing?"

Josuke looked up, glancing around the room. "I…I don't know." His eyes returned to Jotaro's, looking haunted. "I…that dream."

Jotaro looked away and grabbed the tea, allowing Josuke to settle back against his pillows. "Don't worry about it, it was just that guy's Stand at work, leftover side-effects I guess."

"B-but it was your dream," Josuke whispered. "Did…did you…?"

Jotaro sighed and realized there was no getting out of this now. And well, he supposed if it helped the kid to talk about it, then that was something he could probably endure.

"I think we swapped dreams," he stated.

Josuke frowned before his face suddenly shut down and he looked into the tea. "Oh," was all he said, shifting uncomfortably before he seemed to switch gears. "Uh…hope it wasn't anything too, er…" he tried to grin, but it fell flat.

Jotaro felt his heart wrench for the kid. How he wished it had just been an awkward teenage dream.

"Josuke, it's not uncommon to have nightmares after something like that happens to you," he said quietly. "I—I still have them. From things I went through ten years ago."

Josuke looked up at him, hands clenched around the mug, trembling. "I didn't know," he said in a small voice. "I…you…you lost people, didn't you? When you went to fight Dio."

Jotaro had to look away, jaw clenched. Just hearing that name always brought back too many memories. "Yeah. It was a dangerous mission. We lost two—no—three good men. But we all knew the risks."

Josuke stared at him though. "But…that doesn't make it easier."

Jotaro whipped around to look at him, surprised.

Josuke met his eyes. "It was…hard enough for me to almost lose Okuyasu like that. I can't imagine…if I hadn't been able to heal him… if he hadn't come back…" He clenched his teeth and looked down with a soft sound, biting his lip. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Jotaro stared at the kid for a long moment before he finally reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "So am I," he said.

Josuke looked up at him, face pinched. "But—but I didn't lose my friends like you did! In fact, I feel terrible for all the nightmares I have now. Because I can wake up and know they aren't true, but you—"

"Don't," Jotaro told him quietly. "Don't feel bad. I'm glad you didn't have to go through the same thing I did, Josuke. Really. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I'm sorry you had to experience those dreams that weren't yours. You have enough to deal with as it is."

Josuke slumped and set the tea aside, wrapping his arms around himself. "It won't stop, will it?" he asked and sounded so young, Jotaro felt his heart clench. Josuke might only be a year younger than he was when he went to Egypt, but sometimes he just seemed so much younger.

"I can't say that for certain," Jotaro told him truthfully. "Everyone deals with trauma differently. I know I don't have those dreams every night, but I did for a while and sometimes when certain things trigger memories, I have them again. But…" he paused, looking at Josuke's exhausted face. "Things…tend to get easier with time. And while your subconscious deals with the guilt, you can still learn how to deal with it consciously as well."

Josuke sighed deeply and gave him a small smile. "Maybe…maybe both of us will eventually stop having those dreams then."

Jotaro sighed and reached out to squeeze his shoulder again. "I hope someday that will be the case. Until then, just remember, that there's always morning on the other side."

Josuke let out a soft sigh at that and leaned forward until his head was pressed against Jotaro's shoulder, a not so subtle call for psychical touch.

"Good grief," Jotaro muttered, always feeling like he was terrible at this kind of thing, but wrapped his arms around the kid all the same, feeling Josuke relax against him.

"Thanks," he mumbled against Jotaro's chest.

Jotaro's lips pulled up into a partial smile. "No problem, kid."

He supposed that if sharing a few nightmares helped both of them open up a little and get a bit closer, then maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all.