Chapter Six
Jotaro carried Kakyoin back to the house, worried at how out of it he still seemed to be, and set him on the floor of the bathroom as he grabbed towels and dry clothes.
It was not easy to wrestle the uncooperative Kakyoin out of his wet clothes, but he somehow managed it, drying him off and getting him into his pajamas before he tried to do what he could for his wounds.
Jotaro had learned some first aid on their trip—it wasn't like there hadn't been a lot to practice on, Polnareff alone was one of the most accident-prone people Jotaro had ever seen—so he did what he could for Kakyoin, binding his ankle and cleaning out a cut on his foot. The broken stitches he wasn't as sure about. The wound in Kakyoin's abdomen was mostly healed aside from a couple parts where there were still some stitches. One of which had broken. The bleeding had already stopped though and Jotaro simply cut the stich, cleaning the area and sticking it back together with a butterfly bandage instead.
What worried him most was that Kakyoin still seemed, for the most part, delirious. He'd barely complained as Jotaro took care of him and he was shivering more and more as well, his skin pale and cold.
Once he'd finished with the first aid, Jotaro carried Kakyoin back to his room and got him in bed, adding the blankets from his own bedding on top of Kakyoin's. He knew the most important thing right now was getting him warm.
Star Platinum crouched at his side, and Jotaro ran a hand over his face tiredly before realizing he was still in soaked clothes himself.
"Good grief," he muttered before he went to change.
Before he even got back to Kakyoin's side, the redhead was shifting restlessly in his delirious state.
"P-please," he murmured. "I—I thought…"
"Kakyoin," Jotaro called, lowering himself to kneel beside his friend's bed, gripping Kakyoin's shoulder through the blankets. "Calm down."
Kakyoin turned his head away, face creased in either pain or distress. Jotaro reached under the blanket to touch Kakyoin's hand to check his temperature and realized it was still like ice. He frowned. Should he try making some tea? He needed to get Kakyoin warm.
He left to go to the kitchen and make tea, glancing at the phone. He wondered if he should call Kakyoin's parents, but decided that it was possible Kakyoin would be fine after a couple hours of sleep. After all, he hadn't been in the water for more than maybe ten minutes. It was his friend's mental state that was worrying Jotaro more than the possibility of hypothermia.
He made the tea, and then let it steep and cool for a few minutes as he sat and watched Kakyoin's restless sleep.
He bit his lip and reached out to shake him. "Kakyoin. Hey, wake up."
Kakyoin's eyes opened slightly which was encouraging but he still didn't seem to actually be seeing what was around him. Jotaro sighed and shifted to sit on the side of the bed, propping Kakyoin up with one arm while he held the tea for him. He could still feel the shudders of cold running through Kakyoin's body. "Come on, drink this. You need to get warm."
Kakyoin moaned, trying to shift away, but Jotaro propped him up more comfortably and put the mug of tea next to his lips. "Come on. Just a little."
He tipped some of the hot tea into Kakyoin's mouth, and his friend swallowed convulsively, coughing slightly. He reached up and batted Jotaro's hand away.
Star Platinum snatched up the mug before it spilled, setting it on the side table as Jotaro sighed and lowered Kakyoin back into the bed.
"All right, we'll try again later, then."
Star Platinum hovered worriedly over both of them. Jotaro turned to his Stand. "I don't know what to do," he said quietly.
Star Platinum gave him a sympathetic look but obviously there was nothing he could do either. He was just a part of Jotaro.
Jotaro simply sat and watched as Kakyoin got more and more restless, a flush reddening his cheeks as his chill was replaced by a fever. He honestly felt pretty helpless. He had no idea how to take care of a sick person. He hadn't exactly been that responsive in recent years to his mom caring for him when he was sick and he didn't really remember what she had done when he was a kid, except making him soup and singing him lullabies and stroking his hair—both of which Jotaro was pretty sure neither he nor Kakyoin would enjoy.
And worst of all, he couldn't help but think this was his fault. It was stupid, he knew, considering he'd told Polnareff not too long ago that he hadn't been responsible for Avdol and Iggy or Kakyoin's situations, and now he was doing the same thing.
Except he actually was to blame in this instance. He just hadn't realized Kakyoin would nearly get himself drowned because of it. And why? Because he thought he saw Hierophant Green in the water? Kakyoin hadn't been making sense and it just worried Jotaro more. This whole situation had really damaged his friend, in maybe more ways than they had all realized. He just really hoped it wasn't permanent.
Jotaro was so lost in his dark thoughts, he didn't realize Kakyoin's mother had returned home until she passed the open door to the room and gasped, stepping inside.
"Noriaki?"
Jotaro jumped almost guiltily and stood from his spot by the bed as Kakyoin's mother dashed forward and instantly bent over her son.
"What happened?" she asked.
"He…had an accident at the park," Jotaro said hesitantly, not wanting to tell the actual truth after all. "Fell into the pond."
"What were you doing at the park, it's been cold and rainy all day?" she demanded.
Jotaro bit his lip. "I…Kakyoin got mad at me, I thought he just went outside to cool off, but when I went to look for him he was at the park and I guess he'd slipped into the pond, got his foot stuck. I got him warmed up but…" He shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry. I did what I could."
Her expression softened and to Jotaro's surprise, she reached out and touched his cheek. "Don't worry, Jotaro, I don't blame you. It looks like you took care of him very well. He didn't hit his head, did he?"
"No, I think it's the fever that's making him delirious." That was a good cover anyway, and probably partly true.
Kakyoin's mother nodded and straightened up. "He likely caught a chill. After everything he's been through his constitution is probably more delicate than usual. We'll have to try and get his fever down. Can you get some wet cloths from the bathroom?"
Jotaro nodded, having forgotten about that. He hurried off to do the task and returned to find Kakyoin's mother propping the young man up against her as she coaxed him awake enough to take some medicine. Kakyoin was a lot more responsive to her and she stroked his forehead tenderly, accepting one of the cloths that Jotaro handed her, using it to dab Kakyoin's face and neck.
"Let's get rid of some of these blankets; they won't do him any good with the fever," she said matter-of-factly and Jotaro helped peel all but one back. Kakyoin shivered, but Jotaro could feel how warm he was from the residual heat of the blankets.
Kakyoin moaned and shifted, his face scrunched up as he murmured something unintelligible. Kakyoin's mother's brow pinched as she soothed the cool cloth over her son's face, stroking his hair gently. "I wish he would talk to me," she said softly. "Noriaki never did like to talk to me or his father about what was bothering him, he's always been independent, but…this isn't just school bullies." She turned toward Jotaro and looked at him almost pleadingly. "Can you say anything? Tell me anything at all about what happened?"
Jotaro felt his chest tighten, wishing he could say something. He was sure it was hard for Mrs. Kakyoin to not even be able to fathom what had happened. After all, her son had disappeared, then returned after three months with a stranger, recovering from horrific wounds and the trauma to go with them. It would have been one thing to say he'd been kidnapped, or gotten into a terrible accident, but it would be a lie and wouldn't cover half of what any of them had been through.
Jotaro ducked his head and tugged his hat over his eyes instinctively. "I can't," he whispered, genuinely sorry.
Kakyoin's mother sighed, but seemed to accept it. "Then I hope whatever fight you had will mark progress once he gets better."
"Yeah, me too," Jotaro said, but he didn't feel very confident in that. He wasn't even sure Kakyoin would want to see him here once he was lucid again. But he certainly wasn't going to leave his friend like this.
It was a long night. Kakyoin's mother made soup and got Kakyoin to mostly wake up and drink some broth, though he still seemed out of it and his fever refused to go down.
She nursed him late into the night while Jotaro sat up and read, too worried to sleep, listening to Kakyoin's mother whisper soothing things to her son when he got restless, constantly bathing his brow.
But she had work in the morning, having already taken too many days off caring for Kakyoin before, so Jotaro volunteered to watch over him.
Mrs. Kakyoin seemed slightly reluctant to leave her son's side, but also looked grateful. She patted Jotaro's cheek before she left him.
Jotaro awkwardly took up the cloth and bathed Kakyoin's forehead. He was sweating now, which Jotaro thought was a good thing, a sign of the fever breaking. Maybe Kakyoin would be fine by morning.
He did eventually seem to settle down after a few frantic starts from nightmares and Jotaro could tell it wasn't just his imagination that Kakyoin's fever was going down.
He eventually sat down with his back against Kakyoin's bed, arms folded over his chest. He was tired, maybe he would sleep too. He grabbed his coat from the chair he'd thrown it over to dry off earlier, and draped it over himself like a blanket.
Something fluttered to the floor, and Jotaro frowned, reaching for it.
It was the Polaroid that they'd taken in the desert. Bittersweet memories made his chest ache slightly as he saw all of them smiling, and the friends they would never see again.
Almost reverently, he set the photo on Kakyoin's bedside table and pulled his hat over his eyes as he tipped his head back against Kakyoin's bed and fell asleep.
Kakyoin surfaced from sleep slowly. His head ached and he fought to remember exactly what had happened. Visions of Hierophant flickering on the rain-spattered water danced across his mind's eye and he squeezed his eyes shut so hard that colors exploded across his vision. Had it really all been a dream? And what had happened between then and now? All he remembered was a lot of awful dreams, interspersed with his mother's caring hands and Jotaro's worried face.
Jotaro…Kakyoin had told him to leave, and the other young man probably had. Though he'd dragged Kakyoin back to his bed first, obviously, otherwise he probably would have drowned in the pond like an idiot.
A useless idiot without a Stand, and too broken to function without one.
He finally forced his eyes open to brave the world again and blinked up at his ceiling. He made to sit up, but his stomach ached, and he grunted, resting a hand across it, wondering if he'd hurt himself again since it was so sore.
He reached his other hand out to try and grab the edge of the bed to help himself up when his hand hit something that grunted.
He blinked and finally glanced over to see Jotaro sitting slumped against his bed, stirring and reaching up to swat the back of his head.
"Jotaro?" Kakyoin asked, genuinely surprised to see the other young man there.
Jotaro jerked around, blinking away sleep. "Kakyoin? You all right?"
"You're still here," was all Kakyoin could say, still processing.
Jotaro scoffed, adjusting his hat. "Good grief. You know, I never took you for an idiot."
"What do you mean?" Kakyoin asked, slightly offended.
Jotaro looked up at him from under the brim of his hat. "That you'd think I'd leave just because you told me to. Dumbass."
Kakyoin felt something unknot from inside his chest and he actually found himself smiling slightly. "I didn't really mean it, you know."
"That's why I didn't leave," Jotaro said, getting off the floor and stretching knots from his back with a grunt. "I didn't go to all that work yanking you out of the pond to skip out on you."
Kakyoin felt his eyes prick and blinked hurriedly. "Thanks," he whispered after a while.
Jotaro was silent, watching him before he sat down at Kakyoin's desk, crossing one ankle over his opposite knee. "So, what happened out there? You were kind of out of it."
Kakyoin looked away, reaching up to tug his hair, pulling a little hard against his scalp in his anxiety. "I…I don't know. I don't even know if it was real."
"You seemed pretty convinced before."
"And like you said, I was out of it," Kakyoin said quickly.
Jotaro was silent for a moment then said slowly, "You said you saw Hierophant."
A pang in his chest again. "I guess I was wrong."
"You ended up in that pond for a reason."
Kakyoin's hands clenched in the blanket pooled at his lap. "Can you just drop it?" he snapped. "I don't want to talk about this."
Jotaro nodded respectfully and thankfully dropped the matter, standing up. "I'll get you a drink of water."
He left the room and Kakyoin released his hands from their grip on the blanket, finding them trembling. He took a shuddering breath and glanced over as something on his bedside table caught his eye.
He frowned, and reached out to pick it up, seeing it was the polaroid they'd taken in Egypt. Jotaro must have had it with him. A deep ache settled into Kakyoin's chest as he dropped it back onto the table. He wished he didn't just feel grief as he looked at it, but he didn't think things were going to change a lot in that aspect.
He had to use the restroom and he angrily pushed his blankets back and swung his legs over to get up.
Pain shot through his ankle and he cried out, instantly collapsing on the floor, wrenching his stomach wound as well, which stole his breath and made nausea rise.
"Hey, you all right?"
Jotaro hurried over and reached down to help him up, but Kakyoin slapped his hands away.
"I'm fine! Would you leave me the hell alone for two seconds?!"
"Noriaki! What happened?"
Kakyoin bit back his anger as his mother entered the room, squeezing Jotaro's arm as she passed him and crouched beside Kakyoin, wrapping her arms under his and helping him back into the bed.
"I'm fine," Kakyoin gritted out, watching Jotaro leave the room out of the corner of his eye.
"Did you forget the ankle?" his mother asked with concern, bending to inspect the appendage as Kakyoin clenched his jaw. "It looks all right, but you should probably try to rest it for a few days." She stood and stroked his hair back. "You really shouldn't be so short with Jotaro, sweetie, it was so nice of him to come here and be with you. He was really worried yesterday. We all were."
Kakyoin clenched his hands into fists on his knees. "I'm sorry all I seem to be able to do anyone is worry people."
His mother's eyes turned sad with a hopeless expression and Kakyoin couldn't even bother to feel bad about it. He wasn't exactly feeling hopeful himself. His mother bent to kiss his forehead. "I'll bring you breakfast."
Kakyoin slumped back into bed. He heard Jotaro talking to his parents a bit in the kitchen, but wasn't paying much attention. He knew he should stop snapping at Jotaro, and yet he just felt so on edge, his whole body tense, and there was a knot inside his chest that felt like it was either going to squeeze his heart to pieces, or explode.