Chapter Text
Joseph Joestar's grandson has always been. Strange.
Well. He shouldn't say it like that. And - mostly - he doesn't. Jotaro is different. It doesn't bother Joseph, per se, but it is a challenge. His daughter, Joseph always understood. Holly is like him; energetic and expressive and emotional. When she was happy, she smiled; when she was upset, she cried; when she was angry, she screamed bloody murder. He could handle that.
Jotaro is quiet. Reserved, even when he was a child, so young that to call him "reserved" felt ridiculous. His smiles are small, and rare, and he never forces them. He doesn't cry or yell when he's hurt. For a time, Joseph - horribly, disgustingly, he reminds himself when he remembers it - had been convinced the boy didn't feel pain at all, after Jotaro had broken his arm on the way to school and walked himself home, announcing calmly that Holly needed to take him to the hospital. He'd squirmed a bit during the x-ray and let Holly hold him, but never made a sound. He'd been eight at the time.
Jotaro doesn't like change. When Joseph and Suzie moved from their home in Upstate New York to their penthouse in the city, Holly had scolded him over the phone. "Oh no, Papa, Jotaro's going to be so upset! He loved your house! Did you really have to move right before our trip? Don't you remember the couch?"
(Joseph does remember the couch. Remembers Jotaro, six or seven years old, staring at it while his mother explained desperately that the couch Grandma and Grandpa had before just wasn't good anymore, and they needed a new one, and they were very sorry, they knew how much he liked it but that he would come to like this one too.
He remembers Jotaro dragging an uncomfortable - but familiar - chair from the dining room every time the four of them sat down as a family, sitting on it with one short leg tucked to his chest and the other dangling.
He never did come to like the new couch.)
Jotaro had stepped out of the cab, one hand on the brim of a baseball cap, fussing with it. He was eleven, and almost the same height as his mother. He'd eyed the building with something that felt like suspicion, staring past his grandparents the way he did, alternating between looking at their shoulders and the tops of their heads.
Holly had hovered near him. Anxious in a way Joseph could identify and understand. "Jotaro, honey, this is Grandma and Grandpa's new house! Isn't it a nice building? They live all the way at the top! They have such a good view, and we won't have to drive very far to go to Central Park anymore, isn't that great? We can walk now!"
"I don't mind car rides," was all he'd said. He'd proceeded to maintain as much distance between himself and as much of the furniture and fixtures as he could all week, wearing his shoes inside and walking stiffly on the balls of his feet. He'd kept them all busy, running across the city to their favorite parks and museums and restaurants with barely a moment's rest. He'd even sat through a late Broadway show. Anything to delay going back to the penthouse.
Apparently, that was bad, but not disastrous. Holly had suggested diplomatically that maybe he and Suzie come to Japan next time, so as not to disrupt Jotaro's routine, now that he was in middle school and all. The boy didn't even throw tantrums in a way Joseph recognized.
Jotaro is easily frustrated. That's something Joseph can relate to, at least, but even their anger, they approach differently. Joseph is loud and showy, but his grandson might not even let someone know he's cross with them before resorting to a punch. It's led to more than a few issues.
Joseph's favorite memory, that comes to him suddenly when Mohammed Avdol is tricking Jotaro out of his self imposed confinement, is on the beach in Japan, just him and his grandson, a little over eight years ago. Holly had begged him to take Jotaro out of the house - "Please, Papa, Sadao is only home for a few days, can't we have just a little alone time?" - so they'd gone to the sea side. Joseph had let him sit in the front seat, which earned him the smallest of smiles.
"Feet on the floor though," he'd said before starting the car, "and whatever you do, don't tell your father, okay? Or your mother if you can help it, bless her heart but she can't keep a secret!"
Jotaro had sat on his hands and planted his feet, that little smile still quirking his lips.
"Can I get an "Okay!" Jotaro?"
"Okay, Grandpa."
Joseph revved the engine (of his daughter's modest family car that was definitely not built for revving) and Jotaro even giggled, and for the first time it seemed they were on the same page. So, of course, it didn't last.
On the beach, Jotaro seemed to retreat into himself. He sat, with his legs drawn up to his chest on a towel, watching the waves with intensity that didn't belong on a child's face. Joseph had felt like a failure.
"We can go somewhere else if you're not having a good time, Jotaro," he'd offered after an hour of silence. Ever the optimist, he'd worked to spin it. "We have all day! We can go for a hike, or to one of those arcade places -!"
"I'm having a good time, Grandpa," Jotaro had said to Joseph's feet. "But." He reached for a cap that wasn't there. "Can we go look at the tide pools? Mom says I can't go by myself."
A chance to salvage the day! "Of course! You should have said something sooner, silly boy! Lead the way!"
The tide pools, though, had been more of the same. More of Jotaro staring silently at the water, bending over and tipping his head to get a better look at the little creatures making the rocks their home. Hands on his knees or the back of his thighs, studious. Not even offering information on what was there, as Holly had indicated he might. He did scold Joseph once, for putting his hands in the water. "We can't disrupt the pools, Grandpa," he'd said, so seriously it would have registered as adorable if Joseph hadn't been mortified for being told off by a nine year old.
But Jotaro had been happy, in a way even Joseph could read. And Joseph had made him that happy.
Jotaro is seventeen now, and been in prison more than a few times. Joseph has been "Old Man" instead of "Grandpa" for a while. Holly has been "you" or "bitch" or "woman" for just as long. That makes Joseph's blood boil, grandson or not, but, well. Holly always did know Jotaro better than he did..