Chapter Text
Some days, John Joestar wished he was born in a different family. There weren’t any particularly bad reasons for this, unless one counted how embarrassing his father could be when he did nearly anything. He was an affectionate man, and John conceded that he couldn’t have asked for a better parent, but that did not excuse him being pulled into a bear hug, in public, while he had balloons with ‘Good luck at College!’ and ‘I’m so proud of you’ tied to his hat.
“You can let go of me now.” John said, gasping for air. Sometimes his Dad didn’t know his own strength.
Dad Joestar let him go, eventually, but not quick enough for John. He nodded to his son, and patted his shoulder, his expression inscrutable but for a slight twitch of his mouth. He was a man of few words, but his son found that he could understand him easily enough.
“I’ll miss you too Dad.”
Nod. Hat tip.
“Nah, everyone already left for college. It’s too bad nobody else got into RSU.”
Head shake. Sigh.
“Oh come on, you don’t have to come!” John yelled, blushing.
Smile. Pocket fumbling.
“You actually bought a ticket. Daaaaaaaaaad.”
Nod.
“I’ll be fine. If I’m in trouble I’ll call, alright?”
Sigh. Pipe taken out of pocket.
“No smoking Dad.” He groaned.
Head shake.
“Good, we don’t want a repeat of Atlanta, right Dad?”
Head shake. Pipe placed in John’s hand.
“But...” Besides a cigarette or two during a party John didn’t smoke. “...ah.”
Nod. Single tear from eye.
“I’ll miss you too.” John said, trying not to tear up.
He hugged his old man again, a little faster this time, since they just announced the boarding call for his flight. Ignoring the expressions of some of the passengers who took some mild entertainment from that little scene with Dad, he boarded the plane without much fuss. He took his seat somewhere in the middle of the plane, by a window. It was pretty comfortable for economy class, and he found himself quickly drifting to sleep.
He was standing in the middle of a field of flowers, the wind blowing through him. He closed his eyes and spread his arms, feeling the wind against his face, his jacket billowing against the breeze. Since he was a city boy John rarely got to experience weather like this, but he took most opportunities he could get to experience the wind against his face. It was a nice compared to how stuffy it could be in Portland during the summer. Sure, the temperature wasn’t always that bad back home, but it was different out here. For one thing, he didn’t have to smell the noxious odors every city seemed to have, even if Portland’s supposed to be cleaner than most. It’s just something you can’t escape when living in an urban environment.
Speaking of, John didn’t recall getting to this field. It must be a dream, he decided. Yes, that made sense. He didn’t usually remember his dreams however, besides a few vague blurs he’d forget as soon as he got himself some breakfast. As soon as he woke up all this would be, well, a dream to him. Even so, this dream felt strange. For one thing, his surroundings felt eerily familiar, even though John was certain he’d never been to a field like this before. He HAD gone somewhere similar at least, but that place didn’t have flowers, and there were hills in the horizon that had-
Windmills on top of them. The tall, white ones they used for power plants. Just like the one in front of him. The one that he was pretty sure wasn’t there before. John looked around him, turning his head this way and that. As he did so, the flower field gave way to rolling hills, to more windmills, and to a tornado coming down towards him, even though the sky was clear as day. He’d never seen or heard a tornado this close before, and if he stayed where he was then he’d see it even closer than he ever had, and pop his eardrums to boot. For a second he felt his heart stop, until John remembered that this was all just a dream. All he needed to do was think and that tornado was gone.
Okay.
The tornado is not gone.
It is in fact coming closer, gaining speed as it neared him. The windmills it passed by were sucked up, torn out of the ground like metal trees. Now, John knew perfectly well that this was just a dream, but from how that thing was moving he wasn’t sure the tornado knew that too. Running away seemed like a good idea by now, but his legs felt heavy, and a voice in his head was saying against all logic that he stand his ground. And as his mind asserted that thought, John heard something beyond the oncoming wind. He heard laughter.
“What’s the matter?” A voice said behind him.
“Huh?” Against his better judgement he turned around, and found himself standing face to face with a young woman.
She had dark brown skin, and stood almost a head above him. She was built like an athlete, almost as muscular as he was, which said a lot. The Joestars were had good genes, his dad said, which accounted for how John was pushing 6 feet when he was only 15, and how he was 6 and a half at 18. She wore a yellow sundress, and smiled as if a natural disaster coming down on their heads was about the most pleasant thing she’d seen today.
“I don’t know if you notice but there’s kind of a huge tornado about to blow us both away to Oz.” He pointed at the incoming tornado, which for some reason had a cow flying around it now.
“Oh, that?” She shrugged, twirling a lock of her long, long hair that didn’t seem to be affected by the wind. “That’s not a problem!”
“I’m pretty sure a giant windy thing about destroy everything around it is a problem.” John deadpanned.
“Nonsense! I know just how to fix it!”
John rolled his eyes. This was just a dream after all, so he might as well indulge her. “Alright mystery girl I’ve never seen before in my life, how are you going to fix it?”
“Oh, that’s silly John!” She brought a hand over her mouth and giggled. “I can’t fix it, but you can!”
“What.” How did she know his name? “How!?”
“I...” She disappeared, reappearing a few feet away without having moved at all. That would probably have been concerning if John didn’t keep repeating to himself that this was just a dream. “Don’t know!”
“Thanks mystery girl in my head, that’s super useful.” John’s shoulders slumped. He wasn’t even worried about the incoming tornado anymore, or how he could still hear the woman perfectly well despite all the noise that came from an incoming twister.
She giggled again, placing a hand on the sunhat that was most certainly not there a second ago, her other hand pointing to the twister, knees bent slightly with one foot in front of the other. “Well, maybe I do know, but I don’t think I should tell you. That would be cheating!”
“Oh come on!” John raised his arms up in exasperation. “There’s a tornado coming right at us and while this might be a dream I don’t want to take any chances!”
The tornado was getting closer, the noise deafening. More things were being drawn into it, things that frankly don’t make sense to him; he could see pages, hundreds upon hundreds of them, as well as record discs and flowers of equal number. He saw a giant top hat and a mailman’s truck, and weirdly enough Judge Dredd. The original, not the pretty good but not as great as the first one remake version. He was waving at him, and when he narrowed his eyes at him it looked like he was shooting at the tornado.
Now, John had just about enough of this weird dream. In most movies dreams were chock full of hidden meanings, and it dawned on him that all this was probably a metaphor for something. He couldn’t be bothered to think of what it could mean however, since those dream portent things only made sense after it happened. He always thought that it was a stupid plot device, and now that it was maybe happening to him it looked even dumber.
“Auuugh, I just want this end!” He placed a hand on his face, slouching even lower. “What do I have to do, punch the thing?”
The girl looked at him with a sheepish grin, shrugging.
John slapped his forehead, groaning. “Wow, you’re serious.” The tornado was literally in front of them right now, and should by all rights have sucked him and the mystery girl in. If the tornado had a face it would have the same expression as John’s. And would actually have a spot where he could punch it. “Here goes nothing.”
He stepped back, took a deep breath, raised a fist, and punched straight into the twister.
“Huh. I thought that would work.” The girl said.
Nothing happened. For about half a second, until the whole thing exploded.
When he came to, John was at his seat on the plane, evidently the only passenger left on board. A flight attendant was politely nudging him to wake up and get out of the plane, which he did. He yawned, pushing up his glasses and rubbing his eye as he left his seat and went into the airport. There he did normal airport things, like wait for his baggage to come out of the luggage belt, grab some breakfast since he slept through the whole trip, go to the bathroom and freak out because what the hell the tornado was right behind him.
He stepped back from the mirror, bumping into a balding man in a suit. The man turned his nose on him and grumbled at John, but he didn’t seem to notice the tornado like John was. He mumbled out an apology and hurriedly left the bathroom, pinching his nose. It was that dream. It had to be. John still remembered what happened in it as if it was real, but it couldn’t have been. After all, dreams are dreams. If he started believing that, then he was going crazy.
And maybe he was. He saw the tornado again, this time when he glanced at the metal table he was sitting in front of. The chair he was sitting on slid back with a grating noise as it moved across the floor, but this time he didn’t bump into anyone, which was good. The fries he was eating ended up thrown into the air by a freak whirlwind though, which was bad. People were starting to look at him, so he hurriedly picked up whatever fries were left, because Dad Joestar didn’t raise him to waste food, and left the airport in a hurry.
“What the hell is happening...” John muttered to himself as he got inside a taxi. He glanced into the rear view mirror as the car drove off, and in it he saw the tornado once again. As he looked closer, it became more solid, if such a word could be used to describe it. John was also pretty sure that weird stalker tornados weren’t supposed to look as if it was forming a human head, but it was. And it had eyes, a pair of orbs glowing like neon. They were blue, like his, which didn’t really comfort him much. “What are you?”
The word came to him, on instinct.