The Train to the Afterlife

[ilovesockandroll]

Maybe you know how, maybe you don't. Perhaps the memory is fuzzy, or perhaps it's crystal clear down to the look in your comrades' eyes. Maybe it was your time; you've done all you wanted to. Or maybe you weren't at all ready to go, maybe you went out kicking and screaming - but none of it matters. You know you're dead, and the train is taking you to an afterlife. Perhaps an afterlife of your choice; you might've earned that heaven. Or perhaps you've earned something else entirely.

It'll be a bit of a journey, though, so you might as well take your time and talk to the other people in your coach. Death knows no place: most of them are strangers, even from faraway worlds. But death knows no time either, so who knows, some of them may be people you know, even if last you knew, they were alive - or long gone.

Oh look, here comes the snack cart.

All the usual:
•Post with your character's name and canon in the subject line.
•Said character is now dead for whatever reason - canon, AU, what have you. They are on a train with other dead people from many other times, places and worlds.
•Characters don't know for a fact where they're headed - just a general awareness that they're going to some kind of afterlife. Whatever they think it is is up to the player.
•This meme is built especially for cross-canon interaction, and potentially for threadjacking and group threading - if you're interested, may be a good idea to state as much in your subject line.
•Tag around and play nice!
•TRIGGER WARNING: Meme obviously deals with death and may deal with other unpleasant themes as a result. Please be cautious.

Shamelessly lifted and barely changed from this.

Comments

[mylegacy]

[He wonders as Jotaro speaks if it's worse to be on the other side of it, thinks abruptly that it must be. You have to keep going, live your life as though nothing's wrong, continue and do your best to thrive for their memory, no matter how much it hurts. Or refuse to do that, curl in on yourself in a ball of helpless anger and grief, lashing out however you can until you can give your life in service of that grief.]

[He hopes Jotaro doesn't choose to do what he did. Not because he regrets it, but because this does need to end, the endless cycle of pain and death that makes children into men too soon.]

[I got his message. He mattered. Caesar nods; of course he does.]

I can do that.

I need his name and yours. But I'll do it.

[starmark]

Red hair and a green school uniform.

[It's a softer echo of the request he'd made when this conversation began, now with more context and clarity behind where it's coming from, why he was the one listed first before the others.]

His name is Kakyoin Noriaki. And I'm...Jotaro. Kujo Jotaro.

[Caesar had introduced himself in the Western order, he's fully aware, so the choice of order for his own name is deliberate; he won't say it outright, he'll leave it to speak for itself, but it's there for anyone who's listening, and he's pretty sure that Caesar will be.

Jojo. That's my name, too.

One hand comes loose; the other withdraws from his hat, and his stance shifts to something just a little more open. With his left hand in his pocket, he offers his right with relaxed fingers and an open palm, silent invitation to be clasped or accepted to shake.]

Hey. It's nice to meet a friend of the family.

[mylegacy]

[Of course the best friend would be first on the list. He should have known - maybe part of him did. Was Joseph his best friend? Would he have listed Caesar first, if he came to this train for a brief moment? From his end, there would be no question. Joseph was his best friend, his only friend.]

[Seeing Jotaro in pain sends another flash of guilt through him, followed by almost a wince at the introduction - Kujo Jotaro. He papers over it with a smile, but still. There are so many ugly echoes here; he's glad to meet Jotaro, impossibly glad, but it hurts all the same.]

[The only thing to do, the only way to push away some of the pain, is to acknowledge what Jotaro is offering, the sacrifice of staying mentally present despite everything that he's been through, is still going through. The only thing to do is what Caesar does: reach out and clasp his hand, a little too tight, as if perhaps he's trying to hold on to life for just a little while longer.]

It's nice to meet you, too, Jotaro.

[I'm sorry I didn't get to watch you grow. I'm sorry you're doing this alone. There's no good or right way to say these things, so he doesn't - just lets his hand fall to his side and hangs onto his smile.]

I won't leave him alone. I promise.

[starmark]

You better not, or I'll kick your ass.

[And it's just about then, once he's touched this ghost of a man that he should've known for years and hasn't, once their hands have clasped and severed and they're left exchanging promises and smiles in a train car where neither of them belong, but one will stay — it's then that Jotaro feels the world go a little bit wrong, and abruptly knows exactly what Star Platinum must be doing topside at that precise moment.

It hits him like a punch to the gut, the recognition that his immediate thought is no.

No, not yet. Please, not yet, just a little longer, five seconds longer —

But he's the only one left, and his mother's life is still hanging in the balance. Family is important.

So he sets his shoulders, and puts his hands back in his pockets where they belong, and steels himself in preparation for what he knows is coming even if he doesn't know how it will come to pass (maybe he'll just disappear, maybe he'll blink and reopen his eyes to Cairo and not this, he doesn't know but it makes him not want to blink for as long as he can), and he reminds himself of a name that he's going to add to the list of the dead he's going to carry inside him from now on.

Caesar Zeppeli. My grandfather's friend.]

My time here's up...padrino.

[He does everything he can to make sure it comes out calm and steady, and not as desperate and urgent as he feels.

He doesn't succeed, but bless him, he tried.]