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[And that was when he- it wasn’t a pretty thing. It didn’t start as a pretty thing. Tears welled in Caesar’s eyes as he stared blankly at Joseph before he crumpled into the steering wheel-
brrrrrrrrrrm-
-and Caesar swore under his breath, something vicious, unintelligible (of course he’d accidentally honk the horn in a moment like this, of course) as he just-…hit it a second time-
brrrm-
-and then the noise stopped as Caesar willed himself to breathe, to breathe, to take everything he was feeling and to bottle it up. Safely stopper it away with a cork, and to save that bottle. And later, Caesar told himself, later he could release it. Later he could find a deserving target (ideally that which killed his Joseph, but barring that there were a few others) and then he could take that metaphorical bottle and bash it over their heads until it broke. Then he could take the sharp edges of that metaphorical bottle and metaphorically gut them with it, drag out their entrails, and throttle them with it and watch them choke and die. Caesar told himself he could do that later and so he should bottle it up now so he could be here and listen to what Joseph had to say.
It didn’t help. He was crying into the steering wheel.]
Continue talking, Jojo. [His voice wobbled, but that couldn’t be helped-] Please.
[ The car's horn blares, and he supposes it's a good sign for the integrity of his nervous system that it still makes him jump right out of his skin. Not such a good sign that a few more times meant that that might become literal jumping out of his skin.
He balms himself with the song of crickets outside, watches a cloud of birds rustle free and soar off screaming back at them from the nearest tree. He doesn't look at him. Looking at him would be to comfort him, and he would try to comfort him as he had when they were alive, and to comfort him as he might have when they were alive would be to touch him. He cannot.
Caesar asks him to keep talking, and he nearly turns to ask about what, before deciding that he would carry on the tradition he always held up proud and strong when he was alive - he's going to be selfish and do some blood-letting before he gets back to business. He trains his eyes to the plastic, locked little nub in the door, pushes his fingertip into the rounded top. He lets it come into focus, and he's sure that his eyes are worse than they were, but he can't say he's surprised. He sits there until he can feel the night seep into his opened skin. ]
... There was so much that I wanted to tell you then. [ So much, in fact, that Joseph would appear visibly lost navigating all of it if Caesar could see his face. ] You get in a real strange space when you know that something like that's coming, when you know that you've not got saving yourself to worry about. You can feel yourself bleeding out of your body, and your heart's going like a piston trying to put blood in you, and it's all you have just to think until you're gone. If you'd picked up, I would have lay there in the scrub and talked and talked until I finally died, and I still wouldn't have had the time to get all of it out.
[ He lets the words percolate and take shape in him before letting the first of it out. The gates are opened, because he doesn't have a heart to guard anymore, so secrecy and coyness seem like a waste of time. Joseph's milky gaze drifts to the dry pavement below the car, the dividing line between spaces at a crooked and frantic jaunt. ]
I wanted to ask you about Mother, if you thought of her as your mother more than I thought her mine. I always thought that you must have, you two getting on so well. I wanted to know if you knew how fucking bad that burned me up. All of the girls killed me too, but not as bad as you and Mother did. I hated you for it sometimes. That she left me with my Gran like that after Dad vanished and then came back with a new son. I don't know. It seems silly now. And all of the dumb shit I did to make you mad? Like when I would put my feet up on the dash over here, or shave into the sink and not rinse it out, or when I'd drink straight out of the cartons. That stupid thing I used to do where I'd put coffee in my mouth and then milk and swish it around? I wondered if you would ever miss any of that. Whether you'd throw out that dumb, dumb lighter or not. I wanted to ask you.
And I wanted to ask if you ever knew other things. [ Good things. Not all of the guts he had to spill were dark and evil. He pulls the lock up again and smiles at it. ] Like that the only reason I ever learned to get up early was so that I could wake you up, because right when you woke up was the only time you ever looked soft in front of me. When you'd look at me all tired with your mouth half-open. If you remembered that night we spent sitting on that cliff throwing back beers as often as I did. That I could listen to you talk and talk and talk, even if I couldn't or didn't want to understand you, because you were always so much quieter than I was. I wanted to tell you how to make my Gran's arthritis tea, because she always complains that nobody she's hired since I left has been able to make it quite right. I've never taught anyone else... going back there to do it a couple times a week made me feel needed. And.
[ If you knew that I loved you then, I guess. He swallows it back, and he shrugs again. ]
[Fine, breathe. Breathe. You said too much. On the tip of his tongue, but swallowed down: it wasn't that Joseph had said too much as it was that he had said, like usual, the wrong thing at the wrong time. Again. In a different lifetime they likely would've ended up shouting again, because apparently they were incapable of airing feelings in the first place without something drastic happening to one of them, and they were incapable of dealing and resolving ('resolving') those feelings without something else as a distraction: sex, money, things of that ilk. It was a wonder they had lasted as long as they had, really.
Fine.
Coffee and milk in mouth, swished in his mouth.
Caesar would focus on that.]
I never understood why you did that. The coffee thing. It annoyed me- obviously, as you know this. And don't misunderstand, Jojo: if I focused on the rest we wouldn't be leaving this place for a few hours.
[Because he would be a sobbing heap. Because there's some things he can't deal with, and one of them is the undead idiot telling him things that should've come before, but isn't that the story of their lives? Just a little too late. Always.]
But I never understood why you would do that to coffee, milk, or your sense of taste...assuming you had any and I still hadn't decided if you had or not when you ran off like an idiot.
[ You've said too much is an easy criticism to come from a man who hadn't just got the stitching cut from his lips an hour ago. Perhaps to Caesar it was too much, but it was all too easy for Joseph to let them fly - they'd built up from his mouth all the way to his stomach since he'd been in that forest, and now that he was free to speak them, they had all come out in one unstoppable heap that seemed perfectly reasonable to Joseph.
And in a way, he's glad that Caesar picks something as easy to digest and swallow as that was. The rest could be left like a flaming bag on his porch. Maybe they could clean it up later.
The question comes as he yanks the lock up, and it stops him. He turns slowly, legs just beginning to unfurl, looking over his shoulder with his face at a tilt - either out of perplexment, or the rot. A confused smile begins to stretch his blue lips, his brows closed together. ]
Well... because it made you mad. [ He states it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. With the same tone one might explain to someone why carrot cake is orange. As though that simple goal made the sacrifice of coffee and milk and his sense of taste completely reasonable and justified. ] Why'd you think?
[And Caesar turned his head, equally slow in his own way, to stare at Joseph. Joseph's confused smile was met with a frown (bless that frown, he can feel the need to scream in fury, in rage, in sorrow being choked down by that frown) and he stared for a long moment.]
Because it made me mad. [And then, that.] Apparently I understood why after all. [And also that, you idiot.] I'd hit you for that if you weren't... [...] ...dead, you buffoon.
[And this was one of life's little moments in which part of him wondered why he thought bringing back Joseph's sense of humor was worth it, because it was, but also it made him go...ah, yes. Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli. You had let sorrow and nostalgia cloud over memories and let you forget, if but a little, why you ended up with Joseph in the first place: because he pissed you off so much that you couldn't ever ignore him.
And now you remember.
Now you really remember.
(It's easier than crying, and anything else- he was dead, so no.)]
As for your lighter, no, I thought about throwing it at your head when we buried you for the first time but decided against it.
[This was a lie, of course, but he-] That, and it gave me something to hold onto. [-...apparently couldn't quite lie at this point. There was more to it, of course, that it was one of the few things Caesar could roll about his hand on a daily basis without people judging him...too much for it, but Joseph didn't need to know that.] I let your mother and your grandmother have their pick of your things with dignity. It left me with very few options after that.
[ Like a roar, the simple confirmation that The Lighter still lives breathes new and loud life into him. He turns fully now, his ruined shoes slapping against the car's floor, and what starts as one disbelieving bark of laughter turns into rolling and lyrical peals of it filling the cab. ]
You kept the little dick-man lighter! After making all of that noise about it!
[ He slaps his forehead as the giggles shiver from him, lets his hand run down his face. Pulls his scarf askew, and if the lighting in the car had been better, would betray the one pus-black gouge drilling deep into Caesar's side of his throat, shining and rounded in purple and black bruising, dead veins shooting up and down his skin like roots from it. Joseph muffles his opened mouth with his palm and smothers the last seconds of laughter finally die. ]
Oh, that's good. I should've known that you were just jealous of it all this time. [ His head rolls over to him, eyes shining again, his smile as easy as it had ever been. ] See, Caesar, what you should've done is had the fellow at the funeral home stitch it in my mouth -- you know, cock-down. Could've ensured that I left this world as I lived.
[ If you expect Joseph to take his own burial seriously, then you don't know who it is you're dealing with.
He leans back against the seat and looks at Caesar directly now, some scrap of life clinging to his cheeks as he takes his words in, his lips still clinging to the shell of a smile. His poor grandmother picking over his old things. What had she learned about their life together that evening?Had she realized that she would never learn anything new about him again? He realizes now that his scarf has slips and he adjusts it. ]
Not sure what should surprise me more. That Gran let that scarf be, or that dear old Mum even bothered to show up.
[Joseph laughed: Caesar stared, offended (maybe...not really and yet he was, except not very, and it was complicated like all things were) because he was not jealous of the dick-man lighter, how very dare Joseph insinuate that he was jealous of that, and maybe if he had better options in regards to keepsakes he wouldn't be reduced to twirling a dick-man lighter in his hands and hoping people wouldn't notice what it was he was playing with. The twitching of his mouth was only the shadows and the streetlights outside.
And then, like they started dancing together to a familiar tune-] Your mother cares, Jojo.
[Step step swing- had they ever danced? Given how he had shuffled in the diner, it was a moot point anyway.
It wasn't...it wasn't possible to pretend like Joseph looked alive, as, shadows or otherwise, there was nothing to be done about that smell, but there was enough that remained that Caesar could pretend like it wasn't as bad as it was, and, so, they could afford to dance around the point of all of this a bit longer. (This was important, anyway.)] And I told your grandmother that your favorite scarf was purple, which, in retrospect, was a mistake. [This was the roundabout way of saying, "You can have it back."] But your mother- what she told me that night should have been between you and her alone, but she told me that you take after your father more than you will ever know and that was one of the reasons she always had so much trouble dealing with you, Jojo.
[ And now Joseph's remembering the other reason they fought so much - Caesar's greatest talent happens to be sucking the mirth and joy from the air like some sort of happiness vampire.
His own words echo back to him - I hated you for it sometimes. Did Caesar want a fight? Was he trying to goad him? There's a split-second of confused silence, his face falling from its earlier cheer to sit in a confused sort of blankness as he struggles to get a bead on the conversation again, tries and fails to gauge whether Caesar's intent wasn't to shoot the whole thing down screaming. It was going well for about a split second, and now Joseph feels like he has to cut his mouth open and spew a whole new wave of glue-like venom, because yet again, it was Caesar whom she had turned to, and Joseph is again excluded, and there's a sliver of hurt that might be visible in more reliable light before he turns away again. He wonders what this news was actually supposed to mean, the word that, officially, Caesar knew more about his father then Joseph himself did.
Would, now.
He lets another breath leave him like a sheet of ice. He focuses on a flickering lamp casting flashes on the pavement. ]
Oh, wow. That's so incredible. I'm so glad that you could have such a heartwarming revelation about why I was abandoned as a child with my mother, Caesar. Really. I'm touched. Means the world that she cared enough to reach out to you like that. Thanks for letting me know about that very touching conversation that she decided to share with you, Caesar, with you. It's real great that you guys have that bond where, you know, she'll actually talk to you. That's really nice for you guys -- [ He turns here, hard and decisive, sweeping his hand toward the window as he speaks, ] do you see what might be the problem here, Caesar? Do you see why I don't have the most fucking sympathy over here? Any clue at all? Do you honestly--
[ Here, he catches himself. He takes a breath, then remembers how little that actually helps now. Joseph sits still as death before he tries to salvage things; ]
Look -- nevermind, sorry, just... I'm not talking about her. We'll fight if we do.
[“That’s fine. I can drop a twenty and pretend like I didn’t notice, and you can pick it up and give it to me and we can pretend like that’s rent money and everything’s fine,” was what Caesar didn’t say. He stared at Joseph for a long moment, and- then he shrugged, he slammed the door shut, he locked the door, he put the keys in the ignition and turned it on.]
Fine. [Fine, run away from this again, fine, we can talk about something neutral, something that won’t get us to fight, something like kittens or clouds or little puppies, something harmless because apparently that’s all we’re capable of - harmless - and if you’re wondering why I never talked to you this was part of the reason.] Fine, because running away from fights has served us so well so far. And of course, you realize that the reason why we share so close of a bond and the reason why she told me this was because you! Died! And maybe- actually, you're right. Forget it. Just forget it. Do you realize why I usually didn't like to talk freely around you? Because of things like this!
[Foot on the gas-] But fine, we can avoid that, just like we avoided everything else because apparently you couldn’t stand- fine, just tell me where they are. That’s all I want to know. Then I’ll leave you off at my new place and I’ll finish this. I’ve cable. You can find ways to kill time there until I’m done.
[ If one thing's still intact in Joseph, it's his flair for dramatics. He splays one rotting hand at the collar of his shirt and puts the other over his gasping mouth, his brows held high in apparent shock, his voice tightened to a scandalized, high-society wisp. ]
Have I gone and done it now? Have I offended His Majesty's delicate sensibilities by not fucking prostrating myself for forgiveness over some half-baked second-hand nonsense? Poor little cupcake. [ He spreads his knuckles with all delicacy to his brow, a false swoon, a tortured and softened little moan passing his teeth. ] Oh, my poor baby. I can't imagine what it must feel like to not be able to talk freely to someone. Never in my years.
[ Not someone important. No matter how many romantics Caesar wanted to prop up, Joseph's not convinced that he wouldn't turn this into a physical altercation if it would have more impact than a moment's inconvenience. If their seats were switched, he's almost positive that a barb like that about running away, after he'd just spoke of spending hours fearing for his life in half-dead flight, would be met with a stern punch to the jaw.
Joseph prefers verbal hits, though, as always. He snaps his fingers with Eureka and feels his skin begin to slough from his finger's pad. ] But hey! The good news is that I know just the thing! Why don't you just start fucking swinging again, huh? You know, like the good old days! When Caesar couldn't say what he thought and everybody else could. How about that, Caesar? Would that help? Would it loosen the lips a little bit? Go ahead!
[Caesar so would've taken a swing if both of them were alive, or, barring that, if Joseph were alive and he dead: if Joseph were alive his jaw could handle a blow, and if Caesar were dead then he'd have to be the one to deal with the loss of a barely functional hand, not Joseph. One sidelong glance, though, and he clenched the steering wheel just a bit harder, reached over with his free hand to turn on the radio, blast some music, any music, it didn't matter what music, to fill it up with noise, if he lashed out they'd probably have to turn around and get some goddamn duct tape for that jaw-]
...
[-...actually, no, fuck that.] Believe it or not I actually don't really care anymore about what's between you and your mother or the fact you can't-... [Words. Fucking words. Caesar regrets trying to use words already. Fuck words.] ...that's between you and her in the end, and, given that you're already dead, that won't be your problem for much longer. What I'm...upset, shall we say, about is that once again, you got mad at something I said, said what you wanted to say, except instead of standing by it, you immediately tried to backtrack and change the subject, and given that's what got you killed you damn bastard that's a little bit of a...thing, shall we say, with me. [Ha. This was so much easier when they could distract the other with pretty much anything. And if Caesar's foot hit the gas just a bit more it was only because the sooner they got back to his shitty rented room the sooner he could check his phone, and the sooner he checked his phone the sooner he'd know how bad whatever he got messaged by whomever was, and the sooner he dealt with that he could sleep.] I know, I know. I'm alive, you're not, I bound you to this world against your will and I'm going to have to get myself killed to get you out of it again, but as that's little bit of a sore spot the next time you get mad, please, just don't avoid the fight. I would rather shout at you for two hours than trying to avoid the damn fight.
Well -- yeah, that's why I'm pissed off. Because she shouldn't have ever made it your business how much like my father I am. She never even made Dad my fucking business, and Lord knows she had enough time to do that, but she'll talk about it with you? Like -- right, okay. Bare with me here. Let's do a little hypothetical thinking.
[ Because Caesar wanted to talk, because Caesar insisted on stepping over boundaries and making himself welcome where he wasn't -- he doubts that he has the self-awareness to understand what he's about to do, but it's all that he has to try and get him to understand. He straightens himself up and takes a breath. ]
Your dad --
[ His hands come down in the air before him decisively, two flat and bordering palms to mark Your Dad's position, ]
-- let's say after all of these years, he just shows up again. Not saying he will, not saying he would. Let's just say we opened the door one day and he was there, just -- "Hey, son, I'm not dead, I just fucked off for awhile!" [ Down-pitched voice and open-palmed wave included in this impression of Your Dad. He glances over to mark the breaking of this impression and turns his palms up, a request for understanding, ] Right? He just turns up after leaving you to think that for all of that time like it's nothing. Like suddenly now he belongs here. No apology, no explanation -
[ Palms closing, both pointer fingers pointing back to indicate the secondary antagonist of this story, ]
And then he meets me. And suddenly, we're talking all the time while he ices you out. He laughs at all of my stupid jokes that you hate, and actually, he thinks I'm just hilarious. He thinks I'm a fucking gas. When I'm not around, he's talking to you about me some more, just to really salt the wound. And we go out and we do shit while you're left wondering to yourself what it is we talk about all the time that you can't be around. And when I'm not hanging out with your dad, I'm sat over here, telling you why it's fine that he did what he did to you by telling you all of these things that he's told me about it. [ His hands are spinning around themselves now, indicating the passage of time and too many conversations, ] About you, about your family, but he's kept them from you, because he won't talk to you, because you don't know why.
[ He lets the situation sit for a second - but only a literal second, because Caesar's father is a hot enough topic that he's got to move quickly. It's boiling milk. If he lets it sit too long, it'll scald. ]
You're telling me right now that that wouldn't get to you? Hearing that from me and not him would just fix everything -- that'd be good enough? You wouldn't consider that reason to be upset?
No, Jojo. This might surprise you, but I would actually consider that a very good reason to be upset. [And Caesar’s looking for a good place to pull over because apparently they’re incapable of carrying on a conversation that wouldn’t distract him while driving to the point in which he has to pull over, but-…construction. More construction. No side streets at all. Poised to get onto the interstate - not far, just two exits - but far enough that the interstate was the quickest route. Of course.
And so, with a grunt of of course when I need to pull over there’s nowhere good to be had he carried on driving.]
And I wish I knew all of this sooner. [He probably would’ve accomplished…absolutely nothing, but it was like catching the call with Joseph: he could still pretend. Caesar could pretend he could say the right things to Joseph’s mother (who, yes, he privately thought of as his mother but didn’t want to admit to anyone besides himself) and…something.] But you’re wrong: I didn’t think it would be good enough. I just thought…I don’t know, that it was important enough that you should hear that from someone, at the very least, while you have a chance. You obviously can’t hear it from her, and I’m a poor substitute, but at least I could…I don’t know, at least you could hear it, even if it wasn’t enough, wouldn’t be enough from me. It was a stupid idea.
[He just wants to sleep. It's been a long day. What was he thinking. All of this was a mistake.]
[ Not a single, not a double, but a triple take is needed to digest this reaction. Joseph is visibly disarmed at the reaction that awaits him. Not anger, but understanding, and -- contrition? Admittance that maybe Joseph might have a point? If his living body could be sitting here instead, he might just have opened the door and jumped out of the car in shock - because the only way such a thing could come to pass is if the one driving the car wasn't Caesar at all, but some malicious entity mimicking his form.
Dead Joseph would consider the same thing if it didn't mean irreparably crippling him. He lets a stinking gust of wind pile out of him as he stares out the window. ]
Well... good. Great. Good. I'm... glad. Thanks, then, that was... [ The word sticks in his throat. ] That was... sweet... of you. Thanks.
[ Words are escaping him. He lets the car hum around them in stunned silence before he finally works himself up to speak again. ]
Whenever I brought it up to you before, you always fought me on it. If you understood, then why?
[...he'd hit him if he could. His hand twitched in a way which implied that it wanted to do something - it ached to lash out, if not at Jojo then at something else, himself, a rock, a wall. Something. A stress ball brutally crushed in his hand, a tennis ball thrown into the ocean. Something. He turned off the freeway instead.]
Joseph. [This was said very precisely, crisply, bitten off bits of words with the torn edges shaved off so they were smooth and sharp, as the car wound towards the...waterfront?] You died. We had an argument: you vanished. You died. That has a way of making you think about how you interact with people- here.
[And Caesar turned off and parked along a certain city street, one of those streets that's a bad day away from crumbling into being an alley. It was in the warehouse district.] We'll have to walk. The rent's cheap and it has plumbing- before you ask, yes, it has a bed, but for obvious reasons I'm trying to keep a low profile. It's a hassle, really. I don't remember the last time I've slept in...not that I usually did, Jojo, even with you waking me up all the time- [look at me all tired with your mouth half-open He swallowed. Move on, inch by inch.] -but it's harder now. My landlord texts me if the police are doing a sweep of the area. Five in the morning, Jojo. The last time was five in the morning. I understand they're simply doing their job, but you think they'd have some consideration for the rest of us.
[ Caesar lays out his answer with a surgical precision, and all of the air is immediately drained through a tube from the inside of the car, because it's here that Joseph realizes that to Caesar, his feet are likely as good as any for blame-laying. Words die and go to ash in his mouth as he puzzles around this realization, tries to grope outward from it for a response. Too insincere is a rare excuse for Joseph to leave something unsaid, but it's the block that keeps dropping in front of him whenever he thinks of anything. He pulls his scarf tighter around his wounded throat. Not yet. Not yet.
Instead, Joseph exhales one still laugh from his dead chest, lightly whistling from some unseen puncture. ] You know... sorry, I don't know which of us this question is more insensitive to but I have to know - is that as weird for you to say as it is for me to hear?
[ Really. You died. Joseph died. He's moving and living on literal borrowed time. He's a walking collateral. It has to be weird, right? How can it not be?
This does serve to distract him from the gradual deterioration of their surroundings until it's too late to object - it's already happened, he's flanked by drooling graffiti and overfull trashcans. Joseph sends periodic glances Caesar's way, waiting for the inevitable reroute, waiting for it to occur to him that he's taken some wrong turn somewhere - but no, it's soon confirmed, this is where they want to be. This big, dark harbour. This crowded row of fat, concrete bricks of buildings. This joyless murder site waiting to happen. He probably wouldn't have even had to go far if they'd lived here when he died - he could have been murdered right here on their doorstep.
He squints, one last chance handed to Caesar to reconsider what had to be the wrong place, before jamming his fingers into his seatbelt's buckle to click it open. ]
Never thought I'd see the fucking day when you put yourself in a place like this.
Their destination was a gray building, one warehouse much like the others. It was squat and fat, desolate…somehow. Despite the buildings, the area, there was something about it that seemed…barren, maybe. Remote. Lonely? That somehow it held itself aloof…somehow. Maybe it was the night. Maybe it was the fact that they had raised someone (Jojo) from the dead, which lent everything in the night a certain eerie ambiance, a sinister atmosphere. Maybe it was the illumination or the lack thereof: the clouds that had started drifting in front of the moon shrouded the building in more darkness than it might otherwise normally have, leaving them some inconsistent streetlights to guide them. It probably had a more imposing atmosphere than it deserved.
Because it was a shitty building.
Yeah, it was the sort of building that people were murdered around, and the neighborhood (‘neighborhood’) was the sort in which people were murdered in, and yet it didn’t deserve that much of an atmosphere. It would probably be more run down and tired in proper lighting. Maybe.
The letters above the main door read XPRES LOGISTICS]
I thought I’d only be here for a month. Maybe two. I ended up staying longer. You have no idea how hard it is to find a cheap place without a one year lease, Joseph- the search for our last apartment? It’s only gotten worse. Now hush-
[And Caesar ignored the main warehouse door for a side one, a smaller one: presumably, back in the heyday of XPRES LOGISTICS this would be where the supervisors entered early in the morning and left late at night. He reached for his keys.]
I think my…neighbors, shall we say, are home.
[There would be a number of shipping containers inside. Sound would be coming from one of them. A light from another.
Caesar would ignore it to head upstairs, to where the staff offices were…or once had been.]
[ Joseph might respectfully disagree with that sentiment, as someone who was murdered - a place like this is exactly where one gets murdered, a place with no air at all. Somewhere stark and empty. Gutted. A place where everything around stood, uncaring, even as it housed demise. An impassive observer. It was the exact sort of place that made one life taking another possible exactly by the unique exhaustion of its atmosphere. Even the buildings were too tired to care about what was happening in them here.
Caesar weaves deeper into the warehouses near the harbour, and though confused, Joseph dutifully shambles after him. He keeps his questions to himself - it doesn't look like Caesar's in any mood to reciprocate his earlier forthgiving attitude to answer them anyways. He'll get something half-hearted, as strange as that is to assume, he could remember when he didn't ask anything of him for fear that he might get his whole heart. It had been a force at one point - now he supposes that he understands how Caesar can bare it here. He's even more tired than Joseph himself is.
He limps along as they enter the warehouse, through the same secret avenues that those with legitimate reasons to come here might have used years ago. He looks over the rowed-up shipping containers, all like perfect little rows of tilled crops, growing rust and bedbugs and stagnancy for harvest. He can't still his questions anymore. ]
So, [ His voice is even harsher to his ears now after prolonged silence, and though he knows it won't help, the urge to clear his throat is too powerful to not try and see how a dusty little choke might improve things, ] where are the apartments, anyways?
[ It's a stupid question, he knows. He's still holding out some sort of hope that they're just dropping by. Getting something. Meeting someone. Something that isn't what it is. ]
[It was a stupid question. Almost insulting, really. It should’ve been abundantly clear at this point where he lived. He knew Joseph knew that…one of the downsides to knowin- having known someone as well as Caesar had once had and apparently did again if but for a few stolen hours. He knew that Joseph knew. He knew that Joseph knew. Caesar wanted to pretend like Jojo was confused - that having been awoken from death if but for a few short hours had dazed his brain, muddled his mind - and so he deserved some kind of kind answer with all of the sharp edges rounded away, the sort of answer that would gradually ease him into the magnificent shitshow that his life had become.
But he knew that Joseph knew.
So, instead, he hesitated on the stairs. He spoke quietly, briskly, like a thief in the night trying not to startle any ghosts.]
Don’t be an idiot. [Then, he gestured to the shipping containers below them. Behold, Joseph, behold.] When I first moved I actually lived in one of those…not one of the ones here, Jojo. A different one in a different warehouse. It was terrible, but I told myself that I could use that to hone my edge. That what I returned to night after night would remind me of what’s important and serve to drive me forward.
[There was a pause. (Even now Caesar hadn’t lost his sense of drama and dramatic timing.)] I lasted two weeks, Jojo. Then I woke up to a cockroach crawling up my leg and realized there was limits. Even for a vendetta. I’m upstairs. There’s five rooms: three of them are occupied. Be quiet in the hallway, Jojo, as my neighbors are the…easily excitable kind. I’m not the only one who has unfinished business, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t sleep well. Do you understand?
[Upstairs would be a dirty hallway, with seven doors, each door worn and old and faintly mismatched - they looked alike, but there were two which weren’t exactly the same, implying that at some point a door had been lost but whoever had replaced it had actually taken the effort to try to find something…somewhat close. Maybe. Or maybe it was cheapest. Caesar’s was the furthest to the left, furthest down the hall.]
[ And there it is - the place that Caesar had found was this infested hovel.
Joseph eyes the stairs with some disdain as he prepares himself to climb it. He lifts his hand and plants it on the banister. He piles his weight into it and carefully hauls his foot up to the first step with a grinding crackle of rigid and dry bones that Caesar might hear if he listens closely enough. He continues, the sound subsides step by step, leaving the occasional smear of oily black tracking up the rail. He grimaces as he wills his legs to work with him.
He shoots Caesar a strained look from the fourth step as he speaks, rushes out a scoff with one overexerted breath, rolls his glazed eyes, shucks his elbow against the banister a moment to address his warning. ]
Yeah, sure. Let's just take a moment to be honest with ourselves, Caesar, my lad - even if something should happen to attract the attention of some undesirables, the worst that a bunch of homeless crackheads squatting in a warehouse are going to do is shoot me again.
[ And he's so threatened by that notion that he's going to heave his foot up and onto the next step again, and continue right along until he gets to the top. He unglues his hand from the railing as he hauls himself to the top floor and shakes the strain out. ]
Joseph, my sweet - you are sadly mistaken if the worst you think can happen is that they merely shoot at you.
[They might not be as (normally) fatal as a gunshot, but no less unpleasant in their own way.
He could explain. He could say that he suspects that the latest...resident in one of the containers below was also one who dabbled in the necromantic arts, in divining the dead, summoning unbound spirits and attaching them to bodies, and so forth and so on, and, given this and given half an excuse, he'd attach himself to Joseph and wouldn't let go. He could explain that the person in the closest room...for obvious reasons Caesar didn't care to know his neighbors, but he knew enough to know that the stranger had lost someone and give half an excuse he'd start begging Joseph to take a message to the other side. Jojo didn't have to sleep, true, but Caesar still did: he could imagine waking up to a stranger sobbing, begging to take a message to the other side. Please.
He could say those things.
But instead, he continued up the stairs, past Joseph, to the door furthest down the hall (not even bothering to keep things too quiet, really, he wasn't stomping down the hall but he wasn't really making an effort to be quiet either) and pulled out his keys, and, perhaps tellingly, gestured for Joseph to stand back - it was almost as if he was expecting to have to ambush or be ambushed by something, wasn't it? But no- the door swung open and...
...nothing happened besides Caesar relaxing and walking in. Jojo could follow at his leisure.
The room was as clean as could be expected - not very. There was, surprisingly, a small bathroom that consisted of a sink, a toilet, and a drain-]
They installed those after there was an accident, Jojo. From what I understand it, the landlords thought it was better to spend some money instead of chancing an accident at midnight given the usual renters.
[And a bed. Or at least a mattress. There was a sleeping bag on top, which said a great deal about the condition of the bed. Functional enough to sleep on top of, not functional enough to chance sheets. There was a table - the fucking lighter occupied a place of honor on top of it.
There was also a lot of electronics considering the setting. A laptop, a second phone, and a lamp. Maps strewed around. Even a book. If it wasn't for the building one might get the impression that Caesar was just on a prolonged business trip - it had that sort of unsettled restless feel to it, that despite the fact he might've been there for months he was poised to leave at any time. The one major concession to homeliness was a pair of slippers, for those times in which Caesar didn't want to wear shoes or socks but no one would touch the ground with their bare feet. The other was a small, cheap rug of the sort purchased during back to school college dorm sales, gaudy, cheap, and disposable: likely for the same reasons. It was orange. It would likely be left there to die when (if) the time came to leave.
You could also see the water from one corner. It was dark and had a foul smell if one opened the window (probably by literally breaking it) but it was still water.]
Caesar, my darling - you've sold me on the shit-floor cockroach suite. This truly is the perfect abode for the both of us.
[ It's a joke, because he needs a joke that isn't this sad excuse for an apartment right now. He follows Caesar inside as he's given the grand tour of this room full of nothing he lived in now, probably lurid with bedbugs and lice. Joseph hardly wants to think about what else he could reveal with just a blacklight. He doesn't want to think about the way in which Caesar has reduced himself, squashed himself into a tiny room that doesn't deserve him, surrounded by criminals and lowlifes who couldn't have understood what and who they were in the proximity of.
And the only thing he doesn't want to do more than think about all of this is to say it.
So instead; ]
Look, right -- I'll show you.
[ And he shambles right on over to that drain, lowers himself with all of the spry grace of a 99-year-old man coming down on a toilet, and he splays himself out on the floor. He lolls his blackened tongue out against the cracked tile. He plays dead for a short second before lifting his head and pulling his tongue back between his teeth, nodding. ]
[And then Caesar laughs in that tired, hollow way when something really isn’t that funny but you pretend like it is anyway because you’re just that finished: you’re done with everything, including the person you’re with or what’s left of it. While Joseph lies down on the floor he sits on the bed with a grimace, because, yes, he, too, knows what’s likely in that mattress, and he, too, had to come to terms with it. The feeling of something crawling in his hair. The bites. And yet it was still better than before.]
As you can see, Jojo, this is the perfect place for our family, though, if you still have concerns, I can get you a motel room for the night. I’ve enough money for that. I’d just need one thing before you go: you telling me whether or not the place they found you was the same place that you died at or not.
No way, just me and the kids. Want I should let 'em all out here on the floor before we jet? Because I will. It can be our legacy.
[ And what a legacy it is. Gut snakes and a nest of flies in a garbage dump of an apartment.
Getting up is clearly too tall an order right now, so Joseph watches him from the floor, his cheek smushed against his shoulder as he lays loosely curled around the drain in the floor. He shrugs his free shoulder. ]
Hardly makes a difference to me, does it. I'm not the one who's going to feel those bedbugs, and I'm already a walking bughouse, anyways. Being in one as well isn't going to bother me.
[ But then Caesar asks his questions. If he doesn't know, then he supposes the police must be keeping their finds close to their chest. They still hadn't been found. The smile ebbs and fades, he looks down at the concrete floor in thought, and he shrugs. ]
No. I don't think so. I... when I died, I was being dragged, but even after, I think they put me somewhere else. Not far, closer to where I entered the wood. Hoping to cool things down so that they could run, I might imagine.
[ He glances up, half-smiling, filmy eyes cringing with the effort. ]
It's quite strange, really. You can still feel that sort of thing when you're gone. You don't know exactly what's going on, but you vaguely sort of... know these things. What's happening to your body. Where you're buried. You're still connected to it.
[That smile gets a stare, long and grave, and if Joseph got the impression that he was trying very hard to not to react that was because he absolutely was, and the blinking and slightly trembling lip (mouth was kept carefully closed, but every single time Caesar seemed like he was about to speak it was a giveaway) might imply what it was he was hiding.
Instead, this: Caesar turned off the light in the practiced way of someone who had spent that much time in that space and so knew where everything was.
Fortunately, there was the distant moan of someone having a nightmare echoing from outside filling in the space, and there were lights from outside so it wasn't completely dark. Just dark enough. It was dark along the warehouses.]
Can you...hear anything? See anything? Or is it just...feeling? [Could you hear me? Did you hear your grandmother?...your mother was as stoic as always. She cried later. Did you know about this, Jojo?
It was easier when it was dark enough that he didn't have to pretend like he wasn't about to break apart. At least he didn't have to keep a straight face.]
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brrrrrrrrrrm-
-and Caesar swore under his breath, something vicious, unintelligible (of course he’d accidentally honk the horn in a moment like this, of course) as he just-…hit it a second time-
brrrm-
-and then the noise stopped as Caesar willed himself to breathe, to breathe, to take everything he was feeling and to bottle it up. Safely stopper it away with a cork, and to save that bottle. And later, Caesar told himself, later he could release it. Later he could find a deserving target (ideally that which killed his Joseph, but barring that there were a few others) and then he could take that metaphorical bottle and bash it over their heads until it broke. Then he could take the sharp edges of that metaphorical bottle and metaphorically gut them with it, drag out their entrails, and throttle them with it and watch them choke and die. Caesar told himself he could do that later and so he should bottle it up now so he could be here and listen to what Joseph had to say.
It didn’t help. He was crying into the steering wheel.]
Continue talking, Jojo. [His voice wobbled, but that couldn’t be helped-] Please.
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He balms himself with the song of crickets outside, watches a cloud of birds rustle free and soar off screaming back at them from the nearest tree. He doesn't look at him. Looking at him would be to comfort him, and he would try to comfort him as he had when they were alive, and to comfort him as he might have when they were alive would be to touch him. He cannot.
Caesar asks him to keep talking, and he nearly turns to ask about what, before deciding that he would carry on the tradition he always held up proud and strong when he was alive - he's going to be selfish and do some blood-letting before he gets back to business. He trains his eyes to the plastic, locked little nub in the door, pushes his fingertip into the rounded top. He lets it come into focus, and he's sure that his eyes are worse than they were, but he can't say he's surprised. He sits there until he can feel the night seep into his opened skin. ]
... There was so much that I wanted to tell you then. [ So much, in fact, that Joseph would appear visibly lost navigating all of it if Caesar could see his face. ] You get in a real strange space when you know that something like that's coming, when you know that you've not got saving yourself to worry about. You can feel yourself bleeding out of your body, and your heart's going like a piston trying to put blood in you, and it's all you have just to think until you're gone. If you'd picked up, I would have lay there in the scrub and talked and talked until I finally died, and I still wouldn't have had the time to get all of it out.
[ He lets the words percolate and take shape in him before letting the first of it out. The gates are opened, because he doesn't have a heart to guard anymore, so secrecy and coyness seem like a waste of time. Joseph's milky gaze drifts to the dry pavement below the car, the dividing line between spaces at a crooked and frantic jaunt. ]
I wanted to ask you about Mother, if you thought of her as your mother more than I thought her mine. I always thought that you must have, you two getting on so well. I wanted to know if you knew how fucking bad that burned me up. All of the girls killed me too, but not as bad as you and Mother did. I hated you for it sometimes. That she left me with my Gran like that after Dad vanished and then came back with a new son. I don't know. It seems silly now. And all of the dumb shit I did to make you mad? Like when I would put my feet up on the dash over here, or shave into the sink and not rinse it out, or when I'd drink straight out of the cartons. That stupid thing I used to do where I'd put coffee in my mouth and then milk and swish it around? I wondered if you would ever miss any of that. Whether you'd throw out that dumb, dumb lighter or not. I wanted to ask you.
And I wanted to ask if you ever knew other things. [ Good things. Not all of the guts he had to spill were dark and evil. He pulls the lock up again and smiles at it. ] Like that the only reason I ever learned to get up early was so that I could wake you up, because right when you woke up was the only time you ever looked soft in front of me. When you'd look at me all tired with your mouth half-open. If you remembered that night we spent sitting on that cliff throwing back beers as often as I did. That I could listen to you talk and talk and talk, even if I couldn't or didn't want to understand you, because you were always so much quieter than I was. I wanted to tell you how to make my Gran's arthritis tea, because she always complains that nobody she's hired since I left has been able to make it quite right. I've never taught anyone else... going back there to do it a couple times a week made me feel needed. And.
[ If you knew that I loved you then, I guess. He swallows it back, and he shrugs again. ]
Things like that.
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Fine.
Coffee and milk in mouth, swished in his mouth.
Caesar would focus on that.]
I never understood why you did that. The coffee thing. It annoyed me- obviously, as you know this. And don't misunderstand, Jojo: if I focused on the rest we wouldn't be leaving this place for a few hours.
[Because he would be a sobbing heap. Because there's some things he can't deal with, and one of them is the undead idiot telling him things that should've come before, but isn't that the story of their lives? Just a little too late. Always.]
But I never understood why you would do that to coffee, milk, or your sense of taste...assuming you had any and I still hadn't decided if you had or not when you ran off like an idiot.
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And in a way, he's glad that Caesar picks something as easy to digest and swallow as that was. The rest could be left like a flaming bag on his porch. Maybe they could clean it up later.
The question comes as he yanks the lock up, and it stops him. He turns slowly, legs just beginning to unfurl, looking over his shoulder with his face at a tilt - either out of perplexment, or the rot. A confused smile begins to stretch his blue lips, his brows closed together. ]
Well... because it made you mad. [ He states it like it's the most obvious thing in the world. With the same tone one might explain to someone why carrot cake is orange. As though that simple goal made the sacrifice of coffee and milk and his sense of taste completely reasonable and justified. ] Why'd you think?
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Because it made me mad. [And then, that.] Apparently I understood why after all. [And also that, you idiot.] I'd hit you for that if you weren't... [...] ...dead, you buffoon.
[And this was one of life's little moments in which part of him wondered why he thought bringing back Joseph's sense of humor was worth it, because it was, but also it made him go...ah, yes. Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli. You had let sorrow and nostalgia cloud over memories and let you forget, if but a little, why you ended up with Joseph in the first place: because he pissed you off so much that you couldn't ever ignore him.
And now you remember.
Now you really remember.
(It's easier than crying, and anything else- he was dead, so no.)]
As for your lighter, no, I thought about throwing it at your head when we buried you for the first time but decided against it.
[This was a lie, of course, but he-] That, and it gave me something to hold onto. [-...apparently couldn't quite lie at this point. There was more to it, of course, that it was one of the few things Caesar could roll about his hand on a daily basis without people judging him...too much for it, but Joseph didn't need to know that.] I let your mother and your grandmother have their pick of your things with dignity. It left me with very few options after that.
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You kept the little dick-man lighter! After making all of that noise about it!
[ He slaps his forehead as the giggles shiver from him, lets his hand run down his face. Pulls his scarf askew, and if the lighting in the car had been better, would betray the one pus-black gouge drilling deep into Caesar's side of his throat, shining and rounded in purple and black bruising, dead veins shooting up and down his skin like roots from it. Joseph muffles his opened mouth with his palm and smothers the last seconds of laughter finally die. ]
Oh, that's good. I should've known that you were just jealous of it all this time. [ His head rolls over to him, eyes shining again, his smile as easy as it had ever been. ] See, Caesar, what you should've done is had the fellow at the funeral home stitch it in my mouth -- you know, cock-down. Could've ensured that I left this world as I lived.
[ If you expect Joseph to take his own burial seriously, then you don't know who it is you're dealing with.
He leans back against the seat and looks at Caesar directly now, some scrap of life clinging to his cheeks as he takes his words in, his lips still clinging to the shell of a smile. His poor grandmother picking over his old things. What had she learned about their life together that evening?Had she realized that she would never learn anything new about him again? He realizes now that his scarf has slips and he adjusts it. ]
Not sure what should surprise me more. That Gran let that scarf be, or that dear old Mum even bothered to show up.
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And then, like they started dancing together to a familiar tune-] Your mother cares, Jojo.
[Step step swing- had they ever danced? Given how he had shuffled in the diner, it was a moot point anyway.
It wasn't...it wasn't possible to pretend like Joseph looked alive, as, shadows or otherwise, there was nothing to be done about that smell, but there was enough that remained that Caesar could pretend like it wasn't as bad as it was, and, so, they could afford to dance around the point of all of this a bit longer. (This was important, anyway.)] And I told your grandmother that your favorite scarf was purple, which, in retrospect, was a mistake. [This was the roundabout way of saying, "You can have it back."] But your mother- what she told me that night should have been between you and her alone, but she told me that you take after your father more than you will ever know and that was one of the reasons she always had so much trouble dealing with you, Jojo.
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His own words echo back to him - I hated you for it sometimes. Did Caesar want a fight? Was he trying to goad him? There's a split-second of confused silence, his face falling from its earlier cheer to sit in a confused sort of blankness as he struggles to get a bead on the conversation again, tries and fails to gauge whether Caesar's intent wasn't to shoot the whole thing down screaming. It was going well for about a split second, and now Joseph feels like he has to cut his mouth open and spew a whole new wave of glue-like venom, because yet again, it was Caesar whom she had turned to, and Joseph is again excluded, and there's a sliver of hurt that might be visible in more reliable light before he turns away again. He wonders what this news was actually supposed to mean, the word that, officially, Caesar knew more about his father then Joseph himself did.
Would, now.
He lets another breath leave him like a sheet of ice. He focuses on a flickering lamp casting flashes on the pavement. ]
Oh, wow. That's so incredible. I'm so glad that you could have such a heartwarming revelation about why I was abandoned as a child with my mother, Caesar. Really. I'm touched. Means the world that she cared enough to reach out to you like that. Thanks for letting me know about that very touching conversation that she decided to share with you, Caesar, with you. It's real great that you guys have that bond where, you know, she'll actually talk to you. That's really nice for you guys -- [ He turns here, hard and decisive, sweeping his hand toward the window as he speaks, ] do you see what might be the problem here, Caesar? Do you see why I don't have the most fucking sympathy over here? Any clue at all? Do you honestly--
[ Here, he catches himself. He takes a breath, then remembers how little that actually helps now. Joseph sits still as death before he tries to salvage things; ]
Look -- nevermind, sorry, just... I'm not talking about her. We'll fight if we do.
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Fine. [Fine, run away from this again, fine, we can talk about something neutral, something that won’t get us to fight, something like kittens or clouds or little puppies, something harmless because apparently that’s all we’re capable of - harmless - and if you’re wondering why I never talked to you this was part of the reason.] Fine, because running away from fights has served us so well so far. And of course, you realize that the reason why we share so close of a bond and the reason why she told me this was because you! Died! And maybe- actually, you're right. Forget it. Just forget it. Do you realize why I usually didn't like to talk freely around you? Because of things like this!
[Foot on the gas-] But fine, we can avoid that, just like we avoided everything else because apparently you couldn’t stand- fine, just tell me where they are. That’s all I want to know. Then I’ll leave you off at my new place and I’ll finish this. I’ve cable. You can find ways to kill time there until I’m done.
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[ If one thing's still intact in Joseph, it's his flair for dramatics. He splays one rotting hand at the collar of his shirt and puts the other over his gasping mouth, his brows held high in apparent shock, his voice tightened to a scandalized, high-society wisp. ]
Have I gone and done it now? Have I offended His Majesty's delicate sensibilities by not fucking prostrating myself for forgiveness over some half-baked second-hand nonsense? Poor little cupcake. [ He spreads his knuckles with all delicacy to his brow, a false swoon, a tortured and softened little moan passing his teeth. ] Oh, my poor baby. I can't imagine what it must feel like to not be able to talk freely to someone. Never in my years.
[ Not someone important. No matter how many romantics Caesar wanted to prop up, Joseph's not convinced that he wouldn't turn this into a physical altercation if it would have more impact than a moment's inconvenience. If their seats were switched, he's almost positive that a barb like that about running away, after he'd just spoke of spending hours fearing for his life in half-dead flight, would be met with a stern punch to the jaw.
Joseph prefers verbal hits, though, as always. He snaps his fingers with Eureka and feels his skin begin to slough from his finger's pad. ] But hey! The good news is that I know just the thing! Why don't you just start fucking swinging again, huh? You know, like the good old days! When Caesar couldn't say what he thought and everybody else could. How about that, Caesar? Would that help? Would it loosen the lips a little bit? Go ahead!
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...
[-...actually, no, fuck that.] Believe it or not I actually don't really care anymore about what's between you and your mother or the fact you can't-... [Words. Fucking words. Caesar regrets trying to use words already. Fuck words.] ...that's between you and her in the end, and, given that you're already dead, that won't be your problem for much longer. What I'm...upset, shall we say, about is that once again, you got mad at something I said, said what you wanted to say, except instead of standing by it, you immediately tried to backtrack and change the subject, and given that's what got you killed you damn bastard that's a little bit of a...thing, shall we say, with me. [Ha. This was so much easier when they could distract the other with pretty much anything. And if Caesar's foot hit the gas just a bit more it was only because the sooner they got back to his shitty rented room the sooner he could check his phone, and the sooner he checked his phone the sooner he'd know how bad whatever he got messaged by whomever was, and the sooner he dealt with that he could sleep.] I know, I know. I'm alive, you're not, I bound you to this world against your will and I'm going to have to get myself killed to get you out of it again, but as that's little bit of a sore spot the next time you get mad, please, just don't avoid the fight. I would rather shout at you for two hours than trying to avoid the damn fight.
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[ Because Caesar wanted to talk, because Caesar insisted on stepping over boundaries and making himself welcome where he wasn't -- he doubts that he has the self-awareness to understand what he's about to do, but it's all that he has to try and get him to understand. He straightens himself up and takes a breath. ]
Your dad --
[ His hands come down in the air before him decisively, two flat and bordering palms to mark Your Dad's position, ]
-- let's say after all of these years, he just shows up again. Not saying he will, not saying he would. Let's just say we opened the door one day and he was there, just -- "Hey, son, I'm not dead, I just fucked off for awhile!" [ Down-pitched voice and open-palmed wave included in this impression of Your Dad. He glances over to mark the breaking of this impression and turns his palms up, a request for understanding, ] Right? He just turns up after leaving you to think that for all of that time like it's nothing. Like suddenly now he belongs here. No apology, no explanation -
[ Palms closing, both pointer fingers pointing back to indicate the secondary antagonist of this story, ]
And then he meets me. And suddenly, we're talking all the time while he ices you out. He laughs at all of my stupid jokes that you hate, and actually, he thinks I'm just hilarious. He thinks I'm a fucking gas. When I'm not around, he's talking to you about me some more, just to really salt the wound. And we go out and we do shit while you're left wondering to yourself what it is we talk about all the time that you can't be around. And when I'm not hanging out with your dad, I'm sat over here, telling you why it's fine that he did what he did to you by telling you all of these things that he's told me about it. [ His hands are spinning around themselves now, indicating the passage of time and too many conversations, ] About you, about your family, but he's kept them from you, because he won't talk to you, because you don't know why.
[ He lets the situation sit for a second - but only a literal second, because Caesar's father is a hot enough topic that he's got to move quickly. It's boiling milk. If he lets it sit too long, it'll scald. ]
You're telling me right now that that wouldn't get to you? Hearing that from me and not him would just fix everything -- that'd be good enough? You wouldn't consider that reason to be upset?
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No, Jojo. This might surprise you, but I would actually consider that a very good reason to be upset. [And Caesar’s looking for a good place to pull over because apparently they’re incapable of carrying on a conversation that wouldn’t distract him while driving to the point in which he has to pull over, but-…construction. More construction. No side streets at all. Poised to get onto the interstate - not far, just two exits - but far enough that the interstate was the quickest route. Of course.
And so, with a grunt of of course when I need to pull over there’s nowhere good to be had he carried on driving.]
And I wish I knew all of this sooner. [He probably would’ve accomplished…absolutely nothing, but it was like catching the call with Joseph: he could still pretend. Caesar could pretend he could say the right things to Joseph’s mother (who, yes, he privately thought of as his mother but didn’t want to admit to anyone besides himself) and…something.] But you’re wrong: I didn’t think it would be good enough. I just thought…I don’t know, that it was important enough that you should hear that from someone, at the very least, while you have a chance. You obviously can’t hear it from her, and I’m a poor substitute, but at least I could…I don’t know, at least you could hear it, even if it wasn’t enough, wouldn’t be enough from me. It was a stupid idea.
[He just wants to sleep. It's been a long day. What was he thinking. All of this was a mistake.]
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[ Not a single, not a double, but a triple take is needed to digest this reaction. Joseph is visibly disarmed at the reaction that awaits him. Not anger, but understanding, and -- contrition? Admittance that maybe Joseph might have a point? If his living body could be sitting here instead, he might just have opened the door and jumped out of the car in shock - because the only way such a thing could come to pass is if the one driving the car wasn't Caesar at all, but some malicious entity mimicking his form.
Dead Joseph would consider the same thing if it didn't mean irreparably crippling him. He lets a stinking gust of wind pile out of him as he stares out the window. ]
Well... good. Great. Good. I'm... glad. Thanks, then, that was... [ The word sticks in his throat. ] That was... sweet... of you. Thanks.
[ Words are escaping him. He lets the car hum around them in stunned silence before he finally works himself up to speak again. ]
Whenever I brought it up to you before, you always fought me on it. If you understood, then why?
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Joseph. [This was said very precisely, crisply, bitten off bits of words with the torn edges shaved off so they were smooth and sharp, as the car wound towards the...waterfront?] You died. We had an argument: you vanished. You died. That has a way of making you think about how you interact with people- here.
[And Caesar turned off and parked along a certain city street, one of those streets that's a bad day away from crumbling into being an alley. It was in the warehouse district.] We'll have to walk. The rent's cheap and it has plumbing- before you ask, yes, it has a bed, but for obvious reasons I'm trying to keep a low profile. It's a hassle, really. I don't remember the last time I've slept in...not that I usually did, Jojo, even with you waking me up all the time- [look at me all tired with your mouth half-open He swallowed. Move on, inch by inch.] -but it's harder now. My landlord texts me if the police are doing a sweep of the area. Five in the morning, Jojo. The last time was five in the morning. I understand they're simply doing their job, but you think they'd have some consideration for the rest of us.
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Instead, Joseph exhales one still laugh from his dead chest, lightly whistling from some unseen puncture. ] You know... sorry, I don't know which of us this question is more insensitive to but I have to know - is that as weird for you to say as it is for me to hear?
[ Really. You died. Joseph died. He's moving and living on literal borrowed time. He's a walking collateral. It has to be weird, right? How can it not be?
This does serve to distract him from the gradual deterioration of their surroundings until it's too late to object - it's already happened, he's flanked by drooling graffiti and overfull trashcans. Joseph sends periodic glances Caesar's way, waiting for the inevitable reroute, waiting for it to occur to him that he's taken some wrong turn somewhere - but no, it's soon confirmed, this is where they want to be. This big, dark harbour. This crowded row of fat, concrete bricks of buildings. This joyless murder site waiting to happen. He probably wouldn't have even had to go far if they'd lived here when he died - he could have been murdered right here on their doorstep.
He squints, one last chance handed to Caesar to reconsider what had to be the wrong place, before jamming his fingers into his seatbelt's buckle to click it open. ]
Never thought I'd see the fucking day when you put yourself in a place like this.
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Things change, Jojo.
[He gave it one anyway.
Their destination was a gray building, one warehouse much like the others. It was squat and fat, desolate…somehow. Despite the buildings, the area, there was something about it that seemed…barren, maybe. Remote. Lonely? That somehow it held itself aloof…somehow. Maybe it was the night. Maybe it was the fact that they had raised someone (Jojo) from the dead, which lent everything in the night a certain eerie ambiance, a sinister atmosphere. Maybe it was the illumination or the lack thereof: the clouds that had started drifting in front of the moon shrouded the building in more darkness than it might otherwise normally have, leaving them some inconsistent streetlights to guide them. It probably had a more imposing atmosphere than it deserved.
Because it was a shitty building.
Yeah, it was the sort of building that people were murdered around, and the neighborhood (‘neighborhood’) was the sort in which people were murdered in, and yet it didn’t deserve that much of an atmosphere. It would probably be more run down and tired in proper lighting. Maybe.
The letters above the main door read XPRES LOGISTICS]
I thought I’d only be here for a month. Maybe two. I ended up staying longer. You have no idea how hard it is to find a cheap place without a one year lease, Joseph- the search for our last apartment? It’s only gotten worse. Now hush-
[And Caesar ignored the main warehouse door for a side one, a smaller one: presumably, back in the heyday of XPRES LOGISTICS this would be where the supervisors entered early in the morning and left late at night. He reached for his keys.]
I think my…neighbors, shall we say, are home.
[There would be a number of shipping containers inside. Sound would be coming from one of them. A light from another.
Caesar would ignore it to head upstairs, to where the staff offices were…or once had been.]
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Caesar weaves deeper into the warehouses near the harbour, and though confused, Joseph dutifully shambles after him. He keeps his questions to himself - it doesn't look like Caesar's in any mood to reciprocate his earlier forthgiving attitude to answer them anyways. He'll get something half-hearted, as strange as that is to assume, he could remember when he didn't ask anything of him for fear that he might get his whole heart. It had been a force at one point - now he supposes that he understands how Caesar can bare it here. He's even more tired than Joseph himself is.
He limps along as they enter the warehouse, through the same secret avenues that those with legitimate reasons to come here might have used years ago. He looks over the rowed-up shipping containers, all like perfect little rows of tilled crops, growing rust and bedbugs and stagnancy for harvest. He can't still his questions anymore. ]
So, [ His voice is even harsher to his ears now after prolonged silence, and though he knows it won't help, the urge to clear his throat is too powerful to not try and see how a dusty little choke might improve things, ] where are the apartments, anyways?
[ It's a stupid question, he knows. He's still holding out some sort of hope that they're just dropping by. Getting something. Meeting someone. Something that isn't what it is. ]
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But he knew that Joseph knew.
So, instead, he hesitated on the stairs. He spoke quietly, briskly, like a thief in the night trying not to startle any ghosts.]
Don’t be an idiot. [Then, he gestured to the shipping containers below them. Behold, Joseph, behold.] When I first moved I actually lived in one of those…not one of the ones here, Jojo. A different one in a different warehouse. It was terrible, but I told myself that I could use that to hone my edge. That what I returned to night after night would remind me of what’s important and serve to drive me forward.
[There was a pause. (Even now Caesar hadn’t lost his sense of drama and dramatic timing.)] I lasted two weeks, Jojo. Then I woke up to a cockroach crawling up my leg and realized there was limits. Even for a vendetta. I’m upstairs. There’s five rooms: three of them are occupied. Be quiet in the hallway, Jojo, as my neighbors are the…easily excitable kind. I’m not the only one who has unfinished business, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t sleep well. Do you understand?
[Upstairs would be a dirty hallway, with seven doors, each door worn and old and faintly mismatched - they looked alike, but there were two which weren’t exactly the same, implying that at some point a door had been lost but whoever had replaced it had actually taken the effort to try to find something…somewhat close. Maybe. Or maybe it was cheapest. Caesar’s was the furthest to the left, furthest down the hall.]
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Joseph eyes the stairs with some disdain as he prepares himself to climb it. He lifts his hand and plants it on the banister. He piles his weight into it and carefully hauls his foot up to the first step with a grinding crackle of rigid and dry bones that Caesar might hear if he listens closely enough. He continues, the sound subsides step by step, leaving the occasional smear of oily black tracking up the rail. He grimaces as he wills his legs to work with him.
He shoots Caesar a strained look from the fourth step as he speaks, rushes out a scoff with one overexerted breath, rolls his glazed eyes, shucks his elbow against the banister a moment to address his warning. ]
Yeah, sure. Let's just take a moment to be honest with ourselves, Caesar, my lad - even if something should happen to attract the attention of some undesirables, the worst that a bunch of homeless crackheads squatting in a warehouse are going to do is shoot me again.
[ And he's so threatened by that notion that he's going to heave his foot up and onto the next step again, and continue right along until he gets to the top. He unglues his hand from the railing as he hauls himself to the top floor and shakes the strain out. ]
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[They might not be as (normally) fatal as a gunshot, but no less unpleasant in their own way.
He could explain. He could say that he suspects that the latest...resident in one of the containers below was also one who dabbled in the necromantic arts, in divining the dead, summoning unbound spirits and attaching them to bodies, and so forth and so on, and, given this and given half an excuse, he'd attach himself to Joseph and wouldn't let go. He could explain that the person in the closest room...for obvious reasons Caesar didn't care to know his neighbors, but he knew enough to know that the stranger had lost someone and give half an excuse he'd start begging Joseph to take a message to the other side. Jojo didn't have to sleep, true, but Caesar still did: he could imagine waking up to a stranger sobbing, begging to take a message to the other side. Please.
He could say those things.
But instead, he continued up the stairs, past Joseph, to the door furthest down the hall (not even bothering to keep things too quiet, really, he wasn't stomping down the hall but he wasn't really making an effort to be quiet either) and pulled out his keys, and, perhaps tellingly, gestured for Joseph to stand back - it was almost as if he was expecting to have to ambush or be ambushed by something, wasn't it? But no- the door swung open and...
...nothing happened besides Caesar relaxing and walking in. Jojo could follow at his leisure.
The room was as clean as could be expected - not very. There was, surprisingly, a small bathroom that consisted of a sink, a toilet, and a drain-]
They installed those after there was an accident, Jojo. From what I understand it, the landlords thought it was better to spend some money instead of chancing an accident at midnight given the usual renters.
[And a bed. Or at least a mattress. There was a sleeping bag on top, which said a great deal about the condition of the bed. Functional enough to sleep on top of, not functional enough to chance sheets. There was a table - the fucking lighter occupied a place of honor on top of it.
There was also a lot of electronics considering the setting. A laptop, a second phone, and a lamp. Maps strewed around. Even a book. If it wasn't for the building one might get the impression that Caesar was just on a prolonged business trip - it had that sort of unsettled restless feel to it, that despite the fact he might've been there for months he was poised to leave at any time. The one major concession to homeliness was a pair of slippers, for those times in which Caesar didn't want to wear shoes or socks but no one would touch the ground with their bare feet. The other was a small, cheap rug of the sort purchased during back to school college dorm sales, gaudy, cheap, and disposable: likely for the same reasons. It was orange. It would likely be left there to die when (if) the time came to leave.
You could also see the water from one corner. It was dark and had a foul smell if one opened the window (probably by literally breaking it) but it was still water.]
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[ It's a joke, because he needs a joke that isn't this sad excuse for an apartment right now. He follows Caesar inside as he's given the grand tour of this room full of nothing he lived in now, probably lurid with bedbugs and lice. Joseph hardly wants to think about what else he could reveal with just a blacklight. He doesn't want to think about the way in which Caesar has reduced himself, squashed himself into a tiny room that doesn't deserve him, surrounded by criminals and lowlifes who couldn't have understood what and who they were in the proximity of.
And the only thing he doesn't want to do more than think about all of this is to say it.
So instead; ]
Look, right -- I'll show you.
[ And he shambles right on over to that drain, lowers himself with all of the spry grace of a 99-year-old man coming down on a toilet, and he splays himself out on the floor. He lolls his blackened tongue out against the cracked tile. He plays dead for a short second before lifting his head and pulling his tongue back between his teeth, nodding. ]
Right? Right? I fit right in. Wonderful.
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[And then Caesar laughs in that tired, hollow way when something really isn’t that funny but you pretend like it is anyway because you’re just that finished: you’re done with everything, including the person you’re with or what’s left of it. While Joseph lies down on the floor he sits on the bed with a grimace, because, yes, he, too, knows what’s likely in that mattress, and he, too, had to come to terms with it. The feeling of something crawling in his hair. The bites. And yet it was still better than before.]
As you can see, Jojo, this is the perfect place for our family, though, if you still have concerns, I can get you a motel room for the night. I’ve enough money for that. I’d just need one thing before you go: you telling me whether or not the place they found you was the same place that you died at or not.
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[ And what a legacy it is. Gut snakes and a nest of flies in a garbage dump of an apartment.
Getting up is clearly too tall an order right now, so Joseph watches him from the floor, his cheek smushed against his shoulder as he lays loosely curled around the drain in the floor. He shrugs his free shoulder. ]
Hardly makes a difference to me, does it. I'm not the one who's going to feel those bedbugs, and I'm already a walking bughouse, anyways. Being in one as well isn't going to bother me.
[ But then Caesar asks his questions. If he doesn't know, then he supposes the police must be keeping their finds close to their chest. They still hadn't been found. The smile ebbs and fades, he looks down at the concrete floor in thought, and he shrugs. ]
No. I don't think so. I... when I died, I was being dragged, but even after, I think they put me somewhere else. Not far, closer to where I entered the wood. Hoping to cool things down so that they could run, I might imagine.
[ He glances up, half-smiling, filmy eyes cringing with the effort. ]
It's quite strange, really. You can still feel that sort of thing when you're gone. You don't know exactly what's going on, but you vaguely sort of... know these things. What's happening to your body. Where you're buried. You're still connected to it.
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Instead, this: Caesar turned off the light in the practiced way of someone who had spent that much time in that space and so knew where everything was.
Fortunately, there was the distant moan of someone having a nightmare echoing from outside filling in the space, and there were lights from outside so it wasn't completely dark. Just dark enough. It was dark along the warehouses.]
Can you...hear anything? See anything? Or is it just...feeling? [Could you hear me? Did you hear your grandmother?...your mother was as stoic as always. She cried later. Did you know about this, Jojo?
It was easier when it was dark enough that he didn't have to pretend like he wasn't about to break apart. At least he didn't have to keep a straight face.]
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gdit I did research and now I want to marathon Eurospy movies
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