I — Comment with your character. II — Others will leave a picture (or two, or three...) III — Reply to them with a setting based on the picture. IV — Link to any pictures that are NSFW, please. V — Be aware that this meme will be image-heavy.
[Caesar exhaled, slow. Like a balloon had been punctured and the air was hissing out, like that, not a quick exhale of air, nothing sharp, but a slow, deliberate hiss. It was like that. Slow and soft. Like a part of him was collapsing.
He half-turned his head. He was going to remain motionless, just as he had intended on saying nothing except what it took to goad Jojo into something unfair so he could be angry and so he could move. And then he moved, not quite to look at Joseph, but to let Joseph look at him if he wanted to, to look past Joseph and stare at...a step. The coin stilled in his hand.]
You have nothing to apologize for, Jojo.
[And then he shifted away.]
Really, you don’t. I was your joke and you were my child, and then I brought you back from the dead just to listen to me talk, and you’re stuck in that…thing, and I have no idea when- if I can fix it, I might have to shoot myself to fix it, so if there was any question of which of us had done the worst to the other I think at this point I’ve more than answered it. And I don’t know if you’ve realized this but if I’d just moved out, if I ended this, then you might still be alive. Have you ever thought about that? I have. We might not be speaking to each other, but at least you wouldn’t be dead.
[Then, Caesar laughed, a sad, sad parody of one. A chuckle that was a few sharpened edges short of a growl.] We both made our decisions and we both made our mistakes. And you are a cruel man sometimes. I need you to piss me off and the one time I need that you’re just-...I’m sorry.
[ It shouldn't have been that way, that's what's sitting in Joseph's mouth like ashes. But he can't spit them out - they've been sitting long enough on his tongue that they begin to melt and slide down his throat before he can. It shouldn't have been that way. Did Caesar ever want it to change? Did he think that it could have? Did he just not want to be bothered? He lets these questions mingle with the ashes until they all melt.
Suddenly, Joseph is glad for the thing that Caesar has him bound to, because if he were whole and as alive as he had been in the photo, he would have held him. And holding him would be to absorb all of that agony at once. He treats himself to only a glance, a gesture of what Caesar was now - his pale skin, sleepless eyes, tangled hair, form hunched in directionless despair - before his gaze floats back to the pavement. ]
Don't say things like that, Caesar. About shooting yourself. Please? [ Soft, pleading - dripping with an intolerable amount of simper, if you consulted Joseph himself on it. He clears his throat, then, with the beginning of a shy smile just only starting to precipitate, ] It can't be all that bad, can it?
[ But Caesar knows him better than Joseph might have supposed, and he's proving it now. He wants more. He wants something to be mad about. He's trying to angle him into tripping a fight again, as he had so many times in the past. His fighting days are well over - Joseph doesn't need to tell that to Caesar, and he doesn't need to tell him which of them is the crueler man after that demand, to pour into the conversation a poison that had been bitter enough to kill the both of them.
So what Caesar is saying, Joseph is sure with a sudden and uncharacteristic clarity, is this; there is more that you have not told me. And there was. Joseph was holding out. He was sitting on more than enough to stoke the fire that had been doused by that picture of (if you can believe it) happier times. Whether his perception of Caesar's intent is true or projected, this unsaid morsel nips at his heels and bounces over his shoulders.
He'd find out anyways. It comes out in a thick sigh, dragged from Joseph but tucked away in a hidden place under his dry breath, as though he'd wanted it to be taken and processed as an afterthought; ]
[If Caesar knew what Jojo had been wondering he’d say this: they were terrible for each other. It didn’t matter what either of them did, had done, wanted to do as it would have never worked out between them. If it hadn’t been this, then one would’ve destroyed the other or they both would’ve destroyed each other in some other way. He didn’t know what way, but the both of them were creative. They would’ve thought about something.
He didn’t say this. He didn’t say, either, what he wanted to say: it’s not so much that I want to shoot myself, Jojo, as it is that I noticed that my friend didn’t specify which life was tied to yours, and, as such, I can’t rule out that he used myself instead of your murderer. Bitter, sharper if he had said it, which was why he tried to not say it, but basically that. The fact it would come out as a knife was why Caesar kept it sheathed. He felt like he was all sharp corners and rusted edges and the rest of him would rust as well if he wasn’t careful, and the rest of him felt like it was rusting away, but for once…for once maybe…he could try to cut something that wasn’t Joseph. It likely would be impossible, but he, at least, wanted to try.
But then, Joseph said that he saw him. Before he died. And Caesar knew that this was what he needed, and also that he’d curse hearing it. The smart thing to do would be to back away, to try to brace himself - this was that sort of knowledge, he knew, with that same instinct which told him to jump, to roll, to breathe - buy himself time so he could face it head on. But he was also stupid. And-…where else would he go? What else would he do? No, better to hear it now and then deal with whatever it was in the hours ahead, when he could busy himself with nonsense. He tensed, then, forced himself to relax.]
What do you mean, Jojo? [And it was said in the same way he’d ask for a last cigarette before facing the firing squad. He very carefully didn't turn around. He didn't want to see the look on Joseph's face.]
[ There's more conversation that Joseph wants to make. Any conversation. He wants to make senseless small talk before he takes responsibility for the last images that carried with his body to his grave, the last sounds, this parting cruelty and kindness that saw him to the end of his life. He wants to say everything he can before he passes them to Caesar - who, despite his bluster and prickle, Joseph is confident will be most wounded by them.
He considers it, and in the meantime, he lets the silence between them grow fat with significance. But by now, he knows what I don't want to talk about it will get him. Caesar would push, and push, and push, even if he left only the most lethal scrap unsaid. He sighs, and he begins it with a stillness, a silence and a lagging pace incongruent with all that Joseph had lived for. He continues like a funeral procession. ]
Before I died, while I was lying there waiting for it. You came right out of the woods for me, clear as anything, all suited in white against the gloom, like I-- when things were good-- [ and they were good rarely, ] like how I held you in my head when things were good. All white and glowing. You looked...
[ Now's not the time, and he decides to get back on track before Caesar reminds him. ]
And I thought that maybe I was seeing things, but - it smelled like you, spoke like you, moved like you. It smelled like your smokes even though it wasn't smoking. It was you. You knelt right down next to me, and I... was terrified. No matter how things got between us, Caesar, I never felt scared of you. Not really. Not mortally afraid. When I was watching you stroll up to me, while I was bleeding out... and when you got close, and I saw this smile, this... gentle thing. I was horrified. I'd accepted that I was about to die, but that didn't make me as afraid as seeing you out there like that did.
[ The silence gorges itself again. Joseph wants to stand up and walk away, to forcibly end the conversation. The tense intent in his legs projects that much. He nails his ass to the stairs and stays put. ]
And then you just knelt down by me, and... you were still smiling like that, and you just -- you got down next to me, close, you know, and... you started stroking my hair. Pulling leaves from it. Kissing me. [ Another substantial pause as he gathers himself. His throat is threatening to cave in with every word. ] You were -- you were whispering to me. You were shushing me, and... it was sweet things you were saying. Adoring things. And.
[ Can his eyes still cry? He feels as though he's about to find out. Joseph tries to force his throat open to tell the rest. His voice is rough in the way that warns of tears and rolling sobs, but his eyes stay dry. ]
I knew you were going to kill me, and I knew this thing was trying to be cruel to me, but -- it can't've been farther from what it was. It was the kindest thing he could have done, and -- I didn't care, I didn't care that you were about to kill me, I wished it was you. I wanted it to be you.
[ His choking throat isn't stopping the words anymore. ]
You stuck fingers in the bullet hole and you-- you grabbed me by the back of my neck, put claws in my throat and dragged me along until I died, and-- I-I wished so desperately it could have been you. Just for that few seconds of kindness. Even as you were killing me, even still, I didn't care. I wanted so badly to keep on believing it was you, I did, I--
[Joseph’s death had been the catalyst for him to confront many things. In the days and days after Joseph was gone, Caesar had picked apart the sad trajectory of...whatever it was they had, picked out all of those ugly little things he didn’t want to acknowledge about himself or them, and inspected them, one by one by one. Not all of them - he didn’t have the time, nor the luxury, to get properly drunk and deal with that baggage, too much and it would break him, not enough and it wouldn’t be meaningful, he had to do this carefully - but as many as he could. And the conclusion Caesar reached was that he rather didn’t like himself and had no idea what made Joseph stay as long as he had. Because he got along with Joseph’s mother? Because he was a good fuck? He didn’t know. And Caesar thought that he’d dealt with it, and nothing could hit him in that same way.
He had been wrong. Joseph talked and talked and talked and he had been so wrong, because he knew that all of his dreams had been true and in the worst possible way and he was uncoiling from the railing, straightening, taking it in, and of course the killer would take everything from him- them, no, it was a them, wasn’t it? The murderer took everything from them, even this.]
Joseph.
[...would he see Joseph if he confronted the killer? Joseph as he was- there was a part of Caesar, fever sharp, that wondered if there was yet another way to make all of this right after all- but no, he wasn’t going to think about this. (He would. Caesar would, but he’d try to save it for when he was alone, and hopefully when he had his phone- he couldn’t be left alone with his phone. He might ask things. And then, depending on the answer, he might not be able to resist.)]
Jojo. [And- damn him, damn them both, he turned- it was like he was in one of his dreams again, and any second now Joseph was going to stare at him and crumble away, again and again and again, but Joseph held stable. At least what was left of him did. And he took one of those things that- Joseph’s hand felt so cold. Caesar felt so hollow. At least they were the same in that respect.] If it…
[(Of course this would be taken away by the killer as well.)] If it makes it easier I’ll pretend. For you. That I was there. That all of that was me. [Even the part in which he killed Joseph. Especially that part.]
[ During brighter times, Joseph would have loved him that wilful ignorance, that deliberate and hard-headed aversion to examining himself with anything but one of those two most violently opposed lenses – faulted and faultless. Glass of either beautiful rose, or the most unappealing of olive greens. Never would Caesar think to look at himself with a clear lens – he was either hopelessly ugly or infallibly beautiful, and this was Caesar, and this was something that Joseph found equal parts love and amusement in.
Joseph’s reasons turned out to be both myriad and singular, just as they were simple and complex. He stayed because he felt that he would be hopeless on his own, that he was the sort of person who had been alone for so long that suddenly being alone again may prove the end of Caesar. He stayed to wake him up in the mornings and to foil his arrogance. He stayed because if he didn’t, nobody would be there to receive Caesar’s rage. He stayed because he loved him, and he stayed because eventually, he might feel that love returned.
The warmth of Caesar’s hand on his is a fire, and he is palpably startled as it blankets his knuckles. The warmth licks at his wrist, spreads a tingling wake over his skin. If he were alive, he might have had to suppress a shiver as it swept his body up with it.
Here, Caesar confirms both his most terrible nightmares and the dreams he never dared to voice in one breath. Joseph’s limbs, all but the arm attached to the hand under Caesar’s palm, pull in in a contracted little ball, and he hunches against his thighs. He keeps his head firmly turned away, staring into the plain warehouse wall hemming the other side of their path. He stares at nothing, and he says nothing, for a great deal of time.
His shoulders shake, and Caesar is granted access to something that happened often enough, but that he was never made party to. He feels a sudden and panicking need to breathe that manifests in trembling gasps. His other hand unbundles from his lap and spreads fingers and palm over his mouth, as though he might vomit more black and stinking bile. In all but tears, Joseph mourns in the secret sobs of an ashamed boy, something which might at once make his age horribly apparent. He trembles silently, presses his lips into his hand, and only allows himself harsh gasps and voiceless hiccups. Joseph remains statuesque, as though rendered frozen by some creeping horror.
Joseph sits, keeps his limbs pressed in silent fear, and he waits either for the tremors to pass or for the choking to finally suffocate him. ]
[If Joseph was alive- he wasn’t, and this was the point of all of this, and they had wasted so much, but...if he had been, and through some miracle they were actually talking (ha, and then they could fly to the moon and turn back time) about it all, this would’ve been the point in which- it didn’t matter what Caesar would’ve done, could’ve done, might’ve done, what he should’ve done. It didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter.
Caesar looked at Joseph, then, looked away. Some things he couldn’t see, not without breaking down, and he didn’t need tears: he needed stone. He needed fire. He kept his hand over Joseph’s, wrapped his fingers around it, gave it a squeeze. A small thing. Pathetic, really. By rights he should be draping himself over his idiot and crying for him. If he was a...but he wasn’t. That was the point of this. He wasn’t.]
Let’s face it. He was better to you than I ever was, Joseph, and we both know this. [Even with how things ended. And then Caesar forced his tone lighter, or tried to: it fell flat, but...he tried.] What did he call you- no, don’t tell me. Whatever he called you, Jojo, I can do better. My dove- no, if anything, you’d be a goose. [Laugh, damn you.]
I’m sorry. [His hand squeezed again.] If I say anything more serious now it would come out all wrong- if you- [And Caesar squeezed his hand again. He wanted to do more: lean over, cradle Joseph in his arms, say something reassuring, something right, fix things. A corpse would be far from the most disgusting thing he handled recently, and, besides, it wasn’t just a corpse. It was Joseph. But he couldn’t. Because if he looked at Joseph he’d start to cry. If he was a better person, he could, but he wasn’t.] If you heard it you wouldn’t- it would sound all wrong, Jojo. All wrong. And I won’t be outdone by a...a...thing that went and...dammit.
[He could feel himself starting to break. He looked away. Out. Stubbornly stared away. Out. Towards the water and the sky, and the worst part was that, as he stared, Caesar realized that it was likely going to be a pleasant day, clear and bright.]
[ Dangerous things crawling around in Joseph can be most easily detected in his stillness. When something is welling in him, he goes still and silent. The beast that is true and genuine emotion overpowers him and sucks his will - this, not the bombastic and theatrical overreactions, are when one should be most worried. When the same can be said about Caesar, Joseph is beginning to realize, he fills the air with words to disguise the same monster. Quiet words, loud words, words attempting to be a joke (is that sharp little gasp another stab into his gut, or the beginning of a laugh?) any words. Caesar snatches them up and he throws them into the air like confetti. It's a diversion, and Joseph doesn't have it in his heart to do anything but let it succeed.
He sits quiet and untouched for a moment, the gasps rattling his dead body to its bones, asphyxiated lungs still begging for air in panicked succession. He takes a long and steadying breath, and he lifts his fingers to only barely allow words to escape. ]
Luce dei miei occhi. [ Filtered through a clumsy English tongue. ] I don't know what it means. It probably means more to you than it will to me, actually. It just... you said it fondly. Like you were talking to someone you loved.
[ There's a hunger edging into his voice, one so subtle to Joseph himself that he's very unaware that it's present, one that growls through him most persistently as the L word escapes him, up until his voice chokes itself out. The silence that follows is protracted as Joseph struggles to find his voice again, and for a moment thinks that the rot must have just in time reached his throat good and proper and rendered him mute. Maybe that way they could really begin to reconcile. ]
Or maybe... [ No such luck, as it would seem. Joseph swallows, breathes the beginning of a sad and pained laugh, ] Maybe, he was just as mean and he only sounded nicer about it. Wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't that just... that'd be f-funny, wouldn't it.
[ Prepare for disappointment. Turn precious things into ash in your mouth before the rest of the world can. ]
[This is exactly why he didn’t want to know what the thing had said: his voice, his body, something else’s words. Words Caesar might’ve picked if he wasn’t confident that they would’ve been thrown back in his face, and, apparently, had been utterly wrong about that. Like stars, hovering above his reach. Or fireflies, for how bright they seem, but when you catch them they die so quickly.]
Luce dei miei occhi. [And when Caesar says it, he says it in the same way he spoke his prayers, back when he almost believed, back before the rest of his life happened. In that same reverent, wistful, hopeful, hopeless way, in how he could feel his faith breaking but wanted to pretend for a moment longer. Pretend those were his words, not something else’s words] He called you that, did he?
[Caesar wanted to laugh in all of the wrong ways, cynical and brittle. He forced himself to breathe, instead. (Back when he was angrier, when he first met Joseph’s mother and she forced him to breathe and think and focus. Breathe like that.) The killer really had been better to Joseph then he ever had been for all of those few seconds. If it wasn’t for how things ended then the best thing to have done for Joseph’s sake might have been to break up with him, only to wingman as he hooked up with that...thing he found in the forest instead. It shouldn’t have been like this. It should’ve been any other way.
(And there was a part of Caesar that hated the fact that it had been the way it was in the first place, that they had been brought together and he couldn’t look away no matter how hard he tried.)]
It’s not what I would’ve chosen. The light of my eyes. [And this was why he didn’t want to say anything now. It came out all wrong, all sad and wistful and quiet.] But, it’s not wrong either.
[ Italian - another thing of Caesar's that he'd loved in secret, but mocked and mocked viciously until it finally died a slow and angry death. His fleet tongue, able to clip those impossible and graceful syllables with such ease. He could make any statement he wanted out of those words and Joseph would be entranced. He could have translated their grocery list or all of the insults Caesar had lobbed at him in retaliation, and it would have sung in his ears. Even now, warmth spirits over his skin, tingles from his chest and outward as he takes in Caesar's rendition of the phrase - and with a certain secret relief, finds that he does not overlap with the imitator in the forest. Caesar says it like a psalm. He pours his heart into it until it can only be whispered. There's sadness, yes, cracking like some rocky fissure that trickles into a cavern of green things and fresh water secreted away underground. Horribly sad, but somewhere, beautiful.
The warmth freezes to dust almost as soon as it settles across his skin, the ghost of a memory. It's just as well. The feeling itself shouldn't exist. ]
Oh, surely not.
[ The beginning and tired-out gust of a laugh stretched too thin to arrive at this moment, and actually, though his tone is thick with sobbing and hoarse with dry air, he's found its lightness again. No, no, light of his eyes Joseph was not - but he locks the translation away in his heart and uses it as a pulse anyways. ]
I saw some light in your eyes when you looked at me, all right. Not the sort he was talking about, though - more like a-- [ He inhales, one hard and sharp gasp that comes out with the tumble of a laugh, as his fingers turn and carefully contract around Caesar's - for as much as they can, anyways, and he continues; ] --m-more like a grease fire or something.
[ Bright, but dangerous and angry and hot, impossible to put out with conventional means. Easily able to spread and to overtake and to consume at a moment's notice, leaving ash in its path.
Joseph leaves the comparison for a moment, waits for even the imitation of a laugh, before he carefully unfolds the secure little bundle he's made of himself. He doesn't turn as he takes the glossy black phone and brings the screen to life. For one more moment, he takes in the picture before him. The words rise in his throat like weeds and choke him into silence. It takes him a time to wrestle words beyond the thicket, with what tiny voice he has left. ]
[Grease fire. Joseph doesn’t get a laugh so much as the ghost of one, something that might’ve been a laugh if things were slightly different. If Jojo had escaped in time, maybe. Joseph called Caesar, Caesar had picked up, summoned help. Help had found Joseph in time and they were having this conversation in the hospital. Caesar could almost imagine it: flowers all around them, like before, except this time they weren’t for mourning. And the air was sterile and sanitized, void of salt, and there was little noise. And the near-death broke his resolve and he had said something (and how much of this might have been avoided if he had, before?) and they were, for once, talking. He could almost imagine it. How close they were. He didn’t want to think about it.
He straightened, his fingers curling around Joseph’s hand as best as he could. Joseph was cold, so cold. It wasn’t fair. Looked down at the phone. He didn’t trust himself to look at Joseph. (And what if he’d found this picture sooner, uploaded it somewhere Joseph couldn’t help but see it, wait for the reaction? What if?) Swallowed. He didn’t trust his words. Caesar never did. Especially not now.
Then, he gestured with his free hand, a little wave towards the phone.]
That’s why I always went to those parties. I- [He can’t say it.] …usually liked you the most when you weren’t paying attention to me. You were just…you. [No, that's not the word.] Happy. [That's the word he wanted.]
[ There's little difference here between a laugh and a laugh's ghost - a muddy puddle in the middle of a vast desert is water, no matter how filthy. It was technically something amused, even distantly and coldly so, and that's all that it can come down to. It's the most that they can hope for. He's sure it's the closest he ever got even while he was alive, anyways. He smiles a private smile, as they always have been when they're made in Caesar's presence, and he tries to keep that dried and pathetic little thing forefront enough that he takes it with him back to the grave.
What brief sliver of happiness that moment holds is stolen from him with predictable, halting suddenness. In life, Joseph might have lashed out, read between the lines and disliked so strongly what he saw that he resorted to passive needling and anger and provocation. He's run dry of that by now.
Joseph turns away again and presses his cheek into his knee, folding himself in half. He takes a minute to turn over what Caesar has said. ]
I didn't know that you even knew me. [ Rippled by a weak, dried-out chuckle. Reedy and short of breath from his earlier choking fit. He didn't know that Caesar liked him, either - or liked him enough to enjoy his company from a distance. This was what it took for Caesar to sit happily in his company, and after everything, Joseph can't dispute that conclusion, and nor can he help the sting it jabs him with. ]
... if I were to ask you how long I've been such a burden on you, would you tell it honestly?
You know what you were to me, Joseph? [No. And Caesar presses on, and as he does so he tries to inject as much heat and warmth into his words as he can, like he’s kindling a fire. Desperately trying to summon some light. Like he’s the moon, waining, but a lantern for those lost in the dark. Desperately trying to coax out…something. Something better. Something better than Joseph asking how long he was a burden to him.] You were like a firefly to me…or a lightning bug? I don’t know which you prefer. In… [Breathe, dammit.] …in Italian, la lucciola.
I- [And his glance slid down to the phone- no, no, no, he can’t look at the phone, the party picture leads to the other pictures, those blurry selfies, that Yoshi doll, look away, look at Joseph’s corpse, look at the wall behind him, imagine something else.] Didn’t realize it, but in hindsight it’s blindly obvious that our…everything was like a jar that was choking you to death. But at those parties, you shone. You shone in a way I never could, Joseph. I used to think you were like a star, but you’re nothing like a star. Stars are fixed things. You’re too much of a wild thing to be anything like them.
I knew nothing about you and that’s also obvious, but- [Dammit, he’s going to cry, he’s not going to cry, he’s going to shut up, he needs to shut up, dammit, breathe, breathe, remember what Elizabeth told him again and again and again but it's not working. It's fucking not working.] My firefly. [And one slow shuttering breath. Put as much feeling as he could into it. Put his everything into it.] Mia lucciola. [And it was not enough. It would never be enough.] That's what you were.
[ It's all that Joseph has after all of that. It's the only thing that his flailing grasp can manage to grab hold of as Caesar takes his question, mere seconds after he'd asked it, and rips it to shreds, kindles the remains not quite to a flame but to a despairing smolder. He's struggling so profoundly to bring human warmth to the conversation that Joseph might conflate his difficulty with insincerity - but he, for once, sees it for what it is. You know what you were to me said in those red and glowing tones has him prepared for words of violence. These are not the words that Caesar has ready for him.
Caesar, inexplicably, has a story which differs from Joseph's recollection of their everything. Caesar doesn't recount the isolation or the coldness that Joseph does - or, perhaps, not in the same words. The picture that he paints is not the same detached and desolate thing that Joseph sees when he looks back on things, but one of distant admiration. Joseph is likened to stars, then to a firefly trapped in a jar - things that are to be admired, but only from a distance. Joseph was gazed at from a distance, a longed-after light in a blanket of inky night, or he was a delicate little bug in a jar, kept to look at and to sate some mean-spirited curiosity until he inevitably suffocated or starved. Unattainable, untouchable, useless.
The harder he tried to close that distance, the further Caesar pulled away. The precision with which he illustrates this, and the desperate attempts at cloaking it all in warm and loving tones, finally proves too cruel not to check - because what manages to fill his throat like the sharp fronds of so many weeds is the realization that there is still something more there. More than Joseph had ever known - tiny little scraps of love to be had in that confession, and in the effort Caesar puts into it, the simple admission that Joseph had made him happy even if he could only do so from far away.
Something passes through him again as he struggles for air, his chest contracting on itself as he suppresses noise and emotion. His voice creaks as it brims over him, breaks with one sharp gasp. ]
Why was it all so fucked up? Why d-did it have to be so fucked up?
[were bad for each other no, he wasn’t going to say it, he wasn’t going to say it. Not I should’ve set you free a long time ago or I was bad at letting go of things - look at you now or we’d never work out, we will always, always be bad for each other, no, nothing like that. And it took Caesar a moment to realize why it was his vision was fuzzy but, ah. No. Those were tears. Funny. He kept everything dammed up for so long that Caesar felt like he had forgotten how to cry. He should be shouting, screaming, sobbing, but no, it was just staring. Staring and tears.
Fuck.]
Dammit.
[…ha, funny, dammed and damned, funny. And Caesar tried to manage a smile, something…he failed, it fell flat, and he was a little hopeless, a little wistful, and just…what might have happened if they had this conversation before? What if?]
I just… [Breathe. Fucking breathe.] I- [He can’t break down here, he’s already crying, he can’t- shouldn’t. Now wasn’t the time. (It would never be the time, but, also, the tears wouldn’t stop.)] I just want to give you something better than something else’s words, Jojo.
[ Better gets a broken and huffing little puff of a laugh. Better. He doesn't mean to be cruel for once, and the idea that he'd made Caesar happy even briefly is indeed better, but the cruelty of the rest of it proves too much to bear. The confirmation of all of his thoughts all at once is too overwhelming. Even as they conflict and clash against each other, Caesar does the impossible proves each and every thing that he'd most feared right.
He'd rather be dragged to his death again, and the defeated lowness in his voice makes no secret of it. ]
You couldn't stand me, could you? C-Can't you even see that? You h-h-- [ A few gasping breaths group up on each other to make one long gulp of air, filled with breaks and hitches, ] you had to keep me so far away just to... t-tolerate me? That's what I'm-- t-talking about. Why was it so fucked up?
[ He begins now to understand why it had always seemed that Caesar loved the dead with more fervour than he'd ever loved anything living, because the dead were distant enough from him to be idealized and longed after - just as he'd made Joseph himself. It fed his bottomless need for regret, his endless hunger for negativity which Joseph could never break him of. No living lover could emotionally satisfy him the same way that a dead one could, and in a particularly nasty twist of fate, Joseph supposes that makes them better matched than they'd ever been, and he'd now been made into a living effigy to that sentiment, and this particular knot was one that Joseph had spent the last of his life hacking away at. It's only now that he understands it.
This is something that he won't voice. Even for them, it was too cruel. Instead, he sits, heaving in silent and dry sobs, which continue to punch his words through as he speaks next. ]
I can't blame you. [ It comes out soft, unlike the stony set in his jaw. ] I went rather out of my way to be hated, eventually. How else were you s-supposed to feel? [ More voice escapes in a dry creak as he closes his lips, as though more was waiting to be said only to be stopped by his lips. Another sobbing gasp for air parts them again. He rests his forehead in the palm of his burnt hand as he tries to push his voice through his choking throat. ] But... even if that's all I was good for, just that little bit, at least I did-- s-s-something for--
[And- no, he’s going to stand, fucking tears or not, tug on Joseph’s hand- come, come. If they stayed there any longer they’d be rotting, him and Joseph both. And even if that might be where they belonged and where they deserved, maybe…he didn’t know. He didn’t know, anymore. But they could at least go somewhere different. They could pretend. Find an isolated dock, maybe, stare at the ocean. Something.]
If- if I just hated you I wouldn’t have wanted you to see…
[…he should pick up his phone. He didn’t want to: he couldn’t be trusted with it, but he didn’t want to say that either. I want to do things over. No, they couldn’t talk about prices. Not now. Even if he wanted it so badly. But he needed his phone. They needed his phone. And his things. His other things. Leave no excuse to return.]
…that. I didn’t trust you, Jojo. And I was angry at you, and I won't pretend like I didn't hate you sometimes, but- it wasn’t just that I couldn’t stand you. It was...
[He shouldn’t be talking. But here he was.] Like you said. I was cold to you, you were an ass to me, I treated you like a child, you treated me like a joke. And those were the few times you were just- yourself, and I didn’t have to worry about you turning around and turning me into a joke once more because you were bored, and I suppose you weren’t thinking about whether or not I was cold to you so you could be yourself. Then we got back to the apartment and then it was all petty fights and stupid things, I thought you were trying to piss me off, you didn’t think I cared, then you were trying to piss me off, and then I started to not care. I had my guard up all the time and it was exhausting, and you likely did as well. I don't know. When you vanished all the time after fights I wondered sometimes if you were just trying to make me angry some other way, which was why I just didn't say, "Jojo, I was worried." And then we made our choices and we ended up here.
[ Caesar keeps on talking, filling the air with words and hoping that some of them stick stubbornly enough to caulk some of the cracks in the both of them - and before he knows it, he's being pulled up to his feet. He scrambles to grab Caesar's phone from the step before he accidentally pulls his hand out of its socket before he's hauled to his feet.
From here, Caesar is his undertow into a cold and twisting quagmire of words, rapid-fire confessions and revelations pulling him further and further down. Caesar has always used words when he had nothing else, but Joseph's not sure that he's ever seen him as bankrupt for anything but words as he is right now. Words flow from Caesar as quickly as they seem to be flowing through him, the only thing that keeps him from collapsing in an inanimate heap on the docks. Like all that could orchestrate him were words and more words - and this is when Joseph realizes that he's witnessing a breakdown. Caesar has finally found himself at his wit's end, and it's only now starting to manifest outwardly.
Words pile on words - Caesar was cold, Joseph was an ass, regrets on regrets and so many fights. Restraint against his games leading him into prolonged callousness. The consequences of so many tiny mistakes piling up high enough to finally kill Joseph.
He follows by his hand, Caesar's phone clutched in his other, and he listens. The flood of words is too substantial for Joseph to stem. ]
...there was a place I thought you’d like. I found it- it doesn’t matter. I thought about asking you to go there, once or twice, but I knew you’d say no. I knew you’d throw it back in my face, so I never bothered. And then you never returned, and there went my chance to ask.
And I thought, Jojo. [And Caesar doesn’t even know where they’re going, just that they have to move before he cracks any further. He can feel it: water gushing. All of those dammed up confessions leaking out one by one.] I didn’t know what to do anymore, but I thought, Jojo, I thought that if I did something for you, for once in my misbegotten life, then maybe I could move forward. Since you were gone there was only one thing I could do for you: avenge you.
[And then he stopped walking for a moment. Breathed, closed his eyes, and said, very deliberately, very slowly:] Don’t leave me alone with my phone. [And his voice grew tighter and colder, like a number of things were being repressed, packaged up, forced back into dark corners. At great effort.] I might ask questions if I'm left alone with it and I don’t know what I’ll do if the answer to any of those ends up being yes. You can't trust me with it, Jojo.
[ Joseph had thought that maybe there would be something that Caesar needed to say - but no. Caesar doesn't continue talking, he continues unraveling. Caesar walks he-doesn't-know-where, saying he-doesn't-know-what, and he leads Joseph by the hand the whole way. With each popped stitch in him, something new falls free, and they leave a trail of secrets - a mysterious place that Caesar was too afraid to show to him, regrets, listlessness, the truth of the ruination that Joseph had left behind when he finally died for good, Caesar's misbegotten life, misbegotten even before Caesar had abandoned himself to squalor, and what this revenge scheme had been all along, which was the pursuit of a lover who'd never been his until he lay dead.
Joseph watches each of these spill from Caesar as the strings pull tighter and tighter, the unravel is closing in on his core now and he has to do something. Joseph dutifully gathers the secrets spilling out of him and files them away as Caesar draws to a plodding stop and comes out with it; he couldn't be trusted with their memories anymore.
He wastes no time in locating a space between the nearest warehouses, a dark and narrow space. If he couldn't trust Caesar with his own phone, then most certainly, he couldn't be trusted to drive - and Joseph's quite sure that he would still try it if he didn't intervene.
Joseph takes a step closer, keeping their hands joined, and places his other cold handprint on his shoulder. Though Joseph doesn't realize it, he gives Caesar all of the answers he needs in the pressure at his shoulder, his stumbling and halting steps that he tries to take Caesar along in, in the way that he murmurs under his breath - ] Come, [ - as he guides him. ]
[If the circumstances were different this would've been the point in which he pulled away from Joseph. The pressure at his shoulder, the steps...part of Caesar's screaming at how stumbling they were, at imagining how much more sure they would've been in life: why had he put off saying something time and time again? Why? He avoided all of the important fights and picked all of the stupid ones. So stupid. They'd been so, so stupid.
But he was unraveling. He was unraveling and unraveling and unraveling and there wasn't anything to catch himself on. Nothing but Joseph. If Joseph led him off the edge of a dock he'd likely follow and hope the ocean could fill himself if nothing else did. And so far nothing else had.]
It was a bar. [So he'd catch himself on Joseph.] I found it after I went on a job without you. [And he smiled. Rueful. Wry. Neither of us really cared about the agreement, did we? The smile faded.] They have the type of beer you like. That's what made me think of you.
[ Joseph, thankfully, doesn't lead him to the edge of a dock. He can't say that he wouldn't be close to leading himself off of one right about now, if his lungs could still drown him - but no, Caesar is safe from the ocean for the time being.
Instead, he leads him to something that looks about as imposing - that dark and private crevice. Joseph's flesh is still alive enough to remember when they would lead each other into these sorts of cracks in society for far more sordid (and less terrifying) reasons - but not alive enough to react to it. The ghost of warmth and thrill ghosting across him like a far-off wind. He enjoys it while it lasts, feels human for a fraction of a second before he puts it away.
Caesar starts talking almost as soon as the shadow swallows him. Joseph guides him a few steps more as he speaks, casts him a look - how often did the two of them go back on that? - and he finally comes to a stop. He keeps his hand on Caesar's shoulder as he lets his words digest. He puts aside the moment of distant surprise at the notion that Caesar would consider him when they were apart. Now isn't the time - now is far past the time. ]
Small. [That was immediate. The word was clipped, precise, spat out of him, tossed out of him, as Caesar tried to- focus on the bar. Not on Joseph. Not on anything else. Focus on the bar.] Smaller than-…well, you. [By which he meant all that was Joseph, his personality, his- focus on the bar.] But they had beer…I mean. Of course they did. It was a bar. It would be strange if they didn’t. But I had a pint and it tasted like something you’d like. At least, I thought so: I drank enough of your drinks to have an idea of what you might like. Even if I-
[Focus on the bar.]
There was an ET pinball machine in the corner. And a few other retro games…the owner apparently liked collecting them as a hobby and rotated them around. But it was small. It would’ve been impossible for us to ignore each other if you’d gone.
[ Good, he's focusing on the bar. He got him to focus on anything that wasn't his own unraveling. It wasn't significant, but it was a start. With any luck, maybe they'd both be focusing on the bar enough to come back from this - but probably not. He knows how this goes. Let himself get too lost in this conversation, and he would probably end up walking the same paths that he always did with Caesar. He needed to be careful and cognizant of where this was going.
... he can't help the little twitch in his lips as Caesar describes the place as smaller than you. ] Well, careful, I might not've even fit.
[ Ha ha, I tell little joke.
More seriously, he considers all of the small holes-in-the-wall he knows... ]
Surely it's not the little basement pub on 53rd, is it...?
[He froze for a second, thinking, before he exhaled, soft, his lips twitched, his eyes closed (and Caesar didn’t realize how badly he wanted to close his eyes and ignore where he was up until that point, he knew he should open his eyes, he left then closed) and he-]
I should’ve known you’d know the place I’m talking about. [Of course he couldn't find something new. Of course Joseph would know all about it. Of course.] Was I right about you liking it?
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He half-turned his head. He was going to remain motionless, just as he had intended on saying nothing except what it took to goad Jojo into something unfair so he could be angry and so he could move. And then he moved, not quite to look at Joseph, but to let Joseph look at him if he wanted to, to look past Joseph and stare at...a step. The coin stilled in his hand.]
You have nothing to apologize for, Jojo.
[And then he shifted away.]
Really, you don’t. I was your joke and you were my child, and then I brought you back from the dead just to listen to me talk, and you’re stuck in that…thing, and I have no idea when- if I can fix it, I might have to shoot myself to fix it, so if there was any question of which of us had done the worst to the other I think at this point I’ve more than answered it. And I don’t know if you’ve realized this but if I’d just moved out, if I ended this, then you might still be alive. Have you ever thought about that? I have. We might not be speaking to each other, but at least you wouldn’t be dead.
[Then, Caesar laughed, a sad, sad parody of one. A chuckle that was a few sharpened edges short of a growl.] We both made our decisions and we both made our mistakes. And you are a cruel man sometimes. I need you to piss me off and the one time I need that you’re just-...I’m sorry.
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Suddenly, Joseph is glad for the thing that Caesar has him bound to, because if he were whole and as alive as he had been in the photo, he would have held him. And holding him would be to absorb all of that agony at once. He treats himself to only a glance, a gesture of what Caesar was now - his pale skin, sleepless eyes, tangled hair, form hunched in directionless despair - before his gaze floats back to the pavement. ]
Don't say things like that, Caesar. About shooting yourself. Please? [ Soft, pleading - dripping with an intolerable amount of simper, if you consulted Joseph himself on it. He clears his throat, then, with the beginning of a shy smile just only starting to precipitate, ] It can't be all that bad, can it?
[ But Caesar knows him better than Joseph might have supposed, and he's proving it now. He wants more. He wants something to be mad about. He's trying to angle him into tripping a fight again, as he had so many times in the past. His fighting days are well over - Joseph doesn't need to tell that to Caesar, and he doesn't need to tell him which of them is the crueler man after that demand, to pour into the conversation a poison that had been bitter enough to kill the both of them.
So what Caesar is saying, Joseph is sure with a sudden and uncharacteristic clarity, is this; there is more that you have not told me. And there was. Joseph was holding out. He was sitting on more than enough to stoke the fire that had been doused by that picture of (if you can believe it) happier times. Whether his perception of Caesar's intent is true or projected, this unsaid morsel nips at his heels and bounces over his shoulders.
He'd find out anyways. It comes out in a thick sigh, dragged from Joseph but tucked away in a hidden place under his dry breath, as though he'd wanted it to be taken and processed as an afterthought; ]
I saw you before I died.
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He didn’t say this. He didn’t say, either, what he wanted to say: it’s not so much that I want to shoot myself, Jojo, as it is that I noticed that my friend didn’t specify which life was tied to yours, and, as such, I can’t rule out that he used myself instead of your murderer. Bitter, sharper if he had said it, which was why he tried to not say it, but basically that. The fact it would come out as a knife was why Caesar kept it sheathed. He felt like he was all sharp corners and rusted edges and the rest of him would rust as well if he wasn’t careful, and the rest of him felt like it was rusting away, but for once…for once maybe…he could try to cut something that wasn’t Joseph. It likely would be impossible, but he, at least, wanted to try.
But then, Joseph said that he saw him. Before he died. And Caesar knew that this was what he needed, and also that he’d curse hearing it. The smart thing to do would be to back away, to try to brace himself - this was that sort of knowledge, he knew, with that same instinct which told him to jump, to roll, to breathe - buy himself time so he could face it head on. But he was also stupid. And-…where else would he go? What else would he do? No, better to hear it now and then deal with whatever it was in the hours ahead, when he could busy himself with nonsense. He tensed, then, forced himself to relax.]
What do you mean, Jojo? [And it was said in the same way he’d ask for a last cigarette before facing the firing squad. He very carefully didn't turn around. He didn't want to see the look on Joseph's face.]
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He considers it, and in the meantime, he lets the silence between them grow fat with significance. But by now, he knows what I don't want to talk about it will get him. Caesar would push, and push, and push, even if he left only the most lethal scrap unsaid. He sighs, and he begins it with a stillness, a silence and a lagging pace incongruent with all that Joseph had lived for. He continues like a funeral procession. ]
Before I died, while I was lying there waiting for it. You came right out of the woods for me, clear as anything, all suited in white against the gloom, like I-- when things were good-- [ and they were good rarely, ] like how I held you in my head when things were good. All white and glowing. You looked...
[ Now's not the time, and he decides to get back on track before Caesar reminds him. ]
And I thought that maybe I was seeing things, but - it smelled like you, spoke like you, moved like you. It smelled like your smokes even though it wasn't smoking. It was you. You knelt right down next to me, and I... was terrified. No matter how things got between us, Caesar, I never felt scared of you. Not really. Not mortally afraid. When I was watching you stroll up to me, while I was bleeding out... and when you got close, and I saw this smile, this... gentle thing. I was horrified. I'd accepted that I was about to die, but that didn't make me as afraid as seeing you out there like that did.
[ The silence gorges itself again. Joseph wants to stand up and walk away, to forcibly end the conversation. The tense intent in his legs projects that much. He nails his ass to the stairs and stays put. ]
And then you just knelt down by me, and... you were still smiling like that, and you just -- you got down next to me, close, you know, and... you started stroking my hair. Pulling leaves from it. Kissing me. [ Another substantial pause as he gathers himself. His throat is threatening to cave in with every word. ] You were -- you were whispering to me. You were shushing me, and... it was sweet things you were saying. Adoring things. And.
[ Can his eyes still cry? He feels as though he's about to find out. Joseph tries to force his throat open to tell the rest. His voice is rough in the way that warns of tears and rolling sobs, but his eyes stay dry. ]
I knew you were going to kill me, and I knew this thing was trying to be cruel to me, but -- it can't've been farther from what it was. It was the kindest thing he could have done, and -- I didn't care, I didn't care that you were about to kill me, I wished it was you. I wanted it to be you.
[ His choking throat isn't stopping the words anymore. ]
You stuck fingers in the bullet hole and you-- you grabbed me by the back of my neck, put claws in my throat and dragged me along until I died, and-- I-I wished so desperately it could have been you. Just for that few seconds of kindness. Even as you were killing me, even still, I didn't care. I wanted so badly to keep on believing it was you, I did, I--
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He had been wrong. Joseph talked and talked and talked and he had been so wrong, because he knew that all of his dreams had been true and in the worst possible way and he was uncoiling from the railing, straightening, taking it in, and of course the killer would take everything from him- them, no, it was a them, wasn’t it? The murderer took everything from them, even this.]
Joseph.
[...would he see Joseph if he confronted the killer? Joseph as he was- there was a part of Caesar, fever sharp, that wondered if there was yet another way to make all of this right after all- but no, he wasn’t going to think about this. (He would. Caesar would, but he’d try to save it for when he was alone, and hopefully when he had his phone- he couldn’t be left alone with his phone. He might ask things. And then, depending on the answer, he might not be able to resist.)]
Jojo. [And- damn him, damn them both, he turned- it was like he was in one of his dreams again, and any second now Joseph was going to stare at him and crumble away, again and again and again, but Joseph held stable. At least what was left of him did. And he took one of those things that- Joseph’s hand felt so cold. Caesar felt so hollow. At least they were the same in that respect.] If it…
[(Of course this would be taken away by the killer as well.)] If it makes it easier I’ll pretend. For you. That I was there. That all of that was me. [Even the part in which he killed Joseph. Especially that part.]
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Joseph’s reasons turned out to be both myriad and singular, just as they were simple and complex. He stayed because he felt that he would be hopeless on his own, that he was the sort of person who had been alone for so long that suddenly being alone again may prove the end of Caesar. He stayed to wake him up in the mornings and to foil his arrogance. He stayed because if he didn’t, nobody would be there to receive Caesar’s rage. He stayed because he loved him, and he stayed because eventually, he might feel that love returned.
The warmth of Caesar’s hand on his is a fire, and he is palpably startled as it blankets his knuckles. The warmth licks at his wrist, spreads a tingling wake over his skin. If he were alive, he might have had to suppress a shiver as it swept his body up with it.
Here, Caesar confirms both his most terrible nightmares and the dreams he never dared to voice in one breath. Joseph’s limbs, all but the arm attached to the hand under Caesar’s palm, pull in in a contracted little ball, and he hunches against his thighs. He keeps his head firmly turned away, staring into the plain warehouse wall hemming the other side of their path. He stares at nothing, and he says nothing, for a great deal of time.
His shoulders shake, and Caesar is granted access to something that happened often enough, but that he was never made party to. He feels a sudden and panicking need to breathe that manifests in trembling gasps. His other hand unbundles from his lap and spreads fingers and palm over his mouth, as though he might vomit more black and stinking bile. In all but tears, Joseph mourns in the secret sobs of an ashamed boy, something which might at once make his age horribly apparent. He trembles silently, presses his lips into his hand, and only allows himself harsh gasps and voiceless hiccups. Joseph remains statuesque, as though rendered frozen by some creeping horror.
Joseph sits, keeps his limbs pressed in silent fear, and he waits either for the tremors to pass or for the choking to finally suffocate him. ]
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Caesar looked at Joseph, then, looked away. Some things he couldn’t see, not without breaking down, and he didn’t need tears: he needed stone. He needed fire. He kept his hand over Joseph’s, wrapped his fingers around it, gave it a squeeze. A small thing. Pathetic, really. By rights he should be draping himself over his idiot and crying for him. If he was a...but he wasn’t. That was the point of this. He wasn’t.]
Let’s face it. He was better to you than I ever was, Joseph, and we both know this. [Even with how things ended. And then Caesar forced his tone lighter, or tried to: it fell flat, but...he tried.] What did he call you- no, don’t tell me. Whatever he called you, Jojo, I can do better. My dove- no, if anything, you’d be a goose. [Laugh, damn you.]
I’m sorry. [His hand squeezed again.] If I say anything more serious now it would come out all wrong- if you- [And Caesar squeezed his hand again. He wanted to do more: lean over, cradle Joseph in his arms, say something reassuring, something right, fix things. A corpse would be far from the most disgusting thing he handled recently, and, besides, it wasn’t just a corpse. It was Joseph. But he couldn’t. Because if he looked at Joseph he’d start to cry. If he was a better person, he could, but he wasn’t.] If you heard it you wouldn’t- it would sound all wrong, Jojo. All wrong. And I won’t be outdone by a...a...thing that went and...dammit.
[He could feel himself starting to break. He looked away. Out. Stubbornly stared away. Out. Towards the water and the sky, and the worst part was that, as he stared, Caesar realized that it was likely going to be a pleasant day, clear and bright.]
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He sits quiet and untouched for a moment, the gasps rattling his dead body to its bones, asphyxiated lungs still begging for air in panicked succession. He takes a long and steadying breath, and he lifts his fingers to only barely allow words to escape. ]
Luce dei miei occhi. [ Filtered through a clumsy English tongue. ] I don't know what it means. It probably means more to you than it will to me, actually. It just... you said it fondly. Like you were talking to someone you loved.
[ There's a hunger edging into his voice, one so subtle to Joseph himself that he's very unaware that it's present, one that growls through him most persistently as the L word escapes him, up until his voice chokes itself out. The silence that follows is protracted as Joseph struggles to find his voice again, and for a moment thinks that the rot must have just in time reached his throat good and proper and rendered him mute. Maybe that way they could really begin to reconcile. ]
Or maybe... [ No such luck, as it would seem. Joseph swallows, breathes the beginning of a sad and pained laugh, ] Maybe, he was just as mean and he only sounded nicer about it. Wouldn't that be funny? Wouldn't that just... that'd be f-funny, wouldn't it.
[ Prepare for disappointment. Turn precious things into ash in your mouth before the rest of the world can. ]
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Luce dei miei occhi. [And when Caesar says it, he says it in the same way he spoke his prayers, back when he almost believed, back before the rest of his life happened. In that same reverent, wistful, hopeful, hopeless way, in how he could feel his faith breaking but wanted to pretend for a moment longer. Pretend those were his words, not something else’s words] He called you that, did he?
[Caesar wanted to laugh in all of the wrong ways, cynical and brittle. He forced himself to breathe, instead. (Back when he was angrier, when he first met Joseph’s mother and she forced him to breathe and think and focus. Breathe like that.) The killer really had been better to Joseph then he ever had been for all of those few seconds. If it wasn’t for how things ended then the best thing to have done for Joseph’s sake might have been to break up with him, only to wingman as he hooked up with that...thing he found in the forest instead. It shouldn’t have been like this. It should’ve been any other way.
(And there was a part of Caesar that hated the fact that it had been the way it was in the first place, that they had been brought together and he couldn’t look away no matter how hard he tried.)]
It’s not what I would’ve chosen. The light of my eyes. [And this was why he didn’t want to say anything now. It came out all wrong, all sad and wistful and quiet.] But, it’s not wrong either.
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The warmth freezes to dust almost as soon as it settles across his skin, the ghost of a memory. It's just as well. The feeling itself shouldn't exist. ]
Oh, surely not.
[ The beginning and tired-out gust of a laugh stretched too thin to arrive at this moment, and actually, though his tone is thick with sobbing and hoarse with dry air, he's found its lightness again. No, no, light of his eyes Joseph was not - but he locks the translation away in his heart and uses it as a pulse anyways. ]
I saw some light in your eyes when you looked at me, all right. Not the sort he was talking about, though - more like a-- [ He inhales, one hard and sharp gasp that comes out with the tumble of a laugh, as his fingers turn and carefully contract around Caesar's - for as much as they can, anyways, and he continues; ] --m-more like a grease fire or something.
[ Bright, but dangerous and angry and hot, impossible to put out with conventional means. Easily able to spread and to overtake and to consume at a moment's notice, leaving ash in its path.
Joseph leaves the comparison for a moment, waits for even the imitation of a laugh, before he carefully unfolds the secure little bundle he's made of himself. He doesn't turn as he takes the glossy black phone and brings the screen to life. For one more moment, he takes in the picture before him. The words rise in his throat like weeds and choke him into silence. It takes him a time to wrestle words beyond the thicket, with what tiny voice he has left. ]
... I see it here, though.
[ Joseph places the phone between them. ]
I see it here.
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He straightened, his fingers curling around Joseph’s hand as best as he could. Joseph was cold, so cold. It wasn’t fair. Looked down at the phone. He didn’t trust himself to look at Joseph. (And what if he’d found this picture sooner, uploaded it somewhere Joseph couldn’t help but see it, wait for the reaction? What if?) Swallowed. He didn’t trust his words. Caesar never did. Especially not now.
Then, he gestured with his free hand, a little wave towards the phone.]
That’s why I always went to those parties. I- [He can’t say it.] …usually liked you the most when you weren’t paying attention to me. You were just…you. [No, that's not the word.] Happy. [That's the word he wanted.]
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What brief sliver of happiness that moment holds is stolen from him with predictable, halting suddenness. In life, Joseph might have lashed out, read between the lines and disliked so strongly what he saw that he resorted to passive needling and anger and provocation. He's run dry of that by now.
Joseph turns away again and presses his cheek into his knee, folding himself in half. He takes a minute to turn over what Caesar has said. ]
I didn't know that you even knew me. [ Rippled by a weak, dried-out chuckle. Reedy and short of breath from his earlier choking fit. He didn't know that Caesar liked him, either - or liked him enough to enjoy his company from a distance. This was what it took for Caesar to sit happily in his company, and after everything, Joseph can't dispute that conclusion, and nor can he help the sting it jabs him with. ]
... if I were to ask you how long I've been such a burden on you, would you tell it honestly?
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You know what you were to me, Joseph? [No. And Caesar presses on, and as he does so he tries to inject as much heat and warmth into his words as he can, like he’s kindling a fire. Desperately trying to summon some light. Like he’s the moon, waining, but a lantern for those lost in the dark. Desperately trying to coax out…something. Something better. Something better than Joseph asking how long he was a burden to him.] You were like a firefly to me…or a lightning bug? I don’t know which you prefer. In… [Breathe, dammit.] …in Italian, la lucciola.
I- [And his glance slid down to the phone- no, no, no, he can’t look at the phone, the party picture leads to the other pictures, those blurry selfies, that Yoshi doll, look away, look at Joseph’s corpse, look at the wall behind him, imagine something else.] Didn’t realize it, but in hindsight it’s blindly obvious that our…everything was like a jar that was choking you to death. But at those parties, you shone. You shone in a way I never could, Joseph. I used to think you were like a star, but you’re nothing like a star. Stars are fixed things. You’re too much of a wild thing to be anything like them.
I knew nothing about you and that’s also obvious, but- [Dammit, he’s going to cry, he’s not going to cry, he’s going to shut up, he needs to shut up, dammit, breathe, breathe, remember what Elizabeth told him again and again and again but it's not working. It's fucking not working.] My firefly. [And one slow shuttering breath. Put as much feeling as he could into it. Put his everything into it.] Mia lucciola. [And it was not enough. It would never be enough.] That's what you were.
[It was the best that he could do.]
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[ It's all that Joseph has after all of that. It's the only thing that his flailing grasp can manage to grab hold of as Caesar takes his question, mere seconds after he'd asked it, and rips it to shreds, kindles the remains not quite to a flame but to a despairing smolder. He's struggling so profoundly to bring human warmth to the conversation that Joseph might conflate his difficulty with insincerity - but he, for once, sees it for what it is. You know what you were to me said in those red and glowing tones has him prepared for words of violence. These are not the words that Caesar has ready for him.
Caesar, inexplicably, has a story which differs from Joseph's recollection of their everything. Caesar doesn't recount the isolation or the coldness that Joseph does - or, perhaps, not in the same words. The picture that he paints is not the same detached and desolate thing that Joseph sees when he looks back on things, but one of distant admiration. Joseph is likened to stars, then to a firefly trapped in a jar - things that are to be admired, but only from a distance. Joseph was gazed at from a distance, a longed-after light in a blanket of inky night, or he was a delicate little bug in a jar, kept to look at and to sate some mean-spirited curiosity until he inevitably suffocated or starved. Unattainable, untouchable, useless.
The harder he tried to close that distance, the further Caesar pulled away. The precision with which he illustrates this, and the desperate attempts at cloaking it all in warm and loving tones, finally proves too cruel not to check - because what manages to fill his throat like the sharp fronds of so many weeds is the realization that there is still something more there. More than Joseph had ever known - tiny little scraps of love to be had in that confession, and in the effort Caesar puts into it, the simple admission that Joseph had made him happy even if he could only do so from far away.
Something passes through him again as he struggles for air, his chest contracting on itself as he suppresses noise and emotion. His voice creaks as it brims over him, breaks with one sharp gasp. ]
Why was it all so fucked up? Why d-did it have to be so fucked up?
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[were bad for each other no, he wasn’t going to say it, he wasn’t going to say it. Not I should’ve set you free a long time ago or I was bad at letting go of things - look at you now or we’d never work out, we will always, always be bad for each other, no, nothing like that. And it took Caesar a moment to realize why it was his vision was fuzzy but, ah. No. Those were tears. Funny. He kept everything dammed up for so long that Caesar felt like he had forgotten how to cry. He should be shouting, screaming, sobbing, but no, it was just staring. Staring and tears.
Fuck.]
Dammit.
[…ha, funny, dammed and damned, funny. And Caesar tried to manage a smile, something…he failed, it fell flat, and he was a little hopeless, a little wistful, and just…what might have happened if they had this conversation before? What if?]
I just… [Breathe. Fucking breathe.] I- [He can’t break down here, he’s already crying, he can’t- shouldn’t. Now wasn’t the time. (It would never be the time, but, also, the tears wouldn’t stop.)] I just want to give you something better than something else’s words, Jojo.
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He'd rather be dragged to his death again, and the defeated lowness in his voice makes no secret of it. ]
You couldn't stand me, could you? C-Can't you even see that? You h-h-- [ A few gasping breaths group up on each other to make one long gulp of air, filled with breaks and hitches, ] you had to keep me so far away just to... t-tolerate me? That's what I'm-- t-talking about. Why was it so fucked up?
[ He begins now to understand why it had always seemed that Caesar loved the dead with more fervour than he'd ever loved anything living, because the dead were distant enough from him to be idealized and longed after - just as he'd made Joseph himself. It fed his bottomless need for regret, his endless hunger for negativity which Joseph could never break him of. No living lover could emotionally satisfy him the same way that a dead one could, and in a particularly nasty twist of fate, Joseph supposes that makes them better matched than they'd ever been, and he'd now been made into a living effigy to that sentiment, and this particular knot was one that Joseph had spent the last of his life hacking away at. It's only now that he understands it.
This is something that he won't voice. Even for them, it was too cruel. Instead, he sits, heaving in silent and dry sobs, which continue to punch his words through as he speaks next. ]
I can't blame you. [ It comes out soft, unlike the stony set in his jaw. ] I went rather out of my way to be hated, eventually. How else were you s-supposed to feel? [ More voice escapes in a dry creak as he closes his lips, as though more was waiting to be said only to be stopped by his lips. Another sobbing gasp for air parts them again. He rests his forehead in the palm of his burnt hand as he tries to push his voice through his choking throat. ] But... even if that's all I was good for, just that little bit, at least I did-- s-s-something for--
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[And- no, he’s going to stand, fucking tears or not, tug on Joseph’s hand- come, come. If they stayed there any longer they’d be rotting, him and Joseph both. And even if that might be where they belonged and where they deserved, maybe…he didn’t know. He didn’t know, anymore. But they could at least go somewhere different. They could pretend. Find an isolated dock, maybe, stare at the ocean. Something.]
If- if I just hated you I wouldn’t have wanted you to see…
[…he should pick up his phone. He didn’t want to: he couldn’t be trusted with it, but he didn’t want to say that either. I want to do things over. No, they couldn’t talk about prices. Not now. Even if he wanted it so badly. But he needed his phone. They needed his phone. And his things. His other things. Leave no excuse to return.]
…that. I didn’t trust you, Jojo. And I was angry at you, and I won't pretend like I didn't hate you sometimes, but- it wasn’t just that I couldn’t stand you. It was...
[He shouldn’t be talking. But here he was.] Like you said. I was cold to you, you were an ass to me, I treated you like a child, you treated me like a joke. And those were the few times you were just- yourself, and I didn’t have to worry about you turning around and turning me into a joke once more because you were bored, and I suppose you weren’t thinking about whether or not I was cold to you so you could be yourself. Then we got back to the apartment and then it was all petty fights and stupid things, I thought you were trying to piss me off, you didn’t think I cared, then you were trying to piss me off, and then I started to not care. I had my guard up all the time and it was exhausting, and you likely did as well. I don't know. When you vanished all the time after fights I wondered sometimes if you were just trying to make me angry some other way, which was why I just didn't say, "Jojo, I was worried." And then we made our choices and we ended up here.
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From here, Caesar is his undertow into a cold and twisting quagmire of words, rapid-fire confessions and revelations pulling him further and further down. Caesar has always used words when he had nothing else, but Joseph's not sure that he's ever seen him as bankrupt for anything but words as he is right now. Words flow from Caesar as quickly as they seem to be flowing through him, the only thing that keeps him from collapsing in an inanimate heap on the docks. Like all that could orchestrate him were words and more words - and this is when Joseph realizes that he's witnessing a breakdown. Caesar has finally found himself at his wit's end, and it's only now starting to manifest outwardly.
Words pile on words - Caesar was cold, Joseph was an ass, regrets on regrets and so many fights. Restraint against his games leading him into prolonged callousness. The consequences of so many tiny mistakes piling up high enough to finally kill Joseph.
He follows by his hand, Caesar's phone clutched in his other, and he listens. The flood of words is too substantial for Joseph to stem. ]
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And I thought, Jojo. [And Caesar doesn’t even know where they’re going, just that they have to move before he cracks any further. He can feel it: water gushing. All of those dammed up confessions leaking out one by one.] I didn’t know what to do anymore, but I thought, Jojo, I thought that if I did something for you, for once in my misbegotten life, then maybe I could move forward. Since you were gone there was only one thing I could do for you: avenge you.
[And then he stopped walking for a moment. Breathed, closed his eyes, and said, very deliberately, very slowly:] Don’t leave me alone with my phone. [And his voice grew tighter and colder, like a number of things were being repressed, packaged up, forced back into dark corners. At great effort.] I might ask questions if I'm left alone with it and I don’t know what I’ll do if the answer to any of those ends up being yes. You can't trust me with it, Jojo.
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Joseph watches each of these spill from Caesar as the strings pull tighter and tighter, the unravel is closing in on his core now and he has to do something. Joseph dutifully gathers the secrets spilling out of him and files them away as Caesar draws to a plodding stop and comes out with it; he couldn't be trusted with their memories anymore.
He wastes no time in locating a space between the nearest warehouses, a dark and narrow space. If he couldn't trust Caesar with his own phone, then most certainly, he couldn't be trusted to drive - and Joseph's quite sure that he would still try it if he didn't intervene.
Joseph takes a step closer, keeping their hands joined, and places his other cold handprint on his shoulder. Though Joseph doesn't realize it, he gives Caesar all of the answers he needs in the pressure at his shoulder, his stumbling and halting steps that he tries to take Caesar along in, in the way that he murmurs under his breath - ] Come, [ - as he guides him. ]
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But he was unraveling. He was unraveling and unraveling and unraveling and there wasn't anything to catch himself on. Nothing but Joseph. If Joseph led him off the edge of a dock he'd likely follow and hope the ocean could fill himself if nothing else did. And so far nothing else had.]
It was a bar. [So he'd catch himself on Joseph.] I found it after I went on a job without you. [And he smiled. Rueful. Wry. Neither of us really cared about the agreement, did we? The smile faded.] They have the type of beer you like. That's what made me think of you.
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Instead, he leads him to something that looks about as imposing - that dark and private crevice. Joseph's flesh is still alive enough to remember when they would lead each other into these sorts of cracks in society for far more sordid (and less terrifying) reasons - but not alive enough to react to it. The ghost of warmth and thrill ghosting across him like a far-off wind. He enjoys it while it lasts, feels human for a fraction of a second before he puts it away.
Caesar starts talking almost as soon as the shadow swallows him. Joseph guides him a few steps more as he speaks, casts him a look - how often did the two of them go back on that? - and he finally comes to a stop. He keeps his hand on Caesar's shoulder as he lets his words digest. He puts aside the moment of distant surprise at the notion that Caesar would consider him when they were apart. Now isn't the time - now is far past the time. ]
Okay. A bar. Tell me about it.
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[Focus on the bar.]
There was an ET pinball machine in the corner. And a few other retro games…the owner apparently liked collecting them as a hobby and rotated them around. But it was small. It would’ve been impossible for us to ignore each other if you’d gone.
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... he can't help the little twitch in his lips as Caesar describes the place as smaller than you. ] Well, careful, I might not've even fit.
[ Ha ha, I tell little joke.
More seriously, he considers all of the small holes-in-the-wall he knows... ]
Surely it's not the little basement pub on 53rd, is it...?
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I should’ve known you’d know the place I’m talking about. [Of course he couldn't find something new. Of course Joseph would know all about it. Of course.] Was I right about you liking it?
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gdit I did research and now I want to marathon Eurospy movies
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