bakerstreet | ( picture prompt meme )

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[meme] picture prompt

( picture prompt meme )

the picture prompt meme

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.

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[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. ]

... I see it here, though.

[ Joseph places the phone between them. ]

I see it here.

[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?

Edited 2017-10-19 00:13 (UTC)

[And he responds quickly.]

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.]

Edited (Fuck gendered nouns.) 2017-10-19 02:01 (UTC)

Why was it all so fucked up...?

[ 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?

We-

[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--

If-

[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. ]

Okay. A bar. Tell me about it.

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?

You were. Smokey and I were rather regular in that place. [ It's as close to chirped out as he can get out of his sandy throat. ] Liked it all except that one dickhead with the half-open shirt bogarding the dart board all the time. Did you ever meet that guy? What an asshole he was.

[ And in secret Joseph had always thought, with an amused smile on his face, that that would be Caesar if he ever got competitively into darts. The sleazeball with the unbuttoned shirt charging people money for the pleasure of losing to him. Crazy and obnoxious and hard to swallow, but passionate. Skilled and perfect and fiery. So effortless that losing to him was a privilege.

These thoughts, like so many other thoughts about Caesar that didn't make him angry to even hold in his head, came typically after one too many pints of beer. ]

I did... stop going after a time, but while I did -- you were right. I did quite like it there.

I’m glad I was right about you liking it. I’m glad I knew at least that much. That explains some of the comments I heard. And I know exactly who you’re talking about, with the dartboard. I don’t even remember his name, but I remember.

[It was an almost. A might’ve been, a could’ve been- was the graffiti in the bathroom because of Joseph? Was the little nick on the counter because of Joseph? What might’ve happened if they both ran into each other there, too drunk to care, too crowded in to ignore each other, and one of them tried…something? He didn’t know. He wanted to know. He wanted to- focus on the bar.]

He was an ass. [A solemn proclamation with all the force of a papal edict.] After I saw him I practiced for a week, paid him, and lost to him. And he was so good at it I couldn’t hate him for it. And I wanted to. And I hated the fact I couldn't, so...I suppose in a roundabout way I did hate him for being as good as he was.

Wha-- comments?

[ who the fuck is talking shit @ him next time bitch

But no, while this is a line of questioning he wants to pursue, that would be delving into the subject of him. Him when he was alive. This has been established to be too dangerous a topic to delve into.

Thankfully, Caesar's story about losing at darts is amusing enough. Of course Caesar let himself get suckered and taken to town by the dart douche. Of course he did. ]

Of course you fucking did. [ And out loud, just for good measure. ] You silly ass. I'll bet you'd never even played darts before. Am I right?

[ He's right. The satisfied smile on his face makes that he knows he's right no secret.

But - distractions. ]

Tell me about something that you didn't hate.

[Comments. And yes, he’d never played darts before, but Joseph wasn’t supposed to realize this- he really wasn’t.]

Of course you figured it out.

[But of course he did. Of course they could live as strangers day after day, and yet somehow Jojo knew him well enough to nevertheless figure out that, yes, he challenged a dart playing ass after a week of practice because like hell he’d let that pass him by. Like hell.

But something he didn’t hate?]

I feel like I should say you and flatter you somehow. [Ha. But no. No. He doesn’t know what to say. Words. What words. Something he likes.] Summer, boats, coffee, even what you Americans think passes as coffee, strawberries, jazz, I honestly don’t know, Jojo, what to say to this. Spy movies? The ocean?

Caesar, I'm undead, not unintelligent.

[ Don't be cruel goes unvoiced, but is clear enough in the inward pull of his brow, the curve in his lips, the cringing flinch in his eyes. Yes, Joseph was aware that Caesar would only have ever said anything as forward and extraordinary as I don't hate you under extreme duress, that you aren't the worst person I've ever met is a great stretch of affection for his poor little heart - but he could at least spare him the wound of hearing it. He's got enough of those on his body without adding that to the pile.

But it's to Joseph's surprise that Caesar has... a halfway substantial list. He turns over each one. He'd never known that Caesar actually liked the sun as much as he seemed to - whenever he was out with Joseph in it, one could swear that the day was plagued by rain and thunder at all hours. ]

I didn't take you for a fan of cinema. [ He didn't take Caesar as a fan of anything, but he's got the good sense to keep that to himself. ] Which films?

[And he almost didn’t have the sense to say something cutting in return, old habits from before flaring up for a moment...it could be a good sign, Caesar supposed. He was stitching himself back up, enough so they could move on and away, bits and pieces of himself being glued back together, if he wasn’t so tired of it Of himself. Poison in human form. He felt like he was constantly being reminded of his own shitty personality, drowning in it, and the only person who was helping him piece himself back together was also the person he dragged back against his will. And that stilled his tongue.]

Besides the obvious? [And, just in case Jojo didn’t know what he meant…] From Russia with Love. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? I don’t know if you know about this, but back in the sixties Europe produced a lot of spy movies. I grew up watching reruns of those.

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gdit I did research and now I want to marathon Eurospy movies

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