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The first time that Joseph Joestar died in Egypt it was for approximately ten minutes, during the fight with D’Arby. When his soul had exited his body and been sealed within the poker chips their foe was dealing, Joseph had gone to the light.
Joseph walked forward, shielding his eyes as he approached an ornate marble staircase. His fingers brushed along the cool, smooth golden banister. Each step forward seemed easier, stiff joints loosening up like the tin man being oiled in Oz.
While he ascended the stairs toward the warm glow of white light, he heard a voice call his name: one he had refused to forget over the last fifty years.
“JoJo!”
He’d winced at how melodic the call was. How familiar the sound was; how clearly the man spoke. Ceasar. The voice belonged to Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli.
Joseph Joestar had hastened his pace, no thought to what had happened moments ago; how he had left a friend alone with his grandson with no guidance. His green eyes were trained solely on the blond man waiting for him, calling to him.
He had bet his soul and lost. As he reached towards the summit, he understood that he had died. This was the end of his life on earth with Suzie Q, Holly and Jotaro. This was the end of his journey. But there were little thoughts about whether his affairs were well-enough in order. It was no longer important. Because there, there stood Caesar.
Caesar.
He looked just as he had on the day he died, was still wearing the same blue ensemble and pastel pink scarf, with a frayed hem, from where he’d accidentally got it caught in Lisa Lisa’s car door when they were leaving Italy. His hair was tousled and he stood with an effortless poise and grace.
He was still semi-backlit from the warm light he basked in, but his movements were clear to Joseph Joestar as he finally finished climbing. His breathing hitched: Caesar was right there, Caesar.
He shook his head frantically and rushed toward the blond man, embracing him tightly. The blond in his arms let out a laugh, squeezing him back. For a few moments, the men stood in silence, just leaning into one another, heads buried into the crook of the others’ necks.
“I’ve missed you so much,” they said in unison.
The pair exchanged a smile withdrawing from the other’s embrace. Caesar took another step back, gawking at the man that stood in front of him, “How long?”
“How long?” Joseph blinked back, raising a brow.
“How long has it been, JoJo. You look like hell!”
He couldn’t help but laugh, of course Caesar would say that, after all Joseph stopped practicing Hamon. He’d allowed himself to grow up; grow old. He had aged alongside his loving wife, raised a daughter that wouldn’t grow to look older than he was.
And now he was faced by his first love; his fondest, most purest of loves. Knowing that just behind him, just after the golden gates waited his mother, his father, Granny Erina, Speedwagon. Everyone he had cared about in his youth that had passed on, they were all just on the other side of the pearly gates.
And Caesar, Caesar hadn’t cared to wait.
“Why am I out here?” Joseph eventually asked.
Caesar hummed, “You’re not dead yet. Not properly. What did you do anyway? This barely ever happens. Its usually…cheaters…”
Joseph paled, glancing at the stairs, “I wagered my soul in a game of odds against a gambler, to save my daughter. I thought I’d win. I didn’t.”
“Your daughter,” Caesar breathed, “It would make sense you’d had a child. Look at you, you’re a fossil.”
“Charming as ever,” the older man scoffed, turning his nose up.
“Your daughter must be a lot like you if she got involved in something with a gambler,” he mused, pursing his lips
“Can you not see what happens from up here? Can you not part the clouds and watch like those righteous godly men in church always claimed?”
“You can, sort of. Most people don’t do it often. Usually it’s when you’ve just passed. You want closure too, especially if it was abrupt. I stopped watching after you married Suzie Q. I never imagined you’d end up with her.”
“Before it happened, I hadn’t either,” Joseph shrugged.
Caesar eased himself down, to sit on the firm ground padded with clouds. He patted the ground beside him, “Looks like the gates won’t open for a while. Sit with me, you old geezer.”
Joseph laughed, easing himself down. The ground beneath him was firm.
“You should watch, Caesar. Its probably easier to see than for me to explain,” Joseph declared.
“Well, I cannot see what has already been,” his companion shrugged, “Why is your daughter in trouble.”
“Dio.”
“Dio? Dio as in Dio?”
Joseph nodded, “He’s alive and has developed this power called a Stand. Subsequently, the Joestars got them too, my daughter’s is killing her. We need to vanquish Dio to save her life.”
“So, my grandfather…”
“Caesar, I’ll make sure that he pays for this.”
“How can you? You’re here now. You can’t do anything else unless you’re revived.”
Joseph hummed, “If I know my grandson well enough, I’d say he’s trying to do that, already.”
Caesar hung his head, reaching for Joseph’s hand, “Its been so long, and yet you already want to go.”
“Caesar-
“I’m kidding!” the blond laughs, clutching his sides. He got to his feet, pulling Joseph up again. With their fingers laced together, he kissed his love on the cheek, “Come back to me once you’ve ended him. Do it for me. Do it for your daughter, and do it for our grandfathers.”
“Caesar I-“
“See you, Jojo.” He says, breaking away and giving him the gentlest shove. He went careering down the marble stairs and toward darkness. Away from Caesar. Back toward Jotaro, and Dio and his reality.
Joseph Joestar had opened his eyes with a flash, drawing his hand to his cheek where phantom warmth from Caesar’s kiss lingered. With flushed cheeks he saw Polnareff coming to, a smug smirk on his grandson’s lips.
“You did it, Jotaro!”
“Thank you.” Polnareff whispered, bracing his head, “I had the strangest dream.”
“Same here,” the old man offered, grinning.
~*~*~*~
He placed the same bet when facing D’Arby’s younger brother: a member of Dio’s more elite guard. Another gambler with a sinister disposition, just like his senior. Jotaro and Kakyoin had interjected that there was no use Joseph playing the game against D’Arby. After all, he had no experience with video games and therefore couldn’t be of much assistance.
He knew that, but he also knew that upon failing, he could climb up those stairs with a shit-eating grin and kiss Caesar again. He knew he shouldn’t be longing for him, especially after him being married so long, but since he’d seen him, there was nothing he could do. All he wanted to do was see him again, smack him around the back of his head, where his bandana sat and kiss him back. Kicking him down the stairs had been a brutal way of saying goodbye.
He wanted a better goodbye, he wanted a hello. A real one.
He wondered whether this was what suicidal ideation was like. Fantasising about what would be waiting for him; who would be waiting for him.
He hoped Caesar had decided to keep watch, decided to just keep an eye on things, so he’d know when to go to the gates again.
After Kakyoin lost, he hoped the blond was there to help him. But reckoned that a ghost of the teenager’s past would wait for him instead, seeing a random blond man dressed like a parody of Grecian statues was probably enough to inspire a declaration of a strange dream.
When Kakyoin came to, he mentioned being locked out of somewhere, before Jotaro told him he needed to focus on what was ahead. They could talk about his nightmare once the night ahead was over: once they’d won.
~*~*~*~
Joseph Joestar died again, for the second time, that evening after being faced head-on by Dio Brando. His blood had been forced from his body, stolen from him and a shell of a corpse remained with Jotaro and the others. He’d lost enough people on this fight and wondered whether it would have been right to have lived on.
Caesar had been waiting for him. Just past the gates he could hear the calls of the comrades he’d just lost: Avdol’s laugh, Iggy’s infernal yapping and the witty commentary of Kakyoin. He’d smiled at first, but quickly grew nauseated. The gates still wouldn’t open for him.
He could get close to them this time. Caesar didn’t speak until spoken to. He just watched Joseph run toward the sound of the voices. He called for them and they shouted back, by the couldn’t see them
“Mr Joestar!” Kakyoin had called, voice clear over the others’, “Please, please tell me that Jotaro-san knew, please tell me he knew that I’m sorry. That he knows I meant everything I said.”
The teenager’s deep voice was strained, cracking as he called out. He was pained. He was also, still on the other side of the gates.
Joseph couldn’t think up any words to say. He couldn’t even begin to conjure up a reply worth hearing.
Caesar put a comforting hand on Joseph’s shoulder. The older man drew a hand to his face, but it was no longer gloved. His prosthetic was visible, an older model with stiffer movements clicking quietly, on clearer, paler skin. He turned to Caesar.
The blond smiled, reaching toward him, and pulling on a scarf Joseph hadn’t felt around his neck. Green and yellow striped fabric was flicked toward his face with a golden electric shock. Caesar flicked the scarf up to his face with Hamon.
From what he could see, his body looked younger now. He was wearing what he’d worn in Europe, what he’d worn when he trained in Hamon under Lisa-Lisa. That same ridiculous black cropped vest that exposed every muscle on his midriff, with the trousers that seemed too tight to fit properly. That any movement would split them. And those ratty boots that ruined so easily in the snow of St Moritz. He drew his hands to his face and felt clear, unblemished, unwrinkled skin.
He really was dead.
He let out a choked out sob, “I wasn’t good enough.”
Caesar took him in his arms, and parted the clouds under their feet. Below them was Cairo and a fair part of it was burning beneath them. Jotaro was facing Dio and the teenager was radiating power; energy, potential.
“Just imagine how much of a capacity he would have had for Hamon. It’s a shame you never trained the kid,” Caesar mumbled, taking Joseph’s hand and pointing to the ground below.
They watched, holding each other’s hands. Watched Jotaro defeat Dio. Watched both his corpse and Dio’s be wheeled into an ambulance, while Kakyoin was put in a little black van. Seemed there was still hope for him.
They watched Jotaro plunge Star Platinum’s hand into Joseph’s chest and with that, he fell through the gap they’d made in the clouds.
He’d cried for Caesar as he was sluggishly tossed back into the land of the living. But all Joseph heard were the pleas of Kakyoin. He’d begged, bellowing at the top of his lungs that he just had to tell Jotaro that he loved him and he had no regrets.
Joseph woke sluggish, limbs heavier and harder to move than they had previously felt up with Caesar. He’d aged fifty years in a heartbeat. All he knew, was that he couldn’t just leave Kakyoin wondering if he’d told him. But he couldn’t just declare that Kakyoin loved him. That would be inappropriate.
He rose from his stretcher instead, glaring at the corpse of his enemy, the body of his grandfather. A hollow laugh escaped his lips as he reared upward, mimicking the voice of the vampire.
He leapt backward in alarm as Jotaro raised his fists to him. He hadn’t considered what his grandson had done. He hadn’t thought about whether or not the teenager would hesitate anymore.
He’d been wrong to joke. Instead, he would apologise, congratulate his grandson on the victory, and pass Kakyoin’s message on. Later.