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The worst thing about it is that Joseph knows—knows instantly, immediately, a crushing inevitability that settles on his chest like a weight, slowly squeezing out all the air. He knows when he sees the golden light of the ripple bursting through the walls of the hotel and hears Caesar’s voice; he knows when he touches the bubble, red like beating hearts and scarlet ink on a love-letter and a thousand other important things, as the ripple rushes into him with a crackling immediacy: jojo jojo listen jojo this is for you, this is my legacy, this is my aid, this is my heart.
It would be hard not to know with clues like those, but the thing is—the thing is, he knows before that. He knows as soon as they reach the hotel and maybe it’s his senses heightened from all the ripple training, whatever, but there’s a wrongness in the air and in his gut that makes him feel sick. He feels it like the loss of a limb. He feels it when he hears Caesar’s voice calling out to him and he tries to call back, or to run inside as fast as he possibly can—they’d defied the odds before, hadn’t they, ten times, a hundred times? They would do it this time, too, and a hundred, hundreds of times more. And yet his limbs won’t move and his voice catches in his throat like a bad dream. He can’t call out because his heart is hammering in his throat, choking him with fear, because what if he calls Caesar’s name and Caesar doesn’t answer?
But even so, he doesn’t need to call out; he feels it; he knows. When he sees the destruction, the bubble, the rock and the same shade of red seeping out from under it, it only confirms the same refrain his heart has been beating out unevenly the entire time: too late, too late, too late.
---
Despite everything, they do take their time to grieve in the hotel, and it—it isn’t too bad. Like, it is, but it’s what Joseph expected grief would involve. He cries—sobs, really—takes great, wracking breaths as he mourns and Lisa Lisa does the same alongside him. It’s awful, the worst feeling he’s ever felt, but it’s—not too bad, because he can just let himself cry and cry.
But it’s not the worst part, because the worst part comes after, when it doesn’t get better.
He doesn’t have time to think of it for a little while, obviously; the hundreds of vampires about to kill them and the high-stakes bluffing game Lisa Lisa plays with Kars are plenty to distract him for awhile. He doesn’t have time to think of it when he goes back to her room to get the stone, either, and everything he does feel he channels into what he knows; he throws everything into fighting Whamu, and then Kars, and saving Lisa Lisa, and you know, he sort of almost dies again, really almost dies, so there’s not that much time for anything else but the adrenaline pumping through his blood and the unimaginably horrible pain and weirdly fascinating sight of his hand five feet away from his body, and the darkness of space enveloping him. He thinks he’s going to die. He really, really does. And he’s okay with it—he’s not scared, or maybe only a little, because if Caesar was able to sacrifice his life then Joseph can offer his up in the same way. It’s not like he would lose to the smug bastard in that respect, right?
But he doesn’t die, and, it turns out, that’s the part where it gets worse. Living.
Because, you see, the thing is that Joseph wakes up in the hospital with broken ribs and internal bleeding and a massive headache and no fucking hand and he sort of forgets. When he blinks his eyes open to the blinding white-gold Venetian light streaming through the hospital window, and looks around the sterilized white hospital room—shit, just like in the movies—there are people there who had apparently been waiting for him to wake up and his heart swells with gratitude as he looks over them. The doctors, looking worried and relieved, sigh happily as he blinks and looks around. To his surprise, Suzie Q is there—he guesses she made good on his promise before he got a chance to, and despite her smile, her eyes are tearing up unashamedly. He made it, he realizes, and he’ll get to see them all again. Suzie, and Lisa Lisa, and Speedwagon and Grandma Erina. And he catches a glimpse of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye on the other side of his bed, and turns towards the person with a grin on his lips and a name on his tongue, about to punch him in the shoulder (with his remaining hand) and make a joke—
But it’s just another doctor, blonde and young with a white coat and an entirely unfamiliar face that he’s never seen before. The doctor smiles. “Glad to see you’re awake. You’ve been asleep for—“ and then his face changes into a semblance of concern. “Mr. Joestar, are you…?”
Joseph reaches up with his good hand to touch his face and brings it away to look in surprise at the drops of wetness on his fingers. “I—“
He doesn’t finish the sentence because his breath hitches in his throat and his insides hurt like he’s been punched in the stomach and he gasps for air as he sobs and remembers and it’s a chaotic mess of noise, everyone in the room crowding around him in a blur of bright colors and white light, hands patting his back and voices, saying “Mr. Joestar”, and “Jojo”, and “it’s okay”—
The thing about grieving, Joseph realizes all too soon, is that it doesn’t just stop.
---
It doesn’t stop, but it gets better, a little. Suzie asks him how he is and he answers “fine”, a word that leaves his mouth with difficulty at first, strange against his tongue, but it becomes easier with time. There’s a period where he’s not happy, where it’s a constant weight on his heart and an awareness much like the ring around his artery had been, oppressive, insistent. And then there’s a period where the weight lessens, and he only feels it once in awhile. And then, there are moments where he is happy—really, truly, legitimately, as Suzie grins while tickling his sides and he bursts out laughing and feels something that feels like the ripple swell inside his heart, golden and warm and electric all at once. He thinks it’s probably what you’d call love. It’s not unfamiliar.
But there’s something along with this, this golden sunshine warmth, as Joseph slowly starts to make fun of his fiancée and make stupid rude comments again. He starts to stop waking up in the middle of the night, sweating and remembering the cold void of space and his hand detached from his body, having to turn over to move closer to Suzie’s warm form next to him and wrap an arm around her waist as he listens to her breathe in and out softly, until he barely has nightmares at all. But even as Joseph heals, as the phantom ache of his hand becomes less distinct and he gets fitted for the mechanical prosthetic which makes Suzie squeal in shock whenever he pinches her cheek with it, there’s something else. A bitter guilt, welling up in his throat like poison.
Because—if he’s happy, doesn’t that mean that he’s forgetting? And he doesn’t want to forget Caesar, not ever. He doesn’t have anything else to remember him by, the man he’d only known and loved for a mere 27 days, with the moons on his cheeks and his soul like a soap bubble. There aren’t any photographs of them together; he’d never thought to take one. The headband, too, is gone after his fight with Whamu. And he wants to remember Caesar, to honor his memory, his legacy, his life. But the memories get fuzzier and after a few months Joseph can’t remember exactly what Caesar’s voice sounds like, and the details of conversations he’d once replayed over and over in his head slip out of reach when he tries to call them back. Joseph gets happier, and he forgets, and he feels—he feels like he’s betraying him, like he—
Suzie understands, because she’d known Caesar too, and Joseph is more grateful for that than he can ever hope to express to her in words. Her presence is something strong and hopeful and essential to him in those few months, and he loves her for it. He’s grateful when they pass a flower stand selling sunflowers and he tenses up next to her and she grabs his hand, squeezing it comfortingly. On their wedding day, when he turns towards her with a wordless sadness in his eyes and says, “I wish he could—“ be here, he can’t finish the sentence and chokes himself off but Suzie nods and slips her hand into his, a silent understanding. He’s grateful when he wakes up from a different dream and Suzie holds him as he shakes in her arms, sobbing into her hair, “I was too late, I could’ve done more, I should’ve done more,” and she shushes him and strokes his hair and rubs his back until he finally, finally falls back asleep.
It gets worse; it gets better. Joseph forgets a little, but not everything, promises to himself that he never will. And when, years later, on another February 27, Lisa Lisa asks him “How are you?”, the word “fine” slips off his tongue as usual and it’s not a truth, but a promise—he will be, someday, he will be.
***
Caesar makes two mistakes. The first is not considering that the moment he jumps will result in him blocking out the sun. The second is not remembering what a reckless, awful idiot Joseph Joestar is. The first, he realizes as his shadow falls across Whamu’s face and Whamu’s eyes gleam with dangerous, cunning intent. The second, he realizes as something, or someone, huge and heavy slams into him from the side with all the force and delicacy of a truck, sending him flying across the room.
It takes him a moment to catch the breath that had been knocked out of him and sit up, his head ringing from how it had slammed into the rock of the floor, and look around dizzily and stupidly. He sees dust and rocks falling from the ceiling—the aftermath of Whamu’s Divine Sandstorm. He sees Whamu himself, at the top of the stairs, wounded and dripping blood, an expression of surprise on his face.
Whamu makes a step forward, the air swirling around his hand as if he’s about to attack again, and then it ceases and he steps back, making eye contact with Caesar and inclining his head. “He was a fine warrior,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “I will let you honor him.”
Let him—what?
Master Lisa Lisa bursts into the room just then, and Whamu is gone in the split second it takes for Caesar to turn his head away. She’s panting, as if she’s sprinted here, and she looks around the room much in the same way Caesar had. She sees him and says “Caesar,” a sigh of relief, and then as she looks around the room again, “Joseph—?”
Her voice cants upward and cuts off abruptly on the last word and she presses a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. When Caesar follows her gaze, he sees why, and feels his heart stop beating as much as if he’d had a ring dissolve and release poison into his heart himself.
There’s a rock that’s fallen in the landslide; there’s an arm sticking out from under it; there’s blood, pooling far too fast, the bright, fake shade of red that he’s learned from experience means it’s almost certainly real. And Caesar’s still dizzy and half-concussed and he definitely caught part of the Sandstorm himself because he can tell he’s wounded, but that doesn’t stop him from stumbling up and walking, then running, across the room as fast as he possibly can, because Joseph—it was Joseph who had pushed him—
He reaches the point about the same time as Lisa Lisa does. Joseph’s only half under the rock; his legs and lower body are crushed beneath it, but his head and one arm and most of his torso are free. He’s breathing harshly, heavily, drops of sweat and blood beading on his forehead and mixing together. He looks up at Caesar and has the nerve to crack a grin. “Always having to save your ass,” he gasps, and then coughs, the effort of talking too much.
“Jojo,” Caesar says, his voice harsh and shaky and too loud. “Don’t talk, don’t talk, you—you bastard, idiota, you simpleminded piece of shit, why did you—“
“I couldn’t—“ Joseph gasps for air again. “Couldn’t have you showing me up again, right? You think you’re—you’re the only one who can be stupid and self-sacrificing—“ He laughs, although it’s more of a wheeze. “Showed… you.”
“Stop talking,” Caesar urges, pleads, begs. “We have to get this off of you—Master Lisa Lisa, please—“ he turns towards her and can’t understand, can’t comprehend why she’s just standing there, hands pressed to her mouth, silent and unmoving. “Help me! We have to get him out, get him to a hospital—“
He turns back towards Joseph to find the other man gripping his hand weakly. “Tell Suzie…sorry,” he says, and Caesar’s heart freezes to solid ice with those words. “I promised… I’d go see her again. Don’t think I can.”
“No,” Caesar finds himself saying dumbly, as he grips Joseph’s hand with all the strength he can manage. “You can tell her yourself, don’t be an idiot. You’ll be fine. This is nothing, you’ve seen worse.”
Joseph laughs, again, harsh and abrupt as it breaks off into a fit of coughing. “Have something…to tell you too. Listen—“
His fingers in Joseph’s hand crackle with hot yellow electricity—a ripple, Caesar realizes, but a strange-feeling one, like nothing he’s ever felt before, unfamiliar. He knows what it means, can feel it, and the words tumble out of his throat quickly, almost choking him. “Tell me what? Jojo—“
The ripple flows into him all at once, a bright burst of light and heat and static, gold tinged with rust-red behind his eyelids. It knocks the breath out of him yet again, the feeling of it taking him over, filling his veins. It takes him a moment to recover and blink away the sun-spots—and when he opens his eyes, Joseph is very, very still.
Lisa Lisa’s hands shake almost uncontrollably as she pulls out a lighter and tries to start the flame, attempting and failing to light the cigarette in her mouth. “We should—“ her voice shakes as much as her hands, and she cuts herself off, starts over. “Whamu’s wounded, and there’s two of us. We should—“
Caesar nods, robotically, and stands. He doesn’t have to close Joseph’s eyes; they’re already closed. “Right. Kars is here. We should—go.”
Lisa Lisa looks at him with some surprise, perhaps expecting more resistance from him, and he forces himself to nod. “You’re right, we don’t—have time. Grieving can come later. It’s fine.”
She tries to light her cigarette again in answer and, looking down, realizes that it’s backward. Caesar clenches his fists so hard that his nails dig into his palms and he can feel small rivulets of blood pool up and stream between his fingers. “Master Lisa Lisa—“
“Let’s go,” she says, harsh and quick and turns away from him with a swish of her scarf, heading up the stairs without looking back. Caesar follows, and doesn’t look back either—not because he doesn’t want to, but because he knows if he does, any semblance of control he’s managed to put together will fall apart within seconds. She can’t see Joseph like that anymore; neither can he. And as they hurry down the dark hallway, if he sees her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs, he doesn’t say anything about it; and if, later, as they make their way back out into the safety of the bright snowy sunlight, she notices the tracks of tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks, she doesn’t say anything either.
---
After the battle with Whamu and Kars, when the world has somehow returned to normal and there’s no imminent threat of death looming over their heads, there are a surprisingly large number of things to deal with. They have to rescue Caesar, who ended up half-dead in the middle of the ocean. They have to wait for him to get better. They have to fix Lisa Lisa up as well. They have to retrieve Joseph’s body. Caesar is in a coma for most of this, but he wakes up in time for the tail end of it, to be told that he was asleep for a little over a week and that they’ve decided to have the funeral in New York.
It’s Suzie who comes to him, uncertain and somber-faced with a scrap of paper in her hand. “Caesar… I know you’ve only just woken up, but—“ she hesitates. “We haven’t called his family yet. We thought it should be someone who knew him well. If you don’t want to, I understand, but—“
“I,” Caesar interrupts, feels the words stick in his mouth and dry up, and swallows. “I’m honored that you would ask me. Thank you. I’ll do it.”
Suzie smiles shakily and hands the paper to him. “Thanks. Here’s the number. There’s a phone on your bedside table that you can use.”
Caesar nods, and takes the paper, feeling its texture between his fingers. “This—who are his family? Who’s the next of kin?” He didn’t know much about Joseph’s family; in the time they’d spent together, he hadn’t said much, only that his parents were dead.
Suzie laughs, a little forced. “It’s—it’s really surprising, but it’s Miss Lisa Lisa, actually. Turns out she’s his mother. She didn’t get a chance to tell him. But she already knows, of course. You’ll be calling his Grandma Erina, and Mr. Speedwagon, who’s a close family friend.”
Too many things at once are going through Caesar’s mind: Lisa Lisa, Jojo’s mother? She’d never told him? What to say to Joseph’s family, and what to say to Suzie—?
It’s the last that he chooses to address first, rubbing the edge of the paper in between his fingers as Suzie turns to leave the room. “Suzie—“ he calls after her, and she turns back, her face half-hidden in the shadows of the corner. “Joseph… I was with him, and he wanted me to tell you—that he’s sorry. That he didn’t get to keep his promise, and come back to see you. He really wanted to.”
Her face is hard to make out in the shadows, but he can hear the tears in her voice as she replies. “…Thank you, Caesar. I didn’t know him for that long, but it’s funny. I miss him.” She pauses. “How are you?”
Several possible answers flash through Caesar’s mind. He settles for, “I’m fine. And you?”
He manages to catch a brief, sad smile on Suzie’s face. “I’m… okay as well, I guess. Thanks for asking. And, Caesar—“ she turns back again as she’s about to leave. “You miss him too, don’t you? It’s okay to let yourself feel it.”
She closes the door softly behind herself as she leaves and Caesar stares blankly at it for a few moments before looking back down to the paper in his hands, the black ink of the numbers swimming before his eyes. He blinks and they clear up.
I didn’t know him for that long, but it’s funny. I miss him.
“One month,” Caesar says out loud to the empty room. “It really wasn’t long at all, was it?”
You miss him too, don’t you?
Caesar picks up the phone and dials.
---
When, after the funeral, Caesar tells everyone that he plans to stay in New York, no one seems surprised. They nod, a little confused, but understanding. He fumbles for words as he tries to explain. “I don’t really have family in Italy,” he finds himself saying, clutching the handle of his umbrella with cold hands as the rain patters down lightly around them. And then, “I think a change of scene might be nice.” I want to know him better, to know where he came from, remains unsaid, but they all nod, understanding.
Lisa Lisa plans to go back to Venice; Suzie Q with her. They don’t know exactly what they’ll do—there’s not much use for the ripple training now that the Pillar Men are gone, after all—but they’ll figure something out. Smokey and Joseph’s family, his grandmother and Speedwagon, listen and nod, their faces drawn and pale and set. They all exchange hugs, and handshakes, and well-wishes and condolences from numb mouths, and eventually all start to trail off and disperse in their separate ways.
In the end, it’s just the three of them—him, Lisa Lisa, and Suzie—just as it started, as if none of this had ever happened at all. He stares down at Joseph’s gravestone, wet with raindrops, although the downpour is starting to let up slightly. There’s a strange, undeniable finality to it; grey stone, two names, and two dates. He’d only been eighteen, Caesar realizes with a brief calculation, and feels the meaning behind that, the responsibility, the weight of it, settle in his stomach like lead.
“I was wondering—“ Lisa Lisa says softly, a hand on his shoulder, staring down at the gravestone with the same expression. Caesar remembers, abruptly, that she’s Joseph’s mother, and feels the guilt again like a knife-blade pressed into the soft flesh of his side and twisted. “Did you ever figure out what he wanted to tell you? He didn’t get the chance.”
Caesar had thought about it. “I know,” he responds, and they look towards him, surprised. “I felt it, in the ripple. It was his last—his last ripple, the expression of his soul. His humanity.” He swallows. “It told me enough.”
It’s true, but to be honest, he wouldn’t even have needed to feel Joseph’s ripple to know what Jojo had wanted to tell him. Joseph had died to save him. There aren’t many reasons you would do that for someone; it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out. He’d never been subtle, after all.
The rain lessens, and then stops, and, through some unspoken cue, the three of them fold up their umbrellas and then, finally, part.
***
A shadow blocking out the sunlight; a large, muscular body slamming into him from the side, clutching onto him and sending them both flying across the room. They roll over and over when they hit the floor, a tangle of limbs and bruised bodies, until they finally slam into the wall at the side and their momentum is abruptly halted.
Caesar sits up as fast as he can, panicked, and looks around, fearing another attack, but there’s no need. Based on the trail of blood leading up the stairs and towards the dark hallway leading to the inner labyrinth of the hotel, Whamu had fled when he’d realized his attack failed, probably not fancying his chances against three Hamon warriors at once. The Sandstorm, it seems, had only just barely clipped them; the brunt of it had hit the wall, sending rocks tumbling down from the ceiling and sunlight streaming through the new gaps in the stonework.
He hears someone gasping for breath next to him, and turns to look as quickly as he can. Joseph is bloodied, and bruised, and has a really nasty cut on the side of his face, and apparently has had the wind knocked out of him, but is here and real and very, very alive—
“You’re okay,” Joseph croaks, and Caesar nods dumbly, realizing in the numbing rush of adrenaline in his veins that he had nearly died. It had been so very close, another split second before Joseph arrived and he would’ve been hit by the Sandstorm full force—or worse, Joseph could have arrived a split second later and been hit by it himself.
The thought of it, the implications, hit him all at once and he crawls towards Joseph, grabs his face helplessly and presses their foreheads together to a small intake of breath from Joseph. “You idiot, ” he breathes, “you numbskull, stupid—it was so close, that could’ve been—“
“Don’t I even get a thank you?” Joseph replies, his breath warm on Caesar’s skin as they pull a few inches apart and he grins, all bravado and confidence. “Some damsel in distress you are. I can’t believe this lack of gratitude.”
Caesar tries to laugh back, to joke, but all he can do is grip Joseph’s shoulder with fingers like a vice and stare at him, at his face, drinking in every cut, every scrape, every blink of his eyelids and movement of his lips that prove that he is well and truly alive. “Never do that again,” he chokes out, and Joseph’s breath catches a little and he nods and says, “Caesar, I—“
There’s a cough beside them and they turn to see Lisa Lisa standing next to them with a cigarette in her mouth. “Not to interrupt this touching moment,” she says sharply, “but Whamu is wounded and it’s three against two. Shall we move along?”
He looks at Joseph and can see him about to get annoyed and protest, but their eyes both follow the slight shake of Lisa Lisa’s hand as she lights her cigarette and the uncharacteristic, but undeniable tenderness and relief in her eyes as she looks over them. Caesar stands, grabs Joseph’s hand and pulls him up after him, and if Joseph keeps that grasp just a little too long as they start towards the stairs, he’s not about to say anything.
---
Despite their promises indicating otherwise, Joseph does indeed save Caesar again, and vice versa. Their fight ends with Whamu defeated, Kars exiled to space, somehow, and Joseph in the hospital, in a coma and with only one hand.
It takes almost a week for Joseph to wake up, and when he does, it’s as you would expect. The doctors smile and sigh in relief and talk about how determined to live he is, this boy; Suzie Q cries; Lisa Lisa doesn’t cry, at least not visibly, but Caesar is more than a little suspicious of her decision to wear sunglasses indoors. Through it all, Caesar stays silent and only grips Joseph’s remaining hand, and he can’t say he isn’t thankful when, with knowing glances and vague excuses, everyone else excuses themselves from the hospital room to attend to urgent commitments.
When the door closes behind them, loud and then quiet in its finality, Caesar suddenly finds himself at a loss for words. He looks at Joseph, opens his mouth, closes it again. Idiot, he could say, or you could’ve died, or, never scare me like that again, but none of those are right, and this time—this time, for once, after all of their fights and arguments and the totality of it all, of the last short month and what they’ve been through—he wants to get it right. But he doesn’t know how or what to say and the weight of it all takes the breath out of him and leaves him struggling for something just out of reach.
Joseph watches his face, curious and exploratory and surprisingly, uncharacteristically serious. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” he asks, quietly.
“I don’t—" Caesar bites his lip, huffs out a quiet laugh, and concedes. If there's ever been a time for stalemate, it's now. "I don't know what to say."
“So all it takes to get you to shut up is me almost dying?” Joseph laughs, and looks at his face searchingly again. Caesar’s about to retort angrily, something about ruining the moment, but then Joseph is murmuring, “Actually, I can think of a better way,” and all of a sudden Joseph’s hand is in his hair, tugging him in, off-balance, and Joseph is kissing him.
All objections and complaints fall out of Caesar’s head, because it’s as if something wordless has clicked into place and all he can think about is this: Joseph’s lips warm and soft and only a little chapped against his, the heat of Joseph’s breath and the feel of Joseph’s tongue sliding across his lower lip because there’s a time and a place for slow and gentle and shy but this isn’t it and Joseph’s desperation is evident as can be, pulling Caesar bodily onto him as well as he can do with one arm. Caesar does the rest of the work himself, climbing onto the hospital bed and straddling Joseph and kissing him very, very carefully, because he’s injured, after all. “You’re still recovering,” he says in between kisses he’s trailing on Joseph’s neck as Joseph tilts his head back and gasps a little, and admittedly Caesar’s actions aren’t really matching his words. “This might not be the best—“
“Shut up,” Joseph says, hand pulling on Caesar’s hair almost uncomfortably hard and eliciting a sharp intake of breath from Caesar because he’d forgotten that Joseph could be annoyingly persuasive when he wanted to be. “Just—just be careful, and it’ll be fine—“
And Caesar tries, they both try, but as with all their plans, it fails miserably. Caesar had imagined how this could go, and he’d had a certain concept of it in his mind; he knew Joseph was inexperienced, was a virgin, and he’d planned to take his time, to be the romantic Italian lover his girlfriends had told him he was, to explore every inch of Joseph’s body and to tease him and to take his sweet time with it. This was a far call from that, but he can't bring himself to say slow down or wait when Joseph's warm and here and needy, angling his hips upward and grinding his hard-on into Caesar's thigh, and as a result it’s all a desperate, hurried mess; Joseph shoving Caesar’s trousers halfway down his thighs and Caesar pushing up the hem of Joseph’s hospital gown and stroking their cocks together as Joseph gasps and moans and bucks up into the heat and the friction. He keeps making as if to use his missing hand to grab Caesar’s hair or his shirt and then remembering, and the sight of it sends a shudder of dread and panic through Caesar, so close, so close, it could’ve been worse, it could've been either of us—and it’s a small, personal miracle that they’re here now, that they have this when he thought they’d never get it, and he kisses Joseph fiercely, possessively, as Joseph moans into his mouth.
“It’s,” Joseph gasps, breaking the kiss for a moment, “Caesar, it’s not enough—I want—“
Caesar shudders and he wants to say no, it’s not a good idea to do much more than this when Joseph is hurt, but Joseph’s singular hand traces the curve of his ass and his fingers dip between his cheeks, a promise of more, and Caesar grips the hard angle of Joseph’s hip and moans at the thought because Joseph wants and so does he—he wants, wants to feel, warm and alive and real—
“Do you have anything,” he gasps in response instead and Joseph mumbles something about hand lotion in the bedside table and it’s all a blurred, bright rush of images after that: Joseph watching hungrily as Caesar reaches behind himself to finger himself open, drinking in every half-choked noise Caesar makes and reaching up to move Caesar’s hand away as he tries to clap it over his own mouth, whispering, “Let me hear, I wanna hear you”. Joseph’s face, flushed and wide-eyed with an expression of single-minded, open-mouthed shock at the sensation as Caesar sinks down on his cock all in one smooth motion, fast and a little reckless, maybe. The feel of it, when Joseph manages to hit that spot that has Caesar biting his lip and cursing, softly at first, then louder, and then practically sobbing with need for more; the stutter of Joseph’s hips against his, the heat of Joseph’s palm as he strokes Caesar in time with their movements, too much and not enough; the stickiness of sweat; the sounds they make unnaturally loud and echoing in the empty room, and Caesar can’t actually remember if they had locked the door but it doesn’t matter when Joseph is coming with a shudder and a moan of Caesar's name and all Caesar can think is, this is real, this is now, we made it—
Afterward, they lie, boneless and shaky, side by side on a hospital bed too small for them, Joseph idly tracing his thumb over the marks on Caesar’s cheeks. “If I had died,” he asks, “would you miss me?”
“Who would miss an idiot like you?” Caesar retorts, and feels Joseph’s body shake next to him as he laughs. There’s no need to be more specific, or more truthful. They’ve come this far; Joseph already knows, anyway, without him having to say it.