Chapter Text
Now that everything was settled and Joseph had recovered from most of his pigeon-related injuries, it was time for incredibly spicy, romantic...
Paperwork.
“That’s how they get you,” Joseph muttered once he had settled back on their couch. “Lure you in with the carrot of legal benefits and the promise of cake, and then hit you with the paperwork. It’s a conspiracy to reduce to amount of legal rights the government has to give out, I tell you.” He lifted his head to scowl more directly at the stack of paperwork. “Who’re they to ask for proof that we’re living together? We just are. It’s like what Suzie said- what did she say? We’re like...”
“Amoeba.”
“Lion tamers,” Joseph declared at the same time. “You know, if I was in charge, people wouldn’t have to apply for these things.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, it’s still a requirement now.”
“You know I don’t like leaving a paper trail,” Joseph grumbled, giving the coffee table a sullen kick. “The census is bad enough. It’s none of the government’s business how many people live here and whether we are the children of anyone or anyone’s the children of us.”
“Are you backing out of it?”
“Absolutely not,” he said without hesitation, swinging his legs off the couch. “But can we do it without the paperwork?”
“No.”
“Damn it.” He stared pensively at the forms. “Okay, just this once. But I’ll get rid of this one day. I’m friends with a future bigwig politician,” he boasted. “I know how the legislative assembly line works.”
“I don’t think that’s the term.”
“Native speaker, remember?” Joseph piped before going back to planning and not planning their wedding at the same time. “You know what, let’s get the certificate done with first. We’ll have the big fancy wedding later, and we won’t mess up all the good stuff with the legal whatsits. Nobody has to know.”
“Why not,” Caesar said, his brain too fried to come up with any objections. In fact, that sounded like an excellent idea. Why the hell hadn’t they done it sooner?
Same reason he’d been putting off proposing for this long. He wasn’t used to doing things just to increase his own happiness, and he wasn’t sure that he could ever make up for that, the thousandfold death-proof happiness, as Joseph put it-
Damn you, he thought to himself. You hesitated.
Was he throwing himself into this new situation to compensate for his hesitation?
Yes. But perhaps this wasn’t too bad.
“Let’s wait until your cornea heals first,” Caesar said. Joseph grinned in sheepish agreement, adjusting his eyepatch. “Then we can have the ceremony at around the same time.”
“That soon? When are you thinking-?”
“December.”
“Hold on, we can’t plan a wedding in a few weeks,” Joseph said. “I read the magazines. That shit takes months. Years, even.”
“Do you think I took this long for the proposal alone? Here.” He removed a folder from inside his jacket and retrieved a set of documents, spreading them over their coffee table. “I’ve collected information on everything: the program, the entertainment, the venue, the proceedings, seating plans, cards and invitations, photography, the list of roles and tasks to discuss and complete. I’ve created a list of what I would like to include and if I know you, what you will tell me to discard, and I am willing to yield on about half of them. You’ll notice I only listed one venue, which was chosen by your grandmother and provided by your uncle. Your mother’s partner offered to refer us to good photographers. Our honeymoon can be postponed until we can decide on a location. We have a month to negotiate- I’m sure we can figure it out. You don’t have to do any of the finicky research if you don’t want to.”
“Goddamnit I love you,” Joseph said in tearful wonder.
*****
One hour into wedding planning and already Caesar was praying for the sweet release of death. As he suspected, Joseph challenged every item on his list (except the one about the six-course dinner.)
It had started off well enough. They had sat down on one plush sofa, the contents of the folder arranged neatly on a nearby tea-table. Caesar had the foresight to suggest they start planning at Erina’s residence, so any disagreements had to be tempered for her sake.
“So, this task list...” Joseph made a face. “Wow. You really put everything on here.”
“This is a simplified list.”
“You don’t say,” Joseph muttered, thumbing through the endless files. “Okay, we better get cracking.” He steepled his fingers in an attempt to look serious, but his expression betrayed immense glee. “First off, no rings, right?”
“No rings,” he confirmed.
“Will we exchange strips of fabric?” Joseph said, lifting the one he had received. He carried it around everywhere he went, showing it off and explaining its meaning to whoever would stop to listen.
“Do you want to?”
“Hmm,” Joseph scrunched up his brows, stroking his chin. “Let me think about it. If we’re not doing rings, that opens up a whole world of possibilities…”
“Let’s discuss that later,” he said hurriedly, retrieving the section of the file with the dinner plans. As expected, Joseph quickly approved or amended almost all the food-related plans.
“Our cake should be twice as tall as the one I got for my birthday last year,” he said.
“The cake can’t be wheat-based,” Caesar said. “Claudia is intolerant.”
“Damn, poor thing. Wait, do we have to have just one cake? Can’t we have, like, one for each of us?”
“I suppose we-”
“We could get millefoglie cake. I’ll even help bake it!”
“It’s too much work-” He looked into Joseph’s earnest face and didn’t have the heart to deny him. “Never mind, let’s have multiple cakes. Cocktail hour would be before the wedding reception, of course.”
“Nice, nice...”
“The guests will bring confetti-”
“Great!”
“Those refer to almonds covered in sugar.”
“Even better!”
Joseph wanted to extend the toasting portion so he could also insult their guests back in case they had anything bad to say about him, but Caesar shot that down.
“For the ceremony I’ll do your makeup for you. You’re still terrible at it.”
Joseph folded his arms. “You’re just jealous of my creativity and prodigious skill.”
“At using foundation as eyeshadow? Sure.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault there are so many kinds of powder!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, but on what planet is your natural skin tone sparkling purple- you know what, never mind. Is there anything else you object to-?”
“No rice throwing. No wheat, either. Waste of food,” Joseph declared, planting his hands on his hips. “We’re using bubbles.”
“...All right. For a honeymoon, I was thinking we could postpone it until after the war. I don’t think you’ve ever been to Naples, and I want to visit your hometown.”
“Oh. About that. I don’t really have one hometown...how do you feel about traveling, fog, cold outhouses and sheep?”
“Delightful,” he muttered. “Naples it is.”
“You’ll change your tune once you get a faceful of blood pudding,” Joseph sniffed.
“I’m sure I will. Now, let’s discuss the venue. What do you think we should do for the décor?”
“Hold on.” Joseph hopped off the couch, bounded into his old room, and returned a few moments later with a dartboard, a dictionary, and a box of thumbtacks. Caesar flinched as he tore a handful of pages out, stabbing them haphazardly into the board with a few pushpins. He shut his uncovered eye, and then threw the dart at the board. “Okay, that’s our theme.”
Caesar stared at the words. “No.”
“Cmon, it’ll be fun! This’ll solve all our disagreements.”
“Okay, new subject,” Caesar muttered, dropping an item into his palm. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“A piece of iron. You should carry it on your person to ward off spirits.” Expecting Joseph to lose it before the end of the week, Caesar planned to give him another piece before the actual wedding.
“Spirits, huh?” Joseph squinted at the iron sliver. “If I was a spirit, this wouldn’t scare me. Why don’t we just hang a horseshoe above the door, so no evil spirits come in?”
“That’s...just not how the tradition goes.” He paused. “Do English weddings usually have horseshoes?”
“Beats me. Mine will,” Joseph said, blinking expectantly at Caesar as he pocketed the iron.
“We can have both, then.”
“Smashing. I have a great idea for how to use it,” Joseph said to Caesar’s reflexive dismay. “Instead of any bouquet-throwing, we can tie the band onto the horseshoe above people’s heads, and then we can make it a competition-”
“Let’s discuss that later as well.”
Things only got worse from there. The chaos of deciding who would play what role in the ceremony made their squabbles at Air Supplena pale in comparison. They had decided to present themselves, no parents involved. Lisa Lisa refused to give Joseph away like he was a piece of gum, and Caesar...well, Caesar was an orphan.
“We’re going to walk down the aisle together, side by side. There’s no question about that,” Joseph said, spinning one of the darts like a pen.
Caesar nodded. He hadn’t imagined it any other way.
“But...” Joseph gave the dart one last twirl, then closed his fist on it. “Which one of us is going to say our vows first?”
“Why do I get the sense that that’s not a question?”
“Clearly, I’m first groom and you’re second groom,” Joseph said.
“There’s no such thing as first and second groom.”
“Now there is. I confessed first, I proposed first, I get to say my vows first.”
“I don’t see why this has to be a competition.”
“No, it’s not, it’s just good sense.”
“Are we really doing this right now?”
And so on.
“What will we do for the entertainment?” Caesar said, hoping that would draw his attention away.
“How about a trapeze artist?” Joseph suggested, lying back on the sofa.
“Absolutely not.”
“That’s right, there aren’t any this time of year...” Joseph clapped his hands. “Why don’t I put on a magic show?”
“You’re the first groom. That isn’t appropriate.”
“Aha! So you admit I’m first groom!” Joseph crowed.
“We could hire a live band to play one of your pieces,” Caesar suggested to change the subject.
“Canon in D?” he said brightly.
“Anyone but that one. That wasn’t a canon, you just put cannons in it,” Caesar said. “And it wasn’t even in D major.”
Joseph threw his arms up in the air. “It was a metaphor!”
“For what?”
“Eh, you’ll get it later.” (Caesar did not.)
This went on for some time.
“You don’t let me pick anything,” Joseph complained after Caesar flatly disagreed with his suggestion of a “reverse” bouquet throw (tossing everyone who could be tossed in the crowd to see who landed on the flowers).
“You picked the location.”
“No, you did, and I said okay.”
“You picked the foods and the horseshoe, and what we’d be using for the ceremony.”
“Counterproposal. Can we skip the ceremony and get to the reception party?” Joseph said. “We can do our vows on our own, and that’ll free up all the time the officiant has to talk for eating.”
“But then how else will we show everyone your wonderful musical compositions?” Caesar said in a desperate attempt to regain control of the conversation.
“Well, if you don’t want Canon in D...” He gasped. “You mean you’ll let me play my J-flat major single?”
“There’s no such thing as J-”
“And I’m telling you there should be!” Joseph said, thumping the sofa cushion.
“Well there isn’t,” Caesar said testily. “We’re not going to agree on music theory, so...let’s just move on. For our first dance-”
“I’m doing interpretative and you can’t stop me.”
“Could you please just take this seriously?” Caesar knew he sounded desperate, but these were desperate times.
“I am,” Joseph said, blinking confusedly at him. That was worse than not taking it seriously- he actually did want some of these things in their wedding.
“You know what, fine,” Caesar said, reaching for the phone. “I’m calling for help.”
*****
“Suzie!” Joseph called as they barged into her apartment. “Tell my future husband that we NEED to have acrobats at our wedding, or we’re not getting married.”
“What?” Suzie took the cucumber slices off her eyes. “I told you not to bother me unless it was an emergency.”
“It is, our marriage is at stake.”
“It’s not that serious,” Caesar muttered.
“I’m thinking of shaking things up a little,” he said. “Break tradition, smash it to pieces-”
“It’s going to be a simple affair,” Caesar said.
“You mean boring.”
“We’re going to have a small ceremony with friends and family.”
“We’re having a wedding week instead of a day,” Joseph said confidently.
“That’s not exactly...”
“Scratch that,” Joseph said, eyes lighting up, “let’s have a wedding month.”
Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s talk about that later. Well, you see our problem, Suzie. We disagree on what we want the wedding to look like.”
“I disagree,” Joseph proclaimed just to be contrarian. “But seriously, it’s not my fault that Caesar’s ideas are all so...meh.”
“And it isn’t mine that yours are all so ludicrous.”
“Hey, name one thing that’s ludicrous about my ideas. They all fit our theme, right future husband?”
“We didn’t decide on a theme, he threw darts at a dictionary page and came up with ‘ocean orchestra party,’” Caesar said, disgruntled. “I am not getting married in a diver’s helmet.”
“Wasn’t Smokey telling us about cowries a couple weeks ago?”
“Dowries.”
“Same difference,” Joseph said. “I already bought the seashells.”
Suzie shook her head, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, you two sort out as much as you can first, then come to me.”
*****
Thankfully, once they returned to Granny Erina’s residence, Smokey helped Granny Erina walk in to observe. Caesar hoped that this would mean that things would go smoother.
“So, if your brothers don’t want to, who’s going to be the ring bearer?” Joseph asked, casting a wary glance at the implacable spectacles of his grandmother. “Maybe I could hire a blimp...”
“I thought I would be the ring bearer,” Smokey said.
“I thought Smokey Brown agreed to be the ring bearer,” Caesar said at the same time. “Joseph you are not hiring a blimp to be our ring bearer.”
“Then how about a trained bear?” Joseph pressed.
“No bears,” Erina said severely. “That’s terribly cruel, Joseph.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Granny...” he said sheepishly. “Okay, no bears. But a blimp-”
“No blimp,” she said sternly, and Joseph backed off.
Under her watchful eye, they managed to come to a compromise about the acrobats, music, and theme. They used the dartboard to settle any outstanding scores.
“See?” Joseph said smugly, even though he had lost the last three rounds. “Told you this was the best way to make decisions.”
Eventually, Granny Erina deemed them cooperative enough to work on their own, and they thanked her before returning to their apartment.
“Okay, what’s next on the list?” Joseph said after taking a huge sip of goat milk. “I’m ready to get this sucker done.”
“Really? That wasn’t enough for you?”
“On the contrary, it was too much, I can’t stand doing another two weeks of it. So let’s get it over.”
Caesar nodded, retrieved the files to spread over their coffee table, and scanned through them to find where they had left off. “What are we going to do with our names?” he said finally.
This was a big one. He knew that Joseph wanted him to take his name in some way. He was open to negotiating, but knowing him he might suggest some form of extreme infixation and end up with “JoPeliStar” as a surname.
“What do you think about hyphenating?” Joseph said. “‘Joestar-Zeppeli.’ Not in order of importance,” he winked.
“Interesting,” he said.
“I need to keep my last name, or Granny’ll be upset. And I’m not gonna make you give up your name, not after everything you did to get your pride in it back. So, hyphenation.” He folded his arms across his broad chest, looking pleased with his own grasp on punctuation. “I know, it’s a mouthful, and my hand’s gonna cramp up signing all the mega contracts I’m going to score, but I do it all for you, baby.”
He barked a laugh. “It’s 7 extra letters.”
“7. Whole. Letters,” he said emphatically, planting his elbow on the desk and flicking Caesar’s nose. “All for you.”
“Your last name is 7 letters, too.”
“Then it’s an equal exchange. I’ll get to dot an I, and you’ll get to cross the T-”
“I have a T in my middle name.”
“Damn, that’s right,” he muttered. “But you don’t put that in your signature. Now you will.”
“I might.” He smiled to see Joseph getting huffy at his lack of response. “I like it. The hyphen. Part of me will always be with part of you.”
Joseph blinked at him. Then he buried his face in Caesar’s shoulder, shaking it with his laughter. “Damn. You gonna be this corny forever?” he chortled at last. “Thought we weren’t that kind of couple.”
“Opposites can exist in one person. A silver tongue can cut like a knife one day and soothe a burn the next.”
“Alright, alright, Shakespeare. Get back on topic,” Joseph said. “Hmm. Names...it’ll also be hard to write on a birth certificate.” He quieted for a moment. “Do you...want one of those?”
“A birth certificate? I already have one.”
“No, I mean- You know. Kids,” Joseph said, and Caesar had to clear his throat in surprise. “I thought, before we get married, we should probably figure this out. From what I know, I want kids, you want kids, let’s get one of them. You want adoption, fostering, or-”
“They’re not pets, you know.”
“They’re kind of like pets. I made a schedule, a budget, and a list of things we’ll have to do to childproof the place. I got Granny to look over it, and you know she knows how to contain a difficult child-”
“Slow down,” Caesar said. Joseph shut up.
They had discussed this on and off. Caesar hadn’t hidden his desires for a large family, but he didn’t think that necessarily meant children...
“Are you sure about this?”
“Claudia’s already asking when she’s going to get another big sister. And she means a big sister,” Joseph said. “Now, adoption’s not off the table, but if we have biological kids... Who’s gonna tell her?” He looked expectantly at Caesar.
“No, you get to crush her dreams.” He hesitated. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sure.”
He glanced at Joseph. There was nothing but sincerity radiating from him.
“You made a schedule? And a plan?”
“You can look at it if you want.”
“Hold on,” he said. “Now this is too many things at once.” He scrambled to figure out how to word what he was to say next. He did see children in his future, but-
“It’s okay if you’re not ready for it,” Joseph said.
“I-” Yes, Joseph was overly perceptive, that was old news. “Yes. Not now, but...it’s on the table.”
“Along with everything else we have to plan,” Joseph said mournfully, cringing theatrically at the stack of files still un-looked at.
“It’s alright. We have time.” And that was true. They had all the time in the world.
*****
The next day, Joseph stealthily went to Suzie on one of her off hours to see if she would be willing to surrogate.
Suzie opened her door, took one look at him, and smiled. “I know what you’re going to ask. And yes, I will be happy to. On one condition,” she said as she let him in. “You name the child after me.”
“But I was going to name our kid after Granny,” Joseph said, making a beeline for her breadshelf.
Suzie leaned on her kitchen counter, lifted her cup to her lips and took a dainty sip. “They can have two middle names.”
“Eh, you do have a nice name...Wait, how did you know what I was going to ask?” he said, hand frozen halfway toward the biscuit tin.
“Caesar already asked me,” she said.
“What? That sneaky bastard,” he exclaimed, narrowing his eyes.
“He’s in the restroom, actually.”
“Caesar!” Joseph yelled. “Get your ass in here!”
A few moments later, Caesar emerged from the hall, slightly sheepish, but with an accusatory gleam in his eye all the same. “What are you doing here?” he said.
“I- you know, Suzie’s going off to become an agent and even if we do decide to have a kid later we’ll have to start planning now,” Joseph said. “I wasn’t going to get one against your will or anything...I was just going to ask if she was interested! Couldn’t just assume now, could I?”
“Right,” Caesar said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Same reason as you.” He folded his arms, trying to look stern and unyielding for a whole two seconds, and then he caved. “I...I just think I’ve spent enough of my time hesitating before making decisions. Though I was also- a little hasty.”
“Oh I don’t mind. I’m in very high demand,” Suzie beamed.
“We’re going to have a baby,” Joseph whispered in near drunken delight.
“I’m having the baby. You’re going to watch,” Suzie said.
“We’re going to be parents.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
Caesar looked like he was about to say something fittingly soppy in return, but the clock chimed the hour.
“Drat,” Suzie murmured to herself. “I’d love to have you over for longer, but I promised Lisa Lisa to finish up the last of my reports before I head off, and I know you two are still in the weeds planning the whole wedding... And invite me over when you squeal over the idea of your future child please, it’s a riot and I’d hate to miss it.”
They promised her they would, thanked her profusely, and then were promptly shooed out of the place.
*****
Slowly and steadily, the pair chipped away at the tower of files. Whenever they had a spare moment together, they sat and planned. Nothing sucked the joy out of life more than overplanning for it, Joseph claimed, and Caesar was beginning to agree. According to Joseph, he had started to plan their wedding in his sleep, mumbling about caterers and forbidding Joseph from doing things Joseph hadn’t even thought of (but now wanted to implement in the ceremony), including sorting the words in their speeches by alphabetical order, having one of them walk backward on the aisle to prevent sneak attacks from behind, and bringing their potted lemon tree so it could be Joseph’s third guest of honor (he had Suzie and Smokey, while Caesar had his four siblings, and apparently Joseph’s relatives didn’t count). Now the newly eyepatch-less Joseph was raring to work on their wedding plans for all the wrong reasons.
“Well, it’s 7pm. Time to plan,” Joseph yawned after dinner. Caesar would’ve been surprised he didn’t mention any more of his ideas during dinner, but he had deliberately cooked a meal with lots of face-stuffing foods that required lots of chewing. “Scratch that, can you help us rehearse our speech? Suz and I think he’s studying too much. We’ve both learned his entire curriculum in the last few visits.”
He nodded. “I’d be happy to.”
“Great. Suzie wrote this entire spiel about how his worth isn’t tied to his work and grades are stupid, and I can get behind it. Like, when my tutors taught me Latin, they just checked that I knew the language, they didn’t assign me a random letter at the end of it. Either I could flip them off in hexameter verse, or I couldn’t.”
“Ah. Yes, all the Latin exams I’ve ever taken have had an ‘insult the examiners’ portion,” he said, and if Joseph noticed the sarcasm he didn’t show it.
“The problem is, she doesn’t leave me anything to say. My lines are all, ‘Yeah!’ and ‘That’s right!’” He crossed his arms. “She’s wasting my talents as a terrestrian.”
“You mean thespian?”
“Yeah, that,” he waved dismissively. “I think I’ll list the world’s longest rivers by the number of trade boats estimated to cross it per year. That’ll show him how much he’s been talking about it.”
Caesar took a look at the script, and he had to side with Joseph- he could be surprisingly persuasive if he wanted to. Not letting him speak his mind was a curse in disguise. As he listened to Joseph enthusiastically practicing his part of the speech, he thought back to an incident that he didn’t quite understand.
Though Smokey and Caesar weren’t as close, Caesar had also learned his schedule because Joseph always came home chattering about it. Once, out of the blue, he had turned to Caesar and said “Did you notice I say marry, merry, and Mary differently? I never noticed.”
“Linguistics?”
“Uh-huh. Listen. Marry, merry, Mary. Mary, merry, marry. Merry...”
Though Caesar could barely tell the difference, Joseph kept repeating it until Caesar finally detected a minute change in the first syllable.
“Tell me about Italian accents!” Joseph had then insisted. He listened raptly as Caesar described the different local languages in Italy (taking care to pause every few seconds to clarify that “No, there isn’t just one version, and no, you do not need to learn all of them to speak to me, and no, do not go to Rome and start speaking Latin at the people there, you absolute wretch, I will-”). And then strangely enough Joseph started asking if anyone had been rude to him about his accent. This was a strange line of questioning.
Caesar decided to ask him about that. They both needed a break from planning.
“Oh! Suzie complained about some people complaining to Lisa Lisa and pretending they didn’t understand her, so I got into a discussion about accents with her. People have been pretty good at picking up mine, so I just wanted to know if you were having any trouble with that.”
“No, nothing like that happened to me.”
“That’s good. If anyone does, remind them that da Vinci was from Florence,” Joseph nodded. “Then sing at them until they go away.”
He rolled his eyes. “As if I’d take the advice of an English citizen.”
“I’m not English, I’m New English. That means I’m twice as American as any American.”
“Now that’s not something an American would say.”
“Here’s some more advice for dealing with people,” he said, ignoring that. “As you probably noticed I don’t have a very strong accent.”
“...Of course.”
“But if I make it stronger,” he said, exaggerating the lack of the final R, “and sound more like the toffs up at Buckingham palace, the folks in corporate think I’m saying something terribly important even when I’m not saying shit.” He pronounced the T with a satisfied click of his tongue and took a bow.
“Which part of England are you from again?”
“Oh all over.” He dropped his accent. “I learned this from my uncle. His accent’s not usually so posh either, but it works with clients. Anyway, if anyone still gives you trouble I’ll come over and then talk them into submission, no problem.”
“I don’t need your help,” he said.
“You don’t have to be shy.” Joseph elbowed him in the ribs across the table. “We’re going to be sharing all assets excluding toothbrushes soon.”
Caesar thought of continuing the discussion, but he could see that was a dead end. “You mean well,” he said. “It’s sweet.”
“Aww,” Joseph beamed. “Before, you wouldn’t say that. You used to tell all kinds of lies. Made it hard for me to know if you liked me at all.”
“‘Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love’,” Caesar quoted playfully.
“Nice try. Stars aren’t fire,” Joseph said.
“Then that’s your bard’s problem.”
“Oh, was that real Shakespeare?” Joseph said absentmindedly. “I’ve been listening to you for too long, I thought that was just the way you talked.”
“I can’t believe you don’t know your own literature.”
He shrugged. “You’re more interesting.”
Joseph had long considered Caesar better poetry than Shakespeare just by virtue of being himself, and he made it clear whenever he could. Caesar coughed to hide the fact that this still flustered him. “Shall we get back to planning?” he said.
The change of subject didn’t seem to raise Joseph’s suspicions. “I’ve got news about the clothes,” he said, excitement sparking in his eyes. “Mine’s arrived. Want to see it? It’s bad luck to see the bride, yada yada, but no one said anything about the groom.”
“Oh?” They had both agreed to pick out their outfits on their own by the beginning of December, and Joseph had been incredibly secretive about the outfit he had ordered up until now. He wondered why. “It’d be nice to see what you’ve been hiding, yes.”
Joseph grinned. “Wait here. And don’t turn around until I say so.”
Caesar dutifully shuffled until he faced the wall. Out in the hall, he could hear paper rustling, what sounded like cloth tearing, a thump, and a few muffled swears. Joseph was either trying on the garment or having a battle to the death with it, and Caesar wasn’t sure there was a difference.
“Would you like help?” he called after a particularly colorful string of invectives.
“Nah, I’m good!”
“You sure?”
“Don’t get your feathers in a headband, I nearly got it,” came the cheerful, if strained reply.
He rolled his eyes and contemplated their wall some more. This part of the kitchen was surprisingly bare. Perhaps they could hang up something here. Joseph might have scorned painting as a medium, but he had a few finished works lying around, and Caesar could surprise him by having one framed...
“Okay,” Joseph’s voice was noticeably winded, “I’m done.”
Caesar turned around.
Instead of a proper suit, Joseph was wearing a fuchsia striped monstrosity.
“Well? What do you think?” He held his arms out and turned slowly around.
“That’s...” Caesar’s hand was on his chin. He looked deep in thought.
“Gorgeous, right?”
“That’s certainly a word to describe it,” Caesar said as he gazed upon the tuxedo. A worker somewhere had to toil day and night to weave this fabric, buy great bolts of it, tailor it to Joseph’s ridiculous proportions...and they chose to dye it fuchsia?
Despite its less than stellar color scheme, it did make his groom-to-be look incredibly happy. That in itself made it look wonderful.
But... “The design is nice, but can’t you find something in a better color? Say, black, navy...”
Joseph looked affronted. “Better? Those are all boring as fuck!”
“Yes, well, we can decide that later.”
“Also if I’m wearing purple I think you should too.”
Caesar’s hand crept up his face. He still had a look of intense concentration in his expression. “just out of curiosity, what if I don’t?”
He threw his arms in the air. “Then what’s the point in having a wedding? Just get the certificate and then we can all eat cake.”
“I see,” Caesar said.
“What do you have against the color purple?”
“It’s not that I don’t like purple, I-” he stopped. “I am not wearing fuchsia, it’s a terrible color, unfashionable to the extreme, it doesn’t fit with our theme, it clashes horribly with my skin tone, and you’re not going to settle for anything less. We’re at an impasse.”
“That’s right,” Joseph crowed. “You go with my idea, and we’re the best and brightest couple that courthouse has ever seen. You go with your idea, and we both wear stupid black suits that look like every other black suit that every businessman every stuffy office wears, except this time there’s a sad limp little corsage in the buttonhole. Guess which idea I like better?”
“Fine, but fuchsia does not suit suits and nothing will change that.” What was it about this color that excited such a passionate defense from Joseph?
“If it doesn’t suit suits, what about a dress, then?”
“Not fuchsia,” he insisted.
“Seriously, what’s wrong with the poor color? Why do you hate it so much?”
“Everything,” he said grimly. “Why not pick peach, cream, ivory, red...anything other than fuch...purple?” Red would probably clash as well, but at least it wasn’t fuchsia.
“You’re a drip,” he complained. “Okay, fine, you don’t have to wear purple! But I will. Once you see what I can do with it, you’ll change your mind for sure.”
Unlikely, he thought. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s try it.”
With any luck, in the hectic weeks ahead, Joseph would forget all about it, and they’d go with their traditional black-and-white color scheme as they originally planned (to counteract the ocean orchestra party theme of the rest of the ceremony- damn his hand for slipping at that crucial last throw).
*****
Joseph did not, as he had hoped, forget all about it. As soon as he heard back from the tailors, he had swapped the monstrosity of a suit for a massive gown made of crinoline and satin. Joseph surprised him with it when he woke up on Saturday, which was a hell of a way to start a weekend.
“Well?” He pirouetted.
Joseph made, as always, a beautiful portrait. The gown had a good hemline, a full skirt, complemented the figure beneath it, nothing to complain about there. It had lace, tiny seed pearls, other things he didn’t know the names of. Caesar liked everything about this picture- except the color.
Bright, vivid fuchsia.
It ruined the perfectly good underlying design with its brain-piercing gaudiness. But- no, it wasn’t that. He could accept any other shade of purple. He liked bright shades- orange, red, literally any other color, why did it have to be fuchsia-
“Come on, tell me what you think!” Joseph said, looking apprehensive. “Don’t you like it?”
“Fuchsia,” he muttered to himself, resisting the urge to pull the covers over his head. “No. I’m going to have to bleach it white.”
“Over my dead body,” Joseph exclaimed, indignantly fluffing out his skirts. “I still don’t know what you’re so hung up about. It’s not you who’ll wear it, it’s me. So what gives?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his face. “I know you want to wear something bright. Why not yellow, or- green? You love green. It’s so, so hard to coordinate with this color, especially since the blues you picked for the venue are so muted. We’ve worked so hard to get here. I just... I want this to be perfect.”
“Oh,” Joseph said, deflating. “Caesar, it’s already going to be perfect. You’re going to be there.”
Caesar opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Joseph had a way of completely disarming him.
“That’s not how it works,” he said at last.
“All I know is that a splash of color isn’t going to ruin it.” Joseph said, wearing one of his gently puzzled little frowns, as if he didn’t know how it was supposed to work.
He probably didn’t, Caesar thought. He didn’t know what it was like to feel that every decision he would ever make was a mistake, that existing was too much of an imposition. He didn’t know the shame of it, the fear of failing to elide himself into the crowd, the unremitting terror that if he could be seen too clearly that people would-
Ah. So that was it.
“Okay,” he said at last. “If you like it so much, we can work in a little...splash.”
“And you’ll wear it too.”
“Fine,” he said, suppressing a shudder. “But not the whole outfit, all right? The cufflinks at most.”
Joseph beamed and leaned forward to plant a quick kiss on his cheek. “So it’s settled then,” he said, “We can do half the ceremony in black and white and half in purple.”
“Fuchsia,” he repeated dubiously. Despite knowing that he was drawing on old, terrible habits, the very phrase left a sour taste in his mouth.
“I’m starting to think that’s not even a word, you’ve said it so many times.”
They set aside the purple elephant in the room to tackle the rest of the plans as. “I have an update on the date,” Caesar said, shaking some pepper onto his breakfast eggs. “I only found one time that works in that window of opportunity you identified using your abilities.” He paused. “You’re sure that-”
“Oh yeah, 100%,” Joseph yawned. “Magic vine never fails. Your siblings are coming, right?”
“Yes, of course. Has anyone responded to your invitations? We did give them rather short notice...”
“Hm,” Joseph thought out loud, thumbing through the stack of RSVPs. “Granny, of course, and Speedwagon. Lisa Lisa and her partner. Loggs and Mess are off who knows where, they did send their regards though. Suzie’s agreed to be our person of honor provided that I don’t try to compliment her in Venetian. Smokey’s coming too. Oh crap, did you schedule it on a school day?”
“No, I did not. You told me six times that we definitely could not schedule it on a school day because your best friend in all the United States could not come otherwise.”
“Oh, great,” he said, relieved. “Granny insisted on sending courtesy notes to some people, distant relatives and acquaintances I think, but no one responded, good riddance. I hate their guts. That’s most of them.” He squinted at the smudged list of names on the back of his hand. “Who else’re we missing?”
“Do you have any other friends?”
“Nah,” Joseph said. “Haven’t been here long enough. You?”
“No. No, no one I’d want here.”
“Then it’s settled,” he beamed. “This’ll be great. No awkward reunions, nobody’s going to make a scene, we know all their food restrictions and what kinda favors to get... I think that’s it when it comes to the preparations.” Joseph did a double take. “Wait, that’s it with the preparations?”
Caesar blinked in surprise. Indeed, the folder was down to a single sheet- which was a checklist of every decision that needed to be made. Every last item had been ticked. Caesar stared at the completed task list, glanced at the stack of papers of completed tasks, and felt the curious emptiness that lingered when a major undertaking had been undertaken. Caesar didn’t know what to do with his time now that he’d finished this gargantuan task.
Joseph also looked a little confused. Perhaps he too expected to feel more accomplished. “We’re done, right?” he said.
“We are.”
“That’s it, then?” Joseph said, his brain catching up with his words. Caesar nodded, and Joseph pumped his fist and shouted, “YES! FINALLY! This was such a pain in the ass!”
“I didn’t think you thought our wedding was so much trouble.”
“Don’t give me that, you thought so too,” Joseph said, too giddy to sound indignant. “We’re done! Plenty of time before the date we set, too.”
Indeed, they had a couple of weeks to go. So Joseph’s little vine was useful after all... “One last thing,” Caesar said. “We didn’t decide what color the napkins would be. But that can wait until tomorrow morn-”
“No, no,” Joseph said, all pistons firing at this point. “We’re finishing this now. Since we’re doing an ocean theme, they’re going to be white with seashell edges and a slight blue tint. Okay? Okay.”
“Yes, that sounds alright,” Caesar said, surprised. “Er...What should we do now?”
“Sleep,” Joseph said, and put himself down for a nap.
*****
December 1940
The time had come for them to put all of their planning to use. The day of the wedding was a misty-skied one, and a few flurries fell in the morning. Otherwise, though, the day was clear.
In their initial planning stages, Joseph had won the right to determine the order of each component of the ceremony. To his credit, he had sought out the help of his friends and more or less followed the order that Caesar had set, except he demanded a food showing before the wedding actually started.
The venue didn’t look fully nautical as Joseph wanted, but was vaguely aquatic nonetheless, with long strands of greenery approximating kelp and blue flowers as “shells.” For the main floral piece of their table, Joseph had chosen yellow sunflowers. Gold and green and blue and purple...it wasn’t bad at all, he thought as he looked proudly at his handiwork.
So their guests all arrived an hour in advance- Smokey with Erina, Speedwagon, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam (who still hadn’t revealed her true name), Caesar’s siblings, and Suzie with a veritable battalion of caterers carrying in a feast. Suzie had taken over the catering for the food like a slow and inexorable invasion of termites. She insisted on gathering people to cook everything day-of so it’d be fresh, and they trusted her organizational skills.
Again, she had put together a fusion of English and Italian foods. The main cake was a warm buttery yellow, covered with sunflowers and little sugar pearls, with six tiers topped with small fondant figurines inspired by Loggins’ carvings. Small seashell-shaped scoops of cream decorated each tier. It was made entirely without wheat, something that was mysterious and wonderful to Joseph, who had marveled at it for a good three minutes before Suzie shooed him away (he had an expression not unlike a cat that had stumbled into a canary farm). The secondary cakes were millefoglie cakes. Joseph, true to his word, had helped with baking them, with Suzie inspecting the thin, flaky layers for any defect of quality. Finding none, reluctantly, she allowed them to be served.
The other preparations bored Joseph thoroughly, and he tried to find his amusement however he could. Giulia caught him sneaking fake spiders into the bouquet that Claudia was supposed to carry (she liked spiders, and not knowing any better, eagerly agreed to present them to her brother before the wedding started). Then he tried to bribe Marco to steal one cake for him. “No one will miss it, I’ll probably eat it anyway, and there’ll be enough to go around-”
Someone cleared their throat behind him, and he turned around. Caesar gave him an icy look.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll behave.”
And he meant it. Caesar looked like Adonis in that suit. No, better than Adonis, because no boar was going to come gore him.
Soon, the orchestral portion of the oceanic orchestra rolled in, playing one of the songs Caesar had chosen from Joseph’s repertoire (he had won the right to choose all entertainment for their wedding).
Now it was time for the dance. Joseph, again true to his word, performed an interpretive dance number, this time without any spaghetti. Caesar insisted on doing a traditional dance with him immediately afterward. As they swayed and spun on the dancefloor to the strains of Joseph’s homebrewed music- a pretty little tune of unusual time signatures, strange key changes and a few distant cannons mixed in- Joseph decided that this wasn’t too bad at all.
Then he tripped over his hem and decided that it was time to sit the dance portion out until he could fix the ruffles.
While Caesar was not much of a singer, he was a fluid dancer. All of Lisa Lisa’s students, with the exception of Joseph, moved like they were made of water. And Caesar today looked- well, not only good, but- happy, fulfilled, like he was enjoying himself. Even though this was more common now than when they first met, it was still a monumental enough event that he wanted to distill each one, preserve it in his memory.
Joseph watched him so intently that he jumped when Smokey tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hello?” Smokey waved a hand in front of Joseph’s face, and he shushed him and batted his hand aside absently.
“The food’s ready,” Smokey said. Joseph didn’t react to that either.
“Alright,” Smokey shrugged, looking slightly impressed.
Then the dance ended. The cocktails were served. An experimental music piece using the “J-major”, which sounded a little like a tuba played underwater, accompanied them as they shared drinks and congratulations.
Up until now, the ceremony had proceeded swimmingly. But as it continued, both Caesar and Joseph become more restless as the gravity of what they were about to go through with sank in. When they were about to change into their second set of wedding attire (they had compromised with wearing “boring” clothes for the first half and the “good” clothes for the second), they took far longer than they needed to.
Five minutes before the actual wedding, they had both disappeared.
*****
Suzie and Smokey, the appointed Best Friend squadron, was immediately deployed. It took them half an hour to coax each groom out of the bathrooms at opposite ends of the house.
“Caesar, you are getting out of there this instant, I have a centipede and I’m not afraid to use it!” Suzie yelled.
“Make the other idiot in this building the happiest idiot in New York or so help me Erina, I will drag you out of there,” Smokey shouted. (He could back that up. He had filled out after doing rugby, even though he wasn’t very good at it, and he could rival Joseph in physique now.)
“What if he doesn’t want to go through with this?” Joseph whispered to Smokey.
“What if he doesn’t want to go through with this?” Caesar said to Suzie.
“Can’t know ‘til you see each other,” they both said, and then dragged them kicking and screaming to the ceremony.
****
The grooms stood at either end of the aisle leading up to the arch under which they were to be married, utterly consumed with nerves. Green and blue flowers and ribbons swamped the venue.
It wasn’t their outfits, the idea of committing to each other- or even losing each other- that unnerved them. It was their excitement overflowing and being forced into another shape so they could process it at all.
It’s not the happiest day of our lives, Caesar thought, it’s only the beginning.
And now for the ceremony to begin.
Joseph stepped out first, and Caesar caught his breath in shock. He couldn’t help but admire the garment’s elegance and style. It fitted snugly around him, curving in a v-shaped neckline, falling in graceful lines off his hips to the ground, a rich black velvet double-layer hem with just the slightest bit of ruffle to it. He had little star-shaped earrings in, the diamonds glinting in the sunlight. A simple, elegant, refined look -
Breathtaking. Incredible.
As Joseph’s eyes met his, he smiled, not without nerves, but he knew his own outfit was no less impressive.
Joseph’s jaw dropped.
Caesar was wearing a black and white tuxedo-gown blend. Above the waist was the typical pleated affair of ruffles and fabric, but below the hem was full and wide, trimmed with cream, and deep blue. Unconventionally, he wore a light blue cravat around his neck and fuchsia cufflinks.
Clashing colors and fashion faux pas didn’t matter if it made Joseph happy.
“You did wear purple,” Joseph said, over and over again, “it looks amazing, you’re amazing, and that dress, it’s also a suit!”
Unusually for him, he felt a bit flustered at the attention. “Yes, well, you also look very presentable. Took you long enough to come to your senses. I told you fuchsia would clash horribly.”
Joseph grinned. Then, still grinning, he slowly did a twirl.
A very, very interesting color flashed before his eyes.
The ruffles in the skirt were not, in fact, pure black velvet. They were half fuchsia. The fuchsia was hidden when he stood still.
“Clever,” he said begrudgingly. “Very clever.”
“Well?” Joseph looked at him, a little hesitantly.
“It...” he broke into a smile. “It’s beautiful on you.”
*****
“Hey future husband,” Joseph said conspiratorially as they stood together, preparing to take the next step forward in their lives.
He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “Hey.”
“I won’t have to use the word ‘future’ after today,” Joseph murmured, and gave one of his most sincere smiles, the one that brought out the aquamarine in his eyes.
“Neither do I.”
It took far, far, far too long to set everything in motion. But when it did, it went without a hitch. Their small group fit into the venue without much trouble. The officiant rivaled Cindy in staidness, but that probably was for the best, considering that Joseph had enough personality for three or four people.
As they walked down the aisle, making sure not to pull in front of one another.
Their guests threw bubbles and flower petals at them- mostly orange ones, but some were fuchsia. Suzie winked at him as he passed.
They stood under the tree’s broad branches and the officiant began his speech.
Caesar was so busy staring at Joseph, his sea-green eyes, that unruly hair only barely tamed with a mountain of hairspray, the smooth velvet curves he wore, that he could hardly pay attention to the words in the speech. Beautiful words, elegant words, yes, but they were trying to describe the indescribable, the depth of the connection between them, how much time and blood and sweat and tears it had taken to forge this bond. They could not capture the pain they had gone through, all the bitter fights and the slow healing. They could not capture the...the pure elation, or the simple, sweet contentment of just existing, side by side, in each other’s presence.
“Love is a responsibility...a treasure...to have and to hold...”
All these abstractions, these pale little metaphors faltered and stumbled next to the reality of love next to him, a togetherness that went beyond physical proximity, precious beyond any physical treasure. Jokes that only they shared, smiles that were special to them, memories they built together. Finally, finally, they could share this moment, the present, they could enjoy it together, together - they had chosen each other, and would be there for each other, support each other, fight for each other through hell or high water, and this was the meaning of love. This was love. It was that simple.
“Will you take each other as your lawfully wedded spouses?”
“I do,” they both said, simultaneously, as if it was an incantation. It was, in a way. It bound them together.
And then it was time. No rings at this ceremony, they’d decided. They instead tied a gold ribbon around their wrists, an old custom, and more than adequate. They weren’t supposed to kiss, not yet, but he cheated, he placed a small one on the inside of Joseph’s wrist, just to feel the heartbeat speed up and a happy flush creep up his face as he pulled the ribbon tight around their hands, their fingers instinctively lacing together. Joseph cheated too, returning the kiss, on the back of his hand, smiling so widely that Caesar could almost not see the tears in his eyes.
“Hey, present husband,” he whispered, and those words in his voice were the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard.
“And now, state your vows.”
Joseph turned to Caesar with a sly smile. “Caesar, I vow to age as gracelessly as you undoubtedly will.”
“I vow to tell you to speak for yourself, I’ll age as gracefully as anybody else.”
“I vow to put you in your place when you get too full of yourself.”
“I vow that I will-”
The audience began coughing. Joseph grinned.
“Shall we exchange vows for real?” Caesar murmured.
Joseph nodded and then unfolded his napkin, scanned it, then threw it away. “I don’t need a wedding for this all to be true. But I’ll go through with this anyway, because I’ll take any opportunity to prove it all to you. It feels like only last year that I met you, because it was. But that’s all the time I needed to know that you are the one I want by my side for the rest of my years. I love the laugh that you only let out around me. I love the look on your face when I successfully bamboozle you. I love your strength and patience, your tireless devotion. I love you more than I love spaghetti.”
Caesar smoothed out his notes, but he didn’t need them either. “I didn’t always like you, but past me was a fool. I’ll make up for that foolishness now. I love your heart, your humor, your playful charm. I love all the different smiles you share with all of us, and the one you reserve for me alone. I love the expressions you make when you think you’ve fooled me, and you make me happier than anyone ever has. I can’t imagine a life without you in it.”
“I promise to love, hold, cherish, support, respect, etc. and so on, and do all sorts of other cheesy things, and some other things I can’t say here, to you no matter the state of the season, the weather, the world. Nothing will hold me back from this, not even death.”
“I promise the same to you. I promise to love, honor, uplift, trust, care for you without condition and stand beside you to face all our enemies, come whatever may.
“I will try to make you smile every day for the rest of my life if I can, and hopefully not break too many household appliances while doing so.”
“I will laugh at your jokes even if they aren’t funny, as long as they aren’t too bad.”
“I will love you even if you don’t laugh, because I love you for you, the good and the bad and everything in between.”
“I will love you even when you don’t make me smile, even when times are difficult. I will love you because you are you, unconditionally.”
“You are my best friend, and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“You are in the top ten - just kidding,” he said for the audience’s sake, even though Joseph was in on the joke already, “you’re my best friend too - and I can’t wait to do the same.”
“You may now kiss,” the officiant said.
“I don’t see why I need your permission,” Joseph muttered underneath his breath, but even that couldn’t ruin the moment.
They leaned in at the same time, Joseph’s hand reaching up automatically to cup his neck and his own hand resting on Joseph’s hip. They were almost married. Married. He loved the sound of that. He loved the feeling of his hand against Joseph’s, the soft silken fabric holding them together, the warmth of his body against his chest. He savored this moment like a fine dessert.
“Hey present husband,” he said, the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
“I present to you, the newlyweds.”
The party behind them erupted in cheers as they sealed their marriage with a long, tender kiss.