Work Text:
Jotaro's grandfather had a past.
Jotaro knew little of it, only snippets gleaned here and there, bits of conversation dropped whenever his grandfather wanted to sound impressive. But they were only small pieces, tossed to an enraptured crowd like bread crumbs to pigeons—because above all else, Joseph Joestar was a natural-born performer, a creature who lived off the attentions of others. Those pieces he shared were only the bright spots, and whatever the full picture of his youth had been, Joseph had never seen fit to relay it to his grandson, so Jotaro's understanding of it remained as vague as the other man liked.
(And then there were those occasions when a young Jotaro had gotten himself into trouble—then it was Grandma Suzie assuring his mother, “You know, your father got into all sorts of mischief when he was young, too, and look how he turned out!” Only the thought that he might grow into a man like Joseph had inspired more nausea in Jotaro than anything else, so he'd tried to ignore those statements.)
Jotaro had never cared for the stories, and he'd never cared to know more about whatever adventures his grandfather had gotten up to in his youth. Until recently, the old man had been nothing more than an occasional interloper in his life, arriving unannounced at the Kujo estate every so often, complaining all the while about the place and how it would never be good enough for his little girl, or even her punk of a son. Even as a child, Jotaro had understood the resentment his grandfather held toward his father, and the slight upon his family had stung as well as if it had been directed at him personally. His grandfather had treated Jotaro's father coldly, and so Jotaro had turned the same coldness on his grandfather. They had never been close.
But then there had been his mother's sickness, and Egypt, and Dio, and Joseph was as strange as ever, but he wasn't a stranger—not after all of that. He was childish and foolhardy, but he was just as much clever and loyal. Jotaro felt a sort of responsibility for the old man now, even a grudging fondness beyond that which familial ties demanded. He didn't suppose he'd ever truly resented Joseph, but any lingering distaste for him had dissipated after all they'd been through.
Now, nearly a week since DIO's defeat, there should have been closure. Jotaro and his grandfather had seen Polnareff off, and then they'd bought their way back to Japan on the first flight out of Cairo. At the Kujo estate, with firsthand proof of Holly alive and well, Joseph had cried. (Then Grandma Suzie had smacked him for not telling her a thing about it all, and he'd cried for that, too.) His reaction was everything Jotaro might have expected.
Jotaro had felt the same relief at his mother's recovery, but he made no show of it. Standing in her recovery room, surrounded by family, he wondered at his inability to do so. He'd won the battle, he reminded himself. He'd gotten what he wanted. But there was an emptiness within him that he couldn't define, some dearth of feeling that was both foreign and all too familiar. It had come to being in Cairo, but it should have gone now.
Jotaro looked around himself. There were his mother and father—who'd canceled his tour be with his ailing wife—and his grandparents, fussing and crying, and the picture was right; the weight in his heart was lightened but not released. Jotaro stood back against the wall, arms crossed, and watched his boisterous family play out its antics. The adventure was over. Whatever dwelled inside him still would pass, but he shouldn't worry any longer.
At the very least, he should worry quietly.
But none of his family had ever shared that sentiment, and it was their very loud fretting which kept him awake late that same Thursday night, when anyone else his age probably ought to have been in bed, resting for school in the morning—not that Jotaro had been back yet. The past few days had been spent carefully watching his mother for any sign that her illness might return; until tonight, Holly seemed to have been recovering well.
She had been, anyway, until that moment just over an hour ago when she suddenly realized her father had disappeared. Then she'd gone into a nervous frenzy worrying over where he'd gone, which in turn had set off Jotaro's grandmother, and their combined forces had put Jotaro himself on edge to the point that he eventually offered to go track down the old man, just to appease the women. There were several Speedwagon Foundation doctors still scattered about the estate, and brief investigation revealed one of them had seen seen Joseph take off some hours ago in the direction of town, which gave Jotaro at least a general starting point.
So that was where he began looking, and his search was not a protracted one. He knew his grandfather well enough now that it didn't take much imagination to guess where he might have gone. Jotaro was wholly unsurprised to find Joseph nursing a glass of whiskey at the nearest bar to the Kujo estate. Joseph, however, seemed quite surprised to see Jotaro.
Joseph turned his head at his approach, eyes wide for a moment, and then he scowled. For a moment, Jotaro was stunned. Despite his age, Joseph had always maintained an unusual energy about him (which had served more often than not only to annoy Jotaro). Yet somehow, against the backdrop of this run-down hole-in-the-wall, Joseph looked as tired and old as the other men surrounding him. But it was a short-lived thing. Before the impression fixed itself fully in Jotaro's mind, it had been replaced by that strange juxtaposition, and then he was staring at his absurdly youthful grandfather once more.
“How did you get in here?” Joseph muttered, waving his hand as Jotaro approached. “In your school uniform, even...”
Jotaro ignored him. It had been years since anyone had had the gall to card him—if they weren't thrown by his size, a glare usually did the trick. And anyway, he hadn't come here to drink; all he'd meant to do was to find his foolish grandfather before Grandma Suzie or his mother worried themselves sick. And now that he'd found Joseph under such pathetic circumstances, he felt the stirrings of an old, familiar anger of the sort he hadn't known since before Egypt.
“You left without saying anything,” Jotaro said. Joseph scoffed and turned away, looking down into his glass. Jotaro bit back a sigh and sat down on the stool next to his—the bartender turned his way for a very brief moment, opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, and then quickly thought the better of it. There was silence for a moment, and then:
“Were you worried?” Joseph asked.
“Your wife was,” Jotaro replied. “I'd already figured you'd be out here doing something stupid, like drinking your troubles away.”
“Drinking my troubles away?” Joseph looked up, first confused, and then his face split into a grin and he barked out a laugh loud enough that it had heads turning their way. Jotaro pulled down his cap, embarrassed, and glared at his grandfather, who paid him no mind. “You are a gloomy kid, aren't you? No, I'm celebrating! Cel-e-bra-ting!”
For a moment, Jotaro could only stare at him, dumbfounded. His grandfather's shoulders still shook with laughter, and for the life of him Jotaro couldn't comprehend the joke. But then, he'd never understood the man's humor.
“What's there to celebrate?” Jotaro asked, thinking of the emptiness.
Joseph laughed again, held his arms out like a performer on stage as he loudly proclaimed, “My daughter's alive! I'm alive!” He pointed to Jotaro and winked. “Even my punk of a grandson is alive! And hey, we probably saved the world. What's not to celebrate?”
Again, Jotaro found himself lost at the turn of the conversation. He could answer that question in a hundred ways—in at least three his grandfather should understand. But Joseph's easygoing answer and earnest smile made Jotaro question his own grief. Jotaro had always suspected he lacked the depth of emotion he gleaned in others; he had no baseline with which to judge whether the things he felt now were normal. He had no way of knowing whether he was the strange one, or if it were Joseph. And then, of course, it could have been the both of them—just another unfortunate family trait.
“We lost good people,” Jotaro said slowly.
“We always do.” Joseph spoke those words more quietly than the last, though his grin didn't fade—it might have softened somewhat, but Jotaro might also have imagined that. He didn't know how to answer, and Joseph said no more. The old man only lowered his arms and turned back to the bar and his whiskey, and Jotaro thought he intended to leave it there.
But then he spoke again, without looking up. And for all his antics, Joseph was not entirely a fool.
“Alright, so you're still upset about the way it ended,” he said airily. “And you don't really know what to do with it, do you? So, what now? Do you blame yourself? Or maybe you blame me?”
The man was as eerily perceptive as he'd ever been, though his accusations were slightly off the mark. Jotaro knew his own actions hadn't been the direct cause of the lives that were lost. And he dismissed the latter suggestion outright; he didn't blame his grandfather for Kakyoin's death, not any more than he blamed Polnareff for Avdol's or Iggy's.
But the trouble with all of them was this: Jotaro hadn't been there.
He'd always been strong. As a child, he'd hidden that power because it had frightened his peers; as he'd grown, he'd surpassed that fear, weaponized it and made it a part of himself. There was a strength in Jotaro that none had ever matched, and he didn't think it prideful to be aware of it—but he was just as painfully aware of his failure to use that strength when his friends needed it most. Polnareff hadn't been able to protect Avdol and Iggy; Joseph couldn't spare Kakyoin his fate. But Jotaro...
Jotaro might have saved them all, and he would never know.
“You can never save them all,” Joseph said, though Jotaro hadn't spoken any of his misgivings out loud. He favored his grandfather with a suspicious glare, but Joseph paid it no mind. “You take after me more than you'd like, I suppose. Maybe it's in our blood, or maybe it's just the way these things go. Seems we always lose someone.”
And there it was: the subtle hint of a past Jotaro had never cared to know, only now it seemed suddenly worth learning. He watched the carefree way his grandfather sipped at his whiskey, at the gentle sadness in his voice that still couldn't overtake his natural optimism, and Jotaro wanted that for himself. He wanted the uncertainty to stop.
“You sound like you're speaking from experience,” he said, testing the waters.
“Oh, I've had all kinds of experiences,” Joseph replied. The statement itself was vague, but his tone offered no hint of defensiveness. He remained as easygoing as ever; the waters were clear. Jotaro dove in:
“So tell me about them.”
Joseph nearly spit out his drink, though Jotaro was certain he'd done it only for the exaggerated effect, another showing from a lifelong actor. Joseph turned to him with an incredulous look on his face and narrowed his eyes.
“What's all this, then?” Joseph said. “You never seemed to want to hear my stories before. I tried to tell them all the time when you were a kid, and you always blew me off!”
“Stop complaining, old man,” Jotaro grumbled. Again, he pulled down his hat, and he hoped the heat he felt rising in his cheeks was only the product of his imagination. “You were always talking anyway, and I'm listening now.”
“Hmph.” Joseph's skeptical gaze stayed trained on him a minute longer. Then he picked up his whiskey, downed the rest of the glass, and called the bartender over for another. Jotaro waited with a forced patience until his grandfather continued, “Well, alright then. I might as well tell you the whole thing.”
And then his grandfather was off, talking a mile a minute about every fantastical thing Jotaro had heard of his past and then some, with a childlike enthusiasm. He glossed over his youth in England, grinned wildly at his tales of New York and then Mexico, and then his eyes lit up as he spoke of Italy—the place where he'd met Jotaro's grandmother, but to Jotaro's surprise, she warranted only a brief mention in the tale. Joseph spoke with a passion, but it was directed elsewhere—it wasn't for Suzie, but for the others he'd known during that time: toward the woman who'd taught him and the men he'd fought with, for his friends, and Jotaro began to suspect the story's ending. He'd never met any of those people.
Seems we always lose someone, Joseph had said. Sure enough, as continued his tale, past the loss of the young German officer he'd barely known, then the death of his teacher, through battle after battle in Italy and then into Switzerland, his chipper tone began to change, his words coming more carefully. He told Jotaro about a late-night altercation that had ended with the enemy leader, Kars, fleeing wounded into the night.
“We found where he was hiding the next day,” Joseph said. “He'd holed himself up in some old mansion that night, and when the sun came up, he was trapped. All we had to do was figure out how to attack him.”
He paused, uncharacteristic, looking almost unsure. For possibly the first time in his life, Jotaro thought he might understand his grandfather; despite the shock which accompanied that revelation, he prodded him on automatically.
“And then what happened?” he said. Joseph scratched the back of his neck—nervous, self-conscious. Unlike him.
“Well, this part's important,” he said. “I want to make sure I tell it right.”
In St. Moritz, he'd almost let him go.
When Caesar had stormed off toward the mansion to fight Kars by himself, Joseph had been upset enough that he'd almost let him go without another word. He'd thought, if the man was so stubborn he wouldn't listen to reason, then the only thing to do was to let him work it out on his own. And after all, Lisa Lisa had sent Messina to look after him, too, so it wasn't as if he were really alone.
As he stewed over his frustration, he was distantly aware of Lisa Lisa speaking to him. He heard a few words here and there—something about Caesar's past—but before she'd gotten very far, Joseph had already begun to calm down. There was an itch to his skin and a voice in his mind telling him that this was a mistake. It was the same voice, that same warning, that liked to whisper to him during battle, telling him what his opponents would say and do—and it had led him to victory countless times. That voice had never been wrong before.
You're being stubborn, too, it said. Is this really the way you want to leave things?
The premonition seemed almost dramatically bleak, but Joseph remembered at once that their mission here was a dangerous one. Rather suddenly, it occurred to him that he'd let Caesar run off into who knew what kind of situation on his own, all for the sake of stubbornness.
“Jojo, are you even listening to me?” Lisa Lisa said, breaking him from his thoughts.
“I always listen,” Joseph lied.
“This is important,” she said. “I'm trying to explain Caesar's—”
“I don't want to hear it.” Joseph looked away—whether or not Lisa Lisa had understood his meaning, he didn't want to see the expression her face. Red-faced himself, he said, “If it's something I should know, then I'll just make Caesar tell me himself.”
When he turned from Lisa Lisa and ran off in the direction of Caesar's footprints in the snow, he didn't hear his master's voice call out to him at all. He figured she must have understood.
Caesar couldn't have had more than a 10-minute lead on him, but by the time Joseph reached the mansion, it was obvious a battle had already begun. There were mussed tracks in the snow, evidence of hurried movement, and a gaping hole in the wall that spoke more clearly to the apparent clash. Joseph didn't need to think twice; whatever trap had been laid, Caesar had already stepped right into it.
Or so Joseph had thought, until he pushed open the doors to the hall and realized Caesar, however angry he'd been, hadn't run in without a plan of his own. At the landing of a great staircase in the center of the hall, Wamuu stood petrified under directed sunlight bouncing through hundreds of soap bubbles turned to makeshift lenses. Joseph, used to inventing his own techniques on the fly, felt a brief pang of jealousy: there was Caesar, showing off again—this was something entirely new and unexpected.
And Caesar, of course, must have known it, because there he was as well, in the middle of it all, moving toward Wamuu and already bragging about his victory. Pride could be blinding, and for a moment, Joseph felt the same pride by proxy.
But it only lasted a moment and then Joseph was running, because outside the heat of battle he could clearly see the thing that Caesar had missed. Caesar jumped to deliver the final blow, and Joseph jumped too, and fortunately he was faster—before Caesar had fully charged his Hamon kick, Joseph crashed into him and knocked him out of the air—knocked his shadow away fast enough that Wamuu hadn't been able to move any more than to twitch his fingers and remained frozen in the sunlight.
In the aftermath, with Caesar's body pinned beneath him, Joseph looked back to Wamuu and couldn't restrain a bubble of nervous laughter. That could very quickly have gone horribly wrong—the only thing holding Wamuu in place was the sunlight, and if Joseph had been only a moment slower, not even that.
“You—!” Then there was Caesar, palms pushing at him in a panic and a vicious bite to his tone. It calmed once Joseph had regained his sense enough to remove himself, and Caesar had realized who had attacked him. He spoke again, his panic gone but the bite still present. “Jojo? What the hell are you doing?”
“Careful!” Joseph held his hands up in surrender, grinning, ready to fend off Caesar's obvious anger. “No need for that! I was just stopping a certain idiot from messing up this neat little light show. What were you thinking, getting in the way like that?”
“Getting in the way...?” Caesar looked past him, to where Wamuu stood on the steps, soap bubbles still floating above him. The surprise on Caesar's face was evident the second he realized what Joseph had meant, and he made a helpless choking sound. “The light...he would've...”
“See? Aren't you lucky you've got someone as clever as me around?” Joseph frowned. “But I can't believe it was that easy to tackle you. You should really watch your back.”
Caesar took a swing at him for that, a punch that barely grazed his shoulder, but there was no real intent behind it. His gaze stayed fixed on Wamuu, prone beneath the sunlight. He was silent for a moment. When he stood, his legs were steady, and there was fire in his eyes.
“It's time to end this,” he said, unfocused, the words directed to no one but the petrified creature before him.
“Go for it,” Joseph said anyway. Joseph might have held Wamuu's ring, but this had always been Caesar's fight first—Mark had been his friend, Caesar had been Wamuu's first challenger—and Joseph wasn't going to take that away from him. Joseph had never been overly concerned with honor in the first place; as long as someone took Wamuu down, he didn't suppose it mattered much from whom the final blow was delivered.
Caesar approached Wamuu, carefully this time, and the shockwave ripples of Hamon energy began to trail through his legs. He fell into a battle stance, prepared for that deliverance—but before he did so, he stopped and turned to Joseph once more, a smile on his face that spoke to long-awaited peace and acceptance.
“Thank you,” he said—
“That can't be right.”
Joseph paused, hands stopped in the middle of some wild gesture, and he pouted. It was a ridiculous expression on a ridiculous man, and Jotaro wondered, not for the first time, whether any of the stories he'd heard about his grandfather were true. He'd had cause to wonder solely for the man's tendency to embellish, but if any of the tales he'd told before were true, then he was certainly lying now.
“How do you figure?” Joseph said, still sporting that exaggerated frown. “I gave you a handsome protagonist, a last-minute rescue, the power of friendship—I thought it was a great story!”
With emphasis on 'story,' Jotaro thought. Out loud, he said, “I already know about Wamuu's defeat. It happened at some race track, not a mansion in the middle of Switzerland.” He paused. “Unless that was the part you made up. It isn't much more believable.”
“No, that thing with the horses actually happened,” Joseph said morosely. He was quiet for a moment, and then he took a swig of his whiskey and brightened immediately. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Jotaro with a grin on his face and said, “Ah, you're right! Maybe my mind's going; old age, you know? No, Wamuu didn't fall there...”
Anyone with an ounce of sense should have seen the trap coming from a mile away.
That was Joseph's thought as they stood on the balcony in St. Moritz, deciding how to approach Kars, and it seemed so obvious to him that he couldn't help his frustration when the others didn't understand. Then he'd tried to explain it, and it was Caesar, of all people—Caesar, who'd finally begun to trust him, who'd finally begun to lower his guard—it was Caesar who refused to listen. As much as had become their habit, the disagreement quickly progressed to yelling and then to a fistfight, and before Joseph had even realized, Caesar was leaving.
He could have let him go—wanted to, even, but then he was struck with a sudden premonition: if he let things go on this way, he'd regret it.
“Wait,” he called out, and Caesar stopped. He didn't turn around, but he stopped, and Joseph ran to meet him in the cold and the snow, at a far enough distance that they wouldn't be overheard. Neither Lisa Lisa nor Messina tried to follow, and he was grateful for that. However much he thought this conversation necessary, there was still something inherently embarrassing about what he meant to say, and he continued, “If you really insist on going—like a total hard-head—then you're not going alone.”
Caesar only scowled and looked away.
“So now you suddenly care about our histories?” he said.
“No, you idiot,” Joseph replied, because he was worried but he wasn't willing to bend on every point. “But I care about you.”
Coming from a man like Joseph, the words should have been downright touching, and his annoyance was only furthered by Caesar's failure to appreciate that.
“If you don't understand, then go back!” Caesar yelled. “I'll handle this on my own.”
He turned away again, and purely by instinct, Joseph reached out and grabbed his arm. Caesar stopped and glared at him, and Joseph braced for another punch but it never came. Caesar wasn't trying to pick a fight, for once—and that meant something. Joseph wasn't sure what, exactly, and it didn't lessen his own anger, but it strengthened his resolve.
“So what if I don't understand?” Joseph yelled back, just as loud. “So what? How am I supposed to, if you can't be arsed to say anything about it? You know, you'd save me a lot of time and frustration if you'd just tell me what's going on with you!”
“Why bother? Someone as thick-headed as you wouldn't understand, even if I explained it!”
Joseph's first instinct was anger again, but he'd already pushed past it just to get this far. The worry that had sent him after Caesar in the first place hadn't lessened in the least, and it reminded him to remain calm, promised regret if he should fail. So he breathed in deep and he focused, and he released that breath and spoke again.
“So make me understand,” he said.
Caesar hesitated. It was clear in his suspicious eyes, the nervous bite to his lip, the way he clenched his fists and then released them. Trust was the thing he lacked, but Joseph had confidence enough for them both, and so he forced himself to wait, to believe that this patience would pay dividends.
And it did; Caesar's hesitation was short-lived and Joseph supposed it had never been anyone's desire to keep deep hurts bottled for themselves. Like a dam had been broken, Caesar spilled all of his past: his childhood, his father, the way it all had ended.
And for a moment when he'd finished, Joseph still didn't understand.
His first thought was that he'd never known his own father. How was he meant to understand Caesar's rage at that loss when he'd never known a comparable thing? But then he thought of Grandma Erina, of Speedwagon. He remembered New York. He remembered every foolish thing he'd done, all in the name of protecting his grandmother or honoring his guardian's memory, and suddenly he did understand. Family could be such a twisted, irrational thing.
But Caesar still was wrong.
“You're not thinking clearly,” Joseph said. “Listen, if you just wait a little longer—”
And as easily as that, he'd lost Caesar again. The man's anger returned at once, and he nearly spat at Joseph in his vitriol, pointing to the mansion in the distance and snarling more like a rabid animal than any rational being.
“The men who destroyed my family are right there!” Caesar shouted. “They don't deserve a single second more of peace! I can end this right now!”
“You don't know that!” Even as Joseph spoke, Caesar turned away again, stomping off in the direction of the mansion like a petulant child, and for a moment Joseph had the impression he was looking into a mirror, reflecting a man arrogant, determined, careless. But that gave him a path back, because even if Caesar confused him, at least he knew himself, and he knew the way to undermine that baseless assurance.
“Aren't you disrespecting their memory right now?”
Caesar turned back to face him. He was as angry as before, certainly, but there was also the hint of a shaken confidence, and he'd been thrown off-balance enough to reach.
“They all gave their lives to help someone else, didn't they?” Joseph said. “But you—you're just throwing yours away. Who's this supposed to help? We still need you.” I still need you remained unsaid, but the gist of it must have punctured through at some point because Caesar flinched as if struck and he still didn't move.
“You don't understand,” Caesar said, helplessly.
“Alright—not all of it, maybe, but enough,” Joseph replied. “I understand enough. This isn't the way. Not on your own. I'm telling you, you'll have your revenge, but not like this.”
There was the evidence of a battle lost in Caesar's expression then, but also of a new war waged. His helplessness faded and was replaced by confidence once more, but of a different origin. He turned to Joseph and scowled the same as ever, but he'd always been smug—the same as Joseph, really, so he couldn't fault him for that.
“What do you propose we do then?” Caesar asked, and that was most definitely a test, but Joseph knew the answer already.
“We'll face him together,” he said. “You and me both.”
“Together,” Caesar repeated, incredulous. He mouthed the word again, looking for all the world like he was tasting something bitter, but finally, he smirked and said it once more. “Together.”
And there was nothing for a look like that but for Joseph to return it. Grinning, he returned, “You and me, Caesarino. We'll make them pay for what they've done.”
“Fine,” Caesar said. “But if this is one of your tricks, Jojo—”
“What kind of trick would that be? Come on, I'm telling you—”
“Fine! Fine.”
With a newfound resolved, they began the long walk back to their master, the battle left for another, brighter day—
“Bullshit,” Jotaro said.
“What's the problem this time?!” Joseph groused. He must have been deep into that fantasy, and he looked more than slightly annoyed at having been pulled from it. He crossed his arms and glared at Jotaro, waiting.
“You went to the mansion,” Jotaro explained. “You must have. The way you described it before—that level of detail means you were there at some point.”
“Maybe I'm just a very dedicated storyteller,” Joseph said. Jotaro rolled his eyes.
“You are, but this isn't that,” he said. “You're lying again. What really happened?”
“Alright, fine, you little brat,” Joseph muttered. “Fine! You caught me. I didn't stop him from going, and I wasn't in time to stop the fight, either. Here's what really happened...”
There were a hundred ways it could have gone.
Joseph had let Caesar go at the balcony, hadn't hurried to the manse—but once he'd gotten there, at the sight of it, the gravity of the situation dawned on him. He heard Caesar's scream and he ran into the dust cloud billowing from the hole in the mansion wall, holding an arm up to cover his face as he pushed against the pressurized winds of what could only be the remnants of Wamuu's Divine Sandstorm.
Inside, he nearly choked on the debris-filled air, and he had to squint to open his eyes within it. As it began to settle, his vision cleared, and his eyes were immediately drawn to the staircase in the center of the room, where Caesar, knees shaking with the effort of standing, continued to throw weak punches up at Wamuu, who blocked them all with almost no effort.
Even from this distance, the picture was clear to Joseph: there was so much blood—too much for anyone to survive, but there was Caesar in the thick of it all, proving him wrong. It was obvious to him that Wamuu must have kept Caesar alive at this point more for pity or amusement than any real sport. He thought Wamuu might have spoken then, but it was all white noise to Joseph. He ran forward as Caesar fell down the steps for the last time, ran as quickly as he could but not quick enough to catch him.
He heard a horrified gasp from behind him and realized Lisa Lisa had followed him inside, but that all seemed very far away and unimportant as he gathered Caesar in his arms and took in the other man's shallow breaths, the way his blood continued to spill bright red against the dusty floor. Joseph knew his arms were shaking the whole while, but it occurred to him only distantly, and he watched Caesar's struggle with some foolish hope that this situation would resolve itself. They'd been through so much, it was almost ridiculous to think it could end here.
“Caesar, knock it off,” he muttered, upon realizing that the other man's eyes had closed and he'd gone limp in his arms. “This isn't funny!”
Joseph heard sounds all around him: the grunts and battle cries of Wamuu and Lisa Lisa, who must have continued the fight Caesar couldn't; the creaking of the structure around them crumbling under the force of their blows; the rasping breaths still struggling forth from Caesar's body; Joseph's own desperate whine at that last.
Caesar opened his eyes for only a moment, confusion swimming through them as he focused his gaze on Joseph. He opened his mouth to speak, but whatever words he meant to say were cut off by a frenzied cough of blood. He tried to lift his right arm and failed completely; when his fist uncurled, there was a sharp clink as the ring in his hand fell to the floor. Wammu's ring—that was what he'd been aiming for with those half-hearted punches before. Caesar smiled weakly before his eyes closed once more and it all was lost to the world.
His strained breathing had stopped. Joseph stared down at the body in his arms, and he felt the cold in his veins as soon as it reached his eyes, but he still wouldn't have known he was crying until the teardrops landed on Caesar's face. Even then, it was unreal, that this could have happened at all, but Joseph never considered reality or possibilities—he only continued to stare in disbelief at the friend he'd lost.
“Come on, wake up,” he whispered again, though the greater part of him knew his words were useless. All the sound around him seemed to fall away and he heard nothing, saw nothing but his own failure in this thing he could have prevented.
One hand resting over Caesar's heart, Joseph was unconscious of the unrestrained Hamon energy that had begun to course its way through his body, and he was fully unaware of its release as he bent to press a kiss to Caesar's still lips, an equally unintended action that he'd performed more by instinct than anything else.
Yet as he began to move away, there was a sharp intake of breath, and he matched it with his own as Caesar's eyes fluttered open, a startled whisper—“Jojo?” and then—
“What the hell was that, old man?”
“True love's kiss!” Joseph exclaimed. “Come on, don't they read you kids those fairy tales anymore? True love can solve any problem!”
“Good grief,” Jotaro muttered. “When did this turn into a romance? There are so many problems with that story, I don't even know where to start.”
If Jotaro hadn't been embarrassed already, he certainly was now. He had no idea how the stories had spun so wildly out of control, though he suspected the steady supply of whiskey may have contributed. Either way, trying to predict his grandfather's actions was a lost cause—not that the man himself seemed to have noticed anything gone awry.
“There's just no pleasing you, is there?” Joseph complained.
“I didn't ask for tall tales,” Jotaro said. Then, after a moment, “Just be glad I was the only one who heard that last one. What would Grandma Suzie think?”
“She probably would've kissed him too,” Joseph pouted. He reached back for his glass and Jotaro, sensing something of a pattern here, swiftly plucked it from his hands. Joseph frowned but didn't protest—and Jotaro wondered whether the drink had influenced the story at all. Suddenly, it all seemed too carefully orchestrated, the manner in which Joseph had strung him along with his increasingly absurd stories. The meaning was only just out of reach.
“Tell me what really happened,” Jotaro said. “I don't want stories; I want the truth.”
“Why can't it be both?” Joseph said. “Just because it sounds like a story doesn't mean it didn't happen. See, the truth is: I saved the world and we all lived happily ever after.” It couldn't have been as simple as that, though; Jotaro had the notion there'd been a point to all this, and a question still unanswered. Just out of reach, he thought again. He'd come here for a reason.
“But what happened to Caesar?”
Joseph looked up at him and frowned, his annoyance obvious, but there was bright awareness to his eyes. He sighed loudly and leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand. With a look of disinterest so absolute it must have been feigned, he spoke again.
“Fine,” he said. “We all lived happily ever, except for Caesar, because he was a sodding showoff.”
That was it, then. Seems we always lose someone. Joseph was no stranger to it, either. Was this the way he coped? By imagining all the things he might have done differently? Jotaro had imagined it himself often enough: if he hadn't allowed himself to be sucked into Darby's cruel game; if he'd made it back to the mansion just little quicker; if he hadn't let Kakyoin and Joseph go off alone; if he hadn't—
But of all the ways it could have gone, it only had gone one way.
Jotaro gritted his teeth and looked away from his grandfather's knowing eyes. He understood well enough, he supposed. He sighed.
“Does coming up with those obnoxious stories make it any easier?” he asked.
“Oh?” Joseph said, grinning. “Well, maybe. What do you think? I'd love to hear the sort of stories you'd cook up.”
“No,” Jotaro answered immediately. He did understand, in the end. They may have both carried an emptiness within them, but he wasn't like his grandfather. “It is what it is.”
Joseph smirked and said nothing. He motioned with his hand and, defeated, Jotaro slid his half-full glass back to him. Joseph picked it up cheerfully as Jotaro gathered to leave. He stood from his stool and turned, one hand on the brim of his cap, and he couldn't quite make eye contact.
“Are you really celebrating?” he asked.
“You need to see the good things, too,” Joseph replied. Jotaro shook his head.
“I'll tell mom and grandma you're fine,” he said. “Don't stay out all night. I'm tired of listening to their whining.”
He didn't linger to hear his grandfather's reply; he didn't care much to hear it. Anything to be gained from this conversation had already been seized. What it came down to, in the end, was that there wasn't anything to be done. Maybe someday, Jotaro would celebrate. Maybe someday, he would grieve. He knew he wouldn't ever forget.
Jotaro's grandfather had a past. And now Jotaro had one, too.