Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

September 1939

The pair had decided to move in together about three weeks after they arrived- two weeks after they had found work. Erina was more than willing to house them both for a while longer, but Joseph insisted that he was ready to leave the nest.

They enlisted the help of the personals section of the papers to find a suitable apartment. This was easier said than done. Both of them had their own exacting standards for housing. Of course, it would have to have good ventilation and no doorknobs.

“It’ll have to be within sprinting distance of Granny’s house, the donut shop, and the comic book store,” Joseph said.

“How about your workplace?”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Joseph had refused to even consider one location because of the small white slipper tub in the bath (“it’s a death trap, Caesar”) and another because it didn’t allow pets despite them not having any.

“We might,” was all he'd say. “We could get a dog, and maybe a cat, and the dog’s name could be Cici the Second-”

“Cici” shot that down immediately, and then laid out his requirements, which were far more reasonable, or so he thought.

“You really need all these appliances?” Joseph asked, shaking his list.

“You mean a heater and a stove? Yes.”

“We can just build a fire, can’t we?”

“And burn down the place? No. Look, they don’t even allow smoking.”

Luckily for them, it only took a few hours of browsing through the listings before they found one that fulfilled the criteria, and managed to secure a tour after Joseph nagged the building manager into letting them see it.

When they saw it, they fell silent.

“Wow,” Joseph said under his breath. His hand slipped around Caesar’s, seemingly without his conscious knowledge.

Wow was right. He didn’t answer immediately, savoring the moment in front of them.

This could be their new home.

The hallways were narrow, papered red- a shade a few shades darker than the red at Air Supplena. It smelled faintly of cleaning supplies, a pine-scented air freshener, and a mixture of old woods. He could hear the distant squeal of tires against the road through the open window. This could be their new home. Nothing stood out as remarkable, except the fact that this could be their home.

This all felt a bit...unreal.

And what was it that felt so unreal? Joseph and Caesar both tacitly knew that they wanted to live somewhere they would have the privacy to be with one another. The entire discussion between them went, “Hey, you want to move in together?” and “Yes.” He didn’t even think twice. He didn’t stop to weigh the risks and benefits. He just wanted it.

Some would certainly look down on them living together outside of marriage, but he didn’t give a damn what those busybodies thought, and even though he at some point might have balked at the idea, he realized he didn’t give a damn what that version of him thought, either. And they’d lived together for so long already. What would be the difference?

Somehow he still felt nervous about the whole undertaking, even though he wanted it so badly. It was just...

Such a shift in how he lived, even a year ago. Then, he had grown used to the faceless isolation of crowds and lonely flats. He hadn’t ever thought that this would happen to him, much less with Joseph.

“Last one inside our place is a rotten egg!” Joseph hollered as he dashed into the empty apartment.

He shook his head and followed him in, standing in the clean empty space, imagining himself at the stove in the kitchen or on a sofa beside Joseph after a long day at work. He imagined a set of light blue curtains in the window and a small crib under the-

That’s too far ahead, he thought to himself. This isn’t a good place for a child anyway. We’d need someplace larger.

But this would be a start.

There was only one thing left to do.

“When are you going to tell your grandmother?”

“Oh,” Joseph said, pausing in his fiddling with door handles, a sheepish caginess coming over him. “You know, I was thinking that I’d just stay over there during the daytime, come home to sleep, and sneak back in the morning...”

“JoJo,” he began.

“No, I know, I know,” he grumbled, blinking slowly at the ground. “I just don’t want to hurt her feelings, you know? I don’t want to make her think I don’t like living with her. And I promised to take care of her from now on...”

He sighed, patting him on the shoulder. “Your grandmother won’t have any objection to you seeking your own happiness. And I’m certain she appreciates how much love you have for her.”

His head snapped up, and he smiled hopefully. “You really think so?”

“I may have questioned a lot of things about you since I’ve known you, but your dedication to your grandmother has never been one of them. She knows.”

Joseph stared at the counter in front of them, and Caesar could practically hear the gears turning behind his head. “Okay,” he said at last. “Leave it to me.”

*****

It happened on a Saturday. Joseph stayed up the night before preparing the news, waving aside Caesar’s every attempt to help. “This is something I have to do,” he said, tidying up what looked like columns and columns of numbers- their projected incomes and expenses, broken down month-by-month and week-by-week.

Caesar didn’t argue too much. He didn’t admit it, but he didn’t like the fussiness of figuring out their joint finances and filling in paperwork, but Joseph had an odd knack for it, especially odd considering his dislike of hard work and all things uninteresting.

Joseph sidled up to his grandmother after breakfast, sat her down in her wicker chair by the hearth, and then launched his presentation of his argument for the immense good sense of moving out with Caesar. He began by presenting her with a “Thank you for raising me all these years” bouquet of mature coral roses which he had grown himself using his Ripple, and a slice of bread that Caesar had baked.

“It’s a great little place and it costs chicken feed,” he said, holding the yellow bird token that Loggins had carved. He’d made visual aids for his presentation out of string and a clipboard and a dozen trinkets he found around the house. “I’ve looked over our finances and we can make the security deposit. I’ve got our budget worked out, I’ll set up a schedule of payment and everything.”

Hearing Joseph talk about budgeting for rent and other expenses was perhaps harder to accept than the fact that they were moving in together.

Joseph had flipped to the next page, which featured a meticulously shaded drawing of two stick figures with smiling mouths, but eyebrows that made it look like they were frowning. They were wearing color-coded headbands. “...and Caesar and I are birds of a feather, ergo, we have to flock together.”

No, maybe that was even more unbelievable. “Are all your points bird-themed?”

“You might think this is bird-brained, but you’ll eat crow when I catch the early worm,” Joseph said self-satisfied.

He folded his arms. “You’ve spent too much time around Loggins.”

Erina listened to the entire presentation (Caesar felt a wave of admiration for her tenacity) without saying a word. She stared down at the roses in the red clay pot, the dark petals ruffling slightly in a draft. “I can’t believe my grandson is growing up,” she murmured. “This day has come sooner than I expected.”

Joseph placed his hands protectively around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Granny! I’ll only be a block away, so if anything at all happens I can be here in three shakes. Caesar will too, won’t he?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Erina patted one of the hands on her shoulders- the right one. “You’re such a thoughtful boy.”

“So, you’re okay with me leaving...?” Joseph said hopefully.

There was a minute pause full of a silence as tense as piano wire. Joseph was holding his breath, and Caesar pretended that he wasn’t. What would she say about it? This was the close of a chapter, a threshold to cross. This was one of those minor momentous occasions that would seem inconsequential to outsiders, but had the potential to change the trajectory of their lives.

“You’ve made an excellent case for it,” she said, smiling gently. “You’ll always have a place under my roof, my dear.”

All the tension flowed out of Joseph, and he seemed to sag like a sack of flour. “Yeah, I know,” he said, and he gave her one of his enveloping hugs, resting his cheek in her gray bun. “Love you, Gran.”

“Do be safe out there.”

Caesar’s expression softened as he took in the scene in front of him- that pure expression of family devotion, one that he had feared he would always be a spectator to.

“Caesar, get in here,” Joseph said, voice muffled by his grandmother’s hair. “This is obviously a group hug situation.”

He rolled his eyes, but he stepped forward to join them with a warm glow in his heart. This was another small, slow step forward together into a future that they would share.

*****

“And once again, I’m the fastest one in here,” Joseph crowed, striking a heroic pose in the middle of all their boxes and the smaller articles of furniture that they had purchased that afternoon.

They weren’t very good at taking things slow.

“Joestar!” Caesar shouted from the stairwell. “Don’t make me carry this couch by myself!”

“Oh shit,” he said and ducked back outside.

*****

Smokey arrived later in the afternoon to help them with moving. By that time, Joseph had already arranged the dresser, couch, table, and beds into a haphazard configuration across the apartment and spontaneously generated a pile of laundry on the floor of the bathroom. Most of Caesar’s possessions lay strewn around in their bedroom.

“Uh, so is there anything else you want help with, or...?” Smokey asked, looking at the stacks of unpacked dishes and cutlery.

“How did you already make a mess?” Caesar hissed as he dragged his desk into position.

“It’s not a mess! It’s a personalized organization scheme!”

“In other words, a mess.”

“Well we’re not following those plans you drew up, you actually came in and measured the place down to the angstrom. You had instructions for where to put each dust speck.”

“Those were guidelines.” Caesar glanced at the buckle in the carpet, frowned, tugged at one end to straighten it out, and then gave up.

“And your sense of interior design? Nonexistent. Your room back in Venice...” Joseph scrunched up his face in displeasure, and turned his thumb down.

“What was wrong with my room?” he said, trying to flatten the ridge in the rug by stepping on it.

Joseph crossed his arms. “It didn’t look lived in.”

“So to make something look lived in I have to make a mess?”

“Personal organization scheme,” Joseph insisted. “You were like a pale blond ghost who floated in and out, leaving crumbs and whiffs of cologne in the air-”

He paused in his flattening efforts. “Excuse me?”

“Yeah, you’re right, you didn’t even leave crumbs. No personality at all,” he sniffed.

“I was trying to make it so that it would be easier for Suzie to clean, and so you wouldn’t mess with my belongings.”

Joseph’s arms dropped to his sides. “I never did that!”

“Then it worked.”

Smokey snorted to himself, and Joseph’s head whipped around. “You’re on my side, aren’t you Smokey?”

He shrugged, the picture of innocence. “I dunno, JoJo. I like my room to be recognizable as a room. And letting you anywhere near it never did it any favors.”

“I can’t believe it. My oldest friend, betraying me like a treacherous traitor,” Joseph shook his head sadly. “Is there no such thing as trust anymore?”

Smokey rolled his eyes, set down a box of books, and then, seeing nothing else for him to do, made his way into their kitchen to rifle through the pantry for snacks. “Hey, what’s this?” he asked, pointing to a small bottle with a rubber bulb hidden deep inside a narrow cupboard.

“Spray bottle with vinegar,” Caesar said. “His granny told me this was a good way to get him to behave.”

“Why’s it stuck in here?”

“I have to keep it away from him or else he’ll do unspeakable things with it.” He nodded toward Joseph. “His arms are too wide to fit into that opening and he never knows where we keep the broom.”

“You’re not going to spray me with that,” Joseph said indignantly, “That’s against the building regulations. You’ll be violating the policy.”

“Of what?”

“Of...” Joseph said, eyebrows knitting together, “Of...not...smelling like vinegar.”

“It’s not for spraying you,” he said slyly. “It’s for your comics.”

“You wouldn’t!” Joseph gasped.

“Say, why don’t we go out for lunch with Suzie to celebrate after you get settled?” Smokey interrupted in order to preempt a squabble. Over the past months, Smokey and Suzie had formed a tight-knit bond over their shared love of literature and civil rights. As Suzie had currently sworn off dating, they decided they weren’t dating so much as experiencing ascended friendship of extraordinary depth and meaning that had the potential to transcend definitions of “romance,” and Joseph and Caesar accepted this explanation without prying.

“i’d love to, but I’ll be busy,” Caesar said. “We’ve just found an entire unedited monograph on pressurized vampiric essences.”

“Ah,” Smokey said. “Next week, then?”

“Let’s.”

Smokey stayed around long enough to polish off a sandwich or two with them, and then he bid them a cheerful goodbye to go back to writing one of his endless papers. “Suzie’s going to have my head on a plate if I don’t show up to that poetry reading, and my My professors’ll have what’s left if I don’t get my annotations in,” he said apologetically when Joseph tried to wheedle him into staying for longer.

As soon as Smokey left, Joseph pinged around the room, seizing upon various objects to hold up, deform, or play with in delight. “This is our carpet,” he would say, or “our chair is so comfortable” or “our shelves can hold so much of our food,” and so on. Caesar watched him in quiet amusement as Joseph praised the wallpaper (a light green), the shape of the doorways (perfectly rectangular), and the number of faucets (3).

Tiring of exalting in the interior, Joseph dashed out into the hall to explore the rest of the building, leaving Caesar to take in their apartment by himself.

It was a one-bed-one-bath affair on the second floor, close enough to Joseph’s grandmother that he felt comfortable leaving her and Speedwagon in the care of Lisa Lisa and Smokey. 

Cozy, he thought as he glanced up at the ceiling, only a few heads above him. A narrow hall led to the living space where they had placed the couch, and beyond it lay the bedroom, bath, and study. Next to him was a polished stone counter, the stove and oven, and the shelves.

It wasn’t large, but he didn’t have much to put in it anyway. Joseph left much of his belongings at his Granny’s, but he took along a sizeable stash of weaponry and beloved comics collection. Caesar had brought his books, a few documents, clothes, coins and bills that had to be exchanged for American money, his birthday presents of tonic, Sathiphorosia Scaraba scarf, and quilt, and Joseph’s gifts- the little sunflower, which he had tucked into the copy of The Importance of Being Earnest, the darts, and the sack of lighters. They had a small study room that could be set up with a mattress if they ever had guests, a kitchen, and other things.

In other words, it was home.

We might not stay here forever, he thought. But while they were there, he would enjoy it.

*****

It had been a few months since they had arrived in the city, and this was the first weekend since they moved into their (ours, he thought, not my, ours) new apartment.

Living together in New York was almost the same as living together on Air Supplena. Joseph immediately made the place look “lived in,” with his posters of manga and comic book heroes, Jean Gabin films (he had just acquired one for Le jour se lève, 1939 ) and dogs. An entire bookshelf containing his coveted comics collection took up one half of their study room. Caesar had to work around this decoration scheme, placing a few tasteful lamps in strategic positions and sneakily swapping out one of the posters for an abstract art piece.

Without Suzie and her apprentices, however, they had to do a lot more housework on their own. Currently, they had divided up the chores as followed:

• Laundry (Caesar)
• Dishes (Joseph)
• Fridge cleaning (shared, though Caesar did most of it)
• Combing the mustaches on Joseph’s stuffed animals (Joseph claimed this one, not trusting Caesar with the momentous task)
• Catching the insects that came in (Joseph, 100% of the time)
• Cooking (shared, against Caesar’s will)

Because Caesar got off work an hour earlier than Joseph did, he thankfully did most of the cooking. Of the two of them, Caesar had the better skills, but Joseph turned everything into a competition and cooked as often as he could get his hands on kitchen equipment. When Joseph figured out exactly why Caesar was so good at making food out of shitty and sparse ingredients, and why Caesar was hardly picky at all regarding what to eat, he started to make more lavish food and stopped licking the bowl clean after preparing dough. Within weeks he had improved from limp salads to fully fledged roasts with garnishes.

“I’m going to make you the best fucking food you’ve ever tasted,” he vowed the first time he ever cooked for him, smashing several eggs into a skillet. “It’ll be freaking ambrosial. It’ll melt in your mouth like butter. You will be asking for seconds, thirds, even sevenths.”

He burned the omelette, but he made it up with a boiled raisin cake that he claimed to have learned from his grandmother during the height of the Great Depression, but Caesar knew he had copied out of a pamphlet, and he had never tasted something so delicious in his life.

Life fell into a predictable schedule. On usual, good days, it consisted of waking up five minutes before the alarm, nudging Joseph awake, sorting out medications and food before heading off to work. He had the distinct fortune of being able to look forward to his work. Shortly after he moved to New York, Lisa Lisa hired him as an assistant. Officially, they collaborated with the research branch of the Speedwagon Foundation in order to investigate and archive records of Ripple history - the warriors, their deeds, techniques, and battles, including the one they fought against Kars. (Lisa Lisa refused to let the Foundation interview him until he insisted that he could handle it. He needed to be able to treat the past as the past, and speak about it without falling back into it.)

“Congratulations,” Loggins wrote to him after he heard of this. “We’ll be seeing a lot more of you in the hamon world, I’m sure.”

Suzie was absolutely delighted to have him as a coworker. “Oh, this takes me back,” she gushed, clasping her hands to her chest. “Just you and me and Ms. Lisa Lisa and a dozen other apprentices. Don’t worry, we won’t haze you. I’ll tell you all her snack preferences. Ooh, you can be my apprentice!” She waved her arms in excitement. “Call me Coach Suzie!”

As he learned about service from Suzie, she spent all her free time training with Lisa Lisa. “I’ve been training for years!” Suzie said indignantly when Joseph questioned her on it. “Don’t think I’m only good at cleaning house. I can clean your clock anytime!”

Despite the change in the title, Elizabeth treated him much like she did when he was a student of hers. In between his research and archival work and taking over Suzie’s duties on her days off, he trained. She often supervised his work, highlighting important events in the history of the craft as he created copies of files documenting them, drawing him into conversations about the philosophy at the center of their powers that seemed suspiciously like tests of his values and intelligence. “What would you do if the Pillar Men returned? What would be your plan?”

“Would you sacrifice the Stone to save the last practitioner of the art of the Ripple?”

“How much are you willing to give up to protect our secrets from those who would misuse them?”

“Can you choose the world over your family?”

He gained extensive knowledge of the internal mechanism of the containment chambers, created a detailed contingency plan for assembling the known hamon users of the world nearest to the bunkers in which the Pillar Men were kept in the case of a breach, and mulled over the last questions over and over, even after he left work.

Could he?

*****

“Hey,” Joseph mumbled, all but crashing through the door as Caesar was cooking their dinner.

Caesar knew that something was wrong when Joseph didn’t stop in the kitchen. Instead he headed to the bedroom and then lay flat on his face on top of the bare mattress. (It was Caesar’s turn to do the laundry, and the sheets were still drying.)

“Is everything alright?” he stood at the door, wiping his hands with a dishrag.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Joseph’s voice was flat and theatrically lacking in energy.

Caesar sighed, and then fetched tea he already had prepared. “Come on. I haven’t made the bed yet.”

After a moment, Joseph came out of the bedroom and flopped onto the couch.

Work had mellowed him out. A ball of gel had tamed his hair, and it no longer swooped away from his forehead as if trying to achieve escape velocity. He wore slightly more understated natural makeup - less Vaseline gloss on the lips, compact powders that blended seamlessly with his skin, no eye shadow and minimal shaping - than he did before in an attempt to look more professional and to keep up with modern trends, though he stubbornly refused to hide his scars, regardless of what management told him. With the taming of the hair came a marginally more measured temperament. According to his coworkers, he interviewed very well, apparently, and was decent to work with, which made Caesar pinch himself to make sure he had heard them right. But yes, he had.

Somehow this ball of uncontainable energy got an office job. And this ball of uncontainable energy also hated his office job.

The ritual was the same. Provide a warm drink, a listening ear, and soon the floodgates would open.

And now for a little nudge. “How was work?”

Joseph made a rumbling snoring noise. “Boooring. There’s no one interesting there.”

(By that he meant that no one appreciated the pranks he did with his ‘cartography powers’ and possibly the Ripple.)

“And I gotta wear these boring clothes all the time.”

“Formal clothes.”

“Couldn’t sleep a wink without you there.”

“You’re not supposed to be sleeping on the job.”

“Couldn’t eat a bite. I missed you,” he half-mumbled, half-whined. (Joseph had the tendency to eat faster and therefore more when Caesar was around, because Caesar usually told him to slow down and he took this as a challenge.)

“It’s only for a few hours.”

A noise of dissatisfaction. “Too long.” He snuggled up to his side.

Truth be told, he often missed Joseph as well. Reading about the Ripple always reminded him of the times they spent studying it together, and the room always felt emptier without Joseph’s inane commentaries and frequent distractions. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“You’re worried about me? Aw babe that’s embarrassing.”

“Of course. From the moment I met you I started worrying, and I have never stopped. You have that effect on people.”

“I’ve got lots of effects on lots of people,” he said contently.

“Yes. You make everyone who meets you want to punch you. Simply irresistible.”

“You say the sweetest things,” he frowned, and then softened his voice. “I really did miss you. It’s awful there.”

Caesar combed his fingers through Joseph’s hair, breaking up the gel and freeing it from the effects of gravity. “If you’re so unhappy at work, why not look for something else to do?”

“We’ve just come out of a recession and you ask that?”

“You’re a smart one. You can find work anywhere.” He smiled to see a glimmer come back into Joseph’s eyes, even if it was short-lived.

“I don’t want to go to work. I just want to hang out with you.”

“Unfortunately we can’t. There’s something in the way called your career.”

Joseph flung a hand against his forehead. “Why?” He drew the y out into a plaintive whine.  

“Why do people have to work, you mean?” They had this discussion more than once. 

“No, why can’t my job be looking at you? I could do that all day.”

“Become a painter, then.” One thick, gel-drenched brown lock dangled in front of Joseph’s eyes, and he had gone cross-eyed trying to focus on it. Caesar moved it out of the way, rolling it between his fingers until it became smooth. It was fun to play with hair, he decided. “It would be a little strange to have only me as a subject, but I suppose you were never above being strange.”

“Hmm,” he said. He lifted his face to study Caesar’s, tilting his head back and forth in contemplation. It was slightly flattering to see him lose himself in thought.

“Of course you’ll have to learn how to paint.”

His face fell. “Nah, sounds like a lot of work...and I bet Smokey I could last for several weeks at this one. Gonna stick around a bit longer.”

Caesar busied himself with arranging Joseph’s brown locks into a pleasing configuration. “Oh look, a gray hair.” 

“What?” He raised himself in his seat. “You’re joking!”

He covered his mouth with his right hand, suppressing a chuckle.

“You are joking.”

He nodded.

Letting out a scoff, the relieved-looking Joseph flopped back to the couch. “That’s not funny.”

“I beg to differ.” After Caesar’s amateur hairstyling, Joseph’s head now resembled a startled porcupine. That seemed more like it. “You’re not happy there. If you can find another job, I think you should.”

“Really?” He perked up a little again. “Say, where do you work? Maybe I can go there.”

“I work for your mother, remember?”

Joseph gasped. “That’s nepotism!”

“We’re not related.”

“Well, you’re part of our family now, so it’s just as bad.”

Family.

That never failed to stop his heart from squeezing nearly painfully tight in his chest and warmth to flood out into every last crook and corner of his being.

He had a family again.

“What would your code name be when you take over?” Joseph mused. “Shiza Shiza?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Ah well, I could never work for Mummy anyway... what’s she going to do, ground me when I mess up?”

“Grind you into powder, maybe.”

Joseph waved dismissively. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to start my own company and get rid of all the shitty rules, like the need to wear matching socks. I have shoes! They can’t even see my socks!”

“You don’t wear socks at work, do you.”

“Nope,” Joseph agreed, voice cheery if still tired. “And you’ll work next door and I’ll get to see you all day.”

“Seems like you have it all figured out.” Caesar offered him a slice of the dense, spongy wacky cake he had baked earlier. “A snack.” Usually he didn’t let Joseph eat sweets before main meals, but Joseph seemed worryingly out of it today, and if he hadn’t eaten anything at lunch like he claimed, then his blood sugar probably needed correction.

“Mmm I love you so much,” Joseph mumbled to himself as he absentmindedly shoveled leftover cake into his face, and he gazed intently at Caesar.

“What is it?”

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” he said, and said eyes lit up with a brilliant fondness. “Cheeks like pepperoni. Skin like cheese. Lips like tomato sauce. Hair like pasta.”

He really was hungry, wasn’t he? “Describe me as a person, not a stereotypical and badly composed meal.”

“You’re so human-shaped, it drives me nuts. Like, hot damn. The limbs on you.” Joseph set down his plate and snaked his arms around Caesar’s waist, a clear plea for affection. Caesar was happy to oblige, wrapping his arms around Joseph’s shoulders as Joseph moved his head into his lap, but he still withheld his full approval.

“Pay attention to your food and eat.”

“I could if you’d stop being so alluring.”

“Alluring,” he snorted. He’d spent the entire day in a muggy office sorting dusty files. He probably smelled of mold and he hadn’t dressed up in the slightest.

“Yeah. Sitting there all clean and huggable like that.” At this, he hugged Caesar tightly to himself.

“What are you doing?” he asked after a while. Joseph was patting him down all along his torso, humming appreciatively all the while.

“You’re getting stockier.”

“Stockier?”

“You’re putting on weight,” he clarified sleepily, a dopey smile on his face. “Must mean you like my cooking.”

“Yes, well,” he said, “it isn’t the worst. You can stop checking me for extra fat now.” Sometimes it felt like Joseph was still in a roundabout way treating him like livestock.

“Ohkay,” he murmured, still constricting Caesar’s waist like a corset.

He didn’t object further. This reminded him of their days back in Venice and Switzerland, and not in a bad way. That was how he showed affection- unremitting physical contact. He smiled and pressed a kiss into his forehead. 

*****

Sifting through his memories of their time together, he could honestly say that there were no days that he would rather not have lived through. Not every day was perfect, but it was part and parcel of life and all its ups and downs.

Not every part of their relationship was perfect. He did not idealize Joseph, though he felt sometimes that Joseph idealized him- he was more than aware of his flaws. They had philosophical differences, notably around hygiene. Joseph was a messy eater and kept his room as unkempt as his hair. He objected to Caesar’s need for cleanliness and insistence on following health codes in the kitchen.

But Joseph did do his best to keep their room tidy because he knew it would make Caesar happy, and he kept himself clean and presentable as possible, even asking Caesar to teach him his skincare routine.

“It’s so...clear,” he said, poking him in the cheek. “Like a windowpane.”

“The trick is exfoliation, moisture, and not touching your face,” he said pointedly, pinching Joseph’s cheek. “No wonder you have such rough skin.”

“Rough?” He immediately patted his own chin. “It’s not rough!”

Joseph didn’t have a bad base to start on, but he didn’t want him to be complacent. And he couldn’t object to him making himself look even better when he could enjoy the view for the rest of the foreseeable future. So he taught him every part of his routine and swore him to secrecy.

“You’re like, the soap master,” Joseph whispered in awe after he taught him the ratio that ensured the maximum number of bubbles out of minimal amounts of soap. “We should get you your own factory.”

He couldn’t say that that this admiration- even teasing- didn’t do anything for him.

Joseph also didn’t share his completely rational fear of insects and other bugs, no matter how often he showed him horror stories of termite infestations, bedbugs, ticks, lice, and the statistics of mosquito-borne disease around the world. He had the most vivid memory of waking up to an unidentified hellcreature crawling into his ear when he was about 12 years old, and he dreamed about the scratching of those legs for months afterward. So when an eight-legged creature scuttled its way into their bedroom, Joseph was far too slow to capture it and he spent at least 10 agonizing minutes with the thing meandering around on their sheets. Once Joseph finally smartened up to the severity of the situation at hand, he scooped up the spider with his bare hand, dumped it outside on the windowsill, and wheedled Caesar into watching it through the glass.

“See, harmless,” he said. “It can’t hurt you.”

“That’s what you think,” he muttered as he huddled behind Joseph, pretending that there was no cold sweat running down his shirt and that he was most certainly not quavering.

“Do you hate all bugs, or just the useful ones?” He patted Caesar comfortingly on the shoulder, who jerked away with a yelp.

“Wash your hand before you touch me! I can’t believe you can be so casual about this...”

“Do you hate butterflies, too?”

“They have compound eyes and can fly. What do you think?”

Joseph rolled his eyes, but he didn’t question him at all. He knew why he loathed them so much, and he had grown into someone that was understanding of little quirks like that.

They had already stumbled over, around, and through so many hurdles that they had skipped a lot of the awkwardness of establishing a relationship, like learning to live with each other’s less-lovable habits. He knew Joseph like the back of his hand, and perhaps a little better. He knew his routines, his likes and interests, every pet peeve and irrational fear, every little curve and dip in his skin. And that was before they had gotten together. His mannerisms always inspired both irritation and fondness, and he knew how to balance the two.

Well. Most of the time.

“Hey,” Joseph said one day, setting a stack of cards down in front of him. On them, assorted nouns scrawled out in red pen. “Read this out loud for me.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Again, why?”

“Pleaaaase? I like hearing you say things...”

He pinched the card between two fingers and brought it to eye level. “The quick brown fox,” he said. “Why are you-”

Joseph smiled broadly.

“What’s that look for?”

He put his head to the side, resting his chin on one hand. “What, did no one tell you that your accent is the cutest thing ever?”

“Everyone I knew either had the same accent or were used to my accent, so no.”

“Well it is.” He held out another card. “Now say this.”

“Cheese...minestrone.”

That sent Joseph into fits of helpless laughter. He nearly shrieked with mirth and pounded on the table with one fist.

“What?” he said, feeling defensive.

“You said it like it was Italian even though it’s English you’re killing me,” he said breathlessly.

“That’s how accents work.”

“Oh, god...you know, normally it’s not funny, but when you do your ‘reading stuff out loud’ voice and your ‘what the fuck is this’ voice at the same time,” he held up an OK sign and laughed soundlessly to himself. “Gold.”

He had learned how to handle these situations. “Your accent’s adorable as well.”

“Mine? I don’t have an accent.”

“You only think that because you’re anglocentric.”

That resulted in a three-hour argument about linguistics and self-centredness, and Caesar miraculously succeeded in convincing Joseph that he was in the wrong. And then one thing led to another, and their conversation took a turn.

“When are you gonna bring them over?” he said, indicating the sealed letter that he prepared to send to his siblings.

“I don’t know.”

“You still don’t? What are you waiting for?”

“The young ones have school. Giulia has work. I can’t tell them uproot their lives for our sake.”

“It’s not for our sake. The war’s not going anywhere, from the looks of it.”

“Italy isn’t involved yet.”

“Yet,” he said, and he unconsciously flexed his right hand. “They’re too close. I have...call it a hunch.”

“Just a hunch?”

“Giulia likes sailing, we’re next to the ocean, she can find work here for sure. The rest of them can study. I’ll ask my uncle to take care of everything.”

Annoyance prickled at the base of his neck. Did Joseph think him incapable of handling this? “If I asked them, I would take care of it myself.”

“They’ll love it here- I guarantee you. And I know none of you like the government there, I’ve heard your conversations. Why are you so against-”

“I’m not. Don’t do this, we’ve been over this,” he said. So many times. Joseph didn’t understand his hesitation about leaving his country behind, of severing this link to his family’s heritage. Yes, he could visit. Yes, he could keep his citizenship. But it would not be the same. He needed time to come to terms with it.

“You said you wanted to-”

“I know what I said. But only I get to decide what I feel about it. And I don’t think we’re ready for this. I don’t know if I could ask them to-”

“Do you not want to stay here?”

“Don’t twist the facts!” he said, louder than he intended. “I didn’t suggest anything like that. Stop putting words into my mouth and listen.”

“I can’t help what I hear, and you’ve been avoiding this for ages. Your visa’s going to need dealing with soon. You’ll have to decide.”

He remembered how little he had had to do in obtaining it. The Speedwagon Foundation had taken care of all his documents during their time recovering in Switzerland.

“Suzie’s decided,” Joseph said, an infuriating look of intentness in his eyes.

“I’m not Suzie.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Stop pushing me,” he snapped. “Not all of us can forget our ties to our ancestors as easily as you do.”

Joseph’s jaw dropped open, and his brows creased in anger. “I just want to help you and your family be together! You don’t get to accuse me of not caring about my-”

“You don’t get to accuse me of not wanting to be with you.” His voice had gone cold.

“Well you aren’t being very convincing about it.”

They had agreed that their fights would only be about unimportant things, but they broke their agreement more than a few times that day. Their argument escalated from shouting to declaring each other impossible to reason with and storming out of the apartment on Joseph’s part.

JoJo went to his granny’s, because she would not turn away her only grandson, and Caesar stayed behind in the hall outside their apartment, stewing.

Left with nothing to do, he returned home and brewed himself a pot of coffee, even though the sun had dipped below the horizon. Then he pulled out the baking equipment. He preheated the oven, measured out and mixed cups of flour, raisins, molasses, water, shortening, nutmeg, lemon juice, and baking powder, his movements mechanical and unenthusiastic. He poured the sludge of ingredients from a heated saucepan to a baking pan and shut the over door, leaning against it as the smell of raisins and nutmeg filled the air.

No one was trying to grab the spoon from him and lick it. No one was demanding that he add more sugar and cinnamon.

The room felt too small without him there.