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‘Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. At least that’s how Caesar would have liked it to be. But something was stirring and that something was him, when he was repeatedly and with determination prodded in the side. He groaned and forced an eye open.
There was a sliver of light through his curtains from the streetlight out below, barely illuminating his youngest sister's form as she stood by his bed. She was playing with the hem of her nightgown and worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. Something was bothering her. Caesar resisted another groan.
This is why he’d moved to his own apartment immediately after graduating high school.
“What is it, Eliza?” he asked the eight-year-old, pushing himself up onto an elbow and digging his phone from under his pillow. Half past one, charming. “If you had a nightmare, you should go tell mamma and papà.”
“I can’t go downstairs,” Eliza whispered. “Something is making noise.”
“Is the monster down there?” he asked, yawning and rubbing his eye. He wanted to be more empathetic when it was clear his sister was in distress, but at this point it was hard. This wasn’t the first time one of his little siblings had come to him instead of their parents in the middle of the night, when going downstairs was too scary after a nightmare. Really, it was ridicu―
Something went bump.
Caesar was immediately fully alert.
“Where is everyone else?” he asked, his voice quiet and calm. His eyes darted around the room until they landed on his old baseball bat resting against his wardrobe. That would do.
“Ezio is trying to stop Lino from going downstairs alone and Juli is still sleeping,” Eliza said, as he shoved his blanket aside and grabbed the bat, before striding out of the room.
“Lino,” he hissed and the seven-year-old boy jumped. As Eliza had said, his older brother was indeed holding onto his pajama shirt to keep him from leaping downstairs. Thank goodness he hadn’t gone, because if Caesar woke up to find he’d walked in on a burglar or something…
Something went bump again.
“Stay here,” Caesar commanded. “And that means you, Lino.”
Lino stuck out his tongue, but Caesar ignored him in favor of lifting the bat onto his shoulder and setting his back against the wall. He started to descend the stairs.
In his mind flashed a thousand different scenarios regarding the source of the sounds, everything from a raccoon that had somehow gotten in to one of their parents getting a midnight snack to actual robbers. Although what kind of an asshole would you have to be, to rob a place on the night before Christmas?
Wait, Christmas? It… it couldn’t be―
“Santa!” someone gasped at his feet as he rounded the corner and the living room came into view, and then Lino was stumbling past him down the rest of the stairs. Caesar was frozen into place as the red-clad figure standing by their Christmas tree straightened and turned…
“Ho ho ho,” laughed Joseph Joestar, fully dressed as a Santa Claus, with a long white beard and a hat and everything. “I guess you caught me!” He locked eyes with Caesar and winked. Caesar didn't know how to process the scene.
“Santa?” came more voices as the rest of the Zeppeli kids started to come down the stairs. As soon as they saw San― Joseph, they broke into a run to get to the living room as quickly as possible.
Lino had already grabbed a hold of Joseph and was now hanging onto his upper arm and giggling wildly as Joseph swung him around.
“Are you really Santa Claus?” Ezio asked with a frown. Being ten, he was right on the edge of whether or not he believed in Santa and he didn’t seem to be certain if this was proof positive or actually the exact opposite.
“I thought Santa was supposed to be fat and jolly,” Eliza concurred, poking Joseph in the stomach. He hadn’t bothered to stuff a pillow under his shirt and so he was the single most ripped Santa Caesar had ever seen. Or anyone had ever seen, probably. She didn’t seem too disappointed about the lack of Joseph’s belly though.
“I am very jolly!” Joseph announced, driving the point home by laughing heartily. “And carrying around gifts for all the kids in the world is quite hard work, I’ll have you know. I need to be in top shape if I want to be quick enough to deliver them all in one night!”
“Good point,” Ezio agreed, as if that actually made any kind of sense.
“That… that's not actually Santa though,” whispered Juliana, who had apparently come down as well. Eliza must have gone to wake her up before they’d come downstairs. “Right?” she continued, leaning closer to Caesar to not let their younger siblings overhear. She was fourteen so she definitely didn’t believe in Santa anymore. Although, even if she had, Joseph’s costume was obvious enough to not fool anyone over the age of ten. “It’s Joseph in a costume… right?”
“Absolutely,” Caesar told her and she let out a breath. “But let’s keep that between us, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you know it’s rude to whisper in company, Caesar Antonio,” Joseph interrupted and all of Caesar’s siblings turned to look at him. “I still have time to put you on the naughty list, you know.”
Lino let out a long “ooo”. Caesar flushed, though not because he got scolded by a fake Santa, but rather because of the way that Joseph’s voice dropped and an almost lewd smirk spread onto his lips under the fake beard.
“It’s not like we were trying to whisper,” Caesar lied. He wanted nothing more than to shove into Joseph’s face the fact that they were talking about how bad his costume was, but he couldn’t do that. For his siblings’ sake. “We were just wondering what you did to your sleigh.”
Eliza gasped and turned her big blue eyes to Joseph. Joseph swallowed.
“Do you have your reindeer here?” she asked. Caesar couldn’t help the smirk. It would be fun to watch Joseph talk his way out of―
“Of course I do!” Joseph said.
Wait what?
“They’re up on the roof,” he continued, pointing at the ceiling. And, as if by command, something stomped loudly somewhere above them. Eliza gasped again.
“Can we go see them?” she asked, face one big smile.
“Unfortunately no,” Joseph said and her face fell. He petted her head softly. “It’s too dangerous for you to go up there and the reindeer can’t come down here.”
Smooth, Caesar thought.
“I don’t care about the reindeer!” Lino huffed. Joseph looked at him with raised eyebrows. “What about our presents? You have those, right?”
“The presents are already under the tree,” Joseph said, pointing at the tree and indeed all the gifts had already been piled under it. It was Lino’s turn to gasp.
“You can’t open them now!” Ezio objected when Lino practically dove for the nearest box. He stopped and pouted.
“Why not? You're not mamma, you can’t tell me what to do,” he said.
“Can I tell you what to do?” Joseph asked and Lino tensed. Seemed like Santa did indeed hold authority in his life. And pretty high authority at that. “Well, just between you and me, it’s very important that you never open Christmas presents before Christmas. You know, because they’re magic.”
Lino blinked and turned to look at Joseph. “Magic?”
“Yup, it’s a special Christmas magic,” Joseph said and winked. He was enjoying this way too much in Caesar’s opinion, but hey, to each their own or whatever. “If you try to open the presents before morning, you’ll be automatically put onto the naughty list and all your toys will turn into coal. That’s what bad kids get, right?”
“O-oh,” Lino said, his eyes wide. He ventured one last glance towards the presents before backing away.
“Good boy,” Joseph said. Lino managed a conflicted smile. “Now,” Joseph said loudly. “Do you kids happen to have any milk and cookies?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Eliza, raising her hand for some reason. “I’ll go get some!”
“What? No, I wanna go!” Lino said.
“You can’t go, you're too small,” Ezio said and Lino opened his mouth, probably to make an unpleasant comment on Ezio’s own below average height.
“We can all go,” said Juliana, bringing the argument to a close before it had time to start properly. “We don’t have to fight about it, do we?”
Three pairs of eyes looked at one another and then at Joseph.
“That’s fine,” Ezio said and the other two nodded along.
“Well, let’s go then,” Juliana said and the three of them rushed into the kitchen. Before she disappeared through the doorway as well, she turned back and winked. Then she closed the door.
Caesar let out a long sigh.
“Tired?” Joseph asked.
“It's literally two in the morning, of course I'm tired, Jojo,” Caesar huffed, giving Joseph a glare.
“What do you mean ‘Jojo’? I’m Santa Claus,” Joseph said.
“Come on,” Caesar said and Joseph chuckled. “What are you even doing here?”
“Mm, no time for that now,” Joseph said, walking over to a window and opening it. “The kids could be back any minute, I gotta make my retreat.”
“Wha― through the window?” Caesar asked, incredulous. He shivered slightly as the December breeze rushed in and he wrapped his arms across his chest. “You could use a door!”
“Nah,” said Joseph, slipping through the window and standing up on the windowsill.
“Wait, are you going to scale the fucking wall?”
“How else am I gonna get back to the roof?” he asked. “My reindeer is getting anxious up there all alone.”
Then he winked and grinned and jumped.
Caesar stood stunned for several seconds before he scrambled into motion and stuck his head out through the window, just in time to see Joseph’s feet disappear behind the edge of the roof. He blinked.
“Where did Santa go?” came Eliza’s voice behind him and he turned around to see his siblings back in the kitchen doorway. There were a few cookies on a plate in Lino's hands and one in his mouth.
Caesar looked at them and then up out of the window and then back again. Then he sighed.
“He had to go,” he said. “He said that the reindeer were getting anxious and he had to be on his way.”
“But...” said Lino, the cookie falling from his mouth and onto the plate when he opened it. “What about the cookies?”
“I...” Caesar started but then paused. Goddamn Jojo, leaving so abruptly! “I’m sure if we leave them here, he’ll drop by on his way back home. But it’s really late and we should all get back to bed.”
He pulled down the window and walked over to his siblings, taking the plate from Lino’s hands and setting it aside. Lino was staring through the window even while Caesar put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around to usher him back upstairs.
“Why didn’t he leave through the chimney?”
Getting his siblings back into bed was at least a somewhat smoother process than Caesar had feared, even if it wasn’t too quick. After finally convincing Lino that no, he couldn’t stay up all night waiting for Santa to come back and yes, Santa did appreciate him getting the cookies even if he hadn’t had time to eat them, Caesar was more than dead tired and ready to continue sleeping. Before that he did pop back downstairs to retrieve the bat he’d let go of at some point and, after staring at the plate for a few seconds, pick up the cookies while he was at it.
Then he returned to his room.
“You asshole,” he said as soon as he’d gotten his door open. Joseph, who was lounging on his bed and playing with his phone, didn’t look up. He was still in the Santa suit although had taken his boots off, thank Christ, and he had gotten rid of the beard, so that his bright grin shone extra bright.
“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Joseph said.
“What wasn’t nice,” Caesar begun, slamming the door closed behind him and setting the plate on his bedside table before coming to stand in front of the bed, hands on his hips, “was you showing up unannounced in the middle of the goddamn night, and then leaving without warning and leaving me to clean up the mess you’d caused. Again.”
“I didn’t come unannounced!” Joseph exclaimed, finally looking at Caesar. The phone in his hands beeped as he got a game over and he set it aside. Caesar crossed his arms, waiting for him to specify. “Your mother asked me to come over.”
Caesar blinked.
“What?”
“Yeah, she asked me if I’d want to pretend to be Santa for the kids,” Joseph said. “Of course I said yes!”
“She didn’t say anything about that to me,” Caesar said, blinking again. “You didn’t say anything about that to me!”
“Well, that would have ruined the fun!” Joseph smirked.
“Okay, fine,” Caesar huffed, throwing his hands in the air. “That explains… some things. But why on earth did you leave through the window? And speaking of, what the hell made that noise?”
“That was me!” came a new voice by the window and Caesar jumped. Smokey was sitting on the windowsill and gave him a wave when Caesar looked over. How had Caesar not noticed him there?? Oh, that’s right, because Joseph Joestar was so obnoxiously loud he drew all attention to himself even when he was silent.
“He was up on the roof the entire time,” Joseph said as Smokey nodded along. “I gave him a signal when I needed him to make some ‘reindeer noise’ and then he helped pull me up when I left through the window.”
“Yep,” Smokey agreed with a cheery smile. “But now I’m gonna go. This whole thing took somewhat longer than we thought, so if I don’t want to be a zombie tomorrow, I gotta get back home and into bed. I’ll see y’all at the Joestars’ on Boxing day, yeah?”
“Yes, of course,” Caesar said, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He could feel a headache coming on. “Sleep well, Smokey.”
“See ya, Smokey!” called Joseph, as Smokey opened the window and, before Caesar had time to do anything, jumped out.
For a moment Caesar’s heart literally stopped in his chest, before he remembered the big tree that grew outside his window that someone as skilled as Smokey could easily climb down. He walked over to the window and looked down.
“We have a door, you know,” he said, leaning an elbow on the windowsill. Smokey just looked up from where he’d just landed on their backyard and gave him a thumbs up and a wave. Caesar shook his head with a huff and waved back. Then he closed the window before it got too cold in the room and turned back to Joseph. Who had, apparently, returned to playing with Caesar’s phone. “And you?” he prompted.
“I know you have a door,” Joseph said. Caesar rolled his eyes as Joseph grinned. He didn’t even look up.
“Well, you didn’t use one either so I wasn’t sure you did,” Caesar said, shoving at Joseph’s legs so that he had space to sit on the edge of the bed. “But what I meant was, are you planning on going home anytime soon?”
“Not really,” Joseph said easily.
“Excuse me?”
“I was planning on spending the night here,” he said and then, when the phone signaled another game over, he huffed, “Shit.” He ran a hand through his hair and tossed the phone down the bed. Then he looked at Caesar and saw his raised eyebrows. “What?”
“You were planning on spending the night here?” Caesar asked. Joseph looked at him like he was dumb.
“So?” he asked, sitting up properly on the bed instead of leaning on the headboard.
“So you both show up unannounced and assume I’ll just let you sleep here without asking permission?” Caesar asked. Joseph reached over to the bedside table and picked up a cookie. “Do you even know how much noise I’d make if I went out to try to find you a futon and stuff?”
“Who says I need a futon?” Joseph asked, stuffing in the rest of the cookie and then swallowing before leaning closer to Caesar. “I’m gonna sleep right here next to you!”
“Oh, are you now?” Caesar asked, leaning in a bit as well. “What makes you think I’ll let you do that?”
“Christmas spirit?” Joseph suggested and then pointed a finger up. Caesar blinked and followed it. There was a small branch of mistletoe duct taped to his ceiling.
“When did you put that up there?” he asked, the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips.
“It wasn’t me,” Joseph said, his breath a puff of warm air on Caesar’s face as the distance between them shortened. “It was Santa.”
The kiss was short and sweet, though that was mostly because of traces of chocolate and cookie crumbs still present in Joseph’s mouth. When they broke apart, Caesar ran his tongue over his lips to gather up the remaining sweetness. Joseph’s eyes darted down to his mouth and then back up again.
“That was very nice,” Caesar said and Joseph grinned. “Although dressing up as Father Christmas has got to be the single most bizarre form of daddy kink I’ve ever encountered.”
“Oh shut up,” said Joseph with a laugh and pulled Caesar back in by the neck.