driftfleet | three ○ video / action

Entry tags:

three ○ video / action

Who: Caesar & u
Broadcast: Fleetwide!
Action: Iskaulit & waystations!
When: 8/17 - 8/22

I was just hailed by a shuttle on the way from the Tourist to the Iskaulit . . . I understand this has been happening regularly? Do we have any idea who these shuttles belong to? Or are people just racing strangers with no information whatsoever?

[He sounds moderately pressed about this. But an important thing to note about Caesar is that, while he acts mostly responsible most of the time, if you dare him into something hard enough, he will pretty much always do it.]

[When he isn't passive-aggressively complaining on the network, he starts hesitantly exploring the Iskaulit, poking his head into its empty rooms with the (fairly irrational) fear that he'll see one of the bugs around any corner. Eventually he'll get to moving a little bit more slowly, studying the way the ship is built, how it's different from the Tourist and the Marsiva and the other ships he's been on.]

[Later, he makes his way to the nearest waystation, which is, naturally, a huge disappointment. He can be found loudly sighing in pretty much any location on the station, but especially over the clothes, which are all a few sizes too small. And there are no backwards suspenders anywhere.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[This is all a hell of a lot to take in. That Lisa Lisa knew the Joestars - maybe even knew them well - makes Caesar suddenly, rigidly embarrassed. When he first came to her, he had just found out everything there was to know about his legacy, about what he perceived the Joestars had done to his family, and he was furious. Not even just furious, he was out of control, flying out into rages until she beat and wore it out of him, still going out looking for trouble in the middle of the night until it became obvious to him that doing that and training was unsustainable, that he'd have to pick between the two.]

[He'd badmouthed the Joestars a lot. And she never let on, not once. He feels like he should go back and apologize to her now, but even if he could go back, he doesn't expect she'd take his apology. He'd been a punk, and he should have acted better, no matter how angry he was.]

[His fingers flex into fists, then relax as he gets control of his frustration, his shame. When is he going to stop realizing mistakes he's made?]

I can't believe she's fifty years old, [he mutters to himself, for something to say (and it really is surprising and makes him feel a little gross, because he's only human), and then--]

You don't still have the picture, do you? The older one?

Not here. [Joseph shakes his head a little.] I put it in my coat before fighting with Wham and that didn't come with me here.

[It's a decision he regrets a little. Not that keeping the photographs on him would have been anything but likely to get in the way in the middle of a fight, but it'd be nice to have something of his grandmother here even if it doesn't technically belong to him. But then again, he thinks, maybe he shouldn't complain. At least he has things that indisputably belong to his family back home to remember them by. Extended family didn't pick everything apart the way Caesar's did. He probably doesn't even have pictures of his father even if he remembered what he looked like enough to find him again.]

[He realizes he's been looking at Caesar a little too long without saying anything and finds somewhere else to look to hide what he was thinking about. He doesn't pity Caesar even if he's more aware of what Caesar doesn't or hasn't had in a very long time, but he knows it could be misconstrued to be pity. It's something else though. He doesn't know what to call it. Maybe it's empathy or something close to that.]

[He can feel Joseph looking at him, and only resists turning towards him for so long. Just as Joseph moves to look away, he glances sideways, catching the tail end of his gaze. It's not as though Joseph's expression was particularly telling, but - Caesar isn't stupid, and anyway, sometimes he understands Joseph so effortlessly it's as though they're thinking the same thing at the same time.]

[His fingers curl in his lap. He wants to reach out and touch Joseph, but it seems like every time he does that he gets a different reaction, and this subject is already fraught enough without him adding more tension on top of it.]

[So he just looks, wrapping the fingers of his right hand around his left wrist, and his lips turn down a little at the corners, pinched and uncertain.]

. . . What is it?

[He shakes his head a little.]

Nothing.

[He doesn't entirely dare even do so much as glance at Caesar, but after a few seconds he does just out of the corner of his eye. It's just long enough to see his expression. Joseph feels a small pang of guilt for lying, so amends his answer even if he doesn't tell the whole truth.]

I guess I was just wondering about your family. [He shrugs a shoulder.] I only know what Lisa Lisa told me.

[And Joseph's willing to bet that was limited.]

Mm.

[Caesar isn't even slightly surprised. Honestly, it's more surprising that it's taken this long for it to come up. He isn't sure why that is - whether Joseph was just too angry until now to even entertain a conversation about it, or whether his own homesickness made it too hard to bring up anything that might remind him of his grandmother.]

[Whatever the reason, Caesar is glad it's at least starting to come out in the open now. It's a strange feeling, knowing that half of what your best friend knows about you comes from an outside source. It makes him feel guilty, too, as though he's lied, even though he never did, not really.]

[He catches Joseph's eye, shrugs one shoulder.]

I don't know how much she told you. But you can - if you want, you can ask me things.

[A short pause, and then, as though it's being dragged out of him:]

I'm sorry I didn't tell you.

[He looks at Caesar at the apology. And... Well, he honestly appreciates hearing it. It's hard to say if Caesar actually owed Joseph an apology or not. Or rather, Joseph doesn't know if he has the right to feel entitled to one. He doesn't try to figure it out though because what he does know for certain is that Caesar's been apologizing to him a lot lately and he doesn't entirely like it. He likes it better when Caesar is just himself. Unapologetic.]

[But he doesn't want to throw the apology back at Caesar's face either, so instead,]

You had your reasons for not saying anything.

[Whether they were good or bad ones doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter how Joseph felt about it at the time when he realized how much Caesar had been holding back. They're getting the chance to do things the right way now, aren't they?]

Your brothers and sisters. What are they like?

[It seems the safest thing to ask right now. Caesar had at least acknowledged their existence when they first ended up here even if he didn't talk about them in great detail.]

[Oh. That's a good question to start with, so good and so careful that Caesar can't help smiling, ducking his head in an attempt to hide how grateful he is. He can talk about them with pure, unmuddied emotion, at least for the most part, because he loves them and they've never hurt him, and more than that, they never would. This is perhaps the strangest thing about Caesar: he believes without doubt that his family would never cause him pain, despite past evidence to the contrary.]

[He straightens up a little in his seat, looks at Joseph again, because he wants to know what Joseph's thinking as he says it, and sometimes just looking at him is enough to sense it.]

Nicola's the oldest after me, then Marcello and Benito, and Maria's youngest. We're all about a year apart, except Maria - she's six years younger than me. So fourteen, now. She's smarter than the rest of us, more like our mother. [What he remembers of her, anyway.] And a good cook. She used to help me with dinners when I was still at home - I taught her when I was ten and she was four, and none of the others took to it like she did.

Nicola . . . always helped me a lot. She's very responsible, was better with the boys than I was, especially right after my father-- you know. So I put a little more on her than I should have, maybe. At least at first. And then she didn't really let it go. But she taught Maria how to read, too, and they're very close.

Marcello's hardworking. He used to help Nicola in the house, but she didn't really have the patience for it, so he'd go out and do odd jobs in the neighborhood to bring in extra money. Or just - to fill time, I think, because we didn't have much space and there were so many of us. And he was always trying to make me laugh.

And Benito's. [His expression goes a little pinched, although he doesn't notice that it is.] He's a lot like me. [In very specific, not very adaptive ways, things that Caesar hadn't wanted to pass down but did by accident.] He's . . . he gets into a lot of fights, and he doesn't listen. Doesn't go to school most of the time. He used to bring home animals all the time - snakes and things - and get mad when I wouldn't let him keep them in the house.

[A tight shrug, then. He misses them, and he doesn't know how to hide that he misses them; and maybe, after all, he doesn't want to.]

[Joseph has a hard time trying to imagine what it was like growing up like that. Or perhaps more accurately that quickly. It's not that Joseph's never had responsibility, he's just never had responsibility that mattered like that. He's always been able to walk away from anything he didn't want to deal with because it was taking up too much of his time. But Caesar's never had that luxury. His childhood got cut off early to look after three younger sisters and brothers that needed someone. What else was he supposed to do?]

[But even then, those weren't the parts that Caesar talks about. He mentions it in vague passing because they're still important, they're still a part of his family whether any of them like it or not. But they're not the focus. The focus is on who each of his siblings are, their relationships to one another, to Caesar. And how much he misses each of them.]

[As Caesar talks, Joseph scoots a little closer. Not close enough to touch, but close. He does so without realizing it, but it seems like the right place to be when Caesar's talking about something so important, so close to him.]

It sounds noisy. [But he says this in a soft way that sounds like it's good. Because what isn't good about a family that loves one another and looks after each other?] They sound like good kids though. To be honest, I never really wanted brothers and sisters, [something he thinks most people expect only children to say, but Joseph was glad in some ways to be the only child since it put less on his grandmother; he was certainly a handful enough all on his own,] but I wouldn't have minded having any of them, I think.

[He hesitates a little because maybe he doesn't have the right authority to say this, but...]

Your father and mother would be proud of you for taking care of them. For doing what you did. [Even the parts that don't sit well with Joseph.] Your grandfather, too, if he ever had the chance to know you.

[Joseph might not realize what he's doing, but Caesar definitely does. It's distracting, very distracting, and he has to look away, out the windshield, just for a moment. It is important, though, he thinks, to be close when they're talking about this - it's not something he'd share with just anyone, and definitely not in this detail. It feels a little bit like a relief, actually, to just talk about them, not even really important things, just things he knows about them that no one else does, things he loves about them.]

[He shifts slightly in his seat, then, a little closer still, and his hand comes to rest on the seat between them. He won't move further than that - he's still leery of a repeat of what happened last time, and now he couldn't escape even if he wanted to - but he doesn't want to seem like he's ignoring Joseph, either. And he does want to be closer, very much so.]

[Maybe Joseph doesn't have the authority to say that. But it feels good anyway, especially after Joseph's been so angry for so long, to have approval directed his way. He doesn't know when that became so important to him, especially from someone like Joseph, but - well, no, he knows. It was right around the time he started loving him.]

[He laughs, a soft sound in his throat, and closes his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed.]

Oh, don't say that. You don't know-- [And then he stops himself, forces himself quiet for a moment, and continues:] Thank you. That's - it means a lot.

[He's quiet for another moment, then, looking at Joseph out of the corner of his eye, feeling a little uncertain.]

They're good kids. They'd like you. I think they would.

. . . You did that, too, didn't you. Brought things inside you weren't supposed to. I can see you doing it.

[At first, Joseph thinks maybe he did say something wrong. Even though Caesar laughs, he still thinks maybe he said something he didn't have the right to or shouldn't have mentioned. Because it really isn't like he knows enough about the Zeppeli family to say anything like that. At least not enough of it beyond Caesar and what he knows Caesar values. But that stuff had to come from somewhere, right?]

[Then Caesar changes what he's saying and Joseph relaxes a little, feeling better and like he said the right thing. He smiles a little wider for just a brief moment and lets both of them fall into a little moment of silence. (Silence is something that usually drives Joseph nuts, but he doesn't always feel the urge to break it with Caesar. Sometimes it's good to just sit next to him and know that he's right there from his steady breathing.) He looks at Caesar when he talks again though.]

[At the accusation he clears his throat and rubs the back of his head with a hand.]

I really wanted a dog. Granny always said I got that from my grandfather. He used to have a dog that went everywhere with him. Which, you know, only made me want one even more because why should he get one and I don't. But she always said I wasn't responsible enough to look after it and she was too old to look after me and a dog.

[He'd always tell her that was ridiculous when he was younger, not understanding really just how hard it was for his grandmother to look after a kid as rambunctious as he had been at her age. Given how irresponsible he was, it probably would have fallen to her to take care of the dog in question.]

So sooooometimes [his hand comes back down next to Caesar's] I might have brought things home I wasn't supposed to.

I didn't bring home anything gross though. And it's not like I tried to sneak it into my room or something more than once or twice. I wanted Granny to let me keep it, so I thought if I was honest about it she'd maybe let it slide just once.

She'd let it stay the night sometimes, but most of the time she made me take it to the pound with her that night. [He winces a little in some retrospective embarrassment for his behavior.] I was a brat about it and pitched a fit every time. Sometimes I refused to even go and made her do it on her own.

[Oh. Well. That's disgustingly cute, and he can completely imagine that, too, Joseph bringing a dog home and presenting it like a lawyer arguing a case. He can't not smile, and maybe he's smiling too much, but he loves hearing this. Why didn't he ever ask more questions? He was so goddamn focused, and now he feels as though he's got to make up for a lot of lost time very quickly.]

I'm surprised she didn't take you to the pound.

[His fingers curl against Joseph's by accident, and he smiles down at his lap. It's probably a good thing he never had to deal with a kid like Joseph. Apparently he'd be a pushover at it.]

You got attached to them, I bet. All of them.

[He grins at Joseph, then, bumps his shoulder.]

You should have a dog now. You could probably manage it.

[Joseph expected something like Caesar's initial comment, but he still makes a face that's a little offended while still being willing to look the other way about it. (If only because he doesn't want to invite more insults.) His face does soften a little though at the thought he got attached to each one because he's not wrong. He made all sorts of promises to each and every stray he managed to lead back home, rambling the whole way to each of them with proposed names, potential daily schedules, and promised games and toys they'd play with together. Once he even went so far as to buy one of them a collar and a leash. Part of him knew he shouldn't because he knew Granny Erina would never go for it, but that didn't stop him from trying or being hopeful that maybe this would be the one eventually. Or maybe he'd finally be ready for that kind of responsibility in her eyes.]

[He snaps back into the present when Caesar bumps his shoulder though and looks at him with a wide grin. At least Caesar seems to think he could do it.]

Well, if I couldn't, I'd have you for back-up, right?

[He shifts his hand a little so a few of his fingers hook onto Caesar's.]

[His smile stays in place, but it's a close thing. He thinks instinctively that he should pull away, stop this right now before he does something even more stupid; but that would just draw more attention to what's happening.]

[Besides, he doesn't want to. He doesn't even remember who started this now, but it wasn't just him moving towards Joseph, he knows that much. Joseph's supposed to be steering the damn shuttle, and he's not, he's touching Caesar's hand. So he doesn't pull away and doesn't move closer, just readjusts their hands so his is under Joseph's, their fingers twined together. It's not subtle, but it's what he wants, and right now he's feeling selfish.]

[He's very careful not to let anything else change, not his smile or his posture or his tone, like it's normal, like it's nothing. Tipping his chin up, he gives Joseph a skeptical look.]

I don't know anything about dogs, Jojo. We never had one. Nicoletta would've had a fit.

[Also they couldn't afford one. But that's not really the main point. The main point is distracting Joseph.]

How would you take care of a dog here, anyway?

[The distraction is relatively successful. It's not so much that Joseph doesn't notice Caesar's hand moving under his, but no particular attention is given to it. At least no outward displays are made by either of them.]

Well, it'd be all set with food and water. I mean, that shit they try to feed us already looks like canned dog food anyway, and dogs aren't picky eaters. [Certainly not as picky as Joseph who probably would have zero problems "accidentally" dropping the nastier portions of his meals on the ground for the dog, whoops.] And it could sleep with me. I know the cots aren't all that big, but I survived a night sharing with you, I could handle a dog.

And uh... [He looks thoughtful a moment as he tries to consider the other important things about having a dog, modifying old arguments he used to present to Granny Erina.] Oh, it could still get regular baths in the shower. We only get so much hot water, but I don't think a dog's gonna care if it's a little cold or not.

[Assuming, of course, that Joseph wouldn't either sacrifice or share hot water with the dog in the first place.]

It'd stay out of everyone's way on the bridge with me so it doesn't bug anyone like Nightingale. [Who he could see having the biggest conniption over a dog on board out of the rest of his crew.] But I'd get it plenty of toys when I could find it so it wouldn't chew things up and we could play fetch in the hallway or down in the cargo bay.

[He grins crookedly at Caesar.]

It wouldn't be that hard. I think it'd be pretty happy on-board, actually. [He crinkles his nose.] But like that'd even happen. Where the hell would you find a dog out here anyway?

[Listening to all of this, he raises one eyebrow slowly, and his lips quirk into a smirk. This seems like a kind of flawed plan to him, especially the part where he thinks the dog won't bother anybody else, but . . . at least there is a plan.]

There's all kinds of things out here. You found a fish.

Edited 2015-09-22 02:37 (UTC)

[Joseph laughs and gives a small shrug. It's not that much of a feat when you consider how much of the planet was covered in water.]

That'll teach you not to believe me next time I say there's a fish around.

[He gives Caesar a rough but playful nudge.]

[Rolling his eyes, he falls sideways with exaggerated force, bumping against the door before pulling himself back by their joined hands. Which is a convenient enough excuse to squeeze Joseph's hand and get away with it.]

Obviously you've never told a lie in your life and I should never doubt you.

Of course not. [Joseph grins and tips his head to one side.] I'm a terrible liar after all. Couldn't lie to save my life.

That's true. You're notably honest.

[Which is actually true, really. Joseph isn't subtle at all; his lies might work on someone who doesn't know him well, but they don't work on Caesar. And he's overcome with such fondness for him that he leans his head on Joseph's shoulder and looks out the front again.]

If I find a dog, I'll let you know, Jojo.

[Joseph's a little surprised by Caesar putting his head on his shoulder, but it's not that big of a deal. Joseph's certainly not about to do anything that might discourage him from it.]

You sure you're not gonna regret that?

Why would I regret it?

[He sounds genuinely puzzled.]

It would make you happy, wouldn't it?

Well yeah, [he says with the tone of no duh,] but that means you'd have to put up with a dog around all the time.

[And if there's one thing Caesar doesn't strike Joseph as, it's the animal type. At the very least, not much of a dog person.]

I put up with you all the time anyway. I don't think there's much difference.

[Joseph is a big stinky dog who tracks mud all over the house, you heard it here first.]

[Joseph frowns. Wow, Caesar. Wow.]

What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I think you know what it means.

[SMILES FOR FUCKING EVER.]

three ○ video / action

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my math in here may be weird but you have to love me anyway

fine, i will

good!!!!!!!

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