driftfleet | gettin shippy with it?

[ Hello there, Caprine. This woman doesn't belong on your ship, but she's being nosy and exploring what exactly some different ones have to offer. You know, just to have an idea of what type of bizarre entity the people of this Fleet seem to be up against.

Also, all of this technology is just really weird and bizarre to her, so it doesn't hurt to test some of it out and see what it does, if they all function the same, so on and so forth. She's quiet, nearly silent as she slinks around investigating.

She is currently in the kitchen, running a finger over the protein dispenser. She'd tried a little bit of the protein cubes before and boy, was she not a fan.

Come bother her, ask the weird stranger to leave, so on and so forth ...? ]

[Don't mind Joseph. He's just wandering into the kitchen to stare forlornly at his options, bemoaning the fact that there is nothing worthwhile to eat, vaguely miss the kitchen, and Caesar's cooking. Well, that was the plan anyway. Instead, he stops short and blinks owlishly at Lisa Lisa a few times. He rubs at his eyes just to be sure he's not seeing incorrectly and that is indeed who he think it is.]

L-Lisa Lisa, what are you doing here!?

[ It's not that she was ignoring the person who entered the room after her -- more that she assumed they probably would not have been someone of interest.

This transcends "someone of interest" into an entirely new category, though. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't even be alive.

She stares for a moment behind her shades, her usual calm expression set aside for shock. It takes her a moment -- and if he looks closely enough, some effort to keep her hand from shaking -- but she reaches up to remove her shades, to see if what she's seeing is real. ]

... Jojo ...?

[Hold on a second. Why she shocked to see him? Joseph's already confused enough by her being here, but he's officially double confused.]

You're... [He almost doesn't ask. He knows that keeping her cool exterior is important to her and if she's upset, Joseph doesn't want to be the one to draw attention to it. That has the tendency to make it worse with his whole inability to get through most serious conversations without putting his foot in his mouth. The difference is Lisa Lisa's punishments are always, always creative. No thank you. But he lets the rest of the question fall out slowly anyway,] ...okay, right?

[ She had read some things that people had said about this situation. That all sorts of things happened here that weren't normally within the realm of possibility.

Well. Coming back from the dead wasn't impossible as far as she knew. But she had seen the undead face to face many times, and the boy before her was surely alive. Just like he was not so long ago ...

He's looking at her like something is wrong. She knows how perceptive he can be, and that means she needs to shut down all these feelings that are bubbling to the surface.

She pushes her sunglasses up to the top of her head. ]

Yes.

I wasn't expecting to see anyone I recognized, here.

Yeah, neither did I when I first got here, but I didn't have to go looking very far and there was Caesar.

[..................................Oops.]

[He probably should have... You know, not just... There are about a hundred ways that Joseph probably could have eased into that a little better than he did, but he just started talking without thinking. Or he was thinking somewhere in the back of his mind that she'd be glad to hear Caesar was here and he was alive since he was more or less like a son to Lisa Lisa. Maybe it would make things a little easier, but that's still Big News and you don't just say without some lead-up.]

[Shit.]

He's here, too. [Yes, Jojo, she got that.] He remembers everything that happened and he's... [not okay, but] ...He's doing better about it. You know I can tell him you're here?

[In case she wants some time alone with Caesar. Which she probably does. She must. Not that Joseph's about to think she doesn't want to see him, but Caesar would probably be better. He'd be able to explain things better anyway without, you know, blurting out that there are some people back from the dead around here or something equivalent.]

[ Yeah, that sort of ruins the composure again. She has to wonder: Is she dead, too? The battle with Kars was over -- she knew that much. But how was any of this ... ]

... Yes. Tell him.

[ She is still not sure what to make of all of this, but she does know that she wants to see the both of them again, together, alive. There isn't much she would want more, honestly.

She'll stare at him expectantly, then, waiting for him to take her to him, to call him, whatever he needs to do. ]

[...Yeah, okay. Joseph's got this. He'll take out his communicator and text Caesar, glancing at Lisa Lisa occasionally as he types. He looks at her again fully once he's done.]

I told him to come over as soon as he got my message. That kiss-up won't keep you waiting.

[Yes. Levity. This is...fine... Sorta.]

[ What is levity? What are jokes? She doesn't acknowledge the comment, silent as she is lost in her own thoughts. It's difficult to think of how to get the information she needs to proceed from here without alarming either of them. ]

Jojo. What is the last thing you remember?

[ If he says Caesar can remember his own death, and he clearly remrmbers it happening as well ... She at least needs to know where to start. ]

[Well, that's a weird question. Joseph blinks a few times as he tries to figure out where that's coming from. Hm. Maybe it isn't that weird of a question. Joseph did just assume Lisa Lisa knew everything he knew and that was it. But maybe she knew a little further than he did even though their circumstances weren't like what they are between Joseph and Caesar's time discrepancies. That's a possibility, right? He glances at his communicator when Caesar responds (okay, good. He's coming over.) and distractedly replies,]

You were about to kick Kars' ass. [He pockets his communicator.] You remember that, right?

[ Yes, fortunately for him, she does happen to know more in this case. Which means she'll also know exactly what to omit.

Caesar's death is an inevitability here. All three of them clearly remember it. There's no taking it back. But if she can make it sound like Jojo was victorious, that he lived on and everything was worth it -- maybe it would make things better.

She knows that Jojo was already having difficulty with what he had seen in the time he had been sucked into the world of Hamon training and the Pillar Men. Maybe, despite the situation they faced now, knowing that Kars was gone and believing he lived to tell the tale could ease that worry in some way.

She quirks her lips up in the way that she does when she's proud of him, when he's done well, though she wouldn't quite say as much.

It's not so hard to pretend, is it? ]

I remember you defeating him, as well.

[There are about a thousand and one things that start rolling around in Joseph's head at hearing that. There's disbelief at first. It's not because he doesn't trust Lisa Lisa or that he thinks she'd ever lie to him about something like that because she wouldn't. She's never been all that interested in preserving his feelings or filling his head with any sort of fanciful ideas about what's to come next. (Which has been difficult, but he's been grateful for it in the long-run without really realizing it. Keeping Joseph grounded isn't an easy job, but it's a necessary one. He had to grow up if he was ever going to come out of this the other side.) But it's still difficult to hear and readily accept that he won. That there was an end to it. That there was something more after. All those things that he had to keep telling himself over and over again would happen because if he didn't, he'd lose sight of them... They're really gonna happen?]

[Joseph quietly lets go of the breath he didn't know he was holding. Tentatively, he feels a weight lifted off his shoulders. He feels like he's about to start bordering on hysterical and has to cover his mouth for a second because he's about to either burst out laughing or maybe start crying. He's not sure which. Either way, he doesn't want to laugh or cry in front of Lisa Lisa after hearing something like that. It'd be too embarrassing. He also sorta feels like he needs to sit down, too, but he stays standing because he doesn't feel like he's totally in control of his limbs right now either. He wants to tell Caesar right now, but he wants to tell him in-person and kiss him because there's a future for both of them to go back to as far as he's concerned. He wants to see Granny Erina and Smokey and Speedwagon right now and wishes he could just find some way to make it so. Hell, he even wants to hug Lisa Lisa.]

[But none of those things happen. It feels like a small stretch of eternity before he moves his hand from his mouth again and is able to come at least halfway out of the elated (even if it's not really showing) stupor she's managed to knock him into. He's not sure what he's about to ask until he actually asks it because on top of everything he's feeling, he has a number of questions. Some of which he's not sure if he wants the answer to.]

But what about you? You were supposed to fight him.

I did.

[ Just ... not for very long. And honestly, if she's being truthful, she doesn't exactly remember Jojo defeating Kars -- she was unconscious, after all -- but she knows it happened, heard about it from Speedwagon and the rest, and that's enough. With this, at least, she can be honest. ]

You had no choice but to step in after I was unable to fight any longer.

[ The details aren't important right now. The most important thing is this: ]

That fight is over, thanks to you.

[ And now there's this one, but maybe she can take a page out of his book. Maybe she can just enjoy the fact that the two of them are alive for now, just for a few short moments. ]

[Joseph runs a hand through his hair because it's...all still...sinking in. So it's over. It really ends. Joseph gets a stupid, cocky grin on his face for at least a few seconds. After all that talk from Kars about how much more superior he was to ever human being on the planet, all that bragging that there was no way a Hamon user could defeat him, and Joseph was the one to do it. He doesn't know if it was skill or luck that got him that victory, but it doesn't matter. He won.]

[But his smile fades a little because of that simple fact that she wasn't able to fight any longer. That's why he won. That doesn't mean--]

But you were okay, right? You didn't...

[He doesn't even want to say the word.]

I've recovered since.

[ She was definitely injured, but she doesn't want to lead him to think she was killed. .... Especially since, as she's now realizing, this means ... this means she'll finally have to have the talk with him about who she really is, doesn't it?

She does have another question before Caesar arrives, though. ]

Have you spoken to Caesar about what happened up until that point?

[ After he died, that is, but she doesn't want to say it, either. ]

[Relief is an understatement, but it's the closest approximation to what Joseph feels hearing that. Just not another person throwing their life away over this crap. Not another. He nods.]

Yeah, I told him everything.

[There's no way he could keep all of that away from Caesar even if he wanted to. Joseph is oddly silent for a moment. He draws a breath.]

He knows we were close, too. When it happened. We've...talked about it a lot. [A beat.] Off and on.

[ Off and on, he says. That seems to imply that there's been a length of time for the talk to be off and on.

Either way, she's grateful that Jojo has already taken care of that much, though she's unlikely to say as much. She'd tell Caesar, if she had to -- but she imagines Jojo's recollection of events would have probably been much more personable than hers. Talking about that moment, while possible, wasn't something that she wanted to do -- not so soon, not when she's barely had time to process everything. The two of them were much more external in processing the things that had happened to them, so perhaps it was better they'd had the time to do so together.

Grateful or not, there is another question that needs to be asked here. ]

How long have you and Caesar been here for?

[ Talking about Caesar in the present tense again. She never would have thought it possible. ]

[He has to think about that because his instinct is to say "not long." That's not true anymore, however. Sure, it's not as much as some people around here, but "not long" is severely underestimating the amount of time Caesar and Joseph have been here. He starts adding it up in his head and looks a little surprised at the amount of time he arrives at.]

Almost six months.

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