driftfleet | gettin shippy with it?

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.

[ Six months. That's ... a really long time. And she had just seen him a few weeks ago before the fight with Kars ...

She is really starting to wonder if this is some sort of injury-related fever dream, or something along those lines. All of this is just too unreal. Too good to be true, in some ways.

She'll think about that later, when she has some time alone to herself. In the meantime, she looks Joseph over briefly. ]

And in that time, you've not trained for a single moment, have you?

[.........................]

Uuuhhhh...well...

[mumblemumble AWKWARD CLEARING OF THE THROAT.]

[Too good to be true is a great way to put it. On the plus side, here comes Caesar to destroy this beautiful moment. There may be some outraged cries coming from the hallway right before he busts his way into the kitchen, because anybody in his way is getting shoved against the wall. When he actually gets through the kitchen door, though . . .]

[He wants to do a hundred things at once, honestly. He wants to touch her to make sure she's real - but he won't. He wants to ask questions to see what she knows - but he won't. He wants to take Joseph's hand and squeeze it, hard, to make sure he's real and ensure he knows the same in reverse, and that he almost does, reaching out until his fingers brush Joseph's wrist and then abruptly changing his mind, his hand coming up to squeeze his shoulder instead.]

[He can't stop staring at her.]

[I thought I'd never see you again.]

. . . It's good to see you again.

[ Yes, Jojo is very lucky that Caesar is here to save him (for now) from the work that literally any answer Jojo gave her would have resulted in.

Instead, she also seems frozen for a moment, staring right back. It's a little different than Jojo's death -- she didn't see that, she wasn't moments away from being able to help. She didn't see his blood, seeping across the floor from underneath the rubble.

This other boy is not her son. But ironically, she's spent more time with him, gotten to know him and everything that makes him tick more ... he's still precious to her, in his own way.

She's had time to accept his death, to move past it, but it doesn't stop her eyes from looking (ever so briefly) wet for a moment, before she blinks it away to offer a small, genuine smile. ]

Always a pleasure, Caesar.

[ The tears she blinked away just now may well be for Joseph, too, but at least this time it's not something she has to hide. ]

Edited (HTML?!??!?!) 2015-11-29 02:43 (UTC)

[Joseph tries his very best to not let his sigh of relief that Caesar's here go too audibly. Not that he thinks Lisa Lisa will necessarily forget all about training or his non-answer, but let a guy dream, okay? The hand at his shoulder feels good though. Joseph has to fold his arms to keep from reaching for it.]

[He raises a slight eyebrow at the two of them though and almost, almost blurts out "that's it?" But he remembers not everybody necessarily is as keen to express everything they're thinking and feeling like he is, least of all Lisa Lisa or Caesar. So, he just rocks a moment lightly onto his toes a bit and settles back down. He manages to keep quiet for now and let the two of them have this moment be whatever they want it to be.]

[At some point in the space between the beginning of her sentence and the end, his grip on Joseph's shoulder, which was supposed to be fleeting, became less a touch of comfort and more one of necessity. Hearing her voice, it's obvious that it's really her, she's really here, and the way she's looking at him--]

[She knows. Of course she knows. He's not stupid, and neither is she. So what does he do with this? What does he say now?]

[He looks at Joseph in bewilderment, beseeching, confused.]

Someone should . . . probably catch me up.

[ Pretending it didn't happen would be a disservice to everything Caesar put into that fight. But he's clearly spoken to Jojo about it, and if he wants to come to her about it later, he will. It wouldn't be the first time he had told her about something that was bothering him.

In the meantime .... yes, catching up would be good. Fortunately, everything he needs to know can be summed up quite easily. Her smile fades, in order to get back to business. ]

I was just telling Jojo that all of the Pillar Men have been defeated. They are gone.

[Joseph opens his mouth at first to say something because okay, this is ridiculous. Until literally just what? Five? Ten seconds ago? Caesar hadn't seen Lisa Lisa in six months and Lisa Lisa wasn't going to see Caesar ever again as far as she knew. But he's so exasperated that he doesn't even know where to start exactly. Or how to go long enough without either one of them admonishing him for not sticking to business.]

[So, he closes his mouth and--no, you know what? This is ridiculous.]

Oh for God's sake... [Joseph rubs at his face for a second.] Who cares about that right now? There are more important things you two should be talking about than Pillar Men or stones or any of that crap.

[He shrugs Caesar off to take a step back away from the two of them.]

Can't you two just try, just try for... [He looks momentarily frustrated at trying to get the words out himself before holding up all five fingers on one hand.] Five seconds. Go five seconds without talking about Hamon or vampires and actually talk. To. Each. Other. Like normal people?

[Joseph moves away, and all of a sudden it feels like he's falling, and there's nothing to hold onto. Panic is visible on his face; he looks from Lisa Lisa to Joseph, lips tight with fear. What is that, talking like normal people, to someone you haven't seen for so long, thought you would never see again? How is he supposed to do that?]

[And in the back of his mind all he can think is he did it? It worked? He won? I can go home, like he said?]

[He's supposed to be trusting Joseph now, he knows. He does know that. So - he lets his hand fall to his side, close in a tight fist. Even if he doesn't quite look up, he does speak after a moment. Trying.]

. . . Jojo's birthday was a while ago. I made cake.

[Save him.]

[ She keeps her expression even as Jojo rants. Personally, she thinks it's rather important that Caesar know his efforts didn't go to waste ... but fine, if that's what the two of them want, she'll play along, letting her gaze slide back over to Caesar while he struggles.

But, uh ... She looks momentarily confused when Caesar finally speaks. ]

Is it winter here?

[ It's kind of hard to tell these things in space. ]

[It's not completely what Joseph had in mind because they're still dodging things that they should be talking about. Maybe it would be easier for them if Joseph wasn't in the room, though somehow he thinks it'd be easier to keep not talking about it.]

It's almost Decem--

[There's a long pause as Joseph frowns first at Caesar and then over at Lisa Lisa. Something about that just felt very off and he's not sure what it is right away. Back up. Okay, so Joseph told them to have a conversation like normal people. He meant more along the lines of actually talking about what they're thinking and feeling about this whole situation rather than idle chitchat, but Caesar brought up his birthday and then Lisa Lisa asked if it was winter. That seems completely logical, so where's the breakdown? What's setting off--]

[Wait. Lisa Lisa asked if it was winter. Lisa Lisa asked if it was winter.]

Hold on a minute, how do you know when my birthday is? [He jabs a thumb over at Caesar.] He didn't even know until I told him.

[. . . How did she know?]

[This - there's got to be a reasonable explanation for this. Doesn't there? Maybe the Foundation told her, somehow, secretly. Or she talked to someone else Joseph knew, or she asked him later, after he fought Kars . . . Maybe, well, it has to be something like that.]

[Right?]

[The look he gives her isn't quite suspicious, but it's not happy, either. Whatever's happening here, he doesn't like it. He doesn't want any more secrets right now.]

[ You know, normally she's pretty good at not completely fucking up like that, but it's also hard to pretend like you forgot the day a baby came out of you. And she could probably make up a convincing lie to cover it all up, but she did promise him she would explain the rest of the story behind that photograph once the battle was over.

She just didn't think it was going to be in a place like this, at a time like this ... with Caesar around.

She watches the two of them for a moment, before settling her stare on Jojo. ]

Is that where you would like this conversation to go?

[ It's not a "don't ask" or "I'm not going to tell you" -- rather, a warning that this verges back into the territory of what he didn't want them to talk about. That it may be something they need to talk about later, rather than now. ]

[Joseph looks to Caesar because of course he does. He doesn't catch the full context of Lisa Lisa's warning, but it's obviously a warning with a statement like that. He could put the brakes on it right now if he wanted to. She's given him the option, but even if she hadn't, he could still do it. It wouldn't be for his sake though, it would be for Caesar's; which is why he looks to him first before he says anything.]

[He can't read Caesar's mind, but he knows that look well enough. Whatever secret Lisa Lisa is holding onto, Caesar wants to know it, too. She either tells them both now or Caesar ends up getting it out of her or Joseph later. That's fine, he thinks. No matter what she's warning him away from, he still remembers the photographs. He still remembers that she promised to talk to him after everything was over about her connection to his family. Slowly, Joseph looks back over to Lisa Lisa.]

You owe me an explanation anyway, don't you?

I suppose that I do.

[ She folds her arms across her chest, glancing at Caesar once more before she begins. Like Jojo, she knows that he will end up finding out one way or another -- it would probably be more appropriate to hear it from her first.

She looks back to Jojo, now, as this story will be most important to him. ]

You already know that your grandmother, Erina, was the one who saved me as an infant from the boat that your grandfather died on.

However ... [ There's a beat, as she prepares to expand on that story. ] Erina was already pregnant with a child when she saved me. She could not take care of two children so small at the same time, so Straizo adopted me instead.

[Joseph nods a little.]

I remember that part. [And apparently struggling to figure out how old she is, but let us move on from that because it's clearly not that important.] You also had a recent photograph of Granny Erina that you never explained.

[ ... She nods, slowly. She'll get to that. ]

The child that Erina was pregnant with was your father. [ Of course. It wasn't as though Jojo had any real uncles or aunts, "Uncle Speedwagon" aside, so there wasn't really anyone else the child could have been. ] We knew each other since childhood. Eventually ... [ She almost braces herself, because she knows that what she's about to say next is really going to change the track this conversation takes. ]

Eventually, we fell in love, and we were married.

[Joseph's not that stupid that he doesn't understand the implication of what she's saying. But it simultaneously hits him like a ton of bricks and refuses to sink in, leading him to just stare at her blankly for a very, very long moment. Which is good because he's caught somewhere between getting worked up about yet another damn family secret that's been kept from him, telling her that it's impossible because his mother got sick shortly after his father died and then passed away herself, and wanting to immediately start demanding where the hell she's been for the past eighteen years. None of the words make it out though and he just stands stock still, momentary disbelief managing to keep his temper controlled.]

[And beneath that, of course, is a very timid hope trying to bolster itself with logic that she's not bullshitting him right now because she's never done that. It pushes past the anger (the hurt, too) and the disbelief, and it latches on to that so tight and fast that it's terrifying. He's had to accept so many things about himself, about his family recently, but he did so begrudgingly. He didn't have any other choice. But this... This is different. It feels almost just as good as it doesn't.]

[Joseph remembers how to breathe again, drawing and releasing a shaky breath.]

So you're... You're my mother.

[He swallows thickly.]

Granny Erina told me you died. And you knew that, didn't you? You knew all this time and you didn't say anything. Why? Why did you wait to tell me? Why did you just... [Joseph sighs heavily.] Why did you leave?

[Had he asked the questions right away, they would have been shaped by defensive anger. But as it is, he's looking at Lisa Lisa the way a child much younger than him might in trying to make sense of things they are just not old enough to immediately understand. This should be happy news. He wants it to be. But he has questions that can't go unanswered right now. Even though he knows she had to have had her reasons and they were damn good reasons, he still needs to understand what drove her away.]

[We fell in love, and we were married.]

[There's no way this could hit him as hard as it hits Joseph. No way. But it's not nothing, either. He always knew she was keeping secrets, never pressed her for them because that wasn't his place, his role. It never would be. They weren't secrets related to him, and he knew that. So she could keep her mystery.]

[But this . . .]

[It takes him a few moments to realize that he's angry. He's very angry. She left Joseph alone. And maybe she had a good reason for it - she must have, if Erina had covered for her, unless she lied to her too - maybe the reason was good, but maybe . . .]

[Maybe a good reason isn't enough. Not enough to make the hurt go away, for sure. Not enough to make up for missing years. Not enough to--]

[He moves without thinking about it, putting his hand on Joseph's arm, a light touch but a promise, a presence, all the same - that he's here, that he's not going anywhere, that no matter what it will be all right, somehow, even if he can't say how right now. And to Lisa Lisa he gives probably the most defiant look she's ever seen from him.]

[It had better be the best reason he's ever heard. That's all.]

That's right.

[ She waits patiently for him to ask the questions he wants to ask her. He has every right to be angry with her, she thinks -- but honestly, at this point, it doesn't matter if he's angry with her. He's alive. He can be angry with her as much as he wants as long as he stays that way.

She sees the look Caesar is giving her, too, but her expression still stays even and blank. She knows he has to be upset with her as well, considering what happened with his father. But that's fine. Back when she had first planned to tell Jojo, she had already expected the two of them to be angry about this information.

Still, she isn't done explaining, so once Jojo's gotten everything out, she'll attempt to continue on. She may come off cold and cruel, but even she has a reason for why she had to leave her son behind. ]

Your father ... George, he wasn't killed in the war, as you were told. He was killed by his own superior officer, a vampire posing as a human.

You were still a baby. I ...

[ She pauses. She doesn't regret killing the man that killed her husband, but she had let her emotions get the best of her. She had let them take control of her, and it was because of that she made the mistake that would cost her what was left of her family.

Of course, she leaves that out, for now. ]

When I had it investigated, and found out what had happened to him -- that George had discovered his true identity and had tried to confront him on his own -- I went and found this general myself. I killed him. But there was a witness, an innocent soldier.

[ She looks down at her gloved hands, briefly remembering that moment. ]

He had done quite a good job at playing human. He was well-loved by his men. So the Speedwagon Foundation helped me, a wanted criminal, disappear.

[He both loves and resents the hand at his arm. Loves it because once Caesar touches his arm, Joseph realizes how much he needed it, needed Caesar to be here for this while he's trying to make the pieces of the truth fit together in some way that feels better than it could possibly ever be. Resents it because all he wants to do is hide away in Caesar's arms right now where none of this has to matter and he doesn't have to listen to how everything he's ever known is a lie.]

[(Some rational part of his brain somewhere knows that it's not everything. But it doesn't feel that way right now, so it's easy to dismiss that. That same part of his brain is also angry on Caesar's behalf, knowing what he does about Caesar's past and how Lisa Lisa held back the truth from him as well. Maybe Caesar wasn't interested in knowing everything about her because he was so hyper-focused on getting revenge for his father, but she should have been honest even in a vague sort of way with Caesar the moment he told her about his own past. This shouldn't be the first time he's hearing any of this.)]

[Joseph has to look away from Lisa Lisa. He knows she's not being emotionless about all of this, but her emotions are so tempered and muted right now that he just can't look at her right now. Not when his own emotions are so plainly on his sleeve because at some point he started crying and he's not sure if it's anger, grief, or joy that's brought them out.]

[He doesn't know who made the decision to lie to him if it was Lisa Lisa, Granny, or Speedwagon, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that no matter what, he was going to lose his mother/ (Because she was like him. She had a hot temper even if she kept it together now. She was like him and wasn't going to let something like that against her family, against the people she loved, go unanswered. Granny always said he looked so much like his father, but he never really felt like him. He was too even and calm by comparison. So what? She just learned to stifle any emotion, to be cold and collected at all times to keep from making a mistake like that again? Is that why she fought so hard against tears when Caesar...) What matters even more than that is that all of this, the Hamon, the vampires, no one could have kept it out of Joseph's life because it had been there before he was even born and it had already touched him directly before he was even old enough to realize it.]

[It doesn't matter who decided to lie because they shouldn't have lied to him in the first place. He comes to that conclusion swiftly. If they had just told the truth, he could have been ready. He would have gone looking for her when he was ready. Caesar and him, they could have trained together sooner, pushed past the bullshit of both their egos and kept each other safer. His whole life would have been different because at least he would have missed a mother he could have known rather than not know how to feel about one he never knew. But there's no fixing any of it or making up for the years lost. What's done is done. Now is about moving forward.]

[He takes Caesar's hand off his arm, holding onto it for a few seconds longer than he probably should, but he doesn't give a shit right now. He gives it a light squeeze before he lets it go and crosses the short distance to Lisa Lisa. He has to bend down, but he rests his chin on her shoulder as he wraps his arms around her. Quietly, he says,]

I forgive you.

[Whether she was looking for it or not, it's something he has to do for her sake and himself because he can't move forward angry. He needs to be better than that. He needs to be the way Granny Erina raised him, which was forgiving, protective, and always loving towards family.]

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