Battle Damage | A CaeJose Story

Caesar

Caesar awoke to a long bar of moonlight creeping across his face. And across the empty bed on the opposite side of the room.

His sore muscles protested as he sat up. They hadn't been given even a day to recover after the Hellclimb Pillar before Lisa Lisa had thrown them back into training again. Sharing a room hadn't turned out as badly as he had expected – most days they were too exhausted to do anything but collapse into bed by the time they made it back to the room. Although that didn't do anything to stop Joseph snoring.

A cool breeze drifted in from the open door to the balcony. Caesar grabbed the edges of the blanket and wrapped it around himself like a cloak, dragging it off the bed as he stood and shuffled to the door.

Far below the balcony's wrought iron railing, the waves glittered silver in the moonlight as they met the shore, rising up the pale sand and falling back again to the rhythm of gentle breathing. The kind of breathing any sane person would be doing right now in bed, asleep. Where the hell is he?

A bar of shadow fell across the railing. Caesar turned to see a figure hunched on the gently sloping roof off to his right, sitting with his knees pulled to his chest. He glanced up as Caesar boosted himself up with the edge of the railing and scrambled onto the roof, making his way cautiously toward him, and then turned back to the ocean. Not so far in the distance, Venice was outlined by night in a million pinpoints of light.

Caesar stopped some distance away, pulling the blanket tighter around his shoulders and eying JoJo. "If you're not exhausted, you're not training right."

"I am exhausted." JoJo looked up at him, rolling his eyes. His tanned skin looked pale in the moonlight, and shadows pooled beneath his eyes, worsening the dark circles already lurking there. He did look exhausted. "I just can't sleep."

For some reason Caesar couldn't fathom, he found himself taking a seat on the roof beside him.

Joseph let go of his knees, stretching his legs out as he leaned back on his arms. Something like a laugh escaped his throat. "You're right, you know. I'm never going to be able to beat the pillarmen in 15 more days. I might know a few fancy hamon party tricks now, but they're going to crush me like a bug."

Caesar couldn't count the number of times he had wished over the past few weeks that JoJo would quit acting so full of himself, if only for even a few seconds. Somehow, the experience was not at all as satisfying as he had imagined. Especially not the twinge of guilt in his stomach at the thought that he had all but said aloud those same words more than a few times.

JoJo yelped as Caesar gave him a solid shove. "What the hell was that for?"

"To snap you out of it, idiota." And just maybe because he was shit at situations like this, and he was suddenly drawing a hopeless blank on the comforting gesture he was supposed to provide instead. His tone softened. "You have to trust Lisa Lisa. And yourself."

He was certain that was going to earn a witty retort, or at least a skeptical look, but it didn't. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched JoJo's eyes settle again on the delicate line of the horizon, one hand rubbing absently at the mask. Lisa Lisa only let him take it off for mealtimes, and Caesar knew he sometimes woke up choking when his breathing lost rhythm in the middle of the night.

"Here," Caesar said, before he could think it through. JoJo looked startled as he reached out to set one hand on the side of the cool metal, sending a single shock of hamon through it, and lifted it from his face.

JoJo gaped at him. "You've known how to do that the whole time?"

Caesar shot him a look of warning. "Tell Lisa Lisa about this and we'll both be in trouble."

JoJo turned back to the deep blue water stretching out before them, a wide smile blooming on his face. It occured to Caesar as JoJo took a deep breath that this was the first smile he had actually seen on him in weeks – that was why he was having a hard time looking away, wasn't it? Because he was unused to the silver light tracing the curve of his mouth, tracing his lips... Caesar's treacherous brain replayed the car ride to the Mouth of Truth. He had never had a girlfriend. Has he never... kissed anyone?

Caesar had yet to process where the train of thought was going when JoJo turned back to him, leveling that smile right at him. Stop looking, idiot. Joseph nodded to the blanket with a hopeful expression, all moonlight on wide eyes. "Share it with me?"

"If you wanted to keep warm, you shouldn't have climbed onto the roof in the middle of the night."

"Please?" The pouting expression was relentless. He must have practiced this in front of a mirror.

"I'm not – no."

"Aw, come on, Caesar-chan..."

He could see him shivering a little through the thin tank top. "Mamma mia," Caesar muttered, but he reluctantly offered up the very corner of the blanket. Before he knew what had happened, JoJo had scooched closer and wrapped half the blanket around him. Maybe more than half. Caesar was less caught up on that than the warmth of Joseph suddenly right next to him, his side pressed against Caesar's so that he could feel as the shivering gradually abated beneath the blanket. JoJo let his head fall against Caesar's shoulder like this was a perfectly normal thing to do.

Caesar forced himself to focus on the sky, on the scattering of lights against the velvety black background. Anything other than JoJo next to him. He picked out the bright pinpoint of Vega, traced the shape of Lyra with his eyes. "Do they look different here from where you're from?"

He felt rather than saw him shrug. "I have no idea. I never really looked at them."

"Idiota," Caesar sighed. He freed one arm from beneath the blanket to point at a star almost directly overhead. "That bright one there is Polaris. If you draw a line from that to there..." moving his hand to the next star. "... to there... to there... you have Ursa Minor, the little bear."

JoJo sounded incredulous. "That's supposed to be a bear?"

"You have to use your imagination."

He was almost certain Joseph was about to tell him how stupid that was, but instead he pointed to another cluster of stars. "What are those three?"

"That's Cassiopeia..."

He pointed out a handful more, feeling JoJo nod his head against his shoulder as he talked. When he finally fell silent, looking up at the sky, there was a strange twinge in his chest at the thought that Joseph would have to suggest soon that they go inside, that they leave whatever strange moonlit universe they had drifted into and return to sleep like any rational person would have done long ago.

Caesar braced himself for the words, but the roof was quiet. The gentle sounds of the surf drifted up from far below, twining together with JoJo's soft, steady breathing beside him. Caesar shifted slightly and realized he was asleep.

For a long moment, he considered staying there. The exhaustion of the day's training pulled at him, imploring him to let his eyes drift closed right there on the roof. Neither the blanket around him nor JoJo's body heat where he leaned into Caesar was helping.

It would be so easy...

He sat up straight, shaking Joseph awake. The latter blinked at him drowsily as he lifted his head.

"You're drooling on me, Joestar."

"Oh." JoJo yawned, commandeering the rest of the blanket as he stretched. "Sorry."

Caesar stood perhaps a little more briskly than he had to, heading for the edge of the roof without glancing back. What the hell was that? He was tired, that was all. Tired, and letting his mind wander. Joseph was, objectively, attractive. Anyone would have agreed. That didn't mean...

No. That didn't mean anything.

Writing caejose fluff is my happy place. Hope y'all are having a less crazy week than I am.

 - Wesley H.