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It hadn’t exactly been the most relaxing day for Caesar.
His training exam had been one thing, and the whole mess with Joseph and Esidisi and Suzie had been another—it had left him feeling exhausted, and not just physically—he’d spent weeks stressing over Joseph and his training, his work ethic, the rings, everything—and to have it all explode right under his nose in the kind of disastrous grand finale that could only happen for Joseph Joestar was very, very tiring for him. At this point, all he wanted was peace, just for one second, to have some distance from the chaos before he inevitably had to face it again.
However, fate (or, as it were, Joseph Joestar), had other plans for him.
Caesar was locked pretty effectively in his room reading, or so he thought—when the door slammed open and a very riled up looking Joseph tore across the threshold and into his sanctum of peace. Shouting, of course. Why would he be doing anything otherwise.
“Caesar, holy fuck!”
It took Caesar a few seconds to forcibly pull the last scraps of his patience together so that he could deal with the disturbance. Not looking up from his book, he turned the page, and addressed him.
“That’s quite the entrance,” he said, appearing mostly uninterested, although he couldn’t exactly deny that he was happy to see him, in a begrudging sort of way. “I’m assuming you have something important to say, barging in like this.”
To his credit, this did not do anything to damper Joseph’s high spirits. He only bounded closer, launching himself so that he was now perched at the foot of Caesar’s bed, bouncing up and down and grinning at him like a buffoon. Caesar did his best not to look at him.
“Caesar. Caesar. Caesar.”
Caesar tried to block the view of his face with the book, but Joseph kept peeking around it, until suddenly he was practically in Caesar’s lap, still grinning at him with that stupid look.
“Alright, alright,” he said, relenting and putting the book down. Joseph made himself comfortable between Caesar’s legs, which he had spread slightly to accommodate for him. “What is it?”
Pointing at himself, Joseph turned his head from side to side, showing off each angle of his face. His eyes were glinting like crazy, and there was something about that look on his face that Caesar was intrigued by, and also didn’t exactly trust. “Don’t you notice something different about me?”
“Did you finally trim your eyebrows?” Caesar deadpanned, resting his arm behind his head. He angled his posture back to better adjust to Joseph’s weight, the guy was so heavy and didn’t even seem to realize—always laying on him like he was just a little cat or a small dog, and not one hundred and ninety five centimeters tall and built of pure muscle.
“The mask, Caesar.” Joseph waggled his eyebrows, which certainly had not been trimmed anytime recently, or ever. “Didn’t you notice? It broke during my fight with Esidisi, and Lisa Lisa says I don’t have to put another one back on. My handsome face is back on display for everyone to see and enjoy, no longer will the world be deprived of looking at a face so handsome, especially not you, Caesar, I know how much you…”
If Joseph was still talking, Caesar could no longer hear him. Any thoughts or coherent paths of reciprocal speech had burnt out completely as Caesar looked at him, realizing. Right. The mask. The thing that Joseph had been complaining about for weeks now, the thing that had stood between them and, well, kissing. Until now, apparently. Caesar licked slowly over his lips.
“Oh,” he managed, after a solid minute of flatlining. He couldn’t look away from Joseph’s mouth, his grinning, crooked mouth. “Well, I suppose you earned it.”
“You look awfully flustered, Caesarino,” Joseph said, being annoyingly perceptive as usual. He came very close to him, nose nearly brushing against his, parting his lips like he was dangling a piece of meat in front of a hungry dog. “How long have you been waiting for a taste of my sexy lips?”
Caesar flushed, glaring but unsure how to answer. “Hard to say,” he managed, finding himself slowly getting pinned down on the bed by Joseph’s bulk. “Have you even had a kiss yet, with anyone? Ever?”
That made Joseph pause, alarm flicking in his eyes for a second. “Well…”
He obviously hadn’t expected to lose his upper hand so easily—he looked momentarily stunned, and Caesar used the opportunity to gain the upper hand for himself. Joseph should have realized just who he was dealing with—Caesar was experienced here where Joseph was not, and he wasn’t about to let him forget that anytime soon.
“Oh? No?” Caesar gave him a cunning look, leaning up so their mouths were mere inches apart. “Well, this will be quite the new experience for you then, won’t it? And with me, no less.”
Joseph gave him a blank look. “Caesar, you’ve sucked my dick,” he said. “Many, many times.”
Caesar made something of a strangled noise and turned red again, instinctively shoving up at Joseph’s chest. “What’s the point of saying that now?” he spat.
“I’m just saying!” Joseph said, getting loud, “I’m not all that inexperienced!”
“I was trying to create a moment, you ass,” Caesar snapped at him, kneeing him in the stomach. “Don’t mention how many times I’ve sucked your dick when I’m trying to be romantic.”
Joseph cocked his head. “The dick sucking wasn’t romantic?”
“Oh my god.” Caesar rubbed at his eyes. “Joseph—“
“I mean, I was thinking I could return the favor,” Joseph pointed at Caesar’s crotch, “if that was okay with you. Unless you’re gonna be super cranky about it…for no reason…giving me your cheesy ass lines…”
Caesar was nearly beyond words, at this point. They hadn’t even kissed, Joseph was talking about blowing him like it was as mundane as the weather, and he was on his back and completely embarrassed by all of it. Embarrassed and somehow charmed, if it were even possible.
“Well, I mean,” Caesar stammered, very cleverly, “that’s…that’s fine, but we should really…”
“What?” Joseph smirked at him. God, he looked so full of it. Full of it but unbearably handsome all the same, clever eyes and messy hair and tantalizingly full lips that Caesar needed on his mouth, immediately. “Kiss? Unless you don’t want to kiss someone as inexperienced as me?”
“Mio dio,” Caesar muttered under his breath, looking just about anywhere but directly at Joseph’s leering face.
Not wanting or needing to hear another word out of him, Caesar decided there was no point in trying to be romantic, nor trying to create a moment with Joseph Joestar (he was right, of course, since their relationship had begun when he’d been stuck with the mask, most of their physical affection had come in the form of Caesar going down on him, because he was the only one of them with a free mouth and he just happened to be very, very good), so he grabbed his face with both hands and yanked him forward and down, almost slamming their mouths together in a fit of frustration.
Their teeth clacked, and at first it was as ungainly and rough as a kiss that Caesar could have ever hoped to expect from Joseph—but then the moment started to realize itself, their shared frustration turned into one of shared realization that this was exactly what they’d been craving ever since they fell for each other. It grew soft, gentle—Caesar opened his mouth against Joseph’s, wide and yearning and warm, and tugged him closer than he ever thought he’d want someone to be to him.
Joseph’s lips were rough and kind of dry, but they were good anyway, good and careful—he was taking his time, learning, letting Caesar kiss him so that he could soak it all in, and if the noises he was making were any indication, he was soaking it up quite a bit. Caesar put a hand to either side of his face, tracing his fingertips along the sharp of Joseph’s jaw, a part of him that he hadn’t been able to touch until now. He became mesmerized by this part of him that he hadn’t yet been able to explore, how close his breath was, how he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his skin was rough with it. Everything, everything inside him felt like it was swelling, hazy and drifting towards someplace that held a promise of peace.
Impatient breath flared across Caesar’s cheek, and Joseph’s nose jammed into his face as he tilted his head the other way, searching for a better angle. Hands gripped the back of Caesar’s hair, fingers twisted hard in his hair, teeth edging along his bottom lip. Caesar found himself being lifted up, pulled up closer into Joseph’s grip and he craned his neck to accommodate, lifted his shoulderblades off the bed to push up and lick into his warm, open mouth. Joseph half whined against him.
“Hey hey hey,” Caesar murmured to him, reluctant to move his mouth away from his even just to speak. “It’s not a race, alright? Enjoy the moment.”
Joseph gave him something of a half smug, half desperate look, kissing the corner of Caesar’s mouth. “But I’ve been waiting forever to kiss you,” he said, and god, the way he just came right out with it like that—Caesar closed his eyes and pressed his nose harder against Joseph’s face, not quite kissing him, but not taking his mouth away from his, either. “For so long.”
Caesar exhaled carefully, scared just for a second of how fast he was falling in love with him.
“Me too,” he said, hands in Joseph’s hair.
It didn’t take much more than that to encourage him; within seconds, Joseph was kissing him again, his movements hungry and kind of sloppy but still good, in a way. It was good because it was Joseph, because Caesar had wanted this so much and so painfully that he didn’t know how much longer he could have lasted without it. It was, however, getting difficult for him to breathe with Joseph laying on top of him like he was (and Caesar liked the weight, he wasn’t going to say that he didn’t, if he didn’t feel like he was in slight danger of getting his chest crushed he would have been happy to remain there all day), so with a fair bit of effort he pushed up on his big shoulders and rolled him to the side, hooking a leg over his narrow hips. Joseph took the cue and pushed a thigh up between Caesar’s legs, making Caesar exhale a low hiss of breath into Joseph’s mouth.
This, of course, they’d done before. At this point, getting each other off was a common practice—stress relief, Caesar had often called it, trying to make it seem more casual than it truly was. But now, it was entirely different—now it had breath, uneven exhales, quiet moans pressed to the shell of his ear. Now, Caesar could pull that impossibly full bottom lip between his teeth and taste it, lick slowly across it, bite it until Joseph yelped and laughed and bit him back.
Caesar gyrated against Joseph’s leg, slowly, careful to not reach a point of no return too quickly. Joseph was always…quick to fire, so to speak, but Caesar had a little more restraint than that—but if Joseph was good to his word, and he really was going to do what he promised, then Caesar didn’t know. He just didn’t. Big, firm hands grasped at his ass and Caesar pushed gladly into it, panting softly into Joseph’s mouth.
“You’re not half bad,” he murmured, getting more relaxed as he finally became more aroused than he was stressed (which was, as he and Joseph had discovered, one of the only effective ways of dealing with the incredible, almost inhuman amount of stress that he carried).
“Not half bad? Come on, give me more than that,” Joseph said, giving his ass a squeeze. Caesar moaned loudly before he could stop himself, and Joseph smirked. “After all, I’m the only one who can make you make those noises, right? Caesar?”
Caesar didn’t answer him directly, because they both knew it was true—regardless, he knew it wasn’t really the time to be feeling undignified, but he couldn’t help it anyway, turning red and trying to come up with some way to make Joseph lose his composure (how, how was he so full of it, when Caesar was the one with the experience, the talent, the charm?).
“What? You don’t want me to compliment you?” Caesar asked him, pushing him onto his back and straddling his hips. He leaned forward to kiss the juncture between his neck and his jaw, his pulse fast beneath his lips.
“You have a funny way of doing it. How about, you’re so sexy, Joseph, or I can’t it anymore Joseph, I need you now, or—“
Caesar managed to stop him with just a look, which was good, because he could only imagine where Joseph was headed with all that—he leaned forward to brush brown, messy hair away from his ear and into it, just like he’d wanted, murmured in a thick an accent as he could manage— “you’re so sexy, Joseph. I can’t take it anymore. I need y—“
Joseph choked, suddenly, turning his face away and covering it with a hand, beet red underneath his fingers. Cute. “Caesar!” he shouted, panting hoarsely. “God…how are you so…”
“Don’t ask me to do things you can’t handle, Joseph,” Caesar told him simply, leaning back and undoing the front of Joseph’s pants. “Who knew you were so weak to something as simple as my accent, anyway?”
“It’s not just your accent,” Joseph frowned, half sitting up as Caesar tugged his pants down around his thighs. “It’s kind of just…you. Your entire self. Everything.”
Caesar’s face went hot again, and he stared fixedly at Joseph’s hip, fingers just barely touching the sharp protrusion of bone. No one had ever become close enough to him to feel that way about him. He’d never allowed it.
And now he had, entirely by accident, and he couldn’t even come to terms with how safe it actually felt.
“Is that so,” he said quietly, barely even believing it. “Well, that’s…quite the weakness you have, Joseph Joestar.”
Joseph smiled at him, eyes sparkling. “Yeah,” he agreed, leaning up to press his mouth to Caesar’s cheek. “Yeah, I’ve got it bad.”
Closing his eyes, Caesar leaned into the kiss and all the affection and warmth that came with it. He didn’t have to say me too, he didn’t, because he knew that Joseph already knew. He had betrayed his cool too many times at this point, let too much softness reach his cold and carefully cultivated surface, had broken too frequently. Now, he pushed his hand into Joseph’s boxers and groaned in unison with him, still grinding against his thigh.
His own cock was hard and uncomfortable in his tight pants, but he was so caught up in the feeling of friction that Joseph’s thigh was giving him that he didn’t really care. Joseph kept his hands firm to Caesar’s waist, almost guiding him as he moved. His wrist cramped from the awkward angle, so he bent forward to rest against Joseph’s chest, moaning once more as Joseph lifted his leg, pushing his ass slightly up into the air. Joseph whistled softly, continuing to fondle him.“There’s a view I’m not gonna get sick of,” he said, presumably ogling his ass, giving it another tight squeeze while Caesar keened. “God, I just wanna…” He cut himself off, and Caesar looked at him half curiously, stroking his cock.
“Just wanna what, Jojo?” he asked, purring into his ear.
Joseph’s ears were red. “Nothing,” he said, now tugging at the lapels of Caesar’s jacket. “Come on, lets get this thing off you.”
Caesar agreed wholeheartedly—with Joseph’s help he shrugged out of the jacket, and leaned himself back long enough to finally get his pants undone. He was so hard that he couldn’t help but stroke the length of his cock a few times, breathing heavily while he did, tipping his head back and keeping a blurry Joseph just in the corner of his eye. Joseph watched him with a hungry interest, stripping himself down to only his boxers, crawling forward on the bed towards where Caesar kneeled, now.
Also perching himself up onto his knees, Joseph bent his head down and pressed a kiss to Caesar’s half exposed collarbone, hands smoothing up his stomach and reaching underneath his shirt. It seemed that as much as Caesar had been hungry for the taste of his mouth, Joseph had been hungry for the taste of all of him—and as he slowly mouthed his way across Caesar’s chest, dipping down to his sternum, rolling his shirt up and tonguing over the hard muscle there. One hand anchored to his hip and one on his chest, Joseph licked softly over one of his nipples, which made Caesar arch back and hiss a little, fingers winding in thick brown hair. He ran his hand over the length of his cock a few more times before Joseph stilled him with a kiss.
“Caesar,” Joseph mumbled somewhere into his neck, working his pants and his underwear down around his thighs, around his knees, until they were finally off. He did the same with his own pants, stripping down until he was only in his boxers. “Caesar, lie back.”
Almost numb from arousal, Caesar obliged him, laying back on the bed and looking at Joseph with slightly glazed over eyes between his spread knees. His cock was hard and heavy against his stomach, and he wanted to touch it again but the way Joseph was looking at him, the way his big hands spread his thighs further open, the way he arched over him, lips parted—Caesar exhaled slowly, and prayed for strength.
Of course, Joseph Joestar had always been an all or nothing kind of guy. He was not the kind of person to look a challenge in the eye and hesitate or back away, and this was no different. One minute he had just been looking at it—Caesar had expected him to go about it the same way he usually did, for him—some teasing, some gentle kissing and sucking here and there, but that just wasn’t Joseph’s way. No, Joseph had decided it was best to sink his entire mouth around Caesar’s cock all at once, swallowing him down with determination on his face and Caesar clawing at the bedsheets.
“Jojo,” he choked with as much coherency as he could, trying desperately to pull himself together before he came right then and there.
Joseph hummed softly, staying still for a moment before he pulled away and licked over his lips thoughtfully. “Doesn’t taste too bad,” he mused, giving it a fond little stroke. “I was kind of expecting it to be worse, honestly.”
“These are very valuable thoughts for a later time, Joseph,” Caesar grumbled, pushing down on his head a little to indicate that he should keep going. “Don’t just suck down on it like that and then stop. Do you know what that does to a person?”
“What?” Joseph grinned at him from between his thighs. “Does it frustrate you?”
Okay, so now he was doing the teasing thing. Caesar clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth; he supposed he deserved it, from all the weeks he’d spent doing the same to Joseph, taking forever to suck his cock and drawing out the delay of his orgasms as long as he could because the way Joseph got when he just couldn’t take it anymore was too irresistible. Caesar now supposed that Joseph wanted him in a similar state, which wouldn’t be too hard. He was already halfway there.
“You’re really hard, Caesar,” Joseph continued to muse aloud, laying light little kisses all over Caesar’s impatient erection. “How long has it been since you got off?”
“Why are you asking me?” Caesar shifted back a little, propping himself up on his elbows so he could glare at Joseph more effectively. “You were there.”
“Was I?” Joseph gave him a perceptive look, eyes alight with glee. “I think I remember coming back to your room and the garbage was a little more full than it had been this morning, and if I recall, you don’t have a cold or anything, so naturally…”
“Alright, alright, fine,” Caesar snapped, twitching as Joseph started flicking his tongue over the head. “It was two nights ago. You were still training and I was…”
“Horny,” Joseph finished. “I could tell. I know everything.”
“Joseph, would you just…”
Once again, Joseph plunged his mouth over Caesar’s cock without ceremony, sucking hard and pulling the loudest moan he’d been able to draw from Caesar all night. Caesar hissed, arching, slinging a leg over Joseph’s shoulder in an effort to get his dick deeper into his mouth. He could take it, he was sure. He was all talk. It was time to make him walk the walk.
With his thigh anchored firmly over Joseph’s shoulder and a fingers coiled hard into the hair on the back of his head, he tried as hard as he could to keep that mouth where he wanted it, but it was useless—Joseph was stronger and more stubborn by the slimmest margin, so he pulled away with relative ease, smacking his lips and grinning like an idiot. Caesar swore.
“I wanna watch you sometime,” Joseph said, continuing the conversation as he flattened his tongue along the underside of Caesar’s cock. It pulsed, leaving Caesar to produce a half whine, laying his head back on the bed. It was hopeless. He was at Joseph’s mercy now, completely at the mercy of his pace. If he was going to take an hour to blow him, then that was just the fate that Caesar had resigned himself to.
“You wanna watch me get myself off,” Caesar said flatly, grabbing a pillow and putting it behind his head because fuck, if he was gonna be desperate, at least he was going to get comfortable.
“Yeah.” Joseph sucked softly at the tip. “Hunched over yourself, panting…wishing it were my sexy lips on your cock instead of your hands…”
Caesar sighed. He couldn’t believe how charming this was, to him. Joseph’s dirty talk was terrible, it was the absolute worst, but it was so earnest and well meaning that it was almost endearing. He hummed thoughtfully. It wasn’t a bad idea. But there would be no point in getting himself off thinking about Joseph sucking him off if he didn’t have the actual experience of it.
“Sometime,” he agreed, pushing his cock impatiently against Joseph’s face. “Take care of this first though, would you?”
Joseph cast him a smug look, and then slowly, sunk his mouth over his cock once more.
The feeling that shuddered through his body was pure bliss. Tension of every sort floated mindlessly out his body and Caesar sighed, relaxing back into the bed. He felt full in Joseph’s mouth, big and aching and ready to burst at every seam, but he still wanted this to last so he held it in and let Joseph do his thing.
In the interest of wanting to see what he looked like, Caesar propped himself back up, watching him and his stretched mouth intensely, eyes fixed on the corners of his lips. Fuck, he looked good. His dark hair stuck up at all angles, his jaw flexing, his eyes closed in reverence, like he was actually enjoying the moment for himself. God. Taking him further and further in, Joseph swallowed carefully until his nose brushed against Caesar’s stomach, groaning and panting with the effort.
“Breathe,” Caesar reminded him hoarsely, anchoring both hands on Joseph’s head, fingers twisting in his hair. He wanted to pull him even closer but he couldn’t, he was buried entirely in his mouth and god, it was taking everything he had just to keep still. He knew he was one twitch of his hips away from gagging him, and he couldn’t have that.
Joseph pulled back again, breathing hard. “How’s that?” he asked, only breaking away for a second before he dived back down, flattening his tongue against the underside of Caesar’s cock and sucking hard. Caesar arched, squirming his hips, wanting to push up up up.
“Good,” he said with a breath, tipping his head back but not letting Joseph out of his sight, not daring to miss a moment of that mouth stretching around his cock. “It’s—“He moaned again, loudly, as Joseph continued, massaging his thighs as he did so, pinching at his hips, grabbing as much of his ass as he could. Caesar felt weak. He was going to come, he couldn’t take it much longer—luckily, Joseph didn’t seem like he was in the mood for teasing him anymore; he moved with fervor, hungrily sucking him down his throat, breathing hard through his nose. Caesar was going to come, he was dizzy, he started to feel like he was floating—the buzz of an approaching orgasm filled him all the way to his fingertips.
“Joseph,” he choked, gripping and pulling his hair so hard that he was surprised there were no complaints. And that was it, he couldn’t take it anymore, he was wound too closely, too close to the edge—he pushed forward with his hips, shoving his cock up into Joseph’s mouth. He cried out and Joseph choked a little but took him, hands firm on his waist as he moved, now unable to stop himself from doing so.
More cursing, all in Italian, all jumbled and disconnected and incoherent, not that Joseph could understand him anyway. His breath hitched as everything swelled, and he thrust up once more and came, more loudly and shamelessly than he probably would have liked.
In the moments that his awareness hadn’t fully returned, he felt himself lowering back down, the haze of orgasm washing solidly over him. He exhaled quickly, chest heaving, head flopped back onto the bed. Joseph giggled ominously, poking his thigh.
“Caesar. Hey, Caesar.”
With some effort, Caesar sat himself up, head still swimming. He came all the way forward, resting his head on Joseph’s shoulder, leaning bonelessly against him. “What, Jojo?” he murmured, kissing his shoulder.
“I swallowed it,” he said, very proudly. “Did you notice?”
“Hmm? You didn’t have to.” Caesar felt very tired, content.
“You always do, though.”
“Yeah,” Caesar shrugged. “Well, I like how it tastes.”
Joseph giggled again. “You’re gross.”
He punched him in the arm, lightly. “Shut up,” he said. “So are you.”
The conversation reminded Caesar, as sated as he was, that he was very much interested in tasting himself on Joseph’s lips, so he pulled his head down to meet his mouth to do just that. He kissed him softly, licking his tongue over sticky and slightly swollen lips, humming with content.
They kissed like that for a while, slowly and without urgency. It became apparent before too long, however, that Joseph was still very much hard and in need of relief, which became more and more evident as his loving murmurs became more whine than anything else. Caesar chuckled lowly, and reached for the shape of his cock straining against his underwear. It was, as always, thick and heavy in his hand, and even through the fabric he could feel it’s heat—Joseph panted against his nose, not quite begging him but almost.
“What would you like me to do, Jojo?” he purred to him, nipping teasingly at his neck. “Return the favor?”
He heard Joseph gulp, and then Joseph said “yes please” in a weak voice—and so Caesar did.
It didn’t take him long at all, he was already so worked up that Caesar barely even had time to get into it before he was moaning and bucking into his mouth. Caesar groaned with the feeling and the taste of everything filling his mouth, he panted around Joseph’s heavy cock, he swallowed every last bit of it that he could. When he was finished, Joseph flopped back onto the bed with a heavy thump, shaking the pictures hanging on the wall above the headboard. Caesar wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand, and looked at him.
Just looked at him.
How had he even wound up here? How had he wound up like this, licking come off his lips, entranced by the rise and fall of Joseph’s broad chest, the small rivulets of sweat tracing lines down his big forearms—how had something this good managed to find its way to him in such a short span of time, that was the question swimming around in his head, amidst everything else. His swelling love for him. His fear that, sooner rather than later, he would lose him.
Joseph patted the bed, and broke his derailing train of thought. “Caesar,” he said. “Stop spacing out. Come here.”
Numbly, Caesar did so. He crawled forward and tucked his head quietly into Joseph’s shoulder, burrowing into his side. He could hear his heartbeat.
He wanted to say so many things to him, but there was so much that his mind couldn’t settle on just one thing, so he stayed quiet. They were all such big feelings anyway, such huge and grandiose concepts that he hadn’t even begun to figure out how to translate into words just yet—he put his arm across Joseph’s chest and pulled him close, aching.
“Awww,” Joseph said in a low voice, giving his hair a fond ruffle. “So cuddly.”
“Shut up,” Caesar said, voice muffled. Joseph only laughed.
Silence fell over them, but it was warm, comfortable—that was, until, Joseph got tired of being quiet and rolled over onto Caesar’s stomach and then off him again, to his other side, laughing and hooking both arm and leg around him until he was effectively trapped—Caesar protested very halfheartedly, wrenching himself out of his grip only to be put in what could only be described as a fond headlock, Joseph laughing all the while. They carried on this way for quite a while, wrestling each other across the bed until they tired themselves out and collapsed again, noses not inches apart. Just breathing, looking at each other.
There were so many things that Caesar wanted to say. He almost wished Joseph would pull his little trick on him, something like hehe, Caesar, next you’re going to say ‘I love you, Jojo,’ right?? Right, Caesar?
But he didn’t. He just smiled at him, big and sappy and stupid, his expression blissful. Maybe he already knew anyway, maybe he didn’t need Caesar to say anything.
“Jojo,” Caesar started, tracing fingers over his jaw. Joseph bumped his nose, pushed slightly into his touch.
“Yeah? Caesar?”
There was a pause, in which Caesar felt absolutely everything. He smiled, just barely, cupping Joseph’s face. Finally, finally after all the chaos, this was the relaxing day he’d wanted. His body still ached from battle, there were cuts and bruises over his arms and Joseph’s, but his face—god, his face, it was so handsome, so expressive—as much as he had argued with him about the mask's importance, about the good it was doing him, he was glad to see it gone. This felt like a safe enough thing to tell him, so he did.
“I’m glad to see this handsome face again,” he said, quiet, soft.
Joseph chuckled. “I knew it,” he said. “You can’t hide anything from me, Caesar!”
Tipping his chin up, Caesar kissed his chin, his jaw, his cheekbone, his nose, the corner of his mouth, the full of his lips. “I wouldn’t want to,” he said, and meant it. “I wouldn’t want to.”