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The close, male friendship that he had been having was something very refreshing and foreign all in one. Joseph certainly hadn’t felt much like it in a good while.
He can’t say he expected to have befriended him in particular. A stern yet passionate seeming fortune teller who he had humored in a reading and had nailed him to a T, and been able to explain to him the strange, supernatural vines that had made themselves known in his life was not Joseph’s first choice for friendship. He had pegged Avdol as too stiff, someone who couldn’t loosen up enough to really talk to. At least that was his first impression based on his harsh brow and intense gaze.
But then they began to talk. As it turned out, that intense resting face gave way to an easy smile with a bit of conversation and a charmingly polite young man. And when he had read him his fortune, that face gained a small smirk at Joseph’s shock, and a glimmer in his eyes every time he managed to prove the man wrong about the merits of tarot readings.
Joseph found himself weirdly disarmed. In a weird way, they were equal. Even though Avdol generally clung to calling him “Mr. Joestar” with his weird ideas of propriety and respect, they were more or less equal. Avdol was, despite his respect, sturdy enough to not be intimidated by the empire and fortune Joseph had built up over the years. Joseph’s relative immaturity for his age and Avdol’s maturity for his made them meet perfectly in mindset, mentally landing somewhere where usually about 40 year old men found themselves.
It would have been a casual relationship were it not for the way that the strange supernatural, the so called ‘Stands’ had drawn them into a closer friendship and led their professional lives to intertwine. Speedwagon Foundation research would lead them to the same place, followed by an invitation out after whatever it was they had to do, followed by the disarming young man getting Joseph to spill more than he did to the rich city slickers he spent his days with.
“Obviously I love him to death, I’ve known the kid for 50 years now”.
“Kid?”
“Whatever, you know what I mean. But he’s just busy nowadays. And anyway, Smokey is more like a cousin sometimes then a friend. He’s too close to all that stuff. I can’t get a fresh set of eyes on him. And then everyone else is just kind of a dick. That’s what being rich gets you”.
“Quite the travesty”.
Joseph glared at Avdol, but it held no real vitriol. He liked it, the other’s ability to not buy into his biased sort of storytelling. It was probably one of his greater defects as far as relaying information went. “Anyway, that’s why we always end up like this”, Joseph raised up the pint of Guinness he had been housing. He wouldn’t usually go for beer, but they had been at a hotel bar in Dublin.
“I see. Perhaps it really just is lonely at the top”, Avdol acknowledged, sipping his virgin cocktail through a small straw. He didn’t really keep halal, he had once explained, but habitually he just didn’t really see the appeal of drinking.
“Tell me about it. Real estate is like those, ah, shark cage experiences. But, not with the cage. So just being surrounded by sharks”.
“How about Foundation affairs?”
“I mean, people there are better for sure. It’s not really mine, though. I own a fair portion of the company, sure, but I was never really cut out to manage it, so all that is dealt with by other people… I guess they can sense that it’s not really mine. Speedwagon passed down that a bit but that's just classic nepotism”.
“So if your career aspects are, in all directions, so passion-less for you now, what did you want to do?” Avdol asked finally, raising one of those imposing eyebrows.
Joseph thought about it for a second. “For a bit, I wanted to be a pilot”.
The look Avdol gave him was priceless, an incredulous and infinitely amused sparkle in those large amber eyes. “...Really?”
“Yeah, look, I know I’ve told you the plane stories but I did think they were cool. Plus that’s what my dad did. I don’t know, I guess I never thought about it past the age of like 15”. He lost general drive for a specific ‘career’ around that time. His family was small, yes, but absolutely loaded. He had 3 different fortunes backing whatever he did, and spending time with his elderly family seemed like the best path. Then he had to save the world. And he hadn’t really thought of much there, except for actually succeeding on his mission. Death seemed inevitable.
And yet.
“You’re here now, though”, Avdol pointed out, snapping him out of his thoughts. “With a prosperous career”.
“Yeah, I guess I am. But enough about me. It’s always just me pouring out my heart to you. Not tonight. I’m not drinking anymore than this right here”, Joseph raised his glass, the dark liquid sloshing at its halfway point. “Maybe I’ll even get your little juice or whatever”.
“It’s a mojito”, Avdol said dryly. “I wouldn’t usually drink anything like this, but I feel silly going to a bar and just drinking water”. Then he looked at Joseph’s drink. “I’ve never had Guinness. Would you mind?”
Joseph slid the drink over to him. “Only if I can try yours”.
They exchange drinks. Avdol sips the Guinness rather slowly. The face he makes is contemplative. “It’s… strange. I keep expecting it to be sweet”. He slid it back over to Joseph.
Joseph drank the mojito. “I could say the same about yours. What’s the point of a cocktail without sugar?”
“I prefer it like this”, his companion answered simply, in that beautiful baritone of his. Getting his own drink back, he stuck his tongue out, licking the salt rim in a way that was rather unintentionally sensual.
Oh, yes, that was the other thing that Joseph hadn’t had in a while. The lingering attraction of their friendship. It wasn’t quite will they, won’t they, because it never really was like that with men. It was more just like an impossible to pin down energy that sometimes invaded their talks. And that was what made it all so hard.
Joseph forced himself to look away from the slow movement of the other’s tongue back to his face. He cleared his throat, awkward. “Pretty sure I asked you about what you had wanted to be. Or were you some kind of medium from birth?”
“Hah”, Avdol’s tongue retracted back behind his beautiful lips. “Let me think. My Stand manifesting itself did make me interested in the supernatural in a certain capacity I suppose. But when I was a child, Scooby-Doo started sometime during my childhood”.
Joseph remembered that show. Or, he remembered scoffing at it and its campy 60s aesthetics. It had been too infantile for even Holly to enjoy, already an adult woman when it began. It was a rare moment where he was keenly reminded of the great disparity in their ages and the thought brought a twinge of self-disgust to his stomach.
“I was also rather partial to Sherlock Holmes stories. I read many of them when I was a boy. So, I wanted to be a detective for a while, if only to disprove the oddities I saw. Eventually, I came to embrace them”.
Joseph took a swig of his drink again, smirking as he put it down. “Sherlock, huh? That’s adorable”. He wasn’t drunk, so he didn’t really know why he would say such a thing.
Avdol rolled his eyes, but something about his face was fond. They lapsed into calm silence, side by side in the cozy atmosphere. Joseph looked forward at the mahogany shelves stacked with liquor. He couldn’t turn to anything heavier, he’d wind up making more of a fool of himself than he usually did in front of Avdol.
It wasn’t that Joseph never felt attraction to people beside his wife. He felt it often, taking notice of long legs in tight skirts, of silky hair, of dress shirt buttons that strained against chiseled abdominals. He had never really stopped noticing, and was pretty sure Suzie didn’t either. She was like him in that way, a fun-loving type who wouldn’t stop seeing the beauty of the world just because of her old ‘ball and chain’. It was more so that it had been something like eons since he’d noticed those things in a man he was actually friends with. He avoided the feelings with men in general, and rarely made the acquaintance of someone so… different.
Because Avdol was different. He was something completely foreign to Joseph’s upper echelon comrades. It wasn’t just his age or nationality, it was everything. From his unconventional trade and beliefs, to his strong personality and his intriguing fashion sense. Joseph still couldn’t quite make sense of how his ears kept up that strange earring/necklace combo.
Avdol was kind of like warming your hands on a fire on a windy night. It hadn’t been unbearably cold, but how nice it felt to get close to a steady flame. How much ice that warmth managed to thaw from your veins, ice you hadn’t noticed.
He was something very unique, wrapped up in bundles of loose clothing and dragging a faint smell of incense and smoke wherever he went.
“I think I will retreat to the room now”, Avdol said, breaking the silence as he finished the last of his drink.
“Now? I thought we were gonna eat”, Joseph didn’t want the night to end. He didn’t want to be left alone in the cold, with his ringing thoughts that came to haunt him on hotel nights.
“I might order food up to the room”, Avdol stood up. “I can pay for it myself, don’t worry”.
“I’ll go with you”, he stood up quickly after.
Avdol seemed caught off guard by the suggestion. “I thought you wanted to enjoy the bar?”
Joseph shook his head. “No, like I said, I’m done drinking for the night. I'll pay down here and meet you, alright?”
With a nod, he was off and disappearing into the hallway out. As sat finishing his drink, Joseph was stricken with a familiar ringing question in his head he had on weird hotel nights.
What the hell is your endgame with all this, Joestar?
He found he couldn't really answer that.
— — — — —
By the time Joseph was up and in the hotel room, he could hear the shower running in the bathroom. He called out into the room, “I’m back! Just so you don’t walk out… au naturel without realizing it”.
The shower turned off. He heard a chuckle from inside the bathroom. “I was just finishing up, thanks”.
Joseph took the chance to change into his own pajamas. It felt nice to peel away his white gloves, freeing his nonprosthetic hand of the cloth. He was buttoning up his pajama shirt when he heard the bathroom door open.
“Already changing?” Avdol asked, exiting the bathroom. His hair was free of its usual style, but still tied back behind his head as he hadn’t been washing it, falling on his shoulders in coils. It was voluminous but still with some length to it. Joseph had seen it like that often enough, in their few trips working side by side. It still caught him a bit off guard every time. Beside that, he wore a warm looking cardigan over a cotton shirt.
“I showered earlier”, Joseph said, finishing the buttons on his shirt. But not without noticing the way that Avdol’s gaze had to flicker back up to his face after momentary distraction.
The look he gave was skeptical.
“Look, it’s fine!”.
Avdol chuckled, sitting on his own bed. “Have you thought about what to get?”
“Oh, right”, Joseph picked up the menu. He kicked his feet up on the bed as he began to look through the options. “I might try my luck with their shepherd's pie. My grandma used to make it for me, it was the only dish she wouldn’t let anyone help with”.
“Hm. I think I will have their stew. And just water to drink”.
While they waited for their food to come up, they sat with the television on. There was something nostalgic about the BBC channel, even though there hadn’t been such a thing as television back when Joseph lived in England. How long it had been. His accent had fully shifted over to Yank, especially in the years since Erina and Speedwagon had died.
When the attendant knocked, Joseph answered the door with a charming smile. He walked back in, setting both plates on the small table. “Ah, shit”, he said to no one in particular. “They didn’t bring a bottle opener for the coke”. Projecting a small amount of Hamon, he popped off the cap himself. Some coke fizzed out. He didn’t have the same control over it as he used to.
Avdol stood up and walked over to the circular table, sitting in one of the two chairs. “Good thing you have your… trick”.
“Yup”, Joseph sat across from him. “I ever tell you that I used that trick on a cop back in New York? Broke his finger and everything”.
“Yes, you have”, Avdol lightly blew on his soup.
“Yeah… if my mom knew I had let go so much, she’d be furious”.
“She’s still alive, isn’t she?”
“I guess”, Joseph shrugged, using his fork to get a piece of the pie. “I don’t check in with her very often. I just haven’t wanted to use it these last few years. Only sometimes when I get hurt. And for meaningless day to day things”. He raised the open coke bottle as an example.
“It’s an interesting discipline from what you’ve told me”.
“Maybe, but I just haven’t felt like making use of it since back then, y’know? For a while after everything went down, I just wanted to be as normal as I could bear to be. It worked for a bit”.
“Until…?”
“Life gets in the way, as they say”.
Avdol nodded thoughtfully, continuing to eat/drink his stew. He was good for this sort of thing, these mature conversations. It was easy to open up to him because he was open and warm in a reserved way that left the other person to fill the silence.
It was probably what made him a good fortune teller. People will tell you enough on their own to let the cards do the rest.
He knew about the situation with the pillarmen, but only vaguely. Joseph had told him on a late night plane ride coast to coast. The old man obviously couldn't get too emotional about it, but he found himself letting details slip that he normally wouldn't in his jetlagged state.
After a while of small talk between eating, Joseph stood up and sat on his bed. Avdol followed, walking over to his own bed. For reasons he couldn’t quite understand, Joseph patted the space next to him. Avdol raised an eyebrow but sat down obediently nonetheless. He placed his hands in his lap, looking at Joseph expectantly.
Joseph needed to think of something to say that would clear the air, fast. “Hotels are just so quiet, aren’t they?”
“It depends”.
“Oh? What kind of hotels do you frequent when not working, Mohammed?” he nudged the other with a small smirk.
Avdol rolled his eyes again, a smile growing on his own face. “Most of what I do in life is work, Mr. Joestar”.
“Joseph.”
“What?”
“Call me Joseph. Mr Joestar makes me feel old, you know?”
He nodded slowly. “Alright then. Joseph”. The name wouldn’t usually sound so… close. But the lights were just dim enough and Avdol’s gaze was like honey on him.
Joseph cleared his throat. “So, you really are that consumed by work? No quick nights in hotels just for yourself? You can be honest with me”.
“I didn’t exactly say that”. His tone was heady, dipped in very mild implication.
Joseph always had his suspicions about Avdol. Something about his chosen profession, something that Joseph had always associated with sensual orientalist stereotype women with mysterious prophecies and exposed midriffs. It could be his clothes, large jewelry and flowing frame that was probably normal for his culture but to Joseph’s buttoned up standards, seemed just a touch too girlish. Or maybe it was something else entirely, beyond the limits of lifestyle or clothing. Stand users attracted other stand users. Maybe faggots attracted other faggots(or half-faggots, or whatever it was he could be considered).
Either way, it was something that Joseph always kept in the back of his mind. Knowing his friend was from a country where it was illegal, in a world that already heavily frowned upon such a thing, he never had the guts to come out and ask. He didn’t want it to seem like he was judging Avdol, or worse, offend him if he was wrong.
“I’ve made quite a few stops in Turkey, actually”, Avdol continued, moving some of his dense hair out of his face. It was quite a look, the loose hair. Elegant and voluminous. It was a treat to witness every time. “The baths are nice”.
The hints couldn’t be clearer. It was basically the same as a girl leaning forward, squishing together her breasts with her arms, and batting her eyelashes.
Joseph shifted to his side to grab Avdol by the face and pull him into a kiss. He found his advances returned after only a second of hesitation. Avdol melted into the touch. He was pliant and warm under the touch, something that should be surprising but made sense when one remembered that he was a young man and not a stone wall.
The kiss was good. Great, even. Joseph pushed his lips open with his tongue and from there they were even more in business.
But then the overwhelming wrongness began to set in. It crawled throughout Joseph’s body like a ghostly chill that prevented him from acting on the arousal that also crawled throughout his body. He very lightly pushed Avdol away, and they split very easily from there.
Avdol stared at him expectantly, blinking slowly. But then the stillness stretched on a second too long and he pulled back, mortification overtaking his face. “I’m so sorry, Mr Joestar, I don’t know what-”
“No, no”, Joseph shook his head, putting his hand on Avdol’s knee. “It’s not your fault. I initiated it. I just… can’t. It feels like a betrayal”.
“I understand”, Avdol nodded slowly, swallowing.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Of course”. His voice was so very quiet. Almost like he was crawling in on himself.
“I know I’m god awful for this but… it’s not because of Suzie that it feels like a betrayal”.
Avdol looked at him, features pinching in confusion. “What?”
“I used to have… this friend. The best friend I ever had. We used to mess around, you know? I only knew him for about a month, actually. But… he died when it all happened. And ever since then, I just feel weird, I guess. About all this”.
“I see”, he looked out the window. His face wasn’t overtly sad but there was an unusually meek quality to it. It made Joseph’s heart clench. Someone so strong, now looking so nervous.
“Plus, I’d hate to be one of those married jackasses people talk about. So…”. He searched for an explanation.
A piece of me died that day.
You deserve better.
I could have sex with you, if only I got drunker and more self loathing than I already am. But you’d hate it.
And finally:
I don’t think I can ever truly allow another man to touch me in that way.
Instead, Joseph put his hand on Avdol’s cheek again, turning his face so that they were looking at each other. He took in pretty lips, his twin markings. He observed the fact that besides that, his skin was smooth and soft. Most of all, he took in Avdol’s eyes. His large eyes looked at Joseph with a slightly hurt youthfulness that Joseph recognized from his own life, the kind of mild form of heartbreak you get from breakups and rejections. He recognized the way that Avdol seemed drawn to his own comforting age and experience, the kind of older guy whose arms could embrace you and make you feel safe but crack jokes and feel within your reach. The kind of guy Joseph didn’t really feel like.
And suddenly, he did feel like an older guy. But the gross kind, who saw nice young things like Avdol and that woman from Japan and couldn’t control his baser urges. The kind who was not the wise figure that Avdol seemed attracted to or deserved. The kind who, even if he could be with a man like that, would wind up dragging Avdol into a mucky affair riddled with shame and secrets that the man had probably seen more than enough of in his life.
So instead of all those other explanations, Joseph just stroked Avdol’s cheek with his thumb in a comforting manner while trying to smile. “It wouldn’t be right”.
“Yes, I know”.
Joseph looked at his queen bed. He moved his legs to lay down, leaning against the bedframe. Lowering the blanket, he beckoned Avdol. “Here. You promised me tonight you’d tell me something about yourself, instead. I wanna hear about these infamous Turkey trips.”
Avdol laughed, seemingly beginning to relax again. He laid down besides Joseph in the available space. It was still probably a touch too intimate for a married man and his male companion, but that was fine. This was fine. It was manageable, at least. Joseph opened his mouth to say something but when he turned his head to look at the other, he found Avdol’s eyes already starting to flutter shut.
Smiling, he reached over to the bedside table to turn the lights off and take off his prosthetic arm. Staring up at the ceiling, the familiar emptiness crawled into his heart. He sighed. It seemed that was a fate he was resigned to, perhaps one all Joestars were fated to.