Chapter Text
“Quando finisce la partita il re ed il pedone finiscono nella stessa scatola"
Sawdust was never a pleasant scent in his memory.
Throughout the years of his studying under his master, he became privy to certain facets of information both known and unknown to the general population. For instance, he understood the importance of synapses in the brain and the connections to the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions of the nervous system. While not particularly intriguing to his primary objectives, his coach could describe the topics in such a fashion that made his use of abilities incredibly more effective. After all, there was much more to that of hamon than just breathing and sunshine.
He also knew that there was a term called “olfactory memory” wherein a smell could elicit a visceral response in the form of a memory that should have faded by the vast period of time having spent abandoned.
Sawdust would remind him of his father, and his father would always remind him that they Italians had a proverb of which he would be wise to retain.
“When you finish the game, the king and pawn end up in the same box.”
His father’s voice has long since escaped his memory, but he could still hear the way that block pane would graft against the wood like a metronome to his anecdotes; could still see the way that those brown eyes as hard as mahogany would stare straight through him as he would say-
“We all meet the same end.”
He loathed that kind of mentality. And due to the amount of supporting evidence that justified the existence of that claim, he hated it with an absolute conviction. What was supposed to be the point in living then?
Although, he won’t deny that there wasn’t a use to his father’s parting sentiment. Spite makes a fair motivation as any, and it kept him warm while cast in the shadow of his father’s sudden absence. Kept him full as he huddled to himself for one more night, hollow and alone as the dark alley that consumed him.
Nothing in life was fair, but at least he could take comfort in the notion that despite his poor judgement and bad decisions and cruel morals, that his wrong path would bring him to the exact same end as that of the morally competent and financially upright. There is nothing to bring to a grave but the vessel.
He is not one to dedicate a significant amount of time to considering his own mortality, or perhaps rather the specifics of what may befall him. He is by no means an incessant optimist, though he struggles to recall a decent comparison for confirmation, but relentless pessimism is also an inadequate classification. He holds himself somewhere in the realm of realistic: he understands that he will not live forever, but he prefers to remain ignorant to the observation that every generation of his family name had fallen to the immortal or the divine.
Though from what he’s heard, he’s gathered that Joseph’s grandfather had not the happy ending he initially thought. The bitter pieces of him kept shackled to the past are at least able to find some solace in that it wasn’t only his family made to suffer.
His conscience deliberates on whether that’s an appropriate rationalization to make, but he’s not too concerned with the findings.
However, his initially hard-set opinion had begun to waver shortly after figuring out that during their first encounter with the newly awakened Pillar Men, Joseph’s intention wasn’t one of fleeing and leaving Speedwagon and himself to whatever end they met. Maybe he didn’t go about it in the most honorable of manners, but they were still able to walk away and perhaps a little wiser, too.
He had known Joseph for all of a few hours at the very most, and despite the radically different sides he had shown that night, Caesar still wasn’t quite sure what possessed him to carry Joseph away from those catacombs. But of that, he was less begrudging to learn.
His approach to creating and the subsequent maintaining of relationships was coarse at best. Not that he really had a necessity in the first place, being the eldest of five children under a single parent was taxing enough as it was, but he certainly lacked tact in the way of being a friend at all.
The only way to tackle an obstacle was through, according to his instincts of course. He could give a lecture on the importance of remaining level-headed while in a high-pressure situation, but there would be a clear dissonance between what he said and what he would do given a live demonstration.
In his experience, people were not obstacles. Earning the favor of the many is not a problem that he shares with the unconfident, so he lives his life in the take-it-or-leave-it method.
Well, until someone decided to bite and, boy, was he an obstacle.
It was definitely grating in the beginning stages. There were too many idiosyncrasies between the two of them that could make enemies of oil and water. Their frequencies were all wrong, and even the currents of their hamon were on opposite wavelengths.
And yet, their coordination was oftentimes unparalleled. They had the potential for such great synchronism, but the unfortunate reality was that they could also fall victim to word traps and mind games if their overall goals were misaligned.
And Joseph was a phenomenon to him.
Joseph with his wild ideas and steady voice, Joseph with his loud presence and unwavering beliefs, Joseph with his hasty taunts and lack of hesitation when making a decision that he knows to be right.
Though one came to him much easier than the other, Caesar understood that there was an overlap between handling a situation correctly or doing so ethically. His crime record stopped short of murder for that reason, anyway. There were other ways of getting what he wanted before it came to killing for it in his opinion.
True to form, Joseph had an alternative to everything. While some could be incriminating (he still cannot fathom why Joseph brought up the dress incident when he was over in Mexico of all things. If for no other reason than to be proud of his own ingenuity, Caesar will never know), Joseph was clever in a great many ways. No matter what cards life would deal him, it seemed like Joseph always knew how to play them.
Caesar couldn’t be sure if mortality was even a possibility considered on Joseph’s behalf. There were always exceptions to every rule, right? Perhaps, he wondered idly in the same vein of those who contemplate space, his new companion would be the first.
“It’s about time that I taught you the easiest way to steal a loaf of bread.”
The sun was warm against his skin despite the brisk winds that picked up from off the coastline. After pushing his hair back into place again, he took note that it was still mid-morning on the mainland with enough time remaining before the next canal boat departs for Air Supplena.
All else considered, he should be grateful to have completed their lengthy errands in a more than timely manner (also provided his company that made it more comparable to baby-sitting) so that they would have enough time to return to their master for further instruction.
However.
There was something in the way that Joseph kept tugging at the collar of his shirt that could only make him wonder either if Joseph developed a new nervous tick or if it was tight enough to bother the ring in his throat.
It was decided then that stopping by the cafe down the road for some coffee wouldn’t hurt the timetables too severely.
After ordering their drinks and spending enough time watching Joseph attempt to make himself appear suspicious over the “generous” deed of being granted freedom from his respirator in order to consume said drink, Caesar couldn’t help but see the resemblance in how he looked at Mr. Speedwagon the same way for the first time reflected on Joseph’s face.
With his jaw in one hand and visions of his not so distant past delinquency in the other, he settled for the first thing that came to his mind.
The corner of Joseph’s mouth twitches, winding up as if his next response was one he didn’t think that he had to prepare for but here he was faced with the opportunity anyway. Caesar could already hear the way that Joseph had breathed the first incredulous “wh-” before he changed gears and settled on a different tactic: one of humoring Caesar as if he wanted to see just how far he would take what had to be a joke.
“You know, I was really beginning to wonder when you would finally teach me. It seems like that should have been taught when your ‘lessons’ were still in the single digits.”
Caesar, unfortunately, rose to the unvoiced accusation, “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know!” Joseph sits back in his chair, arms and legs folded but a grin blooming on his face all the same, “You tell me, Master Thief.”
Joseph has the archetype of a gambler, and it’s made obvious by his demeanor when he bluffs. Granted that Caesar doesn’t actually know whether or not he’s currently bluffing, but he’s grown sensitive to certain cues. Does Joseph actually know about the skill set he acquired through less-than-noble means for survival-based choices? Or is he feigning the assumption in hopes that Caesar will inadvertently relinquish the exact information that would retroactively make Joseph correct? He’s so intentionally hard to read at times that it infuriates him.
So he settles for the safe route instead, “And here you are- still laughing at your own jokes.”
They both know that Caesar isn’t convinced that the silent tremors in Joseph’s shoulders are in response to his own humor, and Joseph’s poker grin only widens as Caesar masks his alarm as frustration when he realizes that Joseph had gotten under his skin once more.
“I have to since you don't appreciate their worth," Joseph sniffs. Too vague to be a more heated retort.
No, Caesar then decides. Joseph doesn’t know. A corner of his mind snips derisively, it’s just another game to him anyway.
Despite the brief consideration of dropping the whole stunt altogether, Caesar followed through with a few tools of the trade that he was certain Joseph would have enough sense to grasp. He was more than capable when it came to unconventional ideas and the counter-intuitive methods that paired well with them.
Caesar wasn’t sure if it were happenstance or fate when they came across a few underprivileged children attempting to do the same for more intrinsic reasons. Hunger is a powerful but cruel mistress. Thankfully (or perhaps coincidentally?), his and Joseph’s willingness to help the less fortunate was stronger- and especially so for starving children no older than the turn of the decade.
They ended up performing the exact opposite, choosing to instead purchase the bread among a few other auxiliaries such as blankets and gloves to keep them warm. Conscious ideation or otherwise, Caesar wanted to be a better influence than the role models he was provided with at that age.
After all, he was there not that long ago, and while still prideful at the length he's gone to better himself, he's not arrogant enough to forget where he used to be.