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The abandoned church was nothing if not a God sent.
During these long stretches of race, shelter was hard to come by. It hadn't been much of an issue back when Johnny and Gyro were in the desert. They used to be able to go days without having to pitch a tent, taking advantage of the natural rock formations to escape the elements and heat. Inns were more common at that point in the race as well, but after Sugar Mountain, it seemed like it was just going to be empty fields for the next 780 kilometers till they reached the next checkpoint.
The fields might not have been a problem if autumn wasn't easing into winter. The thick layers of snow made setting up their tents, a task that used to take them no more than ten minutes, an hour-long ritual, but that wasn't the worst part. While the snow was undoubtedly annoying it at least negated the possibility of their horses running through poisonous plants or getting attacked by snakes.
The wind on the other hand, made riding nearly impossible.
Forget Valentine, the wind was their worst enemy at this point. If it was front facing, it made their horses agitated beyond belief, causing them to act out or stop moving all together. The pair had a mutual agreement that if wind was blowing towards them in any way, they would have to stop and wait until it changed direction. Begrudgingly of course, there was always a few minutes where they tried to push through before the blast of cold air directed at their faces and the anxious sways of their horses became unbearable.
In times like these the easiest way to wait out the wind was by digging a hole. The snow was cold against their bodies but it was better than being exposed to the -30°C squalls. However, sometimes, Johnny and Gyro would get lucky and would find a vacant cottage to stay in. It's not like the owner would be making use of it at this time of year anyway.
Today though, it seemed that Lady Luck was in a really good mood.
If Gyro wasn't paying attention he would have missed the church completely. Being built mostly with white stone, it camouflaged almost perfectly against the snow, but the red awning stood out like a sore thumb. That flash of red was all Gyro needed to see before veering Valkyrie towards it. The wind had been steadily picking up for the last hour and having dealt with this weather for what feels like forever at this point, Gyro could tell it was only going to get worse. If they passed up this opportunity they'd probably be digging a hole in two hours time. The odds of finding another abandoned church down the road were slim to none.
Johnny follows Gyro without protest. There wasn't much he could say, his teeth were chattering so loud he could barely hear himself think.
The wooden planks barring up the church are so flimsy they seem more like a decoration than an attempt to keep people out. Gyro lazily throws his steel ball at the wood, snapping it in half upon impact. He hastily dismounts Valkyrie, body shivering as he walks to the door.
“If anyone's here, get out now,” Gyro says gruffly, pushing open the church entrance.
Luckily there’s no answer.
He leads Valkyrie and Slow Dancer inside, careful as to not hit their heads on the door frame. Once inside, he pushes the door closed, locking it with the latch that had fortunately not been fastened correctly the last time the church was in use.
Johnny eyes the wooden flooring. For the past few days he had had the luxury of falling into soft snow whenever he wanted to dismount Slow Dancer. It was a nice change of pace from the gravelly terrain that he had to deal with in the Rockies. This was the worst though, the thought of getting a splinter or ripping his pants on the wood makes him cringe. At least in the Rockies he was usually able to find a patch of grass, falling on wood was just gonna hurt. He winces at the thought.
“Do you want help getting down?” Gyro asks as he takes off Valkyrie’s fly mask, clearly having seen Johnny hesitate. It's not often that Gyro offers his assistance like this. He knows Johnny likes to do things himself when it comes to mounting and dismounting Slow Dancer, even in times like these when Johnny will just hurt himself more than he has to.
But much to Gyro’s surprise Johnny nods.
Gyro reaches his arms out as Johnny pushes off Slow Dancer. He catches him with a huff.
“Thanks darlin,” Johnny mumbles.
“No problem,” Gyro leans over and places a chaste kiss on Johnny’s cheek before setting him down in one of the pews.
The church is relatively big for being in the middle of nowhere. The eight rows of pews lead up to a well decorated altar, consisting of not one, but two statues of the Virgin Mary. Between them, a crucifix made of wood with a stone statue of Jesus Christ. There's still a few candles on the altar and an abandoned bible opened on pages 21 and 22 of John 20. Whoever abandoned this church must have done it in a rush but Gyro isn't complaining if it means they won’t have to stay in the dark all night. He takes the candles.
He continues to inspect the area, looking for any type of holes in the foundation, or worse a stand user, but thanks to the church’s walls being built mostly out of stone the interior doesn't seem to have suffered too much after being abandoned. After making sure that there is no way the roof and walls will magically collapse, Gyro takes off his coat. The church wasn't hot by any means but without the wind, he was getting warm with all of his layers on.
Johnny takes his coat off as well. As he does he accidentally makes eye contact with the statue of Jesus hanging above the altar. The statue is screaming out in agony, its face contorted to the left. It's one of the more unsettling depictions of Jesus that Johnny has seen. It makes him a bit nervous.
“Light these while I prepare the girls for bed.” Gyro says, making his way towards Johnny.
Lighting candles on a pew probably isn't the best idea but Johnny is willing to take that chance if it means not having to squint his way through the dark. He grabs the candles from Gyro’s hand as he rummages through his bag, pulling out a crushed box of matches. Johnny slides one out, striking it a few times against the side of the box, before carefully bringing the lit match to each wick.
Having prepared the horses for bed many times, Gyro is done within minutes. At the beginning of the race he wasn't so good at getting Slow Dancer to calm down enough to take off her saddle, but now she’s so used to it that she doesn’t even whine anymore. It also helps that they are exhausted, the horses are less likely to give Gyro a hard time if they are already half asleep. He pats their snouts, giving them each a kiss, before getting up to let them sleep for the night.
Gyro takes a seat beside Johnny on the pew. Pretending to yawn, he reaches his arm over Johnny’s head, resting his hand on the younger man’s shoulder. He squeezes it a bit, pulling Johnny closer to his side.
If Johnny was paying attention to Gyro’s antics, he didn't let on, and Gyro knows for a fact that he would have rolled his eyes at the cliche fake yawn if he noticed Gyro doing it. His gaze was transfixed on the sculpture hanging from the crucifix.
“What are you thinking about?” Gyro asks after a few minutes of silence.
“The corpse," Johnny says without looking away from the statue of Christ.
Gyro sighs. “You’re always thinking about that. Anything else on your mind?”
Johnny tears his eyes away from the front of the altar. It’s a silly question. Everything’s on Johnny’s mind all the time. It’s exhausting. His mind constantly replays vignettes from his past and imaginary, anxiety inducing, scenarios that might happen in the future. He knows fate will catch up to him and sometimes, late at night, it's all he can think about. His only respite is when he thinks about Gyro. He thinks about Gyro a lot.
“No,” he leans his head against Gyro's chest.
Gyro looks around the church once more, distantly wondering why it was abandoned. He briefly acknowledges the statue of Jesus before his eyes land on a small wooden structure.
“Have you ever been in one of those before?” Gyro asks as he gestures to the corner where the structure is. Johnny looks up at him, perplexed.
“The confession booth?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you kidding? I had to do confession every month from the ages of like seven to fourteen.”
Gyro looks down at Johnny, a little surprised.
“You grew up Catholic?”
“Did you not?”
“Yeah, but Napoli is ruled under ultramontanism. It’s kinda a given to be Catholic. I didn’t really know Americans practiced Catholicism,” Gyro says, scratching his beard.
“Well yeah, plenty of Americans are Catholic,” Johnny closes his eyes, exhaustion taking over him. “My mom grew up in Marion County which is a super Catholic part of Kentucky so we went to a Catholic Church and I had a first communion, but I think my father would have described us more as generally Christian, if that. Honestly, we were the worst church goers. We’d skip church all the time just to go to jockey events and once I started racing I stopped having to go.”
“Huh. Better than me. We never went to church,” Gyro says as he leans his head on Johnny’s, “except for Christmas and Easter. My father considers our King a servant of God so working for him is as close to God as we’ll ever be. Plus I think he found the sermons boring.”
Johnny nods, but then furrows his eyebrows, pulling away from Gyro's embrace.
“Wait so, you’ve never done confession?”
“Hmm,” Gyro thinks, “nope.”
“And you’re in correspondence with the Vatican?”
“Was in correspondence. They stopped answering my letters. I think they were getting annoyed with me.” Gyro laughs, “they'd probably hate me even more if they knew I've never confessed my ‘sins’."
Johnny smirks.
“Well, how many sins you got bottled up?” he teases, poking Gyro’s chest.
“Johnny, you wound me. I’ve been nothing but a perfect angel this entire race! I have no sins.”
“Uh huh, sure.” The image of Gyro teasingly running his fingers up Johnny’s body, fondling his chest until the skin was so agitated it turned red, flashes in Johnny’s mind. Perfect angel my ass.
Suddenly Gyro gets up, the wooden floor creaking under his weight. Johnny groans at the loss of warmth by his side.
“What are you doing?”
“Going in to see what it's like,” Gyro says with a smirk. “Come with me, you have to give me the full tour.”
“Full tour? Gyro it’s a box with a grated ‘window’ inside. I’m not crawling around the dirty church floor for that. ”
“Then let me carry you.”
It had taken a while for Johnny to get comfortable with the idea of Gyro carrying him. In the past anyone who had carried Johnny had, firstly never asked, and secondly had done it in an attempt to take away his autonomy or to infantilize him. When Gyro had first proposed carrying Johnny, due to a lack of wheelchairs at one of the inns they stayed at towards the beginning of the race, Johnny had almost punched him in the face at the mere suggestion. He feels better about it now, especially since he knows that Gyro isn't offering out of pity and always asks before he does it. Still, he would rather eat horse shit for dinner before asking to be carried around. Gyro has to be the one to bring it up.
“Fine.”
Gyro smiles as he wraps his arms around Johnny’s legs and back, lifting him up with a huff. Despite his stature, Johnny is 160 pounds of upper body muscle. Gyro would never admit it, but it takes quite a bit of effort to lift him.
He stares down at the man in his arms. When he left Napoli all those months ago, there was no way he could have predicted that he would end up meeting someone like Johnny. He drives Gyro crazy. Crazy enough to have Gyro reconsidering his own goals just to please him.
“If you’re just gonna stare, at least put me down.”
“Oh Johnny,” Gyro says adoringly, kissing Johnny's cheek a few times.
“Stop,” Johnny says with no bite, trying to keep his face neutral, but failing miserably the more Gyro kisses him. Johnny lets out a small giggle as he pushes Gyro's face away. It doesn’t deter Gyro as he continues by kissing Johnny’s palm.
God, it’s embarrassing what Johnny would do for this man.
“Come here,” Johnny mumbles, tugging on Gyro’s turtleneck. He ducks his head down closer to his lover's face. Johnny softly presses his lips against Gyro’s and Gyro kisses back in earnest. Johnny wraps his arms around Gyro's neck pulling him closer, deepening the kiss. They stay kissing like that for a while, until Johnny suddenly pulls away. The Neopolitan blinks a few times, looking a little dazed.
“Let's get this over with before you drop me,” Johnny says catching his breath. His lips tingle pleasantly.
It takes a moment for Gyro to register what Johnny said but when he does, he frowns. “I would never drop you!”
“That one time in that bar in Kansas City-”
“Okay I did not drop you. I was a little drunk and I stumbled, but your ass did not end up on the floor.”
“Yeah yeah, but it could have,” Johnny rolls his eyes.
Johnny is right though, Gyro will have to put him down soon. His arms are getting tired from holding him.
Gyro walks them over to the booth nestled on the left side of the altar. It looks pretty standard. The wooden structure has a seat in the middle of two paneled walls, each one having a cross hatched ‘window’, just like Johnny had said. There's a shitty excuse for a curtain hanging above the seat in the middle, presumably to give the confessor and priest privacy. The whole thing looks uninspired, Gyro has definitely seen more elaborately decorated booths in Napoli. He puts Johnny down in the middle, where the priest would be. The curtain hung from above is tattered and has holes in it but Gyro closes it anyway. Johnny gives him a confused look, as he steps out of the priest compartment.
“I want it to be the true experience.”
“If you want that, we should get you an actual priest. I can’t really give you advice for your sins.”
Gyro ignores Johnny, in favor of making his way to the other side of the booth. He's a little disappointed. It's nothing fancy, just a spot for him to kneel down and pray. The area is dusty and Gyro’s pants are already filthy so instead he opts to stand.
“What now?”
“I don’t know. Confess something I guess.”
Gyro is quiet for a moment. The church is mostly dark, but thanks to the soft light of the candles Gyro is able to make out some of Johnny’s features through the wooden grille screen. Gyro stares at him for a moment, trying to think of what he could confess.
“Hmm, dear God,” Gyro pauses, “I confess to… eating the rest of Johnny’s beef jerky.”
Johnny gasps.
“So it was you! I knew a bear didn't eat it!”
“I’m sorry,” Johnny could tell he wasn't, “but I was so hungry.”
“You stole my beef jerky and you didn't even confess properly, asshole,” Johnny purses his lips. He's not that mad, anything that's his is practically Gyro’s as well at this point.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well in confession, you’re supposed to start with: in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned blah blah, and then you have to say how long since you last confessed to something, and then you can confess.”
Johnny is somewhat surprised by the fact that he still remembers this. He really didn’t pay much attention in church and every sin he confessed he made up on the spot. It’s a damn good thing he stopped going to confession before Nick passed away or else that priest would have had to deal with a lot more than he was probably prepared for.
Gyro sighs loudly from the other side.
“So many steps for forgiveness.” Gyro clears his throat. “I've heard all that before but I only know it in Italian so bear with me. Ahem, nel nome del padre, e del figlio, e dello Spirito Santo, amen. Mi benedica, padre, perché ho peccato. Sono un angelo perfetto, quindi non ho mai confessato un peccato prima d'ora. Ma, ho mangiato la carne secca di Johnny.”
Johnny sucks in a quiet breath. It’s not something he's consciously registered before, probably because Gyro is almost always speaking in English unless it's a swear or a term of endearment, but Gyro’s voice is unbelievably charming when he's speaking in his native language. It’s deeper, more confident, the syllables rolling off his tongue with ease and Johnny can't help but find it really attractive.
“Johnny.”
“Huh?” Johnny says, snapping out of his trance. “What?”
“Did I do it right?”
“Uh yeah, I guess so.” Johnny clears his throat, shifting in his seat. The wooden backing of the booth is really uncomfortable to lean up against.
The pair are quiet for a moment.
“You should confess something. We’ll make a little game out of it,” Gyro says, breaking the silence.
“Usually the priest isn’t the one doing the confessing.” Johnny says, “Also, what’s there to confess? You know practically everything about me and I'm not an asshole who eats other people's food.”
There is actually one thing that Johnny hasn’t told Gyro yet, but it seems hardly appropriate to bring it up now, especially in the confinement of a church. Does God look down upon people who have fetishes-
Johnny stops that train of thought, he’ll confess that when he’s too blissed out of his mind under Gyro’s hands to be embarrassed about it. He guesses he could confess the thing about liking when Gyro speaks Italian. God knows Gyro doesn't need more of an ego boost but Johnny likes to give him one once in a while anyway.
“Okay I'm not going to say the whole prerequisite paragraph, but I confess to really liking it when you speak in Italian.” Johnny lays his southern drawl on thick as he says ‘really’.
The other side of the wall goes quiet. Gyro leans his ear up against the wooden grille screen.
“Nyo hoo! Really?”
“Yeah. It’s hot.” Johnny says as a matter of fact, shrugging his shoulders. It’s funny, if he was still the same person he was at the beginning of the race you probably couldn’t have tortured that out of him.
“Mi piacerebbe tanto parlare di più in Italiano con te, amore mio.”
“What does that mean?” ‘Amore mio’ is one of the only things Johnny knows in Italian and it never fails to make him blush.
“It means I would love to speak more Italian with you, my love.”
“Sure. Maybe you could even teach me the language one day. Your turn to confess.”
“I confess to really liking your accent,” Gyro almost sounds shy as he says it.
“Boo, that’s a cop out, you gotta say something else.”
“What? Come on, how is that a cop out? I really do like it!”
“I basically just said the same thing. You’re the one who wants to confess things, pick something else. Like something I really don’t know.”
“Cazzo. Fine. Uhh, I confess that I thought you were really annoying the first time we met.”
“Wow, I can't imagine why,” Johnny scoffs, blowing out a puff of air.
“Can you blame me? You were just some random guy grabbing and screaming at me.”
“And at what point did you stop finding me annoying?” Johnny asks, slightly offended by the admission, but more embarrassed than anything. He knows he can be a lot sometimes.
“When I saw your ass.” Johnny can hear the grin in Gyro’s voice.
“Might as well confess that you only like me because of my ass then.”
“Ah, but then I would be lying,” Gyro sings.
“I’ll believe it when we get our one, two, finish.” Johnny huffs. Gyro groans from the other side of the wall.
“Okay I take it back, I found you annoyingly cute. I want to say another one-”
“Nope, my turn,” Johnny interrupts. “I confess to sleeping with your bear at night sometimes.”
Gyro gasps, Johnny sees him trying to peer in through the screen.
“Are you serious? No wonder she's always halfway across the campsite when I wake up. You’re throwing her around in your sleep!”
“Hey, that ain't me. You should see the way you sleep. You're always kicking and flailing your arms. And you bet your ass I'm gonna steal her more often, now that I know you ate my beef jerky.”
“Urg, don’t hold that against me. I’ll get you more the next time we find a town.”
“You better. Your turn.” Johnny expects another admission but Gyro is quiet. The only sound permeating through the church is the howling of the wind outside and the occasional crackling of the candles. “Gyro?”
“Yeah?” His voice is low. Johnny is a bit caught off guard by the sudden seriousness in his tone.
“Are you gonna confess something else?” Johnny asks tentatively.
“Yeah. I think I have one more confession. I confess that,” Gyro mumbles low and sensually, “I see the golden rectangle when I look into your eyes. It's one of the first things I noticed when we started traveling together. I've never seen that with anyone else.”
“Oh,” Johnny breathes out, his face going bright red in an instant. He's had people compliment his eyes before but never by comparing them to the ratio responsible for perfect proportion.
“Sometimes, I have to force myself not to make eye contact with you because I know once I do, I won't be able to focus on anything else. You really do have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen Johnny,” Gyro mumbles against the screen.
The fluttering in Johnny's stomach is so intense he feels dizzy. He tries to think of something else to confess, anything as flattering as what Gyro just said but with how fluttered he is he's coming up empty handed.
“Um…” he gnaws on his bottom lip as he thinks.
“Nothing else to confess caro?” Gyro asks smugly. God, Johnny’s brain feels like mush.
“I confess that the face you make when you cum is-”
“Hey!” Gyro kicks the side of the wall, making Johnny jump a bit, before he bursts out laughing, “shut up! That's your confession about me?”
“I’m kinda running out of ideas,” he doubles over, still laughing.
“Yeah clearly! How about you confess something romantic like I just did, not make fun of me for the way I look when, ya know…” Gyro lets out an embarrassed groan.“ You couldn't have said how much you adore me or something?
Johnny’s laugh tapers off as he smiles to himself.
Johnny would like to say that whatever is going on between him and Gyro started on the banks of the Mississippi River, but he knows that it's been going on for a lot longer than that. The river just marks when Johnny, running on nothing more than adrenaline after watching Gyro get dismembered, kissed him for the first time. After Hot Pants had left, Johnny couldn't let go of Gyro. He held on to his limp body until Gyro was conscious enough to hold Johnny back with the same amount of force. The soft squeeze of Gyro’s fingers against Johnny’s waist had made him immediately burst into tears. Gyro was alive. Fate hadn't caught up yet.
And Johnny didn't know when it would.
He couldn't waste anymore time, as Gyro opened his eyes Johnny had grabbed his face and kissed him. Since then there hasn't been a single moment where he regretted it.
“It’s not a confession if you already know that,” Johnny says softly.
“What if I just wanna hear you say it?” Gyro pouts.
“I adore you.” Johnny deadpans.
“That wasn't even sincere-”
Johnny sighs loudly.
“In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 6 years since my last confession and I confess to…” Johnny pauses for dramatic effect, “being madly in love with Gyro Zeppeli.”
Johnny realizes his mistake when he hears Gyro suck in a breath. The last part was supposed to come off as light-hearted but it comes out way more genuine then Johnny expects.
“Really?” He hears Gyro whisper.
“Uhh. Yeah?” Johnny answers, his voice faltering. Gyro doesn't say anything in return.
Johnny suddenly feels woozy, really woozy. Was that too much? Did he just ruin what they had going on? He had kind of assumed Gyro felt the same, with the way he constantly referred to Johnny as ‘my love’ but maybe that was just a cultural thing? They had never explicitly proclaimed their love for each other but Johnny thought the constant touching, the sex, and the quiet words they exchanged when no one else was around was synonymous to saying I love you.
Johnny drops his head in his hands as he feels his throat start to close up, tears threatening to spill over. God he is such a fucking idiot-
The sudden sound of the curtain being ripped open makes Johnny jump. Gyro is standing in front of him, mouth agape, face bright red.
“You love me?”
Johnny’s face is just as red as Gyro’s. He finds the only thing he can do is dumbly nod.
“Nyoo hoo!” Gyro suddenly belts out. “Well I confess to being madly in love with you, Johnny Joestar.”
The relief on Johnny’s face is palpable, he sinks into the wooden seat.
“Thank fuck.” Johnny sighs out as Gyro practically pounces on him, kissing him so passionately Johnny forgets how to breathe.
♞
The candles are on their last few minutes of life by the time Johnny and Gyro decide to set up their bedrolls for the night. The wooden floor wasn't the most comfortable thing to sleep on but it was better than the sub zero temperatures that would have to deal with if they were staying outside.
As Johnny pulls the bedroll up to his chin he notices the distant expression on Gyro’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have one more confession,” Gyro says quietly, staring up at the ceiling.
“Okay?”
He turns over to look at Johnny.
“When this is all over I want you to come back to Napoli with me.”
Gyro says it so quietly that for a moment Johnny thinks he imagined it, but with the way Gyro is looking at him there's no way that was his imagination. His heart gives a prominent pang as he feels his stomach flip in the best possible way.
“I- what? Really?”
“Yes,” Gyro says earnestly. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and the more I think about it the more I'm sure. We can get a house together on the outskirts of the city, near the beach, no one will bother us and we’ll be able to do as we please. I would obviously have to go back to my duty but…It would be so much more bearable if you were there.”
Gyro grabs Johnny’s hand intertwining their fingers.
An idea has never sounded so nice to Johnny. He hadn't given much thought to what he would do after the race, mostly because he couldn't imagine a future where he and Gyro had to go their separate ways. The thought alone is enough to make him break into a cold sweat.
Truthfully, Johnny feels a little dumb for not having thought of the possibility of following Gyro to Napoli first. He runs his free hand through Gyro’s hair, twirling it passively. Getting to do this everyday for the rest of his life, waking up next to Gyro and kissing him whenever he pleases? Johnny would be a fool to say no.
Suddenly a thought crosses his mind that has him sitting up, eyes going wide.
“I’ll have to meet your dad.” Fuck.
Gyro’s soft smile drops in an instant.
“Ah, yes. He’ll like you! I hope…”
“You hope? How the hell are we going to explain ya know?...” Johnny gestures to the two of them. He doesn't know how it is in Napoli but here, in the middle of Midwest America, sodomy is a crime. Not that Johnny is particularly worried about being caught, he's already got the president after him. Being in a relationship with a man is the least of his worries.
“That we are super gay for each other?” Gyro says, wiggling his finger in front of Johnny’s face.
“Well definitely don't say it like that,” Johnny lets out an exasperated laugh. He pokes Gyro's finger.
“It's fine. We won't be the first men who live together in Napoli. Plus I’m sure my father would rather me live with you than with a woman. He thinks women are a distraction.”
“Right,” Johnny narrows his eyes at Gyro “because you totally aren't distracted by me.”
“If I am, my father doesn’t need to know that,” Gyro goes quiet for a second and then says in the most neutral voice he can muster, “and also, no, you don’t distract me at all.”
“Really?” Johnny leans closer to Gyro, kissing up his neck. Gyro shudders as Johnny mumbles into his ear “so why did you slip when we were bathing in the creek a few weeks ago?”
Gyro pointedly turns his head, “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Oh yeah,” Johnny drawls, running his hands up the side of Gyro’s chest. “I think you said it was because my naked body was distracting you. Do you remember? You couldn't focus for the rest of the day until we were able to fuck-”
“Okay I get it,” Gyro smacks Johnny’s arm playfully.
“What?”
“You know what you’re doing.”
Johnny smirks, “what am I doing?”
“Getting me horny in a church, you freak. Se vuoi fare l'amore con me, dimmelo e basta.”
“What?”
“I thought it would get you in the mood,” Gyro frowns.
“Oh my god,” Johnny snorts. “Don’t weaponize that just because I told you I like when you speak in Italian."
“Oh you know I totally will,” Gyro says, wiggling his eyebrows. He brings his hand up, thumbing Johnny’s cheek. “I was being serious when I said I was madly in love with you.”
Johnny flashes a rare genuine smile. One reserved solely for Gyro.
“I know. Me too.”
In this moment, pressed up against Gyro, nothing else matters to Johnny. Not the race, not the corpse, not the threat of being ambushed at any given moment, or the way his body ached, begging him to stop riding every day. The only thing that matters is Gyro. Gyro and the stars above.