Chapter Text
The weather was mild—not too cold, not too hot. Johnny and Gyro, despite being exhausted, were riding their horses, pushing forward second by second on their journey in the Steel Ball Run. They were so tense that the silence itself reflected their discomfort. Someone needed to break the ice.
“Hey, Johnny…”
Johnny already knew whatever came next wouldn’t be normal.
“hm?” He didn’t really feel like talking.
“If you could be anywhere else, where would you be?” Gyro gave a slight smile, his golden grills showing—his very authentic style.
“Why that question out of nowhere?” But it wouldn’t hurt to distract his mind a bit with his partner’s nonsense. After staring at the horizon for a few seconds, he tried to answer.
“I-I really want this corpse, but I think… I’d be…” Johnny didn’t know how to answer. Did he really want to be anywhere else besides—
“Duuude, I think I’d be with a really hot girl. Like, a model, you know?” Gyro interrupted his thoughts. Seriously? He said it with a shameless look, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. What kind of man wouldn’t want that?
Johnny thought it would be easier to hide his disappointment and go along with his friend, but his mind had other priorities—or so he thought.
“Really? Like… wouldn’t you rather be, I don’t know, doing what you truly love? Maybe enjoying a vacation, reading a good book, eating real food… I can’t think about women right now, Gyro.” A sarcastic chuckle slipped out.
That sounded pretty arrogant—Johnny’s track record with women wasn’t exactly exemplary.
Gyro frowned, a mocking look on his face, and moved closer with Slow Dancer.
“Oh, my deepest apologies, Mr. Puritan Joe Kid! I guess my mind is too dirty for your cultured and pure one, coglione (you idiot).” He said, flicking Johnny’s nose.
Johnny didn’t react, their horses were too close.
“Come on, you wouldn’t like…” Gyro went back to the subject.
“A blonde girl making out with your neck, giving you a massage…”
“No, Gyro.”
“Oh, come on. What if she asked you to…”
“Stop, Gyro.”
“To suck your dick real nice!” Gyro broke into an excited grin. My God, what kind of conversation was this?
Johnny immediately turned red and looked away. Why was he talking about this? It was still daytime. Worst of all, his mind started following that script—with a specific person in mind… damn it.
Gyro noticed Johnny blushing and teased him.
“Mm, you’d love it, right?” he said, poking him with his finger to tickle him.
Johnny didn’t want to talk about that anymore. Not like that.
“Gyro, that would be really hard in my situation. So yeah, I’d rather have something else…”
Johnny stared at his own legs, as if that alone explained everything.
Gyro realized he might be killing the mood again, so he decided to make his friend even more sexually uncomfortable.
“Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t even jerked off after all this time?”
Johnny didn’t answer, still red.
“Liar. I’ve seen you.” He smiled—that damn smile.
Johnny was more embarrassed than ever. How? Where? When? What the hell—why was he doing this? My God, what a disaster. He cared about Gyro too much to let this not affect him.
“Gyro! What?! No! What the hell, man…” Johnny was devastated by the information. Within seconds, tears began to fall.
A few seconds of deafening silence followed. Gyro realized he shouldn’t have said that. Johnny had already ridden ahead, continuing his path, upset. It was so hard to get that terribly delicious image of Johnny pleasuring himself out of his head… so much so that he wanted to—… No! Damn it, he shouldn’t have done this.
Gyro tried to apologize, but it didn’t seem to work. An awkward tension lingered for the rest of the night. But it wasn’t like this was the first time it had happened.