Chapter Text
Gyro had walked straight into the open trap like a damn fool.
Johnny had vanished. Calm as you please, face smooth as a fresh deck of cards. But his voice had been soft, almost tender. “Goin’ to the stable to check on the girls,” he’d said, “and right back.” And with that, he was gone like smoke on the wind.
Gyro hadn’t followed him. Instead, he’d had the uneasy thought that he’d just been neatly ditched—left holding the post like a green sentry without his sergeant.
So there he stayed, at his post, turning over escape routes in his head in case the President’s dogs came bursting through the saloon doors any second. Standing at the bar with nothing to do didn’t sit right with him, but in their duo he was the tactical one. He couldn’t let his guard down. First, the bar gave him the best view of the whole room. Second… his ass seemed to have made its own decision. It had taken root on that stool. Not figuratively—literally. Gyro could feel the wooden grain twisting into the weave of his trousers, the resin seeping through, his buttocks marrying that cursed piece of furniture in unholy union.
To dull the creeping existential dread, he started eating. Drinking. Doing both at once, which was a technical challenge, but Gyro Zeppeli was up to it. His throat worked like a piston, sucking down beer, mushy bread, and what was left of his dignity in one continuous motion.
Swallow. Bite. Swallow. Bite.
Beer ran down his chin, spilled over his neck, and soaked into his collar. The bread lodged in his throat like a brick, forcing him to gag, bug his eyes out, and pound his own chest with a fist.
The barkeep watched this spectacle with a sour expression. Then he popped open a fresh bottle—where the hell had he found ale out in this godforsaken dustbowl?—with such force the cork shot off and nearly took Gyro between the eyes.
“Listen here, big fella,” the barkeep said, pouring the ale for himself, not for Gyro. “For a man who’s supposed to cross half the continent in six weeks, you’re actin’ like someone fixin’ to die right here on my floor. Eatin' like you’re half-mad. Drinkin' like it’s your last night before the rope. You plannin’ on unstickin’ your ass from my stool anytime soon, or should I just go ahead and measure you for a custom pine box?”
Gyro stopped chewing.
His mouth froze around a half-soaked chunk of bread. The bread itself was stuck halfway down his gullet. His jaw wouldn’t move up or down. Beer sloshed in his belly. His eyes stayed fixed on the bar top—on the dark concentric rings, on somebody’s carved initials, on the old beer stains no one had ever bothered to scrub away.
Slowly, he lifted his gaze to the barkeep. Looked at him.
Well? Say your piece. I’m listening.
Then he went right back to chewing.
“Waitin’ on a friend,” Gyro finally answered, mouth full, ugly and vulgar.
The barkeep took a sip, grimaced—whether the ale was off or the company gave him hives, who could say. Wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. Locked his fingers together.
Then he delivered the kicker:
“And does your friend know you’re waitin’ on him?”
Gyro stopped chewing again. Twice in one evening—a record for the history books.
“We had a deal,” he said.
The barkeep said nothing. Those two words meant less than dust to him. He was just a red-faced stranger with foam in his whiskers. He’d done his part: poured himself another, turned back to his shelves. Plenty of work. Listening to saddle-tramps confess their troubles wasn’t in the job description.
Besides, Gyro wasn’t really explaining himself to the man. He was explaining to himself.
He kept turning over all the bargains he and Johnny had struck long before they ever learned how to talk them out loud. Before words. Before rules.
Truth be told, Gyro could’ve left him back in San Diego.
Could’ve stayed in his tent. Could’ve kept walking when he heard the commotion—hooves, sharp cursing, a frightened yell. None of his business. Not his fight. Not his grief.
Gyro Zeppeli had worries enough: his Valkyrie, the strategy to win the race, smart use of their secret technique. He needed to secure that amnesty for the kid. Needed to settle a family debt that still twisted his guts every damn day. What did he need a partner for? Especially one like that.
But he’d walked over anyway. And he’d seen.
Saw that old mare dragging the young man in circles like a rag doll. He wasn’t riding her. Didn’t even look like he belonged among the living—pale, blonde, eyes burning with fever. Eyes that held no fear and no hope, only one dumb, iron-hard must. His legs trailed behind like dead things, and one of them had a jagged stick driven clean through it. He hadn’t even pulled it out—just rode belly-down across the dirt. Fingers locked on the reins in a death grip. He wasn’t guiding the horse. The horse was carrying him, and it was a terrible thing to see. Not for the horse. For him.
Gyro had thought then: If he breaks his neck, well… to hell with him. Ten like him die every day.
He’d almost turned away.
But for some reason, he didn’t.
Something yanked him by the elbow. Or by the heart. Or by that rawhide cord that binds one damn fool to another—across miles, through noise and filth and all the good intentions Gyro had been hoarding for himself alone.
And now here he sat.
Sitting. Waiting. Chewing. Drinking. The last part had become pure habit. The beer had gone warm and bitter, his gut had been hollering warnings for a solid minute, but Gyro paid it no mind. He just sat there—rooted, hollow, mean as a thousand devils.
The circle had closed. And Gyro hated that particular geometry.
“Lookee here.”
The sharp end of a rolled-up newspaper jabbed him in the cheek. Hard. Gyro's whole body jerked; the stool beneath him gave a pitiful creak but still wouldn’t let him go. His eyes focused on the barkeep with difficulty. He was drunk enough now—not passed out, no—but deep in that dangerous country where all the fences burn down. Where the noble, responsible, generous part of him dies. What’s left is just a man. Mean. Jealous. Ready to smash faces on anyone who dares.
“What d’you want?” Gyro growled, already cocking his arm to fling the damn paper to hell.
But the barkeep didn’t pull back. Instead he unrolled the sheet. And Gyro froze.
Johnny.
Even through the whiskey fog, it was plain this wasn’t the Johnny who’d limped off ten minutes ago to rub against the stables. This one didn’t need no wheelchair yet. He stood square on his own two legs—solid, sure, without that crooked grace Gyro had grown used to after months of riding the same hard trail.
This Johnny hadn’t yet learned what it was to choke on pure shit. To tear out another man’s throat for a chance at healing. To sleep in a tent with a fella who kept dragging your sorry hide out of the mud because you couldn’t do a damn thing for yourself. This Johnny had never cut any deal with Gyro. Never looked him in the eye with that hungry, dangerous, perfect look in his baby blues.
Gyro had never known this Johnny. And he was meeting him only now—against his will.
Newspaper Johnny. Johnny-before-everything. The Johnny folks remembered who never saw what came after.
And trailing after him like a perfume-soaked dust cloud—dressed-up women. Three, four, five—hard to tell, all feathers and ribbons and necklines plunging clear to hell. One had her hand on his chest. Another looped an arm around his neck. The boldest one stared straight into his face from kissing distance, perched on his lap like she owned the saddle.
I told you, Gyro thought. Women ain’t nothing but a bad luck.
The longer he stared at that photograph, the more he wanted to rip it into scraps and ram them down the barkeep’s throat. Because this Johnny was a stranger. And because for Johnny—any Johnny—Gyro would tear the throat out of the world.
The barkeep, smelling blood, kept running his mouth.
“Whaddya reckon,” he breathed, heavy with rotgut and cheap tobacco, voice low and conspiratorial like a man sharing dirty secrets, “which one of ’em he fucked back then? Can’t read the words, but I can read a face. That one on his lap, maybe? Look at her—bold as brass. She’d spit on you from a height and you’d still open your mouth to catch it. Not like now, of course. Now the poor bastard’s probably nothing to her. His worm don’t interest her no more. Can’t even get it up these days, I bet.”
Gyro didn’t remember moving.
Funny thing—he felt no anger. Deep down where the blood usually boiled and the muscles knotted, there was only emptiness. Silence. Something had switched off—conscience, maybe, or whatever was left of his humanity—and all that remained was clear, cold, absolute certainty.
He weighed no consequences. Thought of nothing else. His hand simply moved, faster than the barkeep could blink.
Fingers sank into the man’s neck.
Not hard. Not yet. But the fact that Gyro was already touching him was warning enough, because the next move would be the last. He felt the stranger’s pulse hammering under his fingertips—stupid, panicked.
The man tried to fight, sure he did. But Gyro held him like iron bars. He’d twist the bastard’s spine into a corkscrew if the situation called for it.
Gyro felt no shame. There was nothing left in him now that could feel shame.
“You,” he said quietly, very quietly, and in that voice there was no threat—threats are for men who still doubt. Gyro had moved beyond doubt. “Open that mouth one more time and I’ll cut your fat head clean off and serve it for breakfast tomorrow. Plenty of hungry jockeys around here, and we got ourselves only one pig. Ought to be enough for all the needy souls.”
The barkeep swallows hard. His Adam’s apple bobs like a cork on a fishing line. One foot scrapes back and forth across the floorboards in a miserable little dance of pure dread. He nods. Trembles. The whole mountain of meat and balls shrinks down in a heartbeat into something small, pitiful, and worthless. Those fat cheeks keep quivering like they got a mind of their own.
“Discount for you, maybe?” The bastard tries to grin, but it comes out crooked and toothless—someone quicker than Gyro had clearly gotten tired of listening to him run his mouth. “In case you didn’t know, I’m the owner of this shithole tavern. Always glad to see the race and its fine jockeys. Let me pour you something? On the house, of course. Or get a room ready? With a bath, I swear. You can soak a while, warm up. Long road ahead.”
The son of a bitch changed his tune quick. Bad habit—licking the boots of the man who just had his hand around your throat. Habits like that never lead a man anywhere good.
Gyro stares at him with contempt and bone-deep weariness. He opens his mouth, ready to say he wouldn’t mind that bath, but only after he drowns this prick in it first for the sheer pleasure of it. Almost tells him straight where he can shove that discount—
“He ain’t our enemy, Gyro.”
From behind.
Gyro doesn’t even turn.
He doesn’t need to. The sound is enough: that soft creak of wheels over the floorboards, the knowledge that Johnny’s already there, that Johnny’s tilting his head a little to get a better look at the barkeep still shaking behind the counter.
Johnny rolls right up beside him. Shoulder to shoulder, near as the chair allows. Gyro feels the warmth before he even sees the face. It flows from Johnny into him—through the air, through the shoulder, through that thread still dragging dust all the way from San Diego. And Johnny smells of horses, hay, and honest sweat. Stable smell. Real. Working. It settles Gyro. Ain’t perfume. Just their horses.
Gyro breathes it in and realizes for the first time in this endless damn hour that he can finally exhale.
Johnny looks at the barkeep—at the hunched back, the trembling hands, the toothless mouth, the pathetic grimace the man’s still trying to hold. Johnny’s face is calm. Almost bored. Like the man ain’t a man at all, just furniture. Or a bug.
Like his and Gyro's separation hadn’t lasted longer than five minutes.
“He’s just a piece of shit,” Johnny says, voice even.
Gyro lets out a slow breath. Somewhere deep inside, in the place that had been cold and hollow half an hour ago, something warm spreads out. He doesn’t smile. But he could’ve. Damn near could’ve.
“Piece of shit, he is,” Gyro agrees.
And finally loosens his fingers.
The barkeep stumbles over his own feet the second he’s free. He backs away, rubbing his neck, eyes darting between the two of them. Smart man. Doesn’t push his luck any further. Gyro doesn’t even glance his way. All his attention is on the warmth that smells of horses. And Johnny right there—Johnny looking handsome. With that stray lock of hair falling into his eyes. With the hat riding low on his forehead.
Gyro ain’t anywhere close to sober, and he only realizes it now. When he can admit, even to himself, that beauty is a Johnny.
“You took your time,” he tells him, almost steady, though steady was never gonna happen. “Ten minutes. That’s what you said.”
Johnny lifts his eyes to him. Calm. Pale. Not a trace of guilt in them. Just a near-childish surprise, like he truly doesn’t understand what the fuss is about.
“What, wasn’t it ten?”
Gyro jaw tightens. He could laugh. Or growl.
“Maybe for you it was ten,” he says, jabbing a finger straight into Johnny’s chest—the kind of thing neither the future head nor the current heir to the noble family would ever allow himself. “For me it wasn’t. You sang me a different tune. We had a deal, you and me.”
The last words come out almost in a whisper—and he doesn’t even know why. Johnny won’t understand anyway. Or he’ll pretend not to. But he’ll be smarter if he just stays quiet. Smarter than Gyro, because Gyro sure as hell ain’t staying quiet.
Johnny looks away from him, toward the empty spot where the barkeep had been. Squints.
“Not denyin',” he says, then snaps his head back to Gyro. “What’d you and him fall out over?”
“We had a disagreement,” Gyro mutters, rubbing a hand over his face, trying to gather his thoughts. “Philosophical one.”
“Well,” Johnny said, in no hurry, and Gyro wasn’t either. He let the silence stretch like a man rolling a cigarette before the storm. “I was never much good at this sort of thing. What the hell even set you off?”
Gyro said nothing.
His eyes dropped to the bar top.
The newspaper was still lying there, right in plain sight—face down. The barkeep had fled in a panic and left it behind. It was crumpled at the edges where Gyro had gripped it hard enough to nearly tear it, but he hadn’t. Strange. He’d wanted to. He’d meant to rip the damn thing to shreds, shove it down that thick-horned bastard’s throat, and make him choke on his own bile along with the ink.
And if Gyro still hadn’t done it—hadn’t burned it, hadn’t flung it into the street—then he never would. The paper just sat there on the bar like a reminder. Like evidence. Like proof of his own weakness.
Worse still: if he hadn’t done it back then, in the middle of that raw, near-physical pain when he wanted to kill with his bare hands and damn the consequences, then he couldn’t even blame the whiskey.
A sober act.
And Gyro Zeppeli hated himself for sober acts.
Because a sober act meant your head got the drop on your fists. It meant you were left alone with what you’d done and had to look it square in the eye: yeah, that was you. Not some devil on your shoulder. Not the devil in your blood. Just you. Sometimes a man needs to let his hands do the talking instead of that endless, gut-wrenching 'what if'. Sometimes he just wants to live without the 'what if'. To be an animal for a minute—snarling, tearing, clamping down with his teeth and not letting go. To be anything at all except the man who does the right thing.
All of it meant one simple truth: Gyro Zeppeli knew how to get tired.
Not from the race. Not from the road. Tired of himself. Tired of the same damn war between I want and I ought to.
Right now he wanted one thing: to go to sleep. Or not sleep. To sit in the dark, stare at the ceiling, and think about nothing. To just keep on breathing.
Most of all, he wanted to be far away from Johnny’s questions.
Though Johnny had only asked one—and it was a fair one, straight to the point, no dancing around.
A normal question. A reasonable reaction. The kind any man who cares would ask. And he ought to give a damn. After everything.
His friend—because Johnny was a friend now, long past being some unwanted traveling companion—wanted to know why his partner had nearly committed a crime in broad daylight. The kind that could land a man behind bars or put him in front of a local sheriff’s scattergun. Johnny wasn’t demanding some tearful confession. He just wanted to understand, because that’s what he did—he tried to hear what Gyro was really saying, even when he didn’t fully get it. They’d ridden too many miles shoulder to shoulder for him not to ask.
And right then, Gyro hated logic with every ounce of strength he had left that night. Because logic had turned on him instead of riding with him.
Logic demanded he explain. Johnny asked him to explain—plain and human, no tricks. Logic wanted the truth. So did Johnny. Logic said Gyro had no good reason to go after a man whose mamma never taught him to watch his mouth. Johnny didn’t say any of that. And maybe that was the only place Johnny and logic parted ways. Logic wanted an answer right now. Johnny knew how to wait. And he was waiting. Gyro didn’t tell him it was useless, especially with him.
But you couldn’t chew it up and feed it to either of them.
You couldn’t explain that Gyro hadn’t jumped that man because it needed doing. Not to defend the Zeppeli name. He was on foreign ground, and out here his name was just a string of sounds no local would remember longer than it took to spit.
He’d waded into that shit for Johnny.
So no one—no one—would dare speak about Johnny Joestar that way. Not even as a joke. Not even if it wasn’t a lie. Not even if there was a grain of truth in it that Gyro preferred not to think about.
Because Johnny Joestar is—
Johnny Joestar is—
“Running out of steam, I see?” Johnny’s quiet voice drifted in from the side. His wheelchair was already turned toward the stairs, and he wasn’t looking at Gyro—his eyes were fixed ahead on the steps leading up.
Gyro waved a hand.
“Let’s go,” he said, and started up first.
No looking back. He knew Johnny was behind him. A deal was a deal, and they both kept their word. Even if that word meant different things to each of them. For Johnny it might’ve just been convenience. For Gyro it was something he didn’t have words for in any language—not in a foreign tongue, not even in his own.
“We ain’t sleeping, are we?” Johnny’s fingers brushed along the armrests of the chair. “Night’s still young.”
He was already getting ready to leave the wheelchair behind—rolling upstairs was pointless, and Gyro had never minded helping. Johnny never asked for it outright, but he never fought it either. No sense in that. He only hurt himself when he had to. And mostly at Gyro’s urging.
He was right. Outside, the sky had only just begun to darken. The night was still a colt.
Gyro yawned wide enough for his jaw to crack. Then he lifted Johnny.
One smooth motion, practiced as breathing: arm under the back, arm under the knees. The wheelchair folded and hung off his elbow. Johnny didn’t even flinch anymore. He was used to it. He breathed in.
Gyro breathed out. Because no matter how slight Johnny looked from a distance, up close he was no feather. Not even close. Body and soul together weighed a solid amount. The chair added another half a man to the load.
Don’t you call him that. Johnny isn't a burden.
Johnny is...
Gyro didn’t complain. He’d carry him. Carry the chair too, and drag his own ass up there somehow. If he didn’t, nobody would.
He stepped from the first stair straight to the fourth—his long legs made it easy. The wood creaked under the weight of two.
“So what do you reckon we do instead?” Gyro asked dryly, clearing another flight.
Johnny was quiet for only a heartbeat.
“Not sleep,” he said, close to Gyro’s ear. “That’s what I’m suggestin'.”
“Fine,” Gyro answered when three steps remained to the landing. “Not sleep.”
The door to their room was unlocked. Whether that was good or bad depended on how you looked at it.
Johnny rolled in first—quiet, careful, almost slinking. Gyro followed a step behind, boots heavier on the floorboards, knees creaking, head weighed down like it carried every mile of the trail. The first thing he saw once his eyes adjusted to the dimness was Johnny already fiddling with the wheelchair. He’d put it together, set it right beside one of the beds at just the right distance—so come morning he could swing straight into it without having to drag himself across that cold, filthy floor.
“What’re you fussing with?” Gyro asked.
“Getting ready for bed,” Johnny answered, not even glancing his way.
He seemed he didn’t much care which bed he collapsed into. Both were beaten down just the same, both carried the stale scent of everyone who’d slept there before them, and neither felt like home for either man.
Johnny was already reaching for the nearest one—the one closest to the door—when Gyro suddenly appeared beside him. Sharp and damn near lightning-quick for a man who’d just been dragging his feet like they were nailed to the earth.
“Hold up,” Gyro said, and started pressing down on the mattresses.
Johnny froze. He watched as Gyro moved from one bed to the other, testing the give of the old mattresses, frowning to himself like he was calculating something important.
“You need this one,” Gyro finally declared, jabbing a finger toward the bed by the window. “Softer ticking. Less strain on the muscles. Ought to help with the sleepless nights too.”
Johnny didn’t argue. He rarely did with Gyro on matters like this—not because Gyro was always right, but because the man was a doctor, and a damn good one. He understood the human body like a well-made machine. When it came to his own broken frame, Johnny had long since stopped rolling his eyes. If there was a man on God’s green earth who knew how to make the pain hurt a little less and the nights a little shorter—without any side temptations—then Johnny figured it was worth listening.
“Got it,” he said, and moved over to the bed by the window.
The wheelchair stayed put like a faithful sentry, a silent witness, and the thousandth reminder. Gyro nudged it a little closer to the right spot so Johnny could reach it easy. So he wouldn’t have to call on any stranger for help. Come first light, Gyro would be up and out early, scouting the area for any shady characters. While he was gone, at least Johnny could feel a little independent—maybe even a little more than he actually was.
“You go ahead and settle in,” Gyro said. “I’ll just—”
“Lie down already,” Johnny cut in. “You’re the one who’s tired.”
“True enough.”
“Then why are you still standing there?”
Gyro didn’t answer. He just looked at Johnny’s bed—at the way the man sat on the edge, braced on his arms, legs stretched out useless in front of him. At how he was still beautiful, even in this sorry lamplight leaking through the curtains. Not everyone could see it. To some it’d be nonsense or a flat-out surprise—that beauty could live in the sharp line of a jaw, the curve of a neck, in stillness and quiet dignity. The kind of dignity Johnny no longer claimed out loud. Gyro didn’t need words. He saw it plain. Had known it for a long while now.
“Gyro,” Johnny called. “Come here.”
“I’ll take my own bed.”
“I know,” Johnny said, not letting it go. “But come here.” He said it again, firmer this time.
Gyro went. Because going was the safer of the two paths twisting in his head. The other path—the one where he didn’t go—led straight off a cliff, and Gyro had spent the last few months doing his damnedest to stay clear of that drop.
It wasn’t that Johnny had ever threatened him. It wasn’t that Johnny was dangerous in any ordinary sense—no knife, no gun, no cards held up his sleeve. Just those nails that spun and healed near-instant. But outside of a fight, Johnny found other uses for them, and that was fine by Gyro.
Johnny never raised his voice at him. And when their tongues did cross—which happened now and then—Gyro always found a way to shut him down. He’d interrupt, out-shout, out-argue, or at least make it look like he had. Johnny never took a swing he couldn’t catch. And Johnny never blackmailed him—never had, because though they rode the same road, their ends were still different.
Johnny had the freedom to say and do exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted. Spoiled. Stubborn. Unbreakable.
Gyro had the duty of saying and doing what he didn’t want, because there was no other way. He was the one who pulled the weight. The one who answered for it. The one who woke first and slept last.
And that was what hit Gyro when he finally sat his ass down on the edge of Johnny’s bed. The springs groaned under his weight, but Johnny didn’t even flinch.
Nobody told him no anymore. Not a soul.
Not his father, whose voice had gone quiet in Gyro’s head sometime after he’d finished Ringo. Quiet, at least. He listened to that whisper a lot less these days.
Not his brothers. They’d been raised to respect family hierarchy, but Gyro knew they still didn’t understand why he’d cross a whole continent just to maybe come up empty—or worse. To the rest of the family, he’d simply gone rogue. Off riding his own trail.
Not his rivals in the race. He’d been a thorn in their side from the first leg, but after his disqualification he’d fallen hard from his throne as the untouchable favorite, the one kissed by Lady Luck herself. Now they looked at him different—mostly with smug satisfaction. Gyro figured half of them spent their wet nights dreaming about finally whipping his ass instead of eating his dust.
Denials came easy after that. Bargains with his own conscience. Nights when Gyro lay awake, turning over every bend and curve in his mind, wondering abour every wrong turn he might’ve taken.
But out of all of them—father, brothers, rivals, strangers—only Johnny had ended up on anything close to equal ground with him. Ground fair enough that the guy could run his mouth and still feel safe doing it. He didn’t have to worry about getting his neck snapped for his cheek, because Gyro never felt that sharp itch to do it.
Not that Gyro was some saint of mercy. Hell, half the time his mercy bit him in his own ass. It was just that Johnny’s brand of insolence never quite lit that particular fuse.
“Been a while since you shaved, huh?” Johnny’s voice came low and close. His fingers brushed Gyro’s jaw, testing the rough stubble that had grown in over the last three sleepless nights.
Gyro blinked. It took him a second to even register what was happening. He touched his own chin—yeah, coarse as sandpaper, two or three days old. He wasn’t a stranger to keeping clean, but lately things had slipped. Still, some habits died hard: the straight part in his hair, and that once-flawless beard he’d let go. Letting the beard go felt too much like betraying himself.
“Don’t remember,” he answered honestly. “What difference does it make? Ain’t your business.”
“It becomes my business when I gotta look at it,” Johnny shot back. “And I’m done lookin’ at shit. That right there? That’s shit. Pure grade.”
“Thanks. I’m aware.”
“You got a razor close by?”
“Think I packed one,” Gyro muttered, a little embarrassed. “Should be in the bag.”
“Hand it over.”
“What for?”
Johnny pushed up on his elbows, eyes bright, that look on his face that didn’t leave room for argument. He started rummaging through Gyro’s saddlebag without ceremony, though gentler than before—like he knew better than to poke a sleeping grizzly. He’d learned that lesson already. Curiosity had its price. Still, the tension in Gyro’s shoulders only wound tighter. Those muscles had damn near forgotten what peace felt like.
“So I stop feelin’ sick every time I look at you. Can’t stand it anymore.”
“Nobody asked you to look,” Gyro growled, but there was no real fire left in it. The exhaustion was dragging him down. “You ain’t doin’ this.”
“I ain’t askin’ for permission.”
“Johnny.”
“What?”
“It’s my beard.”
“And?”
Gyro swallowed. “And I never let anybody touch it. Nobody.”
“Well, congratulations,” Johnny said, pulling the razor out and holding it up. “Today’s your first time.”
“You serious?”
“I don’t joke with you much, if you ain’t noticed.” Johnny closed his fist tight around the razor. “Sit comfortable.”
“What, right on the bed? You lost your mind?” Gyro stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Hell no. Not the bed.” Johnny shook his head. “Floor. Right here in front of me. So the light hits proper.”
Gyro wanted to argue—he wasn’t some damn dog, he could shave himself, it was his face and his beard, and if he felt like keeping the scruff for a while, that was his choice. Fashion changed fast out here anyway. But Johnny had already unfolded the razor, tested the edge with his thumb, and was looking at him with that calm, patient stubbornness that made fighting pointless.
So Gyro sat on the floor.
He spread his knees and settled Johnny between them—him swinging his legs off the bed until he was at the perfect height. It was awkward as hell for Gyro. He didn’t even want to think how it felt for Johnny.
Too close. Way too close. He could feel Johnny’s breath on his neck.
“Tilt your head back for me,” Johnny ordered.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” Gyro angled his head just enough to look up at Johnny’s calm face… and found nothing there that promised he’d get to keep his throat intact.
“I’ve shaved horses, you know. Did a fine job. You’ll be easier.”
“Last I checked, horses ain’t people,” Gyro said tightly.
“Same damn thing,” Johnny grinned. “Folks ride both just fine.”
“Don't start—“
“Not to mention,” Johnny cut in, low and smooth, velvet over steel, not a hint of challenge in it, “that I got a cock too, y’know.”
Gyro choked on his own breath.
Something inside him lurched, flipped clean over, and lodged tight beneath his ribs. That’s right. Johnny was a man same as him. Equals. In that way too. Same parts, same blood, same set of hands and legs—well, almost—and everything else that comes with being a grown man. So why in the blue blazes did it rattle him so bad? Why did his knees turn to water? Why was he sitting there on the floor, legs spread open and helpless, mouth drier than a desert trail, unable to squeeze out a single damn word?
“I… uh…” Gyro had already braced himself to start making excuses, but the words died before they even reached his tongue. Truth was, there wasn’t a damn thing to excuse. “I believe you.”
“Good.”
Johnny took hold of his chin again. Cold fingertips stroked skin that was already burning. The pad of his thumb traced the line of Gyro’s cheekbone, then along his jaw, like a man marking out his claim. He turned Gyro’s head just enough for the window light to fall clean across his right cheek.
“Hold still,” he murmured, and set the blade against the skin.
This time Gyro simply gave in. No twisting, no fighting, no snatching back control or pretending he could handle it himself. No bitter inner speech about how his honor—and his whole damn family’s—had just been dragged out back and thrown straight into the shitpile.
And none of it came from fear.
He wasn’t scared Johnny would slip and cut something vital—artery, vein, throat, any of the roads life travels on. That fear just wasn’t there. In its place sat something quieter, warmer, and far more dangerous: trust. The reckless, misplaced kind he hadn’t handed anyone since he was a boy.
What’s more, Johnny was careful. Breathing slow and measured, the way a man does when every ounce of his attention is on the work. His hand stayed rock-steady. Each stroke of the blade was smooth and sure, like he’d done this a thousand times under worse suns than this one. He’d pull the skin taut with his thumb, then draw the edge down—strip by strip—scraping away the stubble, the trail dust, the days spent in the saddle. Leaving behind a clean, damp path that glistened with sweat and nerves.
Truth be told, Gyro had never let another soul touch his beard before. Not even the trusted barbers back in Naples. Every visit, same order: “Tools only. No hands on my face.” It was personal. Near sacred. Like keeping the bedroom door locked. Like barring it at night even against his own mother. Like never speaking his birth name aloud, not even to himself.
Yet here was Johnny, kneeling between Gyro’s slack, surrendering knees—knees that no longer answered to him. They’d fallen open on their own, without permission or protest, and Gyro didn’t even try to close them.
Johnny held his face steady, firm. Thumb stretching the skin, blade gliding in long, even passes. And Gyro couldn’t make himself say “no.” Not because he didn’t want to. But because in what sweet, far-off world could a “no” even exist when everything else—every damn thing—had already become one big, heavy, undeniable “yes”? A yes that had been signed long ago, without his say-so.
Back in San Diego. Back when he’d decided to stay. When he’d walked up to that paddock. That’s when it was settled. He just hadn’t realized it at the time.
He liked it.
Plain and simple. A little strange, maybe.
Because this feeling was foreign to him. For twenty-four years he’d been the one in front. The eldest. The one who gave orders, who carried the load, who led. Now he was being led. By another man’s hand. By a blade in his hand, right before his own throat.
And Gyro liked it.
“If it starts to hurt,” Johnny muttered, moving to the other cheek, “holler.”
But it didn’t hurt Gyro. Not one bit.
Johnny was gentle—surprisingly gentle for a man who wouldn’t think twice about slitting a throat with that same razor. He didn’t press, didn’t rush, didn’t twitch. The blade slid across Gyro’s cheek almost tenderly, shearing away the stubble. And the strange thing was… Gyro wasn’t afraid. Not of the steel hovering at his face, not of the fingers on his jaw, not of the man breathing so close he could feel every rise and fall of his chest.
Unfamiliar. That was the word. Not scary. Just unfamiliar. And not painful at all.
Because people rarely touched his face on purpose. And a blade? Even less so.
“I don’t even use a razor, by the way,” Gyro said quietly, careful not to move his cheek.
Johnny froze. The razor stopped a hair’s breadth from his cheekbone.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Don’t use one,” Gyro repeated. “Never needed to.”
Johnny didn’t pull the blade away. Didn’t take his hand off Gyro’s chin. He just looked down at him—because Gyro had tipped his head back so far that Johnny now loomed over him like a judge over a sinner.
“So how the hell do you keep that… artwork on your face then?” Johnny asked, searching for the words. “You spin it off or somethin’?”
“Our family technique’s got a much wider range of uses,” Gyro answered. A faint echo of nyo-ho stirred on the tip of his tongue, hiding in his throat. “Rotation’s only a small part of it. Comes in handy around the house. Golden ratio can be applied to anything if you’ve got the will. Even unwanted hair.”
Johnny stayed silent. So long that Gyro started to worry—not for his neck, but that Johnny might explode. Or worse, that he’d take real offense.
“You mean to tell me,” Johnny said, his voice flat, too flat, “I’ve been dancing around over you up here for nothing?”
Gyro felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. Because Johnny was offended. The same Johnny who kept his hurts locked behind seven iron doors… was actually stung. Over a razor Gyro had let him use. Over the Spin. Over the fact that all his careful effort had turned out unnecessary.
It was almost sweet. Almost touching. Almost—if not for the blade still at his face.
“You ain’t dancing,” Gyro said carefully. “You’re sitting.”
“Don’t dodge the question.”
“Ask it straight, then.”
“There ain’t no question,” Johnny muttered. He still hadn’t moved the razor, still held it close enough that Gyro couldn’t relax, close enough that he could feel the cold steel against his warm skin. “It was just… pointless. All of it. Useless.”
“Not pointless,” Gyro answered softly. “I never said it was useless. Only that I’ve got another way.”
“So you’re sayin',” Johnny’s voice dropped, almost indifferent now, “you let me waste my time doing something you could’ve finished in a couple minutes. A couple minutes of your life, Gyro. I was up here sweatin' over your face, scared I’d cut up that precious mug of yours, trimmin' every damn line, and you could’ve just—done it.”
Johnny listed the facts. Flat. Cold. Like reading a death sentence to a man already condemned. But Gyro heard something else—something beneath the words, in the pauses, in the way Johnny’s breath caught. He heard what Johnny didn’t say out loud:
«You don’t need me. You can go on without me. You always could. So why’d you let me do this? Why didn’t you stop me? Why waste your time on me? Why keep me around if I’m nothing but dead weight you can drop the second it suits you?»
Gyro wanted to answer. Wanted to say that not everything in this world is measured in usefulness and minutes. That some things matter not because they’re practical, but because they’re done. For each other. With hands. With breath. With time you can’t get back—but don’t mind losing.
That it wasn’t nothing to him.
That it had felt… good.
But the razor was still at his face. And Gyro couldn’t lie to him.
“You wanted to,” Gyro said simply. “So I didn’t stop you.”
Johnny was quiet. His fingers only tightened on Gyro’s chin—just a fraction harder than necessary.
“Because I’m a damn fool?” he asked, voice dark.
“No,” Gyro answered too quickly.
Because Johnny wasn’t a fool. Johnny was… Johnny. And that was the only definition Gyro willing accept without argument.
“Then why?” Johnny didn’t push. He’d long since learned how to wait—patient as a vulture. It was his greatest strength, his curse, and his sharpest weapon.
The room was silent. There was no hiding in that silence.
And Gyro knew the answer.
“Because I liked it,” he finally breathed out.
Johnny says nothing. Doesn’t make a sound. Only his eyebrows twitch, just barely. The razor in his hand keeps moving like it has a mind of its own. Johnny is focused on nothing else. He draws the blade across the last untouched patch of skin, right by the ear. Words are words, shaving is shaving, he seems to have decided, and one shouldn’t get in the way of the other.
His movements stay the same—gentle, precise, perfectly controlled. Nothing has changed. Or maybe everything has, but Johnny refuses to let it show.
Gyro doesn’t know which is worse.
“Done,” Johnny finally announces, pulling the razor away.
He leans back, freeing Gyro’s face from the grip of his fingers. His palm brushes Gyro’s cheek—not on purpose, just checking smoothness—then drops away.
“Now you look like a man,” he says, setting the razor on the nightstand and wiping the blade on the edge of the sheet. He’ll probably regret that later.
That’s it.
Gyro runs his own fingers over his cheeks. Smooth where they ought to be. Burning hot, blood rushing underneath. They don’t even feel like his. But everything extra is gone now. His coordination is a little off—too many nerves tonight—but he manages.
Johnny turns on the bed with that practiced, easy motion, swinging his useless legs. He reaches for his bag and pulls something out—Gyro doesn’t see what, because he’s staring at the ceiling.
“Gonna change,” Johnny throws over his shoulder. “Turn around.”
Gyro obediently turns toward the wall. He hears the rustle of fabric—Johnny pulling off his shirt, fiddling with the buttons on his nightclothes. Probably the same old pair he’s been wearing since the start of the race. The kid's already growing out of them, but they still haven’t made it to a proper trading post. Johnny keeps dragging those worn-out clothes along without a word of complaint.
And Gyro can’t hold it in anymore.
“I really did like it,” he says again, sounding more desperate than he’s used to hearing from himself.
He looks straight at Johnny, who’s already managed to shrug the nightshirt onto his shoulders—at least partway. Buttons still undone. Too late to look away now.
Johnny freezes mid-motion, fingers paused on the middle button like they’re obeying some silent command. Then he starts moving again—fluffing the pillow, straightening the edge of the blanket. He does look at Gyro. And he smirks. Shoulders relaxed. Head no longer bowed.
“You sat real still,” Johnny says suddenly. “Like a trained animal.”
That familiar sly spark lights up in his blue eyes again. The same one Gyro first saw back in San Diego—when Johnny, covered in dust and blood, looked up at him from the ground and said, “Teach me.” Back then those eyes held only hunger. Now there’s something else.
The weight lifts off Gyro’s chest. He sighs like a man granted a pardon at the gallows. Like the sentence was canceled at the last second and he gets to keep on living. Because Johnny isn’t shutting him out. Because Johnny is right here.
“Trained, huh?”
“Yep,” Johnny shrugs. “Trained.”
“Trained…” Gyro rolls the word on his tongue. “Guess I did a decent job then.”
“Still room for improvement,” Johnny nods, fastening the last button and straightening his collar. “But you’ll get your reward. You earned it.”
“What reward?” Gyro raises an eyebrow. With Johnny, you always had to watch for the hook—you couldn’t afford to underestimate him.
“You’ll see,” Johnny yawns, covering his mouth politely like they taught him in fine houses. Though he was about as much a gentleman as Gyro was a Catholic priest. “Morning will tell.”
Gyro lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding all night. Air fills his lungs properly for the first time this endless evening.
“Then we’d best get some sleep,” he says.
Gyro gets up from the floor. His knees have gone stiff—he’d sat too long in one position, throat bared, trusting another man’s hands. His legs don’t obey right away—pins and needles, numbness, unsteadiness. He makes it to his own bed—the one with the hard mattress he’d chosen for himself—and drops onto it without undressing. No point pulling off his boots; he’s too tired, and it doesn’t feel crazy right now. Shirt stays buttoned—he’ll just fasten it again in the morning anyway. He falls onto his back, arms spread, staring at the ceiling where the darkness hides almost everything.
“Gyro,” he hears a minute later.
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t joking. About the reward.”
Gyro smiles into the dark. The corners of his mouth creep up on their own—no controlling it, no hiding it. Good thing Johnny can’t see him like this. Or maybe he can? The bed by the window probably has the advantage. Gyro had given it to him on purpose—so Johnny wouldn’t miss a single twitch or shiver.
“Just remember,” Gyro says, trying to keep his voice steady, “you’re choosing this of your own free will.”
“Joestar word,” Johnny answers, voice low. “And Joestars don’t take their words back.”
There was something near ominous in that sentence, but Gyro doesn’t press him. He decides not to think about it at all.
Instead he closes his eyes. Breathes in time with Johnny.
And still he thinks. About how maybe this race isn’t just about the prize. Not just fifty million dollars, not just glory, not just the chance to cross the finish line first and go home a winner.
That he wants more than the goal.
Something money can’t buy. Something the finish line won’t give him, even if he crosses it first.
And that “more” is lying right now on the other side of this room. On the bed by the window, with its sagging mattress and torn sheets. In a nightshirt worn so thin there’s a hole at the elbow. With a man who’s probably already asleep—or pretending to be, so Gyro wouldn’t feel ashamed.
And it isn’t going anywhere. It’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after, and a month from now, and a year from now—if Gyro can manage to hold on to it.
Johnny, Gyro thinks. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.
The name pulses with his heartbeat. Pounds in his temples. Echoes in the tips of his fingers, used to the cold steel of the balls, and in the place on his chin where the skin still burns from the razor.
“G’night,” he whispers with his lips, without any hope that Johnny hears it.
Because he does.
Morning will tell.