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Johnny sat on the floor in the middle of his room trying to make a sling out of one of his shirts. Desperately blinking back tears that threatened to fall from his eyes at any second.
While he was attempting to fashion a sling for his arm his father walked in. No knock no nothing just staring down at him. Johnny could feel himself physically shrinking under his fathers gaze. Neither of them spoke for what felt like an eternity. Johnny was desperately praying the whole time that his father would leave and go back down stairs. Much to his chagrin his father came closer. Johnny could feel his whole body tense as he was unsure if he should just stay put or try to run.
"Get up," George demanded.
Johnny looked up meeting his gaze for the first time but not moving an inch.
"I'm taking you to the doctor's to fix your arm."
Does he actually feel bad? Is this one line no matter how skewed it may be he doesn't want to cross?
Johnny slowly rose to his feet using his good arm to help keep his dislocated shoulder from moving. He followed his father out to the car, getting in it without saying a word. The following drive is tense to say the least, Johnny stared blankly out the window watching the trees, grass and the occasional building blend together. Only being interrupted with the car's brakes being slammed followed by the loud ringing of the car horn. Johnny feels himself flinching every time he hears the horn knowing his father only does this when he's really pissed.
After what felt like an eternity they finally pull up to a small doctor's office. Johnny begins to reach for the door.
"Jonathan." His father says coldly. Johnny flinches at the sound of his name stopping him in his tracks.
Johnny glanced back at his father without saying anything.
"When they ask about what happened just say you fell off a horse or something believable I don't care! They'll fix it though and that's all that matters." Johnny watched his father's face closely as he spoke he could have sworn he saw guilt flash in his fathers eyes.
Johnny didn't reply, just looked back down at the floor of the car.
"Besides they are far more likely to believe a father of a troubled teen over a 15 year old making up stories for attention famous or not no-one cares about you or your problems." George said with venom lacing his every word.
That's enough for the tears Johnny had been desperately holding back to break free and start streaming down his face. His father looks at him with an annoyed and slightly disgusted expression.
Johnny desperately tries wiping away all the tears completely messing up the small amount of makeup he had been playing with earlier.
"While you're at it wipe off all that gunk on your face I didn't raise you to be a filthy degenerate whore." George says while throwing a random cloth he must have had in the backseat at Johnny.
Johnny nodded quietly while using the cloth to scrub his face. It just makes him cry harder.
—
"So on my flight back here I was sitting alone near the back and the flight attendant was hanging around there. So she starts making polite conversation with me. While I wasn't exactly in the mood for a conversation this lady wouldn't stop talking. She starts asking me if 'I've ever been to Kentucky' and I tell her I grew up here. I'm just visiting for a few days. Then she starts saying things like 'oh you must be so excited to be home' and 'what brings you back here?' Now I'm already really annoyed at this point so I tell her 'well I'm just coming back because my fathers is dying.' Then SHE starts crying and telling me how sorry she is and she shouldn't have pried into my life. Like yeah no kidding lady but all the passengers are looking at me like I'm the monster here. So I'm trying to comfort HER. I'm telling HER that it's fine, it's okay even though it really isn't. Then she says sorry again and gives me one of those first class pastries. After that she left me alone and I was left thinking... I just got a free pastry because my dad is dying."
Johnny paused for a second trying to take in the church he hadn't been inside of in so long despite being here every Sunday for the majority of his life.
"Okay that wasn't part of umm okay this is Johnny Joestar doing a eulogy let's go! Um let's see what can I say about my father? Well he was a jockey when he was younger then later as an adult a horse trainer he was a husband and a father of two children. Truly a remarkable man" Johnny couldn't help but roll his eyes at that last part.
"Okay well that's all I got tip your waitress! Haha no I'm kidding. But seriously I don't really know what else to say sooooo yeah" Johnny said wheeling out from the podium while rocking back and forth.
"My dad, he lived a full life... well as full as you can get when dying at 59. Isn't it crazy though that no matter what you do one day you could just drop dead no rhyme or reason. One moment you are watering plants and the next well you're nothing."
"That's kind of a downer... here let me think of a nice feel good story."
"Oh um, here's a good story I got about my dad. When I was like 16 I had a big horse race coming up! The Kentucky Derby... I'm Johnny Joestar, winner of the 2019 Kentucky Derby. Please hold your applause.......... well held" Johnny flatly remarked to the silent room.
"Anyways I wanted these really cool horse riding boots for the competition. So I told my dad and he just kinda scoffed at me and told me 'the boots I already had are fine.' Which no they weren't, they were falling apart. So I decided to save up my money to buy the boots and when I finally had enough I went back to the store and you know what, the boots were gone! They just got sold. So I told my dad and he said 'let that be a lesson that's the good that comes from wanting things' he was always really great at having everything circle back to being my fault. However the day before my dad had a surprise for me. It was the boots! Now even though I knew he couldn't say it this proved that he actually did care and love me. Now that's a good story about my dad. It's not true but it's a good story."
"I wish I could sit here and tell you that I at least came up with the story myself but I just stole it from a TV show. I always wanted a good sweet story to be able to tell when my dad died but I never got one. The closest thing I have is the day before he passed." Johnny took a shaky breath.
"I just came back to Kentucky for the first time in years and I went back to that hospital that I haven't been to since............. and he's laying on the bed looking extremely weak in a way I've never seen and when he saw me his face was something I haven't seen it was almost... kind........"
He glances back towards the coffin on stage before looking away again.
"He told me that he's glad I came and he wanted to apologize for what he has done to me. Now that was not what I was prepared for. I was sure he would start berating me for abandoning him, never answering his calls, holding grudges. How I would never be as good as Nicholas. I was a burden! A failure!" He stops to take another shaky breath attempting to calm his nerves.
"I was prepared for all that but him wanting to apologize that idea never crossed my mind. This man who made me feel small, weak, alone and that nobody loved me was crying telling me how sorry he was."
Johnny let out a sigh as his gaze dropped to the floor and gave a dry laugh.
"Heh you know it's funny if I told my younger self that one day dad would be apologizing he'd never believe it. When I was a kid I always was hoping, waiting for some moment like this where he would apologize to me or do something to show that deep down he cared and loved me." Johnny looked back down to the floor.
"When I was young I thought that it would be enough and make up for the years of damage. That despite he wasn't what I needed over and over and OVER again at any point he could show me deep down that he does care. I kept waiting and when I was by his side in the hospital he kept telling me how sorry he was but I just couldn't believe it at that point."
"I don't know, maybe some wounds can't be healed."
"When he was telling me all this... the only thing I could think of was when I was in the hospital after being shot..... he didn't come once he never came to support me or help me. Why am I? I TRAVEL ACROSS THE GOD DAMN COUNTRY JUST TO SEE THIS BASTARD WHEN HE COULDN'T EVEN DRIVE ACROSS TOWN TO SEE ME!" Johnny put his hands to his face trying to stop the tears that threatened to fall. Breathing slowly to calm himself down enough to continue speaking.
"Once he finished his speech he looked at me asking if I could forgive him. He said it in a way where he almost sounded like he was begging me to. He said that he 'could never change what he's done but making amends before he dies is probably best for both of us.' I...I couldn't even look at him so I left. Later that night the hospital called me to tell me he flatlined and had been pronounced dead. I just said ok and hung up. Maybe it makes me a bad person for not giving into his bedside wish but he'd never do the same for me and he definitely didn't do it to her......."
"My mother died when I was young, I was maybe 6. I was never close with her but she never treated me poorly. I remember I just felt nothing when she died. My brother was sad he kept asking me if I was okay and I just nodded because how could I be sad? I barely knew her. She was just a person who lived in close proximity to me. Nowadays I guess I do feel sad but not because I miss her but more because now I'll never know her... she wasn't and now she'll never be what I needed."
"My father gave the eulogy. He talked about times when they were happy together. I can't tell you if any of these stories were true but it's impossible for me to picture anytime where my father was happy and loving. I only knew them when they almost never interacted except when they were screaming at each other. I don't know what changed. Perhaps he finally showed his true colours and she hated him for what he'd done and couldn't get out or she did something that made him this way. Or they just were..."
"Lord I don't know, the more I try to understand, the less it seems to make sense."
"You know now that both of my parents are dead and my brother........." Johnny couldn't bear to finish that sentence knowing that it was him who did that. Knowing that it should have been him.
"It means I'm next not literally but well I'm next and let's face it probably the last Joestar. So once I'm finally gone that's it. Hundreds of years of the Joestar lineage just to end with me. Hm its gotta be a real slap in the face that my dads idiot son couldn't even do this right.........."
"You know back when I first moved to California I met this guy and we became friends. One day he told me that his father died a while back but he was still upset about it when he barely knew him and didn't even like him."
"It made sense to me because I felt that with my mom and I feel it again with my dad."
"Huh you know what it's like? Okay so back in the day when I was a jockey I knew this guy and no matter what he did he just was never good enough. He wasn't a bad horse rider, just not good enough to be professional. I saw him practice every day. He had all the right pieces to be incredible but just was never able to put them together. One day he just stopped showing up... pretty sure he moved away. I remember feeling weirdly sad not because I knew the guy but just because he had so much more potential to be great. That's what it's like to lose my dad. He had the potential to be a good parent. I wasn't asking for him to be perfect but even just the occasional I'm proud of you would have been enough for me. Even now I'm still holding on wishing... hoping."
"A random lady on a plane showed me more kindness and love in one simple interaction than you gave me in my entire life. What was so wrong with me?! Am I just damaged goods?! THE BACKUP?! YOU WERE ALL I HAD LEFT!"
"You know what the shittiest god damn part about this is? I do feel sad that he's gone. I shouldn't WHY DO I? THIS BASTARD LOCKED ME OUT OF THE HOUSE DURING A GOD DAMN TORNADO. HE TOLD ME I WAS THE WRONG SON. HE NEVER CAME TO SUPPORT ME WHEN I RACED HE COULDN'T EVEN BEEN BOTHERED TO SEE ME HIS FUCKING CHILD IN THE HOSPITAL AFTER BEING SHOT. AND THIS IS THE MAN I HAVE TO MOURN? THIS IS THE MAN THAT I'M SAD ABOUT DYING? EVEN IN DEATH HE STILL HAS CONTROL OVER ME!"
Johnny's voice completely broke into sobs at this point as tears started streaming down his face.
"MY FATHER IS DEAD AND ALL HE LEFT ME WAS WORDS TELLING ME THAT HE ALWAYS COULD HAVE CHANGED AND BEEN BETTER BUT I JUST WASN'T WORTH IT! MY FATHER IS DEAD AND ALL THAT'S LEFT IS A BURNING REMINDER OF WHAT HE COULD HAVE BEEN! MY FATHER IS DEAD AND ALL THAT'S LEFT IS....... is a big empty house where a man and his child once lived where nobody saw a lonely child crying himself to sleep more nights then he can count. My father is dead...."
"You know what it's good. It's good to know that no-one truly cares for me or about my stupid problems. I am completely on my own."
"I didn't know that before and now I do so it's good my father is dead because now I know that there never was anyone who cared enough to help me. Now there never will be."
"My father George Joestar was a bitter, angry, despicable, sad old man. I'll never truly understand him. Maybe I was never meant to. We all try to grasp at threads to try to understand why and make sense of this world and each other but maybe we weren't meant to know. I'll never know why..... and..... I'm okay with that. We all have our own crosses to bear and sometimes they get so heavy that they crush you and everyone around..."
"George Joestar was born in 1966 and died in 2025 and I have no idea who he was."
After Johnny finished his speech he didn't stick around to hear the people whispering. He had only come back for closure and now he is less sure than ever if closure exists. His face feels gross from the tears that stained his cheeks and his hands wont stop shaking. God he needed a drink.
Johnny calls an uber and waits about 10 minutes. Once it arrives he tells the guy to stop at a liquor store before heading over to the hotel. As they drove Johnny watched through the window trying to remember all these little details of a town he used to call home. Everything felt so foggy now.
When they arrived at the liquor store Johnny went in and bought a bottle of bourbon then they drove to the hotel.
Once Johnny made it up to his room he collapsed on the bed and sobbed harder than he had in his life as the weight of everything came crashing down on him. After about an hour of this he grabs his phone to facetime Gyro. He doesn't care that he probably looks like shit he needs to see the other man's face.
After 3 rings Gyro picks up.
"Hey Johnny, how are you doing? I'm so sorry I can't be down there with you. I know it must be hard doing this alone." Gyro sounded really apologetic; he also looked about as exhausted as Johnny felt. Must have just gotten back from a shift is Johnny's guess.
"I'm okay really it's honestly probably better that you weren't there. I don't want you to see me like that."
"Nothing could ever change how I feel about you Johnny."
"Did you just get back from a shift?"
"Yeah it was... it was a long day" Gyro nodded.
"You can go to bed if you want to. I'm okay really." Johnny tried to reassure Gyro.
"I can sleep any time but I wanna be here with you."
"Hmm you're sweet" Johnny smiled slightly.
"Oh Johnny, yesterday I meant to ask you where you are staying?"
"At a hotel. I was going to stay at the house because well it's free but walking in... I don't know I lived in that house for 19 years but coming back I couldn't handle it. Maybe I'm getting weak, I don't know." He said, rubbing his face.
"Johnny you are not weak for one you are just genuinely really physically strong like your upper body and arms–"
Johnny cut him off.
"Yeah 4 years and counting of being in a wheelchair and having to use your arms to move my entire body will do that."
Gyro laughed slightly, "I didn't get to the main part of the point yet!"
"Oh sorry it seemed like you got distracted by how hot I am but keep going to your point then." Johnny laughed slightly.
Gyro laughed, shaking his head before continuing.
"Point being you could never be weak for a person who has been through so much and is still here still going. That alone is a testament to your strength Johnny."
"Maybe I was wrong. Maybe some people do actually care."
"OF COURSE WE CARE JOHNNY!" Gyro seemed almost offended at the implication that Johnny didn't actually believe he cared.
"I love you."
"Love you too."