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While the Baron Zeppeli dealt in mystical powers and healing properties, Speedwagon was a master of the practical. While the Baron Zeppeli taught some strange Eastern sun magic, Speedwagon taught pure steel and hard mechanics. While the Baron Zeppeli gave his lessons with no precedent at all, it took Speedwagon several weeks and several tries to offer Jonathan a lesson in shooting.
He wasn’t sure if it was uncalled for--they were still mostly-strangers, and there was hardly a good way to phrase a proposition like that, not the way Speedwagon wanted it to be phrased.
Hi, Mr. Joestar, I noticed how bad your posture was when you were trying to shoot your newly-undead brother the night your father died…
Good afternoon, Mr. Joestar, could I teach you how to do something that you already know how to do but I know better?
Mr. Joestar, could I interest you in some pistol-firing lessons? Because you seemed nervous handling a pistol, but there were other circumstances…
Mr. Joestar…
His motives were ulterior, perhaps, but he himself was inferior, and so he settled for half-glances and staring at the outside of the door to the room that Jonathan occupied after the destruction of his only home, something that Speedwagon couldn’t help but identify as at least partially his fault. Obviously it wasn’t his direct doing, but his being there had escalated the situation, and that was enough to seed the guilt brewing in his heart, his mind, his liver--every small part of his body was alive with the sheer shame of it all, so much that asking to help Jonathan seemed like it would be an absolute slap in the face after what he had (albeit indirectly) done. And still, he sat on the uncomfortable wooden chair outside Jonathan’s room, waiting for an opportunity he wasn’t sure he wanted to come.
After about thirty minutes of strong inner consternation regarding whether or not to actually approach Mr. Joestar with his offer, the man himself burst out of his room (as he did most every room: a bit too tall to properly stride through the average door), taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the change in light levels before letting his gaze settle on Speedwagon, seeming to politely demand an explanation without saying a word. It was strange, how well Jonathan could communicate nonverbally--through glances and gestures and subtle twists of his lips (oh God, his lips)--and it was stranger still that Speedwagon could interpret these stray movements into accurate meaning.
For instance, Jonathan was about to ask him what in blazes he was doing out in front of his room.
“Speedwagon,” he started in his typical highly energetic fashion, “I’ve been meaning to find you!”
Okay. Okay, maybe not.
In the conversation that ensued following Speedwagon’s rather incorrect assumption, several things took place, including a hasty apology for intruding on Mr. Joestar’s precious privacy to that extent, reassurances from Jonathan, another apology for being a coward and not approaching him sooner, reassurances from Jonathan, a highly self-deprecating introduction to Speedwagon’s proposition involving the discussion of his own meager fighting skills, reassurances from Jonathan, and a final, bumbling request that Speedwagon help Jonathan in any way he possibly could, starting with a lesson on how to properly fire a pistol in a truly effective way.
Jonathan simply smiled and raised an eyebrow, and Robert truly didn’t trust his own instincts when his own instincts had been so wholly incorrect the last time. The man had a kind of Mona Lisa smile, a vague intimation of emotion that betrayed no accurate thought to the casual observer.
“You know, Speedwagon, I was thinking the same thing!” Jonathan replied, with a suddenness that shocked Speedwagon out of his thoughts of his smile and into the real world of...well, his smile. It took him a moment to process the response, but when he did, his expression did a full turnaround from deathly nervous to deathly excited, those being the primary emotions he experienced in full most of the time. It took him even longer to formulate a response that wasn’t simply babbling like some kind of buffoon and shaking Jonathan’s hand unnecessarily.
“You--um--y-you sure won’t--remem--regret this, Mr. Joestar!” he babbled like some kind of buffoon, shaking Jonathan’s hand unnecessarily.
Jonathan smiled his Mona Lisa all-knowing smile, and before either of them really knew it, they were in an empty patch of field with a half-melted suit of armor retrieved from the wreckage of the Joestar mansion with a single revolver clutched gingerly in one of Jonathan’s massive hands, as if it were some kind of deadly scorpion only dangerous to large British gents with a talent for boxing and looking handsome, in which case Jonathan would be dead a million times over. Speedwagon was unsure of why that analogy came to mind, but it did fit the slightly fearful expression on his friend’s face. Speedwagon thought it was a clever simile.
The hypothetical scorpion thought nothing at all.
“Alright, Mr. Joestar--”
“Jonathan,” the man in question corrected, “please. I insist.”
“...Jonathan.” Speedwagon swallowed hard, running his fingers through his tangles of hair. “Jonathan, of course. In any case, you need to start by holding the gun with confidence. You look--pardon me--you look like you’re holding a scorpion.”
When vocalizing his rather clever opinion was met with a pleasantly blank stare, he amended his statement to be more direct. “Hold it firmly, and wholly straight. Your grip is a bit loose around the base, you have to keep steady to have a straight shot.” Jonathan corrected his position, a slightly nervous laugh ending quite before it started.
“You’ll have to forgive me, Speedwagon, I’m simply...I remember--” A soft sigh escaped him, his posture faltering only for a moment before returning to his previous highly attuned stance. “That night has not quite been forgotten, I mean. It’s a bit difficult to forget something like that, and I simply…don’t want to make some of the same mistakes I did then, that’s all. I apologize for my lackluster performance, Speedwagon; I may be a bit preoccupied with other things.”
Jaw set, he turned back straight ahead, facing the disfigured dummy with a new resolve. Speedwagon, unknowing of how to respond to such a personal confession, simply crossed over to his side and continued with the lesson he had intended to, eyes wide.
“...In any case, you don’t pull the trigger, you push it. Don’t think of it as a pulling motion, ‘else you’ll set your aim all askew. Just squeeze the--”
With hardly any warning at all, aside from the subtle tightening of Jonathan’s jaw and a slight adjustment of the weapon in his hands, a sharp bang rang out over the empty countryside, causing Speedwagon to stumble back and fall (in a rather undignified manner, mind) on his rear, shouting all the way. The fired bullet itself only grazed the side of the makeshift target, carving a small rut in the metal like a scar on the torso of this fallen (but no less mighty) soldier. Speedwagon imagined himself being shot through the heart, though he couldn’t say why.
“Wow,” the two men collectively breathed out, the last shared moment they had before diverging into two separate paths at the exact same time.
“Did you think that was impressive, Speedwagon?”
“Jonathan, good Lord, your aim is horrendous.”
There was a solid moment of silence, sheepishness on both sides, before Robert climbed to his feet, dusting off the back of his coat. The quiet dragged on as they silently dared each other to be the first one to speak. Jonathan looked openly petulant. Speedwagon looked openly disappointed, and he chose to break the soft cover of sudden muteness that seemed to have struck the both of them dumb.
“Your aim was off from the start,” he began, slowly inching his way towards Jonathan with a gradually building insistence. “You did hit the target, but you were about twenty centimeters from the ideal position, which means you have to correct your initial path. If you would kindly, um, g-go back to where you were holding the revolver before? Don’t shoot it yet, though. Just wait for my mark.”
Jonathan obliged, reverting almost perfectly to his previous pose, eyes trained straight ahead, waiting for whatever instruction followed. However, even he couldn’t be wholly prepared for Speedwagon coming up behind him to physically adjust his aim, slender fingers gently--but insistently--moving his wrist into a more accurate location. Their height difference made it difficult to properly accomplish this, but Robert’s eye was keen enough to where he could more or less judge where the bullet would land from Jonathan’s standing. Almost unconsciously, he let his chin rest on the taller man’s shoulder, speaking directly into his ear with a tone far too loud for doing such.
“Alright, you’ve got it, now. Of course, this can’t prepare you for a moving target, but…” He let himself trail off, his heart rate quickening. Surely Jonathan could feel that through the four (Speedwagon’s shirt, Speedwagon’s vest, Jonathan’s vest, Jonathan’s shirt) layers of clothing separating Robert’s chest from his back, a rapid pulse beating a staccato in time to some kind of frantic opera piece inaudible to the human ear. “You could use the practice handling a gun, anyways. Any little thing helps, even if it won’t help against--”
“Dio, I know, I’m working on that.” Jonathan’s voice came out surprisingly stern, and even though it didn’t seem to be directed towards Speedwagon, he felt himself wilt all the same. “I know this can’t kill him, but I want to be prepared all the same.”
Robert’s head felt fuzzy.
“Alright, Jonathan, go ahead and fire.”
The resounding shot rang truer than the last, forcing a divot into the distorted metal in the center of the armor’s chestplate, perhaps a centimeter or two off from where a hypothetical heart would be. The sound, now being expected, didn’t startle Speedwagon, but a few distant birds took flight from the shock of it. Neither of them said a word, but Jonathan cast a patiently expectant look back at his temporary teacher, and, by God, Speedwagon didn’t have to guess at what his open expression was saying, because he had felt the same emotion so many times in his twenty-odd years of continued existence.
Did I do alright?
In a somewhat messy, unpracticed unison, Jonathan craned his head back and Robert tilted his forward, until they met in a slightly uncomfortable half-kiss, both of their eyes screwed tightly shut in the faint fear that they had ruined something for the other, the fear that they weren’t as in-sync with each other as they had assumed or hoped. The world liked to destroy pretty things, hopeful things, but perhaps it looked over this particular one.
(For now, at least, because in less than two months Jonathan would be in a coffin and Speedwagon would be in mourning, but in this moment, the threat of impending death eased slightly in the shining splendor of something that Could Be, never mind the fact that it Wouldn’t Be.)
After a few moments, they came apart, both in the physical, coupled sense and in the emotional, personal sense. The moment their lips disconnected, Speedwagon stepped back, gasped, and stepped back again, already pushing out apologies and curses and oh god Erinas, fiddling with the collar of his shirt, the fictional opera that his heart beat to reaching a dangerous crescendo. Every molecule of him waited for Jonathan to snap. Every molecule of him wanted Jonathan to snap.
Every molecule of him wanted Jonathan.
Very quietly, the other man set the revolver on the dry grass, not immediately turning to face Speedwagon. In this moment, he was at his most unreadable, with no facial movement to guide a viewer towards any conclusion about his mental state, but rather a wholly blank slate on which anything could be projected. Speedwagon imagined his perfect, soft face twisting into rage. Speedwagon imagined his lovely pale skin turning a blotchy purple. Speedwagon imagined a slap, maybe, or perhaps just an angry request to leave.
What he did not imagine, however, was the truth of what happened: a gentle hand on his face, pushing his curly hair back from his forehead, a quiet smile, and a calm voice speaking to him as if he were a million miles away.
“Robert, it’s alright.”
It took him a moment to reconcile his believed fate with his current situation, eyes wide and staring up at the man who should be calling him disgusting, all things considered. His eyes were wet. He perceived this in both his imagined scenario and as a salty reality running down his face. Jonathan wiped his tears with his thumbs, hands delicately resting on either side of Speedwagon’s face.
For such a large, clumsy man, he’s surprisingly tender, Speedwagon thought.. Many things about Jojo were inherently contradictory, but the largest contradiction existed in the sheer power and rage Speedwagon had witnessed firsthand in comparison with how destructively soft he could be, a thoughtful look on his face with Robert literally (literally!) in the palm of his hand. Jonathan continued his mumbled reassurances, a different man than the one who had fired that shot into the chest of the suit of armor a mere few minutes before.
“Calm down, Robert, it’s okay. You didn’t hurt me.” This last phrase was said with hardly any laughter, but there was an inherent humor to it in the fact that even though he was capable, Speedwagon would never, ever intentionally hurt Jonathan, no matter the situation. The tears started afresh, and a low whine emitted from the shorter of the two men. “Robert, listen to me. You did nothing wrong,” Jonathan continued, speaking in a tone similar to one talking to an especially anxious dog, before leaning down the extra centimeters to press a kiss to Speedwagon’s forehead.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Joestar--”
“Jonathan.”
“...Jonathan. I didn’t mean to--I mean, I did, but--”
“I meant it, too.”
For the first time since they had met earlier that day, Jonathan’s clearly (or, sometimes clearly) readable face crumbled into a slightly nervous smile, sweat building on his brow. Speedwagon merely stared at him, head cocked, until Jonathan relented and explained himself in that sweet way he had of saying things, eyes wide and honest. They both were equally broken-up in their own ways, and this eased both of their consciences.
“Speedwagon, I think you’re wonderful, a man of great character. I couldn’t imagine anyone more deserving of good fortune befalling them than you, and I can’t think of anybody less deserving than me to bestow it.”
Speedwagon attempted to speak, but Jonathan insistently drowned him out.
“Give me a moment, Robert. I simply...have too much danger in my life to allow anyone else to bear that danger with me. As far as we know, Dio is still out there, biding his time, and until I defeat him, I cannot promise anyone my favor, no matter the circumstances.” His voice was apologetic, but his words seemed rehearsed, as if he’d already performed this specific routine. Something dawned on Speedwagon that he’d been previously been trying to ignore.
“You and Erina…”
“She’s been told the same.”
“I can’t do that to the two of you--”
“Do what?” Jonathan’s voice was simultaneously hard and pleading.
“Intrude...like this. You two are far too happy for me to do that.”
“How did you introduce yourself to me? ‘I’m the interfering Speedwagon!’” This time, there was a laugh solicited from both of them, despite all the items pointing them towards the opposite. “Robert, neither of us would mind. I certainly would invite you in, except…”
“I’ll do it.”
Jonathan stopped mid-thought to look at Robert, decidedly confused.
“Do what?”
“I’ll follow you. Wherever you go, Jojo, I’ll go with you. You don’t have to worry about the danger, with me or Erina, because both of us will follow you until the end.” It was a bold statement, especially when he brought Erina into it, but Speedwagon knew every bit of it to be one hundred percent true, right down to the last syllable. Even though he was mostly unaware of it, his voice had risen to a shout, as was typical of his speech.
Jonathan considered this with raised eyebrows. “If you’re going to be this stubborn about it, then I suppose I have little choice but to go along.”
He imagined one (or both) of his two closest friends dying. Speedwagon imagined this too, but in a different context, and with different methods of killing. This is, of course, simply the way things go, when it comes to imagined scenarios: the same outcome will be played out a hundred million times amongst a hundred million people, resulting in a hundred million different ways of reaching that outcome. Neither Erina nor Speedwagon would die for another sixty-odd years, but nobody could have known that, and such is the way love works.
Without much warning, much like the first shot he made, Jonathan leaned down for a second kiss. Also like the gunshot, Speedwagon flinched hard, though he eventually grew accustomed to the softness of his lips on Jojo’s. Again, like the gunshot, Speedwagon imagined himself being struck through the heart, though in a different sort of way, mostly. There was no fear from either of them, unlike the revolver placed on the ground nearby. In this way, the kiss was not like a firing of a pistol, though the similarities would stay.
They stayed like this until neither of them could breathe and then some, coming up laughing and choking and awkwardly wiping mouths with sleeves.
“Wow,” they both breathed, simultaneously and for similar reasons.
“I think I might need some more practice,” they both said, simultaneously but for different reasons.