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It's been two weeks since the whole thing with Sugar Mountain, and Johnny thinks they're somewhere in Ohio by now. Or maybe Pennsylvania? He's been to Ohio before, but it was years ago, in summer, and he'd stuck to cities and racetracks. Now it's winter and the route they're taking-- or at least, trying to take-- manages to skirt between Columbus and Cleveland without getting close enough to either one to reasonably go through, so it's really hard to tell where they are in the state. Hopefully they'll hit Pittsburgh soon. Gyro's good company, maybe the only person Johnny would want to spend so many days alone with, but Johnny misses beds. Food that he doesn't have to find or kill himself. Running water.
He pushes these thoughts aside and shakes his head in frustration. Daydreaming isn't helpful; what he should focus on is the here and now. The here: Ohiovania; the now: early morning. The snow isn't quite as bad as it was in Michigan, but it still comes down in soft fat flakes, lies thick and mute on the ground. In the desert, they traveled at night to avoid the worst of the heat, but now they travel in the day in the hopes of catching as much sunlight as possible. This early in the morning, the air hasn't begun to heat up even a little, and the breath of man and horse alike comes in warm wet clouds of fog. Morning mist swirls around the horses' ankles.
"It ever get this cold where you're from?" Johnny asks after a while. It feels strange, speaking after an hour of quiet riding.
Gyro hums. "Ahhh, no, it really doesn't. Even on very cold winter days, we don't freeze. Before this I have seen snow only a couple times. Napule gets hot summers and cool winters."
"Huh," Johnny says. "Sounds like Kentucky. But we get at least a little snow every winter. This must be pretty awful for you, huh?"
Gyro grins at him, big and bright. "The weather is too cold, but the company makes up for it!" He slugs Johnny in the arm playfully, as if to illustrate how much fun he's having. Johnny snickers and shrugs him off. He can never really tell how sincere Gyro's being.
"Uh huh," he says. "We're just a havin' a party out here, Gyro. Just the time of our lives."
Gyro cocks his head, his big goofy grin fading into something smaller and more genuine. He's so bright against the gathering mist. "Aren't you?"
Johnny squints at him. "I'm sorry, how many times have we nearly died since the beginning of this race?"
Gyro blows air out through his lips dismissively. "Ah, mortal peril! That's nothing, Johnny. Everyone should experience a little mortal peril at least once--"
"Uh, sure," Johnny interrupts him, " Once, maybe, but at this point we've both experienced enough 'mortal peril' for like thirty other people. It's getting a little old."
"And anyway," Gyro continues, as if Johnny hadn't spoken, "I'm having fun. Even though it's scary. I like riding--" He leans down to pat at Valkyrie's flank. "-- and I like you. This is an adventure, you know?"
Johnny shakes his head, but he can't help smiling. "I think I'd be willing to sacrifice the excitement for fewer attempts on our lives."
"You just have no sense of adventure," Gyro pouts. "That is my diagnosis as a man of medicine, is you don't have enough fun, Johnny Joestar. You need to relax."
Johnny's smile turns bitter. "Havin' too much fun is what put me in a wheelchair, Gyro. Kinda learned my lesson there."
"No, a lunatic with a gun put you in a wheelchair," Gyro corrects him. "You were being a jerk, but that doesn't mean it was okay for him to shoot you. Anyway, that was then. This is now. My diagnosis stands."
"Whatever," Johnny says, suddenly feeling tiredly irritated. What does Gyro care if he has fun or not? Some people are in the Race for fun, but the two of them aren't. And anyway, Gyro's half the reason why he keeps getting so stressed out, since he keeps almost dying. God. He clicks his tongue at Slow Dancer, and she speeds her trot up to a canter. "I'm gonna look ahead," he says over his shoulder.
"Wait--!" Gyro calls, but Johnny ignores him and plunges into the mist.
It seems thicker than it has been, less like the normal mist that hangs three feet deep over fields at home and more like the dense clouds they'd ridden through at the tops of the Rockies. Johnny spares a brief moment for feeling anxious about that-- what if there's worse weather coming? What if he gets too far ahead and Gyro can't follow him?-- but then he pushes the anxiety down. Gyro said he should relax more, didn't he?
After half an hour, he stops feeling so annoyed with Gyro. He knew even through the annoyance that Gyro was right, and that he was just trying to help, and that getting pissed at him was stupid. Johnny knows he should apologize, it's just… How the hell is Gyro so-- so-- well-adjusted? It's infuriating. Fucker.
He sighs heavily and gives the reins a tug. "Okay, Slow Dancer," he breathes, "Let's wait for the idiot." Slow Dancer snorts and shakes her mane at that, so he adds, "And your girlfriend. Whiner."
Now that they've stopped, it's striking how much fog there is. Between the fog and the snow, Johnny can barely see twenty feet away; the trees are just dark shapes to all sides. The anxiety comes back in full force as he realizes there's really no way to know if Gyro has been following his trail successfully. The snow hasn't let up at all, either; the knowledge that it's been filling his tracks in for the past half-hour fills his stomach with dread.
"Fuck," he whispers to himself, and then he turns Slow Dancer around and goes back the way he came.
But he's a racer, not a hunter. Even when his dad grudgingly let him come along on fox hunts with all his rich manly friends, it's not like they taught him how to follow tracks. He had been going in a relatively straight line, but he barely has tracks to follow anymore, and he can't see very far.
He rides for five minutes, ten, twenty, and then he admits to himself that even if Gyro was going much slower than he was, they should have met up by now. His heart is pounding in his chest, and he lets out one little gasping sob of panic before he strangles the fear and squashes it down tight. That's not what I need right now, he tells himself firmly, and takes a big slow breath like he does-- used to do-- before races. Think! What can I do right now?
He remembers being a little kid, going into town with Nicholas. Nicholas had held his hand most of the time, but he'd told Johnny very seriously, Okay, ifwe get separated and you can't find me, just stay put right where you are. I'll come find you.
Johnny peers around at the snowflakes falling thickly through the mist, and thinks about how they had indeed gotten separated, and he hadn't listened to Nicholas, and he'd spent at least an hour wandering around town crying too hard even to ask helpful people if they'd seen Nicholas.
He stays put.
He stays put for hours. Every fifteen minutes or so he shouts for Gyro, and then his voice gets hoarse, so he starts whistling instead: loud, piercing whistles like his dad showed him. But there's still no sign of Gyro.
His internal clock (i.e., his stomach) is telling him it's probably close to ten by the time he decides to start moving again. He carves an arrow into a nearby tree, the flesh underneath stark white against the black of the wet bark, and then urges Slow Dancer in the direction he pointed. His plan is just to spiral outwards from where he is now, and carve arrows as he does; either he'll catch up with Gyro, or Gyro will find him from the arrows.
Or neither of them will find the other until they come together at the next stage.
Or they won't find each other at all.
But for now, he's refusing to entertain those latter two options as possibilities.
He rides for another hour, calling out and whistling intermittently, carving arrows into trees. He's just pushing his knife into the bark of a new tree when Gyro says loudly, "Johnny? What are you doing?" and he just about jumps out of his skin.
"Gyro!" he shouts, whirling, and he shoves his knife clumsily into its sheath as Slow Dancer trots him happily over to Valkyrie. "Jesus God, I was startin' to think I wouldn't find you," he gasps.
Gyro accepts his clumsy hug, looking pleased but confused. "Find me? You were out of my sight for five minutes at most," he says.
"No way," Johnny protests. "I've been looking for you for hours!"
Gyro looks at him strangely. "We haven't even been awake for hours."
Fear and confusion battle for dominance inside Johnny. "It's at least noon," he insists. "I was away for four hours, at least."
"No-o-o-o," Gyro says slowly, "You stormed away ten minutes ago. It's still only eight in the morning."
"Are you playing?" Johnny asks him. Surely Gyro wouldn't joke about that, right?
"No," Gyro says. He looks a little worried. "Look at Valkyrie, she's still fresh like a dandelion."
"Fresh 'as a daisy,'" Johnny corrects him distractedly. He's right; Val looks nothing like a horse that's been awake and active for hours. Slow Dancer, on the other hand, is sweaty and warmed-up from walking around for hours, and the lower parts of her legs are caked in snow. Gyro sees this too; he frowns thoughtfully and reaches a hand out to pat her side.
"I'm not crazy, right," Johnny asks weakly.
"You're not crazy," Gyro confirms. "Do you think it could have been a Stand? Maybe there's one that could fuck with time."
God, Gyro believes him right away, even though Johnny was a dick earlier. What did he do to deserve Gyro?
Johnny shakes his head. "I dunno. I spent a lot of time shouting, I think the user woulda heard me?"
"Hmm," Gyro says. Then a sly grin sneaks its way across his face and he says, "Well, one way to find out."
Johnny stares at him. "I don't follow."
Gyro shrugs. "Well, we go back the way you came and figure out what happened. Since it won't take any time, apparently. It's probably better to figure it out before it figures us out."
Johnny chews on his lip. Watches Gyro watch him do it. "Okay," he says eventually. "But we should tie the horses together so we don't get separated again."
"Okay," Gyro echoes, and then he teases, "You sure you want to be tied to me? You couldn't run off again, you know."
Johnny hunches his shoulders up around his ears, and Gyro laughs at him. "Yeah, yeah," he grumbles. After a moment, he forces himself to add, "Sorry. I shouldn'ta got mad at you. It was stupid."
Gyro blinks at him, then reaches over and claps his big hand on Johnny's hat to kind of push it around on his head, like a really gentle noogie. "It's fine," he says cheerfully. "Everyone gets shitty sometimes."
Johnny almost says, It's not okay! I left you in a snowstorm! But he doesn't want to start another argument over something stupid. Over Gyro being nice to him. So he keeps his mouth shut, and takes the loop of rope Gyro hands him, ties it around his saddlehorn to keep them together.
They follow the arrows Johnny left, but in reverse. Gyro comments that it was a good plan, and Johnny just kind of blushes and brushes it off. The snow peters off after maybe an hour, but the fog lies thick and heavy still.
"Stop," Gyro says, half an hour after they run out of arrows to follow. "Look at the fog."
Johnny looks, but he doesn't know what he's supposed to be seeing. It just looks like fog. "What about it?"
"It looks like it's moving. Like it's coming up from the ground over there," Gyro says, pointing. Sure enough, when Johnny looks in the direction of Gyro's finger, he can see where the fog seems to be pulsing upwards, like it's rolling off a heat source.
He meets Gyro's eyes, and Gyro nods. They urge their horses forward together, staying as quiet as they can.
It becomes clear that the fog is rolling off a heat source: a stream cutting through the snow, round rocks the size of coins visible through clear water. The stream is maybe four feet wide, and the snow is melted for an extra foot on either side of the water. Steam rises from the surface to turn into the heavy fog.
"It's a hot spring," Gyro interprets dumbly. "Should we follow it?"
Johnny starts to answer, and then he's distracted by a fat catfish wriggling its way upstream. "Aahh… That's definitely not natural," he says shakily. "We should definitely follow it."
Gyro slips down off Valkyrie and squats by the water. After a moment of examining it, he takes a glove off and sticks his naked hand in. "Ah! It's warm! … It's nice," he says. "Let's walk the horses in it. It'll be nice on their cold little hooves." He pats Valkyrie's foreleg for emphasis, looking up at Johnny hopefully.
"Yeah, okay," Johnny says, and Gyro grins. He heaves himself back up onto Valkyrie and coaxes her into the water, and Slow Dancer follows suit. Both horses' ears prick up in satisfaction as the warm water melts the snow off their hooves, and Johnny gives Slow Dancer an encouraging scritch on the neck.
It's warm enough directly above the water that Johnny has to take his gloves off and stuffed them in his saddlebag. They follow the stream for a quarter mile, and then they arrive at the source: an expansive pond, wide but not very deep, with an area at one end where water is visibly burbling up from the ground. Catfish dart around in the deeper water, big and healthy-looking despite being in water that's way too hot from them, and a pawpaw tree bearing out-of-season fruit grows from an island in the middle. Johnny can't see any evidence of human life.
"Ah-- Johnny," Gyro says, reaching across to touch his arm. Johnny looks back at him, only to find him looking away. "Look," he says quietly, pointing.
Johnny looks-- and has to quash an immediate exclamation of surprise. Peeking out from the water is the head of a black bear, and it's staring right at them. "-- Golly," he says under his breath, resorting to Polite Kentucky Boy vocabulary in his startling. "That-- that sure is a bear."
Gyro makes a sound through his nose, and when Johnny glances over, his face kind of contorts like he's fighting off a smile. "It sure is a bear," he agrees. "You think-- you think it's the Stand user?"
"What? Nah, it's an animal," Johnny dismisses him. He turns back to the bear.
"So? Maybe animals can have Stands too. We don't know anything about how they work," Gyro points out. He turns to the bear, and shouts, "Hey! Bear!"
"Shhhhh!" Johnny hisses, slapping his hands over Gyro's mouth, but Gyro just leans away and continues,
"You have a Stand or what?"
"Gyro!" Johnny whisper-shrieks, and then he says, stupidly, "Why in the hell would a bear speak English?"
"Ah! You're right," Gyro says, and Johnny almost relaxes, until he shouts, "Ué! Ll'urzo! Aje nu Stand?"
"I'm going to kill you if the bear doesn't beat me to it," Johnny informs him, strained.
"I don't think he speaks napulitano," Gyro tells him. "Should I try Italian next?"
"No," Johnny hisses. "You should try shutting your God damn pie hole."
The bear stands up out of the water, flicking its ears at them. Johnny's never had the opportunity to learn much about bear body language, but he'd say this one looks irritated. It's not actually very big; it's pretty average for a black bear, and black bears don't get all that big. Still, they have claws, and teeth. Johnny doesn't want this one pissed off. He pulls Tusk out, just in case.
At Tusk's appearance, the bear sits up on its back legs and cocks its head like a person, or a dog. Then, to Johnny's utter disbelief, a pale blue Stand materializes behind the bear. It looks like a sort of bear/tree hybrid.
"Johnny!" Gyro says, and he moves quickly so that he and Valkyrie are between Johnny and the bear, but Johnny can still see it. Gyro turns to him, his eyebrows raised, and admits, "I honestly did not think he would really have a Stand."
"Yeah, well, he does," Johnny says. "And now we have a wild animal and a Stand to deal with, so thanks for that."
The Stand puts its paws out, palms up, like a human indicating good will, and drifts towards them slowly. "Gyro, what the fuck," Johnny whispers. Valkyrie takes a step back towards him in discomfort.
« My user means you no harm, » comes a voice. Or a feeling? A meaning, projected directly into Johnny's brain. « It wishes only to continue doing what it has been doing. »
"Ahh," Gyro says, "È bbuno si nuje ce fermarìammo pe 'o controra?"
« Yes, » the Stand imprints into Johnny's brain. « As long as you do not disturb my user. »
"Uè bbuno," Gyro says, clapping his hands together in satisfaction. Then he turns to Johnny and says, "It says we can stay for the afternoon as long as--"
"-- We don't bother the bear, yeah, I got that part," Johnny finishes for him.
"You understood that?" Gyro asks in surprise. "You learn quickly."
"I understood the Stand," Johnny corrects him. "It was English for me. Or… maybe not any language? I dunno, it was weird."
"Hmm," Gyro says. "You may be right."
"Hey-- you," Johnny calls lamely. The bear and its Stand look at him in unison. "There's no-- there's no catch, is there? If we drink the water or whatever, we're not gonna end up stuck, or anything?"
The Stand dips its head. « I have the power to shape a small area of land to my user's preferences. Time passes differently in land under my control, so that my user does not miss the good parts of any season. It has no interest in tricks. You are free to leave if you so choose. »
"I… Cool, I guess," Johnny says. The Stand dips its head again, and disappears back into the bear. The bear gives them one last look, then trundles off a little ways. More privacy, Johnny supposes. He looks at Gyro. "So. We have a hot spring. You know what we gotta do, right?"
Gyro makes an exaggerated thinky face. "Hm. Sit in the hot water until our muscles stop hurting?"
"Nope. Much more exciting than that."
"Ahh…" Is he blushing? Maybe it's just from the steam. "I don't know, Johnny, you tell me."
Johnny leans toward him conspiratorily, and intones, "Laundry."
Gyro blinks at him, and then gives him a big grin and finger guns. "Ah! Of course. The most fun activity."
"Exactly," Johnny says. "God, clean clothing, I can't fucking wait." He nudges Slow Dancer so she takes him over to a bank, then throws his saddlebag to the ground before carefully lowering himself down too. Not having the use of his legs anymore sucks, but at least his upper body strength is through the fucking roof now. Gyro follows suit, and they dig through their respective packs for anything they can possibly wash, then strip down to their underwear to wash what they're wearing, too. (Gyro keeps his hat on, but Johnny grudgingly admits his own hat is both launderable and in need of laundering, so he has to ditch it.) The air is cold, but tolerable with the hot water. Once they have a pile of foul clothing, Gyro starts pulling rocks into a little circle in the water so the clothes can soak, and Johnny sets to work scraping flakes off the bar of soap they use for laundry.
He never used to like finicky domestic bullshit like this-- that's what rich people have servants for!-- but recently he's been spending the long hours of riding just fantasizing about having to do chores. Someday! Someday he'll get past the "adventure" part of his life, and get to the "worrying absently about the price of soap" part. In the meantime, the repetitive movements of scraping soap flakes is reassuring and calming.
"Hey, Gyro," he says, not taking his eyes off the soap. Gyro kind of grunts, but like, interestedly, so he continues, "What do you think you're gonna do? Like, after the Race?"
Gyro sets a rock down and claps his hands together to get the silt off. "Well, I'll be going back to Napule and saving that kid, I suppose. Maybe have to stop in Rome first."
"I mean, yeah, but like… after that. Are you gonna go back to being an executioner-doctor?"
Gyro grabs an armful of the dirty laundry and drops it in the water. Kicks it around a little. "Don't know," he says eventually. "I can't imagine everyone I am assigned would give their consent. And there is only so many horse races of international acclaim that I can save them by winning," he jokes weakly. Johnny humors him with a snort, and scoots himself over so he can dump the soap flakes into the steaming water. He tries to kind of scrub it into the mass of wet clothing. "What about you? You think you'll go back to Kentucky, or what?"
Johnny shrugs. "I dunno. I don't think so. I mean, if everything goes well we'll both end up filthy rich, right? I guess I'd wanna find someplace nice and just settle down… My mind is tellin' me to travel, but my heart is tellin' me that I just wanna sleep in my own goddamn bed."
Gyro laughs, and sits down on a rock to help slosh the clothes around. Suds are forming in the water, which is a good sign. "But you don't want to stay in Kentucky?" he asks.
Johnny heaves a sigh. "I don't know that there's that much in Kentucky that's worth stayin' around for," he admits.
"Hmm," Gyro says, squishing two garments together. Then he says, "Have you ever been on the ocean? Like in a boat?"
Johnny shakes his head. "No, I never got the chance. Even when I was super famous and goin' all over for races, it never came up as an option."
Gyro looks at him, a smile curling across his face. "Do you want to see it?"
Johnny raises an eyebrow at him, and gestures with open arms at their decidedly landlocked surroundings. "What, you got a boat around here you can take me on?"
Gyro laughs, loud and bright, and says, "No, star boy, I mean afterwards. Let me take you on a boat, Johnny Joestar, a big boat. All the way back to Napule."
Johnny tilts his head to look at Gyro through his eyelashes. "Why, Mister Zeppeli, are you asking me to come home with you?" he asks, putting on a smarmy fake accent like a star in a radio play.
Gyro leans forward, still grinning. "I suppose I am," he says. "What do you say?"
Johnny studies his face, watching Gyro watch him. He feels, suddenly, like this is a point of no return, like he's just tripped into something he didn't even know was an option. "Well," he says slowly. "I guess I've followed you this far." Gyro's smile grows impossibly wider, so he adds in the silly fake accent, "No funny business until the third date, you hear?"
Gyro sweeps his hat off with one hand, and uses the other to grab one of Johnny's hands from the water. He clutches his hat to his bare chest and presses an exaggeratedly dainty kiss to Johnny's beat-up knuckles. "Ah, Johnny, I suspect it has been already three dates at the very least," he sighs, and Johnny's breath catches, stupidly, in his throat. "But whatever you want."
Somewhere out there, there's a universe with a Johnny in it who's brave enough to keep the game going, brave enough to say, Whatever I want, huh? Brave enough to keep pushing, until Gyro either kisses him or doesn't. But this Johnny, in this universe, just blushes stupidly and pulls his hand back, feeling awkward and foolish. He thinks both of them are disappointed when he coughs and says, "Yeah, well, I want to have clean clothes, so," and turns back to the mass of wet clothing.
They push the clothes around in the water in silence for a couple minutes, and then Gyro starts singing under his breath, "Rella, rella, pizza mozzarella," and Johnny cracks up.
They spend the next half hour singing or humming the song together; Gyro makes up some more verses involving fontina (tina tina), parmigiano (giano giano), and ricotta (cotta cotta). Once Johnny figures their clothes are probably about as clean as they're ever gonna get, he starts wringing things out while Gyro builds a little fire to dry them over. They'd never air dry naturally in this weather, especially not with the additional steam from the spring, and both of them would rather smell like smoke than mildew.
Gyro hangs drapes the last sock over the makeshift clothesline (twine strung between two trees) and turns to Johnny in triumph. He's all brown skin and silly purple underwear against the snow. "There! Clean clothes for you, signore. What do you think about lunch?"
Johnny sits up and stretches his hands over his head. "I think I've been awake an extra six hours compared to you and I've been contemplating eating Slow Dancer," he answers.
"Aahhh!! Johnny! Why didn't you say something!" Gyro squawks. "We could have eaten hours ago!"
Johnny shrugs. "I wanted to get the laundry done first. It's fine."
"Still," Gyro says. "You want hardtack, or we could try fishing maybe?"
Johnny turns around to peer at the pawpaw tree. "How good are you at climbin' trees, Gyro?"
Gyro follows his look. "I'm not terrible, I think. Are those fruits edible?" he asks. "I don't recognize them."
"Yeah, they are. I'm not surprised you haven't noticed them-- I don't think they grow out west, and they aren't normally in season right now. It's a pawpaw tree," he adds.
"Hm," Gyro says. "It has been a while since we've had real fruit. You want one?"
Johnny nods. "Yeah, just get one for both of us. They're pretty weird, it's hard to eat a lot in one sitting."
Gyro grins, and says, "Okay," and then he takes his hat off and plops it on Johnny's head. "Can't climb a tree in that hat," he explains, and then he strides off through the water towards the island with the tree on it. Johnny watches him go. The water only comes up to his mid-thigh at the deepest part. When he gets to the tree it becomes clear that climbing won't be necessary, after all; the lowest branches are only maybe eight feet off the ground, and the heavy fruit drag the ends down into easy reach. Johnny watches as Gyro inspects a cluster of fruit and selects what he deems a good one. As Gyro makes his way back, Johnny rifles through his own pack for a knife and a couple spoons.
"Okay," Gyro says, grabbing his hat off Johnny and sitting down, "how does one eat such a fruit?"
"Give it here," Johnny says, and Gyro does. "You cut it in half, like this--" he sticks the knife in, and once it gets past the rind it slides like butter. Johnny cracks the two halves apart, exposing the yellow-white flesh and big dark brown seeds. "-- And then you scoop it out with a spoon, like a custard." He hands Gyro a spoon and half of the pawpaw, and demonstrates on his own, avoiding the seeds.
Gyro successfully scoops some out, and sticks the whole spoonful in his mouth. He narrows his eyes and chews slowly, like it's the fruit version of some fancy wine. Johnny eats his own spoonful and watches him. Gyro swallows and decides, "I like it. It's weird. But I like it."
"Yeah?" Johnny asks.
"Yeah… It's so soft, but it tastes almost like a melon. Or a tart banana," Gyro says, almost more to himself than to Johnny. Like describing it will help it stick in his memory better, or something.
"Hm," Johnny says. "I've never had a banana. Or a melon. Pawpaws just taste like pawpaws to me."
"Well, when we go to Italy, you will have bananas and melons and you will think they taste like pawpaw," Gyro promises him cheerfully. Johnny can't think to do anything except shake his head and smile.
They eat slowly, so they don't shock their stomachs too bad with all the fruit, and they play twenty questions while they do. Except they don't limit themselves to twenty questions, so it's really just "guess what thing I'm thinking about." It ends up devolving when they start arguing about whether the stars on Johnny's pants count as mineral ("They're only stars because they are dyed that way!") or vegetable ("Okay, but they're made of cotton!"). The argument ends with both of them agreeing that the stars are a shitty subject anyway, on account of being too ambiguous.
They toss the pawpaw rind into the woods when they're done, and Gyro takes the opportunity to check on the drying clothing. Everything is a little drier, but still pretty damp, he reports; probably at least a couple more hours. "This being the case," he says, and then he pauses dramatically until Johnny waves at him to continue, "I think there's just barely enough time for me to take the bath I have been wanting to take for the past two months."
Johnny laughs at him. "We've definitely stayed in hotels with baths in the last two months, Gyro, I dunno what you're complaining about."
Gyro points a finger at him. "Yes, but those were one: expensive, and two: cold. And three: small. This will be free, hot, and roomy. I worked for royalty, you know."
Johnny almost says, Yeah, and look where that got you, but he likes Gyro so he doesn't. Instead he just kind of snorts and says, "Well, knock yourself out, I guess."
"I will, thank you," Gyro says, rummaging in his pack for soap. "I take it you aren't joining me? Gross."
Johnny sticks his tongue out at him, and says, "No, no, I'm gonna take a bath too, I'm just not pissing myself in excitement at the prospect. Ya weirdo."
"It's the little things in life," Gyro advises him. He turns to wade towards deeper water, but then he pauses and turns back to Johnny. "Do you-- are you okay to get in the water by yourself, or…?"
Johnny grits his teeth. "Gyro, you are my best friend by a longshot, but if you offer to carry me I will personally behead you."
Gyro just lights up. "I'm your best friend?" he asks, because of course that's the part he would fixate on.
Johnny sighs and pushes himself up so he can grab his own bar of soap, which is as good an excuse as any not to make eye contact with Gyro. "Yeah, man, you don't see me travelling the whole country with just anyone," he says, faking nonchalance.
"Yeah, I guess you don't," Gyro says.
Johnny ignores how gentle his voice is in favor of pulling himself over the little rock barrier Gyro made, so he's in the main body of water. He stops when the water is up to his armpits, and braces himself on one arm so he can lean back to get his hair wet without worrying about falling over. The water really is nice: hot enough to feel like it might actually get him clean, but not hot enough to be uncomfortable, and reassuringly clear. When Gyro takes a deep breath and lies down flat so that he's completely underwater, Johnny can still see the shape of him underneath.
He surfaces after a moment with a splash, throws his head back so water flies from his hair in an arc. Johnny thinks that if he could take a picture fast enough, the arc would be the shape of the Golden Spiral; it feels right that Gyro should be something he looks at when he needs to remember how to be powerful.
He looks away before Gyro can notice him staring, and focuses on washing himself. He likes watching the grime wash away, likes the way his skin feels stretched a little too tight afterward. He likes the novelty of translucent soap, too; he and Gyro had both picked up bars of Pears at the last town, and he kinda doubts that it's any better than normal opaque soap, but it's still pretty cool.
"Hey, Johnny," Gyro calls. Johnny looks back over at him. "You shave, right?"
Johnny frowns. "Uh, like, once a week, tops," he says. He doesn't have much facial hair, and it grows slow enough that he can actually go weeks without shaving, if he needs to. "Why, y'want tips? Tip number one is don't leave little patches like a fucking weirdo."
"Har har," Gyro says, "No, I want your help shaving. I'm sick of shaving without a mirror."
Johnny blinks. "You want me to give you a shave?"
Gyro kind of flops on his back in the water and pushes himself towards Johnny. He looks like a big otter, if otters were weird hot men. "Yeah, if you don't mind. As long as we are sitting in the lap of luxury, you know, might as well put all out."
"Go all out," Johnny says, "not put all out." Jesus. "But, uh, yeah, okay. You gotta go get your razor and stuff though, I'm not moving."
Gyro laughs at him with his goofy laugh and sits up out of the water, wades out to get his shaving kit. Johnny watches as he pauses to strop the razor a couple times, but then he folds it back up with a stylish flick of his wrist and comes back. Johnny has no idea how he can be so ridiculous and so strangely elegant at the same time.
"Okay," Gyro says, standing next to Johnny in the water and looking down at him. "How should we do this. You'll need both hands... "
After several minutes of clumsily trying to figure out how best to situate themselves, Johnny finds himself seated awkwardly (embarrassingly) on Gyro's legs, with Gyro poised to grab him if he loses his balance. It's silly and a little humiliating, but it puts Gyro's face at the right level for shaving, and it's secure enough that Johnny probably won't end up accidentally killing him.
Still, he says, "Just so you know, if I slip, the best-case scenario is that I cut your sideburns off," just in case.
Gyro makes an offended face. "Johnny, that is by far the worst-case scenario."
"Worse than I slice your jugular and you bleed out all over me?" Johnny asks.
"Absolutely. You slice my jugular and I make a pretty corpse. But you cut my sideburns off and I make an ugly bastard who has to walk around with a baby face until they grow back."
Johnny snorts and opens Gyro's little jar of shaving soap. Since he has to use both hands for that, he sticks the folded-up razor between his teeth temporarily. "I dunno if it's physically possible for you to be ugly, man," he says, but it comes out all fucked up because he can't form any consonants.
"Pardon? What was that?" Gyro asks him, looking like even if he didn't understand the words, he probably got the gist. Smug motherfucker.
Johnny swaps items in hands so he can take the razor out of his mouth. "I said I dunno if it's physically possible for you to be uglier," he lies.
"Aah! Johnny! You wound me," Gyro gasps, eyes dramatically wide. He looks-- strange, without his hat and his weird clothes and his lipstick. Like the protagonist of a Romantic epic. Like raw honey turned to life.
"I'm gonna wound you if you're not careful," Johnny mutters, instead of kissing him silent like he wants to. He sticks the razor back in his mouth and sets to lathering the shaving soap.
When he starts brushing it onto Gyro's stubbly face, Gyro shuts his mouth and closes his eyes and holds still, looking uncharacteristically serene. Johnny concentrates on breathing steadily and distributing the shaving soap evenly. (He makes sure to brush it off the stupid little patches of sideburn so he doesn't accidentally cut them off, no matter how much he might like to.) Gyro giggles a little when Johnny brushes the soap onto his upper lip, which is distracting and not cute at all, and then he huffs out an amused sigh like he knows the giggling was unhelpful and he's completely unrepentant.
God, you're so fucking cute, Johnny thinks, and then he shoves that thought forcibly out of his mind. It's hard, though, when Gyro lets him tilt his head back and to the side to get soap on his throat, to not think about how this is what Johnny wants, all the time.
When he's done with the soap, he screws the cap back on the jar and tosses it onto shore. It bounces off one of their packs, but it's otherwise fine. He squelches the brush against his hand underwater a couple times, just to get most of the suds out, and then he tosses that too. He looks back at Gyro to find his eyes open again, and his mouth quirked up like he thinks it's funny that Johnny is manhandling his stuff.
"You ready?" Gyro asks him.
Johnny takes the razor from his mouth and says, "Mhm. Not worried I'm gonna take this moment to kill you?"
Gyro grins, his gold teeth bright against the white of the foam. "No. I trust you."
God. "Okay," Johnny says, and he flips the razor open. Gyro follows it with his eyes, then closes his eyes again tilts his head back a little.
Johnny realizes that it's just to give him a better angle for shaving, but it feels like-- something else. Submission, maybe. Or a challenge.
He swallows, braces Gyro's head with his left hand, and drags the razor slowly down Gyro's face with his right. He's never done this with anyone else, only ever shaved his own face; the stakes feel higher. He has to pay extra attention to holding his hand steady. But the razor is sharp, and Gyro's whiskers are relatively soft from the hot water of the spring, so it glides evenly down his face-- no problem. Gyro is breathing slow and measured through his nose, his breath warm on Johnny's hand and chest, and the movements of his eyes are visible through his eyelids. Johnny ignores all of this, concentrates on the movements of the razor.
It turns out that shaving around Gyro's sideburns is actually really hard; normally jawlines are a little tricky anyway, but not being able to just go all the way to the edge makes it even more of a pain. "Jesus, Gyro, you been doing this without a mirror?" Johnny mutters. Gyro hums a confirmation. "I honestly don't know how you haven't fucked it up yet."
"I have a lot of practice," Gyro says, quietly and through his teeth so he doesn't fuck up the shave. Johnny grunts and tilts Gyro's head to the side with two fingers on his jaw so he can shave down his throat. With the soap shaved away, he can see Gyro's heartbeat under his skin.
In the end Johnny manages to successfully give Gyro a shave without 1) killing him or 2) kissing him. (He suspects this is at least a little because he can't actually feel Gyro's hands holding him steady.) He rinses the razor in the water and flips it closed, then gives Gyro's hair a tug. "Okay, you should be good. I'd tell you to take a look, but I guess you'll just have to trust that I didn't fuck it up too bad."
Gyro opens his eyes, face already splitting into a grin. "I'm sure you did fine," he says. "I told you, I trust you."
Up close like this, Johnny can see all the different colors in his eyes. He thinks they probably count as hazel, but that seems like too easy of a descriptor. Johnny's not really the type to go making big poetical similes about people's eyes, but he's pretty sure someone's probably done the job for him already. Somewhere out there there's gotta be some shitty flowery poem about Gyro's pretty eyes.
They stare at each other for a moment longer, and then Johnny says, "You gotta--" and Gyro starts a little and says "Oh--" and then they untangle themselves carefully so Gyro can splash the last of the shaving soap off his face.
Johnny feels hot and waterlogged, suddenly, in the way you get when you've been in a hot bath too long. He pulls himself through the water and onto the shore, and Slow Dancer wanders over to investigate. She kind of nibbles at his wet hair. God, he loves horses. He reaches up and scritches behind her ears, and she ducks her head so he has a better angle.
"That is disgusting," Gyro says, making his way towards the fire to check on the laundry. He wrings his hair out a little and continues, "Absolutely too cute, I'm going to vomit."
Johnny nuzzles his face into Slow Dancer's soft forelock and says, "Uh huh, you can fuck right off with that, you got no room to complain, Mister I Kiss My Horse Goodnight."
Gyro chuckles and agrees, "I suppose we're just a couple of cute motherfuckers."
Johnny laughs. "Uh huh. How's the laundry doing?"
Gyro puts his hands on his hips. Johnny consciously does not look at how his silly wet purple boxers cling to him. "Still damp, I'm afraid. We still have an hour or two to waste."
"Hm," Johnny says.
"Hey," Gyro says, sitting down next to Johnny. "Let me brush your hair. Since I made you shave my face, you know."
"Uhh," Johnny says. "I don't really brush my hair normally. That's why it's… like it is."
"So it'll be a treat," Gyro says cheerfully. "Or is there something else I can do?"
Yes! There is! You could kiss me until I forget how to breathe! Johnny's whole brain screams, but he just says, "Uh, no, I guess not. Hair brushing's fine."
"Great," Gyro says. "Turn a little so I can reach you."
Johnny does as he says, feeling sort of like a little girl's doll. Gyro pulls his fingers through Johnny's wet hair first, getting the worst of the tangles out, and then comes the first soft tug of a hairbrush. Johnny shuts his eyes and leans forward against it. No one's brushed his hair for him since he was a little kid; it's surprisingly nice. Gyro's hands are gentle and warm, and he doesn't pull too hard with the brush. It feels like with every stroke of the brush, a little more tension leaves Johnny.
"I used to do this for my little cousins," Gyro says quietly after a couple minutes. "Our parents were always so tired, you know, so it would fall to me to help with their hair at night and in the morning." He pauses, then admits, "I got a little competitive about it. I wanted them to have the coolest hair of all the little girls. I still know a lot of fancy plaits."
Johnny laughs under his breath. "I bet you were real popular," he says.
"Oh yes," Gyro says, "I was the favorite cousin. They're the reason I wear lipstick, you know. Julietta brought some home one day and then my aunt yelled at her because she was too young. At eighteen." He snorts, as if to illustrate his opinion of that. "So she made me wear it instead, and I just never stopped."
"It's a good look," Johnny says absently. His eyes are still closed.
Gyro tugs on his hair a little. "You think so?" he asks, a smile audible in his voice.
"Mhm," Johnny says. "Th' green 'n' purple. It's nice contrast. You know."
"Hm," Gyro says, pleased. He pulls the brush through the hair at Johnny's left temple. "What about you, why did you start wearing lipstick?"
Johnny grimaces, even though Gyro can't see it. "Figured as long as I'm disappointing my dad, might as well go all the way," he says bitterly.
Gyro's hands pause in his hair, and then withdraw. Their presence at the back of Johnny's head is replaced after a moment by Gyro's forehead, bonking into him. "I hope I never meet your father," he grumbles into Johnny's hair.
Johnny laughs humorlessly. "Uh, yeah," he says. "Me too, Gyro."
"It wouldn't help my case if I get arrested here," Gyro continues, slinging his arms over Johnny's shoulders.
Johnny twists around to face him, ready to scold him for making light of his stupid dad, but he stops when he sees Gyro's face, and realizes he wasn't joking. He looks serious in a way he rarely does outside of combat, but also just-- tired. He looks tired. "Gyro…" Johnny starts, but he doesn't know how to finish that sentence. So instead he just leans his forehead against Gyro's and sighs, "Thanks."
"Of course," Gyro says in a low voice. He searches Johnny's face for a moment, and whatever he finds there seems to satisfy him, because he continues, "Anything. Anything for you."
Still so serious.
Despite his years-long status as Popular Partyboy Extraordinaire, Johnny has never been smooth. The vast majority of his social success had been due to a combination of fame and money; he knew it then, he knows it now.
So it takes almost every ounce of suaveness in his body when he forces himself to say, "What about a kiss?"
And then it takes the rest to stop himself from grinning like a fucking doofus when Gyro says, "Well, I said anything," and kisses him.
Gyro's lips are soft and warm and his face is smooth-smooth when Johnny cups his jaw to bring him closer, and Johnny takes a brief moment to congratulate himself on a shave well-done. He brushes his thumbs along Gyro's jaw, and Gyro pulls back from the kiss to laugh at him, like he knows exactly what Johnny's thinking. "Okay, you get to gloat a little," he murmurs into Johnny's mouth.
"'m not gloating," Johnny protests, "I'm enjoying," and then he kisses Gyro again. Then Gyro winds his hands into Johnny's newly-detangled hair, and then it occurs to Johnny that he's probably allowed to touch Gyro's bare chest now, and then he forgets how to think. All he knows how to do now is want, want, want.
He kisses Gyro's mouth open, tastes traces of pawpaw on his tongue. Gyro moans a little and moves his hands from Johnny's hair to his sides so he can lean backwards onto the ground and pull Johnny on top of him, which frankly is a great place to be. The one (one) drawback is that being on top of Gyro makes touching every inch of his chest a little harder, so Johnny pushes his hands into Gyro's hair instead. "God," he mumbles, "you're so fuckin' pretty," and when Gyro laughs Johnny can feel it all the way up through his chest. Johnny pulls away a little to gasp, "It's not fuckin' funny! You ruined me, how can I ever look at anyone else when you're there?"
Gyro leans up a little and nips at Johnny's lower lip. "Maybe it's okay with me if you aren't looking at anyone else," he says.
Johnny stares at him. Gyro's hands find their way to his back, broad and warm on his bare skin. He doesn't know what to say, so he says what he always says, which is "Gyro," and kisses him again. "Gyro, oh my God. Gyro."
Gyro breathes, "Johnny," and then he kisses him silent, kisses him until he forgets how to breathe.
Maybe he needed to relax a little, after all.