This Is Fine

Part 2

The sun, Robert observed as he awoke, was too damn bright.

He woke up in an unfamiliar bed and an unfamiliar room, but he was more concerned with other things. His head seemed preoccupied with splitting itself open on the forehead and his stomach strongly disagreed with...whatever Robert had done last night.

Robert sucked in a dry breath, counted to three, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Immediately, the world swerved around him, like somebody had grabbed the bed from under his feet and tipped it. He managed to fall back onto his elbows, legs hanging out of the bed and just trailing onto the ground.

Robert decided to put standing on hold for now, and looked around the room. It was a two-bed hotel room, apparently, and also on the cheaper side. On the nightstand rested a glass of water and a messily-scribbled note. Be back soon it read, in Jonathan's handwriting, Went for a walk. Please drink water and take these painkillers, I'll explain what happened when I'm back.

Robert took Jonathan's advice and drank, taking the pill with it. In the process he spilled it all over his shirt, but he drank it anyways.

Speaking of clothes, his outfit was a mess. It wasn't like he dressed nicely when he went drinking, but he was especially not pretty. His coat had disappeared somewhere, leaving him with uneven trousers and one sock on. His shirt was untucked and unbuttoned, and he discovered his tie folded neatly on the nightstand. His hat was lying haphazardly on the back of a chair in the room.

All in all, Robert had had a night last night.

Not waiting for the painkillers to kick in (he'd fought through many hangovers without them, anyways) he stumbled to his feet. With one hand supporting him on the bed for when a dizzy spell hit , and withstanding several falls, Robert struggled over to the window. He pulled the curtains shut with the grace of a baby colt, and he collapsed back onto the bed.

Just as Robert was contemplating falling asleep again, the door opened to reveal JoJo, back from his walk.

"Oh good, you're awake," JoJo beamed at his friend, setting down the food he had bought for the both of them. "You look like hell, though."

Speedwagon laughed as well as he could. "Quite the charmer, Jonathan. I bet the ladies love that kind of talk." He registered the items JoJo had brought. "Oh, Mr. Joestar," Speedwagon said in a tone probably meant to imitate a woman, "did you bring me food? If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to court me." Why the fuck did he say that?

Luckily JoJo didn't comment and just gave his friend the food. "Speedwagon," he asked once they were both settled. "Do you remember anything from last night?"

Robert coughed, triggering another spike in his headache. "Not really," he admitted. "How did we end up here?"

"You were drunk off your ass, a man was flirting with you, and I had to physically drag you out of there."

"No sugarcoating, eh? Well it's not my wildest night—by far." Robert sent JoJo a very friendly wink.

JoJo scoffed. "Yeah, right. Anyways, I took you here because I didn't feel like dealing with your drunk ass in a coach and both of our places are too far away to walk."

Robert nodded. "Thanks for taking me here, then. Sorry about all of that." He rubbed his forehead, wincing at his headache that still hadn't quite gone away.

"It's no problem..." there was a slightly too-long pause before JoJo continued, "Speedwagon. Anyways, you said you'd be coming with me to meet up with Baron Zeppeli today?"

Oh, Robert had forgot about that. They'd agreed to it the morning of the day before. Then he'd gotten shitfaced. "Oh, yeah, that should be fun. That man is quite the looney, let me tell you. Although I guess you'd know better, considering you're training under him—god, what is that like—?"

JoJo groaned, picking up Speedwagon's food and throwing it at him. "I'm not doing this again with you, talking about Zeppeli's...quirks."

"See! You know he's insane you're just too much of a 'gentleman' to say it!"

"Shut up and eat your fucking food. I'm making you walk, punishment for bringing this up again." JoJo grabbed his coat and few belongings and tossed the hat to his friend. Robert noticed him handling it very carefully, likely making sure not to accidentally release the razor-sharp blades.

Robert caught it and grinned at JoJo, staring to stand up. "I know how much you hate this hat, I can see you frowning every time you look at it. Say, Zeppeli's hat looks real nice, don't it? What if I swiped it when he wasn't looking? You wouldn't have to look at this old thing any more—"

JoJo forcefully closed the door (not slammed, he has too much morality for that) in Robert's face, his ass the last thing in view. Robert laughed before finally stepping outside the room. His ass is a weird thing to notice, Robert, he thought as he let the door close behind him and followed his friend.

a/n: this fic is being written by two people, under pseudonyms bart and sid. if you see lots of parentheses, and some commas, that's bart writing; if you see lots of hyphens and dashes, that's sid! we'll try to update as often as we can, bc we love our boys, but we also love passing our classes so schoolwork is priority. this chapter is shorter than the last, but next y'all get to meet Clinically Insane zeppeli, so stay tuned ;)))))) 

we've also put an UNREASONABLY LONG amount of time into googling victorian slang, so if speedwagon talks weird that's why. also, that small line about painkillers? we spent twenty minutes researching victorian painkillers only to learn they were straight fucking HEROIN