Archive of Our Own

I - Bellflowers and Starflowers: Gratitude and Courage

Avdol wakes up to the sun going well into dusk, tinting the whole room in a crimson glow. For a second he thinks it’s blood, all over the walls and coating the world, seeping through his vision into his brain to kill the warmth of the flames within and leave only an angry red burn in its wake… He makes to cover his eyes, dizzy with the image that assaults him, and is slowly startled into realizing neither of his arms reaches his face.

The left one is tied to what he tentatively identifies as a hospital bed, since a couple of needles pierce into his skin and connect to IV drips at his side. The right one is… not. Not there. There’s his chest and the curve of his shoulder wrapped in bandages like some stupid mummy costume and then there’s… not an arm. There’s an empty space and the feeling of his arm, but it fails to be there at all.

Avdol does not have his right arm anymore.

He would scream, as desperation and loss lurk like mist in some unnamed corner of his sternum, but the painkillers flowing into his (remaining) arm are accomplishing their mission fairly well. All he actually feels is this muted pain, a shapeless outrage that stems more from confusion than anything else he could rightfully feel.

The only way to deal with confusion, he reasons, is to look for clarity where it can be found. Sedated and bound to his sickbed as he is, Avdol can only take what his hospital room has to offer as explanation. It’s not much.

Air conditioning keeps temperature level and agreeable, but through the window he sees a rock garden for decoration and the air wavers in heat. He’s still in Egypt, it’s the best guess around. He cannot read what his IV drips say, but antibiotics and morphine are in high stakes. His bedside table contains a flower vase with a couple of different blue blossoms, and beyond that Polnareff snores quietly on an armchair.

Polnareff, who he’d pushed aside just in time for the attack of Dio’s henchman and… lost his arm, doing that. Polnareff, who jumped to his defense like the most honorable of all whirlwinds, despite Avdol’s earlier warnings. Polnareff, who he’d protected in a wall of flames with the last of his power before shock and blood loss drove him into oblivion.
Polnareff, who will certainly have a terrible crick in his neck if he keeps that sleeping posture. “Polnareff. Wake up.”

It takes a few more calls to rise his friend from sleep, and by then Avdol feels like he has spent all the strength his body mustered up just moving his mouth to articulate the syllables of his friend’s name. Once Polnareff is up, however, he clambers to Avdol’s bedside and holds onto his hand with both his own, thrumming with the sort of nervous energy that Avdol connects to misbehaving children and unfaithful lovers. Silly man, feeling guilty with no charges against him. “Avdol. You’re awake.”

"Obviously. But not for long," Avdol’s eyes feel heavy and he’s not ready to face the dark, mutinous, wounded things he will eventually feel. That, he must do alone. That, he vows, Polnareff will not see, for even now Avdol knows that what he gave is too much but what he kept is a vital part of him and he will not damage it with bitterness. "Tell me we killed that bastard."

"We killed that bastard. For good," Polnareff may or may not show his eyes more watery than usual, so Avdol chooses to believe it’s all a trick of his fogged mind. "Dinner will have to wait, but I brought you flowers."

Avdol looks at the flower vase again - very blue, very pretty, the mismatched bellflowers and starflowers look like something Polnareff bought at the market in a hasty afterthought of chivalry. Somewhere in the fuzz of morphine, Avdol loves the blossoms with a tenderness he doesn’t remember possessing.

"You’d better take me to the best goddamn place in Cairo," Avdol informs in a drowsy mumble, eyes falling closed against his will.

"In Paris, Avdol, in Paris," he listens to the answer even though Polnareff says it as if he were already asleep. "Or anywhere else you want to be. I’ll take you there."

II. Pear Blossoms and Plumeria - Lasting Friendship and New Beginnings

The pear tree that grows in the middle of the hotel patio is an old, gnarled thing, but the blossoms it offers are still as pure white as they must have been decades ago. The rest of the villa-turned-hotel is covered in foreign plumeria, some white, some red, which have adapted shockingly well to southern French weather. It’s a pleasant place, built of yellow brick and the impression that real life happens only beyond its walls, thus Avdol welcomes its flowers and peace in his time of healing.

Few other patrons are staying in the hotel - a couple in their honeymoon, an elderly couple who seem to be regulars, some backpackers who stop to enjoy the beautiful beaches a few kilometers away for one day or two - and the staff are a family that tends to the place with care and love. Nobody stares at the fresh bandages on his shoulder for more than a second or more than once. After a flight where the phantom pains of his arm hurt him in ways the wound itself could not, arriving at that spot of secluded serenity was a blessing he could only thank Polnareff for.

Avdol sits under the pear tree as Iggy munches coffee gum on his lap, flipping the last pages of a book with a careful twist of his thumb. Some daily tasks have become harder - Avdol no longer wears anything that requires buttons - but, overall, he guesses he must be thankful for years of martial training that made his left hand as dexterous as his right one once was.

“We’ll have to ransack the bookstore at the village again. You’re almost through with another one,” Polnareff remarks in lieu of greetings, casting his shadow upon Avdol’s reading material. It is indeed the third book he finishes in the week they’ve spent on the coast.

“My French was rusty. It is a time as good as any to polish my vocabulary,” Avdol shrugs, avoiding to wince right afterwards. It still hurts, even after all the weeks he spent in hospital.

Polnareff notices - of course he does, his eyes are hardly ever away from Avdol for two seconds at a time, as if scared that he would disappear as swiftly as his arm did - and he frowns a bit. The next moment he’s sitting beside Avdol, petting Iggy even though the mutt eyes his fingers predatorily. His presence is as solid as ever, and Avdol finds comfort in his care. “You speak French more fluently than some French people, Avdol. And don’t let me get started on Mr. Joestar.”

Laughter comes easy, as easily as it had back in the high grass of an island where Polnareff’s darkest pains had been exhumed. They can get past anything if they are together. “He certainly needs some improvement to his accent… But that is not why you mentioned him. Has he called again?”

Polnareff nods tiredly, reclining fully against the bark of the pear tree. His eyes are closed and he breathes in deeply the perfume of the spring flowers all around them, but his hand rests like a familiar weight on Avdol’s back. “I told him you’re thinking about it.”

“I have thought enough on the matter,” Avdol informs calmly, putting his book away in favor of taking Polnareff’s hand from his back and lacing fingers with him. He is fully aware that mere friends usually do not engage in this sort of interaction, but their friendship has never been anything close to ‘mere’. Without a threat to humanity in sight and with only healing to look forward to, he sees no point in holding back on what he wishes so sincerely to take part on. “I appreciate the offer, but Speedwagon Foundation can keep the mechanic arm.”

Polnareff looks at their entwined hands, blinking slowly and rubbing his thumb to Avdol’s closest knuckle. Tension does not leave his eyebrows completely - Avdol doubts it ever will, after all they have been through - but a smile softens his lips to a boyish glow the more he looks at the joined hands. “That’s up to you. You gotta know what’s best for you.”
“I do,” Avdol squeezes his hand, and as Polnareff raises his eyes to look straight at him, he closes the space between them with a small, simple kiss to Polnareff’s lips. “This is what is best for me, if it’s fine by you.”

“It is. It’s all fine by me,” Polnareff whispers, voice a little too tight with emotion, so Avdol decides to kiss him some more and ease the flow of their feelings into the natural stream of affection, respect and trust they have shared since their first encounter.

Iggy growls like a petulant child and leaves Avdol’s lap with jealousy and some gas, what makes Polnareff break the kiss to yell after the dog. Avdol laughs deeply, richly, truly, thankful for the ocean breeze mingling with the plumeria all around them.

Everything is going to be alright.

III. Ivy and Daisies - Endurance and Loyalty

Years pass by Avdol in their own fancy, some as slow as the growth of a tree, some as fleeting as the glory of a flower. Evil never rests and Dio is not the only threat this age has come to face, thus Speedwagon Foundation has their little patchwork family of Egyptian divinator, French swordsman and trainwreck dog always on the roster for the most dangerous missions.

Through the decade they stumble from country to country and hotel to hotel, living out of a suitcase with the same ease most people fish for their house keys every evening after a day of work. The closest they come from a full stop is for a quiet long winter, turned spring and summer eventually, when Polnareff snags a job as a fencing instructor in New York to get rid of his pent-up energy. Avdol ends up threading through the mystic circles in the city, fishing for news of new enemies among heavy incense and tarot cards, happy to work with intel but happier still to come with negatives for suspicious activity every day. Even then, however, they are hosted by the always formidable Mrs. Joestar in one of the family properties - for ten months they live in a cozy apartment just shy of Soho where Avdol thinks, maybe for the first time in his life, it might be nice to settle down for good.

A few weeks after that thought they are called back to the Old Continent to deal with some group of imbeciles who are messing with stuff they shouldn’t be, leaving a fast-aging Iggy to the care of Mr. Joestar. “I wish we could have stayed longer,” Polnareff sighs as they board the plane. Avdol nods gravely, sharing the feeling even though he doesn’t love New York as much as he doesn’t hold any dislike for the city - what he enjoys immensely, he thinks, is to have someplace to call home as Polnareff comes back to him there every day.

The following days allow no greater attention to that longing, as they bounce from city to city trying to pin down the cretins messing around with Stand power. It’s a bunch of disorganized brutes, infantry to distract them from whoever is actually harnessing such dangerous magic, but their sheer numbers end up putting Avdol and Polnareff in a snag more than once. Four weeks roll by before they reach the source of their troubles, and by then Avdol wants nothing more than a bed to call his own and sleep there for a solid fortnight.

Instead, they get four days at a bed-and-breakfast in Barcelona. Polnareff seems restless, fretting over the smallest things and having a hard time to heal his wounds. By the fifth day Avdol has just about enough of it and presses the keys of a rented off-roader to his palm. “You don’t want to be here, so lead the way.”

Polnareff blinks many times, a long “Eeeh?” being his first response, but Avdol just keeps staring at him. He shifts on his feet until his posture hardens into seriousness, toying with the keys for a few moments more. He takes a long breath in and jumps onto the driver seat, eyes on the road. “There’s a place I’ve been meaning to visit. I… I’m just not sure you’ll want to be there.”

“You’ll be there? That’s what matters,” Avdol shrugs, throwing what few belongings they hold onto the backseat. He’s surprised by a kiss as he turns around, but melts easily into the caress. Polnareff tastes of sweet-sour nicotine and affection as usual, but there’s a hint of wildness in his touch that Avdol connects to Silver Chariot, uncalculated risks and old wounds, therefore he kisses back harder, all tongue and unmoving love.

They drive for hours, past the border and into the green fields in the southeast of France. With only a stop for lunch at a roadside bar, they speed most of the day in agreeable, if tense, silence. Avdol is napping by the time Polnareff stops the car, shaking him awake with the kind of delicate movement most people failed to connect to him. “We’re here.”

The sun is still bright as they step onto the dirt road, turning the summer fields in a green-and-gold sea of grassy waves. They go past a low wooden gate onto what one day might have been a garden, but is now a natural blanket of wild daisies. A couple of minutes walking through the stone path that goes around a low slope takes them to a house. The thing is built in stone and red brick, perched over the fields that extend as far as the river rushing down the valley with a manorial presence even though most of its outer walls are covered in evergreen ivy.

“This is my house,” Polnareff explains in a firm voice, touching the vines that have climbed the tough wooden pillars of the porch as if tearing a single leaf might bring the whole building down. “My childhood house, I mean. Where my sister and I grew up.”

Avdol breathes in deeply, searching for his inner peace for a second, for all the emotions he knows Polnareff must be feeling seize his heart and grow onto it as pervasively as the ivy on the walls. Hand on Polnareff’s shoulder and eyes closed, he tries to imagine - years and a life of battle ago, that field of daisies was a flowering garden where a boy played with his baby sister, laughing, carefree, returning at dusk with skinned knees and dirty clothes that would be taken care of inside that little rural palace.

Years and a life of battle ago, this was Polnareff’s home.

“You’ve kept the keys, I trust,” is all he says, squeezing his partner’s shoulder.

Polnareff answers by retrieving a thick brass key from his shoe, then kissing Avdol’s palm before removing it from his shoulder. The lock is rusted and takes some strength to be bullied open, yet eventually it gives under Polnareff’s efforts.

A few steps inside make it clear that time has passed for those walls even more destructively than it has for the man who once was the boy that gave them life. Where the door had been intact most windows lay broken, leaving the floors and furniture to the elements and burglars. Dust and memory raise from the tapestries to haunt the intruders, proving the house is a ghost of stone held together only by the vines outside.

Avdol is a man of many beliefs that defy common sense, but he does not believe in ghosts - mostly because believing something is the same as giving it power. “It’s a fixer-upper, but I think we can make it look brand new in a few weeks.”

“You don’t have to do this. I don’t even know if I want to do this” Polnareff says gravely, leaving tracks in the dust atop a bookshelf with the tips of his fingers.

“I mean it,” Avdol steps up to Polnareff, embracing him from behind, arm firm but soft around the other man’s waist. “We deserve a place of our own.”

“It could be anywhere.”

“It can be here.”

Polnareff sighs loudly, letting his head fall back to Avdol’s shoulder. He smiles as he plants a smacking kiss to his partner’s cheek, squeezing the arm that embraces him. “Doesn’t it feel like a retirement home, though? We’re still young and this house is lost in the middle of nowhere.”

“Danger will find us. It always does, and don’t you dare act as if you don’t like it,” Avdol laughs, eyeing the derelict walls and imagining them painted in warm colors and covered in paintings more to his own taste. “Meanwhile that, wouldn’t you like to have a bathroom you make sure that is clean yourself?”

“I’ll take all the dishes and gardening from today to eternity if you don’t leave the bathrooms to me.”

Avdol is still smiling as they return to the car, ready to check in at a hotel with nowhere else to go for the last time.

IV. Peonies and Pink Roses - Bravery and Desire

Rising Stand activity and investigation take Avdol and Polnareff away from home for a few days every month, but it has been awhile they chased after the villain of the day all the way to Japan.

The guy pulls the whole yakuza shebang, suits covering tattoos and a manor made of hardwood and rice paper. The garden where they finally meet him and his right-hand man is a lush thing, koi pond the size of a lake and flowering peonies losing their petals in the wind for dramatic effect.

“You cannot face Yutsukushi-sama’s Stand,” growls the henchman, that sort of young guy who could have his whole life ahead of him if he hadn’t developed a weird fascination for a crazy fucker. Avdol knows all too well how dangerous this sort can become if underestimated for the sake of his lord. “Surrender now.”

“All of your mates told me the same and they are either dead or crying for mommy to kiss it better right now,” Polnareff grins widely, hands on his hips and open chest in an invitation for combat. He’s brash, he’s crass, and Avdol wouldn’t have him any other way. “Wanna put your throat where your mouth is?”

“Your insolence will be your demise,” says mafia boss dude, summoning his humongous Stand to charge after Avdol.

Avdol steps away from the attack without even summoning Magician’s Red, smirk in place. “Confident words. Paint me impressed if you live up to a third of their content - no offense, but we’ve taken on much harder people before. I invite you to do your worst.”

Being teased into showing the full potential of their Stands is a trick Polnareff and Avdol don’t fall into anymore - rather, it has become one of their favorite tactics for extracting information out of a target. Trash talking is a tool they have perfected to fine art by living together.

It’s not an easy battle. The underling has a wind-controlling Stand that uses air blades in traditional japanese sword forms, and Polnareff has to use the top of his fencing form to keep him at bay. The mafia boss keeps focussing on Avdol, what turns out to be very counterproductive very fast. Each lick of his flames upon the giant Stand makes it even bigger, and dodging his swings becomes a hard task very fast.

“You’ll destroy your whole garden before you so much as scratch me, at this rate,” Avdol taunts, plumeria petals burning like incense around them. He hits the Stand full on the chest, but instead of giving its user third-degree burn the thing only grows stronger.

“Running is all you can do, magician. I’ll absorb all the energy of your blows!” is the cackling reply he gets, and a look in Polnareff’s direction is everything Avdol needs to turn the battle around.

A curtain of flames envelops Polnareff and his opponent, disorienting the henchman into swinging his air blades madly to stop the fire from consuming him. With more fire licking at his feet and arms as Magician’s Red dances around him, his slashing technique goes in all directions, forcing everyone to dodge - Avdol, Polnareff, and his master who backs onto the bridge over the koi pond.

Silver Chariot surges in front of the yakuza boss, but instead of hitting the Stand uselessly, it slices the pillars of the bridge in one swift motion. Soon enough the guy is underwater and has Polnareff holding his head just there, his ever growing Stand powers proving to be quite useless once the user was caught.

Avdol says a quiet prayer in his mind and burns the desperate henchman with the same move he used to defeat Polnareff all those years ago. Avdol has never enjoyed being the hand of death and he never will, but failing to protect his beliefs and the precious ties he’s formed over the decades is simply not an option. He’d give his other arm or whatever it took to make sure what they built in that 50-day quest does not go to waste.

Polnareff embraces him from behind, soaking wet and solid, the most reliable and constant man he could have found to walk the paths of life at his side, and without looking back Avdol raises his hand to straighten his partner’s sagging hairdo. Polnareff nuzzles into the caress, water-cold lips pressed to the nape of Avdol’s neck. “You look like a god when you cast your fire, you know.”

“You don’t look half bad in attack posture, either.” It’s impossible to hold back a smirk thus Avdol doesn’t even attempt it, pressing back against Polnareff’s chest to bask at the strength of the muscles that envelop him so tightly. “But I’m sure you want to get rid of those wet clothes.”

“Not only mine, honest,” Polnareff’s hands drift to his chest and back again, down his stomach and hips and legs, biting promises to the curve of Avdol’s neck. “Let’s get the fuck out of here already.”

The cab driver is the lord of all poker faces in the world, for he drives them from the wrecked mafia manor to the Kujo family home without a word to the heavy making out going on at his backseat. Avdol would like to say they are more controlled than that, but the fact is they still behave like a pair of excitable kids who get impossibly horny from winning competitions and causing mayhem. Their sexual activity rate has never been anything to sneer at, but after battle they have a significant spike in the curve.

With Avdol’s thanks to all the old gods that Holly decided to follow her husband on tour and Jotaro is somewhere in Australia studying for his master’s degree, they stumble into the borrowed home by trampling the rose garden and discarding clothes in a trail to the guest bedroom. By the time they arrive at their futon, Polnareff is ripping his socks off while Avdol ransacks their luggage for supplies.

They kiss hungrily, blind to anything but the urge to feel more skin, to rediscover the scars and strength that build them as maps that can only be read by one another. Avdol hooks his arm around Polnareff’s neck and shivers to feel the other man’s hands squeezing at his thighs, sliding up his back, pulling his ponytail loose and using his hair as a handle to break the kiss and bare Avdol’s neck for his working tongue.

Contained moan ringing like a growl in the quiet night, Avdol offers Polnareff the same treatment and snatches him by his long hair, kissing him with familiar desire and a kind of wise lust that has only become possible by knowing each other for too long and loving each other like the first day.

On his feet he’s at a disadvantage, so Avdol hooks a leg between Polnareff’s and trips him to his back. The Frenchman’s undignified yelp that turns into easy laughter as Avdol kneels on top of him, and finally becomes muffled moans as Avdol proceeds to leave a trail of hickeys across his chest and collar bones, marking each one of his sculpted abs, playing with the tender skin where leg meets hip.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…” Polnareff whines at the long teasing, messing up his own hair in pleasured frustration.

“Patience, love,” Avdol snickers, biting a bit more around Polnareff’s thighs if only because he likes to see the pink lovebites blossoming on his pale skin. “You know I got you - now, pillow please.”

Polnareff hurries to place one of the pillows under his hips, lifting his crotch area to the sort of highlight that, with his hurried breath making his whole body glisten under the moonlight, makes for the most erotic view Avdol will ever be granted in his lifetime. Avdol basks in the picture his lover makes for a moment longer, then breathes in deeply, concentrates on his own posture, and gets a mouthful of Polnareff’s cock.

Texture rich against his palate and taste sharp as he swallows, Avdol doubts he’ll ever get tired of giving this kind of pleasure to his partner. Balanced on his only arm, he depends solely on the talents of his tongue to extract moans and screams from Polnareff - he is yet to disappoint in that sense. He likes letting Polnareff feel he can let loose, that he’s taken care of and that all he does will be met with more desire, more raw need to bring him to the edge.

Polnareff is the only one he’ll ever want to make burn like that, thrashing in the futon with strong fingers digging on Avdol’s shoulders, framing Avdol’s face with his trembling legs.

The almost regretful cry of “Wait!” sounds just as Avdol was getting too entertained, but he straightens his back dutifully, wiping his lips of saliva and precome with a raised eyebrow to his lover. “Want you in me, damn” Polnareff pants, turning to lay on his stomach, legs spread invitingly to Avdol.

Polnareff reaches for the items that had been upheaved before, getting the lube for himself and throwing a condom package in Avdol’s direction. It is a true feat of coordination, both motor and mental, that Avdol manages to put on his rubber one-handed while watching Polnareff do a hasty job of lubing and stretching himself. Getting a full hard-on is never a problem with the sights Polnareff provides by natural grace.

“C’mon”, Polnareff sighs a few moments later, reaching behind himself to anchor Avdol on his bad side, rising a bit on his knees to make the angle just right.

“Oh gods,” Avdol chokes out as he slips inside his lover, almost unbearably squeezed by heat and pressure and oh gods, Avdol will never, ever lose the drive to be this close, sharing this kind of intimacy with the man beneath him.

He takes a fast rhythm, in and never completely out as Polnareff screams short, mindless encouragement. Wind comes in from the open doors and mixes the scent of their sweat and sex with the trampled roses in the garden, but it does nothing to cool down the fire that moves Avdol harder and harder, groaning with the pleasure that builds like an omen at the depths of his body, then grows in blessed shocks up his spine.

With a full-body spasm and a shout Polnareff comes hard, soiling sheets and pillow and clenching each muscle in his body like a coiled spring. Avdol moans loud but he’s not done, not nearly done and Polnareff doesn’t mind, he never has, he moans a bit and laughs “Keep going, love,” so that’s what Avdol does.

Teeth to Polnareff’s shoulder and hips at an impossible overdrive, Avdol spends every last ounce of his energy making his lover’s body as his as Avdol feels about him. He comes in long, repeated waves, screaming Polnareff’s name and falling on top of him as his limbs lose all strength to hold him upright.

“Graceful, there,” Polnareff snickers a few moments later, when Avdol’s breathing has come back to some semblance of normalcy.

“Fuck you,” Avdol bites back lovingly, slipping out of him and fixing their bodies to something closer to an embrace.

“You just did that.”

“Not enough, apparently.”

“Gimme twenty minutes and you can try and shut me up again.”

“You know what?” Avdol looks at him, at the familiar blue eyes and absurd hair and edged features, at the smile he’s offered, at the good fortune he’s had for so many years. “I just might.”

Polnareff is brash, he’s crass, and he’s everything Avdol will ever love.

V. Honeysuckle and Eglantine Roses - Devotion and Healing Wounds

Some habits defy the drag of time’s almighty hand and remain strong despite all weathering, refusing to be washed away in the tide of routine and memory. Mrs. Joestar´s penchant for glamour is one of such milestones of her existence - the light in her eyes is more vivid with a ballroom to fill with waltzing guests, a catering service to nag into oblivion and the prospect of wearing a new sharp gown. Much like the rest of her family hunts the darkest predators of their world with an insistence that goes far beyond duty, Mrs. Joestar makes of celebration and elegance her reason to be around even though her back does not stand as straight as it once did, nor can her eyes see the pattern of fine lace as clearly.

Avdol and Polnareff have attended to some of her gatherings over the years, when their evil-banishing schedule so allowed. It’s always a chance to engage in interesting, different conversation, and Avdol certainly finds no complains to present about the sight of Polnareff in a tuxedo. This time, however, Avdol looks their own formal attire hanging from the closet door with some apprehension and even more defiance.

"Okay, I’m done," Polnareff groans from the bathroom as if the words alone hurt him. Avdol joins him with a smile, even though he is met with only fatigue in his lover’s single eye. The Egyptian kneels with his back to the bathtub in silence, waiting for Polnareff to hook his arms around his chest and hold onto his shoulders with all of his strength - Avdol will never forgive himself if he gives his partner any less than he has ever been offered, so he stands up and carries Polnareff to the bedroom in a few heavy, ever-measured steps, compensating each movement of his own unbalanced body not to let Polnareff’s limp legs drag on the floor.

Dropping him on the bed is not the most graceful of maneuvers, but from a sitting position on the edge of the bed Polnareff can handle himself fairly well on his own. The damage he withstood in battle against the chief Stand user in Italy is huge (and Avdol plans on having the guy’s carbonized hide hanging from a flagpole on the yard before the year is through), but in a few weeks he has learned to get by without complaint - as long as his wheelchair can enter the space. That is not quite the case in the Joestar country home, a fabulous piece of Victorian architecture with guest rooms on the second floor, no elevator, and stuffed with period decor that leaves little to no space for anyone with average Joestar shoulder span to walk without bumping into something.

At some point between toweling himself dry and putting on his boxers, Polnareff stops to finger the petals of the honeysuckle and eglantine roses arrangement that decorates their nightstand. ‘Lost in thought’ is the best idiom to define him, but Avdol knows only Polnareff himself can find the way out of that particular maze.

He has adapted to his disabilities like a hero in their home, but he still feels like a hostage to his loss anywhere else.

"I’ll grab a shower, too. Be right back," Avdol brushes a kiss to the nape of his neck, then places Polnareff’s tuxedo on the bed and closes himself in the bathroom. He hopes the warm water soothes the frown that takes over his face time and time again without his noticing, but that is not what he feels once he dries up.

He comes back to find Polnareff in full black-tie - except for his shoes, that he glares at as if his stare will develop telekinetic properties. They’re not so far that Silver Chariot wouldn’t be able to take them for him, but Avdol doesn’t doubt that calling upon Stand powers in Polnareff’s state of frustration can turn into a bad choice quickly.

Avdol closes his eyes and smiles knowingly, reaching for his own clothes instead of Polnareff’s shoes. The man turns his glare to him, boiling in some unnamed rage that could bring down empires, but Avdol ignores him and slowly slips into his underwear, socks, undershirt, pants and dress shirt, movements as practiced as ever in his one-handed grace. Then he steps up to Polnareff and takes his right hand, kissing his knuckles. “Can you help me with my buttons?”

Polnareff blinks fast, opens his mouth as if to speak and closes it again a couple of times, tenses his whole body even more - then he smiles, a trembling and bashful thing, forehead pressed to Avdol’s stomach and arms hanging in a loose embrace around his legs for a moment. Once he’s apparently breathed in enough calm off the scent of Avdol’s skin, he moves to close each tiny shirt button with fastidious fingers, tucking the white fabric into Avdol’s pants, fastening his belt and fixing the cummerbund that comes on top of it. “Do you need help with your tie, too?”

"Yes, but after I get your shoes," Avdol collects said items and kneels in front of Polnareff, slipping the first one onto his foot. Before he can get to the second shoe, he feels his head being pulled up. Avdol opens his mouth to welcome Polnareff’s kiss, just one more in a shared life of kisses and losses and hard-earned victories, just one more kiss he cherishes as the true treasure of his lifetime.

"I’m sorry," Polnareff growls, eye shut tight as he holds Avdol’s face with a careful touch, as if that could be taken away from them, too.

"Don’t be," Avdol kisses him again, and again, and once more for good luck, then finishes putting on his shoes. "There’s nothing to be sorry about in us."

Polnareff laughs, fixing his eye patch in a way that could be for covering tears, but Avdol doesn’t want to learn how to read that new trick. “You’re right, as usual.”

Avdol winks at him, smirk on his lips and bowtie in hand, offering it to his lover like the rings they never needed to share to be together. “Of course I am.”

Time, battle, life and death may steal a lot from them, but what they have taken back from all those things is endless.

VI. Boxtree and Dahlias - Constancy and Dignity

The garden has seen better days, but then again, so have them. It’s nearly winter anyway, so Avdol feels glad enough that the red-yellow dahlias he brought from Mexico are still flowering inside the house in a makeshift greenhouse, and the boxtree outside is still as strong and evergreen as it has been every year since they made their home in France. Maybe when spring comes by he’ll plant the dahlias around it, so they can grow more naturally and present some competition for the daisies.

Right now, though, Avdol pushes the lawnmower around the uneven terrain while resisting the urge to simply call on Magician’s Red and make a controlled fire to clean the yard. If he does this chore too quickly, he’ll have a day full of not much else to look forward to ahead of him.

Avdol has never thought he would become one of those people who complain about routine or get to middle age ungracefully, and indeed he’s neither. Just as the seasons working on that garden, the burning summer of battle and violence has given space to a mellower, more reflective period of his life. Sometimes they get a call from Speedwagon Foundation or someone else in need of an experienced Stand master, but a consulting and supporting role has become more suitable for all involved.

No, Avdol is not bored. He cannot be.

He listens to the car approaching from afar, but only looks in its direction once Polnareff calls him, already climbing off the adapted SUV with his wheelchair onto the stone pathway to the porch. Avdol walks up to him, greeting his partner with a peck on the lips. To the scratch on Polnareff’s cheek he offers only a raised eyebrow by means of questioning.

“Ah, this? The damn kids are gonna be the death of me, I swear. Florent almost crashed the whole team trying to look cool,” he laughs fondly, shrugging the bruise as inconsequential. Being coach at the para-athletics gymnasium two cities away fills Polnareff with the kind of exercise he needs and the kind of joy he deserves. “I managed that only me and him ended up on the ground.”

“Perhaps it’s time you taught them some discipline instead of speeding technique?” Avdol suggests with a smile, making to close the car door.

“I would if I had any of that, myself” Polnareff shaking his head and reaching for something inside the car. He pulls a large canvas bag and presents it to Avdol with a knowing smile. “Mrs. Montblanc from the bookstore sends her regards and only accepts another tarot reading session as payment.”

Digging into the parcel with eagerness akin to the drive shown by Polnareff’s students, Avdol finds a three-tome collection of mystic scripture attributed to a celtic priestess of the old gods, transcribed into latin by a roman conqueror. The books smell as old as time itself, and the knowledge they possess must be equally unwavering.

“This is beautiful,” Avdol chokes out, awed, thus poses no resistance as he’s pulled down for a kiss. He sits down on Polnareff’s lap, so great is the overflow of his gratitude. “Thank you so much.”

“I knew you’d like it,” Polnareff shrugs like it’s no big deal, and wheels them both into the house.

If the lawn looks freshly burnt by the end of the week, Avdol can only claim he had better things to be focussing on.

VII. Rainflowers and Red Tulips - Mutual Love, Undying Love

Woken up by the usual pains on his back, Avdol climbs off the bed with a quiet groan and picks up the walking cane from its place on the nightstand. In the bathroom he makes all his morning rituals - washing his face, shaving his chin, brushing his teeth, fixing his hair - then comes back and dresses up for the day.

The path from the bedroom to the kitchen seems a bit longer every single morning, but he takes all the steps there with no bigger hesitation than the rhythm of the cane hitting hardwood. There, fresh bread waits for him on top of the table, alongside a note in childish handwriting and a small bouquet of rainflowers, no doubt picked from the wilder parts of the yard. Little Marie-Elise stops by every morning on her way to school to bring him homemade bread. On days she leaves a note, she usually returns in the afternoon to let her curious eyes explore his private library.

Bright girl, she is. It wouldn’t be polite to keep her waiting for lessons in magic she’ll sure excel at in just a few more years, and he still has something to do today. Thus, he makes black coffee to go with his bread and butter and eats fast, then picking up the keys and going outside.

It’s a bright spring day, a bit humid but very fresh, and he takes a moment to bask in the sight of home. Then he enters his car with all the controls adapted onto the steering wheel so he can drive one-handed, gets a little mad that the car doesn’t start on the first go - he should start it more often, even if he doesn’t drive much at all - then pulls away from the stone driveway and enters the road to the village.

Avdol stops at the grocery store for some food and cleaning products, at the stationary for new paper and ink for his studies, at the newsstand to try and catch up with what’s going on in the world. His last errand is at the flower shop, where he looks for something a bit more refined than the assorted specimens that grow in his garden - after some browsing he settles for a bouquet of the flashiest, deepest red tulips they have in store. The cashier smiles sadly at him, and he smiles kindly in return.

It probably looks sad on the outside, but for Avdol this is simply the course of life flowing as it is bound to do.

The cemetery is on the other side of town, just a small plain shadowed by a church, peppered by gravestones and the occasional angel statue. The stems of the tulips get a bit scrunched in his grip because of the walking cane, but he takes each step towards the end of the line of graves unfalteringly.

At last, he stops in front of a simple grey headstone, sided by others of the same surname. It reads:

Jean Pierre Polnareff
Beloved from the first spark
until the desert is covered in flowers

Avdol prays the quietest of all prayers, the one not even his own mind can hear, then places the scandalously red tulips on top of the grave and sighs, letting himself feel the soft breeze all around him, the song of the birds in the nearby trees, the life of the world pulsing like a scream in his very veins.

Polnareff is dead and has been for two years, having simply failed to wake up on a clear winter morning. Avdol still has some life left in him, so he would not commit the indignity of wasting the last years of a time so wonderful, so precious, so drastic and so sweet he had the good fortune of experiencing.

What Avdol gave to keep Polnareff alive in their youth is not nearly as missed as his tasteless jokes and his aggressive posture and his kind, boyish heart. What Avdol would give to be with him again is all he has left, so he must make his best until the end.

He honors Polnareff’s memory, grace and love, and he loves the man who lived by his side to this day - thus, he nods his goodbyes to the gravestone and returns home, weeding the garden until his apprentice shows up for lunch.

It is a full, flowering life until the end, and Avdol is complete.